Gossamyr (33 page)

Gripping him by the elbow, she tugged him to a halt. "Be you
pisky-led? Close your mind to whatever it is you are hearing."

"No piskies here. Far from Faery." He tugged from her
grasp. Spreading his arms wide, he encompassed the unseen. "Can
you not hear it, faery princess? It is like rain on a stream. Bells
ring in my head."

"It is not the cathedral?"

"No. She sings to me."

"I don't hear— She?" Her heart thudding, Gossamyr
twisted around and scanned high and low. Not a single face appeared
behind the dirty windows. The fetch was absent. Quiet this street.
"She? Here?"

The Red Lady plied her game of seduction, luring Ulrich into her
deadly embrace. As she had lured him since he'd taken the alicorn
into possession. Gossamyr should have persuaded Ulrich to hide it, to
leave it at his uncle's home—no, the old man was far more
susceptible to a Faery
erie.

They rounded a turn in the street, Ulrich blindly pursuing the
musical call Gossamyr could not hear no matter how she strained. Her
feet tripped quietly over the cobbles. Stilling the clicking
arrets
at her waist—gown or not, she would not walk the city
unarmed—she skipped onward, but maintained a distance. As well,
her staff was always to hand.

While she must protect the alicorn from danger, it might serve to
learn the direction of the Red Lady's lair. Could it be so simple as
following Ulrich?

Two mounted riders clopped into view. Sensing danger, Gossamyr
hiked up her skirt and tucked portions of the yellow silk into the
waist of her braies. Freedom to dash or leap was imperative.

Staff at the ready, she focused.

Twin blood horses snorted and stomped the cobbles. No visible
livery. Not the watch then. Fully armored, mail chinked with the
horses' movements. The steel bourquinette helmets were open.

Ulrich walked right up to them, unmindful to their drawn swords.
And their red eyes.

Was the man always so oblivious to danger?

More for you. Is danger not what you crave?

"Have at me."

Stabbing her staff into the ground, Gossamyr swung up her body and
caught one rider on the head with her heels. The bourquinette flew
into the air. The force of connection toppled the rider to the
ground.

The other dismounted with a fluid ease, and swinging his sword in
challenge, let out a banshee yowl. No humanity in that voice. But a
chilling reminder of Faery. Two of the succubus's victims, then.

Ulrich, his head erect and eyes forward, miraculously dodged a
wild sword slash and kept walking.

Slapping her staff into both hands, Gossamyr barely avoided a
slice to the head from a seeking blade. Thrusting high, the staff
vibrated in her hands as steel cut into the hard wood—and broke
the fire-forged applewood in two. The force of the blow unsettled
Gossamyr from her stance. Her arms swung back, a serrated half of the
staff swinging in each hand. She caught herself from falling by
redirecting her balance.

So easily her best defense was destroyed? A simmer of fear
surfaced.
What do you fear?
No! Danger, it was hers to
embrace.

A step dislodged the skirt from her waist and it fell to her
ankles. Ill outfitted for this challenge. From the corner of her eye
Gossamyr saw the first rider remained on the ground, groaning and
pulling at his eyes with cutting gauntlets. Already the red had begun
to seep from his pores.

"Ulrich, no!" The soul shepherd listened only to the
silent and beguiling song of the succubus. A song that planted itself
in the skulls of Gossamyr's attackers and had fruited into a wild,
evil thing.

Now there! The fetch swooped low to hover over the head of the
other man. He swung his sword at the creature; the fetch dodged and
flew off.

Gripping both halves of defense to her sides, Gossamyr announced
to the standing attacker, "Deliver your best, blighted lackwit!"

Spinning one half of the staff in her right hand, she twisted at
the waist and conked the armored beast upside the head with the other
short staff. The bourquinette went flying. Another twist of her waist
returned a blow to the crown of his exposed head. The hard wood
connected with skull-cracking impact. Momentum pulled her around and
she spun the short stick to a stop, stabbing the swordsman in the gut
with the serrated end, just below the hard iron cuirass. With a
jingle of circled metal, Gossamyr tugged the staff from the mail. A
guttural squawk quaffed out from him. He landed the ground, gripping
his stomach, but was far from defeated.

Using his momentary befuddlement, Gossamyr raced to the wall
before Ulrich, blocking his path with her half staff. "Don't do
it, Ulrich. She is calling to you. The Red Lady!"

"So pretty," he murmured. Tears streamed down his
cheeks, drawing thick runnels through his dusty flesh. Bespelled
then. How to break the succubus's
erie?

"Jean Cesar Ulrich.

What was the remainder of the man's over long name? The
third...something. Blight!

Gossamyr used the only form of deterrent she knew would work. She
blunted the staff into Ulrich's gut, folding him and bringing him
down. His palms slapped the wall behind him for stability, yet found
little as he slid to his haunches.

Now an attacker fixed to Gossamyr's back, the flat of his blade
cleaving into her neck. She bent, heaving the man over her head and
pushing away the deadly blade as he landed the ground. Raising the
staff above her head, she prepared to bring it down onto his
skull—but paused.

Red tears poured from the man's eyes. The neck muscles tightened
to thick cords, then released, softening his flesh. His mouth gaped,
releasing a torrent of ichor swirled through with vibrant crimson.

Remembering the last time she had witnessed such a death—
Gossamyr scanned the periphery in search for the pin man. Did he lurk
in the shadows?

She hissed an invitation to challenge. "You want their
essences? You'll have to go through me!"

"Oh..." Ulrich stirred and, using the wall, managed to
pull himself to his feet.

She dashed to him, lifted her skirts, and kneed him in the thigh
to effectively pin him.

"What did you do that for? Ouch." He toppled into her
arms and began to retch dry coughs over her shoulder. "That is
the last time I kiss you!"

"You were under her spell." She embraced him around the
shoulders and held him as he heaved. "I had to do something to
keep you from the Red Lady. Steady, Ulrich. You are safe now—oh,
my faery heart."

"What?"

"Look."

There, behind the mule snorting at a scatter of rotting hay, lay
the first unfortunate fée she had laid out. And squatting over
him, the pin man, a long steel pin held in wait. No hood concealed
his hair this day. Capped in brilliant red, the long strands looked
to be soaked by a bloody flood. Sunlight flickered across his face.
The mark of the banished curled an arabesque about his eye.

"Avenall." The name fell, a stolen whisper, from
Gossamyr's lips. The fear she'd previously pushed back clambered to
the fore and set her to keen attention.
See me. Remember me?

Still holding Ulrich, and feeling his body yet convulse in protest
to the blow she'd delivered to his gut, Gossamyr remained at the
wall. She did not want to frighten Avenall away.

Nor must she allow him to succeed in stealing yet another essence
for his mistress.

As well, she wanted him to recognize her. Was he a slave to the
Red Lady? His mind trapped in her wicked thrall? Could Gossamyr
broach that invisible shield and draw Avenall out from the facade of
the pin man? 'Twas sure a poke to his gut with her staff would do
little but rile.

A small orange light emerged from the dead fée's skull,
squeezing out in a globulus quiver and expanding.

"He's going to take the essence," Ulrich hissed. "Get
him!"

"I..." Yet Gossamyr remained, strangely unable to move.
For to do so would require force—against her lover.

At the exact moment the pin pierced the essence, the fée's
armored body jerked. The shell of flesh and bone rose from the
ground. Armor cracked and tore in a dull metallic rip. Out struggled
a revenant from the rib cage. With a shrieking wail, the creature
soared into the sky, away from Paris. Back to Faery to torment Shinn.

Her heart stalled, Gossamyr could but witness.

Releasing a squeal of glee, the pin man turned and scampered to
the other body. The fée lay but a half-dozen strides from
where Gossamyr and Ulrich observed. Intent on the task at hand, the
pin man did not notice them. Or maybe he did see them, which is why
he worked so quickly. This time a pale green essence seeped out from
the body.

"Enough!" Gossamyr shoved aside Ulrich and pointed her
staff at the pin man. "Move and I strike you dead. Look at me,
Avenall!"

The pin man drew himself straight, taller than Gossamyr—as
she remembered—and grinned so wickedly she thought any sane
man's face should crack. Holding out his arms, he displayed a pin,
decorated with an essence, in the left hand. Narrowing his eyes, he
tilted his head and nodded. "I make no move, my lady."

Did he surrender so easily? What to do? To strike or speak?

Gossamyr maintained her pose, the staff—shorter, but no less
effective to defense—ready for instruction. Her left hand
strummed the chord of
arrets
at her hip. A step forward was
halted by close-fitting fabric. Blight, this awkward gown!

"Tell me how you have my name?"

A conversation? Might be the thing to dissuade him from the
burgeoning essence that sought a safe
twinclian.

"I knew you when you lived in Faery, Avenall. I know the
reason why you were banished."

He gaped. So he did not know the reason behind his banishment?
Most certainly, for then he would know her.

She must tell him. Mayhap win him from the succubus's
erie.

The green essence quivered, slowly rising between them. If he
moved, Gossamyr would leap forward and crack open his skull.

Studying him, she saw he was dressed in the finery of Faery.
Skeleton leaves frilled about his neck, and at his wrists, fée
lace fashioned of delicate arachnagoss. Yellow rose petals had been
sewn for a doublet, and amphi-leather hose drew her eye down
impossibly long legs. If the Disenchantment had set in, surely the
clothing would not hold—

Had Shinn the ability to send the banished straight to Paris, yet
still retain their Enchantment? For so long? Even Shinn feared
Disenchantment with an overlong stay.

"You..." he started, the pin held firmly in his left
hand. A weapon, no doubt about it. "...know?"

"Do you not remember your life in Faery, Avenall?"

"Do not continue to speak that name!"

"It is your name."

"It means nothing to me."

Gossamyr blew out a breath. Indeed, she must Name him to break the
glamour. "I name thee Avenall of..."

Of. Of what? Tightening her brows, Gossamyr searched her memory.
Avenall... Why could she not place his name complete? She knew this
man. She had once thought to give herself complete to him.

"I must go." Ulrich rose behind Gossamyr.

She reached back to grasp Ulrich's hand but touched only the
flutter of his cape. "No! She calls to you!"

A squeal of triumph shot through Gossamyr's system. Not her own
rejoiceful cry.

Avenall danced, his stolen prizes glowing, one speared on a pin in
each hand. "She lies, the mortal warrior. She cannot name me."

In that instant the bell of the great cathedral on the island
began to peal.

"Ah, Jacqueline!" Ulrich called, raising his hands to
revere the distant bell. "So prettily you toll, but I've only
ears for my lady's song. So sorry."

Gossamyr struggled to maintain hold on Ulrich and yet keep Avenall
in sight. The man's name! She must conjure his name to restore his
memory of their alliance.

A skin-prinkling howl burst up from the ground. The revenant
clawed its way out from the husk of the Disenchanted. Flesh tore and
clung to the bones, one last attempt to keep the evil at bay. Muscle
stretched and snapped. Armor bent and ripped. Finally the revenant
was free.

She must stop it from returning to Faery. She must stop Ulrich
from going to the Red Lady. She must rescue Avenall from the wicked
thrall. She must—

With no apparent intent to flee to Faery, this revenant turned and
yowled at Gossamyr, revealing gnashing fangs and whipping wings. The
creature was twice her size and loud enouph to wake the dead.

"Ulrich!" Gossamyr yelled.

The man heard nothing but the Red Lady's call. He strode from the
alley, oblivious to the danger that waited. What she would offer for
a lost soul to wander across his path. "Right now," she
muttered. "Can you hear me, lost souls?"

"Watch you don't get your head ripped from your shoulders!"
Avenall called in a macabre song. Orange and green faery lights
blurred across the stone building facades, a shadow of Enchantment
stealing across their sealed windows.

Dodging the revenant's lunge, Gossamyr raced toward Ulrich, then
realized her mistake as she arrived on Ulrich's heels.

The revenant screeched and followed.

"Get yourself gone!" She shoved Ulrich and he collided
with the wall.

A swing of her staff connected with the revenant's fist.
Bone-clean fingers clamped about the applewood and jerked, winning
the prize.

"I am off," Ulrich muttered. "My mistress calls."

Gossamyr dodged the swing of her own staff, feeling the
whoosh
of air part the fur rimming her neck. Death missed. Had the
weapon been full-length she might have received a blow directly to
her skull. But it did hit another target.

Ulrich yelped as he received the blow intended for her against the
side of his head. He went down like a felled tree.