by Jayne Hawke
What pretty dreams they were.
Nine
The majority of the list needed to be done at night. Partially because it was really hard to do shit like destroy half a foot bridge or move a statue in broad daylight, and partially because the megaminds had explicitly said it needed to be done after dark. My personal theory was that shadows didn't really exist at night, and thus we were safer from the goddess if we did it at night. Although that theory came undone when I considered the shadows formed by streetlights and the moon.
My day had been spent working out until I had a pleasant ache. I needed to be ready on every possible level for whatever was to come. The effort I'd put into improving and refining both my magic and my hand-to-hand combat was not be underestimated. I quietly wondered if Castor would have been proud of me.
Infinity wrapped itself around the back of my neck and caressed my scalp at the thought. The fox was still out there, and I hoped he was doing ok. There was a chance that the goddess had punished him for his indiscretions, for his attempt to help me. Sighing, I reminded myself there was absolutely nothing I could do about that. We were both adults, we'd both made our own decisions.
For some reason, the mercenaries that were going after Varehn's bounty hadn't been particularly dedicated to that pursuit. Rex had fended off a particularly inept pair of magpie shifters who'd attempted to turn their need for shiny new things into a mercenary business. Needless to say, they hadn't lasted very long.
The bird shifters weren't all that well thought of in our circles; they just weren't cut out to be fighters. Each of them was light boned, and while some of them were fantastic tacticians they didn't have what it took to go anywhere with that. Yet there were always some who wanted to try. I think it must have felt good to try and break out of the mould that they'd fallen into. They soon learnt that it existed for a reason. While I was all for smashing boundaries and glass ceilings, those poor bastards did have very real limitations.
By the end of the day, I needed to get out of the house and had declared that I was getting burgers for everyone. There was an incredible little burger place in a hidden square not too far from the beach. It was a little complicated to get there, and the burger place looked as though it was a shed. None of that mattered. The fact was, those burgers were the best I'd ever had. And they were what we all needed right then.
As ever and again, the mercenary community had managed to dig deep into the bottom of the barrel to find another gang of halfwits too wet behind the ears to understand their limits. That meant my burger run was fated to become a bloodbath of epically pitiful proportions. The sun was setting over the sea, a sandy beach all that separated me from the waves – the only problem being that the most recent wave had brought with it several angry-looking undine.
The mix of emotions that hit me as I saw them draw up the gentle surf into menacing pillars of water showed me just how heavily the burden of the coming battle was sitting. I was exhausted, pissed off, and afraid. A moment later, all of that was gone, a dark pit of serene resignation suffusing me, enlightenments cold mirror settling my nerves and silencing my inner voice. I was going to kill them so thoroughly that the entire pantheon of oceanic killers would have nightmares.
I stared them down, my face impassive, and they faltered. I drew down a thick shadow armour, watching their confusion in the fading coherence of their waters, taking my time infusing my body with earth and life while they attempted to regain their composure. They were in full panic by the time I took my first step onto the beach, and they threw a mass of water at me in terrified reflex.
I rushed them, slamming through the haphazard attack with the strength and mass my spellwork had given me. They turned to flee into the sea, but it was far too late. The dozen feet that had been between us at the start was all but gone, and they’d taken less than a step before I was on them. I smashed into them like a freight train, the life magic turning my muscles into a glow of power and pleasure as the unbreakable combination of stony earth-infused skin and shadow armour made my fists into instruments of devastation. Bones snapped and skin split open with wet squelches of sea water, my blows leaving them alive and conscious to experience every moment of their end.
They lay broken on the beach, the sea water mingling with the saline blood saturating the sand, and I drew out a needless blanket of fire to scorch them to ash and steam. Before I could finish the spell, I felt a massive blow to the spine land solidly on my back, throwing me to the ground. They’d been a decoy, and I’d fallen for it, my emotional breakdown making me vulnerable as I should have known it would.
I rolled over as another blow landed, turning to find a massive wall of scarred flesh and scrap steel wielding a mace bigger than I was. I completed the fire spell in a flash and threw it at the beast, but it pushed through, its skin blistering, half its face black and ruined. The eerie silence of it, even in that moment of agony and exertion, was horrifying and distracting. It landed another blow to my chest, my armour compressing into my ribs, a series of sharp snapping sounds accompanying a splash of blood from what could only be a punctured lung.
Knowing I had no time to waste on complex spellwork, I dragged on the storm magic stored in a copper charm at my waist and threw it outwards, the mercifully cooperative lightning doing its work with a crack that seemed to bespeak a near-sentient bliss. The beast dropped backwards, dead before it hit the ground. I drew a shadow blade and beheaded it, not willing to take a risk even in the state I was, and collapsed to the ground at its side. I took the dissipating life magic of the beast and drew it into a healing spell, adding what little was left in my stores, and made myself as right as I could, resolving to add healing potions to my everyday carry.
The burgers lay undisturbed on the pavement to my right, and I made my way to them as best I could. I leaned against the little seawall and ate, the last rays of sunset melting away whatever was left of the cool emptiness that had so nearly gotten my killed. I felt better, better than I had in a long time. I wasn’t strong, I was amazing, whatever weaknesses I had outweighed by strength of will and brilliant spellcasting.
We were going to win this.
Ten
I’d gone back and bought more burgers for the pack after I ate the original lot. The healing had taken a lot of energy, and I finally had some understanding of how the pack must have felt all of the time.
“I thought you’d gotten lost,” Rex grumbled.
“I’ll eat your burger if you’re going to be ungrateful,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes at me.
“I’m plenty grateful.”
I held onto the bag full of still-warm joy, knowing that the smell of them was making his mouth water.
“Thank you, Lily, for getting us burgers,” Rex said grudgingly.
I grinned and handed him his food.
I ate an entire pot of ice-cream while the others inhaled their burgers. My body was still recovering, and I needed to be in fine form to take the support out from a foot bridge that night.
Elijah came in an hour after sunset with deep gouges over his chest and upper arms. Frowning, I went to him and checked the injuries, which were already healing.
“What happened? Mercs?”
He sighed and picked up his burgers.
“The statue came alive. It was very pissed off and did not want to be moved.”
I bit back a laugh. It was cruel to laugh at the image of him going to war against a pissed off statue. Laugher was better than crying, though.
“Did you manage to kick it’s ass?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. I hadn’t managed to keep the taunting and laughter entirely out of my tone. I’d tried, really, I had.
“I did. It finally relented when I pointed out that the new location was a sunnier spot with far fewer gulls.”
I patted his arm affectionately.
“That’s my alpha.”
He ignored me and devoured the rest of his burgers.
The sensation that we had
a real chance of winning this hadn’t left me. Everyone was working their way down their portion of the lists, and thus far we hadn’t run into any serious problems. Some of it had been a little more difficult than initially expected, such as Elijah’s statue. But the feeling that this was happening, that I could finally be free of the weight of the goddess across my shoulders, was everpresent.
I kept reminding myself not to get arrogant. That was when mistakes happened. Still the hope remained, a small spark bringing a smile to my face as I told Elijah to wish me luck before I headed out to take the support out from a foot bridge.
Eleven
My next stop on the weird shadow tasks tour was a little fae river, or more accurately a bridge that crossed it, in the middle of one of their parks. Supposedly the river very occasionally changed colours to a colour beyond human comprehension, and at that time there was a brief moment where you could pass through into the faery homeland, appropriately named Fae. I was never a big believer in the ‘colours beyond colour’ thing. I might have lived in a world of inexplicable fae follies, but it seemed to me that a colour that could be seen could be described. For that matter, it seemed odd that the fae would allow a portal to the one place that was entirely theirs to exist somewhere humans could readily wander through; not to mention that ‘through’ a river was a conveniently vague route in the first place.
In any case, crossing it was going to get more difficult very soon. That is, once I got into the park. Most fae parks were technically barred to non-fae, and this one was doubtless the same. The enforcement on that sort of thing was unpredictable, though, equally likely to be a giggle, a garotte, or a thousand-page report to the lord. It all came down to who caught you and what sort of mood they were in. Whatever the possibilities, it was best not to be caught, especially given my rather high-profile conflicts with certain members of the fae upper class.
I did my normal recon of the place, finding most of it surrounded by a warded wrought-iron fence perhaps eight feet tall, no doubt a little in joke by the fae, who had long encouraged rumours of their having a fatal weakness for iron. The wards, if I read them right, did two things. The first was a standard members-only barrier that blocked anyone who wasn’t supposed to enter from doing so. The second left non-fae with a rather mundane view of an empty field full of relatively normal fae vegetation, if there was such a thing, the little river that ran the length of the park before slipping into the ground on either end, and the soon-to-be-undermined footbridge. What was actually inside was something I’d soon find out.
The wards ended a few feet above the fence, their creativity apparently outstripping their thoroughness. How very fae. I climbed a building across the street (they had, of course, zoned any multi-storey buildings out of existence in the area abutting the place) and, with a fair dose of air magic to cushion my leap, launched myself out and over the fence, landing with infinite gentleness on what turned out to be closer to a barren stone plaza than a park.
The ground was made up of a perfectly uniform sheet of volcanic glass, entirely featureless, running up to circle of living black bark climbing to the top of the wards, like a massive hollow tree turned inside out. The magic was ethereal, distinctly fae but carrying none of the life and sparkle that I was used to. I could only call it death magic, something I hadn’t known existed, something that shouldn’t have existed. I tried to place it into my charms, emptying them out one by one, but none of them would hold it. If it was capturable, it took a material I didn’t have with me.
I came close to attempting to cut a chunk out of the bark around the edges, fairly certain the stone beneath me would be immune to even my shadow blades, but stopped myself before I called down the wrath of whatever black-hearted fae required a park like this. I shuddered when I realized that the presence of the park on our plane, in our city, implied that the being that needed it had to live in Brighton, or at least near to Brighton. It wasn’t at all impossible that these things were everywhere and that whatever purpose this served was enacted around me without my even knowing it.
It wasn’t the time to dwell. The footbridge and the river beneath it were the only things there that had been visible from outside the garden, if you could even call this a garden, and that, at least, meant that my job was still as straightforward as it seemed. Made of normal earth-plane stone, it was a straightforward task to pull on the magic of the bridge itself to turn the stone into sand. It would’ve been faster to use my own magic rather than forming the loop, but with characteristic foresight I had dumped all of mine trying to steal the death all around me.
With my task complete, I filled a flask with water on the off chance that there really was something unique about it and climbed the rough bark to the safety and sanity of the world I knew.
Twelve
Blaze was a name that conjured up the image of some fearsome biker gang type; at least it did in my mind. The Blaze I knew and tolerated was, in fact, a diminutive woman with neon green hair and magpie tendencies. She was also an alchemist who could stay quiet when I brought her less-than-legal things to look over and test out for me.
I’d given her a small vial of the river water, perhaps five percent of what I had total. She had sent me out into a bland magnolia-coloured room with three chairs in the very middle and nothing else. Not so much as a magazine to flip through while she did her thing.
The cover she’d formed over the last five or more years was as some mediocre healer who helped grannies with their warts and kids with inconvenient maladies. Everything about her place was the very definition of bland and unoffensive. Or at least it was supposed to be – personally, I found the magnolia colouring pretty offensive.
She had two labs hidden behind that glossy off-white door. The first was where she did her healing work. It contained everything you’d expect from that type of thing. An old, slightly ratty chair, one of those doctor’s beds, and a bunch of herbs and pretty vials along the walls with handwritten labels on them. It was verging on quaint.
If you followed her behind the pale blue curtain, you’d see what she really did to pay the bills. Ceramic-coated tables covered in small metal bowls on a spectrum from copper to incomprehensible nightmare metal, splashes of blood, drips of ooze, and the occasional stray bone were all strewn around the large space. For whatever reason, Blaze kept the place in semi-darkness. Personally, I’d have thought that she’d want full light to manage to, you know, see.
After what felt like an eternity, she emerged with a feral smile on her face.
“I’ll give you five grand for all you have.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“You have no idea how much I have.”
“Enough for five grand.”
I snorted. A really ladylike gesture.
“Not a chance in Hel. Tell me what it does.”
She narrowed her eyes at that. I felt her gaze drop to my hip, where a silver canteen sat. Said canteen had a standard healing potion in it. I wasn’t fool enough to take the complete lot of fae water to her.
“Not much, it’s just great for healing.”
“Bullshit.”
I didn’t know much about alchemy, but I knew that she’d never have acted like that if it wasn’t special. Or if she wasn’t trying to screw me.
She narrowed her eyes and shifted her weight a few times before she finally saw that I wasn’t budging.
“Ok, fine. It plays with time. I’m not entirely sure what its limits are yet, as I haven’t had the chance to really poke at it.”
“I’ll give you two vials in return for thirty sunshine bombs and ten grand,” I said flatly.
“Oh, come on!”
“If it’s that interesting, then plenty of people will be willing to pay me far more.”
No one would be able to get more of this water, and the alchemists would be dying to get their hands on something that played with time. Just think of the potions they could make to turn back the aging process. Two potions and they’d be set for life.
> Blaze threw her hands up.
“Fine. Thirty of my finest sunshine bombs and ten grand, and you give me two full vials of that water.”
I gave her a firm nod, satisfied that it was a good deal. That would leave me with half of the flask left. I’d decide what to do with it at a later date. The sunshine bombs would be useful against anything shadowy the goddess decided to send after me. Probably. It was best to be prepared.
Thirteen
I’d crashed out in bed and curled against Elijah when I’d gotten home. All of this ‘saving the world’ stuff was exhausting.
When I woke, he was kissing my throat with soft fluttery kisses that gently brought me to wakefulness. A girl could get used to that. We spent the next hour teasing and enjoying each other before we made our way downstairs.
Some would have argued that we should have been more focused on the shadow-given list. They were wrong. We were facing down a fallen goddess, a literal goddess. As far as I was concerned, we needed to enjoy every little thing as much as possible. There was a very real chance that we were going to die before the end of the week.
That thought wasn’t something I hadn’t really wanted to have pre-coffee. Stupid brain, betraying me like that, making me face down the potential death of myself and my beloved pack. Sighing, I made my coffee ridiculously strong and threw myself into figuring out exactly what I needed to do next.