Bounty: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 3)

by J. C. Staudt

  “Don’t listen to them,” Ersatz hisses. “Don’t let their words overwhelm you. Run.”

  “We can stay and fight them,” I counter. “They might have a Twinmind’s Eye. Think of what we could do with one of those.”

  “Not worth it. Go. Now.”

  Murderer, the third hag utters. Liar. Fake. Those you claim to love will know your true face. Then they shall spit on your name and curse your deeds forever. The prison of your guilt is inescapable.

  My lip quivers with the onset of the most debilitating emotion I’ve ever felt: self-pity. I want to crawl into a hole and die. I want my struggle to end. They’re right. The hags are right. They’re speaking the truth, more honestly than I’ve ever spoken it to myself. I tell my feet to move and my hands to draw the gun resting against my ribcage. My body doesn’t listen. It doesn’t want to listen.

  Why should I bother running? Why should I bother trying to fight the hags? I’ll never beat them, and I’ll never escape. It’s hopeless. Everything is hopeless. My life is a sham. I’m pretending my way through it. I’m making a mockery of my heritage, spurning my father’s legacy. I wish I could be fearless, independent, needing no one and asking no favors. I’m the One Who Suffers. The one who fails, and fears, and fabricates. Cade Cadigan, the wrong guy for every job.

  “Fine,” Ersatz whispers. “You win. I’ll take the one in front.”

  “Forget it,” I tell him. “New plan. We’re going to stand here and get what’s coming to us. It’s too late. We lose.”

  “We do not lose,” he says, nipping me on the chin.

  “Ow.” I touch the wound. My fingers come away bloody. “What did you do that for?”

  “To make you snap out of it. Arm yourself and let’s fight.”

  The sting of pain has given me a moment’s respite from the hags’ influence. I stop wallowing in self-pity and suck every drop of magical energy from the pill in my stomach. My body shudders with the surge of power.

  “Launch me,” Ersatz demands, climbing onto my head.

  I crouch, resting my palms on the gravel, then spring to my feet. He heaves himself into the air and vanishes through the fog with a flap of his leathery wings. A diffused orange glow erupts nearby, followed by the pained screams of a burning hag. I’m glad my dragon is with me. I’ve only got two hands, after all.

  I raise them, spreading my arms to take aim at the two gravel-grinders to my left and right. A firespout is an interesting little spell which gives your hands the reach and directional velocity of a pair of flamethrowers. For situations in which one finds himself surrounded by river witches with only the sounds of their approach to guide his aim, a point and spray effect is best.

  With the spell fully imbued, there’s only one thing left to do. Only I can’t. As if having my mind unrolled like a parchment page by a mystical tree wasn’t enough, being verbally assaulted by the best cut-down artists in the book is sapping my focus. My hands are poised. Ready. The hags are close, mere feet beyond the shroud of mist. Why can’t I unleash the power I’m holding?

  Because power without belief isn’t power at all. When magic relies on emotion, and the only emotion you feel is fear, you’re guaranteed to shoot blanks. I’m a coward. Terrified of failure. Paralyzed by my shortcomings. There’s one way I get out of this. I know what it is, but knowing and doing are far from one another and getting further by the second.

  A wrinkled green hand reaches out from the fog and clamps around my wrist. On my opposite flank, a staff of gnarled driftwood topped with a smooth black gem whips out and pins my other arm to my side without touching it. When I try to lift it, the hag thrusts the staff forward, holding my arm in place. My composure falters. My focus crumbles, and the spell drains through the holes the hags have punched in it.

  It’s over. I knew I would fail. Why did I even try?

  The hags emerge from the gloom, hideous faces with sharp chins and noses and cheekbones, rumpled with moisture and covered in strips of moss and lichen. They caress me with calloused hands, fingernails long and jagged and split like oaken branches. I try to move, but the black gem keeps me locked in place.

  They’re whispering now, out loud, eviscerating me with words. I shake my head as the hands slide over my skin, soft and tender and malignant. They dig their claws into the deepest parts of me, softened to their faculties by the prying gaze of the Waywatcher Tree. They’re the mother I never had. They speak truth where she was cold; they know me where she didn’t care to. They believe me where she didn’t. I dread the coming of the third hag, to complete the cycle and cement the triad’s web of influence over me.

  Only she doesn’t come.

  Instead, Ersatz marches out of the fog and crouches on his forelegs like a cat on the pounce, tail flicking side to side. “Let him go. You hold no power over him.”

  The hag to my left smiles. “We hold every power, little monster. Puny, paltry, trivial little thing you are. The mythical beast whose name you share, and to whom your species would dare aspire—dragon—is a creature altogether superior, whose majesty is sufficient to render you insignificant. You are unworthy of such a name. You could not but form a shadow beneath a single of a true dragon’s mighty claws. Shame be unto you. You bear no likeness to your eidolon. Your every breath is humiliation. Before you lies only dishonor in what you will never be.”

  Ersatz’s face is a rictus of pain. His voice cracks when he speaks. “You haven’t—any idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Despise yourself, little monster. You are deserving only of ridicule. An ugly little atrocity who fancies himself a dragon.” She cackles, loud and mocking and laced with a magic hard and dark enough to shatter the dignity of the most confident of men.

  “I won’t hear this. I won’t listen.” Ersatz hiccups. The fire waiting in his throat sputters and dies in a plume of smoke.

  One of the crones touches her fingers to my forehead and speaks a black spell. The last thing she says before my sight goes dark is, “Come you to the hovel. The unseelie will be pleased to see you.”

  Chapter 13

  I wake up somewhere dark and damp. My clothes are soaked. My head throbs with the lingering ache of black magic. I’m lying beside a stone hearth whose blazing fire throws shadows against the slatted walls of a one-room hut made of decaying wooden boards. The wet earthy smells of mud and stagnant water lie thick in the room. I’m not alone.

  On a table above me lies the charred form of the third sister; the hag Ersatz burned in the fog. The other two hags are hovering over her, one dressing her burns with soggy gray bandages, the other crossing the room to stir the black iron kettle hanging from a hook over the fire. They bicker and squabble, breaking from common English into the sort of language one only hears while in the company of evil things.

  I’ve been dreaming of horrors both real and imagined. A long, slow, drifting journey down a wide river into the mouth of blackest darkness. We must be downstream from the steelyard; probably on one of the uninhabited islands in the Detroit River. Grassy Island and Mud Island are the closest, though they’re miles from the Waywatcher Tree. The hags might’ve taken me all the way to Stony Island or Crystal Island, but I doubt they roam that far from their hovel without good reason. We’re definitely not as far as Sugar or Celeron, which must be fifteen miles or more from the steelyard.

  Moving as little as possible, I scan the room for Ersatz. No sign of him, though I do notice the staff with the smooth black gem leaning against the wall beside the hearth. It isn’t the Twinmind’s Eye I’d been hoping for, but it’s a very powerful artifact all the same, if it’s what I think it is. A Blackstone Heart gem gives a hag the power to dominate a person’s subconscious. Once she’s gained control over you, the hag who possesses the gem can haunt your dreams forever.

  The injured hag moans as her cohorts dress her wounds. They haven’t noticed I’m awake, so there’s a chance I can catch them off-guard, but I’m not trying anything before I find Ersatz. Nudging my ribcage with an elbo
w, I find my holster empty and resist the urge to whisper a curse. When I roll my right buttcheek against the floor, my wallet is gone from the back pocket of my jeans. My keys and cell phone are gone from the front pockets.

  That’s when I notice the Eye. Round and white as an egg, veined and dangling by a string of pulpy pink flesh from the ragged brown robes of the hag who keeps moving between table and hearth, and who appears to be the most venerable of the trio. Every coven of swamp hags is said to possess one. It’s an object only they can make, and one I could put to great use if it came into my possession. A Twinmind’s Eye isn’t as rare or powerful as one of the six grimoires, but it’s the best at what it does.

  I turn my head enough to glance over my shoulder. There’s Ersatz, sprawled across a three-legged stool beside one of the hag’s beds, his tongue lolling out. In the shadows it’s hard to tell whether he’s breathing or not. If I can grab him before the hags see me I can use his aura to cast spells. If he’s alive, he’s going to be feeling it for a little while. If he’s dead, heaven help me, but he won’t mind.

  The hags are arguing, the wounded one disapproving of how the others are applying her bandages. I inch toward Ersatz, wriggling sideways like a worm. I’ve only progressed a few feet when a bright light blares through the cracks in the hovel’s slatted walls. I’d guess it was a pair of headlights, only there are no roads on these islands, and the light appears to have only one source instead of two.

  There’s a knock at the door.

  “She’s here,” the elder hag says. “Answer it.”

  “You answer it,” says the wounded one. “I’m indisposed.”

  “Hold still or I’ll indispose you myself,” says the third, a wet gray bandage dripping in her hands.

  “Shut your lily traps, the both of you,” says the elder, shoving past the other. “I’ll get it.”

  When she yanks open the door, a wash of otherworldly light bathes the room, erasing my progress into the shadows. A cloaked figure steps through the doorway. Lifting a hand in a daggered sleeve, the figure flicks two slender fingers, and the door slams shut. The light fades to a dim glow, and the figure lowers the cloak’s embroidered hood to reveal what lies beneath.

  Long white-golden hair cascades from within, and I’m struck with wonder once again at the high cheekbones, flawless skin, and cunning green eyes of the sidhe Elona Anarian. “Cade Cadigan. Now we can finally speak outside the confines of official Council business.”

  “You put them up to this?”

  A sweet smile. “You will not make a mockery of me in my own chambers and think to pass unmolested through the world of humankind.”

  “Passing unmolested is a recurring goal of mine.”

  “Nevertheless, I will take what I desire from you.”

  “What is it you desire?”

  “Your bodily services.”

  “Okay, now it’s getting rapey in here.”

  A frown creases her perfect brow. “Rapey?”

  I beseech the hags for support. “Anyone? Am I the only one here who’s getting a pervy vibe from this fairy lady? I thought you sidhe were into seducing men and making them love you so hard it drives them insane.”

  She laughs. “If you think I wish to take you as my sexual captive, you overestimate your appeal.”

  “Well I certainly don’t underestimate it. What do you want from me?”

  “A favor.”

  I glance around the tiny hut. “Is this how you usually ask people for favors?”

  “When those people are wizards.”

  “Blackmail, huh? And they say fairies have no class.”

  “I needed to be sure I had your full attention. What I propose is merely an exchange of resources.”

  “How can I be of assistance to you, oh great fairy hardass?”

  “You can begin by dispensing with the sarcasm.”

  “Me and sarcasm are a package deal.”

  She droops her eyelids, unamused. When she flicks her fingers, a bandage peels itself off the burned hag’s arm and flutters through the air to wrap itself around my face, forming a seal over my mouth. The strip of gray cloth looks and smells like it’s spent the last few years buried at the bottom of a swamp.

  If I could talk, I’d puke. I try to pry the thing off my face, but it won’t budge.

  “There. That’s better. Now where was I? Oh yes. A favor. It has come to my attention that your friend Calyxto has violated the terms of his parole.”

  I can explain, I want to say, but can’t without retching.

  “Pity. And so soon after his release. It would seem the fiend’s debt is no longer to Sildret alone. The Fae Council now has grounds to prosecute his conduct to the full extent of our laws. Even the Lords of the Underworld will have no recourse when confronted with Calyxto’s deliberate misconduct. Fortunately for you, my veto power gives me final authority as to his fate. I can offer your friend a stay in sentencing… or doom him to imprisonment with the full support of the Tylwyth Teg behind me. As for you, Mr. Cadigan, the consequences are far direr. As a wizard, surely you are aware of the ravages a Blackstone Heart is capable of inflicting upon one under its spell. The Heart is now attuned to yours, making you the dream-slave of Lady Wygella.”

  The elder crone smiles a toothless smile.

  I got a taste of dream-slavery a few minutes ago, and it tasted like everlasting torment. Whatever this fairy lady wants me to do, she’s got me and Calyxto by the balls, and she knows it.

  “The vampire covens of New Detroit are in a state of flux,” Elona continues. “A recent betrayal within the Ascended caused the deaths of several of its high-ranking members and bred distrust among its remaining elite. Such shifts in power do not come without their share of residuum. The coven’s lesser vampires have taken advantage of this authoritarial lack by seeking both prey and enterprise beyond their established territory. The Hallowed have responded with violence, as have several of the smaller covens in the area. Continued infighting is likely to result in the excommunication of one or more of the Ascended’s noble families. To that end, the vampires have declared Pax Sanguinem. A Blood Peace. A temporary halt to all hunting, fighting, and feeding while terms and turf are renegotiated.”

  “Vuf thif ha ooh goo vif nge?” I manage through the gag.

  She twirls a finger to loosen the gag, but doesn’t remove it. “This had better be relevant.”

  I lick my lips and spit. “What’s this have to do with me?”

  “Take this.” She tosses me a small drawstring bag of black velvet.

  I open the bag’s neck and dump its contents into my palm; a pendant bearing a deep red gem cut into a triangle with three gently curving sides. “How romantic. You shouldn’t have.”

  She rolls her eyes and whips a finger to secure the gag, tighter this time. “This is the Trillion of the Bloodless. While wearing it, you will be immune to the blood sense of all vampires in your midst. Your heartbeat and pulse will be silenced to them, your natural human scent masked as though your body contains no blood whatsoever. Further, you will cease to produce sweat or pheromones. You will cast no shadow, and no mirrored surface will reflect your image. For all intents and purposes, it will appear to other vampires as though you are one of them.”

  Pretty cool. Magic deodorant plus antiperspirant. But why would I want to hang out with vampires?

  “You will attend the Pax Sanguinem tomorrow night as Nikolai Vosmik, a diplomat from a small Canadian coven known as Tenebris, which holds dominion over the Chatham-Kent area. You will observe the proceedings and report back to me. Under no circumstances will you speak during the assembly unless called upon.”

  “Vah avouh vuh weaw hifrorat?”

  She loosens the gag.

  “What about the real diplomat?”

  “He’s been dealt with.”

  “Can I ask you a serious question without getting gagged again?”

  “Proceed.”

  “Why do you care? I mean, what specific information do y
ou want me to gather?”

  “I’ve made certain investments in the affairs of vampires, and I don’t want to see them go to waste. You’ll want to pay close attention to any talk regarding the Ascended. In particular, listen for discussion of changes in their hunting habits or hunting grounds.”

  “Why me? Why don’t you send one of your fairies as a spy?”

  “And risk the wellbeing of one of my kind? I think not, Mr. Cadigan. One of my fairies wouldn’t last ten minutes in a room full of vampires, even under magical protection. You, on the other hand, hold no innate magical power by which to be detected, yet you possess the ability to disguise yourself through magical means. Your nature is therefore more easily hidden. You’re perfect for this.”

  “Another serious question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Why do I have to be Canadian?”

  She points at the gag. It cinches its tightest yet.

  “Hev,” I protest. “Thofit. Thif hurrth.”

  “I will now escort you and your pet lizard to shore. You and that miserable reptile are not to harm these hags any further than you already have. You are not to seek them out, nor are you to hold them responsible for what has occurred here this night. Lady Wygella and her sisters are under my protection. Complete the task to which I have appointed you, and I will see you released from dream-slavery. As for your fiendish friend, he is on thin ice. One more slip-up on his part, and it’s back to Gryphon for him.”

  “Awe you fur he’w vo vach?”

  She loosens the gag.

  “Are you sure he’ll go back?”

  “If not, it’s your head. Now come.”

  The gag moves to cover my eyes. “You expect me to swim to shore blind?”

  “You swam here blind, didn’t you?”

  “I was dragged here unconscious. A condition my dragon is currently reaping the benefits of.”

  “Make do. I won’t have you learning the location of this place and coming back here when you think I’m not looking.”