Maggie for Hire (19 page)

I opened up my purse and pulled out a little lock pick set.  I inserted the metal doohickeys into the locks and fiddled around until I felt the blessed little click of the tumblers all falling into their proper place.

I pushed open the door and waited silently in case some monster was hanging around to rush us.

There wasn’t a sound, so I waved at Killian to follow me.  The place was pitch black.  Killian rested his hand upon my arm and I waited to see what nifty little trick he had up his sleeve.

“Night-blooming shade charm,” he whispered.  He slipped a ring upon my finger and the hallway was suddenly lit in an eerie green glow.  “The light is only visible to the wearer.”

I nodded at him, impressed.  He totally made up for the boondoggle at the iron door.

I especially thanked him as I saw four vampires sprinting towards us silently.  If we had been creeping along in the dark, Killian and I would have been human shish kabobs in a hot minute.

Instead, I had enough time to reach up my sleeve and pull out my stakes before they attacked.  I braced as they left the ground to fly at me and with a pop-pop, they were skewered before they hit the floor.  I turned and Killian had dispatched the other two.

Single file, we crept along the shadows and hugged the walls.  The sense of drawing continued to whisper its sweet song to me and, unerring, Killian and I continued our way down into the heart of the castle.

We encountered a couple more bands of soldiers, but dispatched them in short order.  My dress was getting gunky from the carnage and I felt like I would never really ever get clean again.

And then we came to the door.

It was a massive thing - iron, again.  I was on my own.  I looked for the lock and realized there was none.

Instead, there was a door handle with a nasty looking spike where your thumb would normally go.

I stood there for a moment and tried not to lose my lunch.  I had heard about doors like this.  Magical.  Impenetrable.  The only thing that would get that door to open was blood and the iron suggested the door didn’t want fairy blood.  Which left human blood.

I placed my thumb on the latch and it poked me like a rose thorn.  A big, fat droplet of blood ran down the metal spike.

And the door swung open.

Chapter 43

The room was dark.  A desk sat at one end upon a really expensive carpet, probably stolen from some rich guy eaten centuries ago.  The walls were lined with shelves and books.  Sitting on a pedestal in a plaster niche lit like something out of a gawdamned movie was the jade lion.

Killian stood next to me as we stared at it in silence.

It was the size of a pint glass, absolutely unremarkable to look at.  It could have been mistaken for a Chinatown souvenir.  But, man, there was a glow whenever I looked at that thing.  It was radiating green like someone had turned on a porch light to welcome me home.

More minutes passed as Killian and I looked at it.

“This is such a trap,” I said.

“Yes.”

“There is no way that they would leave this thing so weakly protected.”

“No,” Killian said as he gave me a slow smile and walked over to the statue, do or die.  He picked it up gingerly, as if waiting for some siren to go off or a cage to descend, but neither happened.

Instead, he just lifted it up, and then slowly walked back towards me.

“I say we go home,” he offered.

But that’s when the shift happened.  Or the alignment. 

As soon as Killian was standing next to me with that jade lion’s eyes facing the same way as my eyes, the wall between the worlds opened up like an automatic door at a discount shopping center.

I had never felt anything so easy.

One minute, I was looking at Vaclav’s library shelves.  The next, I was staring through a portal at the psychedelic painted buildings and swaying palm trees of Venice Beach.

I stepped into the portal, but instead of the paper thinness I usually felt in the border, it was like a glitter tunnel of rainbow lights.  Just this one lion was able to harmonize with my innate talent and hold the portal with a stability that I never experienced on my own.  I felt my vampire disguise melt away and my true self return.

I stood in this bubble between the two worlds.

“It’s strange,” said Killian.  “I can see right through you.”

I let myself sink into the other time-ness of this middle dimension.  I kept my eyes towards the gardens, but rather than moving forward, I stuck my hand out to the side.

And felt fingers grasp mine.

I put a foot in front of me and stepped over to Earth.  It felt like I was pushing through mud.  I did not let go of that hand.

I strained against the great vacuum trying to pull him back into the middle dimension.  Sweat prickled on my brow.

“Keep going, Maggie.  You have almost got him!”

And then suddenly, we were out.  I turned.  Standing there almost glowing in the California sun was my dad. He looked haggard and worn.  But it was him.

And in his hand was the diamond lion.

Chapter 44

“Maggie-girl?” his hands went to my face, as if unable to believe it was really me.

“Dad?”

“I didn’t know if you would ever know what had happened...”

Killian cleared his throat, “Should I come over?”

And then there was a sound in the Other Side office.  I turned and saw a guy who looked eerily like a younger version of my dad step through the door.

“Ulrich...” my dad hoarsely whispered.

“I think you should stay!” Ulrich roared.

I screamed, “Killian, come through!”

A blast shattered across the room and hit Killian, knocking him to the ground.  But Killian didn’t let go of the jade lion and the statue’s gaze held open the portal.

“Dad?” I asked, turning to him.

Dad was no match for Ulrich right now.  We both knew it.  This was going to have to be my fight.

“Dad, I’ll be right back...”

Dad saw the resolve in my eyes and smiled, “That’s my Maggie-girl.”

He lifted the diamond lion.  Energy crackled across the portal as its power connected across dimensions with the jade lion.  He gave me a nod and I jumped through to the Other Side.

Uncle Ulrich laughed as he saw me come through, “Well, well, well.  If it isn’t my long lost niece.  I had such hopes for you...”

“Where is my mom?” I asked as I pulled my sai out of my boot tops.

“You mean that animal your father lay with?”

“Come on.  That’s my mom you’re talking about,” I said.

Uncle Ulrich pulled a sword down from the wall, “Really, if you’ve come to fight your mighty uncle, you could have done better than those little blades.”

“Yah, well, I wasn’t planning on this being the final showdown.  How did you get across?”

“My dear Maggie, it turns out that when you slaughter a room full of enough humans, you can gather enough energy to harmonize with the jade lion.  It is awfully messy and inconvenient, though, so if you’ll just hand over the diamond lion, we can both go on with our separate lives.”

“I’m afraid that I can’t do that,” I replied.

“Then I’m afraid I will have to kill you.”

“No really, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t give it to you.”

“You are repeating yourself.”

“I’m trying to tell you something, jerkface!”

We circled each other in that small room, stepping carefully over Killian.  Uncle Ulrich’s eyes squinted with hate when he saw who was standing on the other side of the border.

Dad gave him a weary little wave, “Good to see you again, brother.”

“I’m so pleased you’ll be here to witness me destroy your daughter,” said Ulrich as he attacked.

The clang of his sword against my sai sent shocks up my arm.  I really should have brought a bigger knife.  But the worst part was that the metal in my hand started to heat up.  I jerked myself away.

“OW!  Magic?  Really?”

My uncle let out an evil laugh.

“And with the laughing...?” I said.  Seriously, I would be doing the world a favor getting rid of this guy just for the maniacal cackling.  He was like a frickin’ cartoon.

Unfortunately, he bounced back like a cartoon character, too, no matter how many anvils you dropped on his head.

I saw my dad twitch forward to try to come to my rescue and I shouted back, “Dad!  No!  Keep the portal open!”

While I was distracted, Uncle was able to slash me across the upper arm.

There’s this thing about getting cut with a sword.  You don’t feel it for a second and then you see the blood and it hits you that hey, I’ve been cut with a sword. 

And then little black and white dots start floating in front of your eyes from all of the nerve endings getting sliced.

“A little flesh wound is going to stop the mighty Maggie?” he taunted.

What an asshole.  I had been on the giving end of such treatment, but the receiving end was a different matter.  Good thing I had two hands and two sai, because the one in my left hand wasn’t working so good, which wouldn’t have been such a problem if this was a pop quiz, but this was a final examination to determine whether I was going to live or bite it.

I upped my attack, blocking and jabbing with my knives.  If he needed an appendectomy, now would have been a great time because I opened him up for the surgeons with a nice little cut to his paunch, no co-pay required.

Unfortunately, it just pissed him off.  And that’s when he started fighting dirty.  A vase came flying at my head and I ducked just in time for it to miss me, watch it shatter against the wall, and turn back to Ulrich to block his incoming blade.  Then a chair came sliding across the room, knocking me off my feet.

And the thing about it is that after years of scrabbling with vampires, I wasn’t above playing dirty, too.

Must be genetic.

I gave him a kick right in the boo-boo that I had just given him.  He clutched his side and backed up, giving me a chance to jump to my feet and attack.  I wasn’t about to give him a break out of sympathy.  Do unto others and shit because sometimes they’ll do unto you.

He seemed to be able to handle my two hands pretty good, but was completely screwed trying to block two arms and two feet.  Meanwhile, I was having a devil of a time blocking all of the stuff he was causing to fly at me.  I hoped to god that Killian’s unconscious body wasn’t getting impaled by anything too dangerous.  I would have loved to have helped him out, but I was kind of overwhelmed at the moment.

The backing and forthing was relentless.

I was getting tired and I could see my uncle was, too.

And then I saw a look in his eye and knew that this was it.  He was going for broke.  He lifted up his sword and swung it at my neck.  The sonofabitch was going to decapitate me!

I instinctually raised my sai to block the blow, but his sword came too fast.

It hit my neck with a nasty “chunk” sound.

I staggered and then fell forward, resting against Ulrich’s chest.  I looked up into his eyes and then pulled down the lace from my high Victorian neckline, “Neckguard.”

And as I gave him an apologetic smile for having to ruin Christmas, I lifted my knee and got him square in the groin.

His sword fell to the ground as he grabbed his man package.

I gave him a slight push and he staggered back, reaching out to steady himself on the wall of the portal.

“I’ll kill your father,” he gasped.

Oh, the dramatics.  I leaned over and picked up the jade lion.

“Hey, Uncle Ulrich!  One of my greatest disappointments is that as a child, you were never there to play CATCH!”

And with that, I threw that jade lion at him.

I saw his greedy little brain practically lick its lips as he reached up and caught it.  He held it over his head in triumph.

“Now Dad!” I yelled.

And Dad, after having been trapped inside that boundary for years, knew what to do.

He turned the eyes of the diamond lion away, and there was only time for a look of “Oh SHIT” to cross Uncle Ulrich’s face before the portal crashed closed on him.  And since there is no up or down in nowhere, no place for that damned jade lion to face to open up any portals, he was trapped forever, ensuring us that not only would he never show his ugly mug again, but that the lion could never fall into the hands of the wrong types of people.  Types like him.

I bent over, resting my hands on my thighs.  They suddenly started trembling uncontrollably and I collapsed onto the ground.

I looked down at my hands, where they had been burned by my heated sai.  My neckguard may have prevented my head from being lopped off, but the hit was going to leave a mark.  I took a deep breath and thanked whatever effed up god lived in whatever dimension it lived in for giving me a few more days to waste jumping between worlds.

I looked over at Killian.  I rolled him on to his side, “Hey kid, wake up.”

He moaned and his eyelids fluttered a bit.

I gave him a shake, “Come on you faker, the danger is over.”

He slowly lifted his head and winced.  He was probably sporting a banger of a concussion right now.

“How you feeling?” I asked.

He lay back down on the ground, “Like I got hit by a blast of magic.”

“Well, you’re in luck. That’s exactly how you are supposed to be feeling.”  I put out my hand, “Come on, we still have to go find my mom.”

He nodded grimly and let me haul him to his feet.  We were both limping as we made our way to the door.

“We better not run into any bad guys, because I’m liable to just let them kill me,” I moaned.

We opened the door and there were two vampires.

With a grimace, I tossed Killian a sai and we both staked the bastards before they were even able to move.

“The next bad guys.  The next bad guys I’m going to let kill me,” I said as I yanked my sai out of the vamp’s heart.

Killian wiped the goo on his trousers and returned me my improvised stake.  He then went back into the room and grabbed up Ulrich’s sword from the ground.

“I do not plan on doing any killing.  I am just going to use this as a cane so that I do not fall over,” he said.