What Man Defies

by Clara Coulson

  “Got it,” Odette said.

  Saoirse nodded in agreement.

  “Good. Now that we all know our roles and how important it is to stick with them”—I eyed Kennedy again, until he started to wilt under the weight—“let’s get this show on the road.” I gestured to the circle. “Step carefully into the circle. Don’t smudge the chalk. I’m going to try to bring us in as close to the cavern’s entrance as possible, based on my memory of what it looks like from the inside, but it’s not going to be perfect. If the circle gets messed up, it’ll be even less perfect. And by that, I mean we could end up anywhere, including the inside of a volcano.”

  “There are volcanoes in Tír na nÓg?” asked Odette as she hopped into the circle.

  “On the Seelie side, yeah.”

  “Huh. Interesting.”

  Saoirse followed Odette’s example, with Mallory and Granger not far behind. Kennedy hesitated, visibly gulping as his nerves rocked his resolve. This was his moment of truth. He could still back out and lose face, but ensure his life wasn’t thrust into imminent danger. Or he could let his pride get the better of him.

  He chose option number two. Because of course he did.

  He jumped into the circle with more force than necessary and almost bowled over Granger.

  I strode in after him and took a position in the exact center of the circle. “Everybody grab hold of me. One hand will do.’”

  “You sure?” Saoirse asked. “Last time, I had to hug you.”

  “Made those portals on the fly. This one’s better. Less of a rocky ride.”

  “You sure you just didn’t want a hug?” She grinned.

  Odette snorted.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” I muttered. “Now take my hand, damn you.”

  Saoirse grabbed my hand, throwing a wink at the detectives and Odette, who snickered.

  Trying to lighten the mood, huh? I asked her with a raised eyebrow.

  She gave me a slight shrug, meaning, They need it.

  Odette roughly grasped my other hand, while Mallory and Granger each took a wrist. Kennedy, who was loath to touch me, eventually chose to latch on to my bicep harder than necessary. With all of us in place, I did one last cursory scan of the circle, double-checking I hadn’t made any mistakes. Odette did the same, I noticed, her brown eyes no less sharp than my own, enhanced sight fueled by the necklace of charms hidden under her coat, a nearly imperceptible buzz of magic in the air. It was so subtle I hadn’t been able to spot it from a distance.

  Odette might not be an old hand at complicated physical spell construction, but she wasn’t anything close to a novice practitioner. I had a feeling I was going to see an awesome display of magic when we inevitably ran afoul of the svartálfar and ended up fighting for our lives.

  I took a deep breath, and as I let it out, I pushed a wave of my energy along with it. The energy sank into the chalk, and the entire circle lit up, a pale blue, the lines and symbols charging up for a trip through the fabric of the universe. “Ladies and gentleman,” I said in my best announcer voice, “welcome aboard the Tír na nÓg Express. Please keep your arms and legs inside the circle at all times, and do not—I repeat, do not—let go of me until we finish moving. Unless you want to be lost in the endless void between worlds until it spits you out into a molten hellscape filled with man-eating monsters.”

  I tossed a look at Kennedy. “I’m serious, pal. Don’t let go.”

  So much blood had drained from his face that he couldn’t even muster a sneer. “Okay,” he whispered.

  I threw casual glances at everyone else. They all nodded, ready and willing to cross the veil, ready and willing to lay down their lives to save the lives of others. Although Granger was looking a tad green again. I hoped he didn’t throw up on me.

  Our strike team fully assembled and as prepared as it would ever be, I parted my lips and let the invocation fly. And we left the Earth behind.

  Chapter Ten

  We arrived on the gray and rocky ground of the Divide. While I stood still, the rest of the group staggered away. Odette shook herself out of the daze of traveling through the veil in a handful of seconds, indicating she’d done it numerous times. Saoirse was right behind her, closing her eyes for a moment to compose herself. Mallory handled it pretty well too, bending over and pressing her palms against her knees, taking deep, even breaths. Kennedy, on the other hand, fell flat on his ass, hyperventilating. And Granger, of course, blew chunks, though thankfully not on anyone’s shoes.

  I took the opportunity to check our position, search for an obvious inlet to the cavern. It took me a couple tries, turning three-sixty to scan the vast expanse of sameness, bland black rock and gray dust and not much else. But I found what I was looking for. About a hundred feet away, there was a patch of black that could be mistaken for a flat rock, were it not shaped exactly like the opening in the cavern ceiling I’d seen in Weatherby’s memory.

  Tracking along the line of the opening, I managed to pick out a likely spot, nestled within the crook of a few cracked boulders, for the entrance to the path that led to the base of the cave. There was no one obviously guarding it, though that didn’t rule out people wearing veils. And there were no powerful wards in the vicinity, though that didn’t rule out traps like the ones Abarta’s crew had set in the decoy house. All in all, however, we’d arrived in the right place, and we weren’t being attacked yet.

  Good start.

  “All set, guys?” I called to the group.

  Everyone was standing upright, but Kennedy and Granger were still shaky. We couldn’t wait for them to get their sea legs back though. Every minute we wasted was a minute another prisoner could die. Those vault lock obstacles were ruthless and precise. Mundane humans weren’t equipped to handle them. Which is precisely why, I figured, whoever built the vault likely made humans a requirement to open it.

  “I think we’re ready to proceed,” Saoirse finally said, patting Granger on the back. “Which way?”

  I pointed to the rock formation. “Over there, I think. But be alert. There could be subtle wards, tripwire grenades, and pretty much any other type of booby trap you can imagine securing the entrance.”

  Kennedy frowned. “Tripwire grenades? In fairyland?”

  “The fae have no qualms using human inventions,” Odette said, “when it benefits them.”

  “Correct.” I gestured for everyone to line up. “So be on the lookout, for any weapon familiar or foreign. Odette and I will try to clear any wards, but this ground is so rocky that it’ll be difficult even for us to spot all the potential traps. Keep your eyes and ears focused. If you notice anything weird, immediately alert the group.”

  “This whole thing is weird,” Kennedy muttered.

  “You wanted to come along,” I said. “So shut up and follow my instructions.”

  “You’re not my boss.”

  “No, I’m your guide. You want to navigate this place alone?”

  Kennedy looked to the left. A barren expanse of nothing all the way to the horizon. Kennedy look to the right. A barren expanse of nothing all the way to the horizon. “Uh…”

  “That’s what I thought.” I waved for everyone to start marching toward the rock formation. “So stay in line and do what I say. And maybe, if we’re extremely lucky, we’ll all make it out of this in one piece.”

  Kennedy’s cheeks turned beet red at the admonishment, but he didn’t argue further.

  We made a slow approach to the rock formation. Stopped every few steps to survey the ground beneath our feet, Odette and I hunting for the barest scent of magic. A couple times, I caught a whiff of something latent, faerie born, probably the banshee’s waste energy from her comings and goings. But beyond that, the air was dead. Nothing lived in the Divide, and because it stretched across the entirety of the realm, there was a low chance of meeting anyone who happened to be crossing it. So there were no sounds except our own breathing and hesitant steps. Just an oppressive sense of emptiness hanging over us.

 
The group reached the rock formation in one piece. Odette and I went ahead, scoured the rocks, and found the narrow entrance tucked inside, a steep decline. About two feet in, there was a tripwire grenade, and another two feet after that, and another two feet after that, and so on and so forth, all the way down into the maw of darkness. No way the banshee disarmed this minefield every time she made a kidnapping run. I peered back to the terrain outside the rock formation, searching for patterns. No obvious footprints, but there were a number of swipe marks that could’ve been made by a shoe. Someone had covered their tracks.

  “I see,” I mumbled.

  “What?” Odette said.

  “They had a camp out here. Where they kept the prisoners until they had enough to start a conga line of death races. Then they dismantled the campsite, took the prisoners down into the cavern, and started throwing one at a time at the vault locks. Now the banshee is doing replacement runs only. When too many people die in short order, she grabs a few more to ensure they don’t run out of ‘keys’ before they beat all the locks. She probably took three others today in addition to Christie to fill the empty slots left by the market ghost, Barnum, and Weatherby. They just haven’t been reported missing yet.”

  Odette gave me a disgusted look. “So that really is why the Sluagh didn’t appear until today. Because they started up the meat grinder this morning.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Fuckers.”

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  “Can you get through those tripwires, or do we need to come up with a spell?” She was already running through her mental grimoire, eyes cast upward as she considered options.

  I pulled a switchblade. “I think I’ve got just the thing, if you could provide a little light all the way down. Enough to illuminate the wires so I don’t miss one.”

  Odette shrugged. “Simple enough.”

  She sank to her knees and pressed two fingers against the lip of the entrance. A small bead of green light appeared at her fingertips. When she tapped the pads of her fingers twice against the stone, the bead shot forward along the floor of the tunnel, leaving a glowing green line in its wake. Like a pinball, the bead bounced off the walls of the tunnels, a zigzag formation, until it rolled out of the end of the tunnel over a hundred feet down.

  Crouching, I peeled my eyes and sought out every green glint throughout the suspended tripwire maze. I counted thirty-seven in all. Different heights. Different angles. Guaranteed to snare anyone unfamiliar with the layout. But I wasn’t “anyone.” I’d trumped a minefield of grenades once, and I could do it again. I just hoped that this time around, what happened after I navigated the minefield didn’t end with me writhing on the ground, an iron hatpin in my shoulder.

  I flipped open the switchblade, which activated the homing charm. Taking aim, I wound back my arm and threw the blade toward the first tripwire. The sharp edge sliced through the wire with ease, and the knife kept tumbling onward. One hand outstretched, I made a leftward sweeping motion, and the blade jerked to the left in the air, where it cut through the second tripwire. Next, I motioned up and to the right, and the blade took out the third wire.

  The blade was moving so fast I had to think three steps ahead, but I’d played plenty of video games, particularly the racing variety, when I was younger. So I pretended my hand was a controller and the tripwires were boosters I needed to hit to win first place. Left. Right. Up. Down. Side to side.

  I cut every last tripwire with that single toss.

  Good to know I haven’t lost my touch.

  At my beckoning gesture, the switchblade doubled back, and I caught it like a boomerang.

  Odette, lurking behind me, let out an impressed whistle. “Nice trick. Hope it works that well when we’re cutting through the svartálfar.”

  “You and me both,” I said.

  I tucked the switchblade away and waved the rest of the group forward. “Be advised, there are grenades lining the walls, ceiling, and floor of the tunnel. I know this goes without saying, but don’t touch them. Also, make sure you don’t accidentally snag any of the cut wires. And finally, please, for the love of all that is holy, watch your step. The path is extremely steep, and if any one of you slips and falls, you’re going to take out everyone ahead of you in the line. And then we’re going to end up in a tangled pile at the bottom, ready to get picked apart by whatever enemies are waiting. Got it?”

  Judging by their anxious looks, I assumed they did.

  First into the tunnel, I took slow, methodical steps, following the general direction of Odette’s still-flickering line. When I came across any particularly hazardous spots, steep drop-offs or slippery patches of smooth stone, I paused and told Granger, who was behind me, and he told Kennedy, behind him, and we had a nice little game of telephone that I hoped didn’t get distorted like the grade-school version.

  Progress was hard won. I lost my footing a few times, and rammed my head into a low-hanging section of ceiling twice, earning a nice bump that hurt to the touch. But I made it down without blowing myself up, and one by one, the rest of the group followed.

  We emerged into the cavern of nightmares.

  The terrain matched what I’d seen in Weatherby’s memories. A vast expanse of scorched trees, left to petrify through the ages. Bare stretches of ashen ground, gray dust stirred by air currents like curls of smoke creeping upward. The dead trees were so tall and tightly packed that I couldn’t see the game board that marked the first of the vault locks even though it must’ve only been two or three hundred feet from the entrance. I did, however, spot the beginning of the path that led toward the board, a narrow opening in the trees about forty feet to our left, fraught with shadows.

  “Mallory,” I said. “When we reach the first lock, the giant game board thing, I want you to hang back near the edge of the trees. Climb up and find yourself a good sniper’s perch. Anything goes awry while we’re crossing the board, you signal us immediately. Anything nasty jumps us, you shoot it immediately. In that case, the report of a rifle will be all the signal we need.”

  Mallory adjusted the rifle slung over her shoulder and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Everybody else, stay in the formation we discussed until we’re set upon.”

  “Until,” Granger muttered, “not unless?”

  “No, not unless,” I said. “Something’s going to come after us. I have no idea who or what it’ll be, dark elves or the banshee, or some entity native to this vault, but it’s going to be something, and it’s going to be soon. So prepare yourselves. Have your weapons ready at all times. And be on the lookout for anything that seems off.”

  “Off?” Kennedy scoffed. “You mean like this entire freaky cavern?”

  “No, I mean the kind of ‘off’ that looks like it might kill you if you don’t kill it first.”

  He gulped. “Ah. Well, in that case…” He drew his pistol and thumbed the safety.

  “Any other questions?” I addressed the group.

  The only answer I received was Saoirse and Granger rechecking their own weapons.

  “Good. Then we’re going in.” I spun to face the entrance to the path and said a quick mental mantra to calm my nerves. Like I’d done in the old days, the cop days, when preparing to raid a murder suspect’s home. Then I stepped forward—

  And a pike rocketed out of the woods, heading directly for my face.

  I yanked up my left arm and activated the shield bracelet. The transparent square of energy formed in front of me in the nick of time. But the pike rammed the shield so hard that it bored straight through, and the sharp metal tip of the weapon came to a stop three inches from the space between my eyes. The recoil from the impact zinged up my arm, the bracelet almost snapping under the force, and I clenched my teeth to bite back a cry as pain flared through my iron wound. No time to complain. Get your ass in gear, Whelan.

  “Enemies at three o’clock!” I shouted to the group.

  Saoirse whipped her charmed gun up and aimed for th
e direction the pike had come from, letting off three rounds in quick succession. One of them struck gold, and something hidden in the shadows of the trees screeched at the top of its lungs. Vague shapes started moving among the trees, five, six, seven of them. A moment later, a group of tall, gangly creatures sprang past the tree line and charged us. They appeared at first glance to be old men with scraggly hair and ragged clothing, but the red hats and rusty pikes gave them away. I’d come across some a few years back, when I did a favor for Manannán mac Lir.

  Redcaps. A category of goblins. They had nasty tempers and roughly zero morals. They lived in the Unseelie Court, but they weren’t fae, which put them on the lowest rung of the social ladder in Tír na nÓg. A fact that perfectly explained why they’d be playing for Abarta’s team. Like banshees, who weren’t well liked among court society either, redcaps had more to gain from toppling the fae regime than they did by pandering to it. They were easy sells when it came to mercenary work. Abarta had probably promised them a higher social standing when he installed his new world order. Or is it an old world order?

  “Don’t let them get close,” I said to the group. “These things are redcaps, and they’re a lot stronger than they look. If they get within swinging distance with those pikes, a single blow will take your head off.”

  I deactivated the shield bracelet and let the pike drop into my hand. Then I reeled back my arm, took aim at the closest redcap, and threw the pike like a javelin with all my unglamoured strength. The targeted redcap tried to grab it in midair, but while they were strong, redcaps weren’t that coordinated. He fumbled the catch, and the pike rammed into his chest and tore out of his back. He stumbled forward, causing the end of the pike to snag a divot in the ground. This wrenched the pike to the right, and it must’ve hit something vital, because the redcap suddenly went limp and dropped to the ground.