It was a look I really enjoyed seeing on my enemy’s faces, but not on Izumi. Maybe she was more to me than an accomplished fuck. Maybe.
The guards stopped us in front of a white door with small handprints melted into it. Each print was bigger then the next, each a deeper blue as the prints got bigger. I wondered if she’d marked her territory with each birthday. Me, I preferred drunken orgies myself.
Izumi opened the door with a wave.
The guards followed us in and stood in a cluster like bowling pins, watching us like their lives depended on it. Maybe they did.
I looked Izumi in the eyes, and kept laughter out of my voice, “Well, should we just kill them all now and run for it, or would you prefer ripping my clothes off and having your way with me?
EIGHTEEN
“You should tell me what you know.
I don’t know how much longer I
can keep my gun from killing you.”
—Caine Deathwalker
“Don’t tease the guards,” Izumi released my hand. “They might think you really mean it.”
As she drifted away, I shrugged and took the opportunity to look around. The bedroom was a potential treasure trove of information on the person Izumi had once been, and who she still might be deep inside. Bright colors dominated the hand-woven tapestries that hide the ice walls. The Victorian style bed was rich mahogany with sea foam green sheets, pillowcases, and an overhead canopy of leaf green trimmed in gold. The hope chest at the foot of the bed was red cedar, every surface carved with a forest scenes of running stags, wolves, flying geese, and river swan.
Izumi passed a mahogany armoire with black quartz handles, and settled on a loveseat framed in cherry wood, its upholstery blood-red velvet, trimmed with golden tacks. She watched me intently as my gaze scanned each piece of opulent indulgence. I turned until I faced grape-colored curtains, a room within a room. An alcove held a miniature antique stove, something Ben Franklin might have cobbled together. An orange glower of burning coals could be seen through an ornate brass grillwork. A chimney conducted smoke up through the ceiling with no any indication the ice took notice. Fey magic at work.
Oak shelves wrapped around three walls, well within reach of anyone sprawling on the alcove’s padded ledge with its numerous tasseled cushions. The pillows were enormous and apple colored; red, gold, green. A small, child’s harp lay among them. Carved from rosewood, inlaid with gold vines, the strings looked like they’d been frozen and shattered by fey magic gone awry. The space felt like the heart of Izumi’s domain. It suggested a solitary spirit hungry for beauty, music, poetry, and flights of imagination that were the only escape from the ever encroaching ice of the Winter Court.
Izumi’s voice overtook me from behind, “I cried for three days after destroying my harp, and I wouldn’t let them take it away. Not everything sent for repairs was returned to me; not all of my interests were considered appropriate for a princess of the realm.”
I shot a glance at the loitering guards, as if it had been their personal fault. “Bastards! Picking on a little girl.”
A few of the guards looked away, faces red with embarrassment. An older fey met my stare with icy dignity. His milk-white mustache bristled with indignation, like an ice-glazed caterpillar. He said, “The queen’s will is absolute.”
I considered whipping out a gun and placing a slug dead-between his eyes—but didn’t. I was here on a mission. Work first. Fun and games later. I had to come up with a plan that didn’t involve starting a war. With both frost giants and fey, it would be a very short war … for me. The queen alone was the greatest threat. Bonded to her kingdom so the very land obeyed her, drawing power from the fealty of her people, and already having a massive amount of power by birth, she could easily shrug off most of my dragon magic and crush me like an ice sculpture.
I had only one spell that could deal with her. The kiss-my-ass-goodbye spell tattooed on my right ass cheek. Looking like the three blades and hub of a fan, the tri-foil—the international symbol for radiation—represented my own version of Armageddon. Problem was, it was a one time only spell. Depleting all of my life-force, swallowing the life force of all living things within the kill-zone, it assured that anything able to put me down for good would also die. In fact, anything within fifteen miles would be vaporized toast.
If I had a religion outside of sex and booze, it would probably be vengeance. What can I say; though raised demon, I was still human at heart.
Breaking me from my mental abstraction, Izumi rose and stalked toward me as if drawn by an irresistible force—damn this animal magnetism of mine. She seemed a new person; icy eyes alive with dancing passions, her white eyebrows arching delicately, her pointy ears longer than I remembered. She took my hand and dragged me to the alcove, shoving me toward the padded ledge and its mob of pillows. She pulled the purple curtains closed to give us privacy.
I heard one of the guards mutter, “Damn lucky round-ear.”
Yes, I am.
She rushed up to me, placing a hand over my mouth before I could say a word. She gestured down at the floor and a ring of golden light rippled outward, followed by several more. They faded at the edge of the curtain and the surround walls. I felt the carpet lurch under me as if turned to quicksand. Her hand muffled the “what-the-fuck!” that came automatically to my lips.
“Just a conveyance spell.” She wrapped both arms around me and held on as we sank to our knees, hips, chests, and then heads. If Izumi hadn’t been coming along, I might have suspected betrayal. What can I say? Just because I sleep with someone doesn’t mean I trust them.
We fell through a hunter green mist, sliding down a tunnel made of shimmering white-gold rings. As a carnival ride, it was pretty cool. I didn’t think this ability of Izumi’s was common among the fey. It was no wonder they’d not been able to hold onto her once her powers kicked in.
The conduit spit us out on a balcony clinging to a tower. A four foot ice wall separated the balcony from a sheer drop that would have landed someone’s mangled body outside the palace walls. A large, full moon glazed the ice with silver light, making it glow, giving us both blue shadows. Roses and thorny vines had been etched into the tiles underfoot. All we needed was an orchestra playing a waltz in the distance. Maybe in there… The adjoining hall of the tower was a dark blue ice cave behind sheer white curtains that rippled in the wind like ghosts hung up to dry.
I went to the balcony’s edge and peered out at a carpet of dark-shadowed forest laid over rugged mountains. There were lights from a few scattered farms, but not much else.
Izumi spoke as if reading my thoughts. “This part of the castle faces away from town. During one of the many remodels my ancestors made to the castle, access to this section of the tower was blocked, and later forgotten about. I played here as a child, and when it came time to escape without a trace, this was how I did it.” She paced like a caged animal until she ran out of space and stopped, hiding her face from me. Her back was tight with tension. “If you want to go, and leave me to my fate, I can send you home from here. I’d do that for you.”
I followed the wall up to her, took her shoulders, and turned her around. There were no tears in her eyes. They were dull white stones. She had the drained, emotionless look that comes to a person shortly before they give up their most cherished desire.
I sighed. “So, your people sell their own quite easily. Blood kin is nothing more than a bargaining chip.
If I liked it,” Izumi said, “I wouldn’t have run away all those years ago, but it’s not that simple. We’d been at war with the frost giants for generations, on and off. The struggle was doing no one any good, but no one could afford to look weak by calling the whole thing off. Peace through marriage seemed the only way. If my intended husband had been anyone but Aybron, I could have endured it for the sake of my people.”
“He’s especially bad as frost giants go?” I asked.
“He wanted me as his bride, desperately.”
Su
re, Izumi is hot. “I don’t see the problem.”
“Among the fey, thirteen is legal. I wasn’t even that old at the time. I’ve been kinda hoping he might not want me, now I’ve grown up. No such luck. I’m fey; I have glamour. I can be whatever he desires.”
I nodded in sympathy. “Yeah, sucks being you.”
“So, I’m sending you back?”
“I need to know two things: where is the treasure room and where is Aybran staying?”
“Caine, what are you going to do?”
“Once you ice me up, I’m going for a walk. You stay here.”
“Ice you up?”
I began stripping off my non-fey clothes and weapons, making a pile at Izumi’s feet. “I’ve seen some of your people walking around with pieces of armor made from ice. Give me chest and back plates, a helmet with an ice visor across the eyes, frost everything else over lightly, and give me an ice sword and shield. I’ll blend right in.”
“Wait, if any one finds you skulking about they’ll…”
“Make me more dead than they already intend to?”
“You have a point.” She smiled a little, her hand freely roaming over my body in rampant admiration. The moisture in the air became a white mist settling on me. I was already cold. It got colder as her hand caressed, leaving a trail of ice. She made a point not to ice up my joints, immobilizing me, and added little creative touches to the armor like the six-pack on the piece over my abs, a map of the palace areas where I’d be going on the inside of my shield. The extra weight and cold was a liability.
She saved the helmet for last, leaning in to kiss me as her hands spread ice over my hair. “You will be careful, right?”
“Sure, but where’s the fun in that?” I hoped I didn’t have to break off the armor to kick ass. Naked combat wasn’t really my thing.
All that was left for her was to make the thin ice visor across the eyes. “Use your Dragon’s Voice spell if you need me,” she said. “I will hear you and come at once—with your weapons and clothing.” She waved a hand past my eyes and translucent ice formed, adding a slight distortion to everything I saw.
“Okay, pop me as close to the treasure room as you can without setting off magical alarms.”
“If I haven’t heard from you in an hour, I’m coming after you,” she said.
I smiled. “Always great to have a backup plan.”
The hunter green fog returned with its white-gold tunnel of shimmering rings. A moment later, I stood in an empty hall lined with closed doors. I looked at the map inside my shield. A tiny flickering mote of azure light showed me my current position. Two other locations were color coded. The gold light seemed likely to be the treasure room. Knowing what Izumi thought of Aybran, I figured the black dot would be him.
I turned and took several steps, trying to move naturally like I wore ice armor all the time. I watched the blue mote. It moved on the map, showing the progress I was making. Great, I had my guide.
I followed the hallway, seeing only servants scurrying about. None of them paid me much mind, probably grateful I didn’t add to their duties. Once I left the back of the castle and approached the central core, I saw guards on patrol, or posted to protect places where frost giants were not allowed. Or people like me for that matter. Thanks to my armor, I didn’t look out of place. After the first dozen or so guards, I relaxed and pretty much ignored them.
When I reached the treasure room, there were no guards. This told me high level magic was being used, so guards would have been a waste. Still, I couldn’t loiter long in the hall. If I were seen here, all hell would break loose. Someone was bound to sound the alarm. The doors were double-wide, painted bright arterial red; probably a warning to the stupid. Red veins branched out off the doors, into the surrounding walls, both décor and fey magic, though the power there was dormant.
Needing more insight, I concentrated on the Dragon Sight tattoo on my back, near the spine. It came to life with a flare of heat as if a fireball were charring my left lung from the inside. The sensation was blinding agony, but very short lived. In exchange for the pain, I saw through my ice visor as if it weren’t there. In addition, a smoky amber glaze covered the world. In that haze, spells and magical items revealed themselves to me with a color coding and a numerical rating that indicated their power level like I was walking through some kind of an online RPG, only this role-playing game could get me killed if I was careless.
The magic of the doors was low-key, a simple magical alarm activated by any movement of the doors. But beyond the door, a blurry blob of light, like a violet x-ray, showed a high level threat. This was dormant too, for now. The numbers attached to it made me cringe. Old Man had numbers like that.
Okay, I had a spell that just might work here. My upper back and shoulders flared awake as my Demon Wings activated. This spell was supposed to make all supernatural creatures refuse to register my reality. It had worked back home in the fight with Izumi and the living blizzard. It ought to suppress the alarm, and let me steal past whatever it was gently slumbering inside the vault.
Drawing a deep breath, I pushed one of the doors open a crack and looked inside.
Daaaaammmmnnnn!
NINETEEN
“Cry me a river … so I
can drown your ass.”
—Caine Deathwalker
The first five feet into the treasure room was a narrow passage. I could reach out and touch left and right walls at the same time. They matched the ceiling and floor—blood red ice, dimming to purple where drifting will-of-the-wisps happened to cast shadows of blue light. The ceiling was cathedral-high. I came out of the passage and the chamber belled out, doing a good job of matching the distance above. My sense of smell was blunted by the cold, but I knew what the chamber was made of; blood, fey blood. You don’t get this rich shade from food coloring.
Directly ahead of me, a twelve foot statue of an ice dragon occupied a three foot dais. The beast looked far from lifelike, covered as it was in scales of white jade, with gold claws and teeth, and star-sapphires the size of my fist for eyes. Its silver wings were mechanical, probably dwarf made, and just a bit too cute for my taste. I didn’t think they’d even lift the dragon off the pedestal if activated. All the joints were hinged so the device could move when brought to life. That made sense since this was the source of all that freakin’ huge energy I’d detected outside the door.
Mental note: do nothing to wake up the mechanical dragon. I think it holds the soul of a real dragon inside.
Treading lightly, I circled around the sculpture and studied the many treasure laden shelves, tables, and pedestals that formed a labyrinth. One section of the maze had a pocket where three vanity mirrors in obsidian frames guarded a rack of jeweled gowns. The dresses were woven from pure silver thread and beaded with blue pearls. There were matching handbags and feathery masks with goblin faces. Should there be a surprise costume ball, the queen would be ready.
There were chests full of gold and crown jewels.
Izumi had said the relic might be hidden under a glamour, but that didn’t bother me. I let my magic enhanced vision scan everything in sight. I was looking for an item with even more power than the dragon guardian near the door. Half the things in here had minor spells attached, some for protection, and some for seduction. Screwing and getting screwed seemed to be a major fey pastime.
I wound through the labyrinth taking multiple paths, crisscrossing my own trail, and eventually returned to where I’d started. Nothing. So what did that leave? If I wanted to hide a magical item that gave off a powerful aura, I could either cloaking the whole thing—which would take a helluva lot of power—or, better yet, I could simply mask the aura with another. I returned to the dragon to give him another look.
I circled the mechanical beast, studying it carefully. The object I wanted could be in plain sight, or even built into the sculpture, maybe a hidden compartment. I reached out, my ice-gloved hand hovering inches from the white jade scales. The dragon’s tai
l twitched with a soft hum of power.
I froze in place, holding my breath.
Mecha-dragon’s long neck swung my way. His whiskered snout stopped a foot away. Star-sapphire eyes wobbled in his face as he stared through me. Panning constantly, his gaze never stopped. At last, he returned to his resting pose, shutting down with a whispered sigh of dropping power.
Too friggin’ close.
Breathing shallowly once more, I withdrew my hand and circled the dais. Facing the somnolent dragon, I knelt with my back to the entrance and examined the pedestal more closely.
Ah, hah! A hairline crack along some decorative gilding indicated a secret compartment. The door had a series of mother-of-pearl moon shapes set in the black lacquer. They detailed the phases of the moon, left to right, from a thin ring of inlay that represented a new moon, to a crescent moon, half moon, gibbous moon, full moon, and back eventually to a dark moon. The shapes had a faint glow of ice-blue magic, a very low key spell.
A magical combination lock. I smiled. This had to be what I was looking for. I’d probably only get one try. An incorrect sequence would set off an alarm, and the big guy looming over me. I looked up at his gaping maw, at those gold teeth, the jewel eyes fixed on the door behind me. There had to be some way to keep him shut down while going into the drawer, unless he was attuned to the queen and only she could safely open the drawer.
Red Moon Demon (Demon Lord) Page 14