She supposed that she and Walker didn't look all that different from any of the other couples who walked together along the paths that curled through the hillsides. Blending in was helpful, but they weren't here to take in the closest thing to fresh air that Manhattan had to offer. They took the nearest path west, heading deeper into the park where the trees thickened into surprisingly dense copses of old-growth forest.
Inwood, she had read, represented the last remnants of the woodland that had covered Manhattan when the humans had settled it only four centuries ago. Only a little longer than she'd been alive, and already they'd covered all but the smallest slivers of the island with concrete and metal and glass. She shook her head. No wonder magic had gotten so hard to come by. Faerie magic especially, since it relied so heavily on the energy of the land. Inwood Hill Park was the last piece of real land in the city and one of the only places with enough wild magic left to sustain a Faerie gate.
Walker glanced down at her and raised an eyebrow. "That's a weird expression," he said. "I can't tell if you're angry or amused. What's going on in your head?"
"Just reflecting on how fast this place managed to go to pot once we left. Apparently, you give mortals a few centuries and they just can't help but muck the whole place up."
They reached a branch in the path that gave them the choice of turning north or south. Instead, they stepped off the trail and began to wend their way into the woods.
"A few centuries? Hey, you guys moved out something like three millennia ago. Now you're going to complain about the new decorating scheme? That's just bad manners."
Fiona chuckled and ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch. "Yeah, yeah. Better bad manners than bad taste, is what I say."
"Dilettante."
"Barbarian."
They grinned at each other and kept walking.
As the trees grew taller and thicker around them, the last of the weak sunlight faded, leaving them in a premature darkness more charcoal than black.
"Can you see okay?" Walker asked.
"Sure. My night vision isn't as good as yours, but I get by."
The woods muffled the noise, too. There wasn't anywhere in the city where you could completely escape the sounds of traffic and people, but they were quieter here. The Henry Hudson Parkway ran overhead to the west, but no one else had wandered off the path with them, so Fiona didn't hear any voices or any footsteps other than their own.
Until Squick piped up, of course.
"I's suffocating! Air! I needs air!"
Fiona rolled her eyes and shrugged off one strap of the shoulder bag, letting it fall open to the cool evening. "You're not suffocating, but there's no one else around, so I suppose you can come out now."
The imp clambered up the canvas and used Fiona's shirtsleeve like a ladder to haul himself up to her shoulder. With much grumbling and an indignant "humph," he prepared to settle himself down into his accustomed seat.
Walker glanced over and shook his head. "Not there, squirt. Try the other side."
The imp obeyed and scrambled across Fiona's shoulders to sit on the other side. Fiona looked from her shoulder to Walker with wide eyes, puzzled by the order. As soon as their eyes met, she felt the skin of the shoulder closest to him tingle and realization dawned. Squick had been about to sit on the shoulder that bore Walker's mark. She saw the satisfaction in her mate's expression when she made the connection, but he didn't say anything. She supposed he didn't need to.
Walker led the way up a hill and paused as they reached the top. "We're getting close to the gate now, so I want you to keep your eyes open. I know we didn't see anything last time we were here, but it was daylight then. It's nearly dark enough now for demon activity, so stay alert, all right?"
Fiona nodded, but she wasn't worried about demons; she was worried about Babbage.
"Miss Fiona," Squick said suddenly, his high, childlike voice speaking right up next to her ear, "did you knows your pocket is glowing?"
Automatically Fiona looked down and saw a dim blue-silver light glowing through the fabric of her jacket pocket. It took a moment for her to remember exactly what she had put in that pocket. The little pouch of glass.
She grabbed Walker's arm and stopped in her tracks. "Look."
Digging in her pocket, she drew the pouch out and held it up to him. Even through the velvet, the light shining from the small shards was unmistakable. Excitement welled inside her.
"He's here," she said quietly but animatedly. "He's in the park. He must be near the gate. Come on! Hurry!"
She didn't wait for Walker's answer, just took off into the woods. Behind her, the Lupine cursed, but she heard his long strides hurrying after her. He'd be angry with her when they reached the gate, she knew. He'd probably give her a lecture on how he was supposed to be protecting her and he couldn't do that if she was going to take off without warning him. She didn't care. He could lecture all he wanted after they found Babbage. Her relief at knowing he was close made her feet lighter. Finally, she was going to get some good news after way too much of the other kind.
Breaking through the tree line into the clearing, Fiona scanned the open area for signs of the pixie. She didn't see him. Frowning, she realized she couldn't hear his wings beating, either.
"Oh, Miss Fiona," Squick said, but he didn't sound quite like himself. His arrogant, petulant tone had disappeared, and in its place he sounded… sad. "Oh, Princess, this is baddie-bad-bad-bad."
The imp jumped down from her shoulder and ran across the leaf-covered clearing to a dark patch on the ground at the foot of the Faerie door.
She felt Walker's hand settle on her shoulder at the same time that her eyes focused on the rough stone of the gate. She had to blink before what they were seeing made sense. The dark, faintly glistening smears on the face of the rock hadn't been there the last time she'd seen it, and neither had the series of ugly, uneven marks on the trees at either side.
In her hand, the pouch of glass glowed brightly, giving off enough light to cast the shadow of her hand on the ground at her feet. It glowed so brightly that Babbage should have been hovering right there in front of her.
The hand on her shoulder tightened and then Walker was pulling her toward him, wrapping her up in his arms and pressing her head to his chest, blotting out the sight of the gate. Numbly Fiona blinked against the soft cotton of his shirt, but the images wouldn't go away. Even with her eyes closed, she could still see the dark, gory mess of demon signs written in her friend's cooling blood.
Walker's gut clenched, and he suppressed the urge to howl up into the twilight sky. He didn't need to know magic to know why his mate stood silent and shaking in his arms. His nose told him that. He could smell the blood, thick and sweet and metallic on the night air. They had found Babbage, but the pixie wouldn't be sharing his news with them.
Walker held Fiona tight against him, thinking savagely that he'd spent too much time lately comforting the women he loved. When he found the thing responsible for causing their pain, he was going to relish tearing it into tiny, bloody, squirming little pieces.
At the foot of the gate, Squick was bending over what Walker had thought was a pile of bloody leaves, but when the imp put one hand on the lump, he realized they really had found the pixie. Walker's sensitive night vision hadn't registered the small body because it had already gone cold. Babbage had been dead at least a few hours.
"I didn't means it when I called him stupid," Squick said, looking up at them. His puckish face was drawn into lines of confusion, like a child who couldn't understand why Fluffy didn't just wake up from its nap. "He not so stupid all the times."
Walker felt Fiona shudder, heard her uneven gasps as she fought back the tears that threatened to choke her. She stirred in his embrace, and he had to force himself to release her when all his instincts demanded that he protect her from the painful sight at her back.
"I know, Squick," she said. Walker felt a surge of pride. Her voice was thick with tears but steady and strong. His
mate wouldn't fall apart now. She knew this wasn't the time. "Babbage didn't think you were stupid all the time, either."
It sounded strange to Walker, but it seemed to comfort Squick. The imp nodded and looked down at the pixie's remains. "I don't thinks he still want to be here, Miss Fiona. I think he probably rathers to be home. Maybe I can takes him home?"
Fiona shook her head. "I'm sorry, Squick, but the gate isn't working, remember? We can't get back home."
"Oh yeah." The imp seemed to deflate. "I forgots."
Walker looked around the clearing, paying careful attention to the area just in front of the gate. He could see a few tracks that obviously hadn't been left by the pixie, who seemed a lot more inclined to fly than to walk.
Walker frowned. "I think Babbage did, too. Judging by the tracks, it looks like he was killed by the same demon that attacked us when Fiona first came through the gate, which means Babbage had plenty of time to see him coming. Probably heard him, too."
Fiona frowned. "So?"
"So, all the entrances to Faerie are warded against demons, right?"
She nodded. "Yes. There hasn't been a demon sighted in our territory since the Wars."
"Then I think Babbage's first reaction was to head right for the gate. He forgot that it was sealed. He was trying to get back into Faerie."
"But Miss Fiona telled him to comes back to her," Squick protested, "and the pixie always do just what Miss Fiona say."
"Maybe he did," Walker said. "But if a demon was coming after him, he might have thought he could go through the gate and wait on the other side until the demon got sick of waiting and left. Then he could come back and talk to Fiona just like he promised."
"He might have," Fiona said softly. "Babbage always obeys orders, but he's never been called courageous. If he'd seen the demon coming, he would have tried to get to safety."
Walker put his hand on her shoulder again. The urge to comfort her was too strong to ignore. Even if he couldn't make the pain of losing a friend go away, Walker remembered how much it had meant that she'd been there when he'd found out about Shelby.
The bond between them kept getting stronger and stronger, and if they had ever needed to share their strength with each other, now was the time.
He felt the coolness of her skin even through the covering of her shirt and jacket, but it began to warm at his touch and he felt her pull herself up. She squared her shoulders and drew a deep breath, then turned to look up at the gate.
She clenched her teeth and made a muscle jump in the side of her jaw. Walker just stood quietly while her eyes scanned the smears of blood against stone and then looked at the marks on the tree trunks. He heard her breath hiss through her teeth.
"More sigils." Her voice shook, this time not with grief but with rage. "Damn the fiend and all of its kind for the rest of eternity! It used his blood to draw the sigils."
Walker squinted at the dark, ugly lines and frowned. He couldn't read them, but they did look similar to the ones he'd seen carved into the bodies of the demons' earlier victims. "It's still trying to break away from the amulet. I hope to God it hasn't figured out how."
"Squick, we need to find out exactly what those glyphs mean," Fiona said. "Every single line of them. I want a direct translation. I don't care if you have to ask every single demon Below to find out, but I want the answer."
The imp looked alarmed. "But Miss Fiona, the demons doesn't like us. They only didn't eat us last time because I hides real good. If I talks to them, I ends up dinner for sure."
"Fine. Then I'll go myself. Just point me to the gate."
Walker grabbed her and spun her around. "Hold on a minute," he soothed. "I know you're upset, but there's no way I'm letting you go to hell to ask directions."
"It's not hell," she snapped, her eyes flashing up at him, a mixture of anger, pain, and determination. "Don't bring mortal religion into this. It's just Below. It's no different from going to Faerie."
"Sure, except Faerie is populated by pixies and sprites and sidhe, as opposed to big, hungry demons who happen to still be holding a grudge about the way your ancestors kicked their asses."
"I don't care if they're holding a grudge over the last mortal presidential election. We need this information, and if the only way to get it is to go Below, then I'm going!"
Walker drew a deep breath and wrestled back the urge to just throw her over his shoulder and be done with it. These protective instincts were becoming almost impossible to tamp down. The idea of seeing his mate put herself in danger drove him crazy. He couldn't imagine what would happen to him if anything happened to her.
"I don't think that's a very good idea, Princess," he began, clenching his teeth to keep from shouting.
"I don't care what you think!"
He could feel his eyes flashing with temper and used all his willpower to keep it from boiling over. "And I don't care if you're queen of the whole goddamned universe," Walker said, his voice dangerously low. "There's no fucking way I'm letting you walk into some dimension full of demons. You are not putting yourself in that kind of danger."
"You don't get to tell me what to do, wolf!"
Something tugged hard at the leg of his jeans and cut off Walker's sharp retort.
"Um, excuses me, furry mortal guy, but you gonna have to stops with the screamings and shoutings."
"In case you hadn't noticed, Squick," Walker bit out, not taking his eyes from his mate, "I'm not the one doing the shouting."
"That's nice, furry mortal guy," the imp said, tugging again, "but the princess be yelling so loud that nobodies need to go nowheres to find demons. They coming right here."
Walker heard the low, menacing growl a split second before Squick screamed. Instinct took over, and Walker threw himself at Fiona, shoving her to the ground and covering her with his body. He felt the searing pain of a claw ripping into his flesh, and he howled. He braced his hands on the ground at Fiona's side and the glow of his eyes illuminated her startled face.
"Stay down," he hissed, and threw himself into his change.
* * *
CHAPTER 24
Stay down?
Fiona lay on a bed of leaves and twigs for half a second and blinked. Was he out of his bloody mind?
As soon as his weight left her, she sprang to her feet. Walker had been right. The same demon that had attacked her when she first appeared in Manhattan the week before crouched in the center of the clearing, eyes glittering red-orange with menace. It had its gaze locked on her, staring past Walker's huge half-wolfen form with malevolent intent. Slowly, never blinking, it raised one misshapen hand and licked a drop of Walker's blood from its long, curving claw.
The rage bubbled inside her like lava, thick and searing and destructive. She'd never experienced anything like it, never known she was capable of hating so violently and so completely. Her people were poets and lovers, a race that had fought one war in its entire existence—the war that had banished creatures like this one to the depths of Below and bound them there forever. For the first time Fiona understood what it meant to have a racial enemy, something that could be despised not for who it was, but for what it was. Evil.
She stepped forward, but Walker cut her off, keeping his body between hers and the demon's. It wasn't that difficult. In his were form, one that combined the features of man and wolf, he stood over seven feet tall on his hind legs, and his body rippled with cords of heavy muscle. She knew she couldn't get around him without cheating, damn him.
The demon, though, didn't pay Walker any attention. Not until it tried to push past him. With an echoing howl, Walker lunged for its throat, lips drawn back over gleaming white fangs, hands heavy with sharp black claws of his own.
Astonishingly fast for something so huge, the demon thrust its arm out and caught Walker with a backhanded blow just before his teeth made contact with its thick skin. Fiona cried out as her mate went down to the ground with a grunt. He turned even as he landed and slashed at the demon's leg, slicing through
armored skin into flesh and tendon. The demon bellowed in pain and turned away from Fiona to stare down at Walker, hate and murder gleaming in its eyes.
Fiona heard Walker snarl something she couldn't understand, but the message was clear. He arched his back and flipped himself onto his feet, ducking beneath another heavy blow. Keeping his head down, he launched himself at the demon like a linebacker, coming in hard and low. The demon staggered backward a couple of steps but didn't fall. Its goatlike legs absorbed the shock and pushed back, shoving Walker away with brute strength.
Remembering the early struggle between demon and wolf, Fiona felt her stomach churning. They had both been injured last time, and that had been before the demon had a chance to feed. By now, its strength would have multiplied, increased by every heart it had consumed. She didn't know if Walker could defeat it.
She looked down and saw Squick watching the battle from between her feet, eyes wide, hands moving in pantomime punches in time with the contestants.
"Squick, I need you to do me a favor."
The imp looked up at her. "Now, Miss Fiona?"
"Yes, now. I'm going to try to do a spell, but it's a tricky one, and I'm going to need to concentrate. I need you to watch out for Walker. If he gets into trouble, you need to do whatever you can to distract the demon until I'm ready. Do you understand?"
"I understands, miss, but why you wants to help the furry mortal guy I doesn't know. Mortals break too easy, you know?"
"Just do it, Squick. Make sure he doesn't get himself killed. And make sure you don't, either."
Face grim, Fiona moved quickly to the gate, pressing her back up against the stone. She might not be able to get through the damned thing, but she might be able to get a little boost of energy from it, if she was lucky. And if not, at least this way she knew nothing was going to come up behind her.
She knew the fabric of the spell she was about to cast. She'd read about it many times during her education, but she'd never cast it herself. She wasn't sure if anyone had, not since the end of the Wars. After all, when the demons had been banished, there hadn't been much reason for anyone to cast a spell designed to destroy them.
She's No Faerie Princess Page 23