Black Birds

by J. P. Rice

  The Morrigan still had her hand clenched and defended herself. “Should tell your clowns not to touch.”

  She looked around and lowered her voice. “I’m not here to chastise you. Actually, quite the opposite. I know who you are, and we don’t want any trouble. If you are here to claim someone, please do it quietly so it doesn’t disrupt business.”

  Not a bad businesswoman. Death was usually bad for ticket sales. Not always, but usually.

  The Morrigan deadpanned the owner, and with a straight face, she spoke solemnly, “Sorry about your luck. Any last words before you come with me?”

  The owner dropped to her knees and folded her hands. Shaking them above her head, she exclaimed, “No. What did I do to deserve this?”

  She began sobbing uncontrollably, and the Morrigan busted out laughing. The woman stopped her wailing and looked up at Mo.

  The Goddess of Death said, “Just kidding. You’re fine. We’re looking for a dwarf named Dolphus Aquinus.”

  “Oh, good Gods. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” She rose to her feet, took a few shuddering breaths and patted her heart. “As for the dwarf, I knew he’d be nothing but trouble. Should’ve never taken his money. I’ll take you to where he’s stowed away,” she said and pointed the way.

  The owner walked us around the carnival toward the haunted house. I wanted to ride the rides and play some games, but I followed the owner. She pointed to a small pen on our right. As I got closer and looked inside, I saw a two-headed goat staggering around the hay-lined pen.

  “He’s been charged with taking care of this little lady.” No sooner than the words escaped her lips, the back door of the pen flew open, and a dwarf sprinted around the perimeter of the haunted house.

  The tiny blur streaked between two groups of people and disappeared into the purple darkness.

  “That’s him,” the owner needlessly pointed out, as we started after Dolphus.

  As I ran after him, the bright lights dulled and the mist made it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of me. I kept following the perimeter of the haunted house, and through the heavy fog, I noticed a blurry form climbing the ten-foot-high fence surrounding the carnival.

  “Over here,” I yelled and ran up to the barrier, but the dwarf was gone. My three compadres caught up quickly, and we hopped the fence. We landed in a forest and could only hear a light rustling in the distance and the faint sounds of the carnival.

  “Fuck. Obviously, he knows the secrets, or he wouldn’t have run,” the Morrigan observed.

  “Don’t you have some heat seeking magic you can throw at him?” Justinian asked.

  “My blackbirds will take too long to get here. And all my other stuff will kill him,” the Morrigan complained, and stomped her heel into the grass, churning up a huge divot.

  “I’ll find him,” announced an enthusiastic Titania.

  Unsure of her abilities, I asked, “Are you sure you can do it?”

  “For the team,” she cried as she zipped away, her voice trailing into silence. Within moments, she vanished into the pale fog.

  I didn’t put too much faith in her expedition. Titania was great, but her proactivity far outweighed her competency, so I tempered my expectations.

  I broke the weird silence. “I’d say wait until morning to find him but he’ll be long gone by then.”

  “If Titania doesn’t find him, my guess is we’ll never see him again,” Justinian opined, staring up at the moon.

  I said, “That’s the problem. Even if Titania finds him, she can’t detain him so unless he’s stopped somewhere, it will be next to impossible. And if he sees her, he’s sure to take off running again.”

  “Relax,” the Morrigan said and cracked her neck. “If it falls through, we’ll just go straight through the swamp.”

  I complained, “But he was right here, right on our fingertips. The key to us avoiding the poisonous snakes, alligators and insects with incurable diseases just fell through our hands.”

  “I’m not afraid of alligators or snakes,” the Morrigan said proudly.

  “What about the flying bugs that you can’t see? You can’t just fight off a disease no one’s heard of.” I tried to settle down, but the dark blood inside me was pissed. It chastised me for not having a better plan when we confronted Dolphus. I’d forgotten to surround the goat pen because of the entrancing surroundings.

  Apparently, so had the rest of my gang. If we couldn’t catch a dwarf, we stood no chance in making it through the swamp and fending off the Goblin Queen to obtain the talking dagger.

  Titania’s bright body emerged from the mist and flew up to us. Out of breath, she said, “Found him. Give me a few seconds and I’ll show you guys where he is.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “He’s not going to be in the same place where you just saw him.”

  Hovering a few feet in front of me, Titania raised her voice and said, “The hell he won’t. I hit him with some of my sleepy juice.”

  “Sleepy juice?” Justinian asked, suddenly intrigued, raising his brow.

  “Yeah, silly.” She snort-laughed and took a few seconds to compose her giggling. “My stinger doesn’t only shoot fire. It shoots a substance like Novocaine that numbs the body and prevents movement from the neck down. The person still has control of speaking and listening though.”

  I perked up, my eyes blinking rapidly. “Titania, you angel. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  Titania led us into the woods. Without moonlight, the visibility was worse than in the open field. I kept tripping in the mist-filled darkness, and finally called on fire. A few seconds later, my hand lit up like a torch. I trail blazed with Titania perched atop my shoulder, navigating the way. The Morrigan and Justinian followed us as we plunged further into the ancient forest.

  After about five minutes, I wondered if Titania had really found the dwarf or if she had said that to impress us. At first, she had spoken with full-throated confidence in giving the directions, but doubt seemed to creep in, causing her voice to crack and squeak.

  “He’s right around here. I’ll be right back,” Titania said and launched off my shoulder. She shot into the foggy abyss.

  About ten seconds later, she called, “Over here.”

  I stepped over a moss-covered tree trunk and turned right. There he was. Garbed in gray britches and a torn boiled leather vest over a hooded tunic, Dolphus Aquinus was lying on the ground, completely still.

  The shaggy-haired dwarf with a windburned face could barely move his neck.

  “Why can’t I move?” His blue eyes darted around to each of us, ultimately fixating on the Morrigan. “I guess I knew this day would come. Did the Goblin Queen send you?”

  The Morrigan answered, “No. But we want to talk about her. We need to know how you got in and out of her castle.”

  Dolphus sighed. “Since you’ve paralyzed me, I have a few simple requests.”

  “What do you want?” Titania asked.

  Dolphus cleared his throat. “If you could please take the ruby ring out of the inside pocket of my jacket and place it on my finger one last time.”

  I unbuttoned the inside pocket of his vest and plucked out the ruby ring. Even in the forest’s darkness, it shone with red and gold intensity. I slid it on his middle finger and held up his arm, so he could see it. Dolphus smiled with the gleam dancing in the whites of his eyes. He said, “Just one more request, if I may?”

  “What now?” I asked, setting his hand on his chest.

  “I have a flask of whiskey in the left pocket of my trousers.” Dolphus smiled. “Could someone pour some into my mouth?”

  I grabbed the silver flask from his pants and unscrewed the cap. Dolphus held his mouth open, and I poured in some booze. He had trouble drinking the light gold liquid and it spilled out the sides of his mouth, running down his neck and soaking into the collar of his tunic. I fed him about half of the contents that smelled like cheap whiskey.

  Dolphus smiled again, his puffy che
eks getting red. “I suppose if I’m about to die, I might as well do it with a buzz.”

  “What do you mean you’re about to die?” I asked, worried that he had poisoned himself.

  “Unless the Morrigan has started making social calls, I can see the writing on the walls of the haunted house,” he said, slurring his words and grinning.

  “I can understand the mix up, but we’re not here to kill you,” the Morrigan reassured him. “At least we don’t want to. You’ll be fine so long as you tell the truth. We don’t plan to tell the Goblin Queen, or anyone for that matter, anything about you.”

  “Your secrets shall be safe with us,” Justinian promised.

  “Why do you want to know?” Dolphus asked. He spoke gently and calmly, like he’d never raised his voice before.

  “Because we have to get something out of the castle,” Titania explained.

  Dolphus stared down at his ring as he spoke, “If they are expecting you, it will not work. The reason my plan succeeded is because nobody expected me.”

  “I doubt they are expecting us. Here. Have another drink.” I poured more booze into his mouth and he slurped it up greedily.

  He blinked a few times, his eyelids becoming lazy. A glazed look washed over his weathered face. “It took me ten years to make it to the castle.”

  The Morrigan erupted, “Ten years? We don’t have ten years.”

  “I was not finished,” Dolphus intoned. “If you will allow me...”

  Titania cut him off and said, “I bet you flew in, didn’t you?”

  Dolphus sighed and closed his eyes. “I appreciate the enthusiasm ladies, but just allow me to speak. I didn’t get in through the air. Winged predators are perched atop the trees that hide the castle. Breaching the castle by air would likely be impossible.”

  I asked, “So how did you do it?”

  “He went underground?” Justinian guessed.

  “Now there is one smart werewolf,” Dolphus said.

  The Morrigan asked, “How did you know he’s a wolf?”

  Dolphus replied, “I’m not the smartest lad in the pub, but I know a wolf when I see one. I may not be the strongest man...”

  I cut him off as he drunkenly veered off topic, “Hey, let’s get back to the underground passage.”

  He paused for a second and gathered his thoughts. “It took me ten years to dig the tunnel. It starts at the rune stone in the woods right outside Boskytown, on the outskirts of the swamp. The passageway is covered by a boulder taller than any of you. I trust she has the ability to move it,” he said, gesturing with his eyes to the Morrigan.

  “So what part of the swamp do you end up in?” I asked.

  A lazy but proud smile developed on his face. “You don’t end up in the swamp.”

  “How?” the Morrigan inquired. “I thought the swamp surrounded the Goblin Queen’s castle.”

  “It does.” Dolphus hesitated, and said, “For the most part. But not entirely. There is a one- to two-mile radius around the castle that is solid forestland. The giant trees keep the castle covered from sunlight, the natural enemy of the goblin. They operate much better in gloomy darkness.”

  “So this underground tunnel takes you into the forest, completely bypassing the swamp,” the Morrigan said, more or less thinking out loud.

  Dolphus nodded and closed his eyes. “Precisely, madam.”

  “But won’t the birds come down from the trees and attack?” Justinian asked.

  Dolphus responded, “They will not as they are focused on the threats coming from above. There are guards that patrol the land, but because no one has penetrated the castle other than yours truly, they’ve become lazy in their duties. Be aware of them, but they shouldn’t pose a problem.”

  “Okay, so even if you got onto safe land outside the castle, how did you get in?” I wanted to know.

  Dolphus looked at me, his eyes blinking and lips curling up. The proud man seemed to be enjoying himself. He had a Goddess asking him for advice, which would naturally stoke anyone’s confidence.

  He winked at me. “You remind me of my first wife. Different hair and a bigger body, though. Always wanted to know everything about everything. Just as impatient too.”

  I hated to ruin his trip down memory lane, but we had to take care of some serious shit. “Look, I hate to rush you, I really do, but we’re trying to save lives and every second counts.”

  “Right. Where was I?” Dolphus asked, fumbling through his thoughts.

  “You were telling us how to get into the castle from the woods,” Titania reminded him.

  “She woulda liked you,” Dolphus said, staring at me. “Right, so you need to find the redwood with the number 7 carved into the trunk. They number the bigger trees to establish areas for the guards to protect. Well, I came to find out the goblin in charge of the area around number seven was a wicked drunk.”

  Dolphus cleared his throat, turned his head slightly and spat out a little wad. “After scouting the area for weeks, I found a long branch on the redwood that stretched down near the castle. As I got farther out on the limb, I realized the branch led right up to the balcony of the Queen’s changing room.”

  Dolphus gazed at his ring, and with a nostalgic smile, he said, “She kept the ruby ring on her dresser, next to a golden bowl of jewels and gems. I snatched it and ran out onto the balcony, jumped and caught the tree branch and scurried back up to the trunk. Once I reached land, I ran as fast as I could back to my secret exit.”

  I realized a gigantic problem. “Wait. They know how you escaped. That means the tunnel will be closed off or destroyed.”

  He shook his head. “Unless I used a different tunnel for escape. Sure, they know all about the second tunnel, but I covered the first one well enough that they should never find it. Besides, they’d already found my escape route, they had no reason to look for another.”

  The Morrigan thought aloud, “And once we use the tunnel, we’ll have no use for it again, so it doesn’t matter if they find it on our way out. We’d need to remember that once we escape the swamp, we still won’t be in the clear.”

  Dolphus gave us precise directions to the rune stone and as much detail of the interior of the castle that he remembered. He started regaining feeling in his body again and leaned back on the base of a tree.

  He moved his hand in front of his face and smiled. “I can move again.” His gaze bounced from me to the Morrigan to Titania and finally landed on Justinian. “I trust you will keep my name silent.”

  “What was your name again?” I joked.

  “Dolphus Aquinus,” he stated proudly, stressing each syllable.

  He wasn’t too quick on the uptake. I said, “I meant that we will forget it as soon as we leave. You can go back to the carnival and show off your ring. I’ll admit, it’s quite impressive.”

  Dolphus tried to get up and wobbled, then fell back down on his posterior. “Perhaps a few more minutes to recover.”

  “Thank you so much for the information. It probably just saved his life,” I joked, gesturing toward Justinian. The wolf gave me a sour look as he shook his head.

  We got set to leave and everyone said goodbye to Dolphus. He waved, his fingers moving slowly, and said, “You’re quite welcome. Have fun storming the castle.”

  I smirked at the unintentional reference from The Princess Bride and we headed out of the forest to find the rune stone in Boskytown.

  Chapter 13

  WE MADE IT TO THE RUNE stone and found a group of elves surrounding the mysterious rock. They were kneeling and praying under the soft moonlight. We assumed they would be there most of the night, so we decided to set up camp and continue in the morning.

  That would give us better visibility to detect anyone in the area and when we arrived on the other side, we wouldn’t be blinded by darkness. As with most places in Sleepy Willow, the woods were never too far away. We paced toward the tree line on our left and entered another forest.

  Sleepy Willow was a Celtic netherworld.
After Tir na nȎg filled up quickly with supernatural beings, Sleepy Willow was established as the second otherworld. The fallen angels known as the sidhe were the dominant race, but the land housed Fae creatures and beings from all walks of life. You never knew what you would run into in this land.

  We collected kindling and any pieces of wood we could find on our way to a small clearing surrounded by heavy brush. Justinian built a fire, and Titania already started dozing off.

  The Morrigan’s hand disappeared into her cloak. “Can’t wait to get this bra off.”

  “Aw. Do you want me to have Owen craft you a special sports bra like he did for Titania?” I joked.

  “I may just need to look into that.” She pulled her black bra out of the cloak, folded it and stuffed it into a pocket near her hip.

  The Morrigan conjured a pillow for herself—that selfish bitch—and curled up next to the fire. Titania was already snoozing on a small plank of wood and Justinian was stoking the fire.

  “Having fun? You love bra talk, right?” I asked the wolf.

  “More fun than being a prisoner of the wolf house,” he revealed and tossed his poking stick into the flames.

  “Prisoner?” I conjured two blankets and two pillows for us.

  Justinian grabbed a pillow from me. “Pretty much. And Octavius and Caesar tell me I’m lucky at that.”

  “Lucky to be a prisoner?” I asked, as a nocturnal animal howled in the distance.

  Justinian’s eyes widened with concern. “They think I should drop to my knees every day and thank the Gods that I am alive.”

  I said, “Seems a bit strong.”

  “It’s because of my eyes,” he revealed.

  “What’s wrong with your eyes?” I asked, but already knew the answer.

  “They’re blue. Remember when you made fun of me and called me a freak on the steps of my house,” he reminded me.

  I turned away and fluffed my pillow. “In my defense, you had already unloaded on me. I didn’t insult you out of the blue.”

  “Nice word choice,” he said and nodded. “You know every wolf is born with brown eyes. They almost threw me to the wild because I didn’t fit the mold.”