With a Golden Sword (DFZ Changeling Book 2), page 26
“Oh, I listened,” she said, crossing her arms. “You said we’d revisit how I felt about killing Victor after you told me the truth. Well, I’ve heard it, and my decision remains the same. No, I will not let you out of here. No, I will not take you to your head. And no, I will not help you kill Victor.”
Alberich’s face grew more furious with every word. “You don’t think I can do it,” he snarled. “Or maybe you’re just afraid to die.”
Lola rolled her eyes. “If that was true, we wouldn’t be here, but it doesn’t matter. Whoever wins the fight between you and Victor, the rest of us lose.”
“What do you care if I feed off a bunch of cities you’ve never even been to?” Alberich asked scornfully. “They’re just humans.”
“I’m human.”
She’d only meant to undermine Alberich’s stupid argument, but as soon as Lola said it, the truth of her word struck her like a gong. She was human. An actual, legitimate human standing tall inside her death.
Lola looked up at the dark pit in new wonder. No wonder the DFZ had been so convinced she could help. Lola didn’t know how big her death had been to start, but Fenrir’s birth had stretched it into a canyon. Maybe not as big a one as it’d been when the monster wolf was rampaging, but it was still easily a hundred times larger than Victor’s overgrown red room.
Lola wasn’t a blood mage, so she didn’t know how to take control of the space like Victor had, but surely she could do something with all of this. Even Simon, who hated blood magic, had always insisted that humans were gods inside their own souls, which explained why Alberich was wasting his time cajoling instead of threatening. He couldn’t threaten her anymore, because she was king here.
“I don’t like that look,” Alberich said, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re fantasizing about, but you being human changes nothing about our current situation. You might not approve of my Wild Hunts, but at least all I do is kill. You’re the one who said Victor wasn’t going to stop until there was nothing left for him to conquer. Look at it from that perspective and I’m by far the lesser evil. I’ve certainly done less to you. Victor abused you for twenty years, whereas you didn’t even know I existed until a month ago. Surely, you’re not going to waste your last breath spitting at me when you could have the blood mage’s head on a platter?”
“Of course I’d rather have Victor,” Lola said. Then she smiled. “But you’re the one I’ve got. A lesser evil is still an evil, and you are the one who sold my soul to a blood mage as a child. I think that’s enough to count this as a win, so I suggest you get comfy, your majesty, because neither of us is going anywhere.”
“You speak as if that’s a decision you get to make,” Alberich growled, dropping into a crouch. “But just because I invited you to help me doesn’t mean I’m incapable of getting out of here on my own.”
“What are you going to do?” Lola taunted, pointing up at the blackness. “As you just helped me figure out, this is my death. I have it on good authority that makes me the boss around here, and I say you’re staying.”
“Unless I kill you,” the king replied with a feral smile.
Lola scoffed. “You can’t kill someone inside their own death. That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Are you sure about that?” he asked, creeping closer. “Maybe you didn’t listen to the part of the story where I said you’re not fully human. Half of you is still my changeling, and where there’s gossamer, fairy rules apply.”
Lola stepped back nervously. “Fairy rules?”
“If I eat you, I get your powers,” Alberich explained, closing the distance she’d just made. “Including the one that links you to your body back in the physical world.”
“Or you could get my mortality and end up trapped down here forever.”
The fairy king’s lips pulled back in a sharp-toothed smile. “I’m ready to take the risk.”
He lunged the second he finished, flying at her like a golden hornet. It was a far cry from the appearing and disappearing he usually did, but it was still faster than Lola could move. She barely managed to get her hands up before the fairy knocked her to the ground.
His teeth were lodged deep in her arm by the time they landed. When Lola finally managed to kick him off, he took a chunk of her with him. She screamed in pain, slapping a hand over the hole to stop the flow of bright red blood pouring down the inside of her elbow.
Her blood.
Lola froze. All the life she could remember, her body had been a wobbling blob of rainbow gossamer. Producing realistic blood normally took concentration and reference photos, but the stuff running down her arm looked as red as Valente’s when he put on his head.
“Not so cocky anymore,” Alberich taunted, shooting out an inhumanly long tongue to lick her blood from his lips. “Looks like this place brings out your mortal side. I wonder how long it will take to bleed you—”
He cut off with a squawk as a giant paw lashed out at him from the shadows. Lola jumped as well, because that wasn’t her paw. Her body had never felt more human with all that mortal blood dripping through her fingers. When the attacker finally shuffled out of the darkness, though, Lola’s face split into a triumphant smile.
It was her creature. The giant furry shape she used to fear so much was standing on its own right in front of her. She’d never actually seen it from this angle, or much at all. Even when she’d lived that way all the time as a child, she’d avoided mirrors like the plague. Staring at it now, though, Lola realized her fairy half wasn’t nearly as scary as she used to think. The rest of the world would probably still consider the twelve-foot-tall pile of fur and fangs absolutely terrifying, but as she watched Alberich back away, all Lola could think was that it looked like a hero. Her hero.
“You can do it!” she cried, waving her arms as much as she could without letting go of her wound. “Get him!”
Her creature roared in reply, reaching down to crush the fairy king between its massive paws. It had just gotten its claws around Alberich’s throat when the king’s human illusion melted away.
“You think you’re the only monster here?” he snarled, sending Lola’s creature staggering back as the stone-skinned, molten-gold-drooling giant that was his true face burst out of its hold. “Arrogant child! I was eating bigger things than you before humans came out of caves. How do you think I got to be king?”
“It certainly wasn’t your winning personality,” Lola said, ripping a strip off her t-shirt to bind her bleeding arm. “But you’re the one being arrogant. Victor already beat the snot out of you, and it’s two against one.”
“I like my odds just fine,” Alberich rumbled, digging his claws into the ground. “The King of the Wild Hunt versus a changeling who bleeds like a human and a half-breed beast that can barely see. Should I tie one hand behind my back to make it more sporting?”
He turned to flash his knifelike teeth at her, leaving his back wide open to her creature, who snarled and leaped. It was about to dig its thick claws into him when Alberich whirled and caught it in midair.
Lola hadn’t even seen him move. He was clearly much faster in this form than he’d been as the boy. Faster and bigger. He grew a foot as she watched, swelling up through the darkness as he dangled her now much smaller creature in front of him.
“How are you doing this?” she cried in a panic. “I saw Victor burn you down to nothing!”
“I was regenerating while we talked,” the king explained with a jagged smile. “Not that my offer to team up wasn’t legitimate, but you have to learn to pay attention to more than one thing at a time.”
He threw her creature as he finished. It hurtled across the cavern, landing with a horrible crunch at the foot of Fenrir’s corpse. Lola was already running before it hit, but when she made it to her creature’s side, the black stone floor beneath it was slick with bright red blood.
The sight made her go still. Her creature had never bled before. Even when the nurses at the hospital tried to draw her blood, nothing ever came out. It had to be because they were inside her death, but if her creature had the same weaknesses as Lola, there was nothing to stop Alberich from bleeding them both out and eating them at his leisure.
Lola couldn’t let that happen. Her poor creature had suffered enough, but she had no idea how they were going to stop him. This was supposed to be her place of power, but Lola had only figured out she was human a few minutes ago. She knew nothing about human magic or if she was even a mage, and Alberich wasn’t giving her a chance to experiment. His ugly monster had already leaped across the cavern like a praying mantis, landing on her creature with a horrifying crunch.
“No!” Lola cried, grabbing his stone body, but she couldn’t pull him off. She wasn’t sure how she’d kicked him off earlier, but trying to move him now felt like pushing a mountain. Alberich didn’t even bother knocking her away as he leaned down to sink his dripping fangs into her creature’s chest.
It roared in pain, thrashing against his teeth as its dark, shaggy fur grew soggy with blood. Lola screamed with it, scratching her fingers bloody as she clawed at Alberich’s stone hide. No matter how hard she tried, though, nothing worked.
Her bloody fingers went limp as she sobbed. It was happening again. Even here in her death where she was supposed to have all the power, she couldn’t win. She couldn’t beat Alberich. Couldn’t save her creature, couldn’t—
“Stop that!”
Lola jumped a foot in the air. When she whirled to see who had spoken, a familiar face was staring back at her.
“You!” she cried.
“That’s who I am,” her double agreed cheerfully.
Lola blinked in confusion, and then her bloody hands clenched into furious fists. “I don’t have time for jokes!” she snarled, stabbing a torn-up finger at her creature, who was still trying to kick itself off of Alberich’s teeth. “I don’t know how you’re here, but if you’ve got enough gossamer to manifest, get in there and help! Turn into a tank and shoot him or—”
“I didn’t come here to be a tank,” her doppelganger said patiently. “You need to stop panicking and listen to me.”
“Do I look like I have time to listen?” Lola shrieked as Alberich ripped a chunk out of her creature’s stomach and began chewing it with horrible, wet crunches. “He’s killing us!”
“No, he’s playing you,” the other her insisted. “You just said you’re the boss of your death, so why are you letting him kick you all over it?”
“Because I don’t know what I’m doing!” Lola wailed, looking at the monster in despair. “Because he’s too strong, and I’m not—”
“What’s strength got to do with anything?” her copy asked, grabbing Lola’s chin to turn her head back around. “You’re a changeling, not a troll. Your power has never relied on brute force.”
“But—”
“Victor wouldn’t have wasted his time trying to cram a pill into your mouth if you were actually weak enough to get kicked around by a one-percent Alberich,” her doppelganger said in a frustrated voice. “You must know that because I know it, so stop fighting with yourself and look.”
Lola didn’t want to look, but her double still had a clamp-grip on her chin, turning her head like a pivot back toward the horrible fight.
It was even worse than when she’d turned away. Alberich’s monster was as big as he’d been when he fought Victor on TV now. Her creature, on the other hand, was looking more pathetic than ever. It was losing blood by the bucket thanks to all the bites, and its claws weren’t even large enough to dent Alberich’s stony hide now that he was the size of a building.
The hideously uneven scene made Lola quake. Whatever point her double was trying to make, it wasn’t working. If anything, she felt even more doomed than before. But when she yanked out of the doppelganger’s hold to tell her disobedient spell that she was wrong, the other Lola was grinning wider than ever.
“Did you see it?”
“I saw that we’re screwed.”
“Exactly!” the other her said excitedly. “Alberich’s head is lying unguarded in Morgan’s barrow as we speak. If he doesn’t get back there before she eats it, he’s toast, so why is he wasting time beating up your creature? You’re the one he has to kill to get his ticket out of here.”
That was a very good point. Why was Alberich focusing on her creature and not her? And why was he taking his sweet time about it? As big as he’d grown, he could probably eat what was left of her creature in three bites, but he was still toying with it like a cat with a half-dead mouse. And while Lola absolutely believed that was the sort of thing the Nightmare King did for fun, she didn’t understand why he was wasting his very limited time on it now.
“Because he wants you to feel exactly how you’re feeling,” her double said, gripping Lola hard. “He needs you to panic and despair because he’s a fairy who feeds on fear. How do you think he got so big? It’s not as if there’s anything else here for him to eat.”
Lola gaped at her copy in awe. “I’m sorry I called you brainless,” she said, reaching up to squeeze her double’s hand. “You’re smarter than I am.”
“I’m exactly as smart as you,” the doppelganger said proudly. “I was made from your magic. If I’m smart and brave, it’s because you are. Now get in there and stop him before he eats any more of us!”
She finished with a shove, sending Lola stumbling back toward the blood-drenched battlefield as she vanished into thin air. Lola felt her gossamer rush back as she did, which was a wonder in and of itself. Not just because she’d already regenerated so much after slicing herself down to nothing, but because she’d never been able to bring her gossamer with her to this side before.
The thought had barely crossed her mind before Lola realized it wasn’t actually that remarkable. She hadn’t been able to bring her gossamer with her into Simon or Victor’s dreams, but the first time she’d come to this place after Victor had turned her into Fenrir, her gossamer had made the jump just fine. This time was the same. She hadn’t sneaked in here through someone else’s head. She’d ridden her own death straight down. Ridden it into her own half-fairy soul, which explained why her creature was here. She’d already accepted that the monster was part of her, but now that she’d seen it here with her own eyes, Lola believed it to her core, and with that belief came power.
She might not know anything about human magic, but Lola was pretty good at being a fairy. Now that her doppelganger had talked her down, she could feel what Alberich was doing. It was the same trick she used with her own costumes. He wasn’t sucking magic out of her. She’d given it to him herself with her belief. She’d believed he was a terrifying monster, and that was what he’d become. That was how all gossamer worked, and now that Lola had realized that, she was able to look through the illusion into the truth beneath. See him for what he really was:
A fairy king without a head.
“Alberich!”
The monster stopped chewing on her creature long enough to give Lola a beady-eyed glower. “I don’t recall giving you permission to use my name so informally.”
“I don’t need your permission,” she said, stabbing her finger at the bloody mass of fur beneath him. “Let go of my other half this instant!”
Her creature’s battered face lit up when Lola acknowledged it. Then it was sent flying as Alberich tossed it aside. The king rushed at her next, skittering across the pit like a wave of shadows until his giant body was looming over hers.
“Or what?” he whispered, his dripping teeth glistening just above her head.
Lola swallowed. He truly was terrifying. Even knowing that was the point, the sight of his sharp fangs was enough to make the wound in her arm start throbbing. She supposed nothing less would do for the Nightmare King, but Lola couldn’t let him keep control. This was her death, dammit. He was trapped down here with her, not the other way around. But when Lola reached inside herself to gather enough gossamer for the cement truck she was planning to slam into his face, her hand bumped against something sharp.
She jerked away with a hiss. There was something in her stomach, which didn’t make sense because Lola had never had a real stomach. Or, at least, that was what she’d always thought. Down here in the place where the physical and the magical met, though, it was slowly occurring to her that the old assumptions were no longer true. She had a human body now, which meant a human stomach. The same human stomach Alberich had started all of this by plunging his hands into.
And just like that, a plan burst into her mind. It was a stupidly risky one, but Morgan was taking forever, and Lola wasn’t sure she could keep not being afraid of something as scary as Alberich long enough to stop him from eating them. Her creature already looked half gone, and Alberich was big enough now that he looked ready to start doing the same to her. His teeth were already brushing against her hair, daring her to scream and run, to fear him. Each scrape sent a wave of terror roaring through her, so Lola did the only thing left that she could think of.
She grabbed her thread.
In all the millions of times she’d done this exact same motion, Lola had never tried to go inside it. The possibility hadn’t even entered her mind since she’d always seen the silver line as a binding tie, not a tube, but that wasn’t how Alberich talked about it. He’d made her thread sound like a highway for magic, so that was the image Lola pictured as she shoved her gossamer into the silver filament.
It worked much faster than she’d expected. The king must not have been kidding about pulling gobs of magic though her. Despite its tiny size, the thread took Lola’s gossamer with room to spare, letting her reach up, up, up into the body that belonged to her alone.
For a blinding second, she was back in the physical world. She actually caught a glimpse of Tristan’s worried face as he fussed with the very expensive-looking spellwork bandage he’d conjured to bind her wound. If she’d pushed a little farther, Lola could have touched him, but she wasn’t here to go back. There was no way she was leaving Alberich unattended inside her soul. She was only here for the sharp thing she’d bumped into before. The lump of throbbing magic she could now clearly feel inside her human stomach.
