Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

She could taste it.

Like bile, it rose in her throat again. Previously she had let her jaws gape and vomited up that power, that magick.

This time she clamped her mouth shut with a clack of teeth. Her lips curled back and she sneered. The magick surged up within her.

But Ceridwen did not let it go. She caught it. Take some for yourself, Sanguedolce had said in her fever dream. And so she did.

The face of her mother was clear in her mind. The sound of the river that rushed down from the mountain citadel of her uncle, King Finvarra, in the heart of Faerie, was in her ears. She brought both memories into her heart. Words in the ancient tongue of the Kings of Faerie formed silently upon her lips and her pain receded. Her flesh healed. The magick of Sweetblood the Mage spilled into her, just as it had before. But Ceridwen was no longer the conduit.

She was the vessel.

With a sneer, she broke her bonds and sprang up from the chrysalis. It popped with the sound of ice breaking on the lake in springtime, and the fissures deepened and widened. She could see Sanguedolce's face deep within the amber encasement. His eyes were still, and yet she was sure he was watching her.

Tensed to defend herself, she found that Morrigan had not even noticed her. The cunning bitch was on her knees in front of a shimmering portal, a slit in reality. Even as Ceridwen took it all in, realizing what it was, she saw a tall, lithe silhouette reach the dimensional doorway from the other side. Cloaked in clouds of gray, it put one foot through, into this world.

The Nimble Man, Ceridwen thought, her heart racing with panic, her mind whispering the doom of all creation. But she would not have it. With Sweetblood's power coursing through her, she held out a hand and in an instant, a sphere of ice coalesced in her palm. A finger pointed at the floor, she summoned the spirits of the wood, and in the space between heartbeats a new staff grew up and into her free hand. Its tip spread into fingers to receive the ice sphere, she set it into place and blue-white mist began to swirl around the orb. Then a tiny spark ignited within, becoming an ember, becoming a flame. It started to glow.

Morrigan had taken or destroyed her elemental staff. Ceridwen had created another.

As the elemental magick pulsed from the staff, Morrigan seemed to sense it. She twitched, obviously reluctant to turn away from the spectacle of The Nimble Man's arrival. Then she did turn, and Ceridwen was pleased to see the look of fury and wretched hatred on her aunt's face.

"Your brother, my uncle, always underestimated you, Morrigan," Ceridwen said, her words clipped, her magick steaming from her every pore, spilling off of her just as Sweetblood's had from the chrysalis. "But you, aunt, always underestimated me."

Morrigan laughed. "Perhaps. Perhaps, Ceridwen. But no matter. The time has passed for your presence to be of consequence." She smiled and for the first time Ceridwen understood the full extent of her madness. "The Nimble Man is here."

Ceridwen had been about to attack, to destroy Morrigan and attempt to disrupt the flow of magick from the chrysalis to the doorway. But Morrigan was correct. It was too late.

The Nimble Man had come.

Ceridwen had never seen a being more beautiful, nor anything more terrible. His skin was golden and smooth as glass, but shot through with scarlet traces as though his body was tainted. Infected. His form was flawless, and yet unsettling. His hands were too long, and tipped with curling claws. Jutting from his back were the tattered remnants of black-feathered wings, only strips of muscle and cartilage now. They had been torn from him, and as he stepped into the ballroom, into the world, three black feathers fell from the vestiges of his wings and drifted to the floor.

His hair was as black as those feathers, and fell around his shoulders, and his face was breathtaking. Simply stunning. Angelic, of course.

Until he noticed Ceridwen. Then his lips parted and he smiled, revealing hooked black fangs and a mass of coiling serpentine stingers where his tongue should have been.

The Nimble Man did not speak to her. Instead, he simply hissed.

Morrigan stood and clung to him and he gazed at her with inhuman, slitted eyes and caressed her.

All the strength Ceridwen had felt restored to her now seemed to slip away.

"Well, it appears I'm just in time for the festivities to begin."

Ceridwen's heart leaped at the familiar voice and she glanced over her shoulder to see Conan Doyle stride into the ballroom, long coat unwrinkled, every hair in place, as gallant as ever. Tendrils of magickal energy streamed from his eyes and his fingers and he paused, ten feet inside the door, prepared to fight.

A moment later, one of the windows on the far wall shattered and Eve leaped into the room, landing in a crouch. Behind her, outlined within the window frame, was a wiry, powerful-looking demon hybrid that must have been Danny Ferrick. The air beside Ceridwen shimmered and the ghost of Dr. Graves formed itself from nothing. One of the mirrored walls exploded inward, and in the dust rising from the rubble, she saw the massive form of Clay.

The Menagerie had arrived.

"Yes, come!" Morrigan cried, turning to face them as she rose to her feet. "You have all saved me the trouble of finding you."

Her face was filled with rapture. Behind her the Nimble Man stretched as if waking from a heavy sleep. His ravaged wings caressed the open edges of the dimensional doorway behind him. He surveyed the room, the individuals arrayed there, and he smiled. But when his gaze touched upon Sweetblood's chrysalis — shot through with cracks from which magick issued in radiant waves — he flinched.

"Now, my friends, keep him still!" Conan Doyle shouted, pointing at the Nimble Man.

They reacted immediately. Eve leaped at the Nimble Man, more feral than Ceridwen had ever seen her, fangs and claws extended. She landed upon him, clung to his back, and raked her talons across his throat, barely scratching his flesh. Clay was upon him in almost the same instant, but in between one step and the next, he made a transformation that was breathtaking. His arid, fissured flesh shifted, smoothed itself, and began to glow. Wings sprouted from his back, but his were perfect, with feathers of pure white. His skin was alabaster, and his face glowed with such warm light that it was difficult to look at, and yet almost impossible to look away from.

An angel, Ceridwen thought. Arthur had told her about such things. This is what an angel looks like.

The ghost of Dr. Graves flitted across the room, taking up a defensive position at the door. Most of the Corca Duibhne were likely destroyed or had fled in terror, but this had obviously been Conan Doyle's preventive measure, in case any of them should muster the courage to return.

Morrigan uttered a mad little laugh. "Are you all that stupid? Or has Conan Doyle mesmerized you? Are you really that anxious to die? Why don't you run?"

"Run from you?" Ceridwen asked. "I think not."

With both hands she held her elemental staff before her. With a single, guttural sound she called a frigid wind that churned across the space separating her from her aunt. Ice formed in Morrigan's hair and over her eyes and for just a moment she stiffened. Ceridwen still felt some of the power of Sweetblood inside her. It did not give her power she had never had, but it amplified her own magick tenfold. With a grunt she banged the base of the staff on the floor and sketched the air with her forefinger.

Lightning crackled from the ballroom ceiling and struck Morrigan. The Fey witch trembled as it raced through her and then she fell to her knees again, but this time it was in pain rather than supplication. She raised her hand to retaliate, but quickly spun to her left and barely succeeded in throwing up a ward before Conan Doyle's spell struck her. It dissipated harmlessly, but she was off balance.