by Martha Carr
Silver light snaked toward her faster than she could react. In less than a second, the Nightstalker’s magic crackling across the ground struck her feet and shot up her calves, blasting her backward across the air. A shield!
The halfling’s back slammed into the ground. She skidded across the grass with a groan, then pushed herself up and tried to shake off the electric jolt. “Okay…”
Doubling over, she lifted a hand toward her new Nightstalker mentor and shook her head.
“Okay, I just need a second.”
“That’s not gonna work on the battlefield.” Corian stalked toward her. “Not with the scent of death in the air and your blood boiling inside you.”
“Come on, just let me—”
He struck her with another silver bolt just below the collarbone.
“Ow! Damnit, Corian. Give me two—” She staggered backward, but his next attack hit her in the upper thigh. She stumbled and managed to regain her balance as she flung out a hand, trying to find the pressure in the air again for a goddamn shield.
The Nightstalker relentlessly pressed on, and Cheyenne got maybe two inches of a shield up before he sent another blinding silver attack toward her shoulder again.
The drow halfling roared and turned back to face him again head-on. “I said, stop!”
The ground erupted in front of her, spraying clumps of grass and soil as thick shards of rocky pillars burst through the surface at an upward angle, all of them pointed at Corian. A spiderweb of thick cracks shattered across the trembling earth, scattering away from Cheyenne in every direction. The Nightstalker stumbled backward and was knocked off his feet when a second and then a third wave of stone shoved up from below the surface. Trees groaned and snapped behind her, felling each other like dominoes where the splintered earth had already uprooted them and done most of the work.
Cheyenne dropped her hands against her thighs, panting, and stared at the destruction her newest drow ability had caused. The rumbling chaos below the surface faded away, trees rustled against each other with the occasional snap, and then everything fell still again.
Surprise magic. Holy shit.
Corian cleared his throat and pushed himself to his knees, brushing the dirt and grass off his clothes. He took one more quick assessment of what she’d just done and scowled. “We have a lot of work to do.”
She gestured at the upturned earth. “Looks like an improvement to me.”
“Not when you were supposed to be summoning a shield.”
Behind him, the copper puzzle box lifted slowly into the air, the golden light shining through all the etched runes. Then the different pieces spun wildly in every direction, letting out a low whir and hum. Corian turned to eye the legacy box.
Cheyenne stuck her hands on her hips. “Yeah, that’s been happening a lot.”
With a sigh, the Nightstalker turned away from her and stormed across the grass toward the floating copper box. “You should’ve started training for this when you could use any of your magic.”
The halfling started after him. “When I was eight?”
“Gotta start sometime, right?” Corian stopped beside the floating box and cocked his head. “You’re not focusing enough on why you want to master your magic, Cheyenne.”
“Right, like you have any idea what I want.”
“I don’t need to know what you want. Just that you haven’t figured out what it is yet, and that’s why your magic is still all over the place this late in the game.” He raised an eyebrow at her and pointed at the box. “That’s what this means.”
The half-drow rubbed her aching, lightning-struck shoulder and stopped on the other side of her floating legacy, the golden glow lighting up her dark elf features. “I know what I want.”
“Oh, sure. The halfling who didn’t have a clue about what this was and who’d never heard of a Nimlothar suddenly knows more than the ancient magic running through her veins and the trials every drow has mastered for more centuries than you can imagine.” The Nightstalker shot her a sarcastic grimace. “That makes perfect—”
A sharp crack echoed across the darkened meadow behind them, halfway between the closest line of trees and where they stood beside the floating box. Both magicals turned to see a dark, shimmering circle of black light open in mid-air.
“You open another portal?”
Corian licked his lips. “That’s not mine.”
“If you know whose it is, now’s a good time to share.”
“Get the box.” The Nightstalker pointed at her floating legacy and stepped back across the grass, away from the new portal, which was growing larger by the second. “We’re calling it a night, kid. And I need time to put up better wards.”
“Okay, see, this is the part where I know you’re not telling me something important.”
“Grab the damn box, Cheyenne!” More trees snapped and groaned behind the new portal, bending toward the darkness spreading in mid-air.
She had to push herself up on her tiptoes before she could snatch the spinning box from the air. The glow went out, and the different sections stopped spinning. “What’s going on?”
“Quiet. I need to focus.” Closing his eyes, Corian took a deep breath and lifted his hands as if he held a basketball between them.
A harsh, hissing whisper floated out of the opening portal, chanting in a language Cheyenne didn’t understand. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and her entire body erupted with a sharp, buzzing tingle. Someone else is watching me this time.
She glanced at the Nightstalker, who hadn’t done anything but stand there with his hands raised. “Can’t you center your chi some other time?”
“Shut up,” he hissed through his teeth, then his fingers moved quickly in a long series of gestures with sharp, short pauses between.
An angry gust of wind picked up, blasting at them out of the portal as the whispered chanting grew louder. Purple light crackled and danced at the dark edges of the air, which was now half the size of a regular door. “You might wanna—ah!”
The halfling’s head erupted with agonizing, stabbing pain. A face flashed before her and drowned out everything else—endlessly wrinkled, sallow skin studded with dots and lines of fading black ink; white, all-seeing eyes; a mouth with its few teeth and everything else inside it stained a dark, blood-red.
“The endless search for an heir will bring each one of them to death’s door.”
The crone’s face disappeared, replaced by the image of L’zar Verdys kneeling in the cold black room surrounded by more than a dozen drow bodies.
“Now it’s your turn.”
The portal flashed black light again. Cheyenne didn’t know she’d fallen to her knees until Corian grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly to her feet. Somehow, she held onto the legacy box.
“Time to move!” The Nightstalker jerked her away from the flashing portal and the chanting whispers, which had now become a constant roar.
The halfling stumbled behind him toward the new portal he’d opened. My head’s gonna split open.
She recognized the cement floor of the basement in apartment D just before Corian yanked her through. Behind them, the ground trembled, half the trees behind the freaky black portal snapped in half or were ripped from the ground by the roots, and a low, demonic laugh echoed through the meadow.
Chapter Sixteen
The cement floor was a lot harder than grass when Cheyenne fell to her knees again. Corian’s portal disappeared with a little pop, cutting off the insane laughter pounding through her head. The puzzle box bounced and skittered across the floor with a metallic ping.
“What the hell was that?” She braced herself on all fours, blinking away the pain until she saw two of her purple-gray hands again instead of four.
“A close call. That’s what it was. Too close.” The Nightstalker stooped beside the circle of white candles, the flames already snuffed out, and swept them all aside toward the empty cardboard box and the metal shelves.
&nb
sp; “Yeah, I picked up on that part.” Slowly, the halfling pushed herself up onto her knees and sat back on her heels. “I’m talking about the other portal. And the voice.”
“I thought we had more time.” Corian leaped to his feet and returned to the shelves, rummaging around in all the piled junk again while everything he didn’t want clattered to the floor.
“Who tried to open the portal?” She watched him moving quickly down the shelves. “The voice was inside my head. What did they want?”
The Nightstalker lifted a shiny black lump of charred wood and shrugged.
“Corian!”
He spun toward her, silver eyes flashing. “There are certain forces that don’t want you to succeed with this, Cheyenne. Now that you’ve started the trial, those forces will find it a lot easier to hunt you down. We have to be careful.”
Dropping to the floor again, the Nightstalker started scribbling a bunch of symbols with the charred wood, his hand moving in large circles.
“Hunt me down? Are you serious?”
Corian hissed in frustration, focusing on his drawing. “It wouldn’t be this way if your father were around to help, so we just have to make do with what we’ve got.”
“My father?” The halfling let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “I met L’zar, and he’s not a very helpful guy.”
The charred wood clattered to the floor, and the Nightstalker jerked his head up to stare at her, his tufted ears twitching. “You’ve spoken to him?”
“In person. It was seriously underwhelming.”
He looked her over, and a small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Can you get back in there again?”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne grimaced. “But I still haven’t decided if I want to—”
“You want to, kid. Trust me.” Corian surveyed his work on the floor, then stood and brushed off his hands. “Get another visit with L’zar and tell him we’ve started. He’ll be able to give you pointers on how to fast-track the trial so you can open the box as soon as possible.”
“He didn’t answer any of my questions the first time.” Cheyenne pushed to her feet and swayed a little. “I don’t think much has changed for him since yesterday morning.”
“But it’s changed for you, Cheyenne, and that means things have changed for L’zar.”
She snorted. “The guy’s locked up in a cage.”
“By choice.” Corian walked quickly across the basement and picked the copper legacy box up off the floor. Then he held it out to her and nodded. “Your father wants you to master the trial and claim your legacy as much as you do. Maybe even more.”
“Right.”
“L’zar doesn’t give anything away for free, Cheyenne. But if you tell him we’ve already started and we need to speed up the process, he’ll tell you what you need to know.”
The halfling’s nostrils flared as she stared at the Nightstalker. “Because there’s something in it for him.”
“Yes. At this point, kid, what’s good for one of you is good for both of you. Set up another meeting. I’ll make sure we’re more prepared on this end next time.”
Great. Everyone’s giving me secret missions with L’zar.
She snatched the box from Corian’s hand and went back to the card table to jam the thing back into her backpack. Then she slung the thing over her shoulder and grimaced. “You really beat me up out there, you know?”
The Nightstalker smirked. “Everybody gets their ass kicked sometimes, kid. That’s how we learn.”
“Oh, yeah? When was the last time someone kicked your ass?”
“Been a long time.”
“Yeah, I bet.” She looked him over from head to toe and slipped her other arm through the second backpack strap. “Don’t worry. That’ll change.”
Corian chuckled as she headed toward the door, shaking his head as he knelt by his charcoal drawing on the floor and got back to work.
The halfling paused by the metal door out of the basement and turned back over her shoulder. “Did you know you’d give the Nimlothar seed to me the whole time you kept it in the ring?”
He looked slowly back up at her. The small smile looked a lot less predatory on his feline face. “No. Just that I’d be forcing it down some young drow’s throat to help them with their trials. But I’m glad it’s you.”
“Yeah, me too. Thanks for being there to kick my ass.”
Corian dipped his head. “Any time.”
Cheyenne turned quickly around and jerked open the metal door. It shut behind her with a bang, and then her black Vans were crunching over the dried leaves in the stairwell and up the damp cement steps. She sighed, then she slipped quickly out of her drow form as she reached the top of the stairs. “Everybody wants something,“ she said aloud.
A pile of leaves rustled in the grass beside her, then a head the size of a navel orange, covered in a bright shock of ruby-red hair, burst from the top of the pile. “That’s when you know you’ve got more bargaining chips.”
The three-foot-tall man—he was orange—sitting under all the leaves lifted his hand and brought a huge pinecone to his mouth before taking a quick, crunching bite out of it like it was an apple.
The halfling narrowed her eyes at him. “Weren’t you at the landfill?”
“What? Me? No way. My palate’s way more refined than that.” The pinecone crunched around in his mouth, sharp crumbs spilling back into the pile of leaves around him. “I’m into compostable trash.”
She fought back a laugh. “I wouldn’t call pinecones trash.”
“Yeah, tell it to the trees.” The man raised a grubby finger and pointed behind him at the row of pine trees between the rental houses.
Wrinkling her nose, Cheyenne nodded at the little guy and almost laughed again. “You got a name?”
The guy shrugged, closed his beady eyes, popped the last bit of pinecone into his mouth, and buried himself in the pile of leaves again.
Can’t keep calling them trash-eaters. With a snort, she headed for her car parked at the curb, searching the empty street just in case. He’s right, though. Bargaining chips with both sides now. Sir and Corian. When I find some kinda leverage with L’zar, I’ll really have the upper hand.
When she slid behind the wheel of her Focus and dropped her backpack on the passenger seat, a huge yawn broke free. Cheyenne shook her head quickly, wiped the one tear squeezing out of her eye, and started the car. Can’t sleep yet.
She buckled up and turned on the radio. The beginning of Metallica’s Enter Sandman filled the car, and she turned the volume up as loud as it would go before heading back to her apartment.
* * *
Her black Vans thumped against the hall closet by the front door, and Cheyenne shuffled through her apartment. Her keyring hit the counter on the half-wall with a clink, and her backpack slid off her shoulder onto the floor. Rolling her neck from side to side, the halfling grimaced and rubbed her chest just below her collarbone. Man, he really got me.
She unzipped her jacket and paused when a muffled buzz came from one of the outside pockets. Rolling her eyes, she jammed her hand in there and pulled out the FRoE burner phone. “There better be a good reason you’re calling me after midnight on a Monday.”
“Well, I didn’t call just to shoot the shit, halfling.” Sir cleared his throat on the other line. “How you doin’?”
“Peachy. Best day of my life.”
“Okay, don’t break into song or anything. Heads-up about our next op. Tomorrow.”
“Sure. I’m free after lunch.”
“Nope. You’ll be meeting up with a team at oh-eight-hundred. Time-sensitive thing, kid. I know you’re trying to have a life and everything, but this needs to happen ASAP, and ASAP means whenever I say we’re ready to go.”
Cheyenne took a deep breath and forced her fingers to loosen up around the flip phone. “I can’t keep missing class—”
“Yeah, you can. Leave a paper trail that says you showed up. That’ll be a cakewalk for you. What we’re doing
is way more important. We’re going after the second distribution center for the black-magic crap still spreading through the state like goddamn wildfire.”
With a sigh, the halfling closed her eyes. “Fine. I’ll be there. I assume you’ll text me another address.”
“Look at that—you’re learning how to play the game. Listen, this op is gonna make the magical cult in the church look like kindergarten story time. After you help us bag these assholes, I’ll let you cash it in for another visit with L’zar.”
“I already said I’ll do it.”
“Good. Just wanna make sure you know what you’re getting out of it. Get some sleep. You sound like my grandma when she’s off her meds.”
Cheyenne snapped the phone shut and glared at it. Someone has to tell him about those analogies.
She jammed the phone back into her pocket and stripped off the black canvas jacket. It thumped to the carpet with a little jingle of all the extra silver buttons, and the halfling shuffled through her apartment toward the bedroom. The splintered door made her roll her eyes before she nudged it open, shrugging out of her clothes on her way to the bed. The drow halfling set her cell phone on the nightstand and crawled under the sheets.
She lay there on her side, staring at the sliding door of her closet. They’re just dreams. Suck it up. Cheyenne shut her eyes and willed herself to sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
She gave herself enough time the next morning to stop by the gas station down the street for a quick pick-me-up and something like breakfast. When she set the twenty-ounce energy drink and the floppy croissant breakfast sandwich down on the counter, she tried to smile.
“Woah. Why so serious?” Katie laughed and rang up the halfling’s breakfast. “Just kidding. Joker’s got nothing on you. Rough night?”
“Kinda.” Cheyenne tapped her fingers on the counter and shifted her weight. “I’ll get over it. How’ve you been?”
“Still no guns pointed at my face, so I can’t complain too much.”
“Hey, anything’s better than being robbed at gunpoint, right?”