“It’s a sandwich, basically,” Anyan said. “But on a roll.”
“Are they good?”
“Why don’t you find out,” Anyan said, archly, as he led me over to the small stand.
A short while later, I was in heaven.
“If you were a bacon butty, I’d marry you,” I told the barghest, although he probably couldn’t understand me as my mouth was so full.
“I have no idea what you just said,” he told me, confirming my suspicions. “But you look happy.”
“I’ve never wanted to marry a sandwich,” I said, around another huge mouthful, “but this is like sex and flour.”
“I’m sure, dear,” Anyan replied, patiently, but I could tell he was carefully monitoring our surroundings. I took another huge bite just as he swore, and began inching me behind one of the larger girders supporting the market’s roof.
I chewed as I moved, but when I saw why we were hiding, even that most delicious sandwich turned to ash in my mouth. I hastily swallowed, tamping down on my reflex to throw up a shield and prep a mage ball.
“Morrigan,” I murmured, for sure as shit there she was, right in front of us.
I couldn’t believe I’d been so arrogant, thinking this mission would be easy. I should have knocked wood—and by wood, I mean my wooden head. It had just been so tempting to think, this morning, that this would be a vacation. That we’d spend the rest of our time here going on dates and occasionally working, only to have the relics plop in our laps with little effort.
Plus, we’d all been so sure the Alfar would send someone else. Alfar never did things for themselves when they could send a minion. They just didn’t. So why was Morrigan here, anyway?
She looked gorgeous, of course, but very different than she had at the Compound. Her lithe figure was clad in a beautiful green dress that clung to her form on top, but swirled out into a kicky, fun little skirt that came just to her knees. The outfit was capped off by a pair of toweringly high heels: all gold but for a matching green jewel pattern in a T-bar across her arch.
I couldn’t stop staring at her, my eyes roving, taking everything in. It was shocking to see her again after everything that happened. The last time I’d clapped eyes on her, after all, she was murdering her husband and king, Orin. But now, here she was—not only looking happy, but really looking happy, in a way that wasn’t at all Alfar.
What happened to the dead-eyed, mostly comatose woman who’d drifted around the Compound making vague pronouncements on issues I thought she didn’t really give a shit about? That Morrigan had been replaced by a sharp-eyed sex-vixen.
The two guards flanking her were goblins, their tall, bony frames clothed in the sort of anonymous dark suits worn by the Secret Service. The goblins’ yolk-yellow eyes scanned the crowd ceaselessly, and they looked ready to take care of anyone they might come across. Behind Morrigan were another three guards: I couldn’t tell exactly what factions they were, yet, but they looked just as serious in their own dark suits as did the goblins.
My eyes itched to return to Morrigan, but I refused. Instead, I carefully assessed our surroundings and our positioning.
Gog was still doing his sweeping thing, but his body was stiff. Blondie was watching the proceedings from over her newspaper, the tension in her arms betraying her awareness. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Magog, shielded from Morrigan’s party by a massive steel buttress, edge her way forward. She wasn’t wearing her overcoat, and her wings fell about her like a wash of coal.
We had good placement in the market, I decided, but the location itself was the worst place to be for a real fight. At twenty minutes after eight, Borough market was already bustling with stall owners and employees, a few tourists, and quite a few people on their way to work, picking up a coffee at one of the various little cafés dotted here and there.
In other words, there would be quite a lot of collateral damage if this turned into a shit storm.
“What do we do?” I whispered. Morrigan was talking quietly to Reggie, who was clenching something inside of his coat, his arms wrapped around himself protectively. “We can’t let her get out of here with that book,” I hissed, just as Blondie put down her paper and made a series of gestures that looked like the signals of a catcher in baseball.
“And we’re not going to let her,” Anyan said. “Time to get that ax out, Jane. Just don’t do anything crazy.”
Without thinking, I hastily shrugged off my backpack and unzipped it to get to the labrys. Blondie was standing, and Gog was unscrewing the wooden handle of his broom from its brush. Meanwhile, Magog was inching forward on her little platform, obviously getting ready to fly.
I swore as the zipper stuck, finally wrenching it free so I could open my pack. The labrys felt like it was waiting for me; like it was calling. With tangible relief I pulled it out, feeling its heavy weight go light in my grip as its magic melded with mine.
“Ready?” Anyan said, his voice gone low and growly.
I nodded.
“Watch for Blondie’s signal,” he said.
“What’s that going to be?” I asked, only to have my question answered by Blondie herself.
For suddenly the woman dressed like a conservative exec lit up like a Christmas tree, and the Original lofted one of the most potent mage balls I’d ever laid eyes upon. It was easy to forget how powerful Blondie was, as she never threw her weight around. But feeling the power radiating off that orb was a sharp reminder that the Original was something other than we were, and not to be taken for granted. I watched in awe as she lobbed her supercharged mage ball straight at Morrigan.
Less fun to watch was one of the goblins throwing himself in the way of the missile, and the way he exploded in midair, body parts flying everywhere. His shields had been no match for the Original’s power.
The next few minutes were a complete blur. Magog shot past us, harrying the two guards that had been behind Morrigan before they were knocked away by the blast. The raven herded them away using rapid-fire mage balls that flowed like machine gun bullets from her hands.
Gog, meanwhile, was taking care of the remaining goblin, who’d armed himself with a sword he’d pulled from somewhere inside his suit jacket. The coblynau had unscrewed the handle of the broom, and had reinforced the wooden handle with his own powerful earth magics. It glowed a dull green as he battled his opponent, their hits blurring they were so quick.
That left Anyan and me to handle the remaining guard, and Blondie to take Morrigan and Reggie. Considering Reggie was way out of his depth here, that should have been easy.
In fact, I was pretty confident striding towards the remaining guard, who was pacing towards us manfully. Granted, I was behind Anyan, whom I figured would do all the work.
Left to handle the big guns, Blondie was making a beeline towards Morrigan. The Original’s arm practically blurred as she threw those crazily powerful mage balls.
This should be over quickly, I thought, only to have my world—quite literally—thrown upside down.
I landed, with a painful thud, upside down on top of Anyan. Nothing had broken his fall, and when I’d managed to scramble off of him—I was reeling like a drunken sailor—it took him a second to get to his feet. When he did he looked pretty bashed up. I felt a strong pull from his earth magics as he healed himself, then did the same to me as a precaution.
Only then did I register what happened. It was like a bomb had gone off, with Morrigan at its epicenter. And yet she was left standing, laughing maniacally like some stereotype villain as she surveyed the chaos she’d created. The stalls immediately surrounding her were overturned, and I saw a number of forms strewn about. I hoped they were all just knocked around, like us, and not dead.
Very dimly I thought I heard a variety of sirens, car horns, and some screams, but it was like I was underwater.
“What the fuck was that?” I shouted, or at least I thought I had. My voice sounded far away, so I shook my head trying to clear my hearing.
“Morrigan,” Anyan mouthed. I shook my head again and forced myself to yawn, and suddenly the world was blaring with sound. “Doing something she shouldn’t be able to do, even as an Alfar. Where’s your ax?”
I frowned, looking around till I saw the labrys’s handle sticking out from underneath a recycling bin that had blown towards us. I went to grab it, feeling a wild power surge up my arm as I did so.
“Whoa!” I shouted, feeling like I’d just stuck my finger in a light socket. “It’s not happy about something!” I told Anyan, as the labrys urged me forward. But I dug in my heels, watching as Morrigan tucked something large under her arm.
A book.
“Oh, hell no,” I yelled, and this time I charged with it as the labrys carried me forward. Anyan followed on my heels.
Catching sight of me, Morrigan grinned. That grin faltered, however, when she saw what I was carrying. The labrys had lit up when I’d grabbed it, but now it went supernova as if recognizing an enemy.
Morrigan took off, so ridiculously spry on her high heels that I found another reason to hate her. Two of her remaining guards joined her as she ran, stumbling a bit themselves. She’d obviously not shielded them from whatever blast she’d set off.