by R. J. Blain
“You need to get to work,” she said. “LeeAnne has got to be flipping out.”
“She allowed the damned creatures to come in,” he snarled. “Anyway you’re far more important to me than Effrayant, and I’m not going anywhere until we settle this.”
“You’re blood-bound,” Mal reminded him. “You have to take care of this place.”
“I have to make things right with you,” he corrected. “You have no idea how much I love you, do you?”
When she didn’t answer, he nodded. “Let me put it this way. I don’t want to scare you, but I love you the way your father loved your mother. I wouldn’t raise you from the dead,” he added when Mal’s eyes widened and a flash of terror chilled her to the bone.
She’d forgotten that he’d gone and tracked down her father and looked into her past in the six years they’d been apart. He didn’t know the details, didn’t know about that last night, but he knew her father had raised her mother from the dead and that it had destroyed her.
“I’d never do that to you,” he reiterated, “but I get why he did. He couldn’t live without her, even the little he could get back from the grave. I’m not sure I could live without you either, but I’d never drag you back. I’ll come looking for you on the other side.”
Mal blinked, trying to wrap her mind around what he was saying. It didn’t compute.
He smiled wryly at her confusion. “It’s okay. I’ll show you. You’ll understand eventually.”
Mal opened her mouth to say something, though she wasn’t quite sure what, but she didn’t get the chance.
The table exploded. Shards of wood flew every which way, slivers biting into her. Mal flung her arms up to block her face and flung herself backward out of her chair, rolling onto her knees and up onto her feet.
Chaos filled the lobby.
It was like watching a massive horde of Animaniacs on meth and acid having themselves a destruction derby, sans cars.
They swerved and swarmed, jousting and playing some form of baseball crossed with soccer, with a little bit of basketball and rugby worked in there. It was a full-contact sport.
Only one chandelier remained hanging, and it swung drunkenly, half its crystals missing. Many of the paintings hung askew or had been knocked to the floor, and the top third of a marble column had been knocked off. The furniture had become part of whatever game the pixies played and was being flung around with the aid of magic. Some pixies seemed to be to surfing on it. One of the couches hit one of the big windows. Glass shattered and flew everywhere, while the couch teetered on a crossbeam, then dropped like a missile. Other pixies skidded across the floor on the rugs, scrunching them into accordion folds before turning them into magic carpets and whizzing off through the rest of the auberge.
Three pixies dived through the center of the action, playing keep-away with something. Occasionally one of the two pursuers would draw to the side, hovering and watching, searching for an opportunity to catch the leader, before diving back into the fray.
Overall, this group of pixies were smaller in stature than others Mal had seen. They had pale green skin tinged blue with dapple markings that were unique to each one. Most had long hair held in one or two long braids. They tended toward some version of silver hair, some tinged with bright color: yellow, orange, gold, pink, lavender, purple. Probably a sign of interbreeding between clans.
Generally pixies didn’t have any rituals that smacked of actual marriages, which is why this wedding—and to a giant, no less—was so bizarre. Mostly there were short-term alliances and orgy free-for-alls at clan gatherings to spread out the gene pool. Mal wouldn’t be surprised if there was going to be some of that at this wedding.
They all dressed in some form of tight-fitting pants and clingy tunics. Some wore outer robes and overskirts that tied down to keep them from getting in the way while flying. Pixies also didn’t do gender-specific clothing at all, which didn’t help when trying to identify who you were dealing with. In fact, not a lot separated the sexes, but the females were slightly curvier with small breasts, and they had a second set of teeth behind the first, kind of a like sharks. Males had only one set.
Small as those pixie teeth were, they could rip holes in dragon hide. History said that swarms of pixies had been known to take down a dragon. Mal didn’t know if she believed that, but then again, dragons weren’t really a thing anymore, so maybe the pixies were responsible for their going extinct. She wouldn’t be surprised. While they were known to be fun-loving pranksters, they could also be bloodthirsty and vindictive. Especially the females, who tended to be clan guardians.
They each had six wings. Two sets were shaped like dragonfly wings, but with dramatic, butterfly-type coloring, and they shimmered as if covered with diamond dust. There was a black market trade for pixie wings, which was one good reason pixies had for being suspicious and violent. Too many had died or woken up wingless after poachers got ahold of them.
The last set of wings were transparent, and only about a third of the size of the others. They could twist and shift in random directions, acting like rudders in the air, helping them make quick turns.
Many of them carried weapons strapped to their backs and legs and hips. Like pixie teeth, they were deceiving in their size. They were frequently doused with a poison or paralyzing potion and could cut through stone like butter.
Basically, one or two pixies in a fight were formidable. A bunch were a give-up-and-go-home situation.
Mal frowned. If someone had been trying to frame the pixies for killing the giants, then they’d done a piss-poor job. The pixies would have made much cleaner, sharper cuts. Then again, if it had been pixies, maybe they’d been trying to cover their tracks. Basically, it was still six of one, half dozen of another, and maybe not even those.
Mal continued to watch the leader of the keep-away game, trying to figure out what the prize was.
When she finally caught a glimpse, her entrails shriveled.
This was so not good.
She backed up and bumped into Law.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re bleeding. You’ve got wood splinters sticking out everywhere.”
She didn’t look at him, not taking her eyes off the leader, who’d paused behind a writhing knot of her entangled brethren as she considered her next move. Her pursuers had lost track of her for the moment.
“I’m guessing you haven’t noticed the three pixies playing keep-away,” Mal said, ignoring his concern.
“Mal, you’re bleeding. You need to get looked at.”
“Mal needs you to answer her question.”
“You didn’t ask a question.”
“Fine. Did you notice the pixies playing keep-away?”
He growled in annoyance. “I saw them.”
“Did you see what they are playing with?”
“No, why?”
“Because your head hasn’t exploded, and none of them are even mildly dead.”
Chapter Seven
His gaze followed hers, but the lead pixie squealed and turned into a blur as her pursuers began the chase again, only now she had about a dozen others on her tail. It wouldn’t be long before they caught her, and when they did, game over.
“What has she got?”
“A glitter bomb.”
That caught Law’s attention. His face went red. “A what? Here? In my fucking house? We’ll fucking see about that.”
He strode away, magic crackling around him in a purple and black aura and setting the stone floor on fire. Mal had never seen anything like that before. He’d tapped into the elemental energy of the auberge and the blood oath binding him to it. He wasn’t even walking on the ground anymore, Mal realized. He’d begun striding across the air, climbing right up into the midst of the pixie mayhem. Neat trick, that.
The truth was the glitter bomb didn’t actually contain anything so benign as glitter. The pixie toy—aka magical nuclear weapon—was called that because the contents, like glitter, got everywhere an
d was impossible to get rid of once it got loose. The pixies found it delightfully funny. The rest of the world was less enthusiastic.
First of all, the stuff ate holes in the magic all around it like droplets of acid sprayed on fabric. Sometimes that was it and it went inert, and sometimes the stuff decided to turn that magic into something else. Impossible to say what that might be. That was the fun of it, according to pixie ideas of fun. The possibilities were endless and completely unpredictable.
And it got better! Or worse, if you were sane. Once it touched living flesh, things got really interesting. It’s not that you stopped being whoever you were, but you might end up with purple skin or scales or feathers or three noses and twelve eyes or who knew what other interesting modifications might happen.
Or! You could develop sudden new powers or become a cannibal or develop a fetish for collecting people’s fingers… To make things even more interesting, they made the bombs using different cocktails of pixie dust, radioactive toxic waste, some monkey brains, newt’s eyes, testicles from a one-legged space whale, and maybe some cockroach semen, plus a dollop or two of nitroglycerin.
The point was, when one detonated, mayhem ensued. Law and LeeAnne would be cleaning up the mess for months, maybe years, not to mention whatever might happen to the guests.
Mal glanced around, looking for LeeAnne, wondering how the housekeeper was dealing with this.
To her surprise, LeeAnne stood at the front desk, talking on the phone, her expression carefully neutral as she watched the havoc playing out in her lobby.
In the meantime, Law had begun tossing out bolts of magic. They encased pixies in bubbles of magic. Some alone, others in groups. He was clearing away obstacles as he aimed for the keep-away players, picking them off until he finally was able to corner the leader. She saw the bolt of magic coming for her, and she tossed the glitter bomb away, maybe thinking someone else would catch it. Maybe hoping nobody would.
Mal gasped, holding her breath, frozen as she watched it.
It arced through the air, knocked against a crackling mass of magic containing a group of about twenty pixies, and… ruptured.
The other reason it was called a glitter bomb was that pixie dust sparkles and the cloud that burst out of the bomb did just that.
It exploded in a puff of sparkling powder. Mal instinctively threw a shield up wide, trying to circle around the cloud. Stupid, though, because where it met magic, it would just eat it and either go inert or change into something more, or keep eating until it decided what it wanted to do next. Still, it was better than letting it hit people and eat them.
Law had the same thought and beat her to it, his shield snapping into place just above hers. She pushed hers against his and melded it, then let it go. Already she could see things starting to bubble and grow, seeking shape and being. Maybe they’d be lucky and the things wouldn’t be any more worrisome than a giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
She left Law to deal with the situation and went to join LeeAnne, who remained at the front desk. She had one eye on the situation above and another on the annoyed semicircle of guests before her.
“Unacceptable,” pronounced one in a lisping voice.
Mal couldn’t see who, but suspected it was the hulking, yeti-looking ice monster.
“I agree. I’ve already expanded your den space and rerouted the heating lines. There should be no more ice melts in your quarters. Please accept my apologies.”
LeeAnne spoke graciously and gave a slight bow of her head but was in no way officious. That wasn’t her style, and while she was deferential, she was never obsequious, never someone’s punching bag.
Luckily, the yeti-hulk took the win and shuffled off, not even glancing at the pixie mayhem.
LeeAnne passed the next guests to the other clerks and came around to join Mal. She stomped over the floor as if she wore combat boots instead of sky-high stilettos. She wore an ivory pencil skirt and a black Chanel blouse with a pair of bright blue Louboutin fuck-me shoes, though who would dare try to fuck LeeAnne, Mal didn’t know.
They both looked up.
“Which one is the bride?” Mal asked.
Law manipulated magic, annihilating some things, bubbling off others, and a few remained amorphous and continued to chew up magic and grow larger. One was already the size of a rhino.
“None. These are from a different clan,” LeeAnne said drily.
“So this is sabotage?”
“Maybe. Maybe it’s just a prank.”
“If it is to sabotage the wedding, is it working?” Because it had to be targeted at Effrayant. Neither the pixies nor the giants were affected.
Her jaw hardened. “Not a chance.”
“When does the bride arrive?”
“Soon. She’s coming in another entrance. It’s why I wanted to meet you. Hold on.”
LeeAnne returned to the desk where a tall, slender reaper wraith stood. The edges of her shivered like smoke. She had a short, fashionable haircut, with a swing crop top and blousy palazzo pants. She wore red and orange Fluevog shoes with their distinct quirkiness.
Mal couldn’t hear their conversation, but it grew heated, at least on the part of the reaper wraith. Her voice grew louder, and it cut through Mal like nothing she’d ever felt before. It was like death’s own fingers stroking her soul.
“I will not. This is both unforgivable and inhospitable,” she said more distinctly, her voice melodic and so cold, Mal thought it should have come out as ice cubes.
LeeAnne actually flinched from the accusation. “I am sorry you think so. Nevertheless, there is nothing I can do.” Her gaze shot to Mal. “Unless…”
She crooked a finger at Mal, who obeyed the summons. If Mal had been a cat, curiosity would have killed her several thousand times over.
“What do you need?”
“This is Moira Withersmen. She has planned a gathering to celebrate her appointment to the Council of Mortality and Decay and accompany her to the gates of the CAMD Necropolis to take up her mantle of office. The appointment is a great honor, and it is expected that she will arrive with great pomp and circumstance. However, the wedding has prompted those companions to cancel their promised attendance, and Ms. Withersmen cannot delay her appointment. She assures me that arriving at the Necropolis without attendants will be appallingly embarrassing and demeaning for her.”
The reaper wraith in question made a choked sound like she was crying. LeeAnne’s face softened in pity, and she gave quiet little sigh.
“I have told Ms. Withersmen that there’s nothing I can do, but I believe that there is something that you can do,” she said to Mal.
Mal’s first instinct was to simply agree. It was a bad instinct, though, no matter how sad the poor woman was. “How can I help?”
“Your friends could join the ritual and accompany her.”
“Would they come to any harm?”
LeeAnne looked at the confused looking reaper wraith. “Will the ritual or the journey hurt the dead?”
She shook her head. “Only the living.” She darted a hopeful look at Mal then back to LeeAnne. “It is a ritual of celebration. And the journey is not onerous or dangerous.”
“Mal? What do you think?” LeeAnne asked.
“I don’t see why not. I can ask. They’re tired from yesterday, though. When do you need to do the ritual?” she asked Moira.
“We begin at midnight and end at midnight.”
“Tonight?”
The reaper wraith nodded.
“I can ask when I see them.”
LeeAnne’s mouth pinched. “How about now?”
Mal glanced doubtfully over her shoulder at Law.
“He’s fine. He doesn’t need you.”
Mal studied LeeAnne’s face, trying to see if there was any double meaning in her words. “I can ask,” she said finally.
LeeAnne’s smile was wide and fake as a three-dollar bill. “Please do. We’ll wait.”
Since the ghosts were splitting time betwee
n the charging stations and looking for Elliot, she was going to have to go searching for them and it would take a little while, so she wasn’t going to get to see how Law dealt with the pixies and the glitter bomb.
Mal wasn’t actually worried about him. They’d shielded before the bomb had ruptured, so the pixie dust mixture hadn’t gone everywhere, and he had plenty of power and skill to deal with it. Though now it appeared it had begun to eat through the ceiling. Or rather, begun eating and digesting the ceiling. Globs had begun to bubble up and form appendages. She smirked. LeeAnne had to be feeling the attack through her connection to the place. With any luck, it was seriously uncomfortable.
She strolled across the lobby, taking her time, wincing as she realized she had splinters sticking out all over herself and a few of them had gone pretty deep. She was going to have to take care of those.
By the time she made it back, the pixies were gone, and the lobby had been restored to its pristine glory. LeeAnne and Law stood with their heads together near the desk, while Moira Withersmen sat in one of the nearby seating areas.
As she approached, both Law and LeeAnne looked up. They definitely made a pretty couple. Mal hated the spurt of jealousy she felt. LeeAnne hadn’t exactly been subtle about her interest in Law, who had been very clear he didn’t return said interest. All the same, Mal looked at the woman and couldn’t imagine why anybody wouldn’t want her. She was gorgeous, elegant, svelte, smart, sexy—basically everything a man could want in a woman.
And peevish, she reminded herself. The woman was positively peevish. And irritating. Also annoying, aggravating, bothersome, and grating. Not to mention unpleasant and provoking.
She was still coming up with words to describe her nemesis when she approached LeeAnne and Law.
He scrutinized her with narrowed eyes. The apartment had been her first stop, as she’d hoped to find one of the ghosts there while she cleaned up. She’d taken the time to remove the wood splinters and apply bandages, then changed her clothing.
Law, on the other hand, showed no sign that he’d been wounded or that his clothes had suffered any sudden perforations. Easy peasy when you could tap a nearly endless power supply.