Chapter 22

 

 

“THERE’S A DOORWAY very near my quarters,” Bryna said. She blinked slowly as she spoke, as if for her everything was moving in slow motion.

She kept talking, the shadowsteel magic encouraging her to offer up more information than she normally would have. “That’s why I chose those rooms. I like to be able to come and go eeeasily. I do it aaall the time,” she said, starting to draw out vowel sounds.

I grimaced. “I bet.”

“Won’t that drop us right in the middle of things?” Emmaline asked me.

“Yeah. But the alternative is wasting time trying to get in and sneak to her rooms. And at this point it’s broad daylight, and I’m public enemy number one on Periclase’s list. That’s a bad combo for getting around unnoticed.”

We both looked at Bryna.

“We need to go in without getting caught. Our oath was binding,” I reminded her. “You get released only if you lead me to Van Zant and I make it through a doorway with him.”

“This is the best way. Reeeally,” she drawled.

I started to wonder if I’d used too much magic, and I had a bad feeling about using the doorway Bryna spoke of. But I didn’t have time to waste. Marisol’s deadline for turning in my mark and getting back to the fortress aligned with what my boss had told me—basically, I had a couple more hours to finish the job. If I didn’t, I’d lose my chance at the Van Zant bounty and its big payout. He’d still be loose and dealing VAMP3 blood, endangering Maeve-only-knew how many people. I’d be penalized by the Guild for failing to complete an assignment on deadline, by getting slapped with at least a month-long probation—an unpaid time-out from work at the Guild—guaranteeing I’d make no bounty money for that time. The exclusive mercenary contracts with the Guild, combined with the penalty periods for failing an assignment, kept us mercs hamstrung and very motivated to do our jobs. That gap in income would sink me. I’d have to keep pursuing Van Zant if his bounty got re-assigned to another merc, just to ease my conscience, but I wasn’t in a financial position to be doing charity work.

Sure, I could try to pick up other types of freelance work, but they all paid worse than Guild jobs, and most didn’t offer steady employment. That was why the Guild could be so ruthless with their terms. I was already behind on my part of the rent, and Lochlyn had just lost her own job. If we got evicted, I’d have no choice. I’d have to move back into the stone fortress.

A cringing shiver worked its way up my spine at the thought of being in the fortress permanently. As a full-time, resource-consuming resident, I’d have to pull my weight. That meant doing whatever job Marisol chose to assign me. I wouldn’t have time to keep up with Guild work in addition to a fortress job and acting as Nicole’s new BFF.

But far worse than all of that, I’d betray the oath I’d made to myself. To my dead mother. I’d sworn to dedicate my life to working as a vamp hunter for the Guild. In the fortress, my vamp hunting days would come to an end.

No. Just, no.

I had to get this job done, and I had to do it before time ran out.

I gestured at Bryna. “You’ll have to take us to the doorway near your quarters.”

She gave a docile nod. Emmaline and I stood on either side of Bryna, each with a hand on one of her shoulders, while she traced the sigils and whispered the words to take us into the Duergar palace. Just before we went into the netherwhere, I drew Mort.

We came out into darkness, and my heart jolted with alarm. It took me a second to realize we were standing in a tiny, dark room. I lowered my sword.

“Thisss is the movie house,” Bryna said, leading us out of what appeared to be an exit vestibule into a larger room.

Emmaline let out a nervous giggle at Bryna’s slurring.

I could make out the faint white glow of the projection screen on the wall to the right, and the regularly-spaced lumps of theater seating to the left.

“Odd place for a doorway,” I mumbled.

“Yeah.” Bryna let out a sigh. “But it’s good ‘cause not many here know about this one.”

“Which way to Van Zant?” I asked, shifting my weight to my toes, impatient to get on with it.

She lifted an arm to wave at the back of the theater. “We go that way.”

She drifted ahead of us up the aisle that split the seats, but when she went to push the bar release on one double door, I grabbed her arm to stop her.

“Stay quiet,” I said and moved in front of her.

I sheathed Mort. Carefully and slowly, I pushed the door open an inch and peered through the gap. A couple of Duergar guards strode by, and I froze, nearly letting the door fall shut. More Duergar passed by. I watched for a few more seconds.

I swore silently and let the door click closed. This corridor was a main thoroughfare. We couldn’t just stroll out there. By now, all of the Duergar realm knew that Bryna was being held by the New Gargoyles, so they’d be sure to take notice if she suddenly appeared in the palace. And my face was probably plastered all over the palace alerts after swiping Nicole from Periclase.

“Any other way out of here?” I asked. “Maybe one that’s less busy?”

“Nuh-uh,” Bryna said.

“Well, how far is it?” I asked, irritated.

“Oh, ‘bout a hundred feet down the hall. Then turn left. Then up the stairs. Then turn left. Then right.”

“There was an exit sign back where we came in,” I said. “Where does that go?”

Bryna let out a tiny, airy laugh. “Nowhere. It’s just for looks.”

I was about ready to punch something.

“Fine. Then we’re just going to have to walk right out there and take our chances.” I wrapped my hand around Bryna’s elbow and squeezed.

“Ow,” she protested.

“If I get caught before I can get out with Van Zant, you’re screwed,” I reminded her. “I’ll make sure the Stone Order files charges against you in the High Court. What do you think the punishment will be for sending a wraith into the netherwhere to kill me?”

My hand was poised on the door, ready to push it open.

“Wait,” Emmaline said. “Isn’t there a secret passage nearby? I could swear there was a passageway near here.”

Bryna stared at her dumbly for a second and then rolled her eyes with a stupid grin. “Yes! Silly me. It’s across the hall in the powder room. Last stall.”

All I could do was shake my head at her.

“Good work,” I breathed at Emmaline.

We waited for a small gap in the corridor activity and then stole across the hallway and through the women’s bathroom door and hurried to the back. Inside the stall, Bryna pressed a couple of the wall tiles and a low, narrow door with seams that had blended invisibly popped open.

She seemed to move more purposefully as she led us into the secret passage. It was a dark, narrow space in between the walls, and it broke off into branches so many times I had no idea how Bryna managed to keep us on track. We walked single file with me in the middle. I carried Mort in my hand, not that it would do much good if I actually needed to use it. The space was way too tight to wield a broadsword. Not even enough room to put it back in my scabbard.

With a glance over her shoulder at me, Bryna whispered, “We’ll come out close to my front door. Just a short hop to my quarters.”

She sounded confident, and I started to think we might be in the clear. That turned out to be a mistake.

We reached the end of a corridor, and Bryna stopped. There was a tiny bit of light coming from random pinholes punched in the walls. I watched as she slid her fingers over a catch I couldn’t see, and there was a soft click. A narrow vertical strip of light appeared. She pushed, and the space widened another inch.

“This should be easy,” she whispered. “It’s just right over—”

The door jerked open suddenly, and a hand reached in and grabbed her arm, yanking her out. She shrieked and then snarled. Temporarily blinded after our journey through the dark passage, it took me a split second to realize there was a crowd of Duergar guards waiting for us. I didn’t even have time to utter the curses that sprang to my mind.

My pulse jolted, and I leapt out, drawing magic and swinging Mort. It took them by surprise, and a few of them stumbled back a step or two as my violet magic licked at them like razor-edged flames.

Bryna bared her teeth and snapped at the guard holding her, the docility caused by my spell seeming to dissolve away in an instant. Her mouth came away bloody, and the guard let go of her and clamped his hand over his bloody wrist. She tried to lunge away, but another guard grabbed at her hair and caught a handful of it. She furiously twisted around and kicked at him.

I kept advancing with wide slashes, glancing out of the corner of my eye at the door Bryna had been heading toward. I wanted to look back to see if Emmaline had managed to retreat, but I couldn’t give the guards the opening.

The guards were backing up and reaching for their magi-zappers. I deflected one stream of magic with Mort, the force of it traveling up into my arm and jarring me to my bones. Gritting my teeth against the foreign magic meant to incapacitate, I managed to neutralize it just as another bolt sprang at my chest. I absorbed it, too, and then whipped around to meet an attack. Mort crashed against the short sword of a guard who towered over me. When he raised his arm to try to redirect his strike, I darted under it.

I danced to the side, trying to find an opening through which I could get to Bryna. I had to hand it to her. She was doing a hell of a job fending off a couple of guards using only her teeth and claws. Perhaps because she was Periclase’s daughter, they didn’t turn their stunners on her. She was surely going to catch serious hell later for helping me. The guards had no problem blasting me, and my eyes were just about crossed from taking partial hits.

Emmaline had vanished, most likely having retreated back into the secret passages where she could elude the guards. She seemed to know the palace well, and I trusted she could take care of herself.

“Petra!” called Bryna, sounding strangled through the gnashing of her teeth.

I glanced over my shoulder just as she shoved her foot into a guard’s groin. She whipped around and threw herself at the door. It opened under her influence, and I backed my way toward it and slipped through. She slammed it shut.

For a second or two we stood inside Bryna’s quarters staring at each other, our chests heaving. The door shook as the guards pounded on it.

“They’ll have to go through administrative channels to get in here, but it won’t take long.” The fight seemed to have sharpened Bryna’s senses.

I turned a full circle. “Where the hell is Van Zant?”

Turning on her heel, she went into the bedroom, and I pulled out the bounty card with my free hand and tightened my grip on Mort.

When she came back out, she was carrying a white box with string tied around it. “Is that his box of eyeliner and cologne, or what?” I peered past her, looking for the vamp.

She held out the box. “This is Van Zant.”

I stared at it and then looked up at her. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“He’s dead,” she said. “Last night.”

A strange mix of sadness and consternation passed over her face.

The pounding at the door was getting more violent.

I sheathed Mort and then shoved my fingers into my hair and yanked. Why did this shit have to happen to me? With a dead mark, I’d only get ten percent of the bounty.

“So that’s—?”

“His ashes,” she supplied. She thrust the box at me. “A promise is a promise. His remains don’t do me any good, anyway. You can get out through the passage in my closet.”

I shook my head and finally snatched the stupid box from her.

“How in the name of Oberon did this happen?” I had to know, in spite of the seconds ticking by.

She shook her head slowly. “Some kind of strange attack. Little guys with poisonous knives.”

“The servitors? The same small beings that attacked me and Jasper yesterday?” I wouldn’t have guessed that the ninjas’ knives could take down a vamp. There wasn’t much in the world that could do that.

She frowned, clearly not sure what I was talking about.

I waved a hand, brushing off her confusion. “Where did it happen?”

“Spriggan kingdom.”

I filed that away. “Okay, where’s my exit?”

She showed me where a panel slid away at the back of her closet.

“Keep going right and you’ll end up in a hallway next to double doors. Take those and you’ll be outside in front of the palace. You know the way from there.”

Her stance was defeated, her voice low and hoarse. I didn’t know what the nature of her relationship with Van Zant had been, but it seemed to have hit her hard.

I drew Mort and she stepped back, her eyes popping wide.

“I need to dissolve the shadowsteel spell,” I said hurriedly. “Just hold still.”

I whispered the words to reverse the spell, and violet vapor leaked from Bryna’s mouth. It moved in a little stream to the tip of my blade, where it washed over the metal and then disappeared.

“Go, before they get in,” she said.

I nodded, re-sheathed Mort, and squeezed into the compartment in her closet. I swiftly followed her directions. I was just about to get out of the secret passage when someone suddenly came up behind me.

An iron grip wrapped around my upper arm.

I let go of the box and twisted, reaching for Mort at the same time, but the space was too tight to draw my broadsword.

“Keep quiet,” said a voice in my ear.

“Jasper? Were you following me?”

“I forced Bryna to tell me where you were.”

My hand clenched into a fist. That little cheat. How had she slithered out of her promise? Jasper must have had held something over her.

“Petra, we can’t let things escalate between the Stone Order and the Duergar,” he said urgently. “There’s a bigger threat to both of us. All of us.”

For a moment my mission to get Van Zant’s damned ashes back to the Guild faded to the background.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Those servitors we killed weren’t just assassins. They’re getting into every kingdom, and that’s the point.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know how, but when they breach a realm, they pick up some kind of magic that allows them to get back in. Someone out there wants access to the stronghold in every kingdom. And with each attack, the servitors are getting more powerful.”

I peered up at his glinting golden eyes in the semi-dark. “How do you know this?”

“Ravens, but that’s not important. My point is, I need your help. We can’t get distracted by conflicts that aren’t going to matter in the end.”

I shook my head. Ravens? Like messenger birds? This was wasting way too much time. “I’m the wrong person to talk to. You should get in touch with Maxen. This stuff is his department.”

“No,” he said vehemently. “It can’t be the officials. They’ll make things worse.”

“But why me?”

“You’re the daughter of Oliver Maguire, Stone Order champion and one of Marisol’s closest advisors,” he said. “That means you’re close enough to the decision makers, but without being a life-long diplomat. And you have no patience for bureaucracy. You can keep focused on what’s important. That’s exactly what’s needed here.”

Surprisingly insightful, and it was nice that someone in Faerie saw my loathing of red tape as a positive trait. But I wasn’t interested in getting mixed up in whatever Jasper’s fight was.

“Look, I appreciate your concern, but I need to get the hell out of here,” I said. “I don’t even live on this side of the hedge. You need someone more plugged into Faerie.”

He let out an exasperated breath. His hand was still on my arm, and he yanked me close. I let him do it, a little fascinated by this different side of him.

“You’re going to be involved whether you want to be or not,” he said. His face was so close to mine, his strange eyes nearly filled my field of vision. “And if things go badly, you’re going to wish the Stone Order had ended up under Duergar rule. Believe me, the alternative will be much worse.”

“Why should I believe you?” I demanded.

His nostrils flared as we locked glares. “The Tuatha Dé Danann have returned. The Dullahan are with them.”

A sharp laugh escaped my lips. “The Tuatha don’t exist anymore, except in a few bloodlines diluted almost down to nothing. And you’re seriously trying to tell me the Dullahan are coming? The Bone Warriors are a myth.”

“Wrong on both counts,” he said harshly.

Suddenly there was a clamoring outside the secret passage’s exit.

“Shit,” I hissed. I’d loitered too long.

“Come with me.” Jasper pulled me away from the door, racing back the way I’d come. He had to turn his shoulders at an angle to move through the narrow space.

Seconds later, I heard the guards breaching the secret passage behind us.

Jasper let go of me and sped up, leading me through a dizzying maze of turns. We ended up at a ladder that rose into a narrow pipe-like vertical tunnel.

“Go ahead of me,” he commanded.

The space where we stood was so close, we practically had to embrace in order for me to get past him. For a couple of seconds, our bodies pressed tightly against each other. I had to hold the box with Van Zant’s ashes over my head, and Jasper’s hand briefly touched the side of my waist as we maneuvered around to change places. If not for the light armor covering his chest, I probably would have felt his heartbeat.

I puffed out a breath, clearing my mind of such thoughts, and focused on climbing up the ladder as quickly as possible with the box under my arm. I could hear our pursuers in the passages below. A glance down showed Jasper coming up after me. The ladder seemed to go on for half a mile.

When I reached the top, I pulled a lever and the circular lid on the pipe popped open on a hinge. Squinting against the daylight, I climbed out. I was standing on one of the many tiered roofs of the Duergar palace. This one was one of the highest.

Jasper slammed the lid down on our escape hatch and then stood on it. I drew my sword.

“Okay, now what?” I asked him.

He held up a finger and with his other hand reached behind his chest armor, and then produced a small cylindrical item with a flourish. He put one end to his lips and blew into it. There was no sound, but a charge seemed to pass through the air, as if the whistle had sent out a wave of electricity.

“Watch.” He pointed to the sky.

I shaded my eyes, scanning, and at first saw nothing out of the ordinary. But then in the far distance a black speck appeared over the tops of the trees forming the realm’s great forest. It was heading straight for us and rapidly growing as it neared.

I spun around to face Jasper. “You’re a Grand Raven Master?”

He gave me the slightest of nods. I couldn’t help staring at him for a second, open-mouthed. Then I turned to watch in awe as the giant raven approached. It had a wingspan easily thirty feet across. I’d seen one in person only once at a fair when I was a child.

“This will give you away,” I said, my eyes glued to the creature. I tipped my head back as it flapped overhead, its beak pointed down as its dark round eyes searched for a place to land. “They’ll know you gave me an escape.”

“They don’t know it’s my raven,” Jasper said.

I swiveled around just in time to see him leap from the hatch he’d been standing on and disappear over the side of the roof. I didn’t have time to run to the edge to see where he’d landed or whether he was okay. Guards were bursting through the now-freed passage.

The raven cawed at me, clearly urging me to hurry. With Mort in one hand and the box in the other, I ran at the huge feathered creature. I sheathed my broadsword and then sprang up to the raven’s back, using my now-free hand to pull myself into position between its wings.

It hopped twice and then jumped off the roof and took flight. I hung on for dear life, squeezing my thighs like a bareback rider and clutching the feathers in my fist. The box was clamped under my other arm so hard I squashed the cardboard a bit. When the raven banked, I nearly tumbled off, and my heart jumped into my throat.

I chanced a look behind me and caught sight of the guards on the rooftop, and more still pouring out of the secret passage. Farther down on a lower roof, I glimpsed Jasper flattening himself against a wall, staying out of sight of the guards above. He gave me a little salute, but I couldn’t let go to return the gesture.

The air whipped across my face and glossy black feathers brushed my skin as Jasper’s raven carried me away from the Duergar palace.