Storykiller (21 page)

Brand blinked at her blankly. “Competition for what?”

“You don’t have a thing for Tessa?”

Brand blew out another puff of air, “Pshaw. No.”

“How can you not? She’s awesome, and she’s, like, a legit superhero. And I hate to break it to you, but y
ou, my friend, have a thing for superheroes.”

“You know I prefer blondes, Mike.”

“Oh yes,” Micah said, rolling her eyes. ‘The Trisha Madsen factor, how dare I forget.”

“Please, I am so over her.”

“Right, right,” Micah nodded, looking back at her list of names.

“Whatever. I’m beginning to think
you
might have a crush on Tessa, though,” he said, winking.

“Nah, but I figure if I stick around long enough I’m sure to get some of her hot Fictional leftovers,” Micah said, adjusting her glasses demurely.

“Smart,” Brand said, tapping a finger against his temple. “Smart. Also? Classy.”

“I think so,” Micah said, grinning.

“You got your eye on anyone particular?”

“Keeping my options open,” Micah nodded. Brand laughed and then called out the name Mombi, which Micah added to the list of witches.

Snow glowed much more brightly, and the temperature around them dropped another twenty degrees as the pack of strange giant dogs ran at them. A shot of bluish-white lightning snaked out of Snow’s outstretched arm and through the pack of dogs. Ten of the dogs stopped in their tracks some hundred feet away, apparently frozen solid. Another four didn’t freeze to blocks of ice but slowed, and then fell over unceremoniously. Tessa smiled happily until she noticed Snow wavering unsteadily beside her. She reached out to catch Snow just
before she passed out.

“Dammit,” Tessa said, and looked up to see Fenris, fully a wolf—giant, and grey, and snarling—run at the line of dogs. Even if he could take on three or four at once, that still left nearly a dozen for Robin and Tessa. Tessa shook Snow who was still swooning in her arms. “SNOW!” Tessa shouted, and Snow’s eyes flickered open. In fairness, the second Snow stopped swooning, she got her bearings and crouched down into a reasonably impressive fighting stance so that Tessa could draw her sword rather than hold her up. Tessa was seeing Snow and all her gorgeous clothes and perfect manicures in a whole different light. She seemed like a battle-tested warrior and had Tessa had time to be impressed, she would have been. But though Fenris had managed to intercept and engage four of the dogs, the rest were barreling toward Robin, Tessa, and Snow. Tessa watched as Robin lodged an arrow in the pack leader’s chest, but it kept coming. Two more arrows in rapid-fire succession landing in its neck finally brought it down.

“The neck,” Robin said to Tessa before breaking away from her and Snow to draw some of the dogs off. As he moved, he fired and reloaded, making every shot, but there were just too many.

“You have any more left in you?” Tessa asked Snow.

“No,” she said. “Not yet. I need a minute.” Tessa looked at the handful of dogs barreling down on them. “Maybe two,” Snow said, her hands flickering light briefly and then fading as if she was out of juice.

“You’ll have it,” Tessa said, swallowing a lump of fear, drawing her sword, and stepping in front of Snow. The first dog reached Tessa and jumped at her, colliding painfully with Tessa’s chest. Tessa and the dog rolled together down a slight slope and away from Snow. As they fell, Tessa couldn’t tell where the dog ended and where she began. It was disturbing. When they stopped, they were thrown apart, but the dog was on its feet instantly and it circled Tessa, looking for an opening. Up close, she still couldn’t tell what was wrong with it, but it looked almost like it was part-wolf. It jumped at Tessa, and she got her blade up just in time to skewer it. It howled but didn’t get back up when Tessa removed her sword.

Tessa climbed back up the small incline to find Robin partway up a tree and shooting his arrows with blinding speed. He took out a creature mere inches from Snow. Another made its way toward the still fallen Snow, who was sending small snaps of blue light at it in an attempt to keep it at bay. But she was weak and the cold light she produced seemed to be wavering; the dog advanced steadily toward her. Tessa ran at the dog and tackled it a moment before it collided with Snow, her hand raised, the light flickering in her hand, spent.

The dog scrambled out from under Tessa, and as she raised her sword, she heard Snow shout her name. She felt a pair of massive teeth dig into her shoulder. Tessa let out a cry and reared backward, tossing the dog off of her. It landed, doing a fine impression of a cat, and rushed her. Tessa balled up her fist and threw it at the dog. She connected and the animal fell backwards, dead or just stunned, Tessa couldn’t tell. The first dog was already coming back at her, and Tessa looked frantically for the sword she’d dropped. It was just out of reach, so as the dog lunged at her, Tessa threw up her arm to keep it from eating off her face in a giant chomp. The dog sunk its teeth into her forearm, and Tessa let out another cry, this one deeper and throatier. She could hear Snow cussing in the background, even under all the snarling.

The thing was powerfully built, and as Tessa thought it, she realized it was true. The dog was
built
. That’s why it was so odd-looking, it was part-dog, part-wolf. Stitched together into some kind of horrifying Franken-Dog. The animal pushed into her,
and Tessa winced as its jaws barely missed her again. Snow yelled something at her over the din of growls and barks, snarls and snaps.

“What?!?”
Tessa shouted back. “I’m a little busy here!”

“The axe!” Snow shouted, “Call the axe!” The animal released Tessa’s forearm and made another play for her face. Tessa moved just enough to avoid losing an eye to its snapping jaws. She had no idea what Snow was talking about but then remembered Bluebeard and his magical axe. She didn’t know why Snow thought she could call it, but it was certainly worth a try.

Anything was worth a try at this point.

Tessa racked her brain for the words he’d used, and as the animal reared back, ready to push into her for a deadly final strike, she raised her free hand and called out “LA COLOMBE NOIRE!” The same blackish blue light crackled, and the axe snapped into her hand as if it was made for her, as if it had been simply waiting for her to call upon it. Tessa swung the axe down toward the animal and it landed with a thunk in the creature’s neck. Tessa lost her grip on the axe as she pushed the heavy, now limp animal away from her and clawed her way to her feet. A moment after Tessa released the axe it disappeared again. Maybe a dozen feet away, the Franken-Dog Tessa had kicked came to and made a run for her. Tessa shouted for the axe again, “LA COLOMBE NOIRE!” and, like clockwork,
it snapped into her hand. The animal jumped at Tessa and she swung the axe as it did, decapitating it mid-air so it fell into two neat pieces at her feet.

Tessa gagged.

She turned back to make sure Snow hadn’t been torn to shreds and blinked at the sight of her, curled into a ball and covered in a spidery web of protective ice. Lady was a survivor, that was for sure. Tessa rubbed a bloody hand on her jeans, and in the distance she saw Fenris, more than twice the size of the largest of the Franken-Dogs, leaping at the leader, all grace and horrifying power. His jaws bent around the neck of the dog, and it let out a cry. Tessa winced as a horrible snap left Fenris standing above the animal, panting, his eyes fierce and completely inhuman, even at this distance. He stared at Tessa, the dead creatures at his feet, and they locked eyes. Tessa couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but she couldn’t tell that when he looked human either. She wondered if he was thinking anything at all in that form, or was he mostly animal now? Tessa broke the gaze first, overcome by the intensity of it, and would only later remember that you’re never supposed to look away first from an animal. Two smaller dogs approached him, cautious and distracting, enough so that he didn’t notice the third, larger animal coming behind him. Tessa looked at the axe in her hand and threw it end over end as hard as she could at the third animal. It hit with a deadly thunk. Fenris turned just in time to see the axe disappear from the animal’s lifeless
body.

To her left, Tessa saw Robin, down from his tree, his bow on the ground, apparently out of arrows, and using his dagger to fight with the remaining animals. Tessa called the axe to her again and ran toward him, snatching an arrow out of a fallen dog as she did. When she was still too far away to help, she saw a dog overpower him and take a chunk out of his shoulder. H
e howled and fell backwards.

“ROBIN!” Tessa shouted, and threw the axe. But she missed this time, and with nothing to hit, the axe just eventually disappeared in mid-air. The animal had been forced to pull back however, and Tessa slid between Robin and the remaining dog, as it circled back toward them. “Are you all right?” Tessa asked, worried by the blood pouring from his shoulder. He nodded but said nothing, thrusting the bow into her hands. Tessa could feel the animal coming back faster now. She tried to nock the arrow, but the string slid on her fingers, slippery with blood. Tessa sensed the dog was almost upon them and could see the truth of it reflected back in Robin’s eyes and the breathless way he said her name.

“Screw this,” Tessa said, giving up on the bow and gripping the arrow in her fist. As the dog leapt at them, Tessa turned, raised the arrow, and stabbed it in the neck. It fell dead at her feet, like a massive,
molting rug.

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Robin said, dropping his head back to the ground, relieved.

They all stayed where they were for perhaps a full minute, breathing heavily and clutching their sides, saying nothing, Tessa held her arm, which was bleeding badly, and looked out across the clearing now filled with unreal creature carcasses. But the peace didn’t last long. Tessa noticed that Fenris hadn’t shifted from his giant wolf shape and, in fact, suddenly tensed up and turned to look back at the woods. At the tree line in the distance, another half dozen Franken-dogs stood, staring at them, growling and breathing hard. They seemed mere moments from attacking. How many of these damn things were there? It felt like they’d already killed an army.

“Oh G
od,” Tessa breathed. Fenris, far closer to the woods than the rest of them, looked back at Tessa, and spoke, his words almost impossible to understand.

“Run,” was all she could make out before he was overcome by an unreal howl. Tessa looked to Robin, who nodded in agreement. She helped him up and they hobbled over to Snow’s ice cocoon, which was melting rapidly. Tessa shattered it with one sharp blow from the hilt of her sword and they helped her up. She wasn’t much more than a rag doll. They began running, Snow barely conscious between them. Tessa looked back once to see Fenris running at the line of creatures and heard that horrible yelping that indicates a dog is injured, a sound Tessa had heard more tonight than she wanted to hear in a lifetime. She couldn’t tell if it was Fenris or the creatures that made the sound. A few minutes into their escape, she heard Robin cuss.

“What?” she asked, looking at him across Snow as they ran.

“A couple got past him,” he said, casting his eyes somewhere behind them. Tessa turned her head and, sure enough, at least two were following them. “We should split up,” he said. Tessa looked at Snow.

“We can’t leave her alone, her power hasn’t returned, she’s too weak.”

“Stay with her, go toward the main entrance, get home. I’ll try to draw them off,” he said.

“No,” Tessa said, “You do that, I’ll take them.”

“No,” Robin said, standing firm. “You’re stronger. It’s easier for you to carry her and still move fast.” Tessa nodded in hesitant agreement. Robin put his hand on her cheek, and the intimacy of it shocked her. She thought for a moment, perhaps, he was going to kiss her, and she had to admit that she wanted it, however inappropriate the timing. Instead, she handed him her sword.

“Take it, you’re nearly out of arrows, and I can’t carry her very well with it anyway,” she said. “I can call the axe if anything goes wrong.”

He nodded. “I’ll meet you at the house, I promise,” he said, and then without waiting for a response, ran at the dogs, the sword drawn and shining in the pale light. Tessa and Snow turned and continued running for the exit, Snow leaning heavily on Tessa, Tessa trying not to hear the sounds of battle behind them. When they got to the entrance, Tessa looked back into the depths of the shadowed park and saw and heard nothing. It was as quiet as a tomb.

“Scion.
We have to get inside,” Snow said. Tessa put her head down, resigned, and they continued toward the house.

By the time they made it to Tessa’s house, Snow was in and out of consciousness and Tessa had carried her most of the way. Tessa herself had lost a lot of blood, and her vision was swimming. They made quite a pathetic pair. Tessa kicked the front door in with the remainder of her strength and staggered through the door, nearly dropping Snow. Micah and Brand came running and took Snow from Tessa, helping her into the kitchen. Snow half fell into a chair, and Tessa stumbled behind them toward the sink. Micah rushed to her aid while
Brand hung back, looking at the front door, as if waiting for everyone else to arrive.

“Where are Robin and Fenris?” he asked. Snow shook her head at Brand, all the fire and bitchiness yanked right out of her.

“We had to split up,” Tessa said. Micah stripped off Tessa’s sweatshirt to get a look at her wounds.

“Did something bite you?” she exclaimed, “What bit you, Tessa?”

Brand looked on horrified. “Was it zombies?!” he shouted. Snow and Tessa both shook their heads,
and Brand blew out an audible sigh of relief. Micah pulled two dishtowels off a rack and pressed one against Tessa’s forearm and one against her shoulder. They both winced as she did so.

“Sorry,” Micah breathed. Tessa nodded.

“We were attacked by these, I don’t know—Franken-Dogs—parts of dogs all stitched together. Big, fast, mean, and pretty much the crap nightmares are made of. There were so many. We got separated,” Tessa said, glancing at Snow who looked like she was ready to pass out. Brand stared at Tessa’s gushing wounds.