Death's Hand

by N. P. Martin

  "Corvin…" she breathed.

  "I’m here, D," I told her. "You hold on, you hear me? I’m going to get you help."

  Dalia barely nodded as her head fell to the side and she closed her eyes, unconscious once more, but still breathing. Barely.

  "HEDREMA!" I screamed the Fae Queen’s name, hoping she could hear me. "Hedrema! I need you here now!"

  Maybe not the best idea to be making demands on someone as volatile as Hedrema, but I was desperate, and terrified that Dalia was going to die.

  Behind me, I heard a rustling noise, and when I turned around I saw a tiny Fae creature no bigger than a baby rabbit emerge from the long grass. The little creature stood staring at me, a grave look on its squashed up features as it obviously knew something was badly wrong. It seemed to sniff the air for a second, then said in a surprisingly deep voice, "She’s dying."

  I shook my head at the Fae. "No shit! Can you get Hedrema here?"

  "No one orders Hedrema anywhere," the little Fae said.

  "Fuck’s sake! Hedrema! Hedrema it’s—"

  "No need to scream, I know it’s you, human."

  I snapped my head around to see that Hedrema had appeared by the edge of the stones. "Thank god!" I said in relief.

  "Which god?" she said.

  "What?"

  "Which god are you thanking?"

  I held my hands up and tensed them, trying to contain my anger. "What does it matter? Dalia is dying. Sorcha did something to her, poisoned her with dark magic."

  In a flash, Hedrema was standing next to me as she stared down at Dalia, who was still unconscious, her face almost completely covered now by the creeping poison. "Did you say Sorcha? You saw her?"

  "Yes," I said, not having the patience to explain it all to her. "She appeared to us, told us to stop looking for her and the next thing…"

  "Dalia is dying." She stared down at Dalia as though she weren’t too concerned.

  "Are you going to do something?"

  "About what?"

  I swallowed hard as I struggled to keep from flying into a rage, even though I knew the likely consequences if I did so. "About Dalia. Are you going to save her?"

  Hedrema shook her head, the skulls and bones hanging from her head dress swinging back and forth. "There’s only one person who can save Dalia, and that’s Sorcha. This is her magic, so only she can reverse it."

  I shook my head in disbelief. "But you’re a Queen, you have more power than Sorcha surely!"

  Hedrema snapped her head around, a fire burning in her black eyes. "It doesn’t work like that. Beyond a certain level of potency, Fae magic cannot be reversed except by the one who cast it. You’re a Touched human, I thought you would’ve known this."

  "No," I said, sick to my stomach. "I didn’t know." I dropped to my knees beside Dalia and took her hand. "So she’s going to die?" Just saying those words tore at my insides.

  "Did I say that?"

  I looked up at her. "But you said—"

  "I know what I said, and it’s true, but… I can halt the progress of the poison, at least for a while. She’ll get no worse than she is now."

  After a moment’s pause, I breathed a half sigh of relief, realizing it was the best news I was going to get, next to Sorcha reversing the curse. But that wasn’t likely to happen any time soon, if indeed it happened at all, though I couldn’t allow myself to think about that. "All right," I said. "Help her as best you can."

  "You do realize this changes nothing," Hedrema said. "You will still have to find Sorcha."

  No shit, bitch.

  "I know, and I need to talk to you about that."

  "Really?" She didn’t seem to relish the prospect of discussing anything with me, a mere human. "What do you need to know? I’ve already explained everything to you."

  "Not everything."

  She raised one eyebrow. "Meaning?"

  I looked her straight in her dark eyes. "You know what I mean."

  Hedrema continued staring for a second before looking away and saying nothing. Then she clicked her fingers, and out of the long grass about half a dozen of her pets appeared, the same ones that were gathered around her like puppies at the castle, minus of course, the one that Osaba ate. The Fae creatures swarmed around Dalia and then lifted her unconscious body of the ground. "I’ll take her back to my castle," Hedrema said. "I’ll put her on ice, as you humans might say."

  I nodded. "Just make sure she doesn’t die."

  A scowl came over her face. "We need to chat about the proper way to speak to a Queen. No one gives me orders."

  "We can talk all about it later. I assume you know where I’m staying?"

  "I’m sure I can find you."

  She walked away then, waving her staff to create a portal back to the Otherworld. Her pets carried Dalia through the portal first, and then Hedrema stepped toward it, throwing me a look over her shoulder before disappearing along with the portal.

  Then it was just me standing there in the middle of the Druid Circle, feeling completely alone as the crows cawed ominously overhead. I closed my eyes for a moment as tears welled up in them. Then I went to the recumbent stone, the one Dalia and I had sat on together before. Dropping to my knees, I put both hands on the ancient stone and closed my eyes again. "Please," I whispered to whatever god might be listening. "Don’t let her die… please don’t let her die…"

  Above me, the crows continued to circle and caw like harbingers of doom.

  10

  The sea before me was vast and beautifully awesome as the sun glinted off its surface, but as I sat outside the cottage with a bottle of whiskey, the sublime Atlantic Ocean unfortunately gave me no answers, nor offered me much solace. As calming as it was to watch the gentle waves roll across the deep blue surface of the water, I derived no comfort from doing so. There was little comfort to be found either in the whiskey I was downing like there was no tomorrow (ha!), or the cigarettes I was smoking, even though I quit the things years ago. I’d never felt so dejected in my life, never so hopeless. The person I was closest to in the world was on the brink of death. Hell, the whole damn world was on the brink of death, and to make matters worse it seemed that I was the only one who was trying to do anything about it. There are so many powerful beings in this world—gods, demigods, immortals, Fae and a host of Touched and supernaturally charged beings—yet where were they all in this time of dire crisis? Did any of them even know what was going on? I doubted if most, if not all, of them did. Would they even do anything if they did know? I doubted that as well. It seemed the more powerful a being becomes, the less they care about others; the less they care about the world or worlds they supposedly call home. It’s despicable really. Where were the Sidhe, the Fae royalty? Why weren’t they trying to stop Sorcha? Where they so indifferent to everything that they were willing to leave the fate of the world to the hand of chance (Chance)?

  I shook my head as I drained the whiskey from my glass. This world truly confounds me at times. My mother used to say that everything happens for a reason in the universe, and that we have to have faith that the universe knows what it is doing, even in times of dire struggle and strife. Even, apparently, when an apocalypse looms on the horizon. All I can say to that is, I just hope the universe knows what it’s doing.

  Because I sure as hell don’t.

  I was halfway through the bottle of whiskey when I heard my phone ringing inside the cottage. Sighing, I got up and went inside to locate it, finding it on the couch in the living room. Looking at the screen, I saw it was Monty calling. For a moment, I almost didn’t answer it because I knew I would have to tell him about Dalia and I wasn’t sure if I could without breaking down. But Monty was my friend, and he was Dalia’s friend as well, so he had a right to know what was happening.

  "Hello?" I said upon answering.

  "Jayzus, finally!" Monty said, sounding as cheerful as ever. "Yer nu 'oy many times I’ve called yer?"

  I shook my head, having no idea. I’d hardly looked at my phone since
arriving in Cork. "Sorry mate. I’m in Cork."

  "Cork? Waat de 'ell ye doin' dare?"

  I spent the next ten minutes or so explaining everything to Monty as he listened without interrupting for a change. When I got to the part about Dalia, it was all I could do to stop myself from bursting into tears. "And so she’s with the Fae Queen," I said. "And I’m here twiddling my fuckin’ thumbs."

  "Christ," Monty said, his former cheerfulness now replaced with solemnity. "Poor Dalia. Oi can’t believe dat. She’s gonna make it, though, roi?"

  I breathed out heavily, thinking, why’d he have to ask that question? "I honestly don’t know."

  Monty lapsed into silence for a moment, then said, "I’m 'eadin' down ter yer. Yer nade me 'elp, bro."

  "No, listen," I said shaking my head. "There’s not much you can do here at the minute."

  "Bollix ter dat! Oi want ter 'elp"

  "I know you do, and you can help."

  "How?"

  "Find me a way to stop Sorcha. There must be a spell or an artifact or something out there that I can use to take her down."

  "Waat aboyt your Druidic Dagger, de wan yer killed dat elf Iliphar wi'?"

  "I have it here with me, but I don’t think it would do much good. I wouldn’t be able to get near her with it."

  "Keep it on yer, bro. Yer never nu."

  I nodded. "I will."

  "All roi," Monty said. "I’m gonna start ter lookin' for somethin' dat might 'elp yi, an' den I’m comin' down dare. Oi shud be dare for Dalia at de pure laest. An' 'ey," he joked. "If de warrld ends, at laest we’ll al' be together, roi?"

  I laughed slightly as I shook my head. "Yeah, I guess so."

  "But that’s not gonna 'appen, cos oi 'av feth in yer, bro. Everyone tart yer were mad ter go up against Iolas, though not me obviously, an' yer still tuk de langer down. You’ll do de seem wi' dis Fae wagon."

  "We’ll see," I said, not sharing his confidence or his faith in me. "Just see what you can find and get back to me. If I hear anything this end I’ll let you know."

  "You’d better, bro."

  I hung up the phone and sat back in the couch, having at least a modicum of hope that Monty would turn something up. In the meantime, I needed to have that chat with Hedrema to see what the hell she was playing at, if she decided to show up that is. With nothing else to do but wait, I went back outside to stare at the sea again as if it had all the answers. Which, I wish it did.

  I had gone through nearly the full bottle of whiskey and was fairly drunk when Hedrema finally turned up. It was full dark outside and the stars were spread across the endless sky, as though the gods themselves had woken up and were now shining their mysterious light on the world.

  "I do enjoy the night sky in this realm," Hedrema said when she appeared out of nowhere to the side of me. She stood looking out toward the sea, seeming to breathe in the air as she gazed up at the stars. "The jewels of the sky are rarely seen in my realm."

  I hardly flinched when she appeared, partly because I was drunk, partly because I had obviously been expecting her. Although she ended up taking that long, I had started to fret that she wasn’t going to turn up. "How’s Dalia?" I asked her, a question I’d been dying to ask since before she arrived.

  Hedrema turned to look at me, seeming to blend into the darkness as she stood clutching her staff. "She’s holding on to whatever life force she has left… for now."

  Her answer wasn’t exactly comforting, but I knew it was the best I was going to get. "As long as she’s holding on."

  Hedrema came closer to me as I remained seated in my chair. "You seem to have a lot of love for her, as she does for you. It would be touching if it weren’t so foolish."

  I shook my head. "I’m sorry, foolish?"

  "To you humans love is the be all and end all, this great force that holds the world together." She began to caress the skull attached to her staff, as though she once knew the person it belonged to. "Love is not a force for good, it’s merely a weakness in the human psyche that you mistakenly believe to be a source of strength."

  "So what’s your source of strength then?"

  "Power, of course," she said smiling. "Power over the world and those who dwell in it."

  I snorted. "Well, all that power isn’t doing you much good now, is it? In fact, your power created this situation. You made Sorcha who she is. This is all your fault."

  Under other circumstances, I wouldn’t have dared to say such a thing to a Fae Queen of the Unseelie Court, but I was drunk and pissed off, and therefore couldn’t help it. Although I sort of regretted it when Hedrema suddenly pushed the head of her staff into my chest, pinning me to my seat.

  "Be careful. I won’t tolerate such insolence from a mere human. I’ve put others to death for less."

  I stared defiantly at her. "Sure, we’re all dead anyway, what’s the difference?"

  Her dark eyes glared at me for a further moment, and then she removed her staff and turned her back on me while I sat rubbing at my sore chest. "You wish to know why I can’t put an end to Sorcha myself?"

  "Yes, I would like to know."

  She turned around to face me again, her eyes seeming different, her usual antagonism diminished somewhat. "It’s because she is my progeny."

  "She’s your daughter?" I said in slight disbelief.

  "If you want to put it like that, yes."

  "But I thought you stole her from this realm."

  "I did, but only after I got rid of her."

  "Got rid of her?" I shook my head at her choice of words. "Not exactly the actions of a loving parent, is it?"

  Hedrema shook her head as if she could care less about my judgement. "She was an inconvenience I didn’t need at the time. I was in the midst of a war with an Unseelie Court King, the last thing I needed was some… dependent."

  Jesus, I thought, astounded by her callous attitude toward her own blood. "So you just tossed her away into the human realm."

  "I switched her with a human baby, and she was raised as a human for twenty of your years."

  "Until you stole her back. Why?"

  "I was merely curious to see how she turned out."

  Staring into her dark eyes, I thought I could see something else there besides coldness, perhaps the merest hint of caring for her wayward daughter, though I couldn’t be sure as Fae don’t feel emotions the way humans do, especially Unseelie Court Fae. "So was she a chip off the old block?" I couldn’t help but smile.

  Hedrema’s eyes narrowed as she shook her head at me. "In a way, I suppose. She turned out to be very powerful, more than I expected her to be."

  "So who’s her father then?"

  She shifted her focus to the skull on the staff. "He was."

  I hardly knew what to say to that, so I just shook my head as I reached for the whiskey bottle on the ground next to me and took a large swallow.

  "You think me a monster," she said eventually, sounding like she didn’t care either way.

  Yes, I do. "We are who we are."

  "Indeed. You can never hope to understand the way of the Fae, so don’t even try."

  "I’m not."

  "A wise choice."

  "I’d still like to know why you can’t stop Sorcha, if you care so little for her. Killing her shouldn’t be hard for you."

  "Killing is never hard for me," she practically sneered. "The taking of life is a constant in my world. Unfortunately, when it comes to offspring, there are rules."

  "Such as?"

  "A Fae may not kill their own progeny. We lose our power if we do." She shook her head as if she found the rule ridiculous. "We Fae are not good at breeding. We very rarely fall pregnant, and if we do, the offspring often comes out deranged."

  I really wanted to say that the Fae were deranged anyway, but I dared not to. "Did Sorcha come out deranged, as you put it?"

  "Somewhat, though not as bad as most. I think living with you humans made her more deranged than anything. When I stole her back she was a resident of one
of your, what do you call them… mental institutions."

  "The nuthouse?" That figured.

  "Yes, the nuthouse," she said, as if the name was alien to her. "She had no idea what to do with her innate power, and I think she may have hurt some other humans in trying to figure it out."

  "Hurt?"

  "Killed."

  A real piece of work then, I thought, nodding to myself. "So you stole her back and then helpfully aided her in learning how to control her powers, is that right?"

  "Yes, in a way. I thought perhaps she could sit by my side." She shook her head. "A silly idea, as it turned out. I could never share my power with anyone."

  "So you locked her up instead."

  "Yes, it seemed the best option."

  "So why didn’t you get one of your minions to kill her instead, like Osaba or Twig?" Hedrema sighed, suddenly looking uncomfortable for some reason, and I soon understood why. "You couldn’t do it, could you? You couldn’t bring yourself to have her killed."

  Hedrema turned her back on me as she looked out to sea. "Don’t read too much into that," she said, glancing over her shoulder slightly.

  "What am I supposed to think? You obviously feel something for her."

  She turned around again as though she thought me insolent. "Don’t presume to know me, human."

  I held my hands up. "I’m not presuming anything. I’m just saying it would be perfectly natural if you held some kind of love for your own daughter."

  "Love?" She seemed to struggle with the concept, and then dismissed it out of hand. "The Fae do not know love. That’s a human construct."

  "Maybe," I said. "But you plainly feel something, if not love then some protective instinct."

  She seemed more at peace with this way of looking at things. "Sorcha and I share the same blood, I suppose it was inevitable some connection would occur. Still, she has become a thorn in my side."