Soul of Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Farm’s gone,” Seth said bluntly. “Preters are here.”

  * * *

  The ritual had followed the rise of the new moon. Although they could not see it, deep in the basement room, the gathered preters could feel it. As it reached the apex of its nightly cycle, the humans waiting patiently were gathered in the center of the room, their masters placing a hand on their chests, under the silver chain, and commanded each to take up the others’ hands, creating an outward-facing circle, their masters a looser ring around them.

  There was an unearthly silence, the sound of their breathing the only sound, softly echoed in the dark corners of the room before fading. Then their fingers curved inward, nails digging into the flesh underneath like bloodied thorns, and the humans cried out in a blend of agony and joy, the pain their masters inflicted welcomed as proof of their affection. The sound filled the room, driving out the silence, creating the bond that tied human to preter, giving the magic a bridge to move over, united preternatural with natural.

  One-to-one, such a bridge created and opened a single portal. Combined and focused, matched to the natural bridge of the new moon, and that single portal expanded, deepened, until the mist filled the entire church, and the painted concrete walls were replaced with the cold stone walls of the Court Under the Hill.

  Above them, on the streets of this town, and the one next to it, and the ones surrounding it, computer screens and cell phones flickered as the universes twisted into each other, the logic behind them hijacked to another cause.

  And there in the basement, on a dais that had not been there a moment ago, presided the consort, regal, cold, and filled with rage. He stood, and his advisers stood with him, watching as he strode off the dais and into the natural world.

  Behind him, at a respectful distance, came a dozen more of the court, the greater lords and lesser ones, until only the consort’s advisers and a score of lesser preters remained, to hold the court until they returned. They watched through the Grand Portal but said no word, made no gesture of greeting or farewell.

  The consort had put aside his robes, replacing them with trousers and a close-fitting shirt and vest, low boots on his feet, his long, chestnut-brown curls tied back instead of flowing around his shoulders. His gaze raked over the humans, then lingered over the preters who had opened the way for him.

  “Well done,” he said. “It will hold?”

  “It will.” The proper response would have been It will, my prince. The dropped honorific did not go unnoticed, and the consort’s lips pressed into an even thinner line, but he did not challenge the courtier. And that, too, did not go unnoticed. The consort had held the court together in crisis, but he would not be able to maintain that hold forever; if the queen did not return, if they failed here, his reign would have no legitimacy. She had bred no heir, and without a queen, the court itself would fail, the courtiers turning on each other until there was nothing left. They all knew it.

  “Then let us reclaim my lady,” the consort said. “And then we will claim this realm, once and for all, so that it will bother us no more.”

  “’Fraid I can’t let you do that.”

  A human stepped out of the shadows. He was older, his hair silvered, his long leather coat open to show a crisp white shirt and dark slacks. He could have been any corporate manager, heading home after a long day, except for the small, sharp ax he held in his hands.

  One of the preters snarled at the intruder, who merely raised an eyebrow at it, then turned to the consort. “There are rules. You’re breaking them.”

  “The rules have been rewritten,” the consort said. “And your people are the ones who rewrote them.”

  “Maybe so,” the human said. “We do a lot of dumb things, mostly without thinking. Sometimes it turns out okay, sometimes it doesn’t. But that’s why we look out for each other, fix the stuff that’s gone wrong. Find the source of the noise and shut it down.”

  “Noise?” The consort was almost amused.

  “Noise. Static. Clamor. The natural realm objects to your intrusion. Every witch on the East Coast knew where you were the moment this thing opened—did you really think you could sneak in?” The human, too, sounded amused.

  “Does this look like sneaking?”

  The human looked around, making a performance of it. “Under the cover of dark, in a deserted building, coming without invite? Yes, my lord preter, it looks much like sneaking.”

  “Stand aside, human,” another of the preters said, almost growling.

  “Can’t.”

  The consort was still not taking the threat seriously. “Just you, to turn back time? Do you seek to challenge me, to win another truce? That will not happen.”

  “No truce,” the Huntsman said. “Die.”

  He swung the ax as though he were aiming at a tree, a low sweep that any of the preters could have easily dodged, but when they did, another form came from the shadows as well, lower to the ground, teeth glinting white and red just before they fastened into flesh and hauled their prey to the floor.

  And the shadows came apart, revealing the battered, bloodied remnants of what had fled the Farm, mixed with a handful of humans, most of them female, each carrying an ax or sword or, in at least one instance, an athame.

  “Glad you made it,” the Huntsman said, dodging a preter’s lunge. He stepped to the side, and the ax bit into preternatural flesh and bone, taking it down as easily as a sapling. But even on the ground, it struck back, long fingers curling into the Huntsman’s clothing, burning through to the flesh like a living brand, and the human cursed, trying to yank free.

  “You doubted me?” Jack said, a green-wire garrote in his hands, stopping to finish off the Huntsman’s opponent. “I’m hurt.”

  “Kill, don’t flirt,” one of the supernaturals growled at the both of them, and then they were too busy to spare breath for talking.

  Chapter 16

  Once they were in the truck and out of Little Creek, Seth started to talk. From the first warning of danger to the flight from the Farm, the tattered, bloodied survivors of the battle heading each to different, predetermined points.

  “And then the witches found us. Which is one for the history books, mate. Witches finding us.” He was hyper, twitching with energy he didn’t seem to know how to use.

  “I should have been there.”

  “Yeah.” Seth didn’t cut Martin any slack. “You should have. But your job was to keep this one safe, and you did that. So don’t try feeling around for the guilt or regret. You’re not good at it, and anyway, AJ would have sent you two out the moment things got iffy, same as he did the other human.”

  “What other human?” Jan put a hand on the dashboard, bracing herself as she turned to look at Seth. “What other human?” she asked again, her voice rising. She and Tyler had been the only humans at the Farm. The only other humans who knew about it, as far as she knew, had been members of her team. Her friends.

  “The Huntsman sent her, so don’t yell at me.”

  “Who?” But she knew, a hollow, heavy feeling in her stomach. “Glory. Why the fuck was Glory there? Is she all right?” Her friend was tough and fierce and smart, but she was supposed to be safe in London, not in the middle of all this.

  “Why is the Huntsman involved?” Martin asked.

  “I don’t know, and how the hell should I know?” Seth answered them both, guiding the truck onto the highway and putting on speed until he was going a few miles over the limit, letting other cars pass him on the left. “The Huntsman and witches and it’s cats and dogs living together, man, we’re living history. Anyway, when the attack hit, AJ sent the human and the dryads into the basement. Elsa said she got them out when the defenses fell, but I don’t know anything more than that. I’m sorry.”

  Jan stared out the window at the road passing by and instinctively r
eached for her inhaler, safe in her pocket. She didn’t need it, and it wouldn’t help relieve worry, but at this point it was almost a talisman. So long as she didn’t lose it, everything would be okay. Eventually. “The preters are here.”

  “Yeah. And the turncoats their dogs, like that’s any surprise. Nobody else, though, not that we saw.”

  “That’s good. Right?” When neither of them answered her, she went on, “So, what’s a Huntsman?”

  “Old friend of AJ’s,” Martin said. “Human, or he was, long time ago. Got tangled up in a dryad’s roots and stayed. If he’s rousting other humans... Huh.”

  “Yah, like I said. Interesting times.” Seth was starting to come down off his jittering high, slumping a little in the seat.

  “And we’re going to where AJ is?”

  “Plans were, if everything went to hell, we split up, scatter, and do what damage we could until either we got an all clear or it all went south for good. AJ sent me to get you, bring you to where he was. Don’t know more than that.”

  “So, where—” Jan started to ask, when Martin put a hand over hers. His skin was cooler than usual and slightly clammy, and the black nails were ragged at the edges. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Get some sleep. Whatever we’re going into, if AJ needs us, we’re going to need to be alert.”

  There was no way she was going to be able to sleep, torn between worry about what they were driving into and worry for Tyler, left behind to face whatever was coming for Nalith. But there wasn’t any point in arguing, either. Jan let her head fall back against the seat back, stretched her legs out in front of her as best she could, and closed her eyes, hoping that would satisfy the kelpie.

  He squeezed her hand once and tucked his thumb under her palm, the gesture as comforting as a hug.

  “Once more, dear friends, once more,” she murmured and was rewarded by Seth’s soft laugh.

  * * *

  The street outside was silent, any humans who might have been out having trusted their instincts and taken another route that evening. A few cars were parked along the curb, but their engines were cold. Overhead, the dark moon hung in place like an evil eye, unblinking.

  There was blood in the air. They could smell it, standing outside the building where the preter lords had told them to come. Nearly fifty of them, all that was left of the hundreds when this started, all that could make their way to this place at this time. And if some of them kept looking over their shoulder, convinced that Herself would be there, ready to flay them alive for abandoning her, none broke ranks.

  They were supposed to join the preter lords as they came through the Grand Portal, form shock troops to their preternatural grand purpose, do all the things minion armies did. Supposed to serve and die, if needed, so their betters could live and rule.

  “Screw that shit,” one of them said and stepped up onto the stone steps, the others close behind.

  Inside the church, the noise of battle came from elsewhere, curses and the clank and crack of weapons. Their attention was drawn not to the wide staircase leading downstairs, however, but to the faint glow rising through the floor. A misty blue arc, barely three feet high and a dozen feet wide, filling the nave.

  A collective sigh escaped them, relief, fear, and anticipation.

  “Is it enough?”

  “It has to be.”

  The Grand Portal itself was out of reach; to go downstairs would be to be drawn into the fighting, where both sides had no reason to care for them. This was their chance, while all other attention was distracted.

  “Make sure your body stays inside the band,” the one who had spoken before said. “Anything that goes outside might not come with.”

  A running start, steps matched to prevent anyone from tripping over an unwary limb, and they ducked and slid under the glowing arc, into the portal.

  Gnomes were no strangers to change: their bodies shifted and contorted naturally, elongating or contracting to fit the space. But going through a portal pulled and shoved them in ways outside their own control, turning them sideways and upside down into screaming winds and bitter cold before dropping them abruptly onto cold, hard stone.

  They rolled and got to their feet, hands shaping into claws, eyes alert to danger even before they focused enough to see the tall—armed—forms circling them.

  Preters. Armed, alert preters.

  “Well, well,” a voice said from the crowd, dry and eager. “Maybe it won’t be so boring staying here, after all.”

  “Oh, fuck,” one of the gnomes muttered.

  The plan had depended on the elves being distracted by the portal, by whatever it was they wanted to do to the other realm. But gnomes were used to things going wrong.

  “Will you yield, live, and serve?” another of those dry voices asked. The preters had already drawn weapons, edged blades glinting in the pale lights of the cavern, so the question wasn’t so much a query as a suggestion.

  They had answered that question before and lied. There was no room now for prevarication or treachery.

  “Die here, or die there,” the lead gnome said, speaking for them all. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Chapter 17

  “Come on,” Seth said urgently.

  They had abandoned the truck a few blocks away, Seth practically dragging them down the street. Jan had no idea what city they were in, or even what state, although she thought it might be Hartford, from the not-quite-gentrified feel. The air was cold, and the streetlights cast more shadows than light as they passed underneath. Caught up in her own half-awake thoughts, Jan crashed to a stop on a corner, when both Seth and Martin both halted abruptly.

  “We’re too late,” Seth said, his face up, sniffing at the air.

  “Never too late,” Martin said. “Not until everyone’s dead.” With that uncomfortably cryptic comment, he started moving again, running not for the building itself—a church, Jan finally realized—but the wrought-iron gate behind the building. Her eyelids flickered in a now-familiar urge to close, and when she opened them again, a dark, four-legged form was soaring over the gate.

  “Show-off,” Seth muttered and headed for the gate’s swinging door, unhooking the latch and slipping inside like just another shadow in the night.

  “Too late for what?” Jan asked, caught between confusion and a sort of undefined rage that had apparently been building in her while she slept, and Martin, it seemed, got information she didn’t have.

  “Supers,” she said with disgust and then, for better measure, “men.”

  Wishing she still had the blade they had found in the preter realm, or a Taser, or something that could qualify as a weapon, Jan touched the fabric of her pocket over the inhaler once for reassurance and followed the super through the gate.

  On the other side, there was a narrow verge of grass and then low, thin shapes that she identified as tombstones. They were in the graveyard. An old church, then, and as her eyes adjusted, she saw that it filled the entire city block, a low scape of headstones broken by the occasional mausoleum or statue.

  Scattered and moving through that stonescape were other shadows, breaking apart and coming together, over and over again. And while on the other side of the gate there had been silence, here the night was filled by the grunts and low-pitched screams of bodies being thrown against each other, and an occasional, nerve-rattling sound like metal being scraped against stone and bone.

  “Oh, god.” As her eyes adjusted, she was able to make out more detail, seeing that the fighting filled the graveyard, still more forms emerging from the double doors at the side of the building, occasionally falling back inside the building as though going back for seconds. She scanned the entire scene, instinctively looking for and then finding Martin. He was surrounded on all sides, hooves striking out. One hit a preter, another clashed off a tombstone, creating hot blue
sparks and sending the abused stone tumbling over to the ground.

  Another set of bodies flew past her—literally—as a winged super went by carrying an elongated form that could only be a preter. A third, unidentified figure ran alongside, hacking at the preter with a blade. A wet splatter of something hit Jan, and she raised her hand instinctively to wipe it away. Her hand came away glistening with something dark and heavy, strands dangling from her finger.

  She heaved, and her chest caught, fingers squeezing her lungs until all the air left and none could get in, panic starting even as she fumbled for her inhaler, pulling it out of her jeans pocket and fitting it to her mouth, breathing in. It took real force to move her hand away long enough to exhale, and when she tried to breathe again, her lungs unclenched only long enough for her to toss the contents of her stomach onto the grass in front of her.

  She stayed down on her knees, some part of her brain telling her that she was less of a target that way, and forced herself to watch the battle raging in front of her. It was brutal, the sounds vicious, and she couldn’t tell which side, if either, was winning.

  Her lungs still felt like something was pressing against them, and her mouth and throat felt awful from throwing up, but she could breathe, could move. The smell of the sachet in her pocket came to her faintly, and she breathed in, openmouthed. The panic receded a little more, and she could think again. I need to do something. But the thought of moving, of doing anything, was beyond comprehension. Nalith had been right; she was useless.

  A body came out of the shadows at her—it was flying backward, she realized, even as she reacted, ducking out of the way and grabbing at it as it went past, yanking down hard until it hit the ground.

  “Nice!” A supernatural grinned at her from out of the gloom, its face streaked with what might’ve been mud or blood and was probably both. Its teeth were very white, and then it was gone, back into the melee.

  At her feet, the preternatural groaned and tried to get up, and Jan put her foot on its face, pressing it back down to the ground. “Stay put,” she told it. It would be smarter to break its neck or something. The knife the supernatural had given her in the yard was tucked inside her jacket—she hadn’t wanted to be walking on the street with it visible. She could pull it out, stab it...but she didn’t know where a killing blow would be, and if it broke free and grabbed her, then it would have the knife. She was wearing boots—maybe a heavy stomp would do it, and...