He frowned. “What are you talking about? You aren’t in my way.”
I shook my head as my hands found the edge of the tomb. I didn’t feel like reminding him that I’d seen his collection of Boy Butter, amongst other things. “I’ll get my stuff out tomorrow. It’s all good.”
And just like that, I was sliding, limping really, back down the stairwell. As I climbed down, a few snarled words caught my ears, but I kept going. I didn’t need to hear them fight—I’d done enough spying for one day. I just hoped it wasn’t because of me. I’d had about enough of Sarge’s ‘help,’ and I didn’t want Crash angry with me. I liked him too much. I froze on the bottom step when I realized my mental faux pas. Not Crash, Corb. I didn’t want Corb angry with me.
“Oh, you are in too deep, girl,” I whispered to myself.
The mentors continued our lessons as if nothing had happened, but my mind kept returning to Douche Canoe and his buddy. Or son.
“This way, to the graveyard for the rest of the spell chasing,” Louis said as I reached the bottom stair. He led the way back up and I groaned out loud.
“Damn stairs.” I waited for everyone else to go up ahead of me so they wouldn’t have to see me struggle. Maybe it was my knees, maybe it was my tired legs, but the stairs and I were not on speaking terms.
Topside for like the fourth time, I watched as Louis set out a variety of spells. “Go out, find them, tell me what they are, and then shut them down.”
The other trainees didn’t move. I cleared my throat. “How?”
“You have not been reading your training manual then?” Louis looked down his nose at me. I lifted both brows at him and fumbled around in my bag for the thin manual we’d been given.
“You mean this ten-page stack of paper that you stapled together by hand?” I flopped it in his face, dropped it, and pulled out my gran’s book. Suzy let out a gasp.
“Now that’s a freaking manual!”
“You cannot use that,” Louis snapped.
I didn’t even look up at him. “Watch me.” I skimmed the pages until I found the one on detecting spells. I knew I’d seen it in there somewhere.
“Most spells, with the exception of the most powerful, throw off a different and distinct taste. Generally speaking, the more pleasant it is, the worse the spell,” I read aloud. “For example, a spell that is made for keeping others away will taste similar to soured milk. There are a few exceptions, and you must learn to recognize those.” Gross. I really didn’t want to be putting random spells into my mouth. Lord only knew where they’d been.
Louis made a grab for Gran’s book, but I jerked it away from him. “No touching.” I turned my back on him and read the final bit about breaking the spells out loud for the other recruits. “Breaking the spells requires concentration and a push of your own energy through it.” Though maybe that was just for spell casters? This was, after all, Gran’s book. I’d never been particularly good with the spell-casting side of her training.
“I’ve got one!” Luke yelled from the far right side. He flexed his hand and shoved it through the air ahead of him. A shower of green sparkles went up into the air as he broke the spell. “Tasted like sour milk, totally!”
Suzy was next. She found a spell and busted through it like it was nothing.
And me?
I tried to find the spells that Louis put out for us to find in the graveyard. Got zapped three times, tripped twice, and got frozen in place more times than I wanted to admit. By the time the training for the night was done, I was exhausted in body and spirit. Everyone else had done well, though, and that brought me a measure of satisfaction. I wasn’t sure if I’d failed to find them because my intuition was off, or because I was too busy thinking about everything else that had happened.
And I still needed to check out the fairy ring for Karissa. Poop, this was going to be a long night.
Hopefully, Kinkly had some special way to magic me there, because I usually got a ride from Sarge or Corb, and both had already left for the night. I scrubbed a hand over my eyes, which were so tired they stung and tingled, and waited by the angel tomb as everyone left. Eammon was the last to go and he paused to look me over. “What do you be doing, girly?”
“Just taking in the night air.” I yawned wide, my jaw cracking.
Eammon’s eyes narrowed. “You’re always the first one gone. What’s up tonight?”
I leaned back against the angel tomb, the stone cool under my hands. “Stretching myself and my stamina, Eammon. Important, don’t you think?”
He pursed his lips. “So I see you’ve still got that book of your gran’s?”
This was not the direction I’d expected our conversation to go. “Yes.”
“I suggest you look up the inherent dangers of fairy rings.” He looked down at his nails as if considering the need for a trim. “I’d also look up making deals with fairies. You know, if you were looking for some added reading.” He slowly lifted his eyes, as green as a spring meadow, complete understanding in them. “I’d also say that of anyone here, I’d trust you to handle something like that.”
For the second time that night, my jaw dropped. “Speechless, I have no words. I am without words.” How the hell did he know? It was my turn to narrow my eyes.
Eammon didn’t quite smile, but it was close. “I think you need a more reliable mode of transportation, especially with all the travel you’ll be doing. Tom and Louis suggested you ask your friend Robert if he can help you out with that.”
With that, he turned on his heel and walked away, whistling a tune to himself. I just stood there a moment, waiting for him to be a distance away before I turned up to see Kinkly still waiting there on the angel’s shoulder.
“Did you tell him?”
She shook her head rapidly, sending her hair flying every which way. “No, not a word, I swear. But we have to go. And he’s right, it’s a distance.”
I worried at the inside of my mouth. “Robert, you around?” He’d passed out from the whiskey so it was possible that he was out for the night. A swaying figure stepped out from around a tombstone, long hair hanging low.
“Friend,” he whispered. “Good whiskey.”
I laughed. “I’m glad. Listen, I’m going to have to do a lot of running around, and I don’t have a car. Eammon seems to think you can help me with that. Can you? Or is he full of leprechaun shit?”
What in the world an animated skeleton was supposed to do to help me, I had no idea. I mean, I was still reeling a bit from what Eammon had said. Not only did he know that I’d taken the job from Karissa, but he was quietly helping me.
After all of the other mentors had turned her down.
After Eammon himself had turned her down.
Color me suspicious, but what do you want to bet that he’d purposefully sent her my way? If I recalled, leprechauns were connected to the fae, but I couldn’t remember any details. My thoughts scattered as Robert began to move.
He held out a hand, bones showing, and snapped his fingers. The click-clack of bone on bone was shockingly loud, and I took a step back, my legs feeling like jelly. It reminded me of the realtor’s stomping at Gran’s house—it felt as if he’d summoned something powerful with that one snap of his fingers.
Nope, nope that was not jelly legs, that was the ground heaving around and under us. “Robert, what is going on?”
“New friend.” He swayed as he shuffled to the side, and something burst upward out of the ground where he’d been standing only a moment before. My brain couldn’t quite make sense of what I was seeing.
A long bony limb—no, two long bony limbs—came out of the ground, pulling the rest of a body out of the dirt. Round nose, long face, hooves.
“Lawdy, Robert, is that a horse?” I stumbled back further as the big animal finished yanking itself out of the ground. Lying there a moment, it seemed to catch its breath—and considering it was dead, that was something—before it heaved itself to its feet. Although not as skeletal as Robert, it wa
s still missing a few chunks of hide and bits of muscle. The tail was ragged, not long at all, and the mane hanging from its neck was super stringy, wrapped into dreads in places. The undead horse gave a long, low snort, blowing chunks of . . . something out of its nostrils.
Kinkly landed on the horse’s rump. “This is rather gross, but it will work. The undead can go unseen by many creatures, and the fae are included in that list.”
I gave her a look. “You can see them.”
She smiled. “Yes, but I am with you. That’s why.”
Her answer made no real sense. I mean, why did being with me give her the ability to see the undead critters?
Why could I see them anyway?
I did a slow circle around to the side of the horse. I’d ridden a living horse before, but that had been years ago, and I’d only tried because I’d figured it would be a good idea to work with a larger animal than a dog. What it came down to was that I liked horses, I just didn’t know much about them.
“Do I just . . . get on?” I looked around the horse at Robert.
He swayed as he shuffled to my side. “Friend. Ride.”
At least it still had a saddle, something that could only be explained by magic. I reached up and grabbed a handful of the stringy mane, stuck my foot in a stirrup, and tried to hop up. I didn’t quite make it, and I found myself hanging from the side of the saddle in mid-air, my nose pressed against the older than dirt leather.
Yelping, I slid down off the horse’s side, one foot still lodged in the stirrup—far higher than was comfortable to stretch. The horse stepped sideways, taking me with it. “Wait, not yet!” I yelled as I hopped along with it, trying to find the right balance and momentum to swing my butt up into the saddle.
“Here, I’ll help, you need it.” Kinkly fluttered behind me, and the next thing I knew, she was pulling my shirt up, baring my middle as the neckline strangled me.
“Gah!” I gurgled and gave one last hop as Kinkly pulled me from above and Robert shoved me from behind. Another blink and Robert climbed up over the horse’s hind end and sat behind me.
“Okay, so . . .” I looked at the horse and realized there were no reins. Even my rudimentary knowledge of horses told me I needed some way to steer it. As it stood, there was no way for me to control the beast. “How do I make this work?”
Kinkly flew in tiny circles out in front of the horse. “Maybe just tell it to follow me?”
That was as logical as anything else. I mean, only a few short weeks ago I’d have been losing my mind over this whole night. Look at me go, embracing the madness of the shadow world! Gran would be proud. Himself would poop himself. That made me smile.
“Follow Kinkly,” I said, then added, “please.”
Kinkly didn’t wait for any other encouragement. She shot ahead of us, a spray of glitter leaving a trail behind her. The undead horse lunged forward, which threw me backward against Robert, who pushed me back into the saddle.
“What the hell?” I screamed the words into the wind as I flopped up and down and sideways on the back of an undead horse, an animated skeleton holding me in my seat as we raced after a fairy who did nothing but laugh at me.
That sentence should have only applied if I’d been eating magic mushrooms.
The wind ripped around my face, lashing my hair against my eyeballs, but I didn’t close my eyes. Nope, I knew the general direction we were headed, and I didn’t like what was coming.
“River, that is the river!” I yelped as the horse slid down the cobblestones, hooves spookily silent, muscles bunching, headed for the bottom of the road. But I might as well not have said anything because it ducking leapt into the river. I did close my eyes then, and my mouth to help hold my breath.
I wish I could say that the horse ran across the water, but it sunk down as soon as it landed, going in almost over its head. A squeak escaped me as the river rose around my body, right up to my chin.
I lifted my head up, ready to leap off the horse, but my legs seemed strapped to it still, feet still in the stirrups. Slowly I realized that the undead horse was rising, at least until its head and part of its back was above the water. “Seriously?” I twisted around as we swam across the river.
Kinkly stayed just ahead of us and, other than Robert, I had no one to exclaim to that this was the weirdest shit yet. That I had no idea how it could get weirder. “Robert, this is weird. It can’t get weirder, right?”
“Friend,” he whispered.
I really shouldn’t have wondered. By then, I should have just accepted that there was always going to be a weirder moment.
8
The ride from weird town ended in a rush, and far faster than I would have thought. After the swim through the Savannah River, almost getting mowed down by one of the oversized shipping ships (don’t judge me, I can’t find the right words, I’m still reeling), Kinkly led us out through the same forest that Eric lived in, which was part of the wildlife reserve.
In fact, we passed his house at break-neck speed. Not that I think he saw me. It had quickly become apparent that no one saw me on the back of the undead horse. Not one person so much as blinked at us. Sure, it was almost three in the morning and we were moving surprisingly fast, but there was more to it than that.
Whatever magic kept Robert animated and, for most people, unnoticed also affected the horse. And as the horse’s rider, I apparently fell under its magical umbrella.
For all intents and purposes, I was invisible. I mean, a forty-year-old woman often was, but this was taking it to a whole new level.
“Here. We stop here.” Kinkly shot back toward us, and the horse put on the brakes so hard that I flipped forward, flying over its head. The sudden twisting of the world meant that I got to look up at the night sky and the tree branches thick with Spanish moss draping off each branch before I landed flat on my back.
A whoosh of air flew from my mouth and I lay there, feeling the desperation to draw air and the inability to do so. I couldn’t do anything but lie there and wait. What felt like hours but was only seconds later, I finally drew a ragged breath, gasped, and drew another.
“You okay?” Kinkly bobbed above me, her sparkling dust falling all over my face. I waved her away.
“Peachy keen.” I rolled to my knees, the soft ground giving way under me. I pushed up to my feet and wobbled a little. Adrenaline pounded through me, making my head a bit light. A quick body check, and I knew I was okay, if a bit embarrassed.
“Come on, come on.” Kinkly beckoned for me to follow her. “This way to the fairy ring.”
I did a half turn to take in the undead horse and Robert still sitting up on it, my manners kicking in. “Thanks for the ride.”
Robert slid off the horse and I got a glimpse of spindly bone legs. You’d think it would bother me, but honestly, it barely registered on my radar of weird anymore. The horse snorted, tucked its legs underneath itself, and then slowly sunk into the ground, the soft dirt washing over it until it was gone.
“Now that is bananas,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
“Horse,” Robert answered, correcting me.
“Okay, so that is technically correct.” I laughed, and Robert nodded.
Kinkly flapped her wings in my face. “Come on!”
I followed Kinkly and Robert followed me and we were off through the forest. It was quiet but for the sounds of bugs and night birds, and the distant slosh of water against a shoreline. I tried to stretch my senses the way my gran had taught me, to be aware of everything all at once. Tried to hear beyond all the night noises, but got nothing but my own heartbeat. Bleh.
Kinkly swept back to me and tugged on a stray strand of hair that had escaped my ponytail.
“Ouch!”
“Quiet now, you need to get down,” she whispered. “We can’t let them see us. They’re not supposed to know we are here.”
Get down. Crap, she was going to make me army crawl through the bush? I closed my eyes and reminded myself that this was f
or Gran’s house. Or a chance at Gran’s house.
Crash would sell at a certain point. Right? From what I’d heard, he moved his office somewhat frequently. He’d been on Factors Row only a year, and before that he’d stayed in the previous place for six months.
I dropped to my belly, the ground under me still damp, though not as bad as where we’d first stopped. Grasses tickled my face as I pushed my way along the path, cursing Kinkly for making me do it and cursing my body for not being in shape despite the last two weeks of hard work. Let’s be honest, don’t we all want to achieve our perfect weight after one workout, and then get offended when it doesn’t happen?
Yeah, me too.
With the dark of the night, it was difficult to see exactly where I was going. Up and over a big root I went, and from there I slid down into a hollow between two trees.
My skin tingled, like buzzing ants were crawling up and down my arms and along my spine. Ahead of me was a cluster of massive oak trees, planted tightly together. Each trunk was pressed against its neighbor, as though they were trying to block out the world. I’d never seen a cluster of oak trees grown like that. Their branches hung low, thick with Spanish moss, and acted like an additional curtain to block them from sight.
I twisted to ask Kinkly a question, but she was gone.
The buzzing sensation against my skin increased, and I crouched down in the hollow, barely breathing as a series of fairies, dressed mostly in black with only a yellow accent on their chests, swept around the grouping of oak trees before landing on the one closest to me. I counted fifteen of the little critters, all male.
They pulled from their backs little tools that flashed bright in the moonlight. Silver was my first thought. Iron was something that bothered the fae, so any tools would be silver.
As a team working three at a time, they began to worry at the tree closest to me, driving their weapons into the oak’s trunk, digging out the wood one sliver at a time. I squinted at the spot they were chopping at and realized this was not the first time they’d been at it. But the tree was healing even as they worked.
Midlife Fairy Hunter: The Forty Proof Series, Book 2 Page 8