by S A Archer
He dropped her gun on the ground. “Take the bodies down to the dock. I’ll pick them up there. Gotta handle Jen and Luke.”
Deacon started for the Changeling sprawled on the ground. She didn’t waste this advantage. She snatched up her gun, thought about taking a pot shot at Deacon but figured she better not press her luck, and jammed it into her holster instead. Rico had dropped his keys on the ground. She snatched them up. With shaky hands, London drove off as fast as she could. In the rearview mirror, she saw Deacon watching her go, Luke’s body flopped over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He would know soon enough that she betrayed him yet again.
Human healing could not help a fey? London sped toward the only friendly fey she knew, that Brownie she’d bribed the day prior. Certainly he’d know where to take Kev and Rico. If there was anything to be done for them at this point… other than funeral arrangements.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Not waiting for the wizard to fling some enchantment, Lugh punched out a cannonball of solar energy. The instant the ball of burning plasma penetrated the bubble of dispelling magic, and entered the ward beyond, it began to shrink and the trajectory arched down, losing power as it drilled through the dense matter of the ward. Even still the molten magic slammed into the wizard with enough force to smash him back into the wall.
Like a pillaging barbarian, Lugh carried Ariel under his arm as he drew out the dagger from within his vest. With no time for detours, Lugh charged directly over the loveseat so that he sprang down from above as he drove the knife downward.
Unnaturally quick for a human, Gregory rolled back so the soles of his feet planted into Lugh’s chest. Kicking out with a roar, the wizard flung the Sidhe back.
Landing gracefully on his feet, Lugh flared with sunlight so bright as to blind even shielded eyes. His next attack stalled before he could act as Ariel brought back her elbow hard into his ribs. The slippery vixen dropped and twisted out of his grasp. Reclaiming her mattered less than spinning away from a shard of wizard ice Gregory cast. The bolt, cast wildly, flew wide of Lugh.
With a snap kick, Lugh caught the wizard’s wrist and knocked his wand away, sending it toppling out of reach. The human recovered from the plasma hit enough to find his footing with the aid of the wall’s support, but Lugh brought him back down with a sweep of his feet. He planted a boot in the wizard’s throat, knocking him flat to the ground. And then Lugh shoved his heel down hard. With a loud crack the spine splintered.
What happened next plunged Lugh from a moment of victory into an explosion of confusion and pain. The report of the blast deafened him. In almost the same instance, a hit like a cannon shot pummeled his shoulder. It spun Lugh around to face Ariel. The gun in her outstretched hand trembled, so Lugh managed to jerk out of the line of fire just as she shot a second time.
“You killed him!” Her scream tore as violently from her throat as the bullet had through the meat of Lugh’s shoulder. Tears glistened on her face.
Counting on his speed and agility, coupled with her shaking emotions and the blur of tears, Lugh charged before the trigger could twitch off another round. This time frustration serrated Ariel’s cry as Lugh wrenched the gun from her grip. The weapon bounced on the carpet.
With a palm squarely between her shoulder blades, Lugh slammed her against the wall. He sheathed his dagger so he might have a hand free to tear the sash pinning open the curtain from the wall. Swiftly Lugh bound Ariel’s wrists behind her and then jerked her back against his chest. Ariel screamed.
“Now you are afraid?” Lugh snarled against her ear. “You are no fey.” His hand shoved under her shirt, up between her breasts and then closed over the amulet. He snatched it off, breaking the chain.
Without the amulet to power it, the stolen Glamour faded. The magical transformation to her features that gave her the illusion of a fey appearance vanished. Ariel was nothing but human.
“From where did you obtain this magic?”
She gasped, “Gregory gave it to me.”
“And from whom did he rend it?”
No answer.
“You imprison them here?” With his fingers twisted in her hair, he snatched her head back viciously, arching her neck.
She yelped. “No! I swear it!”
“Then where? Why barricade this abode with wards that bind a fey? Secures from attack, yes, but also prevents escape.”
Driving her before him by a fistful of her blond waves, Lugh marched Ariel over to the small mirror on the wall to which the vial of enchantment had reacted. Ariel demanded, “What is it about that mirror that fascinates you? It’s worthless.”
Lugh tucked the mirror and the amulet into his vest pocket.
Heedless to the pain and bleeding from the gunshot wound in his shoulder, Lugh initiated a room-by-room search. As they descended the cellar stairs, Ariel stiffened, resisting. Once they reached the bottom, he understood why.
“Sweet All-Mother…” he breathed. “What have you done?”
The cages were ridiculously small for the fey they imprisoned. They could hardly shift, much less move. Neither could they stand or lay down. Each one huddled with arms and legs clutched tight to their bodies to fit the space allotted to them. Eight in all. The fairy, the size of a human child of six, had no wings, only stubs where the wings had been sawed off. The Brownie in the cage closest to Lugh gripped the crisscrossing wires, three fingers missing. The troll at the end was lacking an eye, with only a sunken void in its stead.
Ariel’s thin wrists managed to twist free of the sash binding her. She squirmed, Lugh’s fist still knotted in her hair preventing her escape. Ariel snatched a silver knife from the workbench. Spinning toward him she lunged, aiming to drive the blade in his gut.
This girl’s clumsy attack hardly compared to thousands of years of combat experience. Clamping her fine-boned wrist in his grip, Lugh wrenched her arm about to force her to plant the blade into the soft hollow of her own throat.
Lugh did not bother lowering her to the ground. He simply released the fistful of hair so she dropped. Ariel convulsed on the concrete, gurgling and clawing at her neck. Lugh detoured around her death throes. On the workbench he uncovered bolt cutters stained with blood. Likely how the fingers were amputated. He clenched his teeth against the horror of that image.
The padlocks snapped off easily enough. Aiding the fey to unfold themselves after an untold duration in captivity took longer. Ariel had long since ceased twitching, with the spreading pool of her blood soaking into her clothing, when he broke loose the last of the locks fastening the silver shackles on wrists and ankles. The slow burn of silver ate deep into some of them. The Brownie’s was so severe, Lugh doubted even a healer could restore the use of his feet.
Once freed, Lugh gathered the fey within the circle of protection that the amulet provided. Teleporting this many was not without cost, especially given that Lugh’s magic was not going to replenish, but he refused to abandon a single fey.
In the flash of a solar flare, Lugh and the refugee fey teleported to the temple overlooking the crater remains of the Mounds. The Scribe, Willem, rushed to Lugh for a second time in as many weeks, bringing others to assist him. For the second time in as many weeks, Lugh wore blood on his hands and clothing that was not his own. Lugh allowed the servants to care for the traumatized fey. Loath to reveal the pain of his wound and the exhaustion of spent magic, he departed from them quietly.
In his chamber, Lugh divested himself of the soiled vest and shirt. He balled them together and discarded them on the floor. Normally, he would have wielded the power of the sun to warm the pitcher of room temperature water as he dispensed it into the wash basin. Not this time. No wasted magic. The Fade would befall him swiftly enough. No point in accelerating the process. Not now that the slimmest of hopes glimmered.
He bathed
his hands as he caught the scuff of the Scribe’s soft feet creeping into his chamber. “What you seek is inside the vest pocket,” Lugh said, without turning.
“So you did find one,” Willem barely breathed the words in reverence for the artifact he unwrapped from the bloody clothing. This would not be the first occasion in which blood would spill for the artifacts they sought, of this Lugh felt utterly certain.
Tending to the wound in his shoulder, Lugh applied a rosewood-scented balm to the broken skin, both where the metal penetrated and departed his shoulder muscle. Almost automatically, the magic within his flesh had reacted to partially cauterize the wound and stave off blood loss.
The Scribe raised the tarnished mirror aloft as he examined it in the light of the setting sun.
Lugh pulled a fresh shirt from the trunk provided. The modern clothing fit decently. He knew the lesser fey would ensure that his needs were tended. Not that such things mattered, it was just the order of things. The lesser fey ministered to the mundane needs of the Sidhe. In turn, the Sidhe provided for the safety and protection of the lesser fey.
His labor had only begun, but he could do nothing less. He was their Champion. He did not know if even a single other Sidhe survived, but there were numerous fey living in the earth realm. Fey who would Fade as surely as he if he gave up. Fade… or be hunted and killed by predators like the wizards he’d just dispatched.
With a violent swing, Willem smashed the mirror down on the table, shattering it. Lugh flinched reflexively, barely reining in his shout of objection. The Scribe flicked through the shards of glass to pluck a scrying mirror that had been secreted away between the ordinary mirror and the metal backing. Gold leaf filigree scrolled in knot work around the surface of the black glass.
“How many do we need?”
“More,” Willem said. “Many, many more.”
Lugh donned the fresh shirt as he glanced over the scraps of parchment spread on his table. He tapped one of the pages. “This appears promising. That will be next.”
“Do you need to rest?” Willem asked, his voice uncertain, as he stared meaningfully at the faint tinge of residual blood seeping from the wound through the fabric of Lugh’s shirt.
“I’ll rest when rest is required. I must do this now.” And he did. He needed this purpose more than anything he’d ever needed in his long life. Champion of the Sidhe, or Champion of the Fey, either way, his path was defined and laid before him. There was nothing… nothing… he would abide to stand in his way.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Eleven Months Earlier
“Holy crap, Wood Worm.” Rand’s voice penetrated Malcolm’s haze. “You should have called me before beating the living spit out of the boy.”
Malcolm opened his eyes a little. Other than that, he couldn’t move. Constant pain blended into a wash of overloaded sensations until Malcolm didn’t feel connected to his experiences any more. Daily they dragged him from the cell. Daily they demanded the “Touch.” Daily they beat him. What they wanted, he didn’t know.
He sprawled on the stone floor on his stomach. His shredded back couldn’t endure any pressure. Malcolm’s shirt was long since destroyed by the whips. The only evidence it ever existed was the unrecognizable scraps of cloth here and there on the chamber floor. The constant burn of silver ate through the flesh of his wrists, the shackles sinking into the groove.
Defiant through his agony, Malcolm locked gazes with Rand. Then Rand blinked out as if he’d been nothing but a hallucination.
A minute later, or maybe it was an hour, Malcolm couldn’t tell, he heard voices again. Even when the cage door opened, Malcolm didn’t look.
“I can’t believe there is no sign of infection,” the woman’s voice was familiar, and not the least bit sympathetic.
“Silver laced through the whip.” Rand said, as though that answered the question.
“He’ll scar then. Silver wounds won’t heal completely. Pity. Such a pretty boy.”
Malcolm’s eyes slit open. Flora, the woman from the shop, mixed some kind of goo in a plastic bowl. The spatula scraped against the inside with a wet, slurping sound like cake batter. Smelled like weeds, though. Flora’s pale eyes flicked to his face. Malcolm watched her for any sign of regret. Guilt. Anything. Flora didn’t oblige him. Her sunny print dress and floppy hat with the stupid huge sunflowers belonged at a picnic, not in a goblin’s cage. Such a faker. All fake innocence. All fake friendliness. Sent his ass here knowing what would happen. And even now, she didn’t give one iota of a crap. The first human he’d ever really met. No better’n the goblins.
“They ain’t paying for his looks. Nor his smell, apparently.” Shouting at the goblins, Rand added, “Hey Ugly! Give the lad a bucket of water and soap now and then, will ya? Starting to smell like you.”
Rand circled around until he towered over Malcolm’s head. He planted a booted foot on the chain linking the wrist shackles before Malcolm could flinch away. “Do it quick.”
Flora smeared the salve over his torn back. It burned like alcohol. The chains clinked as he jerked in shock and pain, but Rand’s foot pinned his arms fast to the ground. Malcolm screamed.
The goblins in the chamber clamored to the bars, hopping and laughing.
Malcolm bit back his screams. Hating… Hating how they delighted in his outcries. His throat strangled the sound. He sucked hissing breaths, shoving down the pain as much as he could. Shoving it down. Down. Down. Feel nothing. Feel nothing.
Rand backed off the chain. Malcolm rolled to his side, as he watched Rand and Flora leave the cell. The prickly burn dropped down to a full body throb.
Flora dug a wine bottle from her cloth bag. She clinked it down on the stone torture table. “Just a swallow should do the trick.” Malcolm couldn’t tell who exactly she was talking to. He really didn’t want to find out what ‘trick’ it was supposed to do.
Rand quirked a knowing sneer that twisted Malcolm’s gut in a sick way. He cupped Flora’s elbow and the pair of them vanished.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Present Day
Donovan leaned over the table created by propping a section of drywall across two sawhorses. Eircheard pointed to the construction plans with a screwdriver, belting out heavily accented orders in a mingle of Gaelic and Dwarven to his crew. No one appeared to be paying the foreman any mind, though the flow of work continued unabated, like a hill of worker ants.
“See here, Master Donovan, the lower chambers have been completed.” Eircheard tapped the screwdriver on the rooms designated to contain the full force of magic training.
“Your office and quarters in the back are furniture ready. The apartments on the skyward floor…” he scrunched his wrinkled face in thought, making the long braids of his mustache sway and bang against the barrel of his chest. “Dark to dusk, give or take a wink.”
“And the Glamour Club itself?” Donovan glanced around the wide expanse of the warehouse space, now clear of the former industrial waste and replaced with construction debris in its stead.
“Well, now, if you’d shoo, it’d be about a turn of the head. If you gander over our shoulders, a good two weeks at best.” The dwarf chuckled, then rolled up the plans and waddled off to swing the rolled-up papers at the first Brownie, dwarf, or banner who failed to hop to their duties in double time. The string of Dwarven profanity he tossed about apparently served just as much a motivation as the threat of getting whacked upside the head.
Light footfalls leading from the Glamour-shielded entrance drew his attention. A flutter of fairies in their tall form of just shy of five feet tall, rather than in the three-inch tall version, strode into the warehouse. Their gossamer clothing glittered with the same iridescence as their wings. Long, flowing blond or silver hair trailed down their backs, even on the males. Of the lesser fey, the fairies ten
ded to align themselves with the Shining Court, but the affiliation of any of the lesser fey truly fell where their interests lay.
“Sire,” the forefront fairy spoke with the musical voice of a flute. He bowed with an excess of flourish that would have pleased the Seelie. His companions followed with curtsies and bows of their own.
As a Sidhe, one of the nobility of the fey, such demonstrations conveyed respect. This Donovan could appreciate, even if lengthy pleasantries taxed his patience. He gestured for them to proceed with their business.
The fairy inclined his head again, obviously fighting against his instinct to further supplicate himself. Just how much prostration the Seelie Court encouraged truly annoyed Donovan; he fought the urge to roll his eyes, but failed. The fairy flustered as he rushed to his point. “Sire, we have heard of your glorious endeavor to create a place for the fey in this realm, most especially to restore the glory of the Sidhe in the wake of the disaster.” He covered his heart with his fine-boned hands to convey his feeling. “We, my people, have been honored to serve a Sidhe whose renowned powers of healing have saved many lives of fairies and other fey in our county.”
The fairy extended a grand sweep of his arm back toward the entrance and two more fairies escorted a young Sidhe woman before Donovan. Her caramel-colored hair was braided at the temples and drawn back behind her gently pointed ears. The glittered clothing cascaded down her tall frame, clearly fairy made. Silver strands of tinsel were woven into her hair. Though the fairies began an excess of bowing as if presenting a gift, the Sidhe merely smiled tolerantly. She extended a hand to Donovan. “I am Dawn. The fairies have spoken of little else since you decided to create this club.”
