Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3)

She drew back enough to touch his face, her fingers tracing the lines of his cheekbones. His skin had that impossible faerie smoothness that came from never having needed the touch of a razor. “Mark Blackthorn,” she said, and shivered deep in her bones at the look in his eyes. “I wish you could see yourself as I see you. You are so many things I never thought to want, but I do want them. I want all things with you.”

His arms tightened around her; he gathered her to him as if he were gathering an armful of flowers. His lips skated along her cheek, her jawline; at last their mouths met, burning hot in the cold air, and Cristina gave a little gasp at the desire that shot through her, sharp as an arrowhead.

He tasted like honey and faerie wine. They staggered backward, fetching up against a rock pile. Mark’s hands were on her gear jacket; he was undoing it, sliding his hands inside, under her shirt, as if desperate for the touch of her skin. He murmured words like “beautiful” and “perfect” and she smiled and swiped her tongue slowly across his bottom lip, making him gasp as if she had stabbed him. He groaned helplessly and pulled her tighter.

The Sensor buzzed, loud and long.

They sprang apart, gasping. Cristina zipped her jacket with shaking hands as Mark bent awkwardly to seize the Sensor. It buzzed again and they both whirled, staring.

“No mames,” she whispered. The buzzer made another, insistent noise, and something hit her hard from the side.

It was Mark. He’d knocked her to the ground; they both rolled sideways over the bumpy, pitted earth as something massive and shadowy rose above them. Black wings spread like ragged shadows. Cristina shoved herself up on her elbow, yanked a runed dagger from her belt, and flung it.

There was a cawing scream. Witchlight lit the sky; Mark was on his knees, a rune-stone in his hand. Above them a massive white-faced demon trailing feathers like a shadowy cloak of rags flapped its wings; the hilt of Cristina’s dagger protruded from its chest. Its outline was already beginning to blur as it screeched again, clawing at the hilt with a taloned claw, before folding up like paper and vanishing.

“Harpyia demon,” said Mark, leaping to his feet. He reached down to help Cristina up after him. “Probably hiding in the rocks. That’s why the Sensor didn’t pick it up well.”

“We should go.” Cristina glanced around. “Judging by the Sensor, there are more.”

They began to jog toward the dirt trail, Cristina glancing back over her shoulder to see if anything was following them.

“I just want to make it clear that I did not engineer the interruption of the Harpyia demon,” Mark said, “and was indeed eager to continue with our sexual congress.”

Cristina sighed. “Good to know.” She cut sideways through some low sagebrush. In the far distance, she could see the metal gleam of the parked truck.

Mark’s footsteps slowed. “Cristina. Look.”

She glanced around. “I don’t see—”

“Look down,” he said, and she did.

She remembered thinking that her boots had crunched oddly on the sand. Now she realized that it was because it wasn’t sand. A bleak moonscape stretched around them in a twenty-foot radius. The succulent plants and sagebrush were withered, gray-white as old bones. The sand looked as if it had been blasted with wildfire, and the skeletons of jackrabbits and snakes were scattered among the rocks.

“It is the blight,” said Mark. “The same blight we saw in Faerie.”

“But why would it be here?” Cristina demanded, bewildered. “What do ley lines have to do with the blight? Isn’t that faerie magic?”

Mark shook his head. “I don’t—”

A chorus of shrieking howls ripped through the air. Cristina spun, kicking up a cloud of dust, and saw shadows rising out of the desert all around them. Now Cristina could see them more closely: They resembled birds only in that they were winged. What looked like feathers were actually trailing black rags that swathed their gaunt white bodies. Their mouths were so stuffed with crooked, jagged teeth that it looked as if they were grotesquely smiling. Their eyes were popping yellow bulbs with black dot pupils.

“But the Sensor,” she whispered. “It didn’t go off. It didn’t—”

“Run,” Mark said, and they ran, as the Harpyia demons soared screeching and laughing into the sky. A rock thumped to the ground near Cristina, and another barely missed Mark’s head.

Cristina longed to turn and plunge her balisong into the nearest demon, but it was too hard to aim while they were both running. She could hear Mark cursing as he dodged rocks the size of baseballs. One slammed painfully into Cristina’s hand as they reached the truck and she jerked the door open; Mark climbed in the other side, and for a moment they sat gasping as rocks pounded down onto the truck’s cab like hailstones.

“Diana is not going to be happy about her car,” said Mark.

“We have bigger problems.” Cristina jammed the keys into the ignition; the truck started with a jerk, rolled backward—and stopped. The sound of the rocks pounding the metal roof had ceased as well, and the silence seemed suddenly eerie. “What’s going on?” she demanded, stomping down on the gas.

“Get out!” Mark shouted. “We have to get out!”

He grabbed hold of Cristina’s arm, hauling her over the center console. They both tumbled out of the passenger-side door as the truck lifted into the air, Cristina landing awkwardly half on top of Mark.

She twisted around to see that Harpyia demons had seized the truck, their claws puncturing the metal sides of the bed and digging into the window frames. The vehicle sailed into the air, the Harpyia demons shrieking and giggling as they hauled it up into the sky—and dropped it.

It spun end over end and hit the ground with a massive crash of metal and glass, rolling sideways to lie upended on the sand. One of the Harpyia had ridden it down as if it were a surfboard and still crouched, snarking and cackling, on the frame of the upside-down truck.

Cristina leaped to her feet and stalked toward the truck. As she got closer, she could smell the stink of spilling gasoline. The Harpyia, too stupid to realize the danger, turned its dead-white, grinning face toward her. “The rocks are our place,” it hissed at her. “Poisoned. The best place.”

“Cállate!” she snapped, unsheathed her longsword, and sliced off its head.

Ichor exploded upward in a spray even as the Harpyia’s body folded up and winked out of existence. The other demons howled and dived; Cristina saw one of them dive-bombing Mark and screamed his name; he leaped onto a rock and slashed out with his whip. Ichor opened a glowing seam across the Harpyia’s chest and it thumped to the sand, chittering, but another Harpyia was already streaking across the sky. Mark’s whip curled around its throat and he jerked hard, sending its head bumping like a tumbleweed among the rocks.

Something struck Cristina’s back; she screamed as her feet left the ground. A Harpyia had sunk its claws into the back of her gear jacket and was lifting her into the air. She thought of stories about how eagles flew high into the sky with their prey and then released them, letting their bodies smash open on the earth below. The ground was already receding below her with terrifying speed.

With a scream of fear and anger, she slashed up and backward with her sword, slicing the Harpyia’s claws off at the joint. The demon shrieked and Cristina tumbled through the air, her sword falling out of her hand, reaching out as if she could catch onto something to slow her fall—

Something seized her out of the sky.

She gasped as a hand caught her elbow, and she was yanked sideways to land awkwardly atop something warm and alive. A flying horse. She gasped and scrabbled for purchase, digging into the creature’s mane as it dipped and dived.

“Cristina! Stay still!”

It was Kieran shouting. Kieran was behind her, one arm lashing around her waist to pull her against him. What felt like an electric charge shot through her. Kieran was wild-eyed, his hair deep blue-black, and she realized suddenly that the horse was Windspear, even as the stallion shot downward through the crowd of Harpyia toward Mark.