by Holly Evans
A young girl in silver and white came from the back room somewhere with a tray of tea. The girl, who couldn’t have been more than thirteen, placed the tray down on the table and bowed low to Elise before she left again. A girl of her age shouldn’t have been in a war room. Elise poured the tea, a frown fixed firmly on her face.
“They are making moves to take the city. We have word that they’ll be attacking places of importance to the humans. It’s down to us to keep the humans safe and destroy the enemy forces,” Elise said.
My stomach dropped. I was a hunter. I’d been trained to take on small numbers of supernals. I wasn’t a soldier or a warrior.
Elise handed Lysander and I cups of tea. “We are currently planning our strategies. We have gathered forces and are gathering more. Do not fear, Evie, there are good people on our side.”
That didn’t ease the stone that had settled in the pit of my stomach. Lysander’s lips brushed over the tip of my ear.
“I’m a war dog, Evelyn,” he whispered.
I had to trust him. He was my hound; we’d look after each other. We had to.
“Evie, you’ll be put into a team and be out in the field,” Elise said.
I just about resisted the temptation to curl my lip. I reminded myself that was where my strengths lay; it wasn’t meant as an insult.
“Quin will be acting as a battery for myself a number of other priests. Kadrix is working with some other fae. Bryn will be with you,” she said.
“What are you and Quin doing?” I asked.
“We will be working to cut the connection between the enemy fae and their home world, their ‘network’ as they call it. That will drastically weaken them and allow you to kill them quickly and efficiently.”
“And the fae?” I asked.
“They will be giving you long distance support. You’ll have lycans with you, they’re your muscle. There will also be a pair of elves, a Sidhe, and two pixies. The stronger, older fae will be working with Kadrix on the larger-scale magic workings. Drink your tea,” she said.
I knocked the tea back in one long gulp, much to her disdain.
“Where are you sending us first and who with?” I said.
I pushed my emotions down and tried to focus on the job at hand. No one had ever ordered me around before, and I wasn’t taking it well, but there were too many lives at stake to risk arguing the point.
“You’ll be protecting the hospital by the river. We have word that the witches have gathered and will be attacking that before sundown,” Elise said.
I gave a small nod of understanding.
“Who are we working with?” I asked.
She placed her tea down delicately and waved someone over. I twisted in the seat to see a motley collection approaching us. Felix and his second were heading the group; they towered over a pair of dainty pixies dressed all in black with more blades than even I carried. The Sidhe had donned a pair of dark-red leather pants and big military boots. It was the witch that drew my attention, though. She looked to be the same age as me, with dirty blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. Her grey eyes were cast down, and she wore jeans and a practical jacket, but I could see the magic on her. It clung to her tanned skin like lichen. Greyish green patches were painted around her eyes and coated her hands. The semi-translucent nature of it told me it was magic. I tilted my head; a quiet voice in the back of my mind told me it was good magic. Healing magic.
A deep rumbling growl sat in Lysander’s throat as he fixed his eyes and attention on the witch. Felix’s second did a half-step sideways putting himself slightly in front of her.
“Evie, that is Bronwyn. She’s your healer. She has proven herself to be our side,” Elise said sharply.
I refused to look at her; instead, I maintained my focus on the witch. She pulled her jacket sleeve back and exposed her inner wrist to me showing a fresh tattoo in blue and silver.
“She has sworn allegiance to the moon goddess. If she tries to betray us she will die. Instantly,” Elise said calmly.
I relaxed a little. It was better to be safe.
“And the fae?” I said.
The Sidhe narrowed his eyes at me. I stared him down.
Kadrix walked around them and said, “The fae were carefully chosen by me. Each have signed contracts. They will die for you, Evelyn.”
I gave a sharp nod and stood. Lysander stood with me; the witch’s eyes drifted to his collar.
“I trust you all know who we are,” I said to the small group.
“We have been informed,” the female elf said.
She lowered her head in deference. I liked her.
“Names,” I said to the group.
The pixies grinned at me and said in creepy unison, “Chaos and Mayhem, you can call us Kay and May.”
Fan-fucking-tastic I muttered under my breath.
“You know me, and this is Sam,” Felix gestured to his second.
The guy looked like he was pure muscle; his scruffy pale-brown hair stuck up at interesting angles where he’d been running his hand through it. He gave me a crooked smile and a small nod of his head.
“A pleasure,” he said.
“Arlen,” the female elf said.
The male said, “Rhyll.”
The Sidhe lifted his chin a little higher, but Kadrix cut him off and said, “Don’t let Leif get ahead of himself. He is working with you to try and prove that he is more than a pampered young noble.”
He looked pointedly at the young Sidhe, who maintained an impressive poker face.
“I make no promises to remember your names, so do not get too pissy if I shout out your species,” I said.
The pixies giggled. I hoped I never met them down a dark alley; they would have been right at home in a horror movie.
“Is it true that you both command hellfire?” Kay said a little too eagerly.
I smirked at her.
“I suppose you’ll find out soon enough,” I said.
She practically danced on the spot with glee. I hoped she put that much crazy energy into killing our enemies, and didn’t have to be too close to me when she did it.
“Good luck, Evie, I’m sure you won’t need it,” Elise said.
I smiled back at her. We were going to war.
The hospital was a sprawling square building. It put me on edge. Something about it seemed off. I focused on the task at hand with a quick shake of my head. We’d gone over brief tactics in the journey over. Felix and Sam were the muscle; they were almost untouchable by magic, so they would do the lycan thing. Bronwyn needed to stay back somewhat as the healer. She’d assured me she wasn’t too delicate and wouldn’t be a hindrance. The creepy pixies were somewhat stunted on the magic front, but they’d found a way to weave magic with their multitude of blades, so they would be up front with the lycans, which suited me just fine. The elves, whom I expected to end up calling Elf One and Elf Two within an hour, were going to be right alongside Lysander and I. The Sidhe, who looked to be Raif’s age, was hanging back to work some magic. I was glad that Raif was being kept safely in the war room; I didn’t want to lose him.
It all sounded very good on paper. As we were standing in the gentle rain waiting, it seemed boring and frustrating. The pixies had vanished up onto the rooves somewhere; they climbed like little ninjas. Bronwyn had set up a small base near the scrubby trees on the corner of the hospital. Felix and Sam patrolled the perimeter, while Lysander and I waited near the river. I hated waiting.
“Relax, Evelyn. Don’t burn up your energy,” Lysander said softly.
I offered him a smile and relaxed as best as I could while I leant back against the red and white railing. A couple of humans hobbled out of the hospital; they looked worse than when they’d gone in three hours prior. That only acted to reinforce the idea that I’d rather risk being treated by the witches than whatever the human doctors were doing in there.
The Sidhe, Leif, had assured us that Kadrix and co. were working intense magics to hide us and thus whatever the
enemy were up to from human sight. They wanted to terrify the humans, to become gods in this world. It was our job to stop that. Bryn jogged up to us late in the afternoon. He handed Bronwyn a large backpack full of things. I watched closely as she pulled out packs of herbs and powders; she grinned at him and blushed a little. Bryn walked away before she could say anything more than ‘thank you’. I muttered ‘good boy’ to myself; the witch had been watching him a little too closely, and the last thing we needed was him being unfaithful.
He handed out sandwiches to everyone that he could reach; the pixies were out of sight somewhere.
“What’s the news?” I asked him.
“There’s fighting at Strossmayerovo. The witches swarmed the group there, but they’re being fought back,” Bryn said.
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. That wasn’t too far from where we were. I wolfed down the last of my sandwich and pulled my blades as I saw the air shimmer some fifty feet away. Fae popped out of thin air. The cackling of the pixies could be heard from where we were. Felix and Sam rushed the group of some ten or so Sidhe and redcaps. Lysander, Bryn, and I, however, focused on the elves and redcaps that were trying to sneak around from the other side.
There were so many of them. They’d quite literally appeared out of thin air.
“Focus, Evelyn,” Lysander growled at me as we ran towards them.
I pulled my celestial blades and formed the fire within me. A quiet glee bubbled up within me as I saw the fear ripple across the faces of the fae when Lysander and I ran at them, both covered in fire. That was what I was born for.
Redcaps quickly joined the ranks of the other fae we were facing. One tripped over another when Lysander shifted into his full flaming hellhound form. They had their throats torn out before they could recover. Curses flew through the air but ricocheted off invisible shields; Leif was doing something of use, then. Bryn remained close to me, with Lysander ahead of us in the heart of the fray.
The fae quickly realised that their magic wasn’t doing much good. Some of them split off to try and find the source of our protections. Others bared their teeth and turned into the rabid monsters of myth. My fire tore through them, and yet they kept coming. A Sidhe with long black hair and golden eyes lost his left arm to my blade. He didn’t even acknowledge the loss; he kicked me hard in the stomach and tried to gut me with his glowing kris blade. I managed to shift my weight and edge away from the knife, but it still sliced through the air barely an inch from my shirt.
We danced around each other while I hacked and slashed at the redcaps that tried to swarm around me. Bryn was on the other side fighting another Sidhe. Where I danced, twisting and turning, Bryn was solid and calculating in his moves. I was constantly moving, always keeping my foe off balance and thinking. Bryn, however, carefully parried and cut his enemies down with precision. Pain lanced through my ribs just as I drove my blade through the Sidhe’s heart. I didn’t see him crumble; two elves were trying to disembowel me from behind.
Lysander leapt on one and made quick work of tearing him into shreds. The other elf tried to slip away and focus on Bryn, but I took his legs from under him with a swift kick. I stamped down hard on the back of his neck and drove a blade in afterwards, to be sure.
There was no time to pause, or breathe. I had to let my fire slip away; I didn’t have the energy to maintain it and keep fighting. Every time it felt as though we were making progress and thinning their numbers, more appeared from the increasingly long shadows. When the redcaps had been destroyed, witches appeared to take their place. Felix had fallen back to make sure Bronwyn and Leif were protected. Their shields were being battered. Curses flew through the air from all angles, a rainbow of pain and suffering. Every now and again, I caught the sound of the pixies’ manic laughter before a body hit the ground with a thud or a high-pitched scream cut above the chaos on the ground.
I was glad they were on our side. Lysander acted as a torch in the darkness. It was certainly more effective than the dwindling fireworks display of the curses. Sam and Lysander had torn through the newer, more fragile witches as though they were nothing more than paper cutouts. That left us with three elves and two witches. All were using heavy magics to keep us out. It was becoming a war of attrition.
We had them surrounded. Chaos and Mayhem had come down from their rooftop playground to help us. I circled the witches with them, each of us making eye-contact as we spun our blades. One of them swallowed hard; their shield flickered for a second. I grinned and stepped closer. Lysander bared his teeth and stalked up to the very perimeter, his eyes blazed and locked onto the red-haired witch’s. She tried to look away, but couldn’t.
The pixies began slashing at the shield. It flickered. Their magics were beginning to break through. Bronwyn and Leif were chanting; the witches began waving their hands. They were outnumbered. The elves went deathly still and their eyes became glassy. A wave of magic rolled off them and collided with the shield in technicolour glory. Their shield shattered. We rushed them.
Hot blood ran down my hands. Screams turned to gurgles. It was over. We had won our first battle.
We re-grouped in front of the hospital. Leif and Bronwyn had a haunted look to them. They were paler than when we’d arrived; the witch carried the now-empty backpack over one slumped shoulder. The two pixies, however, were gleefully dancing around the rest of us. I ran my hands over Lysander, checking for any serious injuries. He rewarded me by brushing his lips over mine. The affection meant so much more in that moment, with the weight of everything hanging over us. I squeezed Bryn’s upper arm and looked him over, keeping my hands off him apart from the initial contact. Bronwyn had the good sense to look over the lycans. None of us had sustained serious injuries. We all had gashes and scrapes, but nothing that couldn’t be healed overnight.
Two bright blue cars rolled up some ten minutes after things were confirmed to be done with. Apparently the fae magic had many uses. We sorted ourselves into the back of the cars. I didn’t pay attention to the drivers. Leif and Felix both seemed happy to see them. That was good enough for me.
I curled up on the backseat with my head on Lysander’s chest. Bryn sat next to me; blood covered his hands and splattered his face. He looked out the window, his breathing steady and body eerily relaxed. I envied him that as I tried to calm myself and brush aside the emotion that came with coming down from such a long fight. My muscles were growing stiff and my thoughts were slow and a little blurry by the time we piled out of the cars at the war room. The comedown from the intense adrenaline was difficult to deal with. Lysander wrapped his arm around my waist.
“You’ll be ok, Evelyn,” he said.
I stroked the back of his hand. “I know. It’s just been a long few days.”
“And there will be plenty more yet,” Kadrix said.
I glared at him.
“Well aren’t you just a ray of sunshine,” I said.
He returned my glare. “This is a war, Evelyn.”
“We just spent hours fighting to keep the hospital safe. We have the blood of countless creatures on our hands,” I growled.
Lysander had tensed next to me, a low growl rumbled in his throat.
Kadrix lifted his chin and said, “My apologies. We’re all very tired. There is some food in the eating area, there is a bed for you upstairs. You will be defending the train station hlavní nádraží at sunrise.”
I walked up to him and patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you for your help earlier.”
I didn’t know if he’d been part of what was protecting us, but I felt I had to say it. We couldn’t afford to allow grudges to form. He smiled and gave a small nod of acknowledgement.
Our little group was led through what had once been Kadrix’s workshop. The large space was packed with tables and people. It somehow felt huge and small at the same time. Maps covered the wall on my right, alchemical things hung along the opposite wall. It buzzed with energy and the clash of a multitude of conversations. I missed the odd peac
e that the workshop had had.
We squeezed between people of all species, careful not to knock those that were measuring powders and sharpening blades. The walk was brisk but difficult, constantly weaving back and forth with a polite smile on my face and muttered acknowledgements of the other people. I was glad to pass into the back room that Kadrix had never shown me before; he took a sharp left turn and directed us up a narrow set of stairs.
The lights were dim, leaving me to half-shuffle up the stairs, trying to feel my way for the next step, not that anyone else had a problem. Predators have good night vision. We stepped into a plain hallway with bare floorboards and plain cream walls. Kadrix gestured at the first room on the left, through a doorway with no door. It was entirely in contrast with the elegant and clean space downstairs. Up there was blunt, a means to an end and nothing more.
The room had a number of tables of various sizes, shapes, and materials spread out around the room with a large space in the middle. A small pack of lycans could have comfortably stood there, which was good, given everything. The room had been split into sections, with normal human foods such as pasta salad and sandwiches in the area directly opposite the door. On the far side were tables covered in raw meats; the lycans were directed there. The pixies gorged on sugary foods, while I picked at the pasta. Leif stood a little separate to the rest of the group. Felix and Sam had wolfed down their food and gone looking for someone to patch the rest of us up. They were in good spirits, but then they lived to fight.
Bronwyn tried to make small talk with the pixies, but they were too bouncy to get much of a conversation out of. I had to give it to her for trying, though. The elves kept mostly to themselves, giving me a quiet moment with Lysander. Once we’d finished eating, I kissed his cheek. I needed the contact, the comfort that came from affection, the moment of space away from the war around us. He nuzzled my neck and nibbled the bottom of my ear.