I bumped into Dezi as she froze, trembling, her muscles locked into place a pace or two from setting foot in the children’s playground.
“It’s okay Dez,” I said, gently picking the wolf up and relocating her a little further back. “I know who’s here. I’ll take care of it.” As the silver shifter slowly regained her autonomy, I nodded encouragingly. “Just go find your pack, and the rest of the circles.” I glanced over my shoulder at the deepening dark. “Hopefully I won’t be long.”
Fright waited for me, crouching on the paint-flecked bars of a crooked, corroded merry-go-round. His long, heavy coat trailed the ground as the piece of playground equipment drifted lethargically in a circle, a slow, ominous scrape of steel on steel quietly crying out, as if it too were terrified of his presence.
“Having fun?” I asked.
The Fae looked up at me, unsurprised, and the corners of his lantern eyes crinkled, as if in distress. “Lan is dead.” It wasn’t a question. He nodded before I could answer, simply watching my expression. “Then I have one favor to ask of you,” he rasped, his oddly melodic voice strained and ethereal. With a wave of a clawed hand some of the gathered darkness parted, revealing a glimmering silver circle, and another woman bound to an iron stake. His large, sad, pale eyes darted from me to her and back again.
“Stop me,” Fright finished softly. “Please.”
Taken aback, I could only nod. “That’s what I’m here for.” Slowly, I eased my claws free of my fingertips. Fright watched them emerge, then hopped to his feet, the merry-go-round creaking to a stop.
“I will warn you,” he said solemnly, shrugging his heavy, claw-torn coat free of his shoulders. My eyes went wide; beneath it glimmered a thigh-length shirt of articulated ebony chainmail, whose layers of finely woven links both glittered in the shadows and seemed to absorb the scarce light. “This fight will not be as simple as those that have preceded it.”
“So I see,” I replied, sizing the small terror up anew. After our first fight, the knowledge that I had anti-Fae weaponry installed into my fingertips had made me overconfident, and that mistake had led to him clobbering me with the Vulcan’s torch. I had to keep in mind that Fright was clever and resourceful as well as naturally powerful.
“Not yet,” the Fae warned. “But you will.”
He held out his hands, and with a surge of energy from Next Door, something shimmered into being between them: an elegantly curved blade as long as I was tall, seemingly made of pure glacial ice instead of steel.
As I watched, it burst into flame, a frigid, pallid fire that sucked the heat from the air, frosting the metal bars and chains of the playground in an instant and leaving a lingering chill behind that even I could feel.
“Though cold, this fire will burn,” he promised.
I took a step back as Fright assumed a combat stance, the blade resting softly across his forearm, the fine point aimed at my heart.
After all, the Fae never lied.
A shallow breath and a settled heartbeat were my only warnings before the small Fae lunged at me as fast as a flash of cold lightning in the dark. I felt the frosty chill as I managed to sidestep his thrust, the ghastly, colorless flames reaching out for me as I dodged. I scrambled away as Fright pivoted on a heel, cutting across and down at me; I fell on my ass just in time to keep the little terror from decapitating me, then rolled away and dove under a tall plastic slide before he could finish the job.
It was already obvious that staying near Fright and his sword was a very bad idea; now I really missed Rusty. The Vulcan’s massive speartip had shattered, blown apart by magical backlash, and even my rebar pole had bounced merrily off into the manmade lake and permanently out of my reach. Altogether, it was a series of unfortunate disappearances that left me weaponless at a rather inconvenient time.
I ducked under plastic platforms and slipped past brightly colored tubes, pillars, and fake rock walls, trying to keep the crunch of foot and boot in loose gravel as silent as possible. I came out the other side next to a faded painting of cartoon elephants and paused.
Had I lost Fright, or had he lost me?
The question answered itself as he appeared right next to me, the frosted, flaming blade already arcing in toward my throat.
Acting on sheer, panicked instinct, I caught the blade edge-first on my claws, inches from my neck. Sparks arced between supernatural iron and the Fae sword, and I braced myself, pushing Fright away.
Then I noticed my claws sizzling as the fire ate away at them, the sword’s uncannily sharp edge slowly slicing straight through the rusted iron.
I kicked Fright in the hip, forcing him back an instant before his blade sheared through my claws, leaving him unable to follow through by killing me. As he raised the weapon again, I bent low, scooped up my own severed claws, and threw them at him.
The Fae recoiled as sharp iron nearly hit him in the face; one rusty, burning blade stuck in his chest, the point wedged between fine chainmail links. With a hiss, he brushed it aside with a flourish of his sword and came straight at me again, that fearsome blade at the ready. This time, I leapt away as Fright got close, landing near a set of children’s swings. Before he could catch up, I tore a length of rusty chain free and swung it around and around, rapidly gaining deadly momentum.
“Is there no way out of this for you?” I rasped, whipping the chain at him in warning. “I don’t want to kill you, and you don’t seem to want to be here.”
“I have no choice while Juris yet lives,” Fright’s eyes went momentarily plaintive as he ducked away from my makeshift whip. “I have a contract. You must die, and the ritual must proceed.” He extended the icy blade point-first toward my face, gripping its long, leather-wrapped handle in both hands like a trained swordsman. “There can be no more reprieve and no quarter.”
And with that said, he disappeared.
I panicked for an instant before lowering the spinning chain to Fright-height, hoping he didn’t simply crawl underneath and cut off my ankles. His sword didn’t inspire the same instinctual dread that real flame did, but I’d already seen what it could do to my claws, much less the rest of my body. I kept moving, making a circle in the center of the playground, the thin layer of gravel crunching and shifting underfoot with each step. My dead eyes searched monochrome shadows for any sign of the Fae, but looking for Fright was an exercise in futility.
So I stopped moving and listened instead.
I didn’t hear any other footsteps in the loose gravel, but I did hear a solitary, alien heartbeat.
Right behind me.
I spun around just in time as Fright struck, becoming visible as he breathed out a hissing, foreign battle cry. I managed to slap his arm aside with the chain forcefully enough to prevent his sword from diving into my torso, but only barely.
Too close. With a silent apology, I kicked a spring-mounted unicorn free of its spring and directly into Fright’s unarmored shins, tripping him up and causing him to yeep sharply in pain. I used the moment it bought me to back further away, spinning the chain in a circle overhead and slinging it down across his sword arm as hard as I could.
He raised an arm to catch the blow, the chain bouncing inertly off the shoulder and upper arm of his armor. The end of the chain scraped across Fright’s frigid blade as he twisted and parried it aside, and the last several links came away covered in frost, frozen solid and completely stiff.
I shook the chain, trying to break the icy coating, and the metal shattered instead.
Fright gave me no time to recover. The Fae took several solid steps, matching each one with a precise, chopping strike aimed at my head or vitals. I whipped the length of chain at him again and again, but instead of flinching away, he parried each blow with quick, practiced motions, turning his sword so that each deflection shaved off another few inches of chain as his blade cut effortlessly through the thin steel links.
And as he whittled my weapon down to about the length of my arm, I started to get extremely nervous.
Cursing, I retreated. I knew it wasn’t the best idea; time was obviously running out. But rushing Fright’s deadly blade without a plan would just be classy suicide, and we both knew it. Flickering in and out of view, the nightmare leapt nimbly after me, his glacial blade raised high to strike.
I clobbered him with a nearby picnic table, the impact splintering weathered wood and nearly taking the sturdy creature off his feet. While he staggered, I wrapped the remnant of my chain around his sword arm, burning the last scraps of my church’s borrowed energy to yank the weapon out wide and keep him off balance. Then I dove directly at him, using my moment of fueled strength to ram my claws full force into his chest as I darted past, spinning around as soon as I was out of his reach again.
Only to stare in shock at the shallow scrapes that marred the front of his armor, then take a flying merry-go-round directly to the face.
My back hit the gravel as Fright’s thrown Merry-Go-Round bounced happily off to collide thunderously with a swing set. The Fae faded into view above me, his creepy-cute, terrifying face twisted in anxiety and apology as he reversed the blade and stabbed it down.
It deflected off of empty air a foot from my chest and plunged into the dirt and gravel instead.
“About fucking time,” I exclaimed as Hershel faded into view, blocking Fright’s blade with his own leafy green zweihander. I dug in my claws and slid forward, planting both heels into a surprised Fright’s gut and throwing him across the clearing, where he dented a jungle gym with his skull before crashing to the earth.
“Was worried you weren’t gonna show,” I rasped as the big fairy grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. More like terrified, I amended silently.
“Like I had a choice,” the Warden replied. “Can’t let this happen on my watch.” As I stared, he took a deep breath, ghostly, dusty butterfly wings manifesting at his back as living armor of thick vines and razor-edged leaves grew around his body, forming into plates and pauldrons, gauntlets and greaves. In the same time it took Fright to shake off the impact and regain his feet, Hershel grew an entire set of earthy armor, completely covering his T-shirt, khaki pants, and work boots.
“A fairy, standing in the way of one of the trueborn sons of Dusk?” Fright’s voice was curious, not prejudiced, as he cautiously approached, long sword at the ready. “Are you not terrified? Do you not fear drawing my father’s ire?”
A metallic, leafy plate grew above Hershel’s stormy gray eyes. “Just doing my job, kid.” With a smirk, he thumbed the visor down, covering everything but those unusually serious eyes. “And actually, I bet your father will thank me when I’m done.” Brandishing his own long, two-handed blade, Hershel glanced at me. “You okay to keep going?”
“Except for seeing my unlife flash before my eyes, yeah.” I circled to the side in step with the Warden of the Green, maneuvering a wary Fright in between us. “Let’s do this.”
I lunged for Fright, and he reacted by trying to stick the end of his blade in my forehead. As soon as he turned, Hershel fluttered forward and brought his heavy blade down between Fright’s shoulderblades, knocking the Fae prone as I dodged back.
“Don’t make me beat you like a pinata,” the husky fairy said. “I hate exercise.”
“He gave his word,” I replied, kicking gravel into Fright’s face as he rolled to his feet. “He doesn't have a choice.”
“Well, crap,” Hershel commented, circling Fright like a shark. “Pinata time it is.”
This time, Hershel lunged in first; Fright deflected his blade, and I wrapped my short length of chain around his arm, yanking him backward. The Warden stabbed him in the gut, but the ebony chainmail soaked up the force again. Fright shrugged free of the chain with another alien battle cry, and I kicked the back of his knee out before he could lunge forward and skewer Hershel. The fairy bounced a pair of sweeping, well-placed blows off Fright’s dark armor, and I got in close enough to rake both sets of claws across his back, dragging him off balance but doing no actual damage.
Meanwhile, an ominous energy built in the air, setting the distant silver circle to glowing.
“How do we beat him?” I snapped. “There’s no time!”
“Believe me, I wish he hadn’t borrowed from his father’s armory, too,” Hershel puffed, striking relentlessly, forcing Fright to duck away and defend his head while the fairy rained down heavy blows.
“That’s not an answer!” I yelled, throwing the wayward merry-go-round at Fright’s legs, and cursing as he easily leapt over it.
Pressure mounted, power building somewhere just Next Door, the presence of something enormous pushing at the Walls, as if seeking a weakness, a way across. Energy, wisps of death and fear and despair, leaked over, some absorbing into me—
—and even more absorbing into Fright.
With a chilling cry, the powerful Fae exploded into motion, driving us both back with frenzied sweeps of his lethal blade. I tripped and stumbled, barely keeping my footing, and he turned his full attention to Hershel instead, who barely raised his blade in time to block a skull-cleaving blow.
The coldfire blade barely slowed as it sheared straight through Hershel’s sword, and I blindsided Fright with a dropkick, staggering him just in time. The frozen, blazing edge still cut through part of Hershel’s faceplate like butter, dragging along the side of the big man’s face and slicing off one of the leafy pauldrons, leaving one of the Warden’s shoulders cut to the bone.
Hershel staggered, bloodied, staring at his broken blade. “You son of a—” He blinked as the matte metallic sword abruptly blossomed and regrew. “Oh. Nevermind.” As I watched, everything but the burn marks faded away, and the Warden of the Green stood straight again, holding Fright’s attention. “Come on, then.”
Meanwhile, I snuck up behind the Fae and smashed the chain through his head.
Which promptly faded away, just like the rest of his image.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I cursed, staring around. The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention, tingling with the static saturating the air. “Where did he go?”
Hershel swept his own blade back and forth, scanning. “How should I know?”
“Because you’re part Fae, too!” I whirled my chain around and around frantically but knew it wasn’t long enough to keep Fright at bay.
“I wish it worked like that,” Hershel sighed.
Then the chunky half-Fae gasped in shock, coughing blood through his fractured faceplate as Fright’s sword burst through his chest from behind.
“Hersh!” I bellowed.
Fright slid the blade cleanly free with a flourish, aiming it my way as a wide-eyed Hershel toppled forward—
—and disappeared.
Fright staggered, his own eyes wide and abruptly unfocused as Hershel cracked him in the temple with the heavy, round pommel of his leafy blade. But the stubborn little Fae still managed to shrug it off, cleaving my remaining chain in two as I came in for a finishing blow. I could feel him drinking in more ambient energy as he wildly deflected Hershel’s next strike…
…and then froze as the chilling melody of a siren song floated through the energized air of the playground.
“What is she doing here?” The small Fae demanded, glaring at us with lantern eyes.
“Distracting you,” I replied, lunging at him from behind.
Fright spun, uttering a clipped cry as he adroitly and accurately rammed the coldfire blade through my chest.
It was disturbing—to say the least—to watch my mirror image recoil and cry out, shrieking as pallid flames ate away at my exposed flesh.
I ignored it as best I could and shattered the picnic table over Fright’s head.
The impact flattened him to the ground, pale ichor trickling from his scalp and temple. Dazed, he stubbornly managed to roll over before I dove on
him, pinning him to the ground with my claws digging into the chinks and links in his ebony armor.
The real Hershel appeared out of nowhere, sucking in a deep breath of fresh air as he kicked Fright’s weapon out of his hand and far from his grasp. Immediately, the ghastly flames along the blade and the bone-chilling cold in the air began to fade.
“It’s over!” I yelled into Fright’s face, slamming him into the ground, the air all around us pregnant with barely-restrained energy. “Yield! Now!”
“I cannot!” Panicked, Fright surged upward, almost throwing me off of him.
Reflexively, I smashed my forehead into his face, splattering us both with chill Fae blood, stunning him.
I closed my claws around his throat, Fright’s pale skin sizzling as it contacted the iron.
And hesitated.
“Then I give you your life,” I shouted, shaking him with my other hand. “Do you hear me?”
His face creased with agony, Fright finally nodded, wincing as the motion brought more of his flesh into contact with my claws, his skin boiling away into wisps of acrid smoke at the contact. “I understand,” he rasped, his melodic voice strained. “And…I yield.”
“Ashley!” Hershel bellowed my name as I threw myself to my feet, and I turned to look in the direction he pointed his blade.
I felt the pulse in the air before I “saw” the pillar of energy pour into the Vulcan from across the city.
First one, then another.
Four of five…in my mind’s eye, the Vulcan lit up with energy, a beacon in the stormy night, the wind whipping into a frenzy.
I turned back and burst into motion as the final silver circle blazed bright behind us, splitting the park’s gathered darkness and obscuring the intended sacrifice.
Mid leap, I stepped sideways through the last shadow as it disappeared—and into the center of the activating circle itself. I tackled the terrified girl, iron stake and all, and tore the heavy metal spike completely out of the ground as I threw us free of the circle.
But not before a blaze of energy tore through me, a torrent of immense power that felt like it was ripping my soul in half.
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