Righteous Eight: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Words of Power Book 4)

by VK Fox

  “I am here.” Dahl glanced at his watch. Five a.m.—not so bad this time. They were bundled together under a pile of blanks in their makeshift bed on the floor. Leaving the narrow mattresses paired together off their frames had come with some ribbing about “mission prep” from Blue, but having Everest back in his arms when he was sleep-tumbled and drowsy, murmuring intimate nonsense, was such a relief it made Dahl weak inside.

  “Oh good.” Everest was clutching the white gold ring strung around his neck. “I thought this one was real.”

  “Looks like you have it figured.” Dahl kissed his forehead. “You never take that off.”

  Everest’s hand tightened around the necklace while he drifted, his eyes tracking behind closed lids, voice dreamy. “I like it, even if it can’t mean what you wanted it to mean.”

  The words were a broken nose. Dahl tried to master staggering breathlessness. “Alright.” Fuck. Tears. He wasn’t going to make it with his dignity intact. “You could have told me.”

  “Told you what?” Everest was awake now, frown tugging at the corner of his lovely mouth.

  Dahl couldn’t look at him anymore. He studied the crappy cement ceiling and tried to keep his voice from breaking. “Told me your answer was ‘no’ instead of assuming I’d figure it out.” It hurt to swallow. How long since Everest had decided? Since Dahl had lost control at the Mustang? Since he’d given Everest the ring? Or had he always known what his answer would be, but he hadn’t decided how to break the news? “I know I’m not good enough, you didn’t have to let me keep hoping—”

  “Love.” Everest rolled into his chest, their faces a few inches apart. “Do you know why I’m calling you that?”

  Why would Everest want to make a commitment to him? Dahl was damaged goods in every sense. He brought nothing to the table. Well, except for money, but Everest was a good enough man not to let that sway him, apparently. “It’s a pet name.” Dahl choked out. “A term of endearment. Maybe I read too much into—”

  Everest kissed him, snuffing out the words. Dahl’s heart cracked. “I’m calling you love because I woke in the dark, in your arms, with no recollection what your name is.”

  Dahl kissed him back. It hurt. “But you know you love me?”

  “Yes.” There was no hesitation.

  “What else do you know?”

  “I know you like strategy games.” Everest smoothed his hair with a gentle hand. “I know you admire M. C. Escher and spend hours trying to emulate aspects of his art. I know you enjoy blowjobs at unexpected times.”

  “Rainbow ruse is cheating—everyone likes surprise blowjobs.”

  Everest chuckled. “Fair. I know you’re a poor winner and a worse loser. I know you are a wonderful father. I could recognize the smell of your hair blindfolded, and your smile is the sunlight of my world—”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Dahl was drowning again. “Why does it matter what name you call me? I’ve had so many names, it almost doesn’t matter. Pick any name, there’s some chance you’ll get it right.” He was being pathetic, but every time he blinked, he saw the three of them in the kitchen making pancakes. He saw them holding hands and walking around Las Vegas while the sun rose. He saw cuddling up on the couch and laughing over stupid movies. Dahl wanted this more than he’d wanted anything in his life. More than magic, more than freedom, more than his right arm, he wanted a family with Everest. He couldn’t stop begging. “So my name is a non-issue. Was there another reason?”

  Everest’s brow creased. “It isn’t just your name. That’s what we know about right now. We can only see the tip of the iceberg.” His voice was low and halting, clumsy with humiliation. “You didn’t know anything was wrong with me when you offered me a ring. I should have given it back, I just… couldn’t.”

  “I don’t want it back.” Years in the future he’d still be bleeding from tonight, but there wasn’t a choice. He’d been all in since they’d fucked at Blue’s house. Maybe even before that. “I want you to wear it, and I want to take an oath of commitment. I want to watch Fitz grow up and you go gray. I want to help you when you stumble and lean on you when I can’t find my way home. No one gets out of our line of work without scars, Everest. Being survivors doesn’t mean we deserve less. Please tell me you see that.” Dahl was shaking and his voice had faded to a whisper. “Please.”

  Everest considered him, tracing his tears with a gentle thumb, kissing the scab on his lower lip and smelling his hair like he was memorizing the moment for perfect recall later. What did that mean? Time stood still.

  “It’s the third time you’ve used those words.”

  “What?” Dahl’s voice cracked on the question. He could not bear it if Everest politely sidestepped this.

  “You said almost the same thing to me in my bedroom when we became friends, and at Blue’s house when we became lovers.”

  “I did?” Dahl was in the air over the edge of the cliff. He swallowed hard and his vision blurred. “It worked the other two times.”

  Everest slipped the leather cord over his head and pressed the ring into Dahl’s shaking hand. “Will you put it on me?”

  “Yes.” Dahl sobbed the word as he pulled Everest closer, arms wrapped around, face buried. Everest’s breath left his body in a gasp as he returned the embrace. When Dahl regained control of his limbs, he slowly disentangled, sitting to unstring the ring. Everest sat facing him, gorgeous in Joyeuse’s amber light. Dahl stroked his chaotic hair and strong jaw, taking him in: mismatched eyes and bruises; warm skin and puckered nipples; tattoos and wild, glorious joy. Dahl grasped Everest’s hand.

  “I vow to honor and love you, all the days of your life. For richer or poorer, in good times and bad, in sickness and health, and forsaking all others as long as we both live.”

  Everest was wearing his shy smile. “You will feel no more rain, for I will be your shelter. You will feel no more cold, for I will be your warmth. No more will you wander, for I will be your home. We are two bodies with one life.”

  Dahl slid the ring on his finger. Everest’s eyes shone with a light far more beautiful than magic.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Where, exactly, is your wolf?” Dahl was giving Jane the look. The one that let her know exactly how inadequate she was being because she couldn’t conjure a wolf from thin air.

  Jane scowled to cover her blush. “I don’t know. He’s always just shown up before when I needed him. I thought he’d be here.” They were standing in front of an annoyed mirror golem in a driving wind, bundled like Stay Puft Marshmallow Men, freezing their toes off while Everest fumbled for seven minutes before squeaking out the right tune.

  Dahl scrubbed his face with gloved hands. “Could you try praying to Saint Herve or invoking him, or however your special magic works?”

  “Do you think I’m not doing that? Why would I stand here with my thumb up my ass waiting for a random wolf to wander by? Of course I’m trying to call him!”

  Dahl turned to Ian as Jane dropped back into the category of Not Worth Dahl’s Attention. “Do you remember enough from your dreams to get us there?”

  Ian frowned, pushing the hair out of his face while the wind went through a period of directional indecision. Ian was the only one who wasn’t wearing a hat: the cold didn’t seem to bother him.

  “I think so. It’s worth a try.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” And with no additional fanfare, Dahl stepped through the rippling surface of the mirror.

  The red desert was enormous—vast, untethered infinity: like being sealed in a clear pod and shot among blood-colored stars, like being born. Moving required more lucid concentration and fewer fast-twitch muscle groups, pulling Jane like gravity once she found a destination to focus on. A huge grin spread over Jane’s face when she got the hang of it for a few strides—easy and beautiful: like a dance, following Ian’s steady form. The journey was over before she broke a sweat.

  They were standing at a gate made of an equal ratio of spiky metal posts a
nd spiders bordering a wild garden. Red sand met a tangle of greenbrier and creeping sedum, and the gate was ajar. Ian stopped directly in front of her, a huge, warm shadow. In the red light his antler crown was every bit as real as the rest of him. Or was the rest of him less real? Jane shivered.

  “Do we go in?” Everest was by her side and Dahl next to him, hand in hand. Dahl’s eyes were full of pain, and his waxy skin stretched over sharp bones like a three-day corpse: not really human. Not anymore. Dahl’s gaze traveled over Everest and Ian, brow furrowing, while the butterflies crawled and fluttered inside his luminescent arm.

  “Yes.” He answered through gritted teeth. “Let’s make this quick and get out.”

  Ian grunted and took the lead, his massive hand brushing the gate aside. One by one, they stepped across the threshold and onto the garden path.

  A snarled wall of thorns obstructed the narrow, weed-encroached walkway. Knobbly, malformed vines and wicked twists bore mauve blossoms and mushy fruit swamped in carrion scent. Jane got a gagging lungful and stumbled back, fighting to keep her lunch down. Glancing over her shoulder, the path stretched on forever, her wolf nowhere along it.

  “What is this?” Jane turned to Dahl. His eyes were climbing over the vines, jaw tight.

  “Your sister was kind to us.” The vines sighed. “You may pass. She needs you.”

  A creaking, narrow gap opened between the briars, and one by one they stepped through. Jane shook out her trembly hands. Now they were committed. When you started going through talking gateways and shit, the quest was well and truly underway. Were there any tales of a small group of heroes getting partway to their destination and then making a strategic withdrawal and going home safe and sound? Nope.

  On the other side of the brambles, the path was flanked by bare, crooked shrubs clinging to the clay-red ground. Rafts of mud, grasses, and twigs caulked each nook, forming heavy platforms lined with silver-gray hair. Resting in shallow divots on top, nestling clumps of skin and down feathers rose and fell with gentle breathing. The baby birds opened their gaping mouths in unison as if on signal, bobbing huge yellow and red beaks expectantly towards the sky.

  Ian grinned, striding over to a nest full of lumpy fluff and open maw. “What is this?” He chuckled.

  “Your sister was kind to us.” The chicks peeped. “You may pass. Time is short.”

  The path wandered ahead of them as if making up its mind. Even when the ground was flat, a strange haziness cloaked the world—as if it didn’t exist beyond the fifty feet or so they could see and solidified only when they laid eyes on it. Maybe the garden was here because they expected it. It seemed to go on forever.

  Time is short. Jane pushed her pace and nearly tripped over an old man dressed in ill-fitting clothes. Arthritic joints and weathered skin sacked in fabric that had once been silver silk and leather and was now rags.

  “What is this?” Jane tested her weight on a rolled ankle as he extended a knobbled hand.

  “Your sister was kind to me.” His voice was good-hearted and rough. “Hurry past. She just stopped screaming.”

  Ian broke into a run, huge strides eating the end of the path, and vaulted the steps to the house on chicken feet. He wrenched open the solid wooden door.

  The house smelled delicious: roast beef with sharp mint. On the hearth, coals cast the room in weak, ruddy light. A shadow stirred, and Jane snapped to a metal cage by the wall.

  “Help me.” Allison Card’s voice was a painful whisper. The cage she was in wasn’t tall enough for her to even sit straight-backed, and she hunched on all fours like an animal, split fingernails on raw hands wrapping the bars, her roughly shaved silver head bowed at a cramped angle. “She’s gone into the garden. Quickly, help me get out.”

  “Where are the keys?” Ian kept his voice low as he combed over the walls with practiced efficiency. Jane caught the drift and kicked herself into action. Maybe a key hook or a junk drawer? Did extranatural monsters have junk drawers?

  The first bird hit the window with enough force to fracture the glass. Jane gave a startled yelp. As its fluffy black body fell away, two more pelted in behind, crunching the thick, uneven window with bone-breaking force and leaving it a mess of spider-web cracks. Dahl covered the room in three strides, throwing a simple wooden deadbolt on the door an instant before the knob frantically rattled. Pounding and moaning echoed outside. Through the joints in the wood-paneled walls, vine tendrils pried in, dripping insidious pitch and snaking inexorably across the floor.

  “Card.” Everest’s voice was clipped and controlled. “Where are the keys?”

  “Top left vanity drawer.” Card compulsively passed her withered hand over her face over and over. “Don’t open the other drawers… don’t look. Don’t open them…” She began to sob. Jane dashed to the vanity and pulled the polished bone knob. Under a snarled collection of ribbons, a single, heavy key lay in the bottom, cold enough for Jane’s fingers to stick as she slid it into the lock. The well-greased mechanism opened with a click.

  Jane eased Card out of the cage—her stiff body looked years older. From neck to toe she was starving, wrinkled skin over a sharp frame. Only her face seemed unaffected: terror-glazed but smooth and unmarked.

  The sound of the birds pelting the window became a steady percussion, and the glass was fit to burst. Ian snatched the butcher table and upended it, covering the window with a hasty barricade, leaping back as a vine brushed his boot and the leather shriveled at its touch. He drew his machete from its sheath and began hacking, the blade flaking away into rust as he cleaved through another thorny vine. Jane’s mind was spinning.

  She whirled to Dahl and Everest, who were standing by the vanity mirror and looking at each other in the eye of the storm with unspeakable tenderness. Everest murmured something and unpacked his fiddle and rested it under his chin. For several heartbeats he sat there. Jane closed her eyes. He was going to open a gate going the other direction. They could end up anywhere. Did the gates connect to every mirror on earth? Other places? Had Dahl and Everest even tested travel this way? Dear God, help us get home.

  Dahl dropped his hands, wiping the palms on his pants. Jane’s stomach twisted—why was he crying? Everest’s white eye began to glow with magic, and a strange little smile played across his lips.

  “I see a ninety percent chance we make it back.” His voice was warm with relief and teasing. “I’m willing to concede the point about having an initial filter. If I wasn’t able to open the gate, I can’t imagine our chances would be so good, and I can only open it from here because I looked at the future.”

  Dahl’s voice was rough through his tears. “Did you get your chances for a full recovery while you were peeking?”

  “Zero.” Everest’s composure cracked for a second before he smoothed it over, continuing in the tone of a sore loser. “You were right.”

  “Of course I was right.”

  Everest jerked the bow back to the strings and played. A thin tune spun out—simple and haunting, until it was drowned by the deafening shriek of vines wrenching the front wall apart.

  The surface of the mirror turned to light and mercury. Dahl was studying the gateway with his game face, brow wrinkled, jaw clenched—distorted scenes from a thousand, thousand rooms rushing past. Through the mirror surface nothing was clear: whirling colors like a Vegas slot machine. Jane wanted to cry and kick things in frustration. There was no way to sort the images, no way to find home. God, please. Get us out of here.

  Black birds poured through the open wall, swarming towards them. Ian grabbed a willow broom and thrust it into the coals, brandishing the flaming end against the flock that wheeled and scattered to avoid it. He might buy them a dozen seconds. Jane desperately cast about for anything else.

  “Dad, you’re a fucking genius.” Dahl’s stormy face broke into a huge, bright grin, and his hand rested against the mirror, stilling the swirl of color to a rippling image. Every inch was as distorted as all the others but with one notable exception.
In the lower left-hand corner, in precise, blocky script, the words “Hello, Beautiful” appeared. Ian laughed out loud, and the five of them scrambled through the gate.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The sun was low in the sky when Jane sank onto a bench made from four cinder blocks and a piece of scrap wood outside of block B. Fitz was building a snow creature: a large lump with bits of dried grass sticking out all over and two pebble eyes. Dahl’s unfocused, red-rimmed gaze was hours or miles or lifetimes away, his lips moving silently in between drags on his cigarette.

  “Hey.” Jane pulled her coat more thickly around her and huddled next to him.

  “Great view,” he noted, his eyes skipping over the concrete, snow, and leaden sky.

  Jane grinned, her mind jumping way back to when they’d talked for the first time in the cramped outdoor smoker’s area at Solace mental hospital. What had she said next? “At least it’s fresh air. How are you doing with your concepts of fantasy and reality?”

  “I prefer fantasy. Reality keeps getting me in trouble.” Dahl ashed his cigarette onto the snow, lips pressed in a thin line before he spoke again. “I told him we would live happily ever after.” His face flushed red, and he scrubbed his palm over the expression. Jane leaned against his shoulder. Fitz had paused in placing a piece of straw from his pile, carefully considering the next addition.

  “Is Everest okay?” Jane chewed her lip. Dahl’s black mood was disturbing. Everest normally recovered so fast, and they’d all made it out whole and sound.

  “He didn’t want to be here. I pushed him. I used him to accomplish what needed to be done regardless of what he wanted. Even Zack tried to warn me... With every good intention, I...” Dahl’s words were strangling.

  “Dahl.” Jane looped her arm through his, pulling him tighter. “You didn’t use him. You inspired him to be better, to be more. That’s what a good leader does—not shelter their soldiers from harm but give them a reason to stand in harm’s way. You made his world something he wanted to fight for. That’s an incredible gift.”