“I thought she was there when we provided our Teind?” Thummim asks his light-skinned twin.
Urim nods. “I distinctly remember the runt trying to stop us at the Hill of the Dead,” he says.
“Almost got pummeled to the ground by Raz,” Thummim says.
“Until he….” Urim swipes his hand across his throat tellingly, and they both burst out laughing.
I grimace, drawing my legs closer to me under my ripped up dress, my feet as cold as ice cubes despite the giant fire crackling in the room. My gaze travels to the other side of the building where the wall has been partially torn down, and into the interminable night outside. Things here seem so strange compared to Lake High, where the weather is always set to summer. How can both places be part of the same Avalon?
A gust of wind whistles inside the hall, bringing with it the smell of charred remains that permeates the surrounding area, and my thoughts wander back to Switzerland and the Board’s headquarters. Have they managed to repeal the attack? Is anyone I know hurt? Does anybody care that I’m gone? Do they even realize I’m not with Lugh? Does Lugh even know himself?
A pang of worry twists my guts into a knot. After all the warnings I’ve received, I still managed to get caught. And for what?
I scan the room again—with the excitement of the draugars’ arrival gone, the Dark Sidhe are now busy honing their weapons, wrestling with each other, or simply lounging about, but underlying their seeming unconcern is a sense of restlessness, like they’re waiting for something.
And not one of them seems to care much about my presence here, as if I were just another gnat around a fruit bowl. Or, as I realize with some dread thinking back to Mordred’s comment on our way down here, I am just the cheese in the mousetrap.
“You’re wasting your time, you know,” I say loudly, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
Mordred doesn’t look around, but I see the muscles in his back grow tense.
“They’re not going to come for me,” I continue nonchalantly. “In fact, they were about to execute me when you guys burst inside their headquarters.”
“Either way we’ll bring the fight to them,” Mordred says, not sounding bothered at all.
“Again?” I ask.
“Always,” Mordred says with a sharp smile, finally looking over at me.
“With Carman?” I ask.
“For Carman,” Mordred says, “and the rest of our kind, to reclaim what is ours.”
“And what is that?” I ask.
“This world, to begin with,” Mordred replies. “It is high time we restored the natural order of things—the powerful should reign over the meek, not the other way around.”
“And then what?” I ask. “What is killing everyone off going to bring you?”
Mordred shrugs. “After that, I suppose we’ll take over the Heavens.”
Stunned, I stare at the tattooed Fey, before breaking out into a loud laugh. Mordred’s face clouds over.
“There’s nothing funny in that,” he says with a severe pout that makes me wonder how old he truly is.
“Are you kidding?” I ask. “You guys want to go take the fight up there?” I point at the ceiling and the sky beyond. “I’m sorry but I think you’re going to have a hard time.”
Mordred’s eyes turn flinty. “You think this is the extent of our forces?” he asks, stalking across the floor towards me. The air seems to sizzle around him, and the room grows unnervingly quiet. “Then you’re more foolish than I thought.” He drops into a crouch so our eyes are level. “Then again, you’ve been kept in the dark by those humans for most of your life like a caged animal at a zoo, so I should try to be more understanding. Our forces have been planning for our return for ages, and there’s nothing that’s going to stop us.”
“Your forces?” I ask, my heart hammering in my chest.
Mordred points towards the line of draugar. “There’s more where they came from,” he says.
I swallow audibly. “A few dead bodies walking around aren’t any match against hundreds of knights,” I say.
“A couple of draugar, perhaps,” Mordred says, smiling, “but a whole army?”
My eyes seem about to pop out of their sockets. “You can’t be serious,” I whisper hoarsely. “You’re never going to get thousands of those out of that hole. You could barely get five now!”
“Just wait and watch,” he says.
Mordred’s confident smile only widens and I cower against the wall. I may have put on a brave face in front of him, but the idea of facing more of those soulless corpses terrifies me. I can’t let Mordred go through with his plans without trying to stop him.
Without taking another second to think about it, I throw myself at him. Mordred’s smirk turns into a look of shock as he falls onto his back.
I roll off him and jump back to my feet before making for the fallen wall.
A slew of curses falls behind me and I will myself to go faster. Three more feet to freedom. The wind lashes at my face, bitingly cold. Two. I swerve out of Urim’s way. One.
A sharp, blinding pain shoots up my leg as something long whips around it, cutting into my muscles, before yanking me down, and I cry out.
“Thank you, Gwyllion,” Mordred says. “I think she’s learned her lesson.” He stares at me in disappointment. “I thought I’d warned you running away was useless. But if you were to foolishly try anyway, I thought you would at least make a better attempt of it, not this”—he flicks his hand—“clumsy try at a run.”
“And I think your tender heart’s showing, AC,” a raspy voice says as the bladed whip unties itself from my leg.
I push myself into a sitting position, wincing in pain. My leg is one open wound, blood pumping out from deep gashes into a pool around me.
“She’s dangerous,” a hag dressed in dark leathers says, looking old enough to be my great-grandmother. She coils her metallic whip lazily, dipping her finger in the blood still coating it. “We should kill her now.”
“She’s necessary for Carman’s recovery,” Mordred says, his whole body shaking with anger at having his orders challenged.
“Carman doesn’t need help,” the hag says, the iron piercings dotting her face giving her a perpetually stunned look.
Behind her, a fat four-legged creature lumbers forward, eyes fiery under a pair of viciously pointy horns. It comes to a stop at the hag’s feet and sits on its hunches to scratch its underbelly, then turns to look at me. A pair of lower, protruding canines curve up from its elongated jaw, threatening to poke it in the nostrils. And considering how much it reeks, I wish I could poke my own nose out too.
“Back down now, Gwyllion,” Mordred warns the hag.
A scratchy laugh escapes the old Fey’s thin, dry lips. “Despite all your grand airs, Mordred,” she says, “Carman doesn’t need you either.”
“Don’t presume to know what Carman needs or doesn’t need, Gwyll,” a familiar voice cuts in. “And get Barguest outside, we don’t all need be subjected to his stench.”
To my surprise, the hag moves away, head lowered in submission. A short man marches past her, his face half-melted beneath a bright red cap.
“Nibs,” I breathe. “You’re here?”
“In the flesh,” he says with a grotesque smile. He points at his face, “Though it has a tendency to want to run away from me.”
My gaze slides down to my leg already re-stitching itself, unable to watch his melted skin without guilt twisting my insides.
“Anyway, it’s not a here or a there,” Nibs adds. “I came because we need to get going. As for you, princess, you need to curb your impatience. You’ll soon get to see your so-called friends again.”
“When—” I start.
“When the time is right,” Nibs says, patting my cheek affectionately with his gloved hand. I feel the metallic cold of manacles snap around my wrists and look down in surprise. “Still, we wouldn’t want you to meet them too soon now, would we?” Nibs continues. He cocks an eyebrow t
oward the entrance door and I note that most of the Fey who were standing there have moved away from it and closer to the fire. “Nor do we want you to cause another scene,” he adds in my ear.
The door flings open and the darkness of the night seems to seep inside the room. Slowly, it materializes into a concrete, hunched over shape. My hackles raise and I scramble to get back to my feet, my blood boiling.
“Murderer!” I yell with a growl, darting towards the Shade.
But before I can take more than two steps, my hands get yanked back so hard my shoulders threaten to pop out of their sockets. I twist around and fall down hard, knocking my head on the wooden floor.
“Now what did I just say?” Nibs asks, pulling on the long chain attached to my handcuffs.
I glare at the stooped shadow at the other end of the hall, straining against my chains.
“Enough,” Nibs says, passing the chain over to Mordred. “If you keep this up, I’ve got no choice but to put you out.”
“Do as he says,” Mordred mutters, holding me close to him.
“That thing murdered my father,” I retort, “and countless other innocent people. He should be annihilated.”
“Your father was far from innocent himself,” Mordred snaps. “Besides, you wouldn’t stand a chance against Dub. Now shut up and behave.”
He shortens his hold on the chain and I’m forced to take another limping step back.
“Well, since we’re all here,” Nibs says, rubbing his hands together, “I think it’s time we got cracking, don’t you?”
Mordred looks outside to the lightening sky, frowning in concentration.
“Let’s take a quick look at what the enemy’s doing first,” he tells Nibs. “Make sure our little diversion’s worked.”
The clurichaun nods. He pulls a flask from an inside pocket and takes a long drag from it. “Take the clutz with you too then,” he says, smacking his lips appreciatively. “We don’t want her to accidentally end up as part of the Teind, or food for Dub.”
Mordred pulls me after him to the back of the room, over the fallen wall and into what must have once been a vegetable patch.
“Here,” Mordred says, stopping in the middle of the small garden.
He lifts his free hand and a blue glow spreads out from it, drawing water forth from the soil until a wide, murky puddle stands at our feet. Mordred drops to his knees.
“Sgàthan soilleir,” he intones, touching the tip of the puddle with his fingers.
A pulse ripples through its dark surface and the water goes still, as if frozen over. A soft, amber light gleams in its center before expanding outward like a stain spreading over cloth. I bend forward as shapes crystallize on its surface.
“I’m afraid we’ve lost our trackings,” a deep, well-known voice says that makes my heart thump harder in worry.
I see Gareth look confusedly about, his eyes white in the surrounding darkness.
“And your vocabulary,” Gauvain adds, his dreadlocks coming into view next to his cousin’s bald head. “I assume you mean bearings.”
“I thought we were hunting Fey, not bears,” Gareth mutters.
Something rams into Gareth and he yelps as he falls face first into a thorny bush. Another head pops up in the puddle’s surface, munching on some leaves.
“Puck!” I exclaim, surprised to see the hobgoblin anywhere else but at school, my breath rippling the puddle’s surface.
“Don’t disturb the water,” Nibs scolds me.
Holding my breath, I watch Percy and Hadrian walk past the cousins and out of sight, closely followed by a haggard Keva. My heartbeat accelerates as Arthur next steps into view. He pauses for a moment to get Puck off Gareth, his perennial frown in place.
“Stop fooling around,” Arthur says. “The longer we take, the harder it’s going to be to find her.”
No. He can’t be coming here! I want to yell at him to drop the search, that it’s a trap, but Nibs forces me further away from the puddle and the vision it contains.
I watch helplessly as another shape appears behind Arthur, urging him forward.
“I just hope we get to her while she is still alive,” Lugh says grimly.
“Well if it isn’t mister sinister,” Sameerah says, shoving past the guys, Blanchefleur on her tail. “I don’t care what happens to the girl, I’m just itching to get my hands on a Dark Sidhe.”
“They won’t kill her or they wouldn’t have bothered to capture her otherwise,” Rip says reassuringly, his whole face seeming to glow in the dark woods around them, and I cock my head in confusion—what is the albino man doing with them?
“I hope you’re right,” Arthur says. They resume their march, their footsteps dying out as they move beyond the puddle’s edge.
“Come on, slowpoke,” Gauvain says, nudging Gareth with his foot. “If we wait any longer we’ll lose even our own party.”
“Wait,” Gareth says. “I think I’ve found something.”
I watch the big knight pull his beefy arm from the thorny bushes, pulling on something that seems to be struggling in his grip. But as the critter is about to come free of the long thorns, Gareth seems to get stuck.
“What are you playing at?” Gauvain asks, annoyed.
“Just give me your hand,” Gareth retorts through gritted teeth.
“I assume you meant to give you a hand,” Gauvain says.
He grabs his cousin by the shoulders and starts to pull, the veins on his forehead looking about to burst. Then whatever was keeping the creature stuck gives in, and both cousins fall onto their backsides.
I narrow my eyes as something small flutters above them, darting about so quickly I can’t quite tell what it is.
“Thank you for saving me, oh kind gentlemen,” a squeaky voice pipes up.
A Fey, I realize. Nibs guffaws beside me. “Oh, fools,” he says wickedly, holding his belly with laughter, “you have no idea what you just unleashed!”
“And for that, I shall reward you,” the tiny voice continues, the Fey darting around the cousins’ heads.
“Reward?” Gauvain repeats suspiciously.
“Three wishes,” the tiny Fey says.
“Any wish we want?” Gareth asks, flexing his fingers as if to test they’re still firmly attached to his hand.
“Yep, yep, yep!” the Fey says, fluttering closer to his face so Gareth goes cross-eyed.
“I don’t think we want anything from you,” Gauvain says, trying to bat the Fey away.
Gareth’s head snaps around toward his cousin. “Well that’s stupid,” he says. “He says we can have anything we want!”
“Stop being foolish,” Gauvain retorts. “You bloody well know that anything coming from a Fey comes with strings attached.”
“I’ll attach you with strings if you keep calling me stupid!” Gareth says, his voice rising.
“If only I could hammer some sense into you,” Gauvain says with a roll of the eyes, “I’d be more than delighted to perform the task.”
“Wish I had a mighty hammer to pummel down your over-sized head with,” Gareth yells back.
“Your wish is my command!” the tiny Fey says.
Both cousins freeze then look up at the tiny creature buzzing about them.
“Wait what?” Gareth asks.
His confused look turns to one of excitement as something heavy crashes to the ground at their feet, raising a large cloud of ash. Coughing, Gareth reaches down and lifts up a massive warhammer, its head twice the size of his own.
“Sweet!” he says, admiring the new weapon.
Next to me, Nibs gasps. “It can’t be,” he whispers. “That little gerbil had it all along?”
“Had what all along?” I ask.
Nibs points to the hammer with his misshapen chin. “That used to belong to the archangel Michael,” he says, his eyes twinkling with avidity.
I return my attention to the scene unfolding in the puddle just as Gauvain punches Gareth in the ribs. “Give it back,” he says. “You don�
��t know what it does.”
“I’ll show you what it does,” Gareth says, swinging the massive hammer dangerously close to his cousin’s face.
“It’s an untried weapon, you fool!” Gauvain says, not moving from his spot. “And you want to take it into battle with us?”
“You’re just jealous I’ve got a better weapon than you now,” Gareth retorts, smiling brightly. “With this in my hands, you won’t be able to beat me anymore.”
Gauvain snorts. “Wish it were stuck to you since you seem to love it so much!” Gauvain gasps as soon as the words leave him. “No!” he says, turning quickly to the Fey. “I didn’t mean—”
“Your wish is my command!” the Fey says, his voice oozing with evil pleasure.
Gareth suddenly drops to his knees with a grunt, holding onto his left hand, then doubles over with a howl.
“Gareth?” Gauvain asks, tentatively touching his cousin’s heaving back. “You OK, cuz? Gareth?”
He pulls on Gareth’s shoulder, forcing him to sit back up.
“Sacré nom d’un chien42!” Gauvain exclaims.
Sweat beading on his face, Gareth lifts his arm tentatively before him. Where once was his hand is now the large end of the warhammer, its metal glinting dully in the moonless night.
“Undo it!” Gauvain exclaims, pointing at the Fey. “Undo it now!”
“Can’t,” the tiny Fey says. “You haven’t said the magic words.”
“Fine,” Gauvain roars, “I wish—”
“Wait,” Gareth says, holding onto his cousin’s arm with his remaining hand, “it’s not so bad.”
“What do you mean it’s not so bad?” Gauvain yells. “You’ve lost your hand!”
“Yes, but now I have a weapon I’ll never lose,” Gareth says, sounding awfully calm. “And…”
“And what?” Gauvain asks, more subdued.
“We never know when a wish could provide utility.”
“It’s ‘to prove useful,’ you ass,” Gauvain corrects him automatically, but he seems to be thinking Gareth’s words over. “How are you going to get dressed with that? And the…other business. Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to wash you.”
Gareth shrugs. “I’ll find a way. If that squirrel Agravain can do it, so can I.”
Rise of the Fey Page 36
