Opal Koboi slumped on the ancient rock, and the runes that had slithered like fiery snakes settled once more, congregating around Opal’s handprint in the center of the magical key.
The first lock has been opened, she thought, her senses returning in nauseating waves. Only I can close it now.
The gnome heretofore referred to as Pip, but whose actual name was the considerably more unwieldy Gotter Dammerung, hobbled into the crater, climbed the ancient tower steps, and wrapped a glittering shawl around Opal’s shoulders.
“Star cloak, Miss Opal,” he said. “As requested.”
Opal stroked the material and was pleased. She found that there was still enough magic in her fingertips to calculate the thread count.
“Well done, Gunter.”
“That’s Gotter, Miss Koboi,” corrected the gnome, forgetting himself.
Opal’s stroking fingers froze, then gripped a handful of the silken cloak so tightly that it smoked. “Yes, Gotter. You shot my younger self?”
Gotter straightened. “Yes, miss, as ordered. Gave her a nice burial, like you said in the code.”
It occurred to Opal that this fairy would be a constant reminder that she had sacrificed her younger self for power.
“It is true that I ordered you to kill Opal the younger, but she was terrified, Gotter. I felt it.”
Gotter was perplexed. This day was not turning out at all as the gnome had imagined. He’d nurtured images of painted elfin warriors, their bone-spiked braids streaming behind them, but instead he was surrounded by human children and agitated wildlife.
“I don’t like those rabbits,” he blurted, possibly the most monumentally misjudged non sequitur of his life. “They look weird. Look at their vibrating ears.”
Opal did not feel that a person of her importance should have to deal with comments like these, and so she vaporized poor Gotter with a bolt of plasmic power, leaving nothing of the loyal gnome but a smear of blackish burn paste on the step. A poorly judged use of plasma as it turned out, because Opal certainly could have used a moment to fully charge up a second bolt to deal with the armored shuttle that suddenly appeared over the boundary wall. It was shielded, true; but Opal had enough dark magic in her to see to the heart of the shimmer before her. She reacted a little hastily and sent a weak bolt careering to the left, managing only to clip the engine housing and not engulf the entire craft. The errant magic flew wild, knocking a turret from the estate wall before collapsing into squibs that whizzed skyward.
Though the Cupid was merely clipped, the contact was sufficient to melt its rocket engine, disable its weapons, and send it into an earthbound nosedive that even the most skillful pilot would not have been able to soften.
More avatars for my soldiers, thought Opal, pulling the star cloak tight around her and skipping nimbly down the tower steps. She climbed the crater wall and followed the furrow plowed through the meadow by the mortally wounded shuttle. Her warriors were close behind, still half drunk on new sensations, tottering in their new bodies, trying to form words in unfamiliar throats.
Opal glanced overhead and saw three souls streaking toward the smoking craft, which had come to an awkward rest crammed into the lee of a boundary wall.
“Take them,” she called to the Berserkers. “My gift to you.”
Almost all of the Berserkers had been accommodated by this point and were stretching tendons with great relish, or scratching the earth beneath their paws, or sniffing at the evening musk. All were catered to except three laggardly souls who had resigned themselves to a resurrection spent cramped and embarrassed inside the bodies of ducklings, when these new hosts arrived inside the circle.
Two humans and a fairy. The Berserkers’ spirits lifted. Literally.
Inside the Cupid, it was Holly who’d fared best from the crash, though she had been closest to the impact. Faring best, however, is a relative term, and probably not the one Holly would have chosen to describe her condition.
I fared best, she would probably fail to say at the earliest opportunity. I only had a punctured lung and a snapped collarbone. You should have seen the other guys.
Luckily for Holly, absent friends once again contributed to her not being dead. Just as Foaly’s Sky Window bio-sensors had prevented a calamitous collision in the shuttleport, her close friend the warlock No1 had saved her with his own special brand of demon magic.
And how had he done this? It had happened two days previously over their weekly sim-coffee in Stirbox, a trendy java joint in the Jazz Quarter. No1 had been even more hyper than usual, due to the double-shot espresso that was coursing through his squat gray body. The runes that embossed his frame’s armor plating glowed with excess energy.
“I’m not supposed to have sim-coffee,” he confessed. “Qwan says it disturbs my chi.” The little demon winked, momentarily concealing one orange eye. “I could have told him that demons don’t have chi, we have qwa, but I don’t think he’s ready for that yet.”
Qwan was No1’s magical master, and so fond was the little demon of his teacher that he pretended not to have surpassed him years ago.
“And coffee is great for qwa. Makes it zing right along. I could probably turn a giraffe into a toad now if I felt like it. Though there would be a lot of excess skin left over. Mostly neck skin.”
“That is a disturbing idea,” said Holly. “If you want to perform some useful amphibian-related magic, why don’t you do something about the swear toads?”
Swear toads were the result of a college prank during which a group of postgrads had managed to imbue a strain of toads with the power of speech. Bad language only. This had been hilarious for about five minutes, until the toads began multiplying at a ferocious rate and spouting foul epithets at anything that moved, including kindergarten fairies and people’s grandmothers.
No1 laughed softly. “I like swear toads,” he said. “I have two at home called Bleep and D’Arvit. They are very rude to me, but I know they don’t mean it.” The little demon took another slurp of coffee. “So, let’s talk about your magic problem, Holly.”
“What magic problem?” asked Holly, genuinely puzzled.
“I see magic like another color in the spectrum, and you are leaking magic like swamp cheese leaks stink.”
Holly looked at her own hands, as though the evidence would be visible. “I am?”
“Your skeleton is the battery that stores your magic, but yours has been abused one time too many. How many healings have you undergone? How many traumas?”
“One or two,” admitted Holly, meaning nine or ten.
“One or two this cycle,” scoffed No1. “Don’t lie to me, Holly Short. Your electro-dermal activity has increased significantly. That means your fingertips are sweating. I can see that too.” The little gray demon shuddered. “Actually, sometimes I see stuff that I have no desire to see. A sprite came into my office the other day, and he had a bunch of microscopic hoop-worm larvae wriggling around his armpit. What is wrong with people?”
Holly didn’t answer. It was best to let No1 rant stuff out of his system.
“And I see you’ve been donating a spark or two of your magic every week to the Opal clone in Argon’s clinic, trying to make it a little more comfortable. You’re wasting your time, Holly. That creature doesn’t have a spirit; magic is no use.”
“You’re wrong, No1,” said Holly quietly. “Nopal is a person.”
No1 held out his rough palms. “Give me your hands,” he said.
Holly placed her fingers in his. “Are we going to sing a sea shanty?”
“No,” replied No1. “But this might hurt a little.”
This might hurt a little is universal code for this will definitely hurt a lot, but before Holly’s brain could translate this, No1’s forehead rune spiraled—something it only did when he was building up to some major power displacement. She managed to blurt, “Wait a—” before what felt like two electric eels wrapped themselves around her arms, slithering upward, sinking into her chest. It was not
a pleasant experience.
Holly lost control of her limbs, spasming like a marionette on the end of a giggling puppet master’s strings. The entire episode lasted no more than five seconds, but five seconds of acute discomfort can seem like a long time.
Holly coughed smoke and spoke once her jaw stopped clicking. “You had to do that in a coffee shop, I suppose?”
“I thought we wouldn’t see each other for a while, and I worry about you. You’re so reckless, Holly. So eager to help anyone but yourself.”
Holly flexed her fingers, and it was as though her joints had been oiled. “Wow, I feel great now that the blinding pain has faded.” Suddenly the rest of No1’s words registered. “And why wouldn’t we see each other for a while?”
No1 looked suddenly serious. “I’ve accepted an invitation to the Moon Station. They want me to have a look at some microorganisms and see if I can extract some race memory from their cells.”
“Uh-huh,” said Holly, understanding all of the first sentence but nothing of the second beyond the individual words. “How long will you be gone?”
“Two of your Earth years.”
“Two years,” stammered Holly. “Come on, No1. You’re my last single fairy friend. Foaly got hitched. Trouble Kelp is hooked up with Lily Frond, though what he sees in that airhead is beyond me.”
“She’s pretty and she cares about him, but besides that I have no idea,” said No1 archly.
“He’ll find out what Frond is really like when she ditches him for someone more senior.”
No1 thought it politic not to mention Holly’s three disastrous dates with Commander Kelp, the last of which ended with them both being thrown out of a crunchball match.
“There’s always Artemis.”
Holly nodded. “Yeah. Artemis is a good guy, I suppose; but whenever we meet, it ends in shots fired, or time travel, or brain cells dying. I want a quiet friend, No1. Like you.”
No1 took her hand again. “Two years will fly by. Maybe you can get a lunar pass and come to visit me.”
“Maybe. Now, enough changing the subject. What did you just do to me?”
No1 cleared his throat. “Well, I gave you a magical makeover. Your bones are less brittle, your joints are lubed. I bolstered your immune system, and cleared out your synapses, which were getting a little clogged with magical residue. I filled your tank with my own personal blend of power, and made your hair a little more lustrous than it already is, and bolstered your protection rune so you will never be possessed again. I want you to be safe and well until I come back.”
Holly squeezed her friend’s fingers. “Don’t worry about me. Routine operations only.”
Routine operations only, thought Holly now, groggy from the impact and also the magic coursing through her system, repairing her fractured collarbone and knitting the lattice of slices in her skin.
The magic would have liked to shut her down for repairs, but Holly could not allow that. She pawed the first aid pack from its niche on her belt and slapped an adrenaline patch onto her wrist, the hundreds of tiny needles releasing the chemical into her bloodstream. An adrenaline shot would keep her alert while allowing the magic to do its work. The Cupid’s cab was smashed, and only the vehicle’s toughened exoskeleton had prevented a total collapse that would have crushed the passengers. As it was, the shuttle had ridden its last magma flare. In the back of the vehicle, Butler was shrugging off the concussion that was threatening to drag him to oblivion, and Artemis lay wedged into the floor space between seats like a discarded action figure.
I like you, Artemis, Holly thought. But I need Butler.
And so Butler got the first shot of healing magic, a bolt that hit the bodyguard like a charged defibrillator, sending him spasming through the back window to the meadow beyond.
Wow, thought Holly. Nice brew, No1.
She was more careful with Artemis, flicking a drop of magic from her fingertip onto the middle of his forehead. Still, the contact was enough to set his skin rippling like pond water.
Something was coming. Holly could see the doubly distorted images through the shattered windows and her cracked visor. A lot of somethings. They looked small but moved surely.
I don’t get it. I am not getting it yet.
No1’s magic completed its healing journey through her system, and, as the blood cleared from her left eye, Holly got a good look at what was coming her way.
A menagerie, she thought. Butler can handle it.
But then No1’s magic allowed her a flickering glimpse of the souls floating like tattered translucent kites in the air, and she remembered the stories her father had told her so many times.
The bravest of the brave. Left behind to protect the gate.
Berserkers, Holly realized. The legend is true. If they take Butler, we are finished.
She crawled over Artemis through the back window, and rolled into the trough carved out by the Cupid’s crash, freshly scythed earth crumbling over her head. For a moment Holly had the irrational fear that she was being buried alive, but then the tumbling earth rattled past her limbs and she was clear.
Holly felt the throbbing afterpain of a healed break in her shoulder, but otherwise she was physically fine.
My vision is still blurred, she realized. Why?
But it was not her vision, it was the helmet’s lenses, which were cracked.
Holly raised her visor and was greeted by the crystal-clear sight of an attacking force being led by Artemis’s little brothers, which seemed to include a phalanx of ancient, armored warriors, and various woodland animals.
Butler was on all fours beside her, shaking off the magic fugue like a grizzly bear shaking off river water. Holly found another adrenaline patch in her pack and slapped it onto his exposed neck.
Sorry, old friend. I need you operational.
Butler jumped to his feet as though electrified, but swayed, disoriented, for a moment.
The assortment of possessed figures halted suddenly, arranged in a semicircle—obviously itching to attack but held at bay for some reason.
Little Beckett Fowl was at the forefront of the motley group, but he seemed less a child now, carrying himself as he did with a warrior’s swagger, a fistful of bloody reeds swinging in his grip. The vestiges of No1’s magic allowed Holly to glimpse the spirit of Oro lurking inside the boy.
“I am a fairy,” she called in Gnommish. “These humans are my prisoners. You have no quarrel with us.”
Opal Koboi’s voice drifted over the ranks. “Prisoners? The big one doesn’t appear to be a prisoner.”
“Koboi,” said Butler, coherent at last. Then the big bodyguard noticed his sister in the group. “Juliet! You’re alive.”
Juliet stepped forward, but awkwardly, as though not familiar with her own workings. “Braddur,” she said, her voice cracked and strangely accented. “Embrash me.”
“No, old friend,” warned Holly, glimpsing the flickering warrior inside Butler’s sister. “Juliet is possessed.”
Butler understood immediately. They had previously encountered fairy possession when Artemis had been wrapped up in his Atlantis Complex.
The bodyguard’s features sagged, and in that moment his decades of soldiering were written on his face.
“Jules. Are you in there?”
The warrior queen Bellico used Juliet’s memories to answer, but the vocal cords were not under her complete control. Her words were unclear, as though heard through tinny speakers, and the accent was an unusual blend of thick Scandinavian and Deep South American.
“Yesh, braddur. It ish I. Zooooliet.”
Butler saw the truth. The body might be his sister’s, but the mind certainly wasn’t.
Artemis joined them, laying a hand on Holly’s shoulder, a blotch of blood on his shirt where he had coughed. As usual, he found the most pertinent question to ask.
“Why do they not attack?”
Holly physically jerked.
Why not? Of course why not?
Butle
r reiterated. “Why aren’t they attacking? They’ve got numbers over us, and emotionally we’re a mess. That thing is my sister, for heaven’s sake.”
Holly remembered why they remained unmolested.
We are hosts inside the circle. They need us.
The souls flapped overhead, rearing up to descend.
I can explain what I am about to do, thought Holly. Or I can just do it.
Easier to just do it and hope there was an opportunity to apologize later.
She expertly flicked the settings wheel on the barrel of her Neutrino and shot Butler on his exposed neck and Artemis on the hand in blurred succession.
Now we won’t be possessed, she thought. But, on the downside, these Berserkers will probably simply kill us.
The souls dropped onto their intended hosts like sheets of wet polythene. Holly felt ectoplasm cram itself into her mouth, but the spirit would not be able to possess her because of the rune under her collar.
Hold on, she told herself. Hold on.
Holly tasted clay and bile. She heard echoes of screams from ten thousand years earlier, and experienced the Battle of Taillte as though she herself had stood on that plain where blood ran through the stake pits, and waves of humanity rolled across the meadow, blackening the grass with their passage.
It all happened just the way my father told me, Holly realized.
The soul howled in frustration as it lost purchase and was repelled, flapping into the air.
Two Berserker souls fought for entry into Artemis and Butler but were repulsed. Butler had keeled over like a felled redwood when Holly’s shot hit him, and Artemis clasped his hand, stunned that their friend Holly would burn their bare skin with her Neutrino beams.
Artemis had quickly and mistakenly concluded that Holly had been possessed by one of the Danu, something he now knew all about from the soul who had tried to occupy him.
He sank to his knees and watched through pain-slitted eyes as the Berserker warriors advanced. Was Holly an enemy or friend now? He could not be sure. She seemed herself and had swung her weapon at the horde.