Red Moon Demon (Demon Lord) (16 page)

SIX
TEEN

“Wh
y does everyone want me to kill them?
”

—
Caine Deathwalker

Izumi and I popped out of the human world and fe
ll through a heavy, green-tinged darkness
. There was a brief moment of slamming pressure, like taking a corner in a too-fast sports car, as we broke into
the fey world
. A
spectacular view
awaited us
.
The setting sun—an
icy
ball of light
—
seeped through veils of cloud on the far horizon where forested mountains gnawed the sky. Overhead, the
low-hanging
clouds were thicker, darker, spitting snow down
up
on us.

The
Ridge
R
oad
we stood on was
pitted and rutted by
passing
horses and wagon
s
. There were other tracks, reptilian, maybe some kind of giant, flightless bird.
Along
the
winding
road,
some of
the
shrubbery
still had green
leaves
showing through
their ice
glaze
s
.
Clinging
to
w
e
bbed
branches
, thin icicle’s
provided a festive look.

Looking down the steep embankment from the road, I spotted
a
zure
balls of light danc
ing
in the air
. The
will
-of-the-
wisps
play
ed
tag in
small
orchards, but avoiding well-lit farm houses
painted riotous colors
.
From the distance, the buildings looked like miniature models, toys abandoned to Fate.

A chilling wind bore the scent of mistletoe and winter berries. The freshness of the breeze spoke of a place that had never known industrialization. This place was an environmentalist’s wet-dream; a land with more life than back on earth. Here, if you hugged a tree, it just might hug you back, if it didn’t drink your soul. Nature isn’t as warm and fuzzy as some would have us believe.

We pushed on, traveling past a bed of lavender
that should have
been long dead. I saw stick
-
figure humans the size of my small finger, ice fairies floating about on
hummingbird
wings. They were tending the
plants
, brushing off the
frost
, strengthening the
growths
with their
Faire
light
. The glow
indicated that the creatures didn’t
d
o magic—they were magic.

A
head of us
,
the road
stretched up a bank to an ice bridge that spanned a frozen river.
The road continued into a city labyrinth
shadowed with soft blues
. The
icy spires
,
blocks
, and domes
were carved from glacier
ice
.

I
grew
aware
of a new silence;
it had been a while since I’d heard the clack of high heel boots. I
turned to see
Izumi st
anding
motionless
a dozen feet back
. The look on her face was one of
painful
longing.

“
Is this it,
Izumi?”

My words snapped her out of brooding abstraction.
She started toward
me,
scuffing along
like
a
convict toward he
r
execution.
A very hot convict. She wore a glittery body sheath of midnight blue. Blue diamond earrings studded her earlobes. An ermine half-clo
a
k was her only concession to the weather and its hood was thrown back to expose the artful pile of her hair. Black diamond chips glinted from the butterfly pins keeping her hair in place.

“
Yeah,
” she said,
“
W
inter
C
ourt
, t
hey run this co
r
ner of
Underhill
. Once we reach the bridge, they’ll know we’re here. I’ll be all right, but I can’t guarantee you’ll even get across. The ice trolls are always hungry.
”

S
he
’d brought us to this road just outside the fey city limits,
dropp
ing
us
into a domain
off
-
limits to anything no
n
fey
. This
pseudo
-space
counted as an entity itself, one that kept demons out. Always. Wit
h
out her, I could have materialized in a web of illusion, never knowing I was anywhere close to anything fey.
That she could bring me past all defenses contradicted what I knew of her.

I stopped her with a hand on her arm as she made to pass me on the road.
“Izumi
,
you
’
r
e
not a demon
,
are you?”

She sighed softly.
“No, I’m fey
. M
y glamour
disguises my
magic
’s feel,
and lets
me
pass for
demon
, or Japanese snow woman. I can even do Santa Claus.
”

“Please don’t.”

“
Old Man knew
.”

Of course he did. And he couldn’t bother tell
ing
me. He
probably
wanted me to
discover her nature
the hard way
; on my own
.

The
dirt
road
acquired thicker coats of frost
the closer we got to the
bridge until we were treading ice.
We paused, one step from the moon bridge.
The posts lin
in
g the
sid
e
s
were square pillars extending into the frozen river below.
The posts were capped by round spheres. Whatever wood they’d used was a mystery, covered by ice. Or perhaps the whole thing was ice.

I stared through the arch of the bridge, as if I could see what lurked in its shadow.
“There really are ice trolls under there?” I asked.

“Two of them.”

“You’re going to help me with them, right?”

She looked at me. A slow smile appeared. “It will cost you.”

“How much?”

“I need a promise.”

“What kind?”

“You have to promise to kill anyone who I’m ever forced to marry—preferably before the honeymoon.”

I grinned at her. “Sounds like fun.”

She nodded and started up the bridge.

We reached the middle before the brutes climbed over the sides to block our way.
The frost trolls were twelve feet from curl-toed boots to horned helmets. Their clothing was a patchwork of animal skins—fox, rabbit, wolf, and elk. PETA would be pissed.
The trolls had ice-white beards and pale flesh. Leather straps held their kilts in place as well as assorted knives that would have counted as swords in the hands of small men. They’d made the climb over the railing one-handed, moving with speed and grace. Their free hands clutched the hafts of war-hammers, the heads flat on one side, spiked on the other.

They crowded each other while road-blocking the bridge, grunting in wild-eyed menace, grinning balefully. The one on the right had sapphire eyes, the one on the left
,
hazel.

Blue s
niffed the air.
“
D
emon st
ink
.”

Hazel said, “The stench of a
dead
demon, you mean.”

Blue looked surprised. “He’s not dead.”

Hazel
laughed;
a hard bark of joy
that boomed loud enough to crack ice. “He’s dead, he just don’t know it yet.”

I stepped forward, demon sword
fading into my
hand.

Blue lunged to meet me, giving no advance warning of his attack. I approved. My sword flashed as I swayed out of his path. He came to a sudden stop, staring at the stick in his hand.

The head of the hammer lay on the ice bridge. I’d cut its handle in passing. Still moving, I closed with Hazel. His hammer fell toward the top of my head. I jumped into the air and caught hold of it, letting my weight add to the power of its fall.
The hammer hit the bridge wit
h
a bone-j
arring WHAM! The underlying brid
ge cracked.

I knelt and placed a palm to the cracked surface. I felt a dull, metaphysical knife gouge my spleen—the price I paid for activating one of my tats. A shockwave edged with infernal heat shattered the middle of the bridge. The trolls and I dropped to the frozen river, a hard white ribbon of ice. Pieces of broken bridge bounced around us
, skidding every which way.

The trolls landed on their feet.

I landed on all fours, then stood, careful of my balance while I watched for the next attack.

Izumi looked over a stub of bridge,
do
ing
nothing else
.
Her glamour
fad
ed
. H
er eyes went western, no longer Asian
,
blaz
ing
like sun fire on ice. And her
glossy black
hair turned snowy white. If I wasn’t in the middle of a fight, I would have stopped to admire the change.

I
called up to her.
“I thought you were going to help me with these guys,”

“I am,” she
said
. “I’m absorbing the
ir
bitter cold
so you don’t
shatter like a rotted twig. Why do you think your protective ward hasn’t activated
, draining your energy
?”

Leaving the grunt work to me.

Blue stared up at Izumi. “I know you.”

The other troll nodded. “The little
girl
with a human heart.”

Izumi scowled at them. “
Damn it,
I’m fey
to the core. You want a piece of me?”

Hazel laugh
ed
. “If I get to pick the piece
..
. You’ve filled out nicely since running away
,
little
snowflake
.”

Izumi raised a fist in the air. A javelin of ice formed in her hand.
She thr
ust
it down
with a relaxed, smooth throw so it
pierc
ed
Blue’s collarbone
and
heart. He clutched the
protruding
ice shaft
as his legs collapsed under him.
Thu-thudda
.
The troll
’
s knees indented the river ice without breaking through. He fell backwards onto bent legs
with a
whump
and lay
spread eagle on the ice. His blue eyes went flat and dull, fading to silver. His big chest lost air and no longer filled with breath. As if conquered by cold, layers of ice seeped out of his skin, making a
n
ice sculpture of him.

“Shouldn’t have pissed me off,” Izumi said.

“Sonuffabitch
!
”
Hazel looked at his fallen comrade
. T
ears well
ed
in his eyes.
The drops
fell, turning into beads of ice that
rattled and
bounc
ed
on the
ice
.
H
e tore his gaze away,
facing
Izumi.

Without regret or remorse, s
he stared down from above, now wearing armor made of ice over her clothes, a blue
-
ice sword in her hands.
This reminded me that no matter how warm and soft I’d her heart, it had a frozen core, like all the winter fey.

Hazel set his hammer on the river, kneeling toward her. His head bent in submission, his huge
fist pressed in a sort of salute over his heart. “Your pardon, Princess. May I have the honor of escorting you to your mother’s throne?”

Princess?
I glowered at Izumi.
If she was fey royalty, than the Japanese snow demon persona had been her cover, down to the Japanese features of her face. I wondered what her true appearance was like without her magical glamour.

I muttered,
“Keeping secrets much?”

She
shrugged at my accusing stare, and
nodded
to the surviving troll
. “I will await you
on
the other
side
of the bridge.” Her sword tip bit into the broken edge of the bridge.