lily harper 04.5 - the bladesmith

• ONE
  
• TWO
  
• THREE
  
• FOUR
  
• FIVE
  
• SIX
  
• SEVEN
  
• EIGHT
  
• NINE
  

THE BLADESMITH

HP Mallory

Copyright ©2016 by HP Mallory

Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Acknowledgements

To my mother, thank you for everything.

To my son, Finn, I love you so very much!

To Isaac: Thank you for all your help with this book. And thank you for everything you do.

To my editor, Teri, at editingfairy.com: Thank you for a great job, as always.

ALSO BY HP MALLORY:

THE JOLIE WILKINS SERIES:

Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

Toil and Trouble

Be Witched (Novella)

Witchful Thinking

The Witch Is Back

Something Witchy This Way Comes

THE DULCIE O’NEIL SERIES:

To Kill A Warlock

A Tale Of Two Goblins

Great Hexpectations

Wuthering Frights

Malice In Wonderland

For Whom The Spell Tolls

Eleven Snipers Sniping (Novella)

A Midsummer Night’s Scream

THE LILY HARPER SERIES:

Better Off Dead

The Underground City

To Hell And Back

Persephone

The Bladesmith (Novella)

THE PEYTON CLARK SERIES:

Ghouls Rush In

Once Haunted, Twice Shy

Big Easy Murder (Novella)

THE BRYN AND SINJIN SERIES:

Sinjin

The Scent

CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

ONE

I did not know how long it was that I had been a prisoner.

The darkness was tireless, constant and discomforting. Although my eyes had already adapted to the near blackness, I saw very little of my actual prison. From what little light was secreted by a torch or two within the main vestibule, I deduced that my space was not very large. As to the rest of me, my hands were weighted down by chains and bound behind me. Whenever I shifted my body, my fingers scraped against the brick and mortared walls, stinging my raw skin.

The heavy air was sticky, and a foul odor contaminated it. I could not tell whether the incessant putrescence was actually the air, or whether I was inhaling the scent of my own sweat and dirt. I supposed it did not really matter, either way.

During my confinement, I heard very little, save the creaking of the door signaling the comings and goings of those who brought me food and water … But that was not the sound that made my stomach turn. No, that honor was reserved for the muted echoes of leather slicing flesh and the subsequent yelps of pain coming from the cell next to mine. The cries were coming from my mostly unpleasant companion, the angel, Bill.

Our imprisonment, it seemed, was vastly different. Mine was more a mental torture rather than physical; the guilt of knowing how terribly I had failed Lily. The chains that bound me mattered not as I was well acquainted with torture. Aye, torture and I were old bedfellows and had been for longer than I could remember. But as for the immortal angel who could not be killed? His crass mouth had managed to finally catch up with him. It seemed our keepers refused to tolerate his loose and oftentimes inflammatory speech. Their patience, I assumed, paled when compared to mine.

All that Bill and I could look forward to now was eternal darkness. To the untrained eye, it might have appeared as if I had given up and resigned my body to an eternity of nothingness inside my cell. But I was not defeated. No! On the contrary, I made the decision to win by managing to survive. I disallowed my captors to take amusement in my imprisonment because I simply stopped responding.

“Conan!” the insipid angel rasped from his cell. I did not bother to answer. “Bladesmith!” he cried out again in a voice parched for water. “If you’re still alive, answer me!”

“Aye, Ah’m still alive,” I responded, contemplating whether the alternative might be better. “O’ course Ah’m still alive,” I muttered. At that moment, there was nothing more despicable to me than my own immortality.

“When ya gonna get us the hellz outta here?” my jail mate prattled on. His abrasive tone caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. “I’m not meant for this drafty dungeon shit. I’m so hungry, I think my stomach started eatin’ itself; an’ my throat’s so dry, it feels like swallowing glass every time I try to talk.”

“Mayhap ye should listen tae yer body then, an’ shut yer geggie,” I interrupted. I was in no mood to indulge his carrying on. The ugliness of my own twisted thoughts were plenty enough to keep me company. I certainly did not need his.

“I think I’ve got the flu,” he persisted as if he had not heard me. It was probably more fitting to say he just did not care. He was quiet for a moment or two before starting up again. “Du-u-u-ude! Ya gotta do something! Ya gotta get us outta here, man! I can’t take no more o’ this gloomy shit! An’ my whole body’s hurtin’! I’m like, I’m like losin’ my mind, Conan! Ya gotta help a brother out!”

“An’ jist whit dae ye propose Ah dae?” I ground out, feeling as helpless as a newborn foal. Frustration had become my only companion, at least since my arrival here.

“Fuck, I dunno! You’re the one with the crazy Druid magic shit, not me! If I knew how to bust my fat ass outta here, d’ya think we’d be havin’ this conversation right now?”

“Ah ’spose not,” I answered, taking a deep breath. Much to my chagrin, the ever-present chill seemed to have taken up permanent residency in the stones that comprised my cell walls. There was no escaping its nasty bite.

“You better not be givin’ up,” the angel continued, although I did my best to ignore the incessant bleating of his voice. “I heard Alaire offerin’ to separate you from that ghost dude inside you, that guy, Donald, or whatever the hellz his name is.”

“Donnchadh!” I growled back in anger, the energy of the ancient warrior spirit suddenly rising up within me. Too much time had passed since I last bled myself, and Donnchadh’s contaminants were multiplying, threatening to overtake me. If I lost control of my body now, there would be no coming back.

There isnae comin’ back as it is,
I reminded myself. The memory of Alaire’s offer began to haunt me anew. Freedom through death—the ultimate chance to permanently eject Donnchadh from my body and end the miserable existence I had had to endure for two thousand years.

But bargains with Alaire could never be taken at face value. An image of the self-impressed dandy filled my mind’s eye, and I gritted my teeth in response. My hands clenched and unclenched behind me as a growing ire consumed my entire being. I pulled against the iron manacles that bound me to the wall, suddenly afraid I would lose my mind if I could not escape my prison.

“So, are you gonna like, just let Alaire kill you, or what, dude?” the angel continued, his voice sounding scratchy and pained. “’Cause that’d be super selfish if you did, namsay?”

“Whit?” I ground out, bored and irritated by the endless litany of riddles he spewed. I oft wondered whether the angel’s vocabulary was borrowed, or pillaged, from some other foreign language.

“Know. What. I’m. Saying,” he finished pedantically.

“Nae,” I answered with a sigh. Releasing my fists, I stretched my fingers out again, wincing at the pain in my wrists where I had pulled against the chains. “’Tis the problem with ye. Nae one knows whit yer goin’ oan aboot.”

“Whatevs. Mah point, bro, is that I wanna know what you’re thinkin’ about Alaire’s offer. Are you just gonna give up on me an’ nips now, or what?” He was quiet for a few seconds. “’Cause, dude, there’s no way I’m gonna survive in here all alone.”

“Ye are an angel. Ye cannae die.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I won’t go cray-cray. I already feel like I am, Bongo. I’m gonna end up like that messed up assistant of Dracula’s, that guy, Reinhold, or Rhine-something, who eats bugs.” He paused for another few seconds. “An’ Angel Bill ain’t sposed ta go out that way! I’m sposed ta be suppin’ on burgers an’ dogs on a white, sandy beach somewhere with some hot ass chick with tatas so big, she doubles as a flotation device.”

“Ge b’e thig gun chuireadh, suidhidh e gun iarraidh,” I muttered the Gaelic proverb more to myself than my companion.

“What?” he demanded. “What’d ya say? I missed that!” He took a breath. “What, dude?”

“’Tis a proverb!” I growled out at him. “It means ‘who comes uninvited will sit down unbidden.’”

The angel was quiet for a moment or two. “Yeti, we ain’t got time for you ta be thinkin’ about foxes and grapes that are too high or some shit. We gotta figure us a way outta this house o’ horrors!”

I did not have the interest to inform him that there was no way out. Instead, I said nothing at all and it was quiet within my cell for perhaps thirty seconds.

“So, Alaire’s offer,” the incessant angel started again before his words turned into a coughing fit.

Alaire’s offer …

Trusting Alaire was an exercise in plain foolishness. Alaire was a snake, as backhanded and self-serving as the night was long. Yet, if I were to be perfectly honest with myself, I had to realize the real meaning behind his offer. Alaire wanted me gone. I was nothing more than an obstacle in his path to having Lily. Granted, he was already well on his way to owning her completely, but I was still here. Never mind that I was rotting away in a cell, I was still very much alive.

If I trusted Alaire, or believed his offer were genuine, it would have been nearly impossible not to accept it and agree to the terms. Lily was already lost to me. She was no longer the woman I knew and loved. Her soul was contaminated. She had become one with a darkness I had not seen for centuries. A darkness from my past, which I destroyed with my own hands … or so I had believed.

“Dude!” the angel persisted.

“Lily is gone,” I answered immediately. The truth of my words dropped like a boulder in my gut. Alaire’s offer was a good one. Absolution had been my only quest for as long as I could remember. My one constant yearning was for only one thing … death. Now, Alaire was offering me that freedom, and on a silver platter.

“You know that’s not true, bro. You know that as well as I do. Nips is still in there somewhere,” the angel prattled on, his voice nearly cracking.

“Nae,” I argued, shaking my head. A large portion of me wanted to believe Lily was dead and gone, consumed by the ugliness that overtook her entire soul until there was nothing left. If I believed as much, it would make my decision significantly easier.

“If you really believed Lily was totally gone, you woulda snapped up Alaire’s offer as soon as the words left his mouth,” the angel prattled on.

I hated to admit it, but the bloody bastard was correct. I sighed before trying to argue with him. Despite my valiant effort, I could not deny the truth. The angel was correct: if I truly believed Lily was lost forever, I would have accepted Alaire’s offer as soon as he voiced it. Furthermore, I would never have offered Lily my blood. Perhaps it was simply a case of wishful thinking, but I still refused to give up on the lass. Not yet.