Gossamyr (34 page)

The best thing she could do right now was to lead away the
revenant. Bent at the waist, Gossamyr ran toward the square, luring
the skeletal beast with her.
No, you'll lead it toward people.
Gossamyr stopped, jumping to turn and face the creature. Taking
an
arret
in each hand she began to spin them.

The revenant hung before her in the sky, sunlight ripping through
the slashed wings and glinting on the ichor-dripping muscle shreds
clinging to the ribs. A shred of mail hung from one rib bone. It
wielded her staff with such ease, transferring it from one hand to
the other as if a mere toy. Not mindless then. It could remain if it
so chose. And this creature sought some fight before returning to
Faery.

Judging the best hit for her tiny obsidian blade would not be
between a rib or on the tattered wing, Gossamyr thought to try the
eyes. Nothing in the skull that she could determine, but it was worth
a shot.

A death cry preceded the revenant's swinging attack. Gossamyr
leaned back to avoid the hit. She swung, releasing the
arret.
It
soared through the open jaws of the revenant and out into the sky.
Blight!

If skulls could grin, the creature cracked a bitter smile at her.
Swiftly it returned the staff, bringing Gossamyr down. The
arret
abandoned on the wet cobblestones, she rolled to her knees,
clutching her gut. The staff had connected directly. But she hadn't
time for pain, for the revenant attached to her back. Strength
immeasurable pressed down on her spine. Bony fingers dug between her
ribs.

The thing thought to rip her apart!

And it would. Rolling to the side, the revenant clattered upon the
ground, bone against stone, but would not release Gossamyr. She
managed to slip a hand around and grip bone. Her finger slid into—an
eye socket. She felt the skin on her back tear. A cry of pain escaped
but was swallowed by the revenant's manic screeches.

Slamming hard, Gossamyr heard the skull crack. Working another
finger into the other eye socket, she held fast. Repeatedly she beat
the skull against the cobbles. Each pound released the pressure on
her back until she was free. She flipped her legs out from under the
revenant. Using both hands, she made to pound the skull one forceful
time but instead pulled the head off complete.

Amidst the terror, Gossamyr found herself kneeling on the ground,
stunned to be holding the skull of a dead fée in her hand. The
jaw opened and let out a yowl.

Gossamyr whipped the skull across the square.

It landed a stone wall and shattered into a glimmer of dust.
Strange to think the sight pretty, but it was.

Now a skeletal hand groped her knee. Gossamyr stretched along the
cobblestones and grabbed her staff. The tip of a finger popped
through the silk skirt and opened her flesh. Smashing the staff in a
purely desperate move, she obliterated the offending arm and hand.
The hips and legs were put to end with a fervent pounding. Faery dust
rained upon her head and shoulders and legs.

Satisfied the beast was demolished, Gossamyr flung back her arms
and lay upon the cobbles, heaving and panting. Dust coated her
eyelids. Whimpers of pain punctuated her frantic breaths. Air wheezed
from her lungs. Blood from her knee oozed down her leg and soaked her
braies.

But successful, she thought. A smile was the only thing that did
not hurt. One less revenant to torment Faery.

Avenall's face appeared above her. Insectile in his movements he
looked over her. Streams of red-and-black hair tipped her aching
muscles.

"Avenall," she gasped.

"Impressive, mortal wench."

"I am not..." Too exhausted to argue, she thought to
expend her energy mentally. What be his name? He was of the tribe...
Rogue. Torn. Not enough to invoke a reverse glamour, but certainly
worth the effort. "Avenall of...Rougethorn."

But a single red eyebrow lifted. Considering? Remembering? Both
brows narrowed to study. Gossamyr stared into the violet depths that,
with a blink, were sluiced over by red.

"Rougethorn,
she
said, trying the word, but not saying it as he'd once said. A
thoughtful tilt of his head was followed by an adamant shake. "No.
You shall not win the prize this night, pitiful one. Puppy must
return to his mistress."

With that he dashed off, leaving Gossamyr sprawled in the center
of the street, her arms spread wide and her body coated with the
revenant dust.

Darting out her tongue, she tasted Faery. And for the moment she
reveled in the shroud of glamour that revisited her home.

I am coming home. I will become the champion.

By the time Gossamyr reached his side, Ulrich was
standing—wobbling and muttering a blue string of oaths about
vicious faery women—and alive. Which, after that nasty club to
the side of his head, is all Gossamyr worried about. Unthinking, she
pressed both hands to the sides of his scalp—a Mince gesture.

"Ouch!" He wriggled from her touch and slid along the
wall, his eyes manic on her. As if she had been the one to hurt him!

"I didn't—"

"It was your bloody staff!"

"Sorry." She twirled one half of her now-short staff and
snapped it to hide behind her back. "'Tis gone, the revenant.
Ulrich, I must go in search of Ave—the pin man. Can I leave you
to find your way home to your uncle?"

"You
will
leave me, faery." He touched a stream
of blood trickling from the depths of his tangled hair. "I've
had enough of your danger. I'd rather defend the alicorn from a
thousand wailing banshees than to stand again in the midst of one of
your battles."

"Ulrich."

No time to argue. It mattered naught who was right or wrong, only
that he was alive. And that she must move while she could. The
revenant had pushed one of its fingers—bones—through the
side of her knee. It hurt something fierce. If she did not walk the
muscle, it would bind and ache all the more.

As well, the pin man would not get away this time.

"Sorry. I must be on to it." And with a long, fretful
pause, looking over his skull—the blood no longer trickled, in
fact it looked a scratch—Gossamyr scampered off.

"I would have preferred another Dance!" Ulrich shouted
in her wake. "Damned bloody faeries!"

"Return to your uncle, Ulrich. Do not veer from your path!"

The pin man dropped from the painted rafters of a tanner's shed.
The stench of urine did not bother, so honed his senses were to the
task. Foolish woman. That he had slipped from her so easily with both
prizes intact!

Clutched in his left hand he held two pins, each heavy with a fée
essence. A smile curved beneath the scatter of crimson-and-black hair
that spilled across his face. His mistress would be pleased this
night. Good puppy.

In his right hand he drew out from his pin sheath the bloodied pin
that reeked of the warrior woman's scent. He waved it beneath his
nose, again trying to determine the curious origins of her essence.
'Twas not fée or troll or elf, but mysteriously, she did not
seem all that mortal, either. Powerful, she. To have defeated that
hideous skeletal monster?

I
know why you were banished.

She lied. Even he could not summon the memory.

And she had Named him, or rather, called out a name. The name
Avenall strummed within him, residing with little protest. Such ease
it made itself home.

Rougethorn? It did not resonate as the other name did. Yet, he did
remark the name; it was
her
tribal origin.

The warrior wench toyed with him. She sought to trick him, surely.
Lower his defenses. A feeble mortal woman. She could not be anything
but! Otherwise, the Red Lady would have scented her presence as soon
as she landed Paris.

Could his mistress be slipping?

A delicious thrill shivered gleefully through him. Skipping
merrily, he headed toward the succubus's lair, leaving all
curiosities about his name to the stench of the tanner's shop.

Gossamyr followed the skipping man, keeping far enough back so he
would not detect her. Ulrich had promised he would return to his
uncle. She hadn't meant to hit him so hard, but when in the midst of
battle, who was afforded the time to think? With rest the man would
fare fine and well. There, he could keep the alicorn safe. There was
no sense bringing it closer to the succubus who craved it.

As for herself, she gripped her pulsing knee. Every step shrieked
with pain. Blood drooled down the back of her leg. Frustrated with
the cumbersome skirts, she bent and gripped the tear through which
the revenant's finger had poked. She managed to rend the entire hem
away, as high as her knees. The braies beneath looked parti-colored,
for blood stained the left leg.

Sniffling, she smeared a bloody fist across her nose.

Don't think about it.
Do not consider the pain pierces with
each beat of your heart. You may hurt later.

Avenall scampered, his posture bending and streamlining as he
quickened his pace. She assumed being the Red Lady's minion required
a subservience that would tax any man's posture. Held at each side,
the glimmering essences called out his journey through the streets
like a supernatural beacon clutched in the grip of a lantern man. The
red flooding his hair shocked. A mark of the banished or the Red
Lady's taint?

The pin man suddenly slipped inside a doorway and a crack of light
closed behind him.

Gossamyr stepped up to an iron fence surrounding a stone and
red-tiled manor. So this was the Red Lady's lair? Unremarkable. It
was a small dwelling at the corner of three intersecting streets. A
crossroads?

A shiver, in anticipation of unseen souls, prinkled across her
chest, matching her lost blazon. The iron gate closed in a small
garden rimmed with a pink shell path. Even the evil succubus would
have use for a garden, for nature was a fée lifeline.

As well, stolen faery essences.

Carefully she picked across the shell path; her light footsteps
made no sound. Gossamyr snuck into the shadows and limned her body to
the limestone wall. The exterior verily hummed, she could feel Faery
shimmy through her being. Enchantment within. Curious to find such a
concentration in the depths of this mortal city.

Touching the crease between the door and the wall, Gossamyr
contemplated what she must do.

The fetch landed Shinn's forehead, stretching its wings beyond his
temples—scritch-scratch across the horns—and its
elongated thorax down his nose. Closing his eyes, Shinn allowed the
communion to begin. Images recorded from the Otherside flickered as
brief and darting as a dragon's flight. A battle. Two Disenchanted,
their shining armor decimated. Revenants taking to escape. Again, his
daughter was the victor. But she suffered injury.

Another flicker focused a disturbing image in Shinn's thoughts.
The soul shepherd kissed Gossamyr. A flurry of faery lights
shimmering throughout the city ended the recorded communication.

Sending gratitude to the fetch, Shinn did not open his eyes until
it had lifted from his forehead and
twinclianed.

"She is in Paris," he murmured. "That kiss."

While he should be more troubled his daughter was forced to face
bogies and maniacal minions of the Red Lady, the image of that kiss
disturbed him fiercely. Now was no time for Gossamyr to stumble. She
risked much more than her life. All of Glamoursiege relied upon her
success.

His deepest fear had come to fruition. The mortal passion had
taken hold. She invited distraction when her goal must be focused.

"My lord." Desideriel Raine stood waiting in the great
hall. The marshal at arms reported morning and evening now that the
troops had been mustered.

"How many?" Shinn queried solemnly.

"Two, my lord. We've taken care of them. But their frequency
increases. It is difficult to determine where in Glamoursiege the
revenants will next arrive."

"How many casualties?"

"But two."

"Their essences?"

"Safe."

Shinn nodded and Desideriel bowed then left.

"You are so close," he said aloud.

Images of Gossamyr's determined grin fixed before him. How she
loved adventure. But could she separate the adventure from true
danger?

"Concentrate, child of mine."

The small outer manor deceived as Gossamyr tracked Avenall down a
slanting, curved marble hallway until she estimated she marked out a
path as vast as the market square where Ulrich had explained the
Parisians hung their criminals. Damp and the scent of clay were
eminent even for the marble that covered walls and floor and ceiling.
Torches hissed on the walls and flickered as she brushed by them.
Gargoyles, the torches; each of them holding an eerie glint in their
hollowed stone eyes, for the flames flickered below their jaws.

The pin man danced joyously toward his destination, quite unaware
Gossamyr had closed the distance between them. He had no sense of the
man he had once been, a regal fée princeling. And despite his
obvious change, Gossamyr still clung to that image of his former
self.

Would he lead her to the Red Lady? Gossamyr's entry into the lair
seemed entirely too easy. And she held but a short staff now for
she'd left behind the other half. Where were the minions? Surely the
succubus commanded an army of red-eyed sycophants. If there was
Avenall, there must be others.

In the air hummed a strange susurration, like tiny whispers,
secretive and stealthy. And beyond the murmurs the single tone of a
harp string sung out from a dense and muting distance. Be this the
sound that lured Ulrich? Wasn't nearly so sweet as a midsummer reel
sung by a forest siren.

Avenall sang, tapping the heads of each gargoyle torch as he
passed. "Seraphion, Martimanas, my sweets!"