Liberation Read online

  Liberation

  Debra Dunbar

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Debra Dunbar

  Chapter 1

  “Hold still.” Nyalla applied the antibiotic cream to the cut above Telly’s eye, trying her best to forget that he was an elf. A young elf. If he’d been human, he would have been around sixteen. If he’d been human, he would have been dead. Telly had been beaten with a severity that resulted in broken bones, a concussion, and probably internal bleeding. But elves were sturdy. And they could heal themselves almost as well as angels could, which made Telly’s lingering bruises and abrasions a mystery.

  “They didn’t go quietly,” Lysile told Nyalla. “The other elves fought back when they were taken. I don’t know if the high lord has offered them any medical attention or not.”

  Nyalla sighed. The high elves had descended on them like one of those military SWAT teams, subduing and taking the elves camping in the pasture before trying to take the three holed up in the house. Luckily Boomer had defended them. It helped to have a hellhound in the house.

  “As in elven medical attention? I’ve seen common elves heal themselves. I can’t believe they would have been injured to the point that they’d need a high elf to help them.”

  Telly’s wounds puzzled her. After spending eighteen years of her life as a changeling slave to the elves in Hel, Nyalla had never known them to be unable to heal cuts and bruises in a matter of minutes.

  Lysile exchanged a worried glance with her son. “This place is…odd. It’s not like Hel. Our magic is stunted. They could have subdued us with spells, but they used their fists and impact weapons. I don’t think it’s just us. I think the high elves might not be as powerful here, either.”

  That gave Nyalla pause. Elves scared her. She’d barely been able to stay in the house once Sam had brought nearly fifty of them to camp out in the field. Then when Lysile had been injured in a vampire attack and needed to convalesce in the house…staying under the same roof with someone of the race that had enslaved her since infancy hadn’t been easy.

  But Lysile wasn’t like her former master or his friends, and her son, Telly, seemed kind and respectful, so Nyalla had shoved down her fear and forced herself to give them a chance to prove themselves different. And so far, they had.

  “Sam will be back soon. She’ll go to Crystal City and bring your friends back. Nobody takes what Sam claims as hers. Nobody.” Nyalla tried to keep her voice strong and confident, but she was scared. Sam was a demon, an imp. She was also the Iblis, the Ha-Satan, the leader of Hel. Well, the leader in name if not in practice. None of the other demons outside her household seemed to care about her title. And as tough as the imp was, Nyalla wasn’t sure how she’d fare single-handedly against a group of high elves.

  Besides, she wasn’t here, and Nyalla wasn’t sure Sam was coming back. Her vision blurred and she blinked away tears. The imp, her best friend, the demon who was like a mother to her, had gone to Aaru with a legion of demons to fight with her angel in their war. Who knows how long an angelic battle would last. And who knows if Sam would survive. Nyalla gritted her teeth and pushed down her fear. What would her life be like if Sam didn’t return? If the powerful angel who loved her lost his fight? If the high elves took over this world and enslaved the humans, just as she’d been enslaved for most of her life?

  But she couldn’t do anything to prevent that. She could do nothing but dab antibiotic cream on Telly’s cuts and wait, hoping that Sam’s luck continued and she returned.

  “What if she doesn’t come back?” Lysile twisted her hands together, echoing Nyalla’s fears. “I don’t want to be a part of what the high elves are planning. I want to live peaceably with the humans. I don’t want to enslave them, and neither did any of the others the high elves took. But if they resist, they’ll be killed. They might be killed anyway. We’re not powerful. We’re not skilled. I don’t think we hold any value to the high elves beyond our use as arrow fodder.”

  Nyalla’s stomach twisted at the thought. She put two narrow adhesive strips across one of Telly’s cuts, holding it together in the sort of butterfly bandage she’d seen on the internet. “She’ll be back.”

  What if she didn’t come back? Events were in motion and if everything continued on the same trajectory, humanity would be under the brutal thumb of the elves. Nyalla might not be able to do anything to stop it, but she couldn’t sit by and do nothing. A pebble might not change the course of a river, but at least she’d feel like she made an effort.

  “I’ll go. I’ll go to Crystal City and bring your friends back.”

  Lysile’s hand shot out to grab Nyalla’s. She heard Telly gasp. “You would? We’ll help. I’ll help. Anything I can do, let me know. I may be new to this world, but I’m brave and I’m willing to fight for my people.”

  Nyalla swallowed her fear. She’d faced down demons, put a ghoul back in the grave. She’d subdued a dragon. She’d taken down an angel. For a girl with no magic, she’d managed to accomplish quite a lot. But this… this was facing elves. It was her greatest fear, far greater than demons or angels or ghouls.

  “I’m going to go. I’m going to bring your friends back. And yes, I could use your help.”

  “No. Just no.”

  Nyalla hid a smile, because Wyatt might say “no” to his long lost sister, but he never truly meant it.

  “There’s no way a group of elves transported forty-one other elves into Northern Virginia without someone noticing. In fact, if there’s a group of high elves in Crystal City, there has to be some noise in the underground. Seriously, Wyatt. A bunch of pointy-eared, non-English speaking people wearing Renn Fair clothing has got to draw attention.”

  Wyatt hesitated, turning his eyes to the computer. It was his greatest tell. Whenever her brother was about to lie, he could never look her in the eye. “It’s DC, Nyalla. Nobody pays attention to that sort of thing. They’re all too busy worrying about what congressman is sleeping with which intern.”

  She waited, watching her brother squirm in his chair and run a hand through his dark-blond hair.

  “No.” He said, breaking the silence. “Nyalla, you’ve been through so much. You were stolen from your crib and taken to Hel. You spent eighteen years as a slave. That’s enough. Enjoy your life and your freedom. Go to college. If you want to help people you can have a career as a nurse or doctor, do social work, build low-cost housing, feed the poor. You name it and between Sam and I, we’ll make it happen. There are better ways to help than going up against supernatural creatures. You have no magic. Pick something else to do to help, but don’t go to Crystal City.”

  He just didn’t get it. “I might not have magic, but I’ve taken down an angel, a dragon, and demons.” She took a deep breath. “The elves were my captors for eighteen years. Now it’s my turn to be strong, to save the weak among them. I might not be able to defend all of humanity, but if I can rescue forty-one vulnerable elves, then I win. This is what I do. This is what makes my life worthwhile. And I’m going to do it whether you help me or not.”

  He looked up, his dark blue eyes meeting their mirror in hers. A faint smile twitched along the corner of his mouth. “I lost my heart to Satan. It’s not like I can fault you for doing the same.”

  Nyalla winced. “That’s not fair, Wyatt. I’m doing this for me, because it’s something I need to do. I know you’re still smarting because you got edged out by an angel, but don’t project that onto my friendship with her.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re right. You win, as always.” His fingers flew over the keyboard. “I’ve got a few websites I monitor that deal with extremists and conspiracy theo
rists in the DC area. There’s been some buzz on pointy-eared aliens exerting undue influence on politicians on the Hill. A few speculate that one of them has control of the president.”

  “Where are they holed up?” Nyalla asked. There had to be somewhere these elves were staying. Thirty, fifty, hundreds of elves in the DC area—they had to be clustered somewhere, and she couldn’t believe their existence would have been overlooked.

  Wyatt clicked a button and a picture enlarged on the screen. “Here.” He turned it to face her.

  It was a grainy black-and-white from what looked like a parking garage. Five individuals with long braided hair and pointy ears clustered together a respectful distance from the vehicles. Off to the side stood a woman, an elf, but unlike the others she wore modern human clothing, her hair tied up in a loose bun instead of the intricate style elves favored. Her ears weren’t pointed, but Nyalla was sure the woman was elf. There was just something in the way she stood.

  “Text it to me?” she asked. Hopefully Lysile would recognize one or more of them, even with the poor picture quality. “Are there any more?”

  Wyatt nodded. “Looks like these guys appear in the Metro station about the same time each day. No one sees them enter from the street or leave, so they’re probably keeping to the Metro tunnels or through the service entrances to the underground mall.”

  Elves underground and hanging out near the subways with their pain-inducing metals. There had to be a good reason for them to go so far out of their comfort zone, to risk injury like this. “I know they want to keep their presence in DC undercover until their big takeover attempt, but why the Metro?”

  “This station leads to the walkways that join the underground malls in Crystal City. The Metro leads almost everywhere in the DC area. The security camera system is crappy, as you can tell from these pics. And weird as it sounds, they’d blend in somewhat on the subways. This time of night it’s all drunks, third-shift workers, and exhausted late-night partiers. No one is going to bother with a group of costumed people waiting for the train. And the Metro doesn’t run twenty-four hours. If they wait for the trains to stop, they can run the tunnels by foot. Actually as fast as elves are, they probably can run them even when the trains are in service.

  “So if I head to the subway tunnels, I’ll find elves.” Nyalla reached over Wyatt to swipe to the next picture. “But where would they keep Sam’s elves? Is there a jail nearby?”

  “If it were one or two, I’d think they could just lock them into a hotel room with a guard, but forty-one are a lot of elves to keep track of.” Wyatt opened a new browser window and started typing again. “Seizing a conference room would bring notice. If they’ve got connections in the government, then they might be holding them at Andrews or Bolling.”

  Made sense. Military bases were bound to have their own detention areas, and the staff were used to keeping confidential information from the public. But something about those two locations didn’t quite fit.

  Nyalla pointed to the screen. “They’re both too far from a Metro stop. The elves would need to walk above ground, or take a car. Wouldn’t they have been seen?”

  Wyatt sighed. “You’re really determined to do this aren’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Fine. I’ve got a guy in DC that owes me a favor. He heads up a group called Plan Nine. They’re basically conspiracy theorists. Eros thinks aliens have secretly infiltrated key government agencies and have been running things for decades.”

  Great. Nyalla tried to hold back a snort of disbelief. Aliens. Her brother had some odd friends, but this had to have been the weirdest. “This is the guy that thinks the elves are aliens?”

  Wyatt nodded. “Yeah. Makes him a whole lot less crazy-sounding when you think about what the elves have been secretly up to here the last few years, huh? I’ll find out what he knows and pass it along to you. If these elves of yours are being held captive anywhere in the DC area, Eros will know about it.”

  Nyalla left Wyatt’s and made her way back home, trying to plan as she circled the parking area in front of Sam’s house. What would the imp do? Sam would probably teleport to DC and smash around the subway tunnels until she found the elves, but Nyalla wasn’t Sam. She wasn’t a demon. She was just a human without magic.

  But she did have friends, and although she didn’t personally have any magical abilities, she had several spelled items that would come in handy. A net that could contain an elf and block their weaponry as well as their magic. A wand, black crystal marbles, and the most recent gift Sam had brought her from Hel – a staff.

  Lysile might not be skilled at weaponry, but she was fast, shrewd, and she might be a good enough actress to get Nyalla in the door. But how to get to DC? And how to get the elves back once she rescued them?

  Eyeing the Suburban parked in the driveway, the girl made her plan.

  Chapter 2

  “Whatcha doing?” The dragon’s hot breath fanned out against the skin of Nyalla’s back as she bent further forward, taping another strip of bubble wrap along the inside of the SUV.

  “I’m making the Suburban elf-safe,” she replied.

  The breath got hotter. “So they don’t hurt themselves bouncing around the inside of the vehicle when you wreck?”

  Nyalla spun around, staring into the dragon’s innocent dark eyes. A thin plume of smoke curled from a red-scaled nostril, as he shot a long forked tongue out to lick a pointy white tooth.

  “It’s so they don’t burn themselves if they accidently touch any of the metal in the car. And yeah, in case I wreck.” It wasn’t like she’d wrecked any more than other humans. There had been that problem with Sam’s Corvette, but honestly she hadn’t done anywhere near the damage that the ghoul had done to the house. The few times she’d hit something with the Suburban had only resulted in minimal damage. And she’d only totaled two of her own cars. That wasn’t excessive, all things considered.

  “And you’re taking Diablo? That way if traffic is really bad on the Beltway, he can teleport you? Although I’m not sure if he can teleport underground and you said you’re going into some kind of tunnels. Plus he doesn’t like elves. I’m not sure he’d be willing to help you save them.”

  Nyalla scooted further into the SUV, taping another strip of bubble wrap in place. “You like elves. And unlike Diablo, you can shoot fire out of your mouth. The horse trailer is for you.”

  Little Red blinked, his scaly brows furrowing. “I can’t fly in tunnels. And I don’t think I’ll fit inside the horse trailer.”

  She smiled, backing her way out of the Suburban. “You’re not much bigger than a horse. If you keep your wings tight, you’ll fit fine. I need you for back-up, in case things go wrong.”

  The dragon puffed out his chest, suddenly looking far too large for the horse trailer. “I’ll protect the elves. I like the elves. They’re part of my treasure-hoard and they were stolen from me.”

  Nyalla bit back a smile. “You’ll protect me too?”

  Little Red tilted his head. “You are a fierce human, Nyalla. I think you should be promising to protect me.”

  If only that were true. She’d come a long way since she was a slave in Hel, but there were still moments where Nyalla felt the panic creeping over her—nights when she was alone in the house listening to the crickets singing outside, or when she was in a crowd and everyone was talking fast. When the elves had first arrived, she’d feared that they were going to snatch her and drag her back to Hel, that she’d wake up and find it was all a dream and that she’d be a slave forever. There were times when she was afraid, but oddly this wasn’t one of those times.

  “How long of a journey will this be?”

  Nyalla jumped to hear Lysile’s voice right next to her. Elves. They were so fast, and so very quiet when they wanted to move in stealth, but Lysile always moved as if her feet didn’t quite touch the ground. And her son, too. Telly stood beside her, peering nervously into the Suburban.

  “An hour. Two, tops, if we hit t
raffic.”

  The elf woman twisted her hands together. “I’ll wear the leather gloves and hope that I don’t touch any metal, or that I don’t fall out of the conveyance and get run over by another metal box of death.”

  Nyalla reached out to grip one of Lysile’s hands in her own. “You won’t fall out. And I covered all the metal on the inside so you won’t accidently come into contact with it.”

  “So, I sit in the back?” Telly asked.

  She shook her head. “No, you’re staying here. You’re hurt already, and if something happens, Lysile will be more worried about rescuing you than herself.”

  Or me, or our mission, she thought. Not that she blamed her. Elf, human – the protective instinct of a mother for her son never went away.

  “But I want to come!”

  “No,” Lysile said, putting her arm around Telly’s shoulders. “Nyalla is right. Besides, our plan doesn’t include a teenage elf.”

  She was teasing, but Nyalla saw how Telly glanced back at the house and realized that his insistence on coming along was more about his fear of staying here in the house, alone. She remembered how terrifying it had been when she’d first come over from Hel. The language barrier, the technology, the different society. Heck, it had taken her two weeks to figure out the toaster.

  “Boomer will be here,” she assured Telly. “He protected you before. You’ll be completely safe with him here.”

  His shoulders relaxed and he let out a breath, giving her a grateful look.

  “Get back to the house,” she told him. “We need to get going.” Which meant Lysile needed to overcome her own fears and ride in the SUV, and somehow she needed to cram a young dragon into a horse trailer.

  Little Red barely fit. Nyalla held her breath every time they drove past another car and the passengers looked at her trailer, expecting to see a horse tail hanging from the back. Hopefully they weren’t seeing a scaled dragon tail. And hopefully Little Red would keep his wings inside the moving vehicle.