by Linda Jordan
The smell of unwashed bodies and feces lingered. He couldn’t place the smell though. Not human, not any animal he recognized. It stank though, all the same.
Fiachna went inside and put everything in its place.
“My Luminary, I am so sorry your grave has been disturbed like this.”
He reset the large stones with his magic. Placing them just so, restoring the balance of the structure, making it whole again.
Then he tied the boundary of Faerie back into the stones. He felt the energy move through the boundary with a pinging sound. It was functional again.
He stepped outside the barrow.
Again he felt the presence of something ominous. A presence he hadn’t felt since he was young. Fiachna shivered with dread and felt a heaviness that couldn’t be lightened by the oncoming spring.
But it couldn’t be. They were all dead.
He called a raven, feeling its talons pinch the skin on his forearm.
He told it the message to deliver.
It flew off into the darkness of the day.
He sealed off the tomb and checked the boundary again. It held.
It was past time others began walking the edges. He couldn’t do this alone.
Something was terribly wrong.
Chapter 19 ~ Dylan
Dylan swam through the gray green sea water. How many days since they’d escaped? He’d lost all sense of time. That was the way of the ocean.
His muscles ached and he didn’t remember ever being so weary. All he could do was swing his arms forward again and again, his legs always kicking. Trying to stay alert and extend his senses as far as they would reach. Searching for danger in whatever form it might take.
Seals, sharks, Fomorians.
They swam relentlessly through the dimly lit water, staying as deep as they dared. Not stopping to rest for long. Eating when they could.
Knowing there was no safety until they reached Faerie.
They’d passed out of Canadian waters and turned east to Greenland. The water felt much colder here. It tasted less salty, perhaps the snowmelt was diluting the salt.
Beneath the waves it was murky. The water was filled with life, microscopic and larger.
They were still trying to avoid seals. And fishing boats.
The swim was grueling.
After years of living mostly out of water, Dylan found he missed smelling paint. And the variety of sound. He loved being underwater, but they had no time to stop and enjoy just being. No time to explore.
Meredith led, she was the one who knew the ocean this far north.
Dylan swam, following Meredith and helping keep Lynette on course. She swam crookedly with her damaged fin and had to work much harder than they did just to swim in a straight line.
So he swam close to her, helping her along with a gentle push every few strokes.
They stopped every so often and rested They had all grown tired of constant swimming.
The only thing that made it worthwhile was that so far, they’d escaped attention from the Fomorians.
Occasionally, Meredith sent messages to Lynette and him. Telling them stories of when she was young and about the war between the Fomorians and the Fae’s ancestors.
The war which was obviously still happening.
When he’d been born, the war was a distant memory and no one ever spoke of the Fomorians.
How could Faerie have thought such a foe was conquered?
Arrogant fools.
Would any of them take the threat seriously before it was too late?
“Are we stopping on Greenland?” he sent to Meredith.
“No time. We must move on before the Fomorians catch up with us again. They’ll find we haven’t gone directly across and come up north. And they move faster than we can even imagine.”
He sighed.
If he survived, if Faerie survived, if humans survived. If he was very fortunate, someday, he’d be able to paint again.
Chapter 20 ~ Skye
Skye perched on the roof of the house. Egan crouched on the other side of the window which jutted out and at least gave them a little cover. As soon as they sensed the Fomorian, they had shut down their glamour or else their magic would help Cethlenn find them.
Without it, she hoped, they just seemed like two humans.
Perched on the roof of a house and hiding.
She hoped the two thugs were gone. If the two had bothered to look up, Skye was sure she and Egan were totally visible.
But the fog was swirling through the town, maybe the Fomorian would hide them a little, disconcerting as if felt.
She looked around. It might be possible to slide down a drainpipe. If it held. But probably not without making noise. And if the two goons were still around…
They couldn’t make their fingers sticky, couldn’t use any magic. Not with the Fomorian around.
Nothing to do, but wait until the Fomorian was gone. Then use their glamour to sneak out of town and back to the others.
And find another town.
Another place to get ID’s. And more money for the plane tickets.
She sat down on the roof. And still, hanging on to the dormer with one hand, closed her eyes. She began to clear her head, let things drift away.
“What are you doing?” whispered Egan.
“Meditating.”
“This is no time to meditate.”
“It’s the best time to meditate. It’ll clear my head. Help me think better. You should try it.”
“You’re crazy.”
He said nothing more, but she could feel him over there, restless and anxious.
She focused on her breathing.
When she opened her eyes again, the fog had lifted. The Fomorian was gone.
“Let’s go,” she said. They needed to get away from humans. Humans with guns. Who could cause no end of trouble for them.
“How?”
“Use our power and slide down that drainpipe. And race out of town.”
“The Fomorian? The goons?”
“I think they’re gone. The goons won’t see us if we use our glamour.”
“I’m more worried about the Fomorians,” he said.
“Me too. But I’m not sure the thugs have gone. I don’t want to attract their attention either.”
“Okay, we’ll do it your way. But only use our magic until we’re a few blocks away. The fog might not be the only one around.”
“Okay.”
She gathered up all her power and scurried across the roof to the corner farthest away from the gap between the two buildings that they’d come through.
Beneath the roof, curving back towards the building ran a drainpipe. It was older. Stronger metal than the newer aluminum style ones. It might hold them.
Skye allowed herself to drift down, trying to take her weight off the pipe with her magic. Not quite flying, but becoming lighter than normal. Being her true self, nearly weightless and able to fly. Not like this heavy, human body.
She touched down on the ground and stood back, signaling to Egan.
He slid down quickly, the pipe wrenching free at the last moment with a metallic screech.
They pulled out their glamour, making themselves blend into the background surrounding them and ran down the alley. The opposite direction they’d last seen the thugs.
“What was that?” a deep voice said.
She smelled cigarette smoke.
“What?” said another male voice.
“I heard metal. And footsteps.”
Damn, they hadn’t muffled their feet.
They did now.
The thugs ran towards them for awhile, but soon stopped. She knew the men couldn’t see them in the darkness. Or hear them.
Six blocks later, they dropped the glamour, but kept running.
Skye was glad she’d worn flats to the bar. Heels would never have worked.
It took them twenty minutes to run the ten miles back to the house. Through woods and heavy brush. Faster t
han humans, inside their human looking bodies. It felt like a very long time to remain invisible. They let the glamour drop a mile before the house.
When they arrived, Adaire met them at the door.
“What happened? Why didn’t you come home last night?”
“Fomorians. And thugs,” said Egan.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Skye. She picked the money out of the wallets and left them behind. The money she rolled up, wrapped in a cloth and returned to her fabric bag
They quickly threw the few clothes and belongings they’d collected into daypacks and left the abandoned house.
Chapter 21 ~ Meredith
Meredith and the others stopped briefly on Iceland. Resting on a deserted rocky beach filled with huge boulders. There was a road up above and they could hear the occasional car or motorcycle go by. The sky looked slate gray. Clouds filled with rain. She could smell the storm coming in, taste the unsalted water. Everything felt damp and welcoming.
Meredith wanted to just lie on damp, soft grass, looking up at the sun. Let her aching, weary muscles rest. She’d spent too long hiding in a human body. She was unused to being in the sea for this long.
That saddened her. Then again, she wasn’t just being. She was fleeing and hiding.
They hadn’t seen any sign of the Fomorians since leaving Canada. That worried her.
Either they’d assumed the Fae would take the shortest route and had gone straight over the Atlantic. Or worse. They were following them and Meredith simply couldn’t sense them.
It was possible the Fomorians had gone on ahead. And that they stood blocking any entrance to Faerie.
Lynette was examining her torn fin. Nothing was going to fix it now. If they’d been in Faerie they might have found a healer. Not out here in the wilds though.
Meredith sighed and watched the undine. Lynette was so young, so innocent. It had been a very long time since Meredith had met so trusting a soul.
An arctic breeze passed over them, chilling her wet body.
Dylan looked restless. He climbed on the boulders, going nowhere. He was young too. Didn’t know how to rest.
“We should move on,” said Meredith.
“I thought you wanted us to rest,” Dylan said.
“Are you resting?” she asked.
“Sorry,” he said, coming to sit with them.
“Sometime before we reach Faerie, I expect we’ll meet the Fomorians.”
“I thought they were in North America,” said Lynette, her lovely face crumpling.
“No dear, they are everywhere. And if they find us, they’ll try to stop us from entering Faerie.”
Meredith paused, looking at their faces, waiting for it to sink in.
“Will they be in the water?” asked Lynette.
“Most likely, and on land and air as well. We must either sneak past them or fight. Are you willing to try?”
“Yes,” said Dylan, without hesitation.
“I’ll try,” said Lynette. “My magic isn’t the strongest, though.”
“It will get stronger, closer to Faerie. And you were strong enough to make a human body.”
“Not a good one though. I think my energy leaked through. That’s how they found me in San Francisco,” she said, staring at her torn fin.
“Can you change yourself into a pike, or salmon or trout?” asked Meredith.
“Yes, I can,” said Lynette.
“Good, then if we sense the Fomorians, please do so immediately. And swim like hell to Faerie. Do not stop to rest or for food. Just swim and tell them everything.”
“Where will you be?” asked Lynette.
“Dylan and I will be right behind you, if we can. We may have to stay and divert them. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
She nodded.
“What about you?” she asked Dylan.
“I can fight, some. But how do you fight fog?”
“You go beneath the water, where fog cannot live.”
“How do you fight the sea?”
“That’s more difficult. You can use glamour. Make them think you’re not Fae. The best thing to do is to not let them find you in the first place. The Fomorians are more powerful than any of us. Our ancestors defeated them not by force but by trickery. Always trickery. They made friends with them, seduced them with our sweet mead, our cows’ luscious cream, the delicate, rich pastries we could bake, the tender beef. We married the smaller, less powerful ones and their children became ours, we stole some of their magic that way. That strengthened us. Eventually, the more powerful ones, the old gods, wearied of life and faded away. Perhaps the weaker ones were killed. Or so most in Faerie thought.”
Dylan nodded.
“Come, this is the last long part of our journey. We swim.”
It took two long days and nights for them to reach the northwest coast of Ireland. Another day to follow to the coast southward, until they found the right outlet.
When they caught the taste of fresh water, that’s when Meredith sensed Corb and Domnu.
Right behind them.
Chasing them up the Shannon.
Chapter 22 ~ Adaire
Adaire trudged along behind the others. Glenna and Pearce walked directly ahead of her. Their arms interwoven, heads together. They’d chosen to walk on a bike path beside the road cutting through the forest.
The sun streaming through the new spring growth of the maple trees filled her heart. It could only have been better if she wasn’t lugging around this human body on the outside of her own. But she was.
She loved the smell of the leaves, sweet and green. The flashes of brown, reds and yellows as birds flitted between branches. The deep throated jungle call of the pileated woodpecker mingled with the chicka-dee-dee-dee of the small gray, black and white birds. A hummingbird buzzed past her head.
Adaire felt tired. Dryads normally stayed in one forest, they didn’t wander far. She just wanted to stay in one place and be.
She didn’t want to travel from town to town, then be shut up in some stuffy abandoned building while Egan and Skye tried to get the necessary money and IDs. She certainly wasn’t looking forward to getting on a plane.
A boat wasn’t ideal either. That’s how she’d gotten to the U.S. in the first place, hundreds of years ago. It had been awful.
Perhaps she should have stayed in Faerie.
She tried to remember why she’d left. But it was so long ago. She’d lived so many human lives since then. Learning new skills, learning how to be with humans, how to talk to them. Even how their systems worked.
Faerie had seemed rotten somehow. Like an apple filled with bruising at the core, but no visible signs as to why that should be so. And then there was the loss of Ashleigh. She hadn’t been able to bear that. Not and stay in Faerie. Adaire had exiled herself out into the world to be miserable and grieve.
What would they find when they returned?
Would anything have changed?
A car raced by them, loud music blaring through the closed windows. The smelly exhaust lingered long after the car had gone by.
Skye and Egan were in front. Arguing, as they often did. This time it was about which way to go.
“I think we should head East. Towards the coast,” said Skye.
“We already did that. We hit the two-bit tourist towns. They don’t have the criminals we need. Yeah, you’ve gotten us a lot of money. But we need IDs. We need to go to a city,” said Egan.
“There’s no place to hide in a city,” said Skye.
“We hide on the street. Just like the homeless.”
“That’s not safe,” she said.
“With all of us together, we’ll be fine. Safer than wandering out here, waiting for the Fomorians to find us.”
“We haven’t seen them for days.”
“They aren’t done with us yet,” said Egan.
Adaire ignored their argument. Skye wouldn’t hold out for long. She was a sylph. Fire always beat air. Always. Only wate
r could slow down fire. Skye arguing with Egan just added wind to fan the flame.
Plus, he was right. They had enough money. To continue on with their plan, they needed IDs. Soon.
There was no guarantee that the water Fae would make it back to Faerie. No guarantee that any of them would. But they had to keep trying.
To do nothing, to fail, was unconscionable.
Chapter 23 ~ Dylan
Dylan swam against the current, following Meredith and Lynette up the river. Lynette had been strengthened by the fresh water. If one could call it that. Her magic had never been really strong.
He tasted solvents and manure, fuel and other chemicals. The surface water was alive with boat traffic. Huge cargo ships and even a couple of cruise ships.
Dolphins played around their bows.
They kept well away from the dolphins.
There were few fish here, where once there had been thousands. He used to live here. Now it was walled with concrete, turned into a port.
Nature had left this place.
He felt the pressure of Corb and Domnu behind them. The sea, pushing up the Shannon as the water flowed backwards.
And Domnu pulled at them. Trying to drag them back out to sea with every wave. How could anyone resist the strength of the Mother of the Fomorians?
But they had to.
They had to make it to Faerie.
Lynette turned into a very large salmon and slid upstream, hopefully unnoticed by the Fomorians. She passed Meredith. Her silvery scales flashed in the dim light as she disappeared around the bend.
“May you be the fastest fish in the river,” he sent to her, hoping she was too far away to hear. Hopefully, she’d escape the dolphins.
“Shift,” sent Meredith to him.
He did as he was told, turning into a salmon. He could swim faster this way, even though he felt clumsy and awkward. This body was better suited for speed. But it was ripe for predators.
They swam as quickly as they could, struggling against the warring currents. They switched back to their own bodies when another pod of dolphins appeared.
Breathing heavily and tired, Dylan swam on. The dolphins were still coming at them, as if not believing they weren’t salmon.
One dolphin got too close and Dylan shot a blast of power at it, smacking the dolphin on the head. Meredith, also a salmon, opened her jaws, suddenly enormous, large enough to take in the entire dolphin’s head. It veered away.
