by IGMS
"Now I know that little girl."
"Now you want your sister back."
"So what if I do?" Greta slapped her leg and her eyes were hot. She repeated, softer, "So what if I do, Vren?"
I stiffened. Not because of Greta's words. Well, partly because of them. But also because the scent of Mercedes' destiny suddenly filled the house, a tide of oranges and cloves and cinnamon. I had to lean against the wall to stay on my feet.
Greta's face went pale. "Zash is gone."
I pelted down the hall toward Zash's room, threw open the door. His bed was empty. The princess's destiny followed me, picking at my sinuses, breezing across my eyes.
And then it was gone. Not melted away, not drifted into nothingness, not faded: immediately, sharply gone.
"She took him!" Greta cried out. The hall was suddenly bright; a sphere of were-fire hovered over Greta's fingers.
I scrambled by her, tearing gashes in the wood floor with my toe claws as I rushed back to where the princess slept. Where she had been sleeping. Where I'd left her . . . Turned my back for a moment, changed my focus for an instant, and . . .
The blankets on the couch had been pushed aside. My big eyes caught the shadows whirling where Zash had stepped through. I blinked, and they were still again.
"She's using Zash," Greta said. The color of the were-fire ball changed, and in its swirling light, I caught glimpses of the princess and Zash. Greta whispered, "Bring him back. Bring him back."
I snatched my coat and my hat from beside the door and stepped out in the night. I inhaled, drew miles of air into my lungs, smelled wilderness and moonlight, scented cold streams, loam, and cut yards, smelled rain-wet asphalt and mist. And the trace of a little princess's destiny, a mile away and moving fast.
I chased after them, nose tuned to the princess's scent. It jumped around weirdly, proof that she was using Zash to help her. She'd cajoled him, threatened him . . .
Seduced him.
Zash's fingers were finer than mine; he could split shadows a hundred ways, could slip through them like a minnow threading through weeds. But he would have to rest sometime. Even though I couldn't daisy-chain through shadow the way my boys could, I didn't tire easily. And I had been hunting for centuries.
Her scent led to a gravel road.
I lingered a moment, snorting the air. There was the princess's destiny, cloying spice; and there was Zash, rank and sweaty boyishness, laundry detergent and shampoo. Plenty of adrenaline, plenty of fright-smells. But no blood. No scent of pain. She hadn't hurt him.
I loped down the side of the road, bare feet grinding on the gravel. Moonlight stretched the shadows of tree branches in front of me. Their scents thinned where Zash had split the shadows to step through; his jaunts were getting shorter, and the smell of his exertion stronger. I picked up my pace.
Their scents pooled outside a brightly lit collection of clapboard and corrugated tin. Someone had painted the words, 'Black George's Hideout' on the roof in stylized red and orange letters. Country music blared behind grimy windows; the parking lot was crowded with mud-covered trucks and motorcycles. I sniffed deeply. Mercedes' destiny mingled with the smells of spilled beer, cigarette smoke, cheap cologne, urinals, and men.
Men. Princes. A whole den of them. I lowered the brim of my hat and stepped through the door.
Mercedes and Zash had seats at the bar. She was punching numbers into a phone, one arm draped over Zash's shoulder. The feathers in his hair had changed colors to vibrant red, gold, and orange.
The room was already going quiet as the men saw me, felt my presence. Their beady eyes gravitated to the talons at the end of my hands, the tip of my nose poking from beneath my hat, my ugly feet.
No sense prolonging the inevitable. I grabbed the closest, scrawniest redneck, lifted him over my head and charged at the bar. I threw him at the base of the phone. His head smashed it into a mess of wires and plastic. The handset Mercedes was holding squealed and went silent. She swiveled to see me.
So did Zash.
Then one of the princes hit me over the head with a glass pitcher. I staggered against the bar, and five or six of them jumped at me, crashing bottles against my skull, jabbing broken pool cues at my eyes. I squirmed out of their attack, reaching my long arms for the shadows on the ceiling.
Zash was waiting there for me.
He caught my talons before they could touch shadow, and he twisted them savagely. I fell back into the melee, watching the satisfaction in his eyes.
My boy. My son. A prince.
My stomach flip-flopped as I tumbled, but a fat cowboy broke my fall with his shoulder. I reached for his shadow, felt it writhe at my touch, opening, blossoming --
Zash was there, too. Any other time, I could have pulled him out. Any other moment, I was his Pop, and he was my little boy. But not now. He grabbed my wrist and yanked, pulling me off the fat cowboy's shoulders and through the portal. Zash opened a shadow across the room, above a whirring ceiling fan. I dropped headfirst into the blades, raising dust and sparks as the fan tore loose from the rafters.
I bounced to my feet and untangled myself from the fan. Across the room, Zash's hand snaked out of shadow to wrap around Mercedes' waist. She looked . . . amazed. Surprised. He pulled her through.
I leaped after them, kicking off cowboys, farmers, rednecks, and truck drivers to get to the shadow before it closed. My talons touched a strand of hair -- or was it a feather? -- and then I was shoving through the night after them.
Not the honky-tonk, now. Zash jumped out of shadow, holding the princess's hand, into the waters of a creek. I could still hear the faint strains of country music off to the right, and the shouting men. Not far enough away. Not for me, not for my boy.
"Vren," said Mercedes, "please don't be angry at him."
The scent of her destiny was so thick that it made me sneeze. I wiped my nose, regarding them both: the princess and my son, the prince. Her prince. He'd never looked less like me, talons extended in front of him, chest heaving, standing protectively in front of Mercedes. He didn't look like Greta in that moment either. He looked like himself.
"Pop," he said. I was startled to see he recognized me. The prince had driven most of the boyishness from his eyes. "I'm going to count to three. And then I'm going to kill you."
"I love you, Zash," I said.
"One." He flexed his fingers. His talons reflected silver-blue moonlight. "Two."
I didn't let him get to three. I stretched my arms toward Mercedes, grabbed the front of her shirt, and pulled her to me. The smell of her destiny coursed through me, blazing, intoxicating. I fought the urge to sink my fangs into her throat, and opened the shadows at my feet with my toes.
Zash leaped after us, swiping at my face. I pushed him away with my knees, and with my free hand reached for the grove on the other side of shadow -- home! To Greta and Sojet, and the magic that would bring Zash back to himself.
But my fingers didn't find the grove. I split the darkness as Zash wrapped his arms around me and pushed me through. Not into quiet, rustling trees. Not into the smells of loam and leaves, wild onions and rain.
We fell on a smooth, bone-pale stretch of rock. The shadow we'd tumbled through sewed shut without either of us lifting a talon. Beyond the closing portal, the bare ground dropped away to mist. Below us, I heard the stomp of feet, and the thunder of witch-drums.
Bald Mountain.
The moon was behind us, bright and huge. Zash stood still, taking in the mountain, the mist. The boy overwhelmed the prince. Zash's mouth hung open and his eyes were as big as the moon. Our shadows stretched out in the mist, huge and weirdly haloed by pale rainbows.
"Pop," he said. His hands trembled.
Our shadows writhed. Greta stepped from the mist, out of my shadow. Sojet stepped out of the shadow that Zash cast. But Mercedes' shadow bulged and grew, twisting like a pinned snake.
Greta fell against me. Her bracelets chimed, and the sound rang over the bare rock of the mountain, coiled down into the v
alleys below us. The witch-drums threw the sound back and wild voices echoed the chiming of Greta's bracelets.
"I'm sorry," Greta said. "It was all I could do, the only thing I could think of to make sure you'd be safe."
Golgorath lifted himself out of Mercedes' shadow.
I stepped in front of my family, pushing Greta, Sojet, and Zash behind me.
Golgorath had gotten fat since the last time I'd seen him. Fat and even uglier than me. Hideous, grotesque . . . it wasn't just in the way his skin hung off of him in rolls or the way his eyes constantly wept oily tears or the way his back hunched. Golgorath exuded rottenness.
"I can smell, smell, smell her," Golgorath said. He extended spindly fingers toward Mercedes. "Little princess, little girl, such a destiny rising off of you."
I reached for shadow, but my talons touched only mist and darkness. The shadows on Bald Mountain belonged to Golgorath.
"Don't touch her," Zash growled. He darted past Greta's arms to shield Mercedes. The feathers in his hair blazed scarlet and stood up around his head like a mane.
"Oho," wheezed Golgorath. "Little boy, little Zash, son of Greta and Vren. Zash, Zash, Zash!" His fingers flicked forward, lifted Zash easily by his chin. Zash kicked in the air, but Golgorath held him, and stroked his face with his free hand. His eyes narrowed suddenly. "Prince. Prince!"
"No," said Greta. "Golgorath. Please."
Golgorath paused, fingers poised above Zash's eyes. Then he laughed, and lowered him to the ground. He slapped his rump, sending Zash stumbling back toward us. "To your mother, little prince, little boy Zash, to safety. Sweet dark-eyed boy, can you smell the princess, too? I smell her, Vren; I don't need your nose to know. It is delicious, she is mine."
My heart beat in my throat, in my skull. "I found her," I said, knowing it wouldn't make a difference. Not now that we were in Bald Mountain, the seat of Golgorath's magic and power.
Zash said, "She's mine."
"Whines, murmurs," Golgorath intoned. "I brought her here, my throne, my mountain, my princess."
He hissed and were-fire bloomed around Mercedes. Though none of it touched her, the rock beneath her feet was scorched and blackened. Golgorath reached for the flames and lifted them, lifted her, off the ground.
"Don't hurt them," Mercedes said. The words came out in little explosions of breath. Her eyes were wide with fear. She looked beyond Golgorath at my family.
"You are mine, they are mine, mine." He sniffed gingerly at the were-fire and giggled. "My own, own, own. Giantess and hunter and beautiful boys, and princess!"
He pushed his hand through the were-fire and laid a finger against Mercedes' mouth. She stiffened, coughed and whimpered; a dollop of gold floated out of her lips and adhered to Golgorath. The smell of her destiny rocked me, drove me to my knees, made my blood thump in my skull.
Golgorath licked his finger. "Oho," he said. "Oho."
The smell of her destiny should have faded. It didn't. It flowered.
"Swear you won't hurt them," Mercedes said.
Golgorath pushed his palm through the were-fire. Mercedes flinched, slapped his arm away. He grunted; rivulets of were-fire streamed down Golgorath's skin and died, leaving bright, blistering tracks.
"No touchy," Mercedes said, panting.
He roared, thrusting his hand at her again. The smell of Golgorath's burning flesh mingled with Mercedes' destiny, foulness and sweetness, sewage and oranges, filth and cinnamon. He put his fingers over her face, but she bit him so hard, black blood squirted and then evaporated to smoke in the raging were-flames. She raked his face with her nails.
When she pulled her hand away, a long braid of light came with it, streaming from between Golgorath's lips. Golgorath whimpered as the light was pulled from inside of him.
The were-fire around Mercedes hissed and died. She held the strand of light in her hands, looking from Zash to Sojet, to Greta, to Golgorath.
I was the one who spoke. "Eat it now, eat the light before he . . ."
Her hands were already at her lips. She stuffed it into her mouth and slurped.
"You're disgusting," she said to Golgorath.
Greta's bracelets chimed. I watched them slink away from her wrists, drop to the ground, and evaporate.
"Vren," Greta said, touching her arms. "Vren."
"Trickster," Golgorath spat. "Not a little girl, not a little baby, pink-gummed, pale-fleshed princess, nonono. Trickster queen is what you are."
Zash bowled forward, a whir of motion and claws, and Sojet with him. They leaped on Golgorath, tearing, biting, growling. Like monsters; like princes.
"Tear out his heart, boys," I murmured. I couldn't even hear my own voice; Mercedes' destiny filled my skull. "Tear out his heart and eat it."
Long, sweet fingers touched my head, caressed my neck and chin. I held Greta's wrists as the boys mauled Golgorath, the witch-drums beat below us, and the princess's destiny wrapped around the world.
"I'm free," Greta whispered. Her breath swept from my ear to my cheek, tickled my big nose. Better than any destiny. "Find me, Vren. Come find me . . ."
I lifted my head to see her face; her cheeks were covered in tears. She was not looking at me, but at something behind me, beyond me.
Golgorath was ablaze. Golden light surrounded him as he writhed on the rock of Bald Mountain. His ribcage split and opened; flames licked out of his chest. The boys held his arms while Mercedes stood over him, breathing in the light that twisted upward.
Not light. Destinies. The destinies Golgorath had stolen.
All of them.
I didn't feel the universe twist. I didn't feel the way it straightened and flexed as the destinies Golgorath had devoured slipped free of his body.
But I felt Greta's fingers twine with mine. I felt the calluses on her palm and at the ends of her fingers. A wisp of her hair touched my face . . .
. . . and then she was gone.
And when I blinked, the boys had disappeared from the light around Golgorath as well, leaving me alone with the princess. Golgorath's twisted, desiccated corpse kicked at her feet a couple of times, then lay still.
The witch-drums ceased.
Bald Mountain was silent.
I flexed my fingers and felt the sweat from Greta's palm drying.
"Give them back to me," I said.
Mercedes rubbed her arms. The welts on her forearms were gone, but the scar I'd given her remained. "You don't deserve them."
Rocks cracked. A sapling sprouted under my toes and I jumped to the side. The whole bare-bones top of Bald Mountain shuddered and split; shoots of pale green and grey rose from the disintegrating rock. In moments, I was standing in a grove of ash trees.
Mercedes sat astride a limb that had grown beneath her. Her hand caressed the bark nervously.
"Give them back to me. Now, princess." I tried to make my voice snap, the way I'd do with the boys to let them know how much trouble they were in. But it broke, instead.
Mercedes didn't answer, just watched me with those princess eyes. I sniffed. The air smelled of dew and newly-turned earth. There was a storm brewing a hundred miles away; I scented lightning gathering in its folds. But there was no Christmas smell; no cinnamon, nutmeg, no oranges. Not even a whiff. Her destiny was done. Whatever she did from here until forever was her own; the universe had no more claim on her.
"Please," I said.
She chewed a lock of her hair. I'd never seen her do that before; it made my heart pulse, made my stomach churn. It was so much like Sojet, sucking on the tuft of his tail.
"You're a predator," she said.
The grove whispered around her, leaves hushing and boughs creaking. Dark shadows and bright moonlight played over Mercedes' face. She reached out to those boughs, to the rustling, whispering leaves. Branches slid into her fingers, and she twisted them into a wreath. She settled the wreath on my head.
"Swear that you are mine," she whispered. She swallowed. "Two hundred years of service. Swear on it, Freak."
I watch her house from the shadows across the street, smelling the air, breathing deep the aroma of her days-to-come.
I am not here for the princess. I keep my eyes on the shadows. Waiting for the darkness to shift, waiting for the monster. There -- a sudden flash of teeth; a slick movement. The screen to her open bedroom window splits.
I lope across the street and climb to the window. There's another smell lingering around me -- a boy smell. Shampoo, loam, the tang of sweat and sunlight. Illusions of Zash and Sojet. Sometimes, she lets me hear Greta's voice rustling through the leaves in the wreath.
Mercedes likes to keep me honest. She doesn't need to. I am a changed monster. I tell her so all the time.
I pull myself through the window and face the monster standing over the sleeping princess.
I let it see my fangs.
Four Wizards and a Funeral
by Mike Rimar
Artwork by Anna Repp
* * *
I. The Starling
True to her reputation, Simone the Starling was positively ravishing for a wizard. With her black satin robe accentuating her long, free-flowing hair, she moved like wavelets across a pond at midnight.
In contrast, her face was paler than the dead man lying between us, a slash of crimson across her full lips the only suggestion she retained any membership to the living.
Remembering my station, I folded my hands in a functionary manner and half-smiled, half-frowned my condolence. "Did you know him well, madame?" A standard if officious question. A blind man would recognize the only female member of the Cabal, or that Carmichael the Ferret, the leader of that notorious quintet of mages, lay prone upon my preparation table.
"Know him?" Her gravelly voice betrayed life experience well beyond her visible years. At once I realized her beauty was but a glamor cast upon herself. "Yes," she said. "He was my -- grandfather." Her upper lip twitched into a smile. "Great grandfather. Tell me, Undertaker, he is dead, yes?"