by Juliet Dark
“Hold on, McFay, and use the damned stone.” Over Frank’s shoulder, I saw Duncan grappling with another winged creature, but this second creature had the body and face of a woman. Soheila. She fought him with all her strength, but one wing hung broken by her side, and her face was slashed. Duncan lifted one wing bristling with razor barbs, just about to bring it down on Soheila. I raised the angel stone and aimed. The white-hot light struck the razored wing, lighting each feather tip with flame and illuminating the bony structure beneath the skin. Veins of fire ran through the wing toward Duncan’s heart. I could see his entire skeleton light up like an X-ray, but before the power could dissolve him, he twisted into a knot. His hands tore at his own flesh. There was a horrible rending sound and a scream that vibrated in my own bones. Sparks flew into the air along with a flurry of feathers that rose, flaming, to the sky before drifting down to the ground as ash. When the blizzard cleared, Duncan stood at its center, one soot-stained wing arched over his head like a mantle. He had torn the other wing off to survive the attack. I was so shocked by his self-mutilation that it took me a moment to aim the stone again. Too late. He had already bolted from the circle and vanished into the woods.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“He can’t go far with only one wing,” Soheila said, limping over to me, her own wing dragging in the dust. “I’ll go after him.”
“Nothing doing,” Frank said. He reached out and gingerly stroked Soheila’s wounded wing, his gruff face utterly transformed by wonder and awe, which he spoiled the next moment by asking, “Should we, like, take you to a vet?”
Soheila swatted him with her good wing. “I’m fine,” she said, “but I can’t transform back as long as this wing’s broken.”
“I can mend it,” Diana said, running her fingers gently over Soheila’s broken wing. A golden glow flowed from her fingers—Aelvesgold. Diana was using the magical elixir of Faerie to heal Soheila’s bones. Soheila’s face relaxed, and she let out a long sigh that blew through the glade. I looked around and saw that all the folk who’d returned with me from Faerie were using the stores of Aelvesgold they’d amassed there to heal those who’d remained in Fairwick. Liz Book was tending a gash on my grandmother’s face, Brock was setting Leon Botwin’s broken arm, and Dory Browne and her troop of brownies flitted among the Stewarts, tending the many burns they’d incurred holding the plaid against the forest fire—a fire that still smoked beyond the glade.
“How long was I gone?” I asked Frank.
“A couple of hours,” he answered. “But it was a fucking long couple of hours.”
His answer made me so dizzy I had to sit down. I’d spent almost two months in Ballydoon, but only a few hours had passed here in Fairwick. I supposed I should feel lucky. Fairy lore was full of travelers to Faerie who spent a night dancing with the fairies, only to come back and find they’d been gone a hundred years, all their family and friends long dead, and when they set foot back on the ground, they turned to dust and bones. Instead, I felt as if the last eight weeks I’d spent with William had turned to dust.
“You look like you’ve been sucker punched, McFay,” Frank said. “I have a feeling you had to pay dearly for that stone.”
I looked at the angel stone in my hand, which was still glowing. “Yes,” I answered. “And I’m not the only one who paid for it.”
“Well, then,” Frank said. “We shouldn’t let it go to waste. Let’s go track down that bastard Laird and make him pay.”
Healed and recharged by Aelvesgold, the Stewarts and the witches’ circle joined the new recruits from Faerie to march back to the campus, where we all thought it likely Duncan would go.
“He’s been running this show out of the dean’s office,” my grandmother told me as we walked toward campus. “He’ll go there to destroy records of other nephilim nests around the world, to make it harder for us to track them down.”
“Other nests?” I asked, unsnagging a vine from Adelaide’s sleeve. I noticed as my arm brushed against hers that she was trembling. Although I’d seen Liz tending Adelaide’s wounds with Aelvesgold, my grandmother looked older and frailer than I’d ever seen her before. She still had the power to make me quake when she scolded me, though.
“Yes, did you think this was the nephilim’s only one? Fairwick was to be the center of their dominion, but they’ve nests in a dozen locations around the world. It will take a lot of work to root them out …” Her voice shook. “We should never have allowed them to get a stronghold here.”
I took my grandmother’s hand. Startled, she looked up at me. When had she grown so small that she had to look up at me? “If the Grove and people of Fairwick work together, we’ll find them,” I told her. “I think there might be hope that we can reform the younger ones. Look at the Alphas. Who’d have thought they’d come to our side tonight?”
“That’s your doing,” Adelaide said. “You have a knack for bringing people together. Your mother did, too …” Adelaide paused, her chin trembling. “When she married your father, she told me that the only hope the witches and the fey had in this world was to unite.”
It was the first time I’d ever heard my grandmother speak of my mother without criticizing her—or lamenting her marriage to my father.
“I lost her because I wouldn’t see how right she was—or how much in love with your father she was. I hope I’m not too late with you.”
“You’re not,” I said, squeezing her hand.
We came out of the woods behind my house. All the lights were on and I found my students on the back porch, drinking cocoa.
“There you are, Prof!” Nicky cried, jumping up from the porch when she saw me, her face flushed with excitement. “We didn’t want to leave the house until you came back, what with the forest fire. We hosed down your roof and yard to keep it from catching fire.”
“That was considerate of you—” I began.
“It was the Alphas’ idea,” Ruby Day broke in. “They saw the fire first and called the fire department. Atticus here”—she dragged a young man, whose Alpha House shirt was torn and covered with soot, off his lawn chair—“formed a hose brigade to protect all the houses on Elm Street. He even rescued Mrs. Sprague’s Siamese cat from a burning tree and found this guy.” She gestured toward a table loaded with Halloween treats. It took me a moment to notice that Ralph was curled up inside a plastic jack-o’-lantern. One of his ears had been chewed off and he was sleeping deeply, but then I recalled that he often went into a sort of hibernation state in order to heal. I stroked his back as I listened to the rest of Ruby’s story, which had shifted locale now to Shady Pines.
“One of the Alphas who works there called to tell us the fire was threatening the home, and some of us went down there,” Ruby said.
“We thought we’d gotten everyone out,” Atticus said, “but then I noticed that Mrs. Goldstein wasn’t there, and Ruby ran back in to get her.” He grinned proudly at Ruby, who blushed and breathlessly continued the story of their exploits.
“We helped the fire department downtown. We managed to save most of the stores, but a couple of abandoned storefronts went up and the tattoo shop, like, exploded.”
“That’s right next to Fair Grounds,” Adam Sinclair shouted, pushing through the crowd. I wondered why Adam would care about the town’s coffee shop, but then I saw Leon Botwin trailing close behind him and understood that the two boys had forged a bond fighting together. “Is Fair Grounds okay?”
“The awning went up, but we hosed it down,” Atticus answered, and then added with a sly grin, “Hey, we know how much you like your macchiatos, bro.” The Alphas then reverted to teasing each other. There was a lot of arm punching while the girls rolled their eyes.
“What about the campus?” I asked.
The question immediately sobered the students. Scott Wilder, who had remained unusually quiet and wide-eyed throughout his classmates’ stories, answered. “We tried to get onto campus to help, but all the gates were locked. So we went through the woods
and reached the field house just as it caught fire.”
“We knew the security guard was probably asleep inside,” Flonia continued, looking proudly at Scott, “so Scott went in to rescue him. He dragged him out, but we weren’t able to resuscitate him.” Flonia squeezed Scott’s arm, and a tear carved a path down his soot-stained face. I saw now that his eyes looked so wide because his eyebrows had been singed off. “The EMTs said he must have had a weak heart.”
“Trows are very sensitive to smoke,” Liz whispered as she came to stand beside me. Then, raising her voice, she told Scott, “It was brave that you tried to save him. You’ve all been very brave,” she told the whole group. “I am so proud of all of you.”
“Dean Book!” Nicky exclaimed. “You’re back! Are you taking back the college?”
“Well …” Liz began.
“Because you’re an awesome dean,” Scott said. The rest of the students echoed Scott’s sentiments, even though some, like the Alphas, hadn’t gone to Fairwick when Liz Book was dean.
“Yes,” Liz said, her face glowing. “I am here to take back the college.”
The students greeted her announcement with hoots and shouts, which were echoed by the witches, fairies, and humans who had fought in the glade and who had been lingering on the edges of the woods while we talked to the students. They came forward now, though, and I saw the students’ eyes widen at the sight of pointy-eared brownies, a winged Soheila, and club-wielding gnomes.
“Wow!” Scott exclaimed. “I always suspected you teachers got up to some crazy-ass shenanigans when we weren’t around. Is this, like, some kind of faculty costume party?”
I began to assure Scott that, yes, that’s what we’d all been doing, but then I saw how some of the other students were looking at the creatures who had come out of the woods. I exchanged a look with Frank and Soheila and then turned to Liz. “I think the time has come to be honest with our students.”
Liz nodded. “I agree. They’ve proved their valor and their loyalty to Fairwick tonight.” Then, turning to the students, she raised her voice. “There are things about this college that we’ve kept from you—” she began.
“Like the ingredients of the cafeteria’s tuna noodle surprise?” someone joked.
“I’m afraid it goes deeper than that,” Liz tried again. “Fairwick College is not exactly like other schools.”
“Duh,” Nicky said. “Don’t you think we’ve noticed that? Look, we know things are different here; you’d have to be blind not to.” A murmur of assent moved through the students. “And we think it’s about time you trusted us to take a bigger part in what’s going on, but you don’t have to do it now. We know the college is better off in your hands than in Duncan Laird’s. So we’ll march with you to take back the campus.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” I asked. “It could be dangerous.”
“We’ll make sure the students are protected,” Soheila said, spreading her wing over Nicky and Scott, “but I think Nicky’s right. Just as the observance of Halloween strengthened the witches’ circle, so the active participation of the students will help us to take back the campus—after all, it’s their school.”
“Hell yeah!” Frank cheered, holding out his fist to Scott Wilder. “The power of student unrest can move mountains. We could call the movement … Inhabit Fairwick.”
“Cool idea, man,” Scott said, returning Frank’s fist bump, “but lame name. We’ll come up with something better. Let’s go take back our college!”
We marched to the southeast gate in the first light of dawn, a motley crew of fairies, witches, Alphas, Stewarts, students, and college professors. We found the gate chained, padlocked, and warded with a spell I recognized as Duncan’s. I aimed the angel stone at the padlock and blew it off. As the gates swung open, three trows moved out of the shadows and blocked our way.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, holding up the brooch, “but this is our college and we’re taking it back.”
The students behind me cheered. One of the trows turned his massive head slowly, small eyes scanning the students’ faces from beneath his heavy, overhanging brow. I was beginning to think it had been a bad idea to bring the students when he grunted and pointed to Scott Wilder.
Liz stepped forward and grunted back at him, and there followed a short colloquy in guttural monosyllables. Then Liz turned to Scott. “He says that you are an honored hero among the trows for trying to save their comrade,” Liz told Scott. “You will forever have a place at the great hearth fire of their ancestors, and your cup of mead will be as bottomless as the cauldron of Hymir, which Thor used to brew beer for the Aegisdrekka—Aegir’s drinking party, that is.”
“Sweet!” Scott exclaimed, then he bowed to the trow and in a sober voice said, “I’m sorry I was too late to save your bro. May his spirit be … er … carried by a great long ship to the most awesome kegger in the sky.”
Liz translated, and the three trows grunted appreciatively and returned Scott’s bow. When they raised their heads, they said something else to Liz.
“Scott’s heroic act has convinced them to transfer their loyalty to us from the nephilim, who did nothing to help save their friend. We’re free to pass and they will march with us to Main Hall, where Duncan Laird and the last of the nephilim have gathered.”
“Way to get the trows on our side, Scott!” Frank said, clamping Scott on his shoulder.
“Epic!” Scott agreed, and for once I thought the word was completely fitting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The trows wordlessly fell into step with us as we marched through the campus, as if they’d already been informed of the decision to join their ranks to ours. Perhaps they shared a telepathic bond, or the death of their comrade had simultaneously inspired within all of them a desire to overthrow their masters. Whatever the reason, I was glad to have them on our side. Their solid, funereal bearing added gravitas to our procession—and they looked like they could crush a man with one swing of the clubs they wielded, though I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. The angel stone still glowed with a steady, warm light in my hand. Any nephilim guarding Duncan would already know of its power.
We passed Fraser Hall and entered the quad. The grassy rectangle—where students sunned and tossed Frisbees in good weather or hurried across to their classes in bad—was deserted. Neon-hued scraps of paper—all the flyers posted by the nephilim administration—blew across the empty space like fallout from a nuclear holocaust. Stately Main Hall stood at the far end of the quad, looking as forbidding and unassailable as Castle Coldclough, with its gray Gothic exterior and gruesome gargoyles.
Gargoyles?
“Holy Hunchback of Notre Dame,” Frank swore. “Where did those ugly bastards come from?”
Crouched on every window ledge and cornice were hundreds of vile creatures. They looked nothing like the beautiful, angelic Duncan Laird. Their skin was gray and leathery, their batlike wings veined in black, their faces pinched and shriveled, with pointy ears. At the sight of us, they opened their mouths as one, revealing long yellow fangs. They cawed like crows, a sound that, along with the leathery rustling of their wings, made my skin crawl.
“What are they?” I asked.
“The first generation,” Soheila answered. “When the elves first bred with humans, this is what they produced. These are the monsters rejected by their fathers and reviled by their sons, who have grown more human-looking with each successive generation. We believed these creatures had been banished to an underground tomb, but Duncan Laird must have summoned them to defend him. I wonder if he was keeping them nearby.”
“In the tunnels.” Anton Volkov had stepped up next to me. “Remember I said there were creatures slaughtering animals and draining their blood? I can smell the blood on them.” His nostrils flared.
“There must be hundreds of them,” I said. “Too many for me to pick off with the angel stone. Do you think it’s possible we can reason with them and convince them to hand o
ver Duncan?”
“We can try,” Soheila said. “If Duncan’s been holding them as prisoners underground, their loyalty to him might not be as strong as he thinks. I know a bit of their language.”
“I don’t like you getting that close to those monsters,” Frank said.
Soheila smiled at him. “Those monsters aren’t so different from my own ancestors. And, besides, I won’t have to get that close. The wind will carry my voice to them. It’s worth a try. Callie’s right. She’d never be able to kill them all at once.”
“Yeah, but if they do attack, I’m going after them.” Frank patted the sword at his side.
“I, too, will join in the attack,” Volkov said. “While we hold them off, Cailleach should make a run for it and endeavor to reach Duncan Laird’s office.”
“Yeah, get that bastard Laird.” Frank seconded Volkov by slapping him on the back.
“Happily,” I said.
Stepping a few feet in front of the crowd, Soheila flexed her wings, spreading them out in a brilliant fan that caught the rays of the early-morning sun. I’d never seen her winged before—never imagined that our beautiful and elegant Middle-Eastern Studies professor had the ability to become this otherworldly creature. Her wings comprised every color of the desert, from pale sand to burnt umber to deep violet, and when they moved they released a warm breeze redolent of spices and night-blooming jasmine. That wind carried a song on it. Although I couldn’t understand its words—I wasn’t even sure it had words—it conjured up windswept dunes and sand-scoured rocks carved into graven images. I envisioned great temples where people worshipped the old gods—gods with wings and claws and fangs and tails, gods as grotesque, yet awesome, as the gargoyles, who rustled their bat wings and perked their pointy ears as they listened to Soheila’s song. We were once gods, she told them, as you were, too, and we, too, were overthrown for newer gods. The song changed, and the images in my head were replaced with ones of violence and chaos—statues torn down, cave paintings defaced, women with Soheila’s particular beauty reviled and stoned to death.
