Demon Lord 3: Blue Star Priestess (20 page)

“Never mind.  I’ll fill you in later.”  I was feeling pretty good now.  Just as the land reshapes itself to meet my desires, it had refashioned me, restoring my strength and health.  Now I had killing to attend to.  I sat up and turned on one hip so I could push myself off the grass and stand.  Izumi sat up, closing her fist around the crystal.   My eyes feasted on her cold, pale flesh.  I held out a hand to help her up.  We stood, staring into each other’s eyes.

Her eyes hardened.  A knife of ice formed in her free hand once I let it go. 

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked the question, but didn’t need to.   The land was feeling distress, passing that emotion on to me in warning.  There were strangers on the land, in the mountain keep, and they were hiding in a very strong glamour or would never have gotten this close. 

Izumi looked up at the glass ceiling
.  I followed her gaze.  There were dark shapes, blocking stars and moonlight.  I thought of the storm fey woman that had attacked me at my Malibu home.  These were probably more of her people. 
Assassins
.  I growled in annoyance.  “I really don’t have time for this.”

A section of glass roof shattered and rained down on us as uninvited guests dropped in.

TWENTY

“There’s never a sword-babe in a

c
hainmail bikini when you need

one, or there are just too many.
”

—Caine Deathwalker

I
called across the ether between worlds for my demon blade to come. It materialized in my hand as I backed a step, sweeping aside many of the raining shards of glass from the ceiling. Moving kept the first fey from landing on me while I lopped off his head, sending it bouncing away into the koi pond for the fish to nibble on. Having drunk the assassin’s soul my sword shared a blaze of new strength with me. I heard the fey soul’s immaterial scream echoing in my head as well as the voice of my sword:
More, more!

Sure.

I
moved toward another attacker, watching Izumi from the corner of my eye.

She
held her dagger in her left hand, creating a winter storm with her right. She slicked her body with ice that grew into armor, plated with icicle spikes. Amid a flurry of snow, an ice-sword formed in her right hand, its guard growing knuckle-spikes so she could punch, slash, or stab.

A fey warrior in gray leathers and
a black, hooded cloak landed a step away from her. He held a serrated short sword, its tip discolored with poison.

Izumi
caught the sword with her dagger, angling it away. Her ice-sword stabbed. The warrior dodged. Izumi pursued. Coming past her, moving in on me, was a female assassin in white furs, tied on with indigo thongs. She slashed with a dagger in each hand. They had smoke-quartz pommels that flickered with shadows, cloying the air with dark magic: a scent like black liquorish, damp wood, and mushrooms.

Spell-forged weapons,
my blade warned, the voice in my head sounded wary.

What are you worried about?
I asked.
You’re spell-forged, too. A damned Muramasa.
Have some damn pride.

I slid past the woman, ducking one knife, blocking the other with my blade. A
thrumming
song of rage shimmered in the air where blades crossed. The red glow along my steel deepened, coloring the air like blood. It was weird to hear my sword screaming at the woman’s spell-dagger:
Is that all you got?

The dagger tried to leap out of the woman’s hand. She hung onto it, but was wrenched bodily away from me.

My sword sounded impressed with itself:
The fey weapon’s scared of me
.

Why
wouldn’t it be?
I asked.

Handling two men at once, Izumi backed toward me.

I put my back to hers, turning as the female fey returned.

I warmed one of my rarer tats, unleashing a special power. My legs locked and I fought for breath as pain appeared, payment for the spell. I felt phantom claws pierce my heart, giving it an hundred and eighty degree turn within my chest. The sensation faded and my brain received sensory data from my body, and from a point across the room where part of my mind had been displaced. The result was that I could watch the fey woman with the daggers, see myself from behind, and watch all the other fighters at the same time.

I shifted in unexpected directions to dodge the thrusts of the circling fey, and never missed engaging the daggers, holding the woman at bay. She first spoke Elvin, but a dialect more slippery than Izumi’s, then shifted to English. “Why. Won’t. You. Die?”

Izumi’s first opponent circled to her side
, in no hurry to engage.

The other
fey assassin hacked with his short sword. The blade skidded off the ice-sword, shattering half of it, but as the fey pulled back for another chop, the ice-sword grew. Izumi slid the tip forward. The assassin stepped aside, but was caught at the corner of his jaw. A line of blood appeared, dripping down his neck. He grunted out an Elvin curse, and pressed in, beating down on Izumi’s sword so she’d only have time for defense.

Instead of growing the length of her weapon, she caused the knuckle-spikes to jut out further. She punched those spikes into the fey warrior’s chest. He froze up, ice covering him as he became a standing corpse-cicle.

That left two fighters, the better assassins.

I gave the woman a sudden lunge that carried her back several steps, forcing her to catch my blade with both of her knives. The second fey assassin could no longer fight both Izumi and me. I think he knew that if he went for me, Izumi would be on him like a bear after a bag of marshmallows. He gave her his full attention.

The fey held a silver rapier with mystic runes etched down the flat of the blade. Silver was a soft metal that—without magic reinforcement—could never hold up against human iron, but against Izumi’s ice, it more than held its own. She was retreating, using both ice-sword and her dagger to deflect attacks.

“
Izumi,” I called, “you should stop taking it easy on him.”

The woman in front of me
danced in and out, mouthing a chant that was ugly despite the beauty of the fey language. The shadows in her dagger pommels exploded in to the air, a kind of flame-shaped shadow. Her blades, her hands, her whole body washed out with a kind of smoky texture that kept trying to avert my gaze. Her spell was a fey version of my own
Demon Wings
spell, but not quite as strong.

A visible copy of her appeared to my right, striking with a double stabbing motion toward my face. This left her midsection totally exposed. I was expected to believe the deception she’d made of glamour, engaging the illusion. That would open me up to getting blindsided—not that I had a blind side right now.

I ignored the copy, letting its make-believe daggers sink into me and ghost away. I bore down on the real storm fey, my straight katana a mystic firebrand, howling with joy as I shoved toward her heart. I muscled the blade past her guard and watched her flinch back. Her body flipped over a rosebush that she should have known was there. She flailed midair, hit the ground, and rolled a short distance. With her concentration broken, the smoke-screen hiding her evaporated.

I slashed; a low sweep that severed the base stems of the bush. It tumbled aside, giving me a clear approach.

Of course my sword bitched.
What am I? Gardening sheers?

She kneeled, daggers in hand, pointing at me once more. Her face displayed die-hard determination, a confidence I wanted to rattle. I eased toward her, the red light of my blade coloring her skin. “See this sword?” I asked.

She didn’t answer but her gaze flickered to my sword, then back to my face.

I said, “It’s not simply steel, which fey are weak
against. It’s a demon sword, a cursed blade filled with hundreds of souls. When it touches you, you will know what’s worse than death.”

Her face paled. She swallowed. I saw the pulse in her neck going all trip-hammer as adrenaline flooded her system. I smelled the acrid tang of her fear.

I smiled. “What’s wrong? Didn’t they warn you?” I paused, my face lighting up as the awareness I’d projected across the room watched Izumi drive her opponent back with a gut-level slash. He gurgled and folded to the grass. He reached for the wound. No! He drew a small whistle and blew. The high-pitched sound made me cross-eyed, spiking my brain. Reflectively, I threw my Muramasa. It went through his head, pinning it to the ground. I called the sword back to my hand. The throw spun my body. I landed, using the momentum to swing knee up against her knife hand as she lunged in. I’d blocked her, but she smiled. The kind of smile I often used. Not good.

“We win!” she declared.

Claws hit the overhead glass. Another rain of broken shards fell into the garden. I danced aside as two beasts fell between me and my opponent. My other point of awareness saw a third beast drop through an already broken section of ceiling, going for Izumi.

Izumi grew a barrier of ice spikes to hold it off. “What the hell are these things?”

“Hell-hounds, but bigger than any I’ve ever heard of,” I said.

My sword was overjoyed.
C’mere, doggy. Nice doggy. Come get eaten!

The hounds dripped black blood from their coats. Their milky, red eyes were gold-ball sized. Bared fangs followed me as I weaved so the beasts blocked the woman from coming in. The hounds should have had more speed. They smelled off. Like spoiled meat. Their muscle control was too loose. One spasmed for no reason, ruining his gait. Their missing patches of hair confirmed what I suspected. “Necro-hounds.” Not as strong as they looked, but they lethal another way. “Poisonous.”

My sword was scandalized.
No souls? Outrageous.

My newest tattoo, only three months old, lay under my belt buckle. Warming the
Dragon Pressure
tattoo sent waves of pain from my heart to my balls, almost making me lose my composure. Pulling one hand off my sword, I pushed down at my two hounds. Gravity under them increased and crushed them into foot-tall lumps of broken bone and ripped flesh. The fey woman jumped back to get clear, stumbling off her feet.

By then, Izumi finished freezing her beast into a sold block of ice.

I addressed the fey woman. “Hey, you should tell me who sent you so I know where to send all these bodies.”

Screaming, she lunged off the ground, daring my sword to break through her guard. She crossed her daggers to block me and jumped so her head pointed down while her feet went high. The force of my resistance propelled her higher. She flipped over my head.

I bent my knees, ducking.

The kick she aimed at the back of my head missed.

Izumi threw a mini blizzard in her face. Blinded, the assassin staggered aside, slashing air to keep Izumi away.

These storm-fey hadn’t used any lightning against me so far.
They must know what happened at my Malibu house with last storm-fey that did that. Of course, desperate people do desperate—and stupid— things.

The assassin took on a shimmer of blue electricity, jags arcing between her fingers as she hurled lightning blindly.

Izumi dove to the ground, rolled, and found a boulder to duck behind. I staggered a moment as my spell wore off, and I was suddenly only seeing from one perspective. A bed of assorted flowers exploded. A bench was holed. Fire danced in the aftermath. The storm-fey stepped into the koi pond. Her lightning flailed wildly, seeking escape.

I yelled. “Izumi!”

She poked her head up.

I pointed at the pond. “Let’s go ice skating.”

Understanding peaked her eyebrows. She thrust her sword out. Acting as a conduit of her power, the white blade frosted the air. A wave of cold iced the grass and the pond. The assassin tried to move, but her feet were embedded, defying her struggles. She cursed in that slippery dialect of hers. Realizing she was caught, she took a final gamble by throwing both daggers, one at me, one at Izumi.

My demon sword flicked the dagger aside. It buried itself in a bronze-barked sapling. At the same time, I poured my will into the land. A little knoll of dirt and grass bucked up. An earthen arm formed, clotted with stones, like something ripped off a golem. The limb caught the dagger with an oversized paw, throwing the weapon back.

If I’d been throwing the dagger, it would have stuck true. As it was, the assassin sat her butt on the frozen pond, grabbing at the dagger protruding from her shoulder.

I stalked toward her. “Oooo, bad luck.”

My sword vibrated with anticipation.
Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Questions first,
I said. I knew the storm-fey were working with the L.A. invaders. I didn’t know why. Money? Or some important link among my enemies I might need to understand? I was also a little hazy on how I might track the storm-fey down, and who their allies were in Fairy. When this was all over, I wanted to know if I could terrorize the storm-fey with impunity, or if there would be prohibitive political consequences to sneak around.

A boulder pushed out of the ground near the frozen pond. A soft cushion of green moss capped it. I sat down and leaned forward, my sword in front of me, its point buried in the ground of the garden, my hands laced on top of the hilt. Izumi came up behind me and draped her icy arms over my shoulders. Her head rested next to mine. Together, we
studied our prisoner.

Izumi said, “Caine, how did these assassins get so close to you without your land warning you of danger? Or did you know they were coming?”

“No, not a hint ‘til they were on top of us and I felt them, not my Land. Even now the Land knows of them through my awareness. But I have an idea about that.”

“You do? Want to share?” She nibbled delicately on my ear, for encouragement.

“Shadow Court,” I guessed, thinking of those weird shadow-hilted daggers.

The assassin had been pretending indifference to us, acting bored as hell. Her face snapped up at my comment, eyes widening.

Ah, I guessed right.

Hello
, my sword said,
starving here.

I scowled.
Starve a little longer.

“That’s a myth,” Izumi said, “a tale to frighten children. Oh, there was such a court ages ago, that clan was wiped out in the last great war of our people.”