by Holly Evans
“Do you think me weak because I don’t rip out redcap throats like you?” Bronwyn asked.
I jumped when she sat on the bed next to me; I’d been lost in my own world. I eyed her cautiously. The corner of her mouth twitched with the thought of a smile.
“It’s not hard to see what you’re thinking,” she said.
“No. I do not think you weak,” I said.
I didn’t understand how magic worked, but she’d never flinched during any fight that I’d seen.
“Then why are you weak for being here?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Because my role is ripping throats out, and being unable to do that makes me weak.”
She tilted her head a little. “You have other uses, do you not? I thought you were going to tell us about the magic. That could be a huge breakthrough.”
I ground my teeth together. The little tart had a point, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
I got a lecture on how I shouldn’t have attacked the elf, how it had upset the wound in my thigh. I ignored it. Once I was dressed in some fresh clothing and had eaten far more food than I felt was reasonable (we had a small army to feed, after all), I was led down into the magical planning room. I stood out like a sore thumb. Elise and Logan were holding court in their priest garb; other priests and priestesses were standing around them, listening with rapt attention. Elves and Sidhe were interspersed between them; even they were entirely focused on whatever they were saying. Each of them wore loose-fitting, single-colour clothing. I was in leather, with big boots and as many blades as I could find room for.
Elise grinned at me, which was echoed by Logan.
“I’m sure you’re all aware this is Evelyn. She’s going to look at the magic for us and explain what it looks like,” Elise said.
Everyone turned to look at me. I wanted to be out fighting more rabid redcaps, anywhere rather than in their gaze. I crossed my arms and waited for someone to explain what exactly I was supposed to be doing. Elise pushed through the small crowd of some fifteen or so magical people. She pulled me into a light hug.
“You had us worried.”
“So I heard,” I said with a smile.
She took me by the elbow and led me to the large pale wood table in the middle of the room. It was covered in maps and photos.
“Do you need to be in person to see the magic?” she asked.
I have a noncommittal shrug; I had no idea what I was doing. A pixie that I hadn’t noticed before approached Elise with a smile; her ripped jeans and tank top put me at ease at least a little. Her short pale blond hair was striped with pink and lilac. It brought out the bright green in her eyes.
“I think I can help,” she said to Elise.
Elise stepped aside and made a sweeping arm motion to me. I felt like I was being fed to piranhas.
The pixie held her hand out to me. “I’m Tabitha, you can call be Tabs.”
I shook her hand and said nothing; she knew my name. I felt the group’s eyes boring into me like lasers, waiting for me to either fuck up or do a party trick. I’d have been quite happy to show them some party tricks with my blades.
“I don’t have physical magic the way a lot of fae do. I deal with projection and such. I’d like to project you to the places, to see if you can see the magic. Would that be ok?” she asked.
I narrowed my eyed. “Project me?”
She chewed on her bottom lip and looked away for a long moment. Someone went to speak but Elise put her hand up to silence them.
“I’ll take your spirit over to the place. It’ll be safe. Promise,” she finally said.
A quick glance around the room and the hard eyes staring at me told me there was no choice in the matter.
I sighed and said, “Sure, why not.”
I hated being trapped. Elise wouldn’t have intended it that way, and I knew we needed every edge we could get over the witch, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. Tabs gestured to the two comfortable chairs in the room. Those around the large table were all simple, cheap, wooden things. She led me to the two sumptuously over-stuffed armchairs.
“We need to be comfortable,” she said with a smile.
I curled up in the pink and purple paisley one; it was more comfort than I’d experienced in what felt like forever. My muscles relaxed, and I couldn’t help but sigh with soft pleasure. Tabs grinned at me as she did the same. Her eyes flicked momentarily to Elise, and her expression became far more serious.
“This will feel weird, but you can’t fight me. Ok?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. Her eyes locked onto mine, and I felt a tug somewhere in the back of my mind.
“Don’t fight it,” she whispered from within my own head.
Panic threatened to well up; I reminded myself what was at stake and allowed everything to go. Suddenly, I was standing before the National Theatre in all its grandeur. I had a sensation of my body, somewhere far away. The Theatre managed to be both opulent and simple in one nonchalant stroke. The golden creams highlighted the dark-brown stripes and accentuated the multitude of windows. The great statues on the half-domed roof looked ready for war, with angels driving on eager horses. I growled under my breath about how we needed them. Tabs snapped me back to the situation at hand.
“Evie, we need you to tell us if you see magic here.”
It was there, on the edge of my vision, but I couldn’t see it in its usual technicolour glory. I took a step forward; it felt as though I were gliding rather than stepping. Tabs’ gaze was a pressure on the back of my neck, reminding me of the purpose at hand. I took a few more steps, peering at the architecture; it was like looking at an optical illusion. I just needed to get my eyes and brain to sync up properly. I was sure of it.
After tilting my head and trying to look through where I felt the magic was, something snapped into place. An explosion of colour suddenly appeared over the building. I fell backwards as I tried to drink it all in. It was beautiful and deadly.
Tab’s hands felt as though they both went through me and caught me at the same time. The sensation scrambled my brain for a moment while I fought to right myself again.
“Breathe,” she said.
I took a long deep breath and focused. This was important.
“Where do I start?” I asked.
She grinned at me. “You can see the magic?”
“Yes, and there’s a lot to take in. Do you have a notebook or…?”
“Start at the west corner and work around clockwise. Start at the foundations and move up. I have a link with Brennan, he’ll record the information,” she said.
I walked down to the west corner, rolled out my shoulders, and tried to figure out how to explain the tangled heap I saw before me.
“I’ll start from the outside and work in towards the building,” I said.
She gave a nod of understanding before her eyes went white and a flicker of a priest with dark brown hair formed over and around her. Magic was freaky as fuck. I focused myself back on the task at hand, one layer at a time.
“A heather-grey haze covers every inch of the building; it looks to be about an inch thick and maybe thirty percent translucent. Under that, there’s a net of lime-green and yellow ropes; the colours twist around each other like electrical wire. The ropes are each maybe six inches thick. They start two feet above the pavement and have about four feet between them as they wind around the building.”
I was having a difficult time picking over the varying layers. It was a mass of colour, and I didn’t dare touch any of it. I continued on.
“Below the ropes is a net, like a fishing net, in white and red lines. They’re really fine and look to be incredibly sharp. Then, against the brickwork, there are little orbs of pink and grey, they’re sort of marbled.” I peered a little closer. “There seem to be some crimson and gold spikes buried in the walls around windows and up just below the roof line.”
I continued on slowly around the building explaining the colours, shapes, and textur
es of the myriad of magic that was coating the building. When I’d finished, I was more tired than I felt I should have been. Tabs explained that being away from my body was very draining, right before she zipped me back into my body with a deeply unpleasant cracking sensation.
I groaned and allowed myself to adjust to the feeling of being completely physical again. My body felt clunky and painful for a couple of minutes. Elise handed me a large cup of floral-scented tea and a plate full of sugary baked goods.
“You need to give your body energy to heal and cope with this process,” she said gently.
“I feel like the teams who’re out fighting would be better having these. A bit of sugar can really lift the spirits,” I said.
She smiled. “Don’t worry, we’ve kept aside plenty of niceties for them. Eat.”
I didn’t have it in me to argue. I stuffed a muffin in my mouth and looked at the photos of the national theatre; the man I’d seen flickering over Tabs was leant over them with coloured pens. Logan was at his side with another priestess peering over his shoulder. I frowned and gestured for him to pass me the photo of the back.
I pointed at the roofline and said, “You missed the pointed hook bits at the junctions on the net.”
He smiled and quickly added them in. Something about him put me at ease instantly, similar to how Bryn had a way of doing. I didn’t like it. Never trust anything that you trust immediately.
He held out his hand. “I’m Brennan, a priest of the air goddess.”
I took his hand and looked between him and Tabs. The pixie had a doe-eyed expression on her face, complete with gooey smile. I quickly concluded they were on very intimate terms.
“How’s Lysander doing?” I asked Elise.
She smiled. “Very well. Quin was gentle. The poking is done with; Lysander is now helping the alchemists prepare some explosives.”
I wanted to go and check on him myself, but I knew I’d feel if he was distressed. These were our allies, our friends, and Lysander could look after himself. I ate a couple of cookies before Tabs took me to the next destination. The witches had taken over a few of the smaller train stations and some tourist attractions around the Charles Bridge. They were using them to terrorise the humans and try to build panic and terror. Elise had assured me that the priests and such were doing a good enough job to dampen the human’s reactions and feelings so they did nothing more than whisper about ghosts. Still, the witches were making headway; we needed a breakthrough. And soon.
I was on my fourth plate of food of the day when Tabs took me to the final place, the witches’ headquarters. From the outside, it looked like a rundown diner. The building appeared to be made from half-rotten plywood with graffiti coating it. It was in a rougher part of the city; the buildings all had some form of decay hanging over them. The witches’ presence had polluted the entire area; I could almost feel it clinging to me like filthy mud. Tabs had curled her lip and wrinkled her nose; she tried wiping invisible dirt off herself.
“I haven’t felt a presence like this before,” she said with disdain.
“Let’s get this wrapped up, then,” I said as I approached the ramshackle building.
Cars went straight through my incorporeal form; I barely noticed them. It was an unpleasant reminder of what I was doing, of how far down the magical rabbit hole I’d fallen. The witches had some form of mask or glamour over the building; once I got within thirty feet, it went from a dull brown and grey to a painfully bright rainbow of colour. I had to pause and allow my eyes to adjust to the glowing, pulsing kaleidoscope.
“Is Brennan ready? He’s going to need multiple photos for this, there are too many layers.”
Tabs smiled; it was framed by Brennan’s smile where his face overlaid hers. I did a double take. I’d dealt with zombies, redcaps, and abominations; none of them were quite as creepy as that shit. Tabs laughed before I looked away and got down to the work at hand. I wanted to get far away from that hellhole as quickly as possible.
Brennan was on his third photo, and I was getting down to the final layer, when it happened. Some sort of trigger was tripped, I have no idea how, but it all happened at once. We hadn’t done anything differently. Maybe we’d been there too long and the witches had become aware of our presence. I had no idea, but the rainbow of colours suddenly switched to blood red and pitch black; the witches clearly liked the classics. It wasn’t just the magic that changed. The floor beneath our feet turned into tendrils of some sort of plant. The thick trunks had much smaller vines at regular intervals, the entire thing a swirling mass of neon green and mud brown. The smaller vines writhed and twisted like maggots. They stretched upwards towards the sky and flicked back and forth as though sniffing the air. They soon focused on us. The cool, slimy vines wrapped around our ankles and began dragging us closer to the building, where great gaping maws with large teeth had sprouted. Somehow, the walls had three huge mouths, complete with bruise-purple lips and yellow redcap-type teeth superimposed on them. I felt like I was in a cheesy old horror film.
I fought as hard as I could, but my blades were on my physical form.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do?” I screamed while I kicked and thrashed with everything I had.
Tabs was fighting equally as hard; she sank her fingers into the tendrils, drawing putrid yellow liquid out of them. That didn’t seem to make any difference. We were still slowly being dragged towards the mouths that hung open with rotting tongues and teeth as big as my arm.
“I don’t know. I can’t get us back to our bodies!” Tabs screamed back.
I bent down and began clawing at the black tendrils; they released my ankles just enough for me to scramble back a few feet. I grabbed onto Tabs’ arm and yanked her back; she kicked and thrashed, managing to free herself. We ran back over the normal tarmac, glad to feel the solidity of it beneath my feet.
Our relief lasted all of five seconds. The plants shimmered and vanished, only to be replaced with wraith… things and deformed creatures that would haunt my nightmares for years to come. Dogs with long sinewy legs and jaws that hung half off bounded towards us. Their joints clicked and their ribs rattled as they did so, the sounds clear in the silence that surrounded us. Their skin hung off in flaps and chunks, revealing gangrenous flesh beneath. We turned to run, but there were shuffling, stumbling people (for lack of a better term) behind us. One had a lycan arm that hung limply at its side while it flailed an octopus tentacle where the other arm should have been. Another had goat legs and a coyote head that sat on a malformed human torso.
Panic filled me. We were surrounded. We were fucked. Tabs and I stood back to back while they circled around us, taking their time closing in. We had nowhere to go, no weapons. I had no idea what we were supposed to do. The beasts clearly knew that we couldn’t go anywhere. They taunted us. Grins filled their faces, rotten tongues slipped out over cracked and torn lips. Eyes roved over our bodies, no doubt deciding which bit they wanted to eat first. Bile began to rise as I wondered if that was how it was all going to end.
“You’re part hellhound, right?” Tabs asked.
“No,” I growled.
“You have hellfire?” she asked.
“My body does.”
“Try. Please. What other option do we have?”
I swallowed down the panic and allowed it to evolve into anger. Pure rage at the situation I’d been dragged into. At what they’d dared do to my city. I allowed it all to come forward and channelled it into the ball of fire that formed in the middle of my chest. It warmed me. Something was shifting from within. My mind became sharper, and there was a small shred of hope bundled up deep inside.
“That’s it, keep going!” Tabs shouted.
The creatures were still closing in, their eyes fixed on me. The seconds were ticking by. They would lose patience soon. I closed my eyes and allowed the fire to run down my arms and coat my body; I prayed to the moon goddess that Tabs would be safe from it. It was our only hope of getting out of there. I felt Ta
bs do a little dance as I opened my eyes to find I was covered in fire. The creatures didn’t look quite as pleased about the development. They began baying and gurgling what sounded suspiciously like curses.
“You’re going to have to trust me. I’m going to tap into your fire. It’s my gift,” Tabs said.
“As long as it helps us survive this, you can do whatever you want,” I said.
The creatures had all frozen as they eyed us, or more accurately, as they eyed the fire we were now both coated in. Half of them seemed to be mid-movement, with a foot half-raised off the ground and arms mid-swing.
“How do we do this?” I asked.
“We pick the weak link, attack fast and hard, and pray to every god and goddess we make it out,” Tabs said.
We looked at the creatures surrounding us, intensely aware of the situation at hand. One of them stood out. It was slower and stiffer than the others, a man-beast that hadn’t been formed quite right.
I nodded to the decrepit man-beast. “Start there, then.”
We ran as fast as our incorporeal legs would carry us. The beasts all threw themselves into action and charged at us. I plunged my fist into the chest cavity of a man with a dog head. He snapped at the side of my head as I ripped his heart out. There was a sickening thrill to feeling it in my hands. I felt lost without my blades, but there was a twisted satisfaction to using my hands. I had no time to dwell on the feeling, the dog man turned to smoke only to immediately be replaced with a skeletal woman, who sank her claws into my upper arms. The pain felt so real. I head-butted her and watched as she screamed and shrivelled as she was engulfed in the fire. That was enough to cause the beasts closest to us to shrink back for a single breath. Not enough to use, but enough to see we had half a chance.
Tabs fought with a fast and furious style that reminded me a lot of Chaos and Mayhem. She never stopped moving, her fists and feet almost always spinning and lashing out at whatever was closest. The fire rippled over her, and she made fighting with it an art-form. It danced around her and rushed up over her victim’s bodies, coursing through their bodies before they vanished.