Tempestuous

by Lesley Livingston

  “That doesn’t happen every time you kiss someone, does it?” Maddox said to Chloe, gasping through the pain of his double injuries. The Siren knelt before him and pressed the palms of her hands to the spreading bloodstains. She leaned forward and kissed Maddox softly on the lips . . . to no harm whatsoever.

  “Webber!” Sonny called the Fae. “Over here. You were right. We do need you.”

  Webber bent close to Maddox, a deep crease forming between his brows. “I . . .” He shook his long head, as if trying to make sense of something only he could see. “I do not think this is why I’m here. This isn’t what I saw. . . .”

  Sonny glanced at Carys, who frowned faintly. He looked back down at Maddox, whose face had gone ashen with pain. He was losing a lot of blood. “I don’t care what you think you saw, Webber,” he said urgently. “You’re a healer. Please. Heal him.”

  The tall Fae turned to Carys, and she nodded. “Do what he asks, Webb. They’ve earned it from us.”

  “Hey!” Bryan’s head suddenly popped up from the deck hatch. “Look what I found!” He held up a pair of emergency flare guns and a box of flares.

  “Good man,” Sonny said, and called them all together to tell them his plan.

  “Have fun storming the castle,” Maddox said through a tight, pained grin, as Sonny and Fennrys got ready to bolt.

  “Won’t be nearly as much fun without you.” Sonny smiled grimly and pulled the short swords from his satchel. “Cait, get ready to lower the shield. Carys, protect them as best you can. Especially Webber—while he works on Madd and Neerya, he’ll be the most vulnerable.”

  “I’d rather be coming with you,” she said.

  “I know. But I need you to stay here. They need you more than I do right now.”

  Carys nodded and gave him one of her fierce, brief hugs. “Luck.”

  “Thanks. Lads . . . on my mark.”

  Bryan and Beni nodded in tandem.

  “Fenn . . . let’s go.”

  Fennrys nodded as Bryan and Beni started laying down covering fire, shooting flares into the forest. Sonny and the Wolf snaked over the sides of the boat and sprinted away in opposite directions. It would be up to the two of them to find Kelley—if they could.

  Sonny pounded down the strip of gravelly beach until he could no longer see where they’d moored the boat. As he stepped onto the leaf-littered ground under the trees, he heard a familiar, chilling voice whisper through his mind, the words colored with a rasping lilt: You’re on my playground, now, boyo. . . .

  All around him the trees shivered, as if in response to the leprechaun’s threat.

  Let’s have some fun. . . .

  Sonny felt a surge of magick. He took off at a dead run as the ground suddenly rippled and bucked under his feet. Weedy grasses whipped at his ankles, trying to trip him as he sprinted across what had once been a manicured lawn. Sonny ran for all he was worth. In among the trees and wild unchecked saplings, he saw flickering lights and wispy, flitting shadows. His feet pounded over the uneven ground as he leaped to avoid fallen logs and gnarled, grasping roots that would trip him if he were not careful.

  The surging wave of moss and mud was at Sonny’s heels, almost overrunning him. He saw an opening through the trees, a bare patch of what appeared to be asphalt, only a dozen yards distant. He headed for it, finding himself on what used to be an old tennis court. The paved surface was covered with fallen leaves, but it provided a minimal barrier between Sonny and the Wee Green Man’s twisted magicks. Trees that had sprung up from cracks around the edges of the old court reached gnarled and twisted fingers, but they could not reach far enough. Out in the middle of the paved surface, he was safe enough. For the moment.

  Then Aaneel stepped out from under those same trees, Percival at his side, and the moment was gone.

  The trees surrounding the tennis court on all sides grew still, as if they were spectators in the stands of an arena.

  Or a coliseum.

  Chapter XXIV

  Stunned, Kelley followed Bob up a crumbling staircase and into a looming Gothic building that had obviously been left to rot for decades. The whole structure was draped in a thick tangle of creeping viny growth. Once inside, Bob led her through wide, institutional hallways piled with drifts of trash. Sickly greenish light filtered through broken windows. The scent of decay clung to peeling paint and crumbling plaster on the walls.

  “What is this place?” she asked quietly, uncertain whether Bob would deign to answer her. I gave Mabh his name, Kelley thought. He wasn’t going to forgive her for that. She wondered just how much trouble she was in. “You called it North Brother Island?”

  “I also called it hell. And for a lot of poor doomed souls, it is.”

  As they walked, the half dozen Black Shuck that had accompanied Kelley on her journey stalked along on either side of them, like an escort. Kelley hugged her elbows against the chill spring breeze. Almost every pane of window glass had been shattered, but she still couldn’t see much. The view was mostly obscured by thick, woody vines. “Are we in the Otherworld?”

  Bob snorted. “This place is nowhere near the Otherworld. But it is rife with magick. Rotten with it, I should say. North Brother Island—a fairly innocuous name for a place that has seen more than its share of horrors down through the years—lies in the East River. Just above that mortal penal colony.”

  “Rikers Island?”

  “That’s the one.” Bob nodded. “This place here is off-limits to the general mortal populace. Has been for years. Ever since they shut down the rehabilitation programs.”

  Kelley felt an uncomfortable shiver run up her spine as she gazed around at her bleak surroundings. “Creepy . . .”

  “Oh . . . I’m sure it didn’t always look like this. Before the mortals decided to build this facility to quarantine their smallpox victims, it was probably lovely and pastoral.”

  “Smallpox!” Kelley gaped at the boucca. “I thought you said it was a rehab facility.”

  “That was later. First it was a hospital for infectious diseases. Smallpox, tuberculosis . . . typhus.” Bob grinned wickedly at the look on Kelley’s face. “Yes, indeedy. North Brother Island—before it was forgotten—was somewhat infamous. The name Typhoid Mary ring any bells? She was a ‘guest’ here for a few decades.”

  Kelley felt her throat tightening. She couldn’t catch typhus. Could she? No. Of course she couldn’t. She hadn’t really ever been sick a day in her life. She was Faerie. She didn’t get sick.

  In the same way that Auberon doesn’t get sick?

  “And then, of course, they turned the hospital into a treatment center in the fifties for poor unfortunate heroin addicts.” Bob turned a corner, where he gestured Kelley up a staircase to the second floor. “Treatment. Huh. If you can call locking a bunch of strung-out young people in rooms and forcing them to quit cold turkey ‘treatment.’ Some went mad. Some died. Place is full of the unquiet shades of those who passed here. The sick, the addicts, the victims of the General Slocum disaster back in 1904 . . .”

  “The what?”

  “A steamboat ran aground here. Over a thousand dead . . .”

  “You’re serious.”

  “It’s a storied little thirteen-acre lump of dirt, this island.”

  Kelley’s skin was virtually crawling. She stopped halfway up the stairs, paralyzed by the thought of all the horrors the place had played host to.

  “Come on, now,” Bob said grimly. “We mustn’t keep the queen waiting.”

  * * *

  Kelley felt a cold finger of fear trace up her spine as she stepped into the main hall and saw the regal figure of Titania, Queen of Summer, standing framed by tall, shattered windows. The Shuck surged forward, padding across the floor to sit in a circle at the queen’s feet. Over in the corner, on a broken settee piled with cushions, lay the twisted figure of Hooligan-boy. The Wee Green Man. On the cracked marble floor in front of him lay an enormous, jumbled mass of withered leaves and branches—all that was left of th
e Old Shrub from Herne’s Tavern.

  It looked as though they had drained the gentle old creature of every ounce of his Green Magick in order to revive the leprechaun. Kelley looked back at the leprechaun on the settee and saw that it had worked. Hooligan-boy’s eyes were open and fixed upon her. They were full of hate . . . and triumph.

  That can only mean one thing, Kelley thought.

  “I knew there must have been something extraordinary about that little Irish boy for Auberon to have taken such an interest in him,” Titania said with a knowing smile as Kelley approached the windows.

  It meant that Kelley’s desperate lie had all been in vain. The pain she’d put herself and Sonny through, meaningless. It meant, in spite of everything, Titania knew that it was Sonny Flannery who carried the Greenman’s power.

  And she knew how to tap it.

  Gesturing, the Queen spoke an ancient word, and Kelley found herself frozen. Spell-stopped. Unable to move a muscle as the beautiful Faerie monarch drifted toward her and, with sunbeam-warm fingers, reached up and unclasped the clover charm from around Kelley’s neck.

  Over in the corner, the leprechaun laughed—a harsh, rasping sound like gravel sliding down a mountainside.

  The charm dangled from Titania’s fingers, swinging hypnotically on its silver chain. “Come,” said the queen. “Let me show you what I can do with this. Here. In this realm.”

  With a deceptively simple waft of her hand, the Queen of the Seelie Fae transformed “here” into “there.”

  And “there” was . . . spectacular.

  Kelley knew instantly, instinctively, that she was looking at a vision of the Summer Kingdom. In the same way that Sonny had once shown her the world of Herne the Hunter, Titania wove a glamour of her Court, only more so.

  All around Kelley a world burst into bloom in such exact, minute detail that she could breathe in the scent of the rich earth beneath her feet, and hear the distant call of a plover, tumbling through the sky over the far hills. Kelley and the queen stood, high on a gentle swell of wildflower-carpeted hill, surrounded by a ring of willow and white-skinned birch, ash and alder and thorn, magnolia and cherry and apple trees.

  Before them, the land rolled away in hills and dales. Silk tents dotted the landscape, each one surrounded by gatherings of Fair Folk so beautiful that they almost hurt to look at. There were feasts laid out on silver service, wine—sparkling star-bright—filling crystal glasses. Everywhere, the hint of glistening water caught at Kelley’s gaze—hidden pools, rushing brooks, tumbling falls. In the distance a broad, winding river beckoned. There was not a bare branch or a fruitless shrub or a brown patch of grass anywhere to be seen. The busiest of bees could occupy themselves for an eternity in this place.

  Kelley felt the thrumming presence of great power behind her and, at Titania’s prompting, turned to see that she stood before the throne of the Summer Lands—formed by a living oak tree that had grown into the shape of a magnificent royal chair. Sheer, shining lengths of Faerie-spun cloth hung in panels from the oak’s branches, providing shade and decoration. Tiny, sparkling fire sprites filled the spaces between the leaves overhead.

  “This is my home,” Titania murmured softly. “This is what I would wish to bring to humanity. They used to have it, you know—I remember when their realm was a green and lovely place. Somewhere, deep in their hearts, they remember it, too.”

  It was paradise. It was perfect.

  And, to Kelley, it was absolutely terrifying.

  She understood something in that moment. As pristine as Titania’s kingdom was, it was stagnant. Stale. Without the unpredictability of mortals, without their foibles and strangeness and odd, surprising strengths, the Fair Folk grew bored with their unending perfection. Tyff had been right. From the minute that the Greenman crossed over into the mortal realm, he had doomed the Fae to need mortal-kind. Kelley had a vivid mental picture of what Titania’s “wish for humanity” would result in—she’d had the dream of it for months now. Manhattan reclaimed by nature. Human innovation and error and all the crazy imperfections that made New York so wonderful, wiped out—buried forever beneath a thick pall of unbroken beauty. New Yorkers made thralls.

  The Summer Queen’s grand vision.

  Titania’s expression radiated benevolence and goodness. But Kelley also saw hints of something like intoxication lurking in her gaze. Kelley clamped down hard on the fear building inside her. For a moment, she almost thought she could hear Sonny calling out to her.

  “Magnificent, isn’t it?” Titania sighed.

  “Sure,” Kelley muttered. “Fabulous.” She wished she could cross her arms over her chest in a show of defiance, but her muscles still wouldn’t obey her commands. “Enjoy your little gardening hobby, Highness. Can I go now?”

  “Oh no, sweeting!” The queen’s merry laugh trickled away to a tipsy giggle.

  “Why? You’ve got your necklace. My necklace,” Kelley said mutinously. “What do you need me for?”

  “I don’t need you, my darling. I need him.”

  Kelley understood now why she was there on North Brother Island—why they hadn’t just taken the charm from her in the park. Bait. How do you get to Superman? Kidnap Lois Lane.

  Way to go, Lois, Kelley thought bitterly.

  “A pity . . . ,” the queen murmured, raising a languid hand to tuck a stray lock of Kelley’s hair behind her ever-so-slightly pointed ear. Kelley had her father’s ears. . . . “Such a pity that your father will not be the one to rule this earthly kingdom by my side.” Although her expression remained unchanged—dreamy and unfocused—large, luminous tears welled in the queen’s lovely eyes. They spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “I did so love him, you know. . . .”

  Titania’s use of the past tense made Kelley’s heart thud painfully in her chest. Was Auberon dead? Had her father succumbed to his illness without her even knowing it?

  The glamour faded, and once more they stood in the dilapidated old hospital pavilion. Kelley’s motor-function control was restored.

  “Do as I told you,” the queen said to Bob. “Take her away for now.” She gazed out the broken windows, as if she still saw her verdant kingdom rolling away to the horizon in front of her.

  Bob led Kelley down the rubbish-strewn corridor and into a tiny, cell-like room where he said she was to wait. Graffiti from the room’s previous inhabitants decorated the walls: a weeping eye, a twisted tree shaped like a woman with her arms held out like branches. Shards of filthy glass held suspended in a rusted frame that had once served as a wall mirror reflected Kelley’s dismayed expression.

  Bob perched on a backless chair and watched her silently. Slowly, it dawned on Kelley that she and Bob were not alone in the room. She could feel . . . others, as though she was being watched by dozens of unseen eyes.

  She brushed a hand over her forehead—a cobweb, she thought fleetingly, but there was nothing there. Just ghost kisses—like mist swirling around her. Like the presence of restless shades. Like when she’d come through the rift and had felt herself surrounded by wraiths. There were more of them here.

  “You get used to them,” Bob said. “The unquiet ones.”

  “Why are there so many of them?”

  Bob shrugged. “There shouldn’t be. Even considering the history of this place. You see . . . there are realms beyond the mortal world. Beyond the Otherworld, even. Places that those departed—mortal and Fae—cross over to when they depart. But something about this place keeps these poor shades tied to this realm. This island’s like a nexus of negative energy, feeding on the shadows of all the lost souls that have come to inhabit these shores. Stirring them up. Setting them loose in the Between. Using all that anger and confusion to open rifts in the Samhain Gate. Capturing even more wraiths—shades of Fae killed by the Janus—using those to thin and break down the walls between the worlds . . .” Bob subsided into silence.

  Unspoken tension stretched out between the two of them. Kelley glanced at Bob. He was staring at her, his f
ierce glare piercing the dusky air. Kelley began to fidget uncomfortably.

  “So,” he said finally. “You sold me out.”

  She’d been wondering when the boucca would get around to broaching the subject. There wasn’t much point in denying it, so Kelley returned his gaze as steadily as she could, and said, “Yeah. I did.”

  The bitter disappointment in Bob’s eyes wounded Kelley to the core—much more than his anger would have. Was there anyone she cared for that she hadn’t hurt?

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. What else could she say? “I know that you’ll probably never forgive me and I have no right to expect that you would. What I did was all kinds of wrong. To you. To Sonny . . . I’ve really made a mess of things, haven’t I?”

  “No argument there.”

  Kelley felt her cheeks burning with shame. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

  Bob sighed gustily. “Fair enough,” he said.

  Kelley blinked at him. “That’s it?”

  “You gave Mabh my secret name. And you’re right. Under other circumstances, I’d probably muster up a revenge scheme that would curl your toenails, Princess. But I understand why you did what you did. And, anyway, it so happens that it doesn’t really matter all that much anymore.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I turned around and gave my secret name to Titania.”

  Kelley was shocked to see him grinning.

  He explained. “I once told Sonny that no one can compel me by the name Puck or Robin Goodfellow anymore. You see . . . once a boucca’s secret name becomes common knowledge, it loses its punch. Having two Faerie monarchs know my name considerably lessens the power they each have over me.”

  Kelley felt her jaw drift open in astonishment.

  “Titania thinks she’s got an exclusive, but she’s wrong.” Bob chuckled wanly. “Add Auberon into the mix—he’s known it for ages—and you and Sonny and Fennrys and whoever else might have been listening at keyholes over the years, and I’m almost free of the compulsion entirely. Once the name loses all its power, I’ll be free to choose another. If I live so long . . .”