The Rise of the Dark Lord

by Ashley, Kristen

Good thing about this, leaving a trail of dead human bodies in her wake makes her a lot easier to track, especially since she doesn’t have wings to leave any residue (something Cystien should have thought about before he’d pissed her off this bad by disfiguring her, though I couldn’t know if she was on a vengeful rampage rather than just continuing to be straight-up looney tunes, I still was blaming all of this on Cystien).

  Bad thing about this, she’s leaving a trail of dead human bodies in her wake.

  We find her minions PDQ, seeing as they broke ranks and were setting up sex cults.

  Sar, Trae and BecBec dealt with them, and back we went to the Forest of Dean to hand them off to some Guardians.

  This is not the relief one would think it would be considering the fact that everyone who’s even seen a single action film knows, it isn’t the baddie’s minions who are the problem.

  The hero could mow through a thousand of them with a machine gun and she or he would still be up shit’s creek.

  You gotta get the Big Bad.

  And she was still out there.

  We think we’ve got her pegged in Torquay, so we make the only plan we can in the circumstances, considering she might be wingless, but she’s still faerie, and if she can annihilate unsuspecting men, she can reduce all of us to cinders.

  Except Trae, Sar and BecBec.

  Gabe and Mack actually witness her picking up a dude in a pub.

  And it’s on.

  We follow her to his place (less witnesses that way).

  Su, Anita and I do a quick sister spell that binds our magic so all of it will come through a single wand (mine), just as long as we’re physically touching.

  Ash uses what little magic he has to cloak himself in case we fuck this up and someone has to trail her (spoiler alert: we fucked it up and we do it in a way that Ash is distracted and he doesn’t trail her).

  Gabe and Mack provide perimeter support (whatever that is, though they knew what it was when Ash told them to do it because they took off and did it).

  And we send Sar, Trae and BecBec in.

  Now, you’ve seen those scenes in movies and TV shows where the outsiders are looking into a building where the action is happening, and great flashes of light shine out of the windows like the beams of a lighthouse?

  Yeah.

  That was how it went down.

  And (gross alert), in the midst of that, while Su, Anita and I stood outside, wand up, their hands on my wrists, a window explodes because something was thrown out of it.

  That something?

  The charred remains of the human dude.

  Now, at that, I’m not pissed.

  I’m incensed.

  There I am, feet away from the madness, and I couldn’t keep a human safe?

  A human?

  Was that the story of the Chosen One?

  Hell fucking no.

  Yes, you can see where this leads.

  It was me who fucked shit up.

  I did this by breaking ranks and racing into the dude’s house (a semi-detached) where all this was going down.

  Ash dropped his cloak when I did, bellowing, “Mathilda!”

  Humans were amassing due to the blinding bright flashes of light coming out the windows, not to mention the dead body being tossed out.

  They’ve got phones up, not to call 999, to video this mess.

  I ignore all of this and race up the stairs.

  I use a spell to break open the door.

  Maithieliel sees me and shrieks, “You!”

  I shriek in return, “You!”

  (Give me a break, the situation was serious, I didn’t have a better comeback at hand.)

  She winds up.

  I fling my wand out.

  And it wasn’t Voldemort and Harry at the end of the battle of Hogwarts with sizzling, dripping magic when our steams blended.

  We blew up the house.

  Yeah, we blew up the house.

  Fortunately, Mack had gotten everyone out of the other side, our faeries were immune to death and I was the Chosen One with a vampire brother, so I just got blown to the street where I landed on my back on Gabe, who’d flown there as a bat and then transformed in order to act as a vampire mattress.

  FYI: It still hurt (ouch x1,922).

  Gabe said he didn’t feel a thing (I suspected he was lying, but I didn’t push it).

  And Maithieliel disappeared.

  This caused Ash to lose his ever-lovin’ mind at me (honestly, I didn’t blame him), which necessitated me listening to an hour-long lecture about following the orders of your commanding officer and how I’d just wasted massive amounts of magic that it’d take weeks to recoup when this wasn’t the only problem we were facing and yadda, yadda, yadda.

  (Huh.)

  (Sucks when your fiancé is right, just sayin’.)

  It also necessitated Dr. Bennett and Marcus hightailing it back to 10 Downing Street to explain why the witches and Fae that were on The Shadow Widow’s trail were blowing up houses.

  Enter the phase where she laid low for a few days.

  And then we got news from some faeries who were taking a break from their sex cult to go grocery shopping in Tintagel.

  Yeah, Tintagel.

  One of my favorite places on the planet.

  Also the site where King Arthur was conceived (theme emerging? hope not, the love of his life cheated on him and he did not exactly find the Holy Grail).

  So off we went.

  In the meantime, Sar and Trae had sent word to the Realm and we’d beefed up our forces with a dozen Guardians of the Realm.

  I was absolutely forbidden (forbidden! by my fiancé!) to use magic unless “all other options are exhausted.”

  And Ash (cloaked) did not let her get her hooks in another one.

  The minute she sent a come-hither look to a guy in a pub, the Fae descended.

  Full-winged.

  Needless to say, this freaked the other patrons of pub right the fuck out and they ran, some of them screaming, into the night.

  I’m outside and Su, Anita and me have our sister spell activated, but it’s Su’s wand up and at the ready.

  And Maithieliel comes tearing out.

  Now, this is when I learn that faeries don’t need wings to fly.

  In other words, the bitch could move.

  She flies through the wee town (on her feet).

  Right toward the English Heritage site.

  That’s right.

  Where the ruins of the castle where Arthur was conceived are.

  Gak!

  We chase after her, and as I’m vowing to (maybe) start working out because I’ve got a stitch in my side and I’m breathing so heavily, I think my heart’s going to explode, we get to the cliffs.

  And there she is.

  She’s pinned at the cliffs, and since she doesn’t have any wings, she’s got nowhere to go.

  Ash orders a couple of faeries to fly down to the water just in case she jumps.

  Su, Anita and I hang back.

  Mack is taking Ash’s back.

  Gabe is flapping around overhead.

  The rest of the Fae surround her, on land and having taken wing.

  To the writing of this, I still don’t know what she did that made BecBec shout, “Humans, cover your eyes!” before BecBec flung out her arm and singlehandedly doing the spell Prunella and I did all those months ago, and all the air around us grew darker, like the moon and stars had dulled in wattage.

  I was just glad she did because I have time to grab onto Su and Anita, pull them to the ground and then land cross-body over their heads before closing my own eyes and wrapping my arms around my head.

  The light is so freaking bright, it still ekes through.

  But honest to the Goddess, I’d take being blinded if I never have to hear that shriek she emitted again.

  It was the sound she made when Cystien took her wings but ratcheted up way past eleven.

  And then there’s a BOOM! that’s like the sound barrier was
broken. No joke, it’s actually a physical thing, and a wave of weight made of nothing at all slams into us before a gust of wind rips over us.

  After that, Sar says, “It is safe.”

  I get up.

  I help Anita and Su up.

  Su says, “Never lie on my head again!”

  I say, “You’re welcome for your continuing eyesight.”

  Ash says, “Cut the bickering.”

  I rethink making my man our team leader (for the two thousandth time).

  We all turn to Maithieliel who is not bound with golden ropes, but ones that look made of steel.

  She is, of course, looking at me.

  I brace for another annoying back and forth where she blames me for something that is not my fault.

  But that doesn’t happen.

  She says, “I just wanted him back.”

  Seriously?????????????

  It’s been three thousand years!

  “Yes, well, I wanted those Christian Louboutin heels that had wings on the straps but they sold out like that,” I snapped my fingers, “and I didn’t wipe out entire communities, oppress my people and go on a killing spree in a snit because I didn’t get a pair.”

  “The loss of a loved one is not like the loss of a pair of shoes,” she spat.

  “What I’m saying is, life is life. It’s full of disappointment and devastation and grief and things we can’t control and things that get out of hand and things we wish we didn’t do or say and things we can’t fix and things we want that we cannot have. It’s the manner of a being, any being as to how we handle that,” I retorted.

  “It totally freaks me out when you act all wise,” Su muttered.

  I whirled on my sister. “I don’t act wise. I am wise.”

  “Whatever,” she kept muttering.

  “What’d I say about bickering?” Ash cut in.

  I shot my man a look.

  As per usual, it deflected off him and disintegrated into the air.

  “Trae, Sar, BecBec, take the Guardians and escort her to the closest mound and then down to the Realm. And I want you to personally pick the guards who look after her before you return to the team,” Ash ordered.

  But he wasn’t done.

  “And don’t return to the team unless you feel absolutely secure in the guards you choose.”

  He got nods from the Fae and then they huddled.

  Ash, Gabe (back to human form) and Mack walked to Su, Anita and me.

  I wanted to watch my man walk to me, and when he arrived, suggest celebrating this victory in some way (seeing as they seemed few and far between so we should take advantage when we had one).

  But his eyes were not on me as he approached us.

  They were beyond me.

  I turned that way to see we had an audience of humans.

  Not sure how I didn’t notice them, since some were keening, others were moaning, these people covering their eyes.

  The ones who weren’t were either comforting or drawing away the ones who were or they were staring at us like they’d come to the fateful and distressing conclusion that they’d lost their minds.

  “We have a problem,” Ash murmured.

  I suspected he was right.

  10 October

  He was right.

  It started the next morning when I woke in an empty bed, hearing a telly going.

  I rolled out of bed, stumbled into the living room (unsurprisingly, Le Société had a safe house in Cornwall, it was all beachy and fishermany and Cornish and Shell Seekers, I loved it).

  Ash was not lounging on the couch, sipping some java and catching up on the events of the day.

  He was standing, staring at the TV with a look on his face I wasn’t a big fan of.

  I didn’t ask “What?”

  I looked to the TV to see a man in an unkempt suit with a wild head of blond hair blustering at the camera.

  “The existence of these creatures has been kept from the citizens of this country by the government for centuries. And now they’ve lost control of these beasts and our youth is being kidnapped and brainwashed or murdered in their beds!”

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  Ash looked to me, lifted the remote, pointed it at the TV and pressed a button.

  Cue the switch to another station where there was a talking head at a desk with three other talking heads on a graphic panel floating beside him.

  One of the talking heads on the panel was saying, “The events of last night quite obviously correlate with events being reported around the globe, most notably the situation at Glastonbury Tor last Halloween and an explosion that rocked an amphitheater in Colorado just last August.”

  The next talking head said, “Indeed. And as panic is beginning to take hold, governments everywhere are keeping mum about this when it’s very clear the peoples all over the planet are in grave danger.”

  “Uh-oh,” I repeated.

  Ash did the remote thing again and it was just a man from a satellite feed, saying, “…for years. And my demands for more transparency fell on deaf ears. It’s clear, they’re developing these…things as weapons. We’ve no idea their scope. Their reach. Their power. Anything about them. And now their machinations have been made public, and it’s obvious they’re no longer under anyone’s control, panic is ensuing, and they cannot be surp—”

  Ash switched and there was a report on a run on toilet paper, bottled water and canned goods at a grocery store in Surrey.

  He switched again, and there was someone talking over grainy footage of Gabe helping me to my feet, the remains of a house smoldering around us, and my hair looked really bad.

  “Um…” I hummed.

  The television turned off.

  I looked to Ash.

  “This has been happening all morning,” he stated.

  Great.

  “Pack, sweetheart. We’ve been ordered to London. And the Prime Minister is demanding to speak directly to you.”

  Fabulous.

  Well, one thing about this, I was going to get to see 10 Downing Street.

  I just was no longer fired up about that.

  Ack.

  Headed to Downing Street unprepared, and not only because I didn’t have time to buy a new outfit.

  When we arrived, did not get offered a tour.

  Instead, Ash and I were immediately shown to a big room with a long table that was filled with a bunch of white guys, a couple Asian guys and a token woman.

  We were not offered seats.

  We were not offered greetings.

  Nope.

  None of this.

  What happened next was the PM ordered, “Miss Honeycutt, explain.”

  “You could use a little diversity in your cabinet,” I remarked.

  “This is not an explanation,” he told me something I knew, his face getting red. “It’s our understanding with the strength of your…” he flicked a hand at me repeatedly, “sorcery you had this situation in hand.”

  I didn’t like the way he said “sorcery.”

  Thus, I replied (okay, and it was in a snotty tone), “I don’t know, sir. I’m looked on by some as their leader. I’m looked on by some as the opposition. There are thousands upon thousands of people who have opinions about me, my actions and my ideals. Many of those opinions are very strong. I mean, I’m not really certain you can relate, seeing as you may have some knowledge of this, but you sought the position you hold, and I did not. But perhaps you can find it somewhere in you to cut me some slack because it may be lame to say I’m doing the best I can, but frankly, that would be all I can do in any situation.”

  That wasn’t true.

  I could totally slack.

  But I was far from doing that.

  “I would suggest you have some respect for this table,” another dude didn’t so much suggest as demand.

  “You speak of respect when I, nor my fiancé, have been offered a seat, a cup of tea, an introduction to you lot, or a tour. Our presence here was not a request, it
was a demand. I am not a citizen of your country—” I began.

  “And as such, you can be ejected from our country,” another dude said.

  “Please do so,” I shot back. “It will mean Agatha Darling and Jeremy Bligh will take up residence here as the only safe place they can be because if I’m gone, Mr. Wilding will be gone, our elite team will be gone, and as she completes the rituals to make him the single most powerful being on the planet, the Dark Lord will be on your turf and you’ll be on your own while he’s tinkering with his new powers on the road to world domination.”

  That shut them up.

  Unsurprisingly, when the woman spoke up, she had something useful to say.

  “We need to prepare a joint statement.”

  “You’re right. We do,” Ash chimed in. “We also need to demonstrate a united front.”

  “We’re uncertain the current government feels it judicial to publicly ally with her kind,” another dude said, indicating me at the end of that with a nod of his head. “We’ve yet to come to agreement about that matter.”

  Her kind?

  My fingers itched to whip out my wand.

  Ash put a staying hand on my forearm.

  But he didn’t use his other one to cover my mouth.

  And so I used it.

  “If you leave us swinging, opening us up to prejudice, bigotry, and all the ugly that comes of that, I will divorce myself from the entirety of the United Kingdom and leave you to whatever may befall you, be it the Dark Lord, the Fae out and proud, and whatever else might come along.”

  “Parliament has a long-standing policy of separation in matters that pertain to the supernatural,” another dude said.

  “This is not true,” Ash retorted. “Although Mathew Hopkins was never officially sanctioned as the Witchfinder General by Parliament, he also wasn’t stopped. And I, and the whole of Le Société, are well aware of the many covert attempts by combined forces, including those of Great Britain, to invade and subdue the vampires at Castle Noapte during the cold war when that stronghold was behind the Iron Curtain and everyone was terrified the communists would ally with the vampires.”

  No one said anything.