by Eric Asher
I set the mottled red and green bloodstone on the coffee table, beside the now-empty pizza box. There was no trace of the blood that had been there before; it vanished as soon as I’d lifted the Book that Bleeds and slid it back into its slot inside the chest.
I turned the dagger across my arm. Its blade wasn’t particularly sharp, but I knew what power lived within it. And I had little doubt there was far more for me to learn. What I’d read about the keys of the dead in the Book that Bleeds unnerved me. They could be used to break Seals, the great Seals that separated dimensions. They could be used to rebuild them, or to help forge an entirely new Seal. What the Book that Bleeds had not told me, however, was what powers or incantations one would need to accomplish these things. How dangerous was it in the hands of the seventh son of Anubis?
I ran my thumb in a clockwise circle across the faded runes on the circular ornaments at the base of the hilt. Gwynn Ap Nudd had left the Key of the Dead with me when he could’ve taken it. A trap? After more research in the Book that Bleeds, I didn’t think so. Gwynn Ap Nudd was not ironborn, and the dagger was forged from iron and nickel, diluted with Magrasnetto.
With the Key of the Dead and Gaia’s help, I could step into the bloodstone with Tessrian. And legend said I would be able to step into any bloodstone, holding any demon. I don’t know that Tessrian and I had what most would call a relationship, but I had something she wanted, and that kept us on fairly good terms.
Stepping into a bloodstone with a random demon, on the other hand, would likely be a long walk off a very short plank.
I set the dagger on the table and picked up the bloodstone. I wondered if there was something else I could do with the demons. Some way to manipulate them into helping us in the war against Gwynn Ap Nudd. But they were unpredictable creatures at best. And some of them weren’t demons at all. Regardless of his existence as a fire demon, I could never lump Mike in with those creatures. A memory surfaced, a quick glimpse of Mike’s true form, the long limbs, the twisted horns … but I’d also seen his gentleness. I’d seen the oath that he’d sworn. I’d seen his broken spirit when Sarah died. If he had ever been a demon, he wasn’t one anymore.
I put the dagger and the stone back into the trunk before sliding Gaia’s hand into my backpack. I closed the trunk and placed it gently flush in its nook against the wall, where it vanished. No mortal, nor many Fae, for that matter, would be able to see it. Much less open it.
I’d spent too many hours buried in the Book that Bleeds. I needed something, not necessarily lighter, but something that I could relax while reading. I picked a thin blue tome from the bookshelf on the wall above the chest. And I flipped to the third chapter of Leviticus Aureus and the Fall of Atlantis.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Most nights in the shop, the dead were silent. If anything woke me up, it was usually Bubbles or Peanut streaking into the room like a furry missile before slamming into me on one of the chairs. Tonight was different.
Someone called my name. I was unsure if the voice was there, unsure I’d heard the sound when it first echoed through my consciousness. I grumbled something unintelligible and cracked my eyes open to find a gray form standing nearby. I didn’t think anything of it. I just figured it was Koda, using Ward’s circle to do some research. My eyes flicked to the clock on the wall. When I realized it was the witching hour, a frisson of dread shot through my spine.
I snapped my gaze back to the form inside the ghost circle. It didn’t have Koda’s cloak, or his oversized prayer beads resting around his neck. For that matter, the ghost before me wasn’t fully formed. It shouldn’t have been able to get inside, much less place itself inside the ghost circle, unless it was Koda. That meant it had help, which meant someone else had to be here.
The ghost made no move to approach me. It only held up its hand and stared at the translucent fog that had once been its fingers. When it raised its eyes to me, each was black, struck through with a tiny bit of yellow lightning. “They are coming. They are near.”
My heart rate spiked, amplifying the dread wrapping itself around my spine. “Why? And how did you get in here?”
The ghost was a few feet away from me, and then it wasn’t. It moved toward me, one moment a safe distance, and the next I was staring into gold-tinted eyes mere inches in front of my own. “They are coming.” The ghost vanished.
“What the fuck?” I muttered. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be getting a lot more sleep that night. I figured I should probably warn the fairies, in case the ghost hadn’t been off his rocker. I tried to remember details about him, what he’d been wearing, where I’d seen the patterns on his uniform before. But he’d had a vague form, as if someone had started pulling him apart. Perhaps it had been the aftereffects of being torn away from whatever battlefield he’d died on. I suspected that’s what had happened, considering the soul that still waited within his eyes.
For a moment, I wondered if the ghost had been from World War I, like the ghost who had helped us near Rivercene. I frowned. I didn’t think so. I was pretty sure his shoulder had an honor braid, and an old one at that. One like they’d used during the Civil War, one that Zola would’ve called chicken guts.
I hopped out of the chair and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, heading toward the stairs. I tried to remember any nearby battles where an officer might have fallen in the Civil War, as I suspected some of the shadowy forms on the ghost had signified his rank. But I couldn’t think of any specific ones.
I paused when I reached the bottom of the stairs. Bubbles stared at the back door.
“You saw it, too.”
Bubbles chuffed.
“Keep watch for me.”
Bubbles settled onto the floor, her head on her paws, staring at the door. I had to admit, cu siths made good guard dogs. Of course, I also suspected she’d be back in her lair about five seconds after I turned my back.
“Foster, Aideen, you awake?” When no one answered, I knocked on the edge of the grandfather clock. Foster had once told me that was about the same as being hit by an earthquake, so I figured they’d wake up sooner rather than later.
It didn’t take long before Foster stumbled out from the back of the clock, stepping onto what had been an empty shelf a moment before, the deep interior of their home hidden by whatever wards had been placed on the old wood.
“What the hell?” Foster muttered.
“There was a ghost.”
Foster raised an eyebrow and stared at me.
“An unusual ghost.”
“And why does that require you to wake us up with a bloody earthquake?”
“It was weird. All the ghost would say was, ‘They are coming. They are near.’”
“Son of a bitch,” Foster said. “Why didn’t you say so? That’s an old fairy warning.” He ran back inside the clock, and I suspected it was to fetch Aideen.
* * *
It wasn’t long before the fairies reappeared on the grandfather clock’s middle shelf, Foster in mid-sentence. “…telling you, it was one of the old warnings. Whatever it was, it told Damian, ‘They are coming. They are near.’”
“No,” Aideen said. “That phrase is long dead. It hasn’t been used in earnest since the time of Atlantis and the fall of the Mad King.”
Alexandra’s minuscule form sprinted out of the grandfather clock, swelling into her full height, translucent one moment, flesh the next. “We must tell Nixie.” She turned her emerald eyes to me. “What did it look like? The ghost, what did it look like?”
“Like a Civil War soldier. Much of his body was ill-defined. I could see honor braids on one shoulder, but it definitely wasn’t the uniform of a modern soldier.”
“I’ll be at the river,” Alexandra said. She hurried toward the saloon-style doors, hitting them at a full run. “Don’t let anyone into the store that you don’t know,” she shouted over her shoulder. “If I haven’t returned in fifteen minutes, assume the worst. And make ready.” She unlocked the deadbolt on the front door and was gone
.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked, turning to Foster and Aideen.
“It was the last thing the Mad King’s advisor ever said to him,” Foster said. “Before one of his own knights took his head. So it’s a safe bet that a ghost from the Civil War doesn’t know the phrase. Someone manipulated an older ghost.”
“Get your gun, your focus, and anything else you can kill with. And then we wait to see if Alexandra comes back.”
“Let’s follow her and make sure she comes back,” I said.
“No,” Aideen said. “I understand why you want to, but if this is the beginning of an attack, she has a better chance alone.”
“A better chance than what?” I asked.
“A better chance to escape an army stationed outside your door, than having to worry about the three of us.”
Bubbles picked that moment to trundle out of her lair and chuff as she looked up at Aideen.
“The four of us,” Aideen said, gliding down to settle on the cu sith’s head.
The first few minutes flew by as Foster and Aideen slipped into their armor, and I pulled the holster for the pepperbox over my head before sliding the hilt of the focus into my belt. Once the frantic rush to gather our weapons was over, time barely seemed to be passing at all.
* * *
“Who sent the message in Atlantis?” I asked.
Aideen and Foster exchanged a glance before Aideen said, “It was Nixie and Alexandra’s queen, the last time the throne of the water witches was emptied.”
Even though it was one of the few answers I expected to hear, it wasn’t reassuring. In fact, knowing so many of our allies were out of touch—either on a mission for the Obsidian Inn or fighting a battle of their own near Falias—was downright unsettling.
“We need to warn who we can,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “You haven’t heard from the Obsidian Inn yet, have you?”
“No,” Foster said. “Whatever is happening, they either don’t need our help, or everyone’s already dead.”
I thought that was probably a little more black-and-white than reality, but it didn’t seem like the time to argue with Foster. I started texting Sam.
Shop might be under attack. Be ready.
She responded a moment later. I’ll gather the others.
Hold off until you hear from me. We don’t know what’s happening yet. It might be a warning. Just waiting for Alexandra’s report.
Keep me posted.
“Sam will have some of the vampires ready, if we need them.”
I thought about reaching out to Alan, as I knew he was back from Kansas City for at least a week to spend more time with his family. But I didn’t want to drag the werewolves into this if I didn’t have to. That should be Hugh’s choice, as alpha of the river pack. They’d sacrificed enough over the years for us, and to Philip’s ruses.
I stared at my phone, a creeping sense of dread crawling up my spine.
“What’s wrong?” Aideen said.
“A ruse. This could be a ruse. Not a warning, not an attack. A ruse to keep us here, on our toes, and away from another target.”
“Casper,” Foster said.
I cursed.
“One of us could go scout the base,” Foster said.
I shook my head. “We’re thinned out enough as it is. We haven’t reached half our allies, and we’ve heard nothing from Alexandra. They could be waiting for her to come back.”
Foster pulled his sword a fraction of an inch from its sheath before slamming it home with a click. “I don’t like this.”
“Of course not,” Aideen said. “You haven’t stabbed a single thing yet today.”
Foster gave her a sideways smile.
Aideen glanced at the clock. “Anytime now. If Alexandra isn’t back before the quarter hour has ended, we must either make a stand or run.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The relief I felt when the bell on the front door jingled and Alexandra reappeared in the shop was no small thing. I blew out a breath before asking her if she’d learned anything.
Alexandra shook her head. “Nixie doesn’t know any more than we do. The queen’s forces haven’t moved. The bulk of them are still stationed near the Royal Courts in Faerie, and many more around Falias.”
“Then what the hell happened tonight?” I asked.
“I would still believe it to be a warning,” Aideen said, “or a distraction.”
“Tell Park,” Foster said. “They don’t need to be caught unaware.”
I was pretty sure Frank was the only one of us with a direct line to Park. I figured Sam had probably woken him up, so I texted him, asking him to tell Park to make sure Casper was secure and guarded. And if they had anything with iron in it, to keep it handy.
Frank confirmed the requests. He asked for more details, but unfortunately, I didn’t really have any.
“I told Frank to let Park know to call us if they saw anything unusual. They see so much as a hint of a fairy near the base, they’ll call us.”
“That’s good,” Aideen said. “Now we must decide. Do we stay here? Or do we head for the base?”
“Honestly, I think anything short of an army of Fae attacking that base would be a suicide run.”
“Not if they’re water witches,” Alexandra said. “The military won’t have the weapons needed to defend against an attack from a water witch.”
“Park should have a weapon,” Aideen said. “A fragment of the stone dagger, or even an arrow.”
“I don’t know if that would be the wisest decision,” Alexandra said. “I understand your need to protect the humans, but there’s a need to protect our own kind as well.”
“If Park falls at the hands of the Fae,” Aideen said, “at the hands of a water witch… The tensions between all Fae and the military could escalate exponentially.”
Alexandra sighed. “And we know how the humans are in war.”
“Scorched earth,” I said. “We don’t need that.”
She nodded. “So be it. We can give him a sliver of a blade,” she said, still showing hesitation in her words. “The effect would not be as instantaneous, or perhaps even as deadly, as one of the stone daggers. Nonetheless, any water witch who sees the humans strike with a weapon that has the properties of a stone dagger will think twice before pursuing them.”
“Do you have the shards?” I asked. “This is something we can get soon?”
“If we could take the Warded Ways,” Alexandra said, “they would be close, indeed. But without knowing what’s happening near the Obsidian Inn, we don’t dare. And the armory that houses them isn’t far from Falias.”
“Is it not in Falias?” Aideen asked.
Alexandra shook her head. “Regardless, we dare not take the Ways.”
“If you can’t take the Ways, then I’ll have Gaia take me there.”
“One cannot just walk into the armory,” Alexandra said, an edge of exasperation in her voice. “The Utukku guarding it would kill you in an instant, shielded or not.”
“I think I can handle the Utukku,” I said.
“Their leader guards our weapons,” Alexandra said. “Many of her people are stationed at the Obsidian Inn, and she’ll kill anyone to protect them.”
“I hate to say this,” Aideen said, “but Damian does have a reputation with the Utukku. And their leader, in particular.”
Alexandra frowned for a moment, and her eyebrows rose. “I had forgotten that you banished the glamor from the leader of the Utukku.”
I nodded, remembering how frightened I’d been when I first arrived at the Royal Courts, only to blast the glamor away from a Fae who was more intimidated by me than I of her. A situation that could have gone very badly.
“You just said we shouldn’t separate,” Foster said. “And now you’re talking about using Gaia to walk through the Abyss to the other side of the freaking country.”
“It’ll be short,” I said. “And if I need to, Gaia can bring me back at a moment’s notic
e.”
“We can’t communicate through the Warded Ways,” Aideen said. “You’ll be relying on a cell phone signal to reach us. And you know that area has had communications issues since Falias was brought onto this plane.”
I cursed. “What else can we do?”
“We can wait to hear from the Obsidian Inn,” Aideen said. “Though I’m afraid whatever machinations are moving may come to fruition by that time.”
Taking Gaia’s hand and going to the armory meant leaving the others there. Or I could take some of them with me, but I’d leave even fewer people to defend our own. Going alone left fewer people to defend Sam and Vicky, though Vicky had Jasper, which I suspected made her safer than the rest of us. But Saint Charles itself needed us. I cursed again.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “We can’t afford fewer allies anywhere. Let me talk to Zola.”
I had little doubt Sam had woken my master about five seconds after I texted her. And considering how fast Zola answered her phone, I knew I was right.
“What is it, boy?”
I gave her the rundown, what I saw as the advantages, disadvantages, and uncertainties about both plans.
“It’s a hard decision,” Zola said. “It’s quite likely you’ll be ambushed if you stay in Saint Charles. It’s also quite likely you will be killed by the lizard people if you walk with Gaia.”
“What do you think?”
“Boy,” Zola said, “I have seen war. Ah’ve seen men bleed each other dry, and as powerful as the Fae are, there is nothing more dangerous than man.”
It didn’t take much to see what she really meant. “We need Park.”
“Yes.”
“Bringing him a weapon he can use to fight the water witches … it would help solidify us as friends, and that would make him an even stronger ally.”
“Ah agree, boy. Regardless, be quick. Tell as few people as you can. From what you tell me of that ghost, it may still be inside the shop. Ah’ve heard of similar things, though Ah’ve not seen them with my own eyes.”
