Bayou Fairy Tale (25 page)

Taylor and Corentin watched through the upstairs window as the Skinners danced around Ray like a dust devil. Taylor chewed his bottom lip. He drew comfort in the disconcerting warmth in his gut as Zee stirred. Perhaps she’d just been asleep too, but she definitely woke up cranky. His anger fed into Zee, and together they formed a cyclical pattern of feeding each other their rage.

“How did we not notice?” he growled, tightening his grip around his lance.

Corentin perched one foot on the windowsill. He squinted through the sight on his bow, trying to get a clear visual on anything that looked like a solid shape. He gnashed his teeth as he drew back on the string, the silver arrow growing along his knuckles as he pulled. “You need to get Ringo and get down there. My visibility is shot up here. I don’t know if I’m going to hit any bystanders.”

“And knowing him, he probably lured them out under the promise of food,” Taylor said as he considered the distance to the ground. “Some damned relief worker he is.” In one smooth motion, he snagged Corentin by the throat and jerked him nose to nose. Taylor narrowed his eyes with a small curl of a hungry smirk. “Kiss me.”

Corentin didn’t hesitate and claimed Taylor’s mouth with a possessive growl. As they devoured each other, Zee drank eagerly of their raw moment. Taylor blindly raised his lance to the window as Corentin tasted him. Zee rumbled, building her need to defend her master.

Taylor pulled away just enough to whisper against Corentin’s mouth. “I release you.”

A pink bolt of lightning crackled from the tip of Taylor’s lance and dissolved the glass into a burst of dust. Taylor shoved Corentin away and stepped out on the window ledge. He smiled and waved behind him. “Thanks for getting Zee in the mood. I thought she was dead.”

“As Ringo says, true love’s kiss and all that business.” Corentin readied his bow again. “Now get going. I need you to break up the darkness.”

Taylor swallowed and opened himself to Zee’s fury. She seized the opportunity and thundered through his body. The force pulled him from the window and sent him somersaulting through the moonlit sky, and he landed in a rattling flatfooted slam on the street.

The oozing blackness dispersed like dish soap on grease, giving Taylor a wide berth. Zee served as his eyes, relaying information of the layout and how to better strategize. He still had to keep the leash tight on her, which was like controlling a dog the size of a runaway semitruck on a piece of yarn. If Taylor couldn’t keep his hold, she’d lay waste to the entire neighborhood.

Taylor found Ray to his left, protected by the violent waves of dark evil.

“You shouldn’t have come, Hatfield,” Ray admonished. With a toss of the head, his golden locks snatched the soup kettle from his grip and flung it directly at Taylor.

Leaping back, Taylor cleaved the steel kettle in two, only to succeed in dowsing himself in the sickly lukewarm stew. He didn’t want to think about what it was made of, but the acrid smell confirmed it. He wiped the broth and chunks of the dead from his face and kept his lips tightly together to not taste any of it.

The blackness retreated from Ray and turned on Taylor. Raising his lance in defense, Taylor struggled for air as the darkness became a cyclone, and then the cyclone became a mob of faces.

The Skinners moved like an aggressive cancer, shifting like coagulated blood, oozing and bubbling. Corentin had warned him that they were terrifying, but Taylor had them pictured all wrong.

Their bodies were withered husks of papery skin stretched across skeletal frames. And they lashed toward him with their gnarled bony fingers tipped by jagged yellowed claws. Taylor dodged left, then right, and then took a wide swing with his lance. Three arms fell to the ground at his feet, but then the fingers belonging to the severed arms pulled them toward him. Even wounded, all parts of the Skinners hungered for his blood.

Zee jerked against Taylor’s control, causing him to stumble forward on her power. As the Skinners lunged for an easy strike, Taylor asserted his dominance over Zee and jabbed the butt of his lance into the asphalt. A shockwave of pink erupted from the force, pushing the Skinners farther back. Zee likewise heeded Taylor’s warning as her master.

The Skinners flowed like an unstoppable wave crashing on the shores. They tried another forward assault, and Taylor flipped back in a continuous line, keeping out of reach. A golden curl snagged his foot in midair and slammed him to his stomach. Taylor couldn’t get the breath to scream with the impact. The Skinners closed in, rising like a tide over him. He couldn’t slow his frantic heart, and in his fear, Zee’s energies dissipated.

Taylor kicked against the golden curl, to no avail. He caught a glimpse of Ray just beyond the wave of Skinners. “Why?” Taylor demanded and gagged on the ghastly stew.

“You know why,” Ray said, holding his fingers fanned over his bald head. “He promised me.”

“
Idi
?” Taylor’s eyes widened. “He’s dead. You know that!”

“Dead or alive, he promised me. Idi always keeps his promises.” Ray steadied himself against Taylor’s flailing.

A bolt of gold light struck next to Taylor’s captured foot and sizzled the magical hair. When Taylor’s eyes adjusted back to the darkness, Corentin stood over him, with Ringo clapping his hands free of pixie dust.

Ringo spit and glared at Ray. “How’s that promise working out for you? Was it a beach house in Tahiti?” He made a casual glance at the Skinner horde. “Because, damn, those local ladies let themselves go.”

Taylor scrambled to his feet, then called forth his lance once again.

Corentin kept his sights set on Ray, an arrow nocked and ready to fly. “You okay?” he asked Taylor over his shoulder.

“Peachy.” Taylor braced himself at Corentin’s back, facing the horde behind him. “By the way, I don’t think you’re going to injure any bystanders down here. Just putting it out there.”

“How’s Zee?” Corentin asked.

“Apparently scared shitless,” Taylor muttered. “She’s gone quiet again.”

Corentin blinked. “Can you call her back?”

Taylor raised his lance toward the Skinners. “Oh, sure. Let me just punch in her number on my enchanted smartphone or some shit. I’m sure she’s just marathoning
House of Cards
.”

“Well, she better not spoil it for me, because we got some business to take care of,” Ringo said as the Skinners closed in.

The Skinners took a swipe at Taylor’s left, causing him to dart right. The right flank swiped toward him, and when Taylor shifted left, they had successfully separated him from Corentin.

Taylor gritted his teeth and found his center. He didn’t have Zee’s uncontrollable power to rely on this time. Now it was up to him.

He kicked off into a forward flip, using his momentum to bring down his lance onto one hapless Skinner who had the misfortune of getting in the way. He planted his feet and jabbed left, skewering three. And then with a long swing, eviscerated a line of them, finally jabbing another three on the right.

The Skinners spread back again in the same viscous motion. Taylor found Corentin in the mess, firing arrows as quickly as he could summon them. Silver sparks of each strike showered like falling stars over the pavement.

Ringo stuck by Corentin, lobbing bursts of lightning and pushing back the Skinners farther.

A wisp of gold streaked by Taylor’s vision, warning him of another of Ray’s oncoming hair locks. “Like hell you think you are.” Taylor cursed the thick trunk of hair as it shot through the asphalt. He flipped left and swung his lance around to cleave the hair in two. The hair sizzled and blew away like blackened fluffy ash.

Ray’s rumbling yell of pain rang out over the commotion. Taylor nodded. Ray’s magic was his greatest asset, but it had a physical manifestation that could truly harm him.

“I’m going for Ray,” Corentin called out. “You got this?”

Taylor smirked. “This is not exactly like loading the dishwasher, y’know?”

Ringo zipped to Taylor’s side, his hands aglow with sparks of defense. “But you are cleaning up.”

Taylor narrowed his eyes at Ringo’s giant grin. “Really?”

The Skinners swarmed Taylor, and he lost sight of Corentin in the fray. He took a swing, and the Skinners seemed to finally get the bright idea to get out of the way. Confused, Taylor swung again, and again they darted back in retreat. They’d seemed so sure about killing him before, but now they were retreating?

A distraction.

“Corentin!” Taylor gasped and headed for the last place he saw him. The Skinners slipped in front of him, blocking his path. Taylor took a confident swing, thinking they’d avoid him again. They did, but what Taylor didn’t plan on was for them to close in on him and renew their efforts.

Ringo appeared in front of Taylor in a puff of glitter. Without a word, he smacked his hands together and a shimmering bubble encapsulated them both. The Skinners shrieked and scratched the bubble, and Taylor ducked low in defense.

“There’s too many of them,” Taylor said. “Kill one and six more pop up.”

“Skinners aren’t just a group of individual witches. They’re a collective, a force. They move and think as one,” Ringo said. His wings twitched with each scratch and squeal against the bubble.

“Corentin’s out there. We need to protect him,” Taylor urged.

“He’s got it,” Ringo said and pointed to the snow-covered roof of Ray’s home.

IT WAS
up to Corentin now. He had taken to the roof for a higher vantage point, but hadn’t considered Ray would follow. Corentin smirked. Taylor said Ray’s magic made him a spry old codger, but they weren’t prepared for him to be
that
much of a spry old codger.

Ray flicked his fingers over his head, and Corentin had gathered that was his five-seconds warning. But Ray’s hair could come from any angle. Corentin chanced it and jumped back right as a thick stalk shot from the roof and grazed his thigh. He pushed through the pain and let a flurry of arrows fly.

With luck, one of the arrows met its mark in Ray’s shoulder. He crumpled to the roof, gripping the snow.

Corentin came forward and loomed over the fallen princess. He raised his bow and nocked an arrow, aiming point blank at the back of Ray’s neck. “You’re done,” Corentin growled. “Get up.”

Ray obeyed and slowly stood. He held up his hands in surrender, clutching a tiny remote between two fingers.

“Drop it,” Corentin commanded.

Ray tilted his head. “Wouldn’t you like to dance?” He clicked one of the buttons, and the first swooning notes of Glen Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” drifted out the windows of the house.

Corentin’s stomach turned at the dreamy notes, and he dropped to his knees. His bow sank into the snow and vanished in silver sparks. He panted for breath as a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

Ray crouched over him. “There’s a reason I wanted you at my place. My stereo has excellent sound, don’t you think, Axeman?”

Corentin coughed, then gagged. He struggled to stand, only for Ray to shove him back onto his hands and knees.

Taylor banged on the interior of the bubble as the Skinners clawed from the outside. Corentin’s eyes watered through the sting of the music in his head. He couldn’t help Taylor this time. He despised himself for his frailty, which he had long ignored.

He watched Taylor’s helpless expression as the Skinners ebbed and flowed around him. Taylor didn’t understand why such a harmless thing as Glenn Miller’s clarinet-and-brass tune made Corentin’s brain feel like it was liquefying in his skull. There were so many things Taylor didn’t understand about him that his own lies would sooner destroy him rather that earn Taylor’s forgiveness.

“Get up,” Ray whispered in Corentin’s ear.

He couldn’t move. Everything was too loud. Too shrill. The high notes seared his eyes and the bass pummeled his lungs. Corentin gagged again, spitting long trails of saliva.

“Get up.” Ray didn’t wait this time. He gripped a fistful of Corentin’s hair and dragged him to his feet.

The world turned to liquid globs of color smearing across Corentin’s vision. He wobbled to keep his balance. He blinked at Ray’s foggy outline and understood the familiar gesture of him reaching for his head.

“Like hell you are,” Corentin gurgled. He couldn’t summon his bow while the music robbed him of his magic, but his pocketknife was a blessing of the mundane world. He yanked his knife from his coat and staggered forward.

Ray was nothing more than a blob of oozing color, and the music burned into Corentin’s mind. He reached out with his knife, flailing blind, hoping to hit anything soft and fleshy. Instead, pain shot through Corentin’s thigh as Ray impaled him with a lock of hair. Corentin howled and the knife slipped from his fingers. Unable to move, he could only listen as the agonizing sound ripped him apart nerve by nerve.

He felt his own knife at his throat and the slightest of cuts, only for the blade to then slip away.

Ray must have stumbled off the roof. He’d be back to finish the job, and Corentin was powerless to stop it.

The music came to a sharp stop, like a record needle tearing off a sonic boom. Corentin’s body trembled with violent coughs that came out in croaks and groans. He remained on his hands and knees, his head throbbing as the music faded from his mind.

“Devereaux,” a woman said over him.

He spit into the snow, and his stomach clenched with a dry heave.

“Devereaux,” she repeated. “I need you, Princess Hatfield.”

Corentin reached out a trembling hand, feeling blindly for anyone to take it. “T-Taylor?” he whispered, his voice a raspy crackle.

“I’m here.” Taylor’s voice rang out as he took Corentin’s hand and then pressed it to his cheek. “Hey. Hey. I’m right here.”

Corentin blinked slowly through his clouded gaze. Taylor’s pink eyes came into focus first, followed by his face. Corentin scrambled forward and jerked Taylor into his grasp.

Instead of startling, Taylor went pliant as Corentin crushed him to him. He gripped Taylor’s hair and kissed his temple.

“You’re okay, yeah?” Corentin asked as he pushed Taylor away just enough to look at him.