Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, & Magic

by SM Reine

  “Ha! My ears know what my eyes cannot see. Tell me, your companion, does she stand, weapon at the ready to defend you from such a fearsome creature as I am?” The woman cackled, shaking with laughter.

  Aran glanced over his shoulder. Spark, arrow still nocked, nodded at him to keep going. When he reached the fire, the woman stilled and held out her gnarled hands.

  “Let me see you,” she said.

  “How about you give us a quest.” He didn’t want to go any nearer the old woman and her eyeless face.

  “Favor for favor,” she said.

  Gritting his teeth, he leaned forward, close enough for her to reach up and touch his face. Her fingertips felt like moth wings against his skin.

  “Aye,” she said softly. “A tarnished hero, seeking redemption. It will be within your grasp, have you the courage to seize it.”

  “Okay.” Aran pulled back. “My turn. Do you have a quest for us?”

  “So impatient, the young.” The woman shook her head, the firelight casting odd shadows across her face. “I could tell you more, of pasts and futures, should you linger.”

  “No time for that,” Spark called.

  “Sharp-eared, that one.” The old woman beckoned to Spark. “I will read your face as well, girl.”

  “No, thanks. Hurry it up, Aran.”

  “Very well.” The old woman pointed one twisted finger off to the right. “In yonder stream resides the creature who will lead you to what you seek—but she is a wary thing and must be coaxed forth with a hazel wand and a bright berry.”

  Aran waited, but the woman said nothing more.

  “That’s it?” he asked.

  “It is enough.”

  “Thank y—”

  “Never give the fey your gratitude,” she said. “It will earn you more enmity than you could guess.”

  “Okay then.”

  Moved by some impulse, even knowing she couldn’t see him, Aran put his foot back and dipped into the formal court bow. A smile crossed the old woman’s face, and for a starlit moment her features were those of a beautiful young woman.

  “Come on,” Spark said, beckoning.

  When he rejoined her, she gave him a look. “What was that? The bowing thing.”

  “Just something I picked up,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  The path curved around in the direction the old woman had indicated, although when they’d first stepped into the clearing, Aran could have sworn it went the other way. Soon they left the firelight behind and the night closed in around them. An owl hooted nearby, and the wind creaked the dry branches overhead.

  “Does this really have to use the soundtrack from a lame horror vid?” Aran asked. “All we need to complete the effect is—”

  “A monster,” Spark said, her voice tight. “And there it is.”

  Something shambled in the darkness in front of them, then lurched forward, illuminated by Spark’s fireball. It was a huge man, wrapped round with clanking chains and carrying a wickedly spiked mace. From his chain belt swung three severed heads, their dead eyes open and staring.

  “Fee, fi, fo,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “Jack smells lovely flesh and blood. Come play, my pretties.”

  With a roar, he lifted his mace high overhead, then smacked it down hard on the path. The ground trembled, and Spark glanced at Aran, wide-eyed.

  He shared her worry. This giant looked to be severe trouble.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Pulling his blades, Aran melted into the shadows. He ghosted silently to one side of the path. It would be foolish to meet their adversary head-on, but the giant’s back was unprotected.

  Faster than his bulk would suggest, the giant pivoted.

  “I smell you!” he cried, then smashed his mace down, way too close to Aran.

  He leaped clear, heart pounding. Okay, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  An arrow zinged through the air—Spark, taking advantage of the giant’s distraction to mount her own attack. Their enemy batted the arrow out of the air as if it were a crippled mosquito.

  “Stings and pokes?” The giant laughed, showing huge, blackened teeth, and the heads hanging from his belt swung back and forth.

  “How about this?” Spark said, holding her hand palm out toward their enemy.

  She chanted a string of guttural syllables, and from her outstretched hand a wall of flame whooshed. It hit the giant and he yelled, beating at his rags as they caught fire.

  Aran darted forward and sank both knives into the giant’s thigh. The neck would have been ideal, but it was above reach. Still, maybe the blow would bring the giant down.

  Their enemy yelled again and swung his mace in a low, vicious swipe. Aran caught hold of the giant’s chain belt and pulled himself out of the way, grimacing as one of the severed heads brushed against him.

  “Off me, pest!” the giant cried.

  Too quickly—Aran really had to stop misjudging their enemy’s speed—the giant’s meaty hand lashed out and grabbed Aran by the shoulders. Damn. He twisted, bringing his blades around as his enemy lifted him high into the air.

  Aran stabbed the giant’s wrist, but that only enraged him more. With a snap of his arm, he flung Aran through the air.

  Trees spun past his vision and Aran desperately tried to orient himself. A trunk loomed ahead of him, and he brought up one arm to shield his face. The impact was going to break him. Dimly, he heard Spark yelling the words of another spell.

  Everything slowed down, the air growing thick as honey. Aran hit the tree, the collision softened, though still incredibly painful. He bounced off the rough trunk and fell to the piney forest floor.

  He sat up, head spinning, and flexed his arms and legs. Impossibly, he wasn’t injured. Spark’s spell had saved him. But now she faced the giant alone. He sprang to his feet, blinking with sudden dizziness.

  The giant lurched and swiped, trying to grab onto the russet blur of Spark’s fox form. She leapt nimbly back and forth, evading the swipes of his meaty fingers.

  Until the giant caught her by the tail.

  “Aha! Foxkin head for my collection.”

  “Spark!” Aran sprinted forward, ignoring the pain pulsing through him.

  Her figure blurred, then solidified again in her human form. The giant still held her, however, her bright hair clenched between his massive fingers. With his other hand, he drew a thin, sharp blade.

  “My best prize yet,” he crowed. “The pretty, pretty hair.”

  Something glinted in Spark’s hand. Her dagger—but it was useless against the giant. She wrenched around, but she didn’t stab their enemy. Instead, she sliced at the top of her head.

  Brilliant girl. She was cutting herself free. And the giant was now low enough that Aran could do some serious damage. Without slowing, he raced to the giant’s knee, then vaulted up onto his arm and plunged his knives into their enemy’s chest.

  The giant swung his blade across Spark’s neck, but she had shorn off enough of her hair to squirm free. The giant’s slice did the rest, and he was left holding nothing but a fistful of magenta.

  “Aargh!” he cried, then dropped the hair.

  As Spark scrambled back, Aran stabbed the giant again. A moment later, one of her arrows whizzed through the air, hitting their enemy in the neck.

  With a slow groan, the giant toppled.

  Aran sprang free, knives at the ready. His breath rasped harshly through his throat, the sound nearly drowned out by the giant’s death moans. Beside Aran, Spark nocked another arrow.

  “I think we got him,” she said, though her bow never wavered.

  “Yeah. Good fighting.”

  Warily, Aran watched the giant until his eyes glazed over, lifeless. The hand holding the blade went slack, the weapon crashing uselessly to the blood-spattered soil.

  They’d won. Instead of a victory rush, Aran only felt tired. He wiped the giant’s blood off his knives, then sheathed them.

  “I hear the stream,” Spark said, stashing her
bow away. “Over there.”

  She tipped her head, her chopped hair falling in ragged lines around her face. Together they stepped off the path into the dark woods. Aran glanced once more over his shoulder. The dim bulk of the giant lay unmoving.

  The cheerful babble of water ahead lifted Aran’s spirits. Spark was right about the stream. She probably was right most of the time. Which meant he should have gone with her, and left the realm when he had the chance.

  Spark’s fireball licked red and gold reflections from the surface of the stream. Moving to the edge, Aran peered into the water.

  “Do you see anything?” she asked.

  Mindful that something might leap out and grab him, he carefully leaned forward. A flick of movement caught his attention, a flash of silver beneath the far bank.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Can you bring your fireball closer?”

  The flame floated to the center of the stream. Aran squinted into the shadows under the water and kept very still. Another flash and flicker.

  “Some fish in there,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  He’d spent plenty of time fishing with his uncles, mostly off the piers, but in the shallows, too. He knew a fish when he saw one. Even if it was a faerie fish.

  “It makes sense,” he said, turning to face Spark. “A stick and a berry. But what can we use for the line?”

  “What are you talking about?” She frowned at him.

  “Fishing. I think we need to catch one of those fish.”

  He glanced around, studying the trees. Most of them were evergreens, though a short distance up the bank grew a leafy tree with long, thin branches. He didn’t know if it was a hazel, but it was the best choice they had.

  “You get the sticks,” Spark said, “I’ll look for berries.”

  She caught on fast. Aran nodded, biting his tongue on words of caution. As if he needed to warn the most prime simmer in the world about the dangers of a game.

  A few minutes later they reconvened on the stream bank. Aran had two branches, stripped of their leaves. Spark carried a cluster of red berries, still attached to a sprig of leaves.

  “Here.” She handed him the berries, then started messing with the edge of her cloak.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We need string, right?”

  She plucked at the heavy wool a moment more, then pulled her dagger from her boot and sliced at her cloak. Aran helped her unravel a length of dark green thread, pulling until it was about twenty feet long. They cut it from the cloak, then sliced it in half. Aran rolled the slender strand between his fingers. Would it be strong enough?

  “Do we need hooks?” Spark asked as she assembled her fishing pole.

  “I don’t think so. The old woman didn’t mention them. But if we do, I can make us a couple.”

  “You can?”

  “Yeah, out of sharpened twigs.”

  “You know a fair bit about fishing.”

  “I used to fish with my mom’s side of the family.” Before his life took a sudden turn into grim.

  He bent and sifted through the pine needles on the bank until he found a nice pointy one, then poked a hole in the berry with it. Squinting, he threaded the berry and tied a complicated knot at the end. Seeing his work, Spark did the same.

  “So… we just throw the berry in?” She waved her makeshift pole at him. “Any extra tips?”

  “We’re trying for that deeper part where the bank’s cut away. And cast upstream, so the bait drifts past. Wish we had a net.”

  Spark shrugged out of her cloak and laid it on the ground.

  “It’s already ripped,” she said. “A little fish slime won’t hurt it.”

  “Fish aren’t that slimy. But yeah, we can bundle the fish up, keep it from flopping back into the stream.”

  Provided they caught one.

  He and Spark cast, his throw landing farther upstream than hers. Quietly, they watched the berries bob along the surface. When his bait floated into the shadows, Aran leaned forward in concentration, but didn’t get a bite. Not the next time, either. Or the time after that. After a while he lost count.

  Spark sighed. “I don’t think this is even—hey!”

  Her berry plunged under the surface and her line went taut.

  “Now what?” She turned a half-panicked gaze on him. “I’ve never done this before.”

  Aran tossed his pole on the bank and grabbed the cloak.

  “Go downstream—quick.” He eyed the tight curve of her stick. “Don’t want to break your pole. That’s it. Let the fish run a bit.”

  Spark hurried along the stream bank, Aran right behind her. He kept giving instructions—when to pull back, when to gather up the slack.

  “Wind the extra line up on your pole, like that. Good. Do you see it?”

  Spark paused to look into the water. “I do! It’s just a little thing, isn’t it? I hope it’s the right one.”

  Following his directions, Spark pulled the fish inexorably up. Its struggles broke the water as it splashed and flailed, its scales flashing silver.

  “Hold it fast,” Aran said.

  He spread the cloak between his arms and waded into the stream. Luckily they’d hit some shallows, and the was water only a little above his knees.

  As if sensing his approach, the fish thrashed wildly.

  “Oh no,” Spark cried as the red berry popped out of its mouth.

  Aran lunged, cloak outstretched. The berry swung back and forth on the end of the string. And the slim silver trout fell into the folds of the cloak.

  He whipped the edges together and splashed back to the bank. Spark took his elbow to help him out, and, squelching with each step, Aran moved several paces away from the stream. He could feel the fish wriggling desperately within the woolen confines.

  “Now what?” Spark asked.

  “It’s getting heavy,” Aran said. “I think it’s growing.”

  “Stand back.” Spark pulled out her bow and took a wary stance.

  He laid the cloak down. Sure enough, whatever was under the fabric had grown bigger, and it was still thrashing. He backed up, hands going to his knives.

  The cloak fell open, and he could only stare. It wasn’t a fish. It wasn’t even a monster.

  It was a girl.

  Her naked skin glimmered like moonlight. White blossoms were woven into her long, dark hair, and her eyes were wide with fear.

  “Hey there,” Spark said, taking a step forward.

  In an instant, the girl was on her feet. She cast a wild glance about the forest and, before they could stop her, bolted into the shadows of the trees.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Wait!” Aran cried. “We have to follow her.”

  The maiden’s pale figure was quickly disappearing into the dark woods. He and Spark plunged through the underbrush, barely keeping the girl in sight. Only her glowing skin kept them from losing her completely.

  Branches caught at Aran’s arms and the scent of crushed bracken fern stung his nose. They got no closer to the girl, but fell no farther away, either. Above, the unfamiliar stars shone down, distant and impassive.

  The forest ended. Ahead, the maiden scrambled up a sudden hill, the grasses silvered beneath the moon. She reached the top, her faintly glowing form framed for a moment against the night sky. Then she was gone.

  “Hurry,” Spark gasped, though she had fallen a few paces behind.

  Aran reached back and grabbed her hand, pulling her with him to the top of the hill. Except it wasn’t a hill, but a grassy mound. The midnight landscape spread out around them, with no sign of the fish maiden.

  In the center of the hill grew a tree covered with starry blossoms. And one perfect, golden sun.

  “Oh,” Spark said. “The golden apple.”

  “Do you think it’s safe to just pick?”

  Belatedly, Aran let go of her hand and readied himself for combat.

  “I think so. After all, we had to fight the giant, fish up the
girl, and then pursue her. That’s three.”

  He wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Senses alert, he followed Spark to the base of the tree. She reached, but the apple hung too high, gleaming far above her hopeful fingertips.

  “Boost me up,” she said.

  Aran cupped his hands and they managed to get her into the crook of the tree. Carefully, she edged out along one of the lower branches. He paced below, ready to catch her if she fell. White petals drifted down in the wake of her passage.

  “Almost there,” he called softly.

  She was so close, the golden glow cast a soft light over her face and the ragged ends of her hair. Watching, Aran held his breath. She reached, and plucked the apple. It parted from the tree with a sweet, musical chime.

  “Got it.” She smiled down at him.

  And fell, as a sudden, furious wind lashed the branches of the tree.

  He caught her, breaking her fall as the two of them tumbled to the soft grass.

  “We better go,” he said, though part of him wanted nothing more than to lie there with her, limbs tangled together, and count the unearthly stars.

  Overhead, the trembling wail of the Wild Hunt echoed through the sky. Way to break the romantic mood. They scrambled to their feet.

  “Over there.” Spark caught his arm and pulled him toward the far end of the hill.

  A small faerie ring shone, nearly hidden by the silvery grasses. Without a word, he and Spark leaped into the center. He didn’t care where it went, as long as it took them away from the hunt.

  The familiar, chilly wind rose about them, and he hunched his shoulders against the gusts. After two icy breaths, the wind subsided and the scene cleared to reveal their destination.

  Aran couldn’t hold back his whoop of triumph. They stood in the mirror-image clearing, and though he couldn’t see the coded wall, he knew it was there.

  “What is this place?” Spark asked, glancing across at the other two clearings.

  “The barrier between the realms. Look.”

  He stepped forward, palm out, until he met the resistance of the wall. He gave it a slap, demonstrating its solidity. Spark followed him, her hand outstretched. When she reached the barrier, she glanced over at him.