by Holly Evans
My phone buzzed as we walked around the corner to the air dock. Logan had messaged.
LOGAN: You have competition. Thyrin hired me to go after the stone, too. Starting with a lead here in Paris.
I wasn’t going to deny that Logan was a damn fine treasure hunter, but that didn’t stop me from being a little upset that Fein had felt the need to hire both of us. It made sense from a business perspective, two hunters are more likely to succeed than one, but it still stung. I tried to think up a casual reply to Logan, but nothing formed in my mind. It wasn’t the first time we’d been competing for the same artifact, and we’d always ended up working together and splitting the profits in the past. I opted to leave it until we got to Reykjavik and focus on the research we’d managed to do thus far.
22
A small crowd had gathered in the docking area as we waited to be loaded onto the airship. I’d done this enough times to know how to handle the situation. I gestured for Erin to stay close to me while I watched the little old witch. It wasn’t the young passengers you had to watch, it was the supposedly frail old ladies.
True to form, the old witch tried to hook her cane around Tyn’s ankle so as to trip him and get in front of him when the doors opened. Tyn rolled his eyes and stepped forward half a step, putting himself more firmly in front of the woman. She wasn’t done yet, though. She shifted her weight and turned slightly sideways, trying to get her hand on the bar to Tyn’s left, thus giving her leverage to bodily push past him. Tyn gave her a very pointed look and stepped in front of her entirely, giving Erin and me room to step into. The old witch huffed and muttered under her breath as we stepped onto the transport and claimed the first seats. It was a small victory, but it still felt good.
Tyn wove his way between the small wooden tables and chairs (all securely bolted down) to one of the longer slender tables near the large windows. He claimed a bench seat with a wide smile of victory. I couldn’t help but laugh as I joined him. Erin sat opposite us and gazed out of the oval window looking out over the city. There wasn’t much to see just yet. The dock was positioned relatively low so as to make it easier for passengers to embark and disembark. There were none of the fancy air pillows here, everyone walked on and off the ship.
The rest of the passengers soon crowded into the space, making it feel almost claustrophobic as they squeezed into every last seat. The sound soon washed over me and broke whatever calm I may have had. Erin was too absorbed in the view between the spires and over the red rooves to pay any attention. Her mouth wore a delicate smile that made me smile with her. It was contagious. Her expression was full of wonder and hope.
A woman who appeared to be a similar age to Erin and me sidled up to our table and gave Tyn a charming smile.
“I don’t suppose I could squeeze in with you, could I?” she asked.
I’d been hoping to continue my reading on the history of the stone and the wolves we were meeting in Reykjavik. I wouldn’t be able to do that with a stranger at our table. She leaned over the table a little allowing her top to slip and give Tyn a clear view.
The Cait Sidhe rolled his eyes and said, “Sorry, but no.”
She sniffed and glared at him before she turned her attention to me.
“I’m only little. I’m sure you won’t even notice me,” she said with honeyed tones.
I shrugged. “Sorry.”
A quick glance around the cabin showed me that there was a perfectly reasonable space on a table with what appeared to be college students.
I smiled and gestured over to their table. “I’m sure those gentlemen would be happy for you to squeeze in,” I said.
Her expression tightened, and I caught the flash of silver at her hip - a small knife. It wasn’t unusual for people to carry knives. You never knew when you’d run into a kelpie or a particularly enthusiastic puka. Still, that only hardened my desire to keep her away from our group and the information we had. The Seers Stone would be the find of the century. There was a very real chance that she was a rival treasure hunter looking for an easy in.
“Thank you, enjoy your trip,” she said with a false smile and clipped tones.
Erin frowned at me. “Do you think she knew who we were?”
I shrugged and gave her a reassuring smile.
“Perhaps, there’s likely to be plenty of competition. We’ll just have to be careful, is all,” I said.
The airship rocked a little, which caused someone to give a startled cry. They must have been a first-time passenger. I’d been taking trips on the airships for as long as I could remember. My uncle took me around the world during the school holidays. My parents had no interest in seeing me, and I couldn’t say I had much interest in seeing them. They provided me with plenty of money and the best education said money could afford. My uncle gave me all of the love and support I needed. It had worked out rather well.
Once the airship had levelled out and was flying across the city, I pulled out my notes and reread everything I had, trying to find something small that I might have missed. Erin reached across the small table and took the notes I’d already read, her fingers brushing mine as she did so. I clamped down the urge to smile and acknowledge her touch, instead throwing myself into reading the sparse details on the stone.
There was no mention about how it came into being, whether it was forged or created in some way. It seemed to just pop out of the ether one day, which lent credence to the theory that the fae had dropped it into our plane for giggles. It certainly wasn’t the first time they’d done such a thing. At least the stone was controllable and hadn’t caused too much trouble. The last fae prank I had heard about had taken years to recover from.
A small town in Germany had found itself suddenly overrun with wild pixies. At first it had started with the usual annoyances that came with pixies, shiny things being stolen, people being bitten, food being spoiled, and other such things. On the third day, something changed. The pixies became peculiarly friendly, approached people with big smiles and mutterings of friendship. It lasted a grand total of four hours. At the strike of noon every pixie in the town began to violently vibrate. On the twelfth chime of the town clock, they exploded. Well, most of them. A few of them became blackened and charred, but didn’t quite get as far as the exploding part. They were reported to sulk and mutter before they slipped away into the forest. Needless the say, the town took extensive damage and there were a high number of deaths. Pixies were never seen the same way again.
23
The majority of passengers departed at Vienna. Erin had remained glued to the window for the majority of the flight. I had to smile at her enthusiasm, and the view really had been stunning. We’d been blessed with beautiful flying conditions with barely any cloud cover. Tyn, on the other hand, had been quiet and tense. He watched everyone around us with a keen eye. He wasn’t the only one to notice that the woman who had tried to join us earlier remained on the ship at Vienna. Three other people were unsubtly watching both us and the woman, which only added to my theory that she was a rival treasure hunter.
Neither Erin nor Tyn had spoken a word about our goal in Reykjavik. When one of us spoke, it was merely to comment on the sprawling landscape below us. I desperately wanted to share my excitement at going to meet the witches and their familiars and the forest they had claimed as theirs. Where Prague had gained a section of the city when the planes came together, Reykjavik had gained a small forest on its outskirts. No one was allowed to step foot within the boundaries, not without the witches’ explicit permission, anyway. There were rumours about what was in there. All anyone knew was, it was full of incredibly potent magic that the witches guarded fiercely. A number of people had been killed for trying to get into the forest without permission. I was hoping to be granted such entry, even if only for a couple of hours. My curiosity was killing me. The potential was huge!
“What are you grinning goofily about?” Tyn asked me.
I blinked and looked at him before I realised I’d been contemplat
ing what could be in the forest. All the new types of magic I could find in there, the experiments I could run back in my lab, the artifacts I could create.
I shrugged. “I’m just excited about Reykjavik.”
He raised his eyebrow but let it slide. Erin, however, grinned at me.
“It looks so neat and regimented compared to Prague,” she said as she gestured at the window.
I leaned as close as I could without encroaching on Tyn’s personal space. It really was very different to other European cities I’d seen from above. Neat little groupings of square buildings, most of them with white walls, had been arranged in clear-cut lines and sections. The ground around it looked harsh and wild. Even the wild magic was spikier than I’d seen in other locations. The magic cut through the air in rigid blade shapes in a mix of ice tones. The magic practically rolled off the city and washed over me, even up in the airship. It felt savage and harsh. I needed more.
Tyn placed his hand over mine as I leaned closer to the window trying to see more of the magic.
“Careful, alchemist, the magic here is a brutal master,” he whispered.
I frowned and realised that I had pressed my palm to the window, trying to feel the magic more clearly. I wasn’t like that.
“Thank you.”
He smiled and removed his hand.
I was shaken. I’d never had such a reaction to magic before. I’d travelled the world and experienced many forms of magic. I’d been with incubi and succubi when they turned their ‘charms’ up to full, and none of it had compared to my first taste of Reykjavik magic. Some alchemists, usually the weaker, lower-tiered ones, had been said to become addicted to magic much like non-magical people did. Every gift has a dark side, and that was ours.
I kept my hands tightly wrapped around the straps on my bag and my eyes on the mural painted onto the wall adjoining the captain’s quarters. The painting was done in rough, broad strokes. It depicted a fight between a daring airship and a pair of drakes. The small dragons were posed with their long claws out and teeth exposed as they put their wings back to attack the ship once more. The ship was battered but fearless as it faced the drakes head on. I wondered if that was a true story or something the captain would like people to think was true. It wasn’t unheard of for drakes to attack ships, particularly when the planes were newly joined. Nothing like that had happened in many years, though.
The call of the magic intensified as the ship landed. It felt as though sharp shards of ice were slicing into my hands and forearms as it pulled me towards it, or tried to. I remained rooted to my chair and focused my mind. Taking a deep breath, I grounded myself in the physical sensation of the wood I was sitting on, the smooth leather of my bag, and the scent of salt water that filled the air. Slowly, the pull of the magic receded, and my mind was entirely my own again. I opened my eyes to see Erin giving a concerned look. I gave her a brave smile and stood up, gesturing for her to lead us off the ship out into the city. We had an adventure to be getting on with.
24
Unsurprisingly, the woman who had tried to join us and her comrades exited after us and didn’t make any attempt at hiding the fact they followed us away from the air-dock. I had no idea where we were going. Tyn had been the one to make the arrangements. I stopped and looked at the square buildings around us with their small windows. The bright flashes of colour on the rooves made me smile. Some had gone as far as to have vivid new leaf-green rooves; others settled for a bold blue. Slowly, I turned a circle and took in the city around me. It was stern and well-prepared for the daily battle against the elements. It seemed interesting, but not somewhere I could ever call home.
Wispy chittered and threw a few sparks between the delicate bars of the cage. Iceland was far from his natural habitat, and I had to think its magic was bothering him as much as it was me. I left him in his cage. It was best not to allow him to cause trouble when he was in that sort of mood.
There weren’t that many people around, though no doubt they had other places to be. It was the middle of the work day, after all. Still, I missed the bustle of Prague and London.
“Prepare yourself, our stalkers are making their move,” Tyn said behind me.
I looked around to see a group of people circling us. They quickly blocked our escape routes. There hadn’t been more than four of them on the ship. Where had these other eight or more come from? The woman from the ship smirked at Tyn and looked him up and down. She glanced back at the large men and women surrounding us. They were easily twice as big as any of us. Tyn slipped a pair of black blades into his hands and held them back for Erin and me to take one each.
“I have my own defences,” I said as I unlatched the hook on my pouch of fire powder.
“There are only four of them, the rest are illusions. My bet is on the leader being the illusionist. Break her, and break the illusions,” Tyn whispered.
Erin and I exchanged a look. There was no nervousness about her. She stood with confidence and a wicked smile on her face. The illusions closed in on us, and I palmed my own blade, a wicked kris blade coated in an alchemical concoction that would drain the person’s essence as I sliced into them, thus weakening them and reducing any healing capability. The magic of the fire powder crackled, and I smiled, waiting for the other hunters to step forward. I’d started carrying the powder after a rival treasure hunter had backed me into a corner and stolen my prized artifact. I vowed to never be a victim again. The powder would stick to whatever surface I threw it at and burn as hot as dragon fire for three full seconds. That was enough to leave a very painful hole in flesh. When I played, I played to win.
There was no doubting that Tyn could handle himself. He may have been a lean, almost delicate build, but he carried himself as an experienced fighter, a predator. The group moved in around us. Tyn rolled his eyes and shot forward at an alarming speed. Erin and I shared a glance before I shrugged and followed suit.
The fire powder had been created with a drop of my blood so that it wouldn’t harm me. I slipped my hand into the pouch and pulled out half a handful that I threw in the closest man’s face. He screamed and clawed at his face. That was a stroke of luck: one real hunter down, three to go. I ignored the screaming man and turned my attention to the closest woman. She taunted me by side-stepping and dodging each of my blows. I only needed to connect with her once to see if she was an illusion or real. The illusionist was clearly a talented magician to be able to form and sustain entirely lifelike illusions for such a period of time. I stepped back and glanced around to see who was looking far more drained than they should have been. It would be tiring working such magic.
Someone drove a large fist into my ribs, bringing me back to the fight at hand. I danced away from the next blow and slashed at the man’s biceps, aiming to open the arteries and damage his ability to use his hands. He blocked my next attack and kept his arms in tighter to him after my first two tries. I continued to dance around him and keep him moving and off balance. The illusions suddenly shattered around us. The change in scenery caught his eye and gave me the opportunity to slash the tendons behind his closest knee. I stepped back and glanced around to see how the others were faring. Tyn had wasted no time in shattering the other man’s kneecap, and was in the process of driving him to his knees when I shot forward and twisted around to my target’s side at the last second, making the most of his reduced movement. I plunged my kris blade deep into his side and pulled it back out with a downward motion that left him hemorrhaging blood. He gasped and dropped to the ground while clutching his side. Tyn had the man he’d attacked on his knees with his hair gripped in one hand and his knife to the man’s throat with the other.
“Who sent you?” Tyn snarled.
The man spat at Tyn. The Cait Sidhe pursed his lips and sighed.
“You understand that I have no qualms about killing you…” he said slowly with a bored tone.
The man paled and looked at the man on the ground before me. I didn’t much like fighting, but we li
ved in a harsh world, and I wasn’t a fool. The best-case scenario would have had Erin, Tyn, and me severely injured and unable to continue. There were two types of treasure hunter: Those like me and Logan, who did it for the adventure - we broke laws and stole things, but we tried to be respectful of life and history – and then there were those like the man near my feet. They were in it for the money and often doubled up as ruthless mercenaries. They enjoyed inflicting pain.
“Caspar,” the man choked out.
“You have three seconds to get out of my sight. Tell Caspar the job’s off. If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
Tyn released him and stepped back. The man didn’t hang around, he ran as quick as his muscular legs would carry him back to the air-dock. The woman scrambled to her feet and followed him. The man with the ruined face sank down to the ground and wept. Guilt gnawed at my stomach.
“He would have taken his sweet time killing you,” Tyn said coolly as he walked over to us.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because his name’s Vince, and he’s been on Fein’s hit list for the last three months for torturing various people.”
Tyn slit Vince’s throat and allowed his body to slump down to the floor without another word.
I looked around for Erin to find her staring down a man with an arm hanging limply at his side and an ankle that sat at a severe angle.
“I believe your three seconds are up,” she said drily.
The man hobbled away with as much speed as he was able.
“They always assume I’m too pretty to be a threat,” she said as she watched the man turn the corner.