Something Magic This Way Comes (16 page)

“Much better.” Athaniel’s voice seemed to float from somewhere above her.

Megan had barely time to draw breath before it began again.

* * *

Cold. Pain. Megan shuddered, and winced as little flares of pain shot through her body. She hadn’t felt this bad since Frank had put her in the hospital.

The musty smell of poorly circulating air and unwashed bodies told her this place was no hospital.

Megan opened her eyes, dreading what she might see.

She lay naked on bare stone, in a small room carved from solid rock. A grille set high in a wall gave a little light, and more light leaked under the bottom of a heavy wooden door opposite the grille. A smudge of pale skin in the dimness was all she could see of whoever shared this prison with her.

“Delorias?” Her voice came out as a croak.

“My Lady!” He sounded as hoarse as Megan, most likely for the same reason. “You should have fled and left me.”

“Screw that.” Megan levered herself up, wincing with each new spasm of pain. It hurt more than she would have believed just to sit, to lean against the rough, cold stone. “Where are we?”

“The prisons of Castle Moondark.” Delorias swallowed.

“They will end my life this night.”

Where she would be kept alive to play to their sick amusements: Megan did not need to be told that.

“Tell me about the castle.” She had to get out of here before Athaniel began his games. If what he had done to her was any indication, she would not be in any condition to escape after he started.

“My Lady?”

Megan leaned against the stone behind her, pushing her body up into she stood leaning against the stone.

“How do we escape it?”

Delorias paused before he spoke. “It cannot be done,” he said finally. “The castle stands atop Moondark Peak, and we do not fly.”

Stealing one of those glossy horses wasn’t an option, Megan guessed. They became uncontrollably vicious without the control of their elf masters. That didn’t leave much choice.

She’d rather try to climb down a mountain than face Athaniel again.

A tentative step forward sent more pain through her joints. Megan winced, and took another step. And a third. And a fourth.

The grille was higher than she could reach, the wall too smooth to climb. Megan turned and walked the few steps to the door.

It opened outwards, the hinges not visible from inside the cell. Metal bracing surrounded the lock. Copper, Megan supposed, given the way elves reacted to iron. There was nothing she could use except the space between the wall and the door. That . . . If she stood on the lock side she might be able to ambush a guard.

She clenched her teeth. Better to die fighting than whatever Athaniel planned. Megan just hoped the martial arts training she had done would work against elves. To help keep off the chill, she started jogging in place, nothing too strenuous. She could run for hours at this pace—although she was usually in better shape when she did. A good sports bra helped, too.

Megan had forgotten just how much bounce there was in unprotected breasts.

* * *

By alternating jogging with walking, Megan kept the chill of the air from making her stiff and cold. After a time, Delorias joined her, though he said little until the light from the grille began to dim.

“Those who collect us will likely be magical constructs,” he murmured. “Made to obey, perhaps to inspire fear. They are unlikely to be able to think for themselves.”

Megan nodded. “Thanks.” It might be a fool’s hope, but she refused to walk meekly to death—or worse.

Once had been enough.

They walked and jogged without speaking for a stretch of time marked only by their own breathing, their own footfalls. The grille became invisible, lost in the darkness of night outside.

“Something comes.” Tension strained at Delorias’s soft voice. “Possibly a construct.”

A few steps later, Megan heard it: plodding footfalls on the other side of the door. They drew closer, stopped outside the door. She froze, poised.

Scraping sounds as a bolt was pulled, a squeal as a key turned. The rattling of a doorknob in its frame.

The door pulled open, and a massive shape filled the doorway.

Megan held her breath. Surely the thing would see her and Delorias in the corner.

It lumbered forward.

That was all the encouragement Megan needed. She darted behind it, and out into the long corridor beyond.

Another of the creatures waited there, arms hanging loosely from its shoulders. Megan’s heart pounded as she raced away from it, her ears straining for lumbering footsteps. None came.

Instead, Delorias drew level with her, touched her arm to draw her to the side, to a door whose bolt was not drawn.

They slipped inside, waiting.

Silence. It seemed to last forever.

Finally, Megan heard the heavy steps of the guard creatures as they left the prison.

“They will surely be sent back and the prison searched,” Delorias whispered. “We must move swiftly.”

Megan pushed the door open and slipped out, then eased it closed once Delorias joined her. Neither needed a signal to run.

They raced through the long corridor to crude stairs carved from the rock. Up, climbing a long stairwell with nowhere to hide, to another heavy door.

Megan could hear nothing beyond it. After a while, Delorias nodded, and pushed the door open. The creatures had not locked it.

Tension knotted between Megan’s shoulderblades.

On the other side of the door a hallway three times her height shone in glittering crystal lit from within.

They dared not let anyone see them, not here. Delorias’s bruises and scratches against his white skin, their nakedness . . . They could not be mistaken for anything but escapees.

He eased the door shut. “The heights.” It was the barest of whispers, but still the crystal-clad walls caught the sound, reflecting it endlessly.

Megan nodded, and they began to run once more.

* * *

The aeries were a charnel house. Megan stood, her hands on her thighs as she panted, trying to catch her breath and hold her stomach. She had expected the smell of horses, of hay and wheat. Not to see sharptoothed horse things tearing into meat.

Meat that looked like it had once belonged to a human—or an elf.

Sweat dripped from her hair, slicked her skin. She had no idea how far she and Delorias had run, only that below them Athaniel’s Hunters searched with a fury that made her chest tighten with fear. She had no notion why they had not been stopped, not been found, and could only hope that their good fortune would last long enough for them to escape.

At least the aeries had side passages. Megan presumed that the conspicuously absent attendants used the passages to bring food to the creatures, and to discard their waste.

She straightened, swallowing, and nodded to Delorias.

They walked toward the stars outlined by the passage.

Like the prison, it was rough-cut stone, unadorned.

Cold air brushed through the passages, making Megan shiver.

Only a few steps more
, she promised herself.
Then
it’s downhill all the way.

“Leaving so soon?”

Megan whirled, fury rising within her. Athaniel’s lazy amusement, his arrogance, made her long to wipe the mockery from his face. He stood with his legs apart and his arms crossed, a vision of inhuman beauty in red silk and velvet.

Without thought, she surged towards him, left hand raised with her fingers curled to claws, splayed out to catch both eyes.

Surprise flickered across Athaniel’s face. Both his hands closed around her left wrist.

Her right knee drove up, hard, between his legs.

Athaniel’s breath caught. He released Megan’s arms, doubling over to protect his abused genitals.

She pulled away from him. This time, Megan had no need to conjure Frank’s image from her imagination.

She had more than enough reason to want Athaniel to suffer.

Her kick caught him behind the ear. Even though she was barefoot, the kick connected with enough force that he lurched to the side and toppled. His head hit the stone floor with a dull crack.

Megan hopped backwards. “Crap. That hurt.”

“He still lives.” Delorias sounded as though he had no idea what to think.

Megan hobbled back to him, her toes throbbing. “I don’t care. I just want out of here.” She could probably prize a rock from the mountain and make sure Athaniel would never wake, but . . . She had killed too many already. The thought of killing someone in cold blood, even a bastard like Athaniel, made her stomach twist.

The passage opened to a sheer cliff. Megan swayed back into the passage, gulping. She closed her eyes.

“I don’t suppose you can make us fall softly or something?”

“His spells block me from working magic.”

She opened her eyes and really
looked
at Delorias.

Even in the dim light leaking from the aeries, he looked bad. Pale, with dark circles under his eyes. “Ouch.”

Megan had no real idea what to say, or how to express sympathy. “I guess that means you can’t—” she swallowed.

“—do anything about him, either.”

Delorias shook his head. “It would be my death.”

Something was going to be their deaths soon. Either Athaniel would wake and be
really
pissed, or they’d die trying to climb an unclimbable cliff. Neither option appealed.

Megan shivered. “Let’s climb. Maybe something will . . .” She couldn’t make herself finish. There was nothing to save them, nothing to stop Athaniel simply plucking them from the cliff face even if they managed not to fall.

She clenched her teeth and sat at the passage entry, legs dangling over a height she didn’t want to consider.

Dark shapes flitted through the air, blotting out the stars in a flickering veil of shadows.

Delorias rested his hands on her shoulders. “I can . . . send you on quickly,” he said finally. “It is too little, but it is all I can offer.”

Megan watched the approaching shapes, hypnotized.

“No.” Her voice sounded distant, as though it belonged to someone else. “But thank you.” A merciful death was no small thing here, no artifact of medical science that could prolong life for years without adding any quality to it. Here, mercy meant a swift end, with no torture.

A flicker of scarlet light bloomed about the shadows, gone as quickly as it had come.

“Dragons?” Delorias’s hands tightened about her shoulders. “But they never—”

A voice with the rumbling power of an earthquake vibrated through Megan’s bones, a voice that didn’t touch her ears. “Have thee trust, and jump!”

The power in that voice, the command, took her body and demanded obedience. As though in a dream, Megan lifted her legs, set her feet against the cliff face.

She leaned forward, closed her eyes, and pushed with all her strength.

Air rushed past her, icy, tearing at her skin. If she screamed, she couldn’t hear it over the rush of air in her ears.

Something closed around her, slowing her fall, gradually reducing the rushing wind until she could hear the steady beat of wings. Immense wings . . . and claws that held her as gently as a mother cradling a baby.

This is too much.
Megan had time for that one thought before the day’s exertions, the fear, everything caught up with her, and she knew nothing more.

* * *

The familiar sounds and smells of an oak forest seemed so out of place that Megan sat with a lurch that sent her head spinning. “What . . . ?” This was the state park. Her forest. She could see the bush she’d flattened rather than be pushed through it, see the marks in the dirt and leaf litter that told of horses and people.

A quick, frantic examination revealed her clothes, her shoes and socks, even her iPod, all where they belonged.

She shook her head. “Christ. I couldn’t have passed out and dreamed all that?”

Her fanny pack was missing.

Megan climbed to her feet, wincing as every muscle in her body complained. That on its own was reason to believe the whole thing had happened, even if bent and broken greenery was all she had to prove it.

“Crap. Trust me to get an elf who dumps me back here when the whole deal is over.” Though she knew Delorias deserved better, Megan needed to bitch about something, and she didn’t dare think too closely about Athaniel. The last thing she wanted to do was bring him and his Hunt back here.

She turned slowly, scanning the woods.

There. “Got you!” Megan reached under a tangle of broken shrub and caught the strap of her fanny pack. The familiar weight felt comforting as she fastened it around her waist. The knowledge that she wouldn’t have to pay a small fortune to replace her Beretta was even more comforting. It wasn’t a cheap piece of hardware.

She patted the outline of the pistol, and smiled.

Then frowned as something crackled.

Megan reached inside. The pistol was there, presumably undamaged—something she would need to check when she cleaned it—but there was also something that didn’t feel quite like paper.

She drew it out, unfolded the creamy rectangle.

The note was simple enough, once she puzzled out spelling that wasn’t so much appalling as several hundred years late. It seemed that dragons regularly flew around the castle seeking anyone who might be trying to escape, rescuing who they could, and killing the Hunters’ mounts when the opportunity arose. Delorias seemed surprised, Megan had the impression from his words that he had thought dragons cared nothing for what happened among the other Fey creatures.

The dragons had built the portal to return her home and had restored her possessions. They wished her well, as did he.

Just as well
, Megan thought.
I had enough trouble
with a human partner. Who knows what I’d get from
an elf?

And that, it seemed, was that. All the evidence was gone. Not a trace of elf blood remained to darken the ground. She couldn’t even smell the cordite from all the rounds she’d fired. If she told anyone about this, they’d think she was insane.

All the same, Megan was going to decorate her house with iron grille work. She wasn’t taking any chances with that bastard Athaniel.