Nicole Peeler - [Jane True 01] (39 page)

“Halflings are abominations,” the naga replied without hesitation. “They
are defilements, corruptions. They deserve to die, as their very existence
makes a mockery of our society.”

Don’t hold back, now
, I thought.
Let us know how you really
feel
…

I needn’t have been concerned; sharing his feelings about half-humans
was something that Jimmu was, apparently, quite happy to do. “I thought your
interest in the halflings brought shame upon us. I thought you were intending
to invite them into our society. The idea disgusted me, and so I followed Jakes
and did away with his subjects one by one. Until he began to suspect me—then he
was just one more halfling stain to be blotted out. The goblins, well…” He
shrugged. “They got in the way.”

There were hisses behind me, and more than a few goblins—towering above
most of the other creatures in the hall—bared their multitudinous fangs. I took
a firm grip on my beautiful shoes and inched away from the table.

“Is this all you have to say on the matter?” Orin asked, his expression
still bizarrely calm, as if he were inquiring about the weather. “Are these
your justifications for your actions?”

Jimmu’s shoulders eased up and down in a graceful shrug. “My only
justification is the existence of such things as
that
,” he said, turning
around to point at me. I groaned inwardly at the same time I gave an automatic,
if entirely inappropriate, little wave.
Why the fuck did I just do that?
I thought, as Jimmu continued his diatribe. “Halflings are a disease that must
be purged from our society,” he intoned. “Any of you who cannot see that are
disgracing yourselves and our people.”

The hall was silent. I looked about, and although most beings around me
looked angry at Jimmu’s words, there were quite a few that I thought didn’t
look entirely displeased. I also noticed that quite a few beings were
eyeballing me right back, and I quickly averted my eyes.

Finally, Orin’s and Morrigan’s voices rang out. They spoke as one, their
words throbbing with authority.

“Jimmu Naga and nestmates: You have committed serious crimes against our
community, to which our halfling brethren resolutely belong. You have risked
bringing undue attention to our existence with your actions. And you have
spoken falsely to your king and queen, and to their Court. For these crimes,
which amount to acts of treason, your lives are forfeit. Kneel and accept our
justice, as is our right.”

Rather unsurprisingly, none of the nagas knelt. Instead they formed a
circle around Jimmu, their firstborn brother and natural leader.

“So be it,” the nagas spoke together—as if to prove that they, too,
could speak in stereo. As one, they raised their swords in front of them, all
of which had begun to glow blue as if sheathed in the eerie fire that Ryu had
used to burn the goblin letter so many days ago.

That evening there’d been a lot of noises, like the sounds made by what
came out of Jimmu’s sack, that I’d never heard before and never wanted to hear
again. But the next noise to echo through the hall was one I was pretty sure I
recognized.

It was the unmistakable sound of the shit hitting the fan.

With a fierce cry, Jimmu launched himself from his position among the nagas
straight toward Ryu.

But my lover was nothing if not prepared. In a flash, Ryu shrugged out
of his jacket while Wally pulled two scimitars out of his pantaloons. The djinn
threw one wickedly curved blade to Ryu, while they both took defensive stances.
I watched in disbelief as Ryu responded to Jimmu’s charge with Neo’s beckoning
gesture from
The Matrix
.

The tiny portion of my brain that had a modicum of control shook its
head, while wondering what the hell else Wally had in his pants.
Maybe a way
out?
I thought, as Jimmu’s sword met Ryu’s with a resounding crash. With
that sound, the rest of the nagas were aloft, attacking various points in the
room. In response, creatures were pulling cudgels and edged weapons from
underneath skirts, from inside coats, even from out of thin air. The nahuals
all turned into lions, tigers, or bears (
oh my!
) while the Alfar created
either little mage-light-looking things that they launched like projectiles at
the nagas or lightsaber-looking shafts of light.

Meanwhile, the nagas—who I had to remind myself only numbered nine in
total—appeared to be everywhere at once. Three had transformed into enormous
black snakes. They were
huge
: long as RVs and thick as three WWE
wrestlers grappling together. Their fangs looked as long as my body, and they
had cobralike hoods that were scaled in red on the inside.

Somehow, the six that had remained in human form were no less scary than
their serpentine brethren. They moved as swiftly and inexorably as water poured
from a glass, cutting a swathe before them with their burning swords. I watched
in horror as a naga female cut down a nahual in the shape of a tiger. The big
cat had leapt from a table behind the snake woman, but she had spun around like
a top and suddenly the cat was in two pieces, neither of which was moving.

Similar scenes of carnage were taking place throughout the room, but my
attention quickly went back to Jimmu and Ryu, still locked in single combat.
Their swords were moving so quickly they blurred and I had no idea who was
winning. I wanted desperately to help my lover, but I didn’t see how I could
get near. I thought about throwing my chair, but I imagined accidentally
tripping Ryu and I shuddered. I had never felt more powerless in my life.

A feeling that was exacerbated when someone used the opportunity
provided by the ensuing fracas to goose me. I jumped, and turned to find that
Wally had somehow gotten behind me. He smiled at me, his eyes flashing, and I
backed away a step.
Trust no one
, Ryu’s words echoed through my memory.

But Wally wasn’t there to hurt me. “Get out of here, halfling,” he said.
“Your bedmate is busy and it’s about to get nasty.”

Bedmate?
I thought, incredulously.
And what the hell do you
mean, it’s
about
to get nasty?

But I took Wally’s advice. With a last, and very pained, look toward
where Ryu was battling with Jimmu, I grabbed my shoes, turned tail, and fled.

Suddenly an explosion rocked the hall. The king and queen had finally
taken action, aiming two large orbs of energy at one of the snake-formed nagas.
Both orbs hit like torpedoes, blasting off the snake’s head. Its body swayed,
pumping blood up into the air like red oil, before crashing down to the ground,
pinning a shocked incubus under its weight. The Alfar monarchs calmly began
creating new missiles, pumping energy into small balls that grew slowly in
their palms.

I had been knocked off my feet by the reverberations of the blast, and
it took me a moment to clamber back up. The part of me that wasn’t shitting
itself was amused that I was still clutching my shoes. Like I said, I had my
priorities. My earlier scouting had revealed an exit immediately to the side of
our table, which only required a short sprint to reach. The way was also
relatively clear, as most of the action was currently located in the
center-front of the hall. Still crouching, I gritted my teeth and focused on my
goal, preparing to make a run for it, when my steps faltered. I’d caught a
glimpse of the human whom Nyx had brought—he was still sitting on the edge of
the head table, apparently oblivious to the chaos around him. I couldn’t just
leave him there, and his kidnapper was too busy to keep him safe. Nyx was
currently clinging to the back of one of the snake-formed nagas’ hood, yelling
bloody murder with one of her arms stuck into the creature’s eyeball up to her
elbow. She looked happy as a pig in shit.

I swore, changing direction. There was another exit immediately behind
where the man was sitting, which was as good a door as the one I was heading
toward, and I could grab the man on my way out. I crouched down to make myself
as small a target as possible, and scuttled toward the front of the hall,
trying to balance skirting around the action with getting to my destination as
quickly as possible.

When I got to one of the hall’s thick pillars, I leaned against it for a
moment to release the breath I’d been holding since I started off. There had
been two more Alfar grenades lobbed, one of which had punched a nasty looking
hole in one of the remaining snakes’ hood, leaving it reeling. Orin’s, however,
had gone wide, landing with horrific consequences among a little knot of
Compound servants. Forcing my gaze away from the bloodbath, I prayed that
Elspeth wasn’t among them. When I caught a fleeting glimpse of Ryu, still alive
but also still fencing with Jimmu, I took a deep breath and worked up the
courage to leave my pillar. Not least because coming toward me was a slowly
moving bundle of activity that seemed to consist of two spriggan bodyguards and
the other naga female. It looked like all three were trying to club each other
to death, and I remembered what Ryu had said about the spriggans being
mercenaries. One of the big brutes didn’t seem to know
quite
which side
it was on.

I used the pillar to help propel myself into the melee, running as fast
as I could toward the man and the door behind him. I yelped as an arm landed
with a thud in front of me. To my horror, I recognized the golden circlet
encompassing the fat bicep—it was Wally’s. Just then the djinn was there, kneeling
to pick up his amputated limb. He rolled his eyes at me like he’d dropped his
wallet and stuck his arm back on, where it knitted smoothly back into position.
Pulling
another
weapon from his pants—this time a cruel looking mace—he
launched himself back into the fray, smiling as if he were handing out candy
rather than concussions.

I shook my head and sprinted off, again, until I finally made it to my
destination. When I reached him, the man was still sitting as if he were on his
sofa at home rather than planted at the edge of a battlefield. I grabbed his
arm and pulled him toward the door, but he didn’t budge. I pulled harder and
harder, until I was leaning over so far I practically made a forty-five-degree
angle.

I stood up and let go. Turning to him I surveyed his face. There wasn’t
a hint of activity going on behind his glazed eyes. So I called upon every iota
of womanly instinct I had and pulled back my open hand to let fly a resounding
slap
.
I think I might have given him whiplash.

The slap worked. His eyes blinked once, then again, as he suddenly
seemed to come alive. I grabbed him by the shoulders to focus his attention on
me—it wouldn’t do either of us any good if he chose that moment to panic. The
Alfar had sped up their barrage, and smaller explosions were detonating all
over the hall. We had to get out of there, tout suite.

“Hey, buddy,” I said, loud enough so he could hear me over the noise but
trying to keep my voice calm at the same time. “What’s your name?”

“Ed,” he said, nonplussed. “Where am I?”

He started to look around but I put my hand to his cheek to keep his
gaze on mine. “Ed,” I advised. “We’re somewhere neither of us wants to be. So
let’s get out of here, okay?” I took his hand and tried to pull him up, but he
still
wasn’t moving.

“There was a woman,” he started to say.

“Yes,” I interrupted. “There was a woman but she’s gone now. You’re safe
as long as we get moving. Like now,” I added, my voice starting to crack from
stress. A flurry of activity had started up to our right and creatures were
launching themselves out of the way. Something was coming.

I pulled harder on his hand, and he looked into my face. As if sensing
my anxiety, he started to get up. I backed away, signaling for him to hurry. He
nodded as if he’d made a decision and got to his feet resolutely, leaping away
from the dais to land behind me. He nodded at the door. “Get going,” he said,
and I had just started to turn when I felt something wet splatter against my
cheek. The man’s expression changed, very slowly, from one of determination to
one of confusion. We both looked down, equally astonished at the sight of the
blazing sword protruding from his chest. The light died from his eyes as he
crumpled to his knees. I realized I was screaming.

A movement from behind the man’s body drew my eyes. It was Jimmu. He’d
thrown the sword—either at me and the man had gotten in the way or at the man
to get him out of Jimmu’s path. Either way, there was now nothing standing
between me and the naga’s murderous rage.

I backed away, fighting Jimmu’s paralyzing gaze and wishing I’d had the
chance to call my father. I hadn’t even thought of it—I’d been too swept up in
events to put my affairs in order. But I guess people in their twenties don’t
normally think in terms of ordering their affairs. A mistake I wouldn’t make
again—quite literally.

And just think, a few days ago you were worried about living forever
, I
thought, as Jimmu’s snarling face came to within an inch of mine. He obviously
wanted to look me in the eyes when he killed me.

But before the dagger Jimmu was holding could reach my throat, Ryu was
upon him. My lover was bleeding profusely from a terrible gash on his cheek,
and he seemed to be favoring his left leg, but he still managed to propel Jimmu
to the ground and away from me. The knife was knocked aside and Ryu took that
opportunity to begin pulverizing Jimmu’s face with his fists. Knowing that I
was still not exactly safe, and not wanting to see anyone ground into a bloody
pulp no matter how much I disliked them, I left Ryu to it. With one last look
at the dead human I’d tried to save but ended up killing, I fled through the
door.