Part 46 (1/2)

Approaching the Red Lady's body, Gossamyr stood over the limp heap of white velvet speckled with gobs of the shattered red essence. ”Have at me,” she whispered. ”This is what I've come for.”

It did not claw its way out from the body. No, this revenant shrieked and flew from the cage of bones as if shot out from a cannon. It touched the ceiling of the collection room, floated momentarily, its red eyes surveying the floor, and then dived.

This one was not a skeletal clatter of bones. This revenant was fleshed with red muscle and long glinting claws. A result of a succubus, or that of a succubus's dabbling with magic?

It mattered not.

Gossamyr swung her body in a circle, drawing the staff straight out. Connection thrust her against the wall of essences. Cold goo oozed over her shoulder. A shriek to raise the dead pierced her ear. The revenant slashed the wall. Its claws cried to the Infernal as they destroyed essences and neared Gossamyr's face.

Leaping forward, Gossamyr gripped the waist of the creature. It flew high with her clinging and kicking at the muscular legs. A shake released her hold.

Falling, she let out a cry. ”For Glamoursiege!”

Her body hit marble. Briefly her sight blackened. She lifted her hand, still clutching the half staff. It connected with something solid.

The revenant cried out and the staff jiggled in her hand. Gripping it with both hands, Gossamyr wrestled with the speared revenant. Claws hissed through the air and the foul stench of decay spewed over all.

”The alicorn, Ulrich!”

Releasing the staff, Gossamyr rolled on her side. She slid ungracefully down the two marble stairs. Behind her the revenant banged its shoulder against the wall as it struggled with the staff fixed in its chest.

Sliding to a stop at Ulrich's foot, Gossamyr felt the alicorn slap into her palm. ”Get back!” She rolled to her back and aimed the alicorn toward the revenant.

Not a glimmer of Enchantment beamed from the horn.

The revenant, aware now, tilted its head curiously.

”Ulrich, I think I need some magic to destroy this beast!”

”I'm not sure-”

”Grab my hand!” She scrambled backward and when she hit Ulrich's leg, she leaped to her feet. It was wrong to include Ulrich when the most possible outcome could be his death. But there was little choice-this revenant had been forged of both Enchantment and magic.

The revenant lunged for her.

Ulrich slapped his palm to hers.

Believe, Gossamyr thought to herself. And then she shouted to Ulrich, ”You must believe!”

The wind of the revenant's savage growl bruised her face. Staring at slimy maws, Gossamyr lifted the alicorn and drove it up through the revenant's throat. The tip emerged at the top of its skull. She felt little resistance. But a spark of dust sifted from the alicorn's tip and floated over the revenant.

Keeping hold of the alicorn, Gossamyr shoved Ulrich behind her but kept his hand in hers. She could feel it. His truth. His belief flowing through her arms and out her other arm to focus in the alicorn.

A brilliant crackle of bone and muscle exploded before her. No glimmer.

Not a single glint. Particles of bone clattered to the marble floor.

And it was done.

”That,” Ulrich gasped over her shoulder, ”left a mark.”

”We're safe. Circelie Sangreul of Rougethorn has had the final twinclian.”

With a s.h.i.+mmering flight over their heads, the fetch landed Gossamyr's forehead. So brief the touch, and yet, in that moment she saw a flash of the time she had cried three days. And following, Mince storing her tears away in a crystal vase, where they hardened and sparkled like quartz. That was all she saw before the fetch alighted and twinclianed.

Dominique entered, the unicorn in tow. The changeling took in the destruction, glancing to the body of Avenall, and sneering at sight of the Red Lady, yet pinned to the wall. Red had begun to trickle from the pinp.r.i.c.k marks around her left eye. Finally Dominique's eyes fell upon s.h.i.+nn.

”Your father?” he said as he knelt beside the Faery lord. ”I am sorry.”

Involuntary s.h.i.+vers rode Gossamyr's spine. She could not force herself to speak, to offer an ”I know, he sacrificed for me.” Instead, she fell into Ulrich's embrace, tucking her face against his shoulder. The soul shepherd stroked her arm and kissed the crown of her head. Bare of s.h.i.+rt, his flesh felt ridiculously warm and so very...like home.

”He must be returned to Faery,” Dominique said softly. ”I will prepare him for the journey, if you will allow.”

Gossamyr simply nodded. She knew that without s.h.i.+nn's a.s.sistance there was no Pa.s.sage back to Faery for her. Though the rift yet remained open.

When you return to Faery you shall age and wither. Belief had been altered. No return, ever. And yet, someone must now sit the Glamoursiege throne.

From the corner of her eye she observed Dominique as he stood over s.h.i.+nn, finger to chin in thought. Devising a plan? Tor walked up to the changeling and nudged a suede nose into his palm.

”It is a unicorn,” Ulrich's hot breath whispered reverently.

Dominique looked over his shoulder at her. Then he turned back to Tor, pressed his forehead to the beast's nose, right between its eyes, and held there. Communicating? Mayhap, and similar to s.h.i.+nn's communication with the fetch.

Why had the fetch shone her a picture of all her tears?

A twist of her waist focused her gaze on Avenall, laid carefully upon the bed. Glimmer of faery dust sparkled there on his chest where the pin had pierced through flesh and heart and married his stolen essence with the body.

”You remembered,”she whispered,”just before you died. I hope it was a good memory.”

”He loved you, Gossamyr,” Ulrich rea.s.sured. ”As did you him.”

”Call me...Verity.”

”Why?”

”It is who I am, who I have always been.”

A sigh sloughed out final tears. She pulled from Ulrich and touched the leather saddlebag.

”I know,” Ulrich said. ”We should return it now the unicorn is here.”

”Not we. You, Ulrich. You have journeyed far for your wish.”

”Tor is aware the alicorn is within reach,” Dominique announced. ”But not here in this lair of evil. We must to a place of calm, far from Paris and closer to Faery. He will bear s.h.i.+nn and the other on his back. We should be off.”

And so the threesome carefully secured s.h.i.+nn and Avenall upon Tor's back and left the Red Lady's lair as it was. The essences that had not burst were rapidly dissipating. One after another gave a bright twinkle before finally dissolving to but a whisper of dust. Gossamyr could not guess if it be the final twinclian or merely a sigh of final release.

She strode from the room without looking back.

As they emerged from the depths of strange darkness and despair, the chill of the morning reawakened their senses. Tiny chirps from a hidden nest brightened the sweetness of the dawn. Clasping a hand to her breast, she only now realized the gown had been rent wide, revealing the curves of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.