by Lisa Shearin
Those red eyes fixed on him and the kid yelped. “I meant that in the most respectful and honorable and… and… Oh shit, I’m so dead.”
The red flickering in the head’s eyes dimmed and the ruined face actually managed to look like it was listening to a voice we couldn’t hear. I had a sinking feeling I knew who he was talking to.
The eyes flared, enraged. “My lady says that it is you who are the liar. You will bring it to her.”
I was losing what little patience I’d managed to scrounge up. Every second I stood here talking to an arrogant, floating head put Piaras that much more out of my reach. “Perhaps if you would tell me what it was, I could-”
“You insult our lady with your denial. She would question you herself.”
“My schedule’s a little full just now, but I’m sure we can set something up for next week when-”
“She would question you in person-and she will question you now.” The lips spread in a smile, and more flakes fell off. Talon made a strangled sound.
I’d had enough. Apparently I couldn’t talk to anyone-living, dead, or undead-without pissing them off. “I got that invite from her purple sidekick this morning,” I shot back. “I told him no by stuffing him in a bottle. There’s a full bar downstairs; maybe we can find something to fit you-if there’s anything small enough.”
The red in the center of his eyes spread until what had been milk white was blood-red. “Disrespect like that shall not go unpunished. My men and I are here to take you to where our lady waits.”
I helped myself to one of Tam’s blades on a stick. “Come and get me, shorty.”
And he did, straight through the glass wall as if it weren’t there. Apparently being undead lets you do all kinds of nifty tricks. Like move entirely too fast for a disembodied head. Not only was the head in the room with us, he’d brought his mist with him, mist that froze anything it came in contact with.
Like my leg. One swooping pass barely brushed me and I couldn’t feel anything below my knee. It was all I could do to stay on my feet.
“Your queen won’t like it if I’m frozen solid,” I managed through pain-clenched teeth. “I can’t exactly chat with her that way.”
“You will thaw quickly where we’re going.”
Oh yeah, that would be Hell.
Phaelan came up directly under the head and impaled it on his sword. At least that was his plan. The head darted away, leaving Phaelan’s blade sticking into thin air, and my cousin completely creeped out.
I considered a fireball, but I didn’t think Tam would appreciate a fire in his nightclub.
The head swooped at Talon, the kid dove and rolled, and I swung the pike like a club, sinking the blade into the back of the thing’s armored head.
And my blade got stuck.
Part of me thought this was progress; my blade was in the head. That was good. The other part wanted to drop the pike the blade was attached to and run. Some things were just too gruesome to stick around for.
Phaelan lunged again, and the head whipped around, jerking me with it. If I hadn’t had a death grip on that pole, the thing would have flung me across the room. As it was, I had a head on a blade on a stick that was dragging me around Tam’s living room like a rag doll. Phaelan was darting and weaving looking for an opening, and Talon was jumping around with no idea what to do.
“Grab Raine!” Phaelan yelled to Talon.
The kid stopped jumping around. “What?”
“Grab her! Keep that thing from moving!”
I saw where he was going with this. Goblin teenager as anchor. Talon wasn’t that big. The only thing him grabbing me was going to do was get him flung around with me-or get his ass kicked if he “accidentally” grabbed me the wrong way.
Talon grinned at me. I glared at him.
The kid got the message and grabbed me around the waist. He was heavier than I thought, and stronger. The head was still for only an instant, but Phaelan was fast.
He brought his blade up in a slashing arc and severed the thing’s ear, which fell with a wet plop to the floor. Black goo oozed and dripped out of the ear and the hole that was left in the head. Talon made a strangled sound. Phaelan followed his slash with a straight stab right between its eyes. More goo, also black.
Talon’s grip on me turned to jelly and I actually felt the kid’s skin go clammy.
“Not feeling good,” he managed before fainting and dragging me down with him, his full weight landing on top of me.
A noxious vapor came from inside the helmet, and when it cleared, the helmet and head were gone.
I pulled in enough air to speak. “Get him off me,” I gasped.
Phaelan looked down at us and grinned. “The kid’s really gonna hate that he was unconscious for this.”
I scowled up at my cousin. “Move. Him.”
Phaelan dragged Talon off of me and tossed the kid like a limp doll across one shoulder.
We went downstairs-and saw a pair of masters at work. They didn’t look like they needed our help or anyone else’s.
Mychael and Tam were working as a team to take on the undead horde, with Vegard taking out any stragglers. They were doing a fine, workmanlike job. The phantoms could turn back into mist and rematerialize to fight again-that is if the glowing blades didn’t get them first. Anything their blades put down didn’t get back up.
I saw why Mychael was commander of the most elite magical fighting force in the seven kingdoms. I didn’t impress easily. But damn.
Mychael and his blades glowed with a white light that blazed so brightly I couldn’t look directly at him for more than a few seconds at a time. His blades sliced through and felled corporeal warriors, and the slightest touch of his light turned phantoms to harmless mist that sank back through the floorboards. Some turned to mist but retained their shape, their mouths moving in silent cries as they sank back through the floor. The phantoms were desperate to keep that light from touching them, but getting away from Mychael put them squarely in Tam’s range. Tam’s hands, blades, and entire body glowed red. What few attacks that made it past his blades to him glanced off in a shower of fiery sparks. They couldn’t kill Tam, but Tam was decreasing their numbers with every spin of his weapon.
Soon there wasn’t anything left of the demon queen’s undead horde except more black goo that Tam was going to have a heck of a time getting out of his theatre floor.
Phaelan carried Talon over to the bar and laid him out on it. Tam was there in an instant, checking his son for signs of life.
“What happened?” His dark eyes reflected concern, relief, and rage all at the same time.
Talon groaned and started to stir.
“He’s fine,” I assured Tam.
The kid tried to sit up, weaving unsteadily. “Did I faint?”
“Yeah, you did,” I told him.
“I don’t normally have a problem with blood.”
“That’s okay; it wasn’t the normal color.”
Talon swallowed and looked like he might be sick. “That must have been it.”
Phaelan tried to muffle a grin and failed miserably. “Next time I’m about to kill something that bleeds black, I’ll warn you.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Vegard was poking the floorboards with his boot. I guess he was making sure nothing else was coming up through it. “You’re borrowing buckets of trouble today, ma’am.”
“I don’t have to borrow anymore; I’ve got plenty of my own, and so does Piaras.” I checked the blades strapped across my back. “Now let’s go get him.”
Chapter 15
Outside Sirens, it wasn’t completely dark yet, but it was close. I guess when you’ve either been in a tunnel or a theatre for most of the day, dark happens.
A couple of city workers were lighting the streetlights; though on an island of mages, they didn’t use fire on a long pole-a whispered word and gesture got the job done just fine.
Phaelan looked around. “Time flies when you’re not having fun
.”
Tam wasn’t with us. He was staying with Talon. I think the kid’s dating urges were gone-at least for an hour or two. When we’d been locked in Sirens, Tam’s dark mage buddies had been locked out. When the last of the undead was sent back to where they came from, the doors and windows unsealed themselves, and Tam had all the dark mage backup he and Talon would need in the unlikely event the demon queen’s minions put in a second appearance. Since I was leaving, I should be taking my trouble with me.
“Elven embassy or Balmorlan’s yacht?” I asked Mychael.
Those were the two most likely places Jari Devent and the impostor Guardians would take Piaras. Balmorlan could be using a less obvious, temporary prison, but I was betting he’d go for quick over creative. I was a seeker; I could find Piaras, and I was going to, but it always helped to know the most likely direction.
“They’re headed for the embassy,” Mychael said. “Jari has four Guardian impostors with him. Sedge and I have the city covered with patrols, and they’ll know those men aren’t Guardians. Jari wants to get out of sight as soon as he can.”
I felt my lips tighten into a thin line. “Meaning they already have Piaras knocked out, tied up, and carried off.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to. What’s between the Fortune and the embassy?”
“Conclave government buildings.”
I snorted. “Now conveniently empty for the night. And if someone is working late, they wouldn’t think twice about Guardians apprehending an unruly student outside their window.”
“Unfortunately no.”
“Can you track him?” Phaelan asked me.
“I can find him, but I have to be out in front,” I told Mychael.
Mychael didn’t like it, but he didn’t have to. For me to find Piaras, that was how it had to be. Mychael was still virtually glowing from battling those phantoms. With interference from magic that powerful, I couldn’t find my way out of a ripped fishnet, much less locate one abducted spellsinger.
When Balmorlan had Piaras kidnapped before, I’d been able to use my seeking skills to track him right to the elven embassy’s front gates. I hadn’t had an object then from Piaras to track him by, and I didn’t need anything now. He wasn’t related to me by blood, but that didn’t stop me from loving him like a brother. Family knew their own, no tracking objects required. Conscious or unconscious, it didn’t make any difference. I’d known Piaras since he was about eight years old, long enough that my seeker self wouldn’t even have to break a sweat.
“I’ll alert Sedge and my patrols on this side of the city,” Mychael said.
I nodded and watched for a moment as Mychael’s gaze became distant. He almost instantly made contact. Show off.
I quickly crossed the street and stepped out of the lamplight into the shadows next to a building, resting my back against the rough brick. I didn’t sense any magic users inside to get in my way. Good. The less talents between me and Piaras, the better. I closed my eyes and tried to relax, breathing deeply. Breathing I could do, relaxing took a few minutes that Piaras didn’t have. I shoved that thought aside. When I’d calmed myself enough to work, I focused my will on an image of Piaras in my mind until it was almost real enough to touch. Then I reached out, down the streets, around the buildings, seeking, searching, methodically eliminating options.
Until I found him.
He was alive, he was conscious, and he was not a prisoner. But he was definitely afraid, though not of the men surrounding him.
Piaras was scared to death of what he was about to do.
I clenched my teeth against the flutter of panic in my own chest. I took one deep breath, in through my nose and slowly out through my mouth, repeating it until I had the calm, cool center I had to have to track him. Emotion was my worst enemy right now, not the men I could sense about to move on Piaras, not Taltek Balmorlan, or even Sarad Nukpana. Only I could screw this up.
I opened my eyes. Mychael was standing in the street, directly in front of me, but about a dozen feet away, giving me my space. “You have him?”
“I do.” I described what I saw in my mind’s eye. “White marble buildings on either side of the street, no windows on the bottom floors. Street’s wide enough for two carriages; the cobbles are smooth. I smell…” My brow creased in confusion. No, that couldn’t be right. I closed my eyes. Those two smells shouldn’t go together. “It’s something sweet, almost like perfume; but there’s this burnt-fat stench.”
I opened my eyes to Mychael’s fierce grin. “The candlemaker.”
I blinked. “The what?”
“A candlemaker has a shop just off Bow Street. He mainly uses beeswax, but he still makes some candles with tallow. That stink goes a city block or more. The Conclave’s been trying to get him to move for years, but he owns the building and won’t sell.”
“How far?”
“Six blocks. I’ll let Sedge and my men know.”
I told myself that Piaras was a smart kid, very smart. And if growing up around me taught him nothing else, it taught him to be suspicious. After what had happened to him over the past few weeks, the kid should be suspicious of his own shadow. The fact that he told Phaelan’s contact wizard the Guardian’s name and armed himself told me he was doing more than being cautious. My head wondered what the hell he was thinking; my gut knew.
Piaras wanted payback.
I doubted Balmorlan would have used the same guards as last time, in case Piaras had been conscious long enough to recognize them. But while they may not be the same men, they had the same intention-and Piaras was determined for the outcome to be different this time. I sensed it when I’d linked with him. He’d been planning what he was about to do almost from the moment he left the Fortune.
I had a sick realization. If Sarad Nukpana could influence Piaras, this was just the kind of thing he’d try to get Piaras to do.
“Piaras knows who those men are,” I said to Mychael. “And he’s getting ready to do something about it.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Just that it’s violent. Piaras isn’t violent-but Sarad Nukpana is.”
Mychael swore and broke into a run. Vegard, Phaelan, and I followed.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen Mychael that angry. Piaras wasn’t the only one wanting payback. Elven embassy guards had murdered six of Mychael’s Guardians in the alley behind Sirens so they could kidnap Piaras. And now one of his own men had turned traitor and four embassy guards were illegally impersonating Guardians. Mychael was entirely within his rights as paladin to kick their asses from here to the harbor then lock up what was left.
We’d gone a couple of blocks, and I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary for past quitting time in the land of mage bureaucrats. Other than the candlemaker’s place, I didn’t smell anything but a low tide that took perverse pleasure in sending its stink as far into town as possible. I didn’t even hear anything, other than Phaelan trying to breathe through his mouth. Mychael and Vegard were completely silent-and I do mean completely. Apparently Guardians were trained not to breathe while tracking.
That was what tipped me off. Silence. Way too much of it for my comfort or anyone else’s. Mychael and Vegard stopped.
I already had.
In that silence I sensed Piaras-and something else.
I glanced at Mychael. I didn’t know if he sensed Piaras, the men with him, or the something else that none of us needed tonight.
A roar answered all our questions.
I took off running. Behind me, Mychael spat a curse and was hot on my heels. Phaelan and Vegard had weapons out and were keeping up. Mychael stopped just before he reached the corner, and I thought it’d be a good idea to do likewise. I looked around the corner with Mychael and saw something out of a nightmare.
And Piaras had brought them to life.
The kid was spellsinging. Quick, sharp, and guttural. Piaras had conjured help, and he’d gotten a lot more than he’d bargained for.<
br />
He’d created monsters.
Piaras knew he couldn’t take on five trained military professionals by himself, so he called for backup. I’d seen Piaras’s spellsong conjurings before. They were good. But they were normal spellsong creature conjurings: all illusion, no substance. What I saw in that street definitely had substance. I thought I heard Sarad Nukpana’s laughter, but with an embassy guard flying through the air and shrieking like a little girl, I couldn’t be sure.
Piaras had conjured not one, not two, but three bukas-the nine-foot-tall, hairy, long-fanged, longer-armed mountain monsters of goblin legend. Not only were there three of them, they were solid (they shouldn’t be), they could roar (conjurings shouldn’t be able to), and they appeared to be enjoying themselves (I didn’t know bukas could). One of them had armed himself with a guard’s sword that the elf wasn’t going to be using anytime soon-judging from his crumpled form lying against the curb-and was wielding it with what I could only call cheerful glee.
“Damn,” Vegard said in awe and admiration.
Phaelan was grinning from ear to ear. “I love it. I hate magic, but I love this.”
I didn’t. Balmorlan would have told his men what Piaras was capable of. I imagine the fake Guardians had shielded themselves, but when you saw several tons of fanged and furry rage running at you, shields and discipline would be the first things to go, and your bladder could be next. While I was grateful that Piaras conjured something that could pound the crap out of those guards, I knew he didn’t have that kind of power-but the Saghred did.
“Our nightingale has a rare gift,” came Sarad Nukpana’s voice and presence in my mind-and Mychael’s. “Don’t you agree, Paladin?” With a chuckle, he was gone.
While the bukas were playing with the embassy guards, Piaras was most definitely not playing with the two elves attacking him. Piaras knew how to use a rapier; Phaelan and I had taught him. He was a good student.
He wasn’t this good.
One guard lay unmoving in the middle of the street, the streetlights illuminating the blood staining the area around his heart. No rapier lay in the street with him; Piaras had one in either hand. He’d taken it when he’d killed the elf. I could feel what he’d done. The guard’s death lingered heavily in the air.