Choose The Slain (The Lone Valkyrie Book 2) Read online

  The Rougarou was immolated in the name of Mila’s conviction, as a pillar of flame consumed its howling body to ash in seconds.

  Mila's shield protected her from the intense heat, but several of the wooden picnic tables burst into flame as the intense heat of her spell washed over them.

  Mila dropped her shield and sprinted forward, only to come up short when goblins appeared behind the thralls attacking the Market defenders and stabbed them with knives and spears. They made quick work of the thralls, then sucked in deep breaths to vanish from sight to find their next targets.

  A smile spread across Mila's face. Remmy hadn’t abandoned her; she had gone for reinforcements. A wash of shame overcame Mila as she realized she had assumed the worst of Remmy, and her smile fell.

  In the midst of her turmoil, Mila didn’t notice the three small, black, diamond-shaped missiles zip through the smoke roiling off the picnic tables until they slammed into her stomach, blasting her off her feet as they exploded into a shower of black shards.

  Several of the slivers sliced into her arms and legs, and two small shards hit her face. One sliced her cheek open and the other ripped through the cartilage of her ear, leaving the top in two ragged pieces.

  Yaminah stepped out from behind the burning tables and sneered down at Mila where she lay on her back, trying to figure out what had just happened.

  “You’re a real problem for me, Mila.” Yaminah’s sneer twisted into anger.

  “Glad I could be of service.” Mila felt short of breath and coughed up a little blood, which she spit at Yaminah’s feet.

  “I hate the witty ones,” the tall woman growled.

  She held out a palm towards Mila's chest. “I have to say I’m impressed you survived that first attack. It’s usually enough to take anyone out in the first go. Just speaks to your stubborn nature, I suppose. Don't worry, a second round will end your interference quickly enough.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Mila needed to buy a little time. She was faking the pain to keep Yaminah off guard, but Mila knew she had some serious injuries that needed tending to. However, Mila had come to the Market to find out if anyone knew where Azoth might be, and lo and behold his disciple showed up with an army. Maybe she could get the woman to talk before she tried to kill her.

  “Azoth is obsessed with you. Somehow you thwarted him, and now he is driven to distraction trying to punish you. It’s getting in the way and making him sloppy. I have to do what I can to protect him, and you are currently his biggest threat.”

  Mila blinked in confusion a few times. “Wow, I didn’t think you were going to actually answer that.”

  Mila saw behind Yaminah that the last of the thralls were going down to goblins. A familiar figure caught her eye as Remmy appeared behind one of the last two Rougarou and sunk two silver daggers into its kidneys. They made eye contact, and Remmy quickly looked at Yaminah’s back before giving Mila a nod and sucking in a breath. She vanished as the Rougarou fell to the ground, gouts of blood pouring from the two stab wounds.

  Mila focused on Yaminah, who shook with either rage or anticipation, Mila couldn't tell which. “I don’t suppose you would tell me where Azoth is right now.”

  She smiled and took a step backward, her hand wavering slightly. “That would be a little too easy, don’t you think, Valkyrie? You have to earn a battle with the Lord.”

  Mila felt like there might be just enough room for her to make a move, but it all depended on how fast Yaminah could get a spell off. That gave Mila an idea.

  As she spread her hand out on the floor, Mila quickly channeled magic into another flame spell. This time she focused on making it quick rather than powerful. Mila felt a small drain on her stores of magic as she released her power and intention. A column of fire shot up under Yaminah’s feet.

  The woman saw it coming from a mile away, of course, and simply stepped back to let the flame jet mere inches from her.

  Mila had figured the spell-caster would see it coming, so while she had created the fire spell, she had also boosted her own speed. As soon as the flame jet shot out of the floor, Mila rolled backward onto her feet, yanked the Ivar from its holster, and shot a bolt of raw power into the column of fire as it began to die out.

  The fire went out as the small amount of magic ran out, but Yaminah wasn’t there.

  “I thought you might have been the one, but you were far too obvious,” Yaminah breathed into Mila’s ear from behind, just before she jammed a short knife into her back and twisted it.

  Mila’s breath caught in her throat, as the shock of the wound broke through her pain dampening for the briefest of seconds.

  “Too bad, really. You were kind of cute for such a self-righteous bit—”

  Yaminah’s harsh whisper turned to a scream of pain as she shoved Mila forward into a stumbling fall. Mila twisted as she hit the ground and saw the cause of Yaminah’s pain. Remmy stood behind her, the two long silver daggers plunged into her back. The blade tips poked out of Yaminah’s stomach.

  Her scream turned to a snarling growl as she lifted a leg and mule kicked Remmy in the chest, to send her crashing into one of the burning tables, taking the daggers with her.

  Remmy rolled out of the fire unscathed but clutched one of her daggers to her chest as she rubbed the spot Yaminah had kicked.

  The tall woman stumbled slightly and quickly took stock of the battlefield. There were only two thralls left, and they went down as she watched. Her face hardened as she came to a decision.

  With a quick gesture, she opened a black void behind her.

  “We shall continue this later, Valkyrie!” She turned and ran through the teleport spell.

  Mila ignored her injuries since she had a couple of healing potions and sprinted for the still-open portal. It was her best chance to find Azoth quickly and end this before he became too powerful to do anything about.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Remmy sprinting for her and feared that the goblin would try and stop her. Mila knew it was a stupid decision to follow Yaminah to an unknown location, but it was the last chance Mila had.

  Mila opened her mouth to tell Remmy to back off, but the goblin beat her to it.

  “Get the lead out, boss lady! It’s going to close!”

  Mila blinked in surprise but quickened her step. “I knew I liked you for some reason, Remmy.”

  “Yeah, you’re just as crazy as me.”

  The goblin woman leaped forward and tackled Mila, giving her just enough forward momentum to take them both into the black void before the portal snapped shut with a sizzling pop.

  Chapter Ten

  Michelle Lister sat behind the counter at Chincoteague Beachwear with the front doors open to let a nice late spring breeze blow through the place.

  It was still early for most shoppers, especially since it had been an unusually cold spring, and tourism had been down so far that season, especially for beach activities. The scooter rentals were still strong, but the store itself had been dead since she had started working there for the season.

  Michelle pushed her glasses up her nose, turned the page of her Anthropology 333 textbook, put the end of her highlighter in her mouth, and chewed it as she read about the socio-economic ramifications of Genghis Khan’s implementation of religious freedom in his empire. It was much more boring than the description led one to expect.

  So, when the door darkened with a customer, she took the first chance she had had all day to quit reading the dry text and quickly marked her page, then slid the book onto the counter.

  Her jaw dropped open as the largest man she had ever seen in real life entered the store. He didn't have to duck when he came through the door, but it was a close thing. He had a full beard and sharp brown eyes. He sniffed and ran a hand through his slightly shorter than shoulder length hair to reveal an undercut that went all the way around his head.

  He spotted her behind the counter and smiled.

  She felt her heart flutter at that smile. �
�Hi. Can I help you find anything?”

  He walked over to the counter, slipped a large green hiking pack off his back, and put it on the floor beside the counter. “Hello, Michelle. I’m looking for some beachwear.”

  Michelle was suddenly suspicious that her friends had sent this guy in to mess with her. How did he know her name? This was probably the work of Ginna. That bitch always… Then she remembered she had a nametag on.

  “Um,” for some reason, her voice wasn't working properly, “well, you came to the right place.”

  His good-natured laugh was genuine. “I gathered that from the name.” He spotted her textbook and brightened up. “No way! My girlfriend is an anthropologist. Is that what you’re studying to be?”

  Michelle nodded. “Yeah. I’m in my first year of my master’s. Where does your girlfriend work?”

  “The Denver Museum of Nature and Science. To be honest, she’s been on sabbatical since we met, so I haven’t gotten to see her in action yet. She really likes it, though. Sometimes she gets caught up in some obscure detail in a show we’re watching and talks through the whole thing, trying to explain it.” He started chuckling. “It’s pretty cute.”

  That sounded annoying to Michelle.

  “Yeah. I know what you mean,” she lied. “Uh, well, to be honest, we haven’t gotten the new shipment of suits in yet this year; it’s been a slow start to the season. But if you want to look at what we have left, they’re over there. The men’s section is from the middle rack all the way to the back.”

  “Thanks, Michelle. My name’s Finn, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you, Finn. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”

  “Actually,” he lifted the backpack onto the counter, “do you mind if I leave this here while I shop?”

  She shook her head. “I don't mind.”

  “Thanks.” He turned and walked down the aisle to the men’s section.

  Michelle watched him checking sizes, then quickly move down the line.

  “Wow, you weren’t kidding. It’s slim pickings over here.” She saw him pull something off the rack and look it over. “These’ll work. Do you have a changing room?”

  Michelle pointed to the curtained-off rooms at the back of the store. “Back there.”

  “Thanks. Oh, these look nice.” He pulled a pair of leather flip-flops from a rack and took them with him to the changing room.

  Michelle went back to reading but couldn’t help wondering what Finn looked like without his shirt. He looked pretty cut from what she could see of his fitted black t-shirt. She didn’t have to wait long.

  “Perfect fit. I’ll take them. Oh, and this.”

  She looked up and began to choke. Finn had changed out of his street clothes and carried them folded up under his arm. He now wore the flip-flops and a black speedo that left nothing to the imagination. He passed by a rack of ladies’ hats and found a huge floppy sun yellow hat that he now stretched over his large head. With his chiseled abs and tiny black Speedo, he looked downright scandalous, but as soon as he put on the yellow sun hat, he transformed into something wholesome.

  It was confusing. Almost like magic.

  Finn stopped at the coolers and picked out a six-pack of craft beer, then grabbed a koozie to go along with them. Once he put everything on the counter, he began to pack it all into his empty backpack.

  “What do I owe you?”

  Michelle rang it all up, doing her best to not stare. “Um, it’ll be a hundred and seventeen fifty.”

  He handed her two hundreds.

  “Keep the change, Michelle.” He slung the backpack onto his bare back. “Keep studying. I think you’ll like anthropology. The world is a far more mysterious place than you know. Have a good one.”

  He gave her a friendly wave and a smile, then he was gone.

  Michelle stared at the spot he had last been standing in for a full minute before she moved. She finally sat on her stool and shook her head in disbelief.

  “Those Speedos were so tight!”

  Penny fed a small stream of power into the cone-shaped shield she had created to act as a windbreak. It was a pretty simple spell she’d found on a website deep in the dark corners of the web and had adapted to make a cone out of it. So far, she was really happy with its performance.

  The thing most people didn't understand about dragons was that there was no limit to how much power they could use in a spell, so long as they had the magic to use. That might not seem like a great advantage, considering most creatures had access to basically unlimited magic, while a dragon’s magic was based on how much food they could convert to magical energy. But, like most things in the universe, it was all in how you looked at it.

  Right now, Penny was flying across the country, but she didn’t want to fly for hours, so she just channeled more power into her flight speed. A Peabrain, for example, if they could fly, would only be able to reach a certain speed, but they could do it forever. Penny, on the other hand, could keep dumping magic into one aspect of her flight, the speed, so she could go as fast as she wanted. While she would eventually run out of magic to use, until then, she could use that power however she chose.

  Right now she had chosen to fly at Mach two, which made the cone-shield wonderful since it cut down on her drag and protected her from air friction.

  On glancing down, Penny saw the southern shore of Louisiana off in the distance to her right. And the sprawl of New Orleans coming up fast.

  Slowing her speed down to something much more manageable took a few seconds, but once she’d dropped into the sub-five hundred mile-an-hour range, she reached over her shoulder, pulled her new phone from the backpack she had fashioned just to be able to carry it conveniently, and turned it on. She already had the map with the coordinates pulled up and checked it against her position. With a satisfied nod, she put the phone away and flicked her wings into a dive headed for the middle of the bayou.

  The ground came up fast as she aimed for an opening between two giant cypress trees. As the canopy shot past in a blur, Penny tilted her wings up and leveled off just a foot above the water in a move that would have made a fighter pilot shit himself with fright.

  As she glanced behind her, Penny smiled when she saw how her high-speed passage sucked the water up into a rooster tail that shot into the air about twenty feet or so for a few yards.

  She zoomed across the swamp at mind-numbing speeds, until she caught a glimpse of what she was looking for from the corner of her eye. She put on the brakes by flaring her wings and slowed from several hundred miles an hour to a hover in less than a hundred feet.

  She scanned the area where she had seen the shimmer. When she squinted just right, she saw it again. She headed in that direction at a much slower pace than before as she looked for signs of any traps or warning alarms. She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  As she got closer, the shimmer became a dome of weak magical energy. Penny had to admit the spell was impressive. It seemed to be a modified concealment spell that worked much like the artifact she and Finn had used to cloak their old ship, the Anthem. This spell didn’t use an artifact but seemed to be powered directly by the lush swamp itself. It was just the kind of thing Penny would have done.

  Seeing the imaginative use of magic convinced her that she was on the right track.

  At the spell’s edge, Penny hesitated, not wanting to disturb the magic and accidentally collapse the spell. After another look, Penny realized the spell was far more robust than she’d initially thought, and she felt confident she could pass through without a problem.

  With a deep breath, she moved forward with a flap of her wings. She could feel the static charge of the spell passing over her skin and shivered. As soon as she had passed through the barrier, the empty section of swamp covered by the dome was suddenly not empty.

  Under the dome, two huge cypress trees towered a hundred feet into the air with trunks ten or twelve feet across at the base. While the trees were impressive on their own, t
he house built into their branches struck Penny as the true marvel.

  The house might only be one story tall, but it had been built between and around the trunks to cover thousands of square feet. It hung about fifty feet above the swamp, on which a small boathouse and dock floated, a simple dingy tied to the dock.

  The house itself had been made of glass and steel and looked like something that should be in downtown Singapore rather than in the bayous of Louisiana. A wide deck jutted out from the house on all sides, providing additional floor space filled with lawn furniture in clustered groups. The most amazing thing about the deck was that a full-sized pool had been built into it and filled to the brim with crystal clear water, but when Penny looked below the deck, the part where the tank should be showing didn’t exist.

  If the giant concealment spell weren’t a sure giveaway, then the magical swimming pool was proof enough that this was not just some eccentric billionaire’s house.

  Penny slowly circled the house from above just to take it all in before she went in for introductions.

  Beside the pool, reclining on a lounge chair, Penny spotted a tall, slender woman in a white bikini and large black sunglasses. Her pixie-cut hair had been dyed a vibrant blue that matched her finger and toenail polish.

  As Penny circled closer, she saw that the woman had a tattoo just below her belly button that Penny recognized as the crest of the Breck family. This was the right place.

  On deciding just get it over with, Penny dropped the last dozen feet and landed on the deck rail on the opposite side of the pool from the woman.

  The entire side of the house had glass doors that folded open so that interior and the deck were all one space. Penny spotted a slightly pudgy man with curly blond hair wearing a pink Henley and khaki cargo shorts sitting inside at a white marble kitchen island. He worked on a laptop, tapping at the keys at an impressive rate.