by JD Cole
“Hello, Hood. Forgive me for forcing you to wake. I did not think you would want to sleep any more today after what’s happened.”
“So. I lost, huh?”
“That depends on your perspective. I intend on convincing you you’ve won the greatest prize of your life.”
“How’s that? You gonna’ offer me a lifetime of hot, wild sex?”
In a practiced, seductive manner, the beautiful elemental crawled onto the bed beside him. The demure look in her eyes belied her body language as she used her finger to draw a low neckline into her uniform, exposing a healthy dose of cleavage. “If that is your wish. Do with me as you desire.”
Derek shook his head arrogantly. “What are you, stupid? I’m not giving my virginity to a water balloon.”
Undine responded with a burst of laughter and crashed back into her chair. “I do love you, Master. So practical, so blunt. So… perfect.” She sighed then. “No, you will have urgent need of me soon. You will be grateful for my presence.”
“And why is that? I got rid of you once, I can do it again.”
Undine moved to sit on the bed beside him, her face somber. “Perhaps you can. But the question is, will you want to try? Something happened while you slumbered. Something terrible. It’s the queen.”
“Kelli? Where is she? What happened?”
“The Goblin King attacked her. He tried to kill her right here in the castle.” Derek flung the covers off himself, but Undine gently gripped his shoulder. “She is all right. I provided aid to a Paladin in stopping him, and the sprites chased him off. But he took the queen’s father with him.”
“Her family is here? What happened to her dad?”
“Taken to the Goblin’s castle in the Shadowlands.”
“Where is that?”
“You know of the mountain range that encircles the Faery Realm, and reaches up to the Ythsimerin? All of that is the Shadowlands. The Goblin King, Ercianodhon, rules it all.”
“Those aren’t mountains, they’re the walls of a big-ass crater that’s pressurized by a magic sheet of ice over the top of it.”
“That does not matter to the faeries. From within the Realm, they look like mountains, and the Ythsimerin looks like the sky, so that’s what they are. And they belong to Ercianodhon.”
Derek stared at the closed door. “You helped Kelli?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you love her.”
“And that matters to you?”
“You matter to me. Everything you care about matters to me. So, yes.”
Derek scratched the back of his helmet. “I’m not in love with her. I mean, I… well, we’re like-”
“I did not say you have romantic feelings for her. I know that you want to, but you do not dwell on her in a way that would saturate your heart with those feelings. Still, you do love her, nonetheless. I knew you would have experienced great pain had she died. That makes her worthy of my protection.”
Derek sat in thought for a few moments before answering. “You should be hosting a motivational talk show somewhere. But, thanks. For saving her.”
“My pleasure. And now, if I know you as well as I think I do, you’ll be off to save her father.”
“How hard is that gonna be?”
“Without me?”
“Okay, yeah, without you.”
“Impossible.”
“Color me shocked. And with you?”
“Merely improbable.”
“Give me percentages. I’m a numbers guy,” Derek told her, climbing out of the bed.
“On your own, you have zero chance of success. With my help, I’d say you have a seven percent chance.”
“What if I bring an army with me?”
“Necromancy would kill your army and turn it against you. So you’re back to zero percent.”
“A human army?”
Undine thought about that. “The Paladins? Humans, fighting on behalf of faeries?” She paused. “Unlikely as that should be, these circumstances are unprecedented. The Paladins and sprites would both need to be convinced of an alliance.”
“Let’s say all that falls into place. What’s that do for our odds?”
Undine’s eyes turned upward and she twisted her jaw in consideration. “Fifty three percent?”
“How’d you calculate that?”
“Wild guess. Give or take forty points. Also, there is something...”
Derek waited for several moments, but the elemental failed to finish. “What is it?” he prompted.
Undine pursed her lips. “There is something I need to mention, but I think it would be better to wait until we know what the sprites are planning.”
“I don’t get it. Is it important?”
“That is the problem. If I am correct, it is immensely important, yet if I am not correct, it will cause extreme harm to any plan you and the sprites come up with. Let us see what is going on with everyone else, and I promise to reveal my suspicion to you then so that you can decide what to do with the information.”
“Fair enough, we’ll put a pin in it.” Derek opened the door, and paused for a moment as he stood staring at two sprite guards he’d never seen before. They looked down at him, their faces stern, their grips tight on the swords sheathed at their waists. Of course: their queen has just been attacked. But whether they let him or not, he was going to see Kelli. He motioned for the elemental to join him. “But as far as our odds... fifty three percent on a wild guess? Good enough for me.”
~ ~ ~ ~
“Where is my husband?” Vanessa shouted, her hands deadlocked to her daughter’s arm on the bed. “What the hell happened to Tom?”
Brevha was kneeling before her and the other two women. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Ingram. This attack came from nowhere-”
“What was that thing?” Erica demanded.
“He is called the Goblin King, and he came here to kill Queen Kelli.”
Vanessa shook her head, crying. “Why? Did she know about this? Did you warn my daughter? And where did it take Tom?”
“I don’t understand how he was able to get in,” Lumina said, pacing before the Queen’s bed. “I thought every sprite wizard and sorcerer in the castle was contributing to shield this wing from him? And what is he doing outside his castle? He never leaves his castle!”
Dufangen looked up, blinking rapidly. “I have just spoken with Khun Rhee. The king attacked Matari, and took a fifth of our troops in one attack. That many deaths… it temporarily gave him the strength to force his way here.”
“But why?” Lumina pressed.
“He is insane. Destroying the queen is an impulse that would make him even more irrational.”
“He hates your people so much?”
Sorvir entered then, his face a blank slate, though he’d managed to change into clean garments. He carried a large bowl to Kelli’s bedside, and began wiping her head with a damp towel. “The bodies are being guarded. It was decided to burn them in the garden, to ensure no necromancy returns to corrupt them further.”
“I am so, so sorry, Sorvir.” Dufangen whispered. “Trennh was an honorable prince. I will miss him… we all will.”
Lumina shook his head, mumbling aloud for anyone who cared to listen. “We have few records of the king leaving his castle, and none of him leaving the Shadowlands. Every time he has ever been seen, it was because sprites took a war to his doorstep. Why is Queen Kelli different?”
“We must focus on saving her father,” Dufangen rubbed her tired eyes.
“Yes, the father of the queen, held captive, could crush morale-”
“It is more than that. Father and daughter are linked by blood.”
Lumina’s head dipped. “He can get to Kelli through her father.” He looked at the grieving wife and mother. Luckily, she did not speak Vomelri, and did not catch any of their conversation. There was a raucous in the hallway outside, and the sound of arguing. The mystics raised their staffs in caution, but Dufangen breathed a sigh
of relief.
“Young Derek has come. Paladin, please, would you summon him? The guards outside may attack him if he continues quarreling with them.”
Lumina stepped outside. Sprite guards lined the hallway in both directions, armed for war. Derek was being detained at the far eastern end, and his eyes were glowing red under his hood. There were spears crossed before him, and sword blades resting at his neck. He looked ready to smash his way through the wall of guards, and Lumina would not have been surprised to see him succeed, if he was what the Paladin thought he was. But there had been enough violence in the castle today. “Derek!” Lumina called, switching to his native language, Gine. Derek had gained considerable proficiency in this tongue. “The Royal Counselor has requested your presence. The guards will let you through.”
The guards hesitated momentarily, but when Dufangen stepped into the hall and motioned positively, they withdrew from Derek and returned to their posts, standing granite-like against the walls. Derek ignored them all and stalked forward, pushing past Lumina and striding to Kelli’s bed, and stood next to where Sorvir sat at Kelli’s side. His eyes softened to a dim light-blue hue. Vanessa looked up at him, her face stained with tears new and old. “Who are you?”
“I’m Derek,” his auto-tuned robotic voice was almost a whisper. “I’m Kelli’s friend.” He reached down and took the sleeping Queen’s hand.
“The Hood, from the internet? She said you saved her from the alien?”
“We saved each other, Mrs. Ingram.”
Kim walked over to stand behind him, and she patted his shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Hood.” He’d been her mentor during the Lifishi’un trial, and she still thought of him that way somewhat, not knowing that he was even younger than Devon. He turned his head slightly to nod and acknowledge her. Then he looked at Sorvir and Brevha.
“Tell me all about the thing that did this, and exactly where I can find it.”
“Why?” Brevha asked.
“I’m going to get Mr. Ingram back, and make that Goblin diaper-stain regret the day he was born.”
“He already regrets that day,” Brevha sighed. “But you will need help. Dufangen can explain.”
Sorvir finally spoke up, but very quietly. “The human soldiers we brought here for the queen. They could help. Necromancy cannot touch them.”
“Why would they help?” Dufangen asked, trying not to sound too harsh.
Sorvir shook his head. “I don’t… it was just a thought. I am not in my right mind, forgive me.”
“Kelli brought those agents here?” Brevha nodded at Derek’s question, and he looked at Lumina. “How about it? Do you think your fellow Paladins would be willing to help me, too?”
“I’m afraid we have no choice,” Lumina answered. “My actions today all but declared Tirapan to be at war with the king, even though the Dominion knows nothing about this attack yet.”
“Give them the short version,” Derek suggested. “We need to get Kelli’s father back and make sure this Goblin King understands how bad an idea it is to piss us off. I think I can convince the agents to come along for the ride. I’d be giving them exactly what they asked for, anyway.”
Brevha stood. “Dufangen? I must speak to the mystic council.”
The mystic nodded. “I will summon them.” She watched as Derek and Lumina stepped out into the hall, then turned back to Brevha. “An alliance with the Paladins?”
“They may ask for one. You cannot deny we owe them something. We cannot leave them to stand alone against Ercianodhon. I need to know how far I can speak for the queen on her behalf, until she wakes. I also need to know exactly what in the world I should say.”
« CHAPTER 13 »
Swords & Sorcerers… and SpecOps
Samantha adjusted the climate control on her Bio-Climatized Regulation “chiller” uniform, a suit developed specifically to regulate her body temperature. With no sweat glands to cool her, she was prone to heat exhaustion and even stroke. The BCR suit, while more rigid than a normal military uniform, kept the air around her skin cool, no matter how hard she exerted herself.
She checked the clamps for her ammo pack, making sure they were securely locked on her shoulders and waist. Satisfied that they were, she pulled the twin guns from either side of the pack behind her. The VEC-9s were almost too large to be described as pistols, each weighing about four pounds. A person of normal human strength would be hard-pressed to wield these weapons accurately, and it had little to do with their weight. Designed for use by battle platforms, they were electric-powered and belt-fed, firing the old NATO-standard 7.62x51mm at a rate of five rounds per second. They were cooled with the same chemical that chilled Samantha’s uniform, allowing her a sustained firing rate of two minutes, which was no coincidence. The ammo pack the belts were attached to carried six hundred rounds: exactly two minutes’ worth of ammunition if she had need to blast the hell out of something.
Unfortunately, gearing up like this limited her flexibility when teleporting. She was strong enough to carry more than three hundred pounds of equipment if she needed to, but she could not teleport more than one hundred fifty-five pounds of mass, give or take an ounce or two. That did not count her own body weight, thankfully. Scientists had still not figured out why she had a “luggage” weight-limit, but then they had not figured out exactly how her pheromones did what they did, either. For that matter, they didn’t know what caused metahuman mutations. Samantha shook her head. There was a lot the eggheads didn’t know.
And she’d just found a ton more for them to scratch their heads over. She thumbed a switch on the guns, and the belts retracted into the pack, leaving just enough so she could holster the pistols at her thighs.
All but one of her fellow operatives had her pheromones on them, but that was sheer coincidence, from her having bumped into them during their preparations and movements. She should have painted all of them on purpose, she reflected. It was one more item to put in the Standard-Operating-Procedure book as they wrote it. She pushed the wireless earpiece of the radio into her ear, then stuck the stealthy hair-like microphone against her right cheek. The actual radio was built into her left shoulder pad. Pursing her lips, she stretched her cheek muscle to the left for two seconds, a motion that opened the microphone. “Testing one two three three two one,” she whispered.
The tech on the other side of the room, facing away from her, gave her a thumbs up. “Read you five-by, how me?” he replied softly.
“Read you same,” she told him, repeating the cheek movement to close the microphone. As far as she could tell, her captured teammates still had their radios in place, but it never hurt to double check her own gear before heading out. Wherever they were, the short-range communication units were unreachable.
“Ma’am,” another technician beside her called, “the General is on the line for you.”
“Thanks,” she nodded while fastening another pouch to her thigh strap. Still fiddling with her gear, she walked over to the secure video phone. Her twin brother, Sean, sat looking down at something, then turned his gaze up at her through the screen.
“Sam, do you still have awareness on them?”
“Yes, sir. They’re all fine. Prisoners, apparently, but their cells are more comfy than any place we’ve ever lived in. It really looks like they’re in a castle of some kind. The temperature inside has me thinking some northern European locale.”
“No exact location yet?”
“No, but it has to be where those elf people are from. There are all kinds of… well, I want to say they’re metahumans, Sean, but they can’t be. They all resemble each other. Tall, albino elf-types; short, tiny elf-types, but it seems almost as if they’re more like… species. Not randomly mutated humans like you and me. And none of them are speaking any language I recognize.”
“What about the Hood?”
“He’s still out cold. But that Whitehood girl is in the room with him. She’s definitely not human, but I couldn’t tell you what she is ye
t… wait, hold on.” Samantha blinked and flinched.
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
“The… the Whitehood. She knew I could see them. She did something, and now I’ve lost them.”
“What about the others?”
“No, I’ve still got them, just the hoods have fallen off my radar.”
“I don’t like any of this. What are you planning?”
“Just a quick recon, make contact with the team, renew my pher,” pheromone, “on their clothes, and give them some vials of pher for later if needed.” Samantha’s suit collected her pheromone release to store in little vials, so that she could strategically plant concentrated quantities of it for spying and tactical teleporting.
“No engagement, Samantha. Passive recon only, that’s an order. If you’re discovered, ‘port back immediately. If the team is in critical danger, you’re cleared for lethal force, but other than that, I want you in and out as soon as you figure out where they are. Then we can come up with a plan.”
“The team is secluded, so I should be able to ‘port right into their cells with no problems.”
“Get going, Sam. Make contact with Colonel Tritt, get them all ready, let them know we’re coming.”
“Roger. ‘Flashback’ out.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Colonel Marc Tritt laid comfortably in the plush bed, hands clasped between the back of his head and the large pillows. He’d been in several tight spots throughout his long career, but this was the first time he’d ever been a prisoner. And he had to admit, it could be worse. His captors had put him up in a five star hotel, though room service was still a question mark, as no one had entered the room since he’d been locked in here.
He considered everything he’d seen. Kelli Ingram, her long hair now white instead of pink, was indeed a feralman. The girl had glowing firefly wings, for crying out loud, just like those albino creatures she now traveled with. The Hood had to be a feralman, as well, but exactly what powers he had were still a mystery. Then there was his white-hooded accomplice, who was apparently made of water and had fantastically less patience than the Hood himself. She’d tried to kill Marc and Jake, but after having time to digest everything in his mind, he realized she was protecting the Hood. Jake had fired first, after all. He expected better of a veteran; Jake was a former Delta operator, like himself. If they all survived this, a stern dressing down would be in order.