Forged Steel

by H A Titus

  Let your best friend die." He swung one leg over the window sill.

  I stared at him, clenching my hands. You are not going to guilt me into this. I can't do anything about it. Sorry, Marc. I can't.

  "We need your help. You could break the cipher faster than anyone I know. But, that's okay. The Underworld scares most humans, and rightly so." Eliaster looked me in the eye. "But if you think that by backing out of this, you're going to avoid the fae, you're wrong. We can tell those who can see through glamour, Josh. Like it or not, you have that curse for life now. There will be fae who come after you. Some will want your help. Some will see you as a threat. You're never going to get away from us for the rest of your life."

  He dropped out of the window.

  I slumped against the door and massaged my forehead. I'm not making the wrong decision. I'm not. They can handle it without me.

  The thought of Marc being beaten and tortured sprang to my mind. I shook my head, shoved it away. Blodheyr wouldn't harm him. He wanted the cipher.

  The Unseelie moaned and stirred. I jumped away. Great. What was I supposed to do with him?

  Another knock on the door. Oh, wonderful. The detectives Brian had warned me about. I looked out the peephole. Two men in polo shirts stood outside, both with badges strung around their necks.

  Behind them stood two Unseelie, screwing silencers onto their pistols.

  Another knock. "Mr. MacAllister?"

  Wonderful.

  Goldtooth rolled over and sat up, rubbing his head.

  Crap.

  I darted for the window.

  #

  Eliaster waited, leaning against the side of a sleek gray supercar as I trudged down the street, my messenger bag slung over one shoulder.

  He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't want to come."

  "Then why are you waiting?"

  He smirked and circled around the car, pulling a key remote out of his pocket. The car's locks clicked.

  I jerked the passenger door open and slid inside. "Just until that stupid cipher is solved and all this goes away."

  "You don't want to stay and sort out your problem with the police?"

  "Any explanation I give them will land me either in jail or a padded room in the mental ward. Probably both. I'd rather duck out and let them work out that I'm innocent on their own."

  Eliaster handed me the papers I'd taken from the Wii, then started the car and pulled away from the curb.

  They were smallish pages that looked like they'd been torn from a five-by-eight-inch notebook. The handwriting was slanted to the point of being sideways, but I picked through it slowly.

  I'm working on a new project for Blodheyr. When he first brought it in, I was suspicious. The document is old—a hundred and fifty years old is my guess. Blodheyr wouldn't say precisely, nor would he tell me where he'd procured it. He gave me photocopies and asked me to let him know the results as quickly as possible.

  The cipher wasn't hard to decode. Anyone who has gone through college-level calculus will recognize the pattern. Thank the Almighty that fae cannot wrap their minds around the higher maths.

  But now I sit here at my desk, staring in disbelief and horror at the deciphered document that sits on my desk. Blodheyr has lied to me. I shouldn't be surprised at this, but I am. I ignored the rumors Eliaster brought to me when I should've been listening more carefully than usual. Why did I let myself get involved? I never should have allowed Marc to go to an Overworld college—I should have told him instead that he needed to tough it out here with the rest of us.

  I can't fool even myself.

  This document tells me the location of a relic that has been hidden from the Unseelie for decades. If they get hold of it, I shudder to think what they could accomplish with it.

  I will burn my translation. I want to speak to a few people I know…maybe I can gather some knowledge of Blodheyr's plans, enough that Counselor Tyrone or one of the other Seelie leaders will listen to me. Blodheyr must be stopped from gaining this relic.

  I flipped to the second page. It just held a short list of names.

  Before I could speak, Eliaster said, "I looked at it already. I helped Aiden make that list."

  "Why?"

  "Because something's going down, and I thought he had a good shot at getting people to pay attention to it. Better than me, anyway."

  I scanned the names. "So who are they, anyway?"

  "Most of them are informants for the Seelie council members, either drifters—fae unaffiliated with a court—or Unseelie traitors. If any Unseelie got that list, half the world would be at war in less than a day."

  What was I getting myself into? I rustled the pages to hide my growing discomfort. "So, what are we going to do now?"

  "We're going to visit him." Without looking, Eliaster reached over and stabbed at one of the names on the list. Angel. "See what he can tell us. After that, we're going somewhere safe where you can work on the cipher in relative peace and comfort."

  My phone beeped. I pulled it from my hip pocket and glanced at the screen. A text from my sister popped up on the black background. Mom & Dad told me 'bout break-in. U OK?

  I texted back. Fine. Not a big deal. Bit busy, talk later, OK?

  'K.

  "Who was that?" Eliaster asked.

  "My sister."

  "Don't tell her anything."

  "No duh." I started to shove the phone back into my pocket, then hesitated. "Should we—you know—call Marc's family? His mom and sisters have to be worried sick."

  "Already done."

  Okay then. It was probably better they'd heard it from Eliaster than me, anyway. Knowing Marc's mom, she'd probably be even more worried if she knew how deeply involved I was.

  We wound through Springfield and soon found ourselves on the east side. I scrunched down in my seat. This wasn't a good area of town, and no one in their right mind came here who didn't belong here.

  "What are you doing?" Eliaster demanded. "Sit up before your spine breaks."

  "No thanks. The last thing I want is to die from some gangster's wild shot."

  Eliaster rolled his eyes. "There's a reason I drove this here instead of one of my more bland vehicles. People here know this car. They won't bother us."

  I chewed the inside of my lip. What kind of person was known to an area like this?

  We came to a stop, and I peered over the edge of the window. A strip mall sat in a parking lot across the street. Two of the four spaces were empty, and the other two looked like pawn shops, though it was hard to tell with the grimy windows. Paint had chipped from one corner of the cinder-block building, and grass grew in the cracks in the sidewalk.

  Eliaster turned to me. "Angel's not fond of new people.

  Try not to antagonize him—if that's possible for you."

  I waited, but he pushed open his door. Apparently, that was all I was going to get. "How about giving me ideas on how to avoid antagonizing him?"

  "Okay, here's one. Don't talk."

  Eliaster got out of the car and I followed carefully. A few cars rolled by and one or two people strolled along the sidewalks. So far, everyone seemed to be ignoring us.

  We had parked in front of a tall concrete-block building fronted with large metal garage doors. Now that I was out of the car, I could hear music—something with a loud, thumping beat and screaming guitar riffs—pounding from inside the building.

  Eliaster punched in a code at the side of the building, and reached down and rolled one of the doors up. He ducked inside and motioned in me after him.

  Inside, the music, mostly bass and drums now, was deafening. I clamped my hands over my ears. Bright, bare fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling above us. Directly in front of me were stairs leading up to a grate-floored loft that held a bed, desk, and a couple of bookshelves. A small kitchen area sat on the far wall, and underneath the stairs sat exercise machines—a weight bench, a treadmill and a bicycle. In between the exercise machines and the kitchen sat a cluster of f
our motorcycles, one of which had its engine strewn over the floor intermingled with greasy rags and tools.

  Eliaster grabbed my arm and pulled me around the stairs to a better view of the exercise area. A man was doing pullups on a bar attached to the underside of the loft, hidden before by the stairs. His tattoos caught my attention—white ink on pure black skin, a graceful pair of wings that arched from his shoulders and upper arms to the waistband of his gym shorts. Each feather was outlined in incredible detail.

  "Angel!" Eliaster yelled.

  The guy dropped to the floor and spun around, grabbing a pistol that sat on top of a t-shirt.

  I ducked behind Eliaster.

  Eliaster held out his hands. "Whoa, whoa, it's me!"

  For a second, the man stared at him, his eyes narrowed. Then he straightened and, pulling a remote from the pocket of his shorts, turned off the music. The silence seemed to ring in the empty space.

  I lowered my hands from my ears.

  "Eli," the dark-haired man said, grabbing a towel from the floor and wiping his face. He shot an annoyed glance at me. "Who's the newbie?"

  "Josh." Eliaster jerked his head at me. "Meet Angel."

  "I thought we had an agreement." Angel brushed past us to the kitchen area and grabbed a shirt from the counter.

  "How long ago did Marc's dad talk to you?" I asked.

  Eliaster elbowed me.

  Angel glared at me before pulling his shirt over his head. "You're going after the relic."

  Eliaster nodded.

  "Are you going to talk to the curators?" he asked.

  Eliaster shook his head. "Not unless I have to."

  Angel crossed his arms and leaned back against the kitchen counter. Eliaster shifted his weight from foot to foot. For a moment, they just eyed each other, both tense.

  Angel shook his head. "You should know better than to drag an Overworlder into this, Eliaster."

  Eliaster shrugged. "We need him."

  "For the cipher? You really think he can solve it for you?" Angel gave a half-chuckle, half derisive snort. "Look at him, Eliaster. He's scrawny, he jumps at the smallest thing. He's not gonna survive a day in the Underworld."

  Excuse me? I opened my mouth.

  Eliaster turned on me. "No you don't."

  I stepped back and ducked, avoiding his hand. "Angel. You have a thing for fours, don't you?"

  Angel's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, sure, kid."

  I looked at the floor, letting mental pictures roll into my brain. "Four pieces of furniture in the loft—two bookshelves, desk, and bed. Four pieces of exercise equipment—treadmill, pullup bar, weight bench, bicycle. Four motorycles."

  "That's easy. What's my password for the door?"

  I thought back, trying to remember the tone of the buttons Eliaster had pushed. "Four-zero-nine-six. Still a progression of four—eight to the power of four."

  Angel grunted, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a bag of coffee. "Not bad. You might get that cipher solved after all."

  Eliaster rolled his eyes at me. "Can you tell us anything about the relic it points to?"

  Angel's bare foot slapped a soft jig on the concrete floor as he measured out the coffee grounds and put it into his machine. He put everything away and turned to us, his dark eyes averted. "There have been…rumors."

  Eliaster lifted his chin. "Yeah?"

  "Nothing concrete. They say that Fear Doirich Lucht Leanúna are rising again. They're after a relic."

  A faint flush rose to the back of Eliaster's neck. "The Lucht Leanúna? Are you sure?"

  "The what?" I asked.

  Eliaster scratched the back of his neck. Angel clenched his hands around the edges of the counter, his foot still tapping—one-two-three-four-pause-one-two-three-four-pause.

  The coffee machine gurgled.

  Eliaster jerked his head in a nod. "Thanks for the help."

  Angel's foot stopped tapping. He turned his back on us and reached to open another cabinet. "Wish I could do more."

  Eliaster shrugged and motioned for us to head to the door. He pulled open the garage door, and we slid underneath. Outside, the street was completely deserted.

  I waited until we were in the car and driving away to ask again. "What was that Angel mentioned? The Lucht Leanúna? Sounds like some Gaelic tongue-twister."

  Eliaster grunted. "Let me think, Josh."

  "But—"

  "Seriously. Shut up."

  Chapter 7

  The car ran smoothly, so I was left to the clamor of my own thoughts as Eliaster wove in and out of the increasingly-busy Springfield traffic.

  Maybe I shouldn't have run when I heard the police knock on my door. But what else was I supposed to do? The fae that had tagged along seemed prepared to kill, and I'd bet it wasn't me they were going to kill. By running, I'd probably prevented those detectives' deaths. That would have brought up a million more complications than simply disappearing.

  I'd have to go back sometime and sort it out. I wasn't going to stay in the Underworld forever, despite what Eliaster seemed to be hinting. Maybe after I finished the cipher I could lie low for a bit, pretend I couldn't see the true forms of the Sidhé…

  I snorted. Eliaster glanced at me, but I ignored him.

  Why did I have to be the one who decoded the cipher? Surely the fae's resources weren't that limited. For Blodheyr, it was probably a matter of convenience—Marc wasn't doing a satisfactory job, but one of his friends had the perfect for it and would probably require very little persuasion. Eliaster's reasons probably weren't that much different.

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. The fae's jaw was set as he shifted gears of the car, driving slowly through an upscale business section of Springfield. His eyes were a flat, perfect emerald green, no sign of the d'anam fuinneog. I'd only caught quick glimpses of it from him, not like Marc or Larae's prolonged, flickering eye-colors at all. My nausea was barely noticeable, but at the same time, I couldn't relax. Deep down, in the same part of me that had remained calm and controlled even at the wrong end of Goldtooth's gun, there was something about Eliaster that kept me wary.

  Eliaster flipped the blinker on. I sat up as we pulled into a tan parking garage and followed the yellow arrows to a subterranean level. Only a few cars were parked in the long stretch of concrete rows.

  Eliaster got out of the car and popped open the trunk.

  I gave another glance at Aiden's notes as I got out of the car. "Where are we going?"

  "Somewhere safe. You'll decipher the document, and maybe that will be enough to convince my dad Aiden was being serious. Obviously his evidence wasn't enough the first time around." Eliaster hefted a duffel bag out of the trunk and slung it over his shoulder.

  "Who's your dad?" I ran through the notes.

  "Counselor Tyrone."

  "Counselor," I said under my breath. "Okay. Sounds important."

  Eliaster growled. "Unfortunately, yes. C'mon."

  The elf dude had super-hearing. Right. Of course. I scanned the garage. The only exit was the ramp we'd just come down, though I supposed a door could have been hidden from my line of sight by one of the thick concrete support pillars that dotted the level.

  Eliaster walked to the wall and opened a breaker box. Instead of switches, the inside of the box had a flat black screen, similar to a turned-off computer screen. Eliaster pushed his hand against it, and the blackness moved like mist, engulfing his hand up to the wrist.

  The wall shivered, and a section soundlessly wheeled open, creating a gap large enough for a Hummer to squeeze through. I stepped back, my jaw hanging loose. A tunnel stretched out behind the wall, snaked with dripping pipes and thick electrical cables, lit by glass globes hanging from the ceiling. A musty, wet smell wafted out of the tunnel, and a cool, damp breeze brushed my face.

  Eliaster started down the tunnel. I jogged after him. The door wheeled shut almost on my heels.

  It didn't look or smell as bad as I anticipated. I caught the occasional scummy drip of water in
my hair, but other than that, the interior of the tunnel smelled like a mix of a cave and the ocean. Salty and musty. Not as bad a combination as I might have thought. Eliaster strode several paces in front of me, hands jammed in the pockets of his black leather jacket, shoulders hunched.

  I tried not to snort. He looked like the broody lead in some teeny-bopper drama movie.

  Eventually our tunnel expanded as other small tunnels converged. It became crowded. If I ignored the pointy ears and glamour-ghosts of everyone around us, I could imagine I was back on an Overworld street. The jeans, boots, jackets, and t-shirts all looked surreally familiar. Even the occasional trench coat, robes, or all-leather could be explained away.

  The other creatures made it impossible. A few trolls, similar to Scyrril with their scaly skin and bony protrusions along the back of their skulls. One or two mangy cat-like creatures scuttled in and out of the crowd, sometimes on all fours and sometimes on their hind legs. A small group of beings with thick-set bodies, papery skin, mashed facial features, and little hair walked apart from everyone else, darting their round eyes back and forth among the crowd.

  Eliaster elbowed me in the gut. "Stop staring. You're the freak around here."

  "It looks like a comic convention," I whispered.

  He glared. "Don't say that to anyone, or you'll get your head knocked off."

  "You Sidhé are very fond of threatening things like that."

  He rolled his eyes and kept walking.

  "So…" I jerked my head at the parchment-skinned beings. "What are they?"

  "Goblins." Eliaster brought one hand out of his pocket and used his thumb to gesture to one of the cat-like creatures. "Those are…"

  "Cat-sidhé," I said. "Type of goblin, right?"

  Eliaster nodded approvingly. "You did your homework, Genius Boy."

  Well, I hadn't stayed up for two extra hours this morning for nothing, at least. "Please don't call me that."

  "So, do you know what a faoladh is? Selkie? Droch fhola?"

  The last phrase caught my attention. "Drok-o-la? Oh please, don't tell me you have bloodsuckers. If the word gets out, every teenage girl for miles around is going to flock to the Underworld in hopes of finding an undead boyfriend."