Frost & Bothered (33 page)

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"You continue to hold the title of Bestest Friend."

"Prince Thorandryll," one of the new elves called, as he entered the dungeon. I tried to stifle my giggles when he ducked Percy, who dropped a smelly bird bomb on his way out. It splattered on the elf's back armor. My sputtering noises earned me a look that killed my giggle urge.

"Hey, I didn't do it."

Percy shot back through the doorway, screeching and pooping as he went. Logan and I narrowly avoided being hit, plastering ourselves to the wall. Few others were as lucky, resulting in yells of outrage and arms swinging, trying to swat the parrot out of the air.

"Really, Percival."

"Miss Smith, control your familiar," Thorandryll ordered. Kate gave him a look that plainly told him where he could stick his order. Percy pooped on the prince's shoulder before landing on Kate's.

I buried my face against Logan's shoulder, trying to muffle my laughter. Trust Bird Brain to shake things up.

"I don't like your bird," Connor told Kate.

"Not very fond of him myself at the moment."

"Prince Thorandryll," Percy's first target said. "My Queen requires your attendance."

"Of course."

"Hey, any chance of some clothes?" I'd recovered from my hilarity. "I'm not dressed for meeting royalty."

The second new elf sneered at me. "And you are?"

"Lady Discordia Angel Jones, a queen of my clan, a protégé of Lord Whitehaven's, and the main reason you're awake with a hope in hell of taking back your realm."

I closed my mouth, quit staring at Logan, and nodded. "What he said, bub."

Kethyrdryll smiled. "She's also a rather powerful natural mage."

"I prefer psychic."

He bowed. "My apologies for forgetting your preference."

"Are you two officially dating yet?" Damian waved his finger between Logan and me. Kate smacked his arm. "What?”

"Not the time."

"It would be glorious if everyone who isn't me would stop speaking now." Everyone looked at Thorandryll. He smiled. "Thank you. Now, we are ready to meet with the Queen."

W
e were guided to the same ballroom we’d visited in the dream, which apparently doubled as Queen Maeve’s throne room. Once again, we had to pass between lines of grim-faced, staring Unseelie. I didn’t like it any better the second time around.

Though catching one or two of them wrinkling their noses at the odor of parrot poo kind of made my day.

The Unseelie Queen didn’t looked impressed as she surveyed us from her throne. “You appear worse for the wear, my sons.”

“There was an unfortunate incident,” Kethyrdryll said.

“I would like some clothes before we go fight the bad guy. Please,” I added when Maeve looked at me.

“You won’t be accompanying us. This is an internal matter.”

“He has human hostages we’ve been sent to retrieve.” Kate slipped between Thorandryll and Kethyrdryll. I envied her ability to appear confident, dressed in a nightgown and cloak spattered with bird crap. “We have the right to claim our human kin.”

“Here, you have only the rights I choose to grant you, little witch.”

I freed one hand from my borrowed cloak and raised it. “Um, what if we’re under the orders of a god?”

Maeve smiled. “And which god would that be, who orders you to trespass into my domain?”

I couldn’t give her Sal’s name, because I didn’t know his real one, so I went with God Number Two. “The Horned God, Cernunnos.”

“Really, Miss Jones,” Thorandryll gritted out, shooting me an annoyed look.

“Don’t you really me, bub. He told me to come here, to find what’s missing. What’s missing is humans. I’m here, and I’m going to find them.”

“You’re not one of us, nor an animal. Why would the Lord of the Hunt choose you as his emissary?” Maeve asked.

Good question. I stared back at her, before smiling as an answer presented itself. “He’s the Lord of the Hunt. I’m a private investigator, which is a type of hunter, and I’m on a hunt.”

Thorandryll sighed. “The Horned One did state that he found Miss Jones to be an intriguing child, when first they met.”

“How did such a meeting come about?”

“She rode on a Hunt with us,” Alleryn replied from somewhere behind us. “A dark elf survived.”

Maeve’s lips tightened. “I see.”

“Miss Jones has proven herself useful in the past,” the prince said. He hadn’t lost his annoyed face though.

I grinned up at the Queen. “Not to brag, but I blew up a god at the end of that Hunt. Well, his Avatar.”

Her lips parted, and she blinked. “We have a matter of grave importance to attend to. See to it that they’re properly outfitted.”

“W
hy don’t we have armor?” I swept my hand from myself to Damian and Kate.

Logan double-checked the hang of the sword he’d been given. “Ever play an RPG?”

“Huh?”

“Role playing game. Dungeons and Dragons?” Damian shook his head at my blank look. “What do you do for fun?”

“Cook, read, watch movies.” I pointed at Leglin. “He even got armor.”

“Because he’s a tank. Tanks physically fight. We,” Damian waved his hand, including Kate and me in the sweep of his hand. “Are casters. We do damage from a distance.”

“With a buffer zone of us to keep anyone from getting to you.” Dane tightened the straps on Connor’s chest plate.

“Oh.” I eyed Logan’s sword, which had a brilliant green jewel set in the pommel. “I want to start taking sword lessons.”

“Every clan member can use one. I can teach you, or if you’d rather have a female instructor, I’d recommend Moira. She’s hell on wheels with blades. Any type of blade.” Logan surveyed us, and knelt to make adjustments to Leglin’s armor. The chest piece of if didn’t look quite right. “Who put this on him?”

“Well, I tried,” Kate said, her hands landing on her hips. “It’s not like I spend my days dressing doggies for war.”

“I can tell,” Logan said. “You put this on upside down.”

She muttered something that sounded nasty and wandered off. I hid my smile by bending to pat Illy. He bared his teeth. Snatching my hand back, I asked, “What is your problem, dude?”

“He and Percy aren’t happy we’ll be facing a god.”

Oh. I remembered how their familiars had acted during the Case of the Cursing Corpsicle, (who was Dalsarin). I looked at Illy. “You know, it’s not my damn fault gods decide to turn evil and run around doing bad things to people.”

The husky grumbled. I didn’t understand what he said, only then realizing he didn’t actually speak Dog. Or not the version of Dog I’d inadvertently learned. Was there more than one version? “Fine, be mad. See if I care, or ever cook you steak again.”

Illy flattened his ears and skulked off. The call came to form up into lines. Kethyrdryll, dressed in silvery blue armor, joined us. “Hey, why aren’t you up there with your mom and brother?”

“I’ve been assigned to your guard.” He nodded at two more elves walking up to us. “As were they.”

“Oh. Thanks.” It sounded as though we wouldn’t be near any actual fighting. Maybe the Queen didn’t want to risk both her sons.

We began moving, the clanking of armor echoing as we marched down the hallway we’d gathered in. Nervousness fluttered in my stomach. I looked around at my companions, hoping we’d all go home in one piece.

“We’ll transport to the Pit in groups,” Kethyrdryll informed us. “There’s not a gate or door to step through.”

“Then how did that golem deliver the people to it?” Really, the Pit? Couldn’t elves come up with a better name for their high-security prison?

He shook his head. “I don’t know. There are layers of wards on the walls.”

“Well, if I were your mom, I’d be scheduling a good, hard inspection after this.” I thought about slipping the Queen Ronnie’s card. Which reminded me that I needed to call Ronnie. My new place needed warding.

Elves were disappearing ahead of us. Magical transport, my favorite. Wait, I supposedly counted as a magic user. A natural mage. It did have a certain ring to it. Nah, after years of being called a psychic, I was comfortable with that label.

Our turn came, and we walked forward, the hallway disappearing and a square room replacing it. The walls were pale gray stone, and there was a wide archway at the opposite end. I checked over my shoulder. The wall behind us was solid.

Beyond the archway was a stadium-sized room or cavern, with dark stone walls. I wasn’t sure how dark because the entire place was shrouded in heavy shadows. Nothing moved, and the only sounds I heard were the soft footfalls of elves as they formed a multilayered half-circle outside the archway. “This doesn’t look like a hotbed of prison escapees.”

Logan sniffed. “They’re hiding. I can smell...”

The half-circle of elves had been slowly moving forward as more arrived. Something rose from the puddle of shadows across the middle of the floor. No one screamed. Instead, a rain of arrows flew, and whatever the thing was, it went down a pincushion. “The lighting sucks. What was that?”

“A giant, I think.” Kate tilted her head. “Does anyone else hear wings?”

We all looked up, but the ceiling was completely blacked out. And that’s when the goblins decided to charge. I let loose with my pyrokinesis, creating a wall of fire to block them.

“Cernunnos bless us,” Kethyrdryll murmured as my fire lit the place up. There were cracks in every wall, and a lot of eyes reflecting flames. “They’ve been destroying the wards.”

“Maeve,” a voice roared at the far end, and a hulking, red beast strode out of a particularly large crack. “Face me, you elven bitch.”

The Queen strode forward, her glittering armor adding a light show of blue and orange sparks as it reflected the fire. “Miss Jones.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

She gestured at the fire with her sword. “If you’d be so kind?”

“Oh, sure.” I put the fire out, aware of the elves in the front lifting their weapons. Good thing they did, because a wave of dark figures came forward.

“Goblins!” someone yelled and within seconds, everything was chaos. I lost sight of Kate as something dropped onto her, but saw Dane kick and slash at whatever it was. Illy was barking. I couldn’t see Damian. The remaining elves poured from the archway, forcing us apart, and forward.

Connor cut down something with wings and a human face that flew at us with its clawed chicken feet outstretched. One of the two elves went down as four twisted, smoky figures leaped onto him.

I hit a looming figure with a blast of TK, knocking it away from Kethyrdryll, who was busy slicing away at a blobby creature with long arms. Logan snarled, fencing with a being made of shiny, silver light.

“I’m way out of,” I sent a lance of fire toward what I thought might be a troll. “My depth.”

Connor laughed. “Me too. Fun, huh?”

“Yeah, ahh.” A concussion rocked the area, knocking us down. My stomach lurched. “What was that?”

“Ah, big and fiery. Going to say...”

Kethyrdryll finished Connor’s sentence. “Fire elemental.”

“Hey.” I’d gotten to my feet. “Let me at it.”

“Go for the heart,” Logan called, already slashing away at nasties again.

“Heart. Got it.” I focused on the tall, vaguely human-shaped figure. The elemental was shedding flames that became little firenados. “So, heart would be about...there.”

I concentrated, channeling my cryokinesis, and the fire elemental stopped. A dark splotch slowly appeared on its chest. “Yeah, buddy. Chill with me for a while.”

“Cordi!” Someone shoved me. I flailed sideways, managed to keep my balance, and turned in time to see an axe whistling through the air...and tearing through Connor’s throat. Blood spurted as his headless body toppled forward. Blood hit me in the face, blinding me. My stomach heaved, rebelling against the taste of hot, salty copper that had splashed into my mouth.

“Cordi.” Logan’s voice was followed by a loud clang overhead as I ducked, frantically wiping my face. The first thing I saw after clearing blood from my eyes was Connor’s head. His eyes and mouth were wide open, surprise etched deep by death. A massive cramp twisted my stomach, bending me double. I retched, and panicked as something came up, only to get stuck in my throat.