Shadow's Bane

by Karen Chance

  Big dirty fireworks, because a few of the creatures were getting blown out, too.

  It looked like some of the fey had tiny whirlwinds in their hands that they were throwing at the rock monsters, but obviously not.

  There was something wrong with my head.

  “They can’t hold their form too far off the ground,” Caedmon yelled, because he was back again, his long blond hair whipping around his face.

  I nodded.

  That explained why they hadn’t just formed upstairs to begin with.

  Good to know, I thought, dizzily.

  And then I blacked out, because there was something wrong with my head.

  * * *

  —

  I woke up on the kitchen table, screaming in pain. “Be still!” Caedmon said, holding my ankle and looking harassed.

  Normally, it would have been funny to see him with his shining fall of hair a frazzled mess, his shirt sleeves rolled up, and his face red.

  But not when his hands were red, too. Because it looked like I hadn’t been the first one on the table tonight, and wouldn’t be the last. There were several battered and bloody fey sitting on stools, their heads resting against walls or cabinets, as if they were too tired to hold them up. It looked like the manlikans hadn’t gone down without a fight.

  And then somebody else started screaming, and he sounded worse off than me.

  “I said, be still!” Caedmon snapped, but I barely heard him because it was back again, that terrible static that sounded like a swarm of bees.

  Angry bees.

  Angry stinging bees, inside my skull.

  Caedmon appeared in my vision, grabbing the sides of my head, saying something. It looked like it might be important, and felt like he was pouring power into me, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the bees. They were making my body jerk and strain from their constant stinging, dozens and then hundreds of them, all at once. I tried to read his lips, until my field of vision was overlaid with static, too, like an old-fashioned TV on the fritz, where sometimes you got a clear picture, and other times it was just snow.

  Stop it! I told myself. I’d had enough shocks for one day. I didn’t need my brain deciding to break a little more for no apparent reason.

  Only there was a reason; I could feel it.

  I just didn’t know what it was.

  And then I was screaming some more, because it hurt that bad.

  * * *

  —

  I awoke to light and pain and noise, which wasn’t unusual. And to a glowing being bending over me, holding my head between his hands, which was. I realized I was screaming and stopped, caught his shoulder and swung my legs off the side of a table before pushing him against some counters.

  He looked surprised, but not as much as I was.

  What . . . was he?

  It was hard to tell. He glowed so brightly that he was difficult to see. Liquid light, white-hot and yellow, outlined his body, and boiled through the middle in a shimmering dance of—

  Gah! I didn’t know. I couldn’t look directly at him, not for long, and even when I did it was useless. I’d never seen anything like him.

  I glanced to the side, quick flicks of the eyes, trying to see where I was, and so that he had no opportunity to break away. Not that he was trying. He was simply standing there, permitting the scrutiny, because he knew it didn’t matter.

  I couldn’t take him.

  The realization struck deep in my stomach, like a thudding blow. It had been a long time, a very long time, since I had felt outmatched. I could be bested by numbers or taken down by trickery. But sheer power, in one being?

  That . . . was rare. And even when I’d felt it, I’d never been sure of the outcome. Battle is fickle; the strongest doesn’t always win. A thousand things go into it: strategy, patience, experience, determination. The outcome was always in question—

  Until now.

  I couldn’t take him. I felt it resonate in my bones, with an assurance it had never had before, felt my lips pull back from my teeth, in anger and denial. What was he?

  Not alone, I thought, because there were others in the room. Scattered about, all of them tense, unhappy, wary. And glowing softly in my mental landscape.

  Fey.

  They were wounded but on their feet, with weapons out, despite the fact that one could barely hold a knife. He was shaking, imperceptible to a human, but I saw. Ready to fall with barely a strike. But the others were combat ready, despite their wounds, and still more ran through the door.

  These were almost untouched, with only a few cuts and bruises that showed up as dark patches in my mind, not even enough to slow them down. But it didn’t matter. They weren’t attacking. They were looking to the one I held for guidance, as if they weren’t sure what to do.

  And for the first time in a long time, neither was I.

  “One of my people is injured,” the creature told me. “Will you let us help him?”

  The request was quiet, measured, calm. The blinding energy of a moment ago was gone, drawing back inside him. He looked like a fey, I realized.

  He wasn’t one.

  But he wasn’t attacking, either, and he’d drawn his power down. I hesitated, feeling strangely off-balance. He wasn’t even looking at me now, but at something behind me, near the door to the outside.

  Where a fey lay on the floor, I realized, arching up in pain and screaming.

  I didn’t know why. There were no wounds of consequence on this one. He seemed to be—

  And then I understood, when something hit me, too, like a wave of acid.

  * * *

  —

  It hurt—God, it hurt—like nothing I’d ever felt before. And that was saying something, I thought, staggering against the counter. Caedmon was there, grabbing me before I hit the floor, holding on while I writhed and screamed. I wasn’t usually the screaming type; I’d trained myself out of it years ago, because it doesn’t up your chances of survival if you broadcast to the enemy both the fact that you’re wounded and exactly where you are.

  But this time, I couldn’t seem to stop.

  And then it cut out, as abruptly as it had come, leaving me panting and bent over. And then straightening up and staring wildly about, knife in hand. But all I saw were confused-looking fey.

  “Dory?” Caedmon said carefully, concern in his voice, because yeah. I was acting crazy.

  With good reason, I thought, still trying to spot the attacker.

  Because there was one. Something the fey had missed. Something I had missed.

  “Someone’s here,” I heard myself say, and it was my voice, but lower, deadlier, almost unrecognizable. I saw a nearby guard’s eye twitch, ’cause yeah. Not bored anymore, huh?

  Neither was I.

  “Dory.” That was Claire, getting up from where she’d been kneeling by a fey. Soini, I thought, recognizing the baby fey, who didn’t look like he was enjoying his vacation, all of a sudden. He was white-faced and panting, and looking like I felt. For a moment, we just stared at each other.

  And then Claire was touching my arm, and the cool feel of her power was swamping me, trying to soothe, to help—

  “No!” I jerked back. That wasn’t the kind of help I needed.

  * * *

  —

  I flinched, suddenly back in control, but I hadn’t been for a moment. I knew that, even though it felt like no time had passed, because there was a knife in my hand, and I was suddenly in a different position. It was disconcerting, confusing. I took control and kept it until the job was done. I didn’t slip like that; I never slipped!

  My back hit the counter and I snarled, my eyes flicking around the room, trying to assess the threat. But for the first time in memory, I couldn’t do it. Not for all of the ones right in front of me, the ones I could see.

  Much
less the one I couldn’t.

  The one that was sending waves of excruciating pain that were causing my brain to malfunction. Or to switch consciousnesses in a desperate attempt to ward it off, I realized. Flipping between me and my twin whenever one of us became overwhelmed.

  Which was happening every few minutes now, and I didn’t even know what I was fighting!

  “Dory—”

  That was the woman called Claire, my twin’s friend. She was standing nearby, beside the fallen fey. There were several more fey behind her, well armed and outside her field of vision, but she didn’t seem to care. Perhaps she didn’t have to be careful; she was powerful, too. I could see them, the eyes behind the eyes, staring out at me, curious, wary, strange.

  But not afraid.

  Like I was, I suddenly realized.

  And blinked at the shock of it.

  I was afraid, and with cause. I could take the fey; I could possibly even take the dangerous creature staring at me from behind Claire’s eyes, should it choose to attack. I could not take the glowing one. And I could not even see the other to assess its power.

  But I could feel it building. A pervasive heaviness in the air, an electric frisson up my spine, a metallic taste in my mouth—not like blood, but like I was biting onto a sheet of metal, chewing on foil. It made my teeth hurt and my brain ache and it seemed to be coming from everywhere, all directions at once.

  I’d never felt anything like it.

  I realized that there was a sound issuing from my lips, and it was unfamiliar, too. Pained, fearful, dangerous. Like an animal that knows it is beaten, but will fight to the death anyway. We might die, but it would be with our teeth buried in someone’s throat!

  And then the attack increased, and I screamed, screamed as I never had, my brain feeling like it would explode in my head.

  * * *

  —

  “What is happening?” Claire screamed, although I could barely hear her. Because other people were screaming, too: Soini, on the floor, convulsing like his spine would break, and someone else—

  I abruptly realized it was me.

  I cut it off, breathing heavily, and mentally slapped myself.

  Get a grip!

  “Dory?” That was Caedmon, while Claire stared at me, her eyes wide. And then she snapped orders at the fey, who rushed to help hold Soini while she forced some black, horrible-smelling draught down his throat.

  It must have tasted as bad as it smelled, because he fought it, but she won. And it seemed to do him good. It knocked him out, almost instantly, and I watched the long body relax into sleep.

  “I have more,” she told me, looking up, but I shook my head.

  “Dory. Who is here?” Caedmon asked, his hand on his sword hilt.

  “I don’t know.” I sounded hoarse, probably from all the screaming. I shook myself and started moving around the room, searching for some hint, some glimpse. Which would have been easier if I knew what I was looking for.

  And if the static would stop and let me think!

  The static.

  “This way.” I still didn’t know what was going on, but I knew that every time I got closer to the door to the hall, even by a single step, the static grew worse. Whatever this was, it didn’t want me out there. And that meant—

  And then I was running, slamming through the door, my newly healed ankle throbbing, my heart pounding. Because I’d held the stairs, somehow, against every advance, but there was no one on them now. Just pockmarked holes trying to heal, all other signs of the battle scoured clean, even the usual layer of dust still gone. Leaving an open path, straight up to—

  I hit the stairs, practically flying, and was knocked back by a wave of pain so breathtaking it was like a physical blow. And the annoying static in front of my eyes was suddenly a blizzard. It would have stopped me, all on its own, except that I knew this place so well I could have navigated it blind.

  Which I almost was by the time we reached the second floor, where Olga’s snores—and how the hell had she slept through all that?—echoed strangely in my distorted senses. They were as loud as a freight train one second, and almost silent the next. Like the corridor flickering in and out of view.

  “It’s here,” I said, and it was a growl that time, full-on and feral.

  “Check them!” Caedmon snapped, and I felt rather than saw guards stream by me. I heard Olga’s snores pause, and then continue, and a fey call out that they couldn’t wake her. Heard people tearing through my and Claire’s rooms, careless in their hurry. Something shattered against the floor, knocked off by an untucked elbow, but there were no warning cries.

  They hadn’t found it yet.

  And then someone yelled, and I sprang forward, only to be hit by an avalanche of agony, all at once. It was staggering—literally, I would have fallen if someone hadn’t grabbed me. And excruciating, leaving me writhing in that someone’s arms for a second. But only a second, because the shouts were coming from the boys’ room.

  “Let me go!” I snarled, and tore away, into a blizzard of static and pain and noise.

  That suddenly cut out, all at once, as soon as I crossed the threshold. It left me gasping and staring around: at Aiden, huddled against a wall, blue eyes wide and terrified; at Stinky, standing protectively in front of him, a toy sword clutched in his fist; at Gessa, slumped on the floor, unmoving.

  And at Ymsi, blood smeared and dazed looking, standing over the small troll.

  Who was still in the trundle, his eyes closed, his face almost peaceful.

  Except for the dagger sticking out of his heart.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The assassin was quick, but I was quicker. Tearing loose from my twin and soaring into the air, right on its tail. And then following as it fled the house and headed for its avatar, the one who couldn’t pass through the wards like it could, a dark figure I spied waiting beside a car down the street for its master to return.

  But its master couldn’t risk that, not when we were still too close to the house, and to the dangerous creatures inside. Like the fey king, who had just caught my twin before she hit the floor. Or the two-natured one, who had run into the room to kneel by the troll girl, and start snapping orders. Or the sobbing man-child, currently weighed down under a mass of Light Fey, debilitated more by what had just happened than by anything they were doing.

  Because the force required to commandeer a mind against its own wishes was damaging, both to the host and to the attacker, leaving them weakened and vulnerable.

  Like the murderer was now.

  So, no, it couldn’t go back.

  It also couldn’t communicate with its avatar, not in free flight, which is limiting in almost every way. I could return and warn those in the house, could send someone after him. But that would take time, and I would lose the more dangerous enemy in the process.

  The one that flitted ahead of me, just out of reach, not faster than me but more experienced, and far more panicked.

  It knew it was weakened, knew a hunter like itself was on its trail, knew it had to get away—

  But it hadn’t expected this. No, no, it had not. It had known about the boy, the one they called Soini, and had sent the terrible static to hurt and sideline him. But it had not known there was another of us.

  It had not known about me.

  It did now.

  And it had made no preparations for this. Without its avatar, it had only free flight, and that would not spare it long. Will you risk it? I wondered. Risk the great void, the nothingness of a scattered consciousness, the death that is more than death? Because the body could come back, in so many ways, but the mind . . .

  Once lost it was lost forever, and no, it wasn’t willing to risk that. Was terrified of it. So terrified that it wasn’t waiting for the designated avatar to realize that something had gone wrong and catch up to it.

&
nbsp; Instead, it was taking another.

  A bird suddenly burst out of a tree, startled out of its nightly rest by the demands of a strange mind. Wild of eye and swift of wing, it almost flew through me. And then darted off, eating up the sky and rapidly increasing the distance between us.

  So, it was a race. And one I wouldn’t win, because I didn’t have the enemy’s experience on my side. I could take avatars by force as well, but it was exhausting, a constant battle. My strength would fail, and fail quickly, and I would lose my prey.

  I needed a willing host.

  So I woke Dory as I never had, as I never could, before now. And sent images, feelings, the uncertainty that gripped me. Allowing her to make the choice.

  A split second later, she was sitting up, staring about. And then bolting out of the king’s arms and down the stairs, grabbing something from a pegboard before bursting through the kitchen door. The king was on her heels, asking questions she ignored. She ran instead for a vehicle parked alongside the house and jumped in, the king beside her. And then the car was roaring down the road, barely missing the shadowy avatar that she didn’t care about any more than I did.

  We were after bigger prey.

  So, it was a race, then.

  I found a bird of my own, a falcon, and with its help soared up into the crisp cool air of a rain-strewn evening, the moon bright overhead, even in the midst of boiling clouds.

  And tore after the enemy.

  It wasn’t easy. The creature might have been weakened, but it was experienced, breathtakingly so. It led me through a bewildering succession of avatars, grabbing a new one whenever the old tired and slowed, as easily as a human would change clothes. First several birds, then a deer, then a woman in a car who veered and swerved all over the road for a moment before the murderer released her. Because, when you take complete control, the avatar’s mind can’t help you.