Blood Mage 3

by Logan Jacobs

  And the funny thing was, I wasn’t nearly as terrified as I thought I’d be.

  A strange sense of calm came over me as I realized just how close I was to fulfilling the prophecy and my destiny.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I woke up to the soft sound of scratching near my head. The moonlight above us had given way to the soft orange glow of early day, and the stars had disappeared. I rolled over as the scratching continued and found Edora crouched a few feet away.

  The Unseelie’s blue eyes were deep in thought as she scratched a thin, pale finger along the hard dirt of the tunnel floor. Everyone else was still asleep, so I cautiously rose, walked over to the Fae, and sat down next to her.

  I wasn’t totally sure what to make of the Unseelie yet. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she was on our side and wanted the Phobos gone just as much as we did. No one would be stupid enough to come on this dangerous, and possibly deadly mission, if they weren’t. But she was also extremely abrasive, even for a Fae. I knew they didn’t operate on an emotional level the way I, or any other human did, but the Unseelie seemed to have less compassion than the Seelie Fae, even.

  Admittedly, she was still hot as hell. Even when she said something borderline rude, it was impossible for me not to find her golden eyes seductive, and she oozed sex with every single thing she did. Worst of all? I knew she found me just as attractive.

  “You don’t have dirt in the forest?” I joked as I sat down.

  Edora frowned at me and narrowed her golden eyes for a moment before her expression softened and she shook her head. “Nope, I’m completely deprived of it,” she whispered back, and I let my jaw drop open dramatically.

  “She jokes!” I laughed and earned a half smile from the beautiful Unseelie.

  “She does,” she responded with a light laugh that was almost girlish. “I’ve got some other tricks, too, if you ever want to see them.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” I said as a goofy grin spread across my face.

  I paused for a second as Edora quirked an eyebrow at me and lowered her luscious lashes seductively. Her finger had stopped scratching at the dirt, and now her hand was so close to my knee I could feel the heat that radiated off it. Then, gently and carefully, she swept her fingers forward and brushed them along my kneecap tenderly, and I suddenly got the sense she was nervous.

  I felt the trail of goosebumps on my leg that rose along the path of her fingers, and I watched her delicate face carefully. She had an inquisitive expression on her features, almost like she recorded every miniscule movement I made and stored it away for later.

  “Kiss her already!” I suddenly heard Kalista’s voice chuckle, and Edora and I jumped apart.

  A deep purple blush rose into her cheeks, and she lowered those beautiful golden eyes so far down I couldn’t see them anymore. The Unseelie turned her face away from me and stood up as I whipped around to face the dwarf, who had a sappy, doe eyed expression on her face.

  “That was so cute,” Kal sighed. “Edora and Milton, sitting in a tree!”

  “You have terrible timing,” I teased the dwarf. “If you’d only been asleep for another hour or so.”

  Edora gasped. “A whole hour?” she said as she bit her lip. “You really should have stayed asleep, Kal.”

  “Hey, I’m TV starved here, I needed some sort of entertainment,” the dwarf pointed out as Maaren started to stretch and move.

  “TV kills your brain cells,” the hunter mumbled sleepily. “You know you’re not supposed to watch more than an hour a day, right?”

  “That’s okay.” Kalista shrugged. “I’ve got plenty of brain cells. And if that’s the sacrifice I have to make to watch Captain Formug every week, I’ll gladly do it. Dude’s got abs like a freaking washboard!”

  “So does Milton,” Maaren giggled and winked at me as she bit on her bottom lip.

  It seemed everyone was in the mood for romance this morning.

  “Good point,” I agreed. “And you can see these any time you want, Kal. So much better than a one hour TV show.”

  The dwarf didn’t argue, and her violet eyes trailed from my face down to where my shirt hid my abs from view, and back again. When they met mine once more, there was an intense hunger in them.

  “I’ll remember that,” the dwarf said seriously. “So, are we going to go kill some Phobos today, or are we gonna turn this tunnel into a tunnel of love?”

  “Not kill, completely destroy,” Maaren corrected her excitedly. “And then go home and take a nice, hot bath.”

  “With Milton.” Kal added seductively.

  “And eat cake,” Ariette groaned as she sat up and cracked her back. Her blonde hair was mussed with sleep and stuck out at a few odd angles that gave her a total crazy scientist vibe.

  “Nice hair,” I teased.

  The blonde’s hands instantly went to her head, and she tried to pat the mess down. She kept at it for a few minutes before she finally gave up and tied it into a messy bun on her head.

  “It’s the newest style,” she shot back with a smile.

  “That is why you keep it short,” Danira grunted, fully awake now too. “You never have to worry about messy hair.”

  “I think I’ll keep my long, luscious locks, thank you,” Ariette replied, only half joking. “So, now that we’ve gotten a full eight hours, is everybody ready?”

  “To venture into the nether realm, into a place no Seelie Fae has gone in centuries because it is so terribly dangerous?” Kalista asked. “Danger is my middle name. Hell yeah I’m ready!”

  “Thanks, Kal.” The elf shook her head with a light laugh and slung her backpack over one shoulder and turned to face me. “Well, Racmoth, what do you say?”

  I paused for what felt like a very long moment as I looked around at the faces of the women in front of me. Just over a month ago, I hadn’t even known their names. Hell, I hadn’t had magic a month ago. And now, here I was with a heart full of love for each one of them, about to lead them into an entirely different realm on a death-defying mission to save the universe. They had put every ounce of trust they had into me, the Racmoth, to lead them. My heart swelled with a surge of emotion, and I promised myself every single woman here would come home with me.

  “I say,” I started, my voice strong, “let’s go save the world.”

  “I can send everyone up one at a time through the hole,” Maaren said as she stood under it to examine our exit.

  “Hey guys, just a warning,” Edora piped up, “the nether realm works differently than yours does. It’s less … predictable. Just keep that in mind.”

  “Less predictable,” I murmured to myself. “Like how?”

  “You ever been eaten by a plant?” she asked. “Or had your magic sucked out by a very cute looking bird?”

  “Uh, no,” I muttered.

  “Welcome to the nether realm,” the Unseelie chuckled. “Where all of that is possible if you don’t know what you’re doing. Oh, and sometimes your magic just won’t work. We call it ‘kaputsmagic.’”

  “Great,” I smiled sarcastically. “A bout of kaputsmagic is just what we need.”

  “I’ll just make sure the coast is clear,” Maaren grunted, and then she rose in the air until she could peek her head up through the hole in the ceiling. Her torso disappeared, as did most of the orange sunlight, for a brief moment, and then she floated back down to the ground with a shocked expression on her face.

  “What’s that look for?” Kal asked, slightly suspiciously. The dwarf hopped up and down uselessly as she tried to get a look into the hole that was at least five feet above her head.

  “Just wait until you see,” Maaren breathed in amazement. “Words can’t describe it.”

  I took a few steps until I had placed myself directly under the hole in the tunnel ceiling. The sun cast a warm light around me, and all I could see were bright golden rays and an extremely clear blue sky that was more saturated than any sky I’d ever seen before. I inhaled deeply and straightened my spine
as I turned to Maaren.

  Then I grinned at the hunter. “Beam me up, Scotty.”

  Maaren rolled her bright green eyes at me as she lifted her Hand up, and I felt the little pulses of air beneath my feet as I rose slowly.

  “Who’s Scotty?” Edora hissed at Maaren. “What the hell is he talking about?”

  “It’s an old human show,” the hunter replied with a giggle. “I’ll show it to you sometime.”

  “Who’s rotting brain cells now, huh?” Kal laughed.

  I tilted my face up to the warm golden sunlight that met me as I ascended through the dirt and rock. The hole was actually more like a long tube that went about ten or twelve feet through the side of the mountain, and I was surrounded by it for a brief moment. When I was about halfway to the top of the hole, I felt a strange shift in the air around me, almost like I had a fan blowing frigid air directly onto my face. I shivered as my entire body went cold, and for a second or two, I worried I was going to freeze to death.

  But just as quickly, the sensation passed, and I was acutely aware of a change in the very molecules of the air around me. It felt like the air was heavier, almost like humidity without the dampness. The sky seemed brighter now, and the warm orange rays of the sun had changed to an almost fiery red that beat down on my body and caused me to sweat profusely. Finally, my head broke through the top of the hole, and I gasped at the sight before me.

  The first thing that hit me was the intense brightness and richness in the colors around me. The colors were so highly saturated it seemed like I was living in an artist’s famous painting. The green of the grass in front of me was a rich emerald, the likes of which I had never seen before, and it was so bright it almost felt like I was in a dream. But there was none of that weird fuzziness that came with a dream.

  Nothing before me looked familiar at all, at least, not like anything that could possibly grow in our realm. The first thing I noticed was the grass. The blades were long and skinny, like compressed cat grass, and had such a bright emerald hue that it looked like polished stones had been shrunk and twisted into the shape of grass and planted in the dirt. It waved and swirled in the light, warm breeze that blew across the realm and whispered through my hair like a gentle caress.

  None of the plants looked at all familiar, nor did they look like something that could possibly be natural. They all had vibrant colors that spanned the rainbow, and were nothing like the dull browns and greens I was so used to seeing. Some plants were fuschia, some plants were a brilliant blue, and some plants were even striped like someone had come along and painted them. The plants crept over each other and crowded the space like some strange, otherworldly jungle. There was an enormous bush with branches that were a bright magenta and leaves as purple as a gemstone.

  I took a step forward and ran my finger delicately across the leaves on the bush, and it almost seemed to wince under my touch. The moment my hand left the plant, it shook itself off like a wet dog and pulled its roots up from the ground.

  “What the fuck?” I breathed as I leapt backward.

  I watched in awe as two huge roots pulled out of the ground and turned into something that resembled feet as the bush quite literally walked away.

  The traveling bush had left a small empty space in the grass, but it wasn’t empty for long. The bright red dirt underneath quickly roiled and shifted as a tiny mound formed, and then a perfectly white flower popped up from the ground. Its petals formed a circle around a bright yellow center and waved in the breeze like hair.

  I looked up and noticed there were also trees scattered about the jungle in front of me, and they must have stood at least eighty feet tall. They were tall and skinny like a palm tree, but with bark that was striped a bright blue and orange, and deep black leaves that reminded me of midnight with a new moon. I craned my neck as I stared up at them, and to my surprise, one of them bent over and tipped its top down as if it, too, examined me.

  The nether realm itself must have been alive.

  As I stared back at this tree and tried to wrap my head around this wondrously terrifying new place, I heard a rustle in the plants not too far from me.

  “Milton, back up,” Edora suddenly warned from behind me.

  I turned to see the Unseelie’s eyes were also fixated on the source of the sound, but her expression was unsure. I did as she asked, but kept my eyes on the forest as the sound grew closer and louder. Finally, a creature emerged.

  The biggest rabbit I had ever seen in my entire life hopped out from under the yellow foliage. It was at least the size of a pitbull, and had fur such a bright, iridescent blue that it could have blended right into the sky. The only thing that would have given it away were the dark blue, glittery spots that dotted its back. It’s eyes were the same emerald green as the grass, and it hopped rather slowly as it lazily sniffed the ground.

  “What is that?” I muttered to the Unseelie, but she just shook her head and put her finger to her lips in the universal gesture for “be quiet.”

  It was too late, though, and I quickly saw why her warning was important. The rabbit’s head whipped toward us, and all of a sudden, its bright green eyes darkened and changed color until they were a terrifying blood red. The beast snarled at us with teeth so huge and sharp they could have come from a lion and then, with no warning, it bounded toward us. As it ran, claws sprung from its front paws as it leapt up into the air and aimed for my throat.

  Edora was too quick and well prepared. The moment the rabbit hit the top of its arch, she swung her axe and chopped off its head with an ear splitting crunch.

  Bright blue blood splattered against my face and left a warm trail as it dripped down onto my shirt.

  At this point, every item of clothing I wore was covered in blood of some sort. I guessed that just came with the whole “saving the world” thing.

  The rabbit’s head bounced along the ground and rolled under the magenta bush, which shook itself angrily once again, pulled up its roots, and stomped off to a new location deeper in the jungle.

  “Welcome to the nether realm,” Edora said breathlessly as she turned to me and grinned.

  “Well, Kal, it looks like we can eat rabbit after all,” Maaren called out from behind us. She had already brought everyone else up, and they must have seen the display.

  “That’s not a rabbit,” the dwarf wailed. “And I’m definitely not eating it.”

  “It’s called a Brimbee,” Edora corrected her. “And trust me when I say that is possibly the least terrifying thing around here.”

  “She’s not joking,” Maaren sighed. “I forgot how weird this place is.” The hunter gaze around the jungle like she looked at an old friend whose presence was far less than welcome.

  “Yeahhh,” Ariette agreed, her face skeptical. “This is not what I expected. Like at all. It seems almost … I don’t know, nice?”

  “Don’t let the surface stuff fool you, this place is as dangerous as it gets,” Edora warned.

  “How fun,” I chuckled sarcastically.

  Though I was joking around, I did check my gun in my holster and made sure it was readily available. I wasn’t going to be surprised by another dangerous animal again.

  “Let’s go,” Edora grunted and turned to walk along the edge of the jungle.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” Danira asked curiously at the Unseelie’s purposeful stride.

  “Yep.” She nodded. “To the Unseelie city. They took it over when they forced us out of here. And the path should be right about … here!” She stopped about twenty feet down from us and turned to face the jungle triumphantly.

  We all hurried to meet her and see what she had found. Every single one of us had our hands on our weapons. Ariette and Maaren had drawn theirs and held them aloft, ready to swipe at anything that crossed their path. I took one last look at the dead carcass of the Brimbee and turned to follow Edora’s gaze.

  There was a path carved into the bright red dirt in front of us, and it curved and twisted through th
e jungle plants until we couldn’t see it anymore and it was shrouded in darkness. The plants dipped and swayed as the breeze ran through them, and sometimes it shook a little bit. I couldn’t tell if those plants were alive and moved of their own accord, or if some dangerous animal lurked in the depths and laid in wait for us.

  Either way, we didn’t have much of a choice.

  “Shall we?” Kalista asked casually as she marched ahead.

  “Stay on the path, guys, don’t venture out into the jungle,” Edora warned as she followed the dwarf.

  “Wasn’t planning on it,” Maaren muttered. “That’s like, survival one-oh-one.”

  “Why?” Kal piped up. “Are we going to run into more terrifying bunnies?”

  “Possibly,” Maaren replied. “Or a banshee, which can kill you with a single scream. Medusa wanders around the forest, too. She’ll turn you to stone. There are penanggalans, which--”

  “I think I got it, thanks,” Kalista rasped out in a small voice. “Path equals life, and forest equals death.”

  “I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Maaren laughed.

  We lined up and began to follow each other single file on the narrow red path. As the plants surrounded us, I realized the nether realm didn’t even smell real. Instead of the usual earthy scents I was used to, the heavy aroma of vanilla and citrus hung in the air, as if somebody had come through and sprayed cheap perfume through the air just moments ago. I kept my eyes and ears peeled for any sort of movement as we trodded along down the path.

  It struck me, as I walked along and stared at the brightly striped trees that towered above us, how strange it was that the nether realm was so bright and beautiful. The sun was brighter, the colors were brighter, and everything was so much nicer to look at, and yet it was insanely dangerous and terrifying. But the Valley of Light, which was supposed to be a stronghold of good and a tribute to the heroes of the past, was dark and terrifying. It must have just been one of the dark ironies of the Fae world. It really was true, not everything that glittered was gold.