by Holly Evans
Alasdair levelled a cold stare at them and said nothing.
Taen gave a small nod and shooed the other elves away.
“Fuck,” I said, dragging my fingers through my hair.
A group of part-bred elves came into the room. They kept their eyes low and moved with brisk efficiency. They removed the bodies and used some fizzing powder to clean up the blood. Silence reigned until they had left and we were free to talk again.
Alasdair ran his hand up my neck and over my cheek, a possessive and calming gesture.
“I’m not going to lose you,” he said softly.
“I can take her,” I said with a cocky smile.
He gently bit my bottom lip. “I know.”
“So, how much shit are we in now?” Gray asked.
“A lot. The elves are going to spend the night digging into which sidhe queen wants Niko and why. They shouldn’t have been able to find us here. There are supposed to be wards on this site that stop anyone from tracking anything. That’s part of how the bones are hidden. The fact the sidhe found us means at least one elf is working against us.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Gray said.
“We’ll need our wits about us tomorrow.” Alasdair put his arm around my waist and took me to our bedroom.
“I’m going to show you how to use your fire magic to form our own wards,” Alasdair said, taking my hands.
We sat down on the edge of the bed, where he ran his thumbs over my palms.
“You were taught basic wards by your coven, weren’t you?”
I wasn’t taught per se; I more learnt by watching the witches as I had to prepare the herbs and such.
“Sort of.”
“Call up your fire magic and push it into the shape of those wards. You can do it, I’ll be right here.”
His faith shone through in his gentle smile.
I rolled my shoulders. There was no point in putting this off. The longer I sat, the longer I’d overthink it and fuck it up.
My fire flooded into my hands, and I recalled the symbols of my mother’s favourite ward. Taking a slow steadying breath, I freed the fire and tried to push it into the delicate symbols in my mind. Alasdair’s hand slowly moved across my lower back and rested on my hip. It formed an anchor of calm and control. The fire smoothed out, and I felt it begin to take on the symbols of the wards.
Rather than raging and lashing, it wove into the gentle curves and neat straight lines of the ward. I surrounded both our and Gray’s rooms. When I opened my eyes, the room spun, and I swallowed hard. Alasdair pulled me against his hard chest and gently manoevered me into bed, where I passed out. Using my magic took a lot out of me. I hadn’t done any real training with it, and my magical muscles hadn’t been built up. It was another thing on my increasingly long to-do list.
8
The rest of the night had been thankfully uneventful. We even got a lie-in, which felt weird given we were supposed to be guarding something. It wasn’t as if the necromancers were going to go ‘Eh, let them get a bit of extra sleep, we’ll attack in the afternoon.’
Breakfast was quiet and also huge. After what felt like an hour, I started doing some sit-ups and press-ups to burn off the excess energy. I’d hit a hundred, beating Gray by two, when Alasdair had had enough.
“We’re going to find them. This is getting ridiculous.”
We went through the door Taen and the servants had used. Much like the other door, it went into a plain cream hallway with the white orbs for light. I checked every door we passed and found them to be locked. Things were getting more and more suspicious with every step. After a few turns, we emerged into a space the same size as our living area. Except, instead of couches and chairs spread around the area, it was wide open.
“The abomination is wanted by Sere,” a young, pale brown-haired elf said.
The taller elf replied, “Let her have him. It is better than suffering her ire.”
“Trust me. My ire is far worse,” Alasdair growled.
The elves looked at him, their eyes going wide.
“My friends are correct. You should have told us Sere’s interest in your mate,” Taen said.
His loose dark-cream pants and long white shirt weren’t exactly typical guard wear. I had to assume he was the overseer and not a hands-on guy.
“It is none of your concern. We have been here a night and half a day now, and we have yet to see the bones we are to be guarding,” Alasdair said.
Taen’s features tightened.
“We have no desire to be pulled into these politics.”
“We were sent here by the moon goddess.”
“You’re guarding the bones of an old guard that could start wars if they ever rose. You’re already involved in politics,” I said.
Taen’s focus remained on Alasdair.
“We are much like Earth-plane monks. Our lives are simple.” Their feasts and huge living space said otherwise. “We guard the bones and nothing more.”
“Then you’ll have no problems with taking us to the bones so we can aid you in the guarding of these bones against the necromancers. Or had you forgotten those?” Gray said.
The elf muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘infernal mutt,’ but I couldn’t be entirely sure.
“Would you like a demonstration of how good a guard I can be?” Gray said, his expression feral.
“No. That won’t be necessary. Follow me.”
Finally, we were going to see the bones we were there about. I didn’t know why we weren’t being sent to hunt down the necromancers, though. Being proactive sounded like the better plan all around.
For being like monks, their complex was vast and had a lot of marble. We walked for another five minutes before we finally reached the bones. They were set in the dirt in the centre of a square room. An egg-shell floor surrounded the bones with neat square tiles all around it. A set of four elves stood looking stoic, one on each side. Each bore a long slender sword and a spear surrounded with sparkly magic.
Unlike the other rooms around here, this one had three clear exits beyond the one we’d come through. One led out onto rolling green lawns, another led into what looked like a kitchen perhaps, and the last was a large office type space. None of this made any sense. Why the sweet blue fuck would they put the bones in the easiest, most accessible room in the entire complex?
“We draw our magic from the networks found in nature,” Taen said as I looked around.
“So, the further away from greenery you are, the weaker your magic?” I asked.
His mouth thinned to a small line.
“I would have phrased it differently.”
“I’m sure you would,” I said without thinking.
“What’s our role here?” Gray asked as he looked out onto the lawns.
“Guard the bones,” Taen said with a shrug.
There was no way they were seriously expecting us to stand around and wait for the necromancers to show up.
“Surely, you know who these necromancers are and can make a move against them?” I asked.
“For that matter, how are they even getting onto the fae plane?” Gray asked.
“Your goddess sent you to guard the bones. The bones are there.”
“There are many ways to protect something. Standing around waiting for it to be attacked isn’t always the best method,” Alasdair said coolly.
“I’m sure the necromancers will show up soon enough.”
Taen left before we could ask any more questions.
This felt wrong. Not even a little bit wrong; this felt as though we’d been set up, and I had no idea why or by whom.
9
The elf guards didn’t say anything. I poked one of them, and he may as well have been a statue. Gray sat out on the lawn and watched the world go by. If the necromancers were going to attack, they’d do it from that direction, so it wasn’t a bad plan.
We couldn’t really discuss the possibility that this was some weird prank from Saoirse.
The elves were clearly listening. Time stretched on, filled entirely with boredom. I spent a little time sitting with Gray, but I hated being still for too long. Alasdair poked around the kitchen and inspected the office-type room. There were a few papers written in a strange language that I assumed was Elven.
The bones didn’t move. The necromancers didn’t come.
I was leaning against a wall tapping my foot when an emerald-eyed elf came into the room.
“You are relieved for the evening,” he said.
The guards filed out of the room like automatons and were replaced with almost identical elves.
“Your food is waiting for you in your rooms,” the emerald-eyed elf told Alasdair.
We followed him back to our rooms and could finally talk again.
I bit into a succulent piece of beautifully tender white meat and closed my eyes, enjoying the taste.
“This job is utter bullshit. I think Saoirse is screwing with us,” I said.
“Agreed,” Alasdair said.
I looked at him and thought I must have misheard.
“Nothing about this makes any sense. The elves don’t want us here, and they’re not taking the guarding of those bones seriously.”
“Why would Saoirse do that?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but she wouldn’t be the first priestess to go rogue,” Alasdair said.
Moon priestesses were supposed to be the one thing you could trust without any doubt as a shifter or lycan. I felt like a little more darkness had crept into the world with the knowledge that even they became corrupt sometimes.
“I think the more important question is, why would she send us here?” Alasdair said.
“This order isn’t what they’re pretending to be. I wonder if there really is even a bunch of necromancers. I mean, how do they get on the fae plane to begin with?”
“They could be working with a fae,” Gray said.
“And there is at least one traitor within the order,” Alasdair said.
I supposed that answered that question.
We were debating whether to go and wander around the complex when an ear-splitting ringing cut through the air. An elf soon burst into the room.
“Necromancers! Zombies!”
I mentally added, ‘Oh my!’ I couldn’t help myself.
We ran after the elf with our knives in hand, my fire magic bubbling through my veins. I wasn’t sure if I could or should use it around the elves, but it felt good to have it there.
Zombies shambled through the doorway out onto the lawns, and I stopped. I hated zombies. Their skin was sagging and pooling around their shoulders where it was falling off their faces. Thin strands of greasy hair fell from shreds of skin that clung to bare skulls. Their fingers had become sharp bones where the flesh had rotted away. And don’t even get me started on the stench.
I didn’t want to sully my knife with the oozing, rotting remains of the zombies, but we couldn’t just stand by as they tried to maul the elves. The elves seemed to have fled, leaving us to deal with the attackers. This just got better and better.
One zombie walked into a wall, stepped back, and walked back into the wall. Alasdair reached around and broke its neck, tearing its head clean off its body. I sighed and got to work. The closest zombie almost fell down the hole onto the bones. I jumped across the bones and landed on the zombie, which tried to sink its fingerbones into me. I followed Alasdair’s lead and tore its head right off its shoulders with a sickening crunch.
Once I got into the flow of things, it wasn’t so bad. The zombies slowly shambled around, and I yanked their heads off before they could get inside. The lawn was soon littered with bags of bones and lonely heads that stared at us accusingly. The zombies didn’t take too long to dispatch, which left us looking for the necromancers.
Necromancers were a horrible creepy bunch. You kind of have to be if you’re going to be screwing around raising the dead. We didn’t stray too far from the main building, not wanting to leave the bones exposed as the elves apparently had. Some guards they were.
We finally caught one of the necromancers trying to sneak around us into the building. He panicked when all three of us ran at him with our teeth bared. He didn’t move, he simply stood there wide-eyed and not breathing. Alasdair beat me to it. He had the longest legs of all of us. He pinned the necromancer to the smooth cream wall and snarled.
“You don’t understand! We’re trying to do the right thing!” the young guy said.
He couldn’t have been much past twenty. His t-shirt was stained with blood and gore, and his jeans hung a little too loosely.
“Raising that god is not the right thing,” I growled.
Confusion filled his face.
“We’re not-”
His eyes rolled back in his head as he was struck with a small arrow in the neck. We all turned to see the elves that had finally shown back up.
“You were taking too long disposing of him,” the elf said coldly.
The servants were already out on the lawn tidying up the zombie remains. Heavens forbid there be a slight stain on their pristine lawn.
10
“They took a finger bone! How did you allow that to happen!? You’re supposed to be goddess-chosen guardians!” an older elf shouted.
“Where the fuck were your elf guards!?” I shouted back.
That wasn’t the best political move, but it felt good. The elf narrowed his eyes at me, and I returned the expression. Alasdair stared him down, and no one spoke while we all silently accused each other of fucking up.
We were the only ones dealing with the zombies and necromancers. If they had been there doing their jobs, the jobs that their entire order had been created to do, then we wouldn’t be in that situation.
“That bone means they have a tie to the larger skeleton. It gives them some power over it,” the elf said slowly.
“We are aware how necromancy works. This also demonstrates that one of your elves is working with the necromancers. We’ll discuss the sheer incompetency and laziness of your order at a later date,” Alasdair said.
The elf turned a rather pretty shade of pink as fury washed away his icy calm.
“I believe it is time that we interviewed your elves to find out who the traitor is. I will be taking over the guard roster as well,” Alasdair said with a sweet smile.
The elf started to turn purple.
Alasdair was in charge of interviewing the elves. He said he didn’t think Gray or I had the political finesse. We hung back and watched as Alasdair asked the various elves very pointed questions about their affiliations and whereabouts.
They all gave the same rote answers. They were loyal to the order; they were where they were supposed to be; they’d give their life to keep the bones hidden and safe.
Every elf answered in the same flat monotone way. It got creepy after the first ten, and it was becoming hilarious by the twentieth. Alasdair was right, I really didn’t have what it took to keep the straight face he managed for the entire time.
A slightly shorter elf with reddish brown hair came into the room. Unlike the others, his eyes flicked around the room, and he looked nervous. All of the previous ones may as well have been robots.
“He looks sketchy as fuck,” I whispered to Gray.
“Agreed.”
“Would you like a break, Guardian Kerrigan?” I asked.
Alasdair narrowed his eyes at me. I never called him by his title. If I wanted to bug him, I called him ‘Daire.’
“No, I believe I can handle this, thank you.”
“Well, I tried,” I whispered to Gray.
The elf was practically squirming in his wooden chair as he looked across the table at Alasdair.
“How long have you been a member of the order?”
The elf swallowed. “Three years.”
“And how did you come to join the order?”
“I… it’s a family thing. I’m following in my uncle’s footsteps.”
I was dying to say
, ‘Look, he clearly did it!’ but I kept my mouth shut.
Alasdair leaned forward a little. The elf paled.
“And why did you decide to work with the necromancers?”
The elf’s eyes went wide.
“I wouldn’t. I didn’t. I mean…”
“You mean?”
“Well, I’m not working with them. I want to protect the bones by whatever means necessary,” he stumbled over the words.
Taen opened the door, and two broad part-bred elves came into the room with swords on their hips.
“I haven’t finished the interview,” Alasdair said.
“You have found the traitor. Well done, Guardian Kerrigan. We will dispose of him. The guards have been doubled on the bones, and those that disappeared during the attack have been disciplined. You’re free to enjoy your evening.”
I felt Alasdair’s wolf push forward and saw the gold glint in his eyes.
“Your food is waiting for you.”
Taen stepped aside and gestured for us to leave the room.
The elf Alasdair had been interviewing was being held down by his shoulders so he couldn’t get up from his chair. Given they executed the necromancer with swift efficiency, I suspected he would suffer the same fate.
Something felt wrong about it all. They were too eager to shuffle us off back to our living quarters. It might be time for some exploring once everyone was in bed.
11
We sat around talking about anything and everything as the sun set. Gray managed to get some signal on his phone, and he got a rush of texts.
“Someone must have opened a rift to the Earth plane nearby,” Alasdair said.
“The anti-veil groups have been working hard. The veil is growing thin around Athens, Lisbon, Paris, and a few other locations throughout Europe. They’re having better luck keeping it up in America, but only barely,” Gray said with a frown.
“We should be out there helping take out those groups!” I said, standing up.
It was beyond ridiculous that we were stuck in that compound watching over some bones when the elves themselves didn’t give a fuck about them.
