When the group of Trooping faeries caught my attention, I inwardly cringed. We’re screwed. After all, I’d just trashed Faerie in a bid to stop the Lord of Faerie, Arawn, from taking all of the light from Earth. I’d even torn the fabric of time, which caused a significant amount of turmoil in their land. Obviously, this group hadn’t come bearing wedding presents.
“Leave the mortals alone? Ha!” The woman laughed, a macabre laugh that hurt my ears and made me want to cringe. “You would like that, dear brother, but we have come to take the boy, Kellen St. James.” The one-eyed woman jerked her head in my direction.
So that was it; they’d come for revenge. They’d come for me. I didn’t even remember meeting this creature, and now she wanted to take me away.
Lugh inched forward. “Cana, whatever revenge you seek is with me. It is not with him. He has done nothing to you.”
“Even you cannot be so foolish as to think he has done nothing. Surely you know what he has in his possession? Or maybe not,” the woman called Cana said.
What I have in my possession?
Calienta sprang into action. In one moment, she stood between Gabe’s parents and the vicar; in the next, they were all gone. She’d said nothing beforehand, but I could only assume that she’d sent them somewhere safe.
My girl had serious powers.
Unfortunately, her actions triggered an attack from Cana and her gang. “The boy!” Cana said, jabbing a short green finger in my direction.
They began their advance, but didn’t use weapons. Instead, they used magick. Light shot out of their palms like a laser show on the Fourth of July.
Cana placed her palms right up in front of her and shot fire from her hands. The heat from the flames burned my face as I crouched behind Lugh, who blocked the attack. The pungent smoke made my eyes water and my lungs revolt. I used my sleeve to cover my mouth.
“K, come on,” Gabe said, grabbing my hand, his other hand on Alistair’s arm. Apparently, Alistair had been unfrozen as the battle began, because he sat with Gabe, looking distinctly annoyed.
Unarmed, I had enough common sense to realize when I needed to take cover. Staying hunched over, the three of us made our way to a series of boulders at the edge of the lawn and took shelter.
Gabe’s face held a look of confusion. Despite our situation, I couldn’t help feeling guilty. I’d never told him about Calienta’s identity, about Faerie, about…anything. Man, he was gonna be pissed. I didn’t even want to think about what Alistair was going to have to say about it.
“Man, what is up with these EMO freaks? And what the H is going on, K?” Gabe asked.
“Yes, Kellen, what…what he said,” Alistair demanded, actually appearing to turn maroon in color.
Peering over the rock, I crouched down again just as a portion of it exploded, missing my head by inches. “This really isn’t the best time,” I said, keeping as low as possible behind the rock while still sneaking peeks to try and find Calienta. Then I located her, fighting directly in the middle of the action.
She shot a wall of water at Cana and some of the other creatures, dousing the flames that resulted from their offense. The intense sound of a raging waterfall filled the vicinity as she fought back. Her defensive tactic appeared to be working at first, until Cana froze the water and it exploded into hundreds of jagged pieces—pieces that headed straight for Calienta.
Calienta knew how to protect herself. I understood that, but I refused to hide behind a rock any longer while she risked her life. Launching myself out from behind the boulder, I grabbed her hand and pulled her to safety just as the ice would have hurt her. Alistair and Gabe scrambled to make room. Calienta crouched down behind the rocks with me. Mud stained the bottom of her beautiful dress.
Calienta puffed a strand of hair out of her eyes and scowled at me. “You know, I had a plan, Kellen.” She sounded ticked, despite the lilt of Ireland in her voice.
Though she made no secret of how I’d pissed her off, we both knew that I’d already sensed her feelings. All I had to do was to be near her and I would be able to recognize her emotions as strongly as if they were my own. That’s how I’d recognized that her love for me carried the same weight as mine did for her.
“Maybe,” I said, “but I have plans too, and they all involve you. So let’s cut the Indiana Jones routine for the time being, if that’s okay.”
Her brow furrowed again and she peeked out from behind the rock before crouching back down and staring at me. “You speak in riddles sometimes.”
Choosing not to respond to that comment, I asked, “Why are Gabe and Alistair still here? Can you send them home? That’s what you did for the others, right?”
“No way, man.” Gabe scowled. “Whatever the heck this is, I’m not going anywhere.” He’d taken off his jacket and had rolled up his sleeves. Like that was going to help him in a Faerie attack.
“Me either,” Alistair said as he took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and tried ineffectually to wipe the mud that had splattered on his Savile Row suit.
“I’m sorry, Kellen,” Calienta said. “You’re right, I did send the others to safety, but it’s too late to get Alistair and Gabriel out. Cana and her clan have set up a barrier. No one can leave until it is broken. Look at the sky,” she said, gesturing with her hand. “See how it looks different? More opaque? They’ve prevented us from leaving.”
My eyes flashed to the sky, which did indeed have a fuzzy quality to it. It had taken on the appearance of a blurry photo or the air on a muggy day. Great. Unless there was some sort of miracle, we were outnumbered and unable to escape.
“What about my family?” Gabe’s voice wavered slightly.
Calienta and I both turned and looked at him. She took Gabe’s hand for a moment. “They’re safe at home, Gabriel. They think they’ve just gotten home from a wedding. They just can’t remember whose. I wanted to keep the lie as realistic as possible.”
“Thanks, C,” he said, appearing relieved.
He responded with affection to Calienta, but showed the opposite reaction to me. Gabe glared at me then, his eyes narrowing infinitesimally. “I don’t like lying, though. I’m going to get an explanation out of this, right?”
“When we aren’t being attacked, I’ll be happy to tell you all about it,” I said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“That’ll be a first,” said Gabe.
We noticed then that the sounds of fighting had stopped. The four of us slowly raised our heads above the boulders to find Lugh and Brigid trapped, their arms bound with a golden cord that looked to have a life of its own. It squirmed along their bodies like snakes. Their efforts to escape only seemed to increase the tightness with which it bound them.
I squeezed Calienta’s hand. What did Cana plan to do with Lugh and Brigid? Would they be killed or would this be drawn out, cruelly?
Cana’s voice rang victorious. “So, dear brother, it seems as though we have won. I will take the St. James boy after all!”
I didn’t like the stuff about taking the St. James boy. Calienta’s hand clenched inside of mine.
“Leave the mortals alone,” Lugh repeated his earlier warning.
Cana’s smile gave me chills, sliding over her face like olive oil on a plate at one of those Italian restaurants back in New York. “You are in no position to threaten, brother. He—”
“Will not be harmed!” A new force burst into the clearing, one that gave my heart a lift. Calienta’s uncle, Dillion, had arrived. He’d been a member of the C.O.D. but the only one that I knew of that hadn’t turned into an evil, freaky mess. Dillion had been one of the few to help us in Faerie. His arrival now could only be equated to the cavalry rushing in.
Raising both hands in front of him, Dillion blasted the entire Faerie army off of their feet, barely jostling the red leather beret that sat askew on his snow-white hair. Turning to Lugh and Brigid, he freed them in an instant, his white beard barely quivering with the effort. He froze the group of party cr
ashers with a wave of his hand, just as Lugh had done to the mortals earlier.
“Kellen, when are you going to tell us what’s going on, dude?” Gabe’s whispered question startled me, as did his use of my full name. He always referred to me as K.
My entire left arm had lost feeling. I looked down to see Gabe gripping it, something that I hadn’t noticed before.
“It’s a really long story. How about I catch you up when we’re not about to be killed?”
A scowl centered on Gabe’s face. Clearly, he didn’t agree.
Dillion looked up then and came over to where we had taken cover. He looked me in the eye, which was easy for him to do as I was on my knees and he stood only about three feet tall. “Kellen, you must get out of here at once,” he said.
His voice grated with an unfamiliar raspiness, not the high-pitched voice that I had gotten used to. Further inspection of his features told me that he looked older than he had when we’d first met in Faerie. Much older.
Looking over the boulder, I watched Lugh and Brigid standing, their backs to one another, guarding the C.O.D., twin birds of prey. I sat back and looked at Dillion again. “What do they want with me? Revenge? They said that I had something in my possession. What?”
Dillion ignored my questions, sounding fierce as he enunciated every word. “You need to get out of here now.”
Shaking my head, I stared at him. “We can’t just leave. We’re getting married today…” I trailed off, recognizing my own stupidity in mid-sentence. Clearly, the wedding was off.
Dillion looked to Calienta, seeming to dismiss me after my lack of action. “Calienta, take them out of here now. Cana and her clan are restrained, and I have destroyed the barrier. You are free to go.”
Searching the sky, I could tell that the barrier had been removed. We could leave and could go anywhere that Calienta chose to take us. My attention turned back to Calienta in time to see her give a single nod.
Before I could react, we were sitting in a taxicab, driving through the Piccadilly Circus section of London.
CHAPTER TWO
KELLEN—ESCAPE
Cars zoomed around us in every direction. A symphony of horns reverberated against the pavement and penetrated the inside of the cab in which we sat.Bizarre. We’d just been instantaneously transported from Western Ireland to London, England without feeling a thing. In one moment, I’d been there and then in the next moment here. I could still smell the salt-infused air. Freaky.
“Piccadilly Circus?” I said, looking to Calienta.
“Hey! How’d you lot get in ‘ere?” the cab driver yelled. He’d just seemed to notice us and appeared to be trying to turn around in the seat while at the same time keeping his eyes on the road.
“Don’t you remember? You just picked us up,” Calienta said. Her sugarcoated tone complemented her heart-breaking smile, which the cabbie had to have caught in the rearview mirror.
The cabbie scratched his head, looking at the clock and then back at us. “Sorry about that. My mistake. What’s your destination?”
Calienta looked at me for a moment, her forehead wrinkled.
“Just drive for now,” I said.
“It’s your money.” The cabbie smiled, clearly thrilled at the prospect of a large fare to round out the afternoon.
“Dude, you beamed us some place. This is just like Star Trek,” said Gabe, staring at Calienta as though she were a circus escapee. Again, although he’d been kind to Calienta, he turned cold on me. “It would have been nice to know I could expect this at your wedding, K,” he said, frowning, before he turned away to stare out the window.
Yep, I saw this coming. “Can we talk about it later?” I said.
Gabe continued to stare out the window.
Alistair, who’d been doing the same, looked at me. “London?” His voice was questioning. Like I was responsible for the teleportation. Really.
Turning to Alistair, I touched his arm. “I know, Alistair. We have a lot of explaining to do.”
Alistair’s eyebrows rose, as if to say “that isn’t the half of it”. He looked older, more tired than usual. A small string of worries made their way into my mind. After losing my Gran only eight months ago, I didn’t want to think about losing him. Would this kill him? Was he well, really?
Alistair shifted in his seat to fully face me, drawing me back into our earlier exchange. “Cut the crap, Kellen, as you Americans say. Tell me what’s going on here.”
“No, Kellen, not here,” Calienta warned.
As if on cue, the car started shaking. A glance up front confirmed my worst fears. The cab driver practically stood on the brake pedal, which couldn’t have been easy given the enclosed space. “I can’t steer the car!” he shouted as he tried to grab onto the wheel, which turned on its own. The shifter shifted itself from second to third gear as I looked on. “What’s happening?” he cried. “What’s happened to my car?”
Calienta frowned, a look she often gave me when things weren’t going her way. “They’ve found us already. I thought we’d have more time.”
“Can you do anything to stop them, or at least slow them down?” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, but we were in serious weekend traffic. People were everywhere and cars were bumper to bumper. Pedestrians poured into the streets from the direction of the London Underground. If something went wrong, there were more lives than our own at stake.
She shook her head. “It’s too risky with so many mortals.”
The car jostled roughly, jerking forward at about twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. It steered us right into the path of a double-decker bus. Given our sudden appearance in the cab, no one wore seatbelts, though they were available. Gabe and Alistair scrambled to put theirs on now, as we’d all been sliding into one another on the crisp black leather seats whenever the car jerked.
Beside me, Calienta closed her eyes. Reaching over, I buckled a seatbelt across her thin frame before fastening mine. Calienta never said a word. “Calienta,” I said into her ear, gulping. “There’s a bus. We need to do something.”
No response. The bus ahead beeped its horn. Long blaring beeps.
I tried again, this time shaking her arm and speaking with greater urgency. “Calienta!”
Her emotions swarmed around me, portraying calmness, the polar opposite of the anxiety that had quickly risen within me. Yet she still didn’t respond.
The bus seemed only inches away. Beep! Beep! Beeeeeeep! Passersbys cried out in warning, stopping on the sidewalk. “Calienta!” This time Gabe cried out. Alistair’s eyes widened. All three of us were leaning toward Calienta with our hands outstretched, powerless.
Without speaking, Calienta opened her eyes and extended her palms out in front of her. What resembled fog shot out from her hands, surrounding the car and each of us. The sounds from the street dulled. It sounded like we were hearing things from the inside of a building instead of the inside of a vehicle. The white mist swirled through the car and out the one open window in the back, enveloping us entirely.
“What’s happening?” The cab driver freaked out even more as he furiously slammed on the breaks repeatedly, to no avail. His hands gripped the steering wheel, his white knuckles prominent against the black leather.
Calienta turned to the cab driver. “You’ll be going home to your wife now, Mark. It’s your anniversary. Buy her flowers. You’ll forget all of this,” Calienta instructed in placid tones.
Mark tilted his head. “What was tha—”
But before he could finish his question, Mark the cab driver disappeared. The car continued to drive itself, but now we appeared to be more in control of it.
Turning, I stared at her. My bride continued to amaze me. “Calienta—”
She kept her eyes forward. “It’s a trick to fool them. It won’t last for long, but it will get us somewhere safe until we can think of a plan.”
“Why do we need a plan? What exactly are you, young lady?” Alistair leaned forward in his seating, ma
tching Gabe’s posture. “Are you a witch?” His eyebrows rose to meet his receding gray hairline and failed.
Calienta smiled at Alistair. “All you need to know is that I love your grandson. That will have to be enough for now.”
“If an explanation is coming, I’ll wait.” Though Alistair spoke in a way that indicated he didn’t like to be kept waiting. “My house—”
Shaking my head, I spoke up at once. “—Is too dangerous. You can’t mess with these people, trust me.”
Calienta agreed. “Kellen’s right. We need someplace safe. Some place they won’t—”
An idea sprang into my head. “Leeds Castle. We need to go there now.”
“Leeds Castle? In Kent? Whatever for?” Alistair just stared at me.
“Because it’s the only place that I can think of that has a moat. Leeds has one of the finest moats in all of England,” I said.
Calienta kissed me firmly on the mouth. “You’re a genius, Kellen.”
Technically she was right, but I preferred to think of myself as an average guy. “You’re not so bad yourself,” I said, trying to push the attention off of myself.
Alistair had clearly had enough. “Why in blue blazes would it matter if they have a moat?”
Tearing my gaze away from Calienta, I said, “Faeries can’t bear to cross running water. Though the Leeds moat is still water, it’s completely surrounded and fed from an external water source. The River Len, I think. We need someplace where we can safely regroup.”
Alistair just stared at me. “How do you know this?”
“I took an advanced geography class last summer,” I said. And I had a photographic memory. Alistair already knew that, though he usually forgot until I recalled some fact that no one had ever heard of. “We just need to get somewhere safe so we can sort out our next moves. Leeds may be that place,” I said, taking Calienta’s hand in my own.
“They’re closed on Saturday evenings. Most historic locations are, anyway,” Alistair said in a flat-sounding voice.
The Fallen Stars (A Star Child Novel) Page 2
