“Go back,” Helen cried.
“Ben, we’re fucked if we stay here.”
Ben contemplated something big in a way that only a member of America’s greatest generation could. He took the can of kerosene from Seth. “Listen up,” he said, “it’s a dog-man, right? I’m injured. It senses weakness, smells blood. I’m going to walk out along the edge of the snow line a couple of yards. It’s going to come after me. I’m going to grab it and hold on for dear life. No matter what it does, I ain’t letting it go. When you hear it, come to me and hack away. We won’t even have a minute, so don’t hesitate.”
“Ben, I don’t like the idea of you being bait.”
“Well we’re a few cans short of Alpo, kid. This is no time to split hairs.”
“Ben, I can’t even see out here.”
Ben held up the can of kerosene. “You’ll see me fine.” He walked away into the dark.
Seth gripped his ax tight. His magazine was halfway gone so he rolled and lit another one. He closed his eyes and tried to listen. It was the more effective sense in this situation. He caught a whiff of something foul upwind, like a garbage scow. It was in the direction Ben had gone. Damn!
Seth started toward Ben before he heard the scuffling. Then he heard a shout. A circle of flame ignited before him, lighting up the meadow, and in the middle of the ring was Ben struggling on the ground with the creature. The gnoll was startled by the circle of flames around them. It clearly wanted to run. Ben wrapped his arms and legs around the gnoll and held it in place as it tore and snapped at the old man. Ben yelled, “NOW! NOW!”
Seth quickly hopped through the ring of fire and landed a solid hack with the ax into the gnoll’s back. The creature howled and rolled on the ground bringing along Ben, whose legs were entangled with the gnoll’s in a wrestling grip. They rolled through a corner of the ring, and the gnoll’s fur caught. Ben went limp and the creature was able to push the old man off. It frantically patted the flames on its body. Seth picked up the can of kerosene and splashed the remains on the gnoll. Several embers on the fur lit up. The gnoll ran into the snow aflame. Seth chased it. The creature rolled around trying to extinguish the burning hair; Seth came upon it and swung a solid shot into the thing’s gut with his ax. The creature cried out and swiped at Seth’s legs. Seth continued to hack at it to his heart’s content. The smell of burning hair filled Seth’s nostrils. His fifth shot, a solid gash to the forehead, ended the creature.
Seth heard crunching in the snow. He lifted his ax to ward off another attack.
“Ben?” Helen queried.
“It’s me,” Seth said. “That thing is dead.”
She was shaking with fear. Seth took her hand. “Where’s Ben?” she asked.
Seth led her back to the spot where he left her husband. Ben hadn’t moved from where Seth left him, and Helen rushed to her husband’s side.
“Ben, talk to me.”
The old man didn’t respond. He had gashes all over and was bleeding out onto the ground. Ben’s head tilted back when his wife tried to prop him up, and they saw the rip in his throat. Helen kept calling his name as she patted his face trying to revive him. His eyes fluttered, and he coughed blood. He reached out to his wife and touched her cheek.
“Helen,” he slurred. His voice had turned into a raspy gurgle.
“You did it, Ben. I’m safe. We’re both safe. You hold on now. We’ll get you to the tree.” She turned to Seth. “Help me get him back.”
Seth was sure that moving Ben was a terrible idea, but he didn’t have many options. He reached under the old man to lift him. His clothes were saturated with blood as was the ground beneath him. Seth only moved him a little when Ben started to convulse and spit up blood. His body spasmed; he gasped for air.
“What happened?” Seth asked.
“It’s a heart attack!” Helen said. “Ben, hold on!”
Seth picked up the old man and struggled toward the tree with Helen right behind him. A few steps away from camp, Ben went completely limp. They got him to the tree and laid him beside the trunk. Nothing happened. Helen looked at Seth. Her face, streaming with tears conveyed the fears in her heart.
“Try touching the tree and holding Ben,” she said to him.
Seth did so, and felt the warmth of the tree fill him again, but the flow stopped at his hand, not going into Ben. He tried touching Ben’s forehead, his wounds, but nothing worked. Seth turned to Helen, who was looking to him for answers he couldn’t provide. Seth was sobbing as well by now. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “Lelani has this powder that heals, but it’s out there with her.”
Seth stood back and looked at the bloodied old man slumped against the tree. He had a peaceful expression. Ben had caught the moment he knew his wife was safe and made it his eternal mask.
“Nooo!” Helen wailed. She leaned down and embraced her husband. She had no care for all the blood. She kissed his cheeks and cried freely.
Seth kneeled beside her and put his arms around them both. They wept for an eternity.
CHAPTER 17
STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND
1
Dorn hated America. It lacked order. It coddled the weak. The rules of behavior were contrary to nature. Common women were arrogant, badly disciplined; peasants pressed for their rights; the wealthy kept the masses subservient through financial debt instead of fear; and leaders were subject to criticism and even ridicule, such as on the players’ farce Saturday Night Live. Madness. Dorn rubbed his temples in an effort to relieve the growing pressure.
The Quinta do Noval ’83 slid down his lordship’s gullet and warmed the chill from his bones. He didn’t like the Park Plaza’s vented heating and longed for a real fire to stoke under a large stone mantel. Nothing was real in this world; the food was processed and bloodless and even the warmth was an illusion. The city smelled worse than brimstone, noxious waste belching from the asses of a million horseless carriages. Mass production by scientific trickery produced a lot of nothing. The masses hoarded material goods as if they were nobility—fooled into believing the purchase of soulless objects would overcome their ingrained defects. The right car or the toothpaste with a catchier tune will bring them closer to being noble. As wines went, though, port came closest to the spirits of home. It alleviated the throbbing in his temple, which had been growing worse since their arrival in this cursed world. It was also becoming harder to hide the pain from his underlings. He found himself drinking more of the wine the longer he remained here.
This world was not an easy place. Like hawks in a maelstrom, they struggled through it, denigrated in the effort of not drawing attention to themselves. Limited sorceries, restricted violence, and the inability to freely draw manpower from local denizens without leverage over them. More than that, there was no way to tell how high-grade magicks might react on this plane. Some unknown cosmic balance might be tipped. Such a thing could make the situation worse—the ensuing chaos might cause difficulty in their search. So they had to wade through the mire of orthodoxy, risking a spell only when needed, and slinking off like weasels after raiding the coop.
Dorn leaned against the mantel of his bedroom’s faux fireplace and pulled an ornate silver locket from his pocket. It opened on a hinge and he studied the tiny portrait within—Lara, his mother’s youngest sister. A few strands of her platinum-white hair encircled her image. He sniffed the strands, pining for any remnant of her scent. Lara had been more of a mother to Dorn than the woman who pushed him from her thighs could ever be. How long had it been since he had last seen her—her soft, scented skin, alabaster hair, and sympathetic amethyst eyes? The depiction, perfect as a photograph, followed him with its gaze. What was she doing at this moment? Was she free? Would Uncle keep his word? Dorn could not suspend his longing for her. It was there, below the surface, every moment of the day no matter what he did, as though he were under a spell. Even the port failed to dull its ache.
A renowned artist from Fhlee, whose race in adulthood grew
to be no larger than a young child and were sought throughout the realm for their diminutive work, had painted the likeness with tiny hands. Dorn had set a few of their villages ablaze to bring them into line with his uncle’s reign. Though the artist was a slave by conquest, so fine was the portrait of his aunt, that in a rare act of veneration, Dorn actually paid the painter with gold instead of a flogging. The portrait was his anchor to home.
A knock at the door reverberated through Dorn’s headache.
“What?” he roared.
The gentleman entered—tall, lean, combed and manicured, in gray pinstripes, white gloves, and a black long-tail jacket.
“Oulfsan?” Dorn asked, pocketing the locket.
“No, master. Krebe.”
Dorn noticed the slight hunch in the man, the nervous twiddling of fingers. Krebe’s speech was heavy on the tongue.
“I’ll never get used to you two switching about,” Dorn said. “Well…?”
“On their way up, they are, sire. Wounded it seems.”
“I should hope so,” Dorn said, as though this was the least they should be. “When does Oulfsan return?”
“It don’t work like that, me lordship. ’Tis random.”
Dorn considered the man, ill-suited for his body, and waited for something to change.
“Leave me,” Dorn said.
2
The elevator, with some effort, carried the great weight of Hesz the giant and his two cohorts toward the upper levels of the hotel. Pools of blood from various wounds collected on the floor of the lift. Hesz supported Symian on his good arm. They had retrieved him from the sewer they’d stowed him in following the flare attack in the South Bronx tenement. The hope being that the dank, cool, darkness of the tunnels, similar to troll caves, would aid in his healing.
Hesz and Kraten ended up hiding down there with Symian for the better part of the day, much to Kraten’s verbal dismay. A police officer had cornered Hesz for questioning as he attempted to buy bandages and alcohol at a drugstore in the early morning. MacDonnell had initiated an APB for Hesz and his companions, and unfortunately, the giant could not help but be indiscreet. Hesz dispatched the police officer with a quick snap to the neck, and they remained underground with the troll until well after the sun had set.
Symian was still in bad shape—blind, his normally gray skin was blackened and crunched into flakes beneath his raincoat wherever Hesz applied pressure to support him. Symian was only half conscious for the pain.
They had done no better without the troll in the North Bronx when they had attempted to kidnap MacDonnell’s woman and child. Indeed, the woman herself had managed to wound Hesz before the sorceress appeared again with her magicks. Symian was one of a few besides Dorn in their group who knew how to wield magic—a fact that was lost on Kraten but was always in the forefront of Hesz’s mind. Magic was power. It was the keystone of humankind’s hold over their kingdoms and dominance over the nonhuman races.
The police swarmed the city looking for them. Because he was so unique looking in this world, they had to remain in the sewers and attempt to find their way back to the hotel underground. A city the size of New York had thousands of miles of tunnels beneath it. Hesz was angry, and in the true spirit of his forefathers, he wanted to smash things and break people. Dorn could have sent someone with an auto to pick them up, injured as they were, but his policy regarding failure was absolute. No mercy for failure. They were left to fend for themselves, not even a gurney for the injured lad. A stupid policy for such a fragile race as the purebloods. It would one day be their undoing. For now, Hesz drew on the three-fourths of his human blood to contain his temper.
“Stay your breath,” Kraten ordered.
“What?” Hesz responded, pulled out of his thoughts.
“This lift is as cold as a grave,” Kraten said, rubbing his arms for heat.
Hesz realized his anger caused him to breathe harder. Frost formed on the elevator walls. He held his breath to appease his cohort.
Hesz replayed the recent battles in his mind.
They had been outgunned and outclassed at MacDonnell’s home. Who knew MacDonnell’s wench had a firearm and the fortitude to use it? And then the sorceress appeared. But it never should have come to that anyway. It was Kraten who had forced the confrontation in the South Bronx tenement before they were ready. Symian was young and easily persuaded into action by the desert warrior. The swordsman was long on guts and glory but short on brains, a common trait among the desert folk of Verakhoon. Although a good warrior, Kraten was too brash and arrogant to be depended on, but he was Dorn’s favorite: a childhood playmate, and more importantly, a pureblood. They should have waited. How lucky they were to remain alive depended on Lord Dorn’s mood, which had become capricious with their extended stay in this world.
The group had been plagued by a series of blunders by Dorn’s own hand. Jumping into the transfer on a whim left them unprepared to function in this world. They lost weeks locating enough magical energy to cast the proper language spells, produce currency, learn about social hierarchies, and get the general lay of the society. Then, Dorn divided the mission into two fronts: one to search for the objective and one to destroy the opposition’s defenders—in hindsight a costly error. It had become apparent early on that none of the prince regent’s guardians was a threat. They were ignorant of their origins. Bad fortune had fallen among that group. Dorn failed to press this advantage.
The first few detectives Dorn had procured to find the boy came up empty because the trail was long cold. These men simply withered away in despair, unable to come to terms with their “heartless” existence. They finally stumbled across some good luck when Hesz spotted the newspaper article about the disgraced detective Colby Dretch. Perhaps the other sleuths had been too honest with much to live for. Instead, they required a cunning, deceitful man, desperate to redeem himself when confronted by his own mortality. Hesz brought Dretch to Lord Dorn’s attention, and finally they were on the boy’s trail.
Now, it was a game of catch-up. Had Dorn marshaled all their resources into finding the boy at the start of this escapade, and not put effort into eliminating the guardians, they might have cut the little bugger’s throat before the centaur sorceress rallied even one ally. The ultimate irony, it occurred to Hesz, was that the best strategy might have been just to leave things alone; in stirring the wasps’ nest, they’d set in motion the possible unearthing of the prince. This boy could have remained hidden forever: grown up, married, died an old man and, through union with commoners, bred his offspring out of any claim. He could even have been killed in a plane crash or drafted into a war. Anything was possible in this anarchic world. The odds had been in their favor. Now, it was a race.
The doors parted. Bellus, a skilyte, greeted Hesz, Kraten, and Symian with an oily smile. Two large humans stood guard at the entrance to the suite.
“The vanquished warriors return to the fold,” Bellus sneered. “You’ve been gone for the better part of a day while there is much work to be done. What do you have to say?”
Bellus relished the failure of others because it was the easiest way to increase his own standing. He was short, hunched, and looked too small for his black suit. His skin glistened as though he’d just stepped out of a vat of olive oil. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. He rarely made a decision or acted on information although he outranked Hesz and Symian by virtue of his pure blood only. Kraten could pummel the toady on their behalf, but at the moment the swordsman struggled to remain standing.
“Thanks for coming to retrieve us with the auto,” Hesz said.
“Master’s orders,” Bellus said.
“We need healing.”
“What you need depends on his lordship’s mood. You’ve been gone a long time.”
“We had to retrieve Symian.” No one needed to know that they had gotten lost in the sewers. Hopefully, Kraten would have the good sense to keep his mouth shut.
Bellus looked suspicious of the explanation. Hi
s paranoia served him well. A whiff of the sewer’s stink persuaded Bellus to back off from the trio. “Wait in the common room.”
The suite took up half the floor and had four bedrooms attached to a common living area, including a kitchenette. By Manhattan standards, the fourteen-foot ceiling and Louis XIV décor with its gold-leaf molding were luxurious for a hotel room, but by Dorn’s standards, this was roughing it. There would be time for luxury after the boy is found, Dorn drummed into them.
Kraten collapsed on the couch. Hesz laid the semiconscious Symian on the love seat.
The elegant gentleman approached.
“Krebe?” Hesz queried.
“Aye,” the gentleman affirmed.
The trick unsettled Hesz. With these two, one rarely knew who one was dealing with. But Hesz was getting better at it. He had to—he couldn’t rest easily when Krebe was about. Something about that one unsettled him.
“His lordship…?” Hesz asked.
“In a mood. Been in his room since we returned from upstate. The headaches are growing worse.”
An uncomfortable pause descended. They all knew better than to acknowledge Dorn’s headaches when the man went to great lengths to hide it from them. The migraines were getting worse, but no one would broach the subject.
“Might want to come back later,” Krebe suggested.
“Failed is failed,” Bellus crowed. “Later won’t change their incompetence.”
“Symian will die without attention,” the giant said. “Get him.”
“His lordship is aware of your wounds,” Bellus stated.
Hesz growled. He strode forward to rap on the bedroom door himself when it suddenly opened. Dorn walked forth, forcing Hesz to backtrack. His lordship studied the trio. He meandered toward Symian and pulled apart the troll’s coverings. Symian’s skin was the texture and color of strudel left in the oven too long. The gray man was now a being of caramelized soot. As the troll shifted, pieces of him flaked onto the cream-colored love seat. His bandaged eyes were stained blue with blood.
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