Albigard’s breathing was carefully even as Len turned toward him in the dark. “Seriously,” Len asked again, “did they get on you?”
“I believe there is one beneath my tunic, crawling up the right side of my ribcage,” said the Fae, as though the confession wasn’t some serious grade-A horror movie fodder.
Len knelt next to him, feeling blindly for his arm. “Hold still,” he said, realizing an instant after the words left his lips how stupid it sounded, under the circumstances. “Do they bite? Sting?”
“Not generally.”
Working his hand beneath the waist of the fitted tunic, Len felt around until he encountered something wriggling. With a shudder of disgust, he cupped his fingers and scooped it free of the Fae’s clothing before hurling it away. Heart pounding, Len twisted to press his shoulders against the wall, using the splintery wooden barrier to brace himself.
“So is this, like, a common pest problem on Dhuinne?” he asked, not completely successful in keeping his voice steady despite his best attempts. “Don’t you have exterminators here? Because holy shit.”
“Night scuttles are endemic to the Dead Forest,” Albigard replied, still sounding more irritated than freaked out by the situation. “They are not common elsewhere.”
Len blew out a breath, trying to shed some of his jittery tension at the same time. “How did you know they’d follow the bread?”
“This is not the first night I’ve spent in a cell such as this one.” The Fae’s tone was caustic.
Len desperately hoped he hadn’t been alone and bound the last time the scuttling creatures had showed up. He didn’t ask.
“So much for sleep,” he muttered, slumping against the trunk of the hollow tree. Happily, it was free of bugs.
“Indeed,” Albigard agreed tartly.
Once the sound of skittering seemed to be concentrated on the opposite side of the cell, Len cautiously sank down by Albigard’s side once more.
“Tell me in more detail what you think we can do to get Zorah and Rans back,” Len said, figuring it would help pass the time, even if it was a painful subject for both of them.
The Fae hesitated. “It is more a case of manipulating events in such a way that Nigellus may attempt to get them back.”
“He said their souls were in a realm he couldn’t reach,” Len pointed out.
“Perhaps he cannot reach the Void,” Albigard replied. “But the Hunt can. It holds a permanent connection with the endless nothingness. That is why its hunger can never be sated. If it is sufficiently weakened, perhaps Nigellus can use the Hunt itself as a conduit to reach into that nothingness and pull them back.”
It seemed needlessly cruel to point out that the Hunt was getting stronger every time they saw it—not weaker.
“How do we weaken it, then?” he asked instead. “Do you know?”
“Its feral and gluttonous behavior is part of the general illness and imbalance in Dhuinne,” Albigard said after a thoughtful pause. “That’s what the cat-sidhe claimed, at least. If the underlying cause could be found and dealt with...” He trailed off.
“That might take care of everything at once?” Len offered. “The Hunt, the weak spots in the veil...?”
Albigard’s reply sounded thoughtful. “Perhaps so.”
Len let that idea marinate for a few minutes.
“How long has this imbalance been going on?” he asked eventually.
The Fae shifted next to him, trying to ease his position without success. “It is difficult to say. Centuries, certainly. The changes were subtle at first. Only in recent years has the process begun to accelerate.”
Len nodded in the darkness, thinking. “It sounds like a chronic illness, almost. You gain a few pounds here, a few pounds there. Your diet gets a little worse; you have less energy and stop exercising regularly. Then—boom. One day you go into diabetic shock and wonder what happened to suddenly make you so sick.”
“An apt analogy.” Albigard took a moment to choose his words. “Dhuinne and her people have always been a study in opposites, locked in dynamic tension. The forces here are powerful. When they are in balance, it is a place of incomparable beauty and magic. When they are not...”
“Things start to break, and not just in this realm,” Len finished for him. “Yeah, I get the picture.”
Far above them, the tiny circle of sky visible through the top of the hollowed-out tree was growing lighter. Morning had arrived, even if its illumination hadn’t reached them directly quite yet.
Len listened for the sound of scurrying legs. “I can’t hear the night scuttles anymore,” he said.
“They are nocturnal,” Albigard answered. “No doubt they’ve retreated into the root system after gorging on the remains of our bread.”
“When do you think the guards will arrive to get us out of here?” Len asked.
“Probably not until mid-morning. The Court is unlikely to convene before then, and I’ve no doubt we’ll be dragged directly there, when the time comes.”
Len made a sound of irritation. “With dirt stained clothing, bed-head and all, huh? Can I assume that’s another casual bit of humiliation? Hauling you before the most powerful Court in the land without giving you a chance to brush your teeth or take a piss first?”
“You are learning,” Albigard told him dryly.
“Well, fuck that shit,” Len said succinctly.
The first hints of light were beginning to penetrate the gloom of the tree cell, morphing undifferentiated blackness into shades of gray. He got up, found the little hole they were expected to use as a latrine, and emptied his bladder. When he was done, he retrieved the water gourd and used a dribble of the remaining contents to scrub and rinse his hands. After taking a couple of sips and swilling it around like mouthwash before swallowing it, he brought the rest of the water to Albigard and crouched in front of him.
“Finish this,” he ordered. “After last night, you need it more than I do. When you’re done, you can piss into the container, so I can dump it in the latrine.”
“How unflinchingly practical of you,” Albigard replied, and didn’t argue despite the mild distaste coloring his tone.
“Call me crazy, but I’d rather deal with normal bodily fluids than giant, swarming bugs.”
Len helped him take care of business—less bothered by the awkwardness than Albigard probably was, thanks to years spent as an EMT, dealing with the worst that human bodies had to offer.
Once he’d disposed of the waste and refastened Albigard’s fly for the second time in the last few hours, he refolded the blanket and set it on the ground in its original spot. Since his ass was sore from sitting on the bare ground for so long last night, he staked out a spot to stand leaning against the wall and tilted his head back to watch the morning sky brighten above them.
“We must address your lack of death energy as soon as practicable,” Albigard said, breaking the silence. “Preferably without anyone else in Dhuinne being the wiser.”
Len jerked his attention to the Fae’s dark silhouette. “Address it how?” he asked warily.
“No doubt I will be returned to this cell as soon as the Court finishes hearing my petition,” Albigard told him. “But you must not accompany me this time. Allow them to give you better accommodations. Express interest in the preparation of food, and try to arrange to be present at the butchering of an animal—or better yet, attempt to visit an abattoir. No doubt it would be most effective if you can dispatch an animal yourself.”
Len stared at him.
“That’s... your plan?” he said slowly.
Albigard’s annoyance hung in the air like a cloud. “Would you prefer me to counsel you to murder someone? It’s doubtful you’d succeed against a Fae. And natural death is vanishingly rare in this realm.”
“So... I’m supposed to tap whoever’s guarding me on the shoulder and casually ask for a tour of the local butcher’s operation?” Len asked in disbelief. “Hey, buddy... too bad about the Fae archetype of death te
aring holes through reality and eating entire neighborhoods on Earth, huh? Anyway, while we’re waiting for the shit to hit the fan, how about you take me to see some animals getting their throats slit? I have a convenient and not at all strange or creepy interest in things like that.” He snorted. “Sure, that ought to work. No problem.”
He could just about make out Albigard’s eyes now, as the sun continued its slow climb outside their prison. The Fae seemed to be watching him very... fixedly.
“If you do not find and attract fresh animus from death,” he said, “I can’t guarantee that you will survive the Hunt the next time you attempt to stand in its way.”
An unpleasant chill trickled down Len’s spine, along with a dull pang of loss over the reminder of Yussef and the rest of his absent specters.
But Albigard was still on a roll. “I should have enjoined you to destroy some of the night scuttles earlier,” the Fae muttered, as though to himself. “Although they are as hard to kill as everything else in Dhuinne.”
The logistics of trying to do his alleged necromancer... thing... while under close supervision in the Fae realm stopped Len cold for a few seconds. It wasn’t just his own safety at stake—it was also his ability to be of any use in stopping the very thing they’d come here to stop. He was only useful to the extent that he could protect Albigard and control the Hunt’s movements—thanks to its aversion for him. And frankly, he had deep misgivings about his ability to succeed at the first part of that painfully short to-do list.
Because Len wasn’t stupid enough to think that the Hunt was the only threat Albigard faced here.
“If worse comes to worst,” he said uncertainly, “I’ll yank every plant I can get my hands on up by the roots.”
“That would be better than nothing, certainly,” Albigard agreed. “Though you will need to crush or shred them thoroughly afterward, else they will simply re-root and grow back rather than dying. Burning would work, too.” He sounded completely serious.
This is insane, Len thought, with a hint of desperation. His internal voice sounded more than a little hysterical.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied aloud. Then, to divert attention from the growing sense of things barreling off the rails, he added, “What about you? How are you holding up?”
There was a very long pause.
“Roughly as one might expect.” Albigard’s tone was steady... but only just.
“... yeah.” Len let the word escape as a whisper. He swallowed a couple of times, not sure if the rest of what he wanted to say would be appreciated or not. “Look—I’m sorry this is happening in the first place, and I’m doubly sorry that we’re both stuck at the center of it. But... I do appreciate the chance to get to know you as more than the conceited asshole who tried to control my mind right before I punched him in the face.”
Awkward silence settled over the cell.
“As I have expressed previously, you are not what I expected,” Albigard said.
A sad smile tugged at Len’s lips. “For a human?” he suggested.
“Yes,” replied the Fae. “For a human. For a necromancer.”
“Hey, I’m just a guy with blue hair and an addiction problem,” Len said, not sure why he suddenly felt the need to deflect.
“Nonetheless,” Albigard insisted. “Despite the risk it poses to you, I...” He hesitated minutely. “... appreciate your presence here.”
The vulnerability behind the words tightened Len’s throat.
“Don’t mention it,” he managed.
They fell into silence after that, each lost in their own thoughts as the light crept down into their isolated little world. Stuck inside a tree with someone who’d watched empires rise and fall, Len thought about all the things he had—and hadn’t—managed to accomplish in his short life.
Stopping the Hunt would be a hell of an impressive capstone for an otherwise unremarkable twenty-eight years; he just didn’t see how they were realistically going to manage it. And after what had been done to his neighborhood in St. Louis, Len was pretty sure he’d rather not be around to see the resulting carnage if they didn’t succeed.
TWENTY-TWO
WHEN A GUARD finally arrived to take them out of the cell, it wasn’t the guy with the personal grudge against Albigard, happily. In fact, it was a woman. She was dressed in formal clothing—high-necked and stiffly tailored—though her belt bristled with weapons. A ball of glowing light floated through the portal as she arrived, illuminating red hair shot through with gray.
“The Court will hear your petition now, son of Oren,” she said, and waved a hand in Albigard’s direction.
The invisible bindings holding him fell away. He fell forward with a stifled grunt, catching himself awkwardly with his wrists still shackled to the iron collar around his neck. Len itched to rush to him and help him up... to say he has a name, you know. But that wouldn’t help. Instead, it would only bring more contempt down on him for consorting with a lowly human.
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep any words from escaping, and watched Albigard closely to make sure he really hadn’t suffered any serious damage from the night of unforgiving bondage. The Fae managed to push his weight over his center of gravity and stagger to his feet—ambulatory, but lacking most of his usual grace.
He faced the newcomer, looking very much like someone who’d been stuck in a cell for the better part of a day—but thankfully not like someone who’d been enthusiastically and repeatedly debauched during the night.
“Has the full Court convened?” he asked, once he’d regained his equilibrium. “Or solely the Seelie Court, as I originally requested?”
Len got the impression that was code for ‘is my asshole of a father going to be there?’ He could sympathize—the idea of showing up at his own trial and finding that his dad was the judge sounded like some serious nightmare fodder.
“The Unseelie Court was unwilling to sign off on a secret hearing,” said the woman. “You will address the full Court instead. Come.”
Albigard nodded, hiding his reaction to that bit of news behind his customary poker face. Len steeled himself to play a considerably different role than the one he’d played last night—that of the potentially helpful, but otherwise uninteresting human who totally wasn’t a necromancer. He had a feeling he was going to be biting the inside of his cheek a lot today to keep from saying what he was really thinking.
He followed Albigard through the portal, hyperaware of the armed Fae woman at his back. Len wasn’t sure exactly what he’d expected on the other side, but when his dizziness and disorientation passed, it became clear that he’d mentally underestimated the level of weird on display in this world.
Several people had already mentioned Dhuinne’s plant life being out of control. Which—okay. Hello, giant trees with hollow trunks big enough to use as jail cells. But even so, Earth also had its redwood forests. It wasn’t a completely alien concept.
Earth did not have entire cities choked by jungle-like vines and flowers until the massive buildings were barely recognizable as buildings anymore. Or, rather, it probably did... but only after the cities had been abandoned by their inhabitants and left to rot.
This was like walking out of the new location of the Brown Fox in St. Louis—only to discover that it had become a lost city in the Amazonian rainforest overnight, while people were still trying to live there.
From the bits and pieces he could still see, the architecture resembled that of Western Europe’s oldest cities. Len supposed that made sense, if the Fae had been influencing human culture since the time of the Holy Roman Empire. There were spires and cornices, arches and columns, all of them dripping with tropical foliage and trumpet-like blooms large enough to swallow a person.
The three of them were facing a huge, official looking multi-story building that Len took to be the place where the Court convened. Double doors flanked by armed guards loomed in front of them. It looked as though the thick tangle of vines had recently been hacked away fro
m the entrance, but twisting green tendrils were already exploring the edges with an eye toward fresh conquest.
Their escort walked past them and approached the guards. “We are expected,” she said curtly.
The pair flanking the entrance dipped their chins in acknowledgement before opening the doors so they could enter. Vines snapped with a twang as the doors swung wide to admit them. Len tried not to gape as he crossed the threshold. It wasn’t just the outdoors that had been taken over by nature—the inside was, as well.
Blue-green moss dotted with tiny white flowers covered the floor like a bad psychedelic carpet from the seventies. A massive central stairway dominated the building’s atrium, the balusters choked with more of the spreading vines. Oversized trumpet flowers hung from the arched ceiling like chandeliers.
It was all Len could do to avoid tripping over his own feet—or the occasional poorly placed tendril weaving across the moss-covered floor—as he followed Albigard and the Seelie escort toward a second, interior set of two-story tall double doors.
The place was crazy. It was like the polar opposite of Len’s neighborhood after the Hunt had consumed it... as if all the life that had been sucked out of St. Louis had somehow ended up getting siphoned here.
Something about the idle musing resonated in his thoughts, but he was distracted from the thread as the interior doors opened for them and they were shepherded into the Court’s domain. The massive room resembled a hybrid between a cathedral and a theater. It was just as overgrown with plants as the rest of the building—so much so that it took Len a while to realize that there was an audience of onlookers seated on the pew-like benches, mostly hidden by all the foliage.
He and Albigard were ushered down a central aisle to an open area, situated beneath a raised stage divided into two halves. Each half of the stage held a long wooden structure like a judge’s bench, or the long desks in the chamber of a legislative body. Each structure had a dozen or so severe-looking Fae seated behind it, looking down on Len and Albigard from their elevated positions of authority.
Forsaken Fae: The Complete Series, Books 1-3 (Last Vampire World) Page 35
