by Holly Evans
The crowd was thinning. Elise was glowing faintly white as she spun and danced, cutting down witches as she did so. Suddenly, they all took off towards the exits. The box was still there, untouched. Raif took off after two of them. The rest of us closed ranks around the box in the middle of the room. The lights came back on; everything returned to normal. If you ignored the quickly dissolving fae bodies, the witches’ empty robes, and the blood. So much blood.
Kadrix ran his hands over the box. His face went from one of relief to one of confusion and horror. He dug his fingers into the seam around the middle and flung the lid off. A little post-it note sat inside. I assumed that wasn’t the other half of the recipe. He screamed, a primal sound of pure unadulterated rage.
Elise ran her hands over the inside of the box; her face crumpled. Bryn wrapped his arm around her shoulders as tears ran down her cheeks.
“It’s gone,” Kadrix whispered.
Quin ground his teeth together, his face creased with anger.
“We were betrayed,” he snarled.
Azfin walked in; he was dragging a fellow Sidhe by the collar of his shirt. One of the Sidhe’s legs was hanging limp behind him while he tried to hop behind Azfin. The Sidhe crumpled next to Azfin when he stopped. Azfin dug his fingers into the Sidhe’s cheeks as he pulled his face up to look at us.
“Tell them what you told me,” he snarled.
“We stand with the witch. We will hide no more. We will be gods,” the new Sidhe spat.
Azfin ripped his throat out before he could say anything more.
“We have been betrayed by our own,” he growled.
“So let me get this straight. The fae created this recipe. The fae lost the recipe, because you wanted to be gods. Is that right?” I said while staring Kadrix down.
“This is not the time, Evelyn,” he said quietly.
Haeyl stormed into the room, “The hound vanished not long after we took up our posts.”
My stomach dropped. Lysander hadn’t done anything; if he’d vanished, he had good reason. I went toe to toe with Haeyl.
“There are traitors in our ranks. How do we know you’re not one of them?”
“Your precious beast fucked off. How do we know he isn’t a traitor?”
“Bullshit. You know how the bond works. We all know he isn’t a fucking traitor,” I snarled.
“Enough!” Quin shouted.
We all turned to look at him. Loose objects around the room began to vibrate, but Quin took a calming breath. Kadrix pressed his forehead to Quin’s.
“The witch now has the complete recipe. She will need to gather certain ingredients,” he said.
“She’ll also need to get into the fae plane,” Azfin growled.
“Then there is still time to stop this,” I said.
“We have not forgotten your beast, Evelyn,” Haeyl spat.
I punched him. It was satisfying feeling the crunch of his nose beneath my fist. He lunged at me, but I sidestepped and used his own momentum to throw him against the wall. Azfin pinned him by the throat.
“Enough,” he snarled.
“What does the witch need?” I asked.
“Blood,” Kadrix said softly.
I raised an eyebrow. The fae had put this recipe together through experimentation; things were looking rather dismal for them.
“She will need blood from every species. She will also require the soul stone which remains in the fae realm,” he said softly.
He sounded defeated. The weight of the situation rested firmly on his shoulders, and he was crumbling beneath it. He was Quin’s other half. I walked around the group and stood on the other side of Kadrix.
I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “How can I help?”
He was a little shit at times, but there were bigger things. I looked to Quin. He was my twin, and I had to support him in his choice.
Quin mouthed, “Thanks, Evie,” and I breathed a little sigh of relief.
Kadrix squeezed his eyes shut.
“I don’t know, Evelyn,” he said.
I slapped him. Perhaps a little too hard, but it felt good.
“Snap out of it, elf,” I growled. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and focus on how to fix this,” I shouted.
He glared at me, his lips curled back baring his sharp teeth. For a moment, I thought he was going to bite me, but he got himself back under control.
“We can’t know who she’ll target, and we can’t protect everyone. We will strengthen the defences over the fae realm and try to hunt her down. She must be stopped. Any way possible,” he said.
I grinned.
“That’s more like it,” I said.
I swear Elise laughed at me, but she buried her face in Bryn’s shoulder before I could be sure.
“Now, where’s Lysander?” I asked.
Haeyl sneered at me.
“Where is my hound, you asshole?” I shouted.
“Follow the blood,” he said gleefully.
Elise had told me that I could follow the bond to him. It felt like a mental tug when I focused really hard on him; my feet led me towards the river. I took a few sharp turns down the narrower, older streets. Lysander was bent over a body that was up against a charred tree. His strong back was tight, his thick hair dripping with blood and sweat. I ran to him.
“What happened?” I asked as I reached him.
He turned to me, a creased between his brow.
“I caught scent of witches, that same old blood scent that was at Elise’s church. There was something infernal with them. I thought I could stop them,” he said.
He searched my face, desperate for me to believe him. I pulled him to me and kissed his throat. Of course I believed him.
“Do you know why they killed him?” I asked.
“He was one of our leaders,” Kadrix said softly.
“He was a pompous prick who had no value,” Haeyl said.
Lysander bared his teeth.
“You stink of witch and infernal creatures,” he snarled at the Sidhe.
Haeyl went white. He looked to Azfin, who was approaching quickly. Haeyl took off down the road as fast as his legs would carry him.
I glared at Azfin. “Looks like your second was a traitor.”
Azfin bared his teeth at me.
He calmed himself and said, “He had been talking about the old days, when we were like gods to the humans. I had been too focused on bigger problems.”
He waved his hand, brushing the thoughts aside.
“It doesn’t concern you that your second in command helped steal the recipe?” I said.
His eyes darkened and his teeth extended a little. “He is mine to deal with. How will you help deal with the stolen recipe?”
Raif jogged up to us. He looked between the body and us. His shoulders sagged.
“Another murder?” he asked.
“Yes. I caught the scent of something infernal, but I was too slow,” Lysander said.
I ran my fingers over the inside of his wrist, trying to ease his mind.
“Why did they target him?” I asked Kadrix.
Kadrix leaned on Quin.
“He was a strong voice among those of who are for the alliance we have forged with your plane. He was very vocal about quashing the uprising who wish to be gods and come out of hiding,” he said quietly.
“Oh Kadrix, I’m sorry,” Elise said.
“He had been a good friend,” Kadrix said.
Azfin squeezed the elf’s shoulder. “Sorry for your loss, but we must focus. They now have the entire recipe,” Azfin said.
Kadrix nodded and pulled himself up taller.
“I will consult my books. Evelyn, I would appreciate your and your hound’s help in looking for information. The cub would also be welcome,” he said.
I gritted my teeth and nodded. I despised looking through books, but there was no other choice given the situation. We needed to figure out the witches’ next step and cut them off. Too many lives had already been lost.
Raif and Iona told us about the brutal murders. The fae had been the first to go; it had been barely hours after the recipe had been stolen. We had to think that they were traitors that the witch had conveniently on hand. Still, their deaths had been brutal enough that Iona and Kadrix had felt the ripples through the fae magic. Iona had shaken for an hour afterwards. They didn’t give exact details on what the witches had done to them, but it involved an agonising death and using their bones in a bloody ritual.
War was on everyone’s lips. It had taken me an hour to stop Felix from taking his pack on a witch hunt. It didn’t help that I was itching to join him on the hunt, but we couldn’t kill innocent witches, that would make us no better than them. There was still a small chance we could salvage the situation; we had to try.
Quin had gone out into the city with a few of the more personable hunters to speak with the hedgewitches who were still on our side. They had declined my help in the matter. I was left back in the flat trying not to set things on fire while Raif showed me how to hide my blades.
“You need to twist the magic around the blades,” Raif said.
I could see the orange magic that fluttered at my fingertips, but I couldn’t make it extend into the neat thread that Raif had formed. His was also a lilac, which meant I was fucked. I began pacing again and grounded the magic I had managed to form before I set the entire flat on fire.
“I’m not like you. I can summon hellfire and nothing more,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Hellfire is quite the feat, Evie,” Raif said.
I threw my hands up and looked at my phone again, hoping someone had something for me. If they didn’t give me something to do in the next ten minutes, I was calling Felix and arranging that witch hunt. Balance and peace be damned.
My phone rang. It was quickly followed by Raif’s phone ringing. I leapt on my phone and hoped for good news.
It wasn’t good news. A large group of fae, led by a redcap lord, was running through Žižkov, hunting and killing anything and everything. They’d slaughtered a nymph, a human family, and were currently chasing down more humans.
“Redcaps?” Raif asked.
I nodded.
“Grab your weapons, we leave in five minutes,” I said.
We had half of our blades on us from the magical practise. I managed to add a few more to my usual loadout. I had a feeling I was going to need them.
The tower with the giant babies climbing up it always creeped me out. It was worse at night when they were lit up in red. Still, they were creepier than any zombie or redcap I’d seen. We had been joined by Iona and a pair of elves that Kadrix swore were definitely on our side. I’d made it very clear that I’d kill him if they betrayed us. The elves met us by the tower; I was pleased to see they wore about as many blades as I did.
The female, with pitch black hair pulled back into a practical bun, pointed straight ahead of us.
“One block that way, but they’re approaching us quickly,” she said.
I wasn’t entirely sure how she knew that, but I put it down to a weird fae sense thing and began running. The screams soon came, quickly covered by gleeful cackles and chanting that made my skin crawl. I had been expecting a small group of redcaps; they didn’t usually gather in groups of more than ten. There must have been thirty of them, with at least ten pixies in there, too. They were all wearing the obligatory cap dipped in blood, even the pixies.
The redcap leader was a particularly gruesome-looking creature. He wasn’t even properly clothed. He wore nothing but his cap and a cloth around his waist. He held what looked like the top half of a skull in one hand and a bone in the other. His skin was a yellowish-grey, or what I could see under the smears of blood and what looked like entrails. He spotted us and immediately began chanting something. The male elf started chanting in return. Both sides had tendrils of magic coming out of their hands. I didn’t have time to stop and watch the display.
We dove into the fray. The screams of their victims had already subsided. I just had to hope they’d died quickly. The core of the group was huddled over something that they were tearing at. Blood splattered their faces and dripped off their hands. I focused on those closest at hand, the scrawnier of the redcaps. Two female redcaps lunged at me. Their lank hair hung down in clumps from their balding skull. They could have been twins, with sharp, twisted teeth and long yellow-brown nails that were aiming for my stomach. I slashed at them, my blades cut deep into the one on my right’s wrist. It was enough to make her scream and pause for half a second. Not much, but enough to allow me to step away from her sister and avoid those claws ripping out my insides.
Redcaps are never the most intelligent of foes, and yet they acted as though they were possessed. They had little to no self-preservation. Those in that group were entirely focused on trying to tear us limb from limb. It felt more like fighting zombies than fae. Even the pixies, who were far too nimble for my liking, were sloppy in their fighting. I allowed my instincts to take over and continued to hack and slash until we had the leader surrounded. I was tired, covered in blood and vile liquids that I didn’t want to think about. The elves were both weaving brightly coloured magic that wrapped around the redcap leader with his greasy grey and black magic.
Lysander beat me to him. He leapt on the leader and ripped his throat out before he tore his head off entirely, to be absolutely sure. In that moment, I saw what he meant when he called himself a war dog. His eyes blazed with a fire unlike anything I’d seen before, his face was contorted with pure rage. I walked up to him and stroked my fingers over his bloody cheek. He was my hound. As terrifying as he looked in that moment, he was my Lysander.
He relaxed and softened under my touch. We stood in the middle of what could only be described as gloop where the fae were slowly dissolving. Lumps of what were once people were interspersed here and there; the clean-up guys were going to hate us.
I’d rung Quin on the way back home. He and the others had taken down a mix of rogue lycans and traitorous Sidhe. Felix could be heard in the background snarling. Loyalty was a big deal to lycans. We were all exhausted and filthy. Fortunately, no more phone calls came on the ride home. Raif had his priorities straight, he kept Iona with him and ordered pizza the moment we got home. No one trusted my cooking, and truth be told, I wasn’t in the mood to try. No one touched on the subject of the murders or the recipe. Not until food was finished, at least.
“I know I’m only half pixie, but this entire thing is ridiculous. The fae, as a whole, decided to remain hidden centuries ago. There was an amusement in it, living under the human’s noses,” Iona said.
“What changed?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Not many people talk to me. From what I understand, this witch has been whispering in a few ears for quite some time. She’s going to make herself a god, and she’s telling her followers she’ll take them along for the ride. It’s all bullshit. People can’t become gods,” she said.
“Elise said she’s turned from the hag, and she still has her magic,” Raif said softly.
Iona huffed and leant back on him. “People say she’s something special, but that doesn’t mean you can become a god.”
“Things change. They evolve,” Lysander said.
Iona frowned at him. “Are you saying you think she could pull it off?”
“I don’t know how the gods work. They’re not particularly relevant in the infernal plane. I do know that nothing lasts forever.”
A cold hard lump formed in the pit of my stomach. What if she really could pull it off? What would happen to my city then? Everyone fell silent.
Iona grinned and trailed a faint purple line of magic up Raif’s arm. The cub squirmed a little in response.
“On that note, I believe we’ll call it a night,” she said.
There was no doubting who was in charge in that relationship.
“It’s been a long day, Evelyn, we should go to bed, too.”
I kissed him tenderly and said, “
The moon goddess has a real sense of humour, giving you to me, but I am grateful for it.”
He gave me his deliciously sexy grin. The very same one that had caught my eye in the first place.
Felix banged on the door just as I was about to pour the milk over my cereal. I knew it was him, because no one else banged on the door like that. Lysander answered the door. I’d barely crossed the living room before it descended into snarls and curses. Felix was standing glaring at Lysander; both had their teeth bared and maintained hard eye-contact. That was what I got for having two dominant males in close proximity.
“The witches killed and stole two lycans last night,” Felix snarled.
“And you’re banging my door down instead of Kadrix’s, why?” I said.
Felix’s attention snapped to me.
“Because I’m here to summon you for the meeting,” he said.
“What meeting?” Lysander growled.
“The leaders of the city are meeting at the elf’s workshop. You are representing the hunters,” Felix said.
I was part honoured at having been chosen to represent the hunters, and part intimidated; that was one hell of a role.
“Raif, are you coming to this meeting?” I shouted.
“On my way!” Raif called back.
We all got properly dressed and strapped on our weapons as quickly as possible, Iona included. The lycan alpha paced around the living room while growling and spitting curses while we did so.
“The fae have always been arrogant. They push the limits, and now they kill my brethren so they can become gods?” he snarled.
He continued pacing. He was going to wear a track in my floor.
Finally, once he’d seemed to have worked at least some of it out of his system, we followed him out of the door to his sporty little car. It was so incongruous with the hulking great lycan. We squeezed into the seats with me squashed against the roof on Lysander’s lap and Iona in a similar position on Raif’s lap. Felix’s second in command was scrunched up in the passenger seat. I was grateful that Felix seemed to have some idea of how to drive; we were only in one near-miss during the entire journey to Kadrix’s workshop in Malá Strana.