by R. J. Blain
Concern… noted.
That took far more effort than expected, and she had to gather herself to say more. She became aware of a disjointed feeling of aching pain and a pushing from the outside. She wasn’t sure where the feelings were coming from. Her feet, maybe? But So’la had said her heart was erratic. It made more sense she was having a heart attack and getting CPR.
Just then she felt an expansion and pinching and that seemed to confirm her diagnosis.
Then she forgot.
She was aware of a litany of words coming into her mind. From where? Why did they sound like verbal confetti? Like the line had kinked in a number of places and she could only make out little bits of sound.
Maybe she was going through a tunnel and it was blocking the signal. If she’d been able to, she’d have giggled.
She remembered So’la. Annoying bastard. She hated having to like him, but she couldn’t help it. Despite being a complete asshole, he was also charming. And funny.
It occurred to her that he was keeping her alive. Or someone was. It smelled like So’la. A brimstone smell, which translated into rotten eggs. Brimstone sounded a lot less disgusting.
What did a witch who’d been attacked, was essentially paralyzed and couldn’t think her way out of a wet paper bag, do?
She wasn’t sure how long it took her to formulate that thought. She had a feeling she’d broken off and wandered off mentally several times only to find herself back at the beginning.
At least part of her wanted to figure this out.
Cold.
Ants crawled over her skin.
Prickles, like little wire wheels rolling gently over her body.
More tunnel talking. She didn’t really pay attention. She was trying to remember something. Something she could do. Something she’d prepared long ago. It was supposed to be instinctual. Triggered without having to think about it.
Sinking down into herself, she found herself surrounded by floating bits of spells limned in pretty light. She recognized them. Remembered how they hurt when she’d cut them into her skin. Dangerous if anybody found out.
But she didn’t have to ever remember.
Reaching out with mental fingers, she grabbed a shape and touched it to another.
A wave of power rippled through her, and she wondered why.
No, but those two didn’t match. Some pieces would match. Would…
Thought crumbled and she grasped at the crumbs. There was something important there. If only—
She saw it in her mind. The right shape. She couldn’t remember why that one, but she should make it. Lazily, she watched the various shapes swing around her like a baby’s mobile. As the shapes she wanted came into view, she pulled them to her but waited to push them into a whole.
When she had all six, she put them next to one another then gave a little push. They snapped together and light flashed. Power sluiced through her like water through a broken dam.
A ball of power condensed inside her. The pressure built. Her mind began to settle back into pattern. Clarity hit her the split second before the spell in her chest exploded.
Frantically she encased So’la in a shield, and as the spell went nova, she hoped to hell she didn’t open her eyes to carnage.
The enormous burst of magic blew outward with raw, incandescent power. She felt it incinerate the sticky nettles that wrapped around her in cobweb strands, thorns soft as down and ever so dangerous.
She gasped, drawing in a harsh breath, her lungs aching, pain stabbing through her chest. She arched up off the ground then collapsed again, coughing weakly.
Mallory? Answer me! You aren’t dead and your brain must be working as well as a wormy brain like yours can. You could think enough to shield me, anyway, which, by the way, you’ve got to stop doing! I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself, and you should be doing a better fucking job of protecting yourself because you suck at it and I’m beginning to think you can’t be left alone for a second. You’re worse than a newborn baby with a hand grenade.
She winced. I wasn’t alone. You were here and I still got nailed, so fuck off. And can you take twenty percent off the top, Junior? You’re giving me a headache.
It goes with your broken ribs.
Despite his irritation, his volume decreased.
A newborn with a hand grenade? Did I really hear you say that?
Are you really judging my metaphor?
It’s stupid. Newborns can’t even hold a tissue, much less a hand grenade. And how would they pull the pin?
I am not having this conversation.
You broke my ribs. Burning bands of fire circled her chest, and every time she breathed, knives skewered her.
You’re welcome. Your heart stopped. I kept you alive. Wait a moment.
A warm soothing flowed into her, dousing the fire and dissolving the knives. It ran through her then faded, taking with it every little ache or pain.
You can sit up.
I’m taking a moment.
“Take it later. Your mate is coming, and you need to calm him before everybody dies. Not me, of course, since he’s smart enough to remember that hurting me hurts you, but everybody else.”
So’la put his arm under her shoulder and helped her sit up. She felt weak as that newborn with the hand grenade.
“My dress is ruined,” she said, noting a tear in the skirt and sure that the back of it was a mess from where she’d fallen.
“You do realize you can do magic, right? It’s a pretty easy fix. In fact…”
Magic slid around her, and her dress and shoes returned to fresh-out-of-the-box condition.
So’la gripped her chin and turned her head side to side while looking into her eyes. She had no idea what he was looking for.
“It doesn’t look like you have any residue of the attack spell left,” he told her. “I’m impressed you managed to burn it off. You seemed less than coherent.”
The comment implied the “how” question, but Mal ignored it. She could feel Law coming like a thunderstorm. The air in the courtyard seemed to harden then condense. She heard his footsteps, but the leafy wall of the arcade blocked her view.
His footsteps were all she heard, she realized. No sounds of the festivities, no birds or night frogs or even a cricket.
Holy Jesus. Had she killed everyone?
Her horror must’ve showed on her face.
“Since I’m sure that look isn’t a reaction to seeing Law, I’ll guess that you’re worried about the damage you may have caused. Rest assured, you did nothing to them.”
“But something happened?”
“It would appear so. Either the spell that hit you did it or something else.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “We’re connected. I can taste your magic. I know death. You didn’t kill them.”
What a lot of gibberish. “Why weren’t you effected?”
“If I had to guess, it’s because I’m a demon. Magic-wielders rarely think to make sure their spells will work on us since there aren’t that many of us wandering your world. No point in making the effort if we aren’t there to enjoy it.”
Mal was just about to ask him to help her stand up since, between her shoes and dress, she didn’t think she’d manage without damaging herself further, when Law stormed through a courtyard archway into the arcade. He stopped to look in both directions, and when he saw Mal, he wheeled and stalked toward her, stepping around and over bodies without paying any attention to them. His face was solid stone, and she couldn’t decide if he was enraged or scared. A tide of power preceded him like a shockwave.
Ah. I’ll take Mega-Pissed Off as Hell for two thousand, Alex.
“Want to help me up?” she asked So’la.
“It’ll be safer for me if I don’t touch you right now.”
She glanced at him. “Discretion? You?”
“Just because I can’t die doesn’t mean I enjoy suffering. At least, not this variety. Your mate packs a powerful punc
h when he chooses.”
With that, he rose to his feet and backed away, just in time to get out of Law’s way.
“I’m okay,” Mal said just before he yanked her up from the ground and grappled her to him.
Law pressed his face into the crook of her neck and breathed in deeply, as if he’d just drawn his first breath. He didn’t say a word.
“Someone hit me with a spell. It came out of nowhere and went right through my shield.”
She babbled the words, uncertain what to say, especially after their recent argument. She’d wrapped her arms around Law’s neck and clung tightly, as though she were going to stop him from doing something insane.
He said nothing for a long moment. Then his arms loosened minutely, and he stroked a hand over her hair.
“How bad?”
“Fatal, if not for So’la.” There didn’t seem any point to pretending otherwise, and she was making an attempt to be open and honest.
“I kept her heart going, but she broke the spell herself,” came the demon’s clarification. “Not sure how.”
And Mal had no intention of explaining.
Chapter Fourteen
“Where the fuck were you?” Law demanded over Mal’s head. Fury still radiated off him like heat waves off a road in the desert. “How did you let this happen? You were supposed to have her back.”
“I failed,” was So’la’s simple answer.
“Bullshit.” Mal struggled to push herself free from Law’s grasp, succeeding only in loosening his grip. “There wasn’t anything he could have done to stop it, so don’t go blaming him.”
Law didn’t even look at her, his gaze fixed on the demon, a muscle ticking near his eye. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe him.”
She could tell him that letting her get dead was not in So’la’s best interests, so she hardly thought he’d want to let that happen, but she clearly wasn’t going to be able to reason with Law. Not until he calmed down, which might not happen for a year or two. She changed the subject instead. “Why weren’t you affected? Is LeeAnne okay?”
“I wasn’t in the line of fire,” Law said, which didn’t really answer the question. “Nor was LeeAnne.”
Mal looked along the ground where the bodies of giants—both big and small—pixies, nymphs, faerys, vampires, and a variety of other guests lay sprawled.
“Are they all dead?” she asked, her throat tight. Don’t let them be dead. Please, please, please, don’t let them be dead.
So’la bent and checked one giant then another then checked a few more.
“Looks like it’s hit and miss. Some dead, some not.”
“Pixies?” Mal asked.
He went and found a few. “Same. I can’t tell if they lived because the spell wanted them to, or because you and Law neutralized it.”
“If we assume it was on purpose, is there a pattern?”
That spell had been well planned, and nothing it had done had been random. She stepped out of Law’s arms and knelt beside the closest body. A small male giant. Alive, but his breathing was uneven. He might not last long. She moved on. The next person was a pixie. Male. Alive. The next was another male pixie. Alive. The next two were nymphs. Both alive. The next six were giants, four large, two small, two females, four males. All dead.
All the way back up the arcade, the only pattern that really stuck out was that no female pixies had survived and no male pixies had died, and few of the non-pixies and non-giants had died. A virdana had died an ugly death, her body collapsing and falling apart in meaty chunks.
Mal shuddered, remembering the feeling of falling to pieces. She’d come a little too close to that for comfort.
Law and So’la shadowed her as she moved through. Law appeared distracted, and she knew he’d turned a lot of his senses out into Effrayant’s infrastructure. That’s what he’d meant when he’d said he’d needed to bond more deeply. At least, that’s what seemed probable. Healing magic bubbled out of the ground and the walls as he and LeeAnne pushed out to revive their guests.
By the time Mal worked her way back to the courtyard, the living had begun to stir. There were more than she’d expected. A lot more than in the arcade. It appeared none of the pixies in the canopy area had been seriously hurt.
“How come more survived here?” she wondered out loud.
“I was able to kick out extra protections as soon as I felt the spell start to hit. I just couldn’t get to you in time.”
The muscles in his jaw kicked with emotion.
I failed.
So’la had said it, but Law is the one who felt it. It was written all over his face. Or maybe they both did. So’la looked just about as grim. His eyes burned orange and he made no effort to shut down the glow. The edges of his human disguise had started to blur, and the smell of brimstone drifted around him.
“Before you go letting all your ugly out, you should know that some of us damsels in distress can save our own damned selves,” she said, annoyed at both of them. “I mean, I get that the two of you get your rocks off doing the knight-in-shining-armor thing, or the Lone Ranger thing, or whatever your savior complex is, but you need to get over yourselves. I survived. I saved myself. Stop acting like you should get to have all the fun. Anyhow, you should be happy that I handled it on my own instead of snarling at each other about who should have saved poor, pitiful, incompetent Mal.”
“I don’t think you’re incompetent,” Law said, his gaze snapping back to her.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Mal—”
She held up an imperious hand to stop him.
“And, So’la, I don’t even know you’re sulking about. I’m alive. That’s your bottom line. I think your underwear’s in a wad because you disappointed Law, not because I almost kicked the bucket.
“However, I am feeling generous at the moment, and while I am more than entitled to feel extremely butt-hurt, I will allow myself to be appeased by mounds of bacon, foot massages, Belgian chocolate, mochas with extra espresso, and waffles. Plus, you know, effusive apologies and some groveling. And someone is going to have to watch movies with me. Of my choice.”
Mal dusted her hands together as if she were all done with that subject, as in fact, she was, and went back to work.
“What just happened?” So’la asked Law.
“We got schooled.”
“We’re going to be at her beck and call for a while, aren’t we?” A pause. “How long?”
“Until she lets us off the hook or decides to grant us mercy,” Law said.
“She gives mercy?”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“It isn’t fair that you get to speed your forgiveness in bed,” So’la complained. “If she just gave me the chance, I could drive her out of her mind with pleasure, and she would forgive me anything.” Another pause. “I could do the same for you.”
Mal choked back her laugh, wishing she could see Law’s face at So’la’s salacious offer. His casual tone combined with his relentlessly determined response floored her.
“True. It’s not fair. I’m the luckiest man alive, and if she wants a man-slave at her beck and call for a week or a month or a century or twelve, I’m going to make sure she doesn’t want to look anywhere but at me. And I’m going to take advantage of every opportunity I have, fair or not, to make that happen.”
Talk like that could make a girl go weak in the knees. The growl in his voice promised things that gave her shivers. On the other hand, the thing she’d just noticed was also giving her shivers, these having more to do with terror.
All the virdanas and their guards who’d been watching the music from the sidelines were gone. Not dead, not sleeping, not waking up. They were gone.
But where? And more important, what were they up to and how long did Mal, Law, and So’la have to stop them before it was too late?
Chapter Fifteen
Mal’s first reaction was to marshal the ghosts.
“Guys? Are you
up to scouting for me?”
They had loosened their wrapping of her once she’d done the nuclear explosion thing, and now they separated and turned visible. They were all in technicolor and glowed. It was like they’d been hit with gamma rays or been bitten by a radioactive spider or however it works in comic books. Mal had never seen them glow before.
“Why are you all glowing like you just fell into a lake of toxic waste?”
Tag shook his head. He actually looked almost healthy, despite the fact that he’d died sick and half-starved after being forced into prostitution. He’d died in Mal’s arms then joined her merry band of ghosts. “That spell you cast was like sticking my hand in an electrical socket.”
“Funny, your hair isn’t standing on end,” Mal said then told herself to get with the program. “Are you saying that it was the good kind of sticking your hand in an electrical socket or the bad kind?”
“There’s a good kind?” Law asked.
“The good kind,” Tag affirmed.
“Looks like it,” So’la said to Law. “Maybe you should try it out.”
“I’ll take their word for it.”
“We absorbed a lot of energy,” Edna said. “What do you want us to find?”
“Actually, it’s who,” Mal said. “A bunch of virdanas and their bodyguards seem to have vanished. We need to find them. Fast.”
“You got it,” Tag said and vanished.
The others popped out of sight just as something occurred to Mal. “Wait!”
For a second she didn’t think anyone heard her, but then Edna reappeared. “Is there something else?”
“I think we’ll need Elliot.”
She tipped her head slightly as if that didn’t quite register, but then nodded and vanished again.
“Elliot?” Law said. “What for?”
“He’s immune to magic.”
“And?”
“Just a feeling. I think we may need him to rescue Coorsel and Nayena.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you think has happened?”
“We were never getting to the wedding. They already had Nayena and Coorsel before that spell hit. That was the signal to do whatever came next.”