The Lily Harper 8 Book Boxed Set

by HP Mallory

  “Could ya knock that rat stuff off, yo?!”

  “But I am certain that this vehicle can get you at least within striking distance of the Asylum’s gates. I suppose that shall have to suffice.”

  “Uh, not that I’m ungrateful or anything,” I said. “But won’t this little redirectation put you in Dutch with Old Blood and Guts?”

  That earned me another ugly smile. “So you recognized him… and here I thought that you were as ill-informed as you were sloppy at stealth.”

  “Again with the insults! I get enough of that from AE, yo!”

  A couple more parts snapped inta place and Pol put the car back down. “Press the button under the screen in the console center.”

  “You mean the smashed-in screen that’s gotta be Tido’s handiwork?” I asked, seein’ the button he was talkin’ about under the fist-sized crater that was obviously punched.

  “The very same one… push it.”

  I hadn’t even yanked my finger back when the car roared ta life. It didn’t sound like it could go too far but by God, it’d go somewhere. A female voice said, “Protocol: Round trip engaged. Ten seconds until execution.”

  While the garage door was openin’ on its own, I said over the engine, “Hey, yo, ya never did answer my question.”

  The big guy shrugged again. “I shall simply tell the general what I told my brothers when I first lost my eye… No-Man took it. Just do everything you can to take care of Black, little rat.”

  Before I could call him out on that rat moniker again, the driver’s door sealed shut and the seatbelt strapped me in good and tight. Even though the engine still sounded like it was about ta lose every piece of it between here and the Asylum, we peeled outta the garage and got back on the road faster than the garbage truck could go.

  Next stop, the Asylum.

  “He listens to good purpose who takes note.”

  - Dante’s Inferno

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tallis

  The voice in my head was not lying about the pitch-blackness awaiting me in the basement. Far as I could see, the only things down here were me and the all-consuming shadows. For just a moment, I considered conjuring up a spell of illumination if only to allow me to get my bearings. But that moment passed. All of my energy was being consumed just trying to warm myself against the bitter cold, which seemed to get worse the deeper I ventured.

  Suddenly, my balance shifted and I lost my footing, stumbling forward. A hard chunk of ice prevented me from fully falling down but the dizzy spell occupied my head like a hungry shark, gobbling up all of my thoughts. Worse still, nothing could make it stop. Even though Alaire restored my health, every minute I spent in the Asylum was sapping it all away again. My Druid magic still fanned my inner flame but it began to grow dimmer with each treacherous step I took. The bone-chilling freeze was all that kept me alert.

  I could scarcely remember a time when I felt so vulnerable. Without more victuals and mayhap a bit of grog, the lethal coldness would surely finish the job Alaire intended.

  Rumor had it that if you delved inside the basement’s depths long enough, you would eventually encounter the three… and the One who was bound with them. Even when I ruled the Underground City, I never wanted to know if that rumor were true.

  A light flickered on over my head that went out just as fast as it appeared. I barely blinked away the bright spots it left in my eyes when it flickered on again. I looked towards the ground for some relief, which took me back towards the ice block that halted my stumbling. Before things darkened again, I saw a pair of feet clad in cobbler’s shoes embedded inside the ice.

  I was quite surprised but I should not have been. Of course, there had to be some irredeemable souls down here as well. Not all betrayals were equal, but certainly some deserved eternal blackness. When the light switched on again, I was quick to shield my eyes. I managed to perceive an orange sodium bulb shining from behind a wire mesh and I traced the shape of the metal hood surrounding it that glistened with a thin layer of its own frost.

  When it turned off again, I realized the light was a punishment for the soul behind me. Too much of anything tends to dull the senses after a while. Only by occasionally giving him a glimpse of the light he lacked could the torture continue to be fresh and painful. Even the sots buried in the cells upstairs were luckier than these poor, but deserving bastards.

  A trilling sound came from up ahead towards my right… the imp. The dim lights down that way revealed the direction of my prey. Taking a deep breath and making as little noise as I could manage, I staggered toward it as quietly as I could.

  The weakness I felt in my legs and arms was more concerning. What would I do when I caught up to the wee bastard? So drained as I felt, even stomping out the life of a cockroach would have been a major achievement. Yet if I were to survive, I had no other choice before me. Without my sword, there was little chance of escaping this frozen hell, regardless of my depleted strength.

  No real surprise to find the imp standing under one of the unsteady lights. Even among his own kind, the oppressive darkness down here was shunned by any who had the ability to leave. That also was probably the reason why he came here at all. If you needed a place to hide something, the basement was certainly hard to beat.

  He kept looking at his hideous reflection in my blade, making faces at it and cackling to himself like a sadistic child. I stayed away from the other lights illuminating this thief, and measured my steps as carefully as a farmer calculates his seasonal crop.

  The imp had neither the size nor the strength to wield my sword but he would not give it up either, not without a fight. Any foolhardy fighting man might say the little bugger was much stronger than he looked. I needed to find a weapon of some kind to end the fight before it even began.

  The unsteady light reflected something on my left. It took two more flickers for me to see that it was a stalactite of pure ice, one that was just long enough to grab. The end was smaller so I could wrap my hand around it. Thankfully, the sharp point could easily pierce my quarry’s flesh. My unsteadiness threatened to take me down to the floor once more. But the sight of that glorious icicle propelled me to my feet. While I leaned against the wall and waited for the dizziness to pass, I noticed the imp was too engrossed in his own reflection to notice anything else, not even when I approached the stalactite.

  Gripping the ice, I willed my inner heat to start melting it. The icy cold naturally only worsened my exhaustion but it was necessary. Cold droplets of water ran down my hand while the magic did its work. Some of the droplets froze on my wrist and arm but all that mattered was the ice coming free and popping off with a muffled snap.

  The imp looked up for a second but not my way. I did not know why until I could hear what he was listening to. A deep, humming sound pealed in the corridor like a muffled war horn, making the little thief shiver in response. I could scarcely blame him, and the same chill affected me as I flattened my body against the wall. There was naught but one creature that made such a sound, the Wendigo.

  Man, demon or otherwise, any warm-blooded flesh that could not defend itself from this lurker in the dark would be doomed to become its next meal. Whenever the end of its life drew near, it chose a new soul with the right mixture of hate and hunger as its latest host. The Dark Wood was once its hunting ground but its appetite precluded the safety of any other sentient beings that lived in the Underground City. This was why the master before me banished it down here for violating the basic laws of this place.

  The little thief wisely wished to avoid such a beast. Both of us stayed as still as the icy prisoners that surrounded us, and I watched the imp grab my sword by its hilt as it started dragging it towards the corner we just rounded. I could tell by the scraping of the blade that he was very close to where I lay sequestered in the shadows. I crouched lower, my icy dagger poised to deliver its fatal blow.

  The instant the blade dragged past me, I struck. As predicted, taking the wee bastard to the ground knoc
ked the wind out of him. He barely grunted before I flipped him over and began stabbing his face. The light flashed on so I could see where to strike. Curse my damnable luck if my first blow did not make the little bastard cry out. I drove the sharp point down his throat to stop the commotion but I was already too late. While the light went out once more, the humming sound echoed down the corridor again, followed by a sing-song whisper. That awful sound chilled me worse than the cold around me.

  “Tallllllllllissssssss…”

  I wondered how the Wendigo knew my name before I had the good sense to release my ice poniard and grab my sword. I scarcely rounded the corner when the humming became far too close for comfort. While I dreaded the thought of fighting this shadow stalker, I knew I lacked the strength to outrun it. So I pulled myself under the first light I saw, holding my blade as high as I could in the Wendigo’s direction. If this skirmish went badly for me, the worst place to encounter this accursed monster was in the shadows it called home. Raising my blade still higher, I channeled more of my dwindling magic into it. The light stopped flickering and became steady but I had no notion how long that would last.

  The humming was now right in front of me. A gnarled, clawed hand swung out of the darkness, barely missing my belly before I scooted out of the way.

  “Taaaalllissss!” it roared again before I ducked another set of claws that would have swiftly separated my head from my shoulders.

  “Aye, that be mah name, monster,” I growled, trying to aim the tip of my sword in the direction of its next attack. “How is it that ye know meh?”

  From the shadows, I heard a growl that gradually turned into a laugh. Something about it sounded… familiar.

  “The most delicious part…” it answered. “You came to me.”

  I nearly dropped my claymore to the floor. As it were, I had to work a bit harder to deflect the claws when they took their next strike. Whilst I could not see his face in the darkness, the words and laugh left no doubt as to the Wendigo’s current host…

  Aulus Plautius, the very same man who once betrayed me for his empire.

  “But of the rest silence may best beseem.”

  - Dante’s Inferno

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Bill

  “Shit. Fuck. Damn.”

  I’d been sayin’ those three words in various con-fuck-grations for something like half a mile. I mean, yo, it was literally cold as my freezer on the way ta the Asylum and, as predophecied, my ride finally called it quits once I got there. I couldn’t see fuck-all except for ice, snow, more ice and frosty mist everywhere. Oh yeah, and ice. Did I mention the ice? I tried tellin’ myself my lost man-blubber woulda kept me warm but, even then, I was kiddin’ myself. Spend enough time in this Arctic shithole and it gets under everybody’s skin eventually. Lucky for me that I was an angel and couldn’t die because this Minnesota-summer coulda definitely done me in otherwise.

  Tryin’ ta keep my mind on something other than how badly I wanted ta crawl into the nearest fire, I started thinkin’ about naughty words. They were the only subject that could warm my poor bones up.

  No sooner did a few x-rated ones cross my mind when I saw something big poppin’ up out o’ the mist. I hustled a little closer ta be sure I wasn’t seein’ things. But nah, sure as shit it was a pair o’ gates about fifty times my size standin’ right in front o’ me. Beyond those, I caught me a glimpse o’ an architortural nightmare, somethin’ that coulda only been the Asylum. When I passed the left gate, my elbow damn near got stuck on the metal from the deep freeze. I winced a bit as I yanked it free, rippin’ a strip o’ skin off it. An’ that hurt like an SOB spankin’ another SOB! Walkin’ towards the front door, I kept thinkin’ ta myself that Tido owed me a huge favor after all this shit. Huge. In fact, a Pol-sized favor.

  The inside o’ the gates led to a buildin’ an’ it weren’t difficult ta open the front door and walk my angel ass inside. Me thinkin’ maybe there’d be some heat blarin’ led only to disappointment ‘cause that carpet of permafrost was inside as much as it was outside. Seein’ all the saps frozen stiff ta their chairs while that freon mist floated everywhere, I figured nobody paid the heatin’ bill in a couple o’ millennia. Then I heard something weird. It definitely didn’t sound like it belonged in this oversized icebox either… a snake hissing?

  I saw the source o’ the sound when I waddled up ta the front desk. From the back, she looked like a real hot number, someone that coulda given all the stiffs in here some much-needed Sex-PR. But the snake hiss and her slithery moves told a different story.

  “Yo, Nurse Medusa!” I called out, bangin’ my hand on the front desk like I owned the frickin’ place.

  One look at her snake face up close and I was surprised when I didn’t turn to stone—or at least a block of ice—the second I looked at her.

  “What do you wantssss?” she sneered at me.

  “What do I want?” I repeated as I shook my head and the rest of me shook ‘cause it was so freakin’ cold. “What I really want is some time ta ponder all the complexities o’ the fuckin’ universe but, instead, I’m freakin’ stuck in this craphole talkin’ ta your ugly ass…”

  Next thing I knew, she leapt over the counter, pinning my sorry angel ass to the floor with her scaly-ass tail. Flickin’ a forked tongue over my cheek, she felt as warm as an ice cube.

  “Angel,” she said, gettin’ twice as mad as before, “the kind that condemned me to thissssstate…” The hand she wrapped around my throat was the best self-tightening noose I’d ever experienced. “Give me one reassssson not to make thisssss really hurt.”

  I barely managed to choke out, “Tallis… Tallis Black.” Actually, it sounded more like “Talls… Talls Bak” but she let go o’ my throat.

  “Tallisssss Black… you’re here for him?”

  “Yeah,” I said, rubbin’ my throat box. “He’s my bestie’s love-interest and I came here ta get him the fuck outta this hellhole.”

  She didn’t reply or do anything for a minute, not even hiss. Then she musta mistook me for a launchin’ pad and she jumped across the desk. Damn if that didn’t hurt me worse than the rip on my shoulder. That tail of hers was fuckin’ heavy. The pain in my chest made me glad for the cold.

  “He’sssss in the easssssst wing, on the right,” she told me, goin’ totally out o’ sight while I got back up. “Don’t come back unlesssssss he’sssss with you.”

  Tido and I would have a long talk after this was all over. How many lowlifes down here owed him? While I was contem-placating all that, I heard another angry hiss from the other side o’ the desk. I got the hint. I swiftly waddled through the east wing door faster than the cold could freeze my nerves.

  For just a sec, I worried that Ms. Snake Charmin’ coulda steered me right inta one of Alaire’s honey traps. But I shoved that thought right outta my mind because: a) bein’ immortal covered me on the whole death thing; and b) if Tido was stuck in said honey trap, I had ta back him up.

  Good thing Conan left his big-ass tracks in the ice an’ double good thing I’d watched me plenty o’ shows on trackin’ Bigfoot ‘cause I tracked Tido so good, them Bigfoot rednecks woulda been proud.

  Tido’s trail took me on a tragic carpet ride of deservin’ bastards who were spendin’ eternity by imposternating TV dinners in their cells. The trail ended with probably the unluckiest o’ the bunch. A tree of hands was growin’ out of the ruins of collapsed stone and ice that once upon a time was a cell. I thought I saw a light glintin’ towards some cracks at the top of the mess. Looked like Conan did the barbarian thing and climbed the sheer cliff to the next level.

  A quick peek around the corner explained why Tido made a pit stop here. Up ahead was a guard shack full of Alaire’s Watchers slummin’ as male nurses. And they weren’t even hot! Not like those Thai ladyboys anyway.

  The bigger problem was the three full-sized Wookies that were standin’ with them. I doubted even Conan coulda taken all o’ them on his best day. And this was anything but his be
st day.

  I started climbin’ up the rubble, talkin’ shit ‘bout my crappy luck mostly to myself. I nearly fear-farted when some Mofo grabbed my ankle and held it tight.

  “What the shit?!” I whispered, trying to get free. Even with one of its fingers gone, the grip it had on me was tight an’ made me lose my damn balance. I wound up hittin’ the rocks a little too hard and knockin’ some loose. At that moment, something howled from around the corner—probably one o’ the Wookies since Watchers never sounded that scary—and it started traipsing back my way. I looked up, tryin’ to grope my way in the dark but that weren’t exactly too easy.

  By the time I could see again, I was face-to-ugly mug with a Wookie. After takin’ a couple of sniffs o’ me, he started growlin’. A quick peek at his aura told me why. This fucker was one o’ the greater assholes, doin’ cosplay as the Abominable Snowman down here. Every last one o’ them hated all angels on sight.

  As soon as he yanked me free, I did the only thing I could think of. I turned my inner light on full blast. He screamed before droppin’ me, which broke my concentration long enough to shut off my light. Once I knew he couldn’t see me, I got up and started runnin’ towards the guard shack. Sure, the other Wookies and Alaire’s mummies were comin’ ta see what all the fuss was about. But as soon as they got close enough, I hit ‘em with another celestial flash-bang. By the time I was done, they were too busy hittin’ each other to see where I was goin’. But I had to figure they could still hear me and they knew this dump well enough to guess where I was headed.

  I got luckier with the next greater asshole I bumped into in the next room. It looked like it escaped from a Resident Evil game. The greater imp was out cold—pun intended—lyin’ on top of a corpse-sicle. A hunk of rebar on the stair next to him and the smashed nose on the asshole’s face explained everything: Tido had already paid him a visit. Well, that and those tracks on the stairs. They led past this particular Wookie to a door on the left with a faded exit sign hangin’ over it. The door was just cracked wide enough for me to slip through without makin’ any noise.