Page 110 of Shield of Fire

Mkalkee’s scent. They were still using this place.

A weird mix of anger, trepidation, and perhaps even anticipation swept through me. I wasn’t entirely sure the latter was due to my need to get back at these bastards for all the damage they’d done recently. The “unsmudging” of my memories had given me a brief, tantalizing glimpse of the good times we’d all had here. They might be extremely dangerous people, but they had been, even back then. And there was definitely a part of me that had enjoyed the danger. Had enjoyed the darkness.

At least until it all went to hell on a broomstick. Or knifepoint, as the case had been.

A flicker of movement caught my attention. I glanced around and spotted the rat sitting in the shadows of one of the tables. I gave him a nod—and hoped even as I did that it was Sgott’s man and not some random rodent—and then carefully stepped onto the top stair.

The door behind me closed, taking with it what little light there’d been to illuminate the stairs. I got out my phone but didn’t immediately turn on its flashlight, listening instead to the silence and trying to get some sense of whether either man was here.

Nothing.

Of course, they might well have a sound screen activated. I guess the only way to find out was to head on down.

I drew in a deeper breath, then hit the flashlight button. Light swept the darkness away, so bright it made me blink.

The stairwell’s stone was clean and dry, and there was no sign of cobwebs. The latter might be unusual, given cellar spiders were generally found in most basements these days here in the UK, but Mkalkee had always hated them, no matter how small. He obviously still had his deterrents in place.

I carefully edged down the steps, keeping my back to the wall as much as practical, wary of any traps that might be waiting. There hadn’t been any the last time I’d come down, but lots of things had changed in the forty-odd years since then. They’d grown darker; I’d grown wiser.

Or at least, I hoped I had.

I neared the bottom of the steps and paused again. A wall of darkness rose a few feet away from the last step, reflecting the light back at me and preventing me from seeing what lay beyond. It wasn’t new, but I’d always hated going through it. The pair of them would often have some sort of magical “trap” waiting for me. Generally, they’d been simple spells, designed to discomfort rather than physically hurt—like ensuring my clothes were torn away the minute I stepped into the room, leaving me naked and with nothing to return home in unless I begged them for clothes—but the specter of those past humiliations nevertheless rose.

Why the fuck had I put up with the pair of them for so damn long? Had they been so damn good in the sack I’d been willing to ignore their shit?

Or was, I thought suddenly, it more of an addiction? I’d always fancied dark elves, before them and after. Dark elf magnetism was an undeniable force, and it could sometimes make you do things sexually that you might not otherwise consider. There’d certainly been instances of women—and men—becoming so hooked on the sensation that they basically became groupies. And there were plenty of dark elves who saw no problem in supplying the drug of choice. They did like their harems, after all. Cynwrig was a case in point.

And yet, while it would be so easy to place all the blame on their magnetism and my own lack of age and maturity, it would be a lie. There’d been something within me—a darkness that resided deep, deep down inside me—that had responded to the darkness within them.

I drew a knife. I had no idea if they would work against the sort of magic that might await, but I still felt better gripping the hilt.

With another of those useless breaths to shore up my courage, I moved down the final few steps and through that curtain of darkness.

Nothing happened. No magical traps fell around me.

Relief rose, but I quickly squashed it. Just because there wasn’t a trap here didn’t mean there wouldn’t be others elsewhere.

The chamber—a combined living and kitchen area—wasn’t dark, as there were several small sensor lights scattered about the room, and the one close to this entrance had activated when I’d entered. There were other chambers within the underground complex—bedrooms, bathrooms, and a “play” room—but they’d all been excavated beyond the footprint of the building above.

My gaze swept across the familiar room. The TV was new, as were the paintings on the wall. The sofa and kitchen were not. Memories surged and a frisson of... fear? excitement?... ran through me. We’d had plenty of good times in this room.

I gripped the knife a little tighter and walked over to the kitchen. The light near the entrance winked out when the one sitting on the nearby counter went on. There were dishes sitting on the sink’s drainer, but they were all bone dry. I moved over to the kettle and lightly touched its side. It was warm. At least one of them had been here very recently.

I flexed my fingers around the knife hilt, then moved around the counter and headed for the doorway leading into the other chambers.

The air stirred in gentle warning, and I froze.

Someone was coming.

Someone who smelled of earth, sweet wood, and muskiness.

Mkalkee.

I stepped back, but as I moved, magic surged. The knives came to bright, fierce life, a warning I didn’t really need. The spell coming at me, whatever the hell it was, felt foul.

I drew the second blade and braced myself, the knife spitting fiery sparks to the solid earthen floor. As the spell erupted from the darkness, I raised the knives and sliced them crossways through it. Bits of shattered magic fell like confetti to the floor.

“Well, well, well,” came a smooth, darkly familiar voice. “It looks like our little pixie has gained a stinger or two since we last saw her.”

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