by Plum Pascal
There’s a feast laid out at the front of the room, a long table easily able to seat twelve situated on the dais. The light appears to be filtering in from above, glancing off spinning metal sigils suspended from the ceiling.
The imagery of the sigils is interesting: a full sun, beaming out light and heat. A pair of intertwined dancers spinning with glasses in their free hands. A sword wrapped by vines. A flaming wolf’s head. A sparking wand and golden crown. An oil lamp and a single, dazzling star. It’s the star that burns the brightest and sheds the most light.
They all seem... oddly familiar, somehow, but I can’t quite recall when or how I’ve seen them.
I’m so fixated on the symbols, I don’t immediately notice that the blond dragon in front of me (Herrick, I believe Neva calls him) has stopped in his tracks. Neva knocks into me on the other side and lets out a little yelp when she runs smack into the back of General Malvolo, who’s also gone still. They’re so tall, I can’t really make out what’s going on ahead, and can only catch glimpses from between their elbows.
“Herrick? Mal?” Neva asks, rubbing her smarting nose. She looks a little agitated.
Me? I’m a little frightened. There’s a sort of... oppressive atmosphere in the church I don’t like.
Titus steps closer to me on the other side, drawing his chain scythe out from his coat almost soundlessly, ready to extend the chain and let it fly at a moment’s notice. Draven and Sabre come up behind us, pausing as well, so that Neva and I are caged in by a wall of tensed, capable muscle. It should make me feel safe, but at the moment, I feel trapped.
“Fuck,” Reve breathes, at the far edge of the line of dragons. What I can see of his face has gone ashy pale. “Maenads.”
A shiver of pure panic dances down my spine at the word. Maenads. Zealous followers of Bacchus and the creatures that made up a good portion of his revelry.
I peer around Herrick’s elbow as best I can, so I can get a glimpse of them. When we first walked into the room, no one was sitting at the table but now it’s surrounded. There are nine total, discounting the priest, who stands meekly by with his head bowed in deference toward the table’s occupants. The occupants seem to be divided into two groups and they’re as disparate in appearance as can be possible.
The maenads seem to have skin the color of cream and tawny locks that tumble around their shoulders. They wear wreaths of ivy around their heads and each seems to be carrying long staves wrapped in ivy. Many of them are wearing fawn skins, though a few are completely bare, slender and perfect, compelling despite the terror their presence invokes. These few are only wearing gently undulating snakes around their throats, like living, deadly scarves.
The other half of the table’s occupants is made up of equally terrifying figures, though these are darker, more wraith-like than the maenads who, for all their frightful power, still look relatively human. These... do not. They range in size, shape, and color, but none of them could pass for human. There’s the skeletally thin female figure that hides most of her face beneath a cowl. It’s the hands, feet, and wings that peek out from under the fabric that give her away. The skin stretched thin over bone is mottled gray, the feet, such as they are, cloven, and the wings membranous like a bat’s.
The figure next to the woman is impossible to identify as male or female. It has a human torso, yes, but so lumpy and shapeless as to be no help in identifying a gender. The head seems to lay atop the shoulders, with almost no neck to speak of. The oblong circle has a beak instead of a nose, no ears, and clusters of eight black eyes placed on either side of the beak. They blink eerily at us as I watch. The waist tapers off into a thorax and then, to my horror, eight hairy spider legs.
A pair of doll-like girls perch on top of the table, passing a haunch of beef between them, tearing massive hunks away with rows of needle teeth. Every part of them looks stitched together from different parts. I can spy siren, dragon, bear, and bird, even at this distance. They’re joined at the tail, so it almost seems to form a long rope between the pair.
And then a man steps out from the shadows to join the fae, making the number at the table an even ten. He looks almost mundane after the eerie visages of the maenads and Unseelie fae (because I have no doubt Unseelie fae is what they must be).
There’s no denying he’s pretty, in a roguish sort of way. I like that quality in men, which is why he outshines the priest in my estimation, even though Claude Frollo is nothing to sneeze at.
This man is built along the same lines as Titus. Broad-shouldered and muscular, though he somehow looks more proportional than Titus. He’s taller by at least a foot, putting him closer to Malvolo’s height than any of my huntsmen. He’s dressed well too, in a rose-colored overcoat that seems unusually bright in the room. He wears dark trousers and there’s the visible bulge of a sword peeking out at around waist-level. There’s at least two more blades tucked into his bootstraps.
His hair is closer to umber than chestnut, and tied in a tail at the back of his neck. It almost obscures the vivid scarlet streaks in his hair. His eyes are a lovely cinnamon color, his jaw strong and square, his nose long and straight.
A tremor runs through Titus and I place a gentle hand on his elbow on reflex. He flinches, glances down at me with anguish in his eyes, and then returns his gaze to the figure on the raised dais.
“Gatz,” he says in a low voice, choked with pain.
Gatz.
I recall that name dimly from the night when we spoke. Gatz is Titus’ cousin. A Gryphus Huntsman who was or is in love with Belle Tenebris. The one who turned traitor. And now he’s here, with Bacchus’ people, ready to kill us. Just like Titus feared.
I tighten my grip on his arm, trying to assure him of... what I don’t know. I can’t make this easier on him, but I want him to know I’m here for him, all the same. That some, small part of me loves him. Loves all of them in a way.
Gatz’s eyes flicker to Titus’ face and then scrunch in an echo of Titus’ pain. Those eyes do truly seem sorrowful, even as Gatz draws his longsword.
“Cousin,” he says, inclining his head toward Titus. “I had hoped the rumors were false. I hoped things wouldn’t come to this.”
“They don’t have to,” Titus says, gingerly removing my hand from his elbow. With his hip, he edges me back and into the waiting arms of Sabre, whose arm winds around me at once, the other producing a crossbow from the interminable interior of one of Hattie’s coats. Sabre has to aim carefully, lest he hit one of Neva’s dragons.
The dragons can’t move, or they’ll expose Neva. We’re trapped in a tight knot, with the frontline unarmed, Neva and I in the middle and unable to exercise our powers safely, and the rear guard unable to move as well.
The sorrowful lines around Gatz’s mouth and eyes deepen, even as a forlorn smile twists his full mouth.
“Titus, you know that’s not true. This was always the way it was going to play out.”
“For fuck’s sake, Gatz! You know Tenebris is on our side! Why the fuck are you climbing into bed with these fuckers?” Titus insists. “You defeat the Guild and then, what? How do you expect Belle to forgive you if you slaughter everyone she’s committed her life to protecting?”
A muscle in Gatz’s jaw ticks and some of the sadness gives way to frustration.
“She’ll see things my way eventually. She’ll be my mate and we’ll be happy together. Morningstar promised that if I slay even one of the Chosen, I can guarantee Belle’s safety. She’ll be mine. She’ll bear my children. Morningstar has promised.”
“You don’t want a wife,” Titus counters. “You want a whore. Gather up some gold and find yourself a bevvy of whores if you want a beautiful woman who’ll lie to you.”
“I want Belle,” Gatz insists.
“Don’t you dare fucking claim you love Belle if you’re throwing in with them.”
All geniality drains out of Gatz’s face at last and he raises the sword. Then Gatz moves, faster even than what I’ve seen from my huntsmen. H
e’s off the dais in a half-second and thrusts the blade at Malvolo in the next, barely missing his heart.
The General is quick too, twisting to the side to avoid Gatz’s attack, leaving an opening to get to us. Exactly what Gatz planned.
A little shriek spills from my lips as the blade sails past Malvolo’s shoulder and straight into Neva. Only... Neva’s body dissolves into something oozing and black, barely resembling her human shape. It bubbles and writhes and, as I watch, begins to devour the sword inch by inch until the blade completely disappears into the frothing blackness.
Gatz is forced to let go of the hilt before the blackness can touch his fingers. He staggers back, watching with horrified fascination as the golden hilt disappears as well.
Herrick throws a punch into Gatz’s side, which lands a glancing blow before the huntsman can backpedal toward his allies. Gatz has a weapon in his hand before I have time to blink, a small sun-shaped disc, not unlike the one the priest wears. He’s loosed it in the next instant, and it sails for me. I don’t even have time to scream as the thing hurtles toward me.
Sabre whips me out of the way, in a move so sudden and violent, it wrenches my neck. In a furious few seconds of movement, Sabre moves us to the back of the room, near the doors. He scrambles to find the knob and curses when he finds only flat wood.
One of the naked maenads lets out a trilling laugh before casually rounding the table. There’s something mesmerizing about the way her hips and breasts move as she walks, and the way the snake trails its way down her body.
“Wonderland is simply marvelous, is it not? Reality bends at a whim. It’s why we set up the churches here first.”
Only then does it click.
The Church of the Seven Joys, the religion everyone has brushed off because it comes from Wonderland, allowing it to unobtrusively steal across Fantasia. Morningstar’s seven generals, with Morningstar the penultimate god to reign over all. How in the name of Avernus had we missed it?
“You can’t get out,” she continues with a sly smirk. “Hand the Chosen Ones over and the rest of you may be spared. Our Lord is merciful. Thilde can remove their souls from their bodies. It’s almost painless.”
In answer, Reve actually lifts the front pew and swings it at her in a move so fast, it’s hard to track. He bats her away like all of this is a child’s game of ball. The maenad smacks into the wall with a crunch.
“Herrick, shift!” he shouts at the blonde dragon. “We’ll shatter the place if we have to.”
Herrick nods, not even bothering to shed his clothing before he begins. His shoulders hunch and bones slide and snap into new positions. His spine elongates, the vertebra standing out starkly against the skin. More of them crowd into place as I watch. The golden cast to his skin becomes a truly metallic shine and a scale pattern etches itself onto it.
Within the span of a few seconds, Herrick has grown immense in size, his bulk ever increasing, crowding the rest of us into corners. When a tail whips into our corner, Sabre grabs onto a spiny protrusion and uses it to guide us onto Herrick’s back. He has me tucked into his body, protecting me as Herrick’s great, scaly head rams the ceiling, wood splintering and raining down on all of us.
A warm spurt of scarlet drips from Sabre’s cheek, droplets pelting my face as we rise up and up and up. My eyes burn. He’s suffering injury for me. Again.
Herrick’s wings can’t quite clear the building, but it doesn’t truly matter. The instant the opening has been cleared, Neva is in motion, her amorphous form solidifying into a rather large battering ram that slams into what remains of the ceiling. Again and again, she rains down blows until Herrick is able to get first one and then the other wing free.
Shrieks from below alert me to the battle raging on the ground. The maenads and Unseelie fae haven’t remained idle. They’re climbing up Herrick’s back, tearing at his scales in an effort to get leverage. Some of the maenads rip his scales in their mad dash upward, and Herrick’s body twitches spasmodically. He flicks his tail hard, in an effort to send them all flying, but only manages to unseat one of the clothed maenads. The nude ones almost seem to have fused their skin to his scales and crawl up on their bellies toward us, smiles on their faces and madness dancing in their eyes.
Worse, the effort it takes for Herrick to buck them off shakes me out of Sabre’s grasp. I list severely to the side, balanced on the terrifying precipice, watching horror fill Sabre’s eyes as I topple off.
For several seconds, I’m in freefall, the coats that Hattie gave me fluttering around my ears like a leaf caught in a gale. For a moment or two, it’s difficult to tell I’m falling. The updraft battles with the downstroke from one of Herrick’s wings and I tumble sideways and down. Then gravity finally catches hold of me in its iron fist and drags me abruptly downward. I think I shriek, but even the sound is whipped away too quickly to be heard. The wind seems to reach icy fingers down my throat and freeze my lungs solid, so I can’t even draw in breath enough for the next scream.
Distantly, I can hear others yelling. Draven’s voice, higher than normal, Sabre’s cutting across him in a rebuke I can’t hear and then…
A dark shape hurtles into me from the side, enormous scaly talons closing around my waist. There’s a moment where I’m afraid the keen, pointed edges will cut me to ribbons and send the slurry to slap the earth. It doesn’t happen. Instead, the talons flex around me, holding me longways so the wind whips my face, but is unable to pluck the rest of me from the air.
I crane my neck to get a look at my rescuer. It’s one of the huntsmen, that’s for certain. The profile is avian and unfamiliar. Not Sabre’s beautifully patterned jay’s head. Nor is it a raven’s stately profile, so this can’t be Draven’s beast form either. The feathers are a beautiful tawny, underlain with black. He looks like a stunning mix between a red-tailed hawk and a raven, except for the head and neck. There’s a tufted pile of down around his neck, like he’s donned a fur coat, and his neck is a slender, gray column. The beak is cruelly tapered, the eyes set above it a vivid, terrifying red. The eyes of a vulture. Gryphus.
Titus, or Gatz? Which has a hold of me now?
Either way, we’re hurtling toward the ground in a controlled dive, rather than plummeting straight down as I had been before. Herrick hadn’t gotten us far enough off the ground for the save and ascension to be easy. The best my rescuer can manage is to keep my fall from being fatal. Further evidence this is Titus, not Gatz, but I still can’t ease the knot of terror in my gut just yet. Not until I see his face, feel his body around mine.
We hit the tops of a colorful wonderland wood a moment later, thankfully near a clearing, so my general person is only mildly thrashed instead of bludgeoned by a sea of branches. The break in the trees barely accommodates the shifter’s massive wingspan, and he lets out a sound of pain as his wingtips are ripped at by the branches of the trees as we land.
He releases me when we’re a foot off the ground, so he won’t crush me beneath his bulk. I land on my back, still far enough from the ground that the impact knocks the breath out of me. I’m only able to manage an uncoordinated roll to get clear of his path before I have to still my aching body. Talons pierce the ground near my head, steadying the enormous bird, and a heavy wing drapes over my body, either shielding me in order to hide me, or else to keep me safe from attackers.
It leaves me spinning in the relative dark, feeling as though I’m about to be sucked down an enormous drain and into the void beyond. There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t hurt. Ringing begins in my ears, and my eyes slide shut.
I feel so suddenly tired. But, I know I can’t fall asleep.
Don’t fall asleep…
But the darkness seizes me anyway, and I lose precious seconds, possible minutes before I come back to myself again. I’m once more cradled in a man’s arms and we’re running. Or rather... we’re trying to run. His gait is sloppy, lurching like some sort of cursed revenant in the pursuit of flesh. The barrel chest I’m clutched against heav
es with effort and if I strain my ears, I can hear the strangest noise. It’s like... enormous giant’s feet crashing through the trees. But that can’t be right, can it? The giants have been extinct for many years, with the exception of Morningstar and his ilk, right?
Light slants through the trees at odd intervals and I peer with difficulty through my lashes. The man holding me is completely naked, sweat gleaming off every available inch of skin. My breath comes easier when I see the strong, familiar profile, the dark hair, and the streak of off-center red.
“Titus,” I breathe. “Where are we? What’s that noise?”
“It’s the church,” he huffs. “The fucking bastards spelled it to walk.”
EIGHTEEN
TITUS
We’re so damn close to the border.
And I still don’t think we’re going to make it.
Some of the Wonderland vegetation can simply uproot itself and flee as the church approaches. It makes my task damn near impossible. The stretch of land we’re in doesn’t have so much as a footpath cut into the ground, and the fleeing flora and fauna only muddy the issue. A shape that looks like a multi-hued fox gets its tail wedged beneath my boot as we both flee from the oncoming building.
“Sorry, little fox!” I yell, but it’s too late. It’s already gone.
When I return my eyes in the direction I’ve been running, it’s almost too late to stop myself from bowling over the stem of a giant, overturned Morel plant. Fortunately, the stem is spongy and I ricochet off, with only my pride stinging this time.
The rest of me stings a whole hell of a lot. Every spare nettle, thistle, and briar has found my skin in the minutes I’ve jogged with Carmine in my arms. I’m bleeding from about three dozen or so cuts and my feet will be only so much meat by the time I reach the border of the Anoka Desert.
If I reach the border.