by E. A. Copen
His eyes slid to Beth who’d come into the grove after me and then to a space between the trees as he considered his exit.
“Don’t,” I warned. “I don’t want to torch the trees, but I will.”
“They feel pain, you know.” Athdar stepped to the nearest tree and ran his hand over the trunk. “You may not hear them scream, but I do. Harm them, and I’m honor-bound to challenge you.”
“I don’t want to fight you.”
“Nor I you.” He met my hard stare, unblinking, unwavering.
What most took in Athdar to be cowardice wasn’t that at all. I saw in him the familiar qualities of a man who didn’t want the fight I’d brought to him. He wouldn’t start it, but he’d finish it if I pushed him.
I planted the end of the staff in the dirt. “Let’s get right to it then. Did you use magic to harm William, whether intentional or not?”
“No,” he answered, resolute.
“Did you hire or otherwise convince someone else to do so on your behalf?”
“No.”
I nodded and relaxed. “I believe you.”
“That’s it?” Beth stepped up to my side. “He says he’s innocent and you just believe it?”
“I do.” I couldn’t explain it to Beth; I just had a gut feeling about it. Usually, my gut was right.
Athdar grunted. In man-speak, that meant we’d reached an understanding. I wouldn’t burn his trees or continue to accuse him of attempted murder, and he wouldn’t smash me with his tree-trunk sized arms. Win-win for the stand-in Summer Knight and his new tree-shifting pal.
“What do you want, human?”
I started to answer him and stopped because something made the skin on my arms tingle and my stomach surge. The air suddenly felt heavy, oily. Wrong. Black magic was in the air and whatever spell was being worked was a doozy. Athdar and Beth must’ve felt it too because both of them began looking around, their muscles coiled. My staff flashed brilliant cerulean that faded to inky black and started smoking from the tip. A wind kicked up in the grove, and the trees whispered amongst themselves. Dry oak leaves tumbled over the ground.
“Get behind me,” I ordered and turned to face the wind. “Something’s coming.”
Athdar stepped up beside me instead of listening. I pretended like I hadn’t just ordered him to do something. You look a Dryad in the face and see if you don’t think twice about telling him what to do.
“It comes,” he said simply.
And it did.
Screaming through the trees came a blast of crimson magic, sharp like a scalpel and aimed straight at my face.
Chapter Ten
I swung the staff at the spell, hoping that would be enough to block it. The spell hit it and split in two, going around us to slice into one of the oak trees. Wood splintered, and the tree groaned. I barely had enough time to grab Beth and dive out of the way before it fell with a crack like thunder. After I was sure the tree wasn’t going to crush us to death, I pushed myself up and took off, running in the direction the spell had been fired from.
Branches sprang back to hit me in the face. Whoever had just tried to kill me was dead ahead, I could feel it. If I pushed just a little harder, I’d be able to catch a glimpse of them.
My foot caught on a root sticking out of the ground, and I fell face-first to the forest floor, eating a mouthful of dirt. Soft footfalls faded into the distance and out of reach. Whoever it was had gotten away. Again. There was nothing left to do but dust myself off and return to Athdar’s grove.
Beth was waiting for me when I trudged back, covered in dirt and grass stains. She was still dusting dirt from her dress. “Did you get him?”
I shook my head. “Whoever it was is light on their feet. Still, if they’re coming after me directly, maybe I’m getting close to finding the assassin. Only question is how? I barely know anything.”
Beth shrugged. “You know their target. And you’re doing a surprisingly decent job at keeping Odette safe.”
“Surprising? What’s so surprising about it?” I stopped next to her but focused on Athdar.
The hulking tree-man that was Athdar knelt beside the fallen tree, frowning and caressing the bark as if comforting a child. A large, circular hole had been bored straight through the tree. Amber sap dripped from the open wood, oozing like blood.
“She’s dying,” Athdar said simply.
I exchanged glances with Beth. “She didn’t happen to see who fired the shot, did she?”
Athdar closed his eyes and withdrew his hand from the tree. His bones creaked like dry wood as he stood and turned to face me. “That shot was meant for you.”
Yikes. I knew what that look meant. Guess it was my fault the tree fell, but what was I supposed to do? Stand there and die?
“Hold on a second there.” I waved my hands. “I want to stop whoever is behind all these cheap shots, just like you. I just want to know if she saw who did it. Help me help your…tree.”
His frown deepened. “There is no help. Not now. Not for her. But maybe there is help for you. If I help you, you will leave?”
Beth stepped forward. “That’s why we came. Princess Odette said you knew a way out of here. A secret way.”
The Dryad eyed Beth, then me. “You want to go to Earth. Why? This one will die on Earth.” He gestured to me.
“Well, not die exactly. I’ll just shrivel up and turn into a corpse-eating monster, but I don’t intend to stay long enough for that to happen. And I’d still like to know what your tree friend saw.”
“I don’t know,” Athdar said after a beat of silence. “I haven’t spoken to or heard the trees since my return.”
That didn’t sound good. While I didn’t know a ton about Dryads, I did know their connection to their particular grove of trees was paramount. In myth, it seemed they shared a sort of hive mind, the trees, and their Dryad conversing back and forth through a mental connection deeper than any friendship or romance. They were one, the tree and the Dryad. Some were even so connected to the trees that to kill the Dryad, all you had to do was chop down his sacred tree. If he couldn’t hear his own trees, something was wrong.
Athdar’s wooden knees creaked as he sank to the ground next to the fallen tree. “I gave Odette a gift that would ensure her safe passage back through, just in case she changed her mind. Two very special acorns. Only, I didn’t know that being separated from them would cut me off from my trees.” He placed a hand on the downed tree. “She took them from me and did not return with them.”
I leaned on my staff. “Let me get this straight. You gave your nuts to the girl you had a crush on, and now the voices in your head won’t talk to you anymore? Let me guess. You want me to get them back for you.”
“They’re more than voices in my head,” Athdar snapped. “These trees are mine. Being cut off from them is like missing a limb. I need my acorns back. Agree to bring them to me, and I will show you the way out.”
I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. What was it about the fae that made them think I was their errand boy? And here I thought being the Summer Knight would make things easier.
Beth tugged on my arm. “Laz, what about Odette? Whoever just shot at us could try her next. We’re leaving her alone.”
My eyes traveled to the faint light shining through the trees. It wasn’t coming from Odette’s chambers. I’d left specific instructions that her windows and doors all stay sealed. Guards stood on the balcony and at her door. She was as safe as she could be without me standing next to her. Since she’d made it clear she didn’t want me standing over her, watching her every move, I thought it best to give her some space while I still could. Besides, I had to look into finding a cure or I wouldn’t be a very good protector for her for very long.
“She’ll be fine for a few hours,” I said, lowering my gaze.
“Yeah, but we don’t know if it will be a few hours. Time is funny here.”
“I can be of assistance with that as well.” Athdar stood and held out his hand
. “Your hand.”
Beth moved to place her hand in his, but I bumped her out of the way with my hip and gave Athdar my hand instead. Not that I didn’t trust the guy, I just didn’t trust him. Athdar didn’t even seem to notice. He took my hand and closed his other palm over it, enclosing my whole hand inside his. The smell of seared meat tickled my nose, and my salivary glands went into overdrive. Instead of the normal shriek of pain I should’ve made when I realized he was burning my hand, I let out a feral ghoul hiss and jerked my hand away to cradle it. There, on the back of my hand, Athdar had branded an eleven.
“The number will change with the hour,” Athdar explained. “It’s synchronized to the time here.”
“Neat trick.” I scowled and shook my hand. “Warn me next time, will ya? That hurt.”
“I hope that there will not be a next time.” Athdar bowed slightly and gestured beyond him.
A narrow dirt path stretched into the trees under darkness, a path that definitely had not been there before.
Great,” I mused. “A creepy secret path into the deep dark woods of Faerie. What could possibly go wrong?”
We walked along the narrow path with me taking the lead. I didn’t feel comfortable walking through the woods at night with Beth and a Dryad at my back, especially in Faerie, but the path was too narrow, and they insisted that the Summer Knight lead. Low-hanging branches blocked any line of sight. I had to push them out of the way with every step.
“So, any idea where I might find these acorns of yours?” I called back to Athdar.
“I can’t be sure. I don’t know your world.”
I ducked under a vine-covered branch too thick to push out of the way and turned around to help Beth up. “How am I supposed to find two tiny acorns in a city the size of New Orleans? For all I know, she tossed them.”
“They are not tiny!” Athdar growled as he came up from under the branch. “They are normal sized. Proportional to where they came from.”
I cringed. “I don’t want to know where they came from. Just tell me where to find the damn things.”
“She would not have thrown them away.” He paused to brush some flower petals from his tunic. “They have power, and they were her only way back. She would have kept them somewhere safe.”
Somewhere safe. Well, for me that would be in my apartment, but Odette’s apartment had been a crime scene. The cops found a body crushed to death in her bed a while back, and Odette went missing. Chances were good her landlord had cleared all her stuff out of the apartment, and he wouldn’t have kept two acorns. Still, I had promised I’d look for them, not that I’d find them. I had a spare key to Odette’s apartment tucked into one of the desk drawers in my office, so theoretically, I still had access to snoop.
“Once we find them, how do we get back?” Beth asked.
“I will hold the door open for you every hour on the hour for exactly two minutes,” Athdar promised. “But you must return before dawn.”
I stopped and turned around. Osric, who had been the Shadow Knight, had always made it a point to be back in Faerie at dusk and dawn, though he never said why.
“Why?”
Athdar frowned over Beth’s shoulder. “If you’re on Earth during sunrise or sunset, the mantle of the Summer Knight will evaporate. The mantle is tied to your life until the queen severs that tie.”
“Sunrise is fatal?” I sighed. “Shit, this job should come with a training manual.”
A thick patch of bushes blocked any progress forward. I could push through them, but I couldn’t see what was on the other side. The path didn’t turn away from them and stretched on through as if they weren’t there. Guess I was going to have to find my way through too. Stems scratched at my face as I pushed through them, shoving with my back and shoulder to make my way through.
“You sure this is…” I trailed off as I lifted the last branch out of the way and found neon lights and traffic on the other side. The familiar French Quarter stretched out in front of me, complete with people in shorts and tank tops taking selfies in front of the voodoo shop. It was night, and the street I was about to stumble onto was crowded with foot traffic.
Beth bumped into me from behind, sending me stumbling into the crowd. The moment I stepped beyond the bushes, a new weight settled in my chest. My arm burned like I’d just been hit with another brand, and my stomach surged as my head started to pound. The end result was me doubling over to choke on vomit. It parted the crowd at least. People veered to either side of me, wrinkling their noses and mumbling about how drunk they thought I was.
Beth’s hand came down on my back, her other hand tightening around my arm. “Let’s get off the sidewalk.”
She pulled me into an alley where I braced myself against a brick wall. My vision swam and I fought the urge to vomit again. “What’s happening to me?”
“It’s the virus,” Beth said after touching my forehead. “Your fever’s back. Looks like your body is making up for lost time. We might not have until sunrise.”
“Have to.” I rested my forehead against the cool brick. “No choice. Couple aspirin. I’ll be fine.”
“Oh, I think you’re way past a couple aspirin.”
She was right, and I knew it. As I was, I couldn’t make it across the street let alone to my office to find my key to Odette’s. I wasn’t any good for anything like this, and I didn’t know how to fight it.
Yes, I do. I squeezed the staff I still held in my hand. I’m here with the most talented healer I know. Normally, I wouldn’t have considered using her. The last time Beth had tried to heal me, it felt like my insides were boiling. The Pale Horseman mantle was still active, but maybe the Summer Knight thing would cancel it out. It was a risk, but one I was willing to take. There was one other option, but I wouldn’t take it, not unless I had no other choice.
“Beth,” I wheezed, “I need you to try and heal me.”
She shook her head. “Uh-uh. No way, Laz. The last time didn’t go so well. It could kill you.”
I gritted my teeth as a nasty cramp made my insides contract. “Just do it. Please. Just try.”
Beth took a deep breath and rolled up her sleeves. “Okay, but if it hurts you have to tell me.”
“Everything hurts. Do it.”
She placed her hand over mine. A moment later, power surged out of her and into me, warm magic that felt like sunlight dialed to eleven. If the air was on fire and made of fire ants. I bit back a scream.
Beth jerked her hand away. “I told you it was a bad idea.”
Shit. So much for plan B. Time for plan C.
I pushed away from the wall and staggered back toward the street. “Help me. I need to get inside the gates of a cemetery. Where’s the closest one?”
“Stay right here,” Beth said and stepped away. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
As if I could move, I thought and waited.
She wasn’t gone long before she returned with a phone in hand. “St. Louis One is the closest according to this GPS.” She kept messing with the phone, sliding her fingers over the screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling an Uber to come pick us up. It’s too far to walk.”
“Where’d you get a phone?”
Beth tilted her head to the side. “I asked a drunk guy if I could give him my number. He handed me his phone and I sort of disappeared into the crowd when he glanced away.”
I scowled at her but didn’t argue. This was an emergency.
The idea of sitting in the back seat of someone else’s car didn’t appeal to me, especially when I was vomiting and dressed like I’d just walked out of some Renaissance faire. Then again, this was New Orleans. People dressed funny all the time. If I played my cards right, I could pass as a drunk, and the driver wouldn’t think twice.
“Come on.” Beth slid an arm under mine and dragged me toward the end of the alley to wait for the car.
A minute later, a four-door hybrid sedan pulled up to the alleyway. The driver
rolled down his window and exchanged a few short words with Beth before she helped me into the back seat. It smelled like shoe polish in the back.
The driver, a twenty-something young man with dark-rimmed glasses and some facial scruff, stared at us in the rearview. “Y’all know the cemetery’s closed, right?”
“We know,” Beth said, and flashed a flirty smile. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
The driver shrugged, smiled, and drove off.
I tried not to focus on the lights zipping by outside the window too fast. It was taking everything I had to keep from throwing up again anyway. Sweat trailed down the side of my nose. I wiped it away, marveling at how hot I felt. Since becoming the Pale Horseman, I’d spent so much time half-frozen, I’d forgotten how annoying it felt to be too hot.
“Is he okay?” the driver asked.
“Just had too much to drink,” I mumbled. Didn’t even have to work too hard at slurring the words. This ghoul virus was a doozy. I didn’t even know if the cemetery would be enough. “What day is it?”
The driver chuckled. “I been there, man. Do him a favor, miss, and make sure he hydrates. He’ll thank you in the morning.” He passed a water bottle to the back seat.
I seized it with shaky hands, ripped the top off and started chugging.
“Not too much,” Beth advised. “It’s the fourth, Laz.”
I lowered the water bottle and squinted at her. “June fourth?”
She shook her head and turned her phone so I could see the screen. Digital fireworks splashed in the background and a scrolling message that read: HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
“Holy shit.” I grabbed for the phone, just to make sure it said what I thought it did. It had been May when the ghoul bit me and Morningstar arranged for me to go to Faerie. I knew time passed weird between Earth and Faerie, but I hadn’t thought I’d lose two months in there. How much would I lose going back?
Being gone for two months would have some serious consequences. I’d be two months behind on my rent for starters. Paula had probably kicked me out and rented it to someone who could pay on time. I just hoped she hadn’t tossed all my stuff. My office was paid for through the end of the year, so I didn’t have to worry about that. When I came back—if I came back—I could always crash there.
