Embrace the Night (12 page)

Switching to telepathy, he pathed,
Can you see their arms?

I can. It’s so beautiful and look, she’s very pregnant.

It’s a tradition among many of the elven, the fae as well, and a sign of prosperity, for the woman to be with child on the day of her nuptials.

Well, I think it’s lovely. Even magical.

But she stiffened once more in his arms. At first he didn’t know why until she said,
Jude, I’m frightened. I can sense that Margetta is nearby. She’s very close.

You’re sure?
He rose steadily into the air, higher and higher and got Longeness on the com. Just as he was about to talk to him, Jude saw a line of mist on the nearby canal that sent a chill through his heart. “Longeness, I have mist-sign. I need as many Guardsmen as possible surrounding the elven town of Chelana. Tell them to avoid the town center. There’s a wedding in progress.”

“Got it. I have four within a five minute arrival time and another … let’s see, seven, no eight at the ten minute mark.”

“Thanks, just send them to me.”

To Hannah, he said quietly, “Back-up’s on the way.”

“Okay.” Her arm tightened around his neck.

He felt her distress and slowed his flight, moving steadily in the direction of the mist. “Hannah, how did you know she was there?”

“It’s weird, but I felt her presence. I can still feel it.”

“Has to be your fire-gift.”

The next moment, mist appeared at the railing of the nearby canal. It began pouring over the pavers of the road and moving swiftly toward the square.

“Jude, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. If I approach the mist, I’ll pass out.”

The moment the mist reached ten feet from the nearest realm-folk, no matter the species, each simply slumped to the ground. The process looked like dominos falling.

Jude had never felt so helpless to intervene, and he really hated that feeling.

~ ~ ~

Hannah knew that she could make a difference, because she’d already confronted Margetta once. But she didn’t see the woman anywhere, and she was afraid to start working her fire-gift without at least knowing the woman’s location. “Rise higher in the air, Jude. I need to look down on the crowd. My God, how fast the mist takes them over. It’s like watching a flood and being unable to help anyone.”

The moment Jude had lifted them another fifty yards in the air so that she had a bird’s eye view of the square, she groaned. “I can see Margetta now. She’s right next to the bride.” The mist reached the lovely red-haired woman in white lace, and she dropped along with her attached groom onto the pavers at Margetta’s feet. The bride fell on her side, her free arm surrounding her swollen belly protectively.

The crowd had grown very quiet as more and more people fell unconscious. Those opposite the fallen, stared in mute confusion as the mist rolled toward them and a slight murmur of concern went up until the mist reached them.

By the time another minute had passed, the entire square had fallen silent, at least two-hundred vulnerable realm-folk awaiting slaughter.

Margetta lifted her gaze upward and called out, “Come to me, Hannah. We need to reach an understanding.”

Jude spoke into his com. “Longeness, let the incoming Guardsmen know that Margetta is in the Chelana town square. Make sure they remain at two-hundred-yards distant. Looks like we’ll be negotiating. But keep them flying. I’ll want the troops here in case the Invictus show up ready to do Margetta’s bidding. So far, no one else is here to support the ancient fae.”

“Understood, Mastyr.”

Something flashed in Margetta’s hand as she knelt beside the bride. “Fly me closer, Jude. Oh, God, Margetta is holding a dagger to the bride’s throat. Do you see it?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why is Margetta doing this?”

“Testing the field. She wants to know how powerful you are as well as the limitation of her mist. The only good news is that it looks to me as though her mist also affects her own army of wraith-pairs, otherwise they’d be present right now, awaiting her orders.”

“Just get me as close as you can without being affected by the mist.”

“Come to me, Hannah, or the bride dies.” Margetta pulled the woman’s upper body onto her lap, exposing her pale throat. The bride’s crown of lavender flowers slid off her veil and onto her husband’s arm.

Margetta made a surface cut, so that a small rivulet of blood slid down the side of the woman’s neck.

Hannah gasped. “I have to go to her.”

“No, Hannah.”

She turned to look at Jude.
Just keep your telepathic frequency open. We’ll talk the whole time. But I can’t let her die and neither can you. We’ll have to wing it, but I know we can figure something out. I also know that I can’t have this woman’s death on my conscience.

Jude’s nostrils flared and he pressed his lips tight together.
I understand.

He set her down outside the circle of mist that lay like a soft veil over the prone realm-folk.

That smell is horrible.
She stepped off his boot
. Just talk to me.

Jude backed up swiftly, positioning himself thirty feet away, out of range of the mist, but he stayed on the ground.
The mist appears to have strict limitations, but I can still smell it even from this position.

Hannah didn’t glance in his direction, but stepped carefully over several people, working not to crush hands or limbs.

As she approached Margetta, she thought yet again that even though the woman personified evil, she was beautiful with even features, a straight nose, and violet eyes not unlike her own.

Margetta’s eyes, however, turned silver in that moment, which Hannah knew meant she was attempting to employ her enthrallment skills.

In response, the fire element of Hannah’s strange emerging power began to burn hot. Her skin grew flushed, and she lifted her chin. She released a sudden burst of that hot energy directly at Margetta’s mind. The ancient fae winced, but her eyes returned to normal.

“So, you’ve got some power.” She looked Hannah up and down. “Yet, I don’t understand what you are.”

Hannah’s gaze slid to the blood still trickling from the elven bride’s throat and to the shiny silver blade in Margetta’s hand.

Meeting Margetta’s gaze once more, she responded, “I have no idea, either. Nor does Vojalie, except that I’m meant to create balance in the Nine Realms.”

“Balance?” Margetta laughed. “Don’t be stupid. Now here is how this is going to go. You’ve got a very simple choice: Either come with me right now, or the bride and everyone in this lovely community square dies. What shall it be?” She rolled the blade at the woman’s neck, creating a second surface slice, but with a stronger flow this time.

Jude, did you hear Margetta?

I did. You’re not to leave with her. She has only one intention; she will kill you.

I know. The problem is, I know the bride. I didn’t recognize her because we were so far away, but a year ago she and her boyfriend came into the Gold Rush and announced their engagement.
She started to tremble.
Can you tell me something?

Anything.

How fast can you really fly?

What are you thinking?

Hannah worked to keep her heart steady.
Only that when I’m airborne and high enough, I’ll blast her, but that means I’ll probably fall and someone will need to catch me. Sound okay to you?

Hannah, you could die. You don’t know all the power she has. And what if I can’t reach you in time?

Then I’ll die doing something worthwhile.
She’d made up her mind that the last thing she could ever allow was this woman to die on the happiest day of her life.

She stepped forward and held her arms out to the ancient fae. “I’ll go with you.”

The woman smiled and moved the bride to rest on the pavers. Blood still flowed from her neck.

Margetta leaped toward Hannah in a swift upward flight, faster than Hannah thought she could move. In a split second, she caught Hannah beneath her arms and lifted her into the night sky. She was moving incredibly fast, ever higher. The sickly sweet smell came off the ancient fae’s skin so that it was all Hannah could do not to throw up.

She watched the world grow smaller and knew the time had come. She reached deep within herself and found the vibrating source of her fire and began in slow stages to build it until Margetta was pressing her hands tight to Hannah’s ribs.

“You really wouldn’t be that stupid to risk your life when we’re almost at five thousand feet. Because if you burn me again, I’ll have to drop you. Silly girl.” She increased the pressure.

Hannah had already made up her mind and didn’t hesitate. She let the fire-gift within her explode outward.

Margetta screamed as she released her, a scream that turned into a witch’s cackle. “It’s a long way down, my dear. I don’t suppose you can fly, can you?”

The force of the separation, as well as Hannah’s growing power, held her in a brief spurt of levitation. “Go to hell and by the way, you’re not all that!” She then drew on her power once more and sent fire from her palms and arms that blasted the ancient fae, thrusting her backward at least forty feet.

Margetta flew shrieking toward the northeast, a ball of fire. Hannah knew Margetta would survive. She had no illusions about that. Only something more profound than blistered skin would take the ancient fae out.

But the bitch would need time to recover.

However, now she was a mile above Kellcasse, and her levitation began to slip. She tried to recapture it, but failed, and she began to fall, gathering speed way too fast.

Hannah tilted backward so that she had on odd view of a very pretty night sky above her.
Jude, I’m earthbound. Catch me if you can.

She hoped to hell that Jude was somewhere close, but if not, then she was satisfied that she’d done what was right and her conscience was clear. She’d gotten Margetta away from a lovely bride and groom and all the guests and had hurt her enough to eliminate her as a threat for the rest of the night.

She held herself in a cradled position, hoping against hope that Jude would see her and catch her.

~ ~ ~

When Margetta had plucked Hannah from the square and lifted her straight into the air, Jude had reacted instinctively, racing toward the spot where she’d been.

Though most of the mist had retreated with Margetta’s flight, some remained and he’d had a hard time remaining conscious.

But Hannah’s voice in his head forced him to look up. When he saw her plummeting toward the earth, he got his ass in gear, forged his way out of the remaining mist, then shot forward barely three feet above the terrain hoping like hell he could intercept her.

He was barely going to make it and tried to gain as much altitude as possible. Unfortunately, he was only twenty feet above the ground when he caught Hannah in his arms, her own force-of-fall driving him hard into several tough cabbages.

It hurt.

He lay very still, afraid to discover his back had been broken or that just catching Hannah had somehow injured her. He took a breath then another.

“Am I alive?” Hearing Hannah’s voice caused him to heave a deep sigh of relief.

“Yes, you are, thank the Goddess. Are you injured?”

“I don’t think so, but are you? I mean I was traveling fast and you had no room to give.”

“I’m pretty strong, if bruised.”

Hannah struggled to right herself, then gained her feet.

Jude stared up at the stars for a moment. He watched as several of his Guardsmen began to gather in the air, looking down at him.

He ached in a few places, especially where the row of cabbages had broken his fall. He lifted his head. Not bad. Then his shoulders. Ouch.

Hannah extended her hand to him. It was so odd that she would offer to help him up, he and his two-eighty frame. He took her hand, but instead of standing up, he pulled her onto his lap and did a limb-by-limb search to make sure she really was all right.

“I’m okay. I am. You caught me.”

She rested her arms on his shoulders until he was satisfied that she was uninjured. He slid his arms around her waist and kissed her once. “Thank the Goddess. I saw a streak of flames so I take it you let loose with your fire-power.”

“I warmed it up, then I let her have it. I don’t think she thought I would risk falling. Of course, I’d rather be dead than held captive by her. Besides, I knew I had a pretty good shot at you catching me.”

“Except like an idiot I raced into the mist when she took off with you and got dragged into a serious bout of confusion.”

“You did not! What a rookie move and what were you thinking?”

“
Reacting
is the word you’re looking for. I tried to launch after you both, but that damn mist is fast-working and powerful. Fortunately, she took most of the mist with her, but it still took me a minute to recover.”

His lieutenant, Paul, drew close, hovering a few feet away. “Mastyr, everything okay over here?”

“We’re good. What’s going on in the square? Any sign the bitch has returned?”

“None, but I wasn’t far when I saw Hannah and Margetta explode into a blaze of light. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Is that what we did?” Hannah asked, looking up at Paul.

“It lit up the entire countryside and she was still burning when she took off. I don’t think we’ll see her for the rest of the night. But we’ll stay on patrol.”

Jude, still holding Hannah in his arms, rose to his feet. She slid her arm around his neck.
Can we really go home for the night? I’m about done in.

Me, too.

To Paul, he said, “Contact Longeness and let all our troops, shifters included, know what’s going on. But I want everyone patrolling until dawn. As for the wedding at Chelana, I want a medical team over there to make sure everyone is all right. You’ll take care of things for me?”

“Absolutely. But what do I tell the wedding party and their guests? How much info do I share?”

Jude had been debating this from the first, just how much to let his people know. He understood full-well there would likely be a media backlash against him because of what had happened here tonight. And it would make splashy headlines: ‘Bride Faces Death on Her Special Day’.