by Eva Chase
They’d have him bound somehow too. He might not even be able to see his surroundings. I remembered the shadowy shroud his captor had pulled over his head. Even if he had been able to see, the dark fae’s territory would be out in the wilderness somewhere. The chances he’d be able to tell us how to find him were slim.
But he was alive. And well enough to type something. Even though I’d known they wouldn’t kill him, having that confirmation sent a flutter of warmth through my heart.
I couldn’t let him down. We had to get to him.
“If he’s still got his cell phone, and it’s on, there are ways of tracking the phone’s location,” Priya said, her eyes lighting up. “At least, if those crime TV shows are accurate.”
Yasmin perked up where she’d been watching us from the truck. “They are. I can tap into that network. Let me see your phone?”
I jogged over and handed it to her. She examined the text and Darton’s listing in my contacts. Then she bent over her computer again. The keys clattered under her fingers. A different map popped onto the screen, this one dotted with what I guessed were cell phone towers.
“Let’s see where he pinged,” she murmured. She typed in one last strand of data, and three of the dots shone red. She zoomed in and then flipped back to the map where she’d been tracking dark fae energy. “And now to compare...”
Darton’s self defense must have thrown off the dark fae a little—or else they hadn’t been quite as strategic as they could have been. The cell phone data put him at a dark fae arrival point that was a little closer to us than the two outliers to the east, smack in the middle of Wyoming.
Still a long haul from here. But now we knew where we were going. A spark of hope lit inside my heart.
I wasn’t sure if I could say I’d found Darton, but he’d found me.
“There he is,” I said. “Let’s go get him.”
Chapter Twenty
“Here, this part isn’t too difficult,” Harold said, handing two metal rods to me. “Fit the joint on the end of this one into the middle of that one.”
My hands closed around the smooth metal cylinders, warm from their many hours in the van’s workshop space. The floor rattled under us with the roar of the engine.
We hadn’t stopped since we’d taken off after Darton this morning, other than to fill up on gas when the tank got low. After a few hours spent checking my silent cell phone over and over, and probably driving Yasmin batty asking her over the radio if she’d seen any change in Darton’s phone position or the dark fae energies, I’d decided my own energy was best spent working on my trap.
We still needed it, if we got Darton back. If I was going to believe this entire mission wasn’t hopeless.
I twisted the joint to work it into the second rod. Keeping busy did distract me from my worries. There was something vaguely reassuring about having equipment to grasp with my hands. Equipment that I knew might end up trapping the Darkest One where she couldn’t hurt a single soul. Howard was fiddling with a more delicate mechanism that he’d said he was designing to modulate the flow of electricity.
The work distracted a little, but not enough to completely avoid my thoughts. As I set the rods down, the memory floated up of Darton’s reaction when I’d told him about my new plan.
So you’re going to make a trap for the Darkest One... and I’m going to be the bait. This sounds a little too familiar. He’d shaken his head with a wry smile.
Hey, it worked last time, I’d pointed out. And with a little luck, this time you won’t have to cut open your arm to tempt her over.
We’d been able to joke about it, as if our lives and light knew how many millions more didn’t depend on it. The threat had still been distant enough then. But night had fallen outside the van’s windows. If I’d peered through the glass closely enough, I’d have been able to make out stars. For all the speed limits we’d broken, we were only just coming up on Darton’s last identified location.
I left Howard to his work and leaned between the front seats, where Jagger was driving and Izzy navigating, to grab the radio. “Hey, Yasmin,” I said. “Still no movement?”
“Nothing recent that I can see,” Yasmin said. “Just the same few miles of travel we saw before. They don’t seem to be in any hurry.”
“Better for us,” Jagger said.
Izzy looked up from her phone. “Why do you think they’re staying there? I thought you figured they wanted to get Darton to Chicago.”
“If they can’t jump all the way there, they’d have to haul him by normal means,” I said. “Maybe he’s making it difficult. Or maybe they decided it isn’t worth expending the energy. They don’t need him in the city until the day after tomorrow. My best guess would be they’ve got another fae coming to meet them who can apparate with him closer in one quick leap.”
We just had to get to him first.
Izzy bit her lip and turned back to her phone. “Who are you texting?” I asked.
“Keevan. If he’s not talking to me, he’ll badger his driver so much I think they’ll toss him out of the car.”
Keevan and Priya were each riding in other vehicles. It hadn’t made sense for us all to cram into the same one. But it didn’t surprise me that they’d be getting restless.
“Darton wouldn’t have expected you to come, you know,” I said. “You’re missing classes, you’ve got exams coming up... You didn’t sign up for this.”
Izzy lowered the phone to her lap. “Sure we did,” she said. “We’re his friends. He’s in huge trouble. That’s more important than exams.”
“Taking on the dark fae—it’s going to be harder than anything we’ve faced before.”
She shrugged. “You didn’t expect us to be able to help the first time around. But we did, didn’t we? You couldn’t have stopped the mercenary that was after him without us. Maybe that’ll happen again.”
I couldn’t argue with that reasoning.
Another text alert popped up. Izzy glanced at it and laughed. She clapped her hand over her mouth as if she thought she shouldn’t have let the sound out. But it was nice to hear it. Nice to know someone could laugh.
“He’s just... You know how he is,” she said, waving her hand vaguely. But her mouth was still curved in an affectionate smile. I watched her for a moment, gaze fixed on the screen as she replied.
Maybe Keevan’s situation wasn’t so hopeless. The guy really should speak up already. Or else Izzy should, if she was starting to catch feelings there too.
After all, there was no telling whether any of us were going to survive the next hour, let alone the next week.
“Emma,” Howard called. “I think we’re ready to test out the conductive functioning. I’ll need a hand for that.”
“Right,” I said, swiveling. “Of course. Just tell me what I should be doing.”
He’d fixed most of the poles I’d helped join together across the walls and ceiling. Several others crisscrossed the floor. In one corner, he’d built up a generator housed in a black box, four times the size of the chambers fixed to the electro-guns. Mounted on the opposite wall was a control panel with a row of buttons and switches.
“When it’s completely ready, I’ll have it automated,” he said. “For now, I want to take things slow. I’m going to build up the current in the generator, and you release it through the framework as I tell you. We’re working with the switches for now. One at a time.”
“Got it.” I positioned myself on a rectangle of bare floor between the rods. “Should I be worried about getting electrocuted?”
Howard chuckled. “Just stay right there and you’ll be fine.”
“Should I be worried about getting electrocuted?” Jagger said from the driver’s seat. “I know what you mad scientist types are like.”
Howard just smirked at that. “No need to worry. I’ve padded all the outer edges with insulation.”
That wasn’t especially comforting given that I was standing inside the framework, but he seemed to know wha
t he was doing. I braced my feet in case the van rocked, setting my hand beside the panel for extra balance.
“Okay,” Howard said. “Initiating the electrical cycle now.”
He turned a dial on the black box. A hum, thinner than the rumble of the van’s engine, carried from it. It rose in frequency until it tingled at the very edge of my hearing, a thready whine that probably would have made a dog whimper.
“First switch,” he said.
I jabbed at it with my thumb. The whine rang louder. My body tensed, but nothing zapped me. Howard studied a tablet he’d hooked up to the system and nodded as if satisfied with what he saw.
“Second switch.”
That one stuck a little when I pushed. I gave it a good poke, and it clicked over. The whine rose with it. I rubbed my ears. Earplugs would definitely have been useful right now.
The framework around me looked exactly the same as before. “Is it working?” I asked.
“Everything’s proceeding as expected,” Howard said. “It’s not supposed to put on a show. You want to catch this fae, not entertain her, right?”
I glowered at him. “I was just asking.”
He turned the dial on the box and tapped something on his tablet. The whine expanded to a piercing note that was almost a squeal. Izzy winced.
“I can smooth out the connections once we know the basic functioning is in order,” Howard said, which I guessed meant we wouldn’t be tormenting the Darkest One’s ears while also imprisoning her with electrical energy. “Third switch.”
I flipped it, and a quivering energy raced over my skin. Something was radiating through the rods by my feet now. I was starting to feel the power of it, fast and heady. And bright. No, the Darkest One wouldn’t like this at all. We just had to amplify the electricity enough that she couldn’t break through.
A faintly acrid smell tickled my nose. I turned my head, trying to place it. Was it just a bit of exhaust from outside?
“Fourth switch,” Howard said. I nudged it up, and the squeal leapt into a screech. Izzy yelped and covered her ears. I flinched.
And the rods across the floor crackled, emitting a puff of smoke.
Howard swore and wrenched at the dial. The screech faded, and so did the crackle. I waved at the smoke to disperse it, my stomach knotting.
“I’m guessing that wasn’t the reaction you were hoping for.”
Howard shook his head. “I think I’ll be able to build up the charge as intense as you need it, but the framework has to be able to carry it without frying. Maybe if I double up the wiring... We’re going to need to take it apart so I can do a proper job of it. Why don’t you start on that side? The rods shouldn’t be too hot there.”
Hog’s balls. I gritted my teeth against a surge of disappointment and grasped the rods on the wall next to me. It was a little much to expect this experiment to pay off on the very first trial run, wasn’t it?
But how many more trials would we have the chance for before we’d run out of time?
“How far off are we from Darton’s location now?” I asked.
Izzy consulted her map app. “At the speed we’re going right now, about half an hour.”
Almost there. Almost to my king. I had to focus on that.
I twisted and detached the rods with an efficiency I’d built up through the day’s practice. Howard pulled out one of the heavy coils of wiring he’d taken from the college supply room. When I finished my part of the job, I rolled my shoulders and suppressed a yawn. I couldn’t afford to be tired right now. We had not one but two big battles ahead of us.
“Take a left at that intersection up ahead,” Izzy told Jagger. He was just slowing when Yasmin’s voice crackled from the radio.
“They’ve jumped again! The cell phone signal moved too.”
Sod it. I dashed to the front. “What do you mean? Where have they gone now?”
“Looks like they took a leap to the west end of Iowa. I guess we’re adding a bunch more hours to this trip.”
I closed my eyes. Iowa. Damn it. We were going to have to drive right through the night. And that was assuming the fae didn’t manage to teleport Darton even closer to Chicago—or right to the city—before we caught up with their new stopping point.
“I’m thinking we are going to need your help, at least with the driving,” I said to Izzy.
“I can keep at it for a few hours longer,” Jagger said. “This won’t even be the longest drive I’ve done.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But a few hours longer isn’t going to get us there. We’d better sleep as well as we can so we’re ready when you need to tap us in.”
And ready to run into the first of those battles if we got our chance.
Chapter Twenty-One
The electro-gun felt uncomfortably bulky in my grasp. “You need to put harnesses on these like you’ve got for the flamethrowers,” I said.
“That’s coming soon,” Howard said from the driver’s seat. “You’re lucky we’ve got those at all. I had to throw them together in less than a day.”
He’d taken over the driving from me as dawn had crept up over the land around us. We’d crossed into Iowa forty minutes ago. Treed hillsides rose on either side of the road in the thin sunlight. To the best of Yasmin’s detecting skills, Darton hadn’t been apparated again. Of course, I’d seen how quickly the dark fae could slip from our grasp last night.
“You set the generator spinning by pushing this button here,” Jagger said, adjusting my hand on the weapon. “And then when you press the trigger, you’ll get your jolt of power. It’s not the most elegant contraption I’ve ever seen, but it does send the dark varmints running.”
“So I’ve seen.” I handed the gun to Izzy, who’d joined us in the back. “Are you okay carrying one of these when we storm the dark fae camp?” If we were able to this time.
She took the weapon from me awkwardly, fitting her hands into the spots Jagger had demonstrated on me. “I think I can handle this. It’s a little less scary than one of those flamethrowers. And anything that keeps the dark fae running away from me sounds good to me.”
I couldn’t argue with that sentiment. With nothing left to do with my hands, I re-checked the spread of wands I’d laid out for the seventh or so time. I’d propped Excalibur against the wall behind them. Light willing, I’d be putting it in my king’s hands in fifteen minutes’ time.
“Still no movement,” Yasmin reported over the radio. I was pretty sure she’d slept sometime during the night, but every time I’d checked in for a report, she’d been there on the other end. “We’re coming up on the location now—as close as we can get by car, at least. From satellite footage, it looks like they’re hiding out in some caves about a mile off the nearest road.”
Howard turned the van, following her directions. I tucked a wand into both of my sleeves, others into my pockets, and kept one in my hand. “We wouldn’t want to drive too close anyway. We’ll have a better chance if we can sneak up on them.”
The dark fae wouldn’t pay much mind if they sensed my human companions. They barely saw people as anything different from the animals of the forest. To mask my light fae essence, I’d smeared more of the willow ash over my skin. It itched at me, but not as much as my nervousness about the fight ahead of us. Or the prickle of my nearly broken oath, digging into my gut like a particularly vicious thorn.
I haven’t gone back on my word yet, I thought at it. The Darkest One doesn’t have him. We wouldn’t get into how close she was to setting her hands on my king’s soul.
Howard eased the van to a stop. He clambered into the back to grab his own electro-gun. I hefted the sword in my free hand. We slipped out the back in silence, congregating with the other fae hunters who’d parked along the road. They all stood solemn and quiet, watching me for direction. Even Keevan had the sense to keep his mouth shut.
I stretched my awareness over the uneven hillside. The wind hissed through the bare branches of the oaks and hickory trees, rustling the needles on t
he firs. To my senses, it was laced with a sharper cold than the regular autumn chill.
The dark fae were here. Only a small group, from the feel of them. And in their midst, the pulse of my king’s soul came to me.
There. Darton was so close. My heart wrenched. Now that I was near enough to feel his presence, I could have jumped straight to him with my magic. But then we might both end up caught instead of just him. I needed my allies with me.
I motioned with the sword in the direction I could feel the cluster of dark fae. The others readied their weapons. Dragging in a breath, I stepped off the road and into the hillside forest.
It would have been a tiring walk even under regular circumstances, up and down the sloped terrain—and mostly up. Carrying a sword meant for a practiced fighter and going on no more than three hours sleep? My head was spinning by the time the fae energy grew strong enough ahead of us that I raised my wand to motion our company to a halt. I took a moment to catch my ragged breath. Sweat was trickling down my back under my sweater despite the chill in the air.
The dark fae were barely stirring in their caves. I didn’t taste any concern or wariness in the air. They probably couldn’t imagine that group of mere humans could have figured out a way to trace their magic. The fae liked to think themselves so mighty compared to the rest of us, but if they’d paid more attention to what the human beings around them were doing, they’d have been a lot more prepared.
This once, it worked in our favor. We had the full element of surprise.
I waved the fae hunters and my friends closer to me. “I’m going to magic myself over to Darton,” I murmured. “If he’s conscious, we should be able to knock them back between the two of us and the sword. If he’s not... I’ll do the best I can on my own. Either way, we’ll need the rest of you running in there to have our backs and scatter the fae. There are probably glooms and other dark vermin around too, so keep your eyes open.”
