The Dire King

by William Ritter

  And then the tower hummed. A beam of wavering light burst from the metal rose at the top, amplified a hundred times by the dome. It hit the fairy phalanx like a speeding train, and the whole courtyard was bathed in blinding light.

  I blinked as my eyes adjusted. Virgule was on his knees. Several of the soldiers behind him had collapsed altogether. Beads of sparkling light rose from them like droplets of water falling from a tree after the rain, but upside down, spinning and circling and rising until they were absorbed by the machine high above them.

  The blood drained from my face. All around me, trolls and gremlins and great hairy monsters were cackling with vile glee at the sight of the fairies collapsing to the ground. I looked to the tower. At the base of the machine, something was happening. The device that looked like a giant microscope whirred to life. From out of each nozzle suddenly burst an arc of concentrated light—white-blue and as intense as the sun itself, like writhing snakes of lightning.

  The imp in the metal frame screamed. The owl woman groaned. Loup doubled over and growled. And then they changed. They grew.

  As the eldritch energy washed over its little body, the imp began to bulge and pop grotesquely. Before my eyes it ceased to have a little body at all. It was a brute the size of a gorilla, and swelling larger still. Soon the thing was too large for the metal frame at all and it tumbled forward. Massive red horns had sprouted from its head where tiny nubs had been, and it let out a bellow like a lion’s roar. Loup bent low as the arc of lightning blasted through him. His coarse hair thickened and his muscles groaned until suddenly there stood in his place a wolf the size of a workhorse. He bounded out of the ruined tower and shook his fur. The woman bared her teeth and clutched at the sides of the metal frame. Her wings grew wider and her feet became terrible talons. When the top of the frame began to press on her back, she burst out of the tower and flapped over the army.

  The Unseelie horde parted. The owl woman soared across to the far end of the courtyard, where the enormous gap in the rend revealed the waiting ruins of the old church. Loup padded down the aisle after her, and the imp—now more of a demonic gargoyle—followed close behind. They trod past their brethren to approving cheers. More Unseelie creatures were already clamoring into the base of the tower to be the next soldiers to be made ready.

  “He’s draining them,” I said. “The entire Seelie fae army. He’s killing them!”

  Virgule, his hand shaking uncontrollably, tried to lift his sword. It clattered back to the ground almost at once and he fell onto his side.

  The fairy army was not simply dying. With every moment they grew weaker, the Unseelie were growing stronger. Inside the tower, new, wild-looking creatures were taking shape. Muscles bulged. Great thorns emerged from a dark spirit’s arms and legs, and her hair looked like a briar patch. Next to her, a scaly man the size of an ox climbed out of his own frame. He looked like he could lift a carriage. “Miss Rook,” whispered Jackaby.

  “Yes, Mr. Jackaby,” I whispered back.

  “I think you ought to know. I’m about to do something very foolish.”

  “I had a feeling you might, sir,” I said. “And I have a sinking suspicion I’m going to help.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Make way! Move aside! Excuse us! Pardon me! Thank you!” The faces of the Unseelie soldiers wore a baffled expression as we cut through their ranks. Well, most of them looked baffled. One or two didn’t really have faces at all, which made it hard to tell. There were hisses and murmurs and claws pointed in our direction, but the frank confidence with which my employer blustered his way through the thick of them was oddly mesmerizing. Apparently they had not expected a pair of unassuming humans to advance on their growing crowd of the nastiest, most powerful monsters in existence.

  Jackaby was unarmed. I still held Morwen’s black blade. I had it pointed, as I had been directed, squarely at my employer’s back.

  We reached the massive cleft in the fabric of the veil. The ruins of the quiet church stood on the other side. “That’s it! Nearly there! I think that will do! Hello, yes, may I have everyone’s attention?” Jackaby called out—entirely unnecessarily.

  The crowd, already fixed on the pair of us, grew hushed. On the other side of the courtyard, Virgule and the fairy army were collapsing into stillness. The beam persisted relentlessly.

  “I am R. F. Jackaby. I am a paranormal investigator and host to the immortal sight,” he declared loudly. “As you all know, you cannot kill me. King’s orders.”

  “I do not know that!” shouted a voice from the back.

  “Shut your gob. I told you to read the pamphlet!” countered another voice.

  “Well—as those of you who perused the literature are well aware,” Jackaby continued, “your egomaniacal monarch has made it clear that he needs me alive in order to move on to phase two—which, as I understand it, has all the juiciest bits. Chaos and rivers of blood and all that.”

  The owl woman stepped forward. “So? He needs you. We already have you.”

  “Ah, right you are. But here’s where it gets interesting,” Jackaby went on. “Allow me to introduce my stalwart assistant, Miss Rook. Miss Rook, horrible mob. Horrible mob, Miss Rook.”

  I swallowed hard as their eyes rested on me.

  “Like me, Miss Rook comes from the human world. She’s grown rather fond of it. So here’s the thing—the invasion is off. ”

  The crowd erupted in barks of laughter and derisive scoffs.

  “Or what?” asked the owl woman.

  “Or,” Jackaby answered, “Miss Rook will be forced to kill me. So, you can attack now, that’s certainly an option. You attack—Rook kills me—maybe you kill her, and then you move straight to the messiest massacre you’ve ever imagined. You would have a grand old time, slaughtering humans left and right, stuff of legends—but, when the blood on your claws has dried, that’s all it will have been. Phase one. By morning the veil will have mended and the Dire King’s grand scheme for phase two will be ruined.”

  The monsters began to shift uncomfortably. Eyes darted up to the tower keep.

  “You’re not going to give up your life, just like that,” said the owl woman. “You’re bluffing.”

  “No. I’m not bluffing,” said Jackaby. “What I am is tired. I have given up my life already. I have given it to the sight, and I have given it to my career, and I have given it to my city. I have given my life to protecting people I do not know from villains they do not know exist, and I am tired. If you think I will not give up my life to save the world one last time”—his brow cast heavy shadows over his gray eyes—“then you do not know me at all.”

  The black blade felt heavy in my clammy hands. I was rather hoping we were bluffing.

  There was tense silence for several seconds, and then the machine up above us clicked off with a buzz. The light from the mechanical rose faded and the mechanism lowered. The fallen fairy army did not rise, although I could see signs of breathing from a few of the limp bodies. From high in the tower of floating rubble, the Dire King was watching.

  “He’s bluffing,” snarled the owl woman. “Someone collect those humans. We’re going through.”

  The horde stirred. Loup bared his fangs in a wicked grin.

  “Stop.” The voice that issued from atop the tower keep was deep and carried a note of finality.

  The Unseelie army stopped. I breathed. It had worked. It should not have worked, but it had worked! We were safe, however fleetingly, poised in the eye of a hurricane. And then the Dire King spoke again.

  “Kill the girl.”

  Almost at once, the throng leapt to obey the command. I scarcely had time to understand what he had said when a spiral-tipped javelin flew out of the crowd. Its aim was true—it soared straight for my chest. Too late, I ducked away. I heard a horrified gasp from the crowd, followed by a deafening silence. I peered out from behind my own hands
.

  Jackaby had stepped in the way of the javelin.

  A jagged, twisted point entered his chest and emerged from the middle of his back.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Huh.” Jackaby looked down at the javelin lodged in his chest. He took hold of the shaft in both hands and pulled. The barb slid free with a nauseating sucking sound.

  “S-s-sir?” I managed.

  “Huh,” said Jackaby, almost to himself. “Ha! Oh! Yes, right.” He dropped the bloody weapon to the ground. “They can’t kill me!”

  Jackaby pulled open his shirt front and prodded the spot where the javelin had entered, just left of his clavicle. He wiped the blood away, and aside from a small circle of young, fresh skin, he had not a mark on him. The gem. I had forgotten about Hafgan’s shield!

  “Well. All right.” Jackaby addressed the crowd again. “That changes the dynamic a bit, admittedly. But I can work with this. I appear to be immortal now. So there’s that. The invasion is still off. You can’t beat me. Couldn’t kill me if you tried.”

  The Unseelie army was now abuzz with noise.

  “Kill the girl,” the deep voice repeated, echoing over the susurration of the horde, “and tear the Seer’s limbs from his body. Don’t be gentle. Death is no longer a risk, it seems. Bring whatever is left to me.”

  “I don’t like that, sir,” I said. The crowd swelled forward, all teeth and talons.

  “Nor I. New plan,” said Jackaby. “Run!”

  He threw himself at me, grabbing my arm, and we tumbled backward through the rend. We hit the stones of the old church and rolled. Loup, the big bad wolf, was only a moment behind us. His sharp claws clicked and scraped the floor as he landed. I scrambled to get away, crawling for cover beneath the nearest pew. The owl woman swooped over me and the huge red imp was cackling savagely nearby. More monsters were piling through, like an unthinkably evil pot boiling over. I was scrambling across the cold floor, my heart thudding against my ribs, when a shot rang out like a cannon. The owl woman spun out of the air with a shriek and slammed against the altar.

  “Sweet sassy molasses—that’s a lotta ugly!” boomed a familiar voice. Hank Hudson unloaded a second loud shot, this time into the imp’s face, and then tossed the pistol aside, pulling a fresh one from a bandolier across his chest. “Hey, everybody! In here!” he bellowed. “Looks like the war’s on!”

  From where I was crouched, half-hidden beneath the church bench, I heard a rapid pattering of footsteps from the front of the chapel, and then a mob of gray-green feet burst into my range of vision. They leapt up, swarming the giant wolf with almost gleeful whooping war cries. Loup howled in fury as half a dozen goblins attached themselves to his fur, pulling and stabbing and kicking furiously. Someone grabbed me by the wrist and I jolted, spinning around. “It’s me,” Jackaby said. “Come on!”

  We raced past the broken cross and over the fallen bricks. Hudson had spent two more pistols, but he was in his element. He had another gun in his hands already and a pair of rifles strapped to his back, as well as an assortment of sharp knives and hatchets hanging from his belt for the moment his ammunition ran low.

  A pair of centaurs vaulted over the broken wall just ahead of us, and I pulled Jackaby aside before their sharp hooves clattered down. The centaurs launched themselves into the battle, swiping with long spears and driving bone-crushing kicks into the monsters. I stumbled over the wall and out into daylight.

  There, in the churchyard, was a glorious sight: pixies and spriggans and gnomes and goblins, Nudd shouting commands and cursing colorfully, bird-headed women and woman-headed birds, a man of living fire, and a smiling giant towering over the company. A battery of New Fiddleham police officers, along with Commissioner Marlowe and even Mayor Spade himself, fought with gusto. At the head of the field of uniforms stood Charlie Barker and, floating beside him, Jenny Cavanaugh.

  Jenny spotted us, and her face burst into unmasked relief. She swept across the field and met me halfway with a firm embrace. Jenny felt solid. She also felt as cold as ice—but she felt solid, and as I threw my arms around her, I cried with unexpected happiness in the midst of all the horrors around us.

  “You brought them? Oh, Jenny! We didn’t even know if you—” I began.

  “I thought for sure that you—” she started.

  An arrow hit the ground beside us.

  “Hurry, come on,” she said, releasing me. She reached for Jackaby’s hand to pull him along, too, but her fingers passed through his like vapor. Her face fell. She tried to hide it as she sallied on. “Come. Out of the line of fire!”

  Even as she said it, a hulking gargantuan covered in scales crashed through the wall of the church and bounded out into the open in front of us. His skin was like a crocodile’s, but he ran more like an orangutan, bounding forward using his legs and arms, balancing his weight on his meaty knuckles. He saw the phalanx of police officers and grinned hungrily. Those in the group who didn’t scatter at his approach opened fire, smoke from their pistols rising thick over their heads—but the monster shrugged off the shots like they were pebbles. With a swipe of his gnarled hand, he sent one of the officers flying. The man landed on his back and did not get up. Mayor Spade stumbled backward, tripping over Lieutenant Dupin near the front of the formation and sending them both falling to the ground. Before the scaly colossus could take his next swipe, Chief Nudd screamed out a command, and a goblin swarm leapt onto the monster, scrambling onto its head and jabbing at its eyes.

  The scaly monster threw the goblins off one at a time, but the distraction had been enough. In two strides, Mr. Dawl, our giant, was there, his massive hands clutching an enormous lance—a lance that had been the trunk of a nearby pine tree until very recently. He drove it straight through the brute’s thick chest. Unlike Jackaby, the scaly monster did not survive being skewered.

  Charlie helped the stunned mayor to his feet. Marlowe began barking commands, and the scattered officers formed into smaller units of five or six, fanning out and taking up positions all around the church.

  Monsters large and small poured across the grass, the front line of the war spreading wider with every second. Our gnomes charged into a cluster of their angry hobs. A cloud of pixies met a swarm of brownies midair, tiny corpses dropping as they clashed. The bodies of Nudd’s goblins began littering the ground as well. They had been the most fearless into the breach. From somewhere nearby, an ax whipped through the air and landed only a few feet from the already addled mayor.

  “H-how can we even tell which ones are on our side?” Spade stammered, picking up the weapon and holding it out in front of himself with shaking hands.

  “Iffin’ they’s tryin’ tae kill ye,” Nudd spat back at him sourly, “probably baddies.”

  Lydia Lee emerged from our crowd of allies with a litter. A stocky faun with horns that curled back around the side of his head and legs like a goat jogged over from the ranks behind her to help her maneuver the fallen officer onto it. The policeman did not look like he was breathing.

  A bright burst of light and a wave of dry heat hit me from my left. I spun. Shihab had ignited a monstrous woman made of briars and thorns. She hardly seemed to notice that she was aflame as she lashed at the jinn with vines like barbed whips. A screech sounded behind me and I spun again. A gaunt figure with gray skin pulled taut over its angular bones leapt toward us from the melee. “Wendigo!” Jackaby cried out. It sank its yellow teeth into the faun, who dropped his end of the litter. Jackaby ran to help him.

  “Behind you!” screamed Spade. I spun in time to watch the mayor hurl his ax at a hob who had trotted up right behind Nudd. The butt of Spade’s weapon smacked the ugly elfin creature in the eye. It stumbled, dazed, and Nudd drove his own little sword into its neck. The hob dropped to the earth, very dead. Nudd and Mayor Spade exchanged a nod of tentative mutual respect.

  Jackaby had pulled the wendigo off the bleeding fau
n. The wretched thing lashed out, and it was all Jackaby could do to hold the snarling creature at arm’s length. It shredded his already tattered coat sleeves, but the skin beneath continued to heal as soon as it was cut. “I could use some assistance,” he grunted.

  I stepped up and took a swing at the wendigo’s neck with Morwen’s blade. It was like chopping through dry kindling. The creature collapsed, decapitated. I felt sick and numb watching its head roll to a stop.

  Jackaby scooped the faun into his arms. Jenny leaned down and took the other side of the litter. I followed close behind them, watching over my shoulder for the next terror to come streaking through the fray at us. My hands were shaking. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.

  And then I saw Charlie and Charlie saw me. It was just a moment in the midst of madness. In another instant Dupin would be clapping him on the shoulder, calling him back into action, and I would be rushing to keep up with Jackaby, Jenny, and Lydia. But for just that moment, Charlie’s deep brown eyes locked on mine and my hands stopped shaking. He radiated calm. It was what made him an exceptional peacekeeper at the best of times—and what made him an exceptional leader at the worst. Charlie smiled at me, and in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I found myself able to believe that everything was going to be all right.

  And then the moment was gone.

  Voices were screaming, and the air smelled of gunpowder and blood. We made our way to the back of the allied forces, where Mona O’Connor had already set up cots for emergency triage. “First customer,” Lydia Lee called out as we approached. Mona rushed to meet us and helped maneuver the unmoving policeman onto one of the makeshift beds.

  Lydia looked at her grimly as she stood up with the litter under her arm. “I’m going back for more,” she said. She swallowed. “We’re going to need a lot more beds.”

  “We’ll make do,” Mona answered. Lydia hurried away. “His heart’s not beating,” she said.