by Eva Sloan
The ogre roared in pain and rage, raised his foot for a beat, and then made to stomp down again, to crush what was left of Luca’s nearly flattened chest.
But just then Luca heard a small metallic click, one he remembered from the night before. The next thing he knew the ogre’s head exploded and rained chunks of gore and ogre brains all over the back wall of the diner.
Luca scrambled to pull himself out of the way of the ogre’s mammoth falling corpse. He made it by a fraction of a second—the floor shook, and the tiles shattered under the ogre’s weight.
Luca looked to the door to find Min standing there holding the smoldering barrels of the Bellini she’d used to back off the werewolves the night before. She looked like a dark goddess of the hunt, or at least the sexiest pissed off witch Luca had ever seen. Her mother, Katarina, stood behind her, a double sided axe in her hands, and the same primal glint in her eyes as her daughter. They were there to kill whatever got in their way. Suddenly the small faerie army looked less than certain of their odds of winning.
The shot gun had worked with hellfire and silver. It had been built by her grandfather to hunt lycanthropes, and utilized a sliver of dragon’s tongue as its power source. To have blasted off the ogre’s head like that she must have added iron to the mix.
Quite effective.
Luca’s mouth twitched, and even though he was in mortal agony, he was smiling. If he could breathe he’d be laughing about then. The ribs that were crushed started to push back out and heal, as were the holes those broken ribs had torn in his lungs. Even for a vampire like himself that was unheard of healing. Ten times as fast as usual. But just the sight of his violently beautiful Min filled him with a hellish jolt of fiery strength. It was their connection—whatever it was inside her that had sparked and lit whatever now burned inside him.
He pulled himself to his feet and picked up the fallen sword. His first breath was torture, but it felt good to do it, even if technically he didn’t need to.
“You have great timing,” he wheezed, the taste of his own blood thick on his tongue.
Min raised an elegant eyebrow at him, her curvaceous lips a pleased smile. “Nobody lays a hand on my boyfriend…or a foot.”
Their eyes locked and for a long beat there was nothing but utter silence. And then one of the remaining goblins let out an inhuman cry and lunged for Min. She shut him up by blowing his misshapen, scaly, lop-eared head off his bony shoulders. With that the fight was on, and the remaining wild fae fought with bloodthirsty abandon. But between bursts of iron laced hellfire, Luca’s slicing sword and Katarina’s ruthless precision with that double headed axe of hers, there was nothing but chunks of their enemies left a few moments later.
Luca looked up and saw Madge the waitress and what must have been the waffle slinging cook, Henry, peering out the oval Plexiglas peep holes in the twin swinging doors that led back to the kitchen area. A moment later they were gone. Most probably out the back exit.
Min met his eyes again, and he felt that sudden rush again, as if her mere presence was what animated his every fiber. It was love. It couldn’t be anything else. Love and whatever ethereal, metaphysical connection they now had.
Then Katarina gasped and said, “Where is Andy?”
Min’s eyes jerked away from his and she blinked hard. He could see her inwardly berating herself for not noticing sooner.
“That faerie bitch opened a portal in the wall,” he pointed and his shoulder popped back into place with a nasty, thumping crunch. “And she dragged Andy in with her. Looked like some sort of winter wonder hell. All darkness and snow.” He paused as he remembered seeing something strange in the pitch black of the shadowy backdrop he’d seen. “I think I saw a huge mountain in the background. It was blacker than the night.”
Katarina choked back a mournful cry and fell down to her knees. Min turned and knelt beside her, wrapping the arm not holding the Bellini in it around her mother’s shoulders. “What is it? Where has she taken her?”
“To Winter’s Keep. It’s her seat of power in Faerie.” The older woman’s strength seemed to crumble as she fell against her daughter. “Our only hope was to keep the fight on this mortal plane. If she’s already crossed over, and into her own kingdom, we haven’t a chance of saving Andy.” Her eyes, the same chocolate brown as her daughter’s, gleamed with impending tears. “We’ve failed…” She shook and her expression melted into anguish. “She’s gone…she’s really gone.”
~*~
Min couldn’t breathe. Kneeling there on the tiled floor of the diner, her mother in her arms, she couldn’t believe what her mother was telling her. “What do you mean? We’re not going to just give up and let that bitch have her!”
Katarina’s mournful cries only became more strident. “Don’t you see? Don’t you see? We can’t fight Sliva at her power center.” She pulled Min down to look into her eyes. “We wouldn’t have a prayer even if she was just in faerie. But at her stronghold nothing would have a chance…nothing…”
The bottom of Min’s stomach dropped out. Her mind and her lungs both locked up on her. No thought passed through her mind, and no air passed through her lips. She felt a pressure building in her chest, and was sure she’d throw up any second. She gulped and forced herself to take a breath.
This can’t be true…
Luca, blood covered and still limping, stood at her side and put his hand on her shoulder. His mere touch seemed to push back the rising panic inside her. It helped clear her head as well.
“It isn’t true.” He said, as if to answer the question she’d only voiced in her mind.
Min looked up and his eyes burned with green light. Not the vampire fire she’d seen before, but with actual light, a ghostly glow. She gasped and shuddered, but could not look away.
“Before you came Andy told me the Summer Queen came here and talked to her.”
“Arianna?” Katarina sputtered.
Luca nodded. “The queen told Andy that only she could destroy the Winter Queen. That that was her true purpose.”
Min slowly stood up, pulling her mother to her feet. “So…this Summer Queen wanted the other queen to find Andy?”
“Looks like. And it looks as if the Winter Queen took the bait.”
“What the devil are you two talking about?” Katarina demanded. “My daughter is going to die and you’re talking about faerie tricks!”
“No,” Luca said, his face somber, his eyes glowing with intensity. “We’re talking about why we need to go into faerie and rescue your daughter. She isn’t going to die. She’s going to end the winter queen.”
Katarina laughed hysterically. “End the Winter Queen. My daughter is her prisoner. Any moment she’s going to…” She wobbled where she stood and Min caught hold of her, steadying her. She pulled herself together and regarded the vampire once more. “She’s her prisoner. Andy doesn’t have a chance against her, and neither do we.”
Luca looked to Min. The green light radiating from his eyes was more than hypnotic; it was full of power, full of hope. And full of life!
Min gasped as she realized what she was looking at. Somewhere inside Luca was a piece of Summer, a thrumming, very alive spark of the faerie magic of Summer.
“I know we don’t have a chance against the faerie queen or her minions.” Luca said, and he picked up the cold iron sword he’d dropped in battle. The blade steamed as faerie blood sizzled down its blade. “But The Queen of Summer thinks Andy’s going to destroy the Queen of Winter. And I think…no, I know that we need to be there to watch her back. And to get her out of Faerie safely afterwards.”
Katarina stepped closer to Luca, her eyes suspicious. “How could you know that?”
Min reached out and laid her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “I believe him, mother. I know it’s crazy. But it’s what we have to do.” She stepped in front of her mother and looked her in the eyes. “And even if we’re wrong, we can’t leave Andy there. We have to try. We have to go.”
Katarin
a’s breathing was labored and her eyes frightened and brimming with tears. But before Min’s eyes Katarina pulled herself together again, the fierce, iron determination Min was used to seeing in her mother solidified and she swiped the tears out of her eyes.
“So, what do we do next?” She asked.
Min looked to Luca. Every time she even laid eyes on him her strength built and grew. She returned her gaze to her mother and smiled. “We rip a freaking hole into faerie, go in and take her back.”
Chapter 26
The little diner was utterly silent for a moment. Katarina’s eyes went from determined to hopeless again for a beat, but she shook that off. “So how are you going to do that? Did you specialize in trans-dimensional studies while I was asleep?”
Min felt her brows knit in on themselves. “No. But you know a few things about opening portals…and you were in cahoots with the Summer Queen. Didn’t she teach you anything?”
“Sure. She taught me how to lie to my daughters and to myself. And she helped build up the wards on our home. But no fae is going to show a mortal, even if there is fae blood running in their veins, how to cross over into faerie.”
“But I’ve seen you open a portal to freaking Iceland.” Min said, not believing what was coming out of her mother’s mouth.
“That was a doorway to just another place on the same plane of existence…and it took me three weeks of prep work and over four hours of spell casting.”
“But—”
“It would possibly take years of research and weeks of gathering power just to attempt to open a door into the quaintest, friendliest part of Faerie. But we’re talking about The Otherealm, and Winter’s Keep as well. I don’t think there’s a witch on the planet with that kind of power.”
The steely intent Min had built up inside her faded away as her nerves started shaking again. She could plan a raid all she wanted. She could push and push until she broke, but if there wasn’t a way into where they needed to go…
“But let’s say,” Luca said, leaning against the side of the booth closest to Min. “Hypothetically. If a witch powerful enough to open such a door was to try, where might they begin?”
Min shook her head. Dimensional magicks were not her forte.
She looked to her mother and saw a glimmer in her eyes. That meant she was onto something.
“Well,” Katarina said. “First you’d need to know where you were going. And know where that part of that world lined up with this one.”
Luca gestured with a wave of his hand to the open space between two booths. There was nothing special about it, just grungy wallpaper and a simple black and white clock.
“That’s where the Winter Queen opened her portal. Maybe that’s where we’d need to open ours.”
Katarina shook her head. “She could call up a portal to her home from just about anywhere. The laws of physics, even of magic, wouldn’t mean much to her, especially when she’s so connected to a place.”
“So what else would we need?” Luca said, as if he’d already received all the answer he needed to question number one.
Katarina patted her face with a hand and scrunched up her eyes. “Well, after that we’d need something connected to The Otherealm…to the fae in particular. Having something from there would…”
The instant Katarina’s eyes snapped open and her expression flashed with excitement, Min felt something vibrate like a tuning fork in the breast pocket of her coat. The two women traded glances, and then Min reached into her pocket and pulled out the short silver dagger she’d found on her mother’s desk only weeks after she’d fallen into a comma. The dagger that had cut her. She hadn’t seen it since that day…but here it was, exactly when she most needed it.
It glinted in the brightly lit diner, and for a moment she could have sworn she saw the greenest eyes reflecting out from the blade.
Katarina crossed to her, and Min held the dagger out. “This is of faerie construct, isn’t it?”
Katarina bit her lower lip. “Better than that, daughter mine. This was given to me by Arianna herself. It was forged in the deepest part of Summer.” She whirled around and held her hands to her mouth. “But that would only get us to the heart of Summer, presuming we’d gather enough power to do the job.”
A thought sparked in her mind, and Min licked her lips. “When I first picked up the dagger, it cut me.”
Katarina stared at her. “It was only supposed to call an emissary to help you. It wasn’t supposed to harm you. Are you sure?”
Min glared at her mother. “I’m quite sure it cut me when I touched it.”
“No, I mean, are you sure it cut you? Are you certain you just didn’t cut yourself on it?”
Min thought back to that night. She’d been careful when she’d handled the blade, and she remembered that it hummed with a power the moment she picked it up. And then it had cut her.
“I’m certain of it.”
“Well then, it would seem the blade took payment in blood for its service, and took part of you into itself. That’s…interesting.”
Min reached out and took hold of her mother’s hand. “It’s more than that…it’s a freaking revelation!”
Her mother looked askance of her.
Min took a deep breath and pushed back the excitement that was building inside her. “You said that Arianna used you and me to shape Andy, right? Like a blueprint. That makes her connected to us in blood and every other way a family member would be. And that dagger is connected to Faerie.” She let go of her mother and strode over to the wall the Winter Queen had used to escape through. “That means the dagger is connected to both Faerie and me…” she turned and smiled at her mother. “And that means we can use it to get to Andy.”
Just then the dagger in Katarina’s hand started humming again, this time loud enough it was practically singing. She stared at it, as if it was speaking to her, and then she turned and walked over to the wall. Katarina held one hand out to the stained wallpapered wall and hissed out an oath in a language Min couldn’t place. The surface of the wall seemed to ripple, like a still pond when a rock is thrown into it.
Katarina took the silver dagger and slashed at the wall. A long line of darkness gleamed evil and cruel from the wall. Katarina stepped back and more sibilant words fell from her lips, not a one of them sounded human. She held the dagger in one hand, and with the other she reached out and made a grabbing motion, then wrenched her arm down and the wall under the dark cut the dagger had made fell away, leaving a gapping, howling hole into darkness and cold. There was nothing to see but pitch black night, a silver moon that hung too low and too large, and treacherous looking snow. In the distance Min could see a mountain, one darker black than the night it was settled against.
Min gasped, something primal and scared as hell quaking within her. Staring at the tableau in front of her, she knew she should just turn around and run away. There was something overwhelmingly horrific about it. It was the same feeling she’d gotten when she’d gone to the museum as a child and stared up at the bones of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was just something that was imprinted on her from millions of years of evolution, something instinctual, the mechanism that told mankind what to stay away from if they wanted to live.
Min’s mother turned, and her eyes were no longer brown. They were the most striking green she had ever seen. At once Min knew that it was not her mother she was looking to. Something else was in control, and somehow she knew instinctively that it was the Summer Queen. Anger flared inside Min. She didn’t care what the faerie queen wanted. She would kill it if it harmed her mother.
Then one of those green eyes winked at her. “Child, I’m but borrowing your mother’s body. No harm will come to her. It’s just that you both needed…a little help to get the portal open. And truth be told, you haven’t a lot of time to waste.”
“What do you mean?” Fear clawed at her stomach.
“What I mean is that your sister is in great peril, and she needs to know you are trying to res
cue her.”
“We’re not just going to try!” Min shouted defensively.
“In this case, my dear moppet, the thought is all that really matters. She needs to see you, to know you would and have risked your life to save her. That is what she needs to know.”
“You’re as crazy as the other one!” Min seethed. “Can’t you all, just once, not speak in riddles?”
“Of course not, my dear. It’s our gift and our curse. Now—” and she held the dagger out to Min, “This will help you once you’re in Faerie. Don’t let it out of your grasp.” She gestured with a wave of her arm to the howling darkness that waited on the other side of the portal. “It’s time to go. Your mother must stay here. That is the only way to keep the portal open.”
She waved her other arm and three very large creatures, all huge, slathering gray hounds with burning red eyes, crept out from nowhere to surround Katarina. “My pets will protect her while you are gone.”
She stared down at the dagger in her hand and waited for Min to take it.
Fear welled up in Min’s chest, cold and painful. But she pushed it back and reached out to take the blade.
The moment Min took it, it vibrated and she felt something powerful and white hot surge into her.
Katarina blinked, and shook her head, and when she looked to Min again, her eyes were once more brown. She looked confused for a moment, but then she seemed to remember something. “You have to go now. I won’t be able to hold this opening forever.”
Min turned and looked to Luca, and then back to her mother. The huge hounds were there one moment, and invisible the next. But Min could feel them, their feral, powerful presence both disturbing and comforting. She knew without a doubt that almost nothing would get to her mother while they protected her.
She looked down to the dagger in her grasp, half expecting to see those green eyes again, but only the reflection of her own brown irises looked back at her.
Luca moved to her side. Blood stained his clothes and his flesh, but he stood there whole and strong. Already perfectly healed. He held out his hand to her, and she took it. She needed him, in every way she could imagine. And just the touch of his flesh to hers filled her aching body with strength, and soothed her troubled soul. He was a part of her, and her of him. She didn’t understand it, but made it no less true. They held hands for a few beats, and then let go at the exact same time.