Still Enchanted.
The notion stabbed him like a spear piercing an iron-cold night. He had yet been Enchanted when the Red Lady had found him. She had been able to take his essence, but not his life, for the Enchantment kept him alive. A fee in a mortal man's world. Yet, he did no more feel out of place than he could fly.
So he must have fallen into the Red Lady's thrall immediately following his banishment. Not so long ago. He had only been assisting Her Divine Redness since the spring had pushed up vermilion poppies in the fields that bordered the embattled city. Intoxicating that flower's kiss, as was the succubus's kiss.
He traced a finger over the pocked marks curving about his left eye. Not deep, but permanent. Pores saturated with the Red. Not blood, but residue from Faery. Painful. Do you remember? He'd cried out in the moment of banishment. Small pokers searing a lasting punishment into his flesh. And then?
Do you not remember me?
He had known the woman who fought with the applewood staff? When? And where? In Faery? But she did not reek of Faery. It did not seem feasible...
"Need to remember," he muttered, pressing his fisted fingers to his temple.
"What did you say, Puppy?"
Myrrh tickled his nose. He sat alongside his tormentor and lover. "Oh, er, she is close, mistress. I can scent her."
"And with her the man always follows?"
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"I wager so. You've only to wait, as is your exquisite role."
"Leave me then. You've the others to retrieve. Two of them for my collection. But remain within calling distance so you may track the mortal man when he leaves my arms."
"Ever your servant, most beauteous one." He kissed her lap, lush folds of scented velvet, and nuzzled his nose deep into her musky scent, then slipped backward from the carriage and silently closed the door.
"For now," he muttered.
Bells tolled in Notre Dame to announce nones. Jacqueline, Ul-rich named the largest bell. Her voice carried across the city. They would first check the Place de Greve, an execution square, Ulrich had explained, just across the bridge from Notre Dame.
"An actual place for executions." A chill of morbidity choked in Gossamyr's throat. Such easy violence she had never known.
She looked over the cobbled square. Massive in size, it flanked what Ulrich had pointed out were the principal city buildings where the lawmakers and religious leaders and army generals knocked heads. A bustle of carriages and mounted riders wound through the square; unlit lanterns carried aloft on sticks dandled this way and that. A beruffled dog danced by on its hind legs, its master calling all to a comedy at the nearby theater. Here the air, soaked in stench of the Seine, felt heavier, sullen.
Leaving Fancy snuffling over a pile of rotten melons, Ulrich walked across the square, his head held high and his ears pricked.
Gossamyr slapped Fancy's flank. Road dust fumed from the dirty hide and made her sneeze. It was her first sneeze since arriving in Paris. Interesting. Mayhap she had adjusted to the Other side?
Mayhap you belong.
She looked to the wandering soul shepherd. "Ulrich?"
Ignoring her completely, Ulrich tripped over a branch, but kept moving, as if compelled onward. He walked right before an
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equipage of six, barely avoiding the snap of an admonishing whip. A smithy cradling a horse's hoof in his black apron looked up at the sight, shook his head, then gave the hoof another pound. Scorched iron scented the air. Five long strides carried Ulrich into the shadows, where he disappeared into a narrow alley.
"What in all of the Spiral?" Tugging Fancy along, Gossamyr trotted across the square. Keeping her head down she dodged the crowd without rousing concern. She did not know to fear the English or the French more, and so obscurity was wisest for this lone woman.
The alley was narrowed by a row of parked carts, empty save for a few twigs of kindling. She followed him closely, down the aisle of buildings stacked three stories upon one another. Everything was so close, too close for a faery. "What is it, Ulrich?"
"It's so...beautiful."
At his slow recital Gossamyr dropped the mule's reins. The hairs at the back of her neck prinkled. The man was aware of nothing but that directly before him. Ahead, the alley curved. She couldn't see a thing that would attract—
"More lost souls?"
Ulrich shook his head. No.
He had so suddenly changed from alert to...led. To walk through the busy square as if he had been bespelled?
Tilting her head, Gossamyr turned her ear the direction Ulrich walked and moved in stealthy side steps. She heard nothing. Thick gray clouds twinkled with rays of escaped sunbeams. The soul shepherd stretched out a seeking hand and moved onward. It was very obvious he was being led somewhere. Not by a soul?
Gripping him by the elbow, she tugged him to a halt. "Be you pisky-led? Close your mind to whatever it is you are hearing."
"No piskies here. Far from Faery." He tugged from her grasp. Spreading his arms wide, he encompassed the unseen. "Can you not hear it, faery princess? It is like rain on a stream. Bells ring in my head."
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"It is not the cathedral?"
"No. She sings to me."
"I don't hear— She?" Her heart thudding, Gossamyr twisted around and scanned high and low. Not a single face appeared behind the dirty windows. The fetch was absent. Quiet this street. "She? Here?"
The Red Lady plied her game of seduction, luring Ulrich into her deadly embrace. As she had lured him since he'd taken the al-icorn into possession. Gossamyr should have persuaded Ulrich to hide it, to leave it at his uncle's home—no, the old man was far more susceptible to a Faery erie.
They rounded a turn in the street, Ulrich blindly pursuing the musical call Gossamyr could not hear no matter how she strained. Her feet tripped quietly over the cobbles. Stilling the clicking ar-rets at her waist—gown or not, she would not walk the city unarmed—she skipped onward, but maintained a distance. As well, her staff was always to hand.
While she must protect the alicorn from danger, it might serve to learn the direction of the Red Lady's lair. Could it be so simple as following Ulrich?
Two mounted riders clopped into view. Sensing danger, Gossamyr hiked up her skirt and tucked portions of the yellow silk into the waist of her braies. Freedom to dash or leap was imperative.
Staff at the ready, she focused.
Twin blood horses snorted and stomped the cobbles. No visible liverv. Not the watch then. Fully armored, mail chinked with the horses' movements. The steel bourquinette helmets were open.
Ulrich walked right up to them, unmindful to their drawn swords. And their red eyes.
Was the man always so oblivious to danger?
MoreJor you. Is danger not what you crave?
"Have at me."
Stabbing her staff into the ground, Gossamyr swung up her
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body and caught one rider on the head with her heels. The bourquinette flew into the air. The force of connection toppled the rider to the ground.
The other dismounted with a fluid ease, and swinging his sword in challenge, let out a banshee yowl. No humanity in that voice. But a chilling reminder of Faery. Two of the succubus's victims, then.
Ulrich, his head erect and eyes forward, miraculously dodged a wild sword slash and kept walking.
Slapping her staff into both hands, Gossamyr barely avoided a slice to the head from a seeking blade. Thrusting high, the staff vibrated in her hands as steel cut into the hard wood—and broke the fire-forged applewood in two. The force of the blow unsettled Gossamyr from her stance. Her arms swung back, a serrated half of the staff swinging in each hand. She caught herself from falling by redirecting her balance.
So easily her best defense was destroyed? A simmer of fear surfaced. What do you fear? No! Danger, it was hers to embrace.
A step dislodged the skirt from her waist and it fell to her ankles. Ill outfitted for this challen
ge. From the corner of her eye Gossamyr saw the first rider remained on the ground, groaning and pulling at his eyes with cutting gauntlets. Already the red had begun to seep from his pores.
"Ulrich, no!" The soul shepherd listened only to the silent and beguiling song of the succubus. A song that planted itself in the skulls of Gossamyr's attackers and had fruited into a wild, evil thing.
Now there! The fetch swooped low to hover over the head of the other man. He swung his sword at the creature; the fetch dodged and flew off.
Gripping both halves of defense to her sides, Gossamyr announced to the standing attacker, "Deliver your best, blighted lackwit!"
Spinning one half of the staff in her right hand, she twisted at the waist and conked the armored beast upside the head with the
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other short staff. The bourquinette went flying. Another twist of her waist returned a blow to the crown of his exposed head. The hard wood connected with skull-cracking impact. Momentum pulled her around and she spun the short stick to a stop, stabbing the swordsman in the gut with the serrated end, just below the hard iron cuirass. With a jingle of circled metal, Gossamyr tugged the staff from the mail. A guttural squawk quaffed out from him. He landed the ground, gripping his stomach, but was far from defeated.
Using his momentary befuddlement, Gossamyr raced to the wall before Ulrich, blocking his path with her half staff. "Don't do it, Ulrich. She is calling to you. The Red Lady!"
"So pretty," he murmured. Tears streamed down his cheeks, drawing thick runnels through his dusty flesh. Bespelled then. How to break the succubus's erie?
"Jean Cesar Ulrich.
What was the remainder of the man's over long name? The third.. .something. Blight!
Gossamyr used the only form of deterrent she knew would work. She blunted the staff into Ulrich's gut, folding him and bringing him down. His palms slapped the wall behind him for stability, yet found little as he slid to his haunches.
Now an attacker fixed to Gossamyr's back, the flat of his blade cleaving into her neck. She bent, heaving the man over her head and pushing away the deadly blade as he landed the ground. Raising the staff above her head, she prepared to bring it down onto his skull—but paused.
Red tears poured from the man's eyes. The neck muscles tightened to thick cords, then released, softening his flesh. His mouth gaped, releasing a torrent of ichor swirled through with vibrant crimson.
Remembering the last time she had witnessed such a death— Gossamyr scanned the periphery in search for the pin man. Did he lurk in the shadows?
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She hissed an invitation to challenge. "You want their essences? You'll have to go through me!"
"Oh..." Ulrich stirred and, using the wall, managed to pull himself to his feet.
She dashed to him, lifted her skirts, and kneed him in the thigh to effectively pin him.
"What did you do that for? Ouch." He toppled into her arms and began to retch dry coughs over her shoulder. "That is the last time I kiss you!"
"You were under her spell." She embraced him around the shoulders and held him as he heaved. "I had to do something to keep you from the Red Lady. Steady, Ulrich. You are safe now—oh, my faery heart."
"What?"
"Look."
There, behind the mule snorting at a scatter of rotting hay, lay the first unfortunate fee she had laid out. And squatting over him, the pin man, a long steel pin held in wait. No hood concealed his hair this day. Capped in brilliant red, the long strands looked to be soaked by a bloody flood. Sunlight flickered across his face. The mark of the banished curled an arabesque about his eye.
"Avenall." The name fell, a stolen whisper, from Gossamyr's lips. The fear she'd previously pushed back clambered to the fore and set her to keen attention. See me. Remember me?
Still holding Ulrich, and feeling his body yet convulse in protest to the blow she'd delivered to his gut, Gossamyr remained at the wall. She did not want to frighten Avenall away.
Nor must she allow him to succeed in stealing yet another essence for his mistress.
As well, she wanted him to recognize her. Was he a slave to the Red Lady? His mind trapped in her wicked thrall? Could Gossamyr broach that invisible shield and draw Avenall out from the facade
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of the pin man? 'Twas sure a poke to his gut with her staff would do little but rile.
A small orange light emerged from the dead fee's skull, squeezing out in a globulus quiver and expanding.
"He's going to take the essence," Ulrich hissed. "Get him!"
"I..." Yet Gossamyr remained, strangely unable to move. For to do so would require force—against her lover.
At the exact moment the pin pierced the essence, the fee's armored body jerked. The shell of flesh and bone rose from the ground. Armor cracked and tore in a dull metallic rip. Out struggled a revenant from the rib cage. With a shrieking wail, the creature soared into the sky, away from Paris. Back to Faery to torment Shinn.
Her heart stalled, Gossamyr could but witness.
Releasing a squeal of glee, the pin man turned and scampered to the other body. The fee lay but a half-dozen strides from where Gossamyr and Ulrich observed. Intent on the task at hand, the pin man did not notice them. Or maybe he did see them, which is why he worked so quickly. This time a pale green essence seeped out from the body.
"Enough!" Gossamyr shoved aside Ulrich and pointed her staff at the pin man. "Move and I strike you dead. Look at me, Avenall!"
The pin man drew himself straight, taller than Gossamyr—as she remembered—and grinned so wickedly she thought any sane man's face should crack. Holding out his arms, he displayed a pin, decorated with an essence, in the left hand. Narrowing his eyes, he tilted his head and nodded. "1 make no move, my lady."
Did he surrender so easily? What to do? To strike or speak?
Gossamyr maintained her pose, the staff—shorter, but no less effective to defense—ready for instruction. Her left hand strummed the chord of arrets at her hip. A step forward was halted by close-fitting fabric. Blight, this awkward gown!
"Tell me how you have my name?"
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A conversation? Might be the thing to dissuade him from the burgeoning essence that sought a safe twindian.
"I knew you when you lived in Faery, Avenall. I know the reason why you were banished."
He gaped. So he did not know the reason behind his banishment? Most certainly, for then he would know her.
She must tell him. Mayhap win him from the succubus's erie.
The green essence quivered, slowly rising between them. If he moved, Gossamyr would leap forward and crack open his skull.
Studying him, she saw he was dressed in the finery of Faery. Skeleton leaves frilled about his neck, and at his wrists, fee lace fashioned of delicate arachnagoss. Yellow rose petals had been sewn for a doublet, and amphi-leather hose drew her eye down impossibly long legs. If the Disenchantment had set in, surely the clothing would not hold—
Had Shinn the ability to send the banished straight to Paris, yet still retain their Enchantment? For so long? Even Shinn feared Disenchantment with an overlong stay.
"You..." he started, the pin held firmly in his left hand. A weapon, no doubt about it. ".. .know?"
"Do you not remember your life in Faery, Avenall?"
"Do not continue to speak that name!"
"It is your name."
"It means nothing to me."
Gossamyr blew out a breath. Indeed, she must Name him to break the glamour. "I name thee Avenall of..."
Of. Of what? Tightening her brows, Gossamyr searched her memory. Avenall... Why could she not place his name complete? She knew this man. She had once thought to give herself complete to him.
"I must go." Ulrich rose behind Gossamyr.
She reached back to grasp Ulrich's hand but touched only the flutter of his cape. "No! She calls to you!"
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A squeal of t
riumph shot through Gossamyr's system. Not her own rejoiceful cry.
Avenall danced, his stolen prizes glowing, one speared on a pin in each hand. "She lies, the mortal warrior. She cannot name me."
In that instant the bell of the great cathedral on the island began to peal.
"Ah, Jacqueline!" Ulrich called, raising his hands to revere the distant bell. "So prettily you toll, but I've only ears for my lady's song. So sorry."
Gossamyr struggled to maintain hold on Ulrich and yet keep Avenall in sight. The man's name! She must conjure his name to restore his memory of their alliance.
A skin-prinkling howl burst up from the ground. The revenant clawed its way out from the husk of the Disenchanted. Flesh tore and clung to the bones, one last attempt to keep the evil at bay. Muscle stretched and snapped. Armor bent and ripped. Finally the revenant was free.
She must stop it from returning to Faery. She must stop Ulrich from going to the Red Lady. She must rescue Avenall from the wicked thrall. She must—
With no apparent intent to flee to Faery, this revenant turned and yowled at Gossamyr, revealing gnashing fangs and whipping wings. The creature was twice her size and loud enouph to wake the dead.
"Ulrich!" Gossamyr yelled.
The man heard nothing but the Red Lady's call. He strode from the alley, oblivious to the danger that waited. What she would offer for a lost soul to wander across his path. "Right now," she muttered. "Can you hear me, lost souls?"
"Watch you don't get your head ripped from your shoulders!" Avenall called in a macabre song. Orange and green faery lights blurred across the stone building facades, a shadow of Enchantment stealing across their sealed windows.
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Dodging the revenant's lunge, Gossamyr raced toward Ulrich, then realized her mistake as she arrived on Ulrich's heels.
The revenant screeched and followed.
"Get yourself gone!" She shoved Ulrich and he collided with the wall.
A swing of her staff connected with the revenant's fist. Bone-clean fingers clamped about the applewood and jerked, winning the prize.
"I am off," Ulrich muttered. "My mistress calls."
Gossamyr dodged the swing of her own staff, feeling the whoosh of air part the fur rimming her neck. Death missed. Had the weapon been full-length she might have received a blow directly to her skull. But it did hit another target.
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