Throne (34 page)
Maya gazed into his eyes, and in that soft green glow found only humor, benevolence, love. Part of her wanted to punch him in the face, the other to feel his lips on her own.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You are become the Lady of Light and Laughter,” he said, smiling. “You, as Maya, took the final step in embodying all that the Lady represents, and, in doing so, became her. You are yourself, illimitable.”
“You could have explained some of this,” she said. “You could have helped.”
“No,” he said, voice kind. “This is ever the battle of the Queen and Lady. Even if I had explained from the beginning, would you have understood? Believed?”
Gazing into his eyes, she realized that she wouldn’t have. That even now, after all she had been through, she but barely understood, had instead intuited the process she had been through, that had led her to cast away the sword when it was hers for the taking.
He held her gaze, and there was sadness now in his smile. “I can but set your feet on the path. Whether you walk it to its end is always up to you, my Lady.”
Already she could feel the city changing around them. With a quiet certitude, she felt the energies that Maribel had unleashed lift from the streets, the dark hollows and parks, the minds and hearts of the people. Felt the clouds above begin to clear, grow more translucent, so that the light of the moon could bathe the city in all its purity. Felt the force that the Queen had summoned begin to withdraw, to fold in upon itself. Disappointment and rank anger followed the Unseelie Court as they left, as they sought fitter ground for their depredations.
“Come,” said the Green Man. In his voice was laughter and dancing, the vitality of new shoots, the warmth of sunlight filtering through a canopy. He took a step away from her, still holding her hand, and half turned.
Maya knew where he wanted to go. The places he wanted to show her. She was herself now but something more. They would be part of the city: they would infuse it, exist through it, and unleash the powers of the Seelie Court upon the Isle of Apples. Perhaps she could even find her parents, use her powers to help them—
But something held her back. Something checked her, so that she didn’t step forward. The Green Man paused, his eyes narrowing but a fraction as he looked back at her. Tried to understand her hesitation.
Then, for no reason Maya could fathom, she turned her head and looked back. Kevin was standing in the doorway to the gallery, arms crossed, watching her. His face was serious, solemn, and, despite the health she had given him, pained. She met his eyes, and she saw them glimmer. He gave her what looked like a brave smile, more of a pursing of the lips, and then shooed her away with his free hand.
Maya looked back at the Green Man. This was her chance to be great. To make a difference in the world. To be more, more than simple Maya, unnoticed and quiet in the corner, missing her parents and trying to keep her head above water. This was her chance for the ultimate escape into a world of dream and magic that she had always craved.
But. She pulled her hand from the warm grip of the Green Man. Saw the light in his eyes dim. Took a step away, then a second. The lights in the garden began to dim as well, the greens gradually darkening in hues.
“So be it,” said the Green Man, voice soft. “Some are the Lady for an eon, others for but a moment. You shall always have my love and gratitude, Maya.”
She took a third step, and then a fourth, and then stopped. “Could you do me a favor?” Her voice now without that calm authority and power.
He didn’t answer, but instead simply tilted his head in question.
“My parents,” she said. Hope flaring in her chest. “Could you—could you find them? Help them?”
He smiled then, placed his hand over his heart, and bowed low. Almost, Maya let out a cry of joy, but the pain and loss in the Green Man’s eyes when he straightened instead made her bow awkwardly in return. They held each other’s gaze for a heartbeat, and then she turned and walked away.
By the time she had reached the entrance to the gallery, the garden was but a collection of shadow shapes, intimations of trees and bushes, verdant grass over asphalt and cement. The Green Man barely a silhouette, his eyes the faintest green pinpricks in the dark.
Maya turned around, and saw that Kevin was standing straight in the door, no longer leaning, no longer affecting a casual stance. “What on earth are you doing?”
Maya shrugged, “I don’t know.”
Kevin stared at her, and then grinned, and the appearance of that grin, wild and pleased and transformative was like coming home. “What about the Seelie Court, fighting the good fight, saving the world?”
Maya shrugged again. “There’s no more Queen of Air and Darkness, and the sword is gone. I think they’ll figure it out. They have before.”
“True,” said Kevin. “True. As they kept pointing out, over and over and over again.” Maya laughed, and Kevin reached out and took her hand. “So, like, if you’ve got no plans, want to go pass out somewhere for thirty six hours? And then maybe get a double shot of whiskey?”
“Sure,” said Maya. The sensation of gentle power was fading from her, the sensation and confidence that she could move the sun if she so wished. Replaced, now, by a shy and nervous excitement that seemed infinitely better, more human, more herself. “Make that an orange juice and pancakes, and I’m yours.”
Kevin laughed, stepped out of the door, and began to walk down the sidewalk with her. Dawn was beginning to lighten the Eastern sky. “I can probably find a way to make that happen,” he said. “Come on. I know this place in Prospect Park that’s the best place for breakfast. The King and Queen of Sweden ate there last year. Their waffle sundae will
kill
you. But,” he said, looking down gravely at her, “We can only get there if we walk a certain way.” And so saying, he swung his leg out in front of her, and without missing a beat she then swung hers in front of him. And laughing, they made their way down the street.
Copyright © by Philip Tucker, 2011
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FIVE STARS! "Just blew through "The Grind Show" in a single sitting. I was always a fan but this work is on a totally higher level. Wow! Philip Tucker is the real deal -- a born storyteller with a muscular prose style and the rare ability to conjure a world that is at once fantastic and utterly convincing. Highly recommended."
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FIVE STARS! "With his breakneck pacing, the author makes sure the story never lets up from there on. I have to agree with the other reviewer who wrote that the energy driving the book is palpable; it makes for a thrilling reading experience. Anyone who'd like a well-written thriller need look no further than this little gem of a novel."
FIVE STARS! "It's a page-turner, to be sure... because of a righteous mix of genuine suspense, hard hitting action, and tension-relieving humor."
FIVE STARS! "In addition to the fast-paced, exciting battle scenes and the wonderful characters, you've got an ending that is satisfying, but also opens up possibilities for new fights, new foes, and new friends in a sequel!"
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Chapter 1
When you're hunting demons, you can't afford to make mistakes. Which is why my blood ran cold when Josh punched his foot through the door instead of kicking it open, and then cut his calf badly when he yanked his leg back out. Three seconds in and our plan had already gone to hell, and right there I almost pulled the plug. Almost yelled at him to go, get out, out of this abandoned house, this abandoned town in the middle of the Mojave, out into the truck to drive as fast as we could before the thing on the other side of the door caught up with us and tore our heads off. But I didn't. We couldn't run. There was a girl being tortured to death on the other side of the door.
Instead I rammed it open with my shoulder only to see a mass of angular bones clothed in desiccated leather rushing towards me, two eyes gleaming as if a tank of kerosene had been spilled in its skull and set on fire. I brought up my sawed off shotgun, yelled something incoherent, and fired point blank at its face.
That's why I love my shotgun. You don't need to be terribly accurate, so when a demon is coming at you so fast it seems to blur, you can just point it in the right general direction and squeeze the trigger. Which is exactly what I did, the roar of the shot deafening in the confines of the house, and the demon's face was torn from the front of its skull.
Josh limped into the doorway, blood soaking the leg of his jeans, and raised his huge hand cannon to try and finish it off, but the demon wasn't there. Instead, it turned and surged toward the window. Josh tried to track it, firing shot after shot as I pumped the second shell into my shotgun's chamber, but the demon blew out through the window, taking most of the wall with it, and fell into the night beyond in a shower of shattered glass and broken boards.
This all took place in maybe five seconds. The amount of adrenaline that had been dumped into my system had my heart racing at a thousand miles an hour, and I threw myself after it without thinking, skidding to a stop where the warped floorboards turned ragged and stretched out into nothing, and planted the stock of my shotgun into my shoulder just as the demon rose into view. Its leathery bat wings unfurled, it surged up with one mighty beat, looking to escape, to fly away into the darkness. Without thinking I aimed at its left wing and fired. The gun bucked, the left wing shredded, and with a cry of rage the demon fell down into the darkness below.
Josh reached my side, prepared to fire more shots at it as I strafed the flashlight that was taped to the barrel of my shotgun across the dirt street below. The demon was gone, gone to ground somewhere in this abandoned ghost town, a ramshackle collection of swaybacked buildings and rusting cars out in the middle of the Mojave. No lights, no people, nothing but the merciless stars overhead and the desert wind moaning through the angular wooden ruins.
“Damn,” said Josh, ejecting the clip from his gun. He turned to look at me, his square face pinched, controlled panic in his eyes. Pain made him look older than his thirty-five years. We'd been hunting these things together for the last two of them, and we both had enough experience by now to know how much trouble we were in.
“You need to learn your strength, buddy,” I said, giving the ground below one last pass with the flashlight. Shards of glass glittered in the dry grass that covered the road. Josh snorted, and I turned and looked into the room. An electric camping lantern was fixed to one of the walls, and it lit the room in pale, ghostly hues. The demon hadn't provided light for its own benefit, but rather for the girl's. So she could watch while it worked on her, while it played. She lay on the floor, tied up and unconscious, her yellow sundress hiked up around her thighs. Her left arm was covered in a sleeve tattoo, all deep indigos, royal purples and emerald greens. Her black hair looked blue in the light, the blood that had run down the length of her face, black.
Pulling free my machete I crouched down next to the girl and began to work the blade through the nylon cords that tied her wrists together. She was about my age, I thought, maybe a little younger, early twenties at most. Part Asian. A cut ran along her temple, following her hairline. The demon had probably been about to scalp her when I pushed in the door and shot it in the head. Her dress was torn open above her heart, a deep spiral carved into her flesh.
“Damn,” I whispered, as Josh stepped up next to me. “We're too late.”
“No, ‘too late' would mean dead. She's still breathing,” he said quietly.
I looked down at the spiral. “Sometimes I'm not so sure. How's your calf?”
Josh leaned down and pulled up the leg of his jeans. Dark blood was welling out of a deep gash, soaking into his sock and down over his boot. I crouched down next to him and shook my head. “You going to be able to walk on that?”
“And dance,” he said, smiling grimly at me. I set down my shotgun and gave my sleeve a hard yank, tearing it up the seam and then ripping it right off.