by Jenna Black
Finally, we reached an archway, braced with heavy wooden beams. I followed Ethan through that archway, and then came to a stop, gaping at the sight that met my eyes.
The tunnels we’d been traveling through were clearly manmade, but now we were in what had to be a natural cave. Stalactites jutted from the ceiling like dragon teeth, and the chairs and sofas that were scattered around the floor were surrounded by stalagmites. Along one wall of the cave, an underground stream, clear and surprisingly deep, flowed.
The only light came from torches that dotted the walls and the sides of the largest stalagmites, but it was enough to illuminate the whole cave. There were about a dozen people in the cave, sitting in little clusters of chairs and sofas. They all stopped talking when Ethan and Kimber and I walked in, and I felt every pair of eyes staring at me. I’d never much liked being the center of attention, and I liked it even less now, when I was all rumpled and wrinkled and standing next to someone as gorgeous as Ethan. I told myself I wasn’t intimidated and stared back.
I’d say about half of the people in that room were Fae, and half certainly looked like humans. A couple of them held some of those el-cheapo clear plastic cups I associated with keg parties. (Not that I’d ever been to a keg party. I didn’t run with the crowd that went to them. Actually, I didn’t run with a crowd at all, but that’s beside the point.)
Belatedly, I saw the big metal keg that sat in the center of the cave. Ethan had said the apartments we’d seen before we descended were student housing. Looking from face to curious face, I estimated there were maybe one or two who were legally old enough to drink. At least in the States. I had no idea what the drinking age was in Avalon.
I gave Ethan what I hoped was an imperious look. “You went to all this trouble just to bring me to a kegger?”
His lip twitched into yet another grin. “Not exactly. Welcome to the most literal Student Underground on the planet.” The people nearest to us laughed at his stupid pun. “I’ll introduce you around later, but first I owe you some explanations.”
Pretty soon, our grand entrance apparently lost its entertainment value, and everyone went back to talking amongst themselves—or drinking themselves stupid. Kimber brushed by me and joined a couple of obviously Fae guys on one of the couches. She looked completely different once she plopped down between them, her ice-queen face thawing into a friendly smile, the stiff posture relaxing into something that looked almost human. One of the guys slung his arm around her shoulders, and she seemed to have no objection.
“She’s really not so bad,” Ethan leaned over and whispered. “I just bring out the worst in her.”
I figured a diplomatic silence was my best option. Ethan’s eyes twinkled, like he knew he hadn’t come close to convincing me. There was enough light now for me to see those eyes were a striking shade of blue, almost teal. They were not the eyes of a human being, despite the fact that he acted nothing like the stereotypical Fae. (Kimber, on the other hand …)
The other humans in the cave had dressed for the chilly temperature below ground, but my short-sleeved T-shirt left me shivering. The cold appeared not to bother the Fae. Ethan guided me to an unoccupied love seat. There was a knitted afghan draped over the back. Ethan handed it to me, and I gratefully wrapped it around my shoulders. Then he gestured for me to sit beside him. It was closer than I was totally comfortable with, but I sat anyway, huddling into the warmth of the afghan.
Ethan propped his elbow on the back of the couch, turning to face me. For once, he wasn’t grinning or otherwise looking amused.
“How much do you know about Avalon politics?” he asked.
“Umm … pretty much nothing.” I winced, hating to show my ignorance. I’d been thinking of living here. Surely I should have read up on more than where the best restaurants and shopping were.
The grin was back. “Don’t feel bad about it. Very few people who don’t live in Avalon or at least spend a lot of time here know very much. And what they think they know is usually wrong.
“You do know that in the past, humans and Fae have fought quite bitterly over Avalon.”
I nodded. Avalon was the most coveted, most fought-over piece of land in the world, beating out even Jerusalem. But there’d been peace in Avalon for over a hundred years, ever since it declared its independence both from Great Britain and from Faerie. It was now its own sovereign state, even though it was surrounded by England. Kind of like Vatican City.
“Avalon is ruled by what we call the Council,” Ethan continued. “There are a dozen general members of the Council: six humans and six Fae. The humans are democratically elected, and the Fae are not so democratically elected.” He went on before I had a chance to ask him what that meant. “There is a thirteenth member of the Council, the member who has the power to break any ties when the Council votes. That member is the Consul, and he or she is appointed by the Council.
“Every ten years, the Consulship must change hands between Fae and human so that neither race can have the majority for too long. The current human Consul must be replaced by a Fae in a little more than a year.” His expression turned sardonic. “You chose perhaps the worst possible time to decide to pay your father a visit, as the candidates are now crawling out of the woodwork.”
“Okay, fascinating as this civics lesson is, what I really want to know is what I have to do with all of this,” I said.
“Maybe nothing,” he said, and I think I did the look-like-a-moron jaw drop again. “We’ll have to wait until the sun’s up to find out for sure. I can’t explain that part yet. There’s a, er, test we’re going to give you when it’s daylight. That will tell us if you will play a role in reality, or just in your family’s most ambitious dreams.”
I stuttered, trying to ask some kind of intelligent question while my mind reeled in confusion.
“I know I’m being vague,” Ethan said. “But I don’t want to influence you and invalidate tomorrow’s test.”
“What kind of test?” I finally managed to ask, my voice sounding strangled.
He touched my arm reassuringly. “Nothing to be frightened of, I assure you.”
I’d be the judge of that! “And after I take this test, will I be free to go?”
He frowned, the expression almost like a pout. “You’re free to go now, if that’s what you really want. Would you have somewhere safe to go?”
From the way he asked, I guessed he already knew I didn’t. “Do you know if my father’s really in jail?” I asked instead of answering.
Ethan nodded. “When someone of his stature is arrested, it’s big news. From what I hear, though, it’s little more than a formality—though his enemies are doing their best to slow down the wheels of justice.”
I swallowed hard. If my dad didn’t get out of jail ASAP, I was seriously screwed. More screwed than I already was, that is.
Ethan reached over and took my hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb. The contact sent a little zing through me. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll be safe with Kimber and me.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him skeptically, though my heart was going pitter-pat at the feel of his hand on mine. No, it wasn’t any big deal, but it was new to me. Dating was part of everyday life for most girls my age, but between keeping up with my schoolwork and running the household when Mom was too drunk to bother, I didn’t exactly have a lot of free time. The one and only date I’d ever agreed to go on ended in disaster when my mom got drunk and fell down the stairs. I had to take her to the emergency room when I was supposed to be meeting my date, and I was too chicken to reschedule.
“You look exhausted,” Ethan said gently. “Would you like to lie down and get some rest? Kimber and I are kind of the co-leaders of the Underground, so we should stay until the party’s over. Or I could get you a beer and you can join us if you’d like.”
The “party” seemed to consist of people sitting around drinking and talking. Not exactly tons of excitement when my body kept wanting to drag me back down into sl
eep. “I think maybe I’ll just close my eyes for a minute,” I said, fighting a yawn.
Ethan let go of my hand and slid off of the love seat onto the floor, making room for me. When I lay down, I noticed the spot where he’d been sitting was deliciously warm. I snuggled into that warmth, painfully aware that Ethan was sitting close enough to touch. His hair was so shiny it seemed to glow in the torchlight. I found myself fascinated, mesmerized by the play of light as sleep crept up and seized me.
Chapter Seven
So far, each time I’d woken up in Avalon, something majorly sucked. This time was no exception.
A piercing scream brought me from dead asleep to wide-awake panic in one second flat. A couple more voices joined in, the screams bouncing and pinging off the stone walls and ceiling. Some of the torches had gone out, leaving parts of the cave hidden by shadows.
Ethan sprang to his feet in front of me, and to my shock, a long, thin knife appeared in his hand. “To me!” he bellowed, loud enough to be heard over the sounds of terror, and soon a handful of the students came charging out from between the stalagmites toward him.
Two human boys were supporting a third, whose shirt was shredded, his chest bleeding from what looked like claw marks. Behind them, Kimber and the Fae boy she’d been so chummy with were backing toward us instead of running, each menacing the surrounding darkness with knives that looked just like Ethan’s.
I clutched the afghan tightly under my chin, totally mystified as to what was going on, knowing only that it was bad. Really bad, judging by the wide-eyed terror on the human boys’ faces.
“Don’t move!” Ethan ordered me without turning to look, and he stepped forward to put himself between us humans and … whatever was out there.
Realizing the wounded boy was about to collapse, I sprang off the love seat. His friends gave me appreciative nods as they laid him down. The wounds on his chest looked nasty, and there was enough blood to make me feel light-headed. I had the sensation that I’d stepped into the middle of a nightmare. This just couldn’t be happening. My life was aggravating in the extreme, but it wasn’t dangerous. There had to be some perfectly reasonable explanation for the screaming, the bleeding, and the weapons.
The sense of unreality kept me from being as scared as I should have been. One of the boys tore his sweatshirt off over his head and stuck it over the wound, applying pressure. The wounded boy groaned in pain.
To my shock, the other boy had drawn a gun, though he pointed it at the floor as his eyes darted back and forth, searching for a target.
What kind of students were these?
I stopped worrying about the gun when an awful shrieking sound, like fingernails on a blackboard, only ten times worse, split the air. With all the echoes, I couldn’t tell where it came from, but the three Fae seemed to have a good idea. They stood side by side, knives at the ready as they faced one particularly dark pool of shadow.
Then the shadow moved, stepping into the glow of the torchlight. I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming, because whatever it was, it wasn’t human. Not even close.
It looked like it was made of sticks and straw, with a vaguely humanoid shape and huge black eyes. The sticks that made up its fingers were sharpened at the end, and several of them glistened with blood. My stomach almost revolted when I noticed another sharpened appendage, this one jutting out from between the creature’s legs. There was blood on that, too.
It opened its mouth, and another of those awful screeches made me cover my ears. Two more creatures just like it emerged from behind a couple of stalagmites.
The Fae put some space between one another, each facing off against one of the creatures. The human boy was trying to line up a shot, but the Fae were in the way.
“Will bullets hurt them?” he asked suddenly.
Ethan, slowly and carefully advancing on the creature he’d targeted, shouted a quick no over his shoulder.
“Shit!” the human boy said, and I couldn’t help agreeing with him. He put the gun away, then chivalrously pushed me behind him.
The creatures shrieked again, then all three of them sprang in unison. I swallowed a scream of my own.
“Jason!” a voice behind me cried in terror.
The gunman—Jason, apparently—whirled around, and I did the same. Another one of the creatures had snuck up behind us and was perched on the back of the couch. Those eyes were as expressionless as ink blots, and yet I still felt its gaze almost like a physical touch as it stared at me. The boy on the couch froze in terror, and if the creature had wanted him, he’d have been history. But it had eyes only for me. It shrieked again, then leapt off the back of the couch toward me.
Instinctively, I ducked and dove forward, sending myself under the creature’s leap. Unfortunately, Jason was right behind me, so when I ducked, the creature slammed into his chest. He went down hard.
I did scream then. I couldn’t help it.
Jason’s friend surged forward and grabbed the creature, pulling it away. Already, a set of claw marks marred Jason’s face. The creature whirled on Jason’s friend, twiggy arm striking out in a backhanded blow that sent him flying. The creature crowed in triumph and seemed to grow bigger as I watched. Fixing its gaze on Jason, it started forward. I scrambled to my feet, looking around frantically for something I could do to help.
What I did next was pure instinct. I was unarmed, and even if I’d had one of those Fae knives, I’d be more likely to hurt myself than hurt these creatures. But I couldn’t just stand there uselessly, hoping some big strapping man would come save the day, not when the creature was advancing on the obviously wounded Jason.
I was more terrified than I’d ever been in my life. I grabbed the afghan that was still wrapped around my shoulders and flipped it like it was a sheet I was trying to drape over a bed just right. It came to rest directly over the creature’s head, and I let go.
My hope had been that blocking its vision would slow the creature down at least a little, but my plan worked better than expected. The creature tried to pull the afghan off its head, but the yarn kept getting caught on all the little sticks and twigs that jutted out of its body. Shrieking in outrage, the creature began shredding the afghan with its claws.
The distraction gave Ethan just enough time to come running. His knife flashed again and again as he plunged it through the afghan and into the creature below. Black icky stuff dripped from the blade, and the creature’s shrieks turned to sounds of pain. But Ethan didn’t stop stabbing it until the shrieks subsided and the creature collapsed to the floor and stopped moving. I blinked, and suddenly the creature’s body lost its shape and became nothing more than a pile of sticks and straw and gross black sludge.
The sudden absence of screaming and shrieking made me feel like I’d lost my hearing—except I could hear my frantic breaths as my mind tried to absorb everything that had just happened.
Ignoring me for the moment, Ethan bent to check on Jason while Kimber and her friend tended to the other two boys. Jason’s eyes were squinched shut in pain, and he clutched what looked like a handkerchief to his bloody face. Ethan had torn his shirt open and was now probing gently at his ribs.
“Broken,” I heard him mutter under his breath when Jason flinched under his light touch. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” he warned, then put both his hands on Jason’s chest.
I saw the flash of fear in Jason’s eyes. I didn’t know him, wouldn’t even have known his name if the other boy hadn’t called to him, but I guess taking care of my mother for all those years had given me a nursemaid instinct. I knelt on Jason’s other side and took hold of his hand. He squeezed gratefully.
Ethan was mumbling again, and I felt the little hairs on my arms stand at attention. Ethan was obviously doing some sort of magic, and though that wasn’t unusual in Avalon, it still felt surreal to me. Then Jason screamed, his back arching as his hand nearly crushed mine.
It lasted only a few seconds, and then Jason’s whole body sa
gged and he breathed a huge sigh of relief. He closed his eyes, and I figured he’d just passed out.
“What were those things?” I asked Ethan as I began shaking in delayed reaction.
I could see the muscles clenching in his jaw as he ground his teeth. “Spriggans,” he said, then spit as if the word tasted bad.
That didn’t exactly clear things up for me. “What’s a Spriggan?”
He sat back on his heels and pushed his hair away from his face. “Creatures from Faerie. Creatures that are not allowed to set foot in Avalon.”
“Unseelie creatures,” Jason said, and I saw that he hadn’t passed out after all. He was also eyeing Ethan strangely.
We’ve already established that I was woefully ignorant of the workings of Avalon and Faerie, but I did know at least a little something about the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. All of Faerie was divided between the two Courts, which were sometimes at war, and sometimes at an uneasy peace. The Seelie Fae were the “good” Fae, although when speaking of Fae, “good” is a relative term. The Unseelie Court was home to all the bad guys—goblins and monsters and things that go bump in the night. And, apparently, Spriggans.
Ethan frowned down at Jason. “They are no kin to me, so stop looking at me like that.” He helped Jason sit up.
“Sorry,” Jason said, avoiding Ethan’s eyes.
Ethan patted his shoulder. “No harm done, and I can’t blame you after what just happened. It’s creatures like Spriggans that give the Unseelie Court a bad name.”
It took me a moment to make sense of this exchange, but when I did, my eyes widened to what I felt sure were comic proportions.
“You’re Unseelie?” It was somewhere between a question and a gasp of horror.
“I am,” Ethan confirmed. “As are approximately half the Fae who reside in Avalon. And no, we are no more uniformly evil than humans are uniformly good.”
Jason looked only halfway convinced. But then, he was still in obvious pain. I frowned at Ethan, not at all sure how to take this little bit of news. He’d seemed perfectly at home wielding that knife and stabbing the life out of those nasty creatures, and it was hard not to wonder—yet again—if he was one of the good guys or one of the bad guys.
