“Easy, Badass,” Mordred says, and the Dark Sidhe’s quills retract slowly.
“Badass?” I ask, as we pass by the Fey, the creature’s round eye following me watchfully.
“Technically his name’s Ysbaddaden,” Mordred says, “but it’s kind of a mouthful, don’t you think? So I came up with the nickname.”
He looks at me uncertainly, a tentative smile playing at the corners of his mouth. I nod hesitatingly and his smile widens.
“Come,” he says eagerly. “Let me show you your new home.”
I shudder at the implication but follow him inside.
A rush of cold air sends a chill down my spine as I step into the empty entrance hall, the sounds of excited shatter spilling out from a bright room straight ahead along with the insidious smell of sulfur. I repress another shudder as, for a terrifying second, I think Carman’s waiting for me inside, but when we emerge into the wide common room, I find it is filled to bursting with regular, old Dark Sidhe. A few near the doorway look up at our arrival, sniffing the air curiously before returning their attention to the other end of the room where a large fire is crackling brightly.
“Ten pieces for the fat one!” a deep, guttural voice shouts.
“Twenty for the girl,” another says.
Mordred makes his way to the back of the room, elbowing and kicking Fey out of our way. Despite most of them being at least twice our size, and certainly looking twenty times more dangerous, they all seem to defer to the blue-tattooed Fey and let us through with barely a grunt.
“Are you their king?” I ask, watching a giant frog-like creature bounce straight up onto a rotting beam at a kick from Mordred.
“Not exactly,” Mordred says.
The frog-man’s mouth gapes open as we pass beneath it and a large glob of greenish mucus falls out. I squeal as it lands next to me, burning through the wooden floor like superacid.
“What are you boys up to?” Mordred asks as we reach the front of the crowd, the smell of sulfur stronger here.
“Thought we’d make the wait a little more interesting,” a spindly creature with skin as black as charred wood says.
“So we’re betting on who’ll make it back up alive,” a sinuous Fey adds, its skin blindingly white.
Mordred struts up to a perfectly circular hole in the floor, squats at its edge and peers down into it. “Anybody make it out yet?” he asks.
The white Fey shakes its head. “This is the first wave. Care to do a little betting of your own, AC?”
A gust of heat belches out of the hole, blurring Mordred’s features. He seems to be listening intently for something, then finally breaks into an eager smile. “Thirty pieces on the child,” he says.
The other two creatures’ faces melt in annoyance.
“A child?” the black Fey asks.
“That’s cheating!” the other one retorts.
Mordred shrugs. “Not my fault you didn’t see it,” he says.
The hole at his feet suddenly seems to catch light, turning his blue pectorals purple as if he’s been mortally wounded.
“Care to have a look?” Mordred asks me, his eyes twinkling.
Curiosity makes me itch to join his side and see what it is that’s gotten all these monsters excited about, but caution tells me I should probably stand as far away from the pit as possible.
“You’re not gonna push me in there, are you?” I ask, unable to forget the hole they fed all those innocent people to back in Menasha.
The black Fey laughs softly. “What a tempting thought,” he says, sidling up to me and placing his deathly-cold fingers on my face.
“It would work if she didn’t have so much Fey blood,” the white creature says, prowling around us. “But I’m sure we can find other uses for you, my dear.”
I shrink away from their touch, knowing full-well that by ‘other uses’ they mean ‘food for Carman.’
“Urim, Thummim,” Mordred drawls, “leave Morgan alone, you’re missing the show.”
The two Fey dart away from me and go to stand at his side. Despite my best intentions, I find myself stepping closer and closer to them, inexplicably drawn to the circle. It’s shining so brightly now that it rivals the fire blazing in the hearth behind it.
As I draw nearer, an unfamiliar symbol comes into view, painted along the hole’s diameter—an inverted triangle, its two legs extending beyond its apex to finish in fishhooks around a stylized V, an asymmetrical cross splitting the triangle from its base to the V’s points.
“What is that?” I ask.
Mordred glances over and catches me looking at the strange symbol.
“Lucifer’s sigil,” he says, returning his attention to what’s happening inside the hole.
“W-w-whose?” I sputter, my legs turning to cotton.
Excited shouts break out around me, making the floor shake. The circle is now an incandescent red, and I can discern shapes moving inside it.
“Push, puuuuush!” Urim shouts, his white skin reflecting the circle’s bright light like a beacon.
I let out a shout as a slender hand pushes past the hole’s entrance, followed by a thin wrist.
Urim jumps up on his toes in trepidation, shouting encouragements.
Thummim’s face is knotted in anger. “Just pull her away!” he shouts.
A woman’s head appears, her blank eyes mirroring the circle’s light. I stand frozen as she slowly emerges, as if pressing through some invisible resistance.
Then the woman’s mouth opens in a guttural cry as glowing ropes of red fire shoot out from the circle’s edge over her in a tightening net, cutting through her body.
At first, she remains inert, as if frozen in place, then a fat arm punches through her body, and she explodes outward. I shriek as pieces of flesh rain around the room, spattering against the walls and floor.
Thummim howls in joy as a man as large as a hippo hoists himself through the hole. But the man barely gets a chance to plant his hands on the floor when he too gets cut down, and his body falls in pieces back down the hole.
The dark Fey’s howl turns into a cry of despair and I see Mordred’s smile widen.
“Come on, boy, that’s it,” he coaxes.
A small, dark-haired head emerges, sunken eyes staring straight ahead, and a young boy no older than eight claws his way through. I shiver as I recall the Beaumont children who attacked me just hours ago.
Again, the circle grows brighter, ropes of light shooting from its circumference. But the boy extends his foot outside of the circle’s glowing edge then pulls himself out just as the net of light grows taught, and he lands next to Mordred, unharmed.
Mordred stands up, his tattooed chest puffed out with pride. “Pay up,” he says, extending his hand towards Urim and Thummim.
The two Fey grumble and slap a fat purse into his hand. Mordred shakes the leather pouch and smiles in satisfaction as it jingles. He looks at me expectantly, as if waiting for an applause, but I find myself unable to share in his mirth, staring instead at the boy still seated next to him, as still as a rock, his eyes vacant.
“It’s one of them,” I whisper.
“Aye, I believe you’ve already encountered a couple of our draugar,” Mordred says.
The boy cocks his head at the sound of Mordred’s voice and his mouth opens up hungrily, displaying a set of rotting teeth. Then, coming from deep inside of him, comes the most horrifying screech I’ve ever heard.
Chapter 30
“Keep those things away from me!” I snarl, huddled up against the crumbling wall of the ruins where the Dark Sidhe have holed themselves up.
“It won’t bite,” Thummim says.
“Unless AC tells it to,” Urim adds.
“How long are we going to stay here?” I ask, looking over the draugar to Mordred who’s been sulking since I refused to acknowledge his betting win.
“As long as it takes,” Mordred retorts petulantly.
Standing in a line before him are the five people who’ve
made it out of the pit in mostly one piece: The black-haired boy who came out first, another pair of children, a long-necked woman, and a goateed man, each and every one of them staring vacantly ahead like automatons we’ve forgotten to wind up.
“I must say, I like humans in this form a lot more,” Urim says, gauging the line of draugar. “They’re so much more pliable, and less prone to unnecessary hormonal outbursts. Don’t you think?”
I glare at the Fey’s pale blue eyes. “What did you do to them, anyway?” I ask.
“I thought she was there when we provided our Teind?” Thummim asks his light-skinned twin.
Urim nods. “I distinctly remember the runt trying to stop us at the Hill of the Dead,” he says.
“Almost got pummeled to the ground by Raz,” Thummim says.
“Until he….” Urim swipes his hand across his throat tellingly, and they both burst out laughing.
I grimace, drawing my legs closer to me under my ripped up dress, my feet as cold as ice cubes despite the giant fire crackling in the room. My gaze travels to the other side of the building where the wall has been partially torn down, and into the interminable night outside. Things here seem so strange compared to Lake High, where the weather is always set to summer. How can both places be part of the same Avalon?
A gust of wind whistles inside the hall, bringing with it the smell of charred remains that permeates the surrounding area, and my thoughts wander back to Switzerland and the Board’s headquarters. Have they managed to repeal the attack? Is anyone I know hurt? Does anybody care that I’m gone? Do they even realize I’m not with Lugh? Does Lugh even know himself?
A pang of worry twists my guts into a knot. After all the warnings I’ve received, I still managed to get caught. And for what?
I scan the room again—with the excitement of the draugars’ arrival gone, the Dark Sidhe are now busy honing their weapons, wrestling with each other, or simply lounging about, but underlying their seeming unconcern is a sense of restlessness, like they’re waiting for something.
And not one of them seems to care much about my presence here, as if I were just another gnat around a fruit bowl. Or, as I realize with some dread thinking back to Mordred’s comment on our way down here, I am just the cheese in the mousetrap.
“You’re wasting your time, you know,” I say loudly, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
Mordred doesn’t look around, but I see the muscles in his back grow tense.
“They’re not going to come for me,” I continue nonchalantly. “In fact, they were about to execute me when you guys burst inside their headquarters.”
“Either way we’ll bring the fight to them,” Mordred says, not sounding bothered at all.
“Again?” I ask.
“Always,” Mordred says with a sharp smile, finally looking over at me.
“With Carman?” I ask.
“For Carman,” Mordred says, “and the rest of our kind, to reclaim what is ours.”
“And what is that?” I ask.
“This world, to begin with,” Mordred replies. “It is high time we restored the natural order of things—the powerful should reign over the meek, not the other way around.”
“And then what?” I ask. “What is killing everyone off going to bring you?”
Mordred shrugs. “After that, I suppose we’ll take over the Heavens.”
Stunned, I stare at the tattooed Fey, before breaking out into a loud laugh. Mordred’s face clouds over.
“There’s nothing funny in that,” he says with a severe pout that makes me wonder how old he truly is.
“Are you kidding?” I ask. “You guys want to go take the fight up there?” I point at the ceiling and the sky beyond. “I’m sorry but I think you’re going to have a hard time.”
Mordred’s eyes turn flinty. “You think this is the extent of our forces?” he asks, stalking across the floor towards me. The air seems to sizzle around him, and the room grows unnervingly quiet. “Then you’re more foolish than I thought.” He drops into a crouch so our eyes are level. “Then again, you’ve been kept in the dark by those humans for most of your life like a caged animal at a zoo, so I should try to be more understanding. Our forces have been planning for our return for ages, and there’s nothing that’s going to stop us.”
“Your forces?” I ask, my heart hammering in my chest.
Mordred points towards the line of draugar. “There’s more where they came from,” he says.
I swallow audibly. “A few dead bodies walking around aren’t any match against hundreds of knights,” I say.
“A couple of draugar, perhaps,” Mordred says, smiling, “but a whole army?”
My eyes seem about to pop out of their sockets. “You can’t be serious,” I whisper hoarsely. “You’re never going to get thousands of those out of that hole. You could barely get five now!”
“Just wait and watch,” he says.
Mordred’s confident smile only widens and I cower against the wall. I may have put on a brave face in front of him, but the idea of facing more of those soulless corpses terrifies me. I can’t let Mordred go through with his plans without trying to stop him.
Without taking another second to think about it, I throw myself at him. Mordred’s smirk turns into a look of shock as he falls onto his back.
I roll off him and jump back to my feet before making for the fallen wall.
A slew of curses falls behind me and I will myself to go faster. Three more feet to freedom. The wind lashes at my face, bitingly cold. Two. I swerve out of Urim’s way. One.
A sharp, blinding pain shoots up my leg as something long whips around it, cutting into my muscles, before yanking me down, and I cry out.
“Thank you, Gwyllion,” Mordred says. “I think she’s learned her lesson.” He stares at me in disappointment. “I thought I’d warned you running away was useless. But if you were to foolishly try anyway, I thought you would at least make a better attempt of it, not this”—he flicks his hand—“clumsy try at a run.”
“And I think your tender heart’s showing, AC,” a raspy voice says as the bladed whip unties itself from my leg.
I push myself into a sitting position, wincing in pain. My leg is one open wound, blood pumping out from deep gashes into a pool around me.
“She’s dangerous,” a hag dressed in dark leathers says, looking old enough to be my great-grandmother. She coils her metallic whip lazily, dipping her finger in the blood still coating it. “We should kill her now.”
“She’s necessary for Carman’s recovery,” Mordred says, his whole body shaking with anger at having his orders challenged.
“Carman doesn’t need help,” the hag says, the iron piercings dotting her face giving her a perpetually stunned look.
Behind her, a fat four-legged creature lumbers forward, eyes fiery under a pair of viciously pointy horns. It comes to a stop at the hag’s feet and sits on its hunches to scratch its underbelly, then turns to look at me. A pair of lower, protruding canines curve up from its elongated jaw, threatening to poke it in the nostrils. And considering how much it reeks, I wish I could poke my own nose out too.
“Back down now, Gwyllion,” Mordred warns the hag.
A scratchy laugh escapes the old Fey’s thin, dry lips. “Despite all your grand airs, Mordred,” she says, “Carman doesn’t need you either.”
“Don’t presume to know what Carman needs or doesn’t need, Gwyll,” a familiar voice cuts in. “And get Barguest outside, we don’t all need be subjected to his stench.”
To my surprise, the hag moves away, head lowered in submission. A short man marches past her, his face half-melted beneath a bright red cap.
“Nibs,” I breathe. “You’re here?”
“In the flesh,” he says with a grotesque smile. He points at his face, “Though it has a tendency to want to run away from me.”
My gaze slides down to my leg already re-stitching itself, unable to watch his melted skin without guilt twisting my insides.
“When—” I start.
“When the time is right,” Nibs says, patting my cheek affectionately with his gloved hand. I feel the metallic cold of manacles snap around my wrists and look down in surprise. “Still, we wouldn’t want you to meet them too soon now, would we?” Nibs continues. He cocks an eyebrow toward the entrance door and I note that most of the Fey who were standing there have moved away from it and closer to the fire. “Nor do we want you to cause another scene,” he adds in my ear.
The door flings open and the darkness of the night seems to seep inside the room. Slowly, it materializes into a concrete, hunched over shape. My hackles raise and I scramble to get back to my feet, my blood boiling.
“Murderer!” I yell with a growl, darting towards the Shade.
But before I can take more than two steps, my hands get yanked back so hard my shoulders threaten to pop out of their sockets. I twist around and fall down hard, knocking my head on the wooden floor.
“Now what did I just say?” Nibs asks, pulling on the long chain attached to my handcuffs.
I glare at the stooped shadow at the other end of the hall, straining against my chains.
“Enough,” Nibs says, passing the chain over to Mordred. “If you keep this up, I’ve got no choice but to put you out.”
“Do as he says,” Mordred mutters, holding me close to him.
“That thing murdered my father,” I retort, “and countless other innocent people. He should be annihilated.”
“Your father was far from innocent himself,” Mordred snaps. “Besides, you wouldn’t stand a chance against Dub. Now shut up and behave.”
He shortens his hold on the chain and I’m forced to take another limping step back.
“Well, since we’re all here,” Nibs says, rubbing his hands together, “I think it’s time we got cracking, don’t you?”
Morgana Trilogy Complete Series Page 75
