by Caleb James
“As you wish, my queen.”
The salamander had curled up by the fire. Its hide reflected the orange and reds of the flame as May in her glittery gold frock rocked in Redmond’s favorite chair.
They have escaped, he thought and felt a sense of accomplishment. I will die before the next sun, but it was not in vain. And Finn, my beautiful hound, be safe, and be free. You brought me love, and I will die without regret.
May’s head nodded forward, though one of the salamander’s eyes stayed fixed on him. She is nearly asleep; perhaps…. Set to change the tone of his voice and the tune of his magic to that which would lull her further, a scream unlike any he’d heard shredded the night.
The two Mays startled. The beast’s tongue flicked the air to try to taste the cacophonous intrusion.
Redmond ran to the window, not caring that the Mays were right at his side. They all stared out toward the Western Sea as the horrible noise grew. And with it, in the distance, spinning red, white, and yellow lights flashed from atop an unfathomable metal beast that raced on round black feet.
“Tell me!” she shrieked and grabbed Redmond by the shoulders. “Tell me.”
“I do not know,” he said. Here it comes. He did not feel fear or even resignation. He closed his eyes and waited for the kiss of death.
“Tell me,” she repeated.
He opened his eyes. His ears filled with the wail of the creature that approached. “It is not a banshee.”
“Obviously.”
“It is not of this world.” And while he had no illusion about his imminent death, an idea sparked as the flashing lights found their way into his chamber. Finn.
Thirty-Six
AT THE wheel of the submerged Engine Twenty-Five, Finn breathed through the respirator as the fabled black mare with a chain yoked around its powerful neck did the impossible—tugged a ten-ton vehicle from one world into another. His breath rasped in his ears as he held the neck of the breather tight to keep the water from rushing in and drowning him. He imagined the footage that had been shot through cell phones as they’d hurtled across the barriers of Riverside Park and plunged into the depths of the Hudson. He opened his eyes. There was nothing to see, just murky black. But that was nothing compared to the ice-cold terror as the frigid, algae-rich water had filled the cab. Too late now, he’d thought, his last clear image of the crazy horse thing that might drag them to their death.
Next to him sat Charlie and Liam. But his thoughts were on Redmond. Raised Catholic but not religious, Finn prayed. Dear God, I know it’s a cliché to call on you when the chips are down, and to be fair, I don’t know if you exist or not. But please take care of those I love. Please help those who should not have come. Don’t let Flora be broken by this trip. Let Charlie and Liam go on to have a happy life. Protect Alex and Jerod. And like a child saying his prayers, he took inventory of all those who were in the back for this ill-advised trip. Protect Alice, who has known too much suffering for someone so young. He again thought of Gran. I should never have let her come, Lord. She won’t survive this. Why did I let her come? But she’d insisted, against his protests and those of her grandson, Charlie. Is she trying to do what Nimby did? Fuck! What have I done? I’m sorry for the F word, Lord. Don’t let her be a sacrifice. And Lord, I know the Catholic gay thing and all, but please keep Redmond safe. And if I’m going to die and have my heart ripped out, if I could have one thing, let me see him again. And because his own gran had taught and overtaught the words, they came unbidden. Now I lay me down to sleep…. It helped, some. Why did I let Flora come?
There had been no time to argue, and short of physically restraining her, she’d been adamant. “I will have this adventure,” she’d insisted. Alex’s changeling mother agreed to care for her brood of cats.
He, Charlie, and most of the others had tried to dissuade her. “Your family, Flora, how can you just leave them?”
“Gran, you’re needed here,” Charlie argued.
“I am truly blessed,” she’d said as she’d taken her still steady hands to the clippers and shaved Finn’s head and torso to provide the needed fur for the magic mix. “Yes, I have a beautiful family who loves me and I them. But when I was a little girl, I played with pixies like Nimby.” Not stopping from her task, she’d cried. Her tears cut him deep. “As I approach the end of my life, I would be with them again. If just to see them. To know I was not mad. No, that’s not it. I did see them. I want to be with them. It’s that simple. And forgive me for the words that are about to leave my mouth, because, Charlie, I do love you, and my children and my grandchildren and… I have buried too many. I have learned to not think about the pain I carry and to focus on those I love. But when I was a little girl, living in poverty I did not understand. I’d follow the pixie tune as they called to me to come and play. I knew joy and happiness unlike anything before, or anything since. I am coming with, and unless you plan to chain me up and lock me in a closet, you will not stop me.”
Katye made matters worse as she appeared from her closet with pillow-sized bags of pure gold dust. “Time moves different in the Unsee, Flora Fitzgerald. The few years you have here will be multiplied. And we have no time to argue.”
With the raw ingredients of gold, fairy dust, and hound hair, they’d piled into Finn’s Bureau of Fire Investigation SUV and driven to Charlie’s station.
Liam and Alice glamoured the firefighters.
“Of course you can take it for a spin,” Charlie’s probie mate Kyle had said as he’d gazed into Liam’s eyes and wondered why for the first time in his life he found a guy hot… really, really hot. Charlie’s a lucky man.
In under fifteen minutes they’d mixed a slurry of gold, fairy dust, and hair, introduced it into the engine’s three-thousand-gallon tank, and with lights and sirens ablaze, stolen a piece of FDNY equipment worth two-and-a-half-million dollars.
Charlie instructed the passengers in how to use the respirators. And as Finn’s rational mind pointed out the insanity of what they intended to do, he’d driven toward the river. At some point I’ll wake up. But what played foremost in his thoughts was Redmond, I’m coming. Be okay. Be safe. Please.
As he turned north onto the Henry Hudson, he rolled down his window and did as Katye instructed. He thought of the puka, a creature he’d glimpsed only in the pages of her ancient texts, and howled. The noise soared over the sirens. The passengers clapped hands to the sides of their heads, as even with the respirator hoods, it hurt. His call was answered by tens of thousands of dogs, the wolves and coyotes in Central Park Zoo, and one other beast, which like him was two-natured.
The connection with the puka hit him hard and fast. Like someone had picked up the phone. Wordless impressions and images flooded Finn. They came with threat, warning, and a reek of rotten eggs and algae. Great, olfactory GPS. Just follow the stench.
“What’s happening, Finn?” Charlie asked.
“Our ride’s here. Everybody hang on!” And he floored it.
Cars, cabs, and Uber did their best to veer out of his way as he raced north. They flew past the fifties and sixties, Finn’s nose fixed on the puka’s call.
“I can see what he sees,” he said as he gripped the wheel and, with the practice born of decades, played the air horn to get sluggish motorists out of the way. One recalcitrant Lexus got the addition of the high-volume speaker. “FDNY, move over now!” And under his breath, “Fucking Jersey.”
“Tell us what you see through the puka’s eyes,” Liam said.
“Water, and when he looks up, he sees the Cloisters.”
“What is it about that place?” Charlie asked.
“No clue,” Finn said as he calculated the blocks that remained. “Roll up your window.” And then into the intercom for those in the back, “Respirators on tight. Windows shut. Pray.”
They raced beneath the span of the George Washington Bridge to the lowest point in the highway, where joggers, skateboarders, and families with strollers enjoyed the beauty of the park and path
s that lined the river.
Finn’s heightened senses fixed on a disturbance in the water. I’m really going to do this.
“Here we go.” He howled again, and with air horn and speakers on full, he searched for an opening in the Sunday traffic hurtling south. Not good. He cut the wheel to the left. The engine tore through the steel guardrails. Horns blared, and brakes shrieked as the fire engine did the unthinkable and barreled across three lanes of south-headed traffic. But it was a Sunday, and while he heard the scrape and crash of steel and plastic, No one’s dying… here.
Hurtling toward the river, he caught his first glance of the great black puka as it arose from the river. Far larger than any horse he’d ever seen, its eyes like burning coals. The Hound took over. Bye-bye brain, he surrendered to whatever the Hound was, and with his foot heavy on the gas, they bounced across the dainty park at seventy miles an hour. They ripped limbs from ornamental trees, flattened flowerbeds, and then hurtled into the chill waters of the Hudson.
Now submerged and with all sense of time gone, Finn sensed a blush of light.
Water streamed off the windshield, and like a curtain being raised, a world appeared.
Conscious thought returned, but so too the part of him that was the Hound stayed connected with the puka. Like a tennis volley, rational thought and animal sensation bounced back and forth.
Just ride it. He don’t smell so bad. Got to pee.
His breath caught as he stared past the puka’s powerful head and neck while he pulled them forward with barely a ripple. He focused on the distant shore, to a citadel of white. Redmond, I am coming. He observed his connection to the puka. It’s both leash and lead. There is no malice toward us. There is… he searched for words to equal the emotions that roiled off the puka.
Like a connoisseur with a fine wine, he caught hints of resignation, of weariness, and of hope.
He wondered about his passengers as he cautiously let go of the respirator and slid it off his head. How many are still alive? And Gran, with nothing or no one protecting her. We should not have let her come.
He pressed the intercom. No way any of the electronics are still good. But it crackled and clicked, and sure enough, it was loud and clear. “Head count.”
Like in gym class, those in the back identified themselves.
“Flora.”
“Alex.”
“Marilyn.”
“Alice.”
“Jerod.”
“Adam.”
He glanced from the tugboat puka to Charlie and Liam. If not for their dire circumstances, he would have commented on how cute they looked holding one another, Liam held tight in Charlie’s arms. What must that be like? Get through this alive, you moron, and find out.
What if it’s too late? If he’s already dead? Like an elephant had stomped on his chest, Finn gasped. “Nine against an army,” he muttered, and two too young and one too old. He caught strong whiffs of fairy fire and sea air.
He stared at the spires of Redmond’s beloved Center. Plumes of smoke rose from within.
His wards failed.
“She has breached the Center,” Liam said. “This is bad.”
Cold and wet, Finn struggled to hold back despair. What will we find? His thoughts reached out to the puka. There was no answer, only urgency as the creature pressed toward the shore.
Finn smelled the others’ fear, and he heard the sounds of panic and destruction from the shore. “I will not give in. Redmond could still be alive.” His words rang false and triggered echoes from years back, wondering if Rory would rise from the ashes of 9/11. He did not, and now he stared at another tower, in another world, under attack and likely to fall.
Charlie spoke. “So what’s the Center? You said you tried to seek asylum there.”
Liam flicked his nose. “No questions, love. Please.”
“Right.”
“So?”
Finn held his breath as the puka tugged Engine Twenty-Five toward a flat white-sand beach. Its front hooves sought purchase in the sand, and the truck’s tires connected with the sandy bottom of the Western Sea.
The puka, for the first time in the crazy voyage, strained to drag the front tires onto where the waves gently lapped the shore. Its shoulders sagged. It stopped and turned back. Its red eyes sparked in the sun.
Finn sensed the connection with the beast break like a tow chain letting go.
“What the hell. Here goes nothing.” With a lump in his throat, he pressed the ignition button.
There was a silence that warped and expanded.
His gut clenched. He heard a click. It’s flooded. Of course it’s flooded. And then the impossible. The engine roared to life. “Thank you.” Thank you, God. His eyes fixed on the beach. His body attuned to the thrum of the engine, he answered Charlie’s question. “The Center was the last safe place in this world. It’s Redmond’s.”
“Your guy?”
Finn hit the gas. He both felt and heard the churn of sand and shell beneath the tires. “Charlie, you stop asking questions or—Crap!” The front of the vehicle rose up as the rear wheels dug deep into the sea floor.
“We’re not moving,” Liam stated. “Not in the way we—”
The truck lurched. Finn braced his feet into the floor as his hand shot out to keep Charlie and Liam from smashing into the windshield.
In the rear camera, dotted with water, Finn spotted the puka, its head braced against the back of Engine Twenty-Five. As it pushed, Finn again felt the connection. It was ancient and had nothing to do with his human self and everything to do with the Hound. Unbidden thoughts flashed through his mind. We’re connected, you and I. And this Hound thing is old as fuck… as are you, my friend.
The puka snorted, the fire engine’s rear tires found enough purchase on the slick rock, and being careful not to spin out, Finn eased on the gas.
Riveted on the Center and the portion of its outer walls that had crumbled, he felt guilt and urgency. He gritted his teeth. “She came through just where I left. She sensed when Redmond lowered the wards. This is my fault.”
“Don’t do that, Finn,” Charlie warned.
“The past cannot be undone,” Liam added. “But it can be redeemed. Wrongs can be righted, and heroes sometimes save the day. This is war, Finn Hulain. You may not have fought one, but the Hound has.”
“Right,” Finn said as the truck gained momentum. Its broad tires churned over beach and dune. Come on, doggy, let’s see what we got. A growl rose from his belly, and with it came an image of a massive dog with its jaws clamped around a wide-eyed and heavily armed foe. “Sounds good,” Finn said, throw them off-balance. He flicked on the lights and sirens and gunned the engine.
We are Finn, and we are the Hound. He thought of the stories Gran read to him and Rory. Tales that always insisted they were true but invariably led to the theft of forty thousand cattle. Or those where his namesake, Coohulain, single-handedly defeated twelve thousand soldiers. We are Hulain, and we are the Hound. And we will save Redmond. And we will lick his face. “What the—”
“No questions,” Liam warned.
Finn grinned.
“Tell us what is funny,” Liam stated, his own gaze glued to the rapidly changing scenery through the windshield.
“I think I broke this time.”
Liam turned and eyed him, from his booted feet to his peach-fuzz shorn head. “You are not broken, Finn Hulain. You are merely more of the creature you were meant to be.”
Aiming the truck through copses of trees and broad flower-filled meadows, Finn smelled and tasted the changing air. “Yes.” He chuckled. “I want to lick Redmond.”
“He will enjoy that,” Liam replied.
The roar of the engine and the wail of the sirens pulsed through him. He steered the truck over level meadow toward a gravel road atop an embankment. It led straight to the Center and ended at the broad moat that surrounded the vast fields that encircled Redmond’s city. The bridge across had been retracted. It was literally the
end of the road.
“There’s got to be a way across.” He remembered how Redmond had just lifted into the air and flown without effort.
“There is not,” Liam replied. “Not if they don’t want to let you in.”
He started to brake, not wanting to send them all hurtling into the water. His gaze caught on something keeping pace with the truck. “We’re not alone.” In the side mirror his eyes met the puka’s. A shiver trickled down his spine and brought a certainty of action. “The hound and the horse,” he murmured. This feels familiar. He shifted his foot from the brake and slammed on the gas. “Respirators on,” he shouted into the intercom. “Brace yourselves.” And like a team of synchronized divers, the puka and Engine Twenty-Five shot off the road, arced briefly into the air, and then plunged into the moat’s deep and critter-filled waters.
Thirty-Seven
AS THE two Mays, who were seconds from biting off Redmond’s head, startled at the unfamiliar wail coming from the shores of the Western Sea, he bolted for his closet. While he’d believed the wards around the Center were impenetrable, he’d also worked in contingencies. He locked the door behind him, grabbed a sword from the wall, and pressed a panel to reveal an arched window with a balcony.
Behind him, the salamander ripped at the door. Her talons dug deep.
No time! he thought as the panel slid shut behind him. With his breath fast and his heart pounding, he looked down. No. The devastation below tore at him. The horrible scream that had startled them all was a fitting background for this apocalypse. Bodies lay everywhere, and hordes of addicted fey shattered windows and broke down doors. They stole or destroyed anything of value. An ogre with a battle-ax, who had been an inmate levels above May, spun circles in the square below. Every few twirls he’d stop and viciously lop off the arms and heads of ancient statues.
