The Egg (Return of the Ancients Book 4)

by Carmen Caine

  The Glass Wall – Book Four:

  The Egg

  by

  Carmen Caine

  and

  Madison Adler

  Published by

  Bento Box Books

  Edited by

  Grace Benson

  Copyright © 2014 Carmen Caine

  Digital Edition

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  Dedication

  To Pawkie -- I miss you

  Table of Contents

  Sydney’s Note to Reader

  Chapter One - A Death Beyond Devastation

  Chapter Two – Déjà Brew

  Chapter Three – Finding Melody

  Chapter Four – The White Room

  Chapter Five – The Secret of Lysol

  Chapter Six – Fear

  Chapter Seven – My Type

  Chapter Eight – The Portal

  Chapter Nine – A Long Goodbye

  Chapter Ten – TopHat

  Chapter Eleven – There’s No Place Like Al’s

  Chapter Twelve – The Forbidden

  Chapter Thirteen – The Blue Thread

  Chapter Fourteen – The Tesla Coil

  Chapter Fifteen – A Pot of Gold

  Other Books

  Sydney’s Note to Reader

  Too much has happened for me to recap the entire story up to this point. But for those of you who haven’t read the first three books, I’ll just point out a few important things so you won’t be totally lost.

  My name is Sydney. I was your normal high-school senior until the Fae moved in across the street and I was introduced to the paranormal Fae world of Avalon residing in the first dimension and the Lizard People, the Brotherhood of the Snake, which lurks in the second. Apparently, the Fae had been protecting the Earth for years from the Lizard People who live off of our negative emotions and want to keep us in a constant state of terror while they figure out how to escape the Second Dimension to invade Earth.

  One of the Fae Fate Trackers sent to Earth was Rafael, a blond-haired Light Fae of royal blood who looked more like a high-tech Navy SEAL than any kin of Tinkerbelle’s. I fell hard for him. To my surprise, he fell just as hard for me.

  As a Fate Tracker, he was searching for the ‘Blue-Threaded’, those fated to make a choice that would either be disastrous or beneficial to all, those who could affect the balance of the three dimensions that are anchored together by the Tree of Life (Avalon in the first, the Lizard People in the second, and Earth in the third). The Fate Trackers had discovered there was a human who carried an extraordinary Blue Thread of Fate, an unusually strong one.

  That human was me.

  Rafael’s counterpart Fate Tracker, the Dark Fae named Jareth, had come to Earth posing as a Rock Star (becoming an extraordinarily famous one along the way). But through the course of events, we discovered that he and Rafael were actually half-brothers, sharing the same father. DNA-wise, anyway. Rafael’s father, Marquis, hadn’t seemed aware that Jareth was his son, either.

  Jareth had been created as an experiment by Melody, the Head Fate Tracker, but we didn’t know why. And through it all, we discovered that she was actually evil, but just exactly what she was up to was still an unsolved mystery.

  But then Rafael and Jareth both turned Blue-Threaded themselves, and they were also faced with a decision that would affect other’s destinies. Rafael’s choice had already come and gone, leaving him convinced that he’d made the wrong decision by choosing to defend me instead of following the Fae Queens’ orders to destroy me. He knew it was the wrong choice because his decision resulted in the single fate line that guaranteed he was destined to destroy the Tree of Life. Since it anchored the three dimensions that was clearly not a good thing. He was devastated, of course, but wanted to help me and Jareth feel better. So, he told us not to worry so much about making our own wrong Blue-Threaded choice, because he’d already ruined destiny for the rest of us anyway.

  I wasn’t as pessimistic.

  I mean, my Blue Thread was huge—much larger than theirs. I figured it could still give me the opportunity to fix things if I were to make the right choice, and just maybe I could change Rafael’s destiny.

  It is what I hoped, anyway.

  But Jareth’s Blue Thread … that was where I’d left off in the last book.

  Apparently, Jareth’s choice was whether or not to join the Brotherhood of the Snake. I could see how it was a hard decision for him to make. I’d learned that he felt like he didn’t belong with the Fae, and the Lizard People could apparently communicate with him in a way that no one else could. And they also possessed the ability to mesmerize with their eyes and voices, and to make you want to do their bidding, even if it was to jump to your own death. They were that hard to resist.

  They had surrounded Jareth in the coffee shop, Marquis possessed by a Mesmer (a lizard in the Second Dimension) and the rest of the Mesmers controlling the smaller chupacabra-like bodies that Melody had created on Earth for their use. Why she’d helped them out was anyone’s guess. We knew she wasn’t possessed, so it made little sense why a pureblood Fae would help out the enemy. Maybe it was to keep them diverted while she worked on creating Jareth. But that was still another mystery. Why create a Fae with Lizard DNA?

  Anyway, we were all in Samantha’s coffee shop as the Mesmers slithered around, and we each of us shouted for Jareth to listen to what we were saying.

  We were still under Jareth’s protection, and the Mesmers couldn’t mesmerize us at first, but then Jareth’s control wavered and we all started moving slower, as if in a dream. In horror, I watched Jareth pick up a knife and throw it at Rafael. It was a knife with an iron blade, and even though the wound didn’t seem particularly deep, the iron had caused Rafael to turn white and collapse at once. I removed the knife as quickly as I could, staunching his wound with my hand as I remembered to do from one of Al’s first-aid lectures. Rafael’s clear blood ran under my fingers as I watched Jareth’s face contort with a series of emotions, shock and anger the most prominent.

  And then Jareth told us he was ‘one’ with the Brotherhood of the Snake, and a dark hole into the Second Dimension opened up in the center of the coffee shop.

  And then I saw it.

  The Mutant Tulpa, coming out of the hole. The Tulpa carefully cultivated like some kind of twisted plant, grown from years of pure human fear. The Tulpa that had tried to consume me and turn me into itself—the emotion of pure fear.

  And at that moment, I felt that all was lost.

  Chapter One – A Death Beyond Devastation

  Dark emotions played over Jareth’s face as he stood in the center of Samantha’s coffee shop, every muscle in his sinewy body tense. His jet-black hair fell over his face as scales rippled across his cheekbones, black gleaming scales that crept up from the neck of his mahogany leather jacket to spread out over his skin in waves.

  He looked terrifying. I’d gone full circle with him, thinking he was nasty to borderline evil and then feeling as if he were almost a brother. Now I was back to evil.

  Shattered glass blanketed everything from the tables to the shoulders and hair of the catatonic customers as they sat frozen, some with coffee cups suspended in midair. Behind them stood the Fae Protectors with their silver pen-like trions raised, but their
movements seemed slow and lethargic, and I knew they were struggling as hard as the rest of us to stop from being mesmerized by the Brotherhood of the Snake.

  Rafael lay injured on the floor. His strong jaw clenched in pain and his hands in tight fists. His clear blood ran over my fingers as I pressed my palm down hard on his chest in an effort to staunch the wound.

  “Help me! Call an ambulance!” I wanted to shout, but it was too hard to open my lips.

  The Mesmers were gaining control, apparently Jareth’s protection over us was slipping.

  Gritting my teeth, I forced my head to move, seeking anyone to assist me. Rafael wasn’t human. I wasn’t sure I was even applying first aid correctly.

  My sluggish gaze found Rafael’s father, Marquis, standing close by. I detested Marquis completely, and I didn’t trust him for a second. But in the past, he’d still seemed to care for Rafael, even possessed as he was by a Lizard Person. He’d actually told Rafael that they were both his father, having raised him since birth.

  But there was no help from Marquis this time. Marquis merely shrugged and swallowed, the tips of his wispy brown mustache quivering a little. He stood where he was, cradling Blondie’s injured body in his arms, petting him on the head like he was some kind of cat.

  Blondie, the leader of the Lizard People, drew his lips back in the semblance of a grin as more hairless, gargoyle-like Mesmers poured down from the displaced white ceiling tiles above. I would never get used to their hideous appearance. They looked like a hairless, mange-eaten cross between a dog and an armadillo, with spikes protruding from their spines.

  The stench of sulfur filled the air as the massive dark hole forming in the center of the room grew larger. It looked like a mini-galaxy spinning in midair.

  The Mesmers began to chatter in earnest, clicking their tongues and licking their gray, cracked lips.

  Out of that black hole, I saw the Mutant Tulpa crawling toward me, stretching its grotesque, wriggling tentacles out from the depths of the rotating blackness.

  I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. Not because it was impossible to move. I wouldn’t have run, anyway, not with Rafael lying injured on the floor.

  The Tulpa was moving slowly, and I knew it was coming for me. It would never leave me alone, not after almost consuming me. It was obviously determined to finish the job of converting me into itself—the pure emotion of fear. I could hear whispers in my mind. Horrible, dark, and terrifying whispers, calling for me to come closer. And even as terror raced through me, a sudden realization flooded me with hope.

  It needed me to come closer. It couldn’t reach me. Not yet. For some reason, it was still barred from returning to Earth. All it could do was hover at the lip of the hole, crouched like a spider ready to spring. Its tentacles stretched towards me in a licking motion, as if it were feeding off me.

  And then I realized it was. It was consuming my fear at that very moment. It was one of the hardest things I think I’ve ever done, but I forced my eyes away from it.

  I couldn’t let my fear feed it and make it stronger.

  The incoming flood of Mesmers had stopped. There must have been almost one hundred of them skittering around under the Tulpa’s dark hole, their red eyes glowing as their leader, Blondie, hopped out of Marquis’ arms and on top of the pastry case.

  Still severely wounded from his encounter with Rafael’s Doberman, Ajax, his injuries still oozed blood and he’d lost an ear. He couldn’t move very well. But being a Mesmer he didn’t really need to. The danger was in the sound of his voice. It held the power to mesmerize the unprotected, to make them do his bidding. He’d put the entire coffee shop to sleep with a single word.

  “Soon,” Blondie promised the Mesmers clambering about him. “Soon the Tulpa will roam Earth. The portal will open. Soon.”

  They liked that.

  I actually liked it, too, because it confirmed my suspicion that the Tulpa was still trapped somehow and wasn’t free to bop around as it pleased and eat me. Not yet, anyway.

  Blondie stood on his hind legs and faced the Fae Protectors. “Sleep,” he ordered in a dark whisper of malice. “Jareth is one with the Brotherhood now. You have no choice but to obey.”

  They’d already been mostly asleep, anyway, and his latest command finished the job. No sooner had he told them to sleep than Jareth’s protection runes—suspended on chains about their necks—crumbled into ashes.

  The hair on the back of my neck rose in fear. “No, Jareth!” I gasped desperately in my mind. “You can’t join them. You can’t.”

  Jareth stood there. His face expressionless. He wasn’t even looking at me. I wanted to run up to him, throw my arms around him and beg him to wake up from this horrible nightmare.

  But it was so hard to move.

  The Protectors stood there, frozen, their eyes unseeing as the Mesmers climbed their legs to perch on their heads and shoulders in mockery.

  Feeling as if my head weighed a ton, I finally forced it to move once again, happy that I wasn’t mesmerized. Yet. I still wore my Faraday Cap, the one my foster-father, Al, had made for me. But I didn’t know if it would be strong enough to stop the Mesmers from possessing me now that Jareth’s protection was gone.

  From the corner of my eye, I could see that Al was still with me, standing tall in his army fatigues with his arms crossed and his booted feet splayed wide apart. But his mouth had fallen slightly open and there was no sign of recognition in his eyes.

  My heart sank.

  Apparently, the Faraday Cap wasn’t strong enough to resist the power of the Mesmers’ voices, after all.

  Feeling Rafael shift beneath my hand, my eyes dropped to meet his eye-lined gray ones. I wanted to run my fingers through his blond hair and tell him that I loved him one last time before I was forever lost to the Mesmers.

  I had expected to see Rafael lying there, white-faced and ill from the iron blade that Jareth had embedded in his chest just moments before. But he didn’t look hurt at all. In fact, a healthy glow suffused his handsome face. And as his expressive eyes locked onto mine, I could read the reassurance in them.

  It took me a moment to notice that he still wore Jareth’s protection rune about his neck. But the stone hadn’t turned to ash like the others. It was glowing vibrantly. In fact, several strands of blue light arced out of it to bathe the wound on Rafael’s chest.

  Or where the wound had been.

  Only moments ago, he’d been bleeding profusely, but as I watched, the last bit of skin closed over. Several smaller strands of light had already turned their attention to his shirt, sewing the seam shut better than any sewing machine ever could have.

  I stared numbly.

  It could only mean that Rafael still had faith in Jareth. But even more importantly, it meant that Jareth was still protecting him.

  There was hope?

  Then why had Jareth thrown the knife and injured Rafael in the first place if he hadn’t joined the Brotherhood after all?

  Feeling like I was submerged underwater, I faced Jareth.

  He looked sick. His skin was white and his eyes screwed tightly shut.

  “Jareth,” I said as loud as I could in my head, hoping he would sense the thoughtforms forming over my head and get the message. “We’re here for you. Don’t leave us. Don’t join them. We’re your true family!”

  Melody stepped forward.

  For an evil mastermind, she was stunningly beautiful. She looked like a high fashion model ready for the catwalk, flawless, wearing a designer suit with her platinum blonde hair falling down her back in long spiral curls. I remembered rescuing her when she was an old woman in a wheelchair. I hadn’t known then that she was the enemy. Why, oh why, had I helped her?

  “Finish your task as I have commanded, Jareth,” she spat, apparently unaffected by whatever the Mesmers were doing. “If you continue to resist me, the pain will only worsen and you will die. I will not stop it. Not until you do as I bid. Remember, you are my creation, shaped to serve my will and my will a
lone!”

  Jareth choked and fell to his knees, sweat glistening on his forehead. “I am not your puppet,” he ground out through clenched teeth. His words were slow, as if he were fighting a battle to say each one.

  Blondie’s red eyes bored into Melody’s and his voice deepened into a tone impossible to resist. “Sleep.”

  Even though he wasn’t talking to me, I was still tempted to close my eyes and do as he said. Through half-closed lids, I saw an expression of pure hatred cross Melody’s face as her cold blue eyes swept over Blondie and Marquis in disdain.

  “Oh, it was useful, for a time, to allow you to think you could consume my light to control or harm me. A simple enough matter to fake. But I am immune to your tampering,” she said, her ruby lips parting in a derisive smile. “It was one of the first things I made sure of, before delivering those hideous chupacabra bodies to you.”

  I recalled seeing her as an old shriveled woman hunched in a wheelchair. Rafael and his mother, Zelphie, had worked hard to heal her, thinking she’d been injured by the Lizard People. So, it had all been a sham from the very beginning.

  Blondie snarled in alarm. “Then, you are a traitor.”

  Melody’s contemptuous gaze flickered over Blondie’s small shriveled body. “And you are a fool. Did you really believe I labored all of those years to create your Body of Kings? The chupacabra is a more fitting shell for the likes of you. Yes, Jareth’s body is truly what you seek, but it will never be yours.”

  Blondie’s red eyes glowed with hate, and he flattened his one remaining ear.

  At his side, Marquis scowled, his eyes morphing into lizard slits.

  But then Jareth staggered to his feet and took a step towards Melody. “Then for what purpose did you create me, Melody?” he asked, his teeth remaining clenched the entire time.

  Even in my lethargic state I could tell he was in extreme pain.