by J. C. Diem
Rudy teleported himself next to me, dancing from foot to foot when I skidded to a stop. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, lad,” he said, taking in the oak that became sentient as we watched.
“Is Asha controlling the tree?” Leroy asked when he zoomed over to us. We stood about fifty feet away from the troll that was struggling to free itself.
“I think so,” I replied, unsure what was going on.
Asha ducked out from beneath the creature that was more than twice her height. She lifted her hands and the tree’s branches swept downward, forcing the creature to drop down a bit so its head wasn’t torn off by a savage blow. Its roar sounded frustrated and frightened and I felt it gathering its magic. This troll was different from the others. It was far more intelligent and it could cast spells.
At another gesture from the dryad, roots burst up out of the ground and slithered up the frantic monster’s legs. They swarmed up its body until it was completely covered. Fire sprang into being, spreading up the trunk. It went out a moment later, as if it had been smothered before the tree could burst into flames. It was similar to what I’d done by instinct when I’d landed on a fire trap, but Asha had quenched it this time.
Beneath the dryad’s directions, the roots squirmed along the troll’s arms and more curled around its neck. The beast let out a final bellow, but the sound was cut off when the roots constricted and tore the thing to pieces. Rank brown blood splattered the tree, Asha and the ground as the roots subsided back to where they’d come from. Chunks of flesh lay in unrecognizable clumps. Only the troll’s head was whole.
Hearing someone crashing through the trees, I turned to see Harley approaching us with his assault rifle in his hands. Pru had come as well, but at a much slower pace. “What’s going on?” the kid asked when he came to a halt. “I heard screaming.” He looked around in panic and relief flowed over his face when he saw Asha was unharmed.
“Is that a troll?” the witch asked when she reached us. She was gasping for air after her long sprint from the house.
“It was,” Rudy replied. “Now it’s just kibble.” Leroy snorted out a laugh, amused as always by the leprechaun’s witty remarks.
Putting her hand on the oak tree that had saved her, Asha silently communed with it before stepping away. The extra limbs retracted inside the trunk until it appeared they’d never even existed. She looked down at the remains of the troll, then made a gesture with both hands. The roots obeyed her again, wrapping around the pieces of still warm flesh and dragging them beneath the soil.
“Did I really just see that?” Harley asked hoarsely. “Did Asha just control the tree?”
“She sure did,” I replied.
“She really is their queen,” he said in awe. “I’m kind of glad she’s on our side.”
Asha was shaken, but seemed to be unharmed as she crossed to us. Although she was tiny and looked frail, she was far stronger than she appeared. “The trees didn’t know there was another troll,” she said as if expecting us to reprimand her for not knowing about it.
“It could use magic, girly,” Rudy said. “It cloaked itself from them. It must have watched the battle and was biding its time to pick us off one by one. Luckily for us, it made the grave mistake of targeting you first.”
“How did you make the tree obey you like that?” Leroy asked.
She thought about it for a few seconds before replying. “It was like my mind merged with the oak,” she said at last. “I could sense all plants for miles around and I could sense the animals and insects, too. The leaves communicated all sorts of things to me. The troll felt evil and it made me angry that it had tried to kill me. I ordered the roots to rip it limb from limb and they did what I asked.”
“They did a thorough job,” Pru said, staring at the bloody patches where the monster had been. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”
“I would never hurt my friends,” Asha said, face turning pale at the thought.
“Is that what we are?” I asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “I can’t hide who I am anymore now that you destroyed the barrier I put up so long ago. I belong here with your team.”
“Damn, someone get me a tissue,” Leroy said, pretending to wipe away tears with his purple sleeve. “I’m getting all misty.”
“You’re such an ass,” Harley said with a withering glare that didn’t faze the ghost at all.
“You’ve got to stop talking about my ass, bro,” Leroy retorted. “You know I don’t swing that way.”
Rolling his eyes, Harley stomped off towards the house now that the crisis was over. Trolls usually gathered in packs of up to twenty, but we’d faced nearly five times that number. For all we knew, more of them might be lurking around somewhere.
Looking upwards, I was relieved to see the dark film that seemed to be covering the moon was now beginning to dissipate. My gut told me we were safe and the niggling feeling of doom had finally gone away. We could relax for now, but we were sure to come across something else that needed to be killed soon enough.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Heading inside, I cooked a late dinner and we all sat down to eat. We were weary from our battle and from getting so little sleep the night before. Asha paused every now and then to check in with the trees, but she remained relaxed. Leroy took it upon himself to patrol the grounds. He could stretch his bond far enough away from me to be an early warning system if anyone or anything came calling.
“Now that the danger is over, can you do something about restoring my memory?” Harley asked when we’d cleaned up our dishes after dinner.
“I can try,” I replied. “If I fail, I can call the siren who wiped your memory and ask her if she can reverse it.”
Pru froze for a few moments as she saw another vision. “You’ll restore his memory,” she confirmed. “He has information we need to know.”
“I do?” the kid asked in surprise. “What is it?”
“We won’t know the answer to that until after you have your memory back,” she informed him.
“Let’s make ourselves comfortable,” I suggested and headed for the living room. I pointed at the couch and Harley sank down onto his favorite spot. I dragged the coffee table closer and gingerly sat on the edge of it. It was sturdy enough to hold my weight, so I leaned forward. Harley leaned forward as well, resting his elbows on his knees. He allowed me to place my fingertips on his temple and closed his eyes. His shoulders were hunched in anticipation of pain.
Delving deeply into the kid’s mind, I couldn’t read his thoughts like Mirra could. Sensing something that didn’t belong there, I felt an obstruction in his brain. It was a tiny ball of magic that the siren had planted there. Working as delicately as I could, I wrapped my own power around it and gave it a tug.
Harley hissed out a curse and grasped my wrists. “That hurts!” he complained.
“Sorry,” I muttered, wishing I knew more about my power. Acting on instinct again, I changed tactics. Instead of trying to extricate the ball, I tried to melt it. It resisted me for a few seconds before my stronger magic overwhelmed it. The ball shrank, then dissipated and left the young hunter’s mind completely.
Harley’s grip on my wrists weakened and he slumped forward. I shifted my hands to his shoulders and eased him onto his side on the couch as he lost consciousness. “I hope I didn’t break his mind,” I said in concern, delving into him again. Leroy grinned, thinking I was joking. As far as I could tell, I hadn’t done any physical damage to him.
After a couple of minutes, Harley stirred. He groaned, then struggled upright. He opened his eyes to see us surrounding him. “I’ve got the worst headache of my entire life,” he complained, putting a hand to his temple.
“He’ll be fine,” Rudy pronounced, then teleported himself up onto one of the armchairs. We all took our usual seats as the kid gathered himself.
“Did it work?” I asked. “Do you remember the pieces that were missing?”
“I remember
everything,” he confirmed, dropping his hand to his thigh. “Including meeting you in Spencer Von Hades’ mansion.”
“Really?” Rudy asked in surprise. “Jake’s fae glamor should have made you forget him completely.”
“Jake’s magic is far stronger than anything I’ve ever felt,” Pru said. “He might have shorted out the effects of his glamor when he restored Harley’s memory.” There was no telling if the effect would linger, or if it would fade.
“When I found out Ari was a vampire, I thought she was a monster,” the kid said in shame, remembering how he’d treated my foster daughter. “Will you tell her I’m sorry for the things I said when you speak to her next?”
“I’ll pass the message on,” I promised.
“What’s the knowledge you have that we need to know about, young honky?” Leroy demanded. He had no patience to speak of.
Wracking his now restored memory, Harley ran a hand through his hair, then clutched a handful of it when something occurred to him. “I think I might know what it is,” he said at last.
“Don’t keep us in suspense, lad,” Rudy grumbled. He was just as impatient as the ghost.
“I overheard Von Hades talking to my former boss, Langley,” the kid said. “He said something about a guardian he set to keep watch over a portal. He hinted that if the guardian and the sphere it was bound to were ever defeated, a new type of hell would be unleashed on our planet.”
“What does that mean?” Rudy asked, scratching his head in confusion.
“I think I know,” I said, remembering a unique type of monster my foster daughter had battled. “The warg that Ari defeated was linked to a magic sphere,” I reminded him. “What if the warg and sphere had been put there to stop anything else from coming through a portal that lies somewhere inside the cave?”
“It’s possible,” the leprechaun conceded. “You need to tell Ari about it so the Hunter Elite can check the cave. We need to know if there is a portal and how to close it if there is. It could be where these monsters are coming from.”
“The cave was somewhere in Scotland,” I recalled. “The trolls can’t have made their way to the US all the way from there.”
“Then where did they come from?” he asked in frustration.
“Maybe there’s more than one portal,” Asha suggested timidly. “Maybe the warg thingy and the sphere were guarding more than one doorway.”
That resonated inside me, hinting that the dryad was correct. “You could be right, sweetheart,” I said uneasily. “I’ll call Ari and have a chat to her about this.” This was a call that couldn’t wait. She and the rest of the team were still in Europe as far as I knew. Even if they were back home now, her ghostly best friend could take them all to the cave in an instant. Jonah had discovered that bound spirits could use the veil to travel anywhere they’d been after their death. It was a secret few knew about and even fewer could utilize.
Heading for my room so I could have some privacy, I dialed Ari’s number. She answered after a couple of rings. “Hi, Jake!” she said happily and I grinned in response. “Are you okay? Is something wrong?”
“I’m fine, darlin’,” I said soothingly. We usually checked in once a week and I wasn’t due to call her for a few more days. “We had a bit of trouble with some new beasties, but we managed to kill them without suffering any casualties.”
“Have you gathered a new team of hunters?” she asked. I heard voices in the background as she headed somewhere she could speak to me in private.
“Yeah. You know one of them.” I hadn’t told her about my team yet, but now was a good time to inform her.
“I do? Who is it?”
“Harley Reid from the Alpha Team.”
“Why have you teamed up with him?” she asked incredulously. “He hates our kind.” By that, she meant all supernatural creatures.
“He’s had a change of heart, honey,” I told her. “He wants me to tell you he’s sorry for the things he said.”
“He should be,” she muttered. “What sort of monsters did you run into?”
“Trolls,” I replied and she was shocked to silence. “There were nearly a hundred of them. Most of them were beast-like and didn’t have any magic. Only one of them was intelligent and could cast spells.”
“Where did they come from?” she asked in a worried tone.
“We’re not sure, except it was somewhere to the north,” I told her. “Harley overheard something Von Hades said about a guardian he set to watch over a portal. The guardian was bound to a sphere.”
“He was talking about the warg,” she concluded. “Did he say what would happen once the warg was defeated?”
“Apparently, a new type of hell will be unleashed on our planet.”
“I knew that pixie was hiding something!” she exclaimed. “Nikitira must have known something bad would happen when I defeated the warg and he never said a thing!”
“Can you get your team to investigate the cave?” I asked. “We need to know if there’s a portal somewhere inside it. We think the warg and sphere might have been linked to other doorways around the world and were somehow keeping them all closed. These doorways might be where all these new monsters are coming from.”
“I’m on it,” she promised. “I’ll call you back once we’ve taken a look.”
We hung up and I slipped my phone back into my pocket. I trusted Ari and her friends to search the cave where the warg had lurked. They’d proven themselves to be more than competent to deal with the things that went bump in the night.
Chapter Forty
Ari called me back a couple of hours later. I was pacing the living room floor and answered my phone straight away. “Hi, honey,” I said. “How did you go?”
“Sorry it took us so long,” she replied in a disturbed tone. “The cave system was a lot bigger than we’d expected. It took us ages to find the portal.”
“So, there is a doorway to somewhere else then?” I asked.
“Yeah, but we don’t know where it goes. None of us could pass through it. Something has definitely come through it, though. They left strange footprints behind that no one recognizes.”
“How old are the footprints?”
“Some are a few months old, but others are a lot fresher. There’s a whole bunch of different types. Quin is going to email you a copy of her report so you can see the photos for yourself.” That would make Harley happy, since he was our self-appointed record keeper.
“The portal is still being used then,” I surmised. “Can you block it somehow?”
“I’ve already done it,” she replied. “I cast a spell that collapsed the cave on both sides of the portal. Nothing will be able to pass through it now.”
“That’s good, sweetheart. At least one doorway has been blocked off.”
“You think there were others?” she asked.
“The trolls we fought came from somewhere. I’m betting there’s more portals all over the place. That has to be where these new monsters are coming from.”
“Quin is going to call Sheridan Harwood once we’re back at our base in the Scottish Archives,” she told me. “I’ll give you an update when I learn something new.”
We said our goodbyes, then hung up. My whole team had gathered around to hear the news. “They found an active portal in the cave the warg and sphere were guarding,” I advised them.
“Where did the portal lead?” Rudy asked.
“They don’t know. None of them could pass through it.” He gave me a knowing look, suspecting the same thing that I did. There was one realm I knew of that was banned to creatures from other worlds. Only those with fae blood, or who had been born there could pass through it.
“They blocked the portal, though?” Harley asked.
“Yeah. Nothing more will be coming through that one, but we’ve got at least one doorway here that the trolls have come through.”
“Are we going to find it and try to block it?” Pru asked.
“Maybe,” I replied. “Sheri
dan Harwood might want to take control of that particular mission, though. The Master Archivist probably won’t like it if we tread on her toes.”
“She sounds just like Spencer Von Hades,” Harley said darkly. “Is she a demon, do you think?”
“We don’t think so, lad,” the leprechaun said, shaking his head. “She’s some other sort of monster, but we’re not sure what.”
“I vote for staying well away from her,” Asha said, hugging herself as if she was cold.
“Seconded,” Pru added. “We already have one leader. We don’t need someone else bossing us around.”
“Amen to that, Mamma,” Leroy said, adding his two cents worth. “One leash holder is more than enough for me.”
“How are you feeling?” I asked the phantom. Normally, when a ghost turned into a poltergeist during a battle, they used up a lot of energy. He should have been wispy and drained to the point where we could barely see him. Instead, he seemed no different from normal. Then again, he was linked to me and had used my strength to power his rage.
“I feel great, boss honky,” he replied with a grin. “It was fun tearing those trolls apart. I’m already looking forward to our next mission.”
“You did well,” Harley said in approval. “You’re a team player, which frankly surprises me.”
“You white folks are lucky to have me,” Leroy said, puffing out his chest proudly. “I’m a badass mahfa.”
“That you are, boyo,” Rudy agreed. “Thanks to Jake’s fae magic mixed with Pru’s binding spell, you have the distinction of being the most powerful ghost in existence.”
“You didn’t need to tell me that, mini honky,” the ghost teased. “I already know it.”
“He’s so humble,” Pru said sarcastically. “His humility is almost overwhelming.”
