Courts and Cabals 2

by G. S. D'Moore

  “I’d do a belly shot off that,” I was thinking with my dick and not my head.

  It was January in New York, so that kind of outfit was unusual. What was crazy was the black cloak she was wearing. I’m talking the Skull and Bones ensemble. The type they make you wear when they blindfold you and make you beat the purple headed pirate while everyone else watches. She had the hood up to partially conceal her face from the cameras. Being directly in front of her, I had a good view.

  She had the type of ageless face where I couldn’t tell if she was thirty or fifty. Her brow was furrowed in either anger or concentration, but I was too far away to tell. I was too focused on her eyes. In the shadows of her hood, they blazed. It wasn’t the otherworldly light Lilith’s did when she was powered up, or taking dick. This woman’s eyes burned with a zeal that said she would take a torch to the world if she had too. Whoever the fuck she was, she was dangerous, and that didn’t even take into consideration the magic I felt swell around her.

  Still, what I was seeing and feeling wasn’t being fully communicated to my brain. That was probably the concussion’s fault. I looked around like an idiot, taking my eye off the threat, to scan the crowd. I was looking for any other Harry Potter-looking motherfuckers, and trying to remember if Comicon was in town this week. I saw nothing.

  Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I was only ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure this woman was the one capable of the extreme vehicular violence. I decided to play it safe.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I hobbled toward her. “If you could please help me, I need to get to the hospital,” I gave her a tired smile, and hoped for the best.

  The sneer on her face told me all I needed to know. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Okay, hot Gandalf,” I rolled my eyes, as she slid her feet until they were shoulder-width apart, and took a casual combat stance.

  I don’t know how I’d missed it before, but she had a legit wizard’s staff. Not some dinky wand, but a five and a half foot, gnarly-looking hunk of wood as thick as my encircled thumb and pointer finger. It radiated magic, and looked perfectly capable of bludgeoning me to death without the help of the underlying power of the universe. I could tell it had seen some shit because the shaft looked like it had been hacked at by a sword. That told me it was probably tougher than it looked.

  “I’ll give you one chance. Surrender, and I’ll finish this quickly,” those were the words that came out of her mouth, but her face told me a different story. This chick wanted a fight.

  “This is bad,” I was coherent enough to add everything up.

  Whoever this crazy bitch was, she was powerful. You couldn’t stop of SUV going thirty-five on a dime like that without significant magical energies. It was also well planned and executed. Either she knew we were coming this way, or she’d been able to execute that level of magic on the fly. I hoped it was the former, because the latter didn’t paint a pretty picture for little, old me.

  I tried to remember my training. Lark’s voice came to me after a second. “When you’re ambushed, the best tactic is to fight through it,” the satyr instructed.

  “That’s easy for the nearly all-powerful Fae to say,” I’d adamantly disagreed with the man.

  I always found it better to run away from a fight like this. It had served me well so far, but something told me I wouldn’t get far. “Fight into the ambush it is,” I growled and pulled more power into a pair of glamours.

  I still didn’t have a handle on streaming glamours, but fixed should work just fine. There was an explosion of light, and when it cleared, I had a sword and shield in my hand. They both glowed with otherworldly, pale light, and I gave the woman by best come-at-me-bro grin. Then I charged her.

  I stumbled right off the bat as vertigo hit me like a hammer to the skull. The concussion was still healing, and it only emphasized how bad an idea this was. Still, battle had a momentum to it, and often times, the person who controlled that momentum emerged victorious.

  That’s how I ended up charging down a midtown street, with a glowing sword and shield in my hand, at some rando who could pass as Snow White’s evil, hotter stepsister. I yelled a battle cry because it felt right and proper as I charged her. To my surprise, she just stood there; the edges of her mouth curling up in a grin that made me realize this was all a terrible idea.

  A few moments later, that sentiment was confirmed. I was still about six feet away from her, and rearing back my sword to try and cut off her head, when she sidestepped. I forgot about my slash as something really fucking weird happened. Her body distorted, rippled, and then condensed. If the space shuttle sprung a leak in space, and an astronaut got sucked through a hole the size of my hand, that’s what this looked like.

  My jaw dropped, I ground my heels into the asphalt to stop my forward momentum, and gaped at the empty space where the lady used to be.

  “What in the ever-loving fuck,” I just stared at the empty space, which was a near fatal mistake.

  I didn’t know it, but the woman reappeared behind me, brought her staff up like she was the Louisville Slugger, and bashed me in the back of the head. My thick skull, empowered with a troll’s strength, would have shrugged off a simple piece of wood. Little did I know, the etches in the wood I thought were hatch marks made by some long-gone sword, were actually arranged in a particular set of patterns. As she unleashed hell on my noggin, a pattern flared red, and the staff hit me with the strength of a runaway semi.

  I blacked out, and the next thing I knew, I was blinking away pulverized asphalt at the end of a twenty-foot ditch I’d dug with my body. The world lurched violently around me and I dry heaved into the rubble. Nothing came out, I was on empty, but I was definitely back too square one on the concussion.

  “Yep, definitely tweaked something,” I groaned as I tried to stand.

  “Your filth will not be tolerated here, invader,” the woman’s voice carried like she was used to giving intimidating speeches.

  It made me cringe as I got back to my feet. My knees wobbled, but they held.

  “I don’t know what your issue is, lady,” I heaved myself out of the trench and rolled back onto level ground. She was taking her time advancing on me. Now that I was defenseless – my sword and shield were gone; she must have destroyed them while I was out cold – she seemed to take pleasure in taking her time.

  I could use that to my advantage. The first lesson that Xamira taught me, Peter reminded me of, and Lark continued to drill into me was that anything and everything was a weapon. I looked around for something to improvise with, and found something.

  “When in doubt, throw a car at them,” I grinned.

  “Can we talk about this?” I played for time as I put a couple of cars between her and me before selecting my target.

  Everyone who had half a brain had cleared the fuck out, so I wasn’t going to hurt anyone; just fuck up someone’s insurance premium. I don’t know if supernatural fights are covered in someone’s usual auto plan.

  “There is no negotiating with your kind,” she spat; casually walking around cars like she was on her way to visit the zoo. “You assimilate. You destroy. You’ve ruined your home realm and now you’re coming for ours. I will not let you leave here alive.”

  “You know,” I worked quickly to avoid raising any suspicion. “This would be a lot more informative if I had any idea what the hell you were talking about.”

  Her face screwed up in confusion as she rounded the next to last car, and into my field of fire.

  “Catch bitch!” I yelled.

  Here’s a little tip. Those Superman cartoons on Saturday morning are a load of horseshit. The man of steel casually picking up cars and throwing them at Brainiac couldn’t be farther from the truth. You can’t just grip the side of a car and pick it up. Newsflash, cars aren’t designed for people to pick them up. To pick them up, you’ve got to leverage part of it off the ground, get beneath it, get a central hold on the frame, and then gently lift it and ensure you
use equal force so parts of the vehicle don’t simply tear off. As you could expect, I didn’t have time to do that against my attacker.

  So, I did the next best thing. I popped the hood, karate chopped hoses, intakes, and whatever else was connected to the big block of metal at the center. I got a firm, two-handed grip on the engine and ripped it out of the car. Even with my Fae strength, I couldn’t chuck the hunk of metal like a football. Instead, I raised it above my head and threw it at her like it was a medicine ball. It barreled at her at around sixty miles an hour; not half bad for something that weighed over three hundred pounds.

  This time, I felt the pulse of magic as her staff blazed red. She moved to the side well in advance of the engine reaching her. My smile fell, and my body screamed for me to move as I realized what was about to happen. She wound up with her staff for the second time, and swung at the engine like I’d just lobbed her a softball.

  Her staff and the engine connected with a crack that shattered windows for half a block, but I had other things on my mind than raining glass. She must have played professionally because the engine came rocketing back at me at nearly twice the speed. With only a few dozen feet between us, I didn’t have nearly enough time to move. The metal block clipped my bad shoulder and searing pain nearly made me black out again. It spun me around and smashed me against the nearest car; leaving a deep, human-shaped dent.

  She just laughed as I pulled myself back to my feet, and kept coming.

  “Fuck this!” I determined Lark’s advice on ambushes was a load of shit. I turned and ran.

  I heard something screaming through the air, and thankfully my foot snagged the concrete lip of the sidewalk at just the right moment. I half fell, half rolled forward as something hot streaked over my head and set a Sbarro sign ablaze. I thanked my lucky stars, scrambled to my feet, took a second to find purchase on the glass shards covering everything, and streaked down the sidewalk at a Fae-powered sprint.

  “Move! Get the fuck out of the way! Stop live streaming and run, bitch!” I yelled. No more streaks of fire tried to barbeque me as I ran, but that might have been because I entered the gaggle of lookie-loos.

  I made it to the corner without incident, whipped around it, and let out a high-pitched, very unmanly scream. Flopping toward me, tentacles flashing and rows of jagged teeth chomping, was what would happen if a Hollywood B movie had sex with hentai and made a baby.

  Someone else yelled it, but it fit the creature directly in front of me perfectly. “Sharktopus!” People screamed and ran.

  Tentacles lashed out at random. There were over a dozen, so it wasn’t technically an octopus; but that didn’t mean shit to the guy who’d yelled it as he was scooped up, and tossed into the creature’s maw. I heard the squish of him being eviscerated; his screams abruptly silenced. Then the creature’s face turned to me . . . and grinned. I saw intelligence in those eyes, and a spike of familiar magic.

  “Fae,” I gulped and tried to run back the way I came. My reptilian brain’s flee response overpowered my cognitive reasoning that crazy-slugger bitch was back that way.

  I didn’t make it far anyway. A tentacle lashed out, grabbed me by the ankle, and tossed me the opposite direction. I went up and over the sharktopus, and smashed against the side of some building that would have made a normal person go splat. It just knocked the wind out of me, and reset the healing process on my eternal concussion. I’d hit about ten feet up, and didn’t even try to brace myself as I flopped back down to the ground.

  “Maybe if I played sports, I’d be better prepared for this,” I thought as I just laid there.

  The sharktopus wasn’t exactly swift, and its attention wasn’t focused on me. If I had to guess, it was facing off against the chick who’d used me for batting practice. It was critical seconds I could have used to escape, but I was spent. I was battered, bruised, broken, scarred – physically and emotionally – from the last few days. I had nothing left. The tank was empty. It was game, set, match. I could close my eyes now, and not even feel death when it came for me.

  “Stop being such a sorry sack of shit!” my brain screamed at me. “Get up off your ass, get moving, and live to taste Lilith’s sweet, sweet pussy.”

  My dick gave a throb of agreement, and that made me laugh like a madman. Even if a man was down and out, pussy could still get him moving. One foot in front of the other, I got to my feet, turned to run, and found myself facing a familiar face.

  “Hello, Cam,” Aveena smiled sweetly before she slugged me in the face and knocked my ass out.

  ***

  “Finally!” Aveena smiled as satisfaction flooded through her.

  Cam went down like a sack of bricks. It took a considerable amount of self-control for her not to put her fist through his skull, but she pulled it off. He collapsed at her feet, helpless; and for the first time in weeks, she felt like she wasn’t about to lose her head.

  “Anna, bug out,” she ordered.

  The twenty-foot, rampaging selkie snarled in response, but knew better than to piss off the noble Fae. There was an explosion of heat and light as Anna created a distraction and reapplied her human glamour. She didn’t stay around. Before the magical flash-bang finished, she’d already stepped. All that was left of the monster rampaging in downtown Manhattan was significant property damage, and a few pairs of discarded shoes from her midday snack.

  “You!” a voice called out as Aveena slung Cam’s limp body over her shoulder.

  “I have him,” she sent into the ether, and hoped someone was listening as she turned to face the woman who didn’t look like a contract killer until you looked her in the eye.

  “Van Helsing,” she regarded the wicked witch. She tried to look in command, but couldn’t stop a cold sweat from breaking out across her brow. Her backup was gone. It was just her and the witch, and that was a fight she didn’t want to have when she was this close to getting her life back.

  “He’s mine,” Van Helsing smacked her staff into the ground and a shockwave rolled across the road. Spiderweb cracks spread out from the point of impact and stopped just short of Aveena’s feet. “We had a deal.”

  “We did have a deal. The deal was that you would kill Dupree if I failed,” she jiggled Cam’s dead weight. “As you can see, I didn’t fail.”

  The witch’s face looked like it was chiseled from ice as she took a step toward Aveena, and raised her staff.

  “Are you about to break your word?” Aveena’s voice boomed with magic.

  It swirled around them, creating a tornado of dust and debris. Van Helsing coughed against the onslaught, but the noble Fae’s words had stopped her cold.

  “You know not what you do, child,” the witch’s voice was low and threatening.

  “I know exactly what the fuck I’m doing,” Aveena spat back.

  “Then swear to me,” Van Helsing countered. “Swear to me that Cameron Dupree will never again set foot in this realm.”

  “I’m going to cut off his head myself,” Aveena thought with a savage smile.

  “I swear it,” she replied easily. If anything was certain, it was that Cameron Dupree was going to die.

  “Swear it,” Van Helsing repeated.

  “I swear it,” Aveena stated confidently.

  “Swear it!”

  A low thrum filled the space upon the third invocation. An oath sworn thrice by a creature of magic was binding. To break it . . . Aveena didn’t even want to think of the consequences.

  “I swear it,” Aveena confirmed. There was a twang like a guitar string going taught as the magic settled into place.

  The witch smiled, and relaxed. “Go,” she commanded.

  As if on cue, a kaleidoscope of color blasted into existence behind her. Godric stepped out in his angelic-child form with a shit-eating grin on his face.

  “Well done, my lady,” he turned and bowed to Van Helsing, who just sneered at him. “We should be going.”

  She didn’t argue. Didn’t hesitate. The deadline was nearly up, an
d she needed to meet it. She stepped into the whirlwind of color and it closed behind her. She left death and destruction in her wake, but she didn’t give a shit. She was off to reclaim her throne, and no little bastard fetus in her mother’s belly was going to take what was rightfully hers.

  Chapter 21

  Lilith sighed and drew her finger down the concrete wall. The wards protested the movement for a moment, but quickly registered it as a non-threat.

  “It’s all about the tactile application of power,” she mused as her fingernail dug a shallow furrow into the concrete. It had taken her days of testing the wards to figure out how much was too much, and how much was just right.

  Wards and magic in general could be fickle like that. Not everyone wanted a stop-everything-that-tries-to-pass ward; especially if you had to pay for it to be constantly maintained and recharged. This area of magic wasn’t her specialty. She wouldn’t even come into her full power for another three years. Her mother hadn’t even begun her lessons on how a succubus could manipulate the energy in a person’s body. Still, her mother made sure all her children learned everything there was to know about every branch of magic there was. The best weapon in any battle was knowledge, and Venus Venitas was determined that her daughter be the best equipped warrior on the field.

  In Lilith’s particular situation, the people who set the wards for the jail obviously didn’t want people to escape, but that didn’t mean they wanted to shock the prisoners every time someone touched the wall. If the ward reacted to every single impact, big or small, it would be out of juice in a couple days; which meant dinero to recharge. With what mages charged by the hour, that was not something the government was willing to pay. For the richest economy in the world, the US sure knew how to pinch pennies in the most interesting places.

  The fix to this issue was setting a threshold where the ward only activated if enough power was applied. It was like magical computer code; if a preprogramed threshold was met . . . bam . . . no dice for whoever was fucking around.