by Amie Gibbons
He winked at me. “By the way, setting up a big public conference for the paranormal, and advertising as a psychic, not the best way to stay under the radar. Duh.”
I opened my mouth to argue on reflex that you had to have publicity to run a business, and of course nothing came out.
“I know,” he said, waving a hand. “You’re trying to run a business, have to get clients, making a network seemed like a good idea. You’re forgetting one thing.”
He paused dramatically.
“You’re a fucking aberration!” he half shouted, then burst out laughing. “You do things no one has ever heard about outside of whispers and myths, and you advertised it, you stupid girl! I’m surprised no one grabbed you before this.”
My mouth worked, and something formed in the pit of my stomach.
I couldn’t even feel the despair I knew was there as he opened the door.
“I can take you now,” he said.
I stared at him from my cot and crossed my arms.
And he raised his eyebrows at me before looking over at AB.
He flicked a wrist, and AB screamed a horror movie shriek that pierced my ears and the fog around my heart as surely as a knife would’ve.
She grabbed her leg, screaming again and sobbing.
He dropped his hand and she fell back on her cot, crying hard.
I glared at him as he stared at me.
The threat clear in his eyes.
He’d torture my friend if I didn’t comply.
And right now, I had to comply.
They’d taken my voice.
But that didn’t mean my other powers were down.
I’d never needed my voice for those.
I pushed up to my feet, stomach churning with the sudden motion, and I covered my belly, knowing it showed on my face.
“Yeah,” the Fae said, “we know you can see our magic. We know this cell wasn’t able to contain all your powers. We know you can rip through dimensions. We know whatever you are, we don’t have the magic premade to counter it. So we’re going to study you and figure it out.”
He shrugged. “It might hurt. I’d say feel free to scream, but, well…” He smirked as he shrugged, then swept an arm in front of him, indicating I should walk out.
I did, glancing back at my friend.
Ed was already next to AB on the bed, lifting her head and putting it on his lap. He stroked her hair and whispered to her.
Pretty big of the guy, considering AB had basically offered to sacrifice him along with herself earlier when she was urging me to get out.
Then again, AB hadn’t meant it. She was depressed, feeling sorry for herself, and convinced there was no hope for escape.
Now?
Something told me she’d only risk death now if she could guarantee ghost-hood.
And since ghosts were made from people who wanted to stay or had unfinished business, she could pretty much guarantee it, as long as the Fae didn’t have some way to capture her soul like the knife in the story.
Then again, maybe the Fae had told us that story to put that doubt in AB’s head to keep her from trying something stupid and taking a few of them out with her.
Cuz for all we knew, they had other things that could capture souls besides that one knife.
He locked the door behind me, and I followed him down the row of cells, most of which were empty.
They’d put us at the end.
Why?
The network of spiders ran along the walls, with a few thin lines running into the cells with people in them, and looked like they were mostly having down time, not glowing and not moving much.
Maybe cuz they didn’t need to?
The few prisoners besides us were mostly chilling. Sleeping or reading on their cots. One guy was doing sit ups.
It seemed so normal.
Like any other county jail.
Ya know, except for the whole spider neural network and straw all over the ground thing.
Also, I was fairly certain normal jails were less dank and dungeony than this place.
We hit the end of the line of cells, and I realized I’d been searching each one for Grant.
Where in the blazes was he!
The crackling of static on midwinter carpets was my only warning before the world went dark.
Chapter ELEVEN
The spell that’d carried me blind for at least five minutes let me go, and I huffed silently as my feet hit the ground maybe a foot below.
The darkness lifted as fast as it’d dropped on me, and I flinched, closing my eyes against the sudden brightness.
Nothing happened in the moments it took for my eyes to adjust.
Not that I was sure what I’d do if someone tried something anyway.
When my vision cleared, I looked around.
Whoa.
The room was at least as big as a grand hotel lobby, including the restaurant and fitness center most had.
But it was one giant rectangle with randomly placed pillars.
And those, along with the walls, floor, and ceiling were made from gems.
Beaten, flattened out into boards gems.
Rubies, Emeralds, Amber, Diamonds, Sapphires, Garnet, Turquoise, marble, probably more I didn’t know by sight.
The different colors in random patterns made me feel crazy as I tried to decipher them.
The human brain looking for logic and patterns in an alien world where everything was just left of human.
There were no carpets, tapestries, or windows.
The room glowed with light from all around with no obvious source.
The only door was to the right of us, probably where he’d carried me in from.
And the only furniture was a throne up on a dais in front of me.
Up against the wall, but not in the center like my brain felt it should be.
Off to the left, off center enough for my brain to see and be bugged by it.
Fae sat or stood here or there in the room.
One was doing something magical, mixing stuff in a bowl with little bottles and packets around her.
Another was standing and crocheting what looked like a scarf made out of thick, long, white worms.
I gagged and quickly looked away.
A scan of the rest of the giant room showed no Grant.
He’d never have let them take him alive.
I swallowed the thought down.
No. No!
Grant wasn’t dead.
He couldn’t be.
I swallowed again.
And looked at the queen.
Cuz of course the one on the throne had to be royalty.
It only made sense.
She was more cute than beautiful, kinda like me. Not really what you thought of when you thought of Fae queens.
They were supposed to be tall, thin and gorgeous.
This one was about average height, with curves that looked nice under her designer silver dress, long blonde hair a few shades lighter than mine, straight and silky as Asian hair, big brown eyes in a circular sweet face that would’ve looked more at home on a milk maid than Fae royalty.
She stood, staring me in the eyes.
I fell to my knees, dry heaving as my stomach tried to eject the tiny bit in there.
I gagged, stomach lurching up, trying to shove out anything, even parts of the stomach, if only to get the mind-numbing nausea to stop.
I think I’d rather be in pain than this nauseous.
I finally managed to drag in a few deep breaths and rolled over onto my side, curling into the fetal position.
I need Sprite.
Like now!
The Fae were talking.
Or maybe just one was.
My brain wasn’t exactly workin’.
I dragged in more deep breaths through my mouth and pushed over onto my knees.
And looked up.
The queen was speaking to a man who had a bag in his hands.
No. A backpack.
A plain
brown one.
Grant’s!
I knew it with no more info.
That was Grant’s, dammit!
Murder boiled the nausea right outta my stomach and burned through my veins.
If my Grant was dead.
They were dead.
All of them.
The cold knowledge, like sliding into a pit of snakes and makin’ them your friends, made me feel better.
Like the sickness couldn’t touch me.
Maybe cuz when I felt like this, I was more like them?
More murderous. Less human. Less conscience?
Maybe this feeling made me less nauseous cuz the Fae felt less wrong when I was feeling this sociopathic?
Did I really care?
No.
Not if Grant was dead.
I didn’t care about much at all.
This was exactly how AB felt.
Except she didn’t have the kernel of light inside, shining like a diamond in a coal mine, giving that bit of hope that hers was still alive.
She’d seen him die.
And until I saw Grant’s body and got a vision of him dying, yes both, I wouldn’t believe it.
I couldn’t.
The Fae queen turned to me, and this time I met her eyes with no problem.
She blinked, head jerking back the barest bit.
I’d surprised her.
Good.
I raised my eyebrow at her and crossed my arms, thinking at her.
“What the fuck do you want?”
Her mouth fell open, and she quickly closed it.
Most of the Fae were watching me, so I don’t think they noticed.
I knew if any of them did, they wouldn’t show it.
Cuz she’d kill them on the spot for seeing her show such weakness.
These beings really weren’t human.
“Hello,” she said in heavily accented English. “You must excuse the court. Most do not speak any human languages, let alone English.”
“But you do?” I thought at her.
Her eyes flew wide.
Ohhhhh.
I had her spooked!
I wasn’t supposed to be able to do this.
“Grant!” I screamed in my head, imagining the words blasting out and across the island. “Grant! If you’re out there, answer me!”
She was two seconds from clamping her hands over her ears.
I could tell.
And it made me laugh silently.
If the others heard me, they didn’t show it.
They just looked at me and then at her.
My mind had a hard time focusing for a moment, and finally I was able to count them up. There were five besides the queen.
The weaver, the mixer, the bag carrier, one who was breastfeeding a baby (I didn’t count the baby), and one who was standing there.
Took me a second to realize the last guy was probably a guard.
So what were the others for?
The queen squinted at me and I realized she was trying to talk to me mentally.
And she couldn’t.
Interesting.
I felt a little smug at that.
She’d stolen my voice.
But I could speak here like this.
Wait!
What if I could mentally sing and have the same effect?
Worth a try.
Like she could hear me thinking that, she paled.
The barest bit.
Or maybe I imagined it.
I searched my mind for a song and the only thing I could come up with was a Madonna song I’d heard on Glee.
So I started singing that in my head.
Directing it at her.
Imagining enchanting her.
She blinked.
And quickly looked away.
Had it worked?
Had it done anything?
Or was I just annoying her?
Whatever I had done, I wasn’t now. She said something to the weaver and jerked her head at me.
The woman walked toward me, and the woven scarf of worms wiggled and glowed in her hands.
She held it up like she was going to drape it over my shoulders.
I opened my mouth to scream silently and ran for the door before I realized what I was doing.
I hit the doorway as shouts echoed off the hard room behind me.
And I slammed into the guy who’d brought me up from the cell.
Oh, right.
Forgot about him.
He must’ve been standing guard just outside the room.
Just in case I did something obvious, like try to run.
He grabbed me, and I screamed in my soundless way as he whirled me around to walk me back in.
Oh, no. Not happenin’, buddy, I thought, hanging deadweight in his arms.
He grunted as he shifted to take my weight.
Even small people can still make an impact going dead weight.
And I put my feet on the ground, popping up so fast I caught him under the chin.
This was a good move. I’d used it before.
And as long as you were fast, it threw your opponent off.
He shouted as his head snapped back and his arms loosened.
I took one arm and twisted it behind his back, pulling it up fast and swiping his feet out from under him.
Snapping his arm in the process and making him scream.
I dropped the arm and ran down the hall.
The Fae in the room were already in the hall.
The few seconds enough time for them to almost catch up to me.
But they had to work their way over the big Fae I’d left lying in front of the door.
I ran as fast as I could and took the first turn, and then the next, and the next.
If only I could lose them, I could have a moment to think.
I needed my voice back.
But hey, that could wait.
What I really needed was to break my friends out and find Grant.
Then get outta here, and figure out what to do next.
Throwing bombs through a few of my dimensional portals and killing them all was sounding like a real good plan right now.
Huh.
Maybe that’s why they wanted me.
They knew I could do something like that, and until they knew how my powers worked, they wouldn’t be able to reasonably guard against them.
Which would be stupid of them, since it hadn’t occurred to me to do something so barbaric until they went outta their way to kidnap me and hurt my friends.
I really didn’t like these people.
I took the next left, changing it up a bit.
I hadn’t even been keeping track of where I’d been running, except to note I’d mostly been going right, and that’d just take me in a circle.
The hallways looked like you’d expect a castle’s to look, except barren.
Like it’d been abandoned to time after being ravaged in a war.
Just long stone hallways with bare stone floors, everything grey and kinda narrow.
But no carpets or paintings on the walls, no windows or anything.
And no obvious source of light.
Wow, that was weird.
Maybe the little spider network acted as the light source?
Just cuz my friends couldn’t see these creepy crawlies didn’t mean the Fae couldn’t. Maybe they did and saw the light from them and all that.
No, cuz my friends could see too.
Wait, the stupid spiders!
Why was I running?
They knew exactly where I was thanks to these buggers!
I growled under my breath and nothing came out.
This is gettin’ real old, real fast.
I pulled up my powers and pointed my finger, blasting the spiders outta my way with a stream of water so strong I could’ve power washed a… well, a spider infested abandoned castle.
The little things scurried outta my way.
And the ones that didn’t were hit wi
th the equivalent of a house sized stream of water with the power of a firehose.
It at least cleared the path for me.
But again, they were all around me, so they could see where I was going and where I came from before I blasted them.
So it wasn’t actually hiding me.
It did make me feel better.
But that wasn’t what my powers were for.
I needed to use them to get out.
Right.
My breaths came faster and faster and my legs burned.
This wasn’t the astral plane as I knew it.
I could get tired here.
And have a hard time breathing.
And I was starting to.
I’d never been much of a runner, and adrenaline in life or death situations only goes so far.
I ducked into the next room, slamming the door shut.
So far, the spiders only watched.
I still kinda wanted to puke from them existing.
I glared at the spiders watching me from their lines.
“Don’t even try it,” I thought at them.
Like they heard me, they inched back up against the bare walls.
Why was everything so barren here?
Maybe it had something to do with the spider neural network? Like decorations and carpeting and stuff would get in the little bugs’ way?
Possible.
Or maybe they just didn’t decorate like humans did. Maybe they didn’t feel the need or something. I mean, look at their fancy throne room.
I shook my head.
My mind was goin’ a mile a minute, and I had to focus.
Break out time, right.
This wasn’t gonna be easy.
Says who, a voice in my head that sounded suspiciously like Carvi said. You can do this. You have done this. You just have to believe. Do it, Ariana. Rip a hole back home. Think of me and do it.
I stared at the wall, letting thoughts of Carvi fill my head.
I hadn’t let myself think of him this thoroughly in months.
Hadn’t let myself go there cuz it hurt too much.
He’d promised he’d never leave me.
He’d promised.
“How dare you leave me!” I screamed at the air soundlessly, feeling the strain in my throat even as my ears said nothing actually came out.
But feeling it like that made me feel better, just like real hollerin’ would.
“You asshole! You swore to me that I couldn’t get rid of you, like even if I wanted to. You promised me! And you knew! You knew how much being abandoned like that would hurt me. And you did it anyway. You abandoned me. You left me. You left me to fend for myself and learn on my own. How dare you!”
