by K. A. M'Lady
“You fix this, Maebe. You fix this right now, or I swear by all the Prophets…”
“Cast into the Darkness this child of the Light. Yet to find her Way?” she clucked. “Maebe is not a bringer of life. A fixer of death. Walks she not in the Shadow Lands. Possess not the power to find the wandering of lost souls.”
“Ugh!” I screamed, throwing my hands up and taking a step towards the old crone. “For once in my life, will you just help me?”
She cocked her head as if gagging my seriousness; considering the possibilities of a lifetime of knowledge. Things I could only hope to know or ever comprehend.
But what had she just said? Things about death and lost souls? About walking the Shadow Lands? I had the power to walk the Shadow Lands. I could find lost souls.
I looked up to see Maebe smiling a yellowed, toothless grin.
“Maebe, Prism is not yet dead,” I ground out between clenched teeth. Oh, I understood what she was trying to do. She was teaching me, without teaching me. It all had to do with her previous tale of mumbo jumbo. But it didn’t fix my current situation. Prism still had breath. And where there was breath, there was hope.
“Trust in the Light, Rihker,” she told me. “It is the Way. For all creatures. Especially The Chosen.”
With another gust of wind she was gone, and I was left to handle this alone.
You are never alone, child, her voice whispered in my ear. The Way and the Light walks with you, always. Trust in the Light and yourself. You will know you’ve opened the right door when you seek it.
I stared at Prism’s still, bloody and nearly lifeless frame, and knew I had to make a decision. Now. Before it was too late for her. She had healed me, brought me back from destruction, and shown me my own way back to my future. I had no choice but to try to bring her back from the edge of her demise. I owed it to her.
With a force of will I did not feel and enough regret for the pain I was about to cause her, I reached for the first hunk of wood that had been buried in her wrist and pulled it free; my trembling apology feebly sputtering from my lips. She screamed her rage into the emptiness of the room and, thankfully passed out.
It took several moments for me to garner the strength to remove the remaining three and when I’d finally released her I quickly gathered her in my arms, carrying her lifeless form to the bathroom where I knew the tub remained, as well as Prism’s herbs.
Laying her on the bed of plush carpet, I quickly filled the tub with warm water and started dumping whatever herb I could remember smelling from my own previous dip in the healing bath. Praying all the while that the Prophets guided me. When I had what I thought was about as right as I was going to get it, I set Prism in the bath’s scented depths.
With a trembling sigh of hope, nervousness and languishing fear, I breathed one last prayer to the Prophets to guide me. It was then I recalled the need for the candles. The memory of waking to the glowing light of their flickering flames. At the first scratch of flint to wick, as the brilliant blue hue turned to a yellowed glow, the scent of earth and fields rushed through my memories and I felt the stirring of my she-wolf.
With a vividness that only a child of the earth could taste or feel, the rush of pine and moss washed through my mind like the wind through the forest. I could feel the subtle chill of dirt churning beneath padded paws. Knew the glory of freedom. Felt the kinship. The brilliance of life. And understood without reason which door Prism needed to walk through.
It’s an amazing glory that only the children of the Light can comprehend to open your heart and soul to the brilliance that is the spirit of the earth. The oneness we feel ourselves fill with when we allow the Light to shine within us.
I opened that door, welcomed it gratefully in all of its gracious glory and embraced the part of me that walks in the Light.
Incredible waves of glowing warmth filled me. My heart swelled to bursting with overwhelming love. Every vein flowed with inconceivable joy and laughter. It was more than I had ever felt before. Like childhood joy I had never known. A first kiss or the glimpse of a rainbow after the rain. The first warm brush of a spring breeze after a long winter’s ice. All that was life everlasting. The power was overwhelming. The delight more than one person could ever possibly bear.
I knew my power had increased tremendously when I had taken my Queen’s powers, but what I did not understand was how she could have withheld this joyous beauty from her people. How she could have willingly kept it from the Land of Light. It was magnificent and breathtaking. Heartrending and triumphant. It was powerful and divine.
It was as if I could feel the creation of life, seedlings bursting from the magical earth. Flowers erupting from shoots and the unfurling of leaves in the trees. Like I held the very essence of the birth of the world in the palm of my hand. I only had to feed it into the land, its people to make the magic grow.
The last made me realize the why behind my Queen’s reasoning. But I didn’t have to agree with her. I knew that all Fey creatures deserved to feel this joy. That they deserved to bask in this delight. That the magic needed to be returned to them. And I was going to see that it did. Starting with Prism.
I reached for her, taking her shattered, bloody hands in mine. At first I let a small amount of Light flow between us, fearful that too much, too soon would cause her more harm than I intended. I didn’t want to screw this up. Feared that I would cause her more harm than good. My stomach was tied in knots. I was doing my damndest to make things right. Please guide me, I prayed to the Prophets.
Her eyes blinked open in fits and spasms while the Light coursed between us. I watched, amazed as the wounds slowly healed on her hands. Torn and meaty flesh ripe with blood sealed closed, the soft pink skin of healed flesh appearing in its place.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I tried a little more. It was like twisting or twitching a muscle. I let the Light flow beyond our connected hands, up her arms and through her chest. I visualized that everywhere I looked, the Light followed. Letting the Prophets guide me. Letting the Light be my guide. Trusting, for the first time, in the power of the Light. Soon, Prism’s entire body glowed. Where once she had been ripe with pain, contorted and rocked by torturous, gnarly wounds that seeped with her life’s blood, she now floated freely in the water, her body haloed in a striking golden-green hue. Beaming with the power of Light...My power of Light.
Prism sat upright in the tub, her eyes glistening with tears. “I am forever in your debt, Rihker.”
The awe and joy her voice held moved me. I reached out and pulled her into my arms. My own tears streamed down my face. My heart was torn between the joy of seeing her alive, feeling her heart beating in the form I held against me, and yet destroyed that Jirvel had done this to her. My hatred boiled at the thoughts of what she was doing to the others that I loved.
“She has taken the others,” I croaked, stroking the length of Prism’s hair. “How am I going to save them from her?”
She pushed me away from her so that she could look into my eyes. Her face took on a depth of seriousness I had never seen her possess before. “You will do what is necessary. If you have the power to give me back my life, then you have the power to save the others that you love.”
“But…”
“No, Rihker,” she stated, cutting off my denials before I had a chance to complete them. “You are The Chosen. The Prophets selected you for all of the right reasons. You, like no other, has the power to do this and so much more. And you have made it so that I am here to help you. You have the gifts to call on others as well. You just need the right tools and a plan. Now come.” She climbed from the tub, her body whole, still glistening with the greenish glow of power. “It is time for you to meet your fate, kill your foes and save our family.”
She was right, of course. It was time to slay me some dragons, figuratively speaking. Besides, tomorrow was Halloween, and what could be more fitting than for a master of the Darkness and his Queen bitch than a pyre to burn in?
Chapter Seventeen
“She belongs in a cage…”
Nicked by terror
But only touched me on the lips, to hush me,
Till I felt those rough boughs fattening toward our future.
From Lil – Twelve Moons – Poems by Mary Oliver
The few remaining hours until dawn found me planning the murderous demise of a nation. Well, maybe not a nation, but definitely Jirvel’s entire sadistic clan. That included all of her Werewolf flunkies, Zombies, Death Stalkers and any other creepy-crawly she might have at her beck and call.
Prism and I had shoved the piles of my disheveled furniture into a corner of the room, wiped her blood from the floor and walls—I couldn’t stand the sight of it—and began gathering all the weapons we had stashed about the house. Carefully I laid each of them out on the floor, taking note of their images and their name. I imagined the ways in which Jirvel’s little band of death dealers would be slashed and hacked by each of them. How their blood would glisten from every blade.
I took small measures of delight in the formulation of my plan, visions of torn throats and eviscerated remains. Knowing that for every ounce of pain I would soon inflict upon each of them that Jirvel was inflicting inconceivable amounts on those I cared for. That I would soon retaliate tenfold in agony and pain to every last one of those who gave their allegiance to her. I would see that her halls ran red with their blood. I would ensure that no breath or life remained in any of them.
The Prophets may find a reason to forgive. Me, I was seeking pure destruction. Total obliteration. Tonight they would have to find their forgiveness elsewhere.
“Planning a little death party without me, then?”
The brusque Cockney accent startled me as I laid yet another weapon on the floor. I spun around to find Dax, standing behind me in all her dark glory. She was dressed like the Devil’s French maid of death, a wicked grin smeared across the gleam of her bright red lips.
My mouth dropped open, searching for words that would not come, while I took in the full effect of her ensemble. True, I’d seen her in some odd but interesting attire before, but this one…Well, I was beginning to wonder where the Sweepers got their wardrobes, and if any of the others dressed anything like her.
First, her feet were covered with thigh high black boots, each with random slashes all over that appeared to bleed. Then there was the standard black maid’s skirt, except this had crimson ruffles beneath that hiked it up so high you could just make out the white ruffle of her panties that just covered the crack of her bum.
My eyes rose in increments from her small waist to the slip of white cloth wrapped like a kerchief or apron around the rounds of her breasts. Upwards my startled eyes wandered to the spiked collar at her throat, her small pert chin, those blazing red lips and her thin, straight nose, finally coming to rest on the large, snake-like oil slicks of her glimmering dark eyes. The whole of her features were topped by the fearfully spiky points of her crimson hair; bangs hanging to a point down one side of her face.
Strange that I couldn’t recall the color or cut of her hair from our last meeting. Too much had been happening. Not to mention the awe-inspiring affect her clothes seemed to make. But seeing her now, like this, she was oddly beautiful. In a death-like, creepy sort of way. Clearing my throat to find my voice, I finally asked, “Where in the world do you get those clothes?”
Her laughter skittered across my flesh, sent my teeth rattling and, oddly, eased my nerves a bit. I was relieved to see her. Especially now, when I needed all of the help I could muster. What better help to have when going on a mission of death than an assassin for the Silent Court?
You see, Dax is a Sweeper for the Silent Court. They are like the dark boogiemen or, in her case, women of the Other World. They clean up all of the messes that the Other World creates. If an Other World creature has brought too much attention, or a little too much notice of our less than appealing qualities to the human world, then the Sweepers are sent in to ‘clean up’ the riffraff. When they’re done there isn’t even a spot of blood, bone or DNA left over for identification.
I was thrilled beyond words to see her.
“By that twinkle beamin in yer shiny red eyes, I’m gonna say yer happy to ‘ave me aboard for a little death dance?”
“Come for the party, stay for annihilation,” I beamed.
“Good. Glad to see ye’ve come to yer senses. Only good Death Stalker is one at the end of me blade.”
“Riiight,” I nodded. “Let’s just make sure that we kill only the ones who need killing. Okay? I’d like to save the few who are a part of my family.”
“Gone and got yerself ye own clan, then?” Dax asked, tilting her head as if the word tasted foreign on her tongue.
“Let’s just say that I protect what is mine, Dax. And Kieran and the others are under my protection.”
“What is the mistress willing to do to protect them, then—eh?”
“Anything.” I stared solidly into the death-like pools of her fathomless eyes. “Everything. Whatever it takes to for us to survive.”
She stared at me for a few heartbeats. Taking in my measure, I’m sure, and who knows what else. I could only hope that what she saw in my eyes would be enough for her to agree to come with me. To throw her hat in my ring and aid my cause.
“All right, love. You can count Dax in on yer game. I’m willing to walk into the labyrinth with ye.”
A breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding petered out in a trembling sigh. Then I considered her words for a moment. Remembered our past conversations, where her words ran through my mind like angry ghosts. Still, I wondered why she was willing to help me. I stood in my living room with one of the deadliest creatures of the Other World and searched for her reasons in the stiffness of her spine, the darkness of her eyes and the wicked grin that curved her lips. I didn’t find the answers I sought, only a blank void of nothingness that stirred the fine hairs on the back of my neck.
“Och, child,” she finally replied, stepping away from me and beginning to pace about the small, clutter space of the room. “Tis not every day one such as me gets to throw her allegiance in with The Chosen,” she stated. “Might as well be on the front lines at the rebirth of our freedom—swinging axes and slaying usurpers—than be questioned of me whereabouts when the battle ‘tis at its end.”
Her words made sense, but I had a strange feeling there was something I was missing where Dax was concerned. Something I just couldn’t put my finger on. Maybe it was because of the type of creature she was. Sweepers were after all, harbingers of death, the silent mystery of the Other World that thrived on the destruction of others.
Uneasily I pondered if that made them creatures of the Light or Darkness? It was yet another question to be answered. One more among many that I had to consider.
“Now,” she said, dark glee ringing from her voice and tripped along my spine, “let’s go over yer plan and how ye intend to use yer newfound powers.”
If my past has taught me anything, it’s this: trust no one but the blade in your hand, the power you’ve been blessed and the Prophets to guide your Way. I was definitely going to make sure that that putting my trust in Dax didn’t lead to my destruction.
Chapter Eighteen
You didn’t know
What was in the heap.
They show the sightseer
Their mouths full of filth
From The Beggars – Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated from the German by Michael Hofman
I awoke just before nightfall to a slow, steady rain. The world just beyond my windows a sodden, shadowed reflection of a land in the midst of death. It seemed a suitable scene for the upcoming events.
The small reprieve had allowed me to garner my strength, gather my thoughts and find a measure of peace I had been ill afforded over the last few days. It had also allowed Prism to work her own brand of magic.
I had dressed in black leather pants, my favorite biker boots, a simpl
e black leather vest that zipped up the front and a black tank beneath. Tonight I wouldn’t be cold. I had hatred to warm me. Blood and death to kindle my fire.
I made certain to place all of my knife sheathes on my arms and legs, including the new ones I’d had made for the blades I always carried at my back. Oh, I knew that Jirvel had ordered that I come alone and unarmed, but that didn’t mean I intended to stay that way.
I had also decided to take a page from Dax’s book on weaponry. I added a few hidden holsters for guns; laying out and loading with silver a Glock ten millimeter and a Walther 380. It was thin, small and perfect for concealment. It also packed enough punch to knock a hole in your enemy. I had considered bringing a Judge Snub-nose Revolver—they fired shotgun shells and would blast some serious ass—but the creatures I was going after had a bit more magic to maim than the Judge might offer. Besides, who needed a Judge when I was about to mete out my own brand of Other World Justice?
I also made sure I included in my arsenal the Goblin Dagger, Endless Blood. Where I was going, I was quite sure that Mercy might need it, considering what they had done to her the last time she had been held captive.
I still recalled the memories of when Gimlit had told me of this forthcoming moment. It quivered through my belly like maggots on rotting flesh. Like all memories of impending doom, I could only swallow down my fears, the hard lump of the possible outcome twisting like a knife in my gut. The visions flowing like a river of blood.
“Where’s Mercy?” I had asked when Gimlit wrapped me in a blanket and carried me to his Jeep.
“Back at the house, tucked away in the crypt for the day. Healing,” he had replied. His voice had been low, worried as he took in the sight of me.
“And the Changeling, Prism?”
“She is there as well.”
“I found the book, Gim,” I told him. My voice sounded tired, my body badly wounded.