The Dark Witch and the Elemental

by Tabitha Scott

  When they have left, Pulania doesn’t waste any time. “So who’s this daughter of his? And what’s this about her not aging?”

  “A barmaid at a pub he took Gil and I to. Jimmy didn’t exactly keep it a secret that he was her dad, but I picked up on the fact that she was much older than she looks. Bríghe is the same, but she isn’t confined to any one place, like Shania is. I figured that Bríghe had to be the daughter of one of the Faerie people too. What I don’t get is the difference between them. Shania can’t leave Dublin.”

  Pulania leans back, I think she’s stewing. “Yes, they try to save their children when they become attached to them. It doesn’t happen often, in the past the men probably sired children with human women without even knowing it. But it is a rare event for a Faerie to have a child with a human, so on those occasions when there is a deeper link with the mother, and a Faerie knows a baby has been born of them, they will feel attached. For an immortal, it’s a losing battle though. You can only do so much to keep a mortal child alive, and humans live such a short time compared to the Tuatha de Dananns. The difference between Bríghe and this Shania…” oh, Pulania practically spits her name, “is that Jimmy isn’t nearly as powerful as Arawan. I suspected Bríghe was the daughter of one of them because of her age, you did well to suspect the same. Though of course, I didn’t know who her Faerie parent was until Jimmy told me.”

  “Humph, that was a bit of a surprise.”

  “Yes,” Pulania agrees. “I find it strange that an Unseelie would feel such an attachment. Bríghe’s mother must have been particularly alluring. I’m sure there’s a story to be told there.”

  “Shall we go down and talk to Arawan?” I ask.

  Pulania shifts and is about to answer, I’m sure she was about to say yes, but her cell phone is ringing. “Hatchesput coven, evil doing is our business. How can I help you?”

  Pulania puts her hand over the receiver and whispers to me, “It’s Hatchesput.”

  She needn’t of bothered, I can hear every word Hatchesput is saying, she’s going deaf, the old crone, and she tends to shout to compensate.

  “I need you two Eggheads at Hermitage. We’ve taken in the Irish, but there’s a problem.”

  “What’s that, Your Majesty?”

  “They’ve been followed. We can feel other magiks not far away. We’re going into battle soon, and we need you two as back up, and if you have that other Pretty there, bring her along as well. The more wands the better.”

  Hatchesput hangs up. Pulania is about to fill me in on the conversation, but I wave her away. “I heard, she’s not exactly quiet when she speaks.”

  “No, she isn’t,” Pulania agrees. “I guess Arawan will have to wait, he can chill in his cell until we get back. If it takes a while, he’ll just fall into the Faerie sleep.”

  By “the other Pretty” Hatchesput could only mean Bríghe, the other Irish seemed almost as ugly as the other girls from our coven. Though Hatchesput has been calling us ‘the Eggheads’ ever since Pulania and I had shown an academic leaning in our evil doing capability, the other girls have always called us ‘the Pretties’, because we are. I guess we have a new addition to that old moniker.

  “We’ll have to see if we can get Bríghe up, though she really needs a few more hours to rest,” Pulania says.

  Gil, who had been doing the quiet familiar thing, suddenly pipes up. “Amura could probably fix her up quick smart.”

  “Hmm, I guess I could,” I grimace. “I mean, I do have creation magik, and this is just the sort of thing it’s good for.”

  “Good, that’s decided then. Let’s get to it,” Pulania directs.

  We meander back into the storage room where we’d left Bríghe. She’s fallen asleep, I touch my hand to her shoulder and her eyes flutter open. “I need to do something to get you better a bit more quickly, Bríghe. We’ve been summoned to help the coven. I have some magik that can help,” I tell her. After all, I don’t want her freaking out on me because she has no ficketty fecking idea what I’m doing to her.

  I place my hands on her, and she starts a bit as she can feel the magiks emanating from my hands, her eyes are going wide as she feels more like her usual self. In next to no time at all she’s sitting up in the cot, and having a bit more water.

  “We need to go when you’re ready, Bríghe,” Pulania explains.

  “By those Faerie paths again?” she asks. Pulania must have introduced Bríghe to the paths when she took her to our home in Edinburgh.

  Pulania takes a moment, and I can see from the faraway look in her eyes that she’s trying to recall memories from a long time ago, when last we were at Hermitage Castle, probably some eighty years ago, or more. “Yes, there’s a Faerie path that comes out within the Castle itself. It’s an ancient site, so that makes sense.”

  Chapter 27: Hermitage Castle

  We come out of the Faerie path into the ruins of the Castle’s main courtyard. It’s just gloaming to late evening here, so the shadows of the grey stone walls are beginning to lengthen and cloak the inside grounds in darkness. Out of witchly habit, we fan out and freeze near the edge of one of the inner walls, hidden in bleakness. Gil is there too, but in her cat form, staying near my ankles. Her hackles are up, but she doesn’t make a sound. We wait, and listen, wands at the ready, until our eyes adjust to the dimmer light.

  “It’s the pretties!” A voice calls out from above us, in one of the lookout positions.

  “The pretties have arrived.” Another voice echoes from further away.

  At the familiarity of the coven voices, we break from defensive position and Pulania leads the way to one of the few surviving covered rooms that can still be used when there is business hereabouts.

  “Eggheads! And the new pretty. Welcome to the Hermitage. It’s been a long time since the coven has retreated here.” Hatchesput is here when we enter a stone covered room, deep in the castle bowels with several of the other girls from the coven. They have maps of the area on a central table.

  “And yet,” Pulania answers, “we have company, it seems.”

  “Yes,” Hatchesput answers. “A bigger group than our own. Maybe a hundred, or so. Another battle is at hand.”

  “Are the Irish here, Your Majesty?” I ask.

  “Uh-huh, we’ll give those others a good fight. It seems that the Hermitage was too easy for them to find. Somebody among them must have a long memory, but that won’t mean much. We have some tricks waiting here.” Hatchesput’s arm expands over the table with the maps. She had mentioned something earlier about the Hermitage being ready.

  “How can we be of service?” Pulania asks.

  Hatchesput clicks her tongue and a crooked smile comes to her face. “They’re gaining numbers, by morning there’ll be too many of them, so we’re going to attack now, before they’ve fully gathered. We’ll force their hand, but we need a few of our own to hold the castle, we’re going to lead them back here and blow them to shit. I need my second in command here to make sure all goes well.” Hatchesput winks at us.

  Huh, it’s a good plan, I could see some of the coven’s Gatling guns bristling from the castle towers when we came in. The anti-aircraft missile launchers might be somewhere nearby too. There’s very little cover approaching Hermitage Castle, it’s on a slight rise in a shallow valley. If we were attacked by surprise, from all directions, there would be nowhere to go, but if we were attacked from the air, from just one direction, the attackers would drop like flies.

  “There’s another problem though,” Hatchesput continues. “They’re not all Fae.”

  “Mortals?” Pulania asks, but Hatchesput shakes her head… and now they’re all looking at me. What the?

  “Sooo, what are we talking about here?” I ask.

  “Unseelies,” Hatchesput spits. “Only a handful, but they’re definitely there, and… there’s another creature that some of the girls have seen from a distance. The witches on the other side bow to it, I’m guessing it could be a demon, or something.”r />
  All the eyes are back on me.

  “Oh, so you need a demon killer?” I deadpan. No one needs to answer that, it’s obvious that they do, and I’m it. Hatchesput knows that I’ve killed a demon before, I have a bit of a reputation in the coven because of it. Of course, she doesn’t know that my obsidian blade gives me an edge – literally.

  “They’re over the rise, in the river gully, less than half a mile away. We’re going to sneak up on them and attack from the ground. They won’t expect us to attack, we’ll catch them by the curlies, but they’ll take to the air to try and get the advantage of us. We’ll pull back toward the castle, and then when they’re in range we’ll let them have it with everything we’ve got. Pulania, you’re going to command the castle forces. I’ll lead the attack group.” Hatchesput, again, looks at me.

  “I guess I’m with you then, Your Majesty.” I cross my arms, but I’m not unhappy with this turn of events, I prefer to be where the action is. I fancy there’s a slight grin on my face.

  “That you are, Egghead,” Hatchesput replies with a nod of her head. She looks toward Bríghe. “What about you, Pretty? Staying or coming? I already have a couple of your sisters recruited, but another wouldn’t hurt.”

  I’m bristling a bit at the returned use of our old nickname. I never really liked it, and I’m not sure I like having Bríghe lumped in with us, though I can see that it makes sense. I guess we are ‘the Pretties’.

  “I’ll go with you, Your Highness,” Bríghe replies.

  Your Highness? That must be an Irish thing, Hatchesput isn’t correcting her, like she would us. Of course, for the Irish, Hatchesput is the Fai Queen of Hibernia, I guess that entails a different acclamation.

  Anyway, we’ll see what this dark Irish girl can do.

  “You girls gather in the courtyard. I have to give Pulania a quick tour of our ordinance and their deployment. When she’s got control of things, we’ll be heading out.”

  Bríghe and I do as we’re told, when we get to the courtyard there are a few others waiting for us. Mostly Irish, there just aren’t many of our original coven left, and those that have survived know how to use the high-tech weaponry that the coven has been accumulating, so they’re needed at the Castle.

  A few others join us before Hatchesput reappears, but it seems there’ll only be about a score of us in this little raid. That’s just enough to cause some havoc. I notice something else too, the twenty or so here are amongst the most lithe amongst us. Oh shit, there’s going to be running involved, I’m sure of it. Shite.

  Chapter 28: The Tunnels

  As we wait there, we begin to stir, there’s something in the air. Watching the auras of those around me there’s a trepidation that wasn’t there a moment ago, and they’re fidgeting. Our Fae senses are stirring – something isn’t right.

  Hatchesput comes into the courtyard, but she doesn’t pay us any attention, she’s staring into the air with her eyes slit. She can feel something too. I think she’s trying to work out what it is we’re all sensing.

  For a second the prickling at the back of my neck seems to ease. Hatchesput turns to us, “There are a series of tunnels under the castle. They lead to…” Her head snaps to the side. “Oh, shit, they’re in the tunnels! That’s what we can feel, some of them have found their way in. Amura, send your cat to tell Pulania.”

  Gil steps up into human form. “I’m on it.” She rushes off to find Pulania.

  “Right, the battle plan has changed. We’re on the defensive now. We need to head them off in the tunnels otherwise they’ll take the castle from inside. Follow me!”

  Hatchesput lurches toward an archway that leads down into the lower part of the castle. “I think it’s only this branch. There are other ways in and out, through different parts of the castle. But these passages all come back to this lower ante-room.”

  We follow Hatchesput down a set of worn rock steps, to a dank room, with earthen floor, and with a stone wall opening into a passage braced with wood and lined with wire reinforced concrete spray. There was no expense spared in the construction of these tunnels, it seems. Any miner would be proud to have said he’d burrowed here. We all stop behind Hatchesput and listen before going forward. There’s distant voices, and scuffling.

  “There are a number of branches and exits along the way, every branch leads out somewhere,” Hatchesput whispers to us. “If you get trapped, or separated from the rest of us, you can try and make it to the end of the branch tunnels, and out. That’s the only advice I can give, but we should be enough to hold them. The tunnels aren’t that wide so a handful of us each can hold a branch. Now, wands out.”

  I already had my obsidian blade out, but whatever. Bríghe is beside me. She briefly looks in my direction as I’m rolling my eyes at Hatchesput. She purses her lips to stop a smile, her wand was already out too. Like minds, I guess. I also guess that we’ll be watching each other’s backs during this little adventure.

  We start after Hatchesput. She leads at a pretty quick pace for a multi-centurion. There’s no conversation, we don’t want to give ourselves away to those ahead of us. After about eighty yards, the tunnel bifurcates, Hatchesput pauses, feeling to see what is down each branch, I expect. After a second or two, she indicates for a handful of the others to head down the lesser of the tunnels. Then the rest of us continue along the main branch, more quickly now, we’re almost at a trot.

  After a bit more travelling we come to another branch, and the ritual is repeated. As the second group head off, from behind us there is the sound of blasting, and a far off shriek. We look amongst ourselves, but a hiss from Hatchesput brings us back to the task at hand. We move forward again, but further down the tunnel, there are lights shining along the walls. Some of our group have been using their wands to provide enough light for us to see by, but now we’ve all halted and our lights have been extinguished. We melt into the side walls of the passage, and wait.

  It only takes a couple of seconds for the shadows of our Fae attackers to become visible amongst the swaying lights they’re carrying. We wait until they’re a wee bit closer and then Hatchesput calls out, “Now!”

  Blasts of light funnel down the end of the corridor and we time slip into the attack of the dark witches. On our way, we dodge bodies blown to pieces along the earth flooring. Knives fly through flesh, and before the Fae on the other side know what’s happening, a good dozen or so of them lie dead. The others behind them are running away, or so it seems. We slow down to take stock of the situation. The attackers have retreated behind a bend in the walls. There’s a fair bit of blood on our clothes, but so far, none of us are hurt. Then from the end of the corridor a blur attacks, and one of the Irish girls falls with her neck cut open. It’s an Unseelie. They can time attack too. As its blade reaches toward Bríghe’s neck, going back into my own blur of time, I slash back at the creatures arm, and I mean creature. This isn’t one of the Faerie peoples but one of their unearthly allies, with contorted limbs, covered in hair, like an ungainly giant spider. I take apart the limb that had carried its knife and, unbalanced, it crashes to the floor, where I can drive my obsidian blade into its back. It won’t be getting up any time soon.

  Another of the creatures catapults itself into two others on the other side of the tunnel. A blast from one of them doesn’t even slow it down. I’m already on to that one, though, and slice the back of its neck near the spinal cord, it drops in a death fall. Well, this works. If the others can keep these things busy, by sacrificing themselves, I can take them out. A third creature that was barrelling down the hall ahead of us, hesitates when it sees me kill its fellow. Then in wide eyed terror, it turns and runs, uttering a high pitched squeal as it goes.

  “Well done, Egghead. Demons and Unseelies, you’re full of surprises,” Hatchesput grimaces. She was one of the two pinned by the second Unseelie attacker, and her arm is dislocated. “Now give me a hand.”

  I grab the drooping arm, and help her pop it back into position. There’s no time
for thanks, from behind us, more Unseelies appear. They must have overpowered one of the two other groups. I have a clear shot over the heads of the others, so I send a bolt from my blade into the lead attacker. It blows apart like any mortal would, it’s limbs splattered against the cavern wall. But from behind it a barrage of blasts sends some of our girls sprawling and splattering in their own death poses. For a few terrifying seconds we trade point blank blasts with a group of enemies we can only see as the blasts hit something, or someone. After a few seconds they pull back out of range, but it appears that we’re trapped between two groups of attackers.

  “Shit,” I swear between clenched teeth. There are a good five or six of our girls down from that surprise attack. There are only another five of us left standing.

  “We need to get out of here, and back the way we’ve come, they’ve already got past us, we need to seal these tunnels,” Hatchesput hisses to the rest of us. “If we can’t they’ll over run the castle.”

  Then it strikes me that I can help with that. I reach down on to the earthen floor of the cave, and call upon my creation magiks. From ahead of us the earth pushes its way out from the sides of the concreted walls, and the tendrils of tree trunks and earths form a barrier that grows and spreads down the tunnel towards the group that’s ahead of us.

  In the distance, as the roots and soil knit together sealing that end of the tunnel, a pair of orange eyes glint toward us, and then as the way is closed, they disappear. A demon.

  Chapter 29: Loyalties?

  Hatchesput is staring at me, she saw the demon’s eyes too, but it’s not that which has caught her attention, it’s the creation magik.

  There’s a moment of hesitation, but from somewhere behind us in the tunnels the sounds of another fire fight makes its way to us. There’s no time for accusations, or whatever comes next from Her Majesty, we need to collect ourselves and fight our way back.