07- Black Blood Brother Read online

  That’s going to take finesse. Or maybe an ice princess.

  I took out my phone and placed a call to Malibu. After a few rings, the connection went through. A familiar, sweet voice came over the phone. “Hello, Love.”

  “Hi, Izumi. I’m glad I caught you in the human world. I need a favor.”

  “Anything for you.”

  “Portal over to the Mykonos Hotel here in Vegas.”

  “Okay, I’ve got a lock on your position. Ummm, Vegas! Lovely. Give me time to pack a bag.”

  “Thanks.” I cut the connection and put my phone away.

  I heard a deep groan from across the room. “Oh, my freakin’ head. What happened?”

  I smiled. “You got your pansy ass kicked by a pixie. I don’t know how you’ll ever live it down.”

  There was another groan. I heard him gathering himself up. He stood, looming over the back of a chair, using it for support. He stared at me. His lips stretched; a palsied grin. “You’re not going to say anything, are you?”

  “Quite likely. And if I don’t, she will.”

  “She?” He came around the chair, through a gap, and sat across from me on the loveseat. He stared down at the coffee table between us, at the pinned-down pixie. “Small things really can be dangerous.”

  “You ought to know,” I said.

  “What I can’t figure out is, if I fell on my face, why does the back of my head hurt much more?” Zero-T held the pixie’s three-inch silver sword. In his hands, it looked like a fancy hors d'oeuvre skewer. He rotated it as he studied the pixie. I wondered if he were going to stab her with it.

  “It’s a mystery to me, too. Keep an eye on the prisoner. I need to gather a few things.” I stood and went into my room for my emergency kit. I brought it back to the coffee table and set the bag down near the pixie.

  “What’s in there?” Zero-T asked.

  I unpacked the items I wanted: several tiny bottles of booze, a diver’s knife, a lighter made to look like a blow-torch, a corkscrew, and a bottle of tabasco sauce. To this collection, I added the thimble from my sewing kit.

  “You’re going to torture her?”

  “Go and buy a bouquet of flowers. Make sure they have a strong scent and that they’re fresh.”

  “For Imari? That’s a good idea. Chicks like flowers.”

  “No. For me. I need them.”

  “I’m not giving some other guy flowers. That could damage my reputation as a manly man.”

  “Get over yourself. You’re not my type. I need them for the pixie.”

  “She’s going to eat them?”

  “Probably not.”

  “And don’t you need some grits to go with the hot sauce?”

  “Zero. Go. Before I kill you.”

  “Sho ‘nuff, big dawg. I’m on it.” He set the silver pixie-sword down, popped up, and hurried away. Crossing the room toward the hallway door, he stumbled and dropped from sight.

  Whump! “Fuck!”

  I took a moment to laugh at him for falling over the trip wire—again. “At least you didn’t knock yourself out this time.”

  “I’m a bad mamma-jammer. I can take it.”

  He scrambled up and departed, running out to show his true demon face to the world. He didn’t seem to realize that he’d broken his disguise and hadn’t replaced it. I shrugged. The first person screaming in his face will cue him in. Then again, this is Vegas; they might just assume he’s in a show: Cirque de L'enfer—the Circus of Hell, perhaps.

  I heard a tiny moan. The pixie’s eyes fluttered and stayed open. A tremor went through her wings. Her whole body jerked in place as memory rushed back and she took in her situation.

  “I drove those pins into the wood with dragon strength,” I told her. “You’re stuck until I let you go.”

  She wasted a few moments struggling anyway, then stilled, glaring at me with baleful malice. “Yeah, you better protect yourself. I’ll chew you up and spit you out—in bloody chunks.”

  I picked up the white ceramic knife and used a thumb to test its edge. “I’m trembling in fear.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What are you going to do with that?”

  I smiled, and said nothing, encouraging her imagination to run wild. People break more easily from the anticipation of torture than from the real thing. I set the knife aside and picked up the tabasco bottle. Looking from the bottle to her, I widened my grin. “Ever had a hot sauce enema.”

  Her face flushed bright pick. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  I set the bottle down. “You think I have limits? Don’t you know who it is you were paid to kill?”

  Though pinned in place, she managed a shrug. “All I know is the money was good.”

  “And you need money? You’re a nature-loving pixie. Why aren’t you back in Fairy, tending a garden or some wild orchard somewhere?”

  I could tell at once that I’d struck a nerve. Itty-bitty tears brimmed her tiny eyes. Her lips pressed together as she locked her pain inside. Anger flashed in her eyes. “None of your damned business!”

  “You made it my business when you came after me. Didn’t you think there would be repercussions to a hit on a Fairy Lord?”

  She sneered. “Fairy Lord, my sweet ass. You can’t feed me that kind of crap. You don’t have a drop of fey blood in you, dragon-scum.”

  Distracting me, a cold, silver-blue nimbus of light opened in the air, blocking the view of my bedroom. An icy wind howled in from the magical portal. Its heart darkened to deep, velvet blue. A hand thrust out. The rest of Izumi followed. She had porcelain white skin, and white hair, which cast azure shadows around her face. Her eyes were blue ice. She had a heart-shaped face had high cheekbones with the palest of blushes, making her look like a perfect doll. In contrast to all the winter white, she wore pale pink top and mauve jeans. Five-foot nothing, a hundred and five pounds, with large, bouncy breasts—I wanted to drag her into the bedroom and ravish her at that moment, but I was in the midst of business.

  She carried a suitcase, which she dropped, greeting me with a happy smile. “Caine, my love, I’m here!”

  I smiled back. “So, I see. Come over here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “Where?” The portal shrank behind her, becoming a star-point, then nothing. She came around the loveseat and paused, staring down at the pixie pinned to the coffee table. Her cold gaze met mine, her face expressionless. “Caine? What are you doing?”

  “This is a mercenary pixie that was part of a paramilitary group that tried to assassinate me. Having failed once already, she broke in here to finish the job. We were just having a discussion about things. She claims I can’t possibly be a lord of Fairy—being dragon-scum and all.”

  “Oh, really?” Izumi swept along the coffee table, her casual bearing sloughing off, replaced by a stiff regality and grace that spoke of ages of proper breeding. She carried her head in such a way to suggest there was a crown balanced there, despite any observation to the contrary. Izumi sat down on the loveseat and folded her hands in her lap. The room grew much colder. Snowflakes materialized, drifting onto the coffee table and the pixie.

  The pixie shivered. Her eyes darkened with fear.

  I smiled down on her. “Allow me to introduce Izumi, the princess and heir of the Winter Court, current Queen of the Borderlands, and Mistress of the Dragon’s Eyrie.”

  “And wife of the dragon-scum.” She added a saccharine-sweet smile to the statement. Among the fey, such an expression directed at a commoner meant the royal executioner had already been sent for.

  The pixie strained against the pins securing her in place. Her eyes fixed on Izumi, the pixie squeaked out a plea. “Please, your highness, mercy!”

  “The mercy of a swift and icy death, perhaps,” Izumi muttered. “You twice attempted to kill a Lord of Under-Hill? My beloved?”

  “Once,” she protested. “I’m only here now to recover stolen property. My ring.”

  “To the victor goes the spoils.” I pulled out the ring and h
eld it up so the emerald flashed.

  “My ring!” the pixie said.

  “My ring,” I said. “You’re not going to need it much longer, seeing as how you’re going to be dead soon.”

  The pixie cried. She wailed. “Please, no. I have family to support, my little brother and sister. They can’t make it without me.”

  “Is that why you became a mercenary?” I set the ring on the coffee table, just out of the pixie’s reach.

  She nodded, gaze clinging to the ring. “We were exiled from Fairy, our whole village scattered when our old lord’s domain passed to an enemy clan at his death, and we were slow to pledge allegiance to one we knew not. Our lands and fields were razed; our homes destroyed.”

  Not really a new story among the fey where the death of a ruling line can put a kingdom up for grabs, vulnerable to anyone strong enough to bond to the land and claim it.

  “I am inclined to be merciful in a non-lethal way,” I said.

  “You are?” the pixie asked.

  “You are?” Izumi asked.

  “I am prepared to take you and your refugee people under my protection, and to offer you land for a new village in my mountain holdings.”

  Izumi cocked her head. A slow smile formed. “Your unworked vineyard outside our mountain keep?”

  “Sure. Her people can work it in exchange for a yearly tithe of wine. They can trade the extra to other fey in my kingdom for their needs.”

  The pixie’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you grace us so?”

  The door to the suite opened and Zero-T stomped in. He had three bouquets of flowers in his arms. And he’d replaced his broken ceramic facemask with one that magically copied his underlying expressions, letting him pass as human again. “Hey, Izumi! When did you get here?”

  “Not long ago.” Her gaze caught on the flowers. “Are those for me?”

  “One of them is,” I said. “One is for Imari, Zero-T’s little crush. The third one I need.” I held up a hand in imperious demand.

  Zero-T flung yellow daisies and white chrysanthemums underhanded. The buddle’s stems were wrapping in green paper, tied with gold-foil ribbon.

  I caught the bouquet and smacked it against the edge of the coffee table. Knife in hand, I began slicing off the flower heads. “They’re screaming. Can you hear them?” I asked the pixie. I cut through another stem. The flower’s head fell onto the pixie’s stomach and she screamed like I’d taken a hot poker to her.

  “Spare the rest,” she begged. “I will do as you say.”

  “You will take an oath to serve me as your Lord? And you will take word of my generosity to your people?”

  “My word as fey. My pledge upon my blood.”

  Zero-T came over, managing not to trip this time. He took the open chair and frowned at the savaged flowers. “Those cost money, you know?”

  I set the intact flowers aside. “I needed to make the point that just because I’m merciful, doesn’t mean I’m weak.” Actually, I’d only been having fun. I let my inner evil out in small doses so it doesn’t build up and break free as major carnage. This is how I protect the universe—from myself.

  “Izumi, if you take her to the Keep, the land may be able to heal the surviving flowers and let them grow again.” Letting the pixie bond to land I gave her would motivate her to provide quality service to me.

  Hope for tomorrow is a useful carrot to dangle.

  I picked up the ring again and caught the pixie’s stare with it. “When you come back, you can take up your new duties as my personal spy. You will be paid in fairy gold, and I will return the ring to you.”

  “You will?” the pixie asked.

  “You will?” Izumi asked.

  “You will?” Zero-T asked.

  “Seems to be a severe echo in here.” I pulled the pins free, releasing the pixie, and held out the ring. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  She flung herself on the ring, tearing it from my lax grasp, and muttered something too low for even my hearing to pick up. The ring went on her head like a tiara.

  I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

  Her face flushed in embarrassment. She raised her voice. “Sourwood.” Her tone was sour as well. I couldn’t blame her. Her parents must not have loved her.

  I smiled. “Of course, it is.”

  She stomped her tiny foot at me, but said nothing else.

  Opening a miniature bottle of vodka, I poured a little into the thimble and handed her the drink. “Here, buck up.”

  She took the thimble, sniffed it, and slammed it down.

  And I thought I was a two-fisted drinker.

  “Look,” I said, “if you don’t like your name, change it. Be your own invention. Look at me. Do you think I started out in life as a Deathwalker? No. I picked that name out myself.”

  “I can tell,” Zero-T said.

  Izumi said nothing but nodded agreement.

  I glared wrathfully at them. Somehow, they survived.

  “What do you suggest?” Sourwood asked.

  “Silverwynd.” I spelled it out for her and poured her another thimble-full.”

  “Silverwynd. I like it.” She held up the thimble in a toast. “To new beginnings.”

  TWELVE

  “I don’t understand; when did it

  Become so very hard to buy condoms?”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  I finished off one of the little bottles of vodka, enjoying the solitude and peace while it lasted. Zero-T headed off, claiming to have business before the poker tournament that he needed to take care of. I figured he was going out to find a hooker. Silverwynd gathered up her trusty tripwire. It magically compressed into loops that rode against her hip. She departed by portal with Izumi for the land of Fairy.

  I expected Izumi back in a few hours. I was going to have to be careful introducing her to Chrys. One or both of them might go to war for my attentions. Both were determined to have my love child. Both were dangerous and might well consider this the ideal time to strike; while my Anti-Conception tatt was gone, no longer killing off my sperm.

  Eventually, I’d need an heir to get the Old Man distracted from running my life. Now that he was retired from clan business, he’d need a hobby. I couldn’t wait for him to marry my cousin and have female problems of his own. As far as being a daddy goes, I wasn’t ready to start a new trend among my harem. If they all got pregnant, and needy, my life would degenerate into wretched, aching despair.

  Rubbing feet and fetching ice cream; oh, the horror.

  And there was the Red Lady. Selene wasn’t going to put up with anyone else being first to bear my kid. She was my dragon side’s soulmate.

  Golden eyes opened in the back shadows of my mind; my inner dragon checking in. She should be first to bear my child.

  “Say that out loud,” I answered, “while Izumi is around, I dare you. And don’t mention the missing tatt to Selene. She’ll chain me to her bed—again—to have her way with me until I’m ready to swear off sex.”

  My inner dragon snorted. That can never happen.

  “Let’s not chance it. Speaking of sex, this is a good opportunity to stock up on condoms. It’s better than tying a knot in our cock.”

  Less painful, too.

  I smelled a storm. Electrical charges thickened in the air. A glob of water formed, hovering near the main door where the trip wire had been. The silvery-blue blob spun, growing, glowing. Its heart went deep blue. A black shadow formed there. A big black shadow. An eight-foot, azure skinned demon stepped through the portal. And dripped on the carpet. He wore an aqua colored suit with a sea-foam green tie. The clothing hid demon-clan tats and the scar-brands of ancient Atlantean magic. Storm and shadow were his weapons, and it didn’t hurt that he could bend steel bars in his bare hands.

  He didn’t need the protection of the four demon security men that followed him out of the portal. Two of them went out into the hall to control access into the suite. The other two took up position just inside th
e hallway door. They wore magical charms that kept them looking not only human, but non-descript as well. That made them hard to pick out of a police lineup, if it ever came to that.

  The portal closed and the Old Man sauntered over while scanning the room. He claimed the white leather chair, dropping heavily into it. His gaze took in the abused and cluttered coffee table. “Torturing pixies?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was joking.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Oh.” He flashed a wide smile. “So, when’s my bachelor party?”

  “Later. I want Zero-T there, and he’s going to be busy with his poker tournament eight to midnight for the next three nights.” I’d checked on-line. Grand prize was a hundred thousand dollars. I wanted to give him every chance to win the cash so I could blackmail some of it out of him later.

  “You’re wearing your creepy smile,” the Old Man said. “What are you thinking?”

  Rather than giving him a straight answer, I filled him in on what I’d discovered about the Villagers and the silver dragon working with them. “When Imari gets back from the warehouse, we may know more.”

  He nodded slowly. “From what you describe, the Villagers use their shadow magic indirectly, alchemically, manipulating molecular chains, forming shadow-possessed substances that respond to their will the way their magic does. It’s probably less taxing than forcing shadow directly into material form the way we do.”

  I’d been thinking about that. “It’s both a strength and a weakness; it gives them more endurance in battle, but keeps them weak in the use of direct shadow magic. Magic is a muscle; it gets stronger with use. Their lack of wide-ranging technique, the dependency on raw power to overwhelm an opponent, leaves much of their potential untapped. I’m beginning to wonder if they even understand the power they’re using.”

  “Maybe it’s using them. Perhaps you should investigate whether they can be cut off from shadow magic entirely.”