“What skills do you have?” I asked with a sigh. Let’s just get this over with, so he could leave and I could switch to a faster, more defensible shape.
“I can do the lightning,” he said proudly. “And I can change color.”
Any demon older than two seconds could do lightning. And what use would I possibly have for a demon that changed color? Maybe I could stand him in the corner at parties, like a festive color–changing lamp.
“Report to my Stewart and tell him you are to entertain others with your magnificent color changing abilities.”
I was feeling generous, and tired. Honestly, I just wanted him to go away and this seemed like the quickest way to accomplish that.
“Yes,” he squeaked. “Oh, thank you, Iblis. You will be most pleased with my color changes.”
He scurried off Southwest, on all fours this time, and I watched until he vanished in the dark. Then I drained the last of my water and stripped, bundling all my clothing in a ball surrounded by my coat and held tight with the scabbard ties. I looped my belt through into a circle, then stepped back and transformed into my first form. It felt good: really good. The temperature was suddenly insignificant and the hard–packed ground felt softer under my claws. I shoved one of my three heads through the belt circle, sliding my little bundle down my neck to rest against the swell of my shoulder. With a flap of wings, I took to the sky.
What would have been a day and a half on foot took a mere hour. Hot thermals buoyed me upward, caressing my wings as I flew. The elven forests stretched out to my left, the bareness of Dis to my right. In the day, the contrast would have been more noticeable. The elven forests spread verdant with a clear line delineating the kingdom borders. Each kingdom had favored color schemes, plants and animals, and these changed abruptly, right at the territory line. Where the elven lands met demon ones, the difference was even more striking. We both manipulated our environments, but the elves had far greater skill. And demons really didn’t care that much about botanical diversity.
I landed outside the Wythyn border at its south–eastern edge just as one moon glimmered at the horizon. The trees were identical to those in Cyelle. Even in the dark, I could see the moss and lush green stretching in a dense forest to the north. There was an addition of hanging moss on the trees here, and a slightly different bark texture, but these two kingdoms were visually similar.
I contemplated waiting until daybreak, but I was tired and just wanted to get this over with and go home, so I deposited my bundle and stepped back, transforming into my human, Samantha Martin, form. Dressing, I checked my pockets. Kirby’s marble and notes were there, along with the salt–edged sand serpent scales. I strapped the Shotgun of the Iblis on my back and without further ado, stepped over the defined line that separated the red clay of Dis from the loamy green of the elven forest. Instantly, the birdsong stopped. Ah, the alarm. It wouldn’t take them long now. I hoped they’d be quick about it because I really wanted a nap. I hadn’t slept well the night I’d left, wanting to spend as much waking time as I could enjoying Wyatt’s embrace, and I certainly didn’t sleep while locked in my room in Cyelle. I strolled through the forest, but I didn’t need to walk far. Less than twenty minutes later a net fell over me, dropping me to the ground and disabling my ability to use my energy. I felt myself dumped unceremoniously over the back of a horse and tied to the saddle. Finally, nap time.
31
“Look what we found.”
Whatever net they’d thrown over me had blinded me, but unfortunately I could still feel pain as I was rudely dropped from about four feet and bounced down what must have been the hardest stairs ever. I couldn’t fix myself, so I lay blind and bruised, in a heap on a cold floor.
“She came back? After last time? These demons are fools indeed.”
I hadn’t made it to the High Lord’s presence. I’d get there eventually; since I’m sure he wanted a piece of me. Cursing him out, refusing to bend to his commands, then vanishing right out from under him. Yeah, I’d probably be seeing him real soon.
I felt something prodding my hip, like a stick. “She’s got a price on her head.”
“That demon guy? Hagen something?”
“Not just him. Cyelle would be very grateful if she somehow appeared in their dungeons.”
I heard a laugh. “Cyelle can do their own dirty work. Although Lord Feille might swap her for one of their sorcerers.”
“At the rate we go through them, maybe he should ask for two,” a sarcastic voice said.
“Hush, you idiot. Do you want to be strung up for treason?”
Interesting. Seems I wasn’t the only one who thought this lord was an asshole. They continued to discuss my probable fate in hushed voices, occasionally prodding me with a foot or some kind of stick object. Eventually, notice must have come of my summons, as conversation halted and I felt myself dragged along the floor. It wouldn’t have been as bad if I didn’t have a shotgun strapped to my back. The thing kept digging into me and catching on walls and doorways, twisting me in painful directions.
I bumped down another set of stairs, the shotgun jabbing into my back, my head and my arms, adding considerably to my bruises. I landed at the bottom feeling as though I’d been beaten repeatedly with a hammer.. Instead of setting me free, someone started beating me with another object.
“Az, Az. I am so happy to see you,” came the voice of Feille, in time with the blows. I was really feeling the welcome.
“Let me out of this bag and we’ll see how happy you are.”
He laughed and kept whacking me. “I’ll let you out in a minute. I’m just relieving a little frustration.”
I twisted around so his next hit directly impacted my shotgun, and was thrilled to hear his stick crack and splinter.
“That was my favorite staff,” Feille said, although he didn’t seem terribly upset at the loss.
“Shall I get you another, My Lord?” a voice asked.
“No, I’m done anyway. Go ahead and let her out.”
I heard footsteps and was rolled around as the net lifted off. As soon as I was free, I fixed my cracked rib and various bruises and straightened my clothing. My shirt was a bloody, shredded mess from the fight with Haagenti, but everything else was in good order. Feille had left my side and was sitting in a ridiculously ostentatious throne that rose nearly ten feet above his crowned head. A sorcerer stood beside him, hands at the ready in case I made an aggressive move. I noticed a circle of runes around the throne chair, no doubt to guard against demon attack. It pissed me off further. The guy was happy to beat the shit out of me while I was safely restrained in a net, and now he sat in his big, stupid chair, the very image of strength and bravery with protective runes all around and a sorcerer at his side. Bet he wouldn’t be so cocky alone in a dark alley at night.
“Az, you dare to come back after the insult you delivered to me last time? And it seems you’re making friends all over Hel. I’m deliberating which contract on you I’ll take. Our neighboring kingdom, or that Haagenti creature.”
“I think you’ll have a hard time reaching Haagenti right now, unless you’ve got a medium on your staff. He’s rather dead, you see.”
A flicker of concern crossed Feille’s face. Yeah, fucker. Wonder how he died. Wonder if I did it. Wonder how a little imp took Haagenti out. Go ahead and think about that.
“Well, that limits my options. Seems you’ll be vacationing a while in Cyelle.”
I knew those guys hated each other. Even if he had no other use for me, he’d dangle me tauntingly in front of Taullian’s face before he’d turn me over, regardless of the reward, and I was positive he’d much rather get his sorcerer back. He had to be running low on them at this point.
“Oh, I love it there,” I told him with a smile. “They fuck demons, you know. If I’m lucky, I may even be able to knock one of them up.”
He looked properly horrified. So if the leak on Amber’s existence came from his kingdom, it didn’t come from him.
“Cyelle elves may be our enemies, but they would never stoop so low,” he said, fuming over the insult.
“Doesn’t matter,” I told him, waving the subject away. “You needed my help; I told you I’d put you on the waiting list, and here I am. Now serving number forty–two.”
He considered my statement, weighing the need to get his sorcerer back with the fun he’d have teasing Taullian with me. Of course, that would mean he would need to keep me here, properly restrained, under guard. I saw the realization flash in his eyes as he made his decision.
“Come on, dude,” I prompted him. “I don’t have all day. I’ve got things to do, places to be.”
“The sorcerer’s name is Gareth,” he said grudgingly. “He and an apprentice ran off two months ago. Gareth was last seen in Eresh, but it is believed the apprentice has crossed twice through a gate.”
Two months? He can’t have been sitting on his thumbs for two months with a missing sorcerer.
“Did the apprentice cross through an elf gate or an angel one?”
“An angel gate. The first one was in Dis; this last time he left through Eresh.”
There were two gates in Eresh. So he went to either Seattle or Milan, although he could have gone anywhere after he arrived. Use of an angel gate meant he’d had a demon helping him cross, and not an elf.
“There is a severe penalty for any of my elves or their humans caught assisting the runaways,” Feille confirmed. “They would have been forced to use demon assistance.”
“Does this Gareth have any magical item or scroll that I should be aware of?” Sometimes bringing back the sorcerer wasn’t enough. If they had a scrying mirror, or a wand of regeneration, or something, the elves would want that returned too. And of course, I wanted to know if he had a weapon that might kill me before I could lay a claw on him.
“No.”
Feille was lying. Which meant he didn’t want whatever it was back badly enough to risk anyone knowing about it. If the magical item surfaced, he’d just deny any knowledge and claim Gareth did it on his own. Great.
“So you want the sorcerer and the apprentice? Or just the sorcerer?” It always helped to be specific about these things, especially after the little misunderstanding with Taullian.
“Both. Both alive. And both with their mental faculties intact.” Ah, so the thing–which–would–not–be–named wasn’t a thing after all, it was knowledge, or an ability held by either Gareth or his minion.
“So they have some ability then? Either the sorcerer, his apprentice, or both?”
“The sorcerer has significant ability.” Feille admitted.
“So, why did it take you two months to decide to go after this guy?” Sorcerers were very valuable, and warrants for their capture were usually put out right away.
“We have had two other demons attempt to apprehend him,” Feille said casually. “They did not succeed.”
They gave up? Got distracted? Were still out there looking? I needed to know. I didn’t want to be bumping heads with two other demons hunting the same quarry. “Can you be more specific? How exactly did they not succeed?”
Feille smiled serenely. “They were killed.”
Yikes. So this sorcerer did have “significant ability”.
“And their heads were returned to me in a box,” he continued.
Oh, snap. So this sorcerer wasn’t hiding, a desperate runaway trying to lie low. He was giving his former boss the middle finger. Significant ability seemed to be an understatement. Part of me thought long and hard about refusing this assignment, but the other part was intrigued. What was this Gareth’s game plan? The elves would never give up looking for him. Did he intend to make a life with the demons and guard against capture for the rest of his life? Or did he perhaps intend to follow in his apprentice’s footsteps and go through a gate? A few hundred years ago, it was common for mages and sorcerers to try and escape elven reach by going through a gate to live with the humans. It didn’t always work out. Any show of magic would usually turn the humans against them, and many sorcerers either found themselves enslaved to powerful kings as they had been to their elven masters, or burned at the stake.
In modern times, humans would be more tolerant of their magic, but modern technology interfered with many of their workings, causing haywire results or no results at all. I didn’t know of any sorcerer who had crossed in the last hundred years. Mages who had crossed, found themselves trying to sneak back to Hel, where their decades of training amounted to more than birthday party tricks and circus sideshow acts.
“And my payment would be?”
He smiled. It was a very unpleasant smile. “Well, you have already received some of your payment in two passages through our lands and gate. I would grant you free passage through our lands and gates for the next century, I would grant you safe harbor against Cyelle, and I will give you two transport buttons. If you don’t use them in the commission of your contract, then you are free to keep them. I will even offer to have them recalibrated to the destination of your choice.”
Not a bad offer normally, but given the nature of this sorcerer, it was a paltry deal. This was a really big dog, with an unknown magical skill that had already killed two demons. I wavered, wondering what I could ask for that would possibly be worth this suicide mission, and, as I thought, my hand hit something hard in my pocket: Kirby’s marble. A twelve–year–old boy, snatched from his family. A man who was a virtual slave in Hel, but would never be able to adjust to human life if he somehow managed to escape. Something snapped inside me. Fuck these elves. I was team Gareth The Sorcerer. Anyone who ran off, evaded and took out two demon bounty–hunters, and rubbed the noses of his former masters in shit was someone I was rooting for.
“Nah. I think I’ll pass.”
I thought Feille’s eyes were going to leave his skull. “You will do this.”
Here we go again. “I don’t have anything against this sorcerer. He sounds like a pretty cool guy, actually. We could be besties. Get off your lazy elven asses and get him yourself if you want him so bad.”
He changed tactics. “The mighty Iblis is afraid of a human? The Ha–satan is too much of a coward to take on a simple retrieval job?”
Wrong tactic. Pride has never been my sin. “Yep. That’s me, yellow through and through. Now we’ve agreed on that, I’ll just be collecting my horse and heading on my way.”
A shrewd look crossed Feille’s face. “No job, no horse.”
I let that hang in the air for a few moments, then casually removed my shotgun from the holster and held it down at my side. “You would steal my hybrid? You would steal from the Iblis?”
The atmosphere froze, and suddenly everyone in the room was tense and ready for action. I had their full attention. Feille shot a quick glance at his sorcerer then flicked a questioning nod at my shotgun.
“I don’t know My Lord.” The sorcerer was beet red, his hands white knuckled on his staff. Obviously I don’t know wasn’t something anyone should ever say to his lordship. “Perhaps a metal reinforced walking stick?”
I held it aloft. “This. . . is my boom stick.”
They’d obviously never watched the movie, and the only word that registered in their arrogant elven brains was “stick”. Feille relaxed slightly, thinking I’d try to rush him and beat him with it. He was confident his guards would take me down before I made two steps in his direction, and the sorcerer would block any energy attack, then throw a net on me in seconds.
“You abandoned your horse,” he said, his voice full of disdain. “Left it here in my kingdom. It’s my horse now.”
I brought the shotgun up again in a smooth motion and shot off the top of his throne. Bits of wood, gold, and gems sprayed around the room. Everyone hit the floor, including the sorcerer who was too concerned about his own physical wellbeing to protect Feille.
“Give me my fucking horse, or I’ll blow your head across the room.” It was a bold move. No demon had ever publically attacked an elf before, a
nd especially not a High Lord.
Feille screamed in an amusing combination of rage and fear, and his sorcerer recovered his wits enough to cast a net on me. I considered having Gregory yank me out again, but thought “what the hell” and pulled the trigger on the shotgun once more. With a deafening roar, the net exploded, sending chunks of bright blue fire all around the room. Once again, everyone hit the floor.
“My horse. Right now. Or I’ll go find him myself and massacre everyone in my path.”
The hate rolled off Feille in waves. He was backed into a corner, and that was obviously an unfamiliar feeling.
“Get the demon–spawn horse,” he snapped at the guards.
Three took off, leaving their High Lord woefully unprotected. No doubt he’d punish them harshly later, but right now I’m sure they felt I was the bigger threat to their continued existence. Elves are fast. Within thirty seconds they were leading Diablo through the palace. He had a collar around his neck, no doubt to keep him from teleporting or shooting them with bolts of energy. I heard his welcoming neigh echo throughout the hall and he tossed his head, trying to shake off the three lead ropes attached to his halter.
“Where’s my saddle? And my bridle?”
“He didn’t have any when we found him,” Feille lied.
The bastards stole my tack. I’d need to ride the horse bareback and without a bit. One wrong move and I’d be in the dirt. Stomping over, I snatched one of the lead ropes from a wary guard and looped it around the other side of the halter, creating a set of makeshift reins. The whole time I was careful to keep my shotgun at the ready. One moment of inattention and I was sure the elves would be all over me.
“Give me a leg up,” I told the guard. He looked nervously at Feille then cupped his hands obligingly. I planted my foot in them and swung up on my horse, knocking him in the head with my knee on the way. It felt strange to be bareback on Diablo. He snorted his displeasure, and I pulled my legs more forward, careful to keep my heels out of his side.
Elven Blood (Imp Book 3) Page 29