I held my sword out as it approached. As it closed on me, it became smaller, its bulk shifting and contracting. The fur receded and the bearish muzzle flowed inward, exposing thick rolls of skin. When it was a few feet away, long, pointed ears slid through greasy hair, and a thick sagging gut grazed the ground.
I stared slack-jawed as Belgor stared up at me. He leaned on the car, struggling to bring his girth off the ground. He leaned heavily against the fender, his chin and bare chest smeared with black viscous blood. “I do not care for snakes,” he said.
“I had no idea you could do that,” I said.
Still catching his breath, he shrugged. “I have not lasted these many years on my wits alone, Mr. Grey. I trust this settles my debt to you?”
Dumbfounded, I nodded. “Yeah, I think that covers it.”
Belgor waddled off like he had stopped by to chat and had to be going.
36
I didn’t stick around for the police after-party. Leaving the scene of a crime was a crime, but I wasn’t worried about it. Being attacked by a giant snake-woman and four or five of her semiaquatic friends was probably justification in most people’s eyes to go into hiding for a bit. Enough witnesses were available to report that a crazy guy with a sword was the victim. Some people might even consider it a typical night down in the Weird. Besides, I wasn’t about to discuss Belgor, not after what he did. He might be an underhanded slimebag who would sell his own mother to keep himself out of jail, but the man had saved my life.
When I reached the Old Northern Avenue bridge, vitniri swarmed down the steel struts and surrounded me. The man-wolves huddled close, snapping at anyone who showed the least curiosity in me. They escorted me all the way to Rowes Wharf Hotel, pacing along the building’s shield barrier until they were sure that Eorla’s people detached another bodyguard for me.
Elven warriors from the Kruge clan, their bows notched with glowing elf-shot, ushered me inside and up to a suite overlooking the harbor. Eorla arrived after, and, for the first time, she let herself show uncertain upset, grabbing me by the arms when she entered. “Are you all right?”
“A little banged-up, and my boots got wet, but not bad considering,” I said.
She relaxed though her worry remained. “Why did she attack you?”
I filled her in on the conversation, such as it was. “I think Melusine was doing what she’s always done: playing both ends against the middle. She thought she would have better luck allying with Maeve in the long run.”
Eorla pursed her lips. “My main concern now is that she was aware of several defense strategies I have in place. I wonder how much of that has reached Maeve?”
I shrugged. “She managed to cut off information on Maeve’s troop movements by assassinating your spies. I’d worry about any strategic vulnerabilities you know about.”
Eorla wandered to the window. Down in the harbor, the mist wall shimmered with complex swirls of essence. Threads of blue and orange coiled through and around each other as they moved in a flowing course across the face of the wall. “Your relationship with Ceridwen and me made you a target, Connor. I think it’s time you went underground. I have places to offer you in Germany. Ceridwen has hinted she’s offered you a similar proposal.”
“That sounds a lot like giving up,” I said.
She smiled and turned slightly to look at me. “Caution isn’t giving up, Connor. Choosing your moment is always to your advantage. It took me a hundred years to get to this point.”
Amused, I flexed an eyebrow. “You have a slight advantage over me in the time department.”
She released an exasperated sigh. “I know you see my point.”
I moved behind her. “I do. I honestly do. But after everything that’s happened, I can’t walk away. I’ve lost so much, Eorla. I don’t want to lose my home, too.”
Eorla held her hand up, her brow furrowed. “Something’s happening.”
Outside the window, the mist wall had become agitated, streaks of white and red slicing through the other colors. The streaks surged across the face of the wall like storm patterns, cyclones forming and breaking apart, thick bands of color marching through everything in their paths. The essence brightened, the colors muting as the surrounding areas became white with heat. “It’s building in strength. Has someone attacked it?”
“I’m not getting any reports,” Eorla said.
The army helicopters danced in the energy currents and pulled higher to stabilize themselves. I directed Eorla’s attention to the airport. The army units stationed near the end of the tarmac were scrambling into trucks and more helicopters. “That doesn’t look good.”
Someone knocked and opened the door. Rand—Dylan, actually—joined us by the window. “The facility is on full alert, Your Majesty.”
“Brion Mal is head of Maeve’s forces. Get him online and explain our stance in case this isn’t the Guild’s doing, Rand,” she said.
Dylan peered at the mist wall. Now that I knew he wore a glamour, I couldn’t look at him and call him Rand. At the same time, it was odd calling him Dylan when he looked like an elf. “Our calls to the Guild are unanswered.”
“I guess that answers its own question,” I said.
“Where’s Bastian? He’s not answering my sendings,” she said.
“Our reports indicate he is en route to the airport,” Dylan said.
“Something about rats and ships is tickling at my memory,” I said.
“No, if Bastian knew something, he would not have waited this long. I’ll wager he’s as confused by this as we are,” Eorla said.
The mist wall had lost all color, becoming a sheet of solid white light. The top rose and shredded, great spires of essence spewing upward. “I don’t like this. We should….”
The wall exploded. Essence billowed across the water in a towering white wall of heat twenty stories high. Dylan and I dragged Eorla away from the window as she gathered essence in her hands. We grappled, trying to see out the window and get out of each other’s way until we tumbled to the floor. The building trembled as the essence surge hit. Glass shattered with a concussive roar, shards flying everywhere, sparkling against our body shields as they slid away. Ceiling tiles scattered with the wind as cabling pulled free.
It was over in a cloud of dust. Dylan sat up coughing, a fine film of white grit covering his red uniform. Eorla was on her feet already, staring out the gaping hole that had been the window. I pushed ceiling tiles off me and joined her. The mist wall was gone.
“Danu’s blood,” I said.
Ships filled the inner harbor, hundreds of fey ships, low-hulled and shining with amber, their masts a forest across the water. The air rippled and glimmered with the light of Celtic warriors, rank upon rank of fairy clans spread across the sky in an uncountable host. Across their leading edge, a dozen Danann fairies hovered, their body signatures burning with an intensity that outshone everything. Brion Mal had not come to the U.S. alone. The entire Queen’s Fianna was with him.
A deep rumble echoed through the air and the building shuddered. “That’s artillery fire,” I said.
“The National Guard is firing on the front of the building,” Dylan said.
Eorla crossed her arms. “So they have thrown in with Maeve at last. I shouldn’t be surprised. Donor played his hand wrong from the beginning.”
The building shuddered again. Over the harbor, the army helicopters had turned and faced the city. I took Eorla by the elbow. “We need to get out of here.”
“The evacuation is already in progress. Show Connor to the tunnel. I will join you at the bunker in thirty minutes,” she said.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
She smiled. “This is not an unforeseen contingency. Follow our friend, please. I do not have time for you right now.”
She gave me her back, scanning the skies with her dark eyes. So many sendings rippled in the air that someone with the slightest ability would sense them. I stared, struck once again at the steel in
Eorla. She knew how to commit to her goals. “Good luck, Eorla,” I said.
She acknowledged me with a slight nod but didn’t turn. “Be well, Connor.”
37
The building shook with multiple hits of artillery fire. Thick dust filled the air as Dylan led me down a back stairwell. “What is she going to do, Dyl?”
“Retaliate,” he said.
“Yeah, I figured that part out,” I said.
We reached the lobby level and kept going down. “It is not my place to discuss it if Her Majesty did not.”
“Suddenly, you’ve decided who you’re loyal to? At least tell me where we are going,” I said.
Dylan popped the door to a basement hallway. He pointed toward another flight of stairs. “You are going down there. Turn right and continue through the access tunnel until you reach the exit.”
I hesitated. I trusted Dylan macBain with my life. He trusted me with his. “Come on, Dyl. War’s breaking out up there. Clue me in.”
Even beneath the glamour that made him look so different from the man I knew, I could see a crack in his resolve. “I know you, Connor. I know you want to know why and how and where and all that. But we’ve made different choices here. I promise you this: I will never hurt you.”
“Then tell me what’s going on,” I said.
He shook his head. “We have no time. I will tell you this because I know enough about you to say it: Human suffering will be avoided at all costs. Now go. Someone will meet you at the other end.”
He winked at me and hustled back up the stairs. I debated following him but went down the stairs instead. Dylan was right. Wanting to know was more curiosity than need. Eorla would have told me anything I needed to know. She knew how to take care of herself, but it went against my nature to leave a friend alone facing an attack fleet of fairy warriors. It’s a thing I have.
Thick utility conduits two feet in diameter lined the tunnel, feeding gas, electricity, and steam into the building. I ducked pipes as I ran down the center, the sound of explosions fading into the background. The tunnel ended, but the pipes continued through the wall above a battered steel plate. My heart skipped a beat at the fleeting thought that I had been trapped, then I noticed that the plate was leaning against the wall. I worked my fingers under the top edge and pulled, jumping back as it fell. The reverberation echoed like a cannon shot.
A plain, featureless arch had been shaped through the concrete wall behind the plate. Under other circumstances, finding myself underground with the heavy scent of troll-worked essence would have made me nervous. I stepped over the threshold and started jogging through another tunnel molded out of the earth. The walls wept with moisture that pooled on the floor. It would have annoyed me more if my boots weren’t already wet. A wooden ladder at the end led up to a trapdoor.
I listened for movement. The sound of artillery fire was louder than it had been in the hotel, but I didn’t hear anything like the movement of people. I pushed at the door and poked my head up.
Dim light filtered through decayed wood. Old army-issue metal desks were pushed against a wall. Brown paper, torn and water-stained, covered the windows. I climbed out of the tunnel and smiled as I peered through a broken window. In better days, the Old Northern Avenue bridge pivoted on its moorings to allow ships up the channel. I was in the bridge’s abandoned wheelhouse, with a view of my old apartment.
I pushed through the exit door onto the sagging porch that hung over the channel. The end of the wheelhouse had been hit, its wall had splintered and slumped. I glimpsed tufts of a red fabric amid the wreckage—a house uniform of one of Eorla’s people. Whoever he was, he’d had an unfortunate posting that put him in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fairies filled the air over the hotel as their ships surged toward the dock. Essence-fire streaked down, hitting the building façade as defenders along the marina fought back from under a shield barrier. Oddly, no return fire came from the hotel. I didn’t understand what Eorla’s plan was—either for her own defense or my escape. The dead guard wasn’t able to clear matters up for me. I was on my own.
I climbed over the railing to the walkway connector for the bridge. Fey folk streamed from the financial district—solitaries who had joined Eorla’s cause, renegade elves from her Consortium troops, and unaligned Celtic fey. I saw the ruse—they were fighters masquerading as refugees, overwhelming the police checkpoint and flooding into the Weird. I jumped to the sidewalk and lost myself in the crowd.
As I reached the Weird side of the bridge, the first fairy ships landed behind the hotel. The defenders on the dock scrambled back, firing intermittent elf-shot. Still no return fire came from the hotel.
The attackers showered essence-fire onto the docks, violent streams of energy that splintered across the face of the building. The hotel shuddered under the onslaught, burning an intense white and orange. The pent-up energy rippled the air as the stone façade absorbed essence like a sponge. Now I understood Eorla’s lack of return fire. She had turned the building itself into a massive ward. It was absorbing the energy from the attacks and had become an incandescent fuel cell, bristling with power.
The channel waters rippled as vibrations spread out from the hotel. The remaining defenders fled the dock in a move that seemed too calculated to be panic. Their attackers landed, confident in their numbers and firepower advantage.
The façade exploded. Stone shattered outward on a wave of essence, leaving behind a honeycomb of empty rooms gaping open to the elements. The stone showered down, tearing into the docking ships with concussive force. The ships burst into flames as fairies launched airborne, swirling in confusion. Shipbound fey dove into the water to escape the smoke and heat. With one spectacular move, Eorla had turned the element of surprise against them.
Smoke drifted down the channel. People milled about on the bridge and along the seawall, mesmerized by the destruction, watching Maeve’s forces dive in and out of the haze. Several ranks of fairies filled the sky with glowing wings above the burning hotel. They split and re-formed into tighter units, spreading toward the city in several directions.
As I debated my next move, a sharp sliver of essence blazed in my mind, and I tripped to a stop. The spear had reappeared—or rather, my access to it. It was a thing of the Wheel and, like the Wheel, it had an arbitrary aspect that was impossible to anticipate. I reached out with my mind and tapped the spear with my body essence. With a burst of ozone, it materialized in my hand, six feet of honed applewood crackling with pure essence. Startled, people around me pulled away, cautious of a dramatic essence display in what was quickly becoming a mob.
I activated my body shield, the golden-tinged ripple of essence swirling around me like a cape. Closing my eyes, I conjured an image of the Boston Common, envisioning the hill and the gargoyles and the distinct essence signatures that comprised them. A tunnel spiraled open in my mind, cascading white and red lights that swirled to a point in the distance. The spear bucked in my hand, and I poured its essence into the image.
I soared through the tunnel, a strange, weightless sensation of movement yet not-movement. Raw essence bombarded me, trying to tear at my flesh and mind. My body shield shunted the energies around me through the nothingness, protecting me from the pain and hemorrhages I had experienced in the past. The tunnel collapsed at its end point, and I landed with a solid thump on Beacon Street. I released the shield, relieved at the lack of pain or fatigue.
Pink light burst in the air, and Joe whirled around me in agitation, his sword in his hand. He spun in place, his face set with concentration that melted to confusion. He sheathed his sword. “Great. All I get for my concern is finding you fondling your spear in public.”
“It’s a very nice spear,” I said.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “I’ll admit it’s rather long, but I doubt you know how to handle it.”
I cradled the spear in the crook of my elbow, assessing the layout on the Common. The brownie guards huddled in confusion up near the g
lowing pillar. “I thought you’d be down in the Weird having the time of your life.”
Joe picked up a discarded lottery ticket and sniffed it. “I was, but when a giant dead lady snake appears in the road and a fleet of fairy ships shows up out of nowhere and a hotel explodes all in the time it takes me to finish a pint, I figured you were probably having a bad day.”
I leaned back from the curb as a police car raced by. “Oh, please. You could have finished at least three beers in that time.”
He grinned. “You flatter me, you do. The spear lit up in my head like a candle. Now that, I am sure, don’t mean no good thing.”
Joe flew at my shoulder as I crossed the street. “You felt the spear?”
“Aye. Indeed.”
“Can you call it?” I asked.
Joe looked at me as if I were crazy. “Why ever would I do that?”
While the guards were distracted by the fairies in the air, I hurried across the pond basin and jumped the storm fence. More gargoyles had shown up since I had been there earlier, changing the layout somewhat. It took me a moment to get my bearings before I spotted the small child with the horns. I dodged from gargoyle to gargoyle to get closer, keeping watch on the guards and the sky.
Joe gasped with excitement when he saw the bowl and swarmed around it like a bee after nectar. He darted down and licked the stone, then shuddered. “Oh, my.”
I grimaced. “That’s gross, Joe. Have you any idea where this has been?”
He licked his lips. “A ship, a cave, and a mountain.”
Impressed, I looked down at the bowl. “Really?”
Joe shrugged. “Well, at least the side I licked.”
I pushed the bowl into the front pocket of my jeans. It was a tight fit and made an uncomfortable bulge. I shifted it back and forth. “Remember when you used to do something like that with a roll of quarters?” Joe asked.
“I was ten, Joe,” I said.
“And this will be as successful if memory serves,” he said.
Undone Deeds cg-6 Page 22
