by HP Mallory
“Stupid bitch,” uttered a Latin Lover type. He was wearing dark leather pants with a dark leather vest when he swung at me with a set of brass knuckles. I wasn’t sure if he was talking about me or the willowy blonde but I had no time to care. I ducked his punch before I began chopping at him with my sword. The rest of his guards stayed back while we fought. The blonde kept trying to line up her shot but didn’t seem as eager to pull the trigger as she was before.
Latin Lover turned out to be a tougher problem than the other ones. Moving like a boxer, he managed to dance around my blade and the chainmail I wore did nothing to soften the powerful punches he landed on my arms. He was about to hit me a third time—sliding straight into my ribs—when Bill appeared out of nowhere and sank his teeth into my attacker’s arm like it was a chicken wing, making Latin Lover howl. He tried punching Bill but kept missing somehow and a stream of blood started running down his arm like a waterfall.
From the corner of my eye, I saw something silver closing the distance between us rapidly. I slipped my blade between it and me and the edge of my sword caught a moon-shaped blade attached to a long pole. The black-haired gal behind the scythe was wearing some kind of cowgirl getup. She looked like she belonged in a nightclub, and to my pleasant surprise, she also had bad footing, of which I took immediate advantage. Planting my feet, I yanked back on her weapon, ripping it right out of her hands and launching it over my head.
Lily Harper: 2. Bad Soul Retrievers: 0.
I was about to swing into her shoulder when another guard got in my way. This one held an iron mace, studded with spikes that deflected my blade which bounced off it with a dull clang. The gorgeous guy behind it—bright blue eyes, perfect teeth and a dirty blond mop of hair—leaned right into my face, close enough for me to smell his terrible breath. Maybe in response to the foul odor, my chainmail-clad left leg automatically drove straight into his groin, which made his face go instantly pale. He stopped pushing me away from his disarmed friend and began leaning on me to stay on his feet. I kneed him in the groin a couple more times before throwing him to the ground.
As he fell out of sight, I caught a glimpse of the disarmed gal, who was taking off toward the darkness beyond the lights. Going into that gloom unarmed didn’t seem like a smart strategy. Meanwhile, Latin Lover was still trying to shake Bill off his arm but he just wound up hitting his own arm over and over again. I got worried when I saw the blonde pistol-packer taking aim at my head, hoping for the clear shot she’d been waiting for. I expected her to pull the trigger when Tallis finally flew through the gate, a battle cry on his lips. The pale blond swung her gun away from me to him.
There were three guards left at the gate, all wielding various types of swords in their hands. But none of their blades could compete with the thickness and weight of Tallis’s blade. He broke every one of theirs in half within two or three strokes.
Tallis Black and Lily Harper: 3. Bad Soul Retrievers: 0.
Aiming carefully, the blonde shooter started emptying her pistol clip on Tallis. This time her bullets managed to miss her fellow guards. The problem was: they missed Tallis too; and at point blank range, no less! To prevent her from getting lucky, I charged straight at her. Even with all the noise of combat, the chainmail I wore made so much clatter that Helen Keller could have heard me coming from ten blocks away.
The blonde whipped her pistol around and fired off a couple shots at me. The first one bounced off my chest before hitting the ground. But the second one did a complete boomerang, knocking the gun out of her hands and over her shoulder. I buried my blade into her shoulder before knocking her down and prying my weapon out of her as she fell limply to the ground.
By then, Tallis had overcome the last of the guards. All of them were writhing on the ground, with nonlethal cuts on their limbs and bruised cheeks. Bill was trying very hard to crawl out from underneath the now-snoring and unconscious Latin Lover behind me. A big, purple bruise on the boxer’s cheek had the imprint of the brass knuckles lying on top of it. He made a good foil to the first Janissary I took out, whose snores were louder than Latin Lover’s.
Once I knew Willowy Blonde wasn’t going anywhere, I turned around and pulled Latin Lover’s bulk off Bill who slowly slithered out. He spent the next few seconds trying to catch his breath. While he did that, one of the earlier victims from the blonde’s poorly aimed shot, the brunette, said something coherent for the first time.
“Sure, Trish, who’d be crazy enough to open the gate from the other side? Stupid cheerleader skank…”
Now that I had a chance to see her face, I recognized her immediately. “Dahlia?”
When she looked back at me, there was no doubt left in my mind. The braids in her hair alone identified her. “I know you, Xena?”
“I know Harry and he definitely acted like he knew you last time we were all together.”
She groaned. “Ah, shit… you were that chick back at the Welsh snake’s tent, right?”
“Snake” wasn’t the most flattering description for the trickster, Gwydion. But the only two times I’d encountered him so far definitely made it an appropriate moniker. “Yeah, that was me. Harry will be glad to know you’re still alive.”
Even though she tried to act irritated, I could see the relief flashing across her face. “So my fool fiance finally managed to save his ass from being killed?”
I tried for a little smile. “Yeah, he got back up to the surface with the rest of us. Matter of fact, I just talked to him a few days ago.”
Dahlia winced as she picked herself up. “So let me get this straight now. He’s back upstairs while I’m down here playing ‘catch the bullet’?”
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
Dahlia rolled her eyes in disgust. “Shit, always figured it’d be the other way around.”
Tallis stepped between us. “Ye the one in charge here, lass?”
I could see Harry’s lost love shaking her head. “Nah, that was Trish. Stupid bitch that ran off when your girlfriend there took her toy away.”
Tallis grunted as he knelt down. “Aye, she might have been better off stickin’ ‘round. Even assumin’ she gits through the Seventh Circle oonscathed, all the failed commanders that make it back tae Alaire usually regret it.”
Mace Boy groaned, still clutching his bruised junk from where I gave it a deep tissue massage with my knee. “Whatever… I blame her for putting us in this damn mess in the first place.”
Dahlia tried to laugh but the subsequent pain was too intense. “Yeah, and you can thank Joan of Arc over there for deactivating Kirk’s main tool to do his fool thinking.”
Mace Boy aka Kirk rolled over so he could glare at her. “Go to hell, Dahlia.”
She sneered back at him. “In case you missed it, we already there, Kirky.”
A cellphone rang from somewhere close. After a couple of rings, I traced it to the very edge of the light cone, right about where Trish ran off. By then, Bill was already running that way before he picked the phone up off the ground.
I intended to stop him, but he’d already answered it when he started walking back to us. He grinned into the receiver. “We’re sorry but we’re currently experimenting technautical difficrappies. Please try yer call again later… like, say, the first Sunday o’ Never.”
Kirk closed his eyes and groaned, but I sensed it was from something other than the pain. “Ah, perfect… it’s him, isn’t it?”
Dahlia kept her eyes open as she nodded. “Yeah, who else would call when the shift is this close to being over?”
I was about to ask whom they were talking about when Bill yelled, “Look, Blondie, it ain’t our fault that ya chose ta hire shit people ta do even shittier work. Maybe ya shoulda sent over a few o’ them Dis dimwits instead of yer staff o’ the incontinent.”
I glared at Bill for his usual shade of rude and Kirk shook his head. “Hey, don’t be too offended on our behalf. If we didn’t suck so bad, we coulda put up a better fight.”
Actu
ally, after seeing some of the wild stuff that happened during the fight, the reason they sucked so bad probably had more to do with the protective spell Minos cast over us. But my main interest lay in the phone conversation. I gestured to my ex-guardian angel. “I’ll take that, Bill.”
Bill looked up at me with disapproving eyes. “Not sure that’s a good idea, Nips.”
I got mad enough to lean down into his face. “Unless you know some way Alaire can reach into the phone and yank me through it, I’d say I’m pretty safe! Now gimme it!”
Bill didn’t look happy although he didn’t fight me about it either, slapping the phone into my open hand with barely concealed anger. Tallis was going around checking everyone’s wounds when I put the cellphone to my ear. “Wish I could say it’s nice to hear from you again, Alaire.”
The voice I came to know all too well answered with another one of his glib evasions. “Just for the record, I currently lack any method by which I can snatch someone at the other end of a phone call, Ms. Harper. However, now that you’ve put that ingenious idea into words, I have to admit it’s positively inspirational.”
Oh, I was so not in the mood for Alaire’s bullshit. “Great, thanks, now why are you taking such interest in a bunch of lowly guards?”
“Do I need to spell it out, Lily?”
“Call me Ms. Harper.”
Alaire chuckled and I felt my skin crawl. “Have you so soon forgotten how our last face-to-face encounter involved a gate very similar to the one in question?”
I took the phone away from my ear and put it on speaker as I replied, “For the benefit of everyone listening in, why don’t you explain?”
Alaire didn’t seem to object to a wider audience. “May I assume that ‘everyone’ in this instance includes the Yeti, your imbecilic catastrophe of a guardian angel, and quite a few fresh corpses?”
None of us answered. Sure, we fought the Janissaries but the last thing I wanted was to give this creep any excuse to hurt another living thing, not even them. Going by the expressions on Bill’s and Tallis’s faces, I assumed they felt pretty much the same.
Alaire stayed quiet for a few seconds before he said, “Is that… My, but that sounds remarkably like someone snoring in the background.”
Bill’s smile made a triumphant return. “Yeah, Blondie, that’s what happens when Minos calls the shots.”
Alaire’s voice went from confused to angry. “Minos? The former king of Crete turned Lord High Judge of the Underground City turned Do-Gooder Vagabond and ceaseless thorn in my side… that Minos?”
The smile on Tallis’s face revealed he was enjoying this every bit as much as Bill. “Ye know any other men by that name?”
I admit I couldn’t help sharing their moment of gloating. “Well, I wouldn’t think so, Tallis, given that Alaire’s the one who sent those kids to collect Minos’s head.”
I heard something fragile shattering on the other end. It could have been a vase that just had a momentous collision with the nearest wall. That disturbance was followed up by a lot of heavy breathing that sounded like a bad slasher film. The Janissaries seemed scared to the point of ignoring the pain they were previously experiencing. Looking closer, some of the more serious wounds appeared slightly more healed than before, so I had to assume Tallis must have done some mending on their behalf with his Druid magic.
Finally, we heard Alaire take a deep breath before saying, “The man you call Minos… please describe him.”
I hesitated a second before giving him what he asked for. “Grey beard, faded, purple robe, and his pointer finger was a one-way ticket to Shade.”
Tallis leaned over the phone. “Sounds an awful lot like the Minos, don’t it?”
Alaire’s voice was more controlled when he answered. “That would be because it is the Minos, Yeti.” He sighed. “While I certainly have my disputes with the gentleman, I would never send such underpowered, underprepared amateurs to collect on his bounty.” Alaire didn’t seem angry, more like pissy, reminding me of a reality show diva. What he said next confirmed my initial impression. “Sigh… I really should have known better than to trust those idiots who swore that Minos was actually—” Catching himself at the last second, he finished with, “That he was actually another person of interest to me.”
Bill never could resist his jab. “Ya mean Minos gots a twin brother?”
Alaire’s voice returned to the cool executive, a role he preferred playing. “I mean, thanks to a highly inaccurate description, I have just managed to incur the wrath and draw the attention of one of the few people who can actually challenge my powerbase.” He cleared his throat before adding, “Thank you for the important information, Ms. Harper. Given the valuable news, I am obliged to offer you a boon of equal value.”
My mouth fell open and I couldn’t stop shaking my head. “Wait a minute… did you really just say that out loud?”
Tallis looked as dumbfounded as me. “Aye, so he did, Besom, though Ah’m at a loss as tae why.”
Another subtle flare-up of temper entered Alaire’s voice. “I have already told her why, Bladesmith, and since this part of the conversation does not concern you, I’ll thank you not to interrupt again.”
I felt my own temper rising at his words. “Well, I’m just as lost as Tallis is. I exorcise that psycho slut you lodged inside me, escape from your castle, humiliate you by trapping you in your own storeroom and—for an encore—screw up your plans so badly that you’re stuck dealing with me if you want them to happen at all. What part of that scenario makes you feel generous toward me?”
The Janissaries on the ground looked at me with more than undisguised awe. Alaire also seemed impressed when he answered, “All good, rational points, Ms. Harper, and bravo for your clear thinking.” I heard the sound of polite clapping before he continued. “And yet all your rational points all share the same fatal flaw. Heart, passion, whatever you wish to call it, results in anything but rational decision-making. That leaves only one choice: embracing one’s feelings or denying them altogether. And when have you ever known me to deny myself anything I felt passionate toward?”
No, he didn’t, I thought, although he just had. Without explicitly saying it outright, the Master of the Underground City just told me that he wanted me back more than ever. Apparently, my rebellious defiance toward him turned out to be the ultimate turn-on. Jesus… “Well, sorry to bust up what passes for feelings in your tiny realm, but my answer is always no to whatever you’re offering,” I said as I turned to face Tallis and noticed his hands had turned to fists at his side.
“Even if that offer happens to be a personal escort across the Blood Plains?” Alaire continued. “Someone to ensure your safe arrival to the football field? I am well aware of the urgent business that will take you past both.”
Bill decided to chip in his two cents’ worth. “Skeletorhorn blabbed.”
I halfway expected Alaire to tell my ex-guardian angel to shut up like he did to my bladesmith. So I was a little surprised when he answered the accusation without acknowledging its source.
“Well, I think we can agree that I stay in regular contact with Streethorn on various matters. As you are a frequent topic of interest, Ms. Harper, it also stands to reason that Streethorn would know the particulars of your newest assignment, true?”
I harrumphed. “So that’s why you stationed those Janissaries to watch the back door I just bashed my way through?”
I wasn’t expecting the tone of alarm I detected in Alaire’s voice when he answered. “How do you know that name for my converted Soul Retrievers?”
I grinned, feeling reassured that he was not as omnipotent as he liked to pretend. “You’re not the only one with inside sources, Alaire.”
He tried to cover up his anxiety by clearing his throat. “Well, to answer your question, had I known that you intended to use that particular passage, I would have fortified it with my demon underlings, not those fools with whom you just sparred. We both know that only those beings would
have a snowball’s chance in hell of halting the progress of Donnchadh.”
Actually, given how Donnchadh helped me wipe the floor with the worm imps in the Morgue, I expected their chances to be somewhere between slim and none. “And with the above in mind, why in the world would I need a lousy escort less capable than I am to cross the Blood Plains? It’s not like I’m a stranger to the violence in this place.”
An indulgent chuckle told me that Alaire was waiting for my little morsel of bravado. “Well, my dear, there is violence and then there is the unending slaughter that characterizes the Blood Plains. Not even Donnchadh at his most bloodthirsty moment would willingly challenge such mindless savages unless he had no choice.”
I wondered if Alaire were only boasting or telling me something closer to the truth, for once. “What makes them so lethal?”
Another chuckle. “Allow me to put it this way… most of those men and women have been struggling against each other for centuries now. As you can imagine, they have gotten very efficient and brutal in the art of war. At this point, they could easily tear apart an entire legion of greater imps without pausing a second to struggle against their opponents. Now what makes you think you three can prevail against that kind of opposition?”
I ground my teeth. I knew what he was doing: playing his usual games. He was baiting me so I’d do what he wanted. Alaire never once offered me an iota of help without infinite strings to tangle me up afterwards. But why did I sense he might actually be warning me about a legitimate danger this time?
I was still vacillating when the call suddenly ended. I spent the next few seconds stupidly staring at the phone.
Dahlia’s voice broke my trance. “You know he’s playing you, right, Xena?”