Duck, Duck, Noose

by Sara C. Roethle

  He took a steadying breath as they tromped over broken branches and pine needles, then forced out, “I’m sorry. We’re in this together. We shouldn’t be fighting.”

  He knew deep down Sophie was terrified. Though she didn’t have a partner and unborn child to return too, she would still be losing her life if they remained trapped in the past.

  “Morrigan,” Alaric called out patiently to the woman marching roughly twenty feet ahead of them, “how much farther?”

  She stopped, then turned and waited for them to catch up with a wry look on her face. “You may call me Mara,” she explained. “Morrigan is such a formal title. And to answer your question, we should reach the current Morrigan’s fortress within a few more hours.”

  “And explain to me again, what will we do once we arrive?”

  Mara smirked. “Sophie will approach the Morrigan, armed with information only I would know. She will convince her of your plight, and she will use her power to send you back to the correct time.”

  “She, err, I mean you, have that kind of power?” Sophie questioned, coming to a standstill beside Alaric.

  Mara nodded. “You met me long after I’d lost my mortal form, and most of my power. In this time, the Morrigan has the charm, what you refer to as the key. It was the key’s power that sent you here, and that power can send you back.”

  So Estus had used the key’s power to send them back, Alaric thought. Or else the key was entirely in control, and had sent them back itself. “If the key sent us here,” he began, “then how will we convince it to send us back?”

  Mara grinned like the proverbial crocodile. “You are assuming the current Morrigan has no control over the key. In truth, we were partners. We both came from Yggdrasil. Together we represented two thirds of the power contained within the World Tree.”

  Sophie took a small step back in surprise. “On second thought, I’m not really sure I want to meet . . . you.”

  Mara’s smile widened. “Yes, I’m quite scary.”

  Sophie groaned.

  Alaric shared her sentiments. He’d only heard a few stories of the original Phantom Queen, but they were enough to give anyone nightmares. He’d already seen Madeline use the banshees to kill, and he had a feeling the original Morrigan would kill a man first, and ask questions never.

  “Let’s go,” Mara said happily, then turned away and started walking again.

  Alaric briefly considered running in the other direction, but knew he had no choice but to follow. If it was death, or remaining in the past forever, longing for a reunion with Madeline that would never come, he would gladly end things right there.

  12

  I sat, leaning my back against the rough bark of a tree with my knees pulled up to my chest, as the damp ground soaked through the seat of my jeans.

  We’d walked until I could walk no more. If I’d been the only one to give up, someone probably would have carried me, but Faas was just as tired as I was, and Maya’s injury seemed to worsen the longer we trudged on. All of my snacks were gone, and everyone had spiraled downward into a depressed fugue.

  “I see I’ve joined the correct side,” Maya muttered sarcastically as she rested against the next tree over, her injured leg sprawled out at an awkward angle.

  I glared at her, though with only the dim moonlight, she was hard to see. “Why did you join us? The last time I saw you, you were loyal enough to Aislin that you tried to kill Sophie.”

  “Aislin is dead,” she stated simply.

  “So what,” I pressed, “you’ll give me that same sort of loyalty until I die?”

  Maya was silent for several seconds.

  “Aislin saved her life,” Alejandro explained from my other side. “More than once,” he added. “Oh, and she gave her back her foot.”

  “Oh yeah,” I mused. “I’ve been wondering about that.”

  James had tortured Maya to the point of cutting off her foot, mutilating her hands, and cauterizing the wounds. Yet the next time we saw her, she had was perfectly whole.

  Maya sighed loudly. “Aislin’s true magic was in healing,” she explained, “though she rarely used it unless it directly benefitted her in some way.”

  “Sounds about right,” I replied, remembering what type of woman Aislin had been. She and her brother were like two peas in a pod.

  “Maya was born with a disorder,” Alejandro continued, despite Maya’s annoyed grunt. “Her power was poison. She could kill others with a touch, but it was also slowly killing her.”

  I turned to raise an eyebrow at him, though in the darkness it was hard to tell if he noticed.

  “She’s descended from the goddess Mefitis,” he explained, “who was basically just the personification of the poisonous gasses that seeped from fissures in the earth.”

  “How do you know all this?” I interrupted.

  “I’m much older than I look,” he replied.

  Maya let out a long sigh, then picked up the explanation. “I was able to survive my childhood, but the poison was slowly killing me,” she said tiredly. “Aislin healed my affliction, thus, I owed her my life.”

  “So if poison was your power,” I began curiously, “then why don’t you feel pain?”

  “That was a side effect,” Maya replied. “Poison was not only my power. It was what composed me. Neutralizing it took away many other things, including empathy and my ability to feel pain.”

  I nodded, understanding enough of what she’d explained to comprehend why she’d been so loyal to Aislin. “So you became Aislin’s spy out of gratitude?”

  “And because Aislin constantly threatened to return her poison,” Alejandro added.

  “Ah, now that sounds more like Aislin,” I replied, “but that still doesn’t explain why you decided to join me instead of Estus.”

  Maya laughed bitterly. “With Aislin dead, I was finally free of the threat of my poison, but I am not free of being Vaettir. I still needed to choose a clan. You saw what Estus did to me. Do you blame me for not choosing him?”

  I shook my head, though she probably didn’t see it. “But you also knew we had good reason to reject you.”

  “Even if you killed me, it would be better than living my life in fear of Estus. My entire existence has been fear, and I’m tired. If you killed me, it would at least mean an end to everything. I know the kind of person you are. You would release my soul, granting me peace. Estus would keep my heart in a box.”

  “Now you see why Tallie and I were more than happy to join you,” Alejandro chimed in. “You may stand a good chance of calling many to your cause out of fear, but your true appeal lies in you actually caring what happens to those around you.”

  “Even if it means positioning yourself against the near unstoppable force that is Estus?” I questioned.

  Alejandro laughed. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re an unstoppable force. You had both Estus and Aislin gunning for you, and you’re somehow not only still alive, but still fighting.”

  “Gee, you’re going to make me blush,” I replied sarcastically, then laughed.

  Alejandro laughed too. “Any day I can make a lady blush is a good day.”

  “If you’re all quite finished,” Faas interrupted. “We should start moving again.”

  I sighed, unsure if I even had the willpower to stand.

  Marcos, who’d remained silent during our conversations, suddenly appeared before me, extending his hand.

  I looked at his long, thin fingers for a moment, then took his hand. If he was on my side, then he was on my side, and I had to either trust him, or kill him. I was going with trust, though it pained me.

  I swayed on my feet slightly as I stood, then managed to steady myself. I was glad I’d gotten plenty of sleep on the plane. Without that, there was no way I would have still been moving.

  As Alejandro walked past us to help Maya up, Frode came to stand on my other side.

  He leaned close to my shoulder. “Allow me to aid you,” he whispered.

  I loo
ked a question at him, able to clearly see his expression with how near he was.

  “He’s asking permission to touch you,” Faas explained. “You don’t seem able to walk any farther.”

  “Oh,” I muttered. “Sure.”

  Frode swooped me up in his arms. I wrapped an arm around the back of his neck, surprised to find that I didn’t even feel awkward about it. I’d been carried around so much since we first started running from Estus, I’d come to accept it as a necessity. I needed the help.

  After a short argument, Maya allowed Alejandro to carry her. Faas refused help offered by Tallie, and began to trudge ahead on his own.

  The rest of us followed. Though Marcos remained near Frode and I, it was clear he walked on his own. Not truly a part of the group.

  Eventually the sounds of traffic could be heard, still aways off. As far as I could tell we’d kept to one direction, so it had to be a new highway, not the one we’d left. On one hand, it could be a good thing. A highway meant a path to civilization. On the other hand, we weren’t likely to get a ride with how many of us there were, and how some of us looked. Plus, walking along a road would make us easier to find, either by Estus, or by our own people. It was a toss up.

  Still, we really didn’t have any other choices. We continued walking.

  Soon headlights came into view, flashing through the trees, and much to our surprise, the light of homes. It seemed we were nearing a small town, stationed next to a highway.

  “Oh thank the gods,” Alejandro muttered. “We can get some food.”

  I snorted from my perch in Frode’s arms. “We’re running for our lives, separated from our companions, and your first though is food?”

  “A man must have his priorities,” he joked, though his voice was drowned in and out by the sound of the sparse, late night traffic on the highway.

  Frode let me down to my feet. “Check your phone,” he advised. “Maybe you’ll have service now.”

  I retrieved my cell phone from my purse and turned it back on. Sure enough, I had service, though it was sketchy. I instantly dialed Mikael’s cell number and held the phone up to my ear.

  A moment later, I lowered it with a huff. “Straight to voicemail.” I didn’t have Aila’s number, and none of the other Vaettir deigned to carry phones.

  “Let’s check out the town,” Frode advised.

  No one argued. As soon as there was a lull in traffic, Frode swept me back up in his arms and we hurried across the highway, toward the nearby lights of civilization. Even though I’d given Alejandro a hard time for thinking only of food, I had to admit, it was also at the forefront of my mind. I felt weak and shaky. I needed food and sleep. Hopefully the town could provide accommodations for both. Heck, maybe they’d even have a graveyard. A one stop shop for all of our physical and metaphysical needs.

  We passed by a gas station and a few dark storefronts, then turned away from the highway toward what seemed like the main stretch of town. I noticed a sign that said Welcome to Littleburg. The name was fitting for the tiny town. I had just begun to fret that they wouldn’t even have a hotel or any open restaurants, when a neon motel sign came into view.

  We continued down the quiet street as the occasional car flashed past us. I watched Marcos as he walked, thinking he looked horribly out of place in the quaint town. He belonged in a hidden dungeon, or perhaps on the streets of a big city, with his long white hair and all black clothing. He was so tall and thin that he looked like some sort of phantom, his pale skin and acrimonious expression only adding to the effect.

  “We should ask at the inn if there are any graveyards nearby,” I stated, breaking the silence.

  “You need to rest,” Faas answered instantly.

  “We need to recharge so we’re able to defend ourselves,” I countered.

  “You need to be at full strength to control the banshees,” he countered right back.

  “Remember what Mikael said,” Frode stated vaguely.

  Faas grunted in reply.

  I appreciated that they weren’t divulging Mikael’s speculations to those who weren’t in the SUV with us. I hadn’t even had time to really think about it all. Still, I was with Frode. I could handle going straight to the graveyard, or so I kept telling myself.

  “So graveyard first,” I said, making sure everyone was on the same page.

  “Then food,” Alejandro added.

  “Then rest,” Tallie groaned.

  I thought about my phone again, wishing I had anyone else’s numbers besides Mikael. Wishing any one else even had a phone. It seemed impossible to move our plan forward with such a small group, but I was more worried about the others even being alive. Maya had said Estus’ people were there to take everyone prisoner, not to kill them, but that didn’t mean deaths weren’t possible. There were many amongst our group who would not go gently into the good night.

  My thoughts turned to Alaric, and the fact that the ball was only three, no two, considering it was past midnight, days away. I couldn’t help but speculate that perhaps I’d been allowed to escape on purpose. Maybe the main goal of the ambush was to weaken my entourage. To make me face Estus without any backup. If only I knew what he was planning.

  If he’d been fully consumed by the key . . . well, I hated to think why the key might want me alone. Our energies were meant to be one, along with the Norns, at least according to Mikael, but the key was also chaos. It wouldn’t have balance on its mind. It would have destruction.

  We reached the front of the motel. It was two stories high, with a squat, central lobby. There were probably only around forty rooms, most vacant judging by the near-empty parking lot. Frode let me back down to my feet, but remained near my side to make sure I didn’t fall over, then we all waited outside while Alejandro entered the lobby. We watched through the front window as he laughed and flirted with the lone woman at the front desk. Several minutes passed before he returned outside to us.

  “The cemetery is two miles away,” he explained as he came to stand before Frode and I. “They also have plenty of vacancies, and will give us a twenty percent discount.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

  “At last,” I said dramatically. “Your lascivious nature has proven useful for something.”

  He laughed, then pointed us in the direction of the cemetery. Back I went into Frode’s muscular arms, and we all began to walk once more.

  My heart was beating faster than my lack of exertion should have allowed. Soon I would do all I could to recharge my banshees. Marcos would gather power too. I glanced at him again, internally praying he wouldn’t betray us. In a fair, metaphysical fight, I could probably take him, but he was still scary. The memory of him flinging aside twenty warriors at a time with energy stolen from the Norns was still too fresh in my mind, as was the memory of him removing the key from me. Still, if he was truly on our side, that amount of power could prove invaluable.

  If we truly only had this small group to take down Estus, we were going to need the power. Faas, Marcos, and I would have to form the perfect trifecta of death.

  It was terrifying, but that’s what we were going for. Hopefully it would be more terrifying for everyone else than it would be for us. Summoning an army of death brought a whole new meaning to facing your fears.

  Alaric stared at the distant castle. He stood at the top of a small hill with Mara and Sophie, giving them a clear view of the still far off structure. It was about midday, though with the heavy cloud cover, it was difficult to tell. As he stared, deep in thought, a single ray of sunlight peeked through the clouds to shine on the dark stone of the castle, its menacing walls impossibly high. From what he could make out, the castle was square shaped, with four towers, twenty feet taller than the side walls, composing the corners. Narrow windows, barely visible at this distance, interrupted the perfect stone walls.

  A dense forest spanned several miles in all directions around the castle. Alaric attempted to plot out their course, but the trees were so closely spaced, little could b
e seen. They’d simply have to make their way in the general direction of the castle and hope for the best.

  “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t a normal forest?” Sophie asked from behind him, startling him out of his thoughts.

  “Because it’s not,” Mara answered from his other side. “You must remember, I was quite feared in this time, but I was also despised. I took many precautions to keep my enemies from reaching me.”

  Alaric stroked his chin in thought as he continued to stare at the castle. “What sort of precautions?”

  He turned in time to see Mara shrug. “Magic beasts, poisonous traps, reanimated corpses . . . that sort of thing.”

  “You couldn’t have mentioned any of this sooner?” Sophie gasped.

  Mara rolled her eyes. “My defenses shouldn’t be much trouble for two children of Bastet. If you cannot defeat them, you are not deserving of your lineage.”

  A low growl trickled out of Sophie’s throat.

  “We have no weapons,” Alaric muttered, ignoring his sister’s ire, “so I’d say our best chance is stealth. We’ll fight where we must,” he turned to Mara, “but avoiding as many traps as possible will help us reach Madeline more quickly.”

  “Yes,” Mara agreed, her tone suddenly serious. “I hate to admit that Madeline might need help, but she’s in an . . . uncomfortable situation.”

  He turned to fully face Mara. How had she known just what situation Madeline was in? “You can see her?”

  Mara sighed. “Only from afar, and only when she’s raising enough power to thin the veil between worlds.”

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “She’s powerful enough to thin the veil between worlds?”

  Mara smirked. “She’s a denizen of death. Thinning the veil is what she does.”

  “Where is she now?” Alaric demanded.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I told you, I can only catch glimpses when she raises power, which she hasn’t in a while. The last time I sensed her fully was when she tried to use the banshees to rescue you, but they were too weak to do any good.” She shook her head. “Silly girl,” she muttered.