Maybe if I had one of those Sherlock Holmes hats, I could deduce my way into an “Elementary, dear Watson” breakthrough.
“So…” I prompted Shane as he pawed through a pile of thrift-store clothes that had escaped the fire by means of an indestructible tote. What name brand was that? Because I had about seventeen dollars in a savings account I was ready to invest. “Figured out anything?”
He tossed aside a jean jacket. “Have you?”
“Maybe. You first.”
Shane sat back on his heels and looked up at me. “The woman who died outside lived here, but she didn’t own this property.”
My eyebrows arched. “How’d you get that?”
“Ownership leaves a different feel.” He threw a pair of sweats out of the tote. “What did you figure out?”
“That this wasn’t a fight. Even a dark magic battle wouldn’t result in everything getting torched. Once your opponent is dead, it doesn’t make sense to burn the entire property to a crisp—unless that was the whole point.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this was a massacre. Someone was sending a message, but I have no idea what that message is.”
Dr. Honeydew pushed his glasses up. “I have suspicions along the same lines. The man who left traces of ownership on everything here hasn’t been present in months.”
That got my attention. Mr. Dark Arts Farmer had either ditched his homestead or chosen a really bad time for a vacation.
“But the burning question,” Shane added, digging into the tote as he spoke, “isn’t who he is but who the other people are … and …”
Eyes going out of focus, he lifted a pair of women’s runners out of the bin. My nose wrinkled. A disgusting black stain had ruined the shoes, but Shane was clutching them like they’d been autographed by Serena Williams.
“… where they are now,” he finished distractedly.
Still clutching the shoes. Weird. Super weird. I waited to see if he’d come back from mentally feeling up the runners, then shook my head and walked away. Shane didn’t even notice.
Thoughts spinning, I picked my way back to the front porch. The plastic-wrapped body was gone, and I could see Nick and Photo-man in the distance where a single overgrown road joined the valley. A black van was parked at the edge of the trees. Clearly, not everyone was special enough for a chopper ride.
I gazed at the spot where the woman had died. If I was right, she was the victim of a power play between the mysterious attacker and the equally mysterious owner of the property.
Lienna, Blythe, and the goth alchemist—Agent Goulding—were still clustered in the same spot, and with a mental shrug, I headed toward them. As I drew closer, I spotted more torched fence posts and deduced that the ladies were parked in the middle of a former garden. Blythe stood off to one side, while Lienna and Goulding were crouched beside a hole in the ground.
“Whatchya digging for?” I asked casually as I stepped between two stubby posts.
“Stop!” Goulding pointed commandingly. “You can’t go that way.”
I halted and looked down at the sooty earth and crispy stems of overcooked plants in front of my toes. “I might not look it, but I’m more than a match for dirt clods.”
“I identified the remains as plants from the Apiaceae family. If you disturb the ashes, we’ll all get to enjoy vivid, violent hallucinations for the next hour.”
I took a careful step back. “Sounds like this was a fun garden.”
“For a practicing alchemist who specializes in poisons, maybe. Do us all a favor and don’t touch anything.”
As I circled around to enter the garden behind Blythe, Goulding bent over the hole. Beside her, Lienna was reaching into the foot-deep pit, her lovely brown eyes scrunched with concentration.
“What’s happening?” I whispered dramatically to the captain.
She slashed me with the same look parents give their toddlers when they reappear after a two-minute absence covered head to toe in raspberry jam. “We uncovered a buried container. It’s sealed with magic. Agent Shen is nearly finished.”
I filled in the rest of that sentence: Agent Shen was nearly finished employing her extra-special, extra-difficult anti-magic abjuration. No sealing spell stood a chance against her.
Leaning closer for a better look into the hole, I spotted a dirty metal surface, upon which Lienna had drawn a double-ringed circle with runes on the inside. The shapes were complex, and she’d added several small objects around the border. Currently, she was chanting in a language I didn’t recognize.
She concluded the chant with a bold exclamation of gobbledygook, then pushed to her feet.
“Well?” Blythe demanded.
“I don’t know how it was sealed,” Lienna replied. “It’s probably dark magic, so I’m using a combination of abjuration sorcery to erase the seal and something with more punch to take out the defensive portions, if there are any.”
“Wait,” Agent Goulding cut in, dripping judgment. “So you don’t know if this will work? You’re just throwing everything at it and hoping something will stick?”
“You’ve got a lot of attitude, Wednesday Addams,” I shot back at her, feeling more than a little protective of my partner. “Do you have a better plan?”
“Proceed, Agent Shen,” Blythe said loudly.
Lienna glanced around. “We should back up a bit.”
Blythe and I were out of the garden in a blink; we’d both witnessed the shit Lienna could do. I’d seen her ignite steel, dismember monsters, reduce grown men to tears, and crush spirits—both metaphorically and literally. She’d once threatened to turn all my body hair into catnip and send me to an alternate dimension populated by giant, angry housecats. That might sound outside the realm of possibility, but with Lienna, I never chanced it.
Once we were all clear, Lienna took a deep breath and uttered a final nonsensical phrase.
The runes drawn into the circle glowed so brightly that it hurt to look at them. Even from ten paces away I could feel the heat. I shielded my eyes as the metal hissed and bubbled like a pot of water boiling over.
When the light faded, I peeked into the hole. The case’s metal top had melted away, gone without a trace—which didn’t seem possible, but then again … magic, so …
The open case was about two feet deep and stacked with strange objects: a Russian doll, a raccoon tail, nunchucks, a crystal orb, and masks that looked like they should either be worn to a Victorian ball or in a Stanley Kubrick film. Curiosity lighting her face, Lienna stepped forward.
A deep, braying laugh interrupted her. It sounded like the cackle of a bad actor portraying a theatrical antagonist. We all glanced uncomfortably at each other as though any one of us could be the source of that villainous jubilation. Where the hell was it coming from? Who the hell was it coming from?
The laughter subsided and a low voice echoed from the buried case: “Greetings, purportless mortals! Welcome to the vestiges of mine own hell.”
Part III
Lienna cautiously approached the case and peered into its depths. “It’s … a talking skull.”
The rest of us followed her back into the ravaged garden. Sure enough, nestled beside the Russian doll was a yellowed human skull with a faint red glow in the empty eye sockets. I hung back with Goulding, letting Lienna and Blythe flank the case.
“I am no mere skull,” it retorted, glaring balefully at the two women. “I am power beyond the comprehension of your feeble female minds.”
Lienna arched an eyebrow. “A sexist talking skull?”
“As I said, mulish heifer, I am not a skull but one of the most feared and formidable Lords of Drangfar. I once ruled—”
“Tell us what you know about this farm,” Blythe interrupted, leaning over the hole threateningly.
“Am I to obey a pair of squawking hens?”
Goulding shifted closer to me, her narrowed eyes on the animated noggin. “The Drangfar Lords were mighty darkfae. Thousands of year
s ago, they terrorized ancient Persia until a druid and a sorceress, both the most powerful of their age, joined forces to defeat them.”
“So the skull is lying?” I asked her.
“Not necessarily. The myths suggest some of them were captured, not destroyed.”
“Captured … inside a human skull?” I twisted my mouth skeptically. “How do you know any of that, anyway?”
“Pick up a book once in a while and you might learn something too, Agent Morris,” she sneered.
I was thinking of a comeback when the shouting skull recaptured my attention.
“I will waste no more breath on these doltish femmes,” it clamored. “Fetch me a man of authority!”
Blythe and Lienna stiffened.
“A man?” my partner repeated.
“Are you not familiar with the word?” the skull mocked. “A male of your species, one of the stouter sex, strong-jawed and unburdened by the salacious constitution that plagues shrews such as yourselves.”
“I am the one in charge here,” Blythe growled at the skull.
The cranium sighed. “The hull of the world has run aground on the beach of emasculated patriarchy.”
Lienna stared at the skull in revulsion. Without looking away, she called out, “Kit, get over here.”
I obliged, stopping beside her. “What’s up?”
“Our bony new friend won’t talk unless he’s in the presence of a penis.”
“I uttered no such statement!”
“Alas, poor Yorick, you pretty much did,” I told the skull. “Now, do you need to see the penis or will you take my word for it? Because I’m not sure I’m comfortable with—”
“Putrid bipeds!” the skull spat.
I let out a half-laugh. “I think Skeletor is jealous of our legs.”
Beside Lienna, Blythe exhaled sharply in exasperation, then extended her fingers toward the skull. It lifted out of the case and hovered in the air just below eye level.
“I’ll only say this one more time,” the captain grunted. “Tell us what you know about this place, or—”
“Or what?” the skull interrupted with a condescending chuckle. “Your pathetic psychic energy is but a fitful breeze brushing across a mighty stone peak, hag. This skull is a vessel, a prison for my true form, which, were you to ever lay eyes upon it, would shatter your frangible mind.”
“I have a question for you, Crypt Keeper,” I began.
“Hold thy ignoble tongue, eunuch.”
I guess that answered my “taking my word for it” question. “You’re pretty old, right?”
“My history spans millennia.”
I nodded seriously. “Okay, then how come you talk like you’re stuck in a bad Shakespearean performance from four hundred years ago?”
Blythe huffed, Lienna rolled her eyes, and behind us, Agent Goulding said, “Um, guys?”
“Insolent child,” the skull snarled. “You haven’t the faintest idea to whom you are speaking.”
“Why don’t you fill me in, Ghost Rider?” I shot back.
“There is magic deeper, darker, and so delightfully sinister that your tepid spirit could endure not so much as a taste. You are standing on earth which mourns in the wake of such horrific sorcery that even the blood of my keeper, a profoundly potent practitioner in his own right, chills at its name. But I—I am capable of far more.”
“Guys!” Agent Goulding repeated loudly.
The three of us turned to look at her—and found ourselves staring into a dark shadow solidifying in the middle of the garden. We backpedaled and I almost fell into the hole.
“The hell is that?” Lienna gasped.
“It’s him!” Goulding shouted. “It’s the skull! You broke the seal with your stupid abjuration magic and now he’s escaping!”
As a rolling, gravelly laugh poured out of the skull, Blythe flipped it around with her telekinesis. A crack ran down the back, and a thin trail of dark vapor like smoke from an oil fire, nearly invisible against the backdrop of burnt meadow, leaked out. The smoky line spiraled toward the growing shadow-blob.
Well, shit. If this asshole was, as Goulding had suggested, a genuine Drangfar Lord, we were all oh so screwed.
With a slash of her hand, Blythe tore three blackened fence posts out of the earth and flung them at the shadow. They sailed harmlessly through it and crashed to the ground on the other side, sending up a puff of soot. I hoped that wasn’t “violent hallucination” soot.
The skull roared with amusement.
“We have to reseal it,” Blythe announced as she sent another post flying at the shadow, eliciting more raucous laughter.
We all knew what that meant: Lienna had to work her magic. She was the only one with any sorcery skill.
Blythe waved her hand again, and the hovering skull flew toward Lienna. She snatched it out of the air—and the massive shadow rushed at her. It knocked her back and she landed on her butt, more surprised than hurt. The shadow whirled on me, and a blast of wind threw me backward. I fell at Goulding’s feet.
“It’s only going to get stronger,” she said, crouching as the shadow spun threateningly, the swirl of darkness obscuring my line of sight to Lienna and Blythe. “The longer it has to regenerate itself, the more powerful it’ll get. If it reaches its full form, there’s no way we can stop it.”
“Seriously, how do you know all th—”
A body flew past us—Blythe, spinning from an unseen blow. She slammed into a fence post and crumpled limply.
As I scrambled to stand, the darkfae shadow swelled to over nine feet tall. From the writhing darkness, six limbs took form, each shaped like a twisted tree trunk and emitting a neon green hue. Knife-like teeth protruded from his lizardy jaw and his spine bulged with horns. Or tusks. Or whatever the horror-monster equivalent of horny tusks were.
Cool.
Time to add some nightmare fuel of my own to this party.
“Hey, Jack Skellington,” I called, sauntering along the garden’s edge—moving away from the others. “I’ve got a few more questions for you. First up, do you suffer from arachnophobia?”
The darkfae, his monstrous body growing more solid with each second, twisted to face me—but I was no longer alone. I had my own unsightly ally: a spider the size of a small truck, with multi-jointed legs and a huge, blubbery body. Darkfae prick, meet Shelob, straight out of her hidden Cirith Ungol lair.
His reptilian head tilted as he took in my new fanged friend. Not giving him time to puzzle out what he was facing, I sent Shelob scuttling toward him in a lightning-fast charge. The darkfae lunged sideways, evading the spider’s assault. For a “feared and formidable” Lord of Drangfar, he was awfully skittish.
At the other end of the garden, Lienna and Goulding knelt over the cracked skull, the ass end leaking a steady stream of black miasma. Lienna riffled through her satchel as she barked rapid-fire commands at Goulding. The alchemist mashed what looked like pink bubble gum—more likely to corrode your jaw than provide a single moment of cherry-flavored joy—into the crack.
The darkfae began to turn in their direction. Shelob launched into his path and jabbed warningly with the two-foot stinger sticking out of her jiggly ass. The fae came up short, again unsure how to tackle this strange, hideous creature. Toothy jaws snapping, he cast one of his six arms in a wide arc, and a wave of neon green light swept out. Ruptured earth sprayed everywhere as the beam passed.
I clenched my jaw with concentration.
The light hit Shelob and she rolled backward, legs flailing, then popped up again, unharmed. Behold, my invincible spider of Mordor! Nothing could hurt her—not unless I decided she could be hurt.
Which, uh, maybe I should’ve done.
The darkfae snarled quietly, and the red pinpricks glowing in his shadowy face—his eyes, I was guessing—swung to me. Okay, Plan B.
Shelob dug into the ground like the world’s biggest, leggiest gopher and disappeared. From beneath the churning earth, something new rose: long, bulbous head
with bared teeth, three-jointed legs, skeletal body, bony tail, and glistening black skin. A perfect rendition of the Xenomorph opened her terrifying mouth and let out a ghastly shriek.
I couldn’t remember the exact pitch of her shrieks in Alien, but close enough.
The darkfae froze, quite possibly paralyzed by the realization that he wasn’t the ugliest thing ever conceived. His body had grown more solid, with spines jutting from his limbs and his six arms thrashing. The shimmers of green light over him were brightening, and where licks of neon glow touched the earth, the sooty dirt bubbled like molten goo.
The Xenomorph loosed another horrific scream—and the darkfae smiled. Maybe. With that face, it was hard to tell if he was smiling or sneering or just had some bad indigestion.
“You think me fooled, petulant boy-child?” the darkfae hissed, his arrogant laughter gone.
He strode forward, the earth seething in protest under his feet. The Xenomorph leaped at him, but this time, he didn’t evade. The slimy alien passed right through his body like she wasn’t even there. Which, technically …
And now nothing stood between Skully the Douchebag Darkfae and Lienna.
She had the skull in one hand and a marker in the other as she scribbled frantically across the yellowed bone and chanted in Latin. Goulding hovered helplessly beside her, gripping a silver wand—no doubt from Lienna’s satchel—and gawking in terror at the approaching darkfae.
Shit on a stick. Plan C?
I ran forward, stooping to grab one of Blythe’s broken fence posts as I went. With loud pops, two dozen knee-high creatures appeared, huge ears flapping and teeth-laden mouths gaping with squeaky cackles. The gremlins leaped at the advancing fae—and these ones were wet, exposed to bright lights, and glutted on a freaking feast after midnight.
The fae tried to walk through them, but my evil minions weren’t mere visions. When Skully McSkullfae felt their clawed hands on his shadowy legs, he lurched to a stop. Roaring, he swiped at the creatures. His toxic green talons passed through them—but he could feel them scrambling up his body. Sight, sound, touch—all a little too warped for him to figure out what was real and what wasn’t.
The Alchemist and an Amaretto: The Guild Codex: Spellbound / Five Page 24