Myths and Magic: An Epic Fantasy and Speculative Fiction Boxed Set

by K.N. Lee

  “I still might, you lying sack of scat.”

  “Hey! I’ve only just found out about your kin. I thought Seannach were a myth.”

  “Some secrets are better kept,” she said.

  “Lies and secrets do nothing to help the innocent,” he said.

  “Lies and secrets protect the innocent,” she countered, her voice rising.

  Blaine stiffened. The anger rolled off of her, changing her sweat scent from confused to furious. “Really? And the lie between us? Just how has that helped protect the innocent?” He posed the question raising it with the vengeance of a sword.

  He watched her mull it over.

  Elly turned in the seat, facing front, arms crossed over her chest. It was her turn to be thrown off balance. The swish of her hair brushed soft against the seats.

  She tilted her head back to him. “Have your truths helped protect the innocent?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Elly snorted. “That, as my grandpaw-paw used to say, is a big fat lump of lie. You’re a cop, you have to lie to get people to tell the truth. Don’t even try to pull that line with me. I’m not buying it. Why’d they really send you?” She narrowed her eyes at him. Probing. It was the same question he’d been hiding from since The Solblaine, his father, had sent him to Ballylock. He looked away from her, to the woods they’d stopped in front of, listening to the trees rustle in the wind. “Because I could have stopped Ysbal the first time.”

  “How? He’s crazy.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw her, making a twirling finger sign at her temple. “Ysbal is not right by any standard. You don’t go around eating your people.”

  “You knew?” He blinked at her.

  “Some crazy yawing-jawed monster tries to eat me, you tell me his name, and you don’t think I did a little extra checking? You think I’m going to come up on this maniac blind? Why don’t you just feed me razorblades cause I’m that dumb.”

  A smile crept over his face. She was possibly the most infuriatingly intelligent person he’d met in a long, long time.

  “And you carry the guilt, don’t you?” she pressed on. “I could tell that the first time I sat across from you at the tea house. You stank of lies - bitter citrus peel. You think you could have stopped him? Like I thought I could, until he leapt over a seventeen foot fence. You fool. No. You could not have. You’re just a glutton for the pain. Stop beating yourself up, Blaine. Or you’ll get us both killed.”

  The smile ran away from his face, he looked down.“Why did your assembly put you on this?” he asked.

  She didn’t look surprised that he knew, she just shrugged. “That part I didn’t lie about. I told you that the constabulary here are idiots. Ysbal was targeting the most pureblood of our foxkin. I’m pureblood.”

  But her body language said she had other secrets. “Doesn’t happen to have anything to do with why you left the constabulary, does it?”

  “No. I mean. Sort of. I think? They’ve been trying to get me to get back onto the Ballylock force for a while. But I won’t go. Because truth be told, there’s nobody in Westmeath that isn’t at least part Seannach. We’ve been here for what? Over a millennium? You think there’s any pure humans left? But the lies they tell aren’t protecting the innocent, they’re just … lies to lie. For the sake of lying.”

  “But you said lies protect the innocent,” Blaine pointed out.

  “Yeah.” She shifted uncomfortably. “They do, just maybe not all the time.”

  “Yeah,” he repeated. “Maybe.”

  They sat in the quiet. Listening to the birdsong and a faraway hooting of a hunting nightbird. Blaine could hear the wish-wash-splash of a stream nearby.

  “We have any more lies between us?” she asked, a softness to her voice he’d never heard there before.

  “None that matter,” he said and found himself matching the gentleness.

  “Then let’s hunt Ysbal.”

  She sniffed at him. Then sniffed again, breathing in the scents around her through her palate, tasting at the same time. There was a scent in the air that Elly’s fox senses couldn’t identify, a strange scent. Distinct from hers. Different from the murdering Sanguinary. It wasn’t blood. It was something dark. Death.

  “Do you smell that?” he asked.

  “I smell old books, like every time I’ve smelled him before. And there’s a scent like… like… rotting trees. Not like the metallic taste that usually comes with his scent.”

  He mumbled and nodded at her assessment. Maybe his scent glands were unlike hers. Maybe every kin had their own way of interpreting scents. Here by the forest it was easier to identify her surroundings or people. She could pinpoint without the confusing mess of inner city odors. “City smells here on Westmeath are probably different from Numina.”

  “Very,” he said. “Very different.”

  “You’ll have to tell me, once this is over. If we survive,” Elly said. The sound of laughter in the distance alerted them. Ysbal.

  “Is he looking to get caught?” Elly asked, incredulity layered thick on her words.

  “Unbelievable.” Blaine agreed, his own voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Elly flipped up the backseat of the car, revealing an arsenal of weaponry. She chose a long barreled repeat rifle and a crescent clip which clicked into place. Slinging it over her back, she turned to see him checking a snub-nose in his chest holster and another longer magnum automatic pistol which he kept in his hand. A quick nod and they took off on foot.

  “Your skimmer’s packing heat…”

  “Me and my skimmer have seen a lot of scat.”

  Elly steeled herself, checking her weapon. Adrenaline raced down her arms to her fingertips. She forced them to hold steady, focusing on each movement, clearing her mind, sinking into the rhythm of her heartbeat.

  “You got this?” Blaine’s voice held a steady baseline, soothing her frazzled nerves. Twice now she’d transmogrified in Ysbal’s presence.

  Twice.

  “I can’t…” It was strange saying it aloud. “I can’t change again in front of him. I won’t transmog near him again..”

  “That’s more like it,” Blaine said. And again, his voice transmitted confidence and clarity. Centering her. Creating a certainty that settled around her like a cloak.

  “Weapon helps.” He added, pointing his free hand to the long butt of her rifle.

  “Yeah, well. Claws don’t work so good with a rifle.”

  “I can’t imagine the recoil on that baby would be easy to handle on…” he paused. Uncertainty and respect in his eyes fielded a warm glow into her core.

  “A fox? Yeah, not so great.” She offered a smile and wink.

  “Time’s a-wasting.” Blaine pointed towards the sound of the laughter.

  “Let’s get this muck sucker.” A quick nod to him and they took off in the direction of the laughter. And to where the stench was strongest. They sacrificed stealth for speed, following the wooded path, weapons drawn.

  With one arm, Elly covered her nose and mouth, masking the depth of the scent. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Blaine do the same.

  He made a sharp turn right, going off the path, into the darkening gloom.

  She followed him, hoping his spectral range was as good as hers. Though not as good as when she was in canidiform, the morphology of her eyes as a canid was far better for the dark.

  There was a break in the trees and a formation of rocks as they continued to climb the hill. That seemed to be where the scent was strongest. The highest rock had a jagged face. There were short boulders at varying degrees that led up to the top.

  She hit the first one with a hop. Not the seventeen foot hop that Ysbal took the night before but a substantial one.

  Blaine followed her.

  She continued her hopping from boulder to boulder while he was more careful, less nimble. He held his gun out, searching for more firm purchase. As she neared the top, her lungs near bursting, Elly took a deep breath and gagged. There, on the
rock, was a lump of dried flesh and shredded black clothing. The remains of something humanoid. A fleshy skull protruded from what had been the neck of the garment.

  She was surprised that, even hidden in the depths of the woods, the locals hadn’t noticed a frenzy of daytime birds. Not to mention the increase of vermin that would come out at night and would attract the larger night hunting raptors. But they didn’t seem to be around. Neither vermin, nor raptors.

  The putrid scent was almost too much. She leaned over, holding her nose. “Ysbal isn’t here.”

  “Yes. He is.” Blaine said, picking up a rock and sniffing it. Then something gleamed. It wasn’t a rock, it was some sort of jewelry.

  “Is that an amulet?” she asked.

  “A shield,” he said.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s the Shield of the Patriarchs.” He stood, staring at it in his hand, turning it over and over, brows furrowed.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “This shield is only worn by a Patriarch. Elly,” he turned, still holding the shield. “When you looked into the eyes of your attacker…”

  “Really? This is that blue-eyed weirdo?” she interrupted.

  He swore something she didn’t understand. “His eyes were blue? Not gold? An intense gold?” Blaine demanded.

  “No, blue, almost exactly like yours but then they darkened to black, almost, and there was that weird red glowing moment I don’t even want to— ” She pulled out a scarf from her jacket pocket and tied it to cover her nose and face. He didn’t seem to be having the same trouble.

  He held up the metal shield from the body. “Your attacker isn’t Ysbal, the murderer is not Ysbal. This… this is Ysbal.”

  9

  Am I Dinner?

  “This is… er, was Ysbal? Are you sure?” She looked at him, her own amber eyes carrying flecks of gold and disbelief.

  “This shield and the scent, it has to be.” He turned it over, holding it carefully with gloved hands and dropping it into an evidence bag he’d pulled from the pocket of his oilskin duster.

  “So who’s the perp?” she said, then added, “This body’s been here for some time.”

  “Yes, it seems that whomever freed Ysbal, brought him here and then turned the tables on him. Not sure how but I have a good idea of why.”

  There was a rustle in the brush. “You have no idea of why,” the voice wasn’t drunk or high. In unison, they turned to see.

  “Davin?” Blaine said. Davin? Why would he be here? Now? Why was he staring down at him, sneering, loathing in his voice. He was far from the sweet, blue-eyed son of Ysbal that Blaine had saved the day of the massacre.

  Out of the corner of his eye Blaine caught a glimpse of Elly, stock still, her eyes locked on Davin. Mesmerized. “Stop it! Leave her alone, that’s forbidden,” Blaine said. Warning command reverberated from his chest.

  “No.” The blue eyed killer stood on a high rock above them, grinning down. The light of Ghael dappling through the forest trees. “I killed him, but not for the reasons you think, Blaine. You love the truth, here’s a little truth for you: Ysbal was a murdering piece of scat. I killed him for my brothers and sisters. The day you saved me, you could have killed him. But you didn’t. So, I did it. It took me a long time to figure out my plan, how to get in, disarm the prison, and free him. How to take the groggy body off the planet and use his knowledge… trick him into telling me all of his secrets.”

  Blaine raised his weapon but it didn’t deter Davin, even when Blaine said, “You’re first born of a patriarch. You have an honor bond.”

  “I have fulfilled my honor bond. I killed him because he fed on our kind. My family.” Davin’s voice choked. “My brothers…” It changed again, back to the menacing tenor. ” What he should have been doing was feeding on her kind.”

  Just as he spoke the words, there was a “thwipppp”. Blaine felt a burning in his thigh, followed by a numbness that threw him off balance and jerked him back. Amidst his knees buckling, he got off a wild shot at Davin.

  Elly’s gun went off, too. Blaine didn’t see what happened after that. He only saw the light of Ghael grow dim through the trees above.

  Elly woke up a headache. A huge mother of a headache. During the entire weird encounter with Davin-not-Ysbal, she stood there in the Sanguinary thrall unable to shoot or even lift her rifle to harm the man on the rock until Blaine’s gun shook her out of the stupor..

  She vaguely remembered turning around. A dark figure swung from the overhead trees knocking her off balance and flipping her onto her back.

  Now she was in a room, somewhere, chained and bound to a floor, weak like a kit. She tried to force a shift to canidiform. Nothing. She felt like a dead battery, spent and empty.

  The room she was in was large but sparse. It was well kept with dark wood floors, spare rugs, and overstuffed couches. She figured Davin had probably eaten the actual inhabitants. The realization of her situation forced steel into her will. She calmed herself. Thinking. Scenting. Listening.

  The room’s windows were shuttered; no outside scents permeated. A tiny white slit of light let her know it was probably daytime.

  Elly tried to determine her whereabouts from the scents in the room and sounds from outside. With any luck, Davin didn’t know what she could do, besides shift. Or how her hearing worked even when in human form. Dungsucker.

  So she listened. She heard a tea kettle whistling. How civilized. Elly heard him singing a little ditty. It wasn’t the drunken fox song the bloodsucking bag of bones sang to her earlier. Earlier?

  She listened again. Songbirds. It was definitely daytime. And she still wasn’t dead.

  Why not?

  Why was she a prisoner when he had killed the others? She was sore though, and felt horribly weak. A bandage was tight around her right arm from wrist to elbow and her neck throbbed. Neck? Like the old tales that the den crones told to scare the little ones in the nursery? What stories would she tell to scare the kits when she grew old? Would she grow old? Was this the end?

  “Awake, my little foxkin?” Davin poked his head into her prison room. She snarled up at him. “How delightful. Now don’t try to change… of course you probably can’t, the way I drained you, you probably can barely crawl. But those bonds will tighten around you so you can’t get away.”

  “Why are you keeping me here?” She groaned her response, trying to stand but her bones were like water. She could only crawl. Barely.

  “Because my little pure blood… your blood will power my army. My children, my lich children.”

  “Leach?” she looked up into his daring blue eyes, there was a calmness there.

  “No, lich. Walking sentient dead.”

  “Like zombies?” He wasn’t making any sense. Zombies? Another legend like vampires that was meant to scare the kits into not wandering off from the den.

  “My Lichkin are not zombies. They don’t need to eat brains. They don’t need to eat. They are animated. Beautifully perfect and obedient. My babies are still growing. Thanks to your blood…”

  That explained everything. He was bonkers. “You’re killing people then shoving my blood into them to reanimate them?”

  “In a way, yes. But you know the blood of the Sanguinary is a healing blood.”

  No. She didn’t know that. Ellie scowled at him.

  “How did you even…”

  “My father’s work was very well catalogued.”

  “Your father, the guy you ate?”

  Davin’s crisp tenor was a laugh that crackled through her spine sending a jolt of adrenaline, and in turn twisting her stomach roiling it with a tide of nausea. Elly curled her knees to her chest. The wall behind her holding her upright. Bile threatened a hasty retreat. She bit down and swallowed hard.

  Davin’s voice softened to a soothing lullaby cadence. “Little Elly, Elly-fox…I didn’t eat him for pleasure. I fed. Your kind I eat for pleasure and power.” His smile was so dazzling she became once again in his thr
all, forgetting he just drained her of most of her blood. His tutoring tone hushed the pounding of her heart. “Ysbal’s blood contained the blood of my brothers. Why waste their blood sacrifice when I could take the next step that he couldn’t.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Shhhhh now. Rest. The children’s next feeding is almost nigh.”

  Nigh. Did anyone still talk like that? He was absolutely bat scat.

  Blaine blinked his eyes in the darkness. In the darkened room, Blaine woke up with a raging hangover. The kind you get after partying all night. Only he had all the bad and no good memories or a warm body next to him.

  Blaine breathed the air around him, trying to pick up her scent. He knew, could smell it out of a dozen foxkin, had followed it to the playing field. She was distinct. Clean. Like purple heaths on hillsides, green lakeside lawns, and mountain streams. She smelled wild and windswept. Was that what Davin wanted? Her wild blood?

  She was near.

  So was someone else. Someone that wasn’t Davin.

  Blaine heard a shallow breath behind him. When he turned the shadowy sight confounded and filled him with sinister foreboding. Its eyes were closed, its hands were limp, and though the darkness obscured his true sight, the irregular outlines of the skin changes led him to the conclusion that the skin was mottled and bruised. What was that putrid thing? It smelled not quite rotten, not quite Sanguinary, and a lot of Elly.

  It was alive but it smelled dead.

  Elly! He had to get free of the bindings. He could barely feel his toes. The ones at his wrist, tight around his back, were no better. The detective tried to move but as he did, the ‘thing’ behind him growled.

  "You my guard or am I your dinner?" Blaine said. He growled back.

  “Oh, silly Blaine.” It was Davin's voice from somewhere beyond the shadows. “This is my newest child.”