by A W Hartoin
“Three. How many have you got?”
“One, of course.”
“What happens if you lose that one?” he asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
“What do you think? You die.”
“That’s not very efficient.”
I looked at Lrag’s broad chest. “How many have you got? Twenty-three?”
“Only one, but it’s in my foot,” said Lrag.
“Why didn’t you tell me? That’s rather important information.” I punched him again.
“I assumed you knew.”
I punched him three more times. He merely blinked.
“What’s all this punching?” asked Marie, suddenly right up on us.
“Iris can’t hear. Bentha’s awake and he’s got three hearts. Lrag’s got one and it’s in his foot,” said Tess with a broad grin.
“That rocks,” said Judd. “You guys are wicked cool. I wish I had three hearts.”
“What for?” asked Tess.
“It’d be cool. I could run faster or something. It’s got to be useful.”
“It is useful, especially when you’ve got an arrow stuck in one,” said Bentha.
The color drained out of my face. “Which one has the arrow?”
Bentha looked up and to the side. He pondered the question. “The middle, I believe. It’s alright for now. My body cut off the blood supply, but you’ll have to cut the arrow out or I’ll lose it.”
“Not here,” I gasped.
“It can wait. I prefer sterile instruments, if possible. We’ll wait here.” Bentha folded his long hands over his chest and blinked at me patiently. I’d never seen him so calm. Maybe the third heart made him a nut. I wasn’t calm. My one heart was pounding. I couldn’t do surgery. I hadn’t the faintest idea how.
“Hurry now before the line grows red again, my lady.”
“Line?” I asked.
He glanced at Iris’s neck. The line Camille had made was still there, but now a pale pink. The nasty bastard was still alive after everything that had happened. Unbelievable luck. He was so incompetent it could only be luck.
Lrag jumped to his feet. “I’ll take care of that devious insect.”
“You’ve got arrows, too,” said Tess. “I’ll do it. Where is he?”
Marie dialed her cell phone and spoke three French sentences into it. “Now,” she said. “I’ve called for a taxi. Matilda will do it.”
Tess pouted. “I never get to do anything.”
“You’re not killing on my watch,” said Marie. “Besides, I barely talked those police out of taking Judd in.”
Lrag yanked the arrows out of his shoulder. The rest of us winced as thin lines of blood rolled down his arm. “I’ll go. Matilda, take me to the phalanx.”
“There was a bunch at the pastry cart,” said Judd. “I can sneak over there.”
Marie shot him a look and he snorted. “Fine.”
Lrag hopped off Tess’s palm and raced around the edge of Notre Dame.
I spread my wings. “I guess I’m going then. Don’t move, Bentha. I mean it.”
“I’m still as the grave.”
“Ack. Don’t say that.”
Bentha waggled his eyebrows at me. He was fine. Same old Bentha, even with an arrow in his chest.
I winked at him and raced after Lrag with Iris at my heels, probably yelling for me to slow down. I couldn’t slow down. I barely caught sight of Lrag as he dodged between legs and avoided feet of the humans waiting in line. Once we cleared them, I soared over the battlefield. The injured were gone and only the dead lay on the hot concrete. A few survivors walked among the bodies, turning them over for identification and going through pockets. There might’ve been the wailing of piercing grief such as Mom did when Grandma Vi died, but I couldn’t hear it. I was never so grateful for the snail pox.
Lrag reached the pastry cart and stopped at the rear wheel, glowering. Actually, he might’ve been smiling. It was hard to tell with devil trolls. Their faces were so naturally fierce. I landed next to him, just beyond the pool of blood that formed beneath his arm. He started to go under the cart, but I jumped in front of him.
“You’re not clotting. First thing’s first.” I took his slippery bloody hand, but he shook me off.
Iris landed and bent over, gasping for air. Her face was all red and it matched the line on her throat. It had grown stronger in just those few minutes.
Lrag gestured to the line. “Iris is first.”
“She wants you alive, so do I.”
“This is nothing. You know what I am. We have a lot of blood to spare.”
I seized his hand anyway and concentrated. I’d only stopped blood flow once before on Daiki’s neck wound. The pain from the horen’s attack made all my memories of the actual event indistinct and unreal. But I could do it. That much was certain. I squeezed his hand tighter. Images popped into my head of blood and tissue, a swirl of liquid flesh. The image tightened and stopped being liquid, becoming only flesh. I opened my eyes. The holes in his shoulder were smaller and instead of shining with fresh blood, they were darker and resembled heavy red clay.
“Done?” asked Lrag.
“Looks like it. How do you feel?”
He grumbled, but Iris hugged him, and he admitted his head felt better.
“Now,” I said. “Let’s find that phalanx.”
I walked under the cart to find a makeshift hospital between the wheels. Rows of wood fairies, trolls, phalanx, hobgoblins, and even a dryad or two were being treated by galen fairies. Like the American galens, these French galens had floating hair that lashed around their heads and wore togas with silk scarfs tied around their waists. They sprinkled sparkling powder over open wounds and dropped dropperfuls of mysterious glowing liquid into mouths.
Lrag tapped my shoulder with a hard thump. “Where is he?”
Camille wasn’t among the wounded. He was part of a group of red caps on the other side of the cart, the only one without a cap. I reached up. There it was, still on my head, marking me as the revolutionary I was determined not to be.
Camille turned to face us, but he didn’t see the wood fairy and devil troll staring at him. I was amazed he was still standing. Camille was wounded with a grayish pallor that phalanx get when they’ve lost a considerable amount of blood. It didn’t seem to be affecting him, though. He yelled and gnashed his teeth that were stained with black phalanx blood.
“I’ll see if I can lure him away,” I said.
“No need.” Lrag barreled off without so much as a glance at me. What did he think he was doing? He couldn’t exactly kill Camille right in front of everyone. Lrag reached him before I could form another thought and snatched him up by the throat, holding Camille between his thumb and forefinger. I guess he could. Certainly no one was prepared to stop him. The rest of the red caps fell back with mouths open in astonishment.
I darted over the wounded and landed with Camille’s feet dangling well above my head. I punched Lrag’s hip. “That isn’t the plan.”
Lrag looked down at me. His small eyes glittering like polished black rocks. “It’s my plan.”
He squeezed and Camille’s head went a sickly whitish gray. “Release the girl.”
I didn’t know if Camille understood him. He didn’t seem to have much blood left in his brain. He flailed around and scratched at Lrag’s tough diamond-patterned skin.
“Do you understand? Release her or you die.”
Iris flew over and grabbed Lrag’s arm. “Don’t kill him! He’s wounded.”
“Good. He’ll die more quickly. You’ll be free in either case.”
“What?” Iris yelled.
Unbelievable.
I fluttered up and mouthed. “We can’t kill him in front of witnesses.”
“Maybe you can’t.”
Okay. Getting nowhere.
I pivoted and looked at Camille. “Let my sister go. He really will kill you.”
Camille’s black eyes focused on me.
“Do it!” I s
creamed at him.
Iris patted her throat. “It’s gone.”
Lrag dropped Camille and he landed in a heap at his feet. His shell went spinning off and rolled around like a top before it came to a stop between a drooling brown-speckled troll—the dumbest species of troll, by the way—and the hobgoblin I’d seen before preaching to the masses.
Robespierre strutted over. “What is the meaning of this outrage? I demand an arrest.”
Lrag bent over and went nose-to-nose with the creature, who turned a violent shade of orange. Not a good look with his skin color. “Arrest me. What are the charges? Saving a child from being beheaded? Or maybe saving a child from being forced to fight in your revolution? Which will it be, hobgoblin?”
Child? What the…
My palms tingled and a swirling maelstrom formed in my chest.
Child, indeed.
Lrag pointed a finger at me and the protest I was about to make died on my lips. But still, I was no child. He ought to have known that.
“I…I,” stuttered the hobgoblin.
“That’s what I thought. Are you in charge of this rabble?”
“I am.” The hobgoblin straightened and put on an attitude of dignity, which is not easy for a hobgoblin, I can tell you. They’re as ridiculous as devil trolls are fierce.
Lrag’s sides billowed and unless I missed my guess he was grumbling quite loudly. “I wouldn’t be too proud of that fact. You provoked a slaughter.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” said the hobgoblin.
“You’re a fool.”
Camille struggled to his feet. The black was back in his face, mostly. “Lower your voice. We expected a small skirmish. Nothing more. A poke in the eye to the crown.”
I sneered at him. “Then you should learn to expect better.”
Lrag motioned for us to leave, but Camille tottered in front of him. I had to give it to the pip-squeak. He was brave.
“The revolution needs you,” he said and then turned to me. “It needs you.”
“The revolution can bite me. I fight for family,” I said.
Camille grabbed my wrist. “You’re here. You can’t avoid it. You don’t even want to. You want to fight. It’s all over you.”
I leaned in, my nose brushing where the little phalanx’s nose should’ve been. “People are always seeing things in me. But you only see what you want to see. I won’t be used.”
Camille pulled back and looked beyond me and then back again. He smiled, showing me his black-smeared teeth, and a dreadful feeling came over me. It crept through my back and settled around my heart. A feeling of bad intentions. The worst intentions. The hobgoblin was telling the truth. The massacre wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t Camille’s either. A horen was in the vicinity.
CHAPTER TEN
“MATILDA!” YELLED IRIS.
I shoved Camille back and clamped my hand over Iris’s mouth. “Don’t make a sound.”
She nodded. Lrag put a heavy hand on my shoulder. His eyes had changed from hard glittering rocks to concerned rocks. The difference was subtle, but I saw it.
“Horen,” I whispered.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. But he’s here.”
He grabbed Iris and me and shoved us behind the wheel out of the sight of Camille and his cohorts. He blocked the view of the galen fairies and their patients with his big body and I felt a pop. Everything went pale gray and Iris grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my wrist. She’d never been invisible before. Lrag had only made me invisible once before when I was trying to get into the spriggan’s lair back in the antique mall. It wasn’t easy to get used to. Sort of a there but not there feeling.
I pantomimed that we were invisible and to stay quiet.
She nodded and held my hand. I don’t know which was worse, the sticky blood on mine or the hot sweat on hers.
Lrag moved away. He wove in between patients as if he had someplace to go, but wasn’t in that big of a hurry. The hobgoblin ran under the cart, frantically looking around.
“Wait. You have to help us.” He looked at Lrag’s retreating back and then turned to Camille, who’d followed him. Camille stood so close I could smell the roach remnants in his pockets.
“Where are the girls?” asked the hobgoblin.
“Nowhere. There are no girls,” said Camille, glancing our way. “Au revoir.”
I pulled Iris away and we skirted the patients, careful not to step on limp hands or step in smears of fresh blood. Iris covered her face with her hands. I had to lead her by the elbow. Some of the wounded sensed our presence and turned their pained faces in our direction. I could’ve helped them. I could’ve staunched the blood and eased the pain, if it were my fight, if it were my country. But it wasn’t and we were there only to save Miss Penrose. I’ve never felt like such a coward. There were children lying wounded. It wasn’t their fight either, but there they were crying in pain and I wasn’t helping them. Grandma Vi would’ve done it. She would’ve found a way.
We stepped around a wood fairy missing a wing. His gray face slack. Dead. A small boy clutched at his hand, wailing. A shiver of anger went through me and the veil of invisibility wavered. Lrag spun around and glared at us as if he could see my indecision. For a moment I didn’t care. Was Miss Penrose’s life worth all those lives lying in ruins around me? I didn’t know how to make that choice. Iris’s arm shook in my hand. Maybe if Iris hadn’t been with me, I would’ve taken the chance. I could gamble with my own life, maybe even with Miss Penrose’s, but not hers, never Iris.
A galen rushed past us and peeled the little boy’s hand off his dead father’s. She spoke to him in French. I caught the word maman. Mother. She must’ve found his mother. Please let that be true. I focused on Lrag’s intense face and decided that I wouldn’t look down again. The boy was okay. That was that and I could go.
Lrag turned and walked out from under the cart. He stopped abruptly next to the wheel. I could see he was talking to someone, but I couldn’t see who. If only Iris could hear. We walked past the last row of wounded and cleared the cart, walking up behind Lrag. His massive form blocked most of who he was talking to, but not all. A shimmer of gold shown next to his legs. The horen. I held Iris back and she looked up with a blotchy tear-stained face. She grabbed my arm and put a hand over her mouth. We edged around Lrag, careful to keep our distance. Slowly the horen came into view. The rich golden cloth of his robes, the left hand with its long elegant fingers ending in cat claws. Did this horen have a right arm or was it my horen, the one who nearly killed me and lost his arm as a consequence? His face appeared and I couldn’t immediately tell. All horen looked alike with their long blond hair and aristocratic features. But it wasn’t him. I almost cried out in relief. This horen was thinner than the one who attacked me. He wore a different coronet, low on his brow. It definitely wasn’t him.
“Where in the States are you from, troll?” asked the horen.
Lrag’s face tightened in a grimace. He hated being called a troll, even though he was one. “I owe you nothing.”
“I believe you do.”
“Believe what you want. I’ve got a life to lead.” Lrag glanced at us and walked past the horen, who had both arms and held a dagger studded with emeralds in his right. He raised the dagger. I snapped open my wings to fly in front of Lrag to warn him, but the instant I did, the horen jerked his head to look in our direction. I froze. The horen froze. His cat eyes focused on me. Although we were invisible, the gray veil still in place, he knew something was there. He took a step toward us. His pupils dilated, giving the impression that he was controlling them and trying to see more than he should be able to.
“I smell happiness. How I abhor it,” said the horen.
I glanced at Lrag. He’d made it across the courtyard to the human’s queue and disappeared behind a ratty tennis shoe. Safe. I pointed up and Iris darted into the air. The horen lunged. His dagger slashed through the air where we’d just been standing. We hovered above him. If
only I could’ve used my fire. I’d have burnt him like Evan’s barbecued chicken.
We soared away over the humans. I looked back and there he was, staring through the crowd with those venomous eyes I remembered in my nightmares. He was the fourth of five in the world. Where was the fifth? Was that one in Paris, too? If a horen saw me, would he know what I was? Some fairies could tell just by looking at me. It wasn’t a comforting thought. If I was identified, he would hunt me. The horen had no morality that I could find. One killed his allies in an attempt to get to me. If Iris got in the way or Mom and Dad…I didn’t want to think about it.
Iris brushed my wing with hers and pointed at the street beyond the cathedral. Marie, Tess, and Judd stood beside a taxi, looking worried. Even Marie looked worried. That was new. Marie usually had two expressions, wicked and more wicked. Judd opened the taxi for Marie and she got in. We fluttered down and landed on her soft knee.
“They’re here.” Marie slammed her door.
Tess and Judd squeezed in on the other side. Tess was holding Bentha, who was stretched out on her palm with his hands behind his head. You’d never know something was wrong if it wasn’t for the arrow in his chest. Lrag sat on Judd’s thumb. He never sat, which was worrisome.
“Let me see,” Marie said, bending low.
Another pop and the veil vanished.
Iris craned her neck back and showed off the smooth paleness.
“You got the bugger.” Wicked was back. Marie gave our address and a lot of euros to the driver. Enough to make him drive almost as badly as her.
“Is the phalanx dead?” asked Tess.
Iris looked at me and I nodded.
“Lrag made him let me go!” Iris yelled.
If I wasn’t already mostly deaf, I would’ve become so. I flew away from Iris and her mouth to Bentha. He watched calmly with a slight bend to his lips.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Not my usual awesome self, but I could still fight you and come away triumphant.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. Remove the arrow and I’ll prove my worth soon enough.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”