Black Frost

by John Conroe

  Leaning next to the vest rig was Dad’s choice of long gun, a fully automatic, highly illegal H&K UMP .45 submachine gun. This one had an Aimpoint electronic sight mounted on top, a twenty-five round mag of iron tipped rounds and a fire control selector that allowed single, two round burst or full automatic fire.

  Where he had obtained that lethal piece of hardware, I would likely never know, but I didn’t waste any time in gearing up with it and its vest. I bound my torn leg with gauze from the shop first aid kit, then pulled on a pair of tactical pants from my Father’s stuff, our sizes being identical. Inside the gun cabinet I found an unopened box holding chainsaw chaps of all things, like he had just purchased them. Made from Kevlar, they were designed to bind and seize the cutting teeth of a chainsaw, preventing the loss of a leg. It looked like a recent addition to the cabinet, but it made sense. They would, hopefully, protect my femoral arteries from the teeth of the Fae.

  My own boots and then the vest with all its gear, my own .40 Sig still in its hip holster.. It wasn’t till I was just about done strapping the vest in place that I found my Father’s last surprise. Two surprises actually, tucked in round little pouches that the military had designed just for their like. Studying the lethal gifts from my hyper prepared parent, I felt like I had a serious chance of getting my daughter back for the first time since I entered the house, or if I failed in getting her back I was going to take a hell of a lot of elves with me.

  Charm appeared at the doorway to Dad’s room, her tail low, but her eyes bright.

  “Yeah, just about ready, girl,” I said, checking the big pouches to assure myself that they held more submachine gun mags. I grabbed two baby food jars of iron filings off the workbench and called it done. “Let’s go get Ashley, Charm,”

  Chapter 19

  We stepped onto the front porch, Max’s body lay next to a seven foot smear of goo, and Charm stopped to sniff him one last time. Shots rang out around town mixed in with screams of terror punching through the cold air. Dawn wasn’t far off, but I couldn’t tell if Groton Falls would live to see the new day or not.

  Freezing air blasted my face through the smashed and spider-webbed windshield, making my skin ache and my eyes tear up non-stop, as we drove away. My thoughts were focused on Ashley, the picture in my mind of a horde of black hounds and red-black striped goblins bounding alongside some alien hellish steeds that carried Ashley and her elven abductors. My parents front lawn had been torn and shredded with tracks like nothing I’d ever seen. But I felt pretty strongly that I would soon get a look at what made them.

  We headed straight back to the farmhouse at the foot of Bear Mountain, driving down deserted roads past familiar houses and farms. The silver disc of the moon still hung in the sky, although it was getting lower by the moment, the sky in the opposite direction getting brighter as the sun got ready to make its appearance.

  We finally pulled into our own driveway, but drove straight past the house to the rear of the property, bouncing the off-road vehicle over the uneven ground. Sliding to a stop at the base of our little hill-mountain, we slid out of the car. Rechecking the HK I glanced at Charm who was sniffing the air and looking up the hillside with perked ears. I clicked my tongue at her, breaking her intense concentration. She glanced my way than turned back forward and began to move cautiously up the trail. We hadn’t gone more than fifteen feet when she growled at the trees in front of us. Instantly, I dropped into a crouch, the sub gun at my shoulder, finger on the trigger. Charm rushed forward and flushed the black-clad Guardian, who flipped acrobatically over her and the bush he had been hiding behind, landing lightly on braced feet with his blade in one hand, while simultaneously throwing a spike with the other. His aim was dead on, but the deadly spike bounced off the hardened ballistic plate covering the center of my chest, and I grimly noted his shocked expression as I feathered the trigger. The HK was set for two round bursts and my two fat slugs clocked him in the center of his chest, while the butt of the HK thumped my shoulder like an old friend. The big .45 bullets did the job they were designed for, mushrooming on contact and spreading their deadly load of iron as they punched through the tough, but thinly build alien.

  Charm’s canine sensors routed the next Guardian, who was rushing to join our party on silent feet. He was coming from behind us, but the tough little dog pegged his presence, barking loudly, and I spun, dropping to one knee and tapping the trigger twice. Three of the four rounds hit him, in the right leg, stomach and upper left shoulder just as he entered the path. Two down. I swapped the partial mag for a full one and we headed further up the hill.

  A quarter mile from the top, a white form bounded onto the trail in front of us. Bringing my gun on target, I was suddenly bowled over from the side by what felt like rubber covered steel. The second ice goblin had flanked us, fooling even Charm’s senses. Black tipped needle claws raked down my left arm as we spun to the ground. In ground fighting, being on your back with the opponent above you is not always a bad spot…if your opponent is human. Wrapping my legs around a four foot bundle of muscle, razor claws and flesh shredding teeth did not seem like a winning tactic. Keeping my legs up, boots pointed at the goblin, I struggled to get to my Glock. I wouldn’t have made it, but Charm chose that moment to fasten her own rather formidable jaws between the goblin’s legs.

  All thoughts of finishing me fled from the creature’s face as my dog savaged his groin. That gave me just enough time to fumble the big pistol free and blast the goblin with three point-blank shots to the face. Sitting up I unloaded four more into the onrushing form of the first goblin, then got knocked flat as its momentum carried it over and past me.

  The goblin that had run me down was thrashing around in agony, his fellow goblin dead from steel tipped lead on the brain. Suddenly it flipped back to its feet, mortally wounded, but still a deadly monster and it fastened its hate filled eyes on me. I double tapped its head, not wanting to wait for it to die on its own, as it looked pretty serious about taking me with it.

  I reloaded the Glock, then wiped up the blood on my arm with a disinfectant towel from the professional first aid kit I found in one of the vests many pouches. I slapped a pre-medicated, self-adhesive bandage on the worst of the gashes, more to block the smell of blood than anything. Reloaded and ready, I looked at Charm who was waiting impatiently for me to get my act together. “Be a lot faster if you could do it on your own, huh?” I asked her, getting a face lick in response, along with a whine to get moving.

  The trail up the hillside was torn and muddied, the tracks a monster-movie mixture of clawed feet and paws. My left leg hurt, my right forearm was throbbing and the gashes in my left arm stung like hell. But I decided the pain was good, a reminder that I was still very much in the game. From what Greer had said, I was thinking the portal between our Earth and Fairie was at the very top of the hill, probably in or near the cracked granite summit. Climbing the muddy trail, I noticed how light the sky was getting, the sun getting ready to come up on my right side.

  When we got to about a hundred yards from the top, the woods fell away, the summit became mostly bushes and grass. Dawn was just about fully on us, the light strong enough to see well. And what I saw ahead made me stop and tuck back behind one of the last young pine trees on the slope.

  The granite top of Bear Mountain was visible, the crack at the back of it not. Eight to ten shapes waited quietly, most facing our way, alerted by my gunshots . Dad’s vest had an eight power monocular in one of the utility pockets. I used it to study the group occupying the mountaintop.

  Three wore the black of the Guardians, and they watched the surrounding area with careful focus. The rest were black and red, either wearing it as clothing in the case of the elves or, in the goblins situation, having fur or skin that was banded in those colors. I realized now that the goblin I had seen in near Dad’s had those same colors. The monocular gave me enough detail to decide that the goblins’ fur was stained or dyed, and after a moment, it was apparent that some had scaly
skin rather than fur. Two of the nightmare hounds were lying on the ground near the feet of elven Hunt members, red and black collars at their necks. This had to be the tail end of the Hunt, and its members appeared to be outcasts from both Courts, which would explain some goblins being scaled and some furred. The careful, almost disdainful way the Guardians avoided looking at the scarlet and ebony horde told a story about the politics involved. The Hunt members were acting belligerent and cocky, the Guardians professional and aloof. Neither group liked the other, but open battle was apparently out. The Guardians all had their bows in hand, short seashell-colored arrows nocked in place. At least two of them were looking in my direction, the earlier gunshots giving them plenty of warning.

  Charm pressed against my leg, trembling, but I didn’t think she was afraid, just eager to get to Ashley, no matter who or what she had to go through.

  Time was running out and I wasn’t going to get Ashley back standing here. Unhooking two of Dad’s modified flashbangs, I straightened the pins, then set them on the ground at my feet. After checking my submachine gun over, I pulled a handful of the homemade caltrops out, and placed them at my feet. Looking everything over I took a deep breath and decided we were as ready as we were going to get.

  I pulled the pin on the first elf grenade, transferred it to my left hand then pulled the remaining pin with my left hand index finger. An armed flashbang in each hand, I took a deep breath then straight armed first one, then the other, up over my tree and into the middle of the mess of aliens. Crouching down and grabbing Charm, I shielded her ears as best I could. The two blasts came a second apart, the concussive waves pressing on my skin, hair and clothes. Charm jumped in the shelter of my body, but that was it. She was pretty used to shotguns, having sat through our family skeet blasting episodes.

  Jumping to my feet with the HK, I took in the scene at the summit in a glance, while tossing the pile of caltrops out onto the trail in front of us. All of the Fae were shocked, although more than half were screaming in pain from the toxic iron brads that had peppered them. Greer had told me that his people had much more sensitive hearing than humans, it made sense then that the stunning blast from two concussion grenades would have even more impact on elves than humans. Two of the Guardians had dropped their bows, one holding his bleeding ears, the other rolling on the ground, beating his hands on the burning iron wounds in his legs, butt and back.

  The remaining Guardian still had his bow, but looked disoriented. I shot him, two quick pulls of the trigger which was set for semi-automatic. The most alert of the elves in the Hunt group got the next four rounds, dropping them before they could get their bows into action. It was a good theory, but the reality was that the goblins and hounds were tougher than the elves. The two dogs and three goblins rushed my way. Startled at their speed, I rushed my shots, missing the first hound, but hitting the second, as well as one of the goblins. Thumbing the selector to full auto I fired the remaining rounds in the magazine in three quick bursts, killing one of the two remaining goblins outright, but only wounding the second.

  Then the surviving hound was on me. Seven feet long, it had to weigh over two hundred pounds. Its elongated jaws gleamed with razor edged slashing teeth; weapons designed to remove flesh from running prey. Somehow its feet missed the field of caltrops as it sprang in one giant bound that covered fifteen feet. My HK was empty and my transition to my hip holstered Sig was too slow. But once more my dog wasn’t.

  Charm tops out at sixty pounds, less than a third the weight of the monster that was hurtling toward me like a toothy freight train, and in a straight fight she was just too small. But the hound was focused on me, and Charm’s leap was perfectly timed, her reflexes honed by hours of Frisbee catch. Her blocky jaws slammed shut on the monster dog’s throat just before the two of them knocked me ass over teakettle.

  Scrambling to my feet and yanking the Sig from its holster, I concentrated on the remaining goblin, who was having a really bad day. My last burst from the HK had wounded a leg, the same leg that came down on an iron caltrop as it landed from a bound. The leg gave out even as its foot started to sizzle from the twisted piece of sharp iron embedded in its sole. Five rounds of .40 caliber steel-filled lead ended its pain.

  Twisting back to the dog fight, I found the hell hound on its feet, its head thrashing from side to side trying to dislodge the brindled bundle that was choking its life out. The hound had been bred to hunt and kill by masters of the biological arts. Had it been a fight in the open it would have gone much differently. But Charm was the end result of generations of pit fighters who had survived by ignoring pain and physical abuse, while keeping their jaws locked on their opponent and she had found her advantage in a split second of distraction. The fairy hound was shaking her from side to side like a toy doll, but she hung on with a fierce tenacity and her suffocating bite was having a noticeable effect on the monster, its movements slowing and losing power. The huge black dog fell over, its front claws raking at my dog and digging awful furrows in her flesh, but still she hung on. Not wanting her ripped to shreds, I rushed over and ended the battle with a bullet to the head of the hound. Charm watched me, still fastened to its throat, her eyes accusing me of stealing her victory.

  “Good girl, Charm, you did great!” I said to the little dog who had once again saved my life. That’s when I felt the sharp pain in my lower back, but before I could twist to look at it I locked up. Every joint and limb froze in place, leaving me to fall face first onto the hell hound. I bounced on impact and came back down with my head looking at the hilltop – and the last of the elves who was nocking a second arrow into his bow. Paralyzed, every muscle rigid, there was nothing to do but watch him kill me. All I could think was that I had failed my daughter. My parents sacrifice was for nothing, I had failed to get her back.

  He had a cruel grin on his face, pointed teeth exposed, as he pulled the short bow to full draw. His eyes met mine and I could see the moment he made the mental decision to release. I could also see the white furred form of a giant wolverine burst from the cluster of small pines behind him. Coel lunged on his back legs, his brutally powerful front legs open in a claw- bristling embrace that crushed the elf back against him and brought the long vulnerable neck in range of his jaws. Regular wolverines have enormously powerful jaws for cracking bone and getting the marrow inside. Coel’s were another order of magnitude stronger, his single bite making a loud snap like a tree limb breaking. The elf’s head fell sideways, held in place by a loose flap of skin, his arrow and bow smacking together and falling uselessly to the ground. The giant white wolverine landed on his front paws, the broken, dead elf hanging from the remains of his neck in jaws that would make a hyena proud. Coel shook the elf once than dropped it in a boneless heap. He looked my way, then his head tracked something outside my vision.

  Chapter 20

  Black clad legs and feet moved gracefully to my side then squatted to reveal Greer’s calm features.

  “Looking a bit locked up, ehh?” he said, evenly. His long, mocha colored hand pulled a small, flat box from a pocket of his dragonskin shirt; slim fingers twitching it open and deftly selecting a long bonelike needle from inside.

  “This will take a few seconds to reach full effect,” he said as he jabbed it into my back near the arrow which he also pulled from my flesh, the pain from both sharp.

  He waited, crouched on his heels, looking around the clearing at the dead and dying Fae.

  “You realize that we’ve haven’t lost this many elves and goblins in a Gathering in five hundred years?” he asked conversationally.

  “Listen, I have some things to say to you and now is as good a time as any,” he went on. “In all likelihood, you’ll want to kill me when you get up, but for now I’ve got your attention.”

  He took a deep breath, stood and started to pace around the clearing. “I didn’t understand, but how could I really? We are very different people, yours and mine. So my decisions, even now, are logical by the values of my culture
. Save your life, your daughter wasn’t going to be harmed, everything’s good. But it isn’t is it? Not to your kind of thinking? You would rather give your life to protect your daughter than both live, if the lives lived were unknowable and different. If you stayed on Earth and she was taken to Fairie, as it were. So, while I don’t truly understand it, I get it. And therefore, I fouled up.”

  Feeling was coming back to my limbs, a frustrating pins and needles feeling like you get when your foot goes to sleep. I still couldn’t move much, but my body parts were at least twitching when I tried.

  Greer watched me for a moment, then strode out of my vision toward Charm. I heard her whine, which frightened me enough to make a monumental effort. The resulting body twitch was enough to turn my head, bringing Greer and my dog into view. He glanced my way. “You should let the counter-toxin do its job. You could hurt something if you force it too much now,” he said, opening a pouch on his hip and pulling out a tiny jar. Opening the little container, he scooped a brownish cream onto on finger and began to spread it in Charms gashes and scrapes. She finally let go of the dead hell hound’s throat and turned her head to sniff the salve, but then lay back down.

  “It’s remarkable that she killed a Hunt Hound on her own. Your ancestors called them Barghests and Black dogs. They were created at the commission of the Hunt Lord, many hundreds of years ago. Nasty brutes,” he wiped his hands on the dead hound then stood up and turned to look at me. More feeling was coming every second, bringing with it an awful twitchy need to move. I started to shake and flinch, then got my right arm underneath me and tried to push to a sitting position. It didn’t work. A couple of minutes later I tried again. This time I managed to get up, sort of. A few seconds of rest and I was able to stand up, although I almost fell right back down. Wobbling a bit, I moved over to check Charm, who was now sitting up, tongue lolling. She looked awful, claw furrows wet and angry looking. But even as I watched, the brown salve hardened into a crusty, scabrous coating that sealed off each cut and tear. Charm looked tired, but her eyes were bright and she licked at my hand when I checked her over. Dad’s vest had a hydration unit in it, one with a drinking tube that I used to squirt water into my little dog’s mouth. She lapped up what I could get into her, then I took a sip myself and set about reclaiming my weapons.