Blood of the Fey (Morgana Trilogy)

by Alessa Ellefson

  “Or else?”

  “There is no else,” Dean says, grabbing me by the arm and forcing me to my feet.

  “Let. Me. Go,” I say, struggling against his hold.

  My shoulder, still aching from my fight with the banshee, hurts like I’ve been stabbed with a red-hot poker. A spasm sends goose bumps down my arm, and, to my surprise, I see Dean wince.

  “I said to come along nicely,” he mutters.

  Without letting me go, he raises his other fist and clocks me in the face. My vision goes momentarily dark. I feel Dean catch me before I collapse on the floor, then fling me over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

  I try to move, resist some more, but my whole body feels like someone’s pulled my plug. As if through foggy lenses, I see Puck scutter away behind Myrdwinn Junior’s prone body, and I remember I have yet to give Vivian the message. Then Dean makes a sharp turn, and I lose them both from sight.

  My body swings back and forth with every step Dean takes, sending sparks of pain down my left arm. I hear Dean’s labored breathing as we make our way slowly up the stairs. The noises of battle greet us before we even reach the ground floor. My heart lurches inside my rib cage—what is going to happen to all these people?

  “Morgan?”

  I blink and look sideways at the indistinct shapes moving toward us from a side hallway. Though I can’t distinguish anyone’s face, Bri’s voice is unmistakable.

  “Who are you, and what are you doing to Morgan?” Bri asks.

  I want to tell her to stay away, warn her to take cover, but only manage a half-choked gasp.

  I feel more than see Dean strike Bri down, the hairs on my body rising from the blast’s aftermath. I want to punch his back, scream Bri’s name, but the air feels like it’s gotten as thick as cream, and my movements get sluggish.

  The cool air whips around me the moment Dean pushes the outside door, carrying with it the acrid smell of smoke coming from the burning forge and wharf. Without hesitation, he marches forward into the fray. Even in the midst of battle, the sounds of steel hitting sharpened bones, and of rattling explosions, seem dim.

  I hear someone call my name, someone who sounds strangely like Arthur. I strain to lift my head. I think I see a gleam, hear the distinct though oddly distant sound of someone battering furiously at something, but then my head falls back against Dean’s dorsum, and I pass out.

  I wake up the moment I’m dropped into snow’s freezing embrace. I roll over and heave, my whole body shaking with the effort. Once I think I’m safe from fainting again, I sit up to see where we are.

  I know we’ve reached the surface—the snow, bright sunlight, and the distant rumbling of cars make it obvious—but it’s not until I see Dean sitting against a tall stone that I realize where exactly.

  “Island Park,” I croak. I blink as the sun’s reflection makes my eyes water. “Why are we here?”

  But Dean won’t answer. He doesn’t move from his sitting position, and, upon closer inspection, I note the sweat beading on his pale features. His eyes are closed and his breathing labored. Could he be ill?

  My first instinct is to go to him, like he’s always come to me in times of trouble. Then I recall the nightmare that’s still unfolding down below, and I decide against it.

  Slowly, I get to my feet, my knees creaking, then take a long step away from the cairn and toward the shore, leaving deep imprints in the thick blanket of white. No boats can come here in this season, but perhaps the ice is strong enough that I can walk on the lake back to the city’s safety.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  The low voice sends shivers down my spine. I look over my shoulder; Dean’s eyes are open. He jerks his chin toward me, and I feel something brush against my legs before I hear the chilling laugh.

  “Massster,” the banshee hisses, prostrating herself at his feet.

  I nearly fall back down into the snow.

  “Master?” I repeat. Dean is that creature’s master?

  Using the standing stone behind him for support, Dean slowly gets up. It all starts to make sense now—that night I ended up fighting the banshee on this island, the reason he’d been the one to save me…

  “You were here that night, weren’t you?” I ask, anger boiling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Now you realize,” Dean says, avoiding my eyes.

  I reel back. This isn’t possible. Dean—my Dean—in league with the banshee who’s been killing all these people? But pieces of the puzzle finally come together—how Ella tried to warn me, and then disappeared in the process…

  “Ella,” I say, recalling the hunched-over shape in the yard. “You killed her too, didn’t you?”

  “A necessary sacrifice for the freedom of a great one,” he says.

  “You mean a degenerate man killer,” I say and have the pleasure of seeing anger flare on his otherwise expressionless face.

  “You killed my father,” I murmur, feeling my eyes go wet.

  Impassive, Dean looks at me for a long moment. He sways as he pushes himself away from the stone, toward me. The banshee rushes to his aid, but Dean shoves her away.

  “You’re the one who got those Fomori in?” I ask, hating how my voice trembles.

  “I needed a diversion,” Dean says. “And with the Board safely away, the plan seems to have worked, don’t you think?”

  “A diversion?” I repeat. “To get all those people killed?”

  Dean shrugs. “Nothing more than what they’re doing to us,” he says. “At least their deaths are quick. Much better than spending eons as a slave until your powers are so depleted you cease to exist.”

  “And me? You tried to poison me!” I exclaim. “That’s why that cat was asleep when you brought me back inside, wasn’t it?”

  The spilled bowl of milk, the insistence I drink that stupid hot cocoa of his…For some reason, this hurts me even more.

  “Why me?” I whisper.

  “You’re the missing ingredient,” Dean says simply. His dark eyes come to rest on my face, then slide down to my left shoulder.

  He stumbles toward me, and I back away. “Stay away from me,” I say, looking between him and the dark cowl that covers the banshee’s deathlike look, “you and your gofer.”

  “Trust me,” Dean says, “if there was a way around this, I would have found it.”

  “Around what?” I ask, confused by his tone. Could he actually be sad about this? A spark of hope flickers in my chest; if Dean doesn’t truly want to hurt me, maybe I still have a chance to get away. I take another step back, feeling the ground slope gently down. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “To fulfill your destiny,” Dean says.

  And with a sudden burst of speed, he jumps to my side and grabs my arm, his thin fingers digging into my flesh. He jerks me after him.

  “You’re hurting me,” I say, feeling woozy once more.

  “It’ll be over soon,” Dean says through gritted teeth.

  The banshee hovers around us, one moment pacing ahead of us, the next pushing me in the back to make me move faster.

  “Are you going to kill me?” I ask.

  Dean has us hurry toward the circle of stones until we’re standing in its center beside a small, oblong knoll that wasn’t here the last time I was on this cursed island.

  “I have ffffinished the circle,” the banshee rasps.

  I see that, where there had been seven stones before, there are now eleven of them forming a circle around us like a rough draft of Stonehenge. Dean lets go of my arm and strides to a wide gap in the circle.

  “I see,” he says, his crisp voice reaching me over the whistling wind. The banshee’s gray form moves about Dean like a will-o’-the-wisp, excited.

  “I did everything Massster asssked,” she says.

  “Yes,” Dean says, reaching behind him, “but you missed a spot.”

  I see something glint in his hands before it gets buried in the banshee’s tattered robe. A keening wail arises f
rom the Fey. Her clawed hands reach out for Dean as she sinks slowly into the cover of snow in a gray heap.

  “You’ve served me well,” Dean says before pulling his hand away.

  If I had any food left in my stomach, I’d be throwing up right now. I know how horrible the banshee is, how she’s attacked me and those knights, how she’s left Percy on the brink of death. Yet…a small part of me can’t help but feel pity for the creature and the way she was used. Had it not been for Dean, would she still have committed all those atrocities?

  Small tremors that rapidly increase in intensity shake the ground. As the wail turns into a howl of pain, I realize that the banshee’s struggling to dig out of a growing hole in the ground, her claws raking through the snow uselessly.

  “Massster!” she pleads.

  A poem comes back to me from the depths of my memory, one Jack recited in the library before an ancient stele.

  Four men to raise the stones their blood did shed…

  A frisson runs down my neck—all those people reported disappeared, four in all.

  Four Fey their essence over the cairn did spread…

  And now this banshee, a Fey, is being fed to the earth to complete the circle—the circle that’s supposed to be a prison— thereby reversing the process…

  My mind loses track of my surroundings, and, next thing I know, I’m lying in the snow next to the churning earth, pulling on the banshee’s bony arms. There’s a strange resistance, as if the ground’s sucking away at the banshee’s body, inexorably dragging her farther and farther down.

  Dean’s hand grabs the back of my jacket and tries to haul me away.

  “Stop it!” I yell, anger flaring through me.

  Again, I feel that numbing pain shoot down my left arm from my shoulder. Dean lets me go with a curse.

  “Come on,” I say, gritting my teeth as I pull harder at the creature’s arms.

  With a sickening crunch, the banshee’s suddenly released, and we both tumble backward. The earthquake continues for a while longer, then slowly fades away.

  Shaking my head, I look about for the creature. I find the banshee stretched out in her tattered cloak a foot away from me.

  “Are you all right?” I ask, half crawling, half walking over to her.

  The creature whimpers as I try to feel for a pulse, then snaps at me. I jerk my hand away, but not fast enough, as she claws down my side, tearing my jacket from collar to sleeve, nearly ripping my arm off in the process. The banshee then quickly pushes herself toward the lake, leaving a dark path of blood in the snow behind. Then, with a final gasp, she rolls over onto the frozen water, shatters the ice with one long talon, and sinks into the dark waters.

  “You fool,” Dean says, panting.

  He’s holding his right side like something’s bothering him, and for the first time in my life, I hope he’s in intense pain.

  “What, did I foil your plans?” I ask, a self-satisfied smirk on my face.

  “Not exactly,” he says, grabbing me by the wrist and forcing me back to the center of the stone circle. “Though it does change some of the variables.”

  As we reach the knoll again, Dean pulls his knife back out and slashes my exposed arm. I scream as pain explodes down my body, sending stars into my vision. Sweating profusely, he tugs on my arm so the blood falls freely onto the small mound, turning the snow scarlet.

  “No!” I yell frantically. “Let me go! What are you doing?”

  “Undoing something that should never have been allowed,” Dean mutters.

  Once again, the ground shakes, and Dean releases me. I scramble backward, away from the earth, which, I know, is going to try to swallow me whole. But the ground doesn’t attempt to suck me in, and I watch, mesmerized, as a large rectangular stone engraved with runes slowly emerges from its depths. Then stops.

  Dean folds over, as if the strings that have been holding him up have abruptly been snipped.

  A semi-hysterical laugh bubbles out of my mouth, harsh in the suddenly quiet air. Wrong move—Dean’s head snaps up, and he glowers at me. He staggers back up, and I cower away, expecting him to come straight for me and finish the kill.

  We both spot the knife at the same time, its dark blade gleaming dully in the sunlight. For a moment, we stare at each other, then pounce for the weapon at the same time.

  My hands close on the wooden handle first. Too easy. I turn around as Dean’s fist flies toward me, and I duck, then spin away. Too easy. He turns around and throws himself straight at me, and the knife gets ripped out of my hands.

  Dean stops, staggers, rights himself until I can see the wooden handle protruding from his side, marring his usually pristine suit. He gasps, then smiles at me.

  Sitting in the snow, panting, I watch him stumble over to the empty spot in the circle—the spot where the last remaining stone needs to be raised to free Carman.

  “No!” I cry out.

  I try to get up, but all my strength went into that final attack, and I can’t do anything but watch as he falls to his knees, then sits back.

  “You did it on purpose,” I whisper. “You made me kill you…”

  Dean turns his face to me, slowly, as if even that small movement is painful.

  “Dry your tears, Morgan,” he says, almost tenderly.

  And to my surprise, I find that I am crying, the salt of my tears stinging the myriad scratches on my face.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he says. “It’ll be over soon.”

  “W-Why?” I hiccup.

  Dean winces, takes a rattling breath, then hunches over. “Why not?” he replies, his words slow. “Look at the world around you, everyone always fighting over the most trivial of things, destroying everything without sparing a thought to anyone else but themselves. Soon enough, everything will be in ruins anyway. I’m just…helping the process along…while…while liberating my p—people. A noble p-pursuit in-deed.”

  A low laugh escapes him that ends up in a racking cough.

  Already low vibrations are coursing through the island as the ground soaks up his blood. My mind’s going at the speed of light now, trying to find a way to stop him. Dean’s head twitches back, muscles straining in his neck. And the answer comes to me.

  “Hold on,” I say, crawling toward him.

  Time seems to slow down. Every movement I make takes a century as Dean sinks deeper into the soil.

  “Don’t die,” I say, teeth chattering as the snow soaks through my clothes. My left arm, free from the protection of my jacket, is completely numb. I fling it forward, blood pouring from the wound in a shower of scarlet drops.

  In the distance, I hear something shatter, then the voice of Arthur crying my name out. But I stay focused on Dean as I drag myself toward him, intent on saving him before he disappears entirely. Just a few more yards, and I’ll reach him.

  “Let…it…be,” he says, giving another shudder.

  “I can’t,” I say. “I can’t let you die.”

  Dean’s usual derogatory smile lifts his lips for a split second before another grimace erases it. Just a few more feet, and I’ll be able to grab his hand.

  “Morgan!”

  A sparkling shape appears behind Dean, long and forbidding. I raise a hand in panic.

  “Arthur, don’t!” I yell.

  But it’s too late, and I watch the long sword slash down, cutting Dean down across his back. For a brief instant, Dean seems to be unaffected by the blow. Then he falls forward, disappearing in the thick layer of snow, and doesn’t get back up.

  “Nooooo!” I yell, beating the ground with my frozen fists.

  “Morgan!” Arthur says, jumping over Dean’s body to rush to my side. He seems relieved, and smiles. “Are you all right?”

  He tries to help me up, but I push him away.

  “You killed him! You killed him!” I say, beating feebly at his chain mail.

  I barely register the fear etched in Arthur’s proud features, or the dried blood caking the side of his face. Al
l I know is that he’s killed the one and only person who’s ever been there for me. I feel like my head’s about to explode.

  “It’s all right,” he says, holding my injured arm up in his warm hands. “I’m here now. I’m going to take care of you.”

  “You murderer,” I say, sobbing.

  Arthur blanches. He turns my arm over to expose the long gash extending the length of my humerus, then rips a part of his shirt off and proceeds to bandage my cut.

  He’s tying off the knot when the ground beneath us heaves and rolls, like a buried giant’s just rolled over in its sleep.

  “What’s going on?” Arthur asks, crouching low to keep his balance.

  “It’s happening,” I say, shaking.

  A gale whips up around the cairn, lifting the snow from the ground in a small tornado. Above us, large clouds are gathering, blotting out the sun and giving everything an eerie glow in the growing darkness. I turn to look at Arthur, but I can’t see anything before me. My heartbeat accelerates—the ninth plague!

  “Arthur?” I call out, my words snatched away by the intensifying wind.

  Another gust lashes at me, then I feel myself lift off the ground and get flung away. Just as I’m afraid I’m going to find myself in the middle of the lake, I crash into one of the tall stones, bounce off it, and land in the mud.

  Mud? Head pounding, I manage to push myself halfway up. With growing horror, I see that the ground around the central altar has vanished, turned into a gaping abyss from which blazing heat emanates.

  “Arthur?” I call out, terrified he may have fallen into the dark hole. “Arthur?”

  I look about me frantically, shielding my eyes from the debris flying around. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the wind dies down. A lightning bolt streaks through the sky, followed by another and another. A loud gurgling rises from the crater, and the earth seems to belch out a miasma of dark, foul liquid before it heaves again and closes up.

  Trembling from head to toe, I watch the scorching mass of darkness move over the ground, burning everything it touches.

  Then, with a strange sucking sound, the mass rises over the ground and slowly solidifies until, to my astonishment, there stands a young woman, her long jet-black hair framing her chiseled face. It takes a moment for her pitch-black eyes to focus, then she extends her pale hands before her, fingers splayed, turns them around, then touches her face, as if she herself can’t believe she’s real either.