by Eric Asher
I blinked.
Mike continued as if he hadn’t said anything mildly horrifying. “I’ll need some place to work. I can do it here, but will need to set up an area where we can be sure none of the shards escapes.”
“And if we miss any?” I asked. “Would that be like stepping on a Lego in the middle of the night?”
“A bit worse than that,” Foster said.
“If one of the water witches stepped on it,” Aideen said, “it would turn the base of their foot into what you refer to as stone. It would slow them down, and prevent them from transforming completely into water. It makes them susceptible to attack.
“The blades are forged from Magrasnetto. You need a creature of raw magical power to be able to detect the tiniest shards. Jasper would be able to do it.”
“I don’t want to take him away from Vicky,” I said. “Not unless we absolutely have to.”
“Graybeard, then,” Foster said. “He’s all magic and soul and bone.”
“Is he close?” Mike asked. “I’d prefer not to delay. I need to get back to the Obsidian Inn. Much as you don’t wish to leave Vicky alone without Jasper, I don’t wish to leave Sarah in a dangerous situation.”
I nodded. “All you need to do is turn on the news. He hasn’t exactly kept a low-profile. Although I guess that would be rather hard to do with the skeletal ghost ship flying over the ground where rivers used to be.”
This time it was Mike’s turn to blink. “He’s not in hiding?”
I shook my head. “He’s … well … been spending some time with the researchers at Washington University. He apparently took issue with someone’s reports on his namesake.”
“It gets better,” Foster said. “The ghost panda is down there keeping him in line.” Foster laughed. “So, you have a ghost panda and Graybeard speaking to academics at one of the most prestigious schools in the area?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and winced. “Yes, well, the important thing is we can get Graybeard here rather quickly. Or we could go to him.”
Mike looked around the front of the shop. “Keep the store closed. I’ll start preparing things. Summon Graybeard.”
I closed my eyes and sent my aura racing toward downtown Saint Louis. It could be difficult to contact Graybeard, but Happy was always easy to find. In the background, I heard Mike ask, “What’s he doing?”
“Summoning Graybeard,” Frank said. “That’s what you wanted.”
The rest of the conversation faded as I made the connection with Happy. The panda raised his head at my contact, cracking it on the desk of a startled-looking research assistant. She probably couldn’t see the panda, but he still had enough energy to move physical objects.
“Graybeard. Bring him to the shop.”
It will be done. Shiawase’s voice boomed inside my head. The thunderous sound reminded me of Aeros, but more ethereal.
When I opened my eyes again, no one remained. It only took me a moment to find them, tipped off by the sharp bark of the cu sith rising above the ambient noise of the old settling building. I walked into the back through the saloon-style doors and crouched down to climb into Bubbles’s lair.
“That’s not going to cut it,” Frank said, looking at the old sheet in Mike’s hand. “It’s all linen. It’ll catch fire like dry hay on the Fourth of July.”
“No,” Mike growled. “I told you it will not. I know the temperatures of my own forge, journeyman. Don’t think to tell me otherwise.”
“I’ll tell you otherwise if you’re going to try to burn the damn shop down.”
I smiled at Frank, the smaller man glaring up at the fire demon. Mike finally exhaled, turning away from Frank. “Fine, what do you suggest?”
“A circle shield,” Frank said. “The sphere will catch it all. If I understand your magic a fraction as well as you think you do, it won’t be cut off by being encased inside a circle shield.”
Mike the Demon frowned.
“It’d be hard not to pick up a few things, being around Damian and Zola.”
Mike glanced at Frank. “You’ve done your research.”
“I think we’ve established that at this point,” I said.
Mike gave me a half smile. “I suppose we have, indeed. And yes, Frank, you are correct.” He looked to Aideen. “What do you think?”
“I believe it should be enough,” Aideen said.
“For outside, as well.” Mike crossed his arms and frowned at the hollowed-out stone that formed the cu siths’ lair. “So be it. This should be deep enough in the earth to at least partially mask my work with the hammer.”
Something sizzled in the air, not unlike bacon slapped down on a hot griddle. I suddenly found myself torn between being hungry and being concerned with what the sound might be.
Happy appeared a moment later, his fluffy butt backing through a portal, dragging a pirate skeleton with a very grumpy parrot on his shoulder. Parrot was perhaps a generous word, considering the bird was half decayed and bore brilliant golden eyes.
“Get off me coat, you daft bear!” Graybeard swatted Happy, but the panda casually moved his snout away, so Graybeard gave him more of a quick rub than a slap. Happy nudged my thigh with his broad nose. I scratched him behind the ears.
“You can go if you want,” I said. “We should only need Graybeard for this.”
The panda chuffed and took two trundling steps back into the portal.
Graybeard glanced up at me, and the parrot glowered. “I was having a perfectly fine conversation, with a perfectly fine lass, before your beast dragged me off.”
“Glad to see you’re adapting to our time of technological wonders, and not being dead.”
I held out my hand to help Graybeard to his feet.
“What is it you be needing?”
“Mike’s forging weapons for our allies,” I said. “To use against the water witches. We need you to tell us if any of the fragments get away.”
“If you need help forging those blades,” Graybeard said, “you likely would’ve been better off talking to the bear.”
“He’s a samurai,” Mike said, “not a sword smith. Not even a blacksmith.”
“Bloody hell,” Graybeard muttered. “Let’s get on with it then. I’d like to get back to helping Miss Marshall with her research.”
“Damian,” Mike said. “Set the circle, and I’ll begin.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I’d wondered what Mike meant to do about a forge, or if he’d just conjure some magic flame to make the metal more malleable. Instead, he did both. The earth moved beneath our feet as Aeros lowered the floor slightly and forced a stone table up in the center of the room, ever careful not to erase the line I’d drawn on the stone, leaving us ready to begin.
“You need only speak my name when you wish to return this place to its original form,” Aeros said.
“Most recent form?” I asked. “I don’t want this to be some granite plain. And I sure as hell don’t want to go through the cu siths digging out their own lair again.”
Aeros’s eye lights danced with amusement. “You should not worry so much,” the rock said. “It does not suit you.” And with that, the Old God took his leave.
“Worry too much,” I grumbled.
“That cane is nearly as cool as your old staff,” Foster said, eyeing the simple walking cane in my left hand.
“Yeah, but this one shouldn’t kill me. Unless I take the sword out and fall on it like an idiot.”
I set the edge of the cane on the circle and spoke the incantation, “Orbis Tego.” A translucent dome snapped to life over Mike’s head, closing around the stone workbench and the forge Aeros had raised.
“You good?” I asked.
Mike closed his eyes for a moment, and blue fire erupted inside the forge. The demon nodded. “All is well.”
“You could have waited to summon me,” Graybeard said, “at least until the demon finished banging around with his hammer.”
I smiled at the parrot as it danced on the skeleton�
��s shoulder. “But we have so much to catch up on. You wouldn’t want to miss out on that, now, would you?”
The parrot grumbled, and the skeleton moved its mouth wordlessly, causing its scraggly beard to shift up and down. He leaned against the wall and sank to the floor.
“Where’s your sister, lad?” Graybeard asked. “That lass always had a much more level head on her shoulders than you.”
“You just say that because Jasper didn’t try to bite her hand off. Only her Barbies’ heads.”
The parrot chuckled.
Mike pulled the blade out of the fire. The metal glowed from being in the heat for several minutes. The fire demon didn’t so much as flinch at the white-hot blade as he pinched it between his fingers, and began wrapping the thin spiral of the shattered stone dagger around it. He made it about three quarters of the way down the blade before he had to replace it in the forge. He repeated the process with another, and then another.
Mike worked the white-hot ribbons of metal back and forth between his fingers. I half expected his flesh to boil at the contact with the superheated metal, but Mike’s skin seemed to rejuvenate. The deep scars on his hand faded, as if the forge gave his flesh new life. It was mesmerizing to watch as the blacksmith’s tired, ancient hands grew nimble and filled with purpose.
Mike dropped the first blade into the fire once more. He raised his eyes to me. “I’m going to strike with the hammer,” he said, being sure everyone in the room was listening to them. “It will be loud, and the walls may feel as if they will collapse around you, but believe in this process. Believe in me. And all will be well.”
Mike slid the Smith’s Hammer from his belt, the old wood blackened near the head. It had the appearance of a simple cutler’s hammer, the kind you could find at any forge at any given time throughout history. Only Mike’s hammer was far, far different.
Mike pulled a blade from the forge and laid it on the stone platform. He made small movements, light hammer strikes near the hilt, until he raised the hammer above his head, and a spiral of flame burst to life. The strike was like a thunderclap, amplified a dozen times.
“Again!” Mike said. He struck the blade over and over until I thought my teeth might rattle from my head. Still, I kept the cane on the chalk line. Kept the circle shield raised between the Fallen Smith and the rest of the world.
Someone grabbed my shoulder and shook it. I turned to find Frank with gun muffs over his ears. He leaned closer and shouted between hammer blows. “I’ll be outside. To see how loud it is.”
I nodded, and he left, speeding up the ramp Bubbles and Peanut had carved into the earth.
Mike’s movements took on a rhythm, growing into an intricate dance of steel and power and magic. He made quick work of the second blade, dropping it into the forge beside the first. The third was even faster, and I realized then that his flesh didn’t merely look younger. His veins filled with light, a deep burning inside his being, perhaps the very essence of what he was, and as I watched, it swelled to fill the thick tattoos across his forearms. He said, “Again.”
He raised the hammer, its head expanding with the surrounding fires, and he struck again. The walls boomed as if the harbinger of the dark-touched had stepped into the basement beside us and crushed a barge beneath its mighty foot. Mike raised the dagger, red-hot as it still was, and inspected the edge of the blade. Apparently satisfied, he let the dagger fall into a pool at the far side of the circle, which I hadn’t seen it before. The metal hissed, and steam rose at a furious pace as he quenched the steel.
Daggers came next, and where he’d had the long and thin shards of the stone dagger to work with the swords, it wasn’t so simple with daggers.
“The trick,” Mike said, his voice deeper and louder than usual, “is to make the metal pliable, without destroying the magic within.”
Heat from the forge had turned the air around us into a furnace. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take it, but the fairies seemed to be fine. In fact, the fairies seemed absolutely enthralled with Mike’s work.
Mike pulled a small cup out of the satchel at his side. What I’d thought to be an old coffee cup at first glance turned out to be a bit more useful. Mike sorted out the shards of the stone dagger, dropping in any that looked to be around a half inch to an inch in length. He slid the crucible into the forge and waited.
“Should just be a few minutes,” Mike said. “Did we scare Frank off?”
“I think Frank just went to make sure the building wasn’t falling down,” Foster said.
“Are you sure you wish to stay so close?” Mike said. “There is a great deal of iron in these blades. I doubt it would be healthy for you to come in contact with a shard, no matter how small.”
Foster laughed. “No shard of iron is getting through the circle shield.”
“I believe Foster’s correct,” Aideen said. “Damian’s shield is more than adequate to stop an iron filing.”
Mike offered me a small smile. “Your friends trust you with their lives. That is a refreshing thing to see, after spending time with the Fae at the Obsidian Inn.”
“They have a right to be paranoid,” Aideen said. “The water witches have decided to stand against the queen, and the rest are taking up arms against their king. If they fail, they’ll die.”
“And they’re sneaky bastards,” Foster said. “No better spy than a Fae. It can be hard to trust someone who never lies but doesn’t always tell you the truth.”
Footsteps sounded in my muffled hearing. I glanced over my right shoulder to see Frank jogging back down into the lair.
“Everything okay out there?” I asked.
Frank nodded. “It’s fine, but the bricks over the door lit up like a Christmas tree. It looked like one of those runes on the wall behind Mike.”
Mike studied the runes that made up the blood shield on the back wall. It was old Norse magic, runic magic that seemed to impress even Calbach. “I would believe this magic to be far too old to have been placed after the front of the building was constructed.”
“How bad was the noise?” I asked. I looked at the gun muffs around Frank’s neck.
“It sounded like there was a little carpentry going on. As soon as I stepped outside the door, I could barely hear it all.”
Mike frowned. “I wouldn’t have expected the sounds of a hammer to be silenced so thoroughly.”
“Foster?” I asked. “You want to go outside with Frank? Make sure there isn’t something you can see, or hear, that a commoner can’t?”
“Not a bad idea,” Aideen said. “Journeyman you may be, some magics may remain undetectable.”
Mike pulled the crucible from the forge with his bare hand and looked inside. “It’s ready. Replace your ear protection, or leave.” Mike gave the others only a moment, and they hurried up the ramp, leaving me and Aideen to watch the Fallen Smith.
“I will move as fast as I can,” Mike said. “But be warned, to do this, you will see my true form for a time.”
“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” I said.
“And something I haven’t seen in a very long time,” Aideen said. The light that had grown so much brighter on Mike’s forearms split open as he dumped the contents of the crucible into his palm. Light gave way to a tortured darkness, the human façade of his flesh curling away and shifting into the blackened ruin of a fire demon. It happened in moments, but time felt slow. A tiny bead of sweat rolled down the nape of my neck as the rising flames peeled back the flesh from Mike’s upper arms. His fingers lengthened, and his fists closed around the super-heated metal in his palm. The hammer grew into the flaming war hammer I’d seen only a handful of times on the field of battle.
The tortured flesh reached his neck, and his forehead elongated, sprouting horns that were as black and scarred as the rest of his body. His eyes increased to twice their normal size, taking on a terrifying blood red hue. But they were still Mike’s eyes. I could still see the strange black flake in his left eye. A flake that Sarah had on
ce told me was a piece of her soul, which Mike would carry with him until the end of all things.
The sweat on the back of my neck vanished, cooling as my shirt absorbed it. Mike reached his left hand into the forge. He followed it with the first of the daggers, sliding it quickly through the molten pool of molten metal in his palm as if he planned to make a blood oath in some godforsaken 1980s action movie. When the dagger escaped his hand and he lifted it from the forge, a thin line of white-hot metal was stuck to the point, tracing down one of the cutting edges. Mike struck the blade across his left horn, sending a shower of sparks across the forge, and earning a satisfied grunt and a nod from the demon’s enormous head. He repeated the process four more times, but before he finished, he dumped the scraps of the remaining stone daggers into the crucible and slid it into the center of the forge.
“He’s … magnificent,” Aideen whispered.
“He also has good hearing,” Mike said, giving Aideen what might have been a smile, but looked more like a snarl.
The first time I’d ever seen Mike’s true form, it had been a terrible instant, a moment I’d spent terrified for my life and for those of my friends. Now that I had time to study him, I was coming to understand that he was not so twisted and scarred as I’d once believed. This was the true face of my friend, buried beneath the façade that he wore to blend in with the commoners.
Mike pulled a satchel out of the leather pouch at his side. I heard the familiar clack of ammunition banging around inside it. And he poured out what had to be over 100 rounds of military ammunition. I thought Frank said it had come from their M16s.
“You know those don’t mix with fire?” I asked.
Mike set the bowl on the ground beside the forge. He raised his head slightly, perhaps acknowledging me, or perhaps thoroughly ignoring me. Mike splayed his fingers over the bowl and the rounds all snapped into a uniform line as a flicker of orange and black flashed out from the demon’s fingernails. The projectiles separated in unison, floating half an inch above the brass casings, while Mike slid his enormous hand beneath them. The gunpowder ignited a moment later, sending a blast of flame and smoke into the air for a brief second. Mike dropped the rounds into the crucible and gave the dozens of projectiles a quick shake before splashing the contents out on top of the forge.