Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows)

by C. V. Larkin

  They came to a short stretch of broken hallway that zigzagged off into the darkness. Sio's hand brushed her own as they walked. It was only a light contact, unintended, but the result was irrevocable. The metallic taste in her mouth amplified, and the glittering tips of a hundred wings shivered under her skin. The Goddess was pleased. The sensory overload was a perfect complement to the otherworldliness of the moment, the lust tempered by the peaceful edge of heartbreak that blossomed like a blood stain. Tian followed the shining balls of witchfire down a large department store escalator. The thing looked shady as hell, a broken-down misshapen assortment of random metal gears and pieces, but it ran like a handmade Swiss watch. The grated brass steps descended at an alarming rate, lowering them soundlessly lest it interrupt the seamless clarity of the piano's melody and the soft slightly accented voice floating up from the inky darkness.

  The fires clustered around the mouth of the escalator where it bottomed out into a wide room that sat an inch deep in water from the bay. The witchfire orbs dropped, finally feeling the effects of gravity. They ignited and spread around the outer edges of the space. Light spilled upward, reflecting off of the golden floor, reflecting off of the moonlight shades of nickel and platinum that adorned the walls rising high into the domed ceilings and depicting the night sky with crushing realism.

  The illusion of freedom.

  The piano sitting in the center of the room was at least six times the size of the small female who was perched on the bench in front of it. The crone turned to look as if Tian had spoken aloud. Shit, maybe she had. Sio was watching her with an inscrutable expression.

  "If concept is illusion then what is true, but the sky above, and the wind that is blew," Baba Yaga said.

  It appeared that no answer to that was required, which was a good thing because Tian didn't have one. Baba Yaga hadn't stopped playing and her fingers flexed and retracted over the ivory keys with the familiarity of a lover. The extra joints gave the crone's hands the unsurpassed ability to pluck the rectangular bars in a flurry of motion, creating notes of unrivaled resonance and perfection. The music brought itself to a close in stages. The final notes lingered in the air like a waking dream. No one spoke.

  Eventually Baba Yaga sighed, breaking the silence. "So very few visit of their own volition."

  The crone's tone was wistful and the low melody of her voice echoed in the acoustics. Her accent gave the sentence a gentle rhythm that shuffled under the surface of a smokey rasp that curled through the syllables. Her voice wafted in mesmerizing ebb and flow through the dimly lit room. "So very few visit that I've found silence has long since become tiresome. Speak up, dear guests, lest you seek to offend."

  Tian's throat was dry. "We've come to beseech your assistance in finding a small, but invaluable object."

  Baba Yaga cackled. The sound was fundamentally jarring, her laughter out of synch with the melodious tone of her speaking voice. She turned to face them, looking pleased. The plastic slip cover on the piano bench rustled beneath her.

  "Lost the keys to your kingdom, have you?" The crone was speaking to Sio.

  "I've lost a lot of things," he told her.

  Sio was either unperturbed by Baba Yaga's appearance or he was faking it tremendously well. The crone had a wide round face that was neither delicate nor ethereal, but was, instead, made up by a curious amalgamation of overly exaggerated features. A network of tiny black veins tattooed a lacy rectangle from hairline to jawline, extending about halfway across each eye from the center. Her nose was an unsightly mixture of bulbous curves and harsh angles as it loomed over a blackened cupid's bow pout. A wild mass of moonlit tangles stood out from her head in flagrant disarray, cascading around her shoulders, pooling onto the piano bench, spilling off, and lapping at the water below, a virtually colorless cloak. Baba Yaga was small, full of soft gravity defying curves that were barely contained, bound by the pale scraps of a thousand ribbons. And it was impossible to call her beautiful.

  She wasn't.

  Baba Yaga wasn't beautiful by human standards, and sure as shit not by Sidhe ones, but it was impossible to deny that she was fascinating looking, comforting in the way that the natural end to all things was comforting. The crone narrowed milky eyes like opals and they glittered, flashing green fire against her skin as she appraised Sio.

  "All lost things surface in their own time," she responded with an enigmatic expression.

  "Lucky thing," Sio answered.

  Tian's heart hiccupped in her chest as his gaze slid towards her. She was starting to overheat and the fucking frantic fluttering was only kindling the flames. She could feel the weight of Baba Yaga's gaze as it joined Sio's. That disturbing level of assessment slid over her, and to her trepidation caught. The golden warmth of the Goddess flared filling Tian's veins. A breath of ancient, staggering power slammed into her on the next inhalation which wasn't her own. The Goddess breathed deep of her children and took pleasure in their existence. Baba Yaga was favored.

  "The object used in an attempt to enslave me isn't in our possession. We need it," Sio said.

  To Tian's relief, the sound of his voice drew Baba from her scrutiny. Tian watched through deity glazed vision, as the shadows in the room clung to him, shimmered around him in glittering webs of onyx like a cloak to which he was oblivious.

  "It is your wish that I should find the object responsible?" Baba asked, cocking her head as she looked up at them. Her opal eyes cast shadows from the lashes onto her cheeks below. "This object of which you speak, is it large or more diminutive in stature?" Calculation churned behind the crone's placid mask, expected, and irritating none the less.

  "The object is a marker, and we've brought some of the remaining spell. It's been rumored that you can see anything," Tian said, as she removed the vial of clarified essence from her pocket.

  The barest hint of a smile flitted across Baba Yaga's split lips. "It has also been said, with no varying degree of accuracy, that my services are costly children of Danu. Be forewarned that once found, it is my experience that many things become unfound easily. Do you still seek to bargain?"

  "Name your price."

  Baba Yaga blinked as if the response had startled her. The crone's gaze traveled over Tian's shoulder and fixed itself to Sio. Tian's stomach dropped, sliding over her femurs in a mad rush to get to her feet.

  "Such an exquisite specimen of masculinity," Baba said.

  Tian stilled. Baba Yaga looked over as if sensing the turmoil.

  "Certain arrangements could have easily been made, however, given your stricken expression I can see that such a compromise is out of the question. Have you spoken for him then, child?"

  Yes.

  No.

  This was not happening.

  "I haven't asked her to yet."

  Baba glanced at him with a quirky smile and a new light of respect dawned in her eyes. Perhaps she'd also noticed that "yet" had been the operative word in his last sentence. The crone stood, pushing the piano bench back behind her with a wet grinding sound. "I require twelve nights a year from each of you, six reasonable requests of a non-sexual nature honored."

  Tian gritted her teeth. "Seven nights this year to be served as a pair or as individuals as we choose. Three reasonable requests that do not conflict with the will of The Unmoved honored for this favor, no sex, no slavery, no violence, no irreparable or disfiguring damage," she countered.

  Pity sifted through Baba Yaga's countenance. "Seven nights each year over the course of ten years. Three favors, minimal violence, all other terms agreed upon," the crone said as she gingerly made her way across the waterlogged floor.

  "Five years."

  "Seven," Baba said, stamping out the thin line of fire in a far corner with a small bare foot.

  "Agreed," Tian said. She looked at Sio who shrugged.

  "Works for me," he said.

  He brushed the back of her hand with the pad of his right index finger and she stared at him
willing the metal splintering through her body to subside. Baba Yaga cleared her throat, a polite reminder that time was of the essence and the older Fae did not appreciated being kept waiting. Tian dragged herself away from Sio and headed for the crone. He paced her as she moved.

  Baba Yaga descended a series of steps made from domed copper basins. She made small splashing sounds as the water drooled in steady sheets behind her. Tian followed in the crone's footsteps. She loomed over Baba Yaga and Sio loomed over them both. Tian resisted the urge look back at him. The action was already dangerously close to becoming a natural inclination.

  Their bizarre group plodded downward until it became too dark to continue by sight and Tian was forced to use the sounds of Baba's sloshing to keep course, proceeding into the pitch. Sio's hand came to rest on her shoulder, an electric weight in the night. They hit a flat plane where the water was warm and deep. It smelled of salt and limestone.

  "Our guests require the light," Baba said. The syllables rolled around her mouth like marbles.

  At her request three flames sputtered to life at the hem of her garment. The flames rose upward, tracing the ribbons of her skirt. The crone ignored the fire where it lapped against her body. Tian's eyes adjusted, picking out shadows and negative space. She and Sio stood knee-deep in a jagged, vaguely octagonal cave. Remnants of the building above plunged in and out of the walls like tree roots.

  Baba Yaga stood on the top of the water in the center of the lagoon as if she weighed nothing. The flames in her skirt reflected brightly off of the metal supports and the glassy surface of the lake. Where she stood the water was clear and as crystalline green as the Caribbean Seas. It grew darker as it extended outward towards the edges of the room. A steady trickle of water ran down the walls. It dripped from the thick cones of stalactite clusters above, and where it should have created ripples, there were none.

  "I require a sense of the object you seek," Baba said. Her voice echoed.

  Sio let go of Tian's shoulder and she shrugged out of her jacket. It was collected by invisible hands before she had a chance to pass it off anywhere. She waded towards Baba and the water felt like gelatin. It hit her collarbone by the time she'd worked her way to the center.

  Tian held the vial up on an outstretched palm. Baba Yaga removed it, uncorked it, sniffed it once, and then upended the thing into the drink with a resounding plop. The crone removed a long ivory stick pin from the tangled bodice of her dress. She plunged it through the empty space between the radius and ulna of her left wrist. Pale blood welled like milk around the wound, collecting on the ivory pin.

  Baba Yaga looked down at Tian and smiled as the fluid collected at the underside of her wrist. "This is going to hurt, little Fae."

  Chapter 26

  Steamed

  "This is going to hurt, Little Fae."

  Baba Yaga's soft proclamation echoed against the cavern walls, increasing in decibel, until it battered him. Sio clenched his teeth, protective instincts firing on all cylinders, as a wave of distorted shadows slid under the surface of the pond toward the clear water where Tian waited. The resignation in her expression made him physically ill. Physically ill and homicidally violent. If this turned out better than he expected he was going to be cruising for a fight after they left.

  Baba's blood welled up around the spike in her wrist, spilling in viscous lines, looking like heavy cream as it trickled down her hand. The sight turned his blood to liquid nitrogen in his veins. He was moving before the crone's fluid hit the water, momentum carrying him hip deep into the onyx dark edges of the lagoon. The ink recoiled as if in shock. He managed about thirty seconds of forward progress before the darkness redoubled its efforts and came after him with a vengeance.

  Sio watched, fighting his way to the center, as Baba Yaga's blood hit the water and Tian was dragged under. He roared, there was no other way to describe it, he just yelled his goddamned head off as he threw himself forward with every ounce of strength he possessed like a lunatic berserker. The shadows scattered out of his way like granules of salt. Baba's head whipped around to stare at him from where the unnaturally colored flames burned her alive. Her blackened pout fell open in surprise and she dropped to her knees on top of the water.

  As Sio got closer he could see Tian under the surface. Her arms were outstretched as if she'd been crucified. Every muscle popped under her skin from the strain of fighting to surface. Her teeth were clenched, bared in a cruel battle lust snarl, while her eyes stared sightlessly, filmed in opal fire off into the emptiness. Baba Yaga watched him with Tian's heartbreak sunset gaze and the sight made him panic.

  "Whatever you've done. It had better be temporary." His voice wasn't familiar as it rolled out of his throat and there was nothing human about the sound that echoed through the cavern.

  Sio didn't wait for a response, didn't care whether one came or not, he shoved his hands into the water as it rolled and frothed against his arms. The shadows pushed at him with ineffectual dark tendrils. He grabbed hold of Tian and jerked like he'd been electrocuted. He didn't let go, but it felt like his teeth were on fire in his skull. He was back to being hyper-aware. The water boiled around them, glowing where he was in contact with her. Sio hauled Tian out, fighting the pull of the shadows that clung to her, shrugging the fuckers off and watching them sift and dissolve. He broke her through the surface, but her body was stiff and unyielding.

  "Tian."

  Air rushed out of his lungs, along with a handful of prayers and curses to whatever God was listening. Sio flipped her over, bracing her on his left forearm as he gave her a couple of sharp whacks between the shoulder blades. To his wild relief, Tian began choking, coughing up water, and sputtering his name.

  "You know I got you," he said.

  She angled her face towards him; the bottom fell out of the pool and he was yanked under by clawing shadows with all the primal force of a rip tide. Sio shoved Tian away to avoid dragging her under with him. After that, he did the only thing he could think of. He fought. Sio shoved at the shadows as if they were human. The ones on his ass broke apart under the force of his fury, but an endless supply crowded in to take their places.

  His lungs burned from the lack of oxygen and then he felt the unmistakable electric sparklers of Tian's touch. She gripped his bicep and the back of his neck and yanked. Sio tried to shake her off, terrified of dragging her down with him, but she ignored his protests. Fear for her safety was a cold fire in his chest, but the liquid heat of her touch surrounded the knot of panic. The resulting sensation was an unholy cross between heartburn and impending orgasm. It spread through his body, fueled by the raging goddess essence in Tian's skin.

  Sio pushed, setting his will behind the sensation on instinct. Dark spots danced in his already murky field of vision. He ignored them, forcing that bizarre burning vibration in his body outward as if he could detonate it, do something useful with it, move the shadows back. He was shocked as fuck when it worked.

  A tsunami style ripple slammed through the water and for a couple of frozen heartbeats all of those writhing, gripping, sentient shadows were hurled away. They floated where they landed like black smudges of food coloring, listless and dazed. Two skeletal long fingered hands plunged into the water, one grabbed hold of the front of Sio's jacket, the other gripped Tian's shoulder holster. They were wrenched upward with a stupefying level of force.

  Sio slammed into a thick film of ice he hadn't noticed accumulating on the surface. The introduction was a surprise, and unexpected as it was, the impact stung like a mother. He and Tian were both dragged halfway up the resonating copper basin steps by a squatting Baba Yaga like so much wet laundry, while they coughed and choked and cursed a blue streak.

  The metal was warm, not uncomfortably so, but it was flirting with the synthetics in his jacket, giving off the barest hint of unpleasant chemical odor where it had begun to melt the material. Sio cursed that too because he was having a helluva time wrapping his head around the cont
rast between that and the frozen lagoon they'd been pulled out of.

  He flopped over, belly up like a dead fish, depositing his soddened ass into the nearest basin while he leaned back to stare at the giant otter pop that had been boiling minutes before. He was too damn shell shocked to do a whole lot else.

  A thick shroud of fog rolled off the ice, hovering suspended in peaks and valleys. The shadows that thrashed under the frozen film were the mirror image. The suckers undulated with impotent, frost bitten, malevolence. Sio sifted through the perplexing adrenaline swamped emotions that the sight in front of him dredged up. The familiarity was hard to place, less of a response and a lot closer to an emotional imprint memory that had nothing to do with the expected shut down comfort of shock.

  "Wizards," Tian spat, slamming her fist sideways into the wall and tearing him out of the immobile glaze of introspection.

  She turned to climb past him. Her skin, exposed under the newly shredded thigh of her jeans, brushed his hand as she passed. She would have avoided the contact if he hadn't lifted his knuckles to meet her movement and it dawned on him that he'd completely given in to the compulsion to touch her. It was natural, like breathing. He was in it one hundred percent, which made him a glutton for punishment. The only surprise was how unflinchingly comfortable he was with that. Tian froze, waves of fire radiating from the small patch of skin in contact with his hand.

  "There is not much time to leave this place if it is still your desire to do so," Baba Yaga said.

  The crone was scuttling up the steps using some bizarre form of backward crab walk. The flames consuming her dress dimmed and flickered wildly as if they were about to snuff out. A chill slid down Sio's spine, settling into the spaces between his organs as he watched. He followed with only a quick backward glance to where the shadows still called to him. Fuck that shit. He was all about reprieve. He rearranged the persistent hard on he'd acquired through Tian's brief contact, trapping the head behind the waistband of his jeans. Then he moved his ass.