by Martha Carr
When Cheyenne finished decimating the swarm of O’gúl insect machines, the room was filled with smoke and the bitter scent of hot metal. No one moved.
“None of those things made it through the first shot.” She turned toward Corian and raised one finger. “Nothing to lock onto. Nothing to report back.”
A high-pitched screech and metallic whir came from the top of the headboard before two larger green pellets of magical sludge spewed from the surviving metal beetle. The first splattered her lifted hand, sending searing pain racing through her fingers and up her wrist. The halfling screamed and launched a roiling black sphere of sparking energy right back. The second green-sludge attack missed her by inches and sailed past into the kitchen as the last spy machine disintegrated all over the back of Ember’s bed.
The fae was almost hyperventilating as she stared blankly through the open doorway. Her hand lifted slowly to gently touch the side of her head in reassurance. “That was way too close.”
“Come on, Em. I’d never hit you.” Cheyenne sucked in a sharp breath and shook out her hand. “Ah! What was that stuff?”
Corian shot her hand a sidelong glance. “Something meant to stay with you for quite some time if I had to guess.”
“You know, I had a black-magic potion tossed all over my shoulder and had to deal with those open wounds for days. This just feels like I put on a glove lined with broken glass.”
“But it’s not cutting you, right?”
Cheyenne glared at him and ignored the rhetorical question.
“You still have the darktongue salve, right?”
“Yeah, I still have it.”
“I’d get it if I were you. For your foot, too.”
“Shouldn’t we be focusing on what just happened and how those things got in?”
Corian turned to face her and blinked slowly. “We’ll focus on that as soon as you clean up. The longer we stand here arguing about it, the more time any potential side effects have to develop. The nasty kind.”
Cheyenne looked at Ember and nodded. “Are you okay?”
“Uh, maybe?” The fae swept her gaze slowly across the metal fragments, the bits of ground steel bugs, and the charred spell dents littering every surface of her room. “I’m not convinced this isn’t a super-messed-up dream.”
“It’ll sink in soon enough.”
Cheyenne shot Corian a warning glance and shook her head. “That’s not helping. I’ll be right back, Em. Just gotta grab the magical first-aid kit.”
As she left the bedroom, Corian nodded at Ember and turned toward the door. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
“No! Please don’t.” Ember shrank beneath her comforter and scanned the room again. “Just in case.”
“All right.” The nightstalker stayed awkwardly by the door, gazing everywhere in the room except at the fae girl in her pajama tank top, ducking like a kid hiding from the boogieman.
Cheyenne lifted her backpack off the floor beside the couch and grabbed the zipper. “Damnit!”
She jerked her burning hand away and shook it out, then unzipped the main pocket with her other hand. When she removed the brown glass jar of the darktongue salve from the bottom of her pack and tried to open it, the mere pressure of her agonized fingers against the jar made her snarl.
Okay. Maybe there are nasty side effects that show up fast.
She took the salve with her, limped to Ember’s room, and held it out toward Corian. “I need some help.”
He took it from her without a word, unscrewed the lid, and scooped out a giant glob of the sticky white substance.
Cheyenne’s eyes grew wide. “Hey, that’s expensive stuff, or so I’ve been told.”
“Uh-huh.” He crooked his goo-covered fingers at her, urging her toward him.
“You can put some back. It only takes a little.”
“Not after an attack like that. This is for the whole hand.”
“Aw, really?” Cheyenne eyed the large glob of salve on the nightstalker’s fingers and grimaced. “Like, all at once?”
“Like, all at once.” Corian smirked. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to massage it in.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“A little.” He waved for her hand again, and she slowly extended it toward him. “Mostly because I told you not to use attack spells. I’ll call this a fair trade.”
“You know, I liked it better when we were punching each other in the face and calling it training.” Cheyenne pulled back her hand before he could touch the salve to it. “Is my skin supposed to be doing that?”
“Give me one example where a drow lighting up like radioactive waste is a good thing.”
“Fine.” She stuck her hand out the rest of the way and looked at Ember. “Hey. You’re pretty quiet.”
“Ya think?” The fae snorted, but it pulled her out of her near-catatonic state, and she gazed at her friend. “I don’t even know what’s going on right now.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll fill you in on all the—ah! Goddammit! You asshole.”
Corian clutched her injured hand in both of his now and smeared the healing salve all over it. “Can’t be gentle with this one, kid. Go ahead, let it out. I’ll try not to be offended.”
Cheyenne’s eyes twitched as tears spilled over and trailed down her cheeks. “I take it back. This is much worse than the holes in my shoulder.”
Her mouth fell open and she gasped, staggering back against the wall and clutching her stomach in a silent scream. Corian’s grip on her hand was as firm as ever, and he kept rubbing the salve in.
“I’ve seen way bigger guys than you pass out with much smaller surface areas covered in this stuff.” Corian chuckled. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
The halfling grunted and said, “Apparently, it takes me having no clue what I’m doing and a bullet through my hip to make me pass out. And that one time I saved an entire FRoE team from being crushed to death. I think that’s it.”
“Well, it looks like you won’t be adding blowing up O’gúl beetle spies to that very short list.” He released her hand and raised both of his, stepping away to give her some space. “Give it a minute.”
She blinked through her watering eyes and tentatively opened her hand. The green glow rising through her skin had disappeared. “Feels like my hand fell asleep.”
“It almost fell off.”
“What?”
Corian shrugged. “Probably. You didn’t want to test that theory, did you?”
“You’re full of stupid rhetorical questions today.” Cheyenne shook out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “I can handle this.”
“Wanna take off your shoe?”
“Hey, if you try rubbing that stuff on the giant needle hole in my foot, I promise you you’ll end up getting kicked in the face.”
“I’ll let you handle it, then.”
“Does that stuff heal everything?” Ember stared at the brown jar in Corian’s hand before Cheyenne snatched it away.
“Short of a knife wound, yeah. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to test it.” The halfling lowered into a squat and grimaced.
“Wait.” Ember bunched the comforter under her chin and swallowed. “Can we get the hell out of my room first?”
Corian pointed toward the kitchen. “I’m still happy to step out and give you a minute.”
“Don’t. I just realized I like having a nightstalker around too. It’s just, the mess in here gives a whole new meaning to ‘don’t let the bedbugs bite.’ This is suddenly the last place I wanna be.”
With a snort, Cheyenne stood from her crouch and nodded. “You need any help?”
“No, I can handle the chair.” Ember tossed the comforter off her lap and pushed herself toward the edge of the bed. “Just stand watch.”
“As reassuring as I’m sure that would be for you, Ember, we can’t stay here all night on the off-chance that something else might show up in your bedroom.”
She snarled in frustration and looked up at h
im, propping herself on her hands and pausing on the verge of transferring into the chair. “I’m pretty sure you can spare five goddamn minutes.”
Cheyenne raised her eyebrows and glanced at the floor, trying to hide her smirk.
Corian hummed and shot the halfling a sidelong glance. “I’m starting to get why this fae is your best friend.”
“Yeah, I might be rubbing off on her a little.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“This makes me want to kill someone.” Cheyenne was stretched out on the couch, her leg out straight in front of her and all the muscles taut as she forced herself to breathe through the pain.
“That is so cool.” Ember leaned forward to watch the wound in the bottom of Cheyenne’s salve-covered foot seal itself from the inside out.
“Which part?”
“The instant healing part.” Ember shook her head. “Please don’t kill someone. I mean, unless you need to.”
Corian lifted his phone to his ear and eyed the girls as he waited for Persh’al to pick up. “If we handle this correctly right now, that won’t be a choice you have to make any time soon.”
Cheyenne sucked another sharp breath through her teeth, then the unbearable sting flaring through her foot receded. “Handle it how?”
He lifted a finger for her to wait and turned away. “Hey. Yeah, we found something, all right. Nope. All good. We just need to double down around here for the time being. Yeah. What about Lumil? Does she know how to cast without blowing anything up first?”
Ember and Cheyenne exchanged wide-eyed glances, and the halfling whispered, “I have no idea.”
“Fine,” Corian continued. “No, it can’t wait ‘til tomorrow. If she doesn’t get her ass through the next portal that shows up in that warehouse, I’ll pull her from interrogation duty. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Just be ready.” He hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket.
“So, everyone’s coming over to my place now, huh?”
“Not everyone.” Corian scanned the apartment’s high ceilings. “Obviously, one of us won’t be leaving the warehouse to go anywhere. Well, for as long as his patience holds out.”
“You mean, L’zar,” Ember muttered.
He looked down at her and narrowed his glowing silver eyes. “Right. He mentioned meeting you.”
She gave him a thin smile and spread her arms. “You don’t have to talk circles around the fae girl. I know pretty much everything Cheyenne knows at this point.”
“I see. We’ll talk more about that in a minute.” The nightstalker opened a portal and stepped into his basement apartment.
Ember stared at the dark circle of light and the magical disappearing through it. “That doesn’t get old.”
“You get used to it pretty fast.” Cheyenne pulled her healed foot in to see for herself. “At least when there’s a nightstalker around who just can’t get enough of casting them. Speaking of which, why are Persh’al and Lumil coming here?”
Corian rummaged through the junk on his shelves. He pulled out an open cardboard box, dumped its contents on the floor, and used it to hold his more carefully selected items. “Because, Cheyenne, I can’t build the kind of wards you and Ember need to protect you at home by myself. Persh’al might seem like he only has an eye for computer stuff, just like you.”
The halfling snorted. “Yeah. I love computer stuff.”
“But he has a wide range of spellcasting experience and practical application when he gets out of that chair to use it.” More items clunked into the box tucked under his arm, and he stood back to scan the shelves for the next hidden thing he wanted. “And Lumil is, well, at the very least, she channels one hell of a support.”
“So Byrd drew the short end of the stick and gets to stay behind to babysit L’zar?”
“Not really.” Corian bent over to pull a thin square shape from beneath a pile of smaller items on the bottom shelf. “Byrd’s skills with wards are right on par with your spellcasting ability.”
“Oh.”
Ember frowned through the portal. “Why do I get the feeling this guy’s dissing your spellwork?”
“Probably because he is.” Cheyenne crossed her legs beneath her on the couch and shrugged. “I guess the goblin and I are both useless in this arena.”
“No, you’re not. You made me that ring.”
Corian stepped back through the portal, the half-full box tucked under one arm and the thin, square piece of hardened leather clenched in his other hand. “I thought you made that for yourself?”
“The Heart of Midnight’s useless now, so it turned into a gift.”
“And it works?”
“Oh, yeah.” Ember grinned. “Perfectly.”
“Huh.”
Cheyenne shot Ember an exasperated glance and gestured at the nightstalker. “See that? That’s the kind of reaction I get for pretty much everything.”
“When we have the time for me to throw you a party, Cheyenne, I’ll get right on it.” Corian set the box on the coffee table and lifted the square of hard leather. “Remember this?”
“You mean, the O’gúl hornet’s web I bought from the crotchety potionmaster who acted like I was trying to abuse a power I didn’t know I had?” Cheyenne folded her arms. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Well, tonight’s the night we get to use it.” He set the leather gently down on the table beside the box and stepped back. “Don’t touch it.”
“Do I at least get to learn how to put up wards?”
“We don’t have time for that either.” Corian shot her a sharp glance and dipped his head. “Before you call me out on it, I know I said I’d teach you, and you’d have to figure the rest of it out on your own.”
“A lot’s changed since then. Yeah, I get it.”
“I thought so.” The nightstalker opened another portal between the recliners and the northern wall of windows. When it grew to its full oval height, he nodded and stepped aside.
Persh’al came through first, a massive black duffel bag in one hand and an energy drink in the other. He nodded slowly and scanned the apartment. “Nice digs, kid.”
“Thanks.”
Lumil stomped after him with a scowl, but it faded quickly when she took in her new surroundings, and she let out a low whistle. “Not too shabby, halfling. Not as many rooms as I expected, but I’m sure you’ll find something bigger eventually.”
Cheyenne sat back on the couch. “Excellent backhanded compliment.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Okay.” Persh’al dropped the heavy duffel bag with a thump and took a huge gulp of his energy drink. “What are we lookin’ at?”
“Bedroom on the other side of the kitchen.” Corian nodded that way, and the blue troll took off toward the open door.
“Now, this is what you guys need in the warehouse.” Lumil slumped into the closest recliner, stacked both booted feet on the coffee table beside Corian’s box, and jerked the lever up so fast, the chair rocked backward when the footrest snapped up. “Oh, yeah. I mean, how hard is it to buy new furniture in a place with almost no furniture? That couch lasted, what? Thirty years?”
Corian frowned at her as he crossed in front of the recliners to take the other one. “What’s up with the couch?”
“L’zar smashed it right after you left.”
Ember’s bedroom light switched on. “Deathflame on a fucking cracker.”
Lumil craned her neck to peer over Ember’s head. “That sounds fun.”
“You said it was taken care of, Corian,” Persh’al called from the bedroom. “Not obliterated.”
Cheyenne looked over the back of the couch. “I thought that was the same thing.”
Shaking his head, the troll rejoined them in the living room and unzipped the duffel bag. “I’m gonna need a second to find the entry point and whatever extra little tricks they used to get in. How big were these things?”
Corian held up his forefinger and thumb with two inches of space between.
Persh�
��al wrinkled his nose. “Too big for holes in the insulation. Small enough to tunnel in.”
“Oh, great.” Ember sat upright in her chair and gripped the armrests, nodding slowly. “Tiny digging beetles that came to kill me in my sleep.”
Persh’al leaned forward to catch her attention. “Who are you?”
She slowly turned her head to shoot him a blank, shocked stare. “Ember.”
“Huh.” He sniffed and nodded. “Yeah, I thought I smelled fae. Nice to meet you. Glad you weren’t killed in your sleep.”
Ember let out a hesitant chuckle as the troll took a small black drawstring bag and something that looked like a telescope with him to her room.
“You sure he knows what he’s doing in there?” Cheyenne asked.
Corian crossed one leg over the other and sat back in the recliner. “I’m sure. I’ll join him when he’s figured out what kind of wards will be the most effective. Until then, we need to talk about something else. All three of us.” He gazed between Cheyenne and Ember with raised eyebrows.
They stared right back.
Ember leaned toward the couch but didn’t bother to lower her voice. “Does this feel like getting called into the principal’s office to you?”
“I never got called to the principal’s office, Em. Never had a principal.” Cheyenne squinted at the nightstalker. “But hypothetically, yeah. It kinda does.” Then she laughed. “How many times did you get called in?”
Ember shrugged. “I’ll tell you about it later. I’m more interested in why that nightstalker’s giving us a creepy stare.”
“Uh-huh.” Cheyenne folded her arms. “I hope you’re gonna try to make this interesting.”
Corian blinked slowly. “Well, this is about how the two of you are gonna have to navigate things from here on out if you want to make it out of this nightmare alive. That interesting enough for you?”
Cheyenne waved her hand in a slow, sweeping motion, perfectly mimicking Bianca Summerlin’s hospitable gesture of granting permission. “By all means. Continue.”