Faerie Rising: The First Book of Binding (The Books of Binding 1)

by A. E. Lowan

  But it would have to wait until after this business was finished.

  Cian got his shirt on without fuss, and for once his special silk-lined riding chaps that protected him from the steel frame of the Harley, but as usual the laces on his boots gave him trouble. After a childhood of being dressed by servants, Cian was still slowly getting the hang of dressing himself. Etienne left him to it. This was a skill he had been working on since they met, and as long as the laces weren’t in danger of getting caught in the spokes of the motorcycle, Etienne was happy to let him figure it out on his own. After some confusion, though, Cian yanked the laces into submission, and gave Etienne a dazzling smile of triumph. Etienne returned the smile with one of his own, and nodded in acknowledgment. “Not bad.”

  He put away the kettle and the rest of their dishes, tucking everything into the backpack as he did a quick mental inventory. “Cian, where’s the camp fork?”

  Cian, shrugging into his heavy denim jacket, widened his eyes. “It’s not there?”

  “You washed it.”

  Those eyes shifted to the area around the spigot, and Cian jumped off the log and scampered over. Etienne shook his head and turned back to packing up their things. Their path across Faerie and North America could be traced by the trail of belongings that boy had left behind. This was camp fork number five.

  By the time Cian returned with the fork, Etienne had pulled on his jacket and was waiting with their helmets. Cian pulled his on with no trouble, but Etienne caught him looking unhappy before his beautiful face disappeared behind the full-faced, mirrored visor. He knew Cian hated the visor, that he would far rather feel the wind on his face, but they were getting too close to civilization. With those inhumanly green eyes... while Etienne’s human blood let him pass as mortal, it was clear to even the most casual observer that Cian was anything but. If half the rumors he had heard about Seahaven were true, he wanted to keep as low a profile as possible and parading around in the open with a sidhe prince was not keeping a low profile. Etienne swung his leg up over the old Harley Davidson Sportster and settled into the seat.

  The plan was to get in, get what they came for, and get out. Of course, Etienne had never, ever, been that lucky.

  Cian pulled on Etienne’s back pack and climbed up behind him, wrapping his arms around Etienne’s waist. “Etienne?” His voice, muffled by the helmet, was pitched high with tension.

  Etienne paused, key in the ignition. “Yes?”

  Cian was quiet a moment. “Do you really think we’ll find Senán?”

  Etienne kept his eyes forward. Before they came to the Mortal Realm, his answer would have been of course not. Cian had seen him die. But now... “I’m sure of it.” The proof, ripped from a magazine, was folded neatly and tucked deep into an inner pocket of his old leather jacket. Senán was in Seahaven.

  His kidnapper had taken him there.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Scrambling, Winter gave up a few more feet to the goblin’s slashing claws and used the precious seconds she bought to frantically rummage in her faded purple hobo bag, murmuring the charm to bring a small parchment envelope to her hand while watching closely for its next move. She should have had the envelope out before this. She knew that, now.

  She had started with a rake to defend herself, but then found out how well the nasty little thing could climb, as the incessant throbbing on the back of her right hand attested to. She had never actually been trained for this, unlike her cousins and two older sisters. She was supposed to be a teacher, a physician, and a Potion Master. She should be home, tucked away in her family’s kitchen teaching a handful of little cousins to brew simple decoctions, not doing battle with a fae the size of a throw pillow in this Karen’s backyard.

  And losing.

  “Blast!” It darted to one side, trying to get past Winter and out into the night. She had to keep it boxed in, just for a few more moments. If it got loose into the neighborhood, she would be days finding it again, and by then it might have graduated to attacking children. Only luck, a couple hours of stressful patience and a trail of about two pounds of fresh chopped beef had gotten it into the shed. She kicked out, taking it in what passed for a midsection, and it bounced against the back of the shed like a large hairy soccer ball. Tools popped from their perches, and a pot was knocked off its shelf, all raining down on the neatly swept concrete floor. A burning sensation flared up her right calf, and Winter knew the miniature monster had scored, too.

  Keeping her eyes fixed on the ugly little hairball, Winter tore the top off the envelope. The goblin hunkered just out of reach, panting in a wheezy sort of way, slime dripping from its broken bottle teeth, all its eyes glittering back and forth, searching for a way past her. Fear seemed to roll off it like a dark fog. Wherever it came from, it probably had no idea where it was now. It may have even seen what happened to its little friend. Winter knew how it felt, trapped and desperate to find a way out, bloody images of her loved ones tearing at her memories. For just a moment, she felt sorry for the evil little thing. No one would be coming to rescue the goblin, either.

  Then again, she wasn’t the one eating the neighborhood cats. She raised the envelope and-

  With blinding speed, nearly twenty pounds of goblin impacted with her upper chest. Winter did not realize she was falling until the autumn-wet lawn struck her in the back, and she grabbed a fistful of greasy, matted fur with her left hand as it made to leap over her head to freedom.

  It retaliated by sinking jagged teeth into her thin wrist, right through the sturdy fabric of her uncle’s old Army jacket.

  Winter let out a yelp of startled pain, but did not release the frantically scratching beast. It flailed about, claws raking her chest, her neck, her face, digging bloody furrows into her pale skin wherever it could find purchase. She beat against its thick body in panic, the envelope almost forgotten in her clenched fist, and it worried at her wrist like a dog, the teeth digging deeper and deeper into flesh towards bone.

  Rolling onto her side, she released her grip on the envelope a little, half dumping, half pounding the goblin with red, glittering dust, drew the magic from within herself and through gritted teeth released it in a resonating Word of Command. “Bind!” It was not needed, the spell in the powder was already primed, but she was in pain and wanted to be sure it worked.

  The creature froze in place as the dust settled on it, her wrist still clamped between its jaws. Discolored teeth remained imbedded in fabric and flesh, but at least it had stopped chewing at the wound. Winter tried in vain to breathe without smelling. Wherever the little goblin had come from it stank and fear mixed with exertion did not help with the odor. Her own pain and adrenaline were not helping and she fought down a wave of nausea. Grunting with hurt at the jostling, Winter jerked her lumpy bag out from beneath her hip and with one hand and her teeth uncorked a small blue bottle. The acrid smell made her nostrils sting. The goblin apparently smelled it, too, because it began to drool heavily in fear on Winter’s hand and arm. She upended the bottle, the thick, bright blue liquid soaking into the beast’s matted fur, and as it touched again produced a voice resonant with magical Command. “Banish!” Again, the magic in the potion was already primed, but sometimes a little overkill did not hurt.

  With a shrill keen and a cloud of noxious smoke the goblin vanished, the release of its weight and jaws painful in itself. Winter rolled carefully up onto her knees, ignoring with limited success the way her torn cotton stockings neatly wicked up the freezing moisture from the lawn to chill her skin. Without teeth to block up the wound, blood welled up from the torn flesh, black in the suburban twilight, and began to run in rivulets down her hand.

  She knelt there in silence, watching the first glittering drops fall onto the grass, and fought back the roaring rush of exhaustion in her ears with sluggish determination. Darkness crept along the edges of her vision, and she shrugged her injured arm carefully out of her coat sleeve and knelt in the October cold in just her long dress and her sweater, which
she slipped off to bind about her hurt wrist. It felt so good, just being still. Just for a few more minutes.

  She watched the cotton weave soak up blood and slime, and found herself fighting back sudden frustrated tears as the pain wound its way to her brain past the kinder adrenaline. Her older sisters Sorcha and Mirilyn – even her younger cousins Kelley and Martina – they had been so much better at this than she was. They had been stronger, faster...

  Her wrist throbbed with her pulse, still quick from exertion, and the smaller stinging scratches echoing across her face, chest, and arms made her wish she could kick the evil little thing just a few more times. Sorcha had once taken on an entire pack of hell-hounds that threatened her day camp, for heaven’s sake. Granted, Grandfather and Mirilyn had had to rescue her, but they had all three come home in triumph. A single, nasty little goblin would have been no match. What was she doing wrong?

  “Mulcahy?” a woman’s voice called out.

  Winter twisted to peer over her shoulder as a chill breeze rose to tease a few more white strands of hair free from her loosely coiled bun. She had no time for self-pity. Crossing the lawn on bare feet was a pretty brunette, her hair bobbed above her shoulders, her pink sweater a nice contrast to her well-fitted jeans. At a glance she looked like every other soccer mom on her block and her bright, healthy face was suffused with concern and curiosity. But Winter noticed that she moved in utter silence across the grass with a predator’s grace and, backlit by the porch light, her eyes glowed gold-green in the shadows, reflecting the spare glow of the streetlights. She knew without looking that Karen would have manicured and painted her fingernails to conceal their unusual thickness, and that her hands and feet would be heavily calloused. Winter rose with care, both to avoid startling the therian and to attempt to hide her weakness and exhaustion. “Are you Karen?”

  The woman smiled, teeth too white in the gloom. “You’ve got it.” She stopped, just out of arm’s reach. “That’s a nasty bite you’re got there.” Her nostrils flared delicately, catching the scent, and her lips parted just a little, and Winter saw into her soul, like she had her husband. When she was a child, she always saw people just like that – saw their souls behind politeness and decorum and the masks adulthood makes one wear. Now, though, she could control it, shield herself from prying into strangers’ hearts, unless Fate opened her to it – or unless she was too tired to protect herself, as she was now. Karen breathed her in, and Winter knew she felt hunger. She saw herself, wounded and bleeding on the grass, and knew Karen smelled her weakness and found it good. A human might have actually felt the concern Karen mimicked, but the predator knew only eat and being eaten. Concern was for cubs and kin. Karen was therian. She had either never been human, or was human no longer.

  Anger leeched new strength into Winter’s body, and a polite smile stretched her mouth, a slight bearing of teeth. Like Seahaven itself, Karen’s civilization was just a thin veneer for the neighbors, with the monster lurking just below the surface. Winter accepted that. But then, she had never been human, either. She was a wizard. Not a predator, per se – but not a meal, either. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine,” she demurred, giving off a soft flash of power in warning. Karen started and took a step back, a cross look on her face. The tiny burst of magic was akin to squirting the cat on the nose and looked to be having the same effect. It was rude, but so was considering nibbling on the guests. Winter felt an abrupt change in subject was in order. “Can you track it?”

  Karen blinked. “Pardon?”

  “The creature. Can you track it?”

  Karen crossed her arms in irritation and her face drew down into a full scowl. “I am no dog.”

  Winter fought the urge to roll her eyes in annoyance. The felines could be the most difficult of the therian. “But you can scent prey, can you not?”

  Karen’s gaze flickered to Winter’s bleeding wrist, and then away to the woods. “Of course.”

  The wizard forced more warmth into her smile, hoping it rose close to her eyes. “Then, please, help me find where it came from. Those goblins came through the veil somewhere, and we need to seal it.”

  Karen did not look fooled, but she did look slightly more cooperative. “You mean there’s a rift out there.”

  Winter’s smile broadened, relaxed into something a little more genuine. “Exactly.” She moved forward with determination, trusting that Karen would follow her across the backyard and into the wilder area beyond. It wasn’t possible to live in Seahaven, to walk in the shadows of the preternatural community, without knowing about the rifts. Of course, that was about the limit of what most people knew. There were rifts between the worlds, because the area around Seahaven was massively unstable. That instability, in fact, was what drew most of the preternatural community to this area in the first place.

  Her father had been fond of explaining that once upon a time the different realms had been separated by the thinnest of veils, and even mortals – humans and those others native to the Mortal Realm – could move between them with relative ease... or by accident. But something had happened, some said war, some said the advent of human obsession with Cold Iron, though no one really knew, and the veils became walls impenetrable as stone. There still existed gateways, though, rifts and holes and thin places where passage was difficult, but possible. But around Seahaven the barriers were not so much like stone walls as lover’s hands, palms pressed close and fingers entwined. Power fluxed and shifted between the realms like tidal waters, attracting the magical and magically inclined to Seahaven like a lodestone. In the unrest, cracks and fissures opened, allowing relatively free passage.

  And that was why wizards were needed.

  Karen’s tart voice tugged her from her reverie. “So, Mulcahy, why do you need my help? Shouldn’t you just... I don’t know...” Karen held out her hands and wiggled her fingers, “...use magic to find it?”

  They were crossing into the land of crazy mixed up ferns, and Winter frowned at the cougar’s tone. “I’m not the Mulcahy,” she said, her voice cool. And if she was... what could she do about a rude cougar? Her grandfather Dermot would have probably had her hide for his wall... but Winter was very young, wizard or no, and not a particularly commanding presence to boot.

  “What?”

  “My father is still the Mulcahy,” Winter turned back to mind her footing in the dark. “I only speak for him. And to answer your question,” she hurried on, cutting off the cougar, “I can sense rifts with no problem. I just want to make sure I get the right one, or we’ll be here all night.”

  “Oh my god! You mean they’re all over the place?”

  Winter felt a smirk draw at her lips, the sudden image of Karen up on a chair in her kitchen leaping to mind, and quickly squelched the thought. It just wasn’t nice to enjoy the other woman’s panic. “Not so much, but think about it like this. Opening a rift in a stable area is basically poking a hole in the fabric of reality. It alters the structure of the universe, changes the magical balance irrevocably, even if in a small way. That takes a great deal of power. However, in an area like Seahaven,” and thank the powers that be that there were few enough of them, “which is already incredibly unstable, rifts tend to manifest on their own, and often are too tiny for anything to pass through and fairly harmless – hardly worth calling a rift at all. Obviously, you’ve got one around here that isn’t so tiny or harmless, but I can take care of it.”

  Karen gently laid a hand on Winter’s shoulder and moved ahead, dropping slowly until her fingertips brushed the forest floor, head bent low to the scent. Winter felt the feverish heat the therian’s body produced as she passed. She did not seem to notice Winter’s flinch at being touched. “This way,” she murmured, half to herself. She led the way a short way off the path and leapt silently down into a shallow ravine, turning to help the wounded wizard descend. Winter ended up sliding on one hip and pine needles, fragrant and sticky, clung to her long dress, her stockings, and caught in the weave of the ruined sweater. Brushing at
the mess just made it worse, smearing sticky pitch across her abraded skin.

  “Here it is.” Karen’s nose was wrinkled in distaste. “Foul smelling things, aren’t they?”

  Winter looked up from her futile attempts to pick the needles free, her gaze drawn to the rift in the low retaining wall. The hole was innocuous, just looking like the cement had given away, revealing a hollow place behind it. Only there was no dirt behind the cement, simply blackness edged in licking orange flames visible only to Winter’s magical sight. The hole was small, little larger than Winter’s closed fist, a dainty fracture in the world. How in the universe the little goblins had squeezed through was beyond Winter’s understanding, but it could not have been a pleasant experience. Winter slung her large hobo bag around from behind her back and rummaged around one-handed.

  “Are you going to close it?”

  Winter shook her hand. “I can’t close it... no wizard can, really. It takes too much power.” Winter pulled out a large, misshapen lump of green-flecked chalk. “But, we really don’t want anything to come through it, either, so I’m going to seal it.”

  “Seal it?” Karen crouched down beside the wizard, and reached a tentative finger towards the hole. Winter pushed her hand aside. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Not really... and stop that,” Winter repelled another attempt to touch the rift. Cats and curiosity... The flames would not burn the cougar, they were heatless, but still, there was no telling what might be ready to come out. “When I’m finished, the rift will still be here, but nothing will be able to pass through it, in either direction.”