Queen of Skye and Shadow complete box set : Queen of Skye and Shadow Omnibus books 1-3

by Thea Atkinson

  I lifted the small thing and headed back to the door. I said my goodbyes to the place I'd lived as a kid. I almost felt the specters of a dozen men climbing over the ruined walls of my secret room and float off into the bracken of my psyche.

  I was leaving the place again, but this time I wasn't coming back.

  I shifted the table in my hands, re-balancing as I considered kicking the door open instead of setting the the table down to grip the doorknob.

  I shrugged. What did it matter? I wasn't coming back. The place held nothing for me anymore.

  Decision made, I threw all my weight behind the kick and the door flew open.

  The table dropped from my hands with a clatter to the floor.

  I stumbled backward into the house, scrabbling for a weapon of some sort.

  Because there, standing as tall as my shoulder, with eyes that glowed red and teeth bared in a feral smile, was a beast bigger than a dire wolf. Trails of blood drooled from its mouth and fell into a sizzling puddle on the step.

  The thing that had been plaguing my steps with dead animals. Had to be.

  It lifted its snout to the air and let go a howl that raised every hair on my body.

  Then it advanced.

  <<>>

  Sword of Justice

  -1-

  A gopher, a feral pig, and a bear all walk up to a woman's doorstep and die there.

  It could have been the start of a bad old world joke except those things hadn't just walked up to my doorstep and died at all; they'd been killed and dragged there. And I found nothing funny about discovering dead things on my doorstep three times in one day.

  But that had been almost a week ago, and while I hadn't exactly forgotten that it had happened, I had been occupied by other, more pressing matters: fighting a nasty fire set by Hunter's band past the hogbacks, fighting his Rubies to save the town, blowing up the old mine shafts so they couldn't ambush us.

  Pretty damn busy. Pretty damn preoccupied.

  And exactly what had I come back here for anyway? An old chair, a tea table. An old China cup? Those things were part of a world long gone. What did I need them for except that I held onto the nostalgia of it.

  It was simple: I'd returned for them because I didn't want to leave behind the only things left of my grandmother just because I'd agreed to lead the town and live within the limits instead of out here a twenty minute walk from the nearest house.

  I'd agreed to move within town limits because the residents wanted me close. Or so Lance had said. He and Marlin had urged me to do so and I'd given in and taken the Musk estate like they wanted because I thought it was the right thing to do.

  But coming back here to retrieve things that had no intrinsic value except a few memories didn't seem like that big a deal at the time. I'd wanted those things and I'd not given much thought to those dead animals on my doorstep. It had been days ago. It had been an anomaly.

  I'd no doubt killed any man already that thought he was terrifying me with them.

  But the fact that it had not been a man leaving them was painfully obvious now.

  Because now I remembered the shrieks that rent the air while we fought that fire. I remembered Sadie saying she and her ponies had been stalked during their rides.

  And the coup de grace was the sleek, almost cat-like beast that stood on my doorstep now.

  Yup. Sometimes it takes me a while to put two and two together. Especially if I was tired. But it shouldn't have been that tough to do the math. The signs were all there.

  Especially since it had already begun to advance on me from the other side of the door.

  It had tired of leaving me threats finally and had come out in the open, standing right on my step, a thing as high as my shoulder.

  Eyes that made me think it had nothing but burning coals in its eye sockets pinned to mine. Blood dripped from its jowls and sizzled when it hit the floor.

  It lifted one front paw, and sniffing the air, it crossed the threshold toward me and stalked into the room.

  I knew I shouldn't hold its gaze. It was a predator. It would trigger the instinct to strike.

  It took every bit of courage I had to drop my gaze. Slowly at first, for each step the beast took toward me in methodical, predatory movements, my feet shuffled backward.

  I couldn't pivot and run.

  I wanted to. Desperately.

  Every bit of DNA and each molecule and atom, every spark in every bit of tissue that regenerated cells wanted to run like a tornado scraping rocks from the ground and hurling them out of its vortex.

  I knew if I did run, I would be dead before I took another breath.

  I didn't dare take my eyes off the thing, but I tried so hard not to look it in the eye. Show confidence, but not too much. Show respect, but not fear.

  The practiced, methodical part of my mind worked and reworked that knowledge in the space of a heartbeat, reminding me of the consequences for each inch I progressed backwards.

  The warrior mind tried to assess the threat, take it in, find a weakness, attack.

  But there was no attack in me. The very idea of it left my knees weak and my stomach knotted. Whatever that thing was that moved on me so silently it might be smoke, I knew there was nothing in my grandmother's house capable of bringing it down.

  And if there were, I'd still have to reach it, and find the strength within to throw myself headlong into the task, knowing I might not live through it.

  Attack had to be a last resort only.

  I barely breathed. I vaguely felt the confines of the house closing in around me. If it got all the way in, there'd be nowhere for me to go. If it didn't get in, I couldn't rush for the door and slam it shut, trapping the beast within.

  Two, equally terrifying possibilities. Two equally impossible choices.

  I ran my gaze over its hide, trying to figure out what the hell it was. Not a dire wolf. It didn't have the right heftiness even if it did have the jowls. Its fur was so short it looked like nothing more than the fuzz on a peach. The mane of black fur on its scruff was one shade darker than its pelt.

  I'd never seen anything like it. I had nothing to reference it to.

  Try as I might, there was no weakness to seize upon.

  It was power and fear all rolled into one.

  I had to swallow down a sudden rise of bile when it raised its head and lifted its lips back to curl over its snout. Black gums. Rotted and coated teeth. Breath that smelled of decay, hot and fetid, washed over my face.

  I barely dared inhale.

  Its long, catlike tail whipped up behind its haunches. I watched its skin shiver backward over its body the way a snake's skin undulates as it moves over the ground. This was the moment. This was the instant of no return.

  It was loading up the springs in its haunches to leap at me.

  It filled the whole damn door frame and I had nowhere to go to get out of range of those massive legs.

  Were those nails five inches long?

  Its eyes gleamed and landed on me. Caught my gaze and held me, pinned, not necessarily mesmerized by them, but caught in a sort of paralysis that had everything to do with pure terror.

  They were demanding eyes. An ocular weapon that made me think that anything they regarded didn't live out three minutes past looking into them.

  There was intelligence in those eyes. A question posed without words.

  "Good doggie?" I whispered.

  Not the right words, obviously. I knew it the moment my ears heard them.

  In response, the beast squatted backwards for all of the three seconds it took to finally load those massive muscles. My own feet finally unglued from the floor and I staggered backwards, my arms raising in front of me in instinctive defense.

  It leapt.

  I screamed.

  The beast dissolved to smoke, and the stink of sulfur wafted over me before I could even get my hands in front of my face.

  I was aware that my breath was coming in gasps. The seat of my pants felt w
et and warm.

  I didn't give a flying fuck. I was alive.

  For the moment.

  The black, brackish wind curled around me, wrapping me like a satin gown. It lifted ceiling-ward, pulling my hair up with it. My chin tilted toward it, unbidden, as though a lover's fingers urged me in a kiss.

  Those eyes were above me. They glowed down at me for several seconds while I struggled to breathe and coughed and wheezed as the smoke moved as though a gentle breeze played with it.

  It released me with a playful tug of my hair and re-assembled in the middle of my kitchen. The coal fire burn of its gaze never left my face.

  I side-stepped, slowly, methodically, toward the door.

  The door slammed shut behind me, trapping me inside with the thing.

  Magic. Black as hell magic and just as frightening.

  "No offense," I said with as little inflection or tone as I could manage, "but I don't feel like playing fetch."

  It cocked its head at me the way a dog might.

  "You can have the house," I said. "I'm done with it." I held up my hands as though to surrender.

  It bared its teeth at me. Long, razor sharp teeth that I immediately envisioned tearing into the feral pig I'd dragged and buried in a cairn a few hundred yards from my property.

  I nearly fainted as the image came alive in seething, bloody color.

  Could I yank open the door without pissing it off? Could I manage to bolt out and slam it before it leapt at me again, this time, embedding those claws and teeth in my back?

  I wasn't sure, but I was pretty certain that if I stayed where I was, I increased the odds of it happening anyway.

  I blew air from pursed lips, bracing myself. I had one chance and I had to make it good.

  Never losing sight of the beast, I reached behind my back and felt around until my fingers met the knob. My fist clenched around the handle.

  I twisted. The mechanism inside the lock clicked.

  I almost sobbed in relief but I bit it off by clamping my lips shut tight.

  I eased the door open, slowly, no sudden movements, praying it would find no resistance, that the magic the beast had sent into the door would release it.

  It swung open. Thank God, it swung into the house and it wasn't at full swing before I lunged for the porch with every ounce of energy I had left.

  When I pulled the door shut behind me, it was with a yank so hard the windows shook.

  Once outside, I took one second to orient myself. I was safe. Nothing broken. No searing pain in my back to indicate it had swiped those jagged claws into my skin as I'd fled.

  I felt nothing but the coolness of the air as it raised goose pimples on my neck.

  For now. Best I not dally.

  In fact, best I get the hell out of there. Like yesterday.

  The wagon waited exactly where I'd left it. The makeshift ramp still hung from the back, propped against the turf at the bottom and jutting out above the boards at the top. I knew the bow and arrow Lance had made for me was lying on the seat and somewhere beneath a bunch of blankets Excalibur rested in its scabbard.

  I needed them. At least one of them. If that thing came through the door at me...

  I had to get to the wagon.

  My legs felt like they had been just sewn on that morning. I moved awkwardly at first, forcing one foot in front of the other, then they came to life so fast, I skidded to the back of the wagon. I pushed aside the ramp and it fell free with a thud to the ground. The recliner chair lay on its side in the wagon bed. I could make out the worn spot where my Nan had patched it. I thought of Lance sitting in it, pulling the lever and startling himself when the noise sounded like the chair was breaking from beneath him.

  Good memories, those. And I'd think of them fondly as I rocked in that recliner if I ever got my ass out of there in one piece. I'd gotten what I came for and I didn't think I'd ever need to come back.

  Except my grandmother's table was still inside.

  I wanted that as much as I wanted the chair. I'd gone back for it, I wanted it that much.

  But the monster. I'd be a fool to face it again.

  Right?

  "Fuck it," I said.

  That was my Nan's house. That was her table. Her kitchen.

  I'd be damned if I'd let some monster soil her floor with sizzling, viscous blood any more than I was going to let the thing relieve itself in there.

  And I wanted that damn table.

  I ran headlong for the front of the wagon and glared at the workhorse that hadn't so much as whinnied its fear at the arrival of a beast scary enough to make me wet myself.

  "Useless," I muttered to it as I stretched across the bench to reach for one of the weapons.

  My pants stuck in places and felt clammy.

  "Damned thing," I said, not sure I was complaining about the pants, the bow, or the beast inside, I just knew I sure as hell wasn't going to go back in there without some kind of insurance.

  My hand wrapped around the bow.

  I hefted it, considering its weight. It was spelled and wouldn't miss its mark. All I had to do was aim it at the target.

  "Quiver, quiver, quiver," I said, as I rummaged for the arrows. I'd put it right next to the bow. After the episode with the dire wolf, I vowed never to be without a weapon again. And here I was letting myself get all complacent because I wasn't alone anymore. I had folks. Knights, even. Warriors and people who cared.

  Apparently, nostalgia wasn't the only thing that made me weak.

  A high-pitched growl came from inside the house, something between a scream of agony and of fury, the kind I'd heard out in the fields when we were fighting the fire and Marlin had said he'd heard the sound once before. Why hadn't I pressed him to tell me what it was after everything was over?

  I eyed the bow and decided it might not be enough. That thing was pretty nasty looking.

  I slung the bow over my shoulder along with the quiver when it met my hand, then I unwrapped Excalibur.

  If I was going in, I was going in with everything I had.

  -2-

  I gave the door one mighty kick, hard enough that my knee felt the shock of the impact. The wood must have been starting to rot because it flew open so fast it left me staring at the open frame for a full heartbeat before I realized I'd managed it.

  I knew the layout of my grandmother's house well enough that I could pull a mental image of everything within to great detail. I knew where her cookie jar was, and I knew the well worn path across the kitchen floor out toward the back outbuildings. I remembered exactly where the beast had last been. I remembered its orientation in relation to the counter and the rickety wooden chairs.

  There was no way that feral thing was going to be in the same spot, waiting for me, but it was the best reference point to begin with.

  So when the door flew open, my eyes went to that place right away.

  Nothing.

  I scanned left then right.

  Nothing.

  I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. Excalibur felt slippery with sweat in my right hand, and I could feel a sort of electrical hum running through my fingers as its magic sparked. The sword was an extension of my arm. I barely felt its weight, while the bow and arrow slung over my shoulder in easy reach felt awkward and clunky.

  Even so, I was fully prepared to drop Excalibur and pull the bow and arrow to my grasp if the thing wasn't in easy reach of a broad stroke. The greater danger lay in it being right in front of the door, ready to lunge at me. That was why Excalibur was in my grip, why my fingers clenched it in readiness. Why my mouth felt dry as a burdock.

  I had every intention of jabbing the thing straight in the belly. No fancy arcing strikes. Just straight ahead, right about stomach level. I'd spill its innards out onto the floor like I was opening the zipper of a knapsack.

  But all that met my gaze was a room slightly cluttered with derelict furniture. The counter was coated in dust. The larder door was still ajar the way it had been when Lance
and I had left it days earlier.

  I didn't even smell the sulfur anymore.

  Whatever beastly stink had enshrouded the creature, that too was gone.

  I felt like the hammering of my heart was an extreme waste of energy. The muscles in my body were tense and hard. That too felt like a waste. All that energy coiled up and ready to unleash, soaked with enough adrenaline that if I ever managed to come down from the terror, I'd sleep for days.

  In effect, the place looked as though no one had been in there at all, let alone some supernatural beast able to shift itself into something reminiscent of a gaseous belch from the unholy forges of hell.

  I held back. Exactly how foolish would it be to advance into the house if I didn't see the creature? Had it somehow got behind me? Was it lurking somewhere in the larder, waiting for me to let my guard down?

  I waited, ears perked, every muscle straining to respond to the slightest sound.

  All that met my ears was the subtle creaking of boards as they settled from the sudden shift in temperature.

  "Doggy?" I said. "You curled up somewhere in the shadows?"

  I almost wished the thing would just leap out at me. At least then I'd know where it was.

  "Here doggy," I said and waited, my gaze searching out my grandmother's table. It was where I'd dropped it just a foot away.

  What were the odds the creature would come for me just as I bent to pick up the table.

  Pretty damn good, if my luck lately was any indication. Maybe a different woman would have grabbed the table and ran. Maybe a different woman would have left the table there and fled without it.

  I'd rather face the thing now if it was still there and not have it follow me into town, stalking me like it had Sadie and her ponies.

  No. I'd wait. I was patient enough. At the end of the day, I had nowhere to be that I couldn't wait five minutes.

  I called out again, this time louder. No response. Just that subtle creaking of the floorboards as they breathed with the breeze that came through the door behind me.

  It's exhausting to hold a tense position for too long, and I might have stood there for ten minutes or more before I finally decided that the empty house was indeed empty and vacated. And by the time I relaxed, every muscle was screaming for a break.