Ruled by Tainted Blood

by Michael J Allen

  Her words reverberated through Ignis’s essence. He hesitated an instant in the pitched battle he waged against a half dozen ogres, but the phoenix was too far to hear the words and too busy to give the sudden prickle in his essence more attention.

  Terrance’s stolid, baritone reached her. “I come. What can you tell me?”

  Anima filled lungs yearning for another breath. “Brownies and the half-elf named Oshyn.”

  “Are they entering on Caelum’s behalf, little oracle?”

  “I don’t think so, Shield Terrance, but I cannot reach Caelum to verify. I can’t reach anyone.”

  The brownies swarmed into headquarters, spreading out in every direction. Several attacked the frame of Vitae’s bedroom with razor blades like living buzz saws.

  “They’re assaulting Vitae’s bedroom and the library.”

  Terrance’s essence went still. “I will make haste.”

  The earth shield’s vehicle stopped moving.

  Anima was about to ask Terrance what had gone amiss when the emerald in her forehead blazed with power.

  He has transmogrified. Oh, no, he may be seen.

  Her fingers squeezed the light at her center. She debated summoning Summuseraphi or even reaching out to Vilicangelus.

  I must trust my Shield and its warriors. Terrance will set all to rights.

  A tiny bell drew Anima’s attention back to the elevator.

  Oh, Maker, no! Quayla’s mortals. They cannot enter while we’re under assault. I have to warn them away.

  Detective Foxner

  Mrs. Cox oohed in delight as the elevator doors opened onto a magnificent foyer. They stepped inside. To the left, double doors lay askew, their hinges somehow sawed from their frame.

  “Anima?” Snyder asked.

  A voice whispered from everywhere. “Oh, Creator, Dylan. You have to leave. It’s not safe for you here.”

  “Quayla’s been captured,” Sabrina said. “We came here for help rescuing her.”

  “Leave,” Anima squeaked. She repeated her warning in a harsh whisper. “You have to go.”

  Sabrina drew her pistol, holding it low in both hands and stepped further into the foyer.

  “Detective, if the voice inside the lair of a supernatural creature tells you not to enter, it seems wise to at least consider their warning,” Mrs. Cox said.

  “I considered it,” Sabrina said. “The police don’t run away from a crime in progress.”

  “We don’t even know that’s what—”

  A shin-high whirling car wash brush spun out from under the fallen doors with an ear-piercing trill. A second followed and a third. They stopped. Every one of them held a straight razor in each of their four hands. Five more of the junior Cousin Its followed, carrying a stone basin of some kind.

  “That thing is filled with blood,” Mrs. Cox made a warding gesture and dug into her bag.

  Sabrina raised her gun. “Halt. Police.”

  The lead three twisted toward each other. Twitters and chirps flew back and forth. The lead barked something, let out a battle cry several octaves too high and attacked like a furry Cuisinart.

  Shots barked out of Sabrina’s gun. Leading her target against the insanely fast rope mop cost her the first few rounds. One rang off a razor, knocking it free from the thing’s grip. Her fifth shot stopped the mop cold and splattered blood and guts across the foyer floor.

  The other two whirled into action.

  Sabrina shot Snyder a quick glance. He held a humongous book open in front of the old lady as she flipped pages. “Are you going to use that gun or not, Snyder?”

  “I left it in the car.”

  “Why is God’s name did you do that?” She fired at one target then the other, backing away in a rush.

  “We were coming to ask for help, not threaten them at gunpoint.”

  Sabrina managed to shoot another razor, but that left seven spinning toward her intent on removing her ankles.

  A piercing whistle demanded attention. Mrs. Cox removed her finger and thumb from between her lips. She shimmied her shoulders, the whistling hand holding a small plastic lid.

  The mops froze, shying away from the coin maraca.

  Mrs. Cox shook a Tupperware cup and scowled. “Stop where you are or the milk spills.”

  A few of them whimpered.

  “Now,” Mrs. Cox said. “We’re going to back into the elevator. When the door starts to close, I’ll set the cup down for you. If you move before then, I’ll spill it over the gap between car and shaft.”

  More whimpered.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Sabrina demanded.

  “Back into the elevator, Detective, unless you aren’t fond of your feet. There’s no way you can kill all of the brownies.”

  “There are only seven of them. I’ve got two spare magazines.”

  Snyder pointed. “Might want to count again.”

  Sabrina followed his gesture up a banister lined top to bottom with little, living mops.

  “Dylan, dear, get the doors open. Detective, you first.”

  “You’re not even armed,” Sabrina said. “If they want the milk so badly, why don’t they just rush us and take it?”

  “That’s not how the old ways work, Detective,” Mrs. Cox stepped over the elevator threshold and lowered the cup with a less than steady hand. Milk sloshed over the top.

  The collected brownies sucked in breath.

  Two lines of milk ran down the outside of the cup. Mrs. Cox caught the runoff on the lid and tipped it back into the cup.

  “Milk for letting us leave,” Mrs. Cox said. “A fair exchange, yes?”

  The army nodded slowly, attention never leaving the cup.

  The elevator commenced its descent the moment the doors closed. Snyder exhaled a held breath. “I don’t understand what just happened, but thank you.”

  “What now?” Sabrina asked.

  “We save Quayla ourselves,” Mrs. Cox said.

  Terrance

  Terrance folded his wings and dove out of the night.

  He pulled up, threw his talons forward and back-winged hard at the last moment. He released his compressed essence. His body rippled, trading his native shape for a hybrid of his human form with pumice and obsidian wings.

  With each step across the headquarters balcony, essence slid beneath his skin, solidifying the granite armoring him and flint bolstering his bones. Quartz pierced his skin, forming jagged spikes along the stone-armored cestus sheathing his arms.

  Anima’s voice boomed, amplified with anxiety and anger. “Terrance, they’re stealing our nests.”

  Terrance threw open the balcony doors and did a little roaring of his own. “In the name of the Undying Light, I command you to surrender.”

  Brownies swarmed him, razor-edged Tasmanian devils hurling themselves at him to cut Terrance down.

  Terrance drew back a fist and drove a brownie into the floor. He yanked the fist back, quartz spikes impaling those in the way of his back swing. His other fist sent two brownies through the air. They impacted against the wall, further shattering their bodies.

  Broken razor blades crunched under his feet. Obsidian edges ridged his toes and fighting spurs barbed his feet. He kicked out, halving the first brownie and decapitating the next.

  “Terrance, the elevator!”

  These are the distraction.

  The earth phoenix ignored the faeries climbing his body to break more blades on his neck. He backhanded several brownies, striding through them with stone-bladed kicks.

  Even built for his form, it took time to thwart inertia enough to manage a full run. Stairs cracked and splinted under his weight as he descended several at a time.

  Brownies threw themselves at him from every angle.

  Most ended up against a wall broken by fists before they hit. Terrance’s wings hurled many through the faerie-splintered banister to impact a far wall.

  Oshyn’s wide, frightened eyes shot between Terrance and the elevator button he rapidl
y punched with increasing desperation.

  A concerted wave of brownies leapt from the upper floor as Terrance descended the last few steps. The assault swamped him, ratty dreadlocks blinding him.

  Cestus slammed together, splattering the small, hairy faeries. Obsidian wingtips painted the stair in brownie blood.

  The elevator door closed.

  Brownie laughter taunted him a moment later.

  Instead of turn to punish the unrepentant creations, Terrance pushed essence out his fingertips and solidified them into iron spikes. Rending metal squealed as he tore the elevator doors open.

  Silence filled the foyer.

  Terrance shot the cowering brownies a malicious grin, swiped his claws through the braided elevator cable and leapt into the shaft after the falling car.

  16: Faerie Bane

  Mrs. Cox

  The police detective drove them onto northbound I-75. The woman refused to tell them where they were headed, so there was no way to offer helpful directions. Hadley wasn’t fond of the woman after the shenanigans with Quayla’s picture, but her actions at the phoenix headquarters proved her competent.

  I’ll give her a chance, but competent or not, I will not tolerate shenanigans.

  Hadley watched Atlanta go by outside the window. So many things had changed over the years. Architects worried about beauty and grace surrendered to youngsters interested in glass and metal.

  A shame, really, a city should feel alive—not like a hospital lobby.

  She turned her attention to the coins hanging from Nana’s shawl. The handmade scarf was made to hang around a woman’s hips, rather than her shoulders. She’d inherited the shawl after snaring her Joshua—God rest his soul—never needing to dance provocatively before the fire with a declaration of her bride price around her hips.

  Nana might have, even at my age she’d had an untamable streak.

  Her Nana had fancied Hadley over all the other girls. She’d woken Hadley up late at night for stories and tea before sending her back to bed and nightmares. At first, it’d seemed Nana was just trying to make Hadley feel better after she experienced what doctors now called Night Horrors.

  The others had made fun or just not believed me, but what I experienced hadn’t been just my imagination or digestion issues. Nana had known that even when I wasn’t sure myself.

  Some of the stories had been too fanciful to believe, but Nana serious expression never cracked in jest. If Hadley had questions Nana couldn’t answer, she went to the Book.

  She drew the Book out of her bag, turning the ancient thing over in wrinkled fingers. The cover and the thongs that tied the pages between were old leather, preserved from cracking though Hadley’s painstaking care. The Book had passed directly to Hadley on Nana’s death, not like the shawl which had come through Hadley’s mother.

  Momma couldn’t read the cant anyway.

  She’d been sure the little creatures invading Quayla’s friend’s place were brownies. Problem was, brownies weren’t supposed to be scary. Folklore never painted them as anything other than helpful creatures—willing to clean for some nectar from a Mother’s bosom. The differences left Hadley doubting herself.

  Hadley fingered one of the old coins on the shawl.

  They knew to fear these though, knew a Romani witch’s never paid dowry carried a curse for any who looked upon it with intent to cheat a bargain.

  The detective pulled off the interstate in sight of the old red V of the Varsity’s sign. A lot of people swore by their food, but the wait staff were rude and the food gave Hadley wind.

  Atlanta had rebuilt the area around Georgia Tech so that it wasn’t as dangerous as it once had been, but only to replace desperate criminals with more unscrupulous men in need of a hot-iron gelding.

  The detective instructed Quayla’s Dylan in fire patterns and strategy as if bullets would make a difference in the coming rescue.

  Hadley stroked the Book. Quayla’s life depended on the old texts and the items hastily stuffed in her old carpetbag.

  I only hope I grabbed everything we need.

  The neighborhood worsened once more. The detective parked in front of an apartment complex probably better burned to the ground than occupied—even allowing the number of vermin the burning would push into the surrounding buildings.

  “We’re here,” Foxner said.

  Hadley slid the Book back into her bag and climbed out of the sedan. Her hip clicked in a minor pop that shot pain up her side, but she didn’t give the youngsters any outward excuse to leave her behind.

  Hadley Cox followed the detective and Quayla’s Dylan into the building. The detective moved much like you’d expect watching cop shows.

  Like the new one with that sexy boy—Nathan something.... He’s so much prettier than Bill Shatner, and more believable as a cop—even in that show where he just hung out with the cops.

  Entering the apartment building scandalized Hadley’s nose. That any landlord would allow their premises to deteriorate so far appalled her. A little elbow grease, some soap and a bit of white sage could’ve put the place right. There was no point blaming the tenants. A self-respecting land lord didn’t rent out to hooligans and certainly didn’t tolerate any shenanigans.

  “Mrs. Cox?” Dylan asked.

  “Right behind you, dear.”

  “Detective Foxner says Quayla found a trap on the elevator, are you okay taking the stairs to the third floor?” he asked.

  She patted his arm. “Stairs aren’t any fret, dear.”

  The stairwell hosted graffiti painted by small minds with limited vocabulary. The school systems were to blame—not the teachers so much as the absence of yard sticks and back bones.

  A beautiful angelic image covered the back wall of the second floor. The art showed talent, enough that she felt guilty knowing the graffiti needed whitewashed away. A far cruder delinquent had destroyed the art with vulgarities.

  They both need the hides tanned, that’s for certain. Still, once that’s dealt with, I’d love to introduce the artist to Larry.

  Detective Foxner led them into the third-floor hall. She took in a slow breath and pushed upon an unlatched door. Hadley heard her relieved exhale.

  “It’s still here,” Foxner said.

  “Thank God,” Dylan said.

  Hadley entered the room, looking to the makeshift arch and its oddly two-dimensional darkness. Something about it nagged at her memory. She pulled the Book from her bag.

  “Dylan, be a dear, won’t you?”

  He stepped over to her and extended his hands, taking the Book’s weight with less surprise the second time.

  Hadley flipped through the pages.

  “What are you doing?” Foxner asked. “We need to go after them.”

  “We will, dear, in a minute.”

  “There isn’t time for,” Foxner gestured uncertainly, “for whatever it is you are doing.”

  Hadley tsked and turned more pages. She found what she was searching for just past the half way point, right after the description she didn’t remember of a blue-looking faerie race that prized growing mold colonies on their skin.

  A wicked-looking hand-drawn tree dominated the page with a wide blackness inside. In a two-dimensional drawing, there was no real way to differentiate the darkness from the tree, but the darkness in the construction material arch matched the description written in Romani cant.

  Hadley sucked her teeth. “This is bad.”

  “Yeah,” Foxner said. “This is where they’re holding Quayla and Judith.”

  “No, dear, this is a door into Faery.”

  Foxner licked her lips. “I already know that.”

  “Do you also happen know how much innocent blood it takes to make a stable door into the world of the Fae?”

  Foxner’s expression changed. “What kind of innocent blood?”

  “Elves are fond of stealing children,” Hadley said. “Always blamed it on Nana’s people.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dylan said. “I don�
��t claim to be an expert, but this hardly looks like elven architecture.”

  Hadley patted his arm once more. “This isn’t the movies, dear.”

  “What are we talking about? Virgins? Kidnapped coeds?” Foxner’s eyes narrowed. “Shelter animals?”

  Dylan attention shot around to Foxner.

  “I suppose animals could work,” Hadley said. “Faerie magic wasn’t something they taught us in school, Detective. No matter what though, it means whatever built this thing is mean and powerful.”

  Foxner patted her shotgun. “That’s why we came armed.”

  Hadley shut the Book harder than she meant. “Oh, well then by all means, Detective. Sound the charge.”

  For a moment, Foxner looked on the edge of a scathing rebuttal. Instead, she narrowed her eyes at Dylan. “If you’re coming, you need to take that gun out of the bag.”

  Dylan looked on the edge of vomiting, but his expression tightened. He removed the gun, shoved spare bullets into a pocket and dropped the case to the ground.

  Foxner inclined her head, charged the darkness and vanished.

  Dylan gave Hadley an uncertain look. “Mrs. Cox...it might be best—”

  “After you, dear, our Quayla needs us.”

  Dylan fidgeted with the pistol, trying to figure out how to hold it on the move. He squared his shoulders and stepped into the archway.

  Hadley followed.

  Horrid stench and dirty walls vanished, replaced by a thick scent of wax and a bright, sky blue squiggles.

  Hadley lifted her brows. “It is a crayon drawing.”

  “And they know we’re here,” Foxner said.

  A splash some way out in the drawn water drew Hadley’s eyes to what Foxner had aptly described as green octopus heads.

  Foxner directed Dylan where to stand and both readied their weapons. Hadley knelt, her knees creaking as she laid the Book on long tan strokes.

  Gunfire erupted.

  “What are you doing, Snyder?”

  Hadley chanced a glance.

  Quayla’s Dylan stared at the oncoming creatures.

  Foxner barked orders at him as she fired. “If you want to help your girlfriend, you need to get your head in the game.”