Vesik 3 Winter's Demon (5 page)

“Fellow practitioners, I see,” said the small woman behind the table. Her voice was quiet and a little scratchy. She adjusted the afghan around her shoulders and smiled at the group.

“Where did you find these?” Mike asked.

“That is a secret long held by my family,” the vendor said.

Mike nodded. “Guard it well. It is a treasure to be sure. What is your price?”

“For each? Two hundred dollars.”

I choked on the water I was drinking. Sam’s jaw almost hit the pavement. Dad just gnawed on some jerky.

“That’s a good price,” Aideen said.

“We need some rune tiles as well,” Zola said. “Black and white.”

“Black?” the woman raised her eyebrows as she spoke.

“Yes,” Zola said, without inflection.

“Very well.”

“What is your price for all of them?” Mike asked.

“All?” the old woman perked up. “I have two hundred scales.” She stood up and leaned over the booth toward Mike. “That’s forty thousand.”

Mike nodded. “Throw in all your rune tiles and I’ll pay you thirty.”

“Thirty? Dear, you’re adorable, but I can’t take less than thirty-seven fifty.”

“Thirty-five, in gold, right now.” Mike reached around his back and pulled out a sack I swear hadn’t been there a moment before. He dropped it on the table top to the chime of dozens of coins. “I’ll come back in six months and buy more after your dragon sheds again.”

The woman blinked at Mike, her mouth forming a little O. She glanced at the hammer on his belt and said, “You are well traveled for a blacksmith.”

“You have no idea,” Mike said.

She opened the sack of coins, glanced at them without counting, and nodded. “They’re all yours.”

“Thank you, lady,” Mike said. “May we keep the baskets?”

“Oh yes, I think I can afford to replace them now,” she said with a small smile.

We picked up three baskets with hundreds of tiles and the smaller basket of scales. I waited until we were away from the booth and closer to the car before I opened my mouth.

“Are those real?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mike, Zola, Aideen, and Foster said at once.

“What are you going to do with all these?” I asked as Zola opened her trunk and we set the baskets down.

“I assume the rune tiles are going to the green witch, your friend Ashley,” Mike said. “I will share the dragon scales with your master, as she most likely wants to destroy them.”

Zola flashed him a smile.

“I will not, however, let you destroy them all,” Mike said.

“Why destroy them?” I asked.

“They are too powerful,” Zola said. “If Ashley uses a dragon scale as a rune tile, her spell will be magnified a hundredfold.”

“Or more,” Aideen said. “Dragons are almost pure ley energy. We can’t really know what it will do.”

“A scale in the hands of our enemies is unthinkable. Ah have seen firsthand what dark menace they can bring.” She looked up at Mike. “As have you.”

He nodded, but didn’t respond.

“What do you want them for, Mike?” Foster asked. There was an eagerness to his voice. Guessing by the smile on the demon’s face, Mike heard it too.

“I am not sure yet. Armor perhaps, or a weapon of some sort. I will think on it.”

“You two have some interesting friends,” Dad said as he glanced between me and Sam.

“You should meet Aeros.” Sam smiled as she gave Dad a sideways glance.

“I think I’ve had enough surprises for today, but thank you.” He returned her smile with a smaller one.

“Yes,” Zola said. “Ah agree. Let’s get your wife back, Dimitry.”

CHAPTER FIVE

W
e pulled into the parking lot behind the shop. Sam jumped out and dashed across the cobblestones for the back door. The deadbolt saw her coming.

“No, no, no, no!” the little face squealed a moment before Sam’s boot connected with a resounding thud. The deadbolt snapped open and Sam pushed her way through. The other, non-Fae deadbolt, usually stayed unlocked while the store was open.

Mike put a basket over each arm and started for the door with Zola and Dad close behind.

I was behind them all when I said, “Oh, hold on a sec. Dad, did you hear something? Could you check the door for me?”

“What?” he asked as he took a few steps out in front of us and looked toward the open door. “Why?”

A chain of barks echoed like a train whistle as Bubbles and Peanut shot out the door, bearing down on Dad. He cursed and braced himself against the green and black blur of overexcited pups. The cu siths—or possibly ponies, depending on your age and their temperament—stood up to my waist now. Their bristly green fur had softened along with their braided tails since the battle at Stones River, but that’s all secondary when a hundred-and-fifty-pound pooch tries to kneecap you. Dad stumbled back only to be pushed forward by Peanut. Bubbles licked his face with her outrageously long tongue and then panted. She snapped at Peanut, led him on a wild chase around the parking lot, and then disappeared into the shop again.

“I thought those were a lot smaller when you told me about them,” Dad said as he wiped his face on his shirt. “They got big.”

“That’s just a matter of perspective,” Foster said. “Some cu siths have been known to—”

I held up my hand. “I don’t want to know.”

I heard Aideen laugh as she glided through the door.

“You keep a strange home, necromancer,” Mike said, and there was nothing snide or negative in his words.

“I try.”

The demon followed Zola through the door.

We made our way down a few steps and through the back room, past the pantry, also known as the junk closet. I heard the tick of the fairies’ grandfather clock before we passed the old Formica table. I pushed through the saloon doors behind Dad. Sam giggled, and I looked up to see why. Frank was reaching for a sizable crystal on a shelf above the counter and my sister’s hand was firmly attached to his ass.

“Samantha,” Dad said in a perfect echo of our teenage years.

Frank jerked on the step ladder and fumbled the crystal in surprise. I closed my eyes as it started to fall.

“It didn’t break,” Mike whispered in my ear.

I cracked an eye and saw the crystal in Sam’s hands. “Oh good, that looked expensive.”

Frank climbed down and wiped his forehead as he turned around. All he had on was jeans and a muscle shirt. My jaw almost hit the floor.

Sam caught me gaping. “I know, right?!”

“Frank,” Zola said. “You look great.”

Frank grinned and reached for the shirt he had laid over the counter. The man was ripped. The pudgy bald man I was occasionally fond of had been replaced. His head was shaved down to a thin covering of gray hair. Lean muscles slid and bulged in his arms as he pulled his shirt on. While I couldn’t tell if he was sporting abs, his paunch was gone.

“Frank,” I said. “Good god man, all I recognize anymore is your eyebrows.”

“Yeah, Sam won’t let me trim them.”

She smiled and plucked at the furry caterpillars over his eyes.

“Hear anything about your mom?” Frank asked.

Sam’s smile slipped and she shook her head.

I walked toward the back of the store again while Sam and Foster got Frank up to speed. Sam hadn’t been the same since she’d become a vampire. I knew she’d had trouble adjusting to her new life, despite her vampire family, but now she seemed more like the Sam I used to know. Frank was changing something in her, and it was a hell of a lot more subtle than what she’d been changing in him.

I started up the stairs, turned at the landing, and jogged the rest of the way up. A few steps creaked and moaned, but they’d held up pretty well for being centuries old. Zola swore she’d never replaced them when the shop had been hers.

I slowed my stride a bit as I started down the thick gray carpet of the second floor. The center aisle was encased on either side by monolithic bookshelves and I took a deep breath, savoring the slightly dusty scent before stopping at the back wall. The small shelves behind the walnut table were enclosed like a barrister bookcase, and held my favored books and possessions.

I knelt beside the old leather chair and pulled an ancient chest out of a small recess. Its surface was covered in ornate wards that kept the chest hidden from prying eyes. The hinges were quiet as I opened the top and stared at the contents. A key of the dead was hidden there, given to me by Gwynn ap Nudd himself. There was also a bloodstone. A demon, Tessrian, was trapped in that green and red rock. I frowned, knowing we’d have to deal with her eventually, but for now I pulled out a thin, blue obsidian disc. It had originally been a coin used by undines in times long past. Now it was essentially a phone to Faery.

I closed the trunk and stopped to look at the stack of books on the table. Frank had picked up a few new ones. An old grimoire caught my eye. It seemed to have the same graphic etched into it as the manuscript I’d studied to create an aural blade, but that would have to wait. There was even an old Hemingway in the stack. I raised my eyebrows a bit. Sometimes Frank surprised me. Sometimes Frank surprised me a lot. I was pretty sure he hadn’t picked that one up for me to sell, which most likely meant it was for him. Definitely not for Sam. She hates Hemingway, but she loves Steinbeck. Whatever. Vampires are strange.

I came back downstairs and glanced around the store. “Ashley not here yet?”

Frank shook his head.

Zola sighed. “You have time boy. Go ahead.”

I nodded. “Alright, I have to make a call.”

***

I crouched in the edge of the river with the dark blue Wasser-Münzen clutched in my hands, just beneath the rushing water. The icy cold swirling around my fingers couldn’t stop my smile as Nixie’s face pushed out of the water’s surface. Even in a water sending, where her image stayed translucent, her eyes sparkled with crystalline greens and blues, and the scent of the sea washed over me.

“Hello, Damian.” Her voice was musical, but I knew her singing voice was murderous.

“You look bald,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes and pouted at me, lips pursing in blatant sensuality. Her eyes closed for a moment and the water moving around her image took on the vague impression of her pale hair, complete with ears poking out the edges, which she damn well knew drove me nuts. She’d cut her hair since the last time I’d seen her. It was only down to the top of her hips now as the water piled beneath her and swelled to form her body.

“Better?” she asked.

“Nice ears.” I let my hands slide away from the blue obsidian. Now that the sending was established, I didn’t need to hold on to the Wasser-Münzen.

“I thought you’d like them.” She grinned at me.

I wanted to reach out and hug her, but that would get me nothing but cold and wet. I rubbed my hand over my face. “So, when you coming back?”

“You miss me?”

“No, not at all.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Damian.”

I flashed her a smile of my own. “You look all clothed and stuff. Seems awkward.”

She looked around. “It’s daylight.”

“And?” I asked.

“You’ll be embarrassed long before me,” she said as her watery hand slipped into one of my jean pockets.

I yelped and hopped backwards as she started laughing. Now it was me who looked around, mortified my friends and family might walk up behind us. “Okay, okay. You’re right, dammit.”

She giggled and pulled back, briefly allowing the waters to solidify, giving me a peek at a translucent, completely nude Nixie.

“You are so evil.”

“You love it.”

I groaned as she let her sending sink back into the water.

“Mike told me some of what’s happening there,” she said. “Do you need me to come?”

I shook my head, but not without hesitation. “How’s the Queen?”

Her smile faded. “Talks are breaking down. I don’t think she’s willing to accept the change that’s coming. She’s not willing to step down either.”

I frowned and crossed my arms. “She can’t force you all to kill. It’s wrong. What happens when neither side can agree?”

“War, though I fear to say it. War is what will happen. And all war is …”

“Is more killing,” I said.

She nodded and looked behind me. “A friend is coming.”

“Alright, stay safe. You know if you need help the fairies will be there in a flash.”

“And you?”

I grinned. “Maybe, guess you’ll just have to see.”

“You need their help more than I right now,” she said as her image rippled in the wake of a small bass boat.

“Damian,” said a voice from behind me and a little to the left. I had a good idea what angle I’d need to point my pepperbox to bring any conflict to an abrupt end, but I recognized the voice and let my arms unfold.

I glanced behind me and found Ashley. “Damn, are you following Frank’s exercise regimen? You look great!” She usually came into the shop with her cloak on, but today she wore a tight-fitting green leather vest and dark brown leather slacks. Her compact frame was slim, but even with the weight loss she bore an impressive chest. A series of pouches hung from a white rope belt at her waist along with a wicked-looking nine tails capped with intricately etched silver gray blades of Magrasnetto crowned each flail. Ashley sniffed and rubbed her slightly upturned nose before running a hand through her blonde hair to push it back over her right ear. It showed off dark leather vambraces that matched the greaves on her legs, all bearing a tree of life. She flashed a short smile. It didn’t reach her blazing green eyes.

“Thank you. I was followed.”

I glanced at Nixie. “You didn’t mention that part.”

“Call the others,” she said. “They must be masked. I still don’t sense them.”

“Necromancers,” I said with a grumble. Nixie snickered at the negative use of my own title as I nodded and reached for the phone in my pocket. I casually texted Sam and Frank to fill them in. “We’re coming,” came back almost immediately.

“Gotta run Nix,” I said as I blew her a two-fingered kiss.

“We’ll meet again soon.” She smiled and her image vanished.

I heard the van’s doors first as I pocketed the Wasser-Münzen. One, two, and then the hiss of a hydraulic door. I glanced up and my eyes widened. One of those carpool vans was unloading less than a quarter mile away, and I was pretty damn sure every single thing getting off was a zombie. The last man off was human, and obviously a necromancer, dressed in a passé solid black cloak and hood.