Soul Shock, page 25
Singling out a solitary moment, I had wandered into the basement, dreading something. Church or school, I couldn’t remember. Dad didn’t ask about it, whatever it was, just offered one of those almost painfully pointy rectangle controllers and we took turns stomping on mushrooms and turtle shells. For a few hours, all the problems slipped away until my mother’s caw of “Abigail! Abigail Night! Get up here! Right this instant!”
My father pushed the pause button, and his quiet manner told me to go upstairs and face the music.
I focused on the warmth of that refuge, no matter how temporary, the shelter from a storm and consequences. Not simple warmth, either, when Jimmy killed all those people on that bridge, I had viewed both my parents as little more than screaming harpies that wanted to chain me to my room. My dad’s basement and those quiet moments had been a spark that my therapist used to help me remember my parents in a far kinder light.
Opening my eyes, I looked down at the pile of wood; even sitting there it seemed to simmer. I leaned down and told it my story. The words slipped from my muzzle despite my floppy tongue and thin lips. The wood sputtered and sparked. Frost spread along the surfaces of the memory, my father breathed a cloud of a heavy sigh, and rolled his eyes when he handed me the controller. The ice whispered, “He only offered sanctuary because he did not want to deal with you or your mother.”
I shoved the memory away, trying to avoid the question of whether the frost-laced version was edits or clarity. It didn’t matter. Not anymore.
Flames danced up from the wood, heat greeted my nose, and Sophie stepped out from my side. She thrust her hands out, almost into the flames, and breathed a single word, “Thanks.”
35
As Sophie warmed herself, the steady impact of the shells of summer marked the time. Steam rose from the cougar hide as it lost its stiffness between Damocles’ fingers. I lay down beside the fire, trying not to prod my newly frozen memory. With a bit of barking and whining, I coaxed Secret to fish the three power bars from my bag. She handed one to Sophie, who tore into it with almost as much enthusiasm as I ate mine from Secret’s hands. The sticky sweet peanut butter-based substance might have been a fancy cut of steak or sawdust-cut gruel for all I knew. It went to my stomach before the taste had registered on my tongue.
Not enough, The hunger howled from the cave of my guts as the warmth filling my stomach pushed it back.
Secret split her bar into three parts and offered one each to the Winter Knights. Alecto tossed hers into her maw. Damocles demurred.
“Mortal food does little for me, and I’m not a glutton.”
Secret persisted. “A ruler provides in times of scarcity and pack shares. Take it as a token of kindness for the next traveler.”
Sullenly, he folded the fur over one arm to pluck the morsel from Secret’s offered hand. His visor opened of its own accord with the squeak of a hinge, revealing nothing in the dark of his helmet. He tossed it into the opening and it rattled through his neck and chest like a stone. The helmet shut with a click. “This is a long siege. I will keep it safe for you.”
He pivoted to Sophie, extending the thickly-furred hide toward her. “Give the wolf back her cloak and take your skin before the fire is exhausted.”
Sophie, licking her fingers clean of the sticky power bar, regarded the skin warily. It had a flattened face that, despite empty holes for eyes, seemed to reflect Sophie’s expression. Hesitantly, she stroked the outline of its ear. I half expected the ear to flick, but it did not.
“Poor thing,” Sophie whispered before undoing the clasp of my white cloak and shrugging it from her shoulders. Immediately, she shivered and reached for the skin. The skin unfolded into a primitive coat and Sophie slid her hands down the sleeves, wrinkling her nose. “It’s-”
“Was never cured,” Damocles said.
“Gross.” Sophie grimaced harder but didn’t stop dressing; the huge paws of the beast dangled from her wrists like mittens as she fastened the white-furred chest closed with buttons constructed of twigs and twine. It extended down past her hips; the legs dangled past her knees and the cat’s tail served to belt the ill-fitting skin around her waist. The face of the animal flopped on her back like an unused hood. “The smell alone makes this a no-no for fashion week, but it is warm.”
I chuffed in amusement, glad to remain mute at the moment. Secret seemed about to speak but stopped, one ear turning towards the wall. I heard it an instant later, the rolling thunder of hooves at a gallop.
“MAN THE BATTLEMENTS! SUMMER DARES THE BRIDGE!” Alecto’s voice rang like a foghorn through the empty courtyard before she and Damocles bolted toward the gatehouse. A shrill bugle answered his shout, and I leapt to my feet with all the thought of a reflex.
To Battle! The phrase echoed through my very blood. I snatched up the cloak Sophie had discarded, Secret sprang up onto my back, and then I ran. My legs shot us past the fey knights, a door in the ice wall yawned open, and we raced inside to climb a winding staircase. Defend! A biting icy wind blew between my ears and the layout of the walls unfurled in my mind. Light glinted across the ice surrounding us with no visible source, bringing with it a similar weight of presence and intelligence to what the mountain wolf had. The Glacial Fort did not tell me its name, but compelled us to defend it all the same.
We burst out into the moonlight, onto the top of the gatehouse wall. Discarded bows and arrows littered the icy bricks, and a heaping pile of shattered ice lay in the center of the gatehouse’s roof. The outer wall had lost its blocky ramparts; instead, domes of ice studded the wall like worn down teeth, and between them the ice bowed. I popped my front paws on this lower part and peered out. The bridge stretched out miles to the rim of the Canyon. Three horses and their riders raced along its length. Each held a white flag aloft. Behind them on the rim of the Canyon, the giant stood idly, juggling three shells of sunlight between his hands. Despite that great distance, the details of their golden armor and beautiful faces snapped into my mind, as if I stood five feet away instead of thousands.
Alecto announced her arrival in boisterous fashion. “Man the ramparts! Arm the cannons! Let the Shining Ones admire their reflections in the crystal ice embedded in their chests!” Charging out to the wall, she leapt up onto a dome of ice with a bow and arrow in hand. Nocking an arrow, she pulled the string back further than its length. “I rain doom upon them! DOooom!” The arrow, loose, arced through the air and crashed down onto the bridge so far ahead of the riders that I doubt they even saw it.
“It’s a flag of parlay, Alecto.” Damocles commented as he joined us.
“Doooooom!” Alecto retched and a bundle of arrows jutted out between her lips. She began to fire them at impressive speed, “I shall build an impassable wall from their bodies!” The arrows went no farther.
Damocles unsheathed his sword from the very air. “Please, Princess, I beg you to allow me to end Sir Alecto. She once shook mountains with her voice and now...”
“Doooooom! To all who oppose the rightful queen of all the Dream! DOooooooom!” Alecto shouted; her arrows spent, she panted, huge tongue hanging over her bottom lip.
Secret answered Sir Damocles in a quiet whisper, “Make it quick.”
Those three words shocked me but the black knight struck out without hesitation. Lunging forward to thrust at Sir Alecto’s back. The all-mouth creature pivoted at the last instant, catching the tip of the blade between her teeth, but the blade pushed her free of the ice perch she stood upon. She dangled over the edge of the wall, eyes blazing with rage at her attacker.
“How dare you!” She screamed out one corner of her mouth.
“Your time is up. Tick. Tock.” Damocles jerked the blade sideways, cutting through the corner of Alecto’s mouth-body. The creature spun in a blue-blood-spewing cartwheel.
Damocles’ sword swung in a glittering arc and slashed straight through Alecto before she had fallen six inches.
“BUBUR! AASSSVOOOO!” The two pieces screamed with incoherent rage, spinning in the air, untethered by gravity as frost spread over them
“I told you this would happen.” Damocles lowered his sword; with his other hand he opened up a panel in his chest. A pocket watch rested where his heart should have been. “Mab only expects one of us to come back. This is a new season of winter.” He took the pocket watch in hand and opened it with a click.
“CRROOOOoo!” The pieces moaned as they broke into a swarm of snowy particles and were drawn into the spinning hands of the pocket watch like two stars into a black hole. Once they were gone, the watch shut with a snap.
I blinked and then craned my neck around to look at Secret and whined in question.
Her lips pressed tightly together, but her slitted pupils returned my gaze without blinking.
“For Momma’s sake, Summer cannot know I’m here. We cannot stay here any longer. We cannot parlay.”
I growled. There had to have been a different way.
Snowflakes clung to her lashes and frost twinkled in the corner of her eyes as she nodded, “But you gave enough of yourself to light the fire. I won’t let them use you up, Abby. We gave winter a heart, but we’ll never banish its hunger.” With that she leaned forward, arms encircled my neck, and she buried her face in my neck fur. The pads of her fingers felt cold on my skin.
My growling continued; it didn’t matter if she was right or wrong. The way she’d whispered, “Make it quick,” would haunt my nightmares. Yes, I’d killed, but Secret was only nine.
Damocles chuckled, drawing my attention to him. He spun his watch around his fingers. “Do not worry, as the new lord of the Glacial Fort, I will aid your escape.” Catching his watch, he clicked the button and the pile of shattered ice in the middle trembled. The watch spun backwards, and with a crystalline chime, the ice exploded in reverse, the shards reassembling into a catapult constructed of solid ice. “Do not worry your precious mortal heart overlong, winter wolf. I would have consumed Alecto soon after you left. She expended much of herself bringing you here. I began stronger, and with my promise to the Cheshire kept…” He chuckled and gestured at the catapult. Frost-colored cables strained and twisted, bending the shaft of the catapult until the scoop touched the ground. Damocles tossed a shining pebble into the scoop where it swelled into a boulder of cloudy ice.
Promise to the Cheshire? What did he mean by that?
A surprised exclamation came from inside the wall. Sophie. What did he do to Sophie?
36
I bolted past Sir Damocles toward the stairs, Secret giving a small mew of surprise.
His voice spoke from the walls of the stairway as I barreled down. “Now hurry, You’ll need to cut down the riders before they reach the castle. Leave the giant to me.”
“Safest if Sophie does it.” Secret said.
How? I wanted to scream as I flew down the stairway, letting the curve of the wall shape my momentum more than the stairs. Did Secret know what Damocles just did to her?
I shot out of the gatehouse like a greased marble and immediately skidded across the icy court yard. Managed to stop myself from plowing into Sophie and… a huge horse. A great black stallion with dark metal barding regarded Secret and me with narrowed red eyes. A lance affixed to his side and a selection of maces secured in tight holsters on his flank.
Sophie had a grin on, Cliff’s grin. It looked out of place on her face. Her eyes were so bright they threatened to shoot sparks. “Isn’t he an absolute beaut?” she marveled, stroking his neck, all while she wore a dead cat.
In the interior of my eyelids, I remembered the creature that Damocles had pursued Secret and me on, a massive goat creature with horns of ice. This horse had the same armor and heavy build.
“Get on. We gotta go,” Secret said as a thunderous crack came from the gatehouse. The air filled with the clanking of heavy chains as the gate of ice and iron began to lift.
“But, I haven’t ridden in years!” she protested even as she grabbed the pommel and swung into the saddle.
The horse whinnied and snorted unhappily, but didn’t buck.
Damocles’ voice boomed from the high rampart. “Bear her across the bridge and through the skyways to the Court of Cats. Then return.”
“Yes master,” the Horse harrumphed and stamped its rear hoof. “Lady, you smell like a fookin ghoul cat that’s fecking rolled in piss.”
Sophie gasped in sheer delight. “You talk!?”
I found myself a bit jealous.
He started trotting for the opening doors. “Don’t cream your fookin pants, lady. Let’s keep this professional. I ain’t telling you my name.” I fell in beside him as Sophie attempted to swallow her tongue.
“And you keep your distance, miss wolfie.” He bared his teeth to mime a chomp. “I’ll kick your fookin skull in, I will. Now, try to keep up when I open it up.”
I gave him a few more feet between us.
We passed beneath the gatehouse onto the bridge. Luna looked even slimmer in the sky, starting to resemble the Cheshire’s grin. The elves were approaching at a brisk trot, white flags flapping smartly in the wind.
“Get up the lance,” the Dark horse seethed. “Don’t let their pretty smiles fool you; they’ll make you forget about everything you ever know or care about.”
“Says the horse of the… bastard who wanted to do the same to me an hour ago.” Sophie said as she fumbled with the sling that held the Lance.
“Nobody’s perfect,” the horse said.
Sophie struggled to lift the lance up and tuck the shaft up under her arm. “Now what? I’ve never used one of these before.”
“So? Don’t tell dem that. You want out of this arse-freezing canyon, then listen good, dead cat lady. Order me to fook those prissy, golden-hoofed, high-steppin, pretty boys up. Order me in your name.”
Sophie glanced back at me and Secret. “What this fucker’s game?”
“Do it.” Came Secret’s answer.
“Because the cat riding the wolf said so. That’s just great.” Sophie gave an aggrieved sigh. “Fine. I, Sophronia Gifford, order you to fook up those pretty boys in our way.”
“By your command, rider lady!” With a whinnied battle cry, the dark horse reared up. Sophie swore in surprise, clinging to the saddle. The hoofs clapped against the stone, and the horse’s form rippled; the glamour fell away, revealing horns of glowing blue ice spiraling up from its skull, and its mouth yawned open to display yellowed fangs. “Try to keep up, wolfie!” the goat bellowed. Lowering his horns, it charged forward at full gallop.
“None of them can survive.” Secret whispered in my ear.
If that’s how it had to be, then… I was still hungry, after all. Resisting the urge to howl, I lunged forward after the dark goat.
The riders slowed to a stop. Their flags half lowered in hesitation.
“Hark!” Called their leader, “We wish to parlay with the forces of Winter!”
None of us responded. Ahead, the tip of Sophie’s lance bounced wildly as she struggled to keep it steady and remain on the goat’s back.
“Receive charge!” The leader bellowed, and they threw down their flags and reached for their own lances. Too late.
The black goat’s horns hit the center horse like a train hits a compact car. The horse and rider became projectiles, sailing away down the bridge. Sophie’s mount pivoted and kicked out with his rear hooves. The white horse moved with that boneless elasticity of the fey, ducking under the cloven death dealers. One caught the rider in the chest. It catapulted him over the edge of the bridge. That left one for me.
His head had swiveled to track the goat, and didn’t even see me until I had cleared the tip of his lance. That long, thin neck fit neatly between my teeth as I brought him to the ground. Delicate, though; it snapped on the first shake. No time to dig into the kill, however; the goat ran on without me, laughing. I dropped my kill and raced after him. On the rim, the giant had stopped his juggling, looking down toward us. Above, a globe of ice flew through the sky, its surface shining with reflected moonlight. It hit the giant dead in the chest and exploded in a nova of ice. He toppled backwards, arms clawing at the air and landed with a thunderous boom.
I caught up with the galloping goat. Sophie clung to the pommel of his saddle with both hands. As the thunder of the giant’s fall died away, the sound of hoof strikes on the bridge came at us from both directions. At the distant edge of the rim, a swarm of riders charged onto the bridge, and behind us the two horses chased after us, sans riders; a single golden horn had erupted from each of their foreheads.
“Wolf! Fook those unicorns up! I don’t want them stabbing me in the ass while I’m plowing through the remnants of the shiny cavalry up there.” the goat shouted with the authority of a career drill sergeant. “Rider lady! There’s gonna be a lot of the bright buggers, so stop being useless! If you can’t hold the lance, then use those murder mitts.”
“Yes Sir!” Sophie answered as I, too, moved to obey the goat’s orders, falling back. Unburdened by their riders, the unicorns were gaining on us. While I equaled one of the slender horses in size, taking two on at once made my heart pine for Victoria.
“I’m with you,” Secret whispered and I caught the glint of a blade in the corner of my vision. The silver edge I had made out of an old silver platter. “These are only the weakest of the Summer court, we can take them in Luna’s name, not Winter’s.”
At this, the waning moon above appeared to be even more of a grin. So glad you find us entertaining, my mistress, I prayed. Secret’s weight disappeared from the safety of my back and the signature clatter of plastic wheels on stone stabbed me in the chest with ice-cold fear. I yipped as a small hand tugged on my tail. Secret crouched on her skateboard being towed along behind.
