“I think she’s still pissed, Monty.”
“What gave it away?”
I made sure my mala bead was accessible. She had moved so fast I didn’t have time to activate the shield.
“Why are you here, mage?”
She said the last word with enough venom to make an Inland Taipan nod in admiration. The hate was strong in this one.
“I need the—”
“Have you come to fulfill the vow?” she interrupted.
“Steigh Cea, you need to stop overreact—” Monty started as I pressed the bead on the mala and shoved him down and out of the way as the shards intersected the space he had occupied.
We slid on our backsides out of the corridor and into the main atrium. My shield dropped as we skidded a few dozen feet across the ice.
“Were you about to tell her to stop overreacting?” I snapped as we got to our feet. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
“Her reaction is clearly disproportionate to the situation. I never agreed to the betrothal.” He tugged on his sleeve as he stood and glared at her. “I fail to see why she’s this upset.”
“Betrothal?” I nearly yelled. “She’s your fiancée?”
He gave me the ‘you can’t possibly be serious’ look, scowled, and pointed to another corridor.
“It was a deception,” he said, waving my words away and moving to the entrance of the corridor he indicated. “We needed to pretend we were engaged in order to execute a mission. It was a success, and we—rather, they—were celebrating. There was an excess of mead consumed and things became rather…exuberant.”
“Exuberant? As in she really thought you were going through with it?”
He nodded. “This was over a century ago. Nothing was written, and it wasn’t binding. I might add, I didn’t agree to anything. It was all her sisters’ idea.”
“You will fulfill the vow or die.” Her voice echoed through the atrium.
“She seems pretty bound. Wait, sisters…as in plural?”
Monty nodded and flexed his fingers. I drew Grim Whisper and Ebonsoul.
“She has five sisters, all as stable as she is,” he said under his breath.
“Wonderful. This just keeps getting better.”
“Steigh Cea, I need the runic neutralizer,” Monty said as she appeared at the end of the corridor.
She smiled in response. It was the smile of the unhinged. I realized then that there would be no reasoning with her. We started backing up.
“How serious are the effects of the ley-line?”
“Enhanced magical ability, cognitive degeneration, usually accompanied by a psychotic break.”
“How long before it starts to affect you?”
“We have twenty minutes on the outside, but that’s a guess.”
“Are these sisters of hers in the neighborhood? I’d really like to avoid a family reunion.”
“It’s in our best interests to do this with as much haste as possible.”
“Will you fulfill the vow?” Her breath solidified as she spoke, causing ice particles to float to the ground.
“There is no vow,” Monty said with a sigh. “There is nothing to fulfill. You were all drunk that night.”
“Then you die.”
NINE
SHE RAISED HER arms and formed several ice orbs in each hand. They floated and rotated lazily above her palms. She stood in the center of the atrium, and I could see layers of ice forming on the floor around her.
“This isn’t going to be a friendly snowball fight, is it?”
“Nothing about this is friendly.”
We backed into another corridor, minimizing the chances of a rear shard attack. Monty traced the entrance with a finger and spoke a word I didn’t understand. A thin wall of energy materialized, sealing the corridor.
Dozens of jagged, sharp, angry ice shards materialized around her, all pointing at us. Part of it was amazing. It was the fascination you experienced when seeing the crystals of a snowflake take form before your eyes. The less amazing part was when I realized she was making these shards to impale us.
“How is she managing to do all of this without, you know, finger wiggles or words or anything?”
“This place rests above a massive ley-line,” Monty said, gesturing fast. “She can tap into the ambient energy of the line and reshape it. Remember when I said magic has a cost?”
I sheathed Ebonsoul but kept the mala bead accessible as I nodded. “Yes, use of magic requires energy, which is why you eat those wonderful-tasting dirt bars so often.”
“That’s the physical toll,” he said. “There’s a mental toll as well. Without my martial-arts practice and meditation, it would be a simple matter to lose control in the heat of battle.”
He waved his hands in front of us. Golden trails chased his fingers as a sheer wall formed behind the first. With another gesture he reinforced the wall with a lattice of red energy.
“Don’t think we need to worry about any kind of heat in here. Will that wall hold?”
“For now. Let’s go.”
He headed down the corridor away from the frozen mistress of doom. I looked back every few seconds as I followed.
“A century ago we would’ve been able to have a civil discourse about the matter.” Monty stopped at an intersection of corridors, closed his eyes, and then turned right. “Her prolonged exposure to a ley-line has had adverse effects.”
“Adverse effects, sure, like driving people bat-shit crazy?”
“She’s not ‘bat-shit crazy.’ Perception shapes and determines one’s reality.” He pointed down another corridor. I didn’t know how he navigated the corridors, but I guessed it was a mage thing.
“Her reality is that you two need to be together. She seems pretty clear about—”
A muffled explosion rocked the corridor. Small chunks of ice fell to the floor around us.
“That took less time than expected,” Monty said, looking in the direction of the sound. “She must be using more of the line’s power than I imagined.”
I stared at Monty, who raised an eyebrow and did his best Spock.
“What did you think was going to happen? You thought the ice queen was just going to let it go?”
“Of course not.” He picked up the pace, headed down the corridor to the left, and made a sharp right turn to face a large ice door. “The neutralizer is behind this door—and she’s not a queen.”
“That’s what you’re worried about right now? Her title?”
I felt the micro tremors race along the floor. They were quickly shifting from micro to angry-ice-woman-on-a-mission-to-stab-me-with-pointy-ice-blades.
“Jotnar are very specific about how they are perceived in most—”
“The door?” I yelled. “Can we just get this thing and get out of here?”
I emptied Grim Whisper’s magazine into the ice door with no effect, and Monty just stared at me.
“This is what coffee consumption will do to you,” he said calmly. “It’s abundantly clear that that bean brew is fraying your nerves. If you’d try a soothing Earl Grey, you’d be able to remain calm in these situations.”
I holstered Grim Whisper and stared at him.
He stepped to the side of the door and gestured, revealing a runic combination lock. He shifted the symbols around, and the door slid open. The room was bare, except for a small pedestal attached to the far wall. Sitting on the pedestal was a large ice crystal. It pulsed white, then blue, and hummed with power.
“Is that it?” I asked, looking around the room as I crossed the threshold. I felt a wave of energy wash over me. “That didn’t feel right.”
“Bollocks,” Monty said under his breath as he shoved me forward. I turned in time to see him gesture as an enormous block of ice smashed sideways into him, sealing the entrance, and trapping me inside.
TEN
I STOOD VERY still.
I should have known the entrance would have been rigged with a failsafe. If I hadn’t been in s
uch a hurry, I would have stopped to check or, at least, mentioned it to Monty.
My brain was telling me that he was okay. I’d seen him gesture before under fire and come out fine. He had been gesturing as the massive block crashed into him.
I faced the oversized ice cube now blocking the doorway and heard footsteps. I moved back a few feet and listened. The steps stopped at the entrance.
“Simon,” I heard Monty’s muffled voice say, “you may want to step back.”
“Monty, are you okay?”
“A little worse for wear. It would help move things along if you stepped back and to the side.”
I took several steps back. “How far back?”
“Away from the direct line of the door will suffice.”
I looked around and moved to the side. An orange glow suffused the large block at the entrance. Seconds later, it exploded into the room, burying pieces of ice into the far wall.
I knew something was wrong the moment I saw his arm hanging limp by his side, bent at an unnatural angle.
“Monty, your arm…”
“Is broken,” he said with a tight smile. “We don’t have time to waste. Let’s get the neutralizer before she unleashes more nastiness.”
“I’m sorry, I should’ve seen that failsafe. It was careless—” I started.
He held up a hand. “We both missed it. I should’ve known the runic neutralizer would be protected somehow. Let’s just get it and leave this place before—”
The wall with the pedestal and neutralizer exploded. I grabbed the mala bead and deflected most of the ice headed our way with the shield.
“Did she do this?” I asked as ice smashed into my arm, trying to pulpify it.
“No, this is worse. She must have tapped the ley-line extensively and caused a disruption in its flow. It’s bleeding off energy to fill the vacuum.”
“I only understood part of that, and it all sounded bad.”
“Grab the neutralizer,” he said as he gestured. “I’ll cast a rift.”
I managed to grab hold of the pulsing ice crystal as Monty cast a rift. White runes exploded with light, but no rift formed. The runes floated in the air, frozen. I ran back to where he stood.
“Are they broken?” I asked, looking at them closely. “Why aren’t they moving? Where’s the rift?”
“I don’t understand,” he muttered under his breath. “The rift should have formed, unless…”
“Unless?”
“We need to go now, back to the main atrium.”
“Isn’t that back to Steigh Cea? The one who wants to make a pincushion out of us? Well…mostly you?”
“Can’t be helped,” he said. “It’s the ley-line. Whatever she’s done to it, it’s compromised the integrity of the entire complex. This whole place is going to collapse at any moment.”
“How about a regular teleportation circle?” I couldn’t believe I was asking for gastric destruction. “Can you try that?”
He shook his head. “The line has created an inversion wave. That’s why the rift runes didn’t work. We have to leave the way we came in.”
We ran down the corridors, retracing our path to the main atrium…and Steigh Cea. Cracks appeared in the walls and ceiling.
“Did she rig this place to implode once we tried to get the neutralizer?”
“No, whatever failsafe was in place around the neutralizer has set off a chain reaction. I doubt destruction of her home was the plan. This is a result of the siphoning from the line.”
“I hope this neuralizer was worth it,” I said as we skidded past one entrance and ran down another corridor. Up ahead I could see the open space of the main atrium.
“Neutralizer,” he corrected. “Only if we want to leave the Sanctuary alive.”
We arrived at the atrium, and in the center stood Steigh Cea. The smile she wore ratcheted up past insane and parked itself firmly in completely derangedville. She outstretched her arms when she saw Monty.
“You’ve come to fulfill the vow.”
Monty nodded. “Find the rift,” he said under his breath. “Fast.” He turned to face Steigh Cea. “Yes, I’ve come to fulfill the vow.”
She nodded and focused on him. The tremors going through the complex were getting stronger.
I turned around slowly in the atrium to orient myself. I was looking for the rift where we arrived when a nudge nearly sent me sprawling.
ELEVEN
“HELLHOUND!” STEIGH CEA screamed, as we all turned to look at Peaches.
Several things happened then.
I pressed the mala bead, creating my shield, as Monty—moving faster than I had ever seen—ran in my direction while he gestured. Steigh Cea unleashed a barrage of ice heading my way. Her screams echoed off the walls of the atrium.
Peaches dug into the floor as he faced her and growled. Runes flashed along the sides of his body and his eyes transformed into glowing red orbs. Normally his growls would be a welcome warning to whatever was trying to erase us. I saw him gather himself to unleash a bark.
“No, boy!” I reached out to grab him by the scruff, but I was too late. His bark raced through the space, drowning out everything, even Steigh Cea’s screams. For a brief moment, everything was silent, a pause before the inevitable destruction.
I didn’t know if it was because the bark had made me temporarily deaf or if Peaches had mastered time control. I was going to go with the deafness from the hundred-decibel bark next to my ears.
The next second, sound and mayhem exploded around us. Cracking ice thundered above us as the ceiling collapsed. That was joined by the machine-gun pelting of ice smashing against my shield.
Monty unleashed a small army of superheated orbs, intercepting and destroying several of the ice spears as he joined us.
“I said look for the rift, not summon your creature.” He unleashed a larger fire orb that disintegrated another group of spears mid-flight.
“I didn’t summon him!” I angled the shield to stop more ice from impaling us. “He just popped up, looking for—”
“Let me guess, he was trying to solve Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and wanted your input?”
“No, he wanted meat,” I said, staring at him.
“What a surprise,” Monty said, glancing down at Peaches and then up at me. “Did you find the rift?”
“It’s back there, just inside the corridor,” I said as my shield dropped.
I pointed behind us as another part of the ceiling broke free and buried the entrance to the corridor holding the rift.
“You mean the corridor behind that mountain of ice and debris?”
I shook my head in disbelief and turned as Steigh Cea screamed again. The temperature of the atrium dropped even further. She focused on Peaches and approached us.
“You dare bring an infernal creature into my home?”
“His name is Peaches, not ‘infernal creature’.”
I looked up as Peaches rumbled and bared his teeth. Black shards of ice formed and floated lazily in wide orbits around her body.
“Monty, that doesn’t look good.”
“Obsidian ice,” he said under his breath. “Bloody hell.”
“Why does obsidian ice sound like something we need to avoid?” I pressed the bead on my mala and nothing happened. “My shield is down. Shit.”
“Obsidian ice carries a runic virus. Fatal to magic-users, although the repeated impaling may prove fatal to you as well.”
“Well, that’s reassuring. Can we not find out?”
Monty threw up a wall of golden light. The wall flickered and disappeared in areas, creating a barrier that resembled a golden wall of Swiss cheese instead of a barrier against dangerous black ice.
“This doesn’t look very secure.” I stuck my hand through one of the larger holes.
�
�It’s the ley-line.” He coughed in response. “It gives her strength, but it’s draining mine.”
He was looking a bit ragged, and I realized it wasn’t just sapping his strength. The ley-line was affecting him.
“It’s poisoning you.” I looked around the atrium and drew Grim Whisper.
“You will all die now.” Steigh Cea raised a hand and pointed. The ice raced at us. Monty gestured and formed a blue orb of flame. The heat from his hand melted the ice around him. He whispered something under his breath and unleashed the orb.
The orb burst through both the obsidian ice and Steigh Cea. The collision with the obsidian ice created a huge cloud of black mist that floated around us. The impact flung her back and smashed her into the far wall.
She crumpled to the ground and slumped against the wall. Monty collapsed to one knee next to me, coughing. She looked down at the large hole in her chest and gave a short laugh before spitting up a small amount of blood.
Monty got to his feet unsteadily and walked over to where she lay. I joined him a second later. For the first time, she appeared lucid. Her eyes were clear and lacked the deranged ‘I need to kill you now’ look.
“I’m sorry, Tristan.”
“I know.”
“It seems I’ve been near this ley-line too long. Did I try to kill you? My mind isn’t what it used to be.”
Monty gave her a tight smile and shook his head. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. You should rest now.”
“You need to leave this place. My sisters…they will come for you. Do you have the neutralizer?”
Monty nodded.
“Kept it safe all these years. Away from them.”
“I know,” he said with a sigh and began to gesture. “You kept it safe from everyone.”
“Make it fast, please.”
“I will.” He nodded and gestured.
She turned her head and looked at me. “You’re running towards death. Keep those close to you safe.”
I nodded, not knowing what she meant. Mages and their cryptic-speak.
Homecoming A Montague & Strong Detective Novel Page 4