He rose to his feet. He picked the redcap up off the ground by the scruff of his neck, then slammed him headfirst into the brick wall beside them. His head popped like a rotten tomato, spraying the wall, catching Ewan in the back splatter. As the redcap’s blood hit the cap, Ewan felt stronger still.
He spun around and swung a wild haymaker into an oncoming redcap. His fist connected with a crack of thunder, shattering the redcap’s jaw, sending him backward through the alley, across the street, and, with the force of a truck, into a brick storefront.
With time moving more slowly than he’d ever known it, Ewan kicked squarely the chest of another redcap running toward him, its rib cage turning to powder. It flew backward into Dietrich, picking him up off the ground, carrying them both into the street.
Only Knocks and Otto remained standing. Redcap blood dripped off Ewan’s fist; he smeared it across the bit of cap covering his brow. Ewan grew stronger still. Knocks could tell by the look in his eye that there was little chance of surviving this. Something had gone horribly wrong and once again the stolen child of Tiffany and Jared Thatcher had somehow gained the upper hand.
It was time for a strategic retreat.
“Run!” shouted Knocks as he turned the corner, scrambling for his life. The redcap followed in kind. Dietrich rose to his feet, offered his companion a meaty, taloned hand, picking him off the ground. They too ran. And before Ewan could reach the end of the alley, the final broken redcap across the street was limping away with the rest of them.
Ewan’s head pounded, his heart raced, memories nearly a decade and a half old echoing in pieces through his thoughts. He still couldn’t put it together; there was no way to be sure if what he was remembering were even memories at all. It was all so horrific. His nightmares of little men had been plucked from his brain and brought into the real world to beat the life out of him.
But how did he know to take their hat? And what the fuck was Nora? He looked to the sky, trying to find answers in the stars; he begged, but no answers came. Only one name stuck out. The name of a little boy he remembered once turning a redcap into rose petals; who chased off devils with a poem about lightning; who had once pulled him off an altar and walked him through the forest, away from a legion of monsters.
Colby Stevens.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THE TRUTH, AT LAST
The text message read simply: In trouble. Don’t know what’s happening. Coming over. That’s all Colby needed to know. This was a day Colby had long feared, feeling woefully unprepared for it. Though he had questions, he dreaded the answers. What had happened? What did he remember?
Bambambambambam! The knock came, quick and furious, screaming open the door now! Colby didn’t hesitate; he didn’t need to look through the peephole. He could feel the rush of energy rippling on the other side. Ewan was a torrent of wild emotion and raw dreamstuff. The door opened, Ewan bursting through, frazzled, uninvited.
He was a mess. His forehead was a dried, caked smear of red, his hair a greasy, blood-soaked matte. Ewan squinted, one eye swollen shut, the other merely blackened a deep purple. He paced around, his hands fidgeting nervously with the soft red cap, fingers stained red from rolling it around in them for so long. Spatters of blood crisscrossed his shirt. Fresh blood still leaked slowly out of his nose.
Ewan looked at Colby. “How long?”
“How long what?”
“How long have you known? How long have you remembered what happened to us as kids?”
“I never forgot,” said Colby. “I’ve always known.”
He double-bolted the door, closed his eyes, and mumbled to himself, barring the door with further protections.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Colby, still concentrating, didn’t bother to look up. “No. I didn’t.”
“Well, why the fuck not?”
A pause. Then . . . “It wasn’t my place,” he said.
“Wasn’t your place? Who made me forget?”
“You did. I mean, it just happens. What the hell happened tonight?”
“Someone tried to kill me.”
“Okay, let’s take this very slowly. Who tried to kill you tonight?”
Ewan shook his head. “I don’t know. My brother, my cousin. I don’t know who the fuck it was. He said we were family and he looked just like me. Only . . . like a fucked-up fun-house-mirror version. The monster you keep in the attic, you know?”
“What?” None of this sounded familiar.
“He had this army of little, bearded men with claws for hands and metal boots.”
“And red caps, like that one?” asked Colby.
“Yeah.”
“That’s gotta be Knocks,” said Colby.
“What?”
“Knocks. Your changeling. I mean, a changeling. I . . . I completely forgot about him. The changeling the fairies replaced you with when you were born. They’re not supposed to live this long.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“They typically die in childhood. Yours is still around.”
“Why’s he trying to kill me?”
“Hell if I know. What have you done recently to get his . . .” Colby trailed off. “Coyote.” His face fell immediately into his hands. He sighed deeply, massaging his temples with his thumb and middle finger. Without looking up from his hand, he began again. “Is there anything else weird I should know about? Anything at all?”
“I have a girlfriend,” Ewan stated plainly.
“Weird, not irregular.”
“She’s one of them.”
Colby looked up. Shit.
“She was there. They made her change.”
Colby’s expression weakened. This was getting worse. “What does she look like?”
Ewan reached into his pocket, pulling from it a wadded-up sketch of the little girl. It was bloodstained and tattered, but still recognizable. “Like her,” he said. “But all grown up.”
Colby sighed deeply. “Oh, for the love of all that’s holy, Ewan.” He began to pace. “Lives in the Hill Country with her uncle.” Ewan stood in place, baffled.
“What? You act as if I should have known this.” He grew angry, got mean, a caged dog barking savagely at the very end of his chain. “And frankly, I probably should have.”
“I didn’t make you forget. It was for the best. They were never supposed to come after you. That was the deal. I left them alone, they left you alone. That. Was. The deal.”
“You left them alone? So what is your deal, anyway? You’ve always been weird, always kept your secrets.” He straightened up and gave Colby a stern look. “What are you?”
Colby didn’t know how to answer that. He shrugged. “I don’t really know. Wizard might be a good way to explain it, I guess. That’s what I wished for and this is what I got.”
“Wished?” Ewan thought long and hard, trying to wrestle a memory from the tide of his thoughts. He brought one to the surface, his face mellowing. “You had a genie.”
“Yeah.”
“Why can’t I remember this stuff? I mean, I should remember this.”
“Because magic is a motherfucker.”
“What?”
“The Fading,” said Colby, shaking his head. “Children taken by fairies forget. It’s not unheard of for the memories to return, but the brain is funny. Trying to remember something that happened to you twenty years ago is hard enough when you’ve had twenty years to remember and reflect upon it. When you haven’t, it’s like seeing images from a movie you don’t remember watching but recognize anyway. You’ll never remember it all. Just pieces.”
“And we were . . . ?” Ewan motioned a finger back and forth between himself and Colby.
“We were friends.”
“So I was taken by fairies?”
“When you were an infant, yeah.”
“Why?”
“So they could turn you into a fairy and sacrifice you in place of one of their own.”
“Well, how di
d you end up out there?”
Colby shrugged. “I met a djinn. I made a wish.”
“For what?”
“To see the world. All the magical things there were.”
“So you just wanted to see monsters?”
Colby shrugged. “I was eight. It seemed cool at the time.” Ewan grimaced. “You know, I was just a tourist until I met you. It was saving you that drove me to make my second wish. To become . . . what I am now.”
“Why’d you do it?” asked Ewan.
“Because I promised you that I would.”
“So you’re saying it’s my fault?”
“It’s our fault. It’s their fault. It’s Yashar’s fault. It’s no one’s fault. It is what it is and now we’re left to deal with it.”
“So all this time, you knew.”
Colby nodded. “Yeah.”
“And all those times you came to visit me when I was a kid? All the times you checked up on me at my apartment and asked me stupid questions? You’ve been . . . ?”
“Looking out for you.”
“Why?”
“I told you, I promised you that I would.”
“I don’t know whether to hug you or beat the living shit out of you.”
“When you figure it out, will you give me a few seconds’ warning, either way?”
“Yeah. I owe you that much.”
“Speaking of beatings, where’d you get the cool hat?”
“Took it from one of those things.”
“Took it?” asked Colby.
“Snatched it right off his head and then put him through a wall.”
“But he’s okay, though, right? I mean, he got up?”
“Oh, hell no. His head is pulp on the pavement. The rest got away, though.”
“Oh,” said Colby gravely. “Oh, this is bad.”
“What, did you expect me to let him live?”
“I . . . I don’t know what I expected. But killing one of them only makes this worse. Much, much worse.”
Ewan jabbed his finger into Colby’s chest several times, punctuating each word with it. “Hey! They! Came after! Me!”
“Doesn’t matter. They’ll be back for blood, in force.”
“So what are we gonna do?”
“We?” asked Colby.
“Yeah, we. Unless you have some awesome spell that can fix this all up? You know, use your magic words and make this all go away.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Well, whatever it is you say. You do know spells, right?”
“No. Magic isn’t about rituals and words. You don’t just speak a phrase in Latin and then bam! weird shit happens.”
“Then how does it work?”
“You don’t really want to know.”
“Yeah, I kinda do.”
The two stared at each other. Colby shrugged.
“All right, the universe is energy. All of it. Everything is energy that can be altered simply by willing it to be altered. It’s as if we are God’s waking dream, each gifted with a small piece of his consciousness; the beauty of that arrangement is that we create the dream for him. If you can understand that, if you can wrap your mind around it, then you can conjure up anything you want from out of the ether. Provided there is material enough to do it.”
“That doesn’t make a lick of fucking sense. Show me.”
Colby shook his head. “What? No.”
“Show me something,” insisted Ewan. “Show me some magic.”
Colby hesitated for a second. Then it dawned on him.
He breathed deep. Then, with a bit of theatricality, he waved his hand needlessly through the air. His fingers danced whilst he exhaled slowly, deeply. He pushed a clenched fist toward Ewan—as if battling a current—placing an open hand on his chest.
Ewan felt warm. His wounds closed up; the swelling about his eyes receded, their bruising eroding with it. Blood dried, flaking off like dead skin. In a few short seconds, Ewan was whole again.
“You didn’t tell me your ribs were broken,” said Colby.
“You never asked.”
“You walked all this way with broken ribs?”
“Yeah. You impressed?”
Colby nodded. “That’s actually kind of badass.” The two smiled weakly.
“Hurt like nothing else. I threw up twice.”
“I can imagine.” He paused. “So this girl of yours . . .”
“Nora.” Ewan stopped himself. “Well, she told me her name was Nora. But they kept calling her something else. Mallaidh or something.”
“Mallaidh? That sounds right.”
“Sounds right? You don’t remember?”
Colby shook his head. “Come on, she was a girl I met once when I was eight.”
“You know, you really should . . .” Ewan stopped himself. He relaxed. “No, you’re right. You can’t recall the details of my life any better than I should be able to.”
Ewan took a seat on the well-made, handcrafted leather boat of a couch that puffed slightly as he sank comfortably into it. He looked around the room—a cluttered expanse of trinkets, knickknacks, and items almost indescribable whose purpose one could only guess at—and it was at once clear to him that he didn’t really know his friend very well at all. Colby walked to the fridge, pulling from it a couple of beers, popping their tops off with the bottle opener affixed to the door, and ambled back to the couch, handing a beer to Ewan before plopping down beside him. They both drank.
The two shared a moment of silence, each unsure of what to say. Ewan was the first to speak up.
“Is that a night-light?”
Colby looked over at the wall nearest the door. A small, beige piece of plastic covering a smaller lit bulb jutted from the electrical outlet. “Yep,” Colby answered without missing a beat.
“All right, I’ll ask the obvious question. Why do you have a night-light?”
“To scare away monsters.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Monsters are real, and if millions of children believe in the power of the night-light, then you can bet your ass that so do the monsters. Never underestimate the power of belief.”
Ewan nodded. “Why do I get the feeling that I’ll never fully be able to wrap my mind around all of this?”
“Probably because I’ve been trying since I was a kid and I barely understand any of it myself.”
Ewan stared at his beer, swishing it around a little in its bottle. “So what the hell is my girlfriend?”
Colby sipped, shaking his head. “I’ve no idea. A Sidhe of some kind, if I remember correctly.”
Ewan stroked his chin—thick with a sandpaper-like layer of stubble—and thought deeply. He remembered what the Sidhe were. Noble. Proud. And they had tried to kill him. It really was a strange sensation; he was reliving a life he’d forgotten through flashes of incongruous memory. He remembered snapping a man’s neck, fondly, but couldn’t fathom why; he recalled frolicking with monsters but being fearful of dancing with beautiful women. Everything was alien and he lacked the vocabulary to describe it properly.
“So why do they want to kill me?”
“There’s no telling without asking them directly.”
“You can’t hazard a guess?”
“Fairies are creatures of pure emotion. When they love, they love wholeheartedly. What they hate, they hate ceaselessly. Where they are satisfied, they never leave. These are not creatures that do anything in half measures. For them it is all or it is nothing at all. Middle ground and gray areas are things of the mortal world. It is what makes people special; it is also what make fairies so hard for people to understand.”
“So what now?” asked Ewan.
“Now you tell me again what happened, this time very slowly. And don’t leave anything out.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE FAIRY SABBATH
It was Friday, and thus Rhiamon the Gwyllion was amidst a herd of her goats, combing their beards until each was silky and straight, just
as she did every Friday for as long as anyone could remember. Though it was still early in the day, she had combed quite a few goats already, humming enthusiastically to herself, blissfully engrossed in her chore. Rhiamon looked old and tired, an aged crone kneeling before an endless sea of coarse, matted fur, her tangled gray-white hair and crooked spine causing her to blend in with her goatly surroundings.
She smelled them coming before she could see them—redcaps gave off the most distasteful odor, worse even than the goats—and where the redcaps were, Knocks was rarely far behind.
“How dare you disturb me on the Sabbath,” she called out into the herd, knowing full well who they were. Her voice resonated, deep and sonorous, drowning out even the ceaseless bleating of her flock—if only for a moment.
“Sorry to disturb, mistress crone,” said Reinhardt, appearing seemingly from nowhere. “But the young master desires a word with you.” The redcap had one leg forward, attempting an awkward curtsy as if he were the emissary of some distant, foppish nation. There he teetered, fumbling with his hands, mangling the proper etiquette.
Rhiamon looked up at him disdainfully. “Why you insist upon running around with that absurd little creature rather than tearing him apart and soaking your caps in his blood is beyond me.” She spat upon the ground.
“My lady,” nodded Reinhardt, still attempting his ridiculous half bow, refusing to make eye contact. He was at once both offended and afraid, but dared not speak up; Rhiamon was a dangerous sorceress and could hex all sorts of mischief upon him with but a thought. It was in his best interests to remain polite, even when insulted—a fact Rhiamon was more than willing to exploit.
She waved him closer. “Come.”
The remaining redcaps shuffled out from behind a gathering of unkempt, anxious goats. Knocks stepped forward from the gang, holding his bloody cap in his hand, showing more restraint, every bit as scared as Reinhardt. “Mistress crone?”
“Yes, young changeling?” She looked up at him, for a moment showing no emotion at all. Then she puzzled over his wounds, suddenly realizing that these fools who stood before her wanted no mere favor. Often fairies from the court came to her asking for potions or a spell—always wanting the most trivial of help—they were in love with a mortal or needed to chase off some spirit that had taken up residence in their part of the woods. This was different; she could tell by the way they stood, the way bruises crept slowly across their grim countenances. “What have you done?” she asked. “What is it you boys have gotten yourselves into?”
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