The Warslayer(35)
Belegir shook his head, not smiling now. "Perhaps a Great Mage could answer such a question, but there has been no such since Cinnas died. You ask questions no one thought to ask in all our long golden years of peace. And now there is no one left to ask them."
"Well, maybe we can find some answers anyway," Glory said with a defeated sigh. Why do I keep trying to have these conversations?
Belegir tucked the tea-things away again—she'd been sure, for one apprehensive moment, that he'd been going to wash them out in the spring, but apparently, spiritual informality didn't extend that far—and then circled the cavern again, dousing all the candles except for the small glass lantern. When he came back to the edge of the pool, he was holding a footed cup in his hands.
It was most of a meter high. The bowl was of bone, dark gold with age, the stem and foot of some darker material, with the sheen of oiled and polished wood. Belegir plunged it into the spring, submerging it completely, and then held it out to her.
Glory took it reluctantly. She'd seen a lot of magic since she'd come here, but this was the first time she'd been called upon to drink any.
Assuming, of course, that this Oracle business wasn't all humbug and social engineering.
Whether it was or not, the water itself was pure and numbingly cold, chilling her all the way down to the pit of her stomach. She emptied the cup and returned it to Belegir, who dipped it full again and drank, then returned it to its niche and came back to his bedroll carrying the lantern.
"Are you ready?" he asked, lying down.
"I reckon," Glory muttered, trying not to sound as uncertain as she felt. She pulled out her sweatshirt and struggled into it. Might as well be warm.
Belegir hooded the lantern, and the darkness fell like a hammer. In the dark, Glory squirmed out of her jeans and rolled them up into a pillow, then insinuated herself between the two blankets, clutching Gordon to her chest.
I'm not going to be able to sleep, she thought.
And slept.
CHAPTER FOUR:
Blood and Gold
It was the Duchess's castle in the North—many a work of fell sorcery had been accomplished behind its stark stone walls, with no one living to tell the tale. Vixen the Red, Scourge of the Night, Harrower of Hell, Doomslayer, had been here many a time before, and each time barely escaped, with Hell's own hounds snapping at her booted heels. Even the bravest freebooter would have thought hard before coming back, but Vixen had no choice. The two people she cared most about in the world—her doughty sidekick, Sister Bernadette, and Queen Gloriana's trusted adventurer-spy, the playwright Kit Marlowe—were in danger. She had to save them.
With the supernatural grace of her ninja training, Vixen scaled Castle Boleskine's outer wall. The Duchess trusted too much in the castle's terrible (and well-founded) reputation among the local peasants to bother with a regular guard other than the fierce, half-demon dogs that had the free run of the grounds after sunset.
With lithe pantherine grace Vixen sprang to the greensward below. Her sword left its scabbard in a rasping hiss and her red lips drew back in a feral smile as she heard the howl of the dogs in the distance. A little warm-up before the main event, when she would put an end to the Duchess of Darkness for once and all.
It's amazing what a little black makeup and some post-production CGI can do to tart up a Rottweiler, Vixen the Slayer thought happily.
* * *
The interior of the castle was oddly deserted. Torches burned with a weird green light, and for once the floor was blessedly free of camera tracks and electrical cables. She knew the Duchess was waiting for her somewhere up ahead, and she had to get there. If she didn't hit her marks in time, Megan would be furious with her. . . .
Something's not right.
Vixen stopped, shaking her head in confusion. What could be wrong? She was Vixen the Red, slayer of evil and all around badass. Somewhere up ahead was Lilith Kane, the Duchess of Darkness, her sworn enemy. She hefted her sword and strode on.
* * *
The Duchess was waiting for Vixen in Boleskine's Star Chamber. The floor was composed of a single slab of meteoric iron, inlaid with a Greater Seal of Solomon and edged in Cabalistic sigils shaped and quenched in human blood. The room was hung with draperies in glowing garnet velvet, and in the center of the demonic hexagram stood the Duchess of Darkness herself, a fragile-seeming blonde in a sweeping satin gown the color of freshly spilled blood. At her side, a dark shadow to her Satanic flame, stood the reptilian Fra Diavolo, the evil Jesuit who served her nefarious ends.
"Welcome, Koroshiya. How delightful that you have joined us at last. Shall I introduce you to our other guests? But I forget—you won't need any introduction. You're among friends here—old friends," the Duchess of Darkness purred throatily.