Dragon Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 3)

by Cedar Sanderson

Something about her face quenched any desire we had to talk.

  “How long?” Bella asked.

  The great doors swung open, and we all jumped. Bella gulped as she realized it was not the Hunstman, but Joe and Trytion. They walked toward us, carefully skirting the wolf’s body.

  “We need to talk.” Trytion unconsciously echoed my earlier words.

  “Lucia summoned the Hunt,” Alger told him. He sagged against his staff. “We haven’t much time.”

  Trytion inclined his head to my mother. “It was your right, Lady. Do not look so distressed."

  Mother waved that away. “Lom needs to be gotten away.” She said bluntly. “No point in rubbing him in the Hunt’s nose.”

  “I have a mission for Lom.” Trytion looked at me. “You understood what Dionaea said about the crown?”

  “I didn’t.” I’d had a clue, but not the whole story yet. I wanted to hear more.

  Bella pointed at her own head. “I’m wearing a counterfeit. Lavendar stole – or something stole – the real thing a long time ago. Not sure how long, exactly, only that it had to do with my grandmother’s exile... Dionaea has managed to get it, and from the Charter…” She looked at Trytion and Alger.

  “There is a magical link. Yes, and without it, you are Queen, let me stress that.”

  Alger picked up where Trytion had left off. “But you don’t have the access to power you would with it.”

  “And you want me to go get it.” I shrugged off the encumbering robes. Shirtsleeves and suspenders I could work with. All that cloth was damn annoying.

  “I know it won’t be easy. But with the Hunt harrying Dionaea, and her pet monster…”

  “That’s another thing. The Hunt…”

  The great doors crashed open. I don’t think any of us even twitched. This was becoming quite the routine, and as I turned to look, I wondered if Joe ought to have bumpers installed to prevent damage.

  The last person in three worlds I had expected to see walked in. I recognized him immediately, although he looked nothing like he ought to look. He took a few steps, and then stopped dead, staring down at the body on the floor. Dropping to one knee, he held both his hands out, over the body.

  The small group of people in the room moved toward him of one accord. I was in the lead. We were all twitchy over the events of the last hour, and a stranger appearing in the room wasn’t helping. I knew Bella hadn’t recognized him. I’d only known him by the eyes.

  The deep gray eyes that now met mine as he looked up from the wolf’s body.

  “Boy.” He greeted me, standing. “The Wendigo is here, then.”

  “Not here, here.” I struggled for my composure. Raven always had this effect on me, and somehow he’d passed it on to his niece although there was no real blood relation between them. But she was of the tribe, and they were his People.

  “Who are you?” Trytion demanded.

  Just about then, it clicked for Bella. “Uncle?” she gasped.

  I didn’t blame her. He was a strapping man, looked to be about twenty, with smooth brown face and glossy black hair – black as a raven’s wing. Dressed in a brown shirt, and battered jeans over workboots, he looked normal. Which meant he stood out like a sore thumb, Underhill. She had grown up with an old man, white-haired, face a mass of wrinkles, and bent back. Now, he smiled down at me.

  “I came, chick. You need me.”

  Trytion was looking back and forth between the two of them. Now, he bent slightly, in a formal bow-between-equals. “Raven.”

  “Yes.” Raven returned the courtesy. “When Bob came home, he came straight to me, and he was right to. You do not know what you face.”

  “The Wendigo. An evil spirit, used to rule the territory east of the Mississippi. Kills by starving the afflicted, even as they desperately gorge on everything and anything they can stuff in their mouths,” Bella recited.

  Raven shook his head. “There is more to it than that. I have never dealt with it…” He looked down at the wolf’s body again. “Is this necessary?”

  “What?” Trytion looked down solemnly. “This just happened, and we have not had time to deal with it. He will receive full honors, of course.”

  “Then perhaps a better place to talk would be the small chambers,” Mother spoke up, firmly. A lifetime of social arrangements made her the obvious person to keep this meeting moving smoothly.

  Delicately, she moved around Sean’s corpse. “Follow me, please.”

  Bella slipped her hand into mine as we followed Trytion and Raven out the door.

  “I feel like… like we fell down the rabbit hole,” she whispered to me.

  “More like the badger hole. The Hunt is coming.” I raised my voice. “M’Lord, do you plan to allow the Hunt entrance to Court?”

  He shook his head. “I will meet them at the gates. Damn.” He stopped and looked back at us, then over my shoulder at Alger and Devon, trailing behind us. “I had almost forgotten. So much keep happening, I am…” he broke off and looked at Raven. “Do I need to know this?”

  I broke in. “In my opinion, no. I’m the one who needs to deal with this. You have the Hunt, sir. I’ll take this mission.” I squeezed Bella’s hand, then dropped it. “Bella…”

  “Stay with Trytion.” She put her hand up and touched the crown on her head. “I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.” She took a deep breath, then put her hand into nothing. I had to admit it looked creepy, no wonder I got funny looks when I did it. She pulled out her pistol in a holster and strapped it on. “The hell with not being armed. I’d put the MGL over my shoulder if it were called for. Sir.” She turned to Trytion, whose lips were twitching under his mustache.

  “Bella…” I reached for her and kissed her soundly. “Be careful.”

  She nodded, and they walked down the hall toward the front gates. I looked at Raven. “There is…”

  He laughed. “She is no delicate flower, boy. You know that.”

  I did. “Alger, Devon, might as well sit in on this.” I looked at my mother. “Mother…”

  “I need to hear this.” She might have had a steel rod up her spine. Her eyes snapped as she pivoted. “Come,” she commanded, and Raven followed her meekly.

  When we were all in the smaller room, and seated, she looked at Raven. “Please tell us about this monster. I do not know how much you are aware of events here, but it took the life of my daughter. Others, how many we do not know, and I fear it endangers the very fabric of this world.”

  She paused as a girl carrying a tea tray entered the room. I wondered when she had ordered that. My mother never failed to astonish me. When the tea was on the table and the extraneous person gone, she continued. “The Wendigo is not of our magic, and as such, is a destabilizing influence on a society that is, I am sad to say, stagnant.”

  Lucia poured tea. I hid my smirk at the sight of Raven seated in a silk-upholstered wingback with a delicate teacup balanced on his knee. He was gravely listening to my mother.

  “Generations ago – we are long-lived, but not immortal, as I believe you are – the Courts split.” Raven didn’t even flinch when she said the word. I wondered… but this was not time to be nosy.

  “High Court, this place we are allied with, was Chartered with the express purpose of maintaining peace with both Fae, and the upstart human communities that had begun to develop Above.”

  He nodded, took a sip of tea, and smirked at me. “I was aware of the Charter, Lom’s Mother.”

  I cleared my throat. “Ah… Raven, this is Lucia Mulvaney. And Alger,” I said. “My great-something uncle, and Devon, my sister’s son.”

  Raven cocked his head. “You lost your mother. And you are connected to Dorothy?”

  How he knew that I had no idea. Devon got a little pink. “Yes,” he answered simply.

  “My condolences on the one and congratulations on the other,” Raven told him. He looked at Alger, and nodded.

  I was stunned. They knew one another. Then I leaned back. That made sense,
oddly enough. Raven turned back to my mother, who smiled a little. “I have no objections to being known as Lom’s Mother. I am, no matter what he thinks, proud of him.”

  I was just as happy I was sitting down for that pronouncement.

  She continued serenely. “If you know of the Charter, you know the relationship it has to travel between the planes. The limitations it was supposed to place on that, and the stresses the Low Court gave that treaty from the beginning.”

  He nodded. “The connection with my territory was not made until long, long after this, but when I became aware of who and what the Fae were, I made it my business to study you.”

  He looked directly at me. “I know you were unaware of me, boy, and what I was when you first arrived in my land. But I knew you. And Lavendar had sought refuge there, because it is so far from any passages to Underhill. Her blood mingled with my blood. I became entangled, despite all my efforts to avoid it through the centuries.”

  I shrugged. “If it hadn’t been me,” I began.

  He waved irritably, making a face. “You are honorable, boy. Would I have kept you in my house were you not? Very uncomfortable guest. I have known something would upset the balance. Nothing lasts forever.”

  He leaned forward, setting the cup gently back on the table. “When the World was young, and the People few in number. Before the planes, as you say, touched as much as they do now… then, there were three of us.”

  He spread his hands. “I make the story simple. More than three, but… three. Here, on what humans call continent.”

  I nodded. I knew what he meant. North America, more or less.

  “Me, Coyote, and the Wendigo.” He laid out one hand, palm up, to serve as the land, and marked it with his fingers. His lands, by this very crude symbolism, were the far North and West, Coyote from there to the Mississippi, and the Wendigo on the far side of that. A kingdom divided. Only it had never been a kingdom, from the myths and legends I knew.

  “Coyote and I shared bread, told stories, got drunk.” He shrugged, smiling. “Suppose you say, friends.”

  “Is he still around?” I asked, curiously.

  “Maybe so, maybe not.” Raven shrugged again. “This been long time, long ago.”

  Whatever that meant. I knew better than to press for an answer and subsided.

  “One day, Coyote tells me a story. He has been to pay his People a visit, a little tribe, maybe four sets of hands that live on the riverbank.”

  Forty people, give or take. This had been a long time ago. Raven leaned back and kept talking, his eyes hooded in recollection. “The People, they are all dead. Coyote wanders through the village, seeing them lay everywhere. There is no food, but the river is full of fish. The smoking-racks are torn down, and on the wreckage lay bodies with full bellies, and faces like skulls. Coyote howls, he is so sad. He sings to his lover, the Moon, and to his surprise, there is an answer.”

  “The other howl comes from across the river. Coyote jumps into the muddy water and begins to swim. He uses his tail to steer him in the current, a trick he learned from Beaver. Eventually, he reaches the other side. But he is very tired, cold, and wet. So he decides to wait until the next night to see who it was that howled in pain along with his lament.”

  “The next morning, Coyote wakes up. He had slept by the fire, and was dry, but now he was hungry, so he goes in search of food. He begins to walk down the river, and sees a village. No one is around, but it is early. Perhaps they all still sleep. He walks into the village, and finds all the People there, they are dead. Just like his People. Coyote is alarmed. What is this evil that has killed all the People on both sides of the river?”

  Raven paused, and Lucia silently refilled his teacup. He took it with a nod, his face solemn. I could see why. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. Something about the cadence of his story, and where I could see it going…

  Raven drank, and spoke again, softly. “Coyote began to run. He ran to the next village, and the next, and the next. Coyote ran until his pads bled, and he had to hold a paw up and run on three legs, then rest another paw, but he could not stop running. And every village he could find, was dead. Still, Coyote ran.”

  “There came a day when Coyote could run no longer, and he lay down in the brush, panting, and he was horribly afraid that all the People were dead. He felt he could move no more, and then he heard voices. So he crawled to the edge of the brush, and peeped out.”

  “He had run all the way to the sea. It stretched out before him, vast, and salty. Hot and tired, Coyote licked his nose. He knew the sea, and that he could not drink it. But this was not his sea. And the people on the beach were not his People.”

  “Coyote watched the people and saw they gathered clams, like his People did. He saw the children laugh and play. And finally he transformed himself into a man, and he limped out of the brush and asked for water.”

  “At first, all the people ran away. But Coyote sat down on the sand in the sun, and slowly, they came back. Coyote could not speak their language, but it is not hard to say I am thirsty…” Raven mimed the act of drinking. “So they brought him water. Coyote got a little boy to spit in the cup, and when he drank it, he could speak to them, and they to him. They told him the story of a monster who had appeared out of the ice fog that winter. When he was seen, then a madness fell on the people, and they ate until they died. The monster had passed by their little village, but all the others had gotten sick and died.”

  “Coyote thanked the people of the beach, and began to travel north. Once he was out of sight of the beach, he became his coyote self again, and he ran. He found many dead places, and a few that still lived. A little at a time, he was able to puzzle out what the meaning of it all was. Now, when he had started, it was spring. He had run all the way through summer, and fall was touching the trees with colors.”

  “Coyote ran home. He swam the river, and walked through the dead village, where the bodies had turned to bones. And he sat in the middle of the village, wrapped his tail around his toes, pointed his nose to the sky, and he howled. He sang of the dead, the rotting babies that would laugh no more, the sweethearts who no longer loved, and the grandmothers who gave no more wisdom. And then he fell silent.”

  “Across the river, there was an answering howl. But there was no song in it. It was hungry, and angry. Coyote felt the fur on his whole spine lift up, and his tail brushed, for there is a little cat in him, after all. He paced at the river bank, and he yapped across it, at the hungry thing in the dark.”

  “He never told me what they talked about.” Raven shrugged. “Maybe they never talked. But he told me what to do if I saw signs of the Wendigo among my people.”

  He sighed, and sat up slowly. “I feel old as I usually look, Boy. Time we go.”

  “Wait!” Devon blurted. “What were you supposed to do? And a spirit killed all those people? When was this? I learned…”

  Raven raised a hand and chuckled. “I know you are young, so many questions! Yes, child, the Wendigo killed them. Oh, sure, later, the rational men of science…” He snorted, making his opinion of them clear. “They say disease. But, child.” Raven leaned forward, and fixed Devon with those eyes. Devon leaned forward, and I vividly remembered my first encounter with the ancient spirit, being kidnapped and taken for a ride. I wondered what Devon was seeing in his eyes now.

  “This was before the white men, and their diseases. This was in the time of the People, who were numerous, and there was still magic in the land. But the Wendigo broke them, and the remnants were swept up when the men came from across the sea. Now, the Wendigo has turned his eyes on your plane, where the men of science are not. Here, he has power, and he means to use it.”

  Immortal Death

  Raven stood up. “I am afraid we must move quickly,” He bowed slightly to my mother, and when she offered him her hand, he kissed it. I boggled, behind his back. The old bird put on a good act, but somewhere in that mind was more culture than I would have given him cre
dit for. He headed for the door like he owned the place, and I had to hurry to stay on his heels. If he had given Alger a high sign, I hadn’t seen it, but the old man stayed put, along with Devon and my mother. Devon seemed a little stunned from his close encounter with the birdlike eyes. I didn’t blame him.

  As the door closed behind us, he stopped, and I almost ran into him.

  “So.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Where are we going?”

  “I thought you knew that.” I felt the old familiar exasperation rising up.

  “Oh, away from here, sure. The Wendigo isn’t here.” He looked around. “Posh place.”

  “Drop the act, Raven.” I growled at him. “My wife is facing the dark Hunt, you’re telling tall tales, and the only way I know of to kill the Wendigo is to beard the lion in its den.”

  “No, no,” He shook his head. “You can’t kill the Wendigo.”

  “Why the hell not?” I grated out, controlling my anger with an effort.

  “Like me, he is immortal. Cannot kill me, only…” He fluttered his fingers. “Disperse, then reassemble.”

  I blinked at him. “Then what?”

  “Fight him. Warn him off, and deal with…” Raven sobered suddenly. “You know what Coyote told me?”

  I shook my head. “I can guess.”

  “Any who are bitten by the Wendigo, you must kill. There is no cure.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “Do you know who Baba Yaga is?”

  His reaction surprised me. He grabbed my arm. “Is she here?” he hissed, looking around.

  “Um, no.” I bubbled us. This conversation needed to be conducted elsewhere. He looked startled, and let go of my arm. Then he poked the bubble wall.

  “Very nice. Yes, yes…” He peered closely at the bubble. I knew he wasn’t looking at it, but the spell that allowed us to ‘jump’ through space. I popped the bubble and he grunted in disappointment.

  “We’ll do it again later, I promise. But we needed to plan, and I wanted to be away from any possible listening ears.”

  “Out here?” Raven looked around the sunny meadow. I looked, too, remembering with a pang the last time I’d been here, with Bella and Sean. “There could be birds…” He whistled, and a large raven pinwheeled out of the sky, squawking loudly. I wondered where Raven had called him from. Raven held out his hand, and the bird landed on his forearm, shaking to settle its ruffled feathers. Raven locked gazes with the bird, and then with a flick of his arm, sent it skyward again. It soared overhead, and he brought his eyes back to me.