Hair of Gold: Just Right (Urban Fairytales Book 6) (16 page)

I quirked an eyebrow at the possibility of visiting the crypt. The stories of Nicole of Arad, the first female Wolf Hunter had always inspired me. Which is why I coveted my blade, the trader that my brother's got it from had papers showing it had once been one of her blades from early on in her career before she opted for two longer and slimmer blades. I'd like to see the Black Crypt to see if we could get a glimpse of the woman inside.

The Scales were looking at me, almost sadly, then Jacob said to me as if they could read my mind, “Not yet, you still have a final task, then we can show you the Lady Who Sleeps.”

Wilhelm said almost angrily, “Free will is always a danger to the balance and Baird is about to cast that balance far into the darkness in his desperation. Like a badger backed into a corner, he is a dangerous man. His mother's madness has taken him so far away from humanity that he is not thinking of the ramifications of his actions.”

Jacob nodded, taking up the narrative, “Thsalias or Perchta are the only Avatars that can stand against the madman at this time, but they are both too distant to arrive before it is too late. The only hope the mortal realm has to stop his plan is a bear maiden and two changelings.”

Wilhelm nodded in agreement slowly and finished, “And that may not be enough.”

I growled, “Then why do you yourselves not face him? You are godlings are you not?”

They looked down with a touch of... shame? On their faces and shook their heads. Gretel grunted out a disgusted and sardonic chuckle, “Of course not. They can't interfere.” She looked straight at them “Then of what use are you?”

Jacob perked up and grinned, “Ah, but we can help without interfering. We just happen to be going to the British Isles on the morrow, we have procured a boat. Far be it for us to refuse to give fellow travelers a ride across the channel if they were to ask.”

It was a prompt, we all knew it, and we were all just as fed up with the Scales games, so remained silent, not giving them the satisfaction of us asking. I was starting to understand the way they worked, they were not allowed, by whatever rules bound them, to simply offer.

Hansel was the one to break that awkward silence, “For god's sake, you two are infuriating.” Then he asked in a tone of strained patience, “Jacob, Wilhelm, might we secure passage across the Channel with you on your boat?”

The two men looked at each other like it was a novel idea and they grinned, and Wilhelm said, “Of course, we would be happy to aide fellow travelers.”

They stood at the same instant and said, “We must go make preparations, thank you very much for the hospitality these past weeks Gilbert.”

The old man grumbled, “Fuck you very much, you pains in the asses.”

They chuckled at him and headed out the kitchen door as they said, “We will be on the shore at dawn.”

On the shore where? I stood and stalked to the door, aware that I was moving like a predator. The amulet was affecting me more and more. I blinked when I looked into an empty entry hall. I turned back and was about to say something when Gilbert just held up a hand to stop me as he shook his head in exasperation, “They do that.”

I noticed Gretel looked more perturbed than the rest of us as she just stared at me with narrowed eyes. I cocked my head in question, trying to read her expressive eyes. She just shook her head at me and said, “You shouldn't travel for a few more days. Even you need time to heal properly.”

I stepped up to her and took both of her hands and squeezed gently, locking eyes with her as I assured her, “I am already feeling much improved after that meal. By the morrow, I will be mostly myself. I promise not to exert myself on the journey to London, I should be in perfect health by the time we arrive.”

She sighed and then after searching the truth in my eyes, she smiled and looked coyly down. This just got me to blush at her sudden shyness and Hansel groaned, “Get a room you two.”

Her eyes twinkled in mischief at that, and she said as she captured me with her eyes again, “Splendid idea.” Then she started backing out of the kitchen, again dragging me by both hands while she licked her lips in hunger.

By the gods, it was hot in that tower.

True to their words, when we stepped out of the tower in the morning with all of our gear. We saw the Scales by a small boat with a little sail at a small meadow at the base of the rocks on the mainland shore. I saw our horses and two others grazing the small expanse of grassland between cliff faces.

The gentle breeze blowing was a huge contrast to the windstorm that greeted us weeks back when we arrived. I chuckled at my girl who was in an extremely good and playful mood after our affirming of our love for each other the prior day... and night. She just grinned playfully back at me.

I said with a sigh, “So much for having our own horses. They won't fit on that rickety boat of theirs.”

She bumped me and shook her head. “Nothing to be done for it now.”

Gilbert spoke from the open door of the great tower. “I will tend your horses until your return.” We all heard the implied, “If you return,” in his tone.

We all grasped forearms with the man, thanking him for the hospitality. He chuckled, “Don't mention it. And I mean that, really, don’t mention it or the Damaschin family will string me up in a tree by my balls for allowing you into the Heart of Sliver.”

I smiled at the old man, and we started across the rope bridge. I noted it was pretty ingenious, the planks we walked on looked to be able to roll up, protecting against werewolves during the Wolf Moons since the beasts could not swim, their bodies were too dense with muscle.

Hansel led the way, they had obviously been down to that meadow to tend the horses while I had been sleeping. We took a winding path down between the jutting rocks. I saw a small freshwater stream cutting through the meadow which emptied into the turbulent sea.

When we arrived at the little boat, I stared at it dubiously, there would be little to no room left on it once we were aboard with our gear. It was little more than a dinghy with a sail, could it even make the crossing? I glanced at the choppy waves. We weren't immortal-ish like the Scales.

They seemed unconcerned as they greeted us and offered a hand to help Gretel and me into the small craft. I growled at them, and they withdrew their hands with amusement painting their faces as I just hoisted my girl by her waist and she grinned as I set her in the boat, my legs calf deep in the chilly waters of the North Sea.

Hansel deftly hopped in and sat at the back of the boat then the Scales boarded. We sat precariously low in the water, but they seemed unconcerned as they pushed off the shore with powerful thrusts of the long oars they jammed into the sandy seabed.

We bobbed around, being buffeted by the waves as they brought us out past the tower to where the waves were not quite so violent. Not used to the motion of the boat, I covered my mouth and bent quickly over the edge and lost my breakfast. The Scales chuckled in amusement until I turned a glare on them.

The sail caught the breeze and before long we were sailing smoothly across the channel. Hansel took up a little wooden bucket and started bailing water as waves lapped over the edge of the boat. I asked, “Could you have found something any smaller?”

Jacob said nonchalantly as he adjusted the sail, “It was the only unsecured boat we could find at such short notice.”

Unsecured? I blanched, the men had absconded with the boat? My girl who rarely cussed except in their presence grumbled, “Fuckin' Scales.” This put me in a merry mood, and I soon forgot about my unease at the motion of the boat.

It was dark before we saw the lights of a village on the shore. I admit to having fears of being lost at sea. I thought it might have been smarter if we had ridden to Calais to cross at the closest point to Dover on the British Isles.

They had ferries there that made the crossing in just two or three hours. We must have crossed double that distance in the leaky dinghy in twelve hours or more.

I hugged the ground, to my woman's giggling pleasure when we finally reached shore in the land of Briton. I never wanted to ride in a boat again, though I knew it to be inevitable if I ever wanted off of this island.

It was a two or three-day journey to the great walled city of London from where we landed just north of Dover. We looked around as a light rain started, orienting ourselves. We could make camp or use some of our sparse coin to secure lodging for the night in the village proper.

Hansel looked at Gretel and I making the decision silently between us and he sighed and said, “I'm wet enough as it is without this dreary drizzle, sisters. You make your own decisions, I'm finding a room for let.”

We watched him trudge off into the village, and I smiled softly that he called me his sister. We turned expectantly to the Scales who were oddly shoving the boat off for it to drift off into the sea, unmanned.

Anticipating our question, Jacob shook his head, “This is where we part ways. Your path is your own though we will will see you very soon.”

Wilhelm looked around as if to try to find anyone about then whispered, “I hear the Blue Bull in London has some stout ale.”

With that cryptic message, the two looked around quickly as if they expected someone to appear from out of the ether. When nobody did they smiled at each other and looked to be about to say some other asinine thing when they both furrowed their brows and looked past us. We turned to follow their gaze to see Hansel still trudging along. We turned back, and the infuriating men were nowhere to be found.

I growled low and long as Gretel grabbed my hand and started dragging me after her brother as she chuckled at my frustration. I understood her dislike for the men more than ever. I wish they would have told us all they knew about what was about to transpire, it was obvious they knew much more than they shared.

Later we wound up in much better rooms, in the inn above a tavern called the Rusty Goose, than we had hoped for, not having to use our coin. Instead, we had gained enough coin from challengers in the bar who wished to try their luck arm wrestling with me to pay for several nights lodging and food if we wished it.

There was one man who shocked me that night by almost besting me. I was stronger than most men before the Kodiak Amulet had gifted me the strength of my brothers, but this slight man in a green cloak, hiding his face in the shadows of its hood, had almost tired me out. The people were calling him Robin of Locksley. He had smallish hands for a man, but the strength of any two.

***

When I first laid eyes on London a few days later, I was in awe of such an impossible sight. No village nor town I had ever seen had come close to the sheer size and majesty of the city that lay before me. And half of the huge metropolis was surrounded by a great wall that loomed at least thirty to forty feet high. That grand wall gleamed in the mid-morning as sunlight bounced off the blackened silver veins spidering through the rough-hewn stone of the ore from which it was constructed.

I exchanged looks with my companions, and they gave me smiles which told me they had witnessed the spectacle of these impressive walled cities before. I knew this was what Bucuresti must resemble... the destination I had never reached.

From our vantage point, we looked out over the great city as it seemed to spread out to the horizon. I saw the great bridge of London, it was just like all the stories described, leading to the main gates of the great metropolis. It was a bridge so large there were buildings upon it except the last fifty feet to the gates. I knew that gap was a buffer for werewolf defense, so there was nothing they could jump off of to clear the silver infused walls.

Gretel froze as she scanned the area. I followed her gaze to see a church and a huge cemetery, maybe a mile outside the main gates. In the back of the cemetery was a crypt I could make out even at the distance. It was surrounded by a black mass of vines and brambles which I knew were a deadly briar patch that no man could pass. Dozens fell every year to the insipid poison of the thorns, in an attempt to reach the Lady Who Sleeps inside.

Hearing the legends of the Black Crypt was one thing, but to actually see it made it suddenly... real to me in a way I would not think possible just days before. I glanced back at Gretel, who's eyes were locked on the crypt.

Inside lay the mentor to her personal hero, and that made it personal to my girl. I absently wondered if the stories of Thsalias, the Briar Rose, were true. That the Queen of the Underworld herself roamed the world in silent mourning for her love who slept in the crypt, protected forever by the walls of poison vines which could not be destroyed, created with a piece of her own dark heart.

Was it possible for a monster to love? I sighed, I too was a monster, and I loved. I smiled at that realization and could empathize with Thsalias. I thought about all the stories of the wave of death that followed in the wake of her roiling vines, she laid waste to any who did harm, and I realized that not one of the stories spoke of her harming innocents.

I blinked at that. Was it possible Mother Death was fighting evil like us, that she was not evil herself? I felt suddenly ashamed for thinking her a monster. Goddesses like her and Perchta are often misunderstood and feared for their power.

I laid a hand on Gretel's arm and gave a reassuring squeeze, “We can stop at the Black Crypt on the way to the gates.” Her hand covered mine, her thumb absently stroking the long nail on my index finger. She says she likes how they are as smooth as glass, hard as iron, yet delicate and feminine. A contradiction, like the rest of me.

She nodded then squeezed my hand. “I'd like that. Though I don't know what we can see, it is protected by the vines of her love.”

Han exhaled, I noted he had been looking too. He doesn't speak much of their experience in the cave where their lives had changed so drastically. Though I believe that he has the same reverence that his sister has for this Rapunzel woman who had saved them. Whenever I ask, he changes the subject.

He just started walking down the hill into the fringes sprawling city. We hustled to keep up. He was taking long strides. He was in a mood, so we didn't say anything nor try to slow him. I was amazed at how many people were milling about on the streets as they got more congested the farther we slipped into the outer city.

The structures were transitioning from stone and mortar cottages to brick and smooth stone buildings I noted that I could see wooden and thatched roofs on some of the taller buildings inside the walls across the River Thames. I pointed. “Look at the roofs inside the walls, they would not fare well against wolf attacks, do you think they use secured cellars like in the small villages?”

I looked at my brunette companion, and she was grinning at me as she asked the universe, “Why am I always attracted to the slow ones?”

I narrowed an eye at her and growled to her giggling pleasure. “My dear Goldilocks, they do not need masonry roofs behind walls of silver.”

Oh. I hadn't thought of that. Even the gated villages we had visited had proper roofs on most buildings, and those that didn't still had Wolf Cellars since while affording some protection against ferals on a Wolf Moon, the fences, and gates could be breached with moderate effort by werewolves so that additional layer of protection was needed. There wasn't a wolf who could breach walls such as the ones I was looking at that moment.

I grinned and then we almost ran into Hansel, who had just stopped dead in front of us. We looked past him to the iron gated cemetery entrance. We all looked through the gate to see hundreds of grand tombstones, crypts, statues and markers flowing back into the old growth trees that dotted the graveyard by the church.

I laced my fingers in Gretel's then looped an arm in Hansel's as I dragged my girl past him and into through the iron gates. I said, “Come, we mustn't tarry. We've lost so much time to my sleep at the tower.”

We made our way to the back where we had seen the crypt from the rise above the city. As we approached, it seemed like the whole world was holding its breath, not even the birds were chirping. The only sound was from the wheels of a cart pushed by an old caretaker as he worked near our destination.

I closed my mouth when I realized I was gawking at the old grey stone crypt which I could just barely make out through he thick wall of vines and brambles that were as black as coal which encircled the structure like a foreboding cage. I knew that just to brush a thorn on them would bring a most agonizing of deaths in mere moments.

Then I saw what the caretaker was doing just a couple feet from the poisonous barrier, and I understood the silence. He was sweeping the bodies of dozens of birds and rodents into a bin. The poor creatures unfortunate enough to touch the briars.

I stopped breathing as he put the bin and broom into his cart and I saw a man's armored feet dangling off the end of the cart. His face was frozen in a death mask of excruciating pain and fear. The old man bent and carefully slid out a broadsword, which was tangled in the vines, and tossed it on top of the body in his cart. He grabbed the handles and started moving toward a caretaker's cottage which was beside the outer stone wall of the cemetery.

He paused when he saw us and bowed his head and said with a mostly toothless grin, “Sir, ladies.” He tilted his head toward the body in the cart and said with a shrug, “The latest fool to think he could defeat the briars to claim the maiden.” Then he hustled past us, the axles of the cart squeaking and the steel wheels rattling on the cobblestone paths of the cemetery. We all exchanged a look.