Keys and Curses (Shadow Book 2) (8 page)

Horrid things. Nobody was sure when the plague started, or how they’d evolved into what they were, but it wasn’t the least bit natural. Once fetches had been harmless, rare creatures who lived in mountain country and kept away from inhabited areas. Then suddenly it all changed. Swarms of them plagued settlements all over Shadow, poisoning anyone they happened to bite or scratch. Some of the Bloomin Fairies who’d reported disappearances had insisted the fetches always came first, but she’d dismissed the idea back then. They were wild animals, not part of some conspiracy.

She supposed even she could be wrong. Not very often, of course, but certainly every now and again. 

They left the path when it went steeply downhill to a yawning cave mouth blocked up by a huge stone door, and crept instead through the sparse cover of the surrounding trees.

Only when they were very close did Flower see that what had looked like a bundle of small rocks at the base of the doors was a pack of fetches at rest, their eyes closed and their scales dull and grey.

She and Nikifor flattened themselves under a hollowed-out stump. The forest around them was silent. The creatures guarding the mine had probably frightened all other wildlife away. There were sounds, though. Distant voices drifted from behind those stone doors.

She didn’t want to put the fear that had so suddenly gripped her into words, but she didn’t think it would do any good to ignore it, either. She had to try saying it, just in case. “Nikifor, could it be possible there are Moon Troopers keeping all those Freakin Fairies prisoner in the mines?”

“That would be a grave and cruel injustice.” His sober words reflected her wealth of unspoken fears.

“And if they are,” she continued, “Does that not mean the Guild have ordered it?”

“Fiends!” His voice rose above a whisper.

Flower nudged him. “Quiet!”

They watched around the stump for another few minutes. The fetches stayed at rest. One, at one point, roused itself, turned bright red, walked in a circle, settled and went grey again.

“How do we get in there?” she whispered.

“Get in?” Nikifor went white. “Are you crazy?”

“No, but I’m not sure I can stand you under this bombastic curse for much longer, and the only way they’ll lift it is if we rescue these fairies!”

Nikifor was about to reply, but no words came out of his mouth. A look of consternation crossed his face. Then Flower felt a sharp blow to the back of her head.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tall. Emaciated. Hungry. The Tormentor hunched over the table like a malevolent locust. Long, thin fingers wrapped around a crystal flask filled with sparkling green liquid.

Nikifor could not tear his eyes from that flask, or from the huge ruby ring that glittered on the index finger. The Tormentor was in shadow, always in shadow, but that ring. He knew that ring. More than that he knew that green, the vivid colour of vibe. Sudden, violent thirst raged through his body. He wanted it. He wanted it more than freedom, more than life, more than an end to his torment. He would crawl naked through flames for just one more intoxicating taste.

But vibe was madness. Impossible madness. He was done with it. The Freakin Fairies had given him his life back, who was he to throw away such a gift?

The Tormentor poured the drug with agonising slowness into a tall crystal glass. The shadows thickened and shifted like living creatures. “Drink,” he said.

“No.” Nikifor’s whisper was ragged but stubborn. The urge to know who tormented him so, to remember, to see the face, gripped him like a fever.

“Drink!” The Tormentor’s fist slammed onto the table.

He flinched. “I will not.”

The Tormentor paced around the table, bent over Nikifor’s shoulder and lifted the glass to his lips. ”You know this is all you desire. This is all you are.”

The intoxicating fragrance enveloped his senses like moss on a forest floor, like a woman’s perfume, like bottled darkness. He closed his eyes. The glass touched his lips.

The Tormentor laughed low in his ear. “You were a fool to think you could escape me.”

Nikifor wrapped his fingers around the cold, hard crystal. Oblivion. No longer a path he could choose. Never again. His fingers trembled. The anger that always lurked so far beneath flared like magma from a volcano and he dashed the vessel into the Tormentor’s face. Crystal shattered on skin, tinkled to the ground. The Tormentor uttered a hoarse cry of pain and clutched his eyes. Blood welled from fine cuts.

The bloodied hands dropped. “What was that? You’re not supposed to be able to do that. Tell me what that was!” He grabbed Nikifor’s shoulders and threw him so hard he struck the wall. “Tell me how can you possibly defy me?”

Nikifor threw up his hands to shield his face. “I will not submit!” he roared.

The stone room melted away into sweating darkness, an aching skull and the smell of wet sackcloth.

Nikifor gulped fresh cold air when the rough cloth was snatched from his face. His heart hammered and his blood raced through his veins as though he had just won a mortal battle. He could taste victory, but had no idea what he’d won. He cringed when a flaming brand blinded him. “Tell me where your king is!”

Nikifor recoiled, but could not get far. His hands were bound behind his back and any amount of movement threatened to injure them. The brittle, angry female voice made his head pound.

She brandished the fire so close his hair singed and curled. “Tell me where your king is, Muse, or so help me I’ll cover you in fairy dust and play kick with your petrified remains!”

His nerve broke. “I don’t know! I don’t know where he is!”

“Then what were you doing at the mines?” The woman’s voice wound up a notch.

“We were looking for eight hundred missing Freakin Fairies!” Nikifor’s descended into a coughing fit. His wits returned with customary reluctance to inform him he was probably about to be murdered by an angry Bloody Fairy and there was nothing he could do about it.

The woman calmed, but not by much. The fire blocked out all vision of her face. “Why? What are you anyway, a pair of giant Freakin Fairies?”

“Flower?” Nikifor said. “Where is Flower?” Fear slid into rage at the thought something might have befallen her at the hands of this unknown enemy. “Flower!” he roared. “I swear to Shadow if they’ve hurt you I will seek vengeance!”

“Shut him up,” the woman said.

“I told you you hit him too hard. Probably knocked his brains loose.” A hand shoved a gag in his mouth.

A shuffle and a thump followed by a gasp for air told him they’d turned their attention to Flower.

“You,” the woman said. “Tell me where your king is!”

Flower’s reply was calm and measured, and told Nikifor she was unharmed. “I don’t know,” she said. “The king is missing.”

The woman snorted. “Him and everyone else.”

The flames retreated. When Nikifor’s vision cleared, the darkness had been banished by a ring of torches bordering a big, sandy cave crowded with busy forms.

A woman moved into the light. She couldn’t have been much more than five foot tall. The sides of her head were shaved, while dreadlocks pinned to the middle of her scalp reached halfway down her back, all of them decorated with shiny beads, crystals and stones. She wore a vest and pants that looked as though they’d been cobbled together from pieces of animal hide using a fishbone. Her skin was tanned dark by living outdoors and her grim, weathered face bore several deep scars.

She looked at Flower expectantly.

Flower betrayed nothing. Instead, she spoke again in the same even tones. “Bloody Fairies. I might have guessed. Perhaps you would be so good as to remove my friend’s gag. He’s been cursed by the Freakin Fairies, he can’t help what comes out of his mouth at the moment, but he won’t harm you.”

The woman jerked her head. A boy of perhaps twelve snatched the gag from him and quickly retreated.

Nikifor took a deep breath and swallowed a few times to try and remove the bad taste from his mouth. When he was quite sure he could breathe again, he returned his attention to the Bloody Fairy. He wished he hadn’t. He couldn’t look away. Words froze in his throat. The Tormentor stood behind her, bent over her, ran long fingers over her snarled hair. He looked right at Nikifor; those depthless eyes made his spine prickle.

“What are you staring at, Muse?” the fairy pulled a knife from her belt and walked to him.

Nikifor couldn’t reply. Even while she walked, the Tormentor ran a hand down her arm, leaving a bloody mark there.

The fairy circled behind him. “So if you’re Flower,” she said, “who is this?” She grabbed Nikifor’s hair and jerked his head back.

“His name is Nikifor.” Flower’s voice developed an edge. “Look what do you want from us because-”

“I want to know where your king is,” the fairy said. “Now.”

“I told you, we don’t know!”

“You’re lying.” She yanked on Nikifor’s hair, bringing tears to his eyes. “Want to know how I know?”

“Stop hurting him!” Flower struggled with her bonds.

“I know,” the fairy continued, “because if you were really Flower and Nikifor you’d know me. But you don’t, so you’re obviously imposters.”

Nikifor twisted his head to look at Flower’s face in the firelight. Her confusion reflected his.

“How could I know you?” she protested. “I fought the Vampire Wars with the Bloody Fairies, but I don’t recognise-” she hesitated. “No, wait. I think I fought them. I seem to remember–”

The fairy’s knife flashed past Nikifor’s face. Cold steel pricked at his throat. “Go on, Muse,” she said. “Think harder.”

The Tormentor bent over Nikifor. He closed his eyes to block out the sight, but when he did that he saw a young girl with long, long black hair who scowled at him and-

He flinched. No. Somehow the sight of her frightened him even more.

“Wait!” Flower said. “Of course I remember you, you’re-” she stopped again.

“I’m losing patience,” the woman said. “You’re obviously false muses. Tell me where your king is or I’ll start opening veins and see if this one bleeds or smokes.”

“False muses?” Flower’s voice was sharp.

The girl with the long, long hair looked up at Nikifor with big dark eyes. She looked serious and angry at the same time and Nikifor knew, more certainly than he’d known anything in decades, that he knew her.

“You have to fight him,” she said.

His breath rasped out. The name formed on his lips even as the Tormentor reached out for him with grasping fingers he knew he could not escape.

“Hippy Ishtar!” he roared.

The Tormentor gave a hiss of fury and retreated, but the fairy woman planted a foot in his back and tumbled him to the ground, face bright red with fury. “How dare you say her name?”

“I knew her.” He focused on the Tormentor leaning over the fairy and vented his frustration at that shadow. “I knew her and I know she helped me. You can’t take that away from me!”

The fairy moved away from him, deflated. A flash of light from the torch laid the raw grief bare in her face. “Cat, Scathach, cut them loose,” she said. “It’s really them.”

Two children who could have been identical twins moved in, slashed their bonds and disappeared into the shadows just as quickly.

Nikifor sat up and chafed his wrists. Flower moved quickly over to him. “Are you alright?”

He nodded, but he kept his eyes on the fairy.

“I don’t understand,” Flower said.

“We had to be sure it was you.” The woman scowled around at her companions. “Well what are you waiting for? This is as good a camp as any. Get a fire lit and some food on. Cat, take your sister and find some water. You three hide that cave mouth, no doubt there’ll be Moon Troopers looking for these two tonight.”

The fairies jumped to obey orders. Within moments a fire crackled in the centre of the cave, filling the high roof with smoke.

The fairy woman squatted by the flames and beckoned them over.

Nikifor moved the short distance and stretched his hands to the fire. They trembled. The Tormentor was not far, he was never far, but he’d won a victory. He felt it in his blood.

The fairy sighed. “What are you two doing messing about with Freakin Fairies?”

Flower gave her a wary look. “I’d be happy to tell you if I had a name to call you by.”

The woman met her gaze steadily. “My name is Ishtar Ishtar.”

“Ishtar.” Flower frowned. “I seem to–no, that can’t be right.”

“Did I knock you both a bit too hard on your unusually large heads?” Ishtar scowled across the flames. “You were the only muse brave enough to bring me any news after your so-called king stole my sister away to Dream. I know it’s been twenty-five years, but I’m not that hard to remember.”

Flower massaged her own temples. “It’s the oddest thing. I know I fought with Bloody Fairies. I know I knew many of you, the whole thing is like a buzz in the back of my mind, but anytime I try to pin a single detail down, I just can’t.”