I stilled, my hand hovering over his ankle. My stomach twisted itself into a hard ball of foreboding. “Who was hunting you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I heard them whisper and cackle.”
Oh, fuck. My mid-section turned to concrete. I could barely draw a breath. Coming out here had been a big mistake. “Where are they now?”
“They’re gone for now. But I’m sure they’ll be back soon. We must hurry.” Despite his words, he seemed oddly unperturbed, given how pitiful he’d sounded when he’d called for help.
Either way, he was too heavy for me to drag him to the ruins.
I can’t leave him here. I’d never forgive myself.
“Do you live close by?” I asked him, hoping like hell he did.
To my utter relief and just a little revulsion, he patted my hand. “My cabin is not far from here.”
“Oh, thank God,” I breathed. Standing behind him, I reached underneath his armpits and heaved him up onto his good foot. Then I rammed my shoulder under his arm. “Okay. Where is it?”
He pointed away from the path. “It’s close. Just in the hollow over there.”
So why couldn’t he have crawled there instead of waiting for a stranger to come rescue him?
My inner voice was being a bitch. He’d broken his ankle, after all. At his age, that might have scrambled his thinking. He probably just panicked.
The old man hobbled painfully, wincing every time I stumbled under his weight. Thankfully, it only took a few minutes to reach the edge of a dip in the grassland. On the bottom was a ramshackle hut that looked like the next storm would blow it over.
As I dragged his heavy ass to his home, my inner voice was screaming at me. The guy was getting heavier by the minute. I glanced at him to see if he’d suddenly grown a foot, but he was the same old, frail-looking man.
By the time we got to his cabin, I was ready to dump him and run back to the ruin. He pushed the front door open with one arm and dragged me over the threshold with the other. Then he pulled it shut behind us.
My insides turned to liquid ice as I realized I was inside his hut by myself. No one knew where I was.
He smiled his rotten-tooth grin. “I want to thank you properly. Not many would have aided an old man like you did.”
Well, that didn’t sound too bad. I relaxed a little, looking around the pitiful habitation. There was a table, a chair, and a narrow bed. It didn’t look particularly clean, and there was an odd smell in the air.
It reminded me of when our fridge had lost power and the meat inside had spoiled. My inner warning lights bleeped from yellow to red, because something was seriously off.
Then I realized what it was. The man in front of me was standing on both feet. There was no sign he’d ever been injured.
I backed away toward the door and pulled it open while stammering, “Y… you seem fine now. I need to get back.”
The man waved his hand, and the door wrenched from my fingers so forcefully, I lost a nail. Ignoring the pain, I whirled around, but I was trapped.
“I thank you for helping me, wench. Would you not stay for breakfast?”
I shook my head so fast, I feared my brain would rattle out of my ears. “No, that’s okay. I’m not hungry.”
My brain screeched to a halt like an old-fashioned record player as the man’s face transformed. His teeth grew longer and sharper, and then he pulled something from his pocket. It was a soft-looking wool cap, which he placed jauntily on his head.
But instead of a neutral shade I would have expected an old man to wear, it was dyed the color of old rust.
My legs buckled as my knees turned to rubber. The pounding of the blood in my ears sounded like the drum beat at my funeral. My vision tunneled until I saw was the Red Cap advance on me. His fingers had grown black, vicious claws instead of fingernails.
He got within a foot of me when I finally unfroze. I spun around and shoved my shoulder against the door. It didn’t budge.
I whirled back, pressing my shoulders into the wall so hard I’d have bruises along my spine if I lived long enough. A rotten, sweet, stomach-churning stench emanated from the monster’s cap. The reek invaded my nostrils, violating my senses, making me gag.
Internally, I was screaming at myself. You’re such an idiot. How could you walk straight into a Red Cap’s den?
I turned my head and breathed through my mouth, but the smell was like a living thing. Its oily miasma coated the inside of my nose and mouth.
“What do you want from me?” I gasped.
His lips pulled into a hungry smile. When he spoke, his voice crackled like gravel tossed onto a coffin.
“What I want from you, young maiden, is your flesh and your blood. You will feed us for days to come.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, and my mouth twisted with a primal fear I’d never experienced before. Sweat ran down my lower back.
My men would never know what had happened to me. The kids, my friends, would die without knowing somebody had tried to save them. Macha would be lost in the human world, used by the FBMA. He’d think we’d all abandoned him.
That thought was what finally cut through my panic. I was Amber, wielder of lightning. I was a fighter. I was not a maiden or a wench.
My eyes flew open, and I growled.
He had no idea what I was capable of. But he’d find out.
“Hey. Dickhead,” I snarled as menacingly as I could. “You’re not going to eat anybody. By the time I’m done with you, your clan, or whatever you call it, will feast on your rotting bones, old man.”
That pissed him off. He lifted his deadly talons and swiped them at my face. I was prepared for his attack and swerved my head aside.
Except I hadn’t been fast enough. His fingernail sliced into my cheek. At first, I didn’t feel it. But then the cut burned, which made me even angrier.
I raised my hands and sucked my fury into my fingertips, releasing a small fork of lightning straight at the monster.
He jumped back with unexpected speed. The bolt hit the ground with a loud bang, spraying earth at the walls. Where the Red Cap had stood, there was a smoldering hole in the floor.
He stared at me, surprise etched in his ugly face, from the other side of the hut.
“Didn’t expect that from a maiden, did you?”
He sniffed. “I know you’re not a maiden.”
“Damn right,” I said, grinning viciously. I was having fun now that I’d gotten over my initial shock. I compensated for his speed and rained electric fire on him.
He evaded some of the lightning, but not all of it. A bolt hit his back, and his howl reverberated through the room. I held my ears, expecting him to go down. No monster, no matter how scary, could survive fifty thousand volts.
But it didn’t fell him. With his clothes hanging off him in smoking drags, he dropped into an attack crouch and growled loudly. “I would have killed you cleanly, wench. Now I will tear your flesh from your bones, scrap by bloody scrap.”
And then he screamed in an unknown language, one I hoped to never hear again. The sounds scraped along my eardrums like glass shards over paper. I didn’t understand what he said, but I knew it wasn’t meant for me.
No, he was gathering his clan around him.
The walls of the hut shimmered and disappeared. I found myself out in the open, surrounded by tall grass, the sun about to hop above the mountain range. I was exactly where Bleddyn had warned me not to be. Outside, exposed, at the mercy of the Red Caps.
“Oh, I’m screwed,” I muttered.
There was no shelter anywhere. And the rustling that had scared me the day before was loud and close and constant. I was surrounded by it.
Digging deep, I fought back the dizziness and exhaustion from using too much magic. I only had enough power left to defend myself against a few more attacks. At least the lightning flashes would be visible all the way to the ruins.
My men would see it and understand I needed help. But would they get here in t
ime? Would their magic even work against the Red Caps? I had no idea. In the back of my mind, a thought gnawed like an insistent rodent. I’d expended huge amounts of power over a much longer time and never been that drained.
What if the Red Cap had done something to me? The Fae monsters had magic I didn’t understand. They’d created the illusion of a ramshackle cabin. What if they’d teleported me or something?
I looked over my shoulder, but I was still in the hollow, with no sign of a tower in the distance. Shit. Maybe I was too far away for my Quint to see the flashes.
The grass parted, and my insides seized up. I felt myself shut down as my eyes widened in horror. All conscious thought, my lungs, my heart froze and stopped functioning for a split second before adrenaline made them gallop like spooked horses.
I wasn’t facing one or even ten foes. No, there were dozens of old men, all wearing the revolting woolen caps on their heads, with cruel eyes, and dagger teeth, ready to tear me apart, and feast on my flesh.
28
KIERNAN
“Wake up. There is no time to lose.”
Blearily, I blinked my eyes open. Bleddyn kneeled next to me, shaking Julian.
“What is it?” Julian mumbled, slurring his words as he fought to extract himself from deep sleep.
“Amber is in mortal danger. If you want to save for, you must follow me now.”
That got everybody’s attention. We jumped to our feet.
“Where is she?” Lance demanded to know.
Bleddyn pointed away from the ruins. “She’s out in the grasslands, fighting the Red Caps.”
Lance groaned the age-old sound of the long-suffering boyfriend. “Of course, she is.”
I rubbed my face roughly to disperse the last vestiges of sleep. Bleddyn was already at the entrance of the castle. “There is no time to waste. Follow me.”
He drew the travel rune and shot off. We followed him just as fast. It only took three steps.
“She is here.”
There was nothing but tall grasses, insects, and the sun warming our frozen limbs. No sign of Amber.
“Where, Bleddyn?”
His eyebrows rose, then he slapped his forehead in a gesture so human, it would have made me laugh at any other time. “I forgot. You cannot pierce the veil.”
Without warning, Bleddyn stepped uncomfortably close. For a moment, I thought he might want to kiss me, but instead, he spat in my eye.
I stumbled back, rubbing furiously. “What the fuck, Bleddyn? What did you just do?”
The Fae shrugged unapologetically. “That is the only way for you to get the Sight.”
“What sight?” All I could see was an opaque white, as if somebody had placed eggshells over my eyes. My lungs squeezed air in and out so quickly, I felt dizzy. Was I blind? Had Bleddyn betrayed us?
I pinched my eyes shut, pushing my hands against my eyeballs. Lance protested loudly, but his voice was far away, receding until all I heard were my panicked heartbeats.
And Bleddyn’s voice.
“Shh, Kiernan. Surrender. Do not fight it. I would not harm you.”
He gentled me as if I were a scared animal. His cool palms covered my trembling fingers, and he pulled them away from my face. “Open your eyes. Do not be frightened.”
“I’m not frightened,” I grumbled, my voice shaking. But I did as I was told.
And then I was glad Bleddyn held my shoulders, or I would have fallen on my ass. When I could stand by myself, the Fae moved away.
I was vaguely aware Bleddyn was doing his disgusting spitting act on Julian and Lance. I couldn’t bring myself to pay attention because what I saw before me blew my mind.
The lush, swaying blades of grass were gone. Instead, there was a corrupted landscape, the soil blackened, with barely any vegetation surviving on it.
Bleddyn’s voice was low, drenched in sorrow. “This is what Faerie looks like. The human magic helps to maintain the glamor over the land. The Seelie can choose to turn off the Sight and live in blissful ignorance. But here, in the Unseelie lands, the veil is easily pierced.”
Things moved among the rotting plants. Things that weren’t of our world. The ground was teeming with movement, and farther away, there were man-sized creatures scavenging.
“Jesus Christ. What are they?”
Lance and Julian were both rubbing their eyes vigorously. Lance glared at Bleddyn before his face morphed into a mask of pure astonishment.
The Fae answered my question. “We call them the Tylwyth Teg.”
“Oh, come on. You know better by now. Don’t throw weird shit at us without explaining.” That was Lance protesting, although there was no heat in his words.
Bleddyn’s mouth twitched, and I knew he’d done it on purpose to lighten the mood a little. Maybe I could afford to be a bit more gracious.
“Thanks for the Sight. Now what are the Tilw… Tywith… whatever they are?”
“They are the Fair Folk. They once were like us, only much smaller. But they became corrupted like everything else in this cursed land.”
“Are they dangerous?” Lance was still rubbing his left eye. He did a double-take when he saw my face. “Shit, Hennessy. Are my eyes as weird as yours?”
I peered closely. His irises had changed from their usual slate-gray to a liquid, silver sheen. They looked exactly like Bleddyn’s. “Must be a side-effect of the Sight. I bet the girls are gonna go nuts for it.”
Lance turned to our Fae guide. “Why didn’t you do this yesterday?”
“Because I thought it might be better if you were unaware of how much danger was around you.”
Lance’s reaction was predictable. I felt the same way. “For future reference? It’s never a good idea to hide the truth. It always backfires. Like right now. And where the fuck is Amber?”
Bleddyn pointed, and I inhaled sharply. In the distance, dozens of black figures stood in a circle. I just knew Amber would be in the center of it.
“Come. We are out of time.” Bleddyn’s clever fingers drew the rune, and with one step, he appeared next to the group of enemy creatures.
We were too late. As we arrived, they screamed at battle cry and closed in towards the middle.
“Shit,” I breathed. I flung myself through a gap in the melee until I stood beside Amber.
She crouched in a battle pose, lightning crackling over every inch of exposed skin. Her hair was waving around her head, and her eyes sparked brightly. She’d never looked more dangerous and beautiful, but she was also vastly outnumbered.
“Hey, gorgeous,” I shouted.
She looked up and stumbled backward in surprise, losing her balance. She was about to go down when I pulled her to her feet.
The Red Caps paused in their advance, stunned by my sudden appearance. Lance and Julian joined us, and the monsters retreated, muttering in their strange language.
Amber filled us in with a breathless flow of words. “I attacked them with lightning, and it hurts them, but it doesn’t kill them. I don’t know what will.”
Lance said matter-of-factly, “Well, let’s find out.”
Like a human flamethrower, he shot a streak of fire from his hand, engulfing several of the attackers. They screamed in agony, but when he stopped, they were unscathed. Not even their beards were singed.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered.
Bleddyn appeared next to us. “You cannot stop them. They have protective magic of their own. The only thing to do is to outrun them.”
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to get away,” Amber said. Her face was pale, but her words, the tone of her voice, were matter-of-fact, as if she’d already given up. As if she’d resigned herself to die.
I gripped her shoulder hard. She looked at me with surprise, and maybe a tiny spark of hope.
I won’t you let you down, mo chroí.
But this wasn’t the moment for love declarations. Instead, I said, “If we can’t get rid of them, we’ll bury them.”
I raised both hand
s, my magic pulling on the black ash covering the ground. When I connected to the earth underneath, it wasn’t the vibrant, fertile soil of our world, but there was enough vitality left for my elemental power to connect.
I lifted my arms, and with an enormous rumble and shake, the dirt obeyed my will until a wall of dirt surrounded us. It grew higher and higher until it blocked our view of the Red Caps.
Then I clapped my hands, and the tons of soil bent outward until they overbalanced and collapsed, burying the monsters. When the dust settled, they were gone. Instead of a ring of foes, six feet of dirt encircled us like a giant donut.
“It’s a fairy ring. Get it?” Julian’s tone was as dry as tea-leaves.
My relief turned into chuckles at his stupid joke.
Bleddyn closed his eyes and stood stock still. “They’re still alive in the ground.”
I groaned, my amusement giving way to apprehension.
The warrior slapped my shoulder hard enough to push me into Lance. “Worry not, my friend. It will take them all day to dig themselves out. By then, we will be long gone.”
Then his earnest expression burst into a grin that stretched from ear to ear. “Well done. You used brute force when you realized more advanced magic would not succeed.”
Lance guffawed at the evil eye I gave the Fae. “Take the compliment, Hennessy. I mean, we all know you’re the most primitive among us.”
I gave them my resting bitch face, but in reality, I was elated. Especially when Amber threaded her arm through mine and kissed me hard on the lips.
* * *
AMBER
They came. They stood with me.
My magic had been useless against the Red Caps. Without Kiernan, our blood would have drenched the black ash of this cursed world.
Bleddyn had given me the Sight as well. After I was done cursing and rubbing his gross spittle out of my eyes, I’d been shocked to my core by the reality of Faerie. I’d stared until my eyeballs dried out.
Kiernan had pulled me out of my shock by hugging me and swinging me around. He was fizzing with excitement. “I can’t believe I did this. I didn’t think it would work, but did you see how I buried them?”
Second Chance Doom: a paranormal romance adventure (Second Chance Academy Book 5) Page 13
