Trafficking in Demons

by Michael Angel

  What had I thought of when I first saw my platform?

  It jutted, prow-like, towards the field…

  “Shaw,” I said, and the sharp tone of my voice got his attention. “Get back to Galen. Have him cast a spell skywards. Something that removes illusions.”

  Thankfully, the drake didn’t argue with me or question my sanity. He half-leapt, half-glided back to his platform and spoke in Galen’s ear. The Wizard looked startled, but he spoke a word and gestured towards the heavens.

  The flash of glitter like that of a falling star lit the air over the tournament grounds. Everyone not engaged in combat looked up. A shimmer washed through the air.

  A score of fanged, scaly wyverns circled overhead. Their green and black scales glinted as their sinuous, winged bodies came into view. One let out a raucous croak.

  Then as one they dove towards the ground, their talons extended in deadly razor sharpness.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The long, snaky wyverns were griffin-sized, though longer and skinnier. Four of them dropped out of the sky and landed amidst the commoners across the field. Panicked, the crowd stampeded back towards the town walls as the dragon-like creatures ripped and tore into the people unlucky enough to have been in the front rows.

  Several more descended upon the field itself. An emerald-sheened wyvern landed near Rikka and Sir Kagin. The two warriors disengaged from their duel and met the creature’s lunges head-on. Kagin’s sword rent the reptile’s bat-like wing while Rikka chopped at its head.

  Sir Ivor’s shouts rose over the din for a moment as he rallied the other knights who had participated in the tournament. Armed and armored men streamed from just off-field and charged at the remaining wyverns. Swords and talons flashed, spattering red across the churned-up tournament green.

  I turned quickly to get my gun out from under the stool. Two steps, and I almost did a face-plant onto the platform’s wooden floor. The tight frilly dress made it so that I could barely raise my knees. Grimacing, I had to strain just to kneel and grope for the holster.

  Somehow, the thing’s leather straps had gotten tangled around one of the stool’s legs. I gave up on that, leaned forward a little more, and yanked my weapon free. A quick check to make sure the safety was off, and I got back up.

  The five largest remaining wyverns chose that moment to swoop in towards my side of the field. The first attacked the platform of knights wounded at the Battle of the Oxine. Three more went after the lords seated in the middle.

  A final wyvern landed halfway down the stairs that led up to my platform. It scrabbled up towards me, claws clicking against the wood. I squeezed the trigger on my weapon as it got closer. A crack, and one of the reptile’s forelegs collapsed.

  The creature righted itself in an instant and hissed at me. An unpleasant, rotten-meat smell wafted from its jaws. I dodged, trying to put some more distance between me and it.

  The damned dress tripped me up again. I pitched over on my side, hard.

  My knee twinged as I landed on it. Then I cried out as the back of my right hand rapped the wooden floor and skinned my knuckles. My gun went skittering away, disappearing over the edge of the platform.

  The wyvern’s black tongue flicked the air as I levered myself back into a kneeling position. I forced myself to ignore the pain in my hand and knees as I grabbed that stupid little pink stool. I held it up desperately as the thing snapped at me. The stool came apart as if I’d thrown it into the business end of a wood chipper.

  I was running out of options now. I did my best to scuttle back out of the way, but now I was sitting on the frilled train that came with the dress. No matter how I pushed my feet against the floor, the thing practically pinned me in place. The wyvern came back at me again, looking truly pissed at getting a mouthful of primrose-scented wood.

  Suddenly, my ears were filled with the gut-wrenching sound of tearing meat.

  Grimshaw’s crimson-stained beak and talons appeared as the monster’s head came off. The thing’s skull bounced off the railing, leaving a rust-colored smear, and fell away. Shaw shoved the thing’s still-thrashing body off the stairs and bounded over to me.

  “Art thou hurt?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” I replied testily. “Can you help me with this damned dress?”

  The drake peered at my clothing as he extended a paw and helped me get to my feet. He unsheathed his talons and stabbed them towards me, below my waist.

  “Turn thy body around,” he instructed me.

  I did as told. I felt as much as heard a slithery sound, followed by a burst of cool air as the lower half of the Pink Lady outfit fell away. Shaw then slashed at my train, cutting it in half.

  “The King!” I shouted. “They must be after the King!”

  He nodded. “Thou must hang on to me.”

  I threw my arms around Shaw’s neck. The griffin extended his wings and leapt across the distance between my platform and the main one. I looked around at a scene of complete chaos as soon as we landed.

  Several knights crowded past, trying to get their liege lords to safety. Many more pushed forward to fight at the King’s side. One wyvern slashed out with a triple set of talons, and two knights fell in six pieces. But that was the last man it killed. Sir Quinton and a dozen more armed men charge on the thing’s blind side, hacking and slashing until it went down.

  Closer to us, Galen held a shield wall of bright blue energy around him and Liam. An even larger wyvern thrashed and bit at it, trying to get to the pair. Just as the thing pistoned its neck out again, dragon-like, Liam ducked and slashed upwards with his antlers.

  The Protector of the Forest leapt out of the way as a double line of black gore cascaded out, steaming and burning the wooden planks that made up the floor. The monster screamed and thrashed, its tail smashing the seats behind it to kindling, but it fell to one side and did not get up again.

  The final, largest wyvern bit and tore at the King and his palace guard. Commander Yervan jumped in, swinging his broadsword as one after another of his gold-tinted knights fell. The creature pulled back from one of Yervan’s blows, luring him onward, and then whipped its tail to the side. Yervan caught the blow on his chest plate and the big knight went flying.

  Fitzwilliam stood his ground, just as I expected him to. The wyvern’s head darted forward again as he struck at its long neck. His blade dug into the thing’s scales, almost decapitating it in a single blow.

  But the wyvern’s needle-like teeth clamped around the King’s left thigh and dug in. Fitzwilliam let out a despairing cry as Shaw bowled me over in his haste to get to his monarch’s side. With the angry cry of an eagle, his beak completed the job of the King’s sword with a gristly snap.

  Fitzwilliam’s leg came free of the deadly grip. He fell back against his reclining seat as he tried to retain his balance and failed. Galen, Liam and I were at his side in seconds. Shaw stepped back and circled us, snarling protectively at anyone else that came close.

  “We’re here, your Majesty,” Galen said hurriedly.

  The King didn’t reply. His face had gone ashen. I touched my fingers to his neck and felt his pulse. It raced at breakneck speed.

  “Galen, what’s going on?” I shouted frantically.

  The Wizard used his fingers to tear open the King’s trouser leg. The wound wasn’t deep, but the wyvern’s fangs had easily punctured the skin to leave an easily discernable bite pattern. Bright red blotches like fresh bruises blossomed along the torn flesh and spread upwards as we watched.

  “This does not appear to be a normal reaction to a wyvern bite,” Galen muttered. “Protector, what do your senses tell you?”

  Liam put his fayleene nose so close to the oozing wound that he almost touched the skin. He inhaled deeply. His cervine eyes looked grim.

  “I smell corruption,” he said. “Sharpness, like sulfur. The tang of a venom I’ve not smelt before.”

  “Dayna,” Galen whispered, as the blotches continued their deadly ascent. �
�I know the lore of poisons. But this…I’ve never seen this toxin before. I can only guess at its counter-agent. And I have nothing in my bags to slow it, let alone stop it.”

  “We can’t wait to move him,” I insisted. “He’s hurt, and he’ll die before we get to the palace!”

  “There is no need to worry,” Fitzwilliam said weakly. “I feel numb…it spreads…”

  “Galen!” I cried.

  “There is nothing I can do,” the Wizard insisted. His breath caught for a moment. “Wait…if I cannot do anything, perhaps the wizards of your world can?”

  “Without me…only you can decide, Dayna,” Fitzwilliam whispered. “I put you there…so that only you could decide.”

  I stared at him. Did I dare?

  Did I have a choice?

  “All right,” I said firmly, and my three friends stared at me, knowing what I was about to do next. “Wish me luck.”

  I grabbed my silver medallion and fixed my destination in mind.

  With a flash-bulb explosion of white, Fitzwilliam and I vanished.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The eye-frying whiteness between worlds spun until it was replaced with an entire palette of drab browns. Scents of crushed grass, blood, and metal had vanished. The tang of ozone gave way to rubbing alcohol and lemony furniture polish as we arrived with a heavy bump.

  I almost fell across Fitzwilliam’s prone form. He groaned, though now I wasn’t sure if it was from the stress of transport or the poison in his veins. I jumped back up and looked around, wild-eyed. We’d landed in a blessedly empty waiting room. Around us lay tables filled with old crinkled magazines, cheap furniture, and the frosted glass of a nurse’s station window.

  Then, I let out a curse.

  Without further magical direction, Galen’s medallion would take one to the place envisioned most strongly in their mind. I knew that Fitzwilliam needed urgent medical attention. So my mind had gone to the most recent memories of a hospital.

  I’d brought Fitzwilliam to the place that had incarcerated Shelly in all but name.

  We were in the waiting room at the First Samaritan Mental Hospital.

  There was no medical help here.

  The sickening realization swam through my head.

  Had I just killed my King?

  Then a single memory broke through my panic, like a rock emerging from a wave.

  Yes, the First Samaritan Mental Hospital had no medical doctors. But this was only the back wing of the entire First Samaritan facility. I remembered driving through an emergency room’s parking zone and going around back just to get to the mental health center.

  That meant help was close at hand. If I could get Fitzwilliam into an ER in time. I had no pictures in my mind that I could use to get us there magically. I’d have to do it the hard way.

  I ran up to the nurse’s station and banged on the window. A plastic sign with a smiley face and the words Back At 4:30 sat on the desk. I ignored it and hammed the bell on the counter with my palm like an irate hotel guest.

  The crabapple-sour attendant that Esteban and I had met before came out from the back. She still wore her wildly inappropriate ‘Joy’ name tag, and her scowl only deepened the frown lines on her face. She shook her finger at me as she spoke.

  “Can’t you read?” she scolded me. “You can’t just–”

  “This is an emergency!” I shouted. “There’s a man dying out here!”

  Joy leaned out the window. She went pale as she spotted Fitzwilliam lying next to the first row of seats. Her hands shook as she reached for the phone.

  “Ambulance…I better call…”

  I grabbed her wrist to break her out of shock. “Can we wheel him over to the hospital’s ER wing from here?”

  She hesitated only a moment. “Of course! I’ll fetch the gurney!”

  In just a few seconds, the attendant wheeled the orangey-cushioned patient stretcher into the room. I grabbed Fitzwilliam’s shoulders while she took his heels, and together we lifted him onto the thing. He groaned again. Droplets of sweat had begun to bead and run down the sides of his face.

  “Hang on,” I said grimly. I looked to Joy and asked, “Which way?”

  “End of the corridor, through the double doors,” she said, and together we muscled the gurney out of the waiting room and down the indicated path as quickly as we could. A startled-looking nurse poked her head out of a nearby room. Joy yelled over to her. “Genie! Page the ER, they’ve got a Code Blue incoming, adult male!”

  “Right,” came the reply. Turning, the nurse got on the intercom.

  The resulting page on the overhead speakers echoed in my ears as we pushed through the double doors with a bam! Whoever was on staff today ran a tight ship, as we were met before we even got to the ER proper by a pair of doctors. One was tall and black, the other short and sallow-faced, with a mane of unkempt hair. The tall one shone a light in Fitzwilliam’s eyes while the shorter doctor checked breath and pulse while he spoke to his patient in a brusque, rapid-fire voice.

  “Tell me what hurts. If you can’t speak, squeeze my hand.”

  “Hard to speak,” Fitzwilliam croaked. “Hard to breathe. Getting numb. Where am I?”

  “Limited dilation,” the tall doctor announced. As he took over pushing the gurney, Joy mouthed ‘good luck’ to me and stepped away from us. “Eyes tracking intermittently.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?” the second physician asked.

  “He’s been bitten,” I broke in. “Upper left thigh, not long ago.”

  The short doctor looked up at me for the first time. His eyebrows disappeared into the shag of his hair.

  “What the heck are you supposed to be? Glinda the Good Witch?”

  With a start, I realized that I was still wearing my Pink Lady dress and matching hennin. Here in Los Angeles, I looked like an escapee from Disneyland. But I had a King to save, and that came first.

  “Never mind that,” I said firmly. “Like I said, the patient was bitten. Some kind of…venomous snake.”

  The taller doctor, who had a name tag that read KWAMBE, looked up from checking Fitzwilliam’s wound.

  “What, a snake the size of a crocodile?” he asked, with a slight accent. “Just look at the size of that bite!”

  “I don’t know what kind of snake it was!” I shot back. “Not a rattler, I know that. He showed immediate loss of coordination and feeling. Paralysis. Cutaneous skin blotching.”

  “She’s got that right,” he confirmed, after a second glance at the wound. Doctor Kwambe called out to the nurses up ahead. “Prep and gear room number three!”

  “This must be a powerful neurotoxin,” I went on. “One with an anticoagulant component. If I had to guess, it’s a beta-class alkaloid of some sort.”

  “Ephedrine’s out, then,” the sallow-faced doctor muttered. “That might shock his heart.”

  “We might not have a choice,” Kwambe said. “Not if he slips into cardiac arrest–”

  Fitzwilliam arched his back as if in pain. Then his breath hissed out. He collapsed limply on the gurney as a nurse guided the two doctors into the treatment room. His eyes closed as Kwambe leaned against his chest, listening to the heartbeat.

  “He’s gone into arrhythmia!” Kwambe shouted. “We need an A-C-E inhibitor, now!”

  The sallow-faced doctor pointed at me. “You. Out. Now, before I call the Lollipop Guild to come and throw you out.”

  Okay, that one stung. But I did leave as quickly as I could. At this point I would only be getting in the way. A couple of people stared at me as I got to one of the ER’s waiting areas, but I did my best to ignore them.

  Then a mother with a very young son gave me a disapproving glance. She ushered him out of the room as quickly as possible. I couldn’t figure out why until I sat down and felt a cold draft blow up my nether regions.

  I blushed to the roots of my sausage-curled hair. Shaw had slashed away the lower part of my dress during the fight with the wyverns. So, I’d gone from a
long gown with a train to an extra-short pink miniskirt. I couldn’t recline in any of the waiting room’s low chairs without showing off the hem of my panties.

  The adrenaline that had fueled me since the wyverns appeared finally ran out. And that meant my body’s switchboard was finally letting a few other signals through. My knee throbbed with a dull ache, and the purple blotch of a bruise had already started to appear. Worse, the shredded skin covering my knuckles stung. A crust of dried blood droplets threatened to crack if I flexed my fingers a degree too far.

  Right now I was starving and thirsty. But above all, I was tired.

  I made one concession to modesty. Lying neglected under a pile of magazines was a month-old newspaper. I pulled out the crumpled pages and spread it over my exposed upper thighs as I found a corner seat to rest in.

  I was far to wound up to sleep, but maybe I could rest my eyes a bit. I settled in and waited.

  Waited for news.

  Waited to find out if King Fitzwilliam, my liege lord and the most powerful man in Andeluvia, had lived or died on that ER table.

  Like I said, I was too wound up to sleep. Maybe I drifted off a little. None of Destry’s relatives decided to visit and drop off a bad dream for safekeeping, I knew that much.

  I sat up about an hour later.

  A group of ER nurses had gathered just down the hall, speaking in excited whispers. I wasn’t sure what the subject might be, but right then one of them spotted me in my Andeluvian outfit. Her mouth made a little ‘O’ and she pointed me out to her friends, who began giggling and talking like a bunch of teenagers.

  A pang of hope pierced my heart. If they were gossiping about me, then they were connecting me with the man wearing a medieval king’s costume in the ER.

  And that meant Fitzwilliam was alive.

  The crippling fatigue in my bones fell away. I sat up, moved the newspapers from my lap, and did my best to adjust the remains of my skirt. Then I started running through my story. Saving Fitzwilliam was one thing, the important thing. But I’d just created a hell of a mess if I didn’t figure out how to talk my way through this.