Still Not Dead Enough , Book 2 of The Dead Among Us

by Doty, J. L.

  Jim’Jiminie cringed. “Aye, she’s got a sharp tongue, that one.”

  Boo’Diddle put his hands on his hips and looked at Paul and Katherine. “We need a boundary, so follow us.”

  The two leprechauns headed toward the edge of the cemetery, walking between rows of simple, white grave markers. Paul looked at Katherine. She shrugged and said, “I’m pretty sure they’re our friends, so we might as well.”

  The two of them followed the little fellows, Paul asking, “A boundary? Why a boundary? And what kind of boundary?”

  Boo’Diddle dropped back to walk beside them. “We need a boundary to get you from here to there. Without fey blood in you, the traveling is harder.”

  “Traveling?” Paul asked. “Where are we going?”

  Boo’Diddle looked up at him and his eyes narrowed. Paul had the impression it was a look of pity. “Just follow us. We have someone who wants to meet you both.”

  The two little fellows stopped at the edge of the cemetery and looked it over carefully. “This’ll do nicely,” Jim’Jiminie said.

  “Yes, indeed!” Boo’Diddle added. “Couldn’t have asked for better.”

  Paul asked, “Why here?”

  Jim’Jiminie said. “The perimeter of a cemetery, it’s the boundary between life and death, which is especially appropriate for you.”

  A gravel strewn walking path lined the edge of the cemetery, with rows of grave markers on one side and trees lining the other. The two leprechauns walked casually along the row of trees, and as Paul and Katherine followed cautiously, he wasn’t sure what to expect. They’d taken about twenty steps when Paul noticed the horizon had brightened a bit, as if the sun were about to rise, and it reminded him of the purplish sky he’d seen outside his apartment the first night the Russians had attacked him. But they were near dusk in San Francisco, not dawn, and in any case the sky appeared to have a pinkish tint to it.

  The row of trees thinned out as they walked, became little more than a row of low-lying shrubs that had a rather odd look to them. He’d never seen their like so he stopped and examined one carefully. Its green leaves had a violet cast that made them appear to shimmer, with flowers so deeply purple they were near black. And as he stood there Paul felt reality slipping from his grasp along a strange spiral track, a kind of twist in reality, a sensation he’d felt several times now, and he thought he could almost understand it.

  Jim’Jiminie called, “What are you dawdling for?”

  Paul straightened, realizing he’d slipped into an almost trance-like reverie. Standing beside him, Katherine seemed dazed, and she stumbled as her high-heels sank into the soft earth of the path. He took her hand and they lurched forward toward the two leprechauns who stood on a hillside above a green and verdant countryside of low rolling hills. In the distance smoke curled upward lazily from the chimneys of a dozen quaint little huts as a pink sun burned off a low morning mist.

  It was morning, not night, and they were certainly no longer in San Francisco. He turned abruptly and looked back the way they’d come. There was no row of trees, no gravel strewn path, no cemetery, just a dirt cart-path winding through an emerald green countryside.

  Paul turned back to the leprechauns and demanded, “Where are we? How did we get here?”

  The two little men looked at each other and shook their heads sadly.

  Paul repeated, “Where are we?”

  Jim’Jiminie took a deep breath and let out a long exasperated sigh. “We’re no longer there, and we’re now here.”

  “And where’s here?” Paul demanded.

  “He is a might thick, ain’t he?” Boo’Diddle said.

  Katherine put her hands on her hips and said, “You’ve taken us to Faerie, haven’t you? Which Court?”

  The little man nodded his head. “We’re in non-aligned fey. We’re not taking you anywhere close to either Court.”

  Paul turned slowly about, turned full circle and scanned the countryside. It looked too much like pictures of a quaint Irish countryside, but color-shifted. The hillsides were green, for the most part, but the sky had a lollypop pinkish hue to it. “This is all bullshit. This isn’t real.”

  Boo’Diddle looked pointedly at Paul, and spoke with sarcasm dripping from every word. “It’s as real or not real as leprechauns, yee daft fool. And you’d better show some respect when you meet the Morrigan.”

  “Morrigan?” Paul asked. “Who’s this Morrigan?”

  Jim’Jiminie grinned. “The triple goddess.”

  Katherine leaned close to Paul and whispered, “I really don’t want to meet a goddess.”

  A tiny female voice said, “You’ve really no choice in the matter, me darlin’.”

  A little female version of the two leprechauns now stood in the cart-path. She wore a bright green dress, with a white apron and a deep red shawl. She’d tied her grayish hair back in a bun, and her ample bosom jiggled as she unleashed her anger, “The Morrigan would’ve been sore displeased if you’d refused her invitation.”

  Paul had met her once before, on another disaster strewn romp through Faerie. To Katherine he said, “This is Katie’O’girl.”

  Katie’O’girl put her hands on her hips, mimicking Katherine, and looked Katherine over carefully. “Sure, she’s even prettier than I’d heard.”

  She abruptly turned and walked toward the cluster of huts. “Come along, the two of you. The Morrigan waits, and it’s never good to keep a goddess waiting.”

  Paul looked at Katherine and she shrugged. He let her lead and he followed.

  The little huts looked like something out of a Disney movie, thatched roofs and all, though it was unlikely they’d see the inside of one since neither he nor Katherine could fit through the waste high doors. But then, as they followed Katie’O’girl, reality shifted again and the leprechauns disappeared.

  Katherine stopped abruptly and turned around. “Where are they? Where’d they go?”

  Paul stopped beside her and looked about. “More importantly, where are we?”

  They now stood on a game trail in a dark forest of twisted and stunted trees. And, along with the leprechauns, the little thatched huts and the verdant countryside were gone.

  A crow cawed, a sharp cry that startled them both. They looked up and spotted the bird standing on a branch above them. The crow stepped off the branch and dropped toward them, but just before hitting the ground it shimmered and morphed into an old crone wearing a long, hooded cloak and hunched over a walking cane. She had a twisted nose with warts and moles all over her face, and what few teeth remained in her mouth were crooked and brown. Cataracts clouded her left eye, and her right drooped with some sort of palsy.

  She cackled and laughed maniacally. “Come to see the hag, have you, children?”

  She walked toward them slowly, leaning heavily on the cane, but between one step and the next she became a beautiful young maiden in a shimmering gown. She smiled at them and spoke in a lovely voice, “The wizard and the witch, I see. It’s confusing, is it not?”

  And in the next step she turned into a naked, skeletal corpse, ribs protruding visibly, dried up old breasts withered to nothing, gobbets of rotted flesh hanging from her face, maggots filling her eyes and mouth.

  Katherine closed her eyes and looked away, but Paul stood entranced. “Are you the triple goddess?”

  “Maeotar,” the corpse hissed, her voice a barely audible hiss. She shifted again to the crone, then the beautiful maiden, then the corpse. The corpse said, “A test for you, mortal . . .”

  Somewhere, in the kaleidoscope of images that assaulted him, Paul lost consciousness.

  ~~~

  “Wake up, yee daft fool.”

  Paul opened his eyes to find Jim’Jiminie standing over him. He sat up, saw Boo’Diddle shaking Katherine awake. “Come on, me girl.”

  They were back in the green countryside with no sign of the dark forest and the crazy old—young—woman—corpse.

  As Paul staggered to his feet Jim’Jiminie scrambled
up a small hill carpeted in purple grass, put his hands on his hips and surveyed the countryside. They were in a copse of blue trees and purple grass, with a reddish sky. Paul helped Katherine to her feet, but her high-heels immediately sank into the soft soil and as she teetered backwards he caught her around the waist to keep her from falling. Leaning heavily on him she pulled her shoes off one-by-one and held them up to Paul. “These things cost me a fortune. I’m not giving them up.”

  She called up to Jim’Jiminie. “Where are we?”

  He scrambled off the hillock. “We’re far from the Courts here, me girl. Far in distance and time, but mostly far in dimensions your pretty little head’ll never understand.”

  “What do we do now?” Paul asked.

  “We walk, and if I’m right, we’ll soon be findin’ yer way back fer ya.”

  Paul couldn’t believe what he heard. “If you’re right? You brought us here and you’re not sure you’re right.”

  “Listen, laddie boy, if you’d be paying more attention to your surroundings instead of staring at the lass’s behind all the time, you’d run into a lot less trouble. So don’t begrudge me the fact we have to be playin’ this tune by ear.”

  Katherine’s eyes narrowed speculatively. “He kept checking out my ass, huh?”

  “Sure, lass, he couldn’t keep his eyes off it.”

  “Enough of this,” Paul snapped. Time to change the subject. “Let’s get moving. Which way do we go?”

  “Just be followin’ me.” Jim’Jiminie scrambled back up the small hill. Katherine grinned evilly at Paul, turned, followed the little man up the hill, a little extra sashay in her hips, a little extra sway, a little extra wiggle. Paul shrugged. At least being last in line meant he had a great view.

  ~~~

  Anogh bowed before Ag. “Your Majesty, you summoned me?”

  Ag was so agitated he had even abandoned fondling his favorite concubine. “He has entered Faerie. The young mage. Call out the hunt. Find him. Bring him to me. Now.”

  “As Your Majesty wishes.” Anogh bowed deeply and backed out of the king’s presence.

  Chapter 12: Delivery Complete

  The countryside of Faerie was the strangest thing Paul had ever seen. The sky shifted color almost hourly, sometimes reddish, sometimes bluish, sometimes greenish. The leprechaun picked an odd-looking black fruit from a tree with shiny, chartreuse leaves, slurped on it as he walked. Grass was sometimes green, sometimes purple, sometimes brown or gray.

  Jim’Jiminie told them he wanted to get them to a place where ley lines intersected, producing a simpler connection between the two Realms. He could get them back into the Mortal Plane much easier that way, but it would be a walk of a few hours. “Though I do be takin’ this walk with the most uneasy of feelings. Why the Morrigan put you here I cannot fathom.”

  Paul said, “She said something about a test.”

  Jim’Jiminie stopped, looked back at him and frowned worriedly. But he said nothing, turned and continued walking.

  Katherine appeared to be enjoying herself thoroughly, stopping to examine every strange plant, then running to catch up. At one point a group of pixies attached themselves to Paul, little people-shaped creatures about finger high with tiny wings. They circled his head for a few minutes, chittering and chattering in little voices that sounded more like tinkling bells.

  “They’re drawn to your power,” Jim’Jiminie said. “And that bothers me, because if they can sense you, so can others. And Ag and Magreth have their ears tuned to all aspects of Faerie.”

  They walked for another hour, and in that time Jim’Jiminie grew more skittish and uncomfortable, muttering things like, “I’ve got a bad feelin’ about this. Tis not good. Tis not good.”

  He finally led them into the edge of a forest of surprisingly ordinary looking trees. Their shape was odd, branches twisting toward the sky in an incredible tangle, but at least they had brown trunks and green leaves. Jim’Jiminie had them crouch down behind a thatch of brush. “There’s something,” he said. “I know it.”

  “What?” Paul asked.

  Far in the distance they heard the bay of a hound, an eerie, high-pitched cry that must have carried for miles. Others of its kind answered it.

  “That,” Jim’Jiminie said. “The Unseelie Host. They’ve called out the hounds. Run. We must run.” The little fellow turned and sprinted deeper into the forest.

  Paul and Katherine followed, but Katherine’s tight skirt didn’t lend itself to running so she tried to hike it up to her waist. But she was also hampered by running in her stocking feet and stumbled and fell repeatedly. Finally she stopped grabbed the bottom of her skirt with both hands and yanked, tearing it up to her waistline. “Now I can run.”

  They ran for several minutes, though every minute the hounds drew closer. Katherine, forced to run in her stocking feet, stumbled several times, once cursing like a stevedore. Jim’Jiminie halted suddenly, and all three of them stood there for a moment gasping for air. Paul’s throat and lungs burned like the worst of bad colds.

  “We’re in Non-aligned Faerie here, ruled by neither Court, protected by none.” He pointed ahead of them. “Not far from here is a stream. The ley lines we need are just beyond that.”

  They ran on, but they now heard the shouts and cries of the host following them, as well as the baying of the hounds. They left the forest behind, crossed carefully tilled and farmed open land. The burn in Paul’s lungs grew even worse and he slowed down as he reached the end of his strength, saw that Katherine was doing no better. Up ahead he saw a jagged line of a depression in the countryside that must be the stream Jim’Jiminie had spoken of. They weren’t running any longer, just staggering along at little better than a fast walk, unable to fill their burning lungs with the needed air.

  Paul looked back as the Unseelie Host burst from the forest behind them. Tall warriors in rainbow colored armor rode steeds whose hooves appeared to never actually touch the ground, and they were led by large, black hounds with glowing red eyes. He ran on with renewed strength, caught up to Katherine, who now ran with a limp and slowed a little with each step. He grabbed her from behind and lifted her into his arms.

  “Put me down she shouted. I can run.” He ignored her because, even carrying her, he kept a better pace than she had.

  He staggered up to the stream, put her down at its edge. It wasn’t more than knee deep, though for Jim’Jiminie that might be a problem, so Paul picked him up and carried him as he sloshed through the water, Katherine right behind him. Paul dropped to his knees on the opposite bank, his lungs a searing fire in his chest, wheezing as he tried to pull in enough air. Katherine dropped to her hands and knees beside him. “We made it,” she said, each sentence punctuated by a gasping breath.

  Paul stood and looked back. The Unseelie Host had halted not a hundred paces distant, and with those amazing steeds as their mounts they could cross that in a heartbeat. Their leader, wearing some sort of colorful armor with a winged helm, reared his horse before them, as if to signal a charge. But then the cry of a hunting hawk broke the silence of the moment, and everyone looked up.

  “Oh, dear mother!” Boo’Diddle said. “Tis the black.”

  ~~~

  Anogh really didn’t want to catch the poor mortal fool, didn’t want to turn him over to Ag. But with a host of Unseelie warriors behind him, he had no choice. His mount reared beneath him, and he hesitated, wondering how he could delay the inevitable. And then he heard the unique cry of the hawk, a sound no fey would fail to recognize.

  He looked up to the skies, as did the warriors behind him, and saw a black speck circling slowly and dropping toward them on massive wings, growing in size and proportion with each circle of its descent. This was not a visitation he could ignore.

  Suddenly the hawk cried out angrily, then furled its wings and plunged toward him, its talons extended. Anogh stood his ground, knowing she dare not attack him if he gave her no cause. And as he expected, at the last instant she flared her wings,
pulled up a few feet off the ground, and transformed into a tall humanoid shape obscured by shadows that fluttered about her maddeningly, a strung longbow in her left hand and a shadowy broadsword in her right.

  She stood there silently, so Anogh waited, but one of the warriors behind him had far less patience and shouted, “What do you want?”

  She opened her mouth, but hesitated, and when she did speak her voice hissed through Anogh’s heart like the death rattle of a cold wind. “You may not interfere with my contract.”

  “Contract?” Anogh asked softly. “I am not aware of a contract with the black.”

  “No,” that cold wind hissed, “you are not. But nevertheless your king made contract with me, and if you proceed, that contract is null and void.”

  Anogh considered her carefully. She could not lie about such a thing, though she could dissemble, help him to mislead himself. But she had spoken too plainly for that, so he nodded his agreement and said, “Very well. We will stand down.”

  The shadowy woman stared at him for a long moment, then slowly sheathed her sword and turned her back on him to look at their prey. She reached up over her shoulder to the fletching of several arrows extending from a quiver strapped to her back. She drew an arrow with blood-red fletching and a coal-black shaft, and even Anogh looked away from that.

  ~~~

  “Oh sweet mother of me clan, no, no, no,” Jim’Jiminie cried.

  Katherine asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Boo’Diddle dropped to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “Tis the black fey.” He looked up at Paul. “One of you is doomed, and I doubt they’d seek the death of the Old Wizard’s daughter.”

  “Doomed,” Katherine shouted. “Why doomed. We’ll run, we’ll fight.”

  Jim’Jiminie shook his head sadly. “No mortal has ever escaped les flèche du coeur, the heart arrow.”

  Paul looked toward the Unseelie Host. He’d immediately recognized the hawk and the strange giant of a woman bathed in shadows. And as he looked on she carefully nocked an arrow, then paused and looked at him, and he struggled to remember her words in the graveyard in Texas. They’d been almost identical to Jim’Jiminie’s just now. But there’d been some subtle difference he couldn’t recall, something about being “. . . truly mortal . . .”