He shook his head. “The zombie has no idea how to control or appoint her house. We’ll have to get them back here safely if we can. This house knows what it’s doing, and it’s well trained to obey you.”
Like my house was a dog, or something. In spite of everything that horrible day, I couldn’t help grinning. “Look at you, saying nice things about me,” I said. “All right, so we’re gunna have two dangerous trips, but it should be a bit safer on the way back when we have Daniel and the others. What about Les? Should we try to find him and bring him along?”
“He can stay or go as he pleases,” Zero said briefly. “If he hadn’t been sneaking into the house, he wouldn’t be in this mess—and if anyone is equipped to deal with Between and Behind, he’s the human for it. If even—if even Athelas couldn’t kill him after three or four attempts—”
“Good point,” I said.
Heck. Zero was just standing there, staring at nothing, a line between his brows and his eyes distant.
Hastily, I added, “All right, but if he follows us, you don’t know what he’ll do. He’s as likely to cause trouble as he is to help, so if he does anything bad, you’re responsible.”
That seemed to twitch Zero out of his silent contemplation with a slight smile. “Really, Pet?” he said. “After all the drinks you’ve left for him and pies you’ve allowed him to eat?”
“First of all, he pinched that pie. Second of all, you’re the one who chucked a chair through the window and left it open for anyone to get through.”
Zero’s eyes grew lighter, comforting me. I’d wanted him to learn to deal with his feelings, but I hadn’t expected for him to have to deal with quite so many—or quite so soon.
He said, “Very well. I’ll accept the blame.”
“Accept it?” I said, happy to relieve my own feelings at the same time as helping him with his. “You’re to blame!”
“Didn’t I say I’d accept it?” he said, but there was the faintest curve to his lips.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the doorway. “C’mon; let’s get ready to go. You need to strap on all of your little knives and get the big sword that sticks out past your ear.”
To my surprise, Zero allowed himself to be pulled: right out of the room and into the upstairs living room, then down the stairs and to his alcove to get out all the hardware we’d probably need to make it to Morgana’s and back in one piece.
By the time he emerged from the alcove with two knife belts, an assortment of other knives, and the pommel of a giant sword sticking up past his ear, there was a flurry of blue at the window again. It was JinYeong, and he had Five by the scruff of the neck. Five wasn’t too happy about that, but if I was as short as the leprechaun and was being scruffed by someone of JinYeong’s comparative height, I’d be pretty unhappy, too.
“Heck,” I said, startled out of my composure. “What are you doing back here already?”
Five shot me a glare through the window and tried unsuccessfully to free himself from JinYeong’s claw-like grasp. That failing, he windmilled with his arms to turn his face in JinYeong’s general direction and silently bellowed something at the vampire that I couldn’t follow. JinYeong leaned further over and snarled into his face.
I heard a knife belt drop on the floor, and Zero’s voice said, “What in the everloving—!”
“Looks like JinYeong went to grab Five,” I said. “Literally. Reckon he’s trying to get him to do something about getting us out of here—don’t reckon Five knows how, though. Look—now he’s probably telling JinYeong that he hasn’t got his station, and everyone knows a leprechaun can’t do anything without his station.”
Outside, JinYeong lifted Five by the scruff and bared his teeth in the most flagrantly threatening gesture I’d seen from him in a while.
“Good grief, what does he expect Five to do?” I asked.
“JinYeong isn’t thinking; he’s grasping at straws,” said Zero. “The leprechaun can follow a money trail to the loftiest echelons of Behind, but he’s useless when it comes to trying to get out of a closed system.”
Five must have managed to convince JinYeong of his uselessness—or maybe just of his need for his beloved station—because after another few minutes of silent, vigorous conversation, JinYeong grimly hauled Five away again. Before he went, he mouthed the same thing at me that he’d said earlier—the thing I’d suspected was I’ll be back.
“Heck,” I muttered beneath my breath. “Wonder who he’s gunna bring back with him next time, though?”
“The merman, I suppose,” said Zero. His eyes were a touch bluer again, which was a good sign.
“At least he’s trying,” I said. It was comforting, in a way. We’d already lost one member of our household, and I didn’t want to lose another one, even for a day. “Maybe he’ll figure out a way in.”
“There is traditionally no way in without being an heirling or a hanger-on of an heirling,” Zero said, the amusement fading. “A few more heirlings might make their way in as the system finds them, but lone outsiders are shut off. We should be moving as soon as possible; the longer we wait, the more dangerous it will become out there.”
“How do we tell JinYeong what we’re doing?”
“We don’t,” said Zero. “You can try, and he might understand a little, but—”
“But not much. And I won’t be able to understand anything he says,” I agreed gloomily. “All right; we’ll just get on with it, then. Hopefully he won’t come back while we’re gone, or he’ll think we’ve vanished on him.”
“JinYeong will be fine,” Zero said shortly.
“You didn’t see his face before,” I retorted. “We are not going to make JinYeong think we’ve abandoned him.”
Zero checked his larger knives with swift, professional fingers. “Oh, are you commanding this excursion, Pet?”
“Yes, I flamin’ am,” I said. “We’re gunna nip out and find Morgana, bring her and anyone else in the house with us, and nip back in before JinYeong gets back. You got it?”
He still looked a bit too amused for my liking, but he kept checking weapons, and eventually nodded. “Very well. The dangerous part will be immediately after we leave the house—we’ll also have to do a thorough check on this house when we get back. Once we leave it, it’s fair game to outsiders.”
“No, it’s flamin’ not,” I said firmly. “It’s my house. We taking the heirling sword?”
“I’m not going to leave it here,” said Zero shortly. “Not for anyone to find.”
“Is it gunna make things more difficult?”
Zero gave a small sniff that was nearly a laugh. “It will make things more dangerous. Anyone who sees it and knows what it is will attack us to try and take the sword for themselves.”
“’Cos everyone else is probably gunna want to be king.”
“No,” said Zero, unclipping his cuffs and testing the freedom of his shoulders to move within his leather jacket. “Some of them just want to survive; being king is a risk that comes with that desire. The heirlings don’t always die, and once one of them is king, the others only have a certain amount of time to contest it. I told you that. The current king is the only one who made sure no one else could do so.”
“I remember,” I said. “It’s how you ended up being in utero for twenty years.”
“Exactly. The heirling sword is an attribute to anyone who wants to survive, and an even bigger one to anyone who wants to become king. It’s also our biggest weapon.”
“Nah, you’re our biggest weapon,” I said, patting his shoulder in passing. “C’mon, let’s go.”
Chapter Three
I called Morgana again just before we left. “We’re coming to get you now.”
I was pretty sure it was relief in her voice as she asked, “You sure?”
“We’re coming to get you,” I repeated, more firmly.
“Daniel says it’s dangerous out there,” she said, after a pause. “You probably shouldn’t come.”
&n
bsp; “I’ve got Zero,” I said breezily. “Don’t worry about it. Reckon we’re a lot safer if we all stick together, anyway.”
“Are you going to stay with us when you get here?”
“Doesn’t sound like it; our place is a bit easier to defend, I reckon—unless the kids are making themselves useful.”
“They already have been,” she said. Was it a grin I heard in her voice? I thought so. “I don’t think the…people outside know what they are. The kids have been pinching stuff from them and setting booby traps on the lower floor in case they get in.”
“I’ll make sure to let Zero know to watch out for the bottom floor,” I said. “See you soon, all right?”
I had barely hung up before Zero asked shortly, “Ready?” as if he was the one who had been trying to convince me, and I had been dragging my feet. Flamin’ rude, that.
“Yep,” I said, and found Les at my elbow in his full old mad bloke form.
“Tea, lady,” he said solemnly. “Don’t forget tea!”
He had a travel mug with him, too; he swished it at me, sorta voodoo-style.
“What are you bringing, bubble tea?” I asked him. “Or are you trying to put a spell on me?”
“Bubble tea is for flower men,” he said disapprovingly.
“Actually, any liquid seems to work for ’em,” I pointed out. “So there was no reason for it to be bubble tea except—hang on, this has nothing to do with anything. What are you bringing?”
“Tea!” he said happily, and scuttled away to the back door.
“What is that?” demanded Zero, pointing after Les with one of his knives.
“You said he could come or stay if he wanted,” I remarked. “Looks like he wants to come. Seems like we’ll have a bit of company.”
“Only for as long as he stays alive,” Zero said grimly, and strode away to the back door, too.
I said, “Well, aren’t we all flamin’ cheerful today,” and followed.
The back door actually opened for us by the time we were ready to go. Zero had said it would—as soon as we were settled properly into the arena.
So I guess we were properly in the arena now. Oh yay.
The Behind version of the backyard was dark but not unwelcoming, with tiny familiar touches that would have let me know where I was even if I hadn’t stepped out of my own back door. I don’t know what I expected—a bloody red hell-scape, maybe; or something so untouchably beautiful that it hurt to breathe the air—but the twilight softness of the world outside wasn’t it. Huge hedges that grew roughly where the next-door fences ought to have been flanked us and led forward toward a huge wall of greenery: another hedge. I had the suspicion that if I could see over the hedges, there would be a heck of a lot more of them out there—a vast labyrinth making up the closed system of the heirling trials.
Still, it was more twilight than fiery-dying-of-the-sun, and when Zero shut the back door behind us, everything felt more like an adventure than a dangerous mission. Even the air wasn’t too cold, and the scent of lemon myrtle hung in the air, comforting and then worrying me.
Checking on that sudden suspicion, I asked Zero, “What’s it smell like to you out here?”
“Lavender,” he said.
“Let me guess,” I said. “It’s a comforting smell to you.”
He nodded, though there was a deep cleft between his brows. “Someone is trying to put contestants at their ease. We’ll have to be more careful in areas that feel more comfortable to us.”
“They’re trying to lull us into a false sense of security?”
“Exactly,” he said. “Follow closely, Pet; swords drawn.”
I did as I was told, and it seemed as though the scent of lemon myrtle faded a little in the suddenly clear air.
“Oi,” I said to Les, who had popped up beside me and was standing far too close for comfort. “What’s it smell like to you?”
“Apple pie,” he said, beaming down at me.
“You gotta have other good memories!” I said, shocked. There was no way that pinching apple pie from me was the best of his memories.
“Pay attention, Pet,” said Zero, through his teeth. “Forward.”
So I paid attention and moved forward with a slim, unsheathed sword in either hand, slightly damp at the palm. There would be time later to feel sad about an old, mad, human bloke who had been so much beset by faery and behindkind that his best memories were of stealing or being given food by a small human. For now, I needed to make sure I stayed alive long enough for there to be time later.
We didn’t even get out of where my backyard would have been if it were overlaid on the trials. As we approached the faintly misty T-section of hedge, figures coalesced from either side and into our space, dark and menacing, weapons already drawn.
Longswords, short-swords—heck, even an axe or two. There were at least eight of them, and I couldn’t help feeling that today was going to be the day that I lost an arm or a leg. If it came to losing either, I’d probably prefer to—
“Finally!” said one of them, putting a stop to that particular train of thought. “We’ve been waiting for someone to come out for ages.”
“Were you waiting for anyone in particular?” asked Zero. “Or were you going to take anyone who came?”
One of the women stepped forward: a tall, tightly-braided woman who might have reminded me of Palomena if Palomena had ever worn such a contemptuous expression.
She said, “We were given some information that we might like to find the person who lives here. If I’d known we were going to meet up with the younger Lord Sero, I’d have told the boys to wear their best hankies.”
They all laughed at that, and a couple of them even nudged each other. This woman obviously knew her audience.
“I didn’t think I was of much interest now that I’m no longer allied with my father,” Zero said coolly. “On the other hand, you have a better chance trying to endear yourself to my father by killing me than you do trying to endear yourself to me.”
“Oh, is that how you’re going to play the game?” the leader said, one eyebrow winging upward. “Pretending that you’re not interested in the throne and that your dad wants you dead, too? The great Lord Sero the younger, striking out on his own!”
“Yeah, I don’t think she cares whether you are or aren’t with your dad,” I said to Zero. “She’s gunna try to kill you, anyway.”
The leader shrugged. “Well, that’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it? Slaughter or be slaughtered? Be king or be dead?”
“I’m here because someone pinched me house,” I said. “I’m not going to go around killing people because of that, regardless of what fiction says about house pinching and dropping houses on people going together.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s all right,” I said, jerking a thumb at Zero. “Neither does he. You would if you were human.”
“If I were human, I would be dead by now.”
“Doubt it,” I said. “Humans like you usually end up popping up on top, too.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I don’t like the way the things you say sound like they should be compliments but feel like insults.”
“Neither does he,” I said again, jerking my thumb at Zero once more.
“Be quiet, Pet,” Zero said in exasperation. “Nobody likes that.”
“Pretty sure it’s just control freaks who don’t like it, but okay,” I said. “Look, if you reckon you’re gunna get accolades from Lord Sero Senior for killing his son—”
“I’m not going to try and get anything from him,” said the leader, with a heartfelt frankness that would have amused me from anyone else. “He’s got a finger in every pie and far too long of a reach when it comes to the world Behind.”
“For someone in as much awe of my family as you, it seems ridiculous to make a move against me.”
The leader laughed. “What’s your dad going to do with you in here? Fight for you?”
“I don’t need my father to fight for me,” Zero said.
“’F’you ask me, he’d fight his father before he fought you lot,” I told them. “And I don’t want the crown, either, for what that’s worth.”
“I hate heirlings like you most of all,” said the leader. “You pretend you’d never shed blood and don’t want the throne, and then you wait until everyone kills each other to come out of hiding and stab the winner in the back.”
“That sounds like a beef with someone else,” I told her. “Not us. If someone in your family got slaughtered back in the day—”
“Stop talking, Pet,” said Zero. “They don’t care.”
“It’s not about whether they care or not,” I argued. “I’m just giving them a chance to save their own lives. I’m not going to go around killing people just for snarling at me.”
“Shut up, Pet,” said one of the behindkind, and sliced at me from high over his shoulder.
I parried by pure instinct, restricted by Les on one side and stepping forward into the attack instead of toward the side. My upper, right sword blocked and scraped; my left was already darting forward in a short, sharp thrust. He had one sword, and it was already engaged; I had two. I ran him through and stepped back, disengaging both blades as he fell, and immediately fell back another step to block a high, heavy slash that would have cut my head open.
After that I didn’t know where the old mad bloke was, but I had a good idea of Zero, too huge and light-blocking to miss. I ducked, parried, slashed, slipped in blood, fell into the hedge, thrust—did everything in my power to stay close to Zero so that no one could come at me from behind.
Maybe all the training had finally done some good, because this time I was aware of each of the attackers around me instead of being constantly on the defensive, barely blocking anything that came close enough to make me aware of it.
The fight didn’t feel long, but I was gasping before it was half over, and my arms were shaking when there were no more attacks to fend off and no standing enemies to pursue. I looked wearily around the bloody section of grass and hedge, staggering a bit, and said, “Heck, I’m tired.”
Between Family: The City Between: Book Nine Page 5