by P. N. Elrod
He should have been playing professional ball.
By the time I realized the rock was on the way, it had already hit me. There was a popping sound from my left shoulder, and a wave of agony. Something flung me to the ground, driving the breath out of my lungs. My amulet fell from my suddenly unresponsive fingers, and the brilliant light died at once.
Dammit, I had assumed big and hostile meant dumb, and the grendelkin wasn't. It had deliberately waited for Gard to charge forward out of the light of the dropped flare before it threw.
"Wizard!" Gard bellowed.
I couldn't see anything. The brief moment of brilliant illumination had blinded my eyes to the dimmer light of the flare, and Gard couldn't be in much better shape. I got to my feet, trying not to scream at the pain in my shoulder, and staggered back to look down at the room.
The grendelkin bellowed again, and Gard screamed—this time in pain. There was the sound of a heavy blow and Gard, her hands empty, flew across the circle of green flare-light, a dim shadow. She struck the wall beneath me with an ugly, heavy sound.
It was all happening so fast. Hell's bells, but I was playing out of my league, here.
I turned to Mouse and snarled an instruction. My dog stared at me for a second, ears flattened to his skull, and didn't move.
"Go!" I screamed at him. "Go, go, go!"
Mouse spun and shot off back down the way we'd come.
Gard groaned on the floor beneath me, stirring weakly at the edge of the dim circle of light cast by the flare. I couldn't tell how badly she was hurt—but I knew that if I didn't move before the grendelkin finished her, she wasn't going to get any better. I could hear Elizabeth sobbing in despair.
"Get up, Harry," I growled at myself. "Get a move on."
I could barely move my left arm, so I gripped my staff in my right and began negotiating the precarious stone stairway.
A voice laughed, out in the darkness. It was a deep voice, masculine, mellow and smooth. When it spoke, it did so with precise, cultured pronunciation. "Geat bitch," the grendelkin murmured. "That's the most fun I've had in a century. Surt, but I wish there were a few more Choosers running about the world. You're a dying breed."
I could barely see the damned stairs in the flare's light. My foot slipped and I nearly fell.
"Who's the seidrmadr?" the grendelkin asked.
"Gesundheit," I said.
It appeared at the far side of the circle of light, and I stopped in my tracks. The grendelkin's yellow eyes gleamed with malice and hunger. It flexed its claw-tipped hands very slowly, baring its teeth in another smile. My mouth felt utterly dry and my legs were shaking. I'd seen it move. If it rushed me, things could get ugly.
Strike that. When it rushed me, things were going to get ugly.
"Is that a fire extinguisher in your pocket?" I asked, studying it intently. "Or are you just happy to see me?"
The grendelkin's smile spread wider. "Most definitely the latter. I'm going to have two mouths to feed, shortly. What did she promise you to fool you into coming with her?"
"You got it backwards. I permitted her to tag along with me," I said.
The grendelkin let out a low, lazily wicked laugh. It was eerie as hell, hearing such a refined voice come from a package like that. "Do you think you're a threat to me, little man?"
"You think I'm not?"
Idly, the grendelkin dragged the clawed fingers of one hand around on the stone floor beside him. Little sparks jumped up here and there. "I've been countering seid since before I left the Old World. Without that, you're nothing more than a monkey with a stick." He paused and added, "A rather weak and clumsy monkey at that."
"Big guy like you shouldn't have any trouble with little old me, then," I said. His eyes were strange. I'd never seen any quite like that. His face, though pretty ugly, was similar to others I'd seen. "I guess you have some history with Miss Gard, there."
"Family feuds are always the worst," the grendelkin said.
"Have to take your word for it," I said. "Just like I'm going to have to take these women. I'd rather do it peaceably than the hard way. Your call. Walk away, big guy. We'll both be happier."
The grendelkin looked at me, and then threw its head back in a rich, deeply amused laugh. "Not enough that I already have a broodmare and wounded little wildcat to play with, I also have a clown. It's practically a festival."
And with that, the grendelkin rushed me. A crushing fist the size of a volleyball flicked at my face. I was fast enough, barely, to slip the blow. I flung myself to the cavern floor, gasping as the shock of landing reached my shoulder. That sledgehammer of flesh and bone slammed into the wall with a brittle crunching sound. Chips of flying stone stung my cheek.
It scared the crap out of me, which was just as well. Terror makes a great fuel for some kinds of magic, and the get-the-hell-away-from-me blast of raw force I unleashed on the grendelkin would have flung a parked car to the other side of the street and into the building beyond.
The grendelkin hadn't been kidding about knowing counter-magic, though. All that naked force hit him and just sort of slid off of him, like water pouring around a stone. It only drove him back about two steps—which was room enough to let me drop to one knee and swing my staff again. It wasn't a bone-crushing blow, powered as it was by only one hand and from a fairly unbalanced position.
But I got him in the fire extinguisher.
The grendelkin let out a howl about two octaves higher than his original bellows had been, and I scooted around him, running for the altar stone where Elizabeth Braddock lay helpless—away from Gard. I wanted the grendelkin to focus all his attention on me.
He did.
"Behind you!" Elizabeth screamed, her eyes wide with terror.
I whirled and a sweep of the grendelkin's arm ripped the staff out of my hand. Something like a steel vise clamped around my neck, and my feet came up off the ground.
The grendelkin lifted my face to his level. His breath smelled of blood and rotten meat. His eyes were bright with their fury. I kicked at him, but he held me out of reach of anything vital, and my kicks plunked uselessly into his belly and ribs.
"I was going to make it quick for you," he snarled. "For amusing me. But I'm going to start with your arms."
If I didn't have him right where I wanted him, I'd have been less than sanguine about my chances of survival. I'd accomplished that much, at least. He had his back to the tunnel.
"Rip them off one at a time, little seidrmadr." He paused. "Which, when viewed from a literary perspective, has a certain amount of irony." He showed me more teeth. "I'll let you watch me eat your hands. Let you see what I do to these bitches before I'm done with you."
Boy, was he going to get it.
One of his hands grabbed my left arm, and the pain of my dislocated shoulder made my world go white. I fought through the agony, ripped Elizabeth Braddock's pointy-handled hairbrush from my duster's pocket, and drove it like an icepick into the grendelkin's forearm.
He roared and flung me into the nearest wall.
Which hurt. Lots.
I fell to the stone floor of the cavern in a heap. After that, my vision shrank to a tunnel and began to darken.
Which was just as well. Fewer distractions, that way. Now all I had to do was time it right.
A sound groaned down from the tunnel entrance above, an odd, ululating murmur, echoed into unintelligibility.
The furious grendelkin ripped the brush out of his arm and flung it away—but when he heard the sound, he turned his ugly kisser back toward the source.
I focused harder on the spell I had coming than upon anything I'd ever done. I had no circle to help me, lots of distractions, and absolutely no room to screw it up.
The strange sound resolved itself into a yowling chorus, like half a hundred band saws on helium, and Mouse burst out of the tunnel with a living thunderstorm of malks in hot pursuit.
My dog flung himself into the empty air, and malks bounded after him, determined no
t to let him escape. Mouse fell thirty feet, onto the huge pile of nesting material, landing with a yelp. The malks spilled after him, yowling in fury, dozens and dozens of malevolent eyes glittering in the light of the flare. Some jumped, some flowed seamlessly down the rough stairs, and others bounded forward, sank their claws into the stone of the far wall, and slid down it like a fireman down a pole.
I unleashed the spell.
"Useless vermin!" bellowed the grendelkin, its voice still pitched higher than before. He pointed at me, a battered-looking man in a long leather coat, and roared, "Kill the wizard or I'll eat every last one of you!"
The malks, now driven as much by fear as anger, immediately swarmed all over me. I gave them a pretty good time of it, but there were probably better than three dozen of them, and the leather coat couldn't cover everything.
Claws and fangs flashed.
Blood spattered.
The malks went insane with bloodlust.
I screamed, swinging wildly with both hands, killing a malk here or there, but unable to protect myself from all those claws and teeth. The grendelkin turned toward the helpless Elizabeth.
It was a real bitch, trying to undo the grendelkin's knotted ropes while still holding the illusion in place in my mind. Beneath the glamour that made him look like me, he fought furiously, clawing and swinging at the malks attacking him. It didn't help that Elizabeth was screaming again, thanks to the illusion of the grendelkin I was holding over myself, but hey. No plan is perfect.
"Mouse!" I cried.
A malk flew over my head, screaming, and splattered against a wall.
My dog bounded up just as I got the girl loose. I shoved her at him and said, "Get her out of here! Run! Go, go, go!"
Elizabeth didn't know what the hell was going on, but she understood that last part well enough. She fled, back toward the crude staircase. Mouse ran beside her, and when a malk flung itself at Elizabeth's naked back, my dog intercepted the little monster in the air, catching him as neatly as a Frisbee at the park. Mouse snarled and shook his jaws once. The malk's neck broke with an audible snap. My dog dropped it and fled on.
I grabbed my staff and ran to Gard. The malks hadn't noticed her yet. They were still busy mobbing the grendelkin—
Crap. My concentration had wavered. It looked like itself again, as did I.
I whirled and focused my will upon the giant pile of clean-picked bones. I extended my staff and snarled, "Counterspell this. Forzare!"
Hundreds of pounds of sharp white bone flung themselves at the grendelkin and the malks alike. I threw the bones hard, harder than the grendelkin had thrown his rock, and the bone shards ripped into them like the blast of an enormous shotgun.
Without waiting to see the results, I snatched up the still-burning flare and flung it into the pile of nesting fabric, bloody clothes, and old newspapers. The whole mound flared instantly into angry light and smothering smoke.
"Get up!" I screamed at Gard. One side of her face was bruised and swollen, and she had a visibly broken arm, one of the bones in her forearm protruding from the skin. With my help, she staggered up, dazed and choking on the smoke, which also blotted out the light. I got her onto the stairs, and even in our battered state we set some kind of speed record going up them.
The deafening chorus of bellowing grendelkin and howling malks faded a little as the smoke started choking them too. Air was moving in the tunnel, as the fire drew on it just as it might a chimney. I lit up my amulet again to show us the way out.
"Wait!" Gard gasped, fifty feet up the tunnel. "Wait!"
She fumbled at her jacket pocket, where she kept the little ivory box, but she couldn't reach it with her sound arm. I dug it out for her.
"Triangle, three lines over it," she said, leaning against a wall for support. "Get it out."
I poked through the little ivory Scrabble tiles until I found one that matched her description. "This one?" I demanded.
"Careful," she growled. "It's a Sunder rune." She took it from me, took a couple of steps back toward the grendelkin's cavern, murmured under her breath, and snapped the little tile. There was a flicker of deep red light, and the tunnel itself quivered and groaned.
"Run!"
We did.
Behind us, the tunnel collapsed in on itself with a roar, sealing the malks and the grendelkin away beneath us, trapping them in the smothering smoke.
We both stopped for a moment after that, as dust billowed up the tunnel and the sound of furious supernatural beings cut off as if someone had flipped a switch. The silence was deafening.
We both stood there, panting and wounded. Gard sank to the floor to rest.
"You were right," I said. "I guess we didn't need to worry about the malks on the way out."
Gard gave me a weary smile. "That was my favorite ax."
"Go back for it," I suggested. "I'll wait for you here."
She snorted.
Mouse came shambling up out of the tunnel above us. Elizabeth Braddock clung to his collar, and looked acutely embarrassed about her lack of clothing. "Wh-what?" she whispered. "What happened here? I d-don't understand."
"It's all right, Mrs. Braddock," I said. "You're safe. We're going to take you back to your husband."
She closed her eyes, shuddered, and started to cry. She sank down to put her arms around Mouse's furry ruff, and buried her face in his fur. She was shivering with the cold. I shucked out of my coat and draped it around her.
Gard eyed her, then her own broken arm, and let out a sigh. "I need a drink."
I spat some grit out of my mouth. "Ditto. Come on."
I offered her a hand up. She took it.
SEVERAL HOURS AND DOCTORS LATER, GARD AND I wound up back at the pub, where the beer festival was winding to a conclusion. We sat at a table with Mac. The Braddocks had stammered a gratuitous amount of thanks and rushed off together. Mac's keg had a blue ribbon taped to it. He'd drawn all of us a mug.
"Night of the Living Brews," I said. I had painkillers for my shoulder, but I was waiting until I was home and in bed to take one. As a result, I ached pretty much everywhere. "More like night of the living bruise."
Mac rose, drained his mug, and held it up in a salute to Gard and me. "Thanks."
"No problem," I said.
Gard smiled slightly and bowed her head to him. Mac departed.
Gard finished her own mug and examined the cast on her arm. "Close one."
"Little bit," I said. "Can I ask you something?"
She nodded.
"The grendelkin called you a Geat," I said.
"Yes, he did."
"I'm familiar with only one person referred to in that way," I said.
"There are a few more around," Gard said. "But everyone's heard of that one."
"You called the grendelkin a scion of Grendel," I said. "Am I to take it that you're a scion of the Geat?"
Gard smiled slightly. "My family and the grendelkin's have a long history."
"He called you a Chooser," I said.
She shrugged again, and kept her enigmatic smile.
"Gard isn't your real name," I said. "Is it?"
"Of course not," she replied.
I sipped some more of Mac's award-winning dark. "You're a valkyrie. A real one."
Her expression was unreadable.
"I thought valkyries mostly did pickups and deliveries," I said. "Choosing the best warriors from among the slain. Taking them off to Valhalla. Oh, and serving drinks there. Odin's virgin daughters, pouring mead for the warriors, partying until Ragnarok."
Gard threw back her head and laughed. "Virgin daughters." She rose, shaking her head, and glanced at her broken arm again. Then she leaned down and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were a sweet, hungry little fire of sensation, and I felt the kiss all the way to my toes. Some places more than others, ahem.
She drew away slowly, her pale blue eyes shining. Then she winked at me and said, "Don't believe everything you read, Dresden." She turned to go, and then paused to
glance over her shoulder. "Though, to be honest: sometimes he does like us to call him Daddy. I'm Sigrun."
I watched Sigrun go. Then I finished the last of the beer.
Mouse rose expectantly, his tail wagging, and we set off for home.
Jim Butcher enjoys fencing, martial arts, singing, bad science-fiction movies, and live-action gaming. He lives in Missouri with his wife, son, and a vicious guard dog. You may learn more at www.jim-butcher.com.
ROMAN HOLIDAY OR SPQ-ARRRRRR
Rachel Caine
In My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding, Cecilia Lockhart met her perfect match in an undead pirate captain. But even in calm seas, the course of true love never does run smooth…
Boston, September
HONESTLY IF SHE'D KNOWN THAT HER WEDDING WAS going to become the media event of the entire eastern seaboard, Cecilia would have gotten a better haircut. And a faster getaway limo, preferably one driven by a NASCAR star.
"Almost there," the limo driver said reassuringly as Cecilia clung to the arm of her groom and looked anxiously out the smoked windows at the flanking phalanx of news vans, reporters hanging out of car windows screaming questions, and bright popping strobes. "I can see the barricades."
The barriers were pulled aside, and the limo sailed sleekly through, coming to a flawless stop in a parking lot surrounded by marked police cars, all flashing their lights. No sirens, thankfully. Cecilia breathed a sigh of relief. She was pretty sure that the last black SUV to peel off pursuit had held Larry King and Oprah.
Cecilia looked at her groom, and hoped she didn't look as terrified as she felt. "That was—extreme," she said. Liam Lockhart—Captain Liam Lockhart—smiled.
"Lass, you've sailed with dead men, broken curses, and married a pirate," he said. "You might want to redefine how you measure an extreme."
He had a point. She studied him in the relative quiet of the limousine, and he looked back, perfectly calm. In the six months or so since they'd sailed the eighteenth-century pirate ship Sweet Mourning—Liam's ship—back into Boston Harbor and created a media firestorm, Liam had adapted to the modern world well in some ways, and not at all in others. He'd cut his hair, for example; it was a neat salt-and-pepper style, not exactly modern and not exactly antique, either. His wedding suit, however, was definitely a throwback—a fantastic black brocade coat and trousers made along the lines of what he'd been wearing when they met, only much cleaner and without the slashes, bullet holes, and various stains.