by Amie Gibbons
“And then we die?”
He shook his head. “Worse. Stay alert.”
He pulled two wicked long knives out of thin air and I pulled my itty-bitty Browning.
Carvi shot me a look. “You call that a gun?”
“It’s my backup.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s the astral plane. What is a pistol good for?”
I snorted. “Getting to a rifle.”
“Good girl.”
I stuck my tongue out at him and took a deep breath, imagining my custom made girly AR a friend of Daddy’s made for him to give to me on my twenty-first birthday.
The AR appeared in my hands, lighter than it was even in real life. It was made specifically to be lightweight, but still have little kick, a minor miracle of modern engineering accordin’ to Daddy.
The barrel was a fancy, lacy looking weave, to cut down on weight, and the whole thing was painted red with gold swirls on it.
Carvi burst out laughing.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s so pretty,” he said. “Who makes pretty guns?”
“Ummm, the company is called Fighting Sheep Dog,” I said. “Why? I wanted a pretty gun.”
He looked like he was trying to choke down another burst of laughter and I glared.
“Of course you did,” he finally said. “Thank you, I needed that. Alright, the pretty little AR it is.”
“Do not make fun of my pretty AR. This pretty thing is state of the art, extremely precise, and kicks butt.”
I followed him down the hall and it still looked so normal.
“Carvi, what are we chasing?” I asked. “I mean, are we following a trail?”
“No,” he said. “I’m looking for the trail. It’s more of a sense than anything we’ll see. But your brain may interpret it as an actual physical trail.”
“So I should be looking too?”
I heard him take a deep breath, so obviously he wanted me to get I was exasperating him. “Yes.”
“Geez. Ask a simple question.”
I looked around.
It was still so normal. Just a long hall with doors on either side and room numbers. The carpet was some generic gentle blue and cream patterned one and the walls had off white paint with strips of blue and green wallpaper and paintings here and there, and a door probably out to a pool at the end of the hall.
In other words, this could be one of a million business hotels in the US.
Something blue flashed outta the corner of my eye and I paused by the door.
“Carvi!” I pointed to the door as he paused. “I saw something. Not sure what, but…” I raised my hand and pantomimed knocking.
He walked over and opened the door without knocking.
Right, not real. No reason for manners.
Carvi walked in first, knives up, and I followed, covering him with my carbine.
Even with it being lightweight, I wouldn’t be able to hold it up long.
Gotta work on the arms more.
I’m pretty good about keeping up with my yoga and I practice hand to hand at the office gym with the guys, but my arms could use a serious regimen.
Even on the astral plane, apparently.
It was a normal hotel room with a king bed, flat TV over a dresser, a desk with a chair.
And a dead body slumped on the bed.
“Crap on a cracker!” I shouted, running towards the bed.
Carvi caught my arm and I had a second to wonder where the knife in his hand went before he swung me around to look at him.
“What did I just say not two minutes ago!” he half shouted, giving me a shake. “Do not do that.”
“But…” my mouth worked and I took a breath. “Sorry. I forgot.”
He shook his head and let me go, walking towards the body with slow careful steps as that hand’s knife reappeared in it.
Well that was convenient.
I tiptoed behind him and he pushed the body over.
It was the man from the freezer.
“Definitely related,” I said.
He squinted at the body. “But why? What was the point?”
“You’re the leader, king, whatever, I just work here.”
He didn’t look at me but I swear I heard him roll his eyes. “We have a dead body left in a freezer, killed by magic, and made into a zombie. We thought it was a distraction from the spell to make everyone’s passions rise, but what if that was a distraction in of itself?”
“Okay, but why?” I asked.
“That’s what I don’t get,” he said. “Besides the fight, nothing happened… that we know of. They did something then. Something we haven’t figured out yet.”
“So why have Jade smuggle in something else?” I asked.
“Because they couldn’t get past my defenses.”
“But they did with the passion spell, and the zombie.”
“Yes, but those were little things. Little spells. Nothing truly deadly. And it was a human who did those. That’s why they weren’t detected. The human magic plays decoy, but for what?”
“I’m trying to follow the jumps, Carvi, I really am, but…”
“I have general guards up against Fae,” he said. “They are similar to the way human homes keep us out. So it wasn’t a Fae getting in here. It was a human with human magic, which is why I didn’t detect Fae to begin with. We have humans working with the Fae, but what do the Fae hope to accomplish?”
“What did getting us out of the hotel to chase the magic do?” I asked. “It got us to the gangsters to question them, and…”
Carvi finally looked away from the body and at me. “And we were there at the exact right time for a drive by.”
“They wanted us dead,” I said, “And set it up to look like some basic gang killing. No one would look into it. Some business man working with local gangs gets killed by another gang while in the first’s headquarters. Easy open and shut case.”
“No,” Carvi said. “They weren’t using silver bullets. They weren’t after a vampire then. Maybe because they thought only humans would track it since it was daytime.”
My mouth fell open. “They were tryin’ to kill me?”
He nodded. “They saw us when we tracked the magic last night. Saw you. And you were even the only one shot.”
My head swam.
“Okay, I can deal with this. Again, why?” I asked. “They didn’t want me here so they set a trail for us to follow with a trap at the end. One that would’ve worked too if you hadn’t been so fast.”
“And powerful,” he said. “You got hit bad. If I were a lesser vampire, I wouldn’t have been able to save you, even with drawing power from my people. I’m not even sure I would’ve been able to turn you before you died from that.”
I searched his face. “It was that bad?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You… you didn’t know that?”
“I thought I got hit once in like the shoulder or something.”
“You got hit three times. Once in the heart.”
I clutched my free hand to my heart before I realized I was doing it.
Milo’s decomposing body flashed across my vision, like I was back there for a second, and I sobbed.
I slapped my hand over my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut, shoving it all down.
Milo died from a bullet straight through his heart and I couldn’t save him. And now I was down here because of that, and shot just like he was.
Only, Carvi was able to save me.
For some reason that seemed so unfair. Like if it was that easy to save someone hit in the heart, then I should’ve been able to save Milo.
Then again, from what Carvi was sayin’, it wasn’t that easy.
“Okay, they’re tryin’ to kill me,” I said. “Or at least tried. So they didn’t want you to have a psychic for tonight. Meaning we have more information than we did a minute ago. They are doing something that can be detected by a psychic, or at least that I’ll help find.”
“You do
realize what you just said?” Carvi asked. “Anything can be picked up by a psychic.”
I scowled at him. “I meant, maybe whatever they’re doing can be sniffed out in here and they knew you’d need a psychic to power it.”
“Not exactly,” Carvi said. “I can do this on my own, it’s just easier with a psychic. You can do this more… naturally, I guess would be a good way to think of it. I had to learn how to do this the hard way. You are powering it though.”
“Okay, is there anything you can see around here for us to trace?” I asked.
“I’ve been looking while we were talking,” Carvi said. “I don’t see anything.”
I frowned. “Can I touch him? Will it do anything to me?”
“Possibly,” he said. “But I’ll keep a hand on you. Since they were planning on you being dead, they may not have had time to adjust their plans to set traps for you. And if you are the first to probe the trap, it may not work, or not as well, since it’d be calibrated for vamp.”
“I’m just gonna take your word for that one,” I said, leaning my rifle against the bed, taking Carvi’s hand in one of mine, and reaching for the body.
My fingers barely grazed flesh when the world blinked and we were suddenly outside and surrounded by hedges at least seven feet tall.
“Crap!” I shouted.
“It’s okay,” Carvi said. “This isn’t a trap, it’s the trail.”
“Oh, that’s okay then.” I looked around and my AR appeared against the hedges.
I picked it up and pictured a sling on it. The sling appeared and I swung the AR to my back.
“Don’t get complacent,” Carvi said. “They still could be waiting for us in here.”
“Oh, right,” I said as we walked next to the long hedge.
We turned the corner and there was just more hedge.
“Shit,” Carvi said. “It’s a maze.”
I made a face. Well this trail was about as helpful as a dry cow.
“Gimme a boost,” I said, making a finger basket to show him.
He smirked. “That’s cheating.”
“If this was a game, I’d agree with you,” I said as he hooked his hands and I stepped on. He boosted me up, not like it was hard for him (it was probably harder for him to keep the thrust down so he didn’t throw me), and I crawled onto the top of the maze. “But this is war, and if you’re fightin’ fair, you aren’t trying hard enough,” I said.
The solid plants held me as easily as any wall and the cut tops of the bushes didn’t dig into my skin like real ones would.
“Sounds like you’re quoting something,” Carvi said as he jumped up and grabbed the top of the hedges, pulling himself up with ease.
Vamp strength sure could be nifty.
“My Daddy,” I said. “Pretty sure he got that from a book somewhere.”
We looked around. The maze went on as far as I could see in all directions.
Something flashed in the distance and I hit Carvi’s arm and pointed.
He nodded and tucked his knives away, picking me up and slinging me onto his back like a monkey.
“Hang on,” he said, jumping up.
I bit down a scream, locking my arms around his neck, but we didn’t fall.
Holy crap, Carvi could fly?
Maybe that was just here on the astral plane.
I held tightly as we zipped over the hedges, keeping my eyes peeled for the next hint of what we were chasing.
“There!” I said as red flashed, closer now.
Carvi veered off to the side, following it.
“Can you see it?” I asked.
“I can when you call my attention to it,” he said. “So it’s definitely your power, I’m just piggybacking.”
I giggled.
“Doin’ the same to you,” I said. “We make a pretty good team.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We do.”
“You okay?” I asked.
Something flashed off to our left, maybe twenty feet away.
“There!” I shouted.
We appeared on the grass and I jumped off Carvi’s back as he pulled his knives.
The… something? The thing saw us and ran.
It was a small, crouched thing with bulging features and a nose like a bat’s. I couldn’t tell the body. It was naked, or close to it, but the parts wouldn’t stay.
Lookin’ at it made me nauseous.
Carvi leapt and grabbed the thing as it jumped like it was about to vanish into the day.
“Nice try!” Carvi held it with one meaty fist and slammed his other into its face.
The thing made a sound like a bag full of jelly blobbing and splitting and I gagged.
It smelled like over ripe old fruit and rotting cardboard.
The, thing, man, whatever, made another blobbing sound and disappeared from Carvi’s hands, landing a few feet away.
Carvi was on it in a second and smacked it, sending it skipping over the grass.
Like a cat batting around a mouse.
“Show us the trail,” Carvi said, sounding almost chipper.
Maybe he was.
He definitely seemed more him when he had something to fight.
The thing dissolved into a mass of smelly liquid and I gagged again.
“Don’t worry,” Carvi said. “We’ll work on that gag reflex.”
He shot me a wink and I glared.
“If I puke, it’s on you,” I said. “And I mean literally.”
“Eh,” he said, “as I said, we’ll work on it.”
Geez. He was downright perky now.
The liquid flowed downhill, stretching into a long green stream.
Carvi gestured. “And there’s our trail.”
“Was that thing real?” I asked.
“Not a real being,” he said. “It was the trail of magic we were looking for. It just manifested as something living in here. Probably means there’s a lot of Fae poured into the spell. That’s bad. But, it makes it easier to track.”
“There’s so much about this I don’t get,” I said.
“That’s okay. You’re doing great. And you’re fun to look at, so hey.”
I tossed my hands up then planted them on my hips. “Well you’re just all fine and dandy now that you got some violence out, aren’t you?”
“I’m happy we found the trail. And there’s also your outfit adding frosting to that particular cake.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to look down.
But I did.
“Oh geez. Carvi! Can you focus for two God blessed seconds?”
I was in a skin-tight snakeskin skirt and a leather bustier much like the last one, just black, with ties up the front that left a line of flesh clearly visible between them. The leather boots were back and came with a few knives tucked into holsters.
I reached up but my hair was back in a sensible braid.
“We’ve got… so much goin’ on I can’t even say,” I said, “and you’re playing dress up?”
“Can’t help it,” he said, grinning wide and little boy innocent. “If we didn’t find something soon, I’d be throwing you down for a little boost.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t say anything as we followed the trail.
“Is there anything we can do about the smell?” I asked.
The rotting cardboard stench got worse, going full on stale poop smell the further down we went.
“Shit,” Carvi said.
“Yeah, exactly,” I said. “Why does it smell so bad?”
“No, I meant… The trail’s leading straight towards the line.”
I stopped and he did too after a second like he could sense I stopped.
But he stared straight ahead.
“You mean the line towards the Other Side?” I asked. “That ‘dangerous, we should never go there cuz of cracks’ kinda place?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Ummmmm, what happens if there’s a crack?”
“We fight,” he said. “Try not to die. If they get us i
n here… you should stay up here. Can’t risk it.”
My stomach dropped as movement behind Carvi solidified and came at us.
“Or that won’t be an issue since they’re coming for us here!” Carvi said, bringing his knives up.
“Who’s they!”
“Fae, magic they left to ambush us, Other Side breaking through, take your pick,” he said, knives melting into a giant gun I wouldn’t be able to run after a few thousand pushups, with a normal lookin’ barrel over a giant hole and a bayonet on top.
If we could make weapons, didn’t that mean they could?
The horde of tiny impish creatures ran up the hill, an army so vast I couldn’t see the end of them.
“Carvi, what happens if they catch us?” I asked, so quiet I wasn’t sure it came out at all.
“They drag our souls to the Other Side, or to Fairy.”
“And?”
“And then we learn firsthand what Hell feels like.”
Chapter twelve
“Get us outta here!” I screamed, heart poundin’ so loud in my ears I could barely hear myself.
“I can’t!”
“Why not?”
“Something’s blocking me.”
“What?”
“It’s some kind of trap. My powers shut off as that first one appeared.”
The hoard was halfway up the hill now. Another thirty seconds and they’d be on us.
Blood dropped from my head, leaving me lightheaded and nauseous.
No. I gulped down bile. We couldn’t just get dragged off to some mystical horror on the astral plane. We could do anything in here.
Just had to think.
“Carvi,” I said, “Fae don’t do steel, right?”
“Right.”
I closed my eyes.
Something was blockin’ him. Not me.
Walls sprang up outta the earth around us and I imagined pulling them outta the grass, growing them with the force of my mind and a good dose of fear.
The steel walls came up and met above us, forming a hanger like thing made out of Pittsburg’s finest.
“Nice!” Carvi said as the walls melted together. He grabbed me and kissed me quick. “If I knew you were that fucking powerful, I’d have suggested that. Damn, girl! You did that like it was nothing.”