Storykiller (45 page)

“—Like fighting,“ he whispered, finishing her sentence, and then kissing her. Tessa tried to memorize the kiss, what it felt like to be in love with him, to feel like maybe he was falling in love with her too. When the kiss ended, she nuzzled into his neck and for a couple minutes, almost a whole song, she managed to forget just about everything else. Her dad, Bishop, The Monster, Circe, zombies, Franken-creatures, The Draugr, Bluebeard, The Troll, and even Story itself faded into a bad, very weird dream. Like this, Robin was a perfect haven from all of it, and she wanted to just be lost in him and this moment for as long as possible.

But it shattered a few moments later when Tessa felt a tap on her shoulder. She hoped it was just someone cutting in (someone she would punch in the face for cutting in), but instead it was Micah, a pained expression on her face.

“They’re coming,” she said.

Tessa looked from Micah up to Robin. “Okay,” she said. Robin smiled sadly, resigned, and followed Tessa out of the tent, where Micah, Grey, Snow, and Brand joined them.

Tessa scanned the nearby trees. She didn’t see any zombies or The Draugr, or the Franken-creatures in the darkness that surrounded them, but she could feel Micah was right, something was coming, it was palpable in the air around them.

“They’re spread out in the woods around us, but only below,” Micah said, looking around, a weary but frantic look in her eyes. Tessa nodded and the group made their way to the edge of the woods and then tracked through it a little until they reached a small open grove in the trees, keeping an eye out for anything that might be lurking in the shadows. In the grove, Robin went after their weapons, stored in the hollow of a large fallen tree along with the rest. Grey knelt down and handed Micah the hatchet and Brand the Katana. To Tessa, he passed a small arsenal including a modern crossbow, a short dagger, and her broadsword. Tessa strapped a holster with a sheath to her thigh and put the short dagger in it. She filled her jacket pocket with crossbow bolts and set the crossbow down.

Fenris walked nonchalantly out of the trees, as if he had been there all the time. Tessa was both relieved and irritated. She looked at Robin.

“Your mystery guest?”

Robin checked his watch. “Any minute.”

Tessa looked around at her friends standing in a half circle, dressed in eveningwear, and ready for battle. “Everyone know what they’re doing?” The group nodded as if one. Tessa knew it was the moment for a rousing battle speech, a call to arms that would inspire them and quell their fear. But her mind was both racing and blank. She looked at Brand and Micah, inspired by them, their lack of fear, or rather their bravery in spite of fear. They were so vulnerable, despite their gifts, and their bravery filled Tessa with pride and guilt. The two emotions wrestled inside her. “
I know I’m probably supposed to say something encouraging here. Some great call to arms or something about how all of you are doing the right thing or some other nonsense, but I just…mostly I just feel grateful to you and I hope…I hope you don’t get dead.”

The group blinked at her. Brand coughed. “Maybe you work on that speech for next time, yeah?”

Tessa smiled, embarrassed but relieved that he thought there would be a next time. “Deal.”

The air around them crackled with blue light. Tal emerged from the transport sphere with Hecuba at her side and Tessa stepped forward. Fenris growled almost imperceptibly, Grey got tense. Tessa felt he might dash away at any moment.

“Tal,” Tessa said coolly.

“Scion,” Tal said, narrowing her eyes slightly at Tessa. Grey stood up from where he had crouched, and Tal looked at him, bored. “I’m not here for you, kid. Not today leastways,” Grey still looked like he wanted to bolt, but he held his ground, and Tessa was thankful for it.

“You’re the reinforcements?” Tessa asked, taking two more steps forward and crossing her arms.

Tal smiled thinly. “Robin convinced me it would be good to have The Last Scion owing me a favor.” Tessa glanced at Robin.

He shrugged. “We need everyone we can get, right?” Tessa nodded. He was right. Tal and Hecuba were formidable and when your numbers were as small as theirs were, adding two fighters was huge. Maybe they actually had a chance here.

“Can I trust you?” Tessa asked Tal plainly.

“For today,” Tal said, looping her bow over her shoulder.

“Then I’ll take you.”

Micah looked up at the group, her face a sickly green that clashed with her dress. “Good,” she said softly,
“Because it’s started.”

And no sooner did she say it than they heard a piercing shriek from the direction of the clearing.

When they hit the tree line, they saw a massive horde of The Draugr, Mortal zombies, and Franken-creatures, both men and dogs, headed toward the tent. A few people who had been outside must have seen them and then run inside. None of them had yet reached the tent, and The Monster was nowhere to be seen, however leading the charge of the miscellaneous undead army was Circe, dressed in her same inappropriate, glittering green gown. She and Snow could have had an outfit inappropriate-off. Tessa looked right and left at her friends and allies,
and her gaze fell on Micah.

“Are you ready?” Tessa asked. Micah nodded weakly as Tessa turned to Snow. “And you?”

“I’m ready, Scion,” she said, and she bent down to lay her hands on the grass before her. Tessa looked at Robin, her face tense. He smiled easily and her confidence surged, she had to say yes in this moment before it ebbed.

“Do it, Micah,” Tessa breathed, watching the scene before them anxiously. Micah closed her eyes, and as she did so, a zombie figure lurched forward and clocked Circe on the back of the head with a massive branch. The woman fell in a pile of golden hair and green glitter.

No sooner did she fall than The Draugr stopped in their tracks and then sank to the ground like wilted flowers. The Mortal zombies shuddered and convulsed and then, with no magic powering them, fell uselessly to the ground with The Draugr. Taking out Circe had felled perhaps seventy five percent of The Monster’s army in one brilliant move. And Tessa smiled, happy, if only for just a moment.

Maybe this was actually going to freaking work.

The zombie with the branch, which was Jeff The Shiki, then shifted into Circe’s form and stepped over Circe’s unconscious body and continued toward the tent without missing a beat. It looked flawless, but Tessa could hear Micah straining next to her. She worried about her friend, worried that she had asked too much of her.

Tessa nodded to Snow, who crouched with her hands buried in the earth, and began glowing, less the pale bluish-white that she usually did and more a bright shimmering white, cold and clear. She gritted her teeth, and everyone watched as crackling white energy poured down her arms and out of her hands and into the earth. The white snaked its way across the field, and then up into the constructed monsters and Franken-dogs that marched up the hill toward the tent, stepping over their fallen comrades as if they were blades of grass. Snow groaned as the white light crept up into the legs of the creatures, slowing them, then stopping them entirely, freezing them where they stood. Snow managed to grab perhaps thirty immediately. But already Tessa saw Circe stirring and she looked at Snow. Those thirty would have to be enough.

“Snow, focus on Circe!” she hissed. Snow gritted her teeth and poured even more power into the ground, directing it all at Circe’s collapsed figure. The icy light enveloped the woman, lightly at first, binding her like a shimmering spider-web, and then more tightly and thickly until she appeared frozen in a solid block of ice.

In a matter of minutes, Snow had felled a good deal of The Monster’s remaining army and trapped Circe. The woman was a Queen for a reason. But it had taken its toll and when Tessa looked at Snow again, she was passed out. She lay splayed across the grass like a pale grey statue. Brand looked at Tessa, panicked. And Tessa nodded her head. “In a minute,” she said. She looked to the rest of her army. “You know what to do. Keep the creatures from the tent at all costs.” Tessa nodded her head at Brand. “You’re with me.”

Tessa began running, her friends on her heels, armed and about to dive into insane battle.

It was completely surreal, even for
her
life.

Tessa, with Brand in tow, headed straight for Circe. Snow had done well and the goddess
was
well and truly frozen, but Tessa was taking no chances on The Draugr and Mortal zombies coming back into play. She removed a blue transport pebble from her pocket, precious as gold and knowing that she and Brand only had one shot.

She didn’t know how Fenris had gotten it or why he had given it to her, but in truth, it was when he gave it to her that this plan had started to form. Tessa set the pebble on the frozen ice-block that was Circe, and Brand recited the words he had been learning and perfecting every time Tal arrived. He had learned them well because the sphere appeared as soon as he began speaking, and it swallowed up Circe with a flash of snapping blue light.

Tessa looked at Brand and smiled, it was working. It was actually working.

She nodded at him to go back and take care of Snow and then joined Fenris, Robin, Tal, and Hecuba in battle. Robin and Tal had run to the top of the hill and taken positions there defending the tent, sending volleys of arrows into the creatures as they climbed. Fenris, still in his human form, tore through the creatures like they were paper. Hecuba was only slightly less vicious cutting them down. Tessa glanced at the tree line to see Micah there, leaning against a tree, concentrating, as Grey stood watch over her, his sword drawn. Tessa smiled. Less than a hundred creatures, both those that had once been animals and humans, and The Monster of course, were all that stood between them and victory. She could almost taste it, and chided herself for the thought. Tessa moved toward the tent where she suspected she would find The Monster, but as she did so she looked down to see one of the frozen Mortal zombies.

It was Bishop.

Tessa went rigid. His face, decomposed and now frozen was almost unrecognizable. But she would never forget. It was burned into her brain. Tessa stared into his lifeless eyes and was overcome with doubt. Why did she think any of this was going to work when she was staring at the corpse of her first Advocate, at her ultimate failure. All he had tried to do was help her and look what she had rewarded him with? Tessa looked across the field at her friends, fighting for their lives.

They were all going to die.

What had she been thinking?

A creature slammed into her from the side, and Tessa went down.

Her mind went blank.

The creature brought down its fist, and Tessa didn’t move. A second before impact, the arm was stopped and then the arm and the creature attached to it went flying off into the darkness.

Fenris looked down at Tessa, a curious expression on his face. “Scion?” Tessa shook her head and took the hand he offered to help her up. “What happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, unable to look away from Bishop’s frozen face. Fenris followed her gaze.

“Your Advocate,” he said, nodding, and then moved to continue on his way. When Tessa didn’t move, he punched a creature closing in on them and turned to face her again. “Scion. Time to move.”

Tessa shook her head hollowly. She couldn’t stop looking at Bishop. She was crying. The middle of her own damn battle and she’d lost it. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing,” she said.

Fenris smashed his fist into another creature. “Supposed to be doing? You do that a lot do you, Hardcore?”

Tessa blinked and then looked at him, her eyes clearing. “No. No, I guess not.”

Fenris slammed his fist into another creature, and a growl tore from his throat. “It’s the best damn thing about you. So get back to it.”

Fenris walked away, stripping off his shirt and beginning to change shape. Tessa blinked and then drove her sword into the head of a dog creature in front of her, decapitating another before beginning her way toward the tent again.