by Richard Amos
Flowers of pain bloomed in my soul. Spiritual and physical agony, loss raking and clawing through me, hooking me with festered talons, longing for a failure.
“Dean!”
My family wasn’t dead. They couldn’t be dead. This was my mind. Not real. They weren’t allowed to die because I needed them.
I felt myself slump forward, not in control of my body anymore.
“They can’t be gone…”
“Dean! They’re coming! They’re coming!”
Dad? Was that Dad?
“I just want to hold them…”
“Dean!” Movement, pressure on my back. Sliding to the side, locked in between flesh. Man and horse, head resting on a mane of white hair.
Sliding.
Tears ran free. I knew what was happening, fully aware of losing the grip on myself and the horse, but also far away from any sense of reason. I’d seen them dead. Combined with the mess of the city, I couldn’t hold back my fear.
“Because of me…” I said. “Because of me, they’re gone. We could have been somewhere else, somewhere remote and away from all of it. Never any need to be these people. PIAs? My fault. Whatever happened to peace?”
“Dean!”
“Jake deserves a better man, Louise, a better father. I’m just like you. Useless. Should’ve never shared my fucking seed.”
I lost it, wailing in grief I didn’t need to be drowning in. But it’d been triggered, and the images wouldn’t stop in their unrelenting ravaging.
Thirty-Three
Jake
How was I still alive, still breathing, still able to see? Yeah, no more feeling, paralyzed from head to toe. I could blink, feel my lungs working, but that was it.
Maybe this was the transformation—leaving me like this. Maybe I was wrong about dying.
Still seemed like a shutdown, though. Like this was the final piece of land before the wide-open abyss.
Ugh. The universe was so mean sometimes.
I was being moved somewhere. My mind kept drifting to happier times when I wasn’t this hot mess of dying.
Back to Dean and Lou. Happy times on the sofa with hot chocolate and big fantasy novels. Cuddling up together as a family watching movies. Going to the park. Enjoying the sunshine on those days the weather wasn’t a wanker. Christmas. Easter chocolate. The kiss of Dean’s lips, Lou telling me about Jupiter’s moons. Bedtime with the love of my life. Lazy mornings, which didn’t happen often. Cooking dinner for them because I loved to feed their faces. Everything good and great. Small, big, all of it. I’d cut my fucking liver out with a rusty blade to get it back, to have even five more minutes with them.
Just five minutes.
I wanna say goodbye.
Thirty-Four
Dean
An hour passed before I registered we weren’t outside, but in relative darkness, apart from the light of a candle. I was awake the whole time, but not really. Lost awake, I guess you could call it.
“Dean?” A hundred times he’d said my name.
This was the first time I answered. “What?”
“Finally! Are you all right?”
I blinked, my eyes burning and exhausted, my mind empty. “Where are we?”
“I got us away, got us to this shelter.”
The candlelight was the only light. Everything else was shadow. “Where?”
“Amsterdam Centraal. A shop inside it. Some kind people helped me carry you here. The grounds surrounding it are in a horrendous way, but this is the best place to be for the moment. We have this temporary window of opportunity to take a pause now. Amazingly, the station is completely untouched for the time being.”
Inside the train station? No memory of that.
“We’ve been in Faerie for four hours Earth time,” he said.
“Four hours?”
“Yes, Son. The man in charge of this operation here said we’re heading out soon to a safer place. He’s pod-born, but not like the creatures being made by the Roses. After all, their power is infused with unstable fae magic, so the transformations are more haphazard than normal.”
“You know a lot about pods?”
“I do. I know too much about many things, Son.”
Bastard. “Who was this man?”
“He said his name was Sonny and that he knew you.”
“Sonny?”
“Yes. A snake-ish thing. Extremely helpful. He wants to move west and try to get to Schiphol Airport.”
“Why the hell would he want to do that? Pods love planes.”
“I don’t know. That’s what he said.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I find Jake and Louise.”
“And I’ll be with you.”
Cockroach.
“Where’s the horse?” I asked.
He sighed. “Had to leave her behind. She bolted as I tried to lead her into the tunnels. Your soothing presence was broken. I’m sorry, Son.”
For the horse? For everything?
I was in a sitting position on the floor, my back resting against a wall. The air was cloying, too warm, and there was no sign of red. No pod.
Yet.
“I don’t know how we got away from those women,” Dad said. “But we managed it against all odds.” He leaned forward, the light accentuating handsome features I wanted to tear apart.
“We have to go,” I said, looking away.
“Not yet. We have to wait.”
“I’m not waiting. I’m getting out of here.”
“Dean?” Sonny’s voice, then a flame coming to life to reveal his grubby face and snake eyes.
“Hi.”
“You alright?”
“I will be when I find my family.”
“That’s what I came to tell you. They’ve just turned up.”
I was on my feet instantly. “Where are they?”
He blocked my path.
“Move now or die, Sonny.”
“Dean… It’s Jake. I’m so sorry.”
This wasn’t real.
Jake was in the center of this ring of people, his body glowing with red pod. He was resting on a wooden sleigh which had been dragged here by Seph and his chains, barely recognizable under all the boils and the swelling of his flesh.
My beautiful Jake.
Dylan and his companions, Brem, Cherry, Sonny, Sophie, and Luuk. Dad. A few strangers. There were others in the other shops next door to this one, crowded together in terror.
I didn’t give a shit.
My family was broken.
“Daddy? Papa?” Louise said weakly after agonizing moments of silence. I went to her.
All I’d been doing was alternating between the two of them, speaking reassurances, kissing her forehead after the contents of the vial had been poured into her mouth, the missing piece of her slithering back into her in a silky cloud of milk. Her color had returned, warmth too. A deep intake of breath and gentle snoring followed.
I wasn’t able to kiss Jake.
I fell by her side. “I’m here.” I wanted to hug her, but she was weak. Instead, I smoothed the curly hair from her forehead.
Louise was wrapped in a blanket, spread out on a bed made of coats. “Papa.”
I took her tiny hand. “I’m here, darling. You’re okay.”
“Where…where did I go?”
What did I tell her? “You’re here now.”
Yes, here waiting for a miracle my dad was about to reveal.
First, he came to greet his granddaughter.
“Grandpa…” Louise whispered. “Hi.”
“How are you, my treasure?” He didn’t crouch, didn’t dare come close. I’d hurt him if he did.
“The spell?” I said.
“Yes. Of course.” He backed off.
“Papa? Where’s Daddy?”
A stab in my heart. “He’s…he’s here. He’ll come and give you a big kiss in a minute.”
“Okay…Papa.” She closed her eyes. “Just resting.”
“You rest. Sophie and Lu
uk are here.”
“Hallo, Sophie and Luuk,” she said softly, not opening her eyes.
The lie about Jake was ashes on my tongue. But she couldn’t know, couldn’t see him like that.
“Luuk will be right here while I talk to grandpa.”
“Okay…” She was falling back into sleep.
Sophie was needed in this discussion too.
We moved to the other side of the shop where my dad held court and began to explain the last slice of hope we had now the world was going to Hell in that handbasket so often cited.
“I have the spell, and I think we have enough energy here to make it happen. A witch, a siren, two full-blooded fae, a half-fae.”
I was positioned to have Jake and Louise in my eyeline.
“At least, I hope we can make this happen,” Dad added.
“It has to work,” Dylan responded. “If this is true about Louise, then she is all we have left.”
My poor girl. “What will it do to her?”
“Exhaust her, I would imagine,” Dad said.
“Will it hurt her?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t think so. It may have the consequences of a great power usage.”
“That’s reassuring.” I folded my arms. “I’m expected to put her through this when I don’t know what’ll happen? She’s been through so much already. What if I lose her? And I know I’m losing Jake if we don’t try this. But—”
“Son—”
“Don’t even try it, Dad. Because of you, we’re here. You were part of it. So don’t try to placate me, okay? I don’t want your comfort.”
He didn’t push me. “I’ve seen her power, and it’s great. But it is not made up of things to harm.”
“Explain.”
“There is no unstable core. Unstable power is evident from fractures in the essence of a fae’s power. Louise doesn’t have those fractures.”
“But you did tell me before that it was unstable, right?”
“That was to…to—”
“Cover up your lies. I know.”
Again, he didn’t try and say anything about it. He knew better. “It radiates an energy of stopping, of cold. That’s her freezing power, but at the heart of it are the contributions of her environment. It is, from what I can see, anti-pod. Her blood, your blood, the time she was exposed to divine power when she was in her mother’s womb, all of these things have contributed to form this magic. It was fae to begin with, nothing but a diluted trace within her that has grown with time.”
“Weed of Tine is amazing stuff.”
“It is.”
I really wanted to punch him.
“In the growing of this power, it has latched onto the conditions of her existence. Environment can contribute to a lot of things when it comes to magic.” He folded his hands behind his back. “This power of hers froze threats against those she loves, like she demonstrated, but awakening its deeper capabilities will go further.”
“Destroy the pod?” Pranay, the werewolf, asked.
“I really do think that. But there is a risk it won’t work, that it will be nothing more than a stronger freezing power. Dean, as soon as you say, I will begin.”
“What do you need from the rest of us?” Sophie asked.
“I need you all to join hands. Dylan. Andy. Dean. Me. You, Sophie.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
He removed a small piece of parchment from his pocket. “This,” he said, “is the words of the spell to release Louise’s full potential. Early Gaelic. They must be spoken by me, when we are all joined, in a specific rhythm. They will draw on our collective energy.”
My stomach flipped. Was I really going to put my daughter through this? What choice was there? Do nothing, lose Jake, and have nothing left of the world. Sooner or later, this train station would be overwhelmed by pod or by pod-born. And then it would move across the world.
Nowhere would be safe.
This decision burned me from the inside out.
There was only one option.
“Let’s do it before something nasty comes knocking.” Chaos still rang outside, the thunder still booming. Amsterdam Centraal wasn’t the last building standing, from what I’d seen before my meltdown, but it was swimming in a small pond. If the surrounding area was heavily damaged, it wouldn’t be long before the tide turned.
I linked hands with Sophie and Andy, moving away from my dad. Having his skin on mine was a repellent idea.
Dad held Dylan’s hand and had one free. We were a chain, not a circle like I’d been expecting.
“I will now speak the words,” Dad said. “Be ready.”
As soon as the words left his lips, my body erupted in vibrations, like I was sitting on a particularly aggressive washing machine. My teeth chattered, brain rattling in my skull.
“G-g-goodness m-m-me…” Dylan said.
Our joined hands sparked different colors. Pink, blue, gold, pulses of light shooting back and forth along our chain.
“Do not break the chain,” Dad ordered. “It is imperative to stay joined together until the magic is released. Let it rise.”
Along with the heavy vibrations, my energy was being drawn out of me, passed down the line, traveling back through me again with other things attached to it.
Back and forth, back and forth.
“No!” Parker’s shout almost broke the chain.
Couldn’t see him. He was behind me.
“Rats!” he bellowed. “Sneaky rats! I’ll end you! We’ll end you!”
“Jake Winter will burn.” Elijah’s voice.
Dylan had told me about the two-in-one surprise of the brothers.
The wolf, the kelpie, the vampire—they sprang into action. Sonny too, and the strangers.
Why was Brem here?
As long as he was on our side, right now, I didn’t care.
“Fuck you!” Pranay growled.
“Don’t break the chain!” Dad cried.
Fighting broke out. Dangerously close. Shouting, the howl of a wolf, the jangling of the kelpie’s chains, and the smashing of glass as the power built inside me, inside all of us who were linked.
“Burn him!” That wasn’t Elijah. Izzie? More Conclave had come to see a job done and avenge their friends.
“We will burn him!”
“Kill the girl!”
Luuk and Cherry were with my daughter, holding weapons. No one had slipped through to them yet, or Jake. Parker/Elijah did, but vanished quickly after the kelpie chains snapped at them.
“Just a little bit longer!” Dad yelled.
“Burn him!”
“Kill the girl!”
“Kill Jake Winter!”
I longed to break free and kill them for saying those things. To obliterate any piece of shit who thought they could come and threaten my family.
I held on.
“No!” Parker this time. “We can’t let these people win! Kill them! Kill them all!”
It sounded like everyone hiding in the train station had jumped into the fight.
Parker appeared again next to my daughter, grabbing Cherry by her hair. She twisted to stamp on his foot, and he vanished yet again just before a kelpie chain snagged him.
Seconds later, he was back. Grinning. “Yes! That’s it! Spread it everywhere!”
People screamed. The Roses. They were here and—
The power exploded out of us, throwing us across the room. I smacked into the wall, fell forward onto my knees as a rose woman dashed around me, pod spilling from her rose.
Louise screamed, and it shook the ground.
“No!” Parker roared.
Everything was swallowed in a blinding white light.
Thirty-Five
Jake
The last thing I saw after my daughter’s scream was snow falling. Indoors.
Okay, then.
It wasn’t cold, not anything. But it froze. It touched my body and quickly made the world stop.
THREE HOURS LATE
R
Thirty-Six
Dean
The purest white snow I’d ever seen smothered the city. It had no temperature, no texture. Touching it was like touching air, and it’d fallen for three hours before settling, bathed in the light of the moon.
No more rain, no clouds in the starry sky because the snow hadn’t come from any. Inky black and stars scattered everywhere. No more Divine Roses, pod engulfed and lost in white.
So I was told. I wouldn’t leave the shop, Louise now asleep next to me. A deep, deep sleep after what she’d just done.
Jake was buried under the snow, only his mouth and nose exposed for him to take his gentle breaths.
Sonny was the same, being pod-born too, I figured.
“I’m here, baby.” I wanted to touch Jake so badly.
Was he healing? Had this really worked?
I was drifting, lost without his voice, waiting, longing.
“I think it will take time,” Dad said behind me as I knelt beside the mound of white that was my fiancé. “Give it time.”
Dad.
I stood and turned to face him. “Talk. Now.”
“Sorry?”
“Tell me everything.”
Parker/Elijah were missing, the hunt on. The city was coming to terms with this strange event. Everything was, well, unknown. Dylan Rivers and his companions were out to try again with the woodland prison.
When Dad’s eyes met mine, I saw guilt. Rather than struggle for something to say, the words flew out of him. “The Rós brothers knew about Louise, wanted her soul taken away to stop her because of the first time she showed her skill. They sensed greatness and didn’t want it to interfere with their plans. Parker for his Jake-led apocalypse, which I didn’t know about, I swear, and Elijah for –”
“Burning Jake,” I finished for him.
“Yes. Dean. I’m sorry. I didn’t want—”
“Don’t say her name to me.”
“Don’t you want to know about her being their daughter?”
