by E. A. Copen
Slowly, it worked. The giant stopped fighting me. He sank down to one knee and then two, great thuds echoing through the hall as his knees struck the ice. His head fell forward, and his shoulders slumped. But the giant had just lost consciousness. There was only one way to ensure he didn’t wake back up and cause more trouble.
“Judah!” I turned my head at the sound of Reed’s voice. He extended one hand and sent a blast of fire across the floor in front of him, revealing the katana. He reached down and picked up the sword I had lost. “Catch!”
Reed flung the sword at me.
I leaned over to try to grab it but missed. The sword embedded its blade deep in the meat of the giant’s arm. Dark ichor spilled out, the cool floor hissing as the hot blood struck it. I jerked the sword free and put it to the giant’s throat, drawing it across. With all the blood oozing out, I didn’t think he’d be getting back up but, just to be safe, I decided to follow Abe’s advice. With a little magick and a lot of work, I put a hand on the other side of the sword and pulled it back toward me, cutting through the giant’s neck flesh as if it were butter. Once I hit bone, I had to saw a little, but it hacked through with surprising ease.
The room erupted in cheers and applause.
Exhausted, cold, and with growing numbness in my limbs, I let myself sink down to the floor as the fog cleared, and everyone broke out the fire extinguishers. I looked at Reed, who gave me a simple nod.
The giant was dead. Crux was contained. Abe was alive. But Robbie… I stumbled back and knelt next to him. There was a big hole in his chest all the way through. His eyes were glassy, and his skin cold and blue. Robbie was dead. I pulled away some of his shirt and found black veins beginning their crawl across his skin. Dammit. He was still going to turn.
The clamor of applause died down until there was only one set of hands clapping. Whoever it was continued to clap, long after everyone else had stopped. And it wasn’t coming from over on the stairs. There, everyone was looking around in confusion, trying to pinpoint the source.
Creven narrowed his eyes as he stared up at the balcony next to where Kim and Robbie had been watching. “Seamus.”
I followed Creven’s gaze and saw a strange man there with ashen skin, gold eyes, and a mullet of silver hair accenting pointed ears. A thick mustache of the same color curled down his face. He wore a suit of silver armor, so polished the pieces could have functioned as a mirror. One foot up on the banister and the other planted on nothing but air, he floated there, glowing with an aura of deep purple and obsidian black.
“Congratulations,” he said, addressing me. “You’re the first human to slay a giant in nearly two thousand years. They’ll write songs about you.”
“Don’t speak to him, Judah,” Creven urged. “His tongue is poison.”
Seamus’ mustache twitched. “Creven. I was wondering who was foolish enough to come uninvited into my home and leave a message where I slept.”
I regarded Creven with a slight level of disbelief. I’d told him to be subtle. I guess the specifics of it hadn’t registered.
The elf gave a dark smirk in reply. “You know me. Always the cheeky one.”
“Indeed. And that crass nature will catch up to you someday.” Seamus stepped up onto the railing and then forward. Instead of dropping like a rock, as a normal person ought to, he remained suspended in mid-air. Apparently, the rules of gravity didn’t apply to the Unseelie fae. “But not today. Today, I’m here for the vampire.” He pointed at Crux.
Sal hauled Crux to his feet. The vampire struggled desperately against Sal’s iron grip.
“Don’t believe this lot,” Crux protested. “I’ve been nothing but loyal to you, Seamus. I’ve honored our deal.”
“You’ve killed my subjects for profit and gain. While I admire the gall it took for you to think you could double-cross me, Crux, you must have realized it was foolish. You swore an oath of loyalty to me. That means you don’t murder my subjects. What kind of king would I be if I allowed those actions to go unpunished?”
He flicked a single finger upward in a come-hither motion. An unseen force ripped Crux from Sal’s grip and lifted him off the ground. The vampire screeched when he realized he was floating. He flailed against whatever spell Seamus was working on him, floating up into the open air, unable to control his jerking limbs. He rose until he was a few feet lower than Seamus, at which point Seamus snapped his fingers. A swirling, green vortex appeared. With another dismissive flick of his fingers, Seamus directed Crux into the vortex before moving to follow himself.
“Wait!” I called.
Creven stopped next to me and put a hand on my shoulder with a serious look. “Don’t, lass.”
I shrugged his hand away as the Unseelie necromancer paused and cocked his head at me. “Yes? What is it?”
“You owe me.”
“Jaysus Christ, are you mad?” Creven hissed. “You’re addressing a dark lord of Faerie!”
I ignored him. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have known about Crux’s betrayal, at least not until more of your people got hurt. As a fae, I’m sure you understand the power of debt. You don’t want it to be known you’re indebted to a human, do you?”
Seamus sighed and turned his back to the portal. “What is it you want?”
I tried to move forward, but pain in my foot made me stumble. Creven grabbed me on one side and Abe on the other, pulling me back up. I shrugged them both away, putting all my weight on my one good foot and gesturing to Robbie. “Creven tells me you’re a powerful necromancer. Is it beyond your power to restore my friend? As he was before he fell thanks to your partner?”
“Is it in my power!” Seamus chuckled. “I can restore him, yes, but that is a large request. The debt I owe you is barely equal in scope.”
I held up four fingers. “By my count, you owe me four lives. That’s how many fae Crux killed. I revealed that. I’m only asking for one in return.”
Seamus narrowed his eyes. “You would bargain with a fae?”
“Is your word good, or isn’t it?”
Creven shook his head next to me and mumbled, “She’s mad. Mad!”
After a long moment of silence, Seamus nodded. “Very well, human. I will restore your friend as a demonstration of my power and repay my debt to you. But know this. Should you stand with Creven and his allies, you and I will be at odds. If ever our paths cross again, I will owe you no mercy.”
“I get it. You’re a bad guy. Now fix Robbie.”
Seamus flatted his palm and breathed on it. As if his flesh were made of thousands of tiny ants, bits of Robbie crawled back into, well, Robbie. His body slowly knit itself back together. Color came back into his face. The hobgoblin blinked and then drew in a deep, gasping breath. Kim, who had scrambled down out of the balcony about the time Seamus must have arrived, ran to his side and helped him sit up, smoothing her fingers through his fiery hair.
“My debt is repaid,” said Seamus with a bow of his head. “Let us hope you and I never meet again, Judah the giant slayer.”
And with that, the fae necromancer stepped through his portal and back into Faerie.
Chapter Thirty
The Kings called in a nurse and two EMTs they knew could keep quiet to look us all over. They determined Abe, Robbie, and I had frostbite of varying degrees, mine being the worst. The particularly brave nurse said one of my fingers needed amputating at the second knuckle, but Sal didn’t think so. He came over, put his hands over mine and worked his healing magick as best he could. When he took his hands away, my fingers were bright red instead of black, but they were still tingly and numb. As for my foot, they put it in a cast and found me a set of crutches to get around on.
Abe insisted he would heal on his own and refused all medical attention except for having the big slice in his arm sewn shut. Apparently, it was uncomfortable.
True to his word, Seamus had healed Robbie, who insisted he had no memory of ever being dead. Robbie spent a good part of the rest of the evening
alone in a corner with a cup of hot tea, trembling. The only thing I heard him say the rest of the night was how happy he was he hadn’t had to burn the place down to get that sodding bastard giant.
After having some of my superficial wounds treated and the EMTs gave me a bottle of Vicodin, I found a chair that hadn’t been broken in the fight and sat down next to Abe.
He leaned back as if the little cocktail chair was an armchair. “How is the hand?”
I flexed my fingers for him. “Still no feeling in my fingers, but it could have been worse. Thank God I’ve got decent friends.”
“That you do,” Abe agreed.
My attention drifted to where Father Reed had been standing at the bottom of the stairs. As soon as the fight was over, he’d slipped out before I could thank him. After everything, he’d come through when I needed him.
“So, I guess you’re just vampire enough,” I said to Abe.
He looked at me flatly. “Excuse me?”
“The knife in your chest. Guess it counted as staking? I thought that was fatal.”
“One of the perks of being a so-called half-blood,” Abe said, the hint of a smile touching the corner of his eyes in a wrinkle. “I might not be as strong or as fast as my full-blooded counterparts, but just like them, I can get staked. Incredibly painful. Horribly inconvenient. Mind numbingly boring…but not fatal. At best, it renders a weak one incapacitated until the stake is removed. At worst, all you will do is piss them off.”
I shook my head. “Why don’t I know these things? I feel like that’s important.”
Abe leaned in. “You do not know these things because vampires do not wish you to know them. BSI teaches an effective method is to stake a vampire, and that is true in many cases. If it is not, that’s when they call me in. I deal with big fish.” He ran his fingers over the front rim of his hat.
“And Crux was a big fish? That’s why they sent you?”
“They could have sent anyone,” said Abe with a shrug. “My presence only served to irritate the situation, if anything.”
“That’s not true. Crux wouldn’t even have met with me if not for you.”
“He only did that because I am Upyri. The political sphere of the vampires is too complicated for me to grasp.”
“Even if the clan leader is your half-sister?” I asked.
Abe sighed. “Especially because of that. But we have let our conversation digress. You asked why I was sent. The answer is, I was not. When I heard there was an opening to work with you, I asked for the opportunity.”
I sat in stunned silence for a moment. With my record, it had been everything I could do to hold onto my job some days. BSI hated me. I was unruly, they said, and unconventional. No one wanted to work with me.
“You are surprised,” continued Abe with a smile. “Why?”
“I don’t have a good record with the bureau or with partners. Why would you want to work with me?”
“Because you are not blind,” he explained. “The establishment in Washington forgets true change only comes from those who question things. Change is good. If there was no change, humans would still be dung-flinging apes, if not extinct. But too much change too fast or change that comes about because of panic…” He shook his head. “That is never good. Important decisions should never be made from a place of fear. BSI tries too hard to hold onto the strings of power they established during the Revelation. The organization was founded to help humans sleep at night. A good organization grows and changes with the people.”
“You don’t think BSI is doing that?”
Abe stood and slid his hands back into his leather gloves. “It doesn’t matter what I think, Agent Black. As much as I try, my voice is drowned out. I am nobody, trapped in anonymity. But you…” He pointed at me. “The world is watching you, waiting for you to fail. There is power in that.”
Abe offered me his hand, and I took it. “It has been a pleasure Agent Black,” he said. “But I must return to Washington. I’ll fax you a copy of my report after it’s been filed, but suffice it to say, I will have nothing but a mediocre review of your performance here. We do not want the brass too excited. They might look away.”
He tried to pull his hand away, but I held on to it. “Mara,” I said. “What’s your report going to say about Mara? She had a record. One more strike…”
“I can see the girl is important to you,” Abe said once I let go of his hand. “As far as I can tell, she was an innocent victim of circumstance, taken hostage when Crux tried to make his escape from the law. Crux, on the other hand, disappeared without a trace, and even with the best tracking resources available to me, I was unable to give chase. You do not have to worry about her, Judah.”
“You’re a good man, Abe Helsinki.”
Abe flashed a fanged smile and corrected, “Half,” before going to the stairs and taking his leave.
Creven appeared beside me, shimmering into existence from behind his magick veil. “I’ve decided something,” he announced.
“Oh?” I asked, watching Abe go. “What’s that?”
“I’m wanted in sixteen countries. The INTERPOL would give their left nut to catch me. But I’m not half as dangerous as you. You got a death wish? Seamus is not the kind of person you want knowing your name, let alone giving you a nickname. You’ve got to be more careful what kind of enemies you make, lass. Enemies like Seamus shorten your lifespan considerably.”
Sal came up and put an arm around me. “You need to get off of that foot. The nurse said you need to stay off of it.”
“I told the nurse which part of me she could kiss, too,” I answered but sat on the chair he’d brought up for me anyway. “So, you’re not going to heal my foot, huh?”
“Why?” He sat on the floor next to me. “You’d try to kick me if I did. Last I heard, you still had a pretty good reason to be pissed at me. Can’t kick my ass if your foot’s broken.”
“I’ve got another foot.”
As I sat there, though, looking around at Sal’s biker friends who had played a small part in our victory, despite never being asked or expected to, I understood. This was a family, another pack for him, one where all the pressures and responsibilities of being a dying man’s second in command wouldn’t have been present. Even dynamics in the pack got stale after a while, and having a social group outside of the pack would have almost been a necessity. Everyone else did. Ed had his gamer friends, Daphne had her college friends, and Shauna had the gym rats. Why was this different?
Because he kept it secret, I answered. And because it was a secret, I automatically assumed it was wrong.
I didn’t control Sal’s life. There was no reason I should be privy to his secrets and know where he was at all hours of the day. And he was right. I shouldn’t have just expected him to be there for me all the time, especially knowing he wanted more than just a casual friendship. It was wrong of me to lead him on like that. Even if his secret was wrong, too, two wrongs didn’t make a right.
I had to forgive to move forward, but that didn’t mean I needed to forget. These bikers, whoever they were, were important to Sal, important enough he was willing to go to great lengths to keep a life secret from me. The only way I was going to find out why was to stick around. I’m not a quitter.
“So, dinner,” Sal was saying. “There’s this hole in the wall Tex-Mex place I’ve been dying to try. I hear they’ve got the best queso. How’s your Spanish?”
“Better than it was a year ago.”
“Good. Pick you up day after tomorrow around seven?”
“Can we do it after the election? I’m going to try to focus on that for a few days after I sleep for about a week.”
“Day after the celebration, then,” said Sal with a smile. “I’ll mark my calendar.”
I nodded and eased up onto my crutches again. “About before…”
“Hey, no sweat. I’m not holding it against you.” He flashed his palms at me. “Honest truth about healing your foot? I’m tapped. I’ll need a
few days to recover. We’ll give it a try then, huh?”
I nodded. Movement down on the dance floor caught my eye, and I realized the two EMTs were examining Sven. Mara was kneeling with him, holding his hand. With my broken foot, it was difficult getting up and down stairs, but I managed to hobble my way down there, assuming they’d want an explanation. Since the fog had vanished, the frost on Sven’s face had melted a little and his joints must have warmed just enough they’d been able to move him. The gentle giant was now lying on his back. I paused on the bottom stair when I heard a clattering sound. One of the EMTs moved her stethoscope away from Sven’s chest and shouted for another gurney. Then, she rose to push through the crowd to go get it herself.
I grabbed her arm as she passed by. “Is he alive?”
“Fading fast,” she answered and jerked her arm away. Then she continued in a low voice, “Truth is he’s not going to make it, so if you’ve got something to say...”
I made it the few steps forward and then awkwardly lowered myself to the floor next to him. Mara was gripping Sven’s hand tight with both her hands, tears streaming from her eyes.
“I’m here,” she was saying. “You saved me.”
I took Sven’s other hand. It was like holding onto ice. “Hey, big guy.”
“I can’t see you,” Sven said. It was obvious why. His eyes were open but they were frozen, bloodstained blocks, unable to focus. “Agent. Your friend, is he okay? The half-blood?”
“Better than ever.”
The lump in Sven’s throat moved up and down. “What about my master?”
My grip on his hand tightened. “Crux is never going to hurt anyone ever again.”