by E. A. Copen
“Kill it!” Crux screamed at Sven. The vampire was standing in a circle, held there by Bran, Sal and Istaqua. Not a place I’d want to be, for sure. The three of them looked like they could do some damage, but they were smart enough not to start punching Crux as long as he was using Mara as a human shield.
Sven pushed himself off of the ground and tried to trade punches with the giant. The giant smacked Sven aside and turned his eyes on Crux. I cursed and shouted for Sal and the others to back away, but they didn’t hear me in time. The giant brought his club sweeping toward them only to be knocked back by a sudden explosion at his feet.
Something round like a marble and red like a candy came down from the viewing balcony above and landed at the giant’s feet, causing another explosion. I looked up to see Robbie balancing on a rail, tossing those things—whatever they were—down in small handfuls. As soon as they hit the ground, they exploded, leaving behind tiny flame and black powder. It didn’t seem like much to me, even though I was sure it would hurt if one hit me. But to the giant, it was anti-matter. When one hit an exposed toe, the whole toe burst into flames and melted into nothingness in the space of seconds.
Now enraged, the giant swung his club and bashed it hard against the floor three times, shaking the whole building. Robbie tumbled down and landed with a loud thump. Frost crawled up the walls and ice spread out from the holes the giant’s club left in the floor, sliding across the floor in a frosty fog. When the fog hit the nearest thing, which just so happened to be a table, the whole thing froze as if it had been dipped in liquid nitrogen only to explode half a beat later.
We all scrambled for higher ground. No one even stopped Crux as he fought his way up to the balcony, not until he tried to go out the door. Then, he found Bran’s katana blocking his exit. I found a spot several stairs up on the crowded stairway and stood there, trying to figure out what to do. Robbie and Abe were still down there.
Sven was still under Crux’s compulsion to attack me, though, and he fought his way through the bikers, mowing through them like a football player. He punched the one who had been celebrating at the table earlier and wrestled a knife away from him before charging at me. I backed up, trapped between him and the fog.
“Stop,” Mara screamed above us and Sven froze. I watched the battle in his face, the fight between doing as he was compelled and what he wanted.
“What are you waiting for?” Crux shouted. “KILL HER!”
I inched back down the stairs, the cold making my ankles go numb. The frost hadn’t reached me yet, but it would soon.
Sven’s eyes went to the knife and he gritted his teeth so tight I heard them strain. “I…I…” He stammered.
Then, with a loud cry, he let the knife clatter to the floor and threw himself at me. I ducked, bracing for the impact that would push me to my death, but it never came. Sven charged down the stairs and past me into the fog.
The deadly fog rolled across the floor and up, blocking everything below the giant’s ankles from view. Against the opposite wall, Robbie balanced on top of some overturned tables, just barely out of the fog’s reach. He was bruised, bleeding and busy hurling fireballs at the giant to keep it busy. I couldn’t see Abe or Sven.
Then, like a ghost in the mist, Sven appeared at the edge of the fog. His whole body was covered in an inch of frost, his skin blue and breath labored. But in his arms was Abe’s limp body. When Sven reached the stairs, he fell to his knees and dumped Abe on the bottom stair. I ventured down and, with Creven’s help, we hauled Abe out of danger. Then I went back for Sven, but I was too late. A wall of fog rolled across the floor between the two of us. He was gone.
I turned back to Abe and knelt. He made a small noise. With a lot of effort and concentration, I was able to determine it was a single word: “Out.”
I looked at him closely. His eyes darted down to the knife in his chest and held there.
“Don’t be stupid,” I told him. “That’s the only thing keeping you from bleeding to death.”
“Get…it…out…” he managed through a closed mouth.
Fire sailed overhead and crashed into a wall right beside us, clearing a path through the freezing fog. Robbie narrowly avoided being struck with the giant’s club.
“He’s staked,” said Creven next to me. “D’ya think he’ll heal if we pull it out?”
“Heal from a stab to the heart?”
“He is a vampire.”
“Half…” Abe growled through clenched teeth.
I looked down at the knife and then at the fog closing in on us. Robbie wasn’t going to be able to keep the giant busy for much longer. I didn’t have much to lose, pulling the knife out.
“This is going to suck,” I said, gripping the handle of the knife. In one sudden upward jerk, I pulled the knife free and cast it aside.
Abe sucked in a big chest full of air and then sat up stiffly, rubbing at the still bleeding wound. “Mary, mother of God, that smarts.”
“We need to take care of the giant before this whole place burns down.”
I handed him his hat. He used it to fan some of the fog away before taking a moment to glare at Crux.
“Abe,” I said and drew his attention back to me. “Giant. Let’s deal with that first.”
He tried to push himself up but forgot about the cut on his arm and fell back down. “Blood,” he cursed and looked at where he’d been cut open. The cut had gone all the way to bone and, while it appeared to be knitting itself back together, it would be a while until he had the full use of his arm back.
The giant swung his club wide and hit Robbie. One of the spikes on the giant’s club smashed into Robbie’s gut. From her place in the upper viewing balcony, Kim stood and screamed after him as Robbie got flung into a wall, all his effort going into keeping from getting crushed completely.
A memory flashed through my mind. The last time the giant had managed to drive the spikes of his club into anyone, they got back up as draugr. If it started doing the same thing here, we’d be overrun. I turned to Abe. “Tell me you know how to kill it.”
“All I have is a guess. Most things don’t survive too well without a head.”
“I can’t. I don’t even have anything to cut off his head.”
Abe turned and shouted up to the biker with the sword. “Swordsman, lend us your blade?”
Bran looked down at the katana he had displayed across the doorway, keeping Crux from leaving. A small smile curled his lip, and he decided he didn’t need a sword to keep the vampire in check. He brought a big fist down on top of Crux’s head and the vampire crumpled out of sight. Then, he tossed the sword. Abe caught it with his good arm and held it out to me.
I shook my head. “I don’t know how to use a sword!”
“It is easy,” he said. “Pointy end in other guy. Push hard enough and it will cut through. I am not asking you to duel. If you can hack up a steak, you can cut off a head.” He forced the sword into my hand. I stared at it. “You have the strength, Judah. I have seen you use it. Put it behind this. The worst that can happen is you die, which is almost assured if you don’t try.”
I looked back at the crowd of bikers I’d hired, standing guard on the stairs. They were occupied, making sure Crux didn’t leave. A few of them had wrestled Mara away from him and now Sal had her, checking her over. Things were barely contained as it was. If Robbie got up as a draugr…We wouldn’t be able to hold them.
But the giant had to at least be twenty feet tall with a neck like a tree trunk. I was five-foot-two. How was I supposed to even reach its head, let alone cut it off?
The fog at the bottom of the stairs rolled away and revealed the frozen form of Sven kneeling there. He hadn’t shattered. A chair had fallen off the barricade and lay toppled next to him. Suddenly an idea came to me. A stupid idea.
I righted the chair. It slid a little across the ice but it would put me out of the fog. “Give me a push,” I told Abe, climbing up.
; Abe grabbed the back of the chair and, with a loud grunt, he pushed it across the iced over dance floor toward the giant. The chair held steady for about a yard and then started to wobble. Then it hit a bump in the ice and tipped. I was still too far away to hit the mark I’d been hoping for but anything would be better than falling into the freezing fog. I sent a burst of magick into the muscles of my legs, jumping through the air at the giant.
It wasn’t a particularly graceful jump, as I went sailing through the air, flailing for the first thing I could grab while still trying to make sure I kept ahold of the katana. I had been aiming to land somewhere near the giant’s neck and, if the chair hadn’t tipped, I would have made it. Since I didn’t get quite the distance I was hoping for, I landed lower. I went flying with a panicked yelp. The giant turned and readied his club, intending to bat me away as he’d been doing to Robbie’s fire only a moment ago. But then he must have realized—about the same time as me—where my trajectory was taking me.
I slammed into the giant’s balls at roughly the speed of a charging rhino.
I don’t care who you are. A shot to the family jewels gives you pause. The giant doubled over with a roar of pain while I tried to grip the strange, hide-like material his pants were made of and climb up. He made a quick recovery, gaining some sense back about the time I’d managed to get a secure enough grip I wasn’t afraid I’d fall. The cold emanating from him made it all but impossible, since my hands were going numb, but I used magick to pump more blood into my extremities, keeping them warm and functional. He swatted at me with a hand and then tried punching. Big brained, the giant was not. All he managed to do was punch himself in the nads when I scampered out of the way and onto the giant’s back.
The giant let out a roar of frustration and threw himself, back first, against the nearest wall. I avoided being squashed like a bug only because I managed to get up on the giant’s shoulders just in time. By then, though, even magick wasn’t keeping my skin warm. When I caught a glimpse of my fingertips, I tried not to notice the growing splotches of black and blue on them. The giant slammed his back into the wall again and tried to grab me but I managed to kick his hand. There was a resounding crack as my foot came into contact with his knuckle and pain shot up my leg and into my brain. I was blind with it for a half second. My grip slipped. The giant swatted at me again, knocking the katana from my grasp. It clattered loudly to the floor and the giant kicked it away toward the steps. It landed right at Father Reed’s feet.
The priest stared down at the sword, looked up at the giant and then narrowed his eyes. He was about to reach for it when another blast of fog rolled over the sword, keeping it out of reach.
I was losing even more feeling and my grip was relaxing. If I fell…
My hand slid down away from the giant’s shirt collar and hooked onto something else. My body slid down the giant and hung just above the deadly fog, stopping with a sudden jerk. The giant jerked, too, head dipping backward as he made a choking sound. Whatever I had ahold of had drawn tightly around his neck. I stared at what I held between my fingers. It looked like a simple rope. A rope is never not useful.
With a renewed sense of determination, I gripped the rope tighter, put my foot in the giant’s back and began to climb up, twisting it as I went. The strange rope was wrapped around the giant’s neck, meaning if I could get it tight enough, I could suffocate him. The giant pulled at the rope desperately and flung his back against the wall. By the time I made it back up to his shoulders, his eyes were bulging, a vein in his forehead protruding as I cut off the oxygen to his big brain. More magick than I had ever used before went into the muscles in my arms and hands, willing them to keep pulling, even against the desperate cries of the giant.
Slowly, it worked. The giant stopped fighting me. He sank down to one knee and then two, great thuds echoing through the hall as his knees struck the ice. His head fell forward and his shoulders slumped. But the giant had just lost consciousness. There was only one way to ensure he didn’t wake back up and cause more trouble.
“Judah!” I turned my head at the sound of Reed’s voice. He extended one hand and sent a blast of fire across the floor in front of him, revealing the katana. He reached down and picked up the sword I had lost. “Catch!”
Reed flung the sword at me.
I leaned over to try and grab it but missed. The sword embedded its blade deep in the meat of the giant’s arm. Dark ichor spilled out, the cool floor hissing as the hot blood struck it. I jerked the sword free and put it to the giant’s throat, drawing it across. With all the blood oozing out, I didn’t think he’d be getting back up but, just to be safe, I decided to follow Abe’s advice. With a little magick and a lot of work, I put a hand on the other side of the sword and pulled it back toward me, cutting through the giant’s neck flesh as if it were butter. Once I hit bone, I had to saw a little but it hacked through with surprising ease.
The room erupted in cheers and applause.
Exhausted, cold and with growing numbness in my limbs, I let myself sink down to the floor as the fog cleared and everyone broke out the fire extinguishers. I looked over to Reed, who gave me a simple nod.
The giant was dead. Crux was contained. Abe was alive. But Robbie…I stumbled back and knelt down next to him. There was a big hole in his chest all the way through. His eyes were glassy and his skin cold and blue. Robbie was dead. I pulled away some of Robbie’s shirt and found black veins beginning their crawl across his skin. Dammit. He was still going to turn.
The clamor of applause died down until there was only one set of hands clapping. Whoever it was continued to clap, long after everyone else had stopped. And it wasn’t coming from over on the stairs. There, everyone was looking around in confusion, trying to pinpoint the source.
Creven narrowed his eyes as he stared up at the balcony next to where Kim and Robbie had been watching. “Seamus.”
I followed Creven’s gaze and saw a strange man there with ashen skin, gold eyes and a mullet of silver hair, accenting pointed ears. A thick mustache of the same color curled down his face. He wore a suit of silver armor, so polished the pieces could have functioned as a mirror. One foot up on the banister and the other planted on nothing but air, he floated there, glowing with an aura of deep purple and obsidian black.
“Congratulations,” he said, addressing me. “You’re the first human to slay a giant in nearly two thousand years. They’ll write songs about you.”
“Don’t speak to him, Judah,” Creven urged. “His tongue is poison.”
Seamus’ mustache twitched. “Creven. I was wondering who was foolish enough to come uninvited into my home and leave a message where I slept.”
I regarded Creven with a slight level of disbelief. I’d told him to be subtle. I guess the specifics of it hadn’t registered.
The elf gave a dark smirk in reply. “You know me. Always the cheeky one.”
“Indeed. And that crass nature will catch up to you someday.” Seamus stepped up onto the railing and then forward. Instead of dropping like a rock, as a normal person ought to, he remained suspended in mid-air. Apparently, the rules of gravity didn’t apply to the Unseelie fae. “But not today. Today, I’m here for the vampire.” He pointed to Crux.
Sal hauled Crux up to his feet. The vampire struggled desperately against Sal’s iron grip.
“Don’t believe this lot,” Crux protested. “I’ve been nothing but loyal to you, Seamus. I’ve honored our deal.”
“You’ve killed my subjects for profit and gain. While I admire the gall it must have taken for you to think you could double cross me, Crux, you must have realized it was foolish. You swore an oath of loyalty to me. That means you don’t murder my subjects. What kind of king would I be if I allowed those actions to go unpunished?”
He flicked a single finger upward in a come hither motion. An unseen force ripped Crux from Sal’s grip and lifted him off the ground. The vampire screeched when he realized he was floating. He flail
ed against whatever spell Seamus was working on him, floating up into the open air, unable to control his jerking limbs. He rose until he was a few feet lower than Seamus, at which point Seamus snapped his fingers. A swirling, green vortex appeared. With another dismissive flick of his fingers, Seamus directed Crux into the vortex before moving to follow himself.
“Wait!” I called.
Creven stopped next to me and put a hand on my shoulder with a serious look. “Don’t, lass.”
I shrugged his hand away as the Unseelie necromancer paused and cocked his head at me. “Yes? What is it?”
“You owe me.”
“Jaysus Christ, are you mad?” Creven hissed. “You’re addressing a dark lord of Faerie!”
I ignored him. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have known about Crux’s betrayal, at least not until more of your people got hurt. As a fae, I’m sure you understand the power of debt. You don’t want it to be known you’re indebted to a human, do you?”
Seamus sighed and turned his back to the portal. “What is it you want?”
I tried to move forward but pain in my foot made me stumble. Creven grabbed me on one side and Abe on the other, pulling me back up. I shrugged them both away, putting all my weight on my one good foot and gesturing to Robbie. “Creven tells me you’re a powerful necromancer. Is it beyond your power to restore my friend? As he was before he fell thanks to your partner?”
“Is it in my power!” Seamus chuckled. “I can restore him, yes. But that is a large request. The debt I owe you is barely equal in scope.”
I held up four fingers. “By my count, you owe me four lives. That’s how many fae Crux killed. I revealed that. I’m only asking for one in return.”
Seamus narrowed his eyes. “You would bargain with a fae?”
“Is your word good or isn’t it?”
Creven shook his head next to me and mumbled, “She’s mad…Mad!”
After a long moment of silence, Seamus nodded. “Very well, human. I will restore your friend as a demonstration of my power and to repay my debt to you. But know this. Should you stand with Creven and his allies, you and I will be at odds. If ever our paths cross again, I will owe you no mercy.”