Soul of Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

“You can’t fight?” one of them asked finally.

  “Not usefully,” Glory admitted. “Not against whatever’s out there.”

  “Turncoats,” one of the delicate ones said. “Gnomes. They eat flesh, any flesh they can get. AJ says they threw their lot in with the preternaturals to earn the right to eat whatever they want.” She—he, it?—gave a delicate little shudder, hair trembling with the move.

  “Huh,” Glory said. That didn’t match up with the mental image she had of gnomes, which was admittedly formed more by picture books she’d seen in passing than any actual study, but the apprehension in AJ’s voice earlier had been real enough for her to accept the super’s words as truth. “So, we just sit here and wait for them to hack it out overhead?”

  “We can’t fight, either,” a different super said. “We look and we hear and we heal, but we don’t fight.” It smiled a little wistfully. “Not usefully.”

  “My name’s Glory,” she said, suddenly needing that connection.

  “Apple,” the super said and nodded to her companion. “That’s Oak.”

  Dryads. At any other time and place, Glory might have been fascinated. Just then, she only nodded at Oak, getting a solemn nod in return.

  The three others just huddled together more tightly and didn’t speak.

  “You live in Europe?” Apple asked, scooting a little closer to Glory.

  “London,” she said. “England.”

  “I’ve never left Connecticut,” Apple admitted.

  “You never wanted to,” Oak said. “Neither have I. We’re not meant to wander.”

  “Neither am I,” Glory admitted. “If it were up to me, I’d still be in my flat in London, doing the things I always do, happy in my routine. But when a strange man arrives in your bedroom and tells you you’re needed...it’s sort of hard to say no.”

  “They say the Huntsman came for you?” Apple sounded as if she had a bad case of hero worship when she said the name.

  “That’s what AJ called him, yeah. You know him?”

  Apple shook her head, but Oak nodded. “He married an Oak. He comes around sometimes. Human, but old, very old. Older than AJ, maybe. He outwitted AJ once, so he must be wise, too.”

  “Outwitted AJ?” That sounded like a story she needed to hear. Mentally comparing the dark-eyed, growl-voiced man who had welcomed her to the Farm with the much older human man who had sent her here, Glory decided that she’d probably put even odds on the pair of them.

  “They fought over Oak,” the first Oak said. “She was going to visit her mother-tree and got caught up in a lupin hunt. They were going to eat her and the mother-tree, too. The Huntsman was there, saved Oak, and they fell in love—”

  “Wait. Wait a minute.” Glory put her hand up to stop the dryad. “Are you seriously telling me that AJ was the wolf in ‘Little Red Riding Hood’?”

  The dryads both stared at her blankly.

  “Right. Never mind.” It didn’t matter, and it wasn’t any crazier than anything else she had seen or learned in the past month. What was it Jan had said—after a while, it all becomes a normal crazy? Yeah. “So, yeah, the Huntsman came and told me Jan needed me. So, I got on a plane, came here, only she’s gone and, well, you know the rest.”

  Somehow, exchanging life stories seemed perfectly natural, as though she were at a tech cocktail party trying to find simpatico mates, rather than sitting in a dark cellar with non-humans while some kind of fight raged on overhead. It was so quiet, their voices carrying through the still air without any effort, that Glory was reminded of the one storm she’d ever been through, off the coast of North Wales, after the winds had died down and the rain was as steady as your own breathing.

  “Did you know Jan?” She had never actually met the other woman in person, only through email and video calls, and there hadn’t been time to talk to any of her other team members about anything other than the problem at hand.

  Galilia was up there in the fight. And Alon, Beth and Joey, and... Glory closed her eyes, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyelids, trying to make those thoughts shut up.

  “We never met her,” the dryads said, but one of the other three raised its face and said, “I did,” in a pale, wispy voice that perfectly matched her appearance. “I helped treat Tyler when he had nightmares. She would come sometimes to sit with him.”

  “Wraiths are healers,” Apple said. “Not because they like making people better. They feed on sorrow and pain.”

  “We are as we are,” the wraith that had spoken said. It wasn’t defensive, merely a statement of fact.

  “If you help someone, no matter your reason, you still helped them. And if you can do it and take care of yourself at the same time...that’s aces in my book.” Glory still hadn’t forgiven Tyler for thinking with his dick and getting Jan—and her!—into this mess in the first place, but that was shit to deal with another time.

  “Yes. We are all merely our natures.”

  “Oh, hey, that’s not what I said,” Glory objected. “Nobody’s only their nature, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to say, ‘Hey, let me help someone who needs pain siphoned off,’ rather than just wandering around until you found someone. And AJ wouldn’t have become friends with the Huntsman—one of them would have killed the other.”

  The wraith frowned, her head tilting to the side and pale eyes narrowing. Glory noted with fascination that she didn’t have eyelids to close; her eyes actually narrowed. “They are predators, both. Each respected the other’s strengths, renegotiated their territory. That is within their nature. We...we are lazy.”

  There was a snort from one of the dryads at that.

  “We will seek the easiest source of sustenance. A willing source requires less effort to feed from. That is our nature. And it is the nature of those in pain to willingly give it up to another.”

  “That’s the most passive-aggressive excuse I’ve ever heard. Are you seriously saying that none of you have any self-empowerment at all?”

  “We are bound to our trees,” Oak said. “We sway or fall to the winds. Where is there empowerment in that?”

  “You’re not with your trees now,” Glory said. “You came here to the Farm, I presume to help stand against the preters, rather than just waiting to see what wind would prevail. So, why not see how far you can take it?”

  Rather than the immediate reaction Glory would have expected, there was silence. All five of them seemed to be considering her words. The wraiths were dubious, she thought—their expressions were subtle and hard to read. Apple seemed uncertain. Oak, though, she had a faint smile on her face, as though she liked what she was thinking.

  Oaks were a hard wood, Glory remembered. Apparently, that carried through to their dryads. But while they seemed content to wait, passive, Glory couldn’t. She got up off her crate and started to pace the confines of the cellar, stepping out of the warm glow of the lantern, poking her nose into the shadows. The cellar was dry enough and warm enough, all things considered. It would have been filled with dried fruits and root vegetables, she supposed, back when the house was first built and it was actually in use by humans. Or maybe they had used it to store cider or...

  She circled back through the light and out into the shadows again, skirting the narrow wooden staircase. The urge to go up the steps, to see what was happening, itched in her, but she beat it down.

  And that image triggered another, sending her back into the center again, looking intently.

  “We need something to use as a weapon,” she said.

  “A what?”

  “In case...well, you know. In case someone comes down here.” Every horror movie she had ever unwillingly watched reappeared in her brain, all the ways something could pop out and take off your head or stab you in the gut.

  They stared at her, not uncomprehendingly, but with an odd sort
of pity or grim humor.

  “If they come down here, we’re dead,” Apple said.

  Glory snorted and kept looking for something she could use as a club.

  * * *

  “Fall back.” AJ’s muzzle was sore, and his gums itched from the gnome-blood caked around his teeth, but his gaze was still alert and his thoughts were clear. Meredith, still at his side, made an interrogative whine, not questioning but requiring more explicit instructions.

  “They’ve paused, when they should be pressing us. That means they’re about to try something else. If the house falls, we need to be ready to evacuate. You have to get the human and her team out of here.”

  She might have argued, but here and now, he was alpha, and his word ruled. She ducked her head and loped away.

  One of the kiyakii slid into position where she had been, covering his flank. AJ nodded his thanks, then refocused his attention on the field in front of him. There were more gnome bodies there than anything else, ripped apart until they could no longer re-form and regroup. But nearly a third of the defenders had paid the cost, and he could only assume that it was the same where he could not see. He scanned the field, seeing numbers, not faces, not names. He couldn’t think about the friends who had doubtless gone down. There would be time to mourn individuals when this was done. If they lived long enough to mourn. The line had not broken, but it was ragged and weary. If the turncoats had aid...

  So far, the others he had scented had hung back, not taken part in the battle. But they would; he knew that. It was how he would have played it out, sending in the shock troops first, then the smarter, savvier fighters to mop up—and search the buildings.

  Preters, in his den.

  AJ bared his muzzle in a defiant grin, even though the enemy was too far away to see. They might find the scent, but there were other scents laid down, too, trails leading to dead ends and pitfalls, tangled in with the truth. He, AJ, could untangle them, but no one else.

  “They’re moving forward,” one of the splyushka told him, fluttering down to land a few feet away. It was young; its hard, narrow mouth clacked nervously, and its feathers fluttered, but it stood its ground. Feathered, yes, but not flighty. AJ felt a surge of pride.

  “Then let’s shove them back,” he said.

  * * *

  The sharp, cracking noise was a shock, after what seemed like hours of muffled silence. Glory got to her feet, the two-foot-long piece of planking she had found clutched in her hands like a baseball bat. Odds were it would splinter the moment she brought it down on anything hard; at least she’d have that one chance.

  Oak stood up when she heard the sound, and reached down to scoop up some of the dirt from the hard-packed floor, cupping it in her hands. Glory nodded approval.

  “You blind ’em and I’ll bash ’em,” she said in a low whisper and then glanced at the remaining four. “And you guys just sit there. Or you can run, if you get a chance.”

  The door swung open, and there was the sound of surprisingly heavy steps on the stairs. Glory tensed, but the voice that came out of the dark was a familiar one.

  “Come on.”

  “Elsa?” Apple practically flew up the stairs. “Did we win?”

  “No.” The jötunndotter wasn’t any grimmer than usual, but the exhaustion in her voice came through clearly. “But we haven’t lost yet, either. Gloriana, you need to go.”

  “What?” First she had to hide, then she had to run.... Her pacifistic tendencies be damned, caution boiled over into frustration, and she gripped the piece of wood more tightly. “I want to—”

  There was a yelp and a growl at the top of the stairs, then the sound of something heavy being knocked over. Elsa swore in some language Glory didn’t know, and suddenly Apple was falling back down the stairs as though she’d been pushed, landing on her backside with an expression of shock on her round face.

  And then something leaped from the shadows of the stairway, something not-Elsa, moving too fast to be the troll, too fast and too sleek, arms reaching, elongated fingers grabbing at the air, and Glory didn’t think, didn’t ask, but stepped forward and rather than swinging with her makeshift weapon, stabbed straight ahead with it, the broken tip meeting a sudden resistance, then giving way, sliding into something, the weight on the end heavy enough to bring Glory’s arms down in shock.

  She pulled back, and something came back with the club, something that looked like an oversize frog with a human head and smelled like... She gagged and dropped the wood, backing away.

  “Gnome,” one of the wraiths said, its voice even more fading away.

  “And more coming.” Elsa took another step down, dropping another gnome to the ground, its neck clearly broken. “No humans can be taken here, not with the knowledge you have. You need to get out another way. Apple. Take her.”

  “What?” Apple was still on the dirt floor, although she had scuttled back away from the two gnome bodies.

  “I’ll do it.” Oak raised her hand to volunteer. “Come, human. See how the other half grows.”

  “What?” Glory had a moment, much like when she woke up to a strange man in her bedroom watching her, that something was about to happen that she wasn’t expecting, that she wasn’t going to like, and she was about to say no when Oak took her by the hand and put the other one over her mouth, and they stepped into the dirt wall.

  There was no air, only pressure on all sides, and the stink of wet dirt and mold and cold against her skin, pressure building in her lungs and against her bones, fingers stretching, toes stretching, seeking nourishment, air water food survival, and then there was air in her lungs and Glory inhaled and coughed, almost dropping to her knees in relief. Oak’s hands fell away, and she opened her eyes...and then wished that she hadn’t. They were away from the main building, within reach of the tree line, but around them were torn and bloodied bodies, all still, all dead. Most of them looked like the gnomes that had attacked them, but in the face of so much death, Glory couldn’t bring herself to be pleased.

  And not all of them were gnomes. Her mind tried to sort them out, looking, against its will, for a familiar face, something that might identify the bodies as someone she had known.

  “Don’t look,” the dryad said, her voice stricken with pain. “Don’t look. Come.”

  “I can’t....”

  “I know. But you must come.”

  Glory closed her eyes and thought about Jan, who had gone into another world because she had to. About Tyler, who had escaped what sounded like an utter horror of brainwashing, taking it one step at a time. Because the only way to survive and not lose your mind was to go forward, not back.

  “All right.” She lifted her gaze from the ground, shaking off the dirt that still clung to her skin—don’t think about it, don’t think about what you’ve done—and walked on, heading for the trees.

  * * *

  “Gone.” It was a faint whisper, but a familiar one. One of the wraiths. He had told them to go to the basement; they would be more useful after the battle, if there was anyone to succor. Gone where? Who had gone? Where? There was no clarification, and AJ snarled, picking his way through the bodies, his gaze never wavering from his goal.

  It stood there in the middle of the field, standing as if it didn’t even notice the corpses around it. It probably didn’t. Between one step and the next, AJ changed, spine elongating, fur sloughing off, claws retracting and pads forming into fingers. He stood in front of the preter, skin naked in the cold air, and did not flinch.

  “You are not welcome here,” he told it. “Your pawns are dead, your game revealed, and the next move will put you into check. Concede and retreat.”

  The preter probably didn’t have a clue about chess, but since AJ didn’t expect they would give in, either, it didn’t matter. His tone sent the message.

  “We have no grief w
ith you, creature,” the preter said. Its voice was smooth and sweet, its expression composed of a mix of curiosity and compassion. It was an excellent presentation, but AJ was old, bitter, and not falling for it.

  “No grief, no,” he agreed. “You barely notice us, save to swat us out of your way. But the obstruction bit back this time, didn’t it? And we have more teeth and claw, waiting for you. Concede and retreat.”

  “Where are the humans?”

  AJ held himself perfectly still, save a slight cock of his head, as though he were wondering if he’d heard correctly. “Humans?”

  “The humans. They belong to us. Give them back, and we will leave your enclave be.”

  So that was what this was all about. AJ wasn’t sure if he should be insulted or not.

  “The human male was won from your court, by means your consort agreed to. There is no claim to him, nor the woman.”

  AJ mostly didn’t care about humans. He would have handed the male over without blinking if he thought it would win them anything. But the thought of giving them Jan made a growl form in his chest. She had become pack, and he would not give her up.

  He couldn’t, anyway. They weren’t on the Farm. But this preter didn’t seem to know that. Good.

  “You will give the humans to us. Or you will all die.”

  AJ had heard more impressive threats before. He didn’t discount this one for being issued in a bland monotone, though. Far from it.

  There was only one human on the Farm. The Huntsman, who was his friend, had sent him Glory, who was Jan’s friend. That meant that she, too, was pack.

  “I am lupin,” AJ said, smiling. “You have forgotten what that means. Let me teach you.”

  * * *

  The woods were thicker than Glory had thought, not just a border line but an actual thicket, the trees taller and wider than any she’d ever been close to.

  “I’m to take you to the Center,” Oak said. “But I’ve never gone from here. It’s going to take me a minute to find my bearings.”

  “All right,” Glory said. She wasn’t really in a position to say anything else. She had no idea what the Center was, but anywhere was better than here. Leaning against one of the trees, she watched the dryad turn slowly, her eyes closed. There was noise coming from behind them, where she thought the farmhouse was, but within the copse it was almost silent, just the occasional creak or rustle to indicate that they weren’t alone. Glory, used to the noises of a major city, would have been nervous—all right, she would have been terrified, after everything that had happened—but instead all she felt was a numb sort of calmness. It was less shock, she decided, than a weird sense of the inevitable. She was in shock, and no fucking wonder. She’d never seen anything die in front of her before. Not even a pet. She had only ever killed spiders before, and even then reluctantly. The fact that those things back in the basement had been trying to kill her, that she had only been defending herself...it made no difference, she realized. They were still dead, and she couldn’t be pleased.