by E.J. Stevens
I glared at Torn, and groaned. Damn the man, but he was right. This was my bright idea. The thing was, when I dreamed up this plan, I hadn’t expected to play the role of bait. I also hadn’t thought about how humiliating it would be to pretend to be toad food.
I turned to the toad, and grimaced. I lifted my arms, trying to remember if flies waved their wings up and down. I hadn’t given the annoying insects much thought until now.
“Less groaning, more buzzing,” he said.
Ceff choked on a laugh, and I folded my arms. He struggled to keep a straight face, and nodded.
“Torn is right,” Ceff said. “It could have been any one of us.”
“I bet Torn cheated,” I said.
“Stop being a sore loser, and go be our distraction before I get bored with our plan and take matters into my own hands,” Torn said, faking a yawn and waggling his claws in the air.
“Fine,” I said.
I sighed, and scowled one last time at my friends. Torn was sporting a Cheshire cat grin, Ceff’s lip continued to twitch as he wiped tears from his eyes, and Skillywidden stood off to the side, arms crossed over his chest. The brownie’s scowl matched my own, though for different reasons.
Skillywidden had tried to add his two cents to our plan, but every time he started to speak, Torn cut him off. I’d talk to Torn about it later, but, for now, I had to focus on getting us past the giant toad, and inside the wisp court.
Frowning, I lifted my arms and started “flying” toward the toad faerie. When the creature didn’t so much as twitch, I started to make a buzzing sound through clenched teeth. I blushed, keeping my eyes on the creature.
The plan was for me to lead the toad away from the wall, allowing my friends to slip through the gap. Once inside, they’d give me a signal, and I would run to join them. The toad was too large to fit through the wall, so we’d be safe once we were out of its reach.
At least, that was the plan. I should have known luring a giant faerie toad wouldn’t be that easy.
The toad lurched toward me, and I flinched. There was something strange about its movements, and it never opened its eyes. In fact, from what I could see, its face hadn’t moved a muscle.
Buzzing and flapping my arms, I sprinted away from the wall, trying to give my friends the opening they needed. I was so focused on my role as bait that I almost missed the first real clue that we weren’t dealing with a toad, or any other kind of amphibian.
The creature straightened, unfurling from its shell. That was no toad. A beetle-like creature came to its feet, waving a multitude of barbed, segmented arms and legs, and snapping dripping mandibles in the direction of my friends.
I’d foolishly mistaken the designs on the creature’s carapace for the face of a giant toad. No wonder the creature hadn’t so much as blinked. I might have felt relieved that my fly charade was over, if it wasn’t for my friends’ predicament. Instead of slipping in behind a distracted giant toad, they now faced the business end of a pissed off beetle creature—one that looked capable of cutting them in half with its mandibles.
“Look out!” I screamed.
I lunged toward the beetle, all pretense of being a harmless fly gone. I was no juicy meal, and neither were my friends. The thick exoskeleton of the creature’s shell deflected my first strike, but I’d expected as much. My goal was to try to distract the beetle fae long enough to get in position to defend Ceff and Torn. Together we might just have a chance against this thing.
I ran around the side of the creature, calves straining as I pushed myself to move faster. Heart racing, I searched for my friends, relieved when I caught sight of Skillywidden ducking inside the wall. With any luck, we could scare the creature off long enough to all slip inside the wall.
I started to smile, but my relief was short-lived. The diminutive brownie was the only one of my friends to have escaped. Ceff and Torn hadn’t been so lucky. They danced within reach of the creature’s barbed limbs and dripping mandibles, fighting for their lives.
I needed to help them, and I needed to do it yesterday. As I came into range, I planted my feet as best I could in the spongy, mossy ground. But before I could set up a proper throw, one of the creature’s limbs came at me like a black, barbed two by four. I spun, twisting out of its reach. Damn, that thing was fast.
Blood pounding in my ears, I gave up on my throwing knives, and drew my machete. My blades wouldn’t do much against the creature’s hard exoskeleton, but its spindly limbs looked more vulnerable than its shell. I might be able to keep it from whipping those barbed arms and legs around, permanently.
I took a deep breath, and leapt. The spongy ground worked against me, but I still managed a decent jump. Thank Mab for enhanced speed and agility. Holding the handle in a flexible pinch grip, I swung the machete in an arc, my body spinning slightly with the movement. I grit my teeth as the blade cut through the outer layers of chitin and sank through the softer meat of the leg. The machete pulled at my wrist, but I tightened my grip as the blade came out the other side. The leg fell twitching at my feet.
I spun, allowing my momentum to carry me closer to an arm that was crashing toward me, and proceeded to hack off another one of the creature’s multi-segmented limbs. Ivy-2, Beetle-0.
I caught Ceff’s smile, and nodded as we danced past each other. My lips lifted in a grin, and I pushed myself to move faster. Maybe this wouldn’t be so tough after all.
A strange chirp-like whirring sound drew my attention, and I realized why the loss of limbs wasn’t causing the beetle to lose its balance. It was vibrating wings that had until now remained hidden on its back, beneath the outer carapace. Those wings were helping to keep the beetle on its feet, not that it needed to keep its balance for long.
The grin slid from my lips as a pale grey, wormlike protuberance emerged from one of the wounds, quickly forming into a new limb. Eyes wide, I watched as a second limb did the same. The damn thing could regenerate. Within seconds, the limbs were fully formed and had grown layers of black protective chitin.
We needed to change our strategy. There was no way we could wear this creature down, or scare it off. Instead, it could continue fighting until we grew tired and sloppy. With what we’d already faced in Tech Duinn, and the vines sneaking out from the wall to grab at our feet, that probably wouldn’t take too long.
I jabbed between the legs, dancing in and out of the beetle fae’s reach, hoping to find a weak spot. My blade repeatedly scraped across armored exoskeleton with the telltale clack of metal against chitin, until finally the edge of my machete sliced into flesh. Too bad I didn’t have time to do more damage.
The minor cut infuriated the beetle fae, eliciting a series of high pitched, brain numbing shrieks. Its limbs flailed, and one of the arms struck a lucky blow, knocking me off my feet. I flew through the air, eyes wide, but managed to keep hold of my weapon, even when I hit the ground hard. The moss that had made for difficult footing while fighting, now managed to break my fall enough to keep from breaking bones, but sadly it wasn’t soft enough to prevent getting the wind knocked out of me.
As soon as I could catch my breath, I waved my arms and yelled, “Go for the abdomen!”
I pulled myself to my feet, but Torn was already darting in, and Ceff hacked away at limbs, keeping the creature busy. Torn raked his claws across the creature’s soft, unprotected belly, and I gasped.
Flowers sprang from the creature’s abdomen in a bright riot of color. With one final screech, the beetle fae’s wings stilled, and it toppled onto its back. Flowers continued to sprout from the bloody wound, reaching up toward the wall where plants were already sending out the tips of leaves and the curling ends of vines to give the newcomers a tentative prodding.
“I guess you really are what you eat,” Torn said, wiping his claws on the mossy ground. I groaned, and he raised an eyebrow. “What? Too soon?”
Not wanting to find out how the local flora would respond to the flowers spiraling up from the beetle fae’s guts, I shook
my head and ducked through the gap in the wall. Ceff and Torn followed close behind.
Skillywidden stood waiting for us, his hands on his hips. I nearly turned back the way we’d come. I’d rather face carnivorous plants than a pissed off brownie any day of the week.
Chapter 23
“I tried to warn ye, but ye wouldna listen,” Skillywidden said.
I shook my head, remembering the brownie’s frustration during our planning session. Now I knew why he’d been so angry with Torn. He’d been trying to explain that the giant toad was in fact a beetle fae. If only we’d listened.
“You knew it wasn’t a toad?” Torn asked with a hiss. “Why the Hell didn’t you tell us that in the first place?”
“He tried, Torn, but you kept cutting him off,” I said.
I rubbed a hand over my face, grimacing at the corpse ash, sweat, and who knew what else I smudged across my skin.
“Now quit sulking and let Skillywidden clean you off,” I said, flashing Torn my teeth in a smile.
“And you, Princess?” he asked. “You going to stay looking like a character from The Walking Dead?”
“No,” I said, face warming. “I have other ideas. Ceff?”
“It would be my pleasure,” he said.
As Ceff used his water magic to draw moisture from the air, I closed my eyes and tried not to think about some of the more creative ways he’d used that power. Ceff could do amazing things with his water magic, but right now, I just needed a simple rinsing off. Water flowed over my skin, washing away the thick layer of ash.
“I am done,” Ceff said. “And so, it appears, is Skillywidden.”
I opened my eyes to see Ceff and Skillywidden grinning from ear to ear. Torn, on the other hand, was glaring at the brownie, claws retracting and extending as he flexed his hands. Someone wasn’t pleased with their bath.
“Problem?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow at Torn.
“He…he…the little bastard scrubbed off all my skin!” he said.
“Ye was dirty,” Skillywidden said, thumbs hooked in his suspenders as he rocked back on his heels.
“Stop whining, Torn,” I said. “You still have plenty of skin.”
“Easy for you to say, Princess,” he muttered. “It’s not like you had a brownie scour all the skin off your arse. I won’t be able to sit for a week.”
My lip twitched, and I turned away from the cat sidhe and the wall of writhing vines. We’d made it through Tech Duinn and into Faerie, but we still had a long way to go. My father’s key had led us to the edge of his domain. Now it was up to us to survive long enough to get the answers we’d come here for.
I just hoped we didn’t kill each other first.
“Come on,” I said. “It looks like we’ve reached Nithsdale. There’s a swamp over there.”
I ignored Torn’s grumbling, and stalked toward the swamp until the ground became too wet to walk easily. The mossy ground had become progressively spongy until finally we were calf deep in water. That was when I noticed that the shifting, low lying fog ahead of us had taken on a greenish tinge.
“Kaye said that my father’s court is surrounded by a bog that belches poisonous gas,” I said, grimacing at a whiff of sulfur that burned my nose.
“She share anything else about this bog?” Torn asked.
“Yeah, it swallows men whole,” I said. Torn waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and I frowned. “Her words, not mine. Anyway, we need to find a way across.”
“Word of advice?” Torn asked. “Don’t follow the wisps.”
“Torn is right,” Ceff said. “Ignore any lights you see in the bog. They will try to lead you astray. Don’t let them.”
“You think my wisp cousins will try to kill me?” I asked.
“It is in their nature,” he said with a nod. “Plus, they may not recognize you as one of their own, let alone the daughter of Will-o-the-Wisp.”
“It’s not like you’re a little ball of sunshine, Princess,” Torn said. “Odds are, they’ll try to kill us, and ask questions later.”
“Well damn, I guess they won’t be getting solstice gifts this year,” I said.
I forced a brittle smile. I could make light of the fact the wisps might try to kill me, but I was far from okay with having homicidal branches on my family tree.
I also didn’t like the parallels between what I was doing, and what was typical wisp behavior. I was leading my friends into a deadly swamp—I just hoped that it wasn’t to their deaths.
“Stayin’ outta the bog won’t do ye any good if ye can’t breathe,” Skillywidden muttered.
He had a point.
“Ceff?” I asked. “Do you think you can use your water magic to create a bubble around our heads? One that will keep the poisonous gas out?”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “But once the water is in place, we will have to move fast. The amount of clean air in each bubble will be limited.”
“Okay,” I said as Ceff’s magic tingled along my skin.
Right, move fast and risk getting sucked into a deadly sinkhole, or suffocate. I didn’t like those odds. I looked around as we started to run, searching for a way to increase our chances of survival.
I tried not to breath too heavy, but I was already seeing spots, the first signs of oxygen deprivation. At this rate, we’d never make it out of the bog. I shook my head, and took a slow breath, but the spots of light didn’t go away.
Wisps.
Even with the water surrounding my head muffling the sound, I could hear a humming ring through the air. It was different from the discordant sounds the sickly wisps had made back in the junkyard. These wisps were healthy, strong, and on their home turf. I should have been afraid, but instead, I smiled.
The wisp song was the same tone that my father’s key had made when I used it to unlock the portal to Faerie. What if that same tone would help us navigate the bog? I’d thought of a dowsing rod when I used the key to find the lock inside Donn’s hearth, but maybe it was more like a magical sonar.
With nothing to lose, I unzipped the pocket where I’d stashed the key, and held it out in front of my body. Immediately, the key pulled to the right. My body jerked, just as my left foot began to sink into the ground. My stumble yanked the foot free with a sucking sound, and my eyes widened.
It worked, and just in time. I waved to my friends, and took the lead, holding the key in front of me as I ran. Wisps streamed alongside us, a cavalcade of deadly fireflies lighting our way.
Chapter 24
Wisps buzzed through the air, their musical humming a constant as they darted in for a closer look. I smiled as I sat on the mossy embankment, watching the playful wisps, and catching my breath.
With my father’s key helping to guide us, we’d left the deadly bog and its poisonous gas behind. I breathed deeply, and let out a happy sigh.
“I don’t know what you’re so happy about,” Torn said, shaking water from his hair. “We’re covered in mud and smell like troll farts.”
It was true. The sulfurous swamp gasses did smell an awful lot like something that would come out of Marvin after he ate an entire cauldron of Kaye’s chili, but I didn’t care. We were alive. And so far, my wisp brethren weren’t trying to kill me.
I’m not sure what it said about my life that the lack of fratricide upon my homecoming made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Probably best not to think too much about it, and just enjoy the moment.
I shrugged, and kept on smiling.
“Well don’t get too comfortable, Fish Breath is on his way over with his pensive face,” Torn said.
He stalked off to sit on a rock a few paces away, but I shrugged again and closed my eyes, turning my face to the moon and stars above us. I wasn’t going to let Torn ruin this moment.
“Are you feeling well?” Ceff asked, settling on the mossy ground beside me.
I cracked an eye open, grinning from ear to ear.
“I feel great, never better,” I said. In fact, I felt a bit dizzy and my lips t
ingled, like I’d had too much to drink. Only I would get buzzed off the buzzing of wisps. “Just buzzed off the buzzing.”
I hiccupped, and giggled, the laugh coming out in an undignified snort.
“Are you sure that you are not angry, or afraid?” he asked.
I forced myself to look up into Ceff’s face. His head was titled to the side, as if listening for something, but his attention was focused solely on me.
“I’m fiiine, really,” I said, waving a hand. My eyes widened, and I let out another giggle. “I’m glowing.”
“Which is probably what has his highness’ panties in a bunch,” Torn said, coming over to tower above me, arms crossed. “There is something weird about seeing you smile like that, especially when you’re glowing.”
“What?” I asked. “I smile.”
“Almost never, and when you do, it’s usually because you’re killing something,” he said. “Not that I’m judging. I’m just saying Fish Breath has a point. You’re different.”
“She is high on power,” Ceff said, eyes going tight. “I should have recognized the signs sooner, but I was focused on our flight through the bog, and then with releasing the water magic that held our masks together.”
“You think it’s the wisps?” Torn asked.
“That would be my guess,” Ceff said, rubbing his jaw.
“This didn’t happen after our run in with those wisps in Ocean Overlook cemetery, did it?” Torn asked.
“No,” Ceff said. “Not that we noticed. But Ivy was badly wounded that night, and took days to recover consciousness. And…I…I was not at my most attentive.”
That was the night that I’d killed his ex-wife. Melusine may have been the raging psychotic bitch who’d murdered his children, and tried to kill us as well, but that didn’t mean her death had been easy on Ceff.
The memory of Ceff’s grief flooded me, pushing the giddiness away.
“I think…I think I’m back to normal now,” I said. I yawned, covering my mouth with the back of my gloved hand. Ignoring the encroaching bone deep fatigue, I tried to pull myself to my feet, but sank back down when a wave of dizziness nearly toppled me over. “I just need a minute.”