Bile worked itself into Jazz’s throat. She was pretty sure Trevor could not, did not, mean what he had said, but even so it hurt to hear the words. However, she had a few tricks up her sleeve. She took Pestale’s magic, and this time only his magic, and
slammed
the brother he stood closest to. While both Pestale and his younger brother were still sliding across the stone floor, she came down with all her might with the heel of her boot on Hordly’s sandaled foot. When he yelped with pain, she turned, kicked him in the balls, and at the same time took his magic and
slammed
him.
Trevor shifted to her at once and wrapped her in his tight embrace. In the next instant he shifted them away.
~ Eleven ~
TREVOR CONCENTRATED. HE knew he had to focus.
A looming glass structure stood before them. It was made of huge blocks of opaque glass, in long, thick shards going every which way. One could not see in, but he imagined every room inside could see out.
It was the only safe haven in all the Dark Realm, but getting inside would not be easy. Danté had had a very difficult time of it when he was here with Radzia. It was the special retreat the Dark King had created for his human love, to keep her safe and comfortable where the world outside was anything but.
Trevor couldn’t allow anything to happen to her. He couldn’t breathe when she was in danger. She was his Jazmine Decker. She had asked him why he continued to use her entire name, because it sounded so formal, and he had told her it was because he liked the sound. In truth, he loved the sound. He would always call her Jazmine Decker.
The first difficulty lay in the fact that he couldn’t find a door—anywhere. He had Jazmine Decker’s hand in his as he dragged her along while he searched for an entrance, a window, some way to get inside. His efforts proved fruitless, and he was left standing and studying the building, deep in thought. He knew that when the Dark Princes figured out where he had gone with his human, they would be after them once more.
* * *
“Wh-where are we now? Maybe we sh-should just g-go?” Jazz stuttered with the cold. She was pretty sure her lips were going numb. It was below freezing, way below, and she wasn’t certain she could take much more. She could see Trevor was trying to get her inside, so she didn’t want to burden him by telling him her entire body felt as though she were suffering from frostbite.
“We have to get inside—it is the only place you will be safe from them. They cannot enter this retreat, as it belongs to Dark King’s consort, Crystal, and is warded specifically against them.”
“Okay,” Jazz agreed. “But I don’t see a way in. Maybe it is warded against us as well? Maybe we should just go check out the Prison Walls. Maybe it is warmer there.”
He eyed her suddenly and took her into his arms. “Are you cold, Jazmine Decker?” He breathed a soft, warm air all around her and said, “There, sweet. That should keep you more comfortable for a few minutes.”
“Wow, it’s like having my own instant sauna,” she said, impressed.
He frowned, once again deep in thought, and mumbled, “Breslyn and my brother, Danté, will locate the cracks in the wall from the outside and seal them. I have to find a way to distract the Unseelie Royals, which, thus far, I believe we have done.”
“When was that discussed?”
“It wasn’t discussed.” He grinned. “The queen mind-linked with me before we entered the portal.”
“Huh,” she said to this.
He glanced at her. “You shouldn’t be here, but you did serve to keep their minds off the walls. Hopefully they will be busy searching for us and we will be inside by the time they realize we have found a way into the retreat.”
“See, I am an excellent distraction,” she offered.
He pulled a face at her. “The only advantage I have is that they think I am here to kill them, so they will center their efforts on locating me. You are a distraction for me as well as for them.” He touched her nose. “Keeping you alive will be no easy task, because you are mortal, and in spite of the pendant and Aaibhe’s spell, I don’t like that you can so easily be destroyed.”
“Hey, don’t make so little of me.”
“You don’t understand, do you? It is the queen’s directive that I accomplish my mission without killing any of the Dark King’s Royal sons. I, however, would like to find a reason to kill them—one that cannot be disputed. You are turning out to be that reason, but there will be consequences.”
Jazz decided to change the subject. “Why didn’t the queen tell you how to get inside? Seems like an important detail, huh?”
“It forever changes. Those who wish to enter are judged worthy or not. That is all she was able to tell me.”
“Huh,” said Jazz consideringly and then, “Well, didn’t she have any idea what would be worthy?”
“No, for each of us it is different. The way is different for each of us …”
“What does that mean, really?”
“It means that anyone desirous of entering must I suppose pass some kind of test.”
“You mean we each have to prove ourselves. You mean it might let you in but not me? Not liking this.”
“Something like that, and I’m not liking it much either.” He looked around at the glass structure with its oddly shaped glass blocks protruding at angles and making the place look like an impenetrable ice statue. He shook his head as he used telepathy to communicate in ancient Danu, announcing himself as a Royal Prince of the House of Lugh to the structure he knew was a ‘living’ thing.
Nothing.
Jazz snickered and said, “It wasn’t impressed with your royalty.” However, at that moment she heard something, and not with her Fios senses but with her human senses, which meant it was something close by. She turned around. Her mouth dropped open, and she gasped.
Charging towards them, looking absolutely magnificent and just as terrifying, was a huge, tawny, horridly menacing creature. The closest description she could give was that it was like a lion, only warped, and this thing was fifteen feet in height and ten feet wide. Something had gone wrong when it had been created; the hulking thing was misshapen and adulterated. Its fangs dripped yellow saliva as it charged towards them, and Jazz realized this thing wasn’t just hungry—
it was starving
.
Ordinarily, she would have felt compassion for it and looked to feed it, but the problem here was that she was afraid it had already found food:
h
er.
It was immortal and starving
—forever hungry in a world where food was limited, which meant it was determined.
Oh yeah
, she thought, it looked determined!
Jazz then noticed its open mouth and thought,
oh no, that can’t be a mouth
. The dark opening held her horribly fascinated; it was full of spiked hairs, and those hairs had living, biting snakeheads at their peaks. Lots and lots of mouths to feed, she told herself, thinking she was in an awful place and that she really needed to leave.
Her confidence vanished. Sheer and complete terror took over. “TREVOR!” she screamed.
Trevor cursed softly. “I know this beast!” he called out to her. “It has its origins in Danu.”
“Where can we go?” she wailed. “It is coming fast!”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan. This thing was created without benefit of the Wheel of Being, a derivative of the Krill.”
“You’re giving me a history of this thing’s family tree?” she asked incredulously.
“Just tell me how we kill it!”
It stopped suddenly and looked directly at Trevor as though puzzling out just how to get past him to its food.
It obviously had decided she was just what it needed to eat, immediately. Momentarily, the creature appeared to be leery of Trevor, and it clawed the ground angrily.
Jazz wondered if it recognized Trevor as Fae? She looked into the beast’s soulless eyes and did, in fact, think she saw intelligence seated there. She felt a pang of sympathy for the beast. What was this Dark King that he had created so much havoc and pain, leaving all these creatures to fend for themselves?
Trevor had his Death Sword in hand and yelled over the beast’s roar at her, “Stay out of its way—STAY PUT. Its saliva is poisonous—
to you
, poisonous. Do you understand?”
She nodded vigorously. She had every intention of staying out of its way.
Trevor shifted onto the creature’s back, stood, and got ready to plunge his Death Sword. Then the unthinkable happened.
The beast stood and swiped the air with its huge claws, and Trevor lost his balance and fell.
The beast went back on all four and looked as though it was about to devour Trevor whole.
Jazz reacted; she ran forward, getting in its face to distract it. “
Hey—you!
Come on. You don’t want him—
you want me …!
”
It growled ferociously at her and forgot Trevor for the moment as it shook its enormous tawny mane and lowered its head while stalking towards her.
Trevor was already up and shouting at her to run, and she did, wondering how Trevor had recovered so quickly.
The beast was nearly on her, and she said a silent prayer as she looked over her shoulder to see Trevor once again on its back.
He plunged the Death Sword deep inside the beast. As it toppled to the ground, he shifted in front of it, saying ancient Danu words as he raised his sword again, this time with a slashing expertise that left it decapitated. What he apparently didn’t see as he got busy calling on a fire to burn the head was that, as the beast fell and rolled, it disgorged its last meal, one that
was still alive.
Jazz’s eyebrows rose with her horror as a creature no taller than she but with many more legs, spidery legs, jumped onto the dry, dead earth and paused.
It looked like an overgrown tarantula until its protruding eyes discovered her standing there. She swore to herself that it somehow smiled … an evil,
I’m coming for you
smile.
Something grotesque popped out of the top of its hairy body, and Jazz saw that it was another head—this one, the size of a melon. In addition to the many eyes that this head sported was a row of gnashing, chomping, razor-like teeth.
She ran
. There was nowhere to go but towards the oddly shaped glass building ahead. Maybe someone there, assuming that
someone was
there, might take pity on her situation and let her in.
She switched into Fios and used her Fios speed. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself—she looked over shoulder to see if the beast was gaining on her. It was.
She was so dead.
She was almost at the glass house … almost, when she looked back once more and discovered that the monstrous spidery thing had stopped. It raised up onto four of its eight legs and gave what appeared to be a victory cry!
Magic!
Because of her fear she had forgotten what she could do. With her back to the wall, so to speak, she turned and centered all her thoughts into one. She took whatever Dark Magic the creature had inside it and slammed that Dark Magic right back at it.
YES
, she told herself,
Fios slamming.
It took the hit like a cannonball to its center, a center that had produced a suction-cup mouth with canines, and the beast went flying backwards.
All this had happened in less than a minute.
Trevor hadn’t yet noticed any of this as he made certain the
krill
was burned and unable to rise up.
Jazz turned back to the glass building and began pounding on its walls but got nothing. After what was only a moment though seemed an age to her, she turned to see the thing had righted itself and was coming at her once more as though it were driven by steam engines.
When it was less than one hundred feet away, it emitted something from one of its orifices, shooting it through the air to splatter her legs.
She felt a tingly sensation.
It felt hot and gooey, and when she tried to move, she found she was stuck in place. And the thing was still coming for her!
She screamed out Trevor’s name, but she didn’t have to—
he was already there,
plunging his Death Sword into the melon head, and then he cut the creature in half.
She watched him set the body on fire and then walk towards the head that had rolled some feet away.
She felt an odd twinge of pain begin to scurry up her legs. The twinge became a stabbing, sharp pain and seemed to increase in strength. She wondered if she had twisted a muscle trying to get out of the goop.
Trevor was in a fury as he stomped towards her and shouted, “I told you to stay put.
Why don’t you ever listen?
”
“Well,
you are welcome
,” she snapped in spite of the fact that in addition to her being stuck in goop, her legs felt like they were on fire. She found one hand was quite paralyzed, so she brought up the other to point at him and was surprised to hear her voice was no louder than a whisper. “I was saving you from being eaten.”
“I am a Seelie Royal. Did you think I was unconscious? I was waiting for the beast to come closer so that I could plunge my sword into its throat!” He threw up his hands with exasperation and then seemed to see for the first time that she was standing in a horrific substance.
“What the hell?” he said.
“Well then,” said Jazz, ignoring this. “There you are—and who expected that thingy to come out of its insides?” And so saying she felt herself sway.
Something was wrong, very, very wrong, and the last thing she remembered was Trevor, crying out her name as he reached for her.
* * *
Trevor’s lip curled with fury as he exploded the goop away from Jazz with a flick of his wrist. The goop turned to gray dust and filled the air with a thick cloud of putrid odor before the breeze dissipated it.