Horseman Page 6

  But other times, neither of those things happened. Like now. I ended up just kind of facing her with my arms up in an impotent gesture of don’t shoot!

  She flung her hand at me, and an orb of green light sailed right at my face. I had a moment to realize that it looked like she had thrown a pissed-off, neon-green octopus at me. But before I could even react, it fizzled into nothing, and I heard a woman politely clear her throat.

  The child spun, face both stunned and horrified. You know the look.

  Mommy had just caught her with her hand in the cookie jar.

  Or, you know, trying to murder her Royal Court of tea party princesses.

  “Mommy, I’m sorry. I was—”

  “Enough, Alice. I think you need to go to your room. Think about what you did wrong.”

  I stored that name away, since it was the first one I had heard here. The mother had answered the door, assessed us from head to toe, and then handed us over to her daughter until she ‘had time for us.’

  Alice glanced over her shoulder, eyes smoldering as she considered Gunnar and me. But she curtsied to Talon and Carl before stomping out of the room. She slammed her foot down on the plastic tray of pastries and it turned to dust, instantly replaced by fresh offshoots of grass.

  Her mother tsked. “We will discuss the punishment for breaking your toys this evening. Perhaps a night in the mountains would help cool your temper.”

  I shared a look with Gunnar. A night in the mountains? If that punishment had been on my parents’ list when I was a child, I would have become a hermit.

  “Whatever…” I heard Alice clearly mutter under her breath.

  A new voice suddenly boomed through the room. “Is that how you talk to your mother?” The child froze in mid-stride, whirling to stare at her mother in horror. I frowned, wondering why it sounded familiar, and where the third party was hiding.

  Then I saw it. Her mother was holding her cell phone facing the child. She was… Facetiming this? But why had the voice sounded familiar?

  The child curtsied so low that I thought she was about to sit down on the ground. She kept her eyes downcast as she meekly replied. “No, Baba.”

  I blinked. Baba… No way. I burst out laughing. “Mother-loving Baba Yaga?!” I hooted. “How in the world do you know—”

  I cut off as all three females turned to face me. The child, the mother, and the matron on the phone. Thinking of it in that context – with titles rather than names – made something in the back of my mind start whimpering. I knew these women weren’t one of the mythical three-faced goddesses, but…

  Boy, oh boy, did it feel like it at that moment. Oddly enough, they all had the exact same look on their faces. They didn’t speak, but my sphincter puckered as if they had shouted. Just a little.

  “Sorry. I’m new at this whole princess thing,” I admitted.

  “Leave us, child,” Baba said in a cool tone.

  “Yes, Baba. Thank you, Baba. I’ll do better, Baba.” Alice curtsied again, and then sprinted out of sight and up the creaky wooden stairs. I heard a door slam before the mother and Baba turned back to us.

  I scratched my lip suspiciously as I studied each face. The two women were stoic, no emotions at all. Too composed… I finally grunted, tearing the bangles off my wrist and flinging them casually at Carl, who caught them with a hiss of outrage, as if I’d been throwing out real treasures. “We’ve been had, Princesses,” I told my squad of tutu-and-tiara-clad Man-Princesses. “You can probably thank Baba for that,” I added, glancing over my shoulder at the woman on the phone.

  In unison, Baba and the mother burst out laughing – literally hooting and giggling uproariously. I scowled at the phone, wiping at my cheeks with my sleeve to get rid of some of the makeup.

  “I do not understand,” Carl murmured to Gunnar. “Aren’t pranks usually unpleasant trickeries? But this was lovely.”

  I heard Gunnar sigh, trying to explain it to Carl, but I kept my eyes locked on the phone, waiting for an explanation.

  “That’s for not being smart enough to ask me for a meeting with the Chancery. And for making me babysit the Knight several months ago.”

  I growled. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t ask you again. You fell asleep on the job.”

  She hissed so loud that the phone squealed with static. Talon, of course, instinctively reacted to the feral sound, his back arching up, hair sticking straight out, and hopping sideways three times.

  Carl and Gunnar both burst out laughing, ignoring Talon as he redirected his hiss at them. He shifted into his bipedal form, a five-foot-tall Thundercat, complete with a veritable beard, and whiskers that trailed down his cheeks. His eyes glowed with a metallic shine as he continued to stare down my friends.

  “Surely, there was a better way to handle this,” I said. “I didn’t do anything to you. My relative did. And look, sleeping beauty is now awake. Like magic.”

  The mother spoke, cutting off Baba’s retort. “We also wanted to see how you would react to humility. Kings can be arrogant. And newly-minted kings even more so.”

  “You obviously haven’t seen my princess side,” I said with a faint smile. The two smiled back ever so slightly. “Okay, egos aside, you can consider me humbled.”

  “If you will follow me,” the mother said, before turning her back and walking from the room.

  I followed her, taking off my tutu and tossing it on the chair. Baba was still talking to the mother. “If that child gets any more uppity, you’ll need to send her back to me for a sleepover. It seems she has forgotten her lessons on respecting her elders. And my house is such a wonderful place to learn valuable life lessons…” I shivered at the thought. Baba Yaga was a very powerful and dangerous witch. And her house was technically her Familiar, able to walk around and be her muscle.

  When it wasn’t walking around as a house on chicken legs, that is.

  The mother nodded. “I’ll arrange it soon. For now, I can only thank you for this…” she glanced over her shoulder casually, a faint smirk on her perfect cheeks, “experience. But I must go and attend to my guests. You know how princesses can get if they are ignored for too long.”

  I ignored their laughing goodbyes, imagining all the ways I would get back at Baba Yaga.

  Chapter 10

  We settled in a formal sitting room across the hall from the front door of her home. The three-story house had looked modest and cute from the outside, but inside it felt like a lovingly-maintained museum, complete with priceless artifacts and quality, refurbished leather furniture. It smelled of fresh-cut wood and mint leaves, and I knew it wasn’t from any household cleaning solution. No, it was raw and pure, as if the home was freshly built from the healthiest trees from the deepest parts of the forest. Because Fae lived here, and beauty, quality, and the au natural factor were big to them.

  We were also near Frontenac, a notoriously wealthy part of St. Louis, so no bum neighbors with totaled Pontiacs in the front lawns to be concerned about. I had left my satchel in the SUV with Alucard, but Talon and I had each brought our spears with us to the Fae mother’s house, depositing them in the umbrella stand by the front door. I had wanted the mother to see us willfully hand our weapons into her care, a gesture of respect. Then, Talon had promptly shifted into his feline form, a large Maine Coon, another gesture for the mother.

  Silently telling her that we felt safe in her home and meant no harm. Even leaving them out of our sight for the tea party had been a calculated and added gesture of trust on our parts.

  Then again, we’d brought along a Carl, so maybe inviting an Elder had nullified the rest.

  My eyes tracked to the umbrella stand, verifying the spears were still safe. They appeared to have been untouched. The black spear Pandora had sneakily gifted me from the Armory seemed to absorb the darkness, amplifying it somehow. The two-foot long blade on the end was a black-matte spear tip – but shaped like a cross between a sword and an axe, and in the center was a ruby the size of a goose egg. The ruby wasn’t c
urrently pulsing with light like it sometimes did, but if you looked closely enough, you could notice that it wasn’t all that natural either. One would catch random flickers and pulses of light – as if reflecting a ray of sunlight, even when no sun was hitting it.

  It looked like a weapon inspired by a feather from my unicorn. Black with a red orb at the tip. It even had two of Grimm’s feathers hanging from the hilt of the blade, although I hadn’t found out why or how. Grimm had said I didn’t do it. But my unicorn was a habitual liar, so…

  Talon’s white spear – almost an exact duplicate of mine in style – seemed too bright, and was angled the opposite direction, as if the two spears were repelling each other, hanging out opposite sides of the stand. Other than color, the only real difference was that his didn’t have a stone in the blade or feathers hanging from the braided hilt fixing the blade to the staff. Otherwise, they looked like siblings. Or as if made by the same blacksmith.

  Talon’s spear could be invisible, called up at will from thin air, but out of courtesy, he had placed it in the stand, too. We’d also agreed that attending a tea party with spears wasn’t exactly very ladylike.

  Carl’s bone swords – about a dozen different daggers and blades – littered the base of the umbrella stand like a bone altar. I glanced away from them before I drew attention. I didn’t want the mother to think I was considering bloodshed.

  I didn’t even know her name yet, after all.

  She didn’t seem particularly concerned to be so vastly outnumbered, which told me she was dangerous. If I was smart, this probably would have informed me that maybe I should be the one concerned about her. But willful arrogance is often the better part of valor. Or something like that.

  She reached out to pour a decanter of wine into the five full-bodied glasses already set before us on the coffee table, so I held out a hand, forestalling her. That was pretty much rule number one with the Fae. Don’t accept food, drink, or any type of gift.

  She sighed, looking directly at me. “You’re no fun. What’s a little bondage and obligation between friends?”

  I met her eyes, politely shaking my head. “We’re not thirsty.”

  “I am thirsty,” Carl said. “And she wouldn’t dare attempt to obligate an Elder. Again.”

  I slowly turned to look at Carl. Again? What was he—

  And that’s when I noticed that the mother had grown very, very still, lowering her gaze to the floor. “Of course not,” she said in an almost meek tone. I arched an eyebrow at Gunnar, but he looked just as startled as me. In fact, he looked as if he was seriously considering shifting before huffing and puffing and blowing the house down. I made a discreet gesture with my hand, wordlessly telling him to stand down.

  “I think I would like to hear that story…” I said casually. Neither responded. Carl was utterly relaxed, as if witnessing an angry kitten. The mother was… tense as all hell, though.

  “Perhaps another time…” Carl finally said, casually crossing his legs as he leaned back in his chair. I blinked at his feet. Where the hell had he found red-heeled, knee-high, pirate boots? And how had I not noticed them until now? “Everything shared here holds no bonds, nevermore,” he continued. “Elder Carl says it is so.”

  The mother nodded hurriedly.

  Gunnar let out a low whistle. “Well, this is awkward…”

  Fucking Carl… He could subdue a dangerous Fae Lady with a few words? Whatever Carl had been subtly reminding her of was so unbelievably terrifying that she had been scared into obeying his demands. Interesting. It meant that he knew her, and he hadn’t mentioned that to me. But… how? This woman would have to be very, very old to know Carl, because the Elders had been banished a long time ago…

  The Mother turned to me. “My name is Alvara, and refreshments are freely given. No obligation of any sort. Consider this meeting between friends who have no need for chicanery. We will speak as close family. Words, wine, and wisdom shall flow freely.” She hesitated. “As freely as possible, unless it broaches a topic that could bring danger upon any of us,” she clarified.

  “I can live with that,” I agreed slowly. “And thank you.”

  Carl leaned forward, flicking out his tongue a few times over the wine decanter, tasting the air above it. Then he looked at her. “Sample it, my sweet.” She didn’t even take offense, immediately pouring a small taste into her glass and guzzling it down. Carl waited a few moments, studying her closely. Then he grunted. “Acceptable, but we will take new glasses. Your finest, Alvara. The ones locked away for family only. Not this rubbish.”

  “Didn’t we already determine that we’re acting as family?” I asked slowly, wondering if Carl was going to become a liability. I needed her as an ally, not an enemy.

  “Exactly,” Carl said, not looking at me, but staring straight at Alvara. “Which means we should drink from the glasses of her family.”

  “Of… course,” Alvara said. Then she was walking over to her liquor cabinet in the corner of the room. She reached into a drawer, withdrew a key, and then inserted it into a lock on a nearby wardrobe of sorts. When it opened, I sucked in a breath. Bars of gold, piles of diamonds, priceless other gems, and precious metal statues filled the wardrobe.

  And goblets and glasses and other dinnerware that had to be robbed from Renaissance Italy or Medieval Kingdoms filled two of the shelves. Talon narrowed his eyes, his tail twitching at all the twinkling reflections. I cleared my throat and he stiffened, pointedly turning away. There had to be dozens and dozens of goblets. All different styles, sizes, and from different eras.

  Alvara stood there, her back to us, staring at them, waiting for something.

  Carl pointed a long black claw. “Top shelf, third row, second from the back.” She silently grabbed the specific glass, setting it down before her. “Bottom shelf, first row, first goblet…” and he continued pointing out random glasses and goblets, Alvara silently obeying his orders as if this wasn’t her own house. When she had four, she turned to face us, and Carl nodded. “Serve us, if you please.”

  I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “Maybe we can cut the theatrics. We already agreed to be peaceful. Am I missing a massive sub-conversation somewhere? I’d hate for Alvara to feel slighted.”

  Carl leaned forward menacingly, sniffing the air and flicking out his tongue. His blotchy, fire-engine-red lips curled back to reveal long, inky black fangs. “Alvara should feel slighted. Alvara should thank me – down to her bones – that I don’t make her strip down naked, slit her own wrists, and then see if she can dance the Ulukai before she bleeds out…” he hissed, a fan of spikes around his neck slowly rising with a quivering rattle. Like a reptilian lion’s mane.

  Talon began to purr. “This is much more my speed…” he said, eyes lidded heavily as if preparing to take a nap. He leaned back into the couch, slowly sheathing and unsheathing his claws.

  “My Queen commanded me to do as I did, Elder Carl, knowing that I would fail. Then she banished me here for that failure,” she said, not apologetically, but with a touch of anger to her voice. Anger at how she had been played by her own Queen. Carl just stared at her. “I was… unable to decline my Queen’s request, as much as I wished to do so. I apologize for what I did to Carlos and Carla—”

  Carl’s mouth opened wide in a roar of outrage I wasn’t sure I had ever seen from him, and several spikes fucking shot out of his rattling mane to pepper the wall. One even tore into a priceless painting on the wall, and another shattered an antique vase

  “Don’t ever speak of my parents, you inflamed meat-sack, or I will consume your child with a song so sweet it will rot your soul and obliterate your mind.” Then he began a very soft – almost inaudible – hum.

  She squeaked in sheer horror, curtsying immediately. Carl trailed off his song, and my ears seemed to pop as he did so. Talon had curled in on himself, his hair sticking straight up, and had his paws clamped over his ears. Gunnar looked like he had been struck between the eyes.

  Well, not technic
ally between his eyes, plural. Maybe like he had been flicked in the balls.

  I shook off the sensation and cleared my throat, holding up my hands. “Obviously, you two have a past. Something we can maybe put on a shelf for later?”

  For her to know Carl’s parents proved how old she was. But to learn that their names were Carlos and Carla made me very uneasy. I had chosen Carl’s name at random soon after meeting him, and he’d accepted it without issue. Was that some kind of intuition on my part? To pick a name so close to his parents? I’d have to ask him about it later.

  “I was being polite,” Carl argued. “I didn’t sing her into the eternal sleep and then ride her bleached bones into oblivion.”

  Chapter 11

  Talon coughed violently, and then began hacking up a monstrous hairball. I kicked his chair and he cut off with a final hack into his elbow, attempting to be polite.

  “Right, no riding her bones into oblivion,” I said, then winced at the words. Jesus.

  “Pour, woman,” Carl intoned, setting his plastic teacup from our princess party on the table for her to fill up, only just now bringing to my attention that he’d only asked Alvara to grab four glasses. Because he’d obviously planned to use the teacup. “I will think on your words…”

  That was apparently good enough for Alvara. She dipped her head gratefully, and then filled our glasses, seating herself only after Carl gave her a satisfied nod. She let out a slow breath as she slid into her chair, folding her hands in her lap.

  “If I may be so bold…” Alvara asked, not meeting our eyes directly, but flicking them first in Carl’s direction, and then mine.

  I nodded. She needed us to give her something after that mental abuse. Carl nodded curtly, lapping up his wine with his tongue, staring at Alvara with his unblinking eyes over the rim of his pink teacup.

  She hesitated. “No disrespect intended to anyone present, but Elder… Carl speaks very openly for one of your subjects. I had been led to believe that you were the one to fear. Not that you aren’t frightening in your own right, but I hadn’t anticipated your allies being so outspoken.”