Eamonn stared down at the floor, his voice shaking with tension. It dawned on me that he didn’t just come to London to maybe catch a glimpse of Grainne, but because he had a personal stake in defeating the Fir Bolgs. If they succeeded, he would lose any chance of seeing her again. The thought only made me want to fight harder. For him. For all of us.
“So why not use black magic?” Torc shrugged. “Black, white, light, dark. Who cares?”
Eamonn shook his head. “No, see. If you travel to another dimension using black magic, it will cost a piece of the traveler’s soul. That sort of journey requires a great price.”
I fought the urge to clutch at my chest. The tightness had increased tenfold since yesterday, a burning itch on the inside I couldn’t scratch.
Finn must have noticed the pained look on my face, because he leaned into me. “Are you unwell?”
I shook my head and coughed, turning back to Torc. We were running out of time.
“We need to stop her,” I said.
Torc stood and walked over to the window. “Anny and I have worked together for a long time, but I never authorized weapons shipments.” He folded his hands behind his back and took a long breath. “Maybe it’s time we pay Ms. Black a visit.”
He turned to face me. “I’ll give you some of my soldiers to help with the spell, and Ailbe here can take you there.” Torc gestured toward the leprechaun lurking by the door. “But that’s it,” he said with finality.
I nodded, my eyes not leaving the large púca. He may be loud, and foul, and an unapologetic misogynist, but war made strange bedfollows, as my Dad liked to say, and I needed allies for the battles ahead.
“Torc.” I placed my hand on my heart. “Fight with me. Come with me to Tír na nÓg. We need warriors like you.”
His amber eyes twinkled at me as he stroked his beard. “I like you, Princess. You have courage. A lot more than your mother did. You might win this war.” He sat back down at his desk and picked up a pen, scrawling his signature on a paper before setting it aside. “But you will do without me this time.”
“Until next time, then.”
“Perhaps.”
I bowed to him and then turned on my heel and headed toward the leprechaun Ailbe. “Take us to Anny Black,” I said.
We hopped out of the goblin taxi, and Ailbe let us down a narrow street, his beady eyes glittering beneath an oversized cap. The wind stung my face, and I jammed my hands into my pockets, scanning the alleys for any sign of Fir Bolgs. Auburn hair swirled around my head, and I had to refrain from doing a double-take every time I looked at Finn, Malachy, or Eamonn. All of us had taken the appearance of púcas from Torc’s tribe, chains and baubles tinkling from our steampunk getup.
Ailbe glanced over his shoulder at us. “A couple of things you need to know about Anny,” he said in his strange voice that was both of a slightly higher pitch and low and gravelly at the same time. “The first thing is that no one knows how her little portal works.”
“Have you seen it?” Malachy sped up and leaned into the leprechaun
“Of course I’ve seen it,” Ailbe said with a snort. “I’ve used it. Anny is a right old tinker. She builds things, cages and contraptions. I don’t know how you’re planning to shut it down, but you won’t have much time to figure it out, I’ll tell you that much.”
Our footsteps echoed on the cobblestones.
“What’s the second thing?” I asked.
Ailbe sighed. “She has pets. A lot of pets. Stinks in there.”
The leprechaun stopped so suddenly I almost ran into him.
“We’re here,” he growled.
I looked up at the office buildings lining the street. One was a law firm with a faded sign, and another sold insurance.
“This is it?” I said.
Ailbe raised his hand and made a series of quick gestures in midair. “Cruth,” he whispered.
I glanced back at the office buildings, and a narrow Victorian home sat in between them. I had the uncanny feeling that it had always been there, that I had seen it before but had somehow forgotten about it. Chipped purple paint curled and blew off the boarded up siding, and the Queen Anne-style gingerbread trim had faded to a dull gray, its curlicues broken off and warped by damp. A wooden sign waved in the sleety air. Exotic Pets, it read.
“She owns a pet store?” I arched an eyebrow.
“You could say that.” Ailbe took a deep breath and turned around. “So let me see if I get this straight. I’ll take the two of you into the pet store and ask for a hop into Faerie land, right?” He pointed at Eamonn and me.
“Yes,” I said.
He pointed at Finn and Malachy. “And then these guys will pretend to be Torc’s goons, but as soon as we go below, they’ll create a distraction?”
“Yes.”
Ailbe shook his head. “You need to be careful in there. Some of Anny’s pets are not…well…pets. Do you get my meaning?”
“No,” Finn replied.
“I mean that sign up front isn’t lying. Anny doesn’t just collect ‘exotic pets’ like snakes and parrots and whatever, but things from…across the dimensions. Weird things. Unnatural things. Humans can’t see them, but we can. Just don’t be opening any cages, all right?”
Finn and Malachy looked at each other and then nodded.
“Well, then.” Ailbe opened the iron gate in front of the house. “Let’s go.”
We waited on the front porch, taking care to avoid the rotting floorboards. The leprechaun knocked, cursing beneath his breath. A loud banging sound echoed on the other side, but no one came to greet us.
Ailbe rolled his eyes and pulled out a ring with dozens of keys of all sizes dangling from it. He slammed the key into the lock, and a bright burst of light emanated from it before the door opened with a thin whine.
“Come on.” He charged through the threshold.
As soon as I walked through the door, waves of pulsating energy hit me. It felt like the force of a magnet, a strong and relentless pull of power emanating from the floor below. I staggered, my insides churning from the force of it, and I had to prop myself up, my fingers digging into a swath of damp wallpaper.
Finn grabbed my arm. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” I massaged my temples with my fingers. “There’s something strange about this place. Can you feel it?”
“No,” he said. “But I can smell it.”
I looked up through the curtain of auburn hair falling around my face. In every nook and cranny of the decrepit Victorian, stacks and stacks of iron cages towered over us, all containing some yapping, snarling, barking, whining, or whimpering animal. Ailbe was right. The smell of woodchips and shit made me cough, my lungs constricting from the pet dander and dust.
I leaned in close to one cage containing a white kitten that could fit into the palm of my hand.
“Hey, Finn.” I nudged his shoulder. “Check out this cute little—”
The kitten lunged against the bars with a snarl, bearing oversized yellow fangs, veiny purple bat wings expanding the length of the cage.
“Holy shit!”
“What?” he hissed, his eyes scanning the room.
“Did you see that? The kitten—it just…” I glanced back at the cage. The kitten had lost its wings and curled up and fallen asleep.
I shook Finn’s arm. “I swear that thing had teeth like to here!” I made little fangs with my fingers.
He shrugged and followed Ailbe deeper into the shop, drifting through the stacks of cages. Out of the corner of my eye, strange crossbreeds of animals appeared to me, but anytime I looked directly at them, they returned to normal. I knocked into the glass cage of a boa constrictor. I peered inside and a hundred little glowing faces pressed themselves up against the cage, gnashing their teeth with little sucking noises. I blinked and they were gone, the boa constrictor lying there, patient and docile.
“This place is weird,” I whispered to Malachy.
He nodded.
A loud clanking noise emerged from the basement, and I jumped.
“What was that?”
“Just the old girl tinkering.” Ailbe made his way to the counter, where a long rope dangled from the tin ceiling. Someone had taped an old sign to it. Please Pull for Service, it read in a spidery script.
The leprechaun was too short to reach it, so he yanked on Finn’s shirt and pointed above. Finn obliged, and an ear-splitting ring exploded through the house.
A twisting telescope burst out of the wall, clocking me on my temple.
“Ouch!” I shouted, massaging my forehead.
A huge blue eye blinked in the lens, and the tubing of the telescope snaked across the room, taking in each of us one at a time. In the corner, an ancient Victrola kicked to life and started to whir.
“What do you want, Ailbe?” a gruff voice scratched and spit through the horn.
“Come up, Anny,” Ailbe shouted down toward the basement. “You’ve got customers.”
“It’s Sunday,” the voice in the Victrola growled. “Don’t work Sundays. Come back tomorrow.”
“It’s an emergency,” Ailbe huffed. “Official Torc business.”
The Victrola let out a high frequency whine, and the voice on the other end made a particularly imaginative comment about Torc and his mother. It hissed to a stop, and the telescope zoomed out of sight through a hole in the wall.
Something clanked below us and heavy boots sounded on the stairs. The door creaked open, and a woman stood in the threshold. She was short, barely five feet tall, and her grizzled hair fell to the floor in sheets of black and white. Large, heavy-lidded eyes dominated a small face lined with age. I blinked and, for a moment, just a flash really, I saw the blip of a young woman, and then a little girl, but then she returned back to her stooped form. An incredible energy emanated off her, dark and corrupted, and the creatures in the cages seemed to feel it as well. They yipped and yapped, growled and hissed, curling into the corners of their cages with every step she took across the pet shop floor.
“What’s this?” she barked at Ailbe.
“These two need to go to the other side.” Ailbe pointed to Eamonn and me. We were all still disguised as púcas, but Anny studied us carefully. She had one blue eye and one brown, and she eyed us with her piercing blue iris, not buying Ailbe’s story at all.
“What business do ye have in Tír na nÓg?” Her blue eye studied my shoelaces, then crawled over my ripped jeans and leather vest, taking in every strand of my auburn hair. My skin prickled against her singular gaze, her lazy brown eye lingering on Finn.
“As I said,” Ailbe interjected. “Official Torc business.”
Anny looked down at the leprechaun and sneered. “You’ll pay me double. It being a Sunday and all.”
“You’ll get your fee, Annie,” Ailbe growled back. “Now let’s get going. We have places to be.”
“Don’t you be barking orders at me, leprechaun.” Anny pointed a long bony finger at him. “You’re in my shop. I’ll do what I please.”
She walked around the counter and extracted a key from a drawer. “Come on, púcas,” she said, but then grumbled to herself, “or whatever ye be.” Anny turned back around, pointing at Ailbe. “You and the others wait here.”
I took one last look at Finn, who didn’t look like Finn at all, but a scruffy steampunk pirate. He took a deep breath and gave me a reassuring nod.
I love you. I mouthed at him.
He placed his hand on his heart.
“Keep up!” Anny bellowed from the top of the stairs.
After one last look at Finn, I jogged to catch up with Anny and Eamonn. We descended a rickety flight of steps, and Anny jammed the key in the rusty lock.
“Don’t touch anything,” she grumbled.
The ancient door creaked open to reveal a basement jammed with more cages. They teetered up in precarious towers, creating walls and pathways through the catacombs. In one cage near my face, a spiral of swirling smoke whirled and morphed into various objects—a toaster, a telephone, a coffee cup, a doll. I glanced at Eamonn and pointed at the object, but he just gave a shrug and followed Anny.
My hand grazed a glass tank in the corner of one of the paths, and I startled backward at the creature inside, something like a mermaid, its angular scaly face tinged with blue. Its eyes flashed open as I passed, and she let out a silent scream, an explosion of bubbles swirling all around her. She banged on the glass with her fist, and I shrank away.
“What the hell?” I grabbed Eamonn, who gave me a panicked look.
Anny lunged forward and kicked the side of the tank with her boot. “Quiet, you!”
The mermaid gave me one last desperate glance and then closed her eyes again, settling back into sleep.
Anny grabbed my hand, her papery skin wrapping around mine. “Don’t. Touch. Anything.”
“O-Okay,” I stammered, staring at the blackened pores in her hook nose. Her breath smelled metallic, like blood. My fingers itched with power, and I swallowed the impulse to jump Anny and demand information from her. Anny Black could have trapped my mother here just like that mermaid creature. I had to find her. As if reading my mind, Eamonn gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. We had to stick to the original mission, but sooner or later I’d seek her out. I’d search through every cage, every box until I freed her.
Anny grunted and steered us around a corner, her black hair trailing on the dusty ground. Against the stone wall, a gilded mirror stood amidst an endless tangle of wiring and gears. She walked over to a wooden box, and with one yellowed fingernail, she flipped a switch.
“Won’t take naught but a second,” she said. “Has to warm up first.”
A horrible crash sounded upstairs and all of us jumped. A high-pitched screech echoed through the floor boards above and the sound of banging and shattering glass filled the house.Anny cursed, shaking her head. “You wait here.” she barked at us. “And don’t touch anything!”
She darted back through the cages, and once again I saw a girl, a young woman, and her crone-like figure flash in succession, but also seemingly all at once.
“Did you see—?” I turned around, but Eamonn was already at work on the portal, pulling cords and wires through his hands.
“These wires connect to the controller,” he said, holding up a tangle of black threads. “But these connect to something beyond this wall.” He traced a braid of copper wiring up against the edge of the mirror. At first glance, they just blended in with the curlicues around the frame, but I traced their path with my fingers as they traveled around the edge and back behind it.
“We have to see what’s on the other side,” I said, prying behind it.
The portal felt warm to the touch, and I winced as I pulled against the edge.
“Be careful not to break it.” Eamonn hovered behind me.
The mirror shifted a little, and I nodded toward it. “Give me hand, then.”
Eamonn reached up and pulled, and the mirror swung open on a pair of hidden hinges. A wave of energy blew over us like a gale, and my stomach dropped to my knees, an intense feeling of dread filling my whole being.
“What is this?” I whispered.
The copper wires twisted around a series of pipes, twisting and turning in every direction. A faint glow emanated from a small chamber off in the darkness.
“Whatever’s powering the portal, it’s coming from there.” Eamonn pointed.
Another crash and more cursing emanated from upstairs.
“Maybe we should wait for Finn and Malachy,” the Druid hedged.
“No.” I stepped forward into the darkness, moving toward the light. “We stick to the plan.”
I couldn’t see a thing besides the glow at the far end of the chamber, but as we moved closer, a pulsating hum resounded in my chest, growing louder and louder. Finally we reached the arched doorway, and I blinked, my eyes adjusting from the brilliant blue light in the room.
The ceiling stretched high into darkness above, like a silo.
In the middle of the chamber stood a giant cube with glass walls connected by brass pipes and patchwork discarded metal. Pipes and wires suspended a smaller cube within the larger one, and I gasped, all the air escaping from my lungs. I rubbed my eyes and stared, my fingers running down my cheeks as I swallowed a scream.
Inside the small cube, immersed in water and surrounded by a tangle wires and gears, was my mother.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Oh God,” I breathed.
She floated unconscious in the water, her head covered in an elaborate metal brace sprouting hundreds of copper wires like vines. She wore a white dress, and it ballooned around her, her long hair spiraling in thick waves. Bright blue light emanated from the headpiece, and it traveled through a series of tubes, moving up through the glass cube and into the pipes above.
A feral burst of rage sent me racing toward her, my fist raised. I screamed, making to break through the cage.
An arm clamped onto my wrist, and I trembled, fighting against Eamonn’s surprisingly strong grip.
“I have to get her out of there!” Hot tears pooled in the corner of my eyelids, and my limbs shook violently, a blinding anger taking over me.
“No!” Eamonn shouted, and I jumped, trying to wrench away.
“It’s Niamh! It’s my mother!”
“I know,” Eamonn cried, pulling me away from the cube. “But it’s…” He trailed off, studying the structure. “You can’t just break in there. It won’t work.”
I pushed him away. “What are you talking about?” My voice echoed high-pitched and desperate in the chamber.
“That’s not your mother in there.” Eamonn pointed to the smaller cube. “I mean, it is, but, she’s not actually in that cube. I mean, she is in that cube, but…”
I breathed hard through my nose, my fists clenched at my side. “You have ten seconds to explain, or I’m busting through that wall!”
Children of the Veil (Aisling Chronicles) Page 32
