A Brush With Death

by Stokes, S. C.

  As the cameras stopped rolling, the reverend rose to his feet. Stan stood to shake his hand, but the good reverend drew back and punched Stan in the chest so hard he went tumbling back over the chair and landed heavily on the stage.

  Kasey's heart stopped as the reverend turned on her. She drew on her power as all around the church, the parishioners pulled weapons and attacked the police.

  Bishop already had her gun in hand.

  As one of the parishioners raised his pistol, Bishop dropped him with two lightning quick shots to the chest.

  The police at the door were overrun by the thugs masquerading as parishioners and the church’s large timber doors were pushed closed and jammed from the inside. One of the thugs pushed a wrought iron candlestick through the door handles to secure it in place.

  As the church turned on her and her escort, Kasey realized this wasn't an interview at all. It was an ambush.

  For his part, Stan Goodman seemed ignorant of the ploy. He lay on the floor, groaning where he had fallen.

  “What the…?” Kasey muttered.

  The preacher smiled, and it was all teeth.

  “Mellt,” Kasey chanted. A bolt of lightning shot out from her outstretched hand. The blast reflected off of something that shimmered in the air about a foot in front of the preacher and arced back away from the stage, catching one of the cameras and frying it completely.

  Kasey's jaw dropped open. The preacher was a wizard. It didn't make any sense. He'd spent the day stirring the public and the media's hatred of the supernatural into a frenzy, but he himself seemed to be a part of it.

  It was the bait.

  The mob at the station, the interview on TV. The preacher had orchestrated everything to drag her into the open. Kasey had a reputation for dealing with problems head on. He must've figured if he could poke the bear, she would respond. And she had; she had walked right into his trap.

  Kasey raced at the preacher, but as she took her first step forward, the preacher dropped to one knee on the red carpet of the church’s stage, placed his hand in front of him, and chanted, “Izolare.”

  The carpet burst into flames, the fire racing out from his palm, tracing the edges of a circle around Kasey. The preacher bellowed something Kasey couldn't understand and then a wall of energy rose all around her.

  Kasey's momentum carried her forward into the wall. Her knee hit it first and it felt like she'd run into a brick wall. A brick wall that had somehow been electrified. There was a sickening crunch before a current of arcane energy passed through her. She collapsed to the floor.

  She grabbed her knee as she studied the barrier. At the base, some sort of brass ritual circle had been hidden under the stage’s carpet. The preacher had come prepared, and his smile widened as he lorded over her.

  “I can't believe you killed a prince of the Feudal Court,” the preacher said.

  Kasey's body was still humming from the energy that had passed through it, but the pain in her knee was subsiding.

  “You will when you share his fate.” Kasey spat.

  The preacher laughed. “I doubt that. That binding won't allow you or your magic to pass through it. You are trapped here, right where I want you.”

  Kasey extended her senses, probing at the circle. She didn't have much experience at these kinds of workings. As far as she could tell, the circle functioned like a shield that prevented matter from passing through it. The thing about shields though was that they consumed power in order to function.

  The more energy Kasey threw at the shield, the more power the preacher would be required to exhaust to keep it up. With her conversation with her mother still echoing in her mind, Kasey was willing to bet that she had a lot more juice than whoever this clown was.

  Kasey focused her mind, drawing on her power, and channeled it into a single point. She summoned an arcane lance of power so fine it could have threaded a needle, but her goal was to simply overwhelm the barrier that held her in place.

  The scarlet beam struck the barrier and the section around the impact glowed an angry red before fading back to being transparent. Kasey let the beam burn angrily into the barrier for a few more seconds before she abandoned the effort.

  “Amateur,” the preacher replied. “The brass focus will prevent you from worming your way out of this one.”

  Bishop rose from the pews, Glock in hand, and dropped another armed suspect. Then she turned on the preacher.

  The preacher must've followed Kasey's gaze because he leapt off the back of the stage. Bishop’s shot missed and he hit the ground by the back wall of the church, tucking into a neat ball. He rolled and was back on his feet.

  All around the tiny church, the police were doing battle with their ambushers. The police were better trained than the Reverend’s thugs but they were surrounded and outnumbered. Another officer went down in the back row of pews even as Bishop tried to inch her way closer to Kasey.

  “Kasey,” Bishop called, “what can I do to help?”

  “Hit the preacher,” Kasey shouted as she pushed herself to her knees. “If you can get him, this barrier should fail.”

  Bishop raced around the pew, trying to keep as much cover between her and the nearest parishioners-turned-murderers as she could.

  “It's no use, Kasey,” the preacher said. “The Feudal Court is coming. You have no idea what is in store for you.”

  “Perhaps,” Kasey replied as she staggered to her feet, “but I promise, you won't be around to collect the bounty. As soon as I get out of here, you’ll be the first to fall.”

  Kasey just wanted to keep his attention on her. Bishop had a Glock which was all well and good if she could get the drop on him, but whoever the preacher was, he was a competent wizard, and Bishop would fare poorly in a prolonged engagement. Kasey needed to occupy as much of his attention as possible.

  “You have no idea, child,” the preacher shouted as he threw a fist sized sphere of energy at a police officer flanking the stage. The blast caught the officer in his bulletproof vest hard enough to knock him on his ass. “The Feudal King has lived for centuries, and when it comes to torture, he is an artist. Your suffering will be unbearable. You will beg for the gift.”

  “The gift?” Kasey asked.

  “The gift of immortality. Death’s kiss. Perhaps he will replace his lost heir with the hero of New York. The poster child for the Arcane Council turned into a vampire. It has a certain appeal to it.”

  “I'd rather die,” Kasey replied, studying the circle for any possible weakness in the energy surrounding her.

  “A very real possibility, but the King will decide your fate. What you want hardly matters anymore. Perhaps he'll kill you swiftly, or perhaps he will make you watch as your city tears itself apart.”

  The city tear itself apart. What was he talking about? Kasey had supposed that the preacher was a smarter than average bounty hunter who had laid a trap for her, but he seemed to have insight into the Feudal Court's agenda.

  The vampires had been quiet lately. Some members of the Arcane Council believed they might have gone to ground after their stronghold had been raided.

  Now Kasey didn't know what to think. Cal had found a warehouse full of massacred vampires today and in the same day this preacher seemed to be running his mouth about their plans.

  What if he wasn't a man at all? What if he was a vampire hiding behind a glamour like the prince had been? Kasey wanted to cast a revelation spell but trapped in the circle as she was, there was little point. Her magic would never make it through the barrier, and it would only give away her suspicions.

  No, far better to keep that close to her chest until she could act on it. It was a shame she hadn't unmasked him while the cameras were rolling.

  A vampire on prime-time TV would have added considerable weight to her words. Instead, the skirmish raged on in the little church. There were more of the thugs than police but each of the officers was well trained and wearing bulletproof vests and tactical gear, giving them a lot of longe
vity over their foes.

  Kasey tracked Bishop's progress as she rounded the stage.

  Bishop raised the Glock right as the preacher threw some kind of crimson sphere at her. Bishop ducked and the sphere shot past her, striking the stone wall of the chapel, scorching the stonework and leaving a black imprint across its face.

  Bishop raised her weapon to return fire, right as the back wall of the church exploded inward in a shower of stone and dust.

  Chapter Twelve

  Trapped inside the circle, Kasey could do nothing but watch as a section of the rear wall wide enough for two lanes of traffic to pass through was blown wide open. Chunks of stone and debris hurtled toward Bishop and the preacher, knocking them down like pins at a bowling alley.

  The preacher tumbled into the back of the stage, his head connecting with the stone in what Kasey found to be a satisfying crunch. A piece of debris struck Bishop in the right side of her skull, and she toppled to the ground.

  As the preacher hit the ground, the circle blinked out of existence. With the caster unconscious, the energy necessary for it to be maintained had wavered and broken down.

  “Bishop!” Kasey shouted as she raced to her friend’s side.

  Bishop was bleeding from a cut on the side of her head and she wasn't moving.

  Kasey lifted her gaze to the gaping hole in the back of the church. Someone or something outside had blown the wall in. Through the smoky haze, the lights of New York City seeped into the church. Kasey searched for the source of the blast, while trying to drag Bishop to cover. Two small objects sailed through the gap, one landing about three feet from Kasey. The other object arched high and landed beyond the stage.

  Flash bangs. Kasey covered Bishop's head with her body as she shielded her own ears with her palms.

  The flash bangs detonated with an overwhelming flare of white light that seemed to sear into Kasey's retinas in spite of having her eyes closed and her head turned away. The concussive blast of sound assailed her ears and Kasey found herself rolling on her side, blind and deaf and trying desperately to get a sense of what was going on in the church.

  She tried to summon a shield, but her brain was whirring like a worn-out old laptop. She just couldn't get it to boot up. She drew on her power, but nothing happened.

  Out of the fog came three silhouettes. Two were short, barely four feet tall. The other seemed twice the height, and wide enough to make an NFL linebacker wilt at the sight of him. The first of the creatures fired something deeper into the church. The projectile skittered across the stone before gas hissed angrily from it. As Kasey's eyes came into focus, she saw the two creatures from this morning, the hook-nosed gnomes. What had Hades called them? Savage Garden.

  Behind them stood something out of a children's fairytale gone horribly wrong: a massive leathery beast with rolls of flab hanging over a loincloth that seemed to be made of animal skins. In one hand, the creature carried what appeared to be a small tree as a makeshift club and it stank of cow manure and something else fetid, that Kasey couldn't quite put her finger on.

  The church was filling with gas and Kasey found her eyes watering as she tried to get her bearings. All around her, the police and the preacher's thugs coughed and gasped for air.

  Kasey struggled to rise to her feet. The gnomes were already on top of her, their gas masks proof against whatever they had unleashed in the confines of the church. One of them held a launcher; the other pulled out a small pistol and pointed it down at her before squeezing the trigger.

  Something sharp bit into the flesh at the base of her neck.

  Kasey reached for the sting and felt some kind of fletched dart there. She pulled it out, but her fingers lost their grip and the dart tumbled to the ground.

  Her muscles relaxed of their own accord and she found herself fighting sleep despite being in the middle of a war zone.

  The last thing Kasey saw was the giant beast reaching down and grabbing her, hefting her over his shoulder as her world went dark.

  When Kasey regained consciousness, everything had changed. The chaos in the church had been replaced with an eerie stillness. In the distance, she could hear tinkering. It sounded like someone working on a computer.

  Something cold pressed against her face and her senses slowly returned. She was laying on a concrete slab. Memories flooded back to her. The church in chaos, Bishop wounded, the gnomes in their masks and the giant hulking creature. Had it been a troll? It certainly fit the descriptions she had heard of such creatures. And what of the preacher?

  A dull pounding reverberated through her skull, likely an after-effect to the flash bang going off in such close proximity. She could already feel the headache coming on and did her best to ignore it. If these bounty hunters meant to turn her over to the Feudal Court, she had to get out of here, wherever here was.

  She drew on her power and felt it course around her. As energy flowed into her, she let out an almost audible sigh of relief. She had been worried the creatures would have had a device to suppress her magic but apparently not. Kasey's spirit soared as she extended her senses to try and take in her surroundings. She opened one eye and found herself in a large open space. There were a few wooden crates organized in rows, as if waiting for loading.

  “She's awake,” a voice said. It had come from behind her. “Even now she gathers her power.”

  “Don't do anything hasty,” a second voice added. It was higher than the first. “That collar is wired to blow if anything happens to either of us.”

  Collar? What collar? Kasey searched at her neck and found a steel band about two inches in diameter, fitting loosely around her throat. It was tight enough she couldn't lift it over her head but loose enough that it moved back and forth as she rolled onto her back.

  So, they hadn't tampered with her magic, but they had gone for a failsafe. Wily little gnomes. From the feel of it, there was enough weight in the collar to contain several pounds of explosive. More than enough to ensure that if it went off, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn't put Kasey together again.

  Kasey sat up and turned to face the voices. The two gnomes sat off to one side. One had a pistol in his lap, and a bandage wrapped around his upper thigh. He must've been the one Bishop winged this morning. The other sat on a small stool, both hands moving back and forth across a laptop's keyboard.

  The one with the pistol brandished it loosely in her direction. “The collar is wired to a pair of dead men's switches. If anything happens to either of us, boom. If you try to escape and get more than a hundred feet from us, boom. You do anything I don't like—”

  “Boom?” Kasey asked.

  “Precisely.” The gnome grinned. “While we would prefer to deliver you alive and well, the five million for your corpse, or what's left of it, will prove more than adequate. Don't give me a reason to want to settle for that.”

  “How did you know I was awake?” Kasey asked.

  The gnome held up the pistol with a gloved hand. Looking down its sights, he examined the weapon. “We can sense it, child. We may not have your talents, but our kind have long been capable of working the arcane to our will. As soon as you started channeling your will, we could feel it in the air.”

  He held the weapon with the comfort of one used to wielding such arms. She didn't like her chance of trying to get the drop on him. Then there was always her dainty little necklace filled with explosives. If she was to get out of this situation, it was going to require reason rather than brute force.

  “You seem to favor human weapons. Why is that?” Kasey asked.

  “They are crude but effective,” the gnome replied. “By the time you hear the shot, it is already too late.”

  “That was a neat little smash and grab at the church. That many police and you were still willing to make your move. Very bold.”

  The gnome smiled, showing two rows of yellow tinged teeth. “Yes, all those mortals. Shame they were facing the wrong way.”

  “I dare say they weren't e
xpecting you to blow your way through the back wall,” Kasey replied as she shuffled about trying to get comfortable. Her backside felt numb and the cold concrete wasn't doing anything to change that.

  “Well, we were short on time. The preacher had already sprung his trap and the Feudal Court were on their way to collect you. We couldn't have that little weasel claim our bounty.”

  “And here I was thinking you'd sprung me out of the generosity of your heart.”

  The gnome laughed so hard he almost fell off his stool. “Generosity of our heart? Clearly you have not heard of us?”

  Kasey shrugged. “Not until this morning when you tried to blow me up. But don't feel bad, a lot of people have tried to kill me today and to be fair, I haven't the faintest clue who half of them are.”

  The gnome let out a sigh. “Clearly, we have spent too much time abroad. Our reputation here has waned.”

  “It seems like we have a little time before you send me to my death. Why not introduce yourselves, help educate me? Give me your names and I'll be sure to tell everyone I meet who it was that bested the hero of New York City. It'll be great for your street cred.”

  “I don't think your bargain will be good for much, Kasey Chase. The Feudal King will see to that. Besides, we are Children of Winter. We know better than to give our names to ones such as you. Others have tried to bind us before,” the gnome replied.

  The creature was giving her entirely too much credit. Kasey didn't have the faintest clue how such a binding might happen. Not exactly the kind of thing they taught in the Academy. Mortals were encouraged to avoid dealing with creatures from beyond the veil.

  The Fae in particular were very dangerous and those who meddled with them tended to get far more than they bargained for. Of the two courts, summer and winter, winter had a reputation for cruelty. The fact that these winter Fae were bounty hunters seemed fitting, but it did raise the question what were they getting out of it?

  “If you're creatures of winter, what do you need the money for?” Kasey asked.