by N. P. Martin
"That the game has already started."
Chapter 11
Needless to say, I phoned Benedict after seeing myself on the news. He was still in the States apparently, but he did manage to see the news footage. "Things appear to be getting out of hand over there," he said, sounding like he’d been drinking, his voice less clipped than usual, and more drawling.
"You’re telling me," I said as I stood in Davey’s kitchen, which going by the worktops and cupboards, hadn’t been renovated since the eighties. "People think I’m a fucking monster."
"I don’t think you’re a monster, Corvin, don’t worry."
"Are you drunk? You sound like you don’t give a shit about what’s happening."
"I’m…a little drunk, yes. I’m inside a very exclusive Manhattan boys club drinking cognac and smoking some very fine cigars."
I shook my head. "Bully for you."
"Don’t be sad, Corvin," he said. "Everything will be fine."
"Really? How do you figure that, Benedict?"
"I don’t know…I’ll put a word in when I get back."
"You’ll put a word in? Gee, Benedict, thanks. I feel so much better knowing you’re going to put a fucking word in."
"You sound stressed, Corvin. Go and smoke a joint or something and relax."
I took the phone away from my ear and shook my head at it, barely resisting the urge to scream into it in frustration. "I can’t talk to you when you’re like this. I’m going."
"Corvin?"
"What?"
"Tally-ho, old boy." He started laughing then, and I gripped the phone tight as I gritted my teeth.
"Screw you, Benedict."
I spent the rest of the day mostly hanging out with Dalia while Davey was holed up in his lab creating the potion we would need to poison the Dark One. For a while at least, I was able to push my current worries to the back of my mind as I sat with Dalia in the living room, smoking cigarettes and drinking copious amounts of coffee. She seemed slightly more stable these days, though her very nature—both human and Fae—would always make her volatile to some extent, no matter how settled she became. We mostly talked about old times, purposely steering clear of current circumstances, knowing bringing them up would only result in long, brooding silences on my part. Inevitably, though, Dalia mentioned Amelia, and questioned my feelings for her.
"She told me she loved me," I said. "Just before the Dark One took her."
Dalia stared at me in surprise for a moment, and then looked away. "Do you love her back?"
To be honest, I hadn’t given it much thought, and I told Dalia as much. There was too much going on to be considering feelings. "I haven’t really thought about it."
"Liar. You must know how you feel about her."
I didn’t really feel comfortable discussing this with Dalia. She was my best friend, but I also knew she still had feelings for me. Though I wasn’t even sure of the exact nature of those feelings. It was hard to tell with Dalia sometimes. She knew herself our relationship was completely platonic these days, but she still seemed beholden to her feelings at times, residual feelings from a time gone by perhaps. I was the only person she had really connected with since she escaped from the Otherworld. She just needed to make that same connection with someone else, as difficult as I knew that would be for her, for I didn’t think she believed she was capable of meaningful relations anymore. I begged to differ, though. She just needed to believe in herself more. "I like Amelia, I’m not going to deny that. But love?" I shook my head. "It doesn’t even seem right thinking about that now, not when I’m not even sure if she’s alive."
"She is," Dalia said.
"How do you know that, though?"
"I just know. Amelia isn’t the type to die easily."
"I hope you’re right."
Dalia later took me down into the basement to show me some of the things that she was working on under Davey’s tutelage. I was surprised to see the mortuary table empty when I went down.
"The gore jobs only come in once in a while," she said, sounding almost disappointed that she had no bodies to cut up.
"So what do you work on in the meantime?"
Dalia walked over to one of the shelves to peruse the small glass bottles all lined up in a row, each one labelled with the name of the substance inside. "I do a lot of alchemy, making different substances such as these ones."
"What are they all for?"
She took one of the bottles from the shelf, which had a reddish liquid inside. "This is one is called Algarot. It purges the body violently via both vomiting and diarrhea."
I made a face. "Sounds lovely."
She put the bottle back and lifted down another, this one containing a murky green liquid. "This is Acarnam Joviale. I made this one myself. It’s used to treat jaundice, distemper, and epilepsy."
"Nice," I said. "Most of these have medical applications then?"
She nodded as she replaced the bottle. "A lot of them, yeah. I was shocked by how many people come here looking for the cure to what ails them. Davey seems to be main doctor—if you want to call him that—for the Touched community here. We get creatures coming in as well, werewolves, goblins, orcs and the like. Davey treats them all."
"As do you now."
She smiled. "I’m starting to. I’ve still a lot to learn."
"I’m proud of you, D," I said, stepping forward and giving her a gentle hug for a moment. "I mean it."
"I know you are," she said. "It means a lot."
Later, as I was sitting reading through some of Davey’s spell books, the man himself finally emerged from his lab at the back of the house, joining Dalia and I in the living room. He stood in the center of the room with a smile on his face, seemingly pleased that he had completed the task he was working on. "Here it is," he said, holding up a medium-sized glass bottle filled with a cobalt substance that seemed to glitter slightly in the light. "Your poison. Hopefully this will put an end to the Dark One, though as I said, there’s no guarantees."
I took the bottle from him and examined it. "There’s never any guarantees," I said. "How do I use this?"
"You simply throw it at the spirit when you’re close enough. It only takes a little to start the process, so you should have more than enough there."
I nodded, feeling slightly better knowing that I had at least something in my arsenal that I could use against the Dark One instead of just the blind faith I had before. "Thanks for this, Davey."
"You’re welcome," he said, going to sit down in the couch. "I think I’ve earned a puff on my pipe."
"Good job, old man," Dalia said.
"Once I get a smoke, we should leave for Kilkenny," he said. "Are you two ready?"
Dalia and I nodded as we looked at each other. "As we’ll ever be," I said.
Chapter 12
Given the circumstances, I thought it best to remain cautious, so before leaving Davey’s house I turned myself invisible and remained that way for the entire journey to Kilkenny. I said very little on the journey as Davey played Irish traditional music inside the Range Rover, occasionally exchanging words with Dalia, who sat in front. Because I was invisible, it was as if the two of them forgot I was even there half the time. On the way out of Dublin, we encountered a Guarda checkpoint and a young cop stopped us and signaled for Davey to wind his window down. "What’s the trouble, officer?" Davey said jovially, as if he didn’t have a wanted fugitive sitting in the back seat, albeit one who couldn’t be seen.
"We’re just looking for someone," the young cop said, gazing in at Dalia and then looking directly at me, though he obviously couldn’t see me.
"That psycho from the news, is it?" Davey said.
The young cop nodded. "Yeah."
"Well, I haven’t come across him, I’ll tell you that." Davey laughed slightly as he looked at Dalia, who turned her head to stare out the window.
"I doubt you’d still be alive if you did," the cop said.
"Aye, I suppose. Do you think you’ll c
atch him?"
"I’m sure we will eventually."
I don’t think so, I thought.
"I hope yi’s do," Davey said.
The young cop nodded. "Away yi’s go, then."
Davey smiled at the cop as he said cheerio and resumed driving.
"The psycho from the news?" I said.
Davey chuckled. "I was being the concerned citizen."
I shook my head and lapsed into silence again as I stared out the window, the late afternoon sky seeming gray and depressing, the clouds full of rain that would no doubt burst over the country soon enough. The nearer we got to Kilkenny, the more nervous I started to feel. The place felt like a stain on my psyche after everything that had happened there, and it was a place I had no wish to visit again except that I had to. Once we rescued Amelia, I wouldn’t be rushing back to Kilkenny for a long time, if ever again.
It was dark by the time we crossed the border into Kilkenny. Once we did, I lifted the Invisibility Spell from myself and drank from a bottle of water that I had with me, the heat in the car having made me drowsy. About half an hour later, we were driving along country roads before Davey finally pulled the car up next to a metal gate that led into a farmer’s field. "We’re here," he said as he shut off the engine. "This is about five miles from the house. Sorry we can’t get any closer. The distances in the Shadow are more or less the same as they are on this side, so it should only take a few hours to reach the vicinity of the house."
"And what can we expect to encounter along the way?" I asked.
"Spirits obviously," Davey said. "Spirits that are linked to the surrounding area, and the things in it. As I said, just keep your wits about you."
"I’ll keep more than that about me," Dalia said as dark energy spiraled in the palm of her hand. "Any spirits fuck with me, I’ll tear them apart."
"Don’t be so cock-sure of yourself," Davey said. "Spirits have their own defenses, and their own means of attack. Don’t underestimate their abilities." He looked at me then. "I don’t think I need to tell you that, do I?"
I shook my head as I thought about the Dark One and how it had completely dominated Amelia and I. "No, you don’t."
"Good. I’m glad somebody is being cautious."
"I’m not going to do anything stupid," Dalia said when Davey gave her a look. "I’m just saying, I’m prepared."
"The Shadow isn’t somewhere you can completely prepare for," he said. "It’s a very strange place, and many strange things happen in it, things that might not make any logical sense. The Numina is never done conjuring strange things out of the energy to found in the Shadow, and out of the energy of those who walk in it as well. Don’t be surprised if the energy you give off begins to manifest in some way."
"Manifest?" Dalia asked.
"Yes, the Numina is quite adept at plucking energy from out of your head in the form of memories, or even emotional traumas." He paused to look at each of us in turn. "It’s highly likely that you will see some form of manifestation while in there."
"And if we do?" I said. "Are they dangerous, these manifestations?"
"That depends what form they take," he said. "And how strong they are. Just be ready for anything."
With that, we got out of the Range Rover and climbed over the gate into the wet field. Above us, the clouds had cleared somewhat, allowing the full moon to shine through, casting its ghostly light over the field and the few cows that had gathered at one side under a copse of trees. The cows stared at us as we made our way across the field, my jeans soaked at the bottom already.
"You ready for this?" I asked Dalia as I dropped back a bit to walk beside her, even though she wasn’t walking, but floating above the wet grass. "And why are you floating instead of walking?"
"I don’t like the wet," she said. "It makes me cold, which I don’t like either. In answer to your question, though, yeah, I’m ready. Of course I am."
"If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were looking forward to this."
She smiled slightly. "I’ve been stuck in that house for ages with old man over there."
"I heard that," Davey said over his shoulder as he bounded ahead of us with the energy of a much younger man.
"You were supposed to," Dalia said back, then looked at me again. "Anyway, I’m just glad to be out going somewhere."
"The Shadow isn’t exactly a great place for an outing," I said.
"It can’t be much worse than the Otherworld, and I’m used to that place."
"I guess we’ll see."
About ten minutes later, we hopped another gate into a flat field, the Druid circle just ahead of us in the center, or what remained of it anyway. Of the thirteen stones that were originally there, only six remained, which now formed a broken circle, the tall stones from this distance looking like the jagged teeth of a giant. You’d be surprised how many stones go missing over the years from Druid circles. There have been cases where people have taken the stones to use in other constructions, such as private homes. More than a few stones have ended up as ornaments in people’s gardens, snatched also for the power the stones contain, with many thinking that said power will bring them good fortune, though I doubted this was ever the case. The stones did indeed hold great power, like giant batteries in a way, but the juice inside still needed to be activated through magic in order to be of any real use. So unless you knew your way around magic, Druid stones were pretty much useless to those who stole them in the mistaken belief that they would become rich or have great luck just by owning one. The stones then became nothing more than over-sized ornaments.
"It won’t take long to open the gateway," Davey said as he walked inside the stone circle. "You two jus hang back until I complete the spell.
"You need a hand?" I asked, hating the thought of standing about and giving my overactive brain a chance to throw unwanted thoughts at me.
"I got it."
"Davey knows what he’s doing," Dalia said. "Don’t worry."
"I’m not," I said.
"Just anxious?" I nodded and she took my hand for a moment. "We’ll get her, Corvin."
"I know we will. I’m not leaving the Shadow until we do."
Dalia nodded. "I’m with you, no matter what."
"Thanks, D. I appreciate it."
We stood next to one of the massive stones as Davey stood in the center of the circle, already holding his hands out as if in praise while he seemed to gaze up at the huge full moon beaming down on us. As we watched in silence, Davey soon began to recite the spell that would open the gateway to the Shadow. Although he was mumbling somewhat, I could tell the words he spoke were in Latin. His voice rose in pitch as he did the spell, his hands moving up and down as though he were trying to pull the energy of the moon into himself, where he then directed it out in front of him toward one of the standing stones. It wasn’t long before I sensed a movement of energy around us, as if the stones themselves were charging up and responding to the words of power spoken by Davey. Under our feet, the ground itself felt like it was vibrating with energy, which Davey then seemed to draw up into himself, becoming a conduit for the ancient magic that was still contained within the stones. Dalia and I then looked at each other as we both noticed the change in the air in front of Davey. The darkness before him seemed to shift and bend as he carried on reciting the spell, until it looked like a shimmering dark mirror had been conjured; an oval-shaped gateway with sparkling, dark blue edges.
"I think this is us," I said to Dalia as Davey finished reciting the spell.
"I think it is," she said, and we both moved forward, coming to stand next to Davey.
"There’s your gateway," Davey said. "All you have to do now is go through it."
I stood staring at the gateway for a minute, captivated by its energy, which appeared almost like dark mercury against the backdrop of the stones behind it. My stomach churned slightly at the thought of entering the Shadow, and what dangers might lie ahead. But however apprehensive I was feeling, my nerves weren’t goin
g to stop me from rescuing Amelia.
"Time to go, I guess," I said, looking at Dalia, who nodded back, seeming less concerned by the dangers ahead than I was, which was typical of Dalia. She didn’t let her fear control her, and was probably relishing the dark adventure ahead.
"Remember," Davey said. "You have twenty-four hours. I’ll stay here to guard the gateway, and make sure nothing gets through from the other side."
"Won’t it be visible once it gets light?" I asked.
"I’ll cast a glamor over it," he said. "No one will see it. Do you have the poison on you?"
I took the glass bottle out of my jacket pocket and held it up to show him. "I have it."
Davey nodded. "All right, you’d better get going then."
"Who’s going first?" Dalia asked, already edging forward.
I smiled and shook my head at her. "Clearly you can’t wait, so after you."
She smiled back and walked toward the reflective gateway, pausing only for a second before slowly stepping into it, her body disappearing as if she was becoming submerged in dark water.
"No fear that girl," Davey said. "Which worries me."
I looked at his face to see genuine worry and concern there. "Don’t worry," I said as I put a hand on his shoulder. "I’ll make sure no harm comes to her."
"And what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Who’s going to make sure no harm comes to you?"
I stared at him a moment, saying nothing before walking to the gateway, pausing to glance over my shoulder at him. "See you soon."
I stepped through the gateway and into the Shadow.
Chapter 13
Dalia was waiting for me on the other side of the gateway. When I made it through, I found we were standing in the same field as before, but things seemed different right away. It wasn’t as dark here as it was in the other realm. The place seemed to be bathed in a muted sort of twilight that wasn’t too dissimilar to the light in the Otherworld. I was also willing to bet that the twilight here was permanent as well.
