Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

"Black Annis," Clay said. "It's a Black Annis."

Eve had spent eternity paying for her sins, both those she had committed, and those to which she had given birth. Vampires. Her children. The bastard offspring of an Archduke of Hell and the castoff queen of Eden. The Lord might have made her, but the demon had remade her. Many times she had thought of giving herself over to the sun, letting its light purify her, end her damnation. But she would not.

She would not stop fighting the darkness until she had expunged her sins. And she would not know when that time had come until the Lord Himself whispered the words in her ear.

Come home.

Until then, she would fight, and she would fear nothing. The Lord would not allow her to die until she had done her penance.

Her knees scraped the house as she scaled the back wall. Another pair of pants ruined. Her talons dug into brick, and she raised herself up quickly, her body as light to her as if her bones were hollow. Such was the strength damnation had given her. Eve could have quickened her ascent by using window frames, but she avoided them, not wishing to be seen until a time of her own choosing.

A glance downward told her the boy was keeping up. She smiled, and as she did, her fangs slid downward, extending themselves. The crimson mist swirled around her, the breeze rustling her hair. Eve ran her tongue over the tips of her fangs as she watched Danny Ferrick climb.

If he lived to see another morning, the kid might actually turn out to be worth having around.

Eyes narrowed, she began to climb again. Talons split mortar. Her knees and the toes of her shoes gained purchase against the brick. She was nearly there now, just a few more feet. Despite her speed, Danny was catching up. She sensed him, just below her.

Eve reached up to grasp the edge of the flat roof of Conan Doyle's brownstone. With a single thrust, she pulled herself up with such force that she sprang into the air and landed on the roof in a crouch.

The red mist rolled across the roof, pushed along by the breeze. It eddied and swirled around chimneys and vents and the tall box-like structure that contained the door that led into the building. Eve took several steps toward it, and then froze.

From the mist, from the shadows, from the night they came. Of course they did. Morrigan would not have been so foolish as to leave the roof unguarded. The Corca Duibhne moved slowly, slinking across the roof, taking their time to circle around her, like hyenas stalking prey. She counted at least nine, but there might have been more, deeper in the bloody fog, or in the shadows.

"You don't want to do this," Eve warned them.

"Oh, yessss we do," one of them hissed. "You're the traitor. The hateful mother of darkness. There isn't one among us who wouldn't give his life for a change at tearing out your throat."

"It's been done." Eve grinned, baring her fangs. "I got better."

Danny scrambled up over the edge of the roof behind her.

The Corca Duibhne hesitated.

"You ready, kid?" Eve asked.

She did not have to see the smile on his face. She could hear it in the tone of his voice.

"Oh, yeah," Danny Ferrick told her. "I was born for this."

The strangest thing happened, then. The Corca Duibhne began to laugh. It was an eerie susurrus of giddy whispers that carried to her on the mist. Slowly, they began to pull back. Eve narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out what they were up to.

And something moved atop the nearest tall chimney. Something large that crawled, lizard-like, up the brick and perched on top. Its wings spread, just a shadow in the scarlet night.

Then it burst into flames.

Spread its wings, its entire body consumed by the blaze.

A plume of fire jetted from its snout.

"What is it?" Danny asked, a tremor of fear in his voice.

Still, Eve did not look at him. Her gaze was on the creature, this thing that could incinerate her, could end her life. "A fire drake," she told him. "And it's all yours, kid."

"Get the fuck out of here," Danny snapped.

"Sorry. I've got the dweebs. The big burning motherfucker belongs to you."

Morrigan threw her arms upward, the power coursing through her, and she shook in ecstasy. It was like the caress of a thousand lovers. Her nipples hardened and her sex burned with the heat of her passion, wet as though to welcome a lover. And nothing was ever more true, for the only lover she would ever accept would arrive at any moment.

"Yes!" she wailed, tears of joy streaking her face. "Come to me!"

The ballroom was blindingly bright. The magick spilling out through the cracks in Sweetblood's chrysalis flashed orange and yellow and red, an inferno of color that played off of the mirrored walls and off of the chandeliers above. And upon that chrysalis, seared by the power as though by scalding steam, Ceridwen arched her back and screamed as she had not done since the day of her mother's slaughter, that day when Morrigan had held the girl in her arms and pretended to care.

The younger sorceress screamed again, eyes wide with the madness of her agony. Welts had risen on her blue-white flesh, and then blisters, which had burst. Pus ran from her legs and back where the magick seared her. Her mouth opened again but nothing came from it now but magick, power that spilled from her in a torrent of sparks and embers and a silver mist wholly unlike the red fog that had enveloped the city.

Morrigan danced across the room, twirling, stepping over the human sacrifices that her Corca Duibhne had brought. Their bodies were flayed, their chest cavities opened, their viscera strewn about the floor and shaped into the patterns and sigils that focused the magick she now siphoned from Sweetblood. Ceridwen was the key, though. The filter. Without her Morrigan might have died calling up the Nimble Man. Now Ceridwen would die instead.

The Fey witch reached her niece.

"Ah, sweet girl," she said. "You with your elemental magick. Your heart was with nature. You never understood that the true power is in the unnatural."

Morrigan ran her hands over Ceridwen's body, even as her niece bucked upward again, shrieking, crying tears that fell as water but struck the ground as crystals of ice. Her violet eyes misted. Her suffering was exquisite.

Then, abruptly, Ceridwen's eyes focused, and shifted to Morrigan. "You'll die."

"Yes, darling. But, first, I'll live."

Morrigan bent over her and brought her lips to Ceridwen's. They tasted of mint. Her tongue slid into Ceridwen's mouth and when the young sorceress bucked again, the magick spilling from the mage erupted into Morrigan's mouth. The Fey witch felt her knees weaken with the pleasure of it and she staggered back. Just a taste of Sweetblood's power was intoxicating, arousing. But soon, she would have that and so much more.

She wiped a bit of spittle from her mouth. "Oooh, that's nice."

"Mistress!"

The Corca Duibhne hated the bright light. It hurt them. They were terrified enough of Sweetblood, but with his magick coalescing in the room and the glaring illumination, they had fled to the corridor. Morrigan did not care. They were useless to her now except as a shield. All she needed them to do was see that she was undisturbed.

Yet now here was one, a pitiful thing it was, too. A runt. A lackey's lackey. It had called to her, and now it was pointing into the room, pointing at something behind her. Morrigan's instinct was to break it, to shatter the Corca Duibhne. But then she saw the wonder in its cruel eyes and she turned, holding her breath.

Ceridwen screamed her throat ragged, choking on her own blood. She whimpered, and cried for her dead mother.

Behind her, on the other side of the chrysalis, a slit had opened in the fabric of the world. The magick that Morrigan had leeched from the mage had begun to seep into that hole as if carried by some unseen current. It was a wound in the heart of the universe, and its edges were peeling back like curtains torn aside, or the folds of a new mother's offering.