Druid (Secrets of the Fae Book 2)

by Rebecca F. Kenney

  "All right, I think we're about ready to get started. Chuck here has a habit of avoiding all the permanent bits till absolutely necessary. Me, I like to start with the important parts. Gets the job done all the faster, don't you think?" Reaching into the bag, he pulls out a pair of massive shears.

  "Here's how we're going to begin. I'm going to cut off a finger from one of you. The two of you get to decide who's going to be the loser." He gives the shears a snap.

  I'm so stunned I can hardly process what he's asking us to do, but Kieran doesn't hesitate. Still muzzled, he holds out his left hand without looking at me.

  "Aren't you noble?" Stanley walks over to him. "Good choice, because you're going to die tonight either way, and you won't be needing the extra appendage."

  "No, don't!" I exclaim. "Please. Do it to me instead, I'm the one being tortured, remember? He's been through enough."

  He's not listening. He seizes Kieran's ring finger, bending it out from the others.

  "Stop! No no no, please!" I shut my eyes, horrified, and there's a snap and a muffled roar of pain. I open my eyes to see Kieran doubled over, with Stanley pressing a wad of cloth to his hand. "Keep pressure on it, keep it up," he says coolly. Like he does this every day.

  I'm shaking all over. The monster actually did it.

  "Put that finger somewhere safe," Stanley says to Chuck. "It'll serve well as a relic." He turns back to us. "Now, this little exercise showed us all something very important. The two of you aren't just friends, are you? We know that he's willing to take pain for you, to lose parts of himself for you, yes?"

  He looks at me like he expects an answer, so I nod. My jaw is shaking so hard I have to clench it to keep it still. I don't think I could speak.

  "The problem is, he can take quite a lot of pain. We've put him through all sorts of things in the past few days, and none of it had the right effect. So luckily, we have you now. Such a pretty blank slate on which to work."

  He runs his hands over my body, lightly, and I cringe. Kieran actually growls deep in his throat. "This bothers you?" Stanley smirks, glancing at him. "How about this?"

  He whips out the little knife he used on me yesterday and starts cutting my dress away. In a minute, my midriff is exposed. Then, quickly and shallowly, Stanley slices a series of grooves down the left side of my stomach, like an artist doing several swift flourishes on a canvas.

  The pain is so sudden, so harsh, I can't help the hot tears slipping out; but I try hard not to scream. It feels like the agony is everywhere along my side, burning up my skin.

  "I'm doing you a favor here, sweetheart," says Stanley. "You'll have some interesting scars to show off. Let's go a little deeper with this one, just for contrast."

  He plunges the knife in, and I can't help it— I scream. Kieran roars in protest; he’s trying to say something from behind the mask. There’s more blood this time— I can feel it running warm over my side and down onto the table.

  "Don't worry, dear, I'm a trained surgeon," says Stanley. I blink at him, my eyes blurry with tears. "I won’t cut you anywhere vital."

  Kieran is still fiercely struggling to be heard through the mask.

  "Giving in already?" Stanley smiles. "We're just getting started. Chuck, take his mask off and see what he has to say. Far Darrig, I warn you, no magic or this knife goes in again." He holds it poised over my lower stomach.

  Chuck stalks over to Kieran and unbuckles the muzzle. The second it's off, he lets out a string of foul words so long that I stare at him, shocked. I've never heard him swear like that.

  Stanley waits, listening, until the string of profanities ends. "The same to you. Now if you have nothing useful to say, I'll proceed. How about a little rib art?" He pushes up my shirt and slices along one of my ribs with the knife; it feels like he’s opening skin and flesh right down to the bone.

  This is just a nightmare. Like those nightmares you had with the dream necklace. There was pain then, but you always woke up— You’ll wake up, you’ll get through this, and everything will be all right again. You'll take a hot bath, and dress in comfortable clothes, and watch TV, and sleep in your own beautiful bed.

  Oh my gosh he's going in again don't scream don't scream don't scream!

  "That's enough!" Kieran yells. "Stop! Stop."

  "To be clear, you're promising to give us the spell. If you don't, I'll keep carving her up. And then I'll start breaking fingers. She doesn't need those to watch you die."

  "I'll do it. Just— get her out of here. This is between us."

  "Back to that cell she was in the other day, Chuck," Stanley orders.

  Chuck unshackles me and hauls me off the cot. As he drags me out, I hear Stanley say, "Now give me the spell."

  "I have one condition," says Kieran—but that's all I hear before the door swings shut.

  22

  DELICATE

  Zane

  I don't look at Laurel while we're driving to the apartment Arden shares with Aislinn. She can't possibly believe the story I just told her, the one about monsters and magic. She's probably staring at me like "Man, I dodged a bullet! Homeboy got his brain fried this summer."

  Of course I don't have time to tell her all the extra bits— just the main stuff about Aislinn, what she is, and that she's in trouble with druids. I put in the part about her powers— might be important if we're in some kind of fight— but I don't talk about the Far Darrig. I hate that guy. Not wasting precious words on him, even though he's probably the reason Aislinn ran off to the mountains in the first place.

  When I'm done telling the tale, I just shut up. I pull into a spot at the apartment complex, put the truck in park, and just sit there.

  "Zane." Laurel touches my shoulder.

  "What?"

  "Hey." She slaps my cheek lightly. "Look at me when I'm talkin' to you."

  Setting my jaw, I face her.

  "You think I don't believe you. And maybe I don't, right now. But I'm willing to come along and see if there's any truth to this wacko fairy tale. Fair enough?"

  This girl is insane, and awesome. "More than fair."

  Arden comes out of the apartment, locks up, and comes down the outside stairs. She doesn't run, but there's urgency in every step. She's carrying a laptop bag over one shoulder.

  "She's got a sense of style," Laurel says. "Check out those skinny jeans. Perfect cut for her. Love that top."

  I laugh; I can't help it. "After what I just told you, you got room in your head for fashion?"

  "There's always room for fashion, Z." She scoots closer to me in the front seat to make room for Arden to squeeze in, and for a second I catch a strong whiff of Laurel's perfume— all flowers and honey. I remember how I used to love that smell.

  But Arden waves us over to her car. "I'm not letting a seventeen-year-old boy drive me up to the mountains in that thing. We'll take my car. And who is she?"

  I shrug. "Backup?"

  Arden sighs in frustration. "You weren't supposed to bring anyone else. What can she do that's useful?"

  Laurel raises her eyebrows. "Girl, I know you didn't just ask me that. I'm no delicate flower, okay? Do I need to show you what I can do when somebody pisses me off?"

  "Chill, Laurel," I say. "Arden, she wants to help. Come on."

  "Children," spits Arden. "Fine, I don't have time to argue. I've got an opening into their security system. I'll just need a little more time on-site once we get there."

  "Is that what you needed the hour for? Like hacking, or something?" I ask as we climb in.

  "Or something." She whips the car around and roars out of the parking lot so fast the tires squeal.

  "Can we make a stop?" asks Laurel. "Got one thing to pick up. Two minutes."

  The thing she needs to pick up turns out to be a very large, scary-looking knife, more like a machete, with ridged edges. Laurel slides back into the passenger seat and whips it out of its sheath to show it to me.

  "What are you doing? Put that thing away."

  She s
miles. "Just in case. Keep your shirt on, Z. It's my brother's."

  Her brother's military. Figures he have a massive blade like that.

  "How long till we get there?" I ask. "Like an hour?"

  Arden nods. "Should be not long after midnight."

  "Yeah, this is exactly how I planned on spending my Saturday night!" Laurel says. "We got some music in here or what?"

  "Don't you think our time would be better spent talking about the druids and how we should handle them?" asks Arden.

  "Do you know how to handle them?" Laurel asks, a challenge in her voice.

  Arden sighs. "I was never one of the warriors in those days. More of a bookkeeper and procurer of hard-to-find items the queen desired. So no, I didn't have many dealings with the druids. And I don't know much about this sect."

  She's driving fast, and talking faster. "What you do need to know is that they use bodily fluids or body detritus to trigger spells. They can't use the Old Tongue for a simple spell, as the Fae and Korrigan can. They have to feed the spell with some part of themselves, or a part of someone else, depending on the ritual."

  "Bodily fluids," says Laurel. "Like, blood?"

  "Oh hell, don't make her go through the whole list again," I say.

  I swear Arden does it just to annoy me. "Saliva, skin flakes, nail clippings, hair, blood, semen—"

  "Whoa, whoa, hold up!" says Laurel. "TMI!"

  "Told you," I mutter.

  "So if Aislinn has what, magic powers, how'd these guys get hold of her?" asks Laurel.

  "She went to them," says Arden.

  "Why?"

  "Didn't Zane tell you?" Arden glances at me in the rearview mirror. "No, I guess he wouldn't."

  "Tell me what?" Laurel twists around, gold earrings twinkling, to look at me. I look out the window. "Come on ya'll, if I'm missing important information, this might not work— whatever this is that we're doing."

  "Aislinn went after the Far Darrig."

  "Who?"

  "One of the last of the Tuatha dé Danann, the god-race of ancient Ireland," Arden explains. "He's known as the Far Darrig, the Red One, a trickster and giver of nightmares, and also the one who cursed the Korrigan."

  "Giver of nightmares and curses? Why the hell would she go after a guy like that?"

  "He's got a thing for her, apparently, and she for him." Arden shrugs. "Don't ask me why."

  "Is he hot?" Laurel says without missing a beat.

  As if that explains everything. As if that's all that matters. I'm not too bad to look at myself, but I hope Aislinn liked me for more than that.

  "He's one of the best-looking men I've ever seen," Arden admits. "I hope pretty isn't all that she sees in him, although I can't imagine what else could be there. He's careless and selfish. A deceiver." Her tone is edged with bitterness.

  "That's messed up," says Laurel. Then, after a second, "This why you two split up, Z?"

  "Yeah," I say through my teeth.

  "I'm sorry." She turns to me again, reaching into the back seat with her left hand. Her fingers are long, with perfectly shaped nails and a thin, elegant wrist that could belong to a queen. I take her hand for a second and then let it go.

  "You know Mike cheated on me," she says. "That's why Aislinn and I were going shopping. I been in a rough place, and she wanted to help me feel better. That's how I knew she wouldn't bail unless something was wrong."

  "Mike? Cheated on you?"

  "Yeah. I found out by accident— he texted me instead of her, talkin' about their amazing night together and wanting to do it again. Crazy, right?"

  "He's a damn fool," I say.

  "Thanks, Z. I kinda think so too."

  After a second she says, "You know the worst part? Here I tell you I don't want anything serious, that we should split up, and then I go and get mixed up with Mike and get my heart all smashed to pieces." She laughs, but there's no humor in it.

  I don't know what to say, so I stay quiet.

  I can't believe Mike would cheat on her— Laurel. She's perfectly shaped, like a statue of freaking Venus or something. Sometimes I still remember the feel of her, when we were dating and she let me touch her. Incredible. And the things she could do with a kiss shouldn't be legal.

  There was one night when she and I were at her house, in her room. No one else home. And we didn't stop where we'd always stopped before.

  It was different than I imagined. More awkward— from what other guys said, I thought I'd feel powerful, sure of myself. Instead I just worried about her the whole time, what she was thinking and feeling, if she was okay. She kept telling me to shut up. Just knotted up her hands in my hair and told me what to do.

  I got to stop thinking about this. Not right now, in this car.

  No cold showers available— so I think about the next day, when Laurel told me she wasn't interested in dating me anymore. She said we were going too far, too fast. Nothing serious before college, she said. I kept cursing in my head the whole time she was talking, telling myself I knew we should have waited.

  I wasn't broken-hearted, but I knew I had ruined it. We had something, a delicate thing that wasn't ready yet, and we broke it before we could see what it was.

  And then I found Aislinn. Aislinn, with her heart and her hair like fire. Aislinn, walking out of the woods like a forest spirit, palms up worshiping the sunlight. She needed me, and I needed her, too. For a while.

  Ada's right. I do fall too hard and too fast for these girls. But I guess I'm lucky to have had two such cool, interesting women in my life already, being only seventeen.

  I guess the heart takes random turns sometimes, detours we don't understand. Like Aislinn's thing for the Far Darrig.

  Like my love for her.

  23

  BLAME

  Aislinn

  Chuck puts me back in the concrete cell— the furnished one with the comfortable bedding. He leaves without giving me bandages or anything for my wounds, so I pull the top sheet from the bed and try to tear bandages from it. My hands are trembling and I’m still weak from pain, so I can’t rip the cloth.

  Then I have an idea. I press my fingers to the deeper wound, then one in my lower stomach, and I retrace the ward they drew on my chest, in reverse. A faint buzz lets me know that it worked; I can use my powers again. I summon a dose of fenodyree strength and rip the sheet into strips, wrapping my ribcage and stomach with them. I use an extra strip to secure the skirt of my sliced-up dress tighter around my hips so it doesn't slip off.

  I'm angry. I'm angry at Kieran for giving in so quickly. That was ridiculous— I could have taken a lot more. And letting them cut off his finger? Stupid. Doesn't he realize that this is bigger than both of us? Giving these guys the ability to become Korrigan-druid hybrids, power-stealers— it's insane. It could change everything, not just here. Like Stanley said, with the right Fae powers they could control anyone, in any nation.

  With one bad decision based on emotion, Kieran may have just changed the world as we know it. I suppose he did something similar on a smaller scale when he was young, when he first deceived Maeve and then cursed the Korrigan. He wrecked many people's lives with those two choices; and apparently, he hasn't learned or changed at all.

  I'm pacing back and forth while I'm thinking, flush with the fenodyree strength. I hurl myself against the door once, but then the pain from my cuts almost makes me black out. Sinking to the floor, I close my eyes to stop the room from spinning.

  I haven't eaten in a while. That's part of the problem.

  Staring up at the camera in the corner of the room, I yell, "Don't you feed your prisoners?"

  Maybe it's part of their plan, keeping me weak so I don't have the energy to fight them. If so, it's working.

  It must be a couple of hours till Kieran's execution. Somehow I still believe he's going to trick them all and get out of it. I picture him escaping in all kinds of ways, laughing as he leaves them in the dust.

  I can't imagine that they might really kill him. A few mo
nths ago I didn't know he existed, and now I can't conceive of a world without him in it.

  The time goes by too fast. There's the creak of the door, and I'm up and crashing into the druid who's entering, throwing him off balance. I squeeze past him and leap at Malcolm, heedless of the gun in his hand. It goes off with a bang that echoes through the hallways, but no bullet strikes me. As he falls, I stamp on his throat with all my force and keep running, weaving a protection spell over myself as I run.

  I have to find Kieran. We have to get out.

  I hate this place, with its concrete bunker-style walls and harsh overhead lights and mildewy smell. I hate how confusing everything is— I focus on Kieran's face and will myself to find him. Another corridor, and up two levels— it seems like I'm moving randomly, but I'm hoping my powers are guiding me. Unless they too are affected by the runes in the walls, in which case I'm pathetically lost.

  Finally I have to admit to myself that my pixie powers aren't working. They relate to the environment around me, and it's too heavy with druid magic. I have no idea where Kieran is and no way to find him in this maze.

  As I stand, hopeless, at the dead end of a hallway, burly arms seize me from behind. "Enough running, little one," says Chuck. "Time to go."

  I say the strength spell again and break out of his hold. Then I stagger, almost passing out. Dizziness and nausea floods over me.

  No more powers, or you'll faint.

  There's one other option. By now, I've learned that I sometimes have an effect on men— different for each one, but it's there. Cruel as he was with Kieran, Chuck seems a little softer toward me. Maybe I can use that.

  "Please." I collapse against him. "I need your help. Please."

  He seizes me with those massive arms, and I stare up at him with what I hope is a pretty and pathetic expression. He has a square, rugged, decent face. Average. And right now, impassive, like he's not affected at all by my plea.

  "Time to go," he says again.

  He's hustling me along, one huge hand crushingly tight around my upper arm. I guess I read him wrong.