Imperative: A Quinn Larson Quest
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I heard Clarence say something to Edrinda, probably just noticing we weren’t behind them. Then I heard what sounded like an elk running toward me.
“Quinn,” Lionel’s whisper was fit for the stage not for sharing secrets.
“Lionel, hush. Get over here before you talk.” I tried to keep my voice kind, and not snap.
I felt his breath on my ear as he spoke. “It’s blood. The stuff I stepped in blood mixed with mud.”
“Did you find a body?” I hoped he was going to say it was an animal.
“Yes, it’s a man he’s been stabbed in the neck.”
Clarence sat beside me and said. “There’s a pool of blood at the edge of the path. Someone walked through it.”
Lionel explained what he’d found. “It’s all over my boots.”
“We need to get home.” I didn’t want us anywhere near a dead body. I told Lionel to clean his shoes on the grass before we started.
Chapter Thirty-Four
We got home without further incident. I kept asking if anyone saw police hanging round. It’s hard to keep a compulsive need to check on one’s surroundings a secret when you can’t see.
My door was unlocked but I didn’t worry, because the protection spells were in place.
“Olan,” Lionel called. “You’ll never believe what has been happening.”
He left me to run forward. I placed my hand on the wall and followed it to the kitchen.
“If it is about dead humans, I will believe anything,” Olan said.
“What do you know, bird?” Clarence growled.
“So, bodies do ring a bell,” Olan chirped. “It seems someone is killing humans. I’ve seen the police investigating.”
My stomach sank. “So, despite everything we are about to be found?”
Olan landed on my shoulder. “Not necessarily. The police are just as confused as everyone. There is no pattern they can find. Three humans died overnight, and now a couple of people this morning.”
“So they found the body in the park?” Edrinda joined in.
Olan hopped on my shoulder, it was disconcerting to have something walking on you when you can’t see. “No,” he said. “But, that makes six.”
“Why don’t the police have a theory?” I tried to keep my mind away from focusing on the image of Real Folk bodies strewn everywhere in an orgy of retaliation.
“There are too many differences. You know the humans love their patterns. Two people were poisoned. One strangled. One had their throat cut. One was stabbed, what about the person in the park?”
“Stabbed,” Lionel said.
I could see a pattern forming. “How long do you think we’ll have before they see the pattern, or something else that will lead them to Real Folk?”
I heard the kettle boil and then Edrinda asked, “Why do you think it’s someone from the Real Folk?”
That was a good question. Why did it feel like there was no argument to that? “I guess it feels like too much of a coincidence. We stop Fionuir and humans start dying in quantity.”
“It could be a coincidence.” Lionel didn’t sound like he believed his own theory.
“I would guess we are two weeks away from someone figuring out it’s not a human. They won’t be coming to that thought easily. If we find them and stop them…” Olan stopped speaking.
“Quinn,” a voice called from the door. “Quinn Larson.”
“There’s a fairy at the door,” Clarence called. “You want me to send him away?”
“What tribe?”
The visitor shouted in answer, “I’m a rose Fairy. You have Princess Elizabeth here.”
I hoped this was good news. Maybe the last bit of good news I was going to get for a while. “Lionel, go check him out, if he seems harmless, pass him though wards.” I gave Lionel the words to open the protection.
We couldn’t keep talking about the murders with this fairy near so I listened to the conversation at the door. “What do you want with Quinn?”
“I want my wife back.” I could imagine his chest puffing out.
“Why do you want her back? You could have protected her before, why should we give her to you now?” Lionel was doing a good job of screening this guy.
“It is not easy to go against the whole tribe. But now, babies are quickening. She is forgiven.”
“What is your name?”
“Diablo. I am called Diablo.”
“Step back,” Lionel ordered. Then I heard murmuring sounds. “Come in.”
I heard running feet scurry down the hall. “Quinn Larson, where is my wife?”
“We’ll give her back to you, but she is very weak. Do you have food?”
I heard a gasp. “No, I didn’t know she wasn’t eating.”
“She told us that your tribe had forbidden her food,” I said.
“No, she was shunned. She has not eaten?”
I hated to think that I was going to be the one to break it to him, but if I had known the starvation was her idea, I would have called her bluff and fed her. “She is in my workroom. I have her under a suspension spell; do you know what that means?”
“Yes, like death but not permanent.” The fairy’s voice trembled.
“She will need to be fed as soon as the spell is removed and she will be weak until she has eaten three or four times.” I rose. “Someone help me get downstairs and we’ll deal with this right now.”
“But I have no food.” Diablo sounded like he was going to cry.
“I do. Edrinda, are you still making tea?”
“I am. Do you want a cup?”
“Yes, but right now I need the honey, the dark one. A jar of that and a spoon, please.”
I felt the jar being pressed into my right hand and spoon slipped between my fingers on the same hand. “Who’s going to help me?”
“I’ll do it.” Lionel grabbed my elbow. “I can help if you need me to do any of the spells.”
I chuckled. “No, this is one I can do from memory. Come on, Diablo, you can give her some honey.”
I muttered some restriction spells to keep Diablo from seeing the important parts of my workroom and we went down. I had Lionel take me to Princess’ couch and put me at her head. Reaching out I drew the blanket off her and touched her skin. It was too cold for me to feel comfortable about her state of health.
“She is so thin,” Diablo whispered. “How did she get so thin?”
“She didn’t eat. It doesn’t take long for you fairies to fade.” I reached out carefully and found Princess’ forehead. “Lionel, open the honey and put some on her lips. Then give the jar to Diablo.”
I felt him move beside me. “Done.”
I pushed away the worries about dead humans and the possible repercussions and concentrated on the elements of the release spell. I ran my finger from her hairline down to the tip of her chin. When I finished I thought the words to undo the spell.
She breathed in and coughed. I felt the brittleness of her bones under my fingers. “You can eat now.”
Princess looked at me and licked her lips. Then Diablo nudged my arm aside “Babies are quickening. We will have a baby as soon as you are strong enough.”
“Lionel, put her in my room, in the bed. They can stay there.”
While Lionel took the fairies, I felt my way to the stairs and back up to the kitchen, where I found the others still muttering over the news. Lionel joined us just as I sat on a stool. I wasn’t planning on sitting here talking all day. “So, what are we going to do?”
“If we can find out who’s doing it, maybe we can stop it in time?” Lionel didn’t sound like he believed his own plan would be a good idea.
“There isn’t a lot of time,” Olan said.
“Well, I can’t just sit here and talk,” Lionel snapped. I heard his stool scrape across the floor and the sound of his pacing.
Edrinda sighed. “The boy’s plan is really the only option. Unless someone can figure out how to turn time back and stop the murders in the first place
.”
“It’s Fionuir.” Lionel’s voice was filled with certainty.
“We don’t know for sure, but it’s a good guess.” I didn’t want to shut down his confidence.
“No,” he said, “It’s her. I saw her in that abandoned house across the street. She just killed another human.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
I hear a chirp and a clatter of armor. I guessed Olan and Clarence had run for the door. “Come on wizards,” Edrinda shouted. “Let’s not lose her.”
Edrinda didn’t concern herself with gentleness when she grabbed my elbow. I almost tripped over my own feet at the speed she pulled me along.
The door slammed shut a second after I hit the bottom step. “Stop,” I tried not to gasp out the words. “I’m not going to be able to run like this.”
Edrinda came to a stop and I felt her pulling me back. “We don’t have time, Quinn.”
“You won’t have time if I fall flat on my face. Let me hold your arm. Good. Now I can follow you, rather than feel like you are pushing me.”
We ran across the street and I felt the ground change beneath my shoes. We were in the overgrown yard of Mrs. Yeardley’s house. Or rather of her ex house. She’d gone into a retirement home and whoever was looking after her affairs was letting the house go to ruin.
“Around back,” Olan called to us. “She’s cutting across the yard.”
“Lionel can you hide the body?” I called out, hoping he was in earshot.
“I have a spell that will make it look like a rhododendron bush,” he said.
“Good enough, we can deal with it later. I just don’t want the police finding it.” Having a body so close to my house was too dangerous.
We got to the back yard of Mrs. Yeardley’s house and I heard branches breaking at the far end. “Is that Clarence?”
“Yes, he’s just gone through the fence.” Edrinda slowed slightly. “I don’t think it’s safe for you to barge through the bushes.”
I gave her arm a squeeze. “I’m not waiting here, lead on.”
“Okay, Lionel, you push the bushes away and we’ll come through after.” The next thing I knew, I felt branches scratch at my arms.
“In that building over to the right. It doesn’t look like a house.” I heard Lionel say. “Clarence just went through the back door.
Great now we were breaking in to human buildings. “It’s a power station. There’s probably no one there but be careful.”
We went in and I heard voices.
Clarence and Fionuir were shouting. “You will stop what you are doing, Banshee.”
“You will not speak to me like that,” Fionuir’s voice came back. “Where is that wizard?”
“I’m here.” I tried to step forward but Lionel pulled me back. “What do you want?”
“My amulet, you stole it.”
I tried not to react, the amulet was in my pocket and until we could put it somewhere safe it wasn’t going out of my control. “What amulet?”
“Don’t toy with me, wizard,” she spat the words. “I thought you were blind from stealing my book, but no, you took the amulet. Give it back.”
I heard a heavy step and then Clarence’s voice cut across the sudden silence. “We will not help you kill more humans. Leave and stop your foolishness before you start a war between the Real Folk and the humans.”
“I don’t care about some possible war. I am fighting a real war of my own.” I heard fear in her voice.
She didn’t believe that the humans would find out, how naive could she be? “The police are already investigating these recent deaths. They may be human, but they aren’t stupid. It won’t be long before they link the last ones to this. How can you not believe they will find us?”
“It’s been thousands of years, Quinn, only a few teenagers have even suspected we exist. What is real, is me fight to keep my position. Give me the damned amulet.”
“No.” I pulled myself out of Lionel’s grasp and walked toward Fionuir’s voice. “You will have to find another way.”
“Oh, I’ve already found another way. I will keep killing humans until I get the amulet back.” She was getting careless; I could hear her footsteps approaching.
“I am still not giving you an amulet.” I stepped toward her voice.
“You are supporting Maeve? You think she will be better than me?
“Can she be worse?” I felt heat from the direction of her voice. “You are putting our entire existence at risk. What point is winning the war with Maeve and losing everything else?”
Someone grabbed me from behind and I felt the breeze of something just missing my face as I fell backward into one of the Kobolds. Edrinda’s voice grunted into my ear. “She’s armed. Let us fight her.”
I felt the wall hit my back before I could argue.
Then all I heard was metal against metal.
Chapter Thirty-Six
I expected Fionuir to be defeated quickly. Fighting two Kobolds was a good way to commit suicide for most people. But she kept up her end. I could hear grunts from all three. It made me glad I couldn’t see what was actually happening. Although it left me plenty of time to worry about that obligation.
Lionel slid down to sit beside me. “Quinn, I don’t know what to do, they are not getting anywhere, and I think she’s enhanced her ability. Can you cast a spell?”
“It would be dangerous for me to cast, I don’t know who I would hit.” I really wanted to throw a net spell but I knew Fionuir would just keep fighting. I wasn’t going to sacrifice my friends for this battle.
“She’s going to kill them then come and get us. I can’t fight her.” Lionel sounded more angry than afraid.
I tried to think. Lionel was better than I expected him to be with magic, but this was under a stressful situation. What could I give him that wouldn’t be a disaster for everyone?
“I don’t think we have much time,” Lionel stuttered. “Can you give me a kill spell?”
“Absolutely not.” I came out of my internal spell inventory. “How do you know you won’t kill everything in hearing range?”
“We have to do something.”
“But not killing. I can’t cause direct harm. This blindness is probably part of that. I gave my word I wouldn’t do direct harm.”
“Great, Quinn, could you have mentioned that before we were in the middle of a battle?” Olan chirped as he landed on my shoulder.
“Even if I didn’t have this obligation, I wouldn’t kill. Do you forget I’m a spirit wizard?”
“Fine,” Olan said. “You think about what you can do and I’ll be getting in her way was much as I can.”
I tried to ignore the sarcasm in his voice. It wasn’t helping me find a solution.
Fionuir screamed, “Get out of here you damn bird.” And there was a pause in the clashing of swords.
I had an idea. “Lionel, have you mastered the preservation spell?”
“Yes, I preserved three oak leaves last month. They are still green.”
It occurred to me that he might be bragging but I pushed the thought away, I had to trust him or there wasn’t any point in trying to stop the fight. “Okay, I have an idea. Do you think you can cast this only on Fionuir?”
“Yes, Olan is keeping her far enough away from Clarence and Edrinda. If we are quick, she won’t be able to get close to them again.”
“If you twist the spell to include ice and air, you can crystallize the air around her. She’ll be held in a shell of ice until we release her. She’ll be alive and aware, but not able to do anything.”
“Okay so instead of saying, rot and entropy leave, I say what?” He was smart enough to figure out the way each part of the spell contributed to the whole.
“Movement and heat.”
“I’ll get as close as I can.” I felt him rise. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck”
The clash of swords started again then stopped. “Bird, I will slice you open if you don’t get out of the way.”
Then I heard breathing, then gasps of breath and a thud.
“Lionel, what is going on, damn it.” I pushed myself up. If this didn’t work, I was going to blunder into the battle. If everyone was frozen I would have to fix it.
“It’s done,” Olan said. “The boy did fine.”
“What was the thud? Is someone hurt?” No one answered. “Someone talk to me.”
“Fionuir fell over,” Edrinda gasped. “We’re fine. It’s over.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
We were in my workroom. Fionuir was resting on the couch where Princess had been. Princess and Diablo had left while we were in battle.
I checked the integrity of the spell and was impressed with Lionel’s expertise. When he learned a spell he cast solid magic. “Any ideas what we do with her?”
“She’d make a nice ornament if you just stand her in the corner there. You can always hang a coat on her,” Olan said.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m thinking I’d like to survive her reaction when we free her. We will eventually do that, I’m not going to keep her in this state forever. She’s aware, remember.”
“I think we need to get the amulet stored as far away from her as we can think of, and if she’s aware, we need to deal with her first,” Clarence said. “Do you have any more of that tea? And honey, I think the fairies took it with them.”
I told him where to find my stash of rare honey and heard him going up the stairs. It made me realize that I was going to need someone to do my shopping and other errands until I either cured the blindness or learned to handle being blind. Humans managed so I’m sure I would figure it out. And maybe I could get Maeve to give me that book back when she’s officially queen.