Wolves and the River of Stone (3 page)

“I can’t believe the road was named Mount Zion Church.”

“Follow me,” Foster said as a tiny smile curled his lips.

We moved through the woods quickly. Daylight vanished into the permanent twilight of the forest. Twigs and branches caught at my clothes as leaves crumbled, whispering around my feet. I held my staff in front of my face to deflect the worst of the low hanging branches. Foster fluttered nimbly between the leaves, leading us closer to the church. The dead were all around us now. I knew if I looked, I’d see the first signs of soldiers staring blankly at us from their gray bodies and ancient uniforms, surrounded by the calm flow of black, white, and dead auras. I crushed a small patch of honeysuckle as we hurried through a sunny clearing, the sweet smells of the plant an anathema to the tightening of my gut.

There was a flash of white and an explosion of fairy dust in front of me an instant before I walked into Foster’s seven-foot-tall back with a grunt. It was a damn good thing I’d remembered my allergy medicine that morning. It’s hard to be stealthy in the middle of a sneezing fit. Foster took in my scowl and shot me a grin, shrugging as if to say
sorry about that.
He pointed to the southeast. I followed the direction he indicated and could just make out the white church and the small graveyard beside it.

We shifted to the northeast and settled in the woods beyond the graves before a flash of color caught my eye. From our new vantage point, I could make out a man’s silhouette near the edge of the church. I could see the close-cropped full beard on his round face. A bowler was perched over his formidable forehead and crooked nose. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew they were small, black, and beady. The instant after I recognized Philip, I realized the crumpled form on the ground was Zola, her head leaning against a weathered and mossy headstone. Another figure had its foot propped against her neck.

It took everything I had not to run at them with guns blazing. I looked at Foster and saw the rage creasing his forehead, a mirror of my own. His hand had turned white where he held the hilt of his sword in a death grip.

“We kill that one and Philip kills Zola before we get out there,” I whispered.

Foster nodded. “Kill Philip, and the other one kills her. Shit. Let’s see if they shift positions.”

Philip’s voice rose and we could both hear his words clearly. “Tell me where she is or I’ll leave you here in pieces.” He pushed off the wall with his hands and casually kicked Zola in the ribs. She flexed in pain. Philip’s partner stepped down harder until Zola was gasping for air. Philip grabbed Zola’s hair, pushed the other person away, and dragged my master to her feet. She wobbled, but stood fast.

“Tell me where she is.” He shook her head as he spoke.

Zola, true to form, spit a bucket’s worth of blood across his face.

I could hear the impact as Pinkerton’s partner hit Zola in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle. Zola went down hard. As she hit the ground, I got my first clear look at the accomplice: a middle-aged blonde woman with a glare that could keep a demon at bay. She laughed as Zola moaned. Philip looked at the woman, then back to Zola, without any hint of emotion.

Foster touched my shoulder. When I looked up, he drew a finger across his neck and then pointed at the other woman. He motioned to my staff and I handed it over. I nodded and shifted my weight forward as he moved silently through the graveyard and into the woods on the other side. They were causing too much damage to Zola for us to wait much longer. It was time to return the favor.

Philip crossed his arms behind his back and paced down the side of the small church, beneath the thin gothic windows adorning the building. I took that moment to move forward. “It’s over, Philip. Let her go.” I spoke loudly, projecting my voice as best I could as I struck out between the church and the graveyard with a loping stride.

His head snapped around and stared at me before a small smile lifted his face. “Ah, perfect. Just the inspiration she needs.” He took a step toward me. “I’ll pull you apart into manageable pieces until she talks. Dismantle her favorite son.” His smile turned wicked, and the fire in his eyes was well beyond sane.

“No, let me kill him.”

Philip stopped and turned to the woman holding Zola. He shrugged and waved his hand dismissively. “Fine.”

My left hand itched to grab the silver inlays on my staff, the staff I had given to Foster. One grab of the right rune would call a shield around me in a split second, faster than I could speak the incantation.

Instead, my fingers traced the hilt of the focus tucked beneath my belt. It was the plain, leather-wrapped, silver and gray Magrasnetto hilt of an old Scottish claymore. Dime-sized holes spiraled up the grip at regular intervals, and channels ran down the sloping arms to the quatrefoil pattern at the ends. A wide hole gaped where the blade would normally be. An idea crept into my head and I looked around for Foster. He was nowhere to be seen. I cursed and turned my attention back to the woman holding Zola. Foster was going to get her the staff so she could shield herself from Philip; all I had to do was get her the focus.

The blonde met my gaze. “I am Agnes Smythe. I am your death.” Her voice was almost peppy and it threw me off for a moment.

A small laugh made me glance at Philip. The smirk on his face lit fantasies of eviscerating him and feeding him whatever fell out.

I was about to fire off a witty retort, but Agnes elbowed Zola in the mouth with a vicious strike. Zola’s head snapped back and I could hear the crack of bone from fifteen feet away. She crumpled to the ground in a heap. Through the rage in my gut I still felt a hint of relief as her hands moved to cover her face when Agnes put her foot back on Zola’s neck.

With that, Foster had seen enough. The seven-foot fairy dropped silently out of the tree behind them, swinging my staff on a downward angle. He connected with Agnes’s head. The crack was sickening. She jerked violently to one side and her foot fell away from Zola. Agnes staggered forward before flailing to the ground.

“Zola!” I said as I stepped forward, pulled my right arm back, and whipped the focus at her. It spiraled toward her on an almost perfect angle and the handle made a loud snap as she caught it.

Blood coursed over Zola’s teeth as she stood up and smiled a death’s head grin. Her right hand wrapped around the staff as Foster let go and the hilt of the focus was in her left. She pointed the hilt at the base of Agnes’s neck and grabbed the rune near the top ferrule on the staff. Zola’s body stiffened as her aura was forced through the focus and honed into a deep red aural blade, wrapped in a cacophony of blue, gold, and silver filaments. Agnes didn’t even get to scream before the vibrating blade relieved her shoulders of their heavy burden. The ground beneath her hissed and popped as the blade shot home and Zola wrenched it to the side.

Philip stared at the decapitated body for a moment, then slowly raised his eyes to Zola. “That was wasteful.”

A tinge of ozone reached my nostrils as I ran to stand beside Zola.

“Now, Philip,” she said as she wiped her sleeve across her bloody mouth. “We finish this.”

Philip made a fist and snarled,
“Pulsatto!”
A wave of force erupted from his incantation. Zola’s hand moved to the shield rune and a flowing shell sprang up around us, dissipating the force of the attack. Philip took a step backwards, his brows drawn together, and then he turned to run.

I was sure I could see relief on Zola’s face as Philip made his escape. “Let him leave.” Her words were thick, like she had a jawbreaker tucked in the side of her mouth. She fell to her knees and hung her head as she let out a long sigh.

Foster made a frustrated noise. “We should kill him now.”

Zola squeezed her eyes closed and then looked up at Foster. Her old world New Orleans accent was more profound in her weakened state. “No, there are worse things to deal with first.” She raised her hand to her cheek and winced. “We have to destroy the artifact here. It binds the demon Tessrian to our plane, and she is not to be trifled with.”

Foster glared at Zola for a moment, but his expression softened an instant later. “Fine, but we’re not doing anything until we patch you up a bit.”

Foster looked over Zola’s wounds while I considered her words. I wondered if the demon was really more important than Philip, or if Zola was just having a hard time deciding to kill her one time lover. I stared at my master and rage boiled up anew as I took in her wounds.

“Your face is broken,” I growled.

“Yes, boy, it certainly feels that way.” Zola’s lips flicked into a tiny, swollen smile.

“It’s not funny,” Foster said. “You have a few fractured bones ... it’s going to hurt when I heal you.”

“Heal me,” she said simply.

Foster let her braided hair swing back across the cuts on her face and nodded. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes before meeting Zola’s gaze, pushing his hands forward, and speaking the words,
“Socius Sanation!”

White light traced the wounds across Zola’s face as her body went rigid. If she was fighting not to scream, she lost, and I held her head off the ground as she seized with the pain of Foster’s healing. It was over in seconds, but left her gasping for breath.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Foster grimaced and began looking her over again.

Zola winced once or twice, but eventually she batted the fairy away. “Ah want waffles.”

Foster and I burst into laughter.

Zola’s face curled into a faint, wrinkled smile. “We need the artifact.” She took a deep breath and concentrated on her words. “Thomas Anderson’s headstone has a hollow recess.” She closed her eyes and leaned back against a headstone. “Knock it over and reach inside the hole. It’s still there.”

I nodded and walked between the gravestones. Well-tended grass bordered the mossy markers. Thin rocks carved with the names of dozens of soldiers flanked the edges of the yard. Thomas Anderson was in the very back, at the edge of the woods. His stone was shorter than the others. Bone white and weather worn, it took some rocking to loosen the earth’s hold on it. I laid the stone on its side, scattering a small group of beetles and pill bugs.

Reaching into a dark hole with bare hands is generally not advisable. My hand bumped into several small ledges inside the stone. Something raced over my knuckles and I ground my teeth together. Relief was welcome when my hands wrapped around a brittle leather cloth and pulled it out of the recess without getting bit. The leather crumbled. Exposure to air and dirt did nothing for its longevity. The artifact was a heavy crystal; its shape reminded me of quartz, but dark green with flecks and streaks the color of blood. I replaced the tombstone and walked back to Zola.

“Got it,” I said.

Zola nodded and turned the focus in her hands as she stood up and we started back to the car. “Damian, Ah have a friend in great need of this focus. Would you lend it to him, Ah wonder?”

I shrugged. “How long?”

“Not long. Just a few days.”

“Sure, I don’t see a problem with that. Who is he?”

“Just an old mage. If he can use your focus, maybe we can convince the Fae to make him one of their own.”

“Just an old mage, huh?” I pushed a few branches out of the way with my staff and let Zola duck through in front of me. “Why do I have a feeling that’s not the whole story?”

“Whatever do you mean, boy?” she said as she tucked the focus into her cloak.

Foster flashed into his small form and fluttered ahead of us, gliding into Vicky through an open window.

I turned to Zola, placed my hands on top of my staff, and rested my chin on them. “Are you okay, master?”

She laughed weakly and held my gaze for a moment as wetness gathered in her eyes. “Damian, you need not call me master.”

W
e stopped at the Waffle House off Highway 70 in Columbia. There is something fantastic about walking into the sizzling sounds of bacon and the smell of eggs, pancakes, and grease. The server behind the counter eyeballed Zola and me before approaching our booth. I guess the Waffle House employees had seen stranger things than an eighty-something woman with a smear of dried blood across her chin and a muddy necromancer trailing behind her, because they didn’t say a word.

Foster sat down on the table and leaned against a bottle of ketchup. We placed our order and were dining on pancakes, omelets, and hash browns in minutes. Foster glared at us. He generally didn’t eat in public restaurants because food floating around in midair and disappearing in fairy-sized bites was generally disturbing to the other guests.

Zola was the first to break the relative silence of our feeding frenzy. “Philip didn’t run because we scared him.” She squeezed her right hand into a fist, leaned back in the small booth, and ran her fingers through her braids. “He ran because he wants you alive.”

“What?” I asked, perplexed.

Zola took a bite of waffle and almost purred as she finished chewing. She set her fork down and rested her chin on the knuckles of her left hand. “Agnes talked too much when Philip wasn’t around. Ah learned things, about Philip, and his
cult.”
She almost spat the word and her lips curled into a snarl.