Page 54 of Smoke & Ashes
“When you think about it, you’re practically his-herminionhere.”
That was too much. He threw me away from him with a pulse of telekinetic force which sent me ploughing into a snowdrift. I reckoned I’d bought myself about three and a half seconds to do something before Sebastian Douglas could pick me up again. It was a classic fight-or-flight situation and I picked flight. If I was lucky he’d lose me in the blizzard and even if I was unlucky I was hoping that coming after me would distract him long enough that Tara and her family could start turning the tide up at the house. Of course if Sebastian was only a conduit, his full attention might not have been necessary, but somehow I didn’t imagine he’d make himself a channel for a source of otherworldly power he couldn’t at least mostly control.
Either the high winds and blinding snow proved too much for him to track me through, or the bastard made the sensible strategic decision like the immortal Machiavel he was and kept his attention focused on bringing the cold and the dark to Safernoc Hall. Fucker.
Still, that bought me enough time to scramble through the blizzard—I’d lost my dagger, which made the snow-wraiths a pisser to deal with but I found that as long as I kept my head down, stayed moving, and didn’t mind getting the occasional deep laceration across my spine I was mostly okay.
I finally made it up a short flight of annoyingly slippery steps to the rear entrance of Safernoc Hall, where for the moment things seemed to be stable. White wolves circled a few dozen feet away, and the creatures from the snow swirled in the air, but the patio was bathed in an incongruous sunlight and a pack of werewolves—the golden one definitely Tara, others recognisable as Henry and the Dowager Marchioness—were beating back whatever creatures managed to brave the warmth and the brightness.
Sofia stood in the opening of a pair of French windows, sunbeams rippling from her in waves. I was impressed—the girl had come a long way since she’d saved me from the snake lady a few years ago—but I was also seriously fucking worried. Judging by the number of calls I’d missed, this fight had been going on for literally hours, and even with a god on her side Sofia was going to need to sleep sometime. Besides, channelling that much raw celestial power couldn’t have been good for her.
I limped to her side just in time to see the sunlight gutter. It only went out for a moment but as it did the snow and wind and—oh yeah, giant fucking monsters—surged closer, forcing the wolves back for a moment. If we lived through this, I was going to become a morning person and never take the sun for granted again.
“Kate?” Her voice was painfully weak. This was bad. Like, we’re-all-going-to-die level bad.
“Don’t say anything. Carry on doing what you’re doing. Pretend I’m not here.”
“I’m glad you came.”
“Which part ofdon’t say anythingdid you miss? Right now there’s only you and your weird sunlight between us and the bad guys.”
Tara broke back from the melee and shifted into the shape that could talk in sentences. I did my best to ignore the nudity. My best wasn’t particularly effective. “Tell me you know what’s happening here,” she said. Her tone was as much commanding as pleading, but as much pleading as commanding. I had a strange urge to put my arms around her. I mean, strange in the sense that it was about her emotional state, rather than her state of undress. I settled for taking her hand, which I thought would be less awkward given the circumstances.
“Prince of Wands,” I said. “I think he drank the blood of the King of Shadows, the Queen of Winter. Honestly, I’m not sure who’s playing who in that relationship and I’m not sure it matters. Either way, add it up with a thousand years of studying creepy blood magic and it means he’s got a blizzard full of nightmares in his back pocket. It also means if we can take him down we can stop this.”
The light guttered again and a white wolf burst through the front ranks, coming dangerously close to mauling Sofia before Tara—who could shift forms in a heartbeat if it came to it—hit her from the side and bore her away. Then the sun was back and winter retreated.
Tara shifted back to human shape, seemingly entirely so she could give me a sceptical look. “We’ll never find him in these conditions.”
“I can deal with that.” Out of context, it sounded borderline hubristic. “I’ve tasted the blood of the king-queen—don’t ask—the problem won’t be finding him. It’ll be stopping him.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Sofia. She was still glowing. “Take me with you. He’s still a vampire, shouldn’t I—that is, shouldn’t it…”
It would work. It would definitely work. If I could get a glowing child across a battlefield full of faery monstrosities and then beat up a guy who even with his vampirism toned down was still an extremely talented wizard with a heart full of borrowed faery magic while I still had one broken arm. Fuck it, worth a shot.
“One minute.” I ducked inside. Sure, I’d dropped the iron dagger in the snow but the one nice thing about fighting faeries is that iron was much easier to get hold of than silver or metal blessed by fully paid up exorcists. And Safernoc was the kind of place stuffed with real actual fireplaces with real actual pokers.
Emerging a few moments later, I found Tara and Sofia standing side-by-side waiting for me.
“I’m coming too,” said the blonde, naked one.
“Somebody’s going to need to protect the house.” The wind was definitely getting louder, and the wolves were definitely getting bolder.
“The pack will handle it. I’m not sending the two of you out there alone.”
I didn’t make the obvious point that if the two of us were out there we wouldn’t be alone, because neither one of us really counted. Sofia had one trick and she could barely control it, and I was down a limb. “Fine. Come on.”
“You’re not giving the orders here, Kate Kane.” Tara gave me a stern look. “Sofia, kill the light, we’ll need to take them by surprise if this is to work at all. When I turn, climb on my back”—another glance, somewhat less stern this time—“not you, Kate. You’re going to lead us to Douglas.” She let out an inhuman howling which seemed to communicate something to the wolf-pack, which immediately fell back into a defensive circle. Then she shifted, and Sofia went dark, and we ran like fuck.
The moment the sunlight was gone the blizzard slammed in on us. Wind-beasts and mirror-wolves fell on our little group of defenders and at the same time Tara sprang forward to punch us a path through into the grounds. Suddenly realising how very cold, very tired, and very much in pain I was, I reached just a little for my mother’s strength and found it coming easily. Surprisingly easily given that I was holding iron. There was something about the taste of another faery lord’s blood in my mouth that excited my mother in a way I couldn’t help but find worrying.
We pushed forward with surprising speed, and despite the snow and the wind and the cold I could taste the prince of wands and his new otherworldly patron as if he was in front of me. The poker swiped through the blizzard-things and crashed down on the skull of a wolf that tried to take me from the flank. I let instinct take over, let the Deepwild take over. Running at the head of a pack of hounds was right and natural and what I sought to kill I would kill.
I was conscious of Tara beside me, the weight of a teenage seeress clinging to her back having surprisingly little effect on her ability to bring down anything that stood in her way. My mother’s influence took a moment to admire the power and the wildness of her.
We pressed on.
The Prince of Wands stood at the heart of a maelstrom of ice and winds and darkness, the two wolves who had been guarding him still resting alert by his side. Their heads whipped around as we approached and they bounded forward to intercept us. Sofia slid to the ground as Tara crashed into one of them, and I did my best to handle the other, trusting my mother’s instinct to strike and hunt and catch and kill.
