Blood Rite

by E.J. Stevens

  These gardens were the silver lining in a thundercloud. Hob had relocated here after the disaster at The Emporium. He now lived in a hearth within a small gnome cottage which was the abode of his lady love, Gilda. I knew he missed his old home, but I wasn’t so sure how he felt about Kaye. She’d betrayed all of us after the magic I inadvertently gave her twisted the kind woman we’d come to love. Hob had ignored my offers to take him to go visit Kaye at the asylum. The situation was complicated.

  I pushed more speed into my stride, worry winning over fatigue. I couldn’t let anything bad happen to Hob. He’d already been through so much. In fact, so had Marvin.

  Marvin had also moved to Eden Park, but his motivations were as clear as the water that now ran beneath his bridge. The young troll cared for Hob and was worried about the grouchy, old hearth brownie. So, Marvin had moved here too.

  At least it made visiting easy. Or so I thought as I stepped across a remaining patch of broken pavement and froze, one booted foot inches above the mossy green path into Eden Park. Marvin, Hob, and the gnomes weren’t the only faeries that I’d helped relocated to these gardens. I’d also invited the pookas to move out of the treehouse in my human parents’ yard and into a swanky club house here.

  It was a decision I regretted as I stared down the length of a spear. Which wasn’t all that long really, due to it being a sharpened pencil, but the tip was needle-sharp and pointed at my eyeball. The fact that it was held by an orgy-loving pooka who hovered at chest level made the situation even more troubling. Even if he didn’t poke my eye out, I might be wishing he had when the visions kicked in.

  I struggled not to twitch or shiver, allowing myself only to slowly raise my hands in surrender. Yep, that’s me, the hero of Harborsmouth, surrendering to a pooka. To a human, it would look like I was terrified of a pigeon or a flying squirrel. Good thing the magic of this place kept humans from wandering in. Of course, I had no idea if those magics would protect the faeries who lived here against their zombified dead.

  Maybe, I should be thankful the pooka was patrolling the perimeter. Or maybe I’d die with a pencil lodged in my brain. Either way, I was about to find out.

  “I surrender, Violet,” I said. My voice barely shook. Go me. “Can I come in?”

  Violet wasn’t his real name, but none of the pooka had been forthcoming with their real names. There’s power in a name, and the tiny faeries weren’t keen on handing that power over to a big person, even if I was an honored ally and former friend to their fallen leader. I’d actually been teasing when I first started calling them by the colors of the glow-in-the-dark condoms they wore on their heads like hats. But they seemed to like the nicknames and so the names had stuck and I’d had to get really creative with synonyms for primary colors.

  Violet scowled at me for an entire second before nodding and lifting his pencil spear to rest against his shoulder. I heard a sharp intake of breath and shot a glance over my shoulder where Amber was using Ceff’s neck to pole dance while simultaneously threatening him with a dagger made from a sliver of glass. You can say what you want about pookas, but they sure can multitask.

  “Hey, Amber,” I said. “Nice moves. Think you could take that dagger away from my betrothed’s jugular now?”

  That caught the pooka woman’s attention.

  “His neck can juggle?” she asked, flinching away from Ceff and eyeing the pulse in his neck suspiciously. “You big people are weird.”

  She had been doing an acrobatic strip tease around my fiancé’s neck while threatening to decapitate him, but we’re the weird ones. That made perfect sense.

  I heard a familiar giggle and spun around. It wasn’t more pookas, thank Mab. There on the mossy path stood Marvin snickering and wiping at his eyes. Hob was bent over beside him wheezing and slapping his knee.

  “Hey, kiddo,” I said, waving at Marvin.

  I squinted, belatedly realizing that he had donned some kind of makeshift armor. It actually made him pretty intimidating. Somehow, he’d gone from shy teenager and grown into a young man without me noticing. That was actually kind of worrisome since I was a detective. Noticing things is what I do.

  “Hiya, Poison Ivy,” he said, scraping his fingers noisily against his jawline, and the stubble growing there, pretending to itch.

  It was an old joke, but I laughed anyway, blinking a bit at his five o’clock shadow. Seriously. When had he grown up?

  “Ye should ha seen ye face, lass!” Hob said, dancing a little jig.

  “Har har,” I muttered.

  “It was less amusing than you might think,” Ceff said with a pained expression.

  I snorted and turned to the pooka guards now marching back and forth across the path.

  “So, it’s okay for us to enter?” I asked, pointing at my chest and hooking a thumb over my shoulder. “Both of us? Me and Ceff?”

  It was best to be clear when dealing with a pooka.

  “None shall pass!” Violet bellowed.

  Amber giggled and started spinning in circles.

  “What if my name is None?” I asked. “His too.”

  “Oh, then go right ahead, Miss Granger,” Violet said.

  I strode onto the spongy, moss-covered path and followed Marvin to the nearby bridge he called home. We’d have some semblance of privacy there alongside the babbling brook and less risk of anyone using my betrothed’s neck as a dance pole.

  “So,” I said, gingerly taking a seat on an overturned log. “No sign of zombies?”

  Marvin didn’t sit, instead leaning his bulk against the side of the stone bridge that spanned the crystal-clear water. His gaze never straying long from the pathway leading back to the park’s entrance, one of his large hands mere inches from a club that look suspiciously like a twin to the tree I now sat on. I was relieved to see his vigilance, but also a little sad. I knew what it was like to have to grow up too fast.

  “They wouldna’ dare,” Hob said, his bushy, caterpillar-like eyebrows lowered in a scowl. “But if they do, Marvin will crush their wee skulls.”

  He smacked his hands together, the clap making me jump.

  “About that,” I said, wincing. “We’ve got more than zombie gerbils now.”

  “Zom-bie cats?” Marvin asked.

  “Um, bigger,” I said. “Actually, there might be cats too, but I’m more worried about the zombie clowns and centaurs and gryphons we saw over on the pier.”

  If there were cats in that zombie horde, I hoped I never saw them. I’d seen enough nightmare fodder.

  “Tankerabogus,” Hob said.

  “What a the what now?” I asked.

  “The Green Lady’s clowns,” Ceff said, shaking his head. “I should have realized it before, but tankerabogus are rare. I did not realize there were any near Harborsmouth.”

  Until now, I’d only thought of those zombies as clowns. It was easier that way. But I was sorry to hear that a rare type of faerie had died here and I’d never even had the opportunity to meet them.

  “They were hunted relentlessly during the Burning Times due to their habit of kidnapping and eating small children,” Ceff said.

  Okay, maybe not so sorry. It was probably a good thing they were dead, undead, whatever. If I’d known about their appetites for innocent children, I might have killed them myself.

  “Only the wee naughty ones,” Hob said.

  I shot the hearth brownie an incredulous look and he fell over backward, giggles coming from behind the rock he’d been perched on.

  “What we do?” Marvin asked.

  “I need you both to stay here and help guard the gardens,” I said. “These are your homes and there’s a lot of helpless faeries living here. Ceff and I need to go take care of some things, so we can’t stay here and protect the others. Can I count on you?”

  “Mm hmm,” Hob mumbled in the affirmative from behind his rock.

  I wasn’t sure, but he might have been stuck. Not that I was worried. Hearth brownies were much more agile than they looked. He’d
be fine once he stopped giggling.

  Marvin, on the other hand, wasn’t laughing. In fact, he looked deadly serious.

  “I will protect,” Marvin said.

  Chapter 16

  “I need a shower,” I muttered.

  “You, girl, need all of the showers,” Jinx said. “You smell like death, you’re covered in dirt and grease, and is that vomit in your hair?”

  I shuddered. Usually, having psychometry and being touch phobic gets me out of pawing through garbage and sifting through grave dirt. When we found a zombie clown shuffling around the carnival grounds, I hadn’t expected to see an entire horde of zombies filing into the Haunted House ride. To say the sight was disturbing was an understatement.

  And that was the least disturbing thing we’d found. The dumpster filled with exsanguinated body parts would haunt my dreams forever.

  “It’s been a long day,” I said, peeling off my leather jacket and hanging it on the coatrack beside the door. I didn’t normally let that jacket out of my sight, but nothing about today was normal, and my jacket smelled horrible. I didn’t want to bring it into my bedroom, which was where I was headed when Jinx stepped in front of me.

  “Here,” she said, shoving a paper cup filled with hot coffee.

  I raised an eyebrow, but took the cup.

  “What, are all the mugs dirty?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, eyes raking over me from head to toe. “You are.”

  I shrugged. She had a point. Jinx sniffed and sashayed back toward the kitchen which smelled even better than my coffee. I’m pretty sure me reeking of garbage and dead things was ruining dinner.

  “Be right back,” I said, heading toward the bathroom. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  When I reemerged, I was fully transformed, wearing the blissfully clean jeans and long-sleeved sweater that Jinx had snuck into the bathroom for me. Have I mentioned how awesome my best friend is?

  “You’re awesome,” I said, discarding the mental filter I usually hid behind.

  Like I said, it had been a long day and it was far from over.

  “Right back atcha,” she said, using a spatula to slide a pile of eggs and bacon onto my plate.

  I started salivating like a barghest. When was the last time I ate? I didn’t have time to do the math, too intent on keeping my balance as a demon toddler tried his best to knock me over.

  “Ivyyy!” Sparky squealed.

  Oberon’s eyes, the kid was cute. And though it was an entirely different kind of enthusiasm, Sparky was starting to take on some of Ceff’s mannerisms. The way he held his head and shoulders, and, well, his aluminum foil trident, only reinforced the likeness. It was uncanny.

  The toddler-sized leather jacket, so like my own, was also super cute. It was pretty obvious who his heroes were. My heart swelled and, for just a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

  “It’s okay,” Jinx whispered in my ear. I hadn’t even noticed how close she’d managed to get to me. Weird. Either Forneus was teaching her some tricks or my friend was becoming a ninja. Or, just maybe, I had been distracted by the one thing, okay maybe two things, I loved as much as her. “He’s totally safe. No zombies. No bad guys. He’s happy and healthy. Not even a scratch.”

  Thank Mab for best friends and their bizarre ability to read your mind without any psychic abilities whatsoever.

  “Thanks to you,” I said. “Thanks for watching him.”

  “And thanks to my sexy almost-husband,” Jinx said, devouring Forneus with a look.

  “Ew, um, do I have to thank him?” I said.

  I’d rather suck rotten eggs. I was trying to be friends with Forneus, but being his almost-almost-sister-in-law wasn’t something that came naturally. In fact, I’m pretty sure it would have been more normal for us to tear each other to shreds.

  “I had to work,” she said, cocking a hip and waving with the spatula that was still in her well-manicured hand. “You know, in the office, the thing that keeps this roof over our heads? Forneus was the one who kept Sparky entertained.”

  “Okay, fine, I’ll thank him,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  It was hard to hold a grudge against a guy who probably spent most of his day playing with glitter ponies and pretending to be an elephant, or a tiger, or a cephalopod for my kid. Hmm, maybe we had been watching too many nature documentaries lately.

  “Good,” she said, with a wink. “While you’re at it, try to get over whatever nonsense you two are always fighting about. You know, before the wedding.”

  Right, double wedding. How could I forget? Thankfully, I was relieved of apology duty when Ceff strode out of the bathroom in all his kingly glory. Saved by the kelpie.

  He wore only a towel that hung low on his hips, showing off the wide expanse of his chest, a trim waist, and a well-muscled abdomen. I reluctantly pulled my eyes from the narrow v disappearing into the towel and met his heated gaze.

  “Did someone mention a wedding?” Forneus asked, following Sparky in from the living room.

  Oh, goody. Now the whole gang was here.

  “Actually, now that we’re all together, I think we should discuss our zombie problem,” I said.

  “I will get dressed,” Ceff said.

  I frowned. Okay, I might even have pouted, but those were words I strongly disliked hearing from my fiancé.

  It didn’t take Ceff long to don a pair of jeans. He was still pulling a shirt over damp hair as he strolled out of our bedroom.

  “Since a kelpie has Ivy’s tongue, maybe you can catch us up to speed?” Jinx asked, blinking at Ceff.

  Ceff grinned, but nodded. Once we got Sparky settled with earbuds and an audiobook, we filled our friends in on the zombie infestation over at the glaistig’s old stomping grounds. My hands clenched into fists while discussing what we found in the dumpster, but it wasn’t just the theft of those remains that upset me.

  I was still haunted by a dryad’s ruby red slipper. Visions had a tendency to linger and that one wasn’t going away any time soon.

  “From all accounts, it would appear this necromancer is the true threat, and is the one violating Sir Gaius’ exclusive contracts to harvest Harborsmouth’s corpses,” Forneus said.

  “This necromancer dude sounds creepy,” Jinx said, biting her lip. “Who bleeds people to raise zombies and then chops up their body parts and stuffs them in a dumpster?”

  “It is rather diabolical,” Forneus said, a touch of admiration in his voice.

  “It is also blatantly breaking the First Law,” Ceff said. “Raising zombies, especially zombie faeries, to walk where humans might see them threatens all supernatural kind. What if it brings the faerie court’s assassins here?”

  I shivered. The last thing I needed was the Moordenaar crawling all over my city. I rubbed my side, the phantom pain a memory of my last run-in with the faerie assassins. I’d been shot through the heart, liver, and stomach with their arrows. I’d died. If it hadn’t been for a couple of magic apples that I’d smuggled from Emain Ablach, I’d be one of the corpses currently at this zombie master’s mercy.

  Now that was a chilling thought.

  “I don’t think it wise to gain the council’s attention,” Ceff said. “Not with Ivy’s connection to the Unseelie court.”

  I shivered again, this time breaking into cold sweats. Being reminded that your mother is an uber powerful homicidal maniac will do that.

  The phone rang and I jumped. I reached for my phone hoping for good news. I could use a positive distraction right about now.

  “We have a problem,” Torn said.

  So much for good news.

  Chapter 17

  I arrived at the carnival’s service entrance to find an agitated cat sidhe lord. That made two of us.

  “All of the body parts have gone missing,” Torn said, hissing. “The dead faerie’s belongings too.”

  Crap. Just my luck. I wouldn’t be getting any more visions from these victims. The dumpster had been scrubbed.

  “How did this
happen?” Ceff asked, his voice holding a threat just below the surface. Okay, maybe three of us were angry. We’d left Jinx, Forneus, and Sparky to finish their dinner, and hold down the fort, but there was no way Ceff was leaving my side. “They deserved a proper burial. Now they are lost.”

  Oh, yeah. He was definitely angry.

  “And we might have gained new clues, or at least learned a bit more about the victims,” I said, arms folded across my chest. “If we hit too many dead ends, I might even have tried for another vision.”

  It wouldn’t have been the first case where I’d pulled an all-nighter, touching object after object in search of the truth. Visions weren’t my first choice, especially not when dealing with victims of violent death, but it was an option that I no longer had. Someone else had taken that choice away from me, leaving me surprisingly pissed off. I may not enjoy using my psychometry, but I enjoyed others making decisions for me even less.

  Ceff and I weren’t the only ones who were angry. Torn’s nostrils were flaring, his breathing loud and ragged as he bounced on the balls of his feet, ready to pounce on anyone who dared come too close. He hissed, his ears pressed flat back against his head.

  “Come on,” I said, holding up gloved hands. “Let’s all calm down. Losing those bodies, those people, is a setback, but it’s all the more reason to find out what the necromancer has planned and stop him.”

  “And kill him,” Torn said.

  It wasn’t a question. I nodded.

  “Probably,” I said. “Now tell us what happened.”

  According to Torn, he’d watched the front gate, because it was where the action was at. Most of the zombies that were entering from outside the carnival grounds were shambling in through the front gate. Thankfully, those were mostly small faeries, so far. The larger zombies we’d seen had come from the carnival fae’s own graveyard, but that was now empty. It made sense to watch the front gate, but that didn’t make it less frustrating to have missed someone stealing the bodies from the service entrance parking lot.