Bewitched, Blooded and Bewildered (22 page)

“What do we do?” I asked, sniffling.

“I don’t know,” he replied, shaking his head.

“Could Emily help?” I looked up at Lex. “She said to call her if we found something new. These are new.”

“Emily Black?” Zach asked, and I nodded. “Why her?”

“She’s a seer.”

“She’s not a seer anymore,” he countered.

“Yes, she is. Why does everyone say that? She still has visions. It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?” I said. Zach shook his head, so I turned my plea to Faust. “Isn’t a dead seer still better than none at all?”

“The Titania does have a point, Zachary,” Faust said.

That’s right, I did, damn it.

“Perhaps. I’ll consider it,” Zach said reluctantly.

I opened my mouth to lay into him with a scathing argument, but Lex and I were suddenly popped out of the room.

Chapter Fourteen

My jaw snapped shut as I blinked up at the faerie council.
What the hell?
I glanced around and discovered we were in the same reddish-marble hall we’d been yanked into a few days ago. The two tigers and their faerie sponsors were standing to our right, and Portia threw her arms around me in a big hug.

“Kitty! I’m sorry I couldn’t buy you more time,” she said. “It’ll be okay.”

Okay?
Okay?
The monotone rasp of the zombified hunter filled my ears with his warning about raiding a subject gathering. I untangled myself from Portia’s embrace and glared at the council.

“No. No way. Are you fucking kidding me? You pull us away from interrogating the hunters who
tried to kill us
so we can deal with this stupid bullshit?” I snapped. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Lex added, and I was glad he had my back. “They’re planning on attacking a gathering. We have to warn—”

“Watch your tone, both of you,” Cecelia interrupted with a severe frown. Her look should’ve been enough to encourage me to regain my sanity. It seemed to work on Lex, but it wasn’t enough for me. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones—I’d heard you could claim temporary insanity because of them.

“My
tone
? Are you high? I almost lost my husband last night. I pulled two bullets out of his chest with my own bare hands, and you want me to watch my
tone
? He could’ve died. We both could’ve been killed, and you’re still jerking us around with this challenge shit.”

“The hunters attacked you last night?” the male tiger asked. What was his name again? Jerry? Who the fuck cared? I rounded on him like I was going to throw down with his stripy butt.

“Yes, the hunters attacked us last night. Are you deaf and stupid?” I snapped.

“Don’t talk to him like that,” Riley warned me.

“Whatever. Don’t start with me. I don’t care if you are Maureen’s granddaughter, I will kick your furry ass.” She gasped, looking indignant that I would say such a thing. “Why are you doing this to us? You don’t know the first thing about what it really means to be a magician.”

“Because you’re a necromancer’s—” she started, and I cut her off with a wave of my hand. If she’d been standing closer, I would’ve slapped her Jerry Springer style.

“No, I’m not a necromancer’s anything. My aura is 100 percent necromancy-free now. And you wouldn’t even know what a necro was if Councilwoman Lynne Trent hadn’t thrown you under the Titania bus because she’s got the rod of ‘better than thou’ jammed up her ass.” Before I could continue my tirade, my lips were suddenly sewn shut. Probably literally, though I didn’t feel any stitches when I touched my mouth in shock. My lips were definitely stuck together, though, with magical superglue. Guess there was no freedom of speech in Faerie.

“That’s enough, Catherine,” Cecelia intoned.

I tried to retort, “No it isn’t,” but all I managed were some angry humming sounds. I stomped my foot, and my rage actually caused my magic to splinter the marble beneath me with an echoing crack. I looked down, blinked at it, and hummed, “Holy shit.”

“I said that’s enough!” This time she shouted, and her words thundered off the walls and scared the stupid clean out of me. Lex pushed me behind him in case Cecelia hurled any magic in my direction, but no attacks were forthcoming. I was safe. For now.

“It isn’t enough,” Lex said, much to my shock. “Catherine’s pregnant. You can’t ask her to fight in a test for a job we already won. It isn’t fair, and it’s putting an innocent life at risk.”

The faerie took a deep breath and then calmly smoothed her skirts. “I am aware of Catherine’s condition. If you are concerned for her safety, then I suggest that you had better do an excellent job of protecting her, Alexander. We will proceed with this test, as scheduled. We cannot delay any further.”

“How am I supposed to do an excellent job when I’m still suffering from my last battle?” he countered with an angry growl. “A lesser magician would’ve died from those wounds.”

“Try,” she said. “Your test begins now. The first couple who reaches the end of the labyrinth will become Titania and Oberon. There will be no further tests or challenges. Good luck.”

The floor dropped out from under us, and we landed on a patch of asphalt, surrounded on three sides by high concrete walls. I looked up and spotted a cloudy night sky. Wincing, I opened my mouth and found the magic superglue was gone, and I sighed in annoyance as I rubbed my bruised tailbone.

“You okay?” Lex asked. He looked me over for wounds and bruises.

“I think so. Where are we?”

“Not sure.”

Cecelia had said
labyrinth
, so I’d assumed goblins and David Bowie, but this was nothing like that. Rusty rows of dumpsters lined graffiti-covered walls, and it didn’t look a thing like anywhere I’d seen in Faerie. It didn’t smell like cinnamon-scented faerie magic either, and instead I smelled smoke and the pungent scents of a bar’s back alley. A fire burned in a trash barrel at the end of the alley, and it seemed ominous somehow. It was warm, too warm to be late October (unless we were experiencing some freakish Illinois weather).

“Help me up, please,” I said. Lex eased me to my feet, and I felt the familiar weight of my sword and dagger strapped to my waist. “Do you have your spear?”

He stepped back, and then conjured the weapon to life. Lex swung it a few times, and he grimaced. “I’m sorry, sugar, I’m still a little sore. We’re not built to heal bullet wounds.”

“Why not?” I asked, curious.

“Bullets bounce around and tear up your guts. None of our weapons work like that. Arrows, blades, even spells are straightforward.” Lex shook his head and then glanced at our surroundings. When his gaze returned to me, he frowned. “Your hat’s wrong again.”

I reached up—I hadn’t even realized I was wearing it, so the faeries must have popped it in with my weapons—and grabbed the brim. Holding it in front of me, I turned the hat around in my hands and scowled as I saw two new cards in the brim, The Tower and The Chariot, destruction and conquest. I yanked them out and scowled down at them.

“This isn’t funny,” I muttered.

“We’d better get started. Stay close behind me and keep your shields up.”

“Our shields,” I corrected.

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Says the man who almost died last night. Stay within the shield or I’ll kick your ass myself,” I warned him. Lex smiled, and he hugged and kissed me quickly.

“Let’s go.”

We started down the alley, and I tossed the tarot cards into the burning trash barrel at the end. Good riddance. I followed Lex into an empty street where a disaster bomb had gone off. Overturned cars, burning store fronts, toppled street lights—all it needed to complete the look was a shambling zombie horde or a hovering alien mother ship. The power was still on, and sparks and ominous snapping noises came from the downed lights. I made a note to be on the lookout for live power wires, because I had no doubt that the faeries would fry us if we weren’t careful.

“Whoa… Damn it, I
knew
Harrison was going to start the zombie apocalypse,” I muttered.

Lex scowled. “That’s not funny.”

“You’re right, it’s really not.”

When we reached our first intersection, the paths led left, forward and right. The stoplight had toppled over and lay in the middle of the street, and I bent down to read the street sign. “Roosevelt Road,” I announced.

“Not any part of it that I know. Does this place look familiar to you?” Lex asked.

I frowned at the buildings—a corner convenience store, an empty lot, a bar and an apartment complex. “No. Could be Cicero, maybe, but Roosevelt goes on forever, way the hell out past Yorktown. Besides, the Faeries could’ve made all this up and just thrown in some real-world landmarks for flavor.”

“Right. I don’t suppose the GPS on your phone works?” he asked.

“That’s a negative. I don’t think I can Google
Chicago labyrinth
and find us a map either. Do you want to go west toward the suburbs or east toward the city?”

“Could go north, toward the house.”

I glanced north, and a bolt of forked lightning flashed in the distance, followed by an angry bellow of thunder. “Screw that, it’s too ominous. I say, if this is the zombie apocalypse, we go east, because Harrison Tower’s probably ground zero.”

“Do I get to kill sim-Harrison if we meet him?”

“Sure, have a ball,” I said, rolling my eyes.

We went east. I was creeped out by the quiet as Lex and I walked along. Cities should have city noises—car engines, low-flying planes, the drone of heating and cooling systems—but there was only the crackling of various things on fire. No sirens or car alarms, not even screams, except… I tilted my head to the side like Bubba straining to hear a squirrel hiding up a tree.

“You hear that?” Lex asked.

“Yeah. Voices?” I guessed. It was hard to tell. Whatever the noise was, it was pretty far.

“Come on.”

Lex bolted, and I hauled ass to keep up. He was in full-on superhero-guardian mode, and he’d homed in on a target. Suddenly I had a whole new appreciation for how hard it was to be a sidekick. Lex might’ve been dying a few hours ago, but now he sprinted like an Olympian. We booked it for two blocks and then turned right onto a side street and discovered a raging inferno. More than half the buildings on the block were ablaze, and the heat and smoke were almost overwhelming. I poured energy into our shields, and the bubble of protection kept the worst of it out. It was like standing in the middle of a camp fire—or being burned at the stake.

“Whatever you’re thinking, you stay within the damn shields, got it?” I warned him, and he nodded.

“There are people in there.” Lex pointed at a small white church. Voices screamed for help, and someone was belting out a hymn. Boy, were they gonna be surprised by their rescuers. The roof and steeple were burning, and I grabbed Lex before he could charge into it.

“Wait!” No way was I letting him run into a burning building until we did something about the fire first. I glanced up and down the block and spotted a nearby fire hydrant. “There. The hydrant. Can your spear break a hole in it?”

“I’ll try.”

We hurried over to the hydrant, and I punched up our shields as he stabbed his weapon into the top of it. Chunks of metal went flying as a column of water exploded upward, but we were safe from the mess as it bounced off the shields. Edging closer, I stuck my right hand into the geyser, and then thrust my left hand toward the church.

“Put your arms around me,” I ordered.

Lex wrapped his arms around my waist, and I drew on his magic to supplement mine. I shoved frost out through the spray, and freezing sleet splattered in every direction. Thunder rolled again, and I prayed for rain. Weather control was a dead magic, having vanished with the last of the tempests a few generations ago, but it sure would’ve come in handy right about now.

I nudged the direction of the sleet farther toward the church, like repositioning an enormous lawn sprinkler, and after a few tense moments the flames started dying with a chorus of angry hissing. I had to admit, with our combined strength, we were doing pretty awesome. Score one for our team.

“Not bad, sugar,” Lex said.

“Hey, that’s downright amazing. No rhyming necessary.”

When the last of the flames were doused, we headed for the front doors of the church. Lex pushed on them, but they didn’t budge. He banged on the doors. “Hey! Can anybody hear me?”

The shouting inside stopped, as though someone hit Mute on the building. Lex braced his shoulder against the door and shoved, and the wood whined in protest. I stepped back and looked for another way in, and I noticed boards over the windows. In fact, most of the burning buildings were boarded up. Something about it struck me funny, because I hadn’t seen that much plywood since after the Bulls championship riot. Weird…maybe the Cubs
had
finally won the World Series, and it’d started the apocalypse.

“We’re here to help you,” I shouted. “You don’t have much time. This whole neighborhood’s doing a real good impression of the Great Chicago Fire.”

I heard a metallic clanking from the other side of the doors, and they creaked open a sliver. A double-barreled shotgun poked through the opening, and I was very glad that I’d proved my shields were bulletproof.