“But the Knights managed to find it and take it out of the Well,” I said.
“We don’t have a better place to hide it,” Roisin said. “It was secure there for eight thousand years. We’ll just have to place better wards on the Well this time.”
Lizzy walked with Oriel and me for the rest of the afternoon. I got the feeling that although she wasn’t a stranger to the Winter Court, she wasn’t terribly comfortable with it, either.
We did have one incident. Three young men—somewhat human in appearance and obviously deep in their cups—decided that it would be entertaining to harass Lizzy and me. It went beyond verbal catcalls and insults, with them jumping toward us, pinching or grabbing parts of our anatomy, then jumping away. They reminded me of barely pubescent boys on a playground. Oriel attempted to scare them off, but they simply taunted and laughed at him.
One of them came a little too close to me, however. I reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around, and jumped on his back with my arm around his throat. In my other hand I held my dagger with its point resting against his cheekbone, less than a millimeter away from his eye. He froze in place.
“Now we’re having fun, aren’t we?” I crowed into his ear and grinned at his buddies. “Shall we place wagers as to whether or not I’ll stick this knife into his eye? Afterall, I’m just a girl. Maybe I’m squeamish. Maybe the knife isn’t real but just an illusion.”
The other two stared at me. Sweat broke out on the brow of the man I held.
“Aw, come on,” I jeered. “Where’s your sporting blood?” Nobody moved. “Okay, suppose we don’t bet on an eye. How about a testicle? I seriously doubt he has any use for those. If he did, he wouldn’t need to harass girls.”
My captive’s breath came quicker and louder. My legs were wrapped around his waist, and I straightened one out, then brought my heel violently between his legs. He crumpled, and I leaped free of him toward the other two.
“Who wants to play next?”
No one volunteered, so the three of us walked away.
Lizzy chuckled. “Even without magic, you’re a handful.”
“I’m just not a fan of jerks. I got bullied enough when I was a trainee with the Illuminati. The only thing that kept me going some days was the fantasy of payback.”
A while later, Oriel stopped. Lizzy pulled me into a fierce hug and said, “Take care of yourself.”
I looked around but didn’t see anything more unusual than any place else we had been since Oriel brought me underground.
“You have to go back?” I asked. “Okay. It was great seeing you. Take care.”
Lizzy shook her head. “No, it’s time for you to go. Say hello to Jolene for me.” She pulled me back into the hug. “I love you. You’re a good person, Erin. A hero.”
She stepped back, and Oriel took my hand. The next thing I knew we were passing through the churning, tainted ley lines again. We didn’t seem to be caught in them as long that time. And then we were out in the world, with the sun setting in front of us. I looked around and discovered we were standing in front of Oriel’s house in Killarney Village.
Chapter 14
“We walked three thousand miles in two days?”
Oriel shrugged. “If you want to look at it that way. As to how long it took, time is different under the mounds. It might have been two days, two hours, or two weeks in this world’s time. With the ley lines as screwed up as they’ve been, it’s even worse than normal.”
I turned on my phone and was astounded to see that it had been five days since we entered the mounds in Virginia. My first impulse was to call McGregor. I had been worried about him ever since we abandoned him.
“Erin! Good to hear from you. Where are you?” Ian sounded cheerful, and I relaxed.
“Killarney Village. We just got in. Are you all right?”
“Oh, yeah. Landed in Portland the day before yesterday and took the train in that night.”
I asked if he had heard from Frankie and the other members of our group that went to Washington, and he assured me they were all safely back in Westport. Feeling better about how things had turned out, I asked Oriel to drive me in to Rosie’s.
On the way, I checked the news on my phone and found very little about the Knights or martial law in D.C. One thing I definitely knew was that the ley lines were still screwed up. The longest that had gone on in the past was a week. The majority of mages in the world didn’t have one of the Knights’ rubies to filter the affects, so that meant a lot of people were sick in bed. I wondered if people might die if it went on for too long.
Sam was working behind the bar, talking to Karl Langermann, when we entered the pub. He came around to give me a hug, then took our orders, and set our drinks in front of us.
“So, Ian tells me you ventured into the mounds,” Sam said, leaning on the bar.
I nodded. “Evidently, I really do have some Fae blood. Interesting experience, although I didn’t really see very much.” I took a sip of my beer. “Sam, I tried to check on the news when we arrived back, and I’m not seeing much at all. Before we left D.C., the president had declared martial law, the military was fighting an all-out battle with the Knights, and the Capitol building was in the middle of a civil war. Is everything over?”
Sam sighed. “Not over by a long shot. Martial law gives the government the power to regulate the news.”
He went on to tell us that things had gotten worse. The situation in Washington had settled into a grim stalemate. The Universal Church had declared the U.S. government had no jurisdiction over it under the principle of separation of church and state, plus the divine blessing of the Deity on the Prelate. Several countries controlled by the Church had made threatening noises in support of the Church. Poland, Italy, and Mexico had mobilized their militaries.
“Did you learn anything at the conference before it fell apart?” Sam asked me.
“Some, that we’re a lot more organized here in Westport than most other places,” I said. “But the most interesting thing I learned was from the Fae.”
Oriel and I told them about the theory of an Unseelie faction trying to take over the world.
Sam first rolled his eyes, then sighed. “For all that is holy, why would anyone want to be in charge of this asylum?”
Oriel chuckled. “Probably because they’re too damned stupid to understand how much work it would be. Trying to get ten humans or Fae to cooperate is almost impossible, let alone cajole eight billion of them to stop trying to bash each other’s heads in.”
“If it wasn’t for the short-term pain,” I said, “I’d almost welcome seeing the Church try to run the world. Like babysitting a herd of cats.”
I gave Frankie a call, and to my relief, she said she had brought my suitcase back from D.C., so Oriel drove me over to her to get it. I had been to her house before but never inside. She invited us in and offered us a glass of wine.
“Tell me all about it,” she said, settling into an overstuffed chair in her den.
So, I told her about breaking the Knights’ witch ring and the airstrikes, and our escape through Virginia until we entered the mounds. I didn’t tell her about the underworld. I felt I had been entrusted with something special, something that humans shouldn’t know about. But even if I had been willing, I knew that words were inadequate to describe what I had seen.
“Your breaking that ring was critical,” Frankie said. “Without communication with those inside the resort, the Air Force would never have launched their strikes.”
“Well, what’s the next step?” I asked.
“At the moment, things are quiet. We’re cooperating with the Federal government, and the governor and mayor are cooperating with the Church, at least in public. All legal restrictions on magic users are on hold. So, we have a standoff.”
All of the effort, all of the deaths, and we hadn’t gained an inch.
Two weeks after I got back from D.C., I was awakened by someone banging on my apartment door. I opened
my eyes and saw through my window that it was a typical Oregon cloudy day, but it was light outside. A check of my alarm clock showed that it was much too early for visitors. I had worked the previous night and hit the sack only five hours before.
Another round of banging—not a polite knock—propelled me out of bed. I grabbed a t-shirt and warmup pants and I pulled them on, then grabbed my dagger, and peered through the peephole in my door.
The person doing the banging was Oriel, which alarmed me at first. His urgency sent all kinds of thoughts through my head. He was hurt, or someone was chasing him, or … I dissolved the ward and opened the door.
He had company—Tiana, Roisin, Lizzy’s father Bob, and Reginn. That was totally unexpected.
I offered to make tea or coffee, and everyone voted for tea. I stumbled into the kitchen and put the teapot on the stove, then pulled down every mug I owned. Entertaining at home wasn’t something I did very often.
Once I served everyone and sat down, I asked, “And to what do I owe this pleasure?”
Oriel chuckled. The others looked so serious that I braced myself for news of a major disaster.
“We’ve located the Heart of the World,” Tiana said. The Knights have it in England.”
“Great,” I said, taking a sip of my tea and burning my mouth. “How much do they want for it?”
The joke fell flat, simply earning me some quizzical looks.
I tried again. “So, we just have to waltz in and take it from them?”
“I doubt it will be that easy,” Tiana said. “We have no idea how much the Knights know about the stone, or if they know how to use it, but it’s a potent weapon.”
“One that could devastate whole cities,” Roisin said.
Oriel leaned forward. “And we have the same problem as we did at the resort in Virginia. The Fae are powerful, but we can’t shield the way mages do. We would rather acquire the stone quietly.”
“You mean steal it.”
They all smiled at me like adults did at a slow learner who finally figured out how to tie her shoes.
“I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as lifting a couple of comm devices from St. Tobias,” I said.
“No,” Rosin responded, “it won’t be. It will require careful planning.”
At Roisin’s request, Sam called a meeting of the Otherworld Council. We met with the Fae in Rosie’s back room on Sunday afternoon.
Roisin told the story of the Heart and the Fae’s theory as to what the Knights were doing with it. Then she talked about the Unseelie conspiracy to use the Knights to conquer first the Seelie, then humanity.
“We’ve found where the Knights are keeping the Heart,” she said after her introduction. “One of our spies actually saw it. To our knowledge, the rogue Fae aren’t aware of its location, but that could change at any time.”
“Even with all the resources the Fae can muster, we don’t see a way to get into their fortress and capture the Heart,” Tiana said. “Even if they have an incomplete understanding of the Heart, a mage wielding it could destroy an army. But if we can infiltrate and steal the gem, then we can end this whole mess. Put an end to the Fae insurrection, shut down the Knights, and return the Universal Church to its original mission.”
“What do you need us to do?” Franklin Jones asked.
“We need some unique skills and abilities that we don’t have. We need mages, and we need technological help. We can infiltrate the Church, but we can’t masquerade as Knights,” Tiana said. “We can glamour ourselves, but our magic is different, and we can’t disguise that. We also need a certain type of thief.”
Everyone turned and looked at me. So much for worrying about my reputation.
Roisin spoke up. “We need your way of thinking in helping us to plan this. We don’t think the way humans do, and I’m afraid we might get only one chance to pull this off. As time passes, either one of the Knights or one of the rogue Fae will learn how to use the Heart for more than simply disrupting the ley lines. If someone can actually harness the power of the artifact, then they will become unstoppable. The woman who created it challenged a goddess. I don’t want to rely on Danu to step in and save us again.”
“One of the rogue Fae stealing the artifact before we can get to it is our worst-case scenario,” Reginn said in his rumbling voice. “For now, at least, the incompetent Knights control the gem. We need to take possession of it before they lose it.”
I sat in on a lot of the planning meetings, most of which were held out at the Academy, but I mostly listened. Over the following week, the plan evolved. It was intricate and involved a lot of moving parts.
I walked into the meeting room at the Academy one morning and discovered a giant map of the world covering the wall. Then I realized it wasn’t a paper map but a virtual map in four dimensions. Totally disorienting. I approached it and found it was better close up because my mind stopped trying to force the image into three dimensions.
Shortly after I arrived, a Fae male who I didn’t recognize stood up in front of the map.
“I am Micah, sent by the Seelie Court to coordinate our efforts to retrieve the Heart of the World and return it to its proper place. Today, I want to acquaint you all with the high-level battle plan. We have moved most of our forces into position and set the date for our offensive.” That date was three weeks away.
He spent the next three hours showing us, in mind-deadening detail, where and when thousands of Fae warriors and their human allies would attack the Knights Magica and Universal Church. As he spoke, parts of the map lit up, bright arrows moved from place to place, and areas changed from Church red to Fae green. It was all very impressive, but I wondered if he had ever been involved in a war before. My history lessons were full of unexpected events and decimated armies whose leaders were confident of victory.
About the time he finally pounded my attention into unconsciousness, he said, “At that time, when our enemy is busy and distracted, the special group we are training here in Westport will launch their assault on Sarum.”
I raised my hand, and he nodded in my direction.
“Assault? I thought we were supposed to conduct a covert operation.”
“Oh, well, yes. I simply used the word assault in a figurative sense. Well, any other questions?”
I should have known to keep my mouth shut, but, “Yes. Do you have the detailed plan as to how we’re supposed to conduct that operation?”
He scowled at me. “Those in charge of the final operation will provide the details to those who need to know.” His tone told me that he wasn’t accustomed to answering stupid questions from little girls. I shut up.
As the meeting was breaking up, Michaela walked up and muttered, “No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy?”
“Helmuth van Moltke, Prussian general,” I replied. “Eighteen hundred to eighteen ninety-one.”
“You’re rather well-read for a bartender who never finished high school,” she said with a smirk.
“Just something I picked up at the bar on Trivial Pursuit nights.”
I did have input on the makeup of my team. Early on, I figured out that Ian McGregor and I were central to the actual theft. The Fae wanted us to infiltrate the Knights and then work our way into the fortress they had built at Sarum, a village near Salisbury and Stonehenge in southwest England. A major ley line—running directly from the Well of Magic—passed through there.
Although we had captured swords from the Knights, neither Ian nor I were comfortable with them, especially their weaker magic. I helped Oriel to forge new swords for us and Josh in the shape of the Knights’ swords, using the Hunters’ spells.
Once we had the swords, we went out to the sword club and worked with Gilles to become proficient with the unfamiliar weapons. Josh was a novice, but he was strong and athletic, and he picked up the basics pretty fast. Considering that in a real fight he would probably use his flame-sword spell, I figured he was good enough to stand up to scrutiny.
&nb
sp; Half a dozen other young mages were also being trained in swordplay at the club, and I understood that such training was being conducted at other locations in the U.S. and Europe. Infiltration into the Knights’ compounds was part of a larger resistance effort, and I was taught a number of recognition symbols that were used by members of the resistance.
After one of our training sessions, Michaela approached me. “Buy you dinner and a drink at Rosie’s?” After our kidnapping, we tended to be careful about where we went out, and Rosie’s was as safe as we could get.
I said sure, and she followed me to my place so I could shower and change, then she gave me a ride to the bar.
“What do you think about this grand plan?” she asked me after the waitress took our orders and brought our drinks.
I shrugged. “I don’t have any better ideas.”
Michaela shook her head, a scowl on her face. “But the whole plan rests on the basis of you sticking your neck out. Doesn’t it seem to be rather fragile? Not to mention the chance that you’ll get killed or captured again.”
I sat back in my chair and took a long pull on my beer. “Well, yeah, I guess. Actually, I’m the one who brought up the question of what they would do if I get killed. They are working on contingencies, I think.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
I laughed. “That bothers me a lot. But, Michaela, I guess I sorta figure I’m living on borrowed time. All the crazy things that have happened in the past year, all the people I’ve seen die. I’m not smarter, or stronger, or have better skills than all those people. I’m just luckier, I guess. And I owe a lot of people for bailing my ass out, including you.”
She seemed to study me in silence for a couple of minutes, then shook her head again. “I can’t figure you out. You sit in those planning meetings and almost never say anything. You act like a good little soldier, nodding your head while people talk about sending you into the lion’s den armed with a penknife. That seems at odds with the strong woman I know.”
Knights Magica: An Urban Fantasy (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill Book 5) Page 11
