The half-expected ghoul was not the being who hove into view above me. Instead, a brutish fairy who snarled at me, then, unexpectedly, turned and walked out of sight again. I tried to figure out what that was about while I took another step upward. My whole body was trembling now, and I was sweating despite not having eaten or drunk anything that I was aware of in.. days?
I was trying to reconcile my having the ability to even stand upright with that datum when a troll thudded into sight. The floor shook slightly with his every step. I grabbed the wall and hung on for dear life, having registered that falling down the stairs would be bad, and render my efforts to wreak vengeance futile. He snorted and shook his head, no doubt amused by the naked pixie trying not to collapse. I couldn’t move as he came down the steps, forced to keep holding the wall or fall.
He slung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and I screamed through a raw throat as my ribs bent under this renewed assault. I twisted myself around his neck like a living stole, and reached for anything I could grab. One hand on his ear gave me enough leverage to get the other as far as his eye, and I hooked two fingers into it. He reflexively shook his head to shake me off, which was a mistake on his part. I decided the hell with it, augmented my grip with a little magic, and pulled. There was a pop, a scream, and we both fell down the stairs.
The troll grabbed me by the ankle as soon as he could, on his knees, his eye a bloody wreck hanging halfway down his cheek, and threw me against the wall. I hit the wall, and existence blinked out.
Chapter 38 - The Death of Hope
I woke up to golden sunshine streaming across my face. I was lying on a soft bed, with cool covers pulled up to my chest. I stared at the white ceiling, watching the dust-motes dance in the light, and wondering where the hell I was. I heard a rustle to my left, and turned my head gingerly, realizing two things. One, I didn’t hurt, and two, Bella was sitting at my bedside reading a book; the rustle had been a page turning.
“Bella?” I whispered, unbelieving.
She looked at me, her hair pulled back from her face and secured in a loose bun with what looked like a pair of chopsticks. With flowers on the ends. I tried to gather my scattered thoughts, but her lips curved up into a smile and she stood, bending over me. “Lom, you’re awake.”
Bella’s cool lips on my forehead made me shake suddenly, as I realized how weak I was, how close I had come to death. “How did you...” I tried to ask.
She laid a finger across my lips. “Shhh... Here, let me get the sun out of your eyes.”
Bella walked across the room with a sultry sway of her hips that riveted my gaze, and reached up to pull the drapes closed. My eyes watered in response to the change in light levels. Sure, that’s what those drops were. She turned and walked toward the half-open door of the room, her footsteps silent on a heavy carpet.
“Don’t leave...” I pleaded almost inaudibly. She paused at the doorway and smiled back at me, then slipped out, her white dress swirling at her ankles and lingering in my vision for an instant longer. I couldn’t stop the trembling in my body, and tried to push the covers aside and get up, cursing my weakness. I might not be in any pain, but I had evidently been sick in bed long enough I could barely move. I almost made it.
She caught me as I was falling. I had rolled to the edge, but misjudged how close I needed to be in order to swing my legs over. I clung to her as she helped me to a sitting position, and pulled her into an embrace with all my strength, trying not to sob aloud, and staring over her shoulder in growing confusion. Something was wrong, and I couldn’t quite think. What...
“Here, I brought you water,” she held a glass in one hand, easing me back far enough that I would be able to drink. I opened my mouth... and it clicked.
“Bella, where are your wings?” I blurted out stupidly.
She paused, and the water slopped out and onto my bare arm. The pain was blinding. I screamed, and pushed - whatever it was, it wasn’t Bella and why had I been fool enough to fall for that? - it away, flailing with the arm the acid had just spilled onto. Hope, the greatest torture of them all...
I felt a ripping sensation across my forehead, and the scene before my eyes rippled sickeningly. I reached up and blindly yanked at strands which squirmed against my touch, but yielded and tore when I drew on magic in my fear and revulsion to get them off, away, out of my mind. Warm blood gushed over my fingers and into one eye. I didn’t care if it was mine, or.. the thing’s.
With the penetration of my skin gone, I could see that I was still in the stone cell. The thing masquerading as Bella and raping my mind was a huddled lump whimpering in the corner. I still hurt, so badly... I leaned forward and vomited, a weak stream of mostly green bile adding to the steaming acid puddle on the stones. The non-mostly part was bright red blood. I idly noted that this was a very bad sign, before staggering to my feet and heading towards the foul lump of creature.
I’d insulted the first captor, injured the second, and I was going to tear this one to pieces with my bare hands and leave it to rot. I stumbled, and realized my vision was graying out on the edges. Dammit. This was no time to die, I had to kill it, first. I focused on taking one step at a time, and then I was there.
The blob of skin and tentacles withdrew into a tight, gelatinous ball, then, as I grabbed part of it, flew into action, pseudopods wrapping around my neck and arms. I ripped a few of them off, and it shrilled horribly. There.. the mouth of the skin gaped wide in pain. I knew what it was, in a flash of lucidity, and I knew how to kill it. A kind of succubus, the parasite would attach itself to a host, filling the host’s mind full of endorphins and pretty fantasies, while the host slowly starved to death.
I seized the upper part of the orifice, then risked letting go of tentacles with the other hand, grabbed the other part of the mouth, pulling it as wide as I could. If I was going to die, so was this foul thing. I felt a pop, then another as something inside me gave way. As the creature thrashed, I vomited again, a gout of my life’s blood pouring out onto the dying beast. I felt myself falling, almost a weightless sensation as my vision sparkled into gray fog and then, blackness. I never even felt the floor hit me in the face.
Chapter 39 - Organizing Lom’s Rescue
A long-forgotten alarm interrupted Alger’s study session with Bella. He had slipped an unnoticeable tag onto Lom years before, that would only be triggered if his life was in mortal danger, if Lom was dying... and now it was flashing urgently, capturing Alger’s full attention. Alger stopped mid-word, and Bella was staring at him in bewilderment.
“Alger? Is something wrong?”
“Everyone assumes that because Alger is old, I will suddenly become senile, or perhaps die,” he replied. “”Yes, something is wrong. Lom is in trouble. Do be a good girl and scry him, will you? This is a perfect lesson opportunity.”
Bella glared at Alger, her cheeks paling, then closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. Alger recalled wryly that he often had that effect on those close to him. With Bella, he knew it meant she was searching the library for ‘how to scry.’ Bella opened her eyes again, got up and walked toward the kitchen without another word to Alger, who trailed after her, curious to see how she had chosen to do this.
“Ellie, could I please have a shallow dish, and some water?”
Alger sat at the table and watched Bella prepare the water, pricking her finger and letting a droplet of blood fall into it, where it swirled and smoked, and then turned the liquid into a silvery colour. Fascinating, he noted, she was using a variation of the spell to find a loved one. Bella twisted her long hair up and secured it out of her way with a pair of hair sticks, then bent over the scrying bowl with an intent gaze.
“What do you see, girl?” Alger murmured encouragement to her, wanting a report. For once, he was hoping his spell had malfunctioned.
Ellie came and hissed into Alger’s ear “What are you up to?”
He replied, trying to keep his voice low and not disturb Bella, who was holding perfect
ly still with unfocused eyes trained on the bowl. “Something wrong with Lom, perhaps. I’d placed a spell on him back when he was a young pup in my care, to let me know if his life was in danger.”
“And you never removed it?”
“Shh! Keep your voice down, the girl needs to concentrate.” Alger remonstrated, as the wood elf’s voice had risen considerably while she spoke.
“Exactly what would trigger this spell?” She had lowered her voice again, and Alger smiled at her avuncularly.
“Well, I didn’t want to link it to his thoughts, you understand, a lad thinks of himself as immortal. So I linked it to his vitals directly, if his body is dying the spell is triggered.”
She covered her face with both hands. Alger couldn’t quite make out what she was muttering. Bella spoke, and they both looked at her.
“I just watched a troll bash him into a wall... he’s so limp...” Her voice trembled. Then she straightened and started to give orders in a firm, clear tone.
“I need Alger to do a location casting. Ellie, do you know where Lom’s cell phone is? I’ll need that. And then, I’ll break into the armory.” She looked up from the bowl, her eyes bright with tears. “Hurry, please.”
Alger shook his head. “If he is dying already, there is no way we will reach him in time... Plan for vengeance, girl.”
She was eye to eye with Alger while he was sitting at the table and she was now close enough he could feel the warmth of her breath. “I will not give up hope. We will get him, and we will do it now! I don’t trust you, I don’t trust Court enough to call on them, but I am getting my family to help, and we are going to go get him. And we will bring Low Court to it’s knees. I will. Not. Have this!”
She spun away from Alger, and stopped dead two paces away. Lucia and Lady Herbale stood in the doorway, their faces stern.
“We heard.” Lucia told her. “And my dear girl...” she walked forward and took Bella’s hands in her own, “we will do whatever we can to expedite. Ellie...”
The wood elf, who Alger had not seen leave, walked around the women from the outer room, and handed Bella the odd little device he had never been able to get Lom to let him investigate. Bella released the dowager’s hands with a little squeeze, and cleared her throat. “I need to make some calls, and I understand I must be outside of Underhill to do so.”
Ellie nodded. Lucia asked, “Do you need help to find the doorway and pass through?”
Bella looked surprised, “No, I don’t, Lom showed me how the first time.”
“Go, then... we will begin preparations here.”
Bella ported out without further ado, and Lucia trained her steely eye on Alger, “Why are you still sitting there? Shouldn’t you be finding my son?”
Alger mused that the woman had the uncanny ability to conjure up shades of his long gone mother, who was not a nice woman at all. “I need something personal of his, something like hair, or...”
Ellie passed Alger a hairbrush. She seemed to have anticipated him and had brought it along with the phone. He thought quickly.
“I need a fire in the fireplace. And a spell...” He reached out, closed his eyes, and called what he needed. Holding the slightly warm ball of energy, Alger followed Ellie into the big room, where she kindled a fire. Lucia and Lady Herbale hovered, not having anything else they could do. Alger looked at Lucia.
“I know Bella doesn’t trust Court, but I think perhaps Joe and Melcar ought to be brought in on this. Call them here, let’s keep this out of public view.”
She nodded, her face pale and deeply lined. She was an old woman even by fairy standards, and for all her flaws, did love her son. The small fire sputtered and threw sparks when Alger tossed the spell into it, and a few strands of hair from Lom’s brush. They stepped back, and he took a deep breath, knowing he had to prepare her for the worst.
“Lucia, I am so sorry. I know Bella thinks she can rescue him, but Lom is dying. With the time it will take to bring her family to Underhill from Alaska...” Alger trailed off, because she was not reacting the way he had expected. Alger would have thought tears, perhaps a case of the vapors... Instead, she was standing fully erect, her eyes flashing, and mouth crimped in a straight line.
“You will not give up on my son. Proceed with all speed. Bella is an extraordinary being, and I feel certain she will come through faster than you could conceive of. You abandoned him once, youwill notdo so again.”
Alger wanted to protest ‘I had not abandoned him, he had simply been too ill to finish his apprenticeship with me,’ but he closed his mouth and went back to making the location spell work quickly. Lady Herbale ‘ported out of the room, Alger assumed to take a personal message to the king, and to bring back Joe and Melcar. The flames got his attention, though, preventing him from asking questions, as a tiny image of Lom, formed from flames, appeared above the logs. He was lying on his side, curled up. To Alger’s relief, the spell he had tagged him with was still active. He was alive.
“Can’t you just... Bring him here?” Ellie asked from behind Alger. Alger kept his focus on the image, fluttering his fingers to weave the magic he needed for an illusory map of Underhill, with him...
“Ah, there.” Alger muttered. A glowing dot, indicating Lom’s location, appeared in a tangled web of energy lines that showed the various boundaries and fiefdoms of their world. Alger had spent centuries mapping, gathering information, and this was the first time he had ever called on it all at once. Lom was not at the Low Court, where they had expected to find him, but a remote outpost of that Court, a tower called Baelfire.
Alger answered Ellie as he used his hand gestures to bring up the tower, a blurry representation, Alger had never been there, of course, but informants had sketched in some details. Enough, he hoped, to reach Lom once they got to Baelfire.
“No... there is a very powerful interdiction spell reaching to a half-day’s walk around the tower. Must be inconvenient for the inhabitants, and it gives us an advantage.” Alger found Lom in the cellars of the tower and snapped his fingers, storing the whole thing for later recall. Alger looked at Ellie. “It means they can’t call for back-up when we arrive.”
Chapter 40 - Backup Arrives
“Which will be shortly.” Bella’s voice startled them all, and she left the door open behind her as she walked in, not even pausing to greet them formally. “Alger, did you find him? Ellie, I need your help. Lucia, the boys will want coffee, if you don’t mind...”
She didn’t even look to see that they were following her orders, going straight to the door Alger had been curious about. Ellie had warned them not to touch it, and Alger had determined that it was guarded by a nasty little spell. Now, Bella simply opened it without preamble. She looked over her shoulder at him and demanded impatiently, “Well?”
“Oh! Um, yes, I found him. Baelfire Tower.” Alger heard himself blurt.
A male voice commented. “Sounds spooky, even.”
A group of human men filed in the open doorway, each one carrying a pack, the last one cradling a huge rifle in his arms like an infant. He closed the door behind him carefully. The brown-haired one who had spoken met Alger with an outstretched hand.
“I’m Mark, Bella’s cousin. Well, we’re all kind of her cousins, ‘cept for Tex, there...” he indicated a tall, gloomy man with a jerk of his thumb, “and he’s an honorary cousin.”
They each greeted him with a handshake and a name. “Dan,” The man with the big black beard and the hard eyes.
“Howdy,” Tex shook and stepped back, allowing the last man to reach Alger.
“And I’m Mike.” He had a mane of blonde-tipped brown hair that made Alger think of a grizzly bear.
They looked at the four men who made the big room feel much smaller with them in it. “How did you get here so fast?” Alger asked.
Mark shrugged. “Bella called us, told us we’re going hunting, and it’s something special. We met up at her place, and next thing we know, she’s there, and we’re in Oregon near th
e old homestead. She did that soap-bubble thing a couple times, and I have no idea where the hell we are now, but we’re ready to go.”
Mike chuckled. “Girl’s had us all ‘round her little finger since she’s a baby. She doesn’t ask much, so when she called, we came.”
They all looked at Alger expectantly, and he realized they were expecting more explanation. “Well, this is Underhill,” he began slowly.
Mark nodded. Dan and Mike looked thoughtful. Tex just looked confused. Alger sighed. “The world of fairies, sprites, and pixies. But don’t go thinking that it’s going to be easy. What Bella did to get you here... and don’t tell anyone about that, you’ll get her in you have no idea how much trouble, she shouldn’t even have been able to do that, the girl has far too much power for me to explain. The beings you will encounter might not always look threatening, but every single one of them has enough magic to kill you. Or worse, not kill you. Just take your mind. Humans are...”
“Pets, Underhill?” Mark filled in for him. Alger winced, looking at these rough men. One could not imagine them as anything but what they were today. Hunters of monsters.
“Most humans who come Underhill are seeking oblivion, ease, riches... you are a rare group, here to help us. And we will need that. We can’t call on our allies, we aren’t sure who has been subverted by the Low Court - those are the enemy,” Alger pointed out, and they nodded. Alger despaired of making it all clear to them in the time we needed, and sighed. “You’re here to rescue Lom, I’m sure she told you that?”
They all nodded. Dan spoke. “Bob said he’s a good man. And he gave me something for a king?” He pulled a small envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Alger, who felt a jolt of surprise. Who was Bob, and why was a human... he lifted the envelope to my nose and sniffed. Not a human.
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