by Conn, Claudy
Jazz saw that, for a moment, they were at an impasse.
* * *
Pestale surveyed the situation and made up his mind. He calmed himself, for he couldn’t allow his anger to rule him. He made a show by slashing through the air with his Death Sword and said, “What now, Seelie?”
“She dies? That is your threat?” Trevor said with a shrug, “So she dies. It is not what I wanted. But she forced herself on me even though I asked her to stay behind. And my mission is more important than even a magical human. What I want, all I want, is to kill at least one of you, here and now.”
“You don’t fool me.” Pestale shook his head. “You Seelie Royals care too much for the humans, and I think you will bargain rather than allow my brother to snap her neck.” Pestale added thoughtfully, “Besides, that would be a loss. She intrigues me with her power.”
“You are right—I don’t want her dead, but not because of her minimal skills but because I had planned to bed her.” Trevor shrugged again. “But next to killing you and your brothers …” He shook his head. “No comparison.”
Pestale understood putting the mission above all else. He adored Morrigu for many reasons, but he knew he would sacrifice her if he were in the same position. He believed Trevor but said, “Still, I think we shall keep her alive for the time being.” He looked toward the human woman. “It will be interesting to explore her, use her, touch her pretty body, and see how it is she was able to … do what she did. Hordly, take her to Morrigu’s chambers.”
* * *
Bile worked itself into Jazz’s throat. She was pretty sure Trevor could not, did not, mean what he had said, but even so it hurt to hear the words. However, she had a few tricks up her sleeve. She took Pestale’s magic, and this time only his magic, and slammed the brother he stood closest to. While both Pestale and his younger brother were still sliding across the stone floor, she came down with all her might with the heel of her boot on Hordly’s sandaled foot. When he yelped with pain, she turned, kicked him in the balls, and at the same time took his magic and slammed him.
Trevor shifted to her at once and wrapped her in his tight embrace. In the next instant he shifted them away.
~ Eleven ~
TREVOR CONCENTRATED. HE knew he had to focus.
A looming glass structure stood before them. It was made of huge blocks of opaque glass, in long, thick shards going every which way. One could not see in, but he imagined every room inside could see out.
It was the only safe haven in all the Dark Realm, but getting inside would not be easy. Danté had had a very difficult time of it when he was here with Radzia. It was the special retreat the Dark King had created for his human love, to keep her safe and comfortable where the world outside was anything but.
Trevor couldn’t allow anything to happen to her. He couldn’t breathe when she was in danger. She was his Jazmine Decker. She had asked him why he continued to use her entire name, because it sounded so formal, and he had told her it was because he liked the sound. In truth, he loved the sound. He would always call her Jazmine Decker.
The first difficulty lay in the fact that he couldn’t find a door—anywhere. He had Jazmine Decker’s hand in his as he dragged her along while he searched for an entrance, a window, some way to get inside. His efforts proved fruitless, and he was left standing and studying the building, deep in thought. He knew that when the Dark Princes figured out where he had gone with his human, they would be after them once more.
* * *
“Wh-where are we now? Maybe we sh-should just g-go?” Jazz stuttered with the cold. She was pretty sure her lips were going numb. It was below freezing, way below, and she wasn’t certain she could take much more. She could see Trevor was trying to get her inside, so she didn’t want to burden him by telling him her entire body felt as though she were suffering from frostbite.
“We have to get inside—it is the only place you will be safe from them. They cannot enter this retreat, as it belongs to Dark King’s consort, Crystal, and is warded specifically against them.”
“Okay,” Jazz agreed. “But I don’t see a way in. Maybe it is warded against us as well? Maybe we should just go check out the Prison Walls. Maybe it is warmer there.”
He eyed her suddenly and took her into his arms. “Are you cold, Jazmine Decker?” He breathed a soft, warm air all around her and said, “There, sweet. That should keep you more comfortable for a few minutes.”
“Wow, it’s like having my own instant sauna,” she said, impressed.
He frowned, once again deep in thought, and mumbled, “Breslyn and my brother, Danté, will locate the cracks in the wall from the outside and seal them. I have to find a way to distract the Unseelie Royals, which, thus far, I believe we have done.”
“When was that discussed?”
“It wasn’t discussed.” He grinned. “The queen mind-linked with me before we entered the portal.”
“Huh,” she said to this.
He glanced at her. “You shouldn’t be here, but you did serve to keep their minds off the walls. Hopefully they will be busy searching for us and we will be inside by the time they realize we have found a way into the retreat.”
“See, I am an excellent distraction,” she offered.
He pulled a face at her. “The only advantage I have is that they think I am here to kill them, so they will center their efforts on locating me. You are a distraction for me as well as for them.” He touched her nose. “Keeping you alive will be no easy task, because you are mortal, and in spite of the pendant and Aaibhe’s spell, I don’t like that you can so easily be destroyed.”
“Hey, don’t make so little of me.”
“You don’t understand, do you? It is the queen’s directive that I accomplish my mission without killing any of the Dark King’s Royal sons. I, however, would like to find a reason to kill them—one that cannot be disputed. You are turning out to be that reason, but there will be consequences.”
Jazz decided to change the subject. “Why didn’t the queen tell you how to get inside? Seems like an important detail, huh?”
“It forever changes. Those who wish to enter are judged worthy or not. That is all she was able to tell me.”
“Huh,” said Jazz consideringly and then, “Well, didn’t she have any idea what would be worthy?”
“No, for each of us it is different. The way is different for each of us …”
“What does that mean, really?”
“It means that anyone desirous of entering must I suppose pass some kind of test.”
“You mean we each have to prove ourselves. You mean it might let you in but not me? Not liking this.”
“Something like that, and I’m not liking it much either.” He looked around at the glass structure with its oddly shaped glass blocks protruding at angles and making the place look like an impenetrable ice statue. He shook his head as he used telepathy to communicate in ancient Danu, announcing himself as a Royal Prince of the House of Lugh to the structure he knew was a ‘living’ thing.
Nothing.
Jazz snickered and said, “It wasn’t impressed with your royalty.” However, at that moment she heard something, and not with her Fios senses but with her human senses, which meant it was something close by. She turned around. Her mouth dropped open, and she gasped.
Charging towards them, looking absolutely magnificent and just as terrifying, was a huge, tawny, horridly menacing creature. The closest description she could give was that it was like a lion, only warped, and this thing was fifteen feet in height and ten feet wide. Something had gone wrong when it had been created; the hulking thing was misshapen and adulterated. Its fangs dripped yellow saliva as it charged towards them, and Jazz realized this thing wasn’t just hungry—it was starving.
Ordinarily, she would have felt compassion for it and looked to feed it, but the problem here was that she was afraid it had already found food: her.
It was immortal and starving—forever hungry in a world where food was
limited, which meant it was determined. Oh yeah, she thought, it looked determined!
Jazz then noticed its open mouth and thought, oh no, that can’t be a mouth. The dark opening held her horribly fascinated; it was full of spiked hairs, and those hairs had living, biting snakeheads at their peaks. Lots and lots of mouths to feed, she told herself, thinking she was in an awful place and that she really needed to leave.
Her confidence vanished. Sheer and complete terror took over. “TREVOR!” she screamed.
Trevor cursed softly. “I know this beast!” he called out to her. “It has its origins in Danu.”
“Where can we go?” she wailed. “It is coming fast!”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan. This thing was created without benefit of the Wheel of Being, a derivative of the Krill.”
“You’re giving me a history of this thing’s family tree?” she asked incredulously. “Just tell me how we kill it!”
It stopped suddenly and looked directly at Trevor as though puzzling out just how to get past him to its food.
It obviously had decided she was just what it needed to eat, immediately. Momentarily, the creature appeared to be leery of Trevor, and it clawed the ground angrily.
Jazz wondered if it recognized Trevor as Fae? She looked into the beast’s soulless eyes and did, in fact, think she saw intelligence seated there. She felt a pang of sympathy for the beast. What was this Dark King that he had created so much havoc and pain, leaving all these creatures to fend for themselves?
Trevor had his Death Sword in hand and yelled over the beast’s roar at her, “Stay out of its way—STAY PUT. Its saliva is poisonous—to you, poisonous. Do you understand?”
She nodded vigorously. She had every intention of staying out of its way.
Trevor shifted onto the creature’s back, stood, and got ready to plunge his Death Sword. Then the unthinkable happened.
The beast stood and swiped the air with its huge claws, and Trevor lost his balance and fell.
The beast went back on all four and looked as though it was about to devour Trevor whole.
Jazz reacted; she ran forward, getting in its face to distract it. “Hey—you! Come on. You don’t want him—you want me …!”
It growled ferociously at her and forgot Trevor for the moment as it shook its enormous tawny mane and lowered its head while stalking towards her.
Trevor was already up and shouting at her to run, and she did, wondering how Trevor had recovered so quickly.
The beast was nearly on her, and she said a silent prayer as she looked over her shoulder to see Trevor once again on its back.
He plunged the Death Sword deep inside the beast. As it toppled to the ground, he shifted in front of it, saying ancient Danu words as he raised his sword again, this time with a slashing expertise that left it decapitated. What he apparently didn’t see as he got busy calling on a fire to burn the head was that, as the beast fell and rolled, it disgorged its last meal, one that was still alive.
Jazz’s eyebrows rose with her horror as a creature no taller than she but with many more legs, spidery legs, jumped onto the dry, dead earth and paused.
It looked like an overgrown tarantula until its protruding eyes discovered her standing there. She swore to herself that it somehow smiled … an evil, I’m coming for you smile.
Something grotesque popped out of the top of its hairy body, and Jazz saw that it was another head—this one, the size of a melon. In addition to the many eyes that this head sported was a row of gnashing, chomping, razor-like teeth.
She ran. There was nowhere to go but towards the oddly shaped glass building ahead. Maybe someone there, assuming that someone was there, might take pity on her situation and let her in.
She switched into Fios and used her Fios speed. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself—she looked over shoulder to see if the beast was gaining on her. It was. She was so dead.
She was almost at the glass house … almost, when she looked back once more and discovered that the monstrous spidery thing had stopped. It raised up onto four of its eight legs and gave what appeared to be a victory cry!
Magic! Because of her fear she had forgotten what she could do. With her back to the wall, so to speak, she turned and centered all her thoughts into one. She took whatever Dark Magic the creature had inside it and slammed that Dark Magic right back at it. YES, she told herself, Fios slamming.
It took the hit like a cannonball to its center, a center that had produced a suction-cup mouth with canines, and the beast went flying backwards.
All this had happened in less than a minute.
Trevor hadn’t yet noticed any of this as he made certain the krill was burned and unable to rise up.
Jazz turned back to the glass building and began pounding on its walls but got nothing. After what was only a moment though seemed an age to her, she turned to see the thing had righted itself and was coming at her once more as though it were driven by steam engines.
When it was less than one hundred feet away, it emitted something from one of its orifices, shooting it through the air to splatter her legs.
She felt a tingly sensation.
It felt hot and gooey, and when she tried to move, she found she was stuck in place. And the thing was still coming for her!
She screamed out Trevor’s name, but she didn’t have to—he was already there, plunging his Death Sword into the melon head, and then he cut the creature in half.
She watched him set the body on fire and then walk towards the head that had rolled some feet away.
She felt an odd twinge of pain begin to scurry up her legs. The twinge became a stabbing, sharp pain and seemed to increase in strength. She wondered if she had twisted a muscle trying to get out of the goop.
Trevor was in a fury as he stomped towards her and shouted, “I told you to stay put. Why don’t you ever listen?”
“Well, you are welcome,” she snapped in spite of the fact that in addition to her being stuck in goop, her legs felt like they were on fire. She found one hand was quite paralyzed, so she brought up the other to point at him and was surprised to hear her voice was no louder than a whisper. “I was saving you from being eaten.”
“I am a Seelie Royal. Did you think I was unconscious? I was waiting for the beast to come closer so that I could plunge my sword into its throat!” He threw up his hands with exasperation and then seemed to see for the first time that she was standing in a horrific substance.
“What the hell?” he said.
“Well then,” said Jazz, ignoring this. “There you are—and who expected that thingy to come out of its insides?” And so saying she felt herself sway.
Something was wrong, very, very wrong, and the last thing she remembered was Trevor, crying out her name as he reached for her.
* * *
Trevor’s lip curled with fury as he exploded the goop away from Jazz with a flick of his wrist. The goop turned to gray dust and filled the air with a thick cloud of putrid odor before the breeze dissipated it.
Even as he did this, he saw that she was unsteady and reached for her as she began to pass out. He caught her as she crumpled and held her cradle-like in his arms.
He couldn’t think.
He had to find a warm place for her human body. He had to break all the rules, just as Breslyn would do, and save her, for he had no doubt she had been covered in a poison that had gotten into the pores of her skin.
He shifted with her, and came to stand at the oddly shaped and impenetrable glass building. All at once, and without his asking, a ten-by-ten-foot sliding glass door appeared and opened. A robotic voice invited politely, “Enter.”
Trevor carried Jazz inside and found himself teleported with her still in his arms to a large and comfortable-looking chamber. Warmth enveloped him, and he saw that a fire burned invitingly in a corner pot-bellied stove. It struck him as odd, but he was thankful, for it would help warm his Jazmine Decker.
At the far end of the room was a
huge and canopied four-poster bed with soft blue velvet hangings, and he deposited her there.
He stroked her head and fixed her long, tangled blonde hair, blinking it smooth and then gently pushing it away from her face. He took off her gloves and rubbed her hands with his own. He dropped a kiss on her nose and then on her frozen lips and murmured, “Jazmine Decker, you will be fine. Do you hear me, sweet Fios? I shall warm you and heal you.”
He took her pulse, bent over her to put his head to her heart and heard its faint beating. “There you are, sweet Fios, my Fios …” He sighed and laid hands over her chest and said out loud, “Now, I will absorb the poison from your body.” A tension of power traveled from his body through his hands and into her, but very little of the poison was drawn from her. He frowned. “What is wrong, by Danu? It is not working!” He was frantic; suddenly, for the first time in his long young life, he was afraid, truly afraid.
The robotic voice said, “She is dying. You cannot heal her, as the poison has already begun shutting down her human organs. You may use our facilities to make her last moments comfortable.”
“Dying? No—she is not. I won’t let her,” Trevor spat as he turned around, looking for a body to match to the voice.
“You are Seelie. You may not interfere with the human life force—they live, they die.”
“Damn you. She is not going to die.” He took her hand in his, which he discovered was shaking, and his insides clenched.. “I have never healed anyone, human or otherwise. I am not certain why it isn’t working. The poison should have been drawn out of you, Jazmine Decker. Listen to me, sweet love, don’t go … I won’t, can’t lose you. Please, Jazmine Decker, fight the poison. Let your Fios fight the poison.”
The robotic voice clucked at him. “A Fios is not immortal. She cannot fight the poison.”
“Damn you!” he shouted. “Why didn’t you allow us entrée at once? YOU knew what was out there. If you had let her in—”
“Destiny moves on its own,” the voice said, interrupting him. “I was created to guard and protect only my mistress and promote non-interference in all other matters. However, my mistress was once human and has instilled other directives in me, and at times they collide, as they did when I observed that your Fios was dying. It is not interference to give shelter at such times.”