Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Fucking hell!” Camille headed my way as I stared at the oncoming creature. It was a redcap—it had to be. “Your sword!”
I shook myself out of the daze and grabbed for my sword. Daggers were easier, but short swords were easier to use than some weapons I’d been trained in. As the redcap charged me, I spun out of the way, landing lightly on my feet.
He turned my way and whistled. As he began to circle me, three more of the creatures edged out of the bushes. They were carrying small blades that looked as nasty as they did sharp. I eyed the four men warily.
Camille was gathering her energy for a spell—by the look in her eyes, I could tell she was as nervous as I was.
Menolly looked personally insulted. She did a backflip, landing in front of our opponents, a smile on her face that showed her teeth.
Her eyes were ringed with crimson, and she furrowed her brow.
The redcap directly in front of her stopped short, and his sneer quickly turned into a look of alarm. He stumbled back as the other two with him turned on Camille, ditching their companion. They raced toward her, silent and swift, as she built the power of her spell.
“Camille—incoming!” I shouted, then turned back to my own adversary.
Camille let out a shout, and the sound of an explosion—like the firing of fireworks—echoed from where she stood. I glanced over in time to see a bright flare of energy light up the two redcaps. One of them shrieked and fell, but the other pushed on, only inches from her.
Meanwhile, Menolly lunged at the redcap and grabbed him.
She wasn’t much taller than he was, but she lifted him off the ground with one hand and swung him like she might swing a stick, slamming him against the trunk of the nearest tree.
He let out a shriek that sounded more angry than hurt and began to kick at her as she dragged him back to her embrace.
As she threw him to the ground and landed on her knees by his side, his shriek turned into a cry.
Menolly sank her teeth into his neck, and the redcap thrashed.
In seconds, he was still. Menolly looked up, her mouth stained with blood.
Her fangs were still down, and she gave me a long look.
I sucked in a deep breath, my dinner lurching in my stomach. After all this time, I still hadn’t fully learned to just blithely watch her feed. But I didn’t have time to be sensitive because the redcap facing me came racing in with his blade and slashed at my knees.
As he brought the blade across my knees, I yelped—he managed to hit, cutting through my jeans and slashing right above my kneecap.
As the warm blood began to seep through the material, I let out a growl and brought my sword down, swinging like a wildcat.
I managed to catch him on the shoulder, the blade cleaving down his belly.
It wasn’t deep enough to eviscerate him, but it did make him fall back, groaning as he reached for his shoulder where the cut had been the strongest.
I turned toward Camille to see Menolly racing over to help her.
I turned back to my opponent and, seeing red, literally as the blood soaked through the legs of my jeans, I leapt on him, knocking the creature flat.
He tried to bite me, and I smacked him across the face.
Then, before I could think it through, I laced my fingers around his neck and tightened them, choking the light from his eyes.
As his head slumped to the side, I dropped him, breathing hard.
The next moment, Camille yet out a yell and I turned.
Menolly had killed another one of the redcaps, but the fourth had Camille down, and he was aiming his blade for her throat.
I bounded their way, ignoring the pain in my legs, but at that moment, Camille slammed her hands against his face, uttered some chant I’d never heard her use before, and a brilliant bolt of energy raced through his body, electrifying him.
He convulsed under her touch, then rolled onto the ground, the faint scent of char wafting off him.
Camille groaned, sitting up, as Menolly kicked his body to the side. She held out her hand and pulled Camille to her feet. I joined them.
“I think they’re all dead,” Menolly said. “At least these four. Do you think there are more?” she asked, looking around.
“I’m not sure. We have to break those statues,” Camille said.
“I’m afraid, though, that if they’ve placed several of them, we aren’t going to be able to find them all.
I’m afraid they’ve found their own portal into this world and that this isn’t the last time we’ll be facing them.
” She dusted off her skirt then. “Damn it—they ripped my…” She froze as she glanced my way. “You’re hurt—let’s get you inside!”
Menolly turned to me. “I sensed blood that didn’t belong to the redcaps. Hurry up. We need to look at those cuts.” She pushed me toward Lukia’s front door. Camille gathered up my sword, which was on the ground, and followed us.
As Camille and I entered the living room, Menolly hung back.
“I’m afraid you’ll need to ask me in,” she said.
Lukia looked puzzled. “What?”
“Our sister’s a vampire,” Camille started to say but Menolly interrupted her.
“If you don’t want me to enter your house, I understand,” she said.
Lukia hesitated, then said, “Come in, please, this one time.” She was smart. It wasn’t wise to give any vampire free rein to enter your home unless you absolutely trusted them.
Menolly stepped across the threshold and, together, we entered the living room.
Lukia noticed my ripped clothing. “What happened? I heard…” Her voice trailed off. “You’re bleeding.”
“Do you mind if we take her into the kitchen?” Menolly asked.
“Of course.” Lukia pointed to the kitchen. “Go on in. I’ll get my first-aid kit.”
As she vanished toward the back of the house, Camille grabbed a roll of paper towels and spread several on the floor and over the chair. “Off with the jeans.”
“Can’t we wait until we get home?” I didn’t want to get half-naked in a relative stranger’s house, even if she was a woman.
“Now!” Camille’s voice reverberated through the room.
She was the only one of us that had been born with the command voice, and she seldom used it, though when we were young she had used it on me a lot.
It was separate from the glamour we all possessed, and different from Menolly’s vampiric glamour.
I quickly stripped off my jeans, grateful that I wore underpants. Menolly went commando, I knew, but I couldn’t bring myself to. My panties had little bunnies on them, and Menolly grinned at me, shaking her head.
“I like bunnies,” I muttered.
“And I hope you never change,” she said.
“Let me see those wounds,” Camille said, shoving me into the chair.
She knelt beside my legs, examining the cuts.
They were still oozing, though the bleeding had slowed, but my legs were covered in blood and though they weren’t deep, the slashes were long—a good three inches long across the tops of my knees.
“Damn, he really did get me,” I said, noticing the pain as it began to seep into my consciousness.
I’d ignored it when we were fighting because you had to fight through the pain in certain situations.
“I think I need to start going to the gym. We haven’t been in the field for a year, it seems. And I feel way too punchy and soft. ”
“And I need to work on my magic. I know it still goes haywire part of the time, but I haven’t done a lot of spellwork lately,” Camille said. “I don’t think these are infected, but we can’t be sure. And we don’t know if the redcaps use poison. How do you feel?”
“I feel fine, other than these sting like hell. I’m not woozy or dizzy,” I said, searching for how I felt. “Do they need stitching?”
Camille frowned. “I think it might be good to put in a few. Menolly, can you call Iris and ask her to come over? In fact, go get her. We don’t want her running around alone in the dark, given there might be more of the redcaps around.”
Menolly nodded, heading out as Lukia returned with a rudimentary first-aid kit in hand. “It’s not much, but maybe it will help?”
“Menolly’s gone to get Iris,” Camille said. “So, that statue—do you have it handy?”
Lukia brought it over and put it on the floor.
“Give me a frying pan—or something heavy,” Camille said.
Lukia handed her a cast-iron skillet. Camille shook her head. “I can’t touch that. It will burn me. Have anything steel?”
“Here,” Lukia said, fetching a hammer from one of the junk drawers. “So, you can handle steel but not cast iron?”
“It’s the dilution of our blood that makes the difference.
Though I gather a number of the Fae can handle steel.
I’m not up on my chemical analysis or whatever it is that causes iron ore to harm the Fae.
” She took the hammer and slammed it down on the statue, which cracked it.
Another blow, and a third, and the statue was in pieces on the floor.
“Where’s your broom and dustpan?” Camille asked.
I called Menolly. “Hey, bring me back a clean pair of pants—loose if possible—would you? I don’t want to put on the ones that are all bloody.”
“Will do. Iris is gathering her healing kit.”
Iris wasn’t a healer by trade, but she had put in a fair amount of time throughout her life dealing with scrapes and injuries.
Or so she said. We didn’t know much about her background, and she was fairly reserved about it.
I hung up and turned to Camille. “Do you ever wonder about Iris’s background?
I believe she served in a temple at one point—”
“I know she did,” Camille said. “But she’s very skittish about talking about it, so I leave it be. I get the feeling that she’s had a painful past and I don’t want to trigger her.”
We waited until Menolly returned with Iris.
“Let’s see,” Iris said, examining my knees.
“I don’t sense any poison, but you’re lucky.
Any deeper and you’d have a mess on your hands, given your muscles.
You’d probably need a hospital. Anyway, I can stitch these up, but you need to take it easy.
And I do mean easy,” she said, giving me a long stare.
I promised as she brought out a needle and threaded it. That made me queasier than watching Menolly feed on the redcap. I turned my head.
“Do you want some ginger-ale and crackers to settle your stomach?” Lukia asked.
I nodded, trying to avoid watching Iris work on my legs. “Please.”
Lukia brought me a can of soda and a packet of crackers.
She placed them on the table next to me, and I focused on watching the crackers instead of Iris.
“What is it about saltines?” I asked. “They settle my stomach like little else. Except for Mother’s biscuits.
Remember those? They were always so good. ”
“I remember,” Camille said. “I wish she had written down the recipe because I couldn’t find it anywhere. But you’re right—saltines have a similar effect.”
Iris began to clean my wounds. “This is going to sting a little.” She pressed the saturated gauze to my knee, and I jerked.
“Youch!” I tried to sit still, but it was nearly impossible. “It feels like you just about cauterized my skin!”
“I know, but this will help numb it just a little so I can stitch it up,” Iris said. “It’s a disinfectant.” She waited a moment, then went in for a second pass.
“Is it safe?” Camille asked. “You know we can’t use most human meds.”
Those of us who were half-human couldn’t always use human-based medicines, so we had our own, but Iris reassured us.
“It’s safe,” Iris said. “Here, hold on to this.” She handed me a broom from the corner. “Squeeze it while I sew up these wounds.”
I took the broom and rested it across my thighs, holding tight as Iris began to sew up the gashes.
Whatever she had washed my knees with was starting to numb my skin, which helped, but I still closed my eyes and gritted my teeth in order not to yell.
The pain wasn’t overwhelming, but it stung like a bitch.
After a couple of minutes, Iris said, “You can let go now. I’m done. I’ll just cover these with a nonstick bandage for now.”
As I opened my eyes, she began wrapping nonstick bandages over the cuts, first sprinkling an antibiotic powder on them. Lukia, who was sitting nearby, let out a sigh.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I nodded. “I’ll be fine in no time. But I don’t want a repeat match. What do we do now?”
“We break the statue that was on our property, for one thing,” Menolly said.
“And we go hunting for any redcaps that might still be around. I don’t think that the ones on Lukia’s property are the same ones who left our little care package the other day.
Lukia, is your property confined to the back and front yards? ”
She nodded. “I only have the double lot. Can you recommend wards to scare off any that might be in the thicket behind my back fence?”
“Redcaps are frightened by owls, for one thing. If you set up owl boxes in the backyard, that might be enough. Though I’m not sure how you would go about finding owls to take up residence on such short notice,” Iris said.
“Are there any owl shifters nearby who might be able to suggest something?” Lukia asked.
“That’s a good question. I’ll ask around,” Camille said.
I slipped into the sweatpants that Iris had brought from my dresser.
They were loose enough so they wouldn’t rub against my knees.
“I suppose we’d better go. I hope we got all of them,” I said.
“Tomorrow I’ll come back and we’ll go through your yard and do our best to make it as inhospitable as possible… for the redcaps.”
Lukia thanked us, then saw us to the door. As we headed out to the car, I glanced up at the sky. The snow had stopped, and the stars were out, though they seemed far fewer and brighter over Earthside than back home in Otherworld. Light pollution, no doubt.
“You all right?” Camille asked me as we stood by the car, staring overhead. The air was so crisp it hurt my nose, and yet…and yet…even though we’d just been in a bloody fight, there was something incredibly beautiful about the night.
I nodded. “I’m just thinking that, in the midst of worry, beauty still can shine through.”
“That it can,” she said, gazing up at the stars. “That it can.”