Chapter 63: Facing the Fury

I want to help, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to have sex with you. For some reason, however, she was unable to say that…

“If you’re not willing to have sex with me to help break my curse, then just say it and prove it.” They’d been having this argument for almost ten minutes, now, and Shannon was losing.

Because, apparently, some part of her was willing to have sex with him, because she couldn’t force her goddamn mouth to tell him she wasn’t. It was freaking her out and pissing her off at the same time.

“See?” the feylord demanded, oblivious to her growing agitation. “I’m right. The Horn says so.”

The Horn says so… That had to be the worst pickup line in the history of pickup lines. Nay, the history of human language. Nay, the…

“But we can do it at your own pace,” the feylord said, the picture of fucking genial magnanimity. “Whenever you’re ready.” He was like a kid at Yule, just as had been ever since they had discovered that she couldn’t tell him she wouldn’t have sex with him whenever she was within two feet of his person.

“And I just want you to know,” the feylord went on obliviously, “I’ll make it very pleasant for you…after you lose your virginity to something that can handle it, of course. No need taking that kind of chance. Maybe we can find that barghest…”

He was talking fast, now. Excited. Like it was a business transaction.

Completely unnerved and creeped out that she couldn’t tell this dog-man that she wasn’t getting naked and having sex with him, Shannon got up, mid-word, and stormed into the kitchen to get a drink of water. Then, when water didn’t settle her stomach, she went upstairs to get guns, instead. Maybe pointedly loading some hand-cannons would wipe that grin off his face…

She had let herself past Björn’s creative Modern Art additions to her hallway and into her parents room when she thought she saw something bright moving in the empty trophy room at the end of the hall. She turned and froze, a sudden dread rushing through her at the sight of the blood-web slowly meandering through her father’s trophy room. Whatever stood there, its back to her, it had an eye-searing vein-network of black mottled with red, and the sight of it left an unnatural pang of fear in her guts, one that, for the first time, did not make her hungry.

But, more to the point, the sickening blood-web extended up and out in two massive arms over the creature’s shoulders.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t human.

She watched it pluck something off a shelf, the arm-veins shifting as it turned the item in a hand.

Shannon, who had definitely begun adhering to Masaaki’s Kick First, Explain Later mantra, hastily went to the wall with the gun case and grabbed the biggest hand-guns she could find, then, as silently as she could go, slipped back out into the hall and over the splintered beams…

Tiptoeing back downstairs, she left the creature in her father’s trophy room and hurried to Angus, watching it through the floor.

“Angus,” she hissed.

“I told you,” he said, “my name is Tl'oghk—”

Shannon slapped a hand over his mouth as his indignant words brought the attention of the thing upstairs. Even through the floor, she watched the blood web twist and pause, listening.

There’s something up there, she thought at Tl'oghk'etnaeyen, swallowing. It’s got four arms and the most disgusting blood-web I’ve ever seen.

Angus glanced up at the floor where she was looking, then at the guns she held. He made no attempt to grab one. With a paw, he carefully pulled her hand from his mouth and, quietly, whispered, “Four arms?”

Never before had a blood-web frightened her, but just looking at this one left her heart hammering.

“We need to get out of here,” Shannon whispered, as the creature on the second floor sauntered from the trophy room and into the hallway, casually headed towards the stairs. She started backing them around the corner, out of sight of the staircase. “Take us somewhere. Anywhere.”

Angus anxiously licked his muzzle. “That probably wouldn’t go well for us. You make a single mistake and you get lost in the Void. And I’m…tired.”

…because she had just drained most of the blood from his body. Right.

“Shit,” she whispered, watching the being descend the stairs. She backed them further into the adjoining hall, keeping walls between them and the four-armed creature as it moved through the house.

“There is something I can do,” Angus whispered. “But you’ll have to stop moving. No moving, got it?”

Shannon, shaken to the core at whatever she was seeing in this creature’s blood, just nodded.

“Is it coming this way?” Angus asked.

Shannon nodded, little goosebumps going up all over her body as it traced the steps they had taken, its boots making soft sounds on the hardwood floor, then the tile as it entered the kitchen. “Like it can smell us.”

“Okay, hold on.” Angus shoved her gently against the wall and put his hand on her head. She saw a green flash, then a thin green haze unfurled around her, tickling the backs of her eyes. “Stay right here,” Angus whispered. “It will never be able to see me as anything but a dog, but you can be a wall. Okay? Don’t move while I go check it out.”

Shannon wanted to run, but she nodded. Angus gave her one last look, then slipped quickly into the hall and around the corner. She watched his gold-brown dog’s blood-web round the corner and pause at the opposite end of the staircase. The four-armed thing paused and turned to look at him.

Angus and the thing stood in mute silence a moment…then, without a sound, Angus bolted.

“Stupid dog.” Chuckling, the thing’s arms expanded outward and it returned its attention to hunting her down. Heart hammering completely out of control, Shannon saw it round the corner…

And it was just a man. A middle-aged man wearing a plaid shirt and a baseball cap, chewing gum.

Except…

This close, she could see a boiling rainbow of energy wrapped in tiny tubes inside the man’s belt, undeniably of hundreds of different sources, super-concentrated. Unlike the blood-webs of, say, Masaaki or Theo, however, the energy in the vials had a putrid smell, almost like the basement under the house. That, combined with the invisible arms, kept Shannon utterly still against the wall, trying to keep her breathing under control.

The feylord’s spell seemed to be working, however, because the man in the baseball cap glanced down the hall, saw nothing, and turned back towards the living room, pausing here and there to pick up knick-knacks or move objects…

It stopped for a longer moment over the On the Use of Blood in the living room, just standing there, looking down at it. “Huh. Someone’s been studying…” Shannon could hear the man chewing gum. Shannon heard an electronic click, then static, then, in a woman’s voice, the creature said, “Remind me about Aimée’s mission here…was she hunting a blood magus?”

There was a blip and a moment of static, then, “Not that we know of, Inquisidora. There was some sort of mind-weave, but the magic used was of fey origins. None of our men were taken as spies.”

“Interesting.” Shannon saw the man nudge the book with a toe, then tisk. “Inform Inquisitor Aimée that this demon she’s hunting is a blood-weaver.”

“Inquisidora Aimée has not responded for several hours,” the man with the heavy Spanish accent replied. “She was not at the rendezvous point. We’re sending a team to go find her.”

The man sighed deeply, squatting to flip pages in the book. “Don’t bother. If she’s not already dead, she’s the plaything of a blood magus. I’m looking right at a copy of On the Use of Blood.”

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the radio. Then, a whispered, “Mierda.” Another pause. “Would you like a team to remove the unholy thing?”

The man seemed to consider. “No, I’ll take care of it.” Then, to himself, mused, “So you tried to make an öndkar.” The man tisked. “Either very smart or very stupid…”

Then, leaving the book on the floor, the four-armed man stood and moved on. Within moments, the creature had found the entrance to the basement, where it paused again, studying the massive vault door.

Then, after a couple moments running its hand over the metal slab, it descended the concrete steps into the basement.

The blood-web was so strong that it was still visible when it reached the bottom floor of the house.

There, the creature paused, obviously taking it all in. Then, stepping forward, it ducked and picked something up off the floor…

The bowl I was using to banish the Duke’s magic, Shannon thought, heart skipping a beat. She watched as the creature turned the bowl in its hand, examining it, head cocked in thought.

Screw this, Shannon thought, Whatever it is, I’m locking that thing down there. She had started to move from her spot, headed for the vault door, when, even from the staircase, she heard the staticky sound of a handheld radio.

“Inquisidora Zenaida,” the man on the radio said in a Spaniard’s accent just as Shannon was reaching the entrance to the living room, “the barghest and the feylord have arrived.”

The barghest and the… Shannon’s pulse quickened as she thought about Björn and the unlucky fry cook.

From the basement, the creature was moving up the stairs. In that female voice, the man said, “Are they outside?”

“The demons sit in the driveway, watching the house.”

“Let them come inside,” the creature’s voice said, becoming louder and more clear as it breached the basement staircase. “Do not attack. I want to surprise them.”

“Yes, Inquisadora.”

Then the creature breached the basement staircase and Shannon, who had inched around the corner to look, saw that something about it was lighting up the walls around it in a shimmering, flickering white glow.

Despite Angus’s illusion, the man met Shannon eye-for-eye and froze. Then, slowly, the man’s shock was replaced with a smug grin. “You know, a disguise only works if your disguise doesn’t make you stand out like a fresh wall jutting into the hallway that hadn’t been there before.” The man had Shannon’s parents’ silver bowl in his hand, rolling it thoughtfully. “You must not have made that illusion.” Cocking his head, the man continued, still in that female voice, “Tell me who did.” It was not a request, and it was cold, calculated, and dangerously cruel.

“What are you?” Shannon whispered.

The man smiled slowly and set the silver bowl on the kitchen counter carefully. Then, with the ringing sound of metal-on-metal, he drew a small, plain dagger from his belt. Instantly, the brightness in the room increased severalfold. The man, holding the dagger, tested the blade with his thumb. “You know what the most important organs on a queen are?” the man asked almost idly as he examined the dagger in his hands.

Shannon felt a coldness pool in her gut and she took several hasty steps backwards.

The man looked at her over the dagger, and there was no mistaking the evil there. “I’ll give you a hint. Combined, they weigh approximately four ounces and they have the power to enthrall the very first thing the victim sees upon being dosed with them.” The man smiled. “Incredibly handy when trying to subdue a djinni and a wolf-cursed murderess.”

Shannon, panting, unable to figure out why the room around them seemed to be aglow, stumbled a few more feet back. She was just opening her mouth to respond when Angus trotted back into the room, tongue lolling.

“Oh hello, puppy,” the man said, his voice at once syrupy and a threat. He was watching Shannon. “Come here, boy. I’d like to show your mistress something.”

And, licking his lips, Angus changed course, moving towards the man with the dagger.

“Angus, no!” Shannon cried.

The feylord ignored her, approaching the man with the blade with his head ducking, his tail wagging in that universal sign of canine submission. Then, to Shannon’s horror, he dropped in front of the tome of magic, rolled onto his back, showing his belly…

The man chuckled and moved forward to squat beside Angus, rubbing his belly. “Wow, you are a good dog, aren’t you.” Readying his dagger, he gave Shannon a pointed smirk. “So trusting.”

“Angus…” Shannon whispered, watching him pull On the Use of Blood to his body with both hands. “What are you doi—”

Then Shannon saw the green tendrils moving up the man’s arm from where he idly stroked Angus’s stomach. Swift, like spinning vines, they wrapped around the man’s arm, across his bicep, over his shoulder, and up his neck. Once the vinelike tendrils reached the man’s ear, they dipped inside the head, into the brain. The man flinched and blinked twice, jerking backwards, then shook his head as if to clear it.

“Stab yourself with the blade and throw it through the window,” Angus casually said, still on his back. “Then go home and rethink your life.”

The man blinked, then grunted and looked down at the knife curiously as he turned it on himself. His eyes went wide with surprise as he stabbed himself in the stomach, then hurled the sword out the window across the living room, shattering the glass of the front prow window in a crystalline sheaf.

Then, lunging from the floor, the book on blood magic in hand, Angus raced across the room to Shannon and slapped her forehead with a glowing green paw. “Let’s go!”

The moment he touched her, the feylord’s green energy ripped through her mind in an instant of mind-tumbling nausea. Shannon’s world rearranged itself as she stumbled to one knee.

But Angus was grabbing her with a paw, hauling her towards the exit.

“You!” a woman shrieked behind him. “You little fucker!”

And, when Shannon looked, an angel stood in the center of the room, dressed in the black garb of an Inquisitor, her eye-searing, luminescent wings splayed out in a wall of fury. She clutched her gut with one hand, blood dribbling from a stomach wound.

“Oh my fu—” Shannon started.

“It’s a Fury,” Angus babbled, desperately trying to push her ahead of him. “Don’t try to fight it. Nothing can kill a Fury but another Fury. Run.”

Dropped to one knee, the woman was howling, holding in her own guts.

“Run!” Angus cried, shoving her ahead of him.

But then the angel looked up at them with a snarl of hatred and lunged at them, shrieking, not even bothering to go around the hallway wall in her single-minded rush to get at them, and, even as Shannon turned to run, the house started coming down around them as the angel’s wings sliced right through the walls like they were made of light sabers.