Richelle Mead - Iron Crowned

My last job of the day was the most difficult, undoubtedly scheduled that way on purpose so that I didn’t walk into the little ones tired and injured. True, I was feeling weary, but concern for Dorian kept a spike of adrenaline burning through me, one that I knew would get me through this last job. Yet, walking up to the client’s house, I couldn’t stop asking the same questions in my mind. Why hasn’t Volusian reported to me yet? Isn’t the fight over?

A nervous-looking young woman answered the door, introducing herself as Jenna. She was the one who had made the call, though it wasn’t exactly on her own behalf.

“She’s in the living room,” Jenna whispered to me, letting me inside the foyer. Her eyes were wide with fear. “Just sitting there. Staring.”

“Does she speak?” I asked. “Does she answer your questions?”

“Yes … but … it’s not her. I know that doesn’t make sense, but it’s not. The people at work think she’s just gone crazy. I’m pretty much the only one who still talks to her. She’s about to lose her job, but …” Jenna shook her head. “I swear, it’s just not her.”

“You’re right.” I held my wand in my left hand and my silver athame in the right.

“Is she …” Jenna’s voice dropped even lower. “Is she possessed?”

“Not exactly.” Lara had warned me about this one. It had initially sounded like possession, but further data suggested otherwise, unfortunately. A possession would have been easier. “It’s a fetch. It’s like … I don’t know. Her double. Kind of.”

“Then … what happened to Regan?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know.” I didn’t want to tell Jenna there was a strong possibility that Regan was dead. That was the usual fate for a fetch’s victim. Of course, fetches usually left once they’d sucked all the energy and goodness from someone’s life. If this one was still here, the odds of Regan still being alive were marginally higher. “If … er, when we find her, she may be in bad shape.”

I stared off down the hallway, where I could hear the sound of a TV in the living room. I shifted my grip on my weapons and prepared myself.

“What should I do?” asked Jenna.

“Wait outside. Don’t come back inside until I tell you to—no matter what.”

Once she was safely away, I set off down the hall. There, in the living room, I found a woman sitting perfectly straight on the couch, her hands folded neatly upon her lap as she stared at the TV. There was a blankness in her brown eyes that told me she wasn’t really watching. She didn’t even acknowledge my arrival. Glancing around the living room, I took in its space and features, assessing them for a fight. I also noticed a couple pictures on the wall, group shots with Jenna and a smiling brunette who looked exactly like the woman on the couch. Yet, glancing between them, I knew Jenna was right. This wasn’t Regan.

“Where’s Regan?” I asked.

The fetch didn’t look at me. “I am Regan.”

“Where’s Regan?” I repeated harshly. “What have you done with her?” Please, please let her be alive.

This time, the fetch turned her head, those cold eyes taking me and my weapons in. “I told you. I am Regan.”

I had a moment’s debate on what to do. Killing the fetch without learning Regan’s location would make the next part of this job even more difficult. Yet, as the fetch continued staring at me, I knew she’d recognized what I was and what threat I represented. I had to take her out now, banking on the fact that fetches usually kept their victims close.

I held out my wand and began chanting the words that would drive this creature back to the Otherworld. It was where fetches came from, and a forceful enough banishing was usually enough to deter them from returning. I’d only have to get the Underworld involved if she decided to—

She attacked.

The fetch didn’t transform into her true shape as she sprang at me. Rather, she turned into something in the middle. She still wore Regan’s face, but it had a sickly green hue. Her eyes were bigger and darker and looked like they’d been stretched out. Her hands and feet were bigger too—and clawed.

She came at me with her full strength, knocking me into a wall mercifully free of furniture. I kneed her in the stomach, needing to get distance between me and the claws trying to rake my face and neck. She fell back a little, not much, but enough to give me more maneuvering room. I swung out with the silver blade, and she recoiled. Iron could inflict lethal blows on the gentry, but silver was the metal of choice for almost any other creature.

“Tell me where Regan is,” I said, advancing forward. “Tell me, and I’ll simply banish you back to the Otherworld. Make this difficult, and you die.” I was managing that balance I always did: weapon ready to attack while part of my mind focused on a connection to the Otherworld. Hecate’s tattoo, a snake on my upper arm, began to tingle.

The fetch decided I wasn’t a full threat yet and rushed me again. I dodged this time, anticipating her movements based on the last attack. A fetch might be able to replicate someone, but their fighting style was mostly brute force. My athame caught her arm as I moved, and she snarled in pain, showing fangs that dripped with green saliva. It hurt her but didn’t slow her down as she lunged back at me. I sidestepped her again but overlooked what was behind me, hitting painfully against a cabinet.

I winced, and she pressed her advantage, swinging those claws at me. I barely escaped them, managing to squirm away and hurry to the other side of the room. A banishing, I decided. I’d just keep my distance and do a banishing. I just needed a couple minutes—and to stay alive. I began chanting words to send her from this world, words that didn’t have to follow any ancient form so long as my power and intent were clear. She paused briefly, realizing what I was doing, and seemed to consider her options.

A circle. I should have put a circle of protection around the house. There was a very real possibility she might try to flee. That and killing me were pretty much her only options. The former would probably be easier for her—and would release Regan. But I didn’t want this fetch freely walking the world. I needed to send her on.

Power surged in me and through me, out to the wand and toward her. This was her last chance to run—or, as it turned out, throw a coffee table at me.

I admit, I didn’t see that coming—literally or figuratively. I should have, though. Furniture, props, whatever … they were all fair game in a fight. The fetch had no reason to rely simply on hand-to-hand combat, and my athame gave her good reason to attack from a distance. The coffee table was a simple one, a smooth circle of glass on iron legs. A wood-framed one would have been better. The frame would have slowed the spread of glass. This table had nothing to stop it, except me. I tried to jump out of its way, saving my head and face. I wasn’t far enough away when it hit the wall and shattered, though. Stinging, burning pain went through my back and left arm as glass scraped and—no doubt—embedded itself in my flesh.

My sense of self-preservation kept me moving through the pain, but my connection to the Otherworld had shattered with the glass. The fetch knew this and leaped forward, risking the athame in the hope I was too addled and injured from the glass to stop her.

I wasn’t. I had never let go of my weapons, and my athame was ready and waiting when she came. I plunged it into her heart and started the banishing again. Over the years, as I’d grown in power and spent so much time in the Otherworld myself, these banishings had become easier. Not easy, but easier. There was a time when I couldn’t have held a fetch off with my athame while simultaneously attempting a quick banishing.