The Book of the Staff, page 8
“Told you they wouldn’t like the silver,” the bartender spat.
Foster looked around as the other irontouched took up enormous hammers and iron-banded shields. The door shook again before the frame splintered, iron breaking under the weight of the massive shadow barreling into the pub.
Light seeped into the darkness, and death came screaming.
* * *
In the first moments, as the irontouched unloaded a hammer blow that could have leveled a building, Foster thought it was a werewolf. But this … this was something else. He’d never seen the like, but he didn’t let confusion slow his sword.
“Unseelie shades!” the bartender bellowed as he rushed the nearest of the hulking shadows.
Awe and horror rushed through Foster, tingling down his arms and legs as the pieces fell into place. These creatures didn’t merely move in shadows, they ate the light around them, bringing darkness wherever they walked.
The second irontouched leveled a hammer blow into a shade’s gut, but the beast only staggered. It caught the next attack, a reddish glow brightening in the shade’s core before a blast of light sent the irontouched to the ground screaming.
Foster lunged, intercepting the follow up swipe with the flat of his blade. Sloppy. He was off his game and he knew it. He hadn’t been surprised in a damn long time, but the slender fangs bared at him now, inside his guard, surprised the hell out of him.
He managed to catch the shade with the hilt of his sword, cracking the pommel into the darkness of its body and the glow of its beady red eyes.
The shade twisted violently, backhanding Foster hard enough to send him airborne. Foster’s wings snapped taut as he grabbed a stone column in the center of the bar and used the momentum to launch himself back at the shade.
He’d felt the thing’s flesh. Fur and muscle and bone. It was time to see if it could bleed.
Foster led with a scream and a low strike with his sword, easily parried by the shade, but it left its neck open. Even as the claws screeched against the steel of his sword, Foster spun, leaving his sword in the shade’s grasp while his dagger plunged into the thing’s neck.
Blood erupted from the shade as its beady eyes widened. The irontouched regained his feet beside him, only to be run down by a second shade. Foster didn’t have to see what happened to know the fairy wasn’t getting up again. That kind of gristly crunch didn’t end in survival.
“I’ve got him!” Ward shouted as he slipped behind Foster and the chortling bark of an enraged panda bear drowned the screams of the dying Fae.
Foster didn’t turn to watch them engage the other shade. He trusted Ward to a fair degree, but he trusted Happy with his life.
The shade roared, the light-eating essence of the thing fading with the blood rushing from its neck.
“You’re not leaving,” Foster growled.
For a moment, the beast hesitated, but then the glow returned. The shade raised its arm, silent in the cacophony of the battle around it. Foster knew what was coming next. He launched his dagger after an underhanded feint, catching the shade in the thigh as Foster’s right hand found the hilt of the sword abandoned on the ground.
The shade attacked.
Foster had miscalculated. This strike came faster than the first on the irontouched. A sliver of blue light flashed between him and the shade.
“Are you trying to die!” Ward shouted.
Red and blue crashed together, sending an eruption of sparks and lightning to crash into the open rafters above. As soon as it fell, Foster struck, sword held in two hands as it cleaved through the shade’s arm.
It fell away like a shadow, black mist and smoke, but the scream of the beast was real enough.
Black and white wings flashed behind the shade, and its eyes dimmed as a glint of silver slid through its neck, sending the form toppling into two pieces, only to drift away in silence.
Neil stood behind it, his leather armor scorched at the shoulder and a half moon punched through one wing.
Foster turned to find Happy savaging the face of another shade, pieces of the creature falling away as claws and teeth found an ever-deeper purchase. Calbach freed his war hammer, splintering the wood around the spike that had lodged deep inside it.
Ward stood without his cloak, skin bared to reveal the mass of runes and wards etched across his flesh.
“Stop this insanity, Heather,” Ward growled.
The shade spoke, only the voice didn’t come from the creature itself. It boomed from everywhere and nowhere, not unlike Happy’s, but oddly less disturbing.
“You taught me to finish every job. I thought you’d be proud. My offer still stands. Find me and we can talk. Until then, watch your back.”
Ward almost growled as he slapped his palm on his upper left pectoral, electric blue light racing around the pattern beneath it and following his fingers as he snapped them out toward the shade.
Four lines of light cut through the shadow, and the creature fell into chunks. Ward clenched his hand into a fist, and the light faded from the patterns on his body even as he pulled a cloak back over the tight muscles of a man who had been in far too many fights.
“Nudd’s balls,” Calbach spat. “That was my favorite bartender.”
A younger irontouched Fae wiped down her war hammer. “Always knew I’d inherit this place one day.”
“What?” Neil asked. “Was that your father?” He gestured to the empty armor on the floor.
The fairy blew out a breath. “Hardly. Just the owner. I’m next in line. That’s how it goes in these boroughs.”
“I’ll miss that honey mead,” Neil said, casting a longing look at the empty armor on the ground. “Thanks for that, you crochety old bastard.”
“I have good news for you on that. I’ve been making the honey mead for the past century.”
“That lying son of a bitch,” Neil said, toeing the armor. “And you are?”
“Call me Kat,” the irontouched said, reaching out with a broad hand. “You’re lucky your friend tips good. If you’d called me barmaid one more time, I would have pulled your tongue out through your neck.”
Neil pursed his lips. “Kat it is.”
She flashed him a grin before picking up the armor of the previous proprietor. Foster’s eyebrows rose as she settled it onto a shelf next to five other breastplates, some showing coats of arms from well before the Mad King’s first rule.
Foster took a deep breath and turned to Ward. “What the hell were those?”
“Shades,” Ward said. “Somewhat enhanced by a misguided ally.”
“Misguided ally,” Neil said before he barked out a laugh. “Heather, his apprentice, did it. They had a … falling out of sorts.”
Foster cocked an eyebrow.
“She tried to kill me,” Ward muttered.
“Deserved?” Foster asked.
Happy released a chortle before he hip checked Ward.
“Shut up, bear.” Ward sighed. “I wasn’t the most lenient of teachers.”
“The best rarely are,” Foster said.
“Regardless, she took small sleights and corrections as personal insults. When the … opportunity arose to seek a different alliance, she took it. I should have spent more time teaching her the ways of the world, and not just focus on the art of warding.”
“We all have regrets.” Foster said. “You’ll be okay here?”
Ward laughed. “Time will tell if any of us will be okay.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Neil said. “Least I can do.”
“Least you can do?” Foster asked. “That seems a bit extreme.”
“Eh, he saved my drunk ass from a basilisk. It’s a favor I promised, and it’s a favor I’ll repay.”
“You gave him a favor while you were drunk, too?” Foster asked, failing to hide the amused smirk on his face.
“Not my best day.” Neil shrugged. “But what’s done is done, and until he’s done, I’m staying at his side.”
“You should go,” Ward said. “You don’t need Zola getting impatient and blowing a hole in reality because she doesn’t have all the information she needs.”
Foster frowned. “That’s a fair point.” He reached out and traded grips with Neil. “It’s good to see you again, cousin. Don’t die before you can regale me with the story of your very bad day.”
Neil narrowed his eyes and muttered, “I’ll do my best.”
“There’s a portal in the back if you don’t mind a rocky trip,” Kat said. “Bit of a hack job, whoever set it up, but it hasn’t killed anyone in years.”
Foster reached out and scratched Happy behind the ears. “Take care of them, yeah?”
Happy chuffed.
Foster exchanged a nod with Ward and followed Kat to a back room. And by “back” Foster now assumed Kat had meant closet.
She reached into the closet and popped a panel at the back. A jagged, unstable-looking red doorway floated there. He felt like if he went through at the wrong time he might lose a wing.
Kat eyed him, her thick lips pulling up into a small smile. “You might want to be small when you head through.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.” Foster double checked his pouch for the photos and Ward’s drawing before snapping it closed. He took a deep breath, snapped into his smaller form, and glided into the crimson tear.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Fuck,” Foster spat as he stumbled out of the worst trip through the Warded Ways he’d ever experienced. He’d endured spinning before, but this was more like an end over end spiral while someone was beating him in the head with a sparring sword.
He leaned against the bark of the tree beside him and took a few deep breaths in the silence of the woods. Foster ran his tongue over his teeth and checked himself over to see if all his limbs were still intact.
“Fuck.”
He looked around the clearing, somewhat relieved to see the small cabin with the green tin roof waiting at the top of a short hill. Of course at that point he wouldn’t have been surprised if that trip through the Warded Ways had left him in some kind of alternate hellscape of a reality.
Foster flexed his wings, testing the joints before launching into the air and gliding to the porch. The door was cracked open, so he slipped through without a sound, hearing the refrigerator close as he entered.
“Well, you were right,” Foster said as he popped into his full-sized form, spraying the front room of the cabin with fairy dust.
Zola screeched and dropped a bag of frozen chimichangas on the floor. “Goddammit, Ah’m going to have Ward lock this place down tighter than an iron vault.” She patted her chest and took a deep breath.
“Sorry,” Foster said, doing a terrible job of hiding his grin.
She exhaled slowly and gave him a scowl he imagined Damian had seen on many an occasion. “Now, what was Ah right about, bug?”
“We could have killed everything in a hundred mile radius and punched a hole in reality if we’d used the same pattern for the devil’s knot.”
“Well shit.”
“Do I need to kill something?” Vicky asked as she rubbed her eyes in the doorway to the bedroom.
“No girl,” Zola said. “Just get some rest.”
A delicate whistle echoed up from behind Vicky. Foster leaned to the side so he could see past her and almost burst into laughter when he saw Luna hanging upside down from the bunk bed. She didn’t quite have enough room to hang freely, so her head was cocked at a rather awkward angle.
“Tell me about it,” Vicky said, following Foster’s gaze. “Her neck’s going to be killing her.”
Zola punched a few buttons on the microwave and the ancient beast awoke to scour the world of frozen food. “Did Ward have anything useful to say, other than don’t break reality?”
Foster opened the pouch at his waist and slid Ward’s drawing across the counter. Vicky frowned at the drawing while she ran her fingers over the devil’s knot on the back of her neck.
The intricate loops and whorls of the layered Celtic knot in Ward’s drawing held all of their attention for a time.
Zola took a deep breath. “Similar, but a different monster entirely. Like the difference between a ghost circle and a circle shield. A complete inversion.”
“He said he has a Ryō coin, but it’s well guarded. He’s bringing it to you. Or Happy is.” Whoever is still alive was the thought Foster didn’t voice out loud.
“Good,” Zola said. “Maybe he can help us draw this mess.”
“There’s more,” Foster said, and he told them of the mosaic and how Ward believed it was a map, not a ward.
Zola nodded. “That may be, but there’s not enough here to tell where it leads.”
“That’s why I’m going back,” Foster said. “Morrigan needs to know what’s happening, and I want a closer look at the mosaic.” He tapped the edge of the last photo. “There could be more, where that filament trails off at the edge.”
Vicky picked the photograph up and studied it. Her shoulders sagged. “We’re chasing ghosts. Damian’s going to die while we’re chasing ghosts.”
Jasper appeared from underneath the couch, a trail of discombobulated dust bunnies before he pulled himself back into one piece and snuggled up to Vicky’s ankles.
Foster didn’t miss the sadness on Zola’s face as she turned to pull the chimichangas out of the microwave. She took a deep breath and placed a hand over her eyes for a moment. When she looked back to them, there was nothing but steel in the wrinkles on that old face. But Foster could see the moisture hidden at the corners of her eyes.
“First things first, girl. We get that devil’s knot re-anchored.”
Vicky ran her fingers over the pattern Ward had given them. “No matter what happens. Promise me Gwynn Ap Nudd doesn’t get out alive.”
Foster didn’t hesitate. The price didn’t matter anymore. Or perhaps the price had been paid tenfold. “Nudd will die.”
“Foster …” Zola started.
“I swear it.”
* * *
Later that evening, when Vicky and Luna had passed out again, Zola stood outside the cabin in the ring of stone Aeros had raised, the journal of Philip Pinkerton laid open in her hands.
“What else didn’t you tell me, you son of a bitch?”
She closed her eyes when the voice answered. “Anything that might have hurt you.”
Zola’s teeth cracked together as she turned to face the ghost. Philip Pinkerton stood garbed in a translucent black robe, tied off with a white rope belt. His beard was disheveled, but the moon no longer reflected off his balding head.
“You called and I came, my dear.”
“Do you know what this is?” she asked, turning the photos of the mosaic toward him.
He frowned at the images, motioning for her to turn them and shuffle them before shaking his head.
“Damn it all,” Zola muttered.
“I would tell you if I knew.”
“Would you?” Zola snapped. “Like you told me you’d freed Ronwe by your own hand?”
Philip threw his hands up in exasperation. “A demon of knowledge, Zola. We could have learned everything we needed from her.”
“The war was over!” Zola shouted. “You released demons after the war!”
“I … I took things too far.”
“As if what we’d done with our own hands hadn’t been bad enough, Philip? We could have stayed here. Stayed home. We finally had a home. And you gave it up for what?”
“To change the world.”
“Bullshit. You gave it up for revenge. Revenge. And you didn’t even have the courtesy to dig two graves, you bastard. You made me dig yours.”
Philip turned away from her at that. “One day you’ll understand.”
“Oh, Ah understand. Ah’m saying you were wrong to do it. To give us a better life … my god. How did you even lie to yourself like that. You wanted power and revenge.”
Philip wheeled around on her. “Revenge that would have made you safe! Made us safe!”
“So you forged an alliance with Ezekiel?” Zola pinched the bridge of her nose. “That doesn’t matter right now. Do you know where this map leads?”
“I already told you I didn’t.”
The screen door squeaked behind them. Zola waved her hand through the air, and Philip’s ghost dissipated into the ether, wisps of a forgotten life fading to shadow.
“Zola?” Luna asked as she yawned on the back porch. “Who are you talking to?”
Zola stared into the darkness of the woods. “No one.” She turned to Luna with a smile on her face. “You want some hot cocoa. Lord knows Ah could use one.”
“With marshmallows?”
“Not homemade like that showoff of an innkeeper, but we have marshmallows.”
Luna grinned at her.
Zola cast one last look over her shoulder. No one waited among the stones. Only silence and ruin.
Note from Eric R. Asher
Thank you for spending time with the misfits! I’m blown away by the fantastic reader response to this series, and am so grateful to you all. The next book of misadventures is called The Book of the Rune, and it’s available soon (or maybe now because I’m lazy about updating these things).
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The Book of the Rune
The Vesik Series, book #13
By Eric R. Asher
Also by Eric R. Asher
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The Steamborn Trilogy:
Steamborn
Steamforged
Steamsworn
Foster looked around as the other irontouched took up enormous hammers and iron-banded shields. The door shook again before the frame splintered, iron breaking under the weight of the massive shadow barreling into the pub.
Light seeped into the darkness, and death came screaming.
* * *
In the first moments, as the irontouched unloaded a hammer blow that could have leveled a building, Foster thought it was a werewolf. But this … this was something else. He’d never seen the like, but he didn’t let confusion slow his sword.
“Unseelie shades!” the bartender bellowed as he rushed the nearest of the hulking shadows.
Awe and horror rushed through Foster, tingling down his arms and legs as the pieces fell into place. These creatures didn’t merely move in shadows, they ate the light around them, bringing darkness wherever they walked.
The second irontouched leveled a hammer blow into a shade’s gut, but the beast only staggered. It caught the next attack, a reddish glow brightening in the shade’s core before a blast of light sent the irontouched to the ground screaming.
Foster lunged, intercepting the follow up swipe with the flat of his blade. Sloppy. He was off his game and he knew it. He hadn’t been surprised in a damn long time, but the slender fangs bared at him now, inside his guard, surprised the hell out of him.
He managed to catch the shade with the hilt of his sword, cracking the pommel into the darkness of its body and the glow of its beady red eyes.
The shade twisted violently, backhanding Foster hard enough to send him airborne. Foster’s wings snapped taut as he grabbed a stone column in the center of the bar and used the momentum to launch himself back at the shade.
He’d felt the thing’s flesh. Fur and muscle and bone. It was time to see if it could bleed.
Foster led with a scream and a low strike with his sword, easily parried by the shade, but it left its neck open. Even as the claws screeched against the steel of his sword, Foster spun, leaving his sword in the shade’s grasp while his dagger plunged into the thing’s neck.
Blood erupted from the shade as its beady eyes widened. The irontouched regained his feet beside him, only to be run down by a second shade. Foster didn’t have to see what happened to know the fairy wasn’t getting up again. That kind of gristly crunch didn’t end in survival.
“I’ve got him!” Ward shouted as he slipped behind Foster and the chortling bark of an enraged panda bear drowned the screams of the dying Fae.
Foster didn’t turn to watch them engage the other shade. He trusted Ward to a fair degree, but he trusted Happy with his life.
The shade roared, the light-eating essence of the thing fading with the blood rushing from its neck.
“You’re not leaving,” Foster growled.
For a moment, the beast hesitated, but then the glow returned. The shade raised its arm, silent in the cacophony of the battle around it. Foster knew what was coming next. He launched his dagger after an underhanded feint, catching the shade in the thigh as Foster’s right hand found the hilt of the sword abandoned on the ground.
The shade attacked.
Foster had miscalculated. This strike came faster than the first on the irontouched. A sliver of blue light flashed between him and the shade.
“Are you trying to die!” Ward shouted.
Red and blue crashed together, sending an eruption of sparks and lightning to crash into the open rafters above. As soon as it fell, Foster struck, sword held in two hands as it cleaved through the shade’s arm.
It fell away like a shadow, black mist and smoke, but the scream of the beast was real enough.
Black and white wings flashed behind the shade, and its eyes dimmed as a glint of silver slid through its neck, sending the form toppling into two pieces, only to drift away in silence.
Neil stood behind it, his leather armor scorched at the shoulder and a half moon punched through one wing.
Foster turned to find Happy savaging the face of another shade, pieces of the creature falling away as claws and teeth found an ever-deeper purchase. Calbach freed his war hammer, splintering the wood around the spike that had lodged deep inside it.
Ward stood without his cloak, skin bared to reveal the mass of runes and wards etched across his flesh.
“Stop this insanity, Heather,” Ward growled.
The shade spoke, only the voice didn’t come from the creature itself. It boomed from everywhere and nowhere, not unlike Happy’s, but oddly less disturbing.
“You taught me to finish every job. I thought you’d be proud. My offer still stands. Find me and we can talk. Until then, watch your back.”
Ward almost growled as he slapped his palm on his upper left pectoral, electric blue light racing around the pattern beneath it and following his fingers as he snapped them out toward the shade.
Four lines of light cut through the shadow, and the creature fell into chunks. Ward clenched his hand into a fist, and the light faded from the patterns on his body even as he pulled a cloak back over the tight muscles of a man who had been in far too many fights.
“Nudd’s balls,” Calbach spat. “That was my favorite bartender.”
A younger irontouched Fae wiped down her war hammer. “Always knew I’d inherit this place one day.”
“What?” Neil asked. “Was that your father?” He gestured to the empty armor on the floor.
The fairy blew out a breath. “Hardly. Just the owner. I’m next in line. That’s how it goes in these boroughs.”
“I’ll miss that honey mead,” Neil said, casting a longing look at the empty armor on the ground. “Thanks for that, you crochety old bastard.”
“I have good news for you on that. I’ve been making the honey mead for the past century.”
“That lying son of a bitch,” Neil said, toeing the armor. “And you are?”
“Call me Kat,” the irontouched said, reaching out with a broad hand. “You’re lucky your friend tips good. If you’d called me barmaid one more time, I would have pulled your tongue out through your neck.”
Neil pursed his lips. “Kat it is.”
She flashed him a grin before picking up the armor of the previous proprietor. Foster’s eyebrows rose as she settled it onto a shelf next to five other breastplates, some showing coats of arms from well before the Mad King’s first rule.
Foster took a deep breath and turned to Ward. “What the hell were those?”
“Shades,” Ward said. “Somewhat enhanced by a misguided ally.”
“Misguided ally,” Neil said before he barked out a laugh. “Heather, his apprentice, did it. They had a … falling out of sorts.”
Foster cocked an eyebrow.
“She tried to kill me,” Ward muttered.
“Deserved?” Foster asked.
Happy released a chortle before he hip checked Ward.
“Shut up, bear.” Ward sighed. “I wasn’t the most lenient of teachers.”
“The best rarely are,” Foster said.
“Regardless, she took small sleights and corrections as personal insults. When the … opportunity arose to seek a different alliance, she took it. I should have spent more time teaching her the ways of the world, and not just focus on the art of warding.”
“We all have regrets.” Foster said. “You’ll be okay here?”
Ward laughed. “Time will tell if any of us will be okay.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Neil said. “Least I can do.”
“Least you can do?” Foster asked. “That seems a bit extreme.”
“Eh, he saved my drunk ass from a basilisk. It’s a favor I promised, and it’s a favor I’ll repay.”
“You gave him a favor while you were drunk, too?” Foster asked, failing to hide the amused smirk on his face.
“Not my best day.” Neil shrugged. “But what’s done is done, and until he’s done, I’m staying at his side.”
“You should go,” Ward said. “You don’t need Zola getting impatient and blowing a hole in reality because she doesn’t have all the information she needs.”
Foster frowned. “That’s a fair point.” He reached out and traded grips with Neil. “It’s good to see you again, cousin. Don’t die before you can regale me with the story of your very bad day.”
Neil narrowed his eyes and muttered, “I’ll do my best.”
“There’s a portal in the back if you don’t mind a rocky trip,” Kat said. “Bit of a hack job, whoever set it up, but it hasn’t killed anyone in years.”
Foster reached out and scratched Happy behind the ears. “Take care of them, yeah?”
Happy chuffed.
Foster exchanged a nod with Ward and followed Kat to a back room. And by “back” Foster now assumed Kat had meant closet.
She reached into the closet and popped a panel at the back. A jagged, unstable-looking red doorway floated there. He felt like if he went through at the wrong time he might lose a wing.
Kat eyed him, her thick lips pulling up into a small smile. “You might want to be small when you head through.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.” Foster double checked his pouch for the photos and Ward’s drawing before snapping it closed. He took a deep breath, snapped into his smaller form, and glided into the crimson tear.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Fuck,” Foster spat as he stumbled out of the worst trip through the Warded Ways he’d ever experienced. He’d endured spinning before, but this was more like an end over end spiral while someone was beating him in the head with a sparring sword.
He leaned against the bark of the tree beside him and took a few deep breaths in the silence of the woods. Foster ran his tongue over his teeth and checked himself over to see if all his limbs were still intact.
“Fuck.”
He looked around the clearing, somewhat relieved to see the small cabin with the green tin roof waiting at the top of a short hill. Of course at that point he wouldn’t have been surprised if that trip through the Warded Ways had left him in some kind of alternate hellscape of a reality.
Foster flexed his wings, testing the joints before launching into the air and gliding to the porch. The door was cracked open, so he slipped through without a sound, hearing the refrigerator close as he entered.
“Well, you were right,” Foster said as he popped into his full-sized form, spraying the front room of the cabin with fairy dust.
Zola screeched and dropped a bag of frozen chimichangas on the floor. “Goddammit, Ah’m going to have Ward lock this place down tighter than an iron vault.” She patted her chest and took a deep breath.
“Sorry,” Foster said, doing a terrible job of hiding his grin.
She exhaled slowly and gave him a scowl he imagined Damian had seen on many an occasion. “Now, what was Ah right about, bug?”
“We could have killed everything in a hundred mile radius and punched a hole in reality if we’d used the same pattern for the devil’s knot.”
“Well shit.”
“Do I need to kill something?” Vicky asked as she rubbed her eyes in the doorway to the bedroom.
“No girl,” Zola said. “Just get some rest.”
A delicate whistle echoed up from behind Vicky. Foster leaned to the side so he could see past her and almost burst into laughter when he saw Luna hanging upside down from the bunk bed. She didn’t quite have enough room to hang freely, so her head was cocked at a rather awkward angle.
“Tell me about it,” Vicky said, following Foster’s gaze. “Her neck’s going to be killing her.”
Zola punched a few buttons on the microwave and the ancient beast awoke to scour the world of frozen food. “Did Ward have anything useful to say, other than don’t break reality?”
Foster opened the pouch at his waist and slid Ward’s drawing across the counter. Vicky frowned at the drawing while she ran her fingers over the devil’s knot on the back of her neck.
The intricate loops and whorls of the layered Celtic knot in Ward’s drawing held all of their attention for a time.
Zola took a deep breath. “Similar, but a different monster entirely. Like the difference between a ghost circle and a circle shield. A complete inversion.”
“He said he has a Ryō coin, but it’s well guarded. He’s bringing it to you. Or Happy is.” Whoever is still alive was the thought Foster didn’t voice out loud.
“Good,” Zola said. “Maybe he can help us draw this mess.”
“There’s more,” Foster said, and he told them of the mosaic and how Ward believed it was a map, not a ward.
Zola nodded. “That may be, but there’s not enough here to tell where it leads.”
“That’s why I’m going back,” Foster said. “Morrigan needs to know what’s happening, and I want a closer look at the mosaic.” He tapped the edge of the last photo. “There could be more, where that filament trails off at the edge.”
Vicky picked the photograph up and studied it. Her shoulders sagged. “We’re chasing ghosts. Damian’s going to die while we’re chasing ghosts.”
Jasper appeared from underneath the couch, a trail of discombobulated dust bunnies before he pulled himself back into one piece and snuggled up to Vicky’s ankles.
Foster didn’t miss the sadness on Zola’s face as she turned to pull the chimichangas out of the microwave. She took a deep breath and placed a hand over her eyes for a moment. When she looked back to them, there was nothing but steel in the wrinkles on that old face. But Foster could see the moisture hidden at the corners of her eyes.
“First things first, girl. We get that devil’s knot re-anchored.”
Vicky ran her fingers over the pattern Ward had given them. “No matter what happens. Promise me Gwynn Ap Nudd doesn’t get out alive.”
Foster didn’t hesitate. The price didn’t matter anymore. Or perhaps the price had been paid tenfold. “Nudd will die.”
“Foster …” Zola started.
“I swear it.”
* * *
Later that evening, when Vicky and Luna had passed out again, Zola stood outside the cabin in the ring of stone Aeros had raised, the journal of Philip Pinkerton laid open in her hands.
“What else didn’t you tell me, you son of a bitch?”
She closed her eyes when the voice answered. “Anything that might have hurt you.”
Zola’s teeth cracked together as she turned to face the ghost. Philip Pinkerton stood garbed in a translucent black robe, tied off with a white rope belt. His beard was disheveled, but the moon no longer reflected off his balding head.
“You called and I came, my dear.”
“Do you know what this is?” she asked, turning the photos of the mosaic toward him.
He frowned at the images, motioning for her to turn them and shuffle them before shaking his head.
“Damn it all,” Zola muttered.
“I would tell you if I knew.”
“Would you?” Zola snapped. “Like you told me you’d freed Ronwe by your own hand?”
Philip threw his hands up in exasperation. “A demon of knowledge, Zola. We could have learned everything we needed from her.”
“The war was over!” Zola shouted. “You released demons after the war!”
“I … I took things too far.”
“As if what we’d done with our own hands hadn’t been bad enough, Philip? We could have stayed here. Stayed home. We finally had a home. And you gave it up for what?”
“To change the world.”
“Bullshit. You gave it up for revenge. Revenge. And you didn’t even have the courtesy to dig two graves, you bastard. You made me dig yours.”
Philip turned away from her at that. “One day you’ll understand.”
“Oh, Ah understand. Ah’m saying you were wrong to do it. To give us a better life … my god. How did you even lie to yourself like that. You wanted power and revenge.”
Philip wheeled around on her. “Revenge that would have made you safe! Made us safe!”
“So you forged an alliance with Ezekiel?” Zola pinched the bridge of her nose. “That doesn’t matter right now. Do you know where this map leads?”
“I already told you I didn’t.”
The screen door squeaked behind them. Zola waved her hand through the air, and Philip’s ghost dissipated into the ether, wisps of a forgotten life fading to shadow.
“Zola?” Luna asked as she yawned on the back porch. “Who are you talking to?”
Zola stared into the darkness of the woods. “No one.” She turned to Luna with a smile on her face. “You want some hot cocoa. Lord knows Ah could use one.”
“With marshmallows?”
“Not homemade like that showoff of an innkeeper, but we have marshmallows.”
Luna grinned at her.
Zola cast one last look over her shoulder. No one waited among the stones. Only silence and ruin.
Note from Eric R. Asher
Thank you for spending time with the misfits! I’m blown away by the fantastic reader response to this series, and am so grateful to you all. The next book of misadventures is called The Book of the Rune, and it’s available soon (or maybe now because I’m lazy about updating these things).
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The Book of the Rune
The Vesik Series, book #13
By Eric R. Asher
Also by Eric R. Asher
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The Steamborn Trilogy:
Steamborn
Steamforged
Steamsworn
