Elven Blood (Imp Book 3) (37 page)

He looked properly horrified. So if the leak on Amber’s existence came from his kingdom, it didn’t come from him.

“Cyelle elves may be our enemies, but they would never stoop so low,” he said, fuming over the insult.

“Doesn’t matter,” I told him, waving the subject away. “You needed my help; I told you I’d put you on the waiting list, and here I am. Now serving number forty–two.”

He considered my statement, weighing the need to get his sorcerer back with the fun he’d have teasing Taullian with me. Of course, that would mean he would need to keep me here, properly restrained, under guard. I saw the realization flash in his eyes as he made his decision.

“Come on, dude,” I prompted him. “I don’t have all day. I’ve got things to do, places to be.”

“The sorcerer’s name is Gareth,” he said grudgingly. “He and an apprentice ran off two months ago. Gareth was last seen in Eresh, but it is believed the apprentice has crossed twice through a gate.”

Two months? He can’t have been sitting on his thumbs for two months with a missing sorcerer.

“Did the apprentice cross through an elf gate or an angel one?”

“An angel gate. The first one was in Dis; this last time he left through Eresh.”

There were two gates in Eresh. So he went to either Seattle or Milan, although he could have gone anywhere after he arrived. Use of an angel gate meant he’d had a demon helping him cross, and not an elf.

“There is a severe penalty for any of my elves or their humans caught assisting the runaways,” Feille confirmed. “They would have been forced to use demon assistance.”

“Does this Gareth have any magical item or scroll that I should be aware of?” Sometimes bringing back the sorcerer wasn’t enough. If they had a scrying mirror, or a wand of regeneration, or something, the elves would want that returned too. And of course, I wanted to know if he had a weapon that might kill me before I could lay a claw on him.

“No.”

Feille was lying. Which meant he didn’t want whatever it was back badly enough to risk anyone knowing about it. If the magical item surfaced, he’d just deny any knowledge and claim Gareth did it on his own. Great.

“So you want the sorcerer and the apprentice? Or just the sorcerer?” It always helped to be specific about these things, especially after the little misunderstanding with Taullian.

“Both. Both alive. And both with their mental faculties intact.” Ah, so the thing–which–would–not–be–named wasn’t a thing after all, it was knowledge, or an ability held by either Gareth or his minion.

“So they have some ability then? Either the sorcerer, his apprentice, or both?”

“The sorcerer has significant ability.” Feille admitted.

“So, why did it take you two months to decide to go after this guy?” Sorcerers were very valuable, and warrants for their capture were usually put out right away.

“We have had two other demons attempt to apprehend him,” Feille said casually. “They did not succeed.”

They gave up? Got distracted? Were still out there looking? I needed to know. I didn’t want to be bumping heads with two other demons hunting the same quarry. “Can you be more specific? How exactly did they not succeed?”

Feille smiled serenely. “They were killed.”

Yikes. So this sorcerer did have “significant ability”.

“And their heads were returned to me in a box,” he continued.

Oh, snap. So this sorcerer wasn’t hiding, a desperate runaway trying to lie low. He was giving his former boss the middle finger. Significant ability seemed to be an understatement. Part of me thought long and hard about refusing this assignment, but the other part was intrigued. What was this Gareth’s game plan? The elves would never give up looking for him. Did he intend to make a life with the demons and guard against capture for the rest of his life? Or did he perhaps intend to follow in his apprentice’s footsteps and go through a gate? A few hundred years ago, it was common for mages and sorcerers to try and escape elven reach by going through a gate to live with the humans. It didn’t always work out. Any show of magic would usually turn the humans against them, and many sorcerers either found themselves enslaved to powerful kings as they had been to their elven masters, or burned at the stake.

In modern times, humans would be more tolerant of their magic, but modern technology interfered with many of their workings, causing haywire results or no results at all. I didn’t know of any sorcerer who had crossed in the last hundred years. Mages who had crossed, found themselves trying to sneak back to Hel, where their decades of training amounted to more than birthday party tricks and circus sideshow acts.

“And my payment would be?”

He smiled. It was a very unpleasant smile. “Well, you have already received some of your payment in two passages through our lands and gate. I would grant you free passage through our lands and gates for the next century, I would grant you safe harbor against Cyelle, and I will give you two transport buttons. If you don’t use them in the commission of your contract, then you are free to keep them. I will even offer to have them recalibrated to the destination of your choice.”

Not a bad offer normally, but given the nature of this sorcerer, it was a paltry deal. This was a really big dog, with an unknown magical skill that had already killed two demons. I wavered, wondering what I could ask for that would possibly be worth this suicide mission, and, as I thought, my hand hit something hard in my pocket: Kirby’s marble. A twelve–year–old boy, snatched from his family. A man who was a virtual slave in Hel, but would never be able to adjust to human life if he somehow managed to escape. Something snapped inside me. Fuck these elves. I was team Gareth The Sorcerer. Anyone who ran off, evaded and took out two demon bounty–hunters, and rubbed the noses of his former masters in shit was someone I was rooting for.

“Nah. I think I’ll pass.”

I thought Feille’s eyes were going to leave his skull. “You
will
do this.”

Here we go again. “I don’t have anything against this sorcerer. He sounds like a pretty cool guy, actually. We could be besties. Get off your lazy elven asses and get him yourself if you want him so bad.”

He changed tactics. “The mighty Iblis is afraid of a human? The Ha–satan is too much of a coward to take on a simple retrieval job?”

Wrong tactic. Pride has never been my sin. “Yep. That’s me, yellow through and through. Now we’ve agreed on that, I’ll just be collecting my horse and heading on my way.”

A shrewd look crossed Feille’s face. “No job, no horse.”

I let that hang in the air for a few moments, then casually removed my shotgun from the holster and held it down at my side. “You would steal my hybrid? You would steal from the Iblis?”

The atmosphere froze, and suddenly everyone in the room was tense and ready for action. I had their full attention. Feille shot a quick glance at his sorcerer then flicked a questioning nod at my shotgun.

“I don’t know My Lord.” The sorcerer was beet red, his hands white knuckled on his staff. Obviously
I don’t know
wasn’t something anyone should ever say to his lordship. “Perhaps a metal reinforced walking stick?”

I held it aloft. “This. . . is my boom stick.”

They’d obviously never watched the movie, and the only word that registered in their arrogant elven brains was “stick”. Feille relaxed slightly, thinking I’d try to rush him and beat him with it. He was confident his guards would take me down before I made two steps in his direction, and the sorcerer would block any energy attack, then throw a net on me in seconds.

“You abandoned your horse,” he said, his voice full of disdain. “Left it here in my kingdom. It’s my horse now.”

I brought the shotgun up again in a smooth motion and shot off the top of his throne. Bits of wood, gold, and gems sprayed around the room. Everyone hit the floor, including the sorcerer who was too concerned about his own physical wellbeing to protect Feille.

“Give me my fucking horse, or I’ll blow your head across the room.” It was a bold move. No demon had ever publically attacked an elf before, and especially not a High Lord.

Feille screamed in an amusing combination of rage and fear, and his sorcerer recovered his wits enough to cast a net on me. I considered having Gregory yank me out again, but thought “what the hell” and pulled the trigger on the shotgun once more. With a deafening roar, the net exploded, sending chunks of bright blue fire all around the room. Once again, everyone hit the floor.

“My horse. Right now. Or I’ll go find him myself and massacre everyone in my path.”

The hate rolled off Feille in waves. He was backed into a corner, and that was obviously an unfamiliar feeling.

“Get the demon–spawn horse,” he snapped at the guards.

Three took off, leaving their High Lord woefully unprotected. No doubt he’d punish them harshly later, but right now I’m sure they felt I was the bigger threat to their continued existence. Elves are fast. Within thirty seconds they were leading Diablo through the palace. He had a collar around his neck, no doubt to keep him from teleporting or shooting them with bolts of energy. I heard his welcoming neigh echo throughout the hall and he tossed his head, trying to shake off the three lead ropes attached to his halter.

“Where’s my saddle? And my bridle?”

“He didn’t have any when we found him,” Feille lied.

The bastards stole my tack. I’d need to ride the horse bareback and without a bit. One wrong move and I’d be in the dirt. Stomping over, I snatched one of the lead ropes from a wary guard and looped it around the other side of the halter, creating a set of makeshift reins. The whole time I was careful to keep my shotgun at the ready. One moment of inattention and I was sure the elves would be all over me.

“Give me a leg up,” I told the guard. He looked nervously at Feille then cupped his hands obligingly. I planted my foot in them and swung up on my horse, knocking him in the head with my knee on the way. It felt strange to be bareback on Diablo. He snorted his displeasure, and I pulled my legs more forward, careful to keep my heels out of his side.

“If you ever cross my lands again, ever use my gate, I’ll kill you,” Feille vowed.

I shrugged. “Are you going to have someone lead me out, or should I just ride my horse around your abode until I figure out where the exit is?”

He motioned to an unlucky guard, who led the way. I nudged Diablo forward, darting constant looks around and holding the shotgun aloft. Another guard followed at a safe distance, and we made a somber procession through the eerily silent palace and the empty streets of the town. Feille may be an ass, but he’d secured his people in case I changed my mind and started randomly shooting. The gates opened and the forest lay before me.

“Southwest will take you to Dis, although you’ll need to go further south to avoid the tip of Cyelle before you turn westward,” one of the guards advised. “Unless you’re planning to head north to Eresh.”

“I’m going toward Dis,” I told him. From there I could head west toward the grasslands and Maugan Swamp, my old stomping grounds.

“May the Lady grant you her favor, Iblis,” he added, smiling slightly. I wondered if he was one of Tlia’s family or if he just admired my ballsy attack on his High Lord.

“You too,” I told him, and headed southwest.

Diablo picked up speed once we made it out of Wythyn and into Dis. I’d also discovered that he could teleport me along with him, kind of like Gregory did. Any jealousy I felt at the fact that my horse could manage an inter–realm gate when I couldn’t was squelched by the obvious usefulness of his talent. We made short work of the journey by teleporting through chunks. In mere hours we were thundering across the grasslands where I’d grown up. Cyelle lay to the north, just beyond a common land of woods, and wetlands dotted the northwest, eventually becoming the great Maugan Swamp. As a youth, I’d enjoyed snoozing in the swampy mud, hiding behind the rushes and cattails from siblings who loved to torment a little imp. I thought about stopping in to see my foster parents, Mere and Pere, or possibly the elderly dwarf, Oma, who had so often sheltered me from the attacks of the others, but I longed to get back, to see my friends, and Boomer. To hold Wyatt tight in my arms. To show that damned angel that I’d done it, that I was not the worthless cockroach he’d thought. So I turned north, into the swath of woods that served as a buffer between the demon lands and the forbidden Cyelle.

And there it stood: the angel gate that led to the Columbia Mall. A strange wave of nostalgia went through me. I’d used so many gates in my life, ones that led to places in Europe, Asia, South America. I’d started my long vacation, my forty years with the humans, through the gate in Seattle. But this gate, so close to where I’d grown up, I’d never traveled through this gate. I’d sent demon corpses through and activated it for a Low. Dar used it all the time, as did Leethu, but I’d never been through. Somehow this felt memorable, like it heralded a new stage in my life.

“Let’ go boy,” I told Diablo and he surged forward. I reached out and activated the gate as we plunged through.

32

W
e shot out of the other side of the gate in front of a children’s shoe store and rode into instant chaos. People screamed and ran, terrified to have a woman on a charging horse appear from nowhere. They knocked each other aside in their haste, spilling packages and sliding across the polished floor. Diablo, thrilled to their panic, tore full speed down the center of the mall, vaulting a fake hair kiosk and knocking assorted ponytails and extensions everywhere. He wasn’t so lucky with the cell phone kiosk, slamming into it and crushing electronics with determined hooves. I frantically held onto his mane with one hand, trying to remain seated, my other hand clutching the shotgun. I should have been more concerned with pulling myself upright, but Diablo’s mood was infectious. I pulled the trigger, exploding lights and decorative ceiling panels.

“Woohoo!” I fired off a few more shots as I managed to right myself. I looked around at the humans shrieking and hiding behind huge cement planters, and saw Gregory.