Dragon Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 3)

by Cedar Sanderson

  Bella reached her a moment later, and I could see her throw a spell. Dionaea’s shields sparkled, momentarily visible to the naked eye. She threw a ball of fire at Bella, but it splashed and arced around the shield Bella was holding around not only herself, but Brutus. Then the two women, having gauged their enemy’s defenses, began to throw everything at one another. I closed my eyes. A mage battle isn’t much to see, not with the eyeballs. But with the Sight, I could see both of them, the spells, and most importantly… the thick cords of energy both women were drawing on to fuel their battle. I opened my eyes. The Hunt had pulled back and formed a pocket around Bella and Dionaea, excluding minor fighters from the Queens’ own battle.

  I bubbled and traveled as close as I could to Brutus, who swung his head irritably and snapped at me. I punched him in the snout, hard, splitting my knuckles, and he snorted, settling down. I added power to Bella’s shields.

  She didn’t look at me, focused on Dionaea, but she shouted. “Why the hell are you here? You don’t have armor!”

  “I don’t need it. Bella, she’s connected to the Wendigo.”

  I gauged the distance and with a micro-bubble spell, managed a leap up onto Brutus’ back. I stood on the saddle pad, over Bella, and added my power to hers. We threw a lance of pure energy, crackling purple in the light of the sun, at Dionaea, who leaped off her horse as the bolt hit it. The big black stallion died with a scream. I hated to do it to a poor dumb brute, but I needed her dismounted and off balance.

  I knew from prior encounters that we could anger her past the point of reason. Right now, her face was twisted into a silent scream as she brought both her hand together, coalescing a ball of… something. I couldn’t make it out yet. I braced, one hand on Bella’s shoulder. Under us, Brutus stood like a rock.

  Dionaea lifted her hands, slowly, like she was handling a great weight. I could see the roil of iridescent energy between her palms, and her head tipped back, looking at the spell. The cords of her neck muscles stood out, and Bella threw a familiar spell, the excavation spell she’d caused so much havoc with, before.

  Her spell hit and dirt sprayed everywhere. Dionaea looked full at us, her teeth bared, her hair flying out as energy infused her, and I could see the forward motion beginning as she hurled her spell.

  It spun off her hands and high into the air, in an arc that would not come near us. Below it, her body slumped to the ground, her head a bloody ruin. Overhead, the spell detonated. The shockwave almost knocked me off Brutus, and I dropped to my knees, holding Bella and the saddle while the waves rolled over us. She’d intended to breach our shield, and she might have, if someone hadn’t shot her.

  The man with the gun was standing in the middle of the river. I squinted, and saw through his glamour.

  “Devon!”

  I’d had no idea my nephew was on the field, much less how he’d sneaked behind enemy lines with one of my rifles. He waded toward us, his glamour fading as the Hunt opened ranks to let him through. I jumped off Brutus and went to greet him. Bella waved me on, looking pale and exhausted. She’d taken the brunt of Dionaea’s attack.

  Devon paused as he reached the Blood Queen’s body. He looked down at it, his face a mask of pain. Then he viciously kicked it. “That’s for screwing with a Mulvaney, you bitch.”

  “Devon,” I started to say, but Bella’s voice cut through the air and got both of us looking at her. She was standing in her stirrups, pointing.

  “Lom!” She sat back down and kicked Brutus into forward motion. “She loosed the Wendigo!”

  I took a flying leap, assisted a little with Magic, and got back on the tank-like rhino, who was beginning to charge. I hung on to Bella’s waist again, looking over her shoulder.

  “Call Raven!” I shouted in her ear, over the heavy thudding of Brutus’s tough feet. Then there was a mighty splash as he hit the river. “He’s our only hope to stop that thing.”

  Behind me, I heard the crack of Devon’s rifle. The boy was attempting it, and he was a pretty good shot, as I saw the impact of the bullet against the thing’s chest. It… rippled. There was a neat hole, but no blood, and although it swung its skull-like face from side to side, it didn’t even stagger. The rack of antlers it carried spanned probably ten feet, and it was tall enough to tower over the troll it casually knocked down with a backhanded blow as it tried to pass the Wendigo.

  I was peripherally aware that Dionaea’s army was fleeing like water thrown on a hot griddle. Evaporating was an apt metaphor for what was happening in the wake of her death. They all knew, it seemed, what the consequences of the Wendigo’s unleashing meant for them. With her gone, her men were meat for the monster. On our side of the river, there seemed to be mass confusion, and not a little over-enthusiastic reaction to the fleeing enemy. I was glad to see that most commanders reined in those charges. They knew, if their men didn’t yet, what the Wendigo meant as a threat.

  The Wendigo shambled forward in the sunlight, casually walking toward us. Great, liquid black eyes deep set into the animal-skull face weren’t looking at us, as we reached the other side of the river, but downward at a trio of goblins that was trying to run past it on the beaten grass road the army had been using all morning. One impossibly long arm tipped in three talons reached out and took one of the goblins, screaming wildly, off the ground.

  With a vicious jab, the Wendigo either bit it, or pecked it. Hard to tell from here. Then it set the goblin back down, almost gently. The Wendigo kept walking, and behind it, I saw the rest of the tragedy play out. The other goblins had frozen in place when their comrade was snatched, but now one blurred into action, slashing the bitten one’s throat. Then he fell to his knees, clutching the body and keening. They knew what would happen, and had given him grace. I swallowed, hard.

  If Bella were infected…

  Ripped Asunder

  There’s a peculiar feeling in focusing on one thing, one moment, so hard the rest of the world falls into silence around you. I found myself gripping Bella’s shoulder hard enough it had to have hurt her, but she didn’t say anything. Brutus, under us, shifted his weight nervously, as the three of us stood our ground in the middle of the freshly-beaten road to the river ford.

  The Wendigo made no noise as he paced forward, his head lowered slightly, arms dangling. Under us, Brutus shuffled sideways a couple of steps.

  “Easy, easy, boy.” Bella leaned forward and patted his neck, sticking her fingers through a joint in his armor to scratch his hide. He settled.

  “What’s next?” she asked, not turning her head.

  I looked up. Far above was a blot in the clear blue that might be Raven.

  “We delay it. Ever played at jousting?”

  The two of our lives, versus a world, and most importantly, our babes. We’d spend ours, if necessary. I knew this without having to ask her.

  “With the flagpole?”

  “And some magic.” I told her my plan.

  “What about Brutus?” She had already pulled the pole out of the socket and lowered it so I could reach the top, which I was now modifying.

  I snorted at her, swaying as Brutus pawed the ground and dipped his head. “Let him have free rein and see what happens. They don’t call them the world’s angriest animals for no reason.”

  “I have no prior experience with them, and Brutus has been a lamb.” I could hear the smile in her voice as she scratched him again. My heart skipped a beat. This was my woman, making a joke in the face of death. I was a lucky man, even if it hadn’t been enough.

  “Ready.” I slipped the flagpole back into the socket and helped steady it as she tilted the whole thing forward. The gilded sky-blue banner now hung almost to the ground, flapping slightly away from Brutus in the light breeze.

  Bella dropped the reins, and kicked Brutus hard in his ribs. I held onto the saddle with one hand and the pole with the other.

  “Gittem!” Bella shrieked.

  Brutus snorted, pawed, and lunged. I reflected in the microsecond as the prop
ulsion hit me that I was trusting whoever had designed the saddle, and whoever had strapped it on that day, an awful lot. But I didn’t have time to think about more than that, as the Wendigo looked at us in astonishment, and then crouched with outstretched arms and open mouth.

  The flagpole hit it first, in the side of its chest, below the ribcage, and threw it to one side as both Bella and I lost our grips on the pole. The Wendigo was heavier than the gaunt appearance would suggest. The pole had hit the bloated belly that protruded obscenely below the prominent ribs, and even though it wasn’t sharp, it pushed through and out the back, the blue silk spoiled forever with black blood and guts that gushed out of the hole. I turned my head to see the monster lying on the side of the road, thrashing.

  Brutus’s charge carried him quite a ways before he spun in a surprisingly agile move to face back toward the prone Wendigo. I was hanging on with both hands, and pondering using a bubble to keep on-board at this point.

  Brutus did a little dance, like he was thinking about going back and trampling the downed enemy. Having seen a rhino in action, I could easily picture that, and was not at all opposed to the idea. But as we watched, the Wendigo stopped flailing arms and legs, and slowly stood up again, one arm pressed to its side where the poled still jutted from his side.

  Bella made an exasperated noise. “What is it…?”

  The spell I’d stuck to the pole went off, finally. I’d begun to wonder if Wendigo gore had disabled it. In a whoosh of flame and sparks, the whole monster was engulfed in an inferno. Above, I’d watched enough modern entertainment to learn that the idea was an explosive was always exothermic and kinetic. That is, a big baddaboom.

  The reality I’d learned working with modern explosives was a lot quieter but far more targeted. On the Wendigo, what I’d done was pair a plastic explosive with a conflagration spell. I had not secured it to the tip, foreseeing the results of a through-and-through. However, I wasn’t sure if it had gone off in the monster, or just near it. Wasn’t sure it really mattered.

  The fireball contracted, and the monster, blackened and smoking, staggered out of it. Shedding charred bits and sparks, he headed straight for us.

  “Oh, crap,” my lovely bride said as Brutus lowered his head for another charge.

  Riding a charging rhino doesn’t get any easier after the first time. I clung onto the saddle like a demented monkey again, and this time Bella screamed as we seemed to be on a collision course with a demon soaked in hellfire.

  I had forgotten about Raven, in the rush of trying to hit the Wendigo and knock it down. So when he arrived in a screaming dive-bomb and explosion of black feathers as he hit the Wendigo, I lost my grip and fell off the rhino.

  I hit the ground hard and rolled, wrapped in a shield I’d managed in midair, but it still knocked the breath out of me. I lay there gasping for a second before I realized the thudding was Brutus thundering down on the fighting spirits rather than my heartbeat.

  As I looked up, pushing myself off the ground, I saw him hit them. Raven had his talons sunk into the Wendigo’s face, or what was left of it, and Brutus knocked them both apart. Bella was shouting something, probably trying to get him to stop, but the rhino had his mad on, and he wasn’t a quitter.

  Armored as he was, the big animal had to weigh over three tons. Even an immortal like the Wendigo must feel that when it hits them. Raven had just turned in midair on a wingtip and joined Brutus in the assault on the staggering, flaming spirit. With a terrible scream, it slashed out at them with hooked talons, and as I was running toward the fight – never said I was smart, did I? – I saw it begin to grow in size.

  From cracks in the blackened carcase, fire erupted like lava oozing from the mountainside of a volcano, and Bella suddenly vanished from Brutus’s back. Smart girl. The Wendigo’s arm raked through the air where she had been a split second before. Raven spiraled up into the air, while Brutus hooked his horn into the Wedigo’s thigh and ripped it open in a gout of fire.

  Bella appeared next to me, pistol in hand.

  “That won’t work.” I skidded to a stop, reaching into nospace for the Sharps.

  “I know! But…”

  Raven hit the Wendigo from above with all the force of a crashing jetliner. Both of them smashed to the ground, and the sparks from the demonic transformation flew upward.

  “I don’t know.” I couldn’t get a clean shot. Brutus was circling the combatants warily, eyeing the fire.

  “Lom!” Bella squeaked.

  I dropped the gun and started reaching for magic.

  The Wendigo had torn Raven into shreds.

  Feathers filled the air, and I could hear my wife screaming in rage and shooting her pistols dry. The sun seemed to have gone behind a cloud; it was abruptly very dark.

  I had my hands full of coruscating fire, and was trying to see where the Wendigo had gone, so I could burn it from the face of the earth, when I heard the little voice.

  “A gate,” it rasped in my ear. “I need a gate.”

  I glanced sideways, and saw the tiny black bird clinging to my sleeve. It had bright gray eyes.

  “Bella!” I roared. “I need you!”

  It took me taking the three steps to her side and taking her arm to break through.

  “We need to open a gate!” I pointed. “Look…”

  The air was full of little black birds, then bigger ones. As we watched, they were coalescing back into ravens. Enough of them to block out the sunlight.

  “A gate to…”

  “Earth. Home…” The bird on my sleeve cawed. He was getting bigger, too.

  “Uncle.” Bella stroked his back with a finger.

  “Quickly, girl. Get it done.” The bird launched itself toward the mass of others that were gathering around something. I was sure it was the Wendigo, and I knew we only had a moment.

  Building a gate is not an easy feat. Matching the fabric of the worlds is normally only possible in thin, or overlapping, places, depending on which theory you ascribe to. I grasped Bella’s hands in mine, and felt our wills match. I’m not into woo-woo crap. Our minds didn’t touch. But the magic… She’s damn powerful. And she’d poured some of that through me, and made me bigger in the process, when it came to ability.

  I lost track of the outside world again. We were creating something… it started as a ball drifting in the air between us, arcing energy through us, and as it slowly grew, I could have sworn we were floating. I held onto her hands, and felt her clinging in return.

  All I could do was channel the energy through, to her. She was whispering under her breath, like she was reading aloud. Her hair floated around her face as I stared through the shimmering ball of energy at her eyes. She wasn’t focused on me, but the unseen Library book, I was certain. The ball, sphere, whatever it was, grew beyond us. Encompassed us, and the tension was intolerable now. We couldn’t hold onto it much longer, it was going… the energy started to shift, to wobble off-center.

  “Raven!” I was shouting. Bella wasn’t paying attention. “Raven, now! Now!

  The world exploded. Pain rippled through me, followed by cold, and then there was nothing.

  Nothing. Just my thoughts, and did I remember a ball of black birds flying through a rift in the sky? Had I seen that, or only wished for it? Where was I? What was I?

  Bella.

  Bella…

  Fingers. So cold…

  At the End of All Things

  In the rift between worlds there is nospace. When we pass through gates it’s not a long distance. Between established gates, where the worlds touch. I had no idea where Above was, from the point we started out Underhill. So in essence, what we had done was open two gates. We had torn apart the fabric of the world and crammed things through the hole, before closing it behind us.

  One gate from was Underhill, which we saw at first as a ball of energy. It had snapped closed behind us. Or detonated, I really wasn’t clear. One, the other, both? I was confused, drifting in unreality. Or perhaps, the real re
ality. The quantum space; we were locked into nospace. Sensory deprivation is the complete lack of any external stimulus, and in nospace, you can’t even feel yourself. Nothing…

  I don’t know how long it took. Passing through a normal gate takes perhaps a few steps. It’s relative, anyway, not real, although to be honest I’d never thought about it that much. People climb into planes every day without knowing what holds them up in the air, beyond a vague notion about Bernoulli.

  You can lose your mind after extended exposure to sensory deprivation.

  I woke up in a dark place, with rain falling on my cheek. Or was that tears?

  Sitting up was a process, I was dizzy, and not entirely sure I was sitting up. Felt like I was trying to dive deeper into the air. Fortunately, there was nothing left in my stomach. I wondered how long I had been vomiting. Maybe I should lie down again, at least until the head stopped spinning.

  Bella.

  I opened my eyes again. Oh. I’d had them closed.

  That sucked. There was light out there and it hurt. I closed them again.

  Bella was lying a few feet away, I could see her magic with the inner sight. It was burning brightly, and that was all I needed.

  I crawled over and put a hand on her. Warm, breathing.

  “Bella.” I think I said it out loud. Speaking seemed to turn my hearing back on, and I could hear traffic somewhere nearby, and voices. “Bella!” I put urgency into my voice. We were in a dark street Mother Titania only knew where, and Above is a very big world, and not a nice one.