Iron and Magic

  Bale turned the corner.

  “Here comes trouble,” Lamar murmured.

  The berserker walked up to the weapons rack and pulled a mace out.

  “Perhaps going from the bottom?” one of Stoyan’s people suggested. “An up stroke?”

  “Possibly,” Stoyan said.

  Bale charged.

  The Iron Dogs jumped out of the way. The red-headed berserker smashed the breastplate with the mace, denting it.

  “Damn it!” Stoyan barked.

  Bale pounded the armor with his mace, denting it with every blow. Clang. Clang. Clang.

  Stoyan threw his sword on the ground. “Fine. Just fucking smash it then. Smash everything.”

  “How many maces do we have?” Hugh asked.

  “Not that many,” Lamar said.

  “Get more.”

  “Will do.”

  The old truck rolled through the gates of the castle, flanked by two Iron Dogs on horseback, the escort Hugh had sent for protection. The water engine spat noise and screeched. The driver got out without shutting it off. A bad sign.

  “Go get Hugh,” she told Beth. “Tell him Deidre’s family is here.”

  Elara put a smile on her face and walked out to the vehicle. The driver, an average size man with dark blond hair and skin ruddy from the weather waited for the passenger. A woman climbed out of the vehicle, dark-haired, white, thin. The two of them walked toward her, away from the truck’s noise. Both were closer to forty than to thirty. The man wore jeans, a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and a black-and-white baseball cap. The woman wore a blue T-shirt over a pair of washed-out jeans.

  “Hello,” Elara said.

  “We’re here for Deidre,” the man said.

  Right. No pleasantries, then. “And you are?” Elara asked.

  “I’m her mother’s brother,” the man said.

  “My name is Elara,” she said and held her hand out.

  Neither of the two shook it.

  “I’m going to need some proof of identity before I release the child to you,” she said.

  The man looked like he was about to say something unpleasant, but the woman reached out and put her hand on his arm. He shut his mouth, pulled out a wallet, and held out his driver’s license. Wayne Braiden Harmon. The name matched what Deidre told her. The woman produced her own driver’s license. Jane Melissa Harmon.

  “We are deeply sorry for your loss,” Elara said.

  “Thank you,” Jane said.

  “I’m not sure how much you were told,” Elara said. “Redhill was attacked by monsters. They slaughtered everyone inside. Deidre happened to be outside of the walls when it happened, and she and a young man escaped. A monster chased them through the woods in the middle of the night. The young man almost died.”

  Jane bit her lip.

  “The child is deeply traumatized. We were hoping you could allow her to stay with us for a couple of days, just to settle her down. We would be happy to put you up for the night.”

  “That’s kind of you,” Jane said. “But we would like to take Deidre home.”

  “She will get settled with us,” Wayne said.

  This wasn’t going well. “Please reconsider,” Elara said. “She just lost her father and mother.”

  Hugh came around the tower, leading Bucky. Deidre was riding on the huge stallion’s back. She saw her aunt and uncle and went still like a baby rabbit caught in the open.

  Elara’s heart turned over in her chest.

  Hugh walked over to them, reached for Deidre, gently took her off the horse and set her on her feet.

  “Hi, honey,” Elara threw him a smile. Help me, Hugh. “This is Wayne and Jane Harmon. This is my husband, Hugh. He is the one who saved your niece.”

  “Hey there.” Hugh offered his charming grin and held his hand out. Wayne Harmon met Hugh’s gaze and held it for a long moment. Hugh showed no signs of moving. Finally the sheer force of his presence won out and Wayne shook his hand. Hope fluttered in her.

  “Your niece is very brave,” Hugh said.

  The brave niece looked like she was about to bolt at any second.

  “I was just explaining that Deidre isn’t in any shape to travel,” Elara said.

  Wayne ignored her and crouched. “Hi, Deidre. Remember me? It’s uncle Wayne.”

  Deidre didn’t move.

  “It will be okay,” Jane told her. “Everything will be okay now. You’re coming home with us.”

  Deidre shook her head. “No. I want to stay here.”

  “You can’t stay here,” Wayne said. “You have to come with us. You remember Michelle, your cousin? She’s waiting for you. We have a big yellow dog named Tyler. You’ll like him. He’s big and fluffy. Come on, sweetheart.”

  Deidre stayed completely still.

  “Why don’t we have lunch?” Hugh said. “You’ll get to know us, and we’ll talk about it.”

  Wayne straightened and drew himself to his full height. “We know you. We know who you are. We know what you’ve done.”

  He took a step toward Hugh. D’Ambray towered over him and Wayne had to look up.

  “You’re a killer and a villain. Your wife is a witch. This child comes from a good Christian family. If her father knew where she was now, he’d fight every single one of you to get her out of here.”

  Oh no.

  “So, no, we won’t be breaking bread with you. There isn’t a godly man alive in fifty miles who would let his flesh and blood anywhere near you. We know you want her to stay here. Well, you’re not getting her. What would you turn her into if I left her here?”

  Hugh’s face shut down. The charming veneer vanished and only the Preceptor of the Iron Dogs remained.

  “What happens when the beasts come for her?” he asked, his voice pure ice.

  “We’ll fight them,” Jane said. “And if she dies, she’ll die as a Christian.”

  Wayne walked over and reached for Deidre.

  The child screamed as if cut. “No!”

  Hugh stepped between them. Wayne locked his teeth.

  It wouldn’t be a fair fight. Hugh would kill him with the first blow and then Deidre would see the rest of her family die.

  An electric jolt of alarm dashed through Elara. Do I grab the child first, do I stop Hugh, do I stop Wayne?

  Hugh looked at Deidre. “I know you want to stay here,” he said. “But you have a family. Your uncle loves you. If I tried to keep you here, your uncle would fight for you. He has no chance against me. He knows that, but he would do it anyway. You’re that important to him. I don’t want to kill your uncle. He hasn’t done anything wrong. You have to go with him.”

  Elara moved, letting her magic spill out of her. Wayne saw her and stumbled back, hands raised. She swept Deidre up and gently brushed her tears off with her fingers.

  “And if he ever mistreats you,” Elara said. “If he or your aunt ever hit you or hurt you, all you have to do is call to me. I will hear, and I will come.” She kissed Deidre’s forehead. Her magic touched the child’s skin, leaving a hidden blessing.

  Elara took three steps and placed Deidre into Jane’s arms. “Take her now and leave. Quickly, before my husband and I change our minds.”

  The Harmons ran for the truck, carrying Deidre. She watched them turn around and roll out, aware of Hugh standing next to her like a thunderstorm ready to break.

  The truck left the gates.

  Hugh turned and walked away without a word.

  12

  Elara leaned forward, rocking on her hands and knees, and sniffed the soil under the patch of wilting jimsonweed. It smelled moist, green, and alive. She sat back on her feet and pondered the thorny plants. Only yesterday, the patch was in good health, the stems standing straight, spreading the toothed leaves, and cradling white and purple trumpet shaped flowers. Today, the stems had wrinkled and shrunk, curling down. It was as if all the water had been sucked out of the plant, and it was dying at the end of a long drought. But the soil was mois
t.

  Next to her, James Cornwell twisted his hands. A white man in his forties, he was of average height, but his arms and legs seemed too long somehow, his shoulders too narrow, and his frame too lanky. He wore a straw hat and he often joked that from the back people mistook him for a scarecrow. He was the keeper of poisons. If it was poisonous and they grew it, James was in charge of it. Normally he was upbeat, but right now agitation took hold of him.

  “Never seen anything like this,” James said.

  “Have you dug one up?” she asked.

  He turned, plucked a plant from his wheelbarrow with his gloved hand, and held it in front of her. The root, normally thick and fibrous, had shrunk down, so desiccated it looked like a rat’s tail.

  “What could do that?” James asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “The entire crop is a loss.”

  He was right. Jimsonweed, Datura stramonium, wasn’t one of their most valuable plants. A powerful hallucinogenic, it belonged to the nightshade family, sharing ancestry with tomatoes, potatoes, and chili peppers, but also with belladonna and mandrake. Once it was used as a remedy against madness and seizures, but the toxicity of the plant proved to be too high and it was abandoned as soon as safer alternatives were found. Now it was mostly harvested to induce visions. They sold a small quantity of it every year to specialized shops and made sure it came with bright warning labels. It wasn’t a significant earner, but the sudden wilting was worrisome.

  Elara glanced to the left, where a patch of henbane bloomed with yellow flowers. Hyoscyamus niger, also poisonous and hallucinogenic, brought in a lot of money, mostly from German and Norse neo-pagans. The plant was sacred to Balder, son of Odin and Frigg. Balder was famous mostly for his resurrection myth, detailed in Prose Edda, but the medieval text glossed over one important detail: Balder wasn’t a martyr. He was a warlord, proficient with every weapon known to ancient people. The neo-pagans prayed to him before every major obstacle, and henbane was a crucial part of those prayers. Henbane was too toxic to be grown and harvested by amateurs. It came with a big price tag.

  If whatever killed the jimsonweed jumped to the henbane, they would take an expensive hit.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked.

  “I want it warded.”

  “The henbane?”

  He nodded. “I’ll put plastic up too, but I would feel better with a ward.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell Savannah.”

  James twisted his hands some more.

  “Would you like me to do it?” she guessed. “Now?”

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  “Thank you!” He reached into the wheelbarrow and withdrew a bundle of elm sticks.

  The rapid thudding of a galloping horse sounded through the trees. Elara frowned. A rider came around the bend, emerging from the trees. Sam, wearing his Iron Dog black.

  He slowed the horse, bringing the mare to a stop in front of them. “Trouble.”

  She jumped to her feet.

  “What?”

  “People from the Pack are here. The guy who was here before and two others, a man and a woman. They said they were the alphas of Clan Bouda.”

  Just what they needed. “Where is the Preceptor?”

  “In the moat, on the other side. We didn’t tell him yet.”

  Clan Bouda, Clan Bouda… What was it the boy said before? His people killed the alpha of my clan.

  Oh no. “Keep the Preceptor away from the bailey. Do whatever you have to do. Don’t just sit there, go! Go!”

  Sam turned the horse around and rode back the way he came. She focused on the trees in the distance.

  “But the henbane,” James moaned.

  “I’ll be back.”

  Elara stepped. The trees rushed to her. She stepped again, hurrying to the castle, burning magic too fast. Three days had passed since Deidre was taken from the castle and Hugh had gone inside himself. He didn’t want to fight with her. When he spoke, it was short and brisk. He spent all his time finishing the moat. She’d snuck into his dreams last night and found fire and death, ruins littered with corpses, and him, a terrifying monster prowling through it to the chorus of screams and killing, the fiery maelstrom behind him so big, it took up half of the sky. She couldn’t tell if it was a nightmare or a distorted memory.

  In that moment, before he’d turned away and left as Deidre’s family drove out of the castle, she had seen his eyes. Hugh hadn’t realized his legacy. He knew what it was, he knew himself to be a killer, he let it torment him, but inside the castle walls he was sheltered from its full impact. The Iron Dogs admired him; her people looked to him for protection. Whether he knew it or not, Hugh leaned on that human net to keep going. He saw himself as strong, violent, and ruthless, but also as someone who protected and led. He was feared but respected and even envied.

  He had never stopped to think how people from the outside saw him. There was no respect in what Wayne Harmon had said. Only contempt and revulsion.

  Hugh was a man who couldn’t be trusted with children. A villain. A butcher without a single redeeming quality to him. And she was a witch, Satan’s consort, an evil creature, a deceiver and defiler, fit only to be stoned to death. It didn’t sting her. Elara was used to it. She had grown up with it.

  She’d known both kindness and utter contempt. A Baptist church had sheltered her and her people once, knowing what they were, because they were hungry and had no place to go. In the next town, only ten miles down the road, the Christians had lined up along the road with loaded shotguns to make sure they kept moving.

  Some people in the world only saw in black and white. They were driven by fear. They had learned how to survive in their little corner of the world and they saw any change as a threat to their survival. But they still liked to think of themselves as good people. Good people didn’t hate without a reason, so they grasped at any pretext, no matter how small, that gave them permission to hate. A line in a holy book. The color of a person’s skin. The brand of their magic. They were not in the habit of taking a second look or giving chances. Their fear was too great and their need to defend themselves too dire. They always lost at the end. Life was change. It would come to them, as inevitable as the sunrise, despite all their flailing.

  She had years to armor herself against it. Hugh didn’t. He was on top. On the winning team. No doubt was allowed.

  And now the alphas of Clan Bouda were here. She had no idea how he would react to that.

  Elara stepped onto the wall and forced herself to stop and catch a breath. The shapeshifters had dismounted in the bailey. A tall, dark-haired man wearing black, his movements fluid and quick. He looked like he was barely holding it together. And a woman, who was his polar opposite: short, blond, and calm. She was telling him something, and her movements seemed soothing. Ascanio Ferara hung behind them, a long-suffering look on his handsome face.

  Elara realized that her blue dress was stained with dirt. There was dirt under her fingernails. No time. She descended the stairs. At the foot of it, Dugas waited.

  “That man is about to do something violent,” he murmured.

  “I know.”

  She walked past him and put a smile on her face. “Hello.”

  Ascanio and the woman turned to her. The man was still scanning the bailey. The blond woman put her hand on his arm and gently pulled on him, until he turned to face Elara.

  “Hello,” the blond said. “So sorry to barge in on you unannounced. I’m Andrea Medrano. This is my husband Raphael. You’ve already met Ascanio, of course.”

  “I have,” Elara said. “You must be tired. Would you like something to eat?”

  Ascanio’s eyes lit up.

  If she could get them out of the bailey and safely settled inside before Hugh showed up, maybe they would dodge this bullet after all.

  “We would love something to eat,” Andrea said. “Wouldn’t we, honey?”

  Hugh d’Ambray walked throu
gh the gate, with Stoyan right behind him.

  Raphael saw him. Their gazes locked.

  Raphael pulled his leather jacket off with a single jerk of hishand.

  “Raphael!” Andrea said. “You promised me you wouldn’t do this. Raphael!”

  Raphael yanked two daggers from the sheath on his belt and started toward Hugh.

  “I told you,” Ascanio said. “I said this would happen.”

  Hugh pulled a knife from the sheath on his waist and moved forward.

  The two men reached each other. Raphael struck, so fast he was a blur. Somehow Hugh dodged.

  “Go get him, honey!” Andrea called out.

  What? Elara looked at her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Andrea said. “The Iron Dogs killed my mother-in-law.”

  “My condolences,” Elara said. “What happens when my husband makes you a widow?”

  “Raphael won’t lose.”

  Hugh spun out of the way and kicked Raphael in the stomach. The shapeshifter rolled, sprung to his feet, his eyes growing blood red, and charged Hugh.

  Don’t lose, she willed silently. Don’t lose, Hugh.

  The two men clashed and broke apart. Hugh’s left forearm bled. A blue glow clamped the wound. It knitted closed.

  A cut snaked down Raphael’s face. He wiped it off and flung the blood away. His skin sealed itself. Lyc-V, the virus responsible for shapeshifter existence, gifted them with unmatched regeneration.

  They clashed again, slashing, carving, stabbing, so fast she could barely guess at the attacks. Raphael was a whirlwind, but Hugh was stronger. They tore across the bailey. If it wasn’t for the knives, they could almost be dancing.

  Hugh staggered back. Cold rushed through her. He must’ve taken a hit, but she couldn’t see it. Raphael dove into the opening, slashing. The tip of his dagger grazed Hugh’s throat, drawing a sharp red line.

  Elara gasped.

  Hugh grabbed Raphael’s wrist with his left hand and twisted. Bone snapped with a crunch. The shapeshifter snarled and dropped the dagger. Andrea clicked her teeth.

  Hugh kicked the dagger out of the way. They lunged at each other.

  Seconds stretched into minutes, slow and viscous, like dripping honey. Hugh was covered in a blue glow now. Raphael was bleeding. The Lyc-V couldn’t fix him fast enough. The stones under their feet were smeared with red.