by Robyn Bachar
“I finally figured out who you remind me of,” he said.
“Who?”
“Ripley, from Aliens.”
I nodded slowly. That wasn’t half-bad. “Well, if we can figure out a way to nuke the hunters from orbit, I’m all about that.”
“So it’s settled that you’re staying in the guesthouse, then?” Zach asked.
“Fine. Just for a few days, until we can figure something else out,” Lex reluctantly agreed. “But we’re not offering to feed you, for the record. And neither is Marie.”
“That’s fine. I have ample sustenance on hand. And before you threaten me, I will not put a hand on your sister. I know it would disturb you, and she would beat the hell out of me if I tried,” Zach said.
“So you’re scared of her, but you had no qualms about molesting me?” I asked, indignant. Not that I wanted him to bite Marie, but why was I the pushover?
“As I have mentioned before, it is a foolish man who makes an enemy out of a Duquesne. Your baby sister once broke a master necromancer’s arm in three places when he tapped on her shoulder at a gathering,” Zach replied.
Lex grinned. “Good for her.”
I smirked as I texted Marie to head to Casa Dracula when she could disentangle herself from her chronicler buddy. And I warned her to beware the paparazzi outside. Though it would be funny to see the rumor frenzy that Zachary Harrison was attempting to break up P!nk’s marriage (better hers than mine).
We finished eating in relative silence. Anthony was willing to chat with me, but Lex and Zach were busy glowering at each other. I ignored them, because as long as they weren’t actively throwing punches or trying to kill each other I could deal with it. I was concerned that we hadn’t heard from Portia yet. It wasn’t like her, especially after an emergency like this. Something big and ugly must be going on in Faerie to keep her away for this long. I wasn’t in the mood for big and ugly right now.
Faust appeared as the meal ended. “I’ll be your transportation to the facility the hunters are being stored in,” he informed us.
“We’re not driving?” I asked.
“No. We don’t want to risk anyone following us there or witnessing us entering the building.”
“That’s not comforting,” I said.
Faust smiled and patted my shoulder amiably. “Don’t worry. You’ll be quite safe.”
It was still not comforting, but I didn’t point that out.
“Can I come with?” Anthony asked, and Zach replied with an instant no. The kid looked annoyed, but he didn’t argue.
I had to hold hands with Lex and Zach, forming a weird circle with Faust. A sinking feeling grabbed my stomach and dragged it somewhere down around my knees as I realized a detail I hadn’t had time to ponder earlier—Faust was a shadowspawn faerie, which meant he wasn’t using shortcuts through Faerie like Portia did. We were taking shortcuts through hell, possibly even the shadow realm, as Simon had mentioned. I opened my mouth to insist that we drive instead, but we were blinked out of the room in a rush of cold and into a nondescript concrete hallway. It looked like a basement somewhere, with pipes running overhead and bare light bulbs screwed into the cinderblock walls every few feet. Our shoes scuffed dully against the floor, and the air was damp and thick. Definitely a basement. Not Harrison Tower, though, considering Faust couldn’t take us there with the faerie wards around it.
We turned a corner and found two men with shotguns guarding what looked like a freezer door—it reminded me a bit of the walk-in freezer at the Three Willows café. Hunters on ice? It made morbid sense. Otherwise they’d get ripe pretty fast. One of the armed men opened the door, and we stepped inside. I shivered, rubbing my arms. It wasn’t quite a freezer, but it was damn cold. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly glow over the room, and I jumped as I spotted the bodies laid out across the floor. Eight men dressed in black clothing, looking like space aliens with their night-vision goggles on. Their weapons were neatly placed on the ground next to each body, and I stared owlishly at the guns. Had they always intended to kill us, or only decided to once we fought back? Maybe we’d been getting too close, and they wanted us out of the way.
Zach stalked from body to body, staring down at each one with a blank expression. Some sort of icky necromancy was about to go down, and I stepped closer to Lex, took his hand and held it tightly. I looked up at him, but he was staring at the bodies.
“Do you know which one shot me?” he asked softly.
“The demon shot you,” I replied.
“Demon? What demon?”
“Did I forget to mention that?” I winced, and then I glanced at Zach. “That reminds me, did you get ahold of any of your summoner contacts?”
“One.”
“Just one? That’s it? Is that normal?” I asked.
“No, it isn’t. Perhaps Marie was more successful.”
Lex tugged at my hand. “What’s going on?”
I explained the demon encounter he’d missed while being unconscious, and it only deepened Lex’s frown. “Which summoner did you reach?” he asked Zach.
“Patience Roberts,” Faust answered. “We spoke briefly. She mentioned that the summoner council hasn’t been returning her calls.”
Lex nodded. “That’s what the grandparents of that missing summoner family said. They reached out to Marie because they couldn’t contact the council.”
“That can’t be good.” I scratched at my arm as though the tattoo itched. Well, it was good that Patience was still alive, but bad that the hunters might have taken out an entire council. The hunter problem seemed to be getting exponentially worse.
My good sense told me not to watch, but curiosity got the better of me, and I stared at Zach as he stopped in front of a corpse in the middle of the row. He began chanting in Latin, and for a moment I was reminded of the spell my father had used to summon his skeletal minions in the last test to become Titania. When Zac finished, nothing happened at first, but then he spoke again.
“Rise,” he ordered.
The hunter’s body jerked, and with clumsy, flailing motions, it sat up and then got to its feet. It opened its cloudy eyes, and stood staring fixedly at Zach. I’d never be able to watch another zombie movie ever again. The smell of necromancy hit me a moment later, and I forcibly choked my breakfast back down as it tried to escape my stomach.
“What was your mission?” Zach asked.
“We were trying to apprehend the male subject,” the zombie intoned. Its voice was wrong somehow. A reedy, wheezy rasp as though it’d been punched in the throat. Maybe it had been. Lex did get in a few swings before he fell… Male subject, huh? I guess we really were just rats in a maze to them.
“To what end?” Zach asked.
“To apprehend the subject and deliver him to be processed. The female was collateral damage. Apprehend if possible, terminate if not.”
I was collateral damage? That was not comforting. “What the fuck does processed mean?” I asked. It stared blankly at Zach. I guessed that meant it didn’t know the answer. Maybe they didn’t know what happened to the magicians after they were captured. “Did you apprehend the librarian family in Des Plaines too?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s the baby?”
“The subjects were delivered for processing,” it replied.
“Delivered where?” Lex asked.
“To Alpha base.”
“Where is that?” he prompted. The zombie continued to stare. “Where is Alpha base? What is its location?”
No response. Something snapped inside me, and I leapt at it, my hands curled into claws. Lex grabbed me and held me back before I could scratch the dead bastard’s eyes out.
“You motherfucking son of a bitch! They’re not subjects, they’re people. They’re families and children,” I snarled. “Where are they?”
Again there was no answer. Lex continued to hold me back, and my rage turned into sobs. My whole body shook as I wept, and when I stopped struggling he put
his arms around me and held me close.
“Who summoned the demon?” Zach asked. The zombie stayed silent.
“The man in the suit with your group,” I prompted, wiping at my eyes. “Who was he?”
“The intelligence operative,” it answered.
“Name? Rank?” Lex asked. No answer.
“What were your next orders?” Zach asked.
“We had orders to rendezvous with green and blue units, to prepare for the strike on the subject event.”
“Event? What event?”
“A large gathering of subjects. We have not received the time, number of subjects or the location yet.”
“Lord and Lady,” I whispered. Samhain was only a few days away. There would be a lot of big magician parties celebrating it because it was one of our most popular holidays. They could be targeting anyone.
“I’ll get the word out. Warn as many people as we can. We’re not going to learn much more from this one,” Zach said. His voice was low and pained, and I peeked at him from the circle of Lex’s embrace. Zach seemed truly upset by the news. It was odd to see him openly displaying real, honest emotion. “They may not know anything further than their own orders. I’ve run into this problem before, with bodies that shapeshifters brought to me.”
“What do we do?” I asked, sniffling.
“I don’t know,” he replied, shaking his head.
“Could Emily help?” I looked up at Lex. “She said to call her if we found something new. These are new.”
“Emily Black?” Zach asked, and I nodded. “Why her?”
“She’s a seer.”
“She’s not a seer anymore,” he countered.
“Yes, she is. Why does everyone say that? She still has visions. It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?” I said. Zach shook his head, so I turned my plea to Faust. “Isn’t a dead seer still better than none at all?”
“The Titania does have a point, Zachary,” Faust said.
That’s right, I did, damn it.
“Perhaps. I’ll consider it,” Zach said reluctantly.
I opened my mouth to lay into him with a scathing argument, but Lex and I were suddenly popped out of the room.
Chapter Fourteen
My jaw snapped shut as I blinked up at the faerie council. What the hell? I glanced around and discovered we were in the same reddish-marble hall we’d been yanked into a few days ago. The two tigers and their faerie sponsors were standing to our right, and Portia threw her arms around me in a big hug.
“Kitty! I’m sorry I couldn’t buy you more time,” she said. “It’ll be okay.”
Okay? Okay? The monotone rasp of the zombified hunter filled my ears with his warning about raiding a subject gathering. I untangled myself from Portia’s embrace and glared at the council.
“No. No way. Are you fucking kidding me? You pull us away from interrogating the hunters who tried to kill us so we can deal with this stupid bullshit?” I snapped. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Lex added, and I was glad he had my back. “They’re planning on attacking a gathering. We have to warn—”
“Watch your tone, both of you,” Cecelia interrupted with a severe frown. Her look should’ve been enough to encourage me to regain my sanity. It seemed to work on Lex, but it wasn’t enough for me. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones—I’d heard you could claim temporary insanity because of them.
“My tone? Are you high? I almost lost my husband last night. I pulled two bullets out of his chest with my own bare hands, and you want me to watch my tone? He could’ve died. We both could’ve been killed, and you’re still jerking us around with this challenge shit.”
“The hunters attacked you last night?” the male tiger asked. What was his name again? Jerry? Who the fuck cared? I rounded on him like I was going to throw down with his stripy butt.
“Yes, the hunters attacked us last night. Are you deaf and stupid?” I snapped.
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Riley warned me.
“Whatever. Don’t start with me. I don’t care if you are Maureen’s granddaughter, I will kick your furry ass.” She gasped, looking indignant that I would say such a thing. “Why are you doing this to us? You don’t know the first thing about what it really means to be a magician.”
“Because you’re a necromancer’s—” she started, and I cut her off with a wave of my hand. If she’d been standing closer, I would’ve slapped her Jerry Springer style.
“No, I’m not a necromancer’s anything. My aura is 100 percent necromancy-free now. And you wouldn’t even know what a necro was if Councilwoman Lynne Trent hadn’t thrown you under the Titania bus because she’s got the rod of ‘better than thou’ jammed up her ass.” Before I could continue my tirade, my lips were suddenly sewn shut. Probably literally, though I didn’t feel any stitches when I touched my mouth in shock. My lips were definitely stuck together, though, with magical superglue. Guess there was no freedom of speech in Faerie.
“That’s enough, Catherine,” Cecelia intoned.
I tried to retort, “No it isn’t,” but all I managed were some angry humming sounds. I stomped my foot, and my rage actually caused my magic to splinter the marble beneath me with an echoing crack. I looked down, blinked at it, and hummed, “Holy shit.”
“I said that’s enough!” This time she shouted, and her words thundered off the walls and scared the stupid clean out of me. Lex pushed me behind him in case Cecelia hurled any magic in my direction, but no attacks were forthcoming. I was safe. For now.
“It isn’t enough,” Lex said, much to my shock. “Catherine’s pregnant. You can’t ask her to fight in a test for a job we already won. It isn’t fair, and it’s putting an innocent life at risk.”
The faerie took a deep breath and then calmly smoothed her skirts. “I am aware of Catherine’s condition. If you are concerned for her safety, then I suggest that you had better do an excellent job of protecting her, Alexander. We will proceed with this test, as scheduled. We cannot delay any further.”
“How am I supposed to do an excellent job when I’m still suffering from my last battle?” he countered with an angry growl. “A lesser magician would’ve died from those wounds.”
“Try,” she said. “Your test begins now. The first couple who reaches the end of the labyrinth will become Titania and Oberon. There will be no further tests or challenges. Good luck.”
The floor dropped out from under us, and we landed on a patch of asphalt, surrounded on three sides by high concrete walls. I looked up and spotted a cloudy night sky. Wincing, I opened my mouth and found the magic superglue was gone, and I sighed in annoyance as I rubbed my bruised tailbone.
“You okay?” Lex asked. He looked me over for wounds and bruises.
“I think so. Where are we?”
“Not sure.”
Cecelia had said labyrinth, so I’d assumed goblins and David Bowie, but this was nothing like that. Rusty rows of dumpsters lined graffiti-covered walls, and it didn’t look a thing like anywhere I’d seen in Faerie. It didn’t smell like cinnamon-scented faerie magic either, and instead I smelled smoke and the pungent scents of a bar’s back alley. A fire burned in a trash barrel at the end of the alley, and it seemed ominous somehow. It was warm, too warm to be late October (unless we were experiencing some freakish Illinois weather).
“Help me up, please,” I said. Lex eased me to my feet, and I felt the familiar weight of my sword and dagger strapped to my waist. “Do you have your spear?”
He stepped back, and then conjured the weapon to life. Lex swung it a few times, and he grimaced. “I’m sorry, sugar, I’m still a little sore. We’re not built to heal bullet wounds.”
“Why not?” I asked, curious.
“Bullets bounce around and tear up your guts. None of our weapons work like that. Arrows, blades, even spells are straightforward.” Lex shook his head and then glanced at our surroundings. When his gaze returned to me, he frowned. “Your hat’
s wrong again.”
I reached up—I hadn’t even realized I was wearing it, so the faeries must have popped it in with my weapons—and grabbed the brim. Holding it in front of me, I turned the hat around in my hands and scowled as I saw two new cards in the brim, The Tower and The Chariot, destruction and conquest. I yanked them out and scowled down at them.
“This isn’t funny,” I muttered.
“We’d better get started. Stay close behind me and keep your shields up.”
“Our shields,” I corrected.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Says the man who almost died last night. Stay within the shield or I’ll kick your ass myself,” I warned him. Lex smiled, and he hugged and kissed me quickly.
“Let’s go.”
We started down the alley, and I tossed the tarot cards into the burning trash barrel at the end. Good riddance. I followed Lex into an empty street where a disaster bomb had gone off. Overturned cars, burning store fronts, toppled street lights—all it needed to complete the look was a shambling zombie horde or a hovering alien mother ship. The power was still on, and sparks and ominous snapping noises came from the downed lights. I made a note to be on the lookout for live power wires, because I had no doubt that the faeries would fry us if we weren’t careful.
“Whoa… Damn it, I knew Harrison was going to start the zombie apocalypse,” I muttered.
Lex scowled. “That’s not funny.”
“You’re right, it’s really not.”
When we reached our first intersection, the paths led left, forward and right. The stoplight had toppled over and lay in the middle of the street, and I bent down to read the street sign. “Roosevelt Road,” I announced.
“Not any part of it that I know. Does this place look familiar to you?” Lex asked.
I frowned at the buildings—a corner convenience store, an empty lot, a bar and an apartment complex. “No. Could be Cicero, maybe, but Roosevelt goes on forever, way the hell out past Yorktown. Besides, the Faeries could’ve made all this up and just thrown in some real-world landmarks for flavor.”