Christopher Golden - Lost Ones

Reaching down to the center of herself where there was no pain, no fear-where there was only the fox-Kitsune changed. Her flesh rippled. Her fur clung to her, and as it did the jellyfish were shed from her body. She diminished into the fox-her spirit did not diminish with her flesh, however. The jellyfish on her head and forelegs were still there, too.

Blue Jay touched the ground. He reached down and stripped the last of the jellyfish from her, hurling them away, then set her on the stones of the great plaza. Her veins were on fire with venom, her skin lashed and scarred. Kitsune could not rise.

On her side, the fox saw Cheval and Grin locked in a rigid embrace. There were broken limbs, tangled together, where they lay on the ground twenty feet away. The fox turned her eyes upward and looked into the sky above the plaza-surrounded by the architecture of Atlantis-and saw the body of a Naga falling, serpentine body whipping in the wind, toward the ground. It struck hard and did not move.

The sky filled with horrors. Jellyfish and eels, yes, but also several huge air sharks and dozens of octopuses. They poured from the library, but most had already been there, waiting for them to emerge. Razor fish slid across the sky. Octopuses descended, tentacles dredging toward the stone plaza.

They were dead.

The fox wished she could cry, but her pain had taken even that from her.

A sudden eruption of snow and ice burst from the broken window on the fifth floor of the Great Library. A dark figure rode the storm. The blizzard swept toward the ground and she knew that, within the snow and wind, the winter man carried Oliver to safety.

Still alive, Kitsune thought. That was good. Of course, without Smith, they would all die.

She howled, as if to call out for him.

Perhaps Blue Jay understood, for he began to bellow at the sky, screaming the Wayfarer’s name in fury. His voice echoed off of the polished surfaces of the buildings around them.

The side of the library-the place where they’d all gone out the window-became quickly engulfed in fire. The fox let her head loll back and saw Atlantean soldiers moving in from the edges of the plaza, blocking any hope of escape. Not that they had anywhere to go. They were on an island. Several sorcerers joined the soldiers.

Blue Jay swore. He’d always loved the curses of the ordinary world, of hard men and laughing women. It was part of his charm. Now he scowled as he leaped into the air. Only when the tentacles came down did Kitsune understand that the octopuses had reached him. His blue wings blurred the air again as he danced. He slashed the tentacles from the nearest one, but not all. Not all.

Two tentacles wrapped around his left arm. With his right, Blue Jay cut the octopus’s head in two. It flopped to the ground, dead instantly, stinking, rotting innards spilling onto the stones. But those two tentacles dragged Blue Jay down with it.

He planted his boots and got up, struggling to free himself from that entanglement, pulling against the dead thing. The sound of its corpse sliding wetly over the stones sickened her. Kitsune felt as though she no longer lived in her body. The fox began to breathe quickly, raggedly. The fire on her skin, under her fur, had become all that she knew. Somewhere outside of her mind now-or perhaps withdrawn deeply inside-she could only lie there and watch.

Blue Jay tore himself loose from the dead octopus just as a second descended upon him from above. He didn’t have time to turn, to dance, to slash, to even raise his fists in defense.

The octopus picked him up off the ground like a marionette. Its tentacles wrapped around Blue Jay’s arms and legs, neck and middle. It lifted him up, and then it broke him. Legs and arms, neck and spine, all snapped like kindling.

Blue Jay changed, then, one last bit of magic. One last bit of mischief for the trickster. He became the blue bird again, and slid from the grasp of the octopus.

The bird fell to the ground, struck the stones, and did not move again. Three lone blue feathers spiraled down to land nearby.

The fox wept.

Collette felt wired, like she’d had several gallons of coffee. Adrenaline pumped through her, even though her arms and legs ached. Her clothes were covered with blood and the stink of it filled her nostrils. Twice she’d helped hold together the guts of a soldier so badly wounded that she had to vomit; both times she had returned immediately to the surgeon’s side, doing her part. Doing her best. The smell of blood up inside her nose, the taste of it on her tongue, helped. It was far preferable to the shameful reminder of her vomit.

These men and women needed her.

They were dying down there on the battlefield. Her soul felt torn between the urge to run to their aid-to throw herself into the fight and do whatever she could to help with blade or club or bare hands-and the terror that threatened to drive her screaming over the hill, through the trees, and off into the unfamiliar lands of Euphrasia.

For half an hour, the urge to pee had been nearly overwhelming. Now it became painful. For the moment, the makeshift battlefield hospital-a dying place or a surviving place, but not really a healing place-had become quiet save for the moaning of the wounded. Another wave would arrive shortly, but her opportunity had come.

With a glance, she found Julianna. After all she had endured, some of the beauty seemed to have been eroded from her. Her hair was tied back with a strip of cloth and her clothes were also bloodied. Dirt smeared her face, hands, and arms. Dark crescents had appeared under her eyes. Yet she seemed more herself than ever before. All of the ephemeral qualities had been scoured away, and what remained was a woman Collette loved dearly, and felt proud to know. If they had to endure this, she knew they could survive it together.

Julianna waved. Collette smiled and dashed away toward King Hunyadi’s tent. It seemed somehow disrespectful to piss that close to the king’s tent, but there were precious few places she could go and be out of sight of the advisors and medics and aides, not to mention the wounded.

Once past the tent, away from prying eyes, she noticed the stand of trees at the top of the ridge behind the encampment. Twenty paces or less. Collette raced to the trees and went over the ridge just a few feet, dropped her pants, and crouched behind an old oak with a massive trunk. A sigh escaped her as she relieved herself, the sheer pleasure of reducing the pressure on her bladder enough to make her shiver.

“Not that much different from animals, really,” said a voice.

Collette turned even as she rose, tugging up her pants and fumbling with the buttons. She staggered, nearly fell, her boot sliding in the soft, damp spot where she’d just pissed.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded.

Coyote stood leaning against a nearby tree smoking a cigarette he must have rolled himself. The pungent herbal odor made her nostrils flare.

“Ordinary folk, I mean,” Coyote went on. “You people. Not much different from animals.”

The lithe little man, that legend, glanced up at her from beneath narrowed brows and cast her a dangerous look. His arms were thin but corded with muscle. He stepped away from the tree, taking a long tug from his cigarette. Smoke plumed from his nostrils.

“I should’ve guessed you were the type for cheap thrills.” Collette stood her ground. Then she frowned. Something was wrong. It took her a moment to figure it out, but then she stared at him.

“You’re not Coyote.”

He faltered a moment, then took another drag and gave a soft laugh, both self-deprecating and cynical.

“Coyote’s missing an eye. I saw him earlier. If he could’ve grown one back, he would’ve done it already.”