“Turn around and face an armed man, you pribbling, dog-hearted, flax wench,” said a voice that sounded very much like Malcolm Robbe.
Dorn swiveled quickly out of Cal’s way to reveal Malcolm, busted up, bloodied, broken nosed, and broken armed, but still holding a big ax in his good hand.
“A dwarv?” said Dorn, dripping with contempt.
“Malcolm Robbe, you’re lordship,” Mal said in mock etiquette. “I see your magic’s gone … I thought I’d shove my ax up your arse.”
Run, you fool, thought Cal. Even in the best of health, Mal was no match for Dorn, magic or otherwise. As though reading his thoughts, Mal backed away quickly instead of engaging Lord Dorn, drawing the man away and giving Cal the second he needed to reclaim his sword.
Dorn easily caught up with Malcolm, who blocked a vertical thrust with his ax. Cal attacked Dorn from behind, and the sorcerer switched into a new pattern, fighting them both off with impossible grace and accuracy. Malcolm and Cal spent as much time on defense as they did attacking the bastard.
“I’d hate to see what he’s like without the bloody injured ankle,” Mal shouted across the room. They maneuvered until Mal and Cal were together again and Dorn backed both of them up against the north wall.
“Nowhere to go,” Dorn said, victorious.
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” Mal quipped.
They heard a twang, whoosh, and a thud. Dorn cried out as an arrow lodged into his right shoulder blade.
Lelani clopped into view from the hallway. Another arrow was notched to go, but the bow shook in her hands under the tension. She was drained of color and struggling to stay conscious. Dorn shifted his defensive stance, rotating to keep all three in his sight. Mal spread to Dorn’s right and Cal to his left.
“How?” asked Cal.
“You didn’t think I came back, saw the girl bleeding out and your wife hanging by a fingernail, and would help you first?” Malcolm said incredulously. “I knew you’d hold it together.”
“That’s flattering,” Cal said.
Cat came out of the darkness of the corner behind Dorn. A shot of fear went through Cal, and he was about to tell her to get out of the building, when he noticed the automatic in her hand—likely something she found in Dorn’s duffel bag. She slid the rack to chamber a round. Dorn turned with a start when he realized someone was behind him. She pointed the pistol at him. He looked like a trapped animal.
Dorn began to laugh. For a moment, Cal thought the insanity had returned, but it turned out to be the laugh of prideful superiority in the face of defeat.
“You think you’ve won?” said Dorn. “Vanquished the evil villain and saved your kingdom. But you’ve lost. You come at me with mongrels—centaurs and dwarvs. You don’t know it yet, but soon enough you will—again at the mercy of others who will not care about your high-minded notions of brotherhood and peace. Ten thousand years of progress—of safety in our own homes—squandered away to these … these ANIMALS!”
“Hypocrite,” said Mal. “You have gnolls, frost giants, and a troll working for you.”
“As my vassals! Not my equals! Symian despised his father’s people. He would have worked harder to destroy the trolls than any man in my indenture. They are not peers. They were a means to an end.”
“Where are they now?” Cat said, eerily monotone. “You’re all alone. None of them wanted to stay … to be loyal. They were afraid of you … needed a paycheck. They failed you because you utterly failed them. You treat others like pieces on chessboard. How can you lead when you don’t respect those who follow you? How can you govern when you don’t look after all your people? You treat everybody like shit. Despots—trash with money and thugs.”
“Silence!” Dorn barked. He took a step toward Cat.
The gun cracked. Dorn went down on one knee and dropped the sword from his good arm to brace himself. She had put a bullet in his thigh.
“How dare you!” Dorn cried. “Wretched commoner! You are not worthy!”
“Cat?” said Cal, with some alarm.
“Our villages are filled with refugees because of your treachery,” Lelani chimed in. She was shaky and the loss of blood gave her flesh a sallow tone. The shaft slipped out of her grip and into Dorn’s other shoulder blade. He cried out again. Dorn looked like a deformed angel with very long wing scapulars with tiny feathers at the ends.
“Pardon,” she said, in anything but sorrowful tone.
“You are not worthy to strike the likes of me!” Dorn cried. “I yield to Captain MacDonnell.” He dropped his last sword with a clang on the ground and placed his hands in open surrender.
“Yield?” asked Cat. “What does that mean?”
“He surrendered,” Cal said. “Put down the gun,” he asked cautiously.
“What?” Cat said.
“The man yielded.”
Cat’s face screwed up to defend from what she was hearing. Her eyes were red and tears streamed down her cheeks. “If he gets his hands on magic again, he will kill us all.”
“My lord,” Lelani said. “The golems.” She indicated out the window.
“I can’t live like that,” Cat said.
“You said incapacitating him would stop them,” Cal said to Lelani.
“This is forbidden magic. One cannot be sure how many will live on. But if he were dead…”
“Yes, MacDonnell,” said Dorn scornfully. “Take orders from your centaur witch. She has you thinking you command here, but really, no. I hope you like the taste of hoof. Get used to it.”
Cal thought about what Dorn knew … the size of Farrenheil’s invasion force, the wizards involved, and the strategies. The man had yielded. He was due privileges of protection. Cal turned to Malcolm, who was using his ax for support at this point.
“We’re barely standing,” Malcolm said. “He wouldn’t think twice of slitting any of our throats. The minute he has magic—”
“Spare me!” cried Dorn, disgusted. He looked to MacDonnell. “A dwarv, a centaur, and an alien woman that you unwittingly married are compelling you to turn your back on your chivalry—on your HONOR—to kill a nobleman that has yielded to you in battle. Are you a captain of Aandor, or a whipped, befuddled fool MacDonnell?”
Cat grew agitated. “You kidnapped me—separated me from my family…,” she said through gritted teeth. “Murdered Erin Ramos, threatened my daughter, wrecked my house, blew up half of Manhattan…”
“Cat…,” Cal warned.
“He stole my babies!” Cat screamed, rubbing the spot on her stomach where Dorn had cut into her. “Those first monsters you killed—they were part of me!” she cried.
Cal identified with his wife’s rage. For all that Cat had been put through … the violation to her body, it was his own rage as well. Cal felt her suffering and struggled to not execute Dorn at that moment. It went against all he believed in. “But … in cold blood,” Cal said weakly.
“He is cold blood,” Cat said. “Mutilator of helpless children. He’s a reptile.”
“Kind words, Lady MacDonnell,” Dorn said. “This is the price I pay for showing you mercy? For not taking the unborn child in your womb?”
“Mercy…?” Cat said, in shock.
Dorn picked up his short sword and pointed it toward Cat. “If you’ll not protect me from your wench MacDonnell, I’ll do so myself. I should have ripped all the life from your bowels and left you for dead when I had the chance!”
Cat shot Dorn in the forehead right above the eyes. The side of his head bloated out with a crunch as the bullet pushed brain tissue outward. He crumpled to the floor on top of his sword. His leg jittered for a moment, and then ceased along with the rest of him.
“That should cure your fucking headaches,” Cat said. She was still pointing the gun at him, shaking.
Cal walked over to her slowly and gently took the gun away. He clicked the safety on and put his arms around his wife. She rested against him.
“You going to arrest me?” she said, as her legs
gave way. Cal bore her weight on his arm. He sheathed his sword and lifted Cat in both arms like a child.
The three rickety cohorts slowly shuffled to the stairs, then exhausted and thinking better of it, decided to risk the elevator. It dinged on arrival. The doors opened, and a very scared Seth Raincrest was in the box, holding his staff before him like a spear.
“Holy shit,” he said, upon seeing the four of them. “When Dorn stopped fighting back, I thought for sure you guys were dead.” Seth saw Cat in Callum’s arms and added, “Is she…”
“She’s fine,” Cal said. “Finally crawled out from under your rock, huh? Thanks for nothing.”
“What?” Seth said. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“My lord, Seth is the one who engaged Dorn with the lightning,” Lelani said.
Cal looked at Lelani, then Seth, with disbelief. “The idiot?” he said.
Seth aimed his staff at Cal. “That’s it! I’m done…”
Lelani jumped between them. Annoyed, she said to Cal, “Seth was brilliant. I could not have fought off Dorn’s attack. He saved my life. He saved all our lives.”
“Good work, kid,” said Mal, and slapped Seth on the butt, sportsstyle, as he got into the car.
Cal didn’t like the awkward position he found himself in. Gratitude to the idiot…? What was the world coming to? He softened his glare and nodded to Seth. “Well, okay then,” he said. He joined Seth in the elevator. “Thanks.”
“Are there a lot of beasties still on the ground?” Malcolm asked.
“They’re falling apart—dissolving into some kind of gas,” Seth said.
“A few golems may escape Dorn’s death to become beings in their own right,” Lelani warned. “The random nature of exponential magic.”
The three men and Cat headed down; Lelani remained behind, waiting for an empty car.
“Mal, don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you still alive?” Cal asked. “Hesz threw you out of a seventy-story window.”
“Never hit bottom,” Mal said. “Eagle broke my fall … one of the chrome nickel-steel guardian gargoyles on the corner of the sixty-first floor. Steel has always been a dwarv’s best friend. I nearly bounced off the damn thing, but managed to get my small ax into it and held on for dear life. I’ll have to cut the owners a check to repair it.”
“Why not just buy the whole damn building?” Seth joked.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Mal quipped, seriously contemplating it. “It’s quite lovely.”
CHAPTER 53
WITH APOLOGIES
The blood-red graphic read ATTACK ON NEW YORK as the reporter tried to explain the fantastic events of the day. Every conceivable explanation was thrown at the viewer: terrorist attack, hallucinogenics in the steam that seeped out of the streets, wilding gangs gone feral … all other television programming had been suspended as every channel with a news department plastered the airwaves with coverage of the chaos in Manhattan. Strangely absent from that coverage were actual pictures of the golems themselves.
Lelani and Rosencrantz took an already existing sorcery that removed ink from parchments—mostly to remove spells from grimoires, signatures from contracts—and built upon it until they were sure it could work on digital and photographic sources. It was a testament to Lelani’s genius that she was able to concoct such a thing, as Rosencrantz had never heard of video or television. Rosencrantz contributed the global reach of the spell, ensuring that every device be affected. Add to that, no physical trace of any monsters and what you had left looked like mass hysteria and peoples’ bad behavior. The centaur and the tree wizard would stay on top of the situation and neutralize any forensic proof of magic or the creatures as they popped up. It might take weeks, but she assured Cal that it could be done.
Mal’s people were busy at work cleaning up sites where the battles took place and the suite at The Plaza. And by cleaning, everyone understood leaving as little evidence behind of magic and golems and their presence there. With the whole city on alert and thousands injured, the authorities didn’t have the resources to launch a proper investigation into the cause of the events. They didn’t know where to look. Sorcerers? Wizards?
The prince’s guardians sat exhausted in the recreation room of Tilcook’s North Jersey compound, watching the news on a fifty-six-inch television. They were licking their wounds in style surrounded by a huge roaring fireplace, pool table, full bar, baby grand piano, plush couches, high-definition television, and a neon jukebox containing every Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett song ever recorded. Mal recounted the battle in the Chrysler Building to a captive audience of Daniel, Scott, Tilcook, Seth, and Tony Two Scoops over some draft beers. Daniel slurped on a root beer ice cream float.
“Anyway … I got back upstairs and first thing I see is Lelani bleeding out on the ground,” Mal said. “She has this vial in her shaking hands, but they’re so bloody it’s too slippery to get the top off the tube. So I help her, and I realize it’s knitting powder—I’d never actually seen it, but everyone’s heard of the stuff—worth, like, four sacks of platinum standards. So I pour it over her wound and it starts to fizz…”
Cal drank his beer alone, away from the others, on a stool at the corner of the bar. A speaker on the wall above him played Sinatra’s “All of Me.” Cal looked over at Daniel contentedly; after thirteen years, the prince was once again among them, safe and whole.
Getting out of the city after the fight had been easy … Lelani had taught Seth her cloaking spell, which, though flawed, didn’t need to be perfect with all the confusion and hysteria in the streets. Seth, it seemed, had the ability to store some amount of magic in him, a fact that utterly fascinated Lelani and made her a little bit jealous. After a stop at the Empire State Building to recharge, Seth recast her illusion spell, and they blended into the chaos and joined the masses piling onto the Hudson ferries, which were overloaded to get as many people off the island as possible. They co-opted a van at a used car lot in Union City. Mal left cash for the vehicle in the office mail drop.
Cal studied the large room in the really big house, calculating the rewards of a life of crime: four-car garage, ten acres, eight bedrooms, swimming pool, panic room, and security room where all the cameras from a half-mile of perimeter fencing fed. If Cal were caught in here on a federal raid, his career in the NYPD would pretty much be over. At the same time, he could walk into Tilcook’s study and probably find enough evidence to put the crook away for years. They’d won, though, and people wanted to celebrate and relax before deciding what to do next. Even Cal agreed, planning was better left for tomorrow.
Bree played a videogame in the far corner with Tilcook’s daughter, Paradise, a spoiled brat of a girl with curly black hair and a heart-shaped face who, unfortunately, had the name of a stripper stamped on her birth certificate. Tilcook’s wife, Gina, with her teased hair, overdone fingernails, and blue-collar vocabulary, practically stepped out of an episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. She was not happy to have all these strangers in her home.
Notably missing was Cat. She was not in a celebratory mood, as Cal fully understood. Killing a person, no matter how justifiably, haunted you. It took Cal weeks to shake it the first time he’d killed a man in battle. Even though you knew you had to do it, the power over life and death for mere mortals was disconcerting. One had to be a sociopath or megalomaniac to handle the act with no ramifications. Coping involved desensitizing yourself to the sanctity of human life. It also involved time, which was by its very nature not a thing to be rushed.
Cal left the recreation room for the bedroom floors. The house was done in a neo-roman style—white columns, multicolored marble floors, vaulted dome ceilings—the kind that only Mediterranean types would call classy. In the first bedroom he passed, he heard Allyn and Colby’s voices. He knocked and entered. With the two men were Lelani and Colby’s son Tory.
“Any progress?” asked Cal.
“Yes and no,” said Allyn. “The boy’s eyes were severely g
ouged. They will take a long time to heal, months perhaps; I’m essentially regrowing them.”
“Can’t you use the knitting powder?” Cal asked.
“The healing powder works best on simple repairs, a torn artery, vein, or skin cells,” Lelani said. “To rebuild a human eye would require a pound of powder. Even if that much existed, the cost would bankrupt a kingdom. The powder is made of ground horns of a unicorn and white rhino, beak of a gryphon, hooves of a satyr, a garlic clove from the garden of a white witch, blood of an executed innocent, phoenix feathers, and a few other ingredients just as rare. And the ingredients are only half the effort.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Colby.
“On a positive note,” added Allyn, with a scowl toward the detective, “we mixed Lelani’s healing powder in a solution of isotonic saline and injected it near the break in Tory’s spinal cord.”
“Hurts like a mother…!” said Tory, grinding his teeth.
“… which is a great indication that the nerve cells are knitting,” Allyn added. “With rehabilitation, Tory will one day walk again.”
“That’s wonderful news,” said Callum with a parent’s sincere understanding. “And Colby’s problem?”
Allyn and Lelani balked on explanations.
“Yeah, we hit a snag on that one,” Colby said.
“It’s very complex magic,” Lelani said.
“It’s almost sacrilegious,” said Allyn.
Cal was shocked. “Allyn, don’t tell me you’re refusing to help this man. The prince would be dead if not for Colby. It’s not Colby’s fault that Dorn…”
“No, no…,” Allyn said. “I will honor our agreement with him. It’s just that, this is not a blessing that is readily done. I have never performed it, none of my brothers in the order have either, and I know of only two prelates who claim to have done it, one in Farrenheil and the other in Moran. We know it can be done, but I have yet to figure out some aspects of it. And Lelani is not herself sure of her end. Wizards can only do this with the help of a cleric, and you know what relations between clerics and wizards are like back home. There’s not a lot of communication.”
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