When Destiny Calls

by Eric Asher

  “If you are certain.”

  I smiled, nodded, and watched Euphemia’s skin pale and grow translucent before she vanished into the waters once more.

  ***

  I crawled back into bed. The heavy book fit neatly beneath my pillow. It wasn’t terribly comfortable, but I wasn’t overly concerned with sleep. I stared at the black ceiling for what seemed the entire night. In the morning, I’d walk into Damian’s shop, Death’s Door.

  I watched the images roll by on the morning news. They were back where Gettysburg used to be, where the Fae city that consumed the eastern seaboard had first risen. Seeing those Fae towers where cities used to be was something I might never get used to. I turned the volume up when they panned to a suit with what looked to be fifty microphones in front of him.

  “Rest assured, we have the situation fully in hand. Our reconnaissance has shown no expansion or aggression from these new immigrants.”

  I snorted. 'Immigrants.' What a jerk.

  One of the reporters barked out a question. “What do you make of the people who don't show up on film?”

  “Unfounded rumors. Please, only questions in your turn.” He nodded to another reporter.

  A small woman stood up. “I was at the bridge where the man calling himself Ezekiel murdered a dozen people before a giant squid attacked us.”

  “A giant squid?” I said. “Honey, you need to let go of that denial.”

  She didn't pause to let the suit respond. “I've seen the people in the cities. They say you tried to bomb them. The people that don't show up on film, I've seen them.”

  A riot of sound went up. I couldn't make out the words, but the suit finally called for silence. “Ma'am, I can't say what you saw, or what you think you saw, but our armed forces are more than capable of handling any crisis inside our own borders. You need to calm down and--”

  “There are millions of dead Americans who would disagree with you, Mister Secretary.”

  I watched, somewhat impressed, as the woman threw her microphone to the ground and stomped away. Feedback squealed over the speakers before a tech silenced the feed.

  The suit was good. He was damn good. He didn't so much as bat an eye. The feed shrunk to the corner of the television while the main image returned to the newsroom. “We're having some technical difficulties at the conference, but in the studio with us today is Professor Amos Brown. He has a rather ... unique idea about the sightings from around the world. Professor?”

  “Thank you. I'd like to propose that we are dealing with creatures that have coexisted with us for millennia. What you may refer to as fairies.”

  “The fair folk?” the anchorwoman asked, not bothering to hide the exasperation in her voice. “As in fairy tales?”

  “Indeed, but in their most sinister of forms. Footage has appeared showing missiles entering that city's airspace, and then vanishing.”

  “That could be easily faked.” The anchor's mood had gone from exasperated to bored.

  “Perhaps, but you need to consider the other possibilities. If you cannot kill them with bombs, you must kill them with iron. And what I'm proposing--”

  “Breakfast!”

  I was pretty sure it was the third or fourth time someone had shouted breakfast. Don’t get me wrong, it smelled good, but when you hadn’t slept for the entire night, breakfast didn’t really seem like the greatest motivator to get out of bed.

  Thoughts on breakfast quickly crashed back into the lump beneath my pillow, and the newscast was of a far lesser concern. I slid the leather-bound tome out of its hiding place and dropped it into my purse by the nightstand. My nerves shivered at the thought of carrying that thing around. Koda didn’t really tell me what was in it, but his level of secrecy told me enough.

  I pulled my hair back and snapped a rubber band over it. I threw on a long sleeved T-shirt that covered my bandages and a pair of khaki cargo pants. It took a minute to find another T-shirt that fit my mood. I snagged my go-to, emblazoned with the phrase “99 problems but a witch ain’t one” and strode out to breakfast with the coven.

  Ashley stood by the waffle iron we’d gotten her as a birthday present, churning out gigantic Belgian waffles. Four more witches sat around the table, waving and saying good morning as I stepped into the little square kitchen.

  “Light breakfast?” I asked.

  Ashley glanced over her shoulder and nodded. “I’m not going to starve all of you while you’re staying with me.”

  “You cook like the necromancer is coming for breakfast.” The cavernous voice spoke from just behind me, and sent a frisson of surprise up my spine. I spun to find a black man standing there, a tower of a man with a finely cut jawline.

  “Alan!” I said, surprised to see the werewolf inside. My thoughts turned darker. “Was that … err … were you on duty last night?” I’d almost said more than I’d wanted to in front of the other witches. None of them seemed to take notice. Maybe they were just being polite, or maybe they didn’t suspect I was keeping things from them.

  “I was, yes. Koda suggested I join you all for breakfast.”

  “He did, huh?”

  “Indeed.”

  “You can see him too?” Mallory asked. I didn’t know Mallory very well. I didn’t know any of them outside of Ashley very well, if I was being honest with myself. She poured a circle of syrup over her waffle, not even bothering to fill in all the squares before looking up at Alan.

  “I can,” he said. “Since Gettysburg, some ghosts are as plain as any of you to us.”

  “Because Damian's part of the pack now?” Ashley asked.

  Alan nodded. “That’s Hugh’s suspicion, yes.” Hugh was a name I knew, the Alpha of the River Pack.

  Ashley pulled another waffle off the iron. She sliced one quarter off and handed it to me on a plate before she handed the rest to Alan. “Eat up, you look like you’re fading away.”

  I glanced up at the werewolf. Whatever he looked like, he sure as hell wasn’t fading away. “Did you still need those candles from the Double D, Ashley?”

  She hesitated as she went to unplug the waffle iron. “I do, yes. Would you mind picking them up for me?”

  Clearly I’d been as subtle as a dropped vase. “Sure. I needed some amber anyway.”

  “I would be happy to walk with you, if you would like,” Alan said.

  “Don’t you have to watch over the poor, helpless coven?” Ashley asked.

  Alan let out a low laugh. “We're smart enough to know you are not helpless, priestess. We’re also the kind to protect our friends, especially when we have failed in the past. You won’t be unguarded.”

  Mallory squeaked and her fork clattered against her plate when something slammed against the patio door. It released a bark that shook the air around us.

  Ashley gave Alan a small smile. “I appreciate it. Would you mind walking Peanut back to Damian’s?”

  “Was he out there all night?” Alan asked, his brow furrowed.

  Ashley nodded.

  “How did I not hear him? Or smell him?”

  “Pretty much any odd thing with that pooch can be written up to being a cu sith,” Ashley said. Peanut smashed his black nose onto the glass and smeared it across the entire width of the door with a squeak.

  Alan slid the door open as Peanut crouched down and wiggled his furry green butt. Peanut’s tail snapped backwards like a whip, an impossibly long, braided whip, before the cu sith launched himself at Alan’s chest. The impact made a hollow thump.

  Most people would have been knocked flat, but Alan barely took a step backwards. He ruffled the bristly fur all across the cu sith’s back while Peanut’s black paws clawed at Alan’s chest and a wide pink tongue slathered Alan’s face.

  “What’s he doing here?” Alan asked, slowly letting Peanut back down to the floor.

  “Damian’s just as overprotective as you lot,” Ashley said. “Peanut’s been here most nights since everyone returned from Gettysburg.”

  “That’s been m
onths.”

  “We still don’t know what’s going to happen,” Ashley said. “No one’s heard anything from Camazotz. Edgar doesn’t think we can face the dark-touched without him, or at least not without a ‘learning curve.’ Everything else seems like idle threats and promises. Hern is supposedly at war with all of Glenn’s supporters, but where is he? He isn’t in the ruins of Falias on the eastern seaboard. All this, and how can the Fae possibly avoid a war with the commoners? They’ve already attacked Falias.”

  I felt awful not telling Ashley what Koda had said, but I trusted Cornelius, and Cornelius trusted Koda. It still felt like some small betrayal.

  “You’re worried?” Alan asked.

  Ashley wiped down the waffle iron and tossed a paper towel into the trash. “Of course I’m worried. I’m worried about you, and the pack, and the coven, and Damian … He doesn’t seem the same since Gettysburg.”

  “He’s …” Alan hesitated. “He’s planning. Damian is working on something, Ashley. A plan I doubt very much he wishes to involve you in.”

  She sighed and crossed her arms. “That does make me feel a little better, I guess. He told you about the voices, and the visions?”

  The table grew silent. Everyone stared at Ashley. She didn’t talk much about the goings-on outside of the coven, even though they all knew it could affect them. The entire world could see the Fae now, and while some people were terrified by the situation and the creatures they’d been living side by side with, others felt all Fae should die.

  Alan rubbed his close-cropped hair, then looked at his hand and frowned. “Dammit, Peanut. That’s sticky.”

  The cu sith just panted and nudged Alan’s thigh.

  Alan turned his gaze back to Ashley. “Yes, I’ve heard about it. People wiser than me say we’re safe around him, and I have to believe that.”

  Ashley turned back to the sink and began washing a mixing bowl. “I do too,” she said quietly.

  “We can go as soon as you finish your waffle,” Alan said before he stuffed a huge bite into his own mouth.

  I turned back to my plate. I didn’t feel hungry, but I needed to keep my energy up if I was going to heal the slashes across my arms.

  Walking in the cold wasn’t exactly my first choice, but I needed the air. Training with Cornelius lately had been more like researching a term paper in college than any kind of physical exertion. I know he tried to give my arms enough time to heal between sessions, but I really didn’t care to study the alliance between the blood mages and the Society of Flame any longer.

  I stopped walking along the riverbank when Peanut darted in front of me and stopped abruptly. Only then did I realize we’d pulled ahead of Alan.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He nodded and finished fumbling with something on his belt. “Koda wanted me to be sure you had these.” He held out a thin wooden box, two inches by six inches at the most. “I think some of the water witches may be tipping the old ghost off more than you would expect.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, taking the box between my index finger and thumb.

  “Open it.”

  I frowned and slid the bronze clasp to the side. The hinges were silent, revealing a black velvet tray with four thin, diamond-shaped blades. My father had raised me as an archer before he died, and the closest thing I could compare these blades to was the tip of a broad-head arrow. Each bore enough markings and etchings to leave almost none of the original surface metal behind.

  “What are they?”

  “They’re from Euphemia.”

  Well, I guess we know who’s been talking to Koda, I thought to myself. “Am I supposed to mount them on an arrow?”

  Alan shook his head. “Use them with your arts. They’re primarily meant to destroy undines, but Euphemia believes they will be powerful against any Fae.”

  “I'm supposed to use them to cut?”

  “That's my understanding, yes.”

  I sighed and closed the box. “Great, cutting myself with an enchanted Fae metal..” My complaints turned to incoherent grumbling as I stomped off down the riverbank.

  “I thought you'd be a bit more appreciative of having a weapon to fight the undines,” Alan said. “They are nearly indestructible creatures.”

  “I can kill things with a few spoken words and my blood, Alan. I don't consider much to be indestructible.” I paused and patted my pocket, considering how unappreciative I sounded. “Sorry, and thank you for bringing them.”

  “No need to apologize,” he said, stepping around me and hopping up the bank. He offered his hand. I took it after a moment's pause. Before I'd met Alan and some of the others in the River Pack, I'd thought werewolves were all instinct and aggression. They could still be violent, and vicious, no doubt, but there was a peacefulness among the River Pack that surprised me.

  “Why not just give them to me directly,” I asked. “Seems kind of roundabout to have you do it.”

  “I suspect that has to do more with the politics of Faerie than anything else.”

  We walked toward the old buildings and parking lots of Main Street. I'd heard it referred to as a time capsule, and I could see why. The old brick and cobblestones made it feel like you'd stepped back in time. If I had to guess, people who wanted to visit the past forgot that toilet paper wasn't invented until the 1850s.

  Something with a large and loud engine pulled around the corner. One of the massive transport vehicles we'd been seeing more and more of since the battle at Gettysburg bounced off the smooth asphalt and up onto the cobblestone street. The mild scent of the river fled before the churning onslaught of diesel fumes.

  Seeing the National Guard strewn across this tourist trap made me twitchy. Main Street was a place for families and friends to gather and shop and eat, not a place for armored Humvees and soldiers carrying enough ordinance to level a building.

  “I don’t like seeing that,” Alan said, as though he’d read my mind. His eyes tracked one of the personnel carriers.

  I only grunted in response.

  Alan raised an eyebrow and glanced at me.

  One of the Humvees slowed, and two soldiers stared at us. I scratched absently at Peanut’s ruff before I realized it was probably Peanut they were staring at. They sped up a moment later, their tires bouncing across the cobblestones of Main Street.

  While our president promised a decisive response to the horrors on the eastern seaboard, they soon came to realize they were hopelessly unprepared for that fight. Instead, he ordered the deployment of the military to every known location where Fae had been sighted. At least the government had been smart enough, or perhaps scared enough, not to enter the Fae city that had replaced a huge swath of the northeastern United States.

  We crossed the rest of the parking lot and waited on the old stone curb. When the convoy passed, Death’s Door stood plain for all to see.

  “I hope Sam’s not here,” I said, thinking of Damian’s vampire sister.

  “Why’s that?” Alan asked as he led the way across the cobblestones.

  “Vampires scare the hell out of me.”

  A deep, rumbling laugh echoed out of Alan’s chest. “Sam scares most who meet her. Those who aren’t frightened of her are often frightened of her brother. Neither of them would ever harm a friend of Ashley’s. You must know that.”

  Alan’s words were comforting, but I was still glad he was with me. I knew the stories of necromancers, and Cornelius said Damian was even more powerful than those old legends, like he was something else entirely.

  I glanced up at the sign above the front door. Before the Fae were revealed in the aftermath of Gettysburg, it used to say something about souvenirs and gems to those without the Sight. Now the hidden sign spoke a new truth about our world. Established 1877, Potions, Spells, Grimoires, and Spirit Boards circled the gothic, interlaced Ds of the logo.

  I shook my head and reached out for the aged brass handles, the paint worn around them. I tried to hide the deep breath I took before pulling t
he wavy glass open and stepping inside.

  If there was one thing I loved immediately about Death’s Door, it was the smell. I took another deep breath, but this time I used it to take in the scent of candle wax, incense, old books, and … burnt popcorn? Someone shouted in the back room.

  “It’s on fire, you idiot! Put it out!”

  “Oh my god, I’m on fire!”

  Peanut chuffed at my side, unfazed at the sudden cries for water and a burn ward. He trotted forward, down an aisle filled with touristy souvenirs and feathers.

  “Was that the door?” A much more reasonable voice asked.

  “I don’t know! I’m on fire!”

  The more reasonable voice, delicate and feminine said, “Damian, please, I’ve seen you much more on fire than that.”

  The saloon-style doors swung open and revealed a fairy standing at least seven feet tall. Her armor chimed and slithered over her shoulders as her wings cleared the swinging door.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, her gaze focused on me. Her eyes trailed to Alan and lit up immediately.

  “Aideen,” he said with a nod. “Is Damian … okay?”

  “Fine, fine,” she said as something crashed and glass shattered in the backroom.

  The male voice, which at that point I assumed was a high pitched Damian, shouted a string of obscenities that grew ever louder. “We needed a new microwave anyway. You know that damn thing burned a chimichanga? How do you burn a frozen chimichanga?”

  The saloon style doors swung open again to reveal a six and a half foot tall man with a smoking shirt sleeve. If I didn’t know how crazy he was, I’d think the scruffy, thin, gray-eyed necromancer was just a dork. I might actually admit that fact to someone if I didn’t know how scary he was.

  Damian flopped onto the stool behind the counter.

  “Please excuse our dramatic host,” the fairy said, turning to me again.

  “You’re Aideen, right?” I asked, hoping I'd heard Alan correctly and wasn’t offending the seven-foot tall armored fairy.

  “I am,” she said with a nod.