Arthur nods but Lance’s his unblinking gaze remains fixed upon him.
“What’s the matter?” Arthur asks as we trudge up the path towards the rest of the group clustered at the edge of the park.
In answer, Keva holds up a heavy shirt before her, its metallic threads glinting. “Percy’s,” she whispers with a mix of awe and concern.
“He’s getting reckless,” Arthur says with a frown, and I realize that must be Percy’s battle shirt.
“We’re going to have to be careful around him,” Hadrian says, “just in case.”
“We’ll give him a wide berth, at all times,” Arthur states, and the other knights nod, their features strained.
“He went into the fight, in the middle of winter, half-naked?” I ask Keva. “Is he nuts?”
“And so very sexy,” Keva breathes. “Did you know he had this awesome lightning tattoo on his back?”
“It’s not a tattoo,” I say through gritted teeth as his battle against the banshee flashes before my eyes.
There’s a loud explosion and the ground shakes, dislodging snow from the top of the trees, and sending a pack of crows flying off, cawing in distress.
“What was that?” I ask, my breath fogging the air.
“Bridge just collapsed,” Hadrian says, looking over the leafless trees at the blazing fire beyond.
Sirens sound off in the distance, drawing closer.
“Crap,” Hadrian mutters. “I thought Safir had taken care of the locals.”
Another gust of hot, dry air makes me cringe backwards.
“Holy smokes,” I whisper.
“You can say that again,” Keva says with a pout. “I’m not surprised Safir wasn’t able to cover the attack entirely—not when half the county looks like it’s burning down.”
Her small face lights up as we watch the fire blaze higher through the leafless trees, spreading along the train tracks. A nervous tension courses down my spine as several fire trucks and police cars appear, their emergency lights blinking fretfully around the crackling flames before they get swallowed up by the dark clouds of smoke.
A few seconds later, we hear gunshots go off like series of firecrackers, before they suddenly die out too.
“Let’s get going!” Lance shouts, waving for the knights to spread out.
At his command, they all bound forward, their dark uniforms quickly blending into the trees.
“You stay here,” Arthur tells me. “Daniel will keep an eye on you.”
Daniel’s face turns ghostly white. “But I’m a knight, I’m supposed to fight out there with you!” he exclaims.
“You’re a knight and you’re meant to protect the weaker,” Arthur retorts, before handing me his long dagger.
“What’s this for?” I ask, suddenly afraid to touch the weapon.
“Hopefully you won’t need it,” Arthur says, forcing my trembling fingers to close around the proffered dagger. “And get back inside the car if you’re starting to feel off, OK?”
I remain mute, unwilling to make him any promise I may not hold.
“You heard me,” Arthur growls in warning. “If you’re feeling peaky, you get inside. And that’s an order!”
“Overprotective much?” Keva says with a smirk as Arthur disappears after the others.
“It’s nothing like that,” I say, annoyed. “I just had…an accident on the way over.”
“An accident?” Keva asks, her eyes going round with surprise. “What? Like you peed yourself?”
Daniel chortles. “Aww, did Morgan get too scared because of a widdle fight?” he says as if speaking to a baby. “Just don’t get near me. Don’t want to start smelling like cat piss.”
“No one would notice over your smell of cowardice,” Keva retorts.
Daniel’s mirth drains out of his face and he throws me an evil glare. “It’s all her fault,” he snarls. “My first mission, and I’m forced to babysit! Even the other squires are out there fighting. What will I tell the Lady Jennifer when she asks me what I’ve accomplished?”
“Oh, shut it, Daniel,” I say. “Can’t you even tell she doesn’t care an inch for you? You’re just another toy for her.”
“So not true,” Daniel says. “The Lady Jennifer’s an angel.”
I look quickly away before he can see me roll my eyes. How can so many people be blind to what Jennifer’s truly like? Then again, sociopaths are amazing manipulators….
Keva ignores Daniel entirely, apparently still not done with me. “So about that accident,” she says.
I push my hair out of my face as another gust of wind whips around us, fanning the bridge’s flames higher. Dark smoke billows out, merging with the threatening cloud cover; it won’t be much longer before the snow storm hits.
“I, uh, sorta blacked out,” I finally say, avoiding Keva’s inquisitive eyes.
“Again?” she asks. “Seems to be your specialty. What happened this time? Another attack?”
I shake my head. “Not even,” I say, embarrassed. “It was weird. I thought I was…somewhere else. And there were these people doing tests on me, or something. And then”—I drop my voice—“I heard him.”
“Him who?” Keva asks.
“My guardian angel,” I whisper, glancing over at Daniel to make sure he isn’t listening—if people got wind of my daily talks with my inner voice, they’d for sure have me locked up like they did my father.
I freeze.
“What now?” Keva asks.
“I-I can’t hear him anymore,” I whisper.
How could I not have noticed this sooner? Apart from my weird dream, I haven’t heard from my guardian angel since…I close my eyes as I dig through my memories…since Irene locked me up in her house before the fight.
“Can’t hear who?” Keva asks, getting impatient.
“My guardian angel!” I say. “Who else?”
Keva bursts out laughing, doubling over, and Daniel casts us a suspicious look.
“That’s not funny,” I say.
“I beg to differ,” Keva says, wiping tears from her eyes. “I hate to break it to you, but not having auditory hallucinations is actually a good sign.”
I scowl at her. “I knew you wouldn’t understand,” I say, both angry at her for her lack of concern, and at myself for not noticing his absence sooner.
I start pacing, the snow crunching under my every step, as I try to trace back what happened for me to lose who had once been my best and, for most of my life, my only friend. It must have happened during the battle with Carman, I finally conclude.
“St. George’s balls,” I mutter as understanding finally hits me. “The seal!”
When the seal dissolved, freeing my Fey side, it must also have gotten rid of my guardian angel.
I drop into a crouch with a low moan, feeling sick at what this implies: Not only was my guardian angel a figment of my imagination, as I often told myself, but he was a bloody side effect of what the Board did to me to contain my true nature.
“You know, there’s a legend about this place,” Daniel says, misinterpreting my reaction for fear, “about the Hill of the Dead. It’s where the natives buried all their warriors who died in a long and bloody battle with the French.” He steps closer to me in an ominous way. “There’s at least a thousand dead people at our feet right now, all killed in the most horrific, bloody way—”
“Can it, Daniel,” Keva says. “Those stories may scare you, but it’s not working on us.”
Daniel pauses, momentarily taken aback. “The dead call to the dead,” he says uncertainly. “And you know that attracts the Dark Sidhe.”
“There’s dead people everywhere around the world,” Keva says, “every place can attract the Dark Sidhe. How can you be such a sissy?”
As the two of them continue their quarreling, I move up the trail, my eyes locked on the conflagration ahead, flashes of color streaking the sky as the fighting goes on.
“Not every death is equivalent,” I hear Daniel say, getting riled u
p. “A murder’s different from a suicide’s different from a fatal disease.”
“There’s going to be another murder here if you don’t shut up,” Keva threatens.
“Something’s strange,” I say, cutting them off. I tilt my head as I try to put my finger on what it is that’s making me feel on edge, besides the battle that is.
“You mean all those Fey over there attacking humans right on our turf?” Keva asks petulantly.
“No, she’s right,” Daniel says. His hand drops to his sword as he scans our surroundings. “What happens when there’s a big accident?”
“People die?” Keva says, looking more and more puzzled.
“People stop and stare,” Daniel says. “Or they go out of their homes to have a look.”
I can see now why KORT’s decided to turn him into a knight. Every line of Daniel’s body is taught, ready for anything that might spring on us.
“Maybe they’ve been evacuated?” Keva suggests, but she doesn’t sound too certain herself.
Daniel’s sword rings as he pulls it free of its scabbard. “Wait here,” he says. “I’m gonna go check it out.”
“You can’t go out there alone!” Keva shouts. “You’re supposed to stay here with us.”
“Just shut up and hide if ya want,” Daniel says. “But I’m gonna go catch me a Fey!”
“Really?” I say as Daniel sprints away. “All he cares about is showing off?”
“It’s Daniel,” Keva mutters, as if that answers everything. “Besides, it must rankle him that he’s been made into a knight before the rite of passage. Even Brockton made fun of him for it, though that ended him in the infirmary.”
“What rite of passage?” I ask. Then, remembering the knighting ceremony during Samhain, I add, “You mean a jousting contest?”
“I mean his official first Fey capture,” Keva says.
I watch the spot where Daniel disappeared, angling away from the fire and the fighting. And away from any potential backup.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” I say. “We better get him back.”
“What?” Keva asks. “Now?”
“You can stay here if you want,” I say, already running into the trees after Daniel.
Keva lets out a string of unladylike curses then hurries after me. Branches snap in our passage as we follow Daniel’s trail. We emerge onto a quiet street: Large houses surrounded by large gardens, all covered in a thick blanket of snow that scintillates like diamonds in the light pooling out from the houses. All is peaceful and quiet, except…
“The door’s open,” I say.
I turn to look across the street. Same thing.
“OK,” Keva says slowly. “Definitely getting the creepy vibe here. Now what?”
Green light flashes from behind one of the homes.
“He’s using his oghams!” I exclaim, cutting through the tree-filled yards towards the back of the house as snow starts to fall.
“Morgan!” Keva whines. “We should get back to the cars and wait for the others there. It isn’t safe this close to—”
A loud explosion rends the air and I instinctively duck as a tall column of fire reaches down from the heavens to hit the remains of the bridge. Clouds of dust, smoke and debris blast outward from the impact, reaching out like the tentacles of some giant squid.
“You think they’re alright?” I ask, swallowing with difficulty.
“They’re knights,” Keva says. “They can handle a little fire.”
I look down as another blast hits the wreckages then suddenly grab Keva’s arm.
“Look!” I breathe, pointing at the ground.
“Oh, goody,” Keva says sarcastically, slapping my hand away, “tracks.” She pauses before adding in a more serious tone, “Lots and lots of them.”
“And all going in the same direction,” I say, “away from the houses—”
“—toward the train tracks,” Keva says. “Guess we know where our missing people are.”
We look at each other for a moment before Keva nods, and we both dash into the woods that separate this tranquil neighborhood from the highway.
The ground grows muddier as we reach the train tracks, and the hairs at the back of my neck stand up. I gag as I take in a lungful of a strange, cloying smell that hangs about the area.
“Ugh,” Keva says, covering her nose with her coat sleeve. “Smells like we landed in the sewers!”
I slowly face north, where the sharp smell of rotting eggs is stronger.
“This way,” I say, dashing forward again, wondering if Daniel’s gone that way too, and hoping we don’t get to the townspeople too late.
As we make our way along the tracks and away from the roar of the fire, a soft melody rises in the air, its strange notes compelling us forward.
“You don’t think this place is haunted, do you?” I ask, slowing down as Daniel’s tale of the bloody fight comes back to me.
“Ghosts don’t exist,” Keva says.
“I dunno,” I say, darting glances about. Night is falling steadily, and the Fey fires are now too far behind to provide much light anymore, leaving us to make our way in ever-deepening shadows. “I feel like something’s watching us.”
“If there’s something funky going on,” Keva says without a grain of doubt, “that only means—”
“—trouble,” I say as we hit a crossroad.
I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. Without a second thought, I grab Keva’s arm and wrench her out of sight behind a squat warehouse before anyone can spot us. From behind our cover, we can finally see the dark outlines of hundreds of people lining in the middle of the street, heading slowly towards a faint light somewhere by the lake’s frozen shore.
“Jennifer was right,” I whisper. “That fight back there is just another diversion. The Fey are after these people.”
Keva nods emphatically next to me. “The question now is: Why?” she says as we watch the laymen sway on their feet to the rhythm of the music, some of them already in their pajamas, oblivious to the biting cold.
“It’s like they’ve all been hypnotized,” I say, blinking snow out of my eyes.
“Let’s get closer,” Keva says. “It sounds like there’s something really good going on there.”
Frowning, I turn towards her and find that she’s already halfway down the street, her head bobbing in time with the music.
“Keva!” I whisper harshly. “Get back here!”
I catch up with her towards the end of the road, grab her braid and yank her down behind a tree, our fall cushioned by the snow.
“Get off of me!” Keva yells, struggling to get free. “I have to go out there, they’re waiting for me!”
I slap my hand over her mouth, and have to clench my teeth together to stop myself from screaming when she bites into it.
“Snap out of it!” I say, slapping her face so hard her lip cuts open and starts bleeding.
Kava’s vacant eyes momentarily focus on my face and I shake her forcefully.
“W-What’s going on?” she asks, her voice shaky.
“Have you gotten your senses back?” I ask, still not letting her go.
Keva reaches towards the back of her head and winces. “My head hurts.”
“Don’t listen to the music,” I say, slapping my hands over her ears.
“Ow, do you mind?” Keva asks, trying to pry my fingers away but I shake my head.
“You’re gonna get sucked into it again,” I say. “And then you’re fodder for whatever those Fey are doing to these people.”
Keva’s eyes widen as she takes in the crowd moving beyond our hiding place towards the shore. She nods then places her own hands over her ears.
I scan the crowd, in search of the Fey, amazed that we haven’t gotten caught yet. My gaze stops on a couple of shadows at the very front. A flash of purple lights them up, and for a brief moment I think I recognize one of them.
“Go back and get some help,” I tell Keva urgently.
&n
bsp; “What about you?” she asks.
“I’m gonna figure out what’s happening,” I say, “and see if I can’t find Daniel.” She’s about to protest, but I cut her off, “I’ve got my own superpowers now, I’ll be alright. Just hurry.”
Keva finally nods. “Don’t get yourself killed before then,” she says before sprinting back toward the train tracks, her feet kicking up snow.
I turn back towards the Fey and nearly throw up as another wave of the sweet smell of decay grips me. “I’ll try not to,” I whisper back.
I force my legs to keep moving, trying not to think about what I’m about to do. Staying low to the ground, I creep down the small path between the house and the pockets of bushes that form the hedge. I sink into the snow behind a shed as another flash of purple illuminates the long field that separates me from the lake’s shore.
The line of people moves up, still swaying to the music’s soft rhythm, and the man at its head steps forward before dropping out of sight in another deep purple flash.
I stifle a gasp as I realize the flashes are coming from a Fey circle of some kind. Just beyond it, I can make out the outlines of the two Fey themselves—one hovering about the portal, the other sitting to the side, hunched over a long, curved flute.
My heart skips a beat as I watch the Fey standing beckon the next in line, an old man with a shock of white hair, to come forward. But at the edge of the circle, the old man seems to hesitate, wobbling on his feet. I hold my breath, hoping against hope that the man’s going to escape, but the Fey pushes him over and his snowy hair disappears down the hole in another flash.
I grind my teeth together as my suspicion about the identify of this operation’s leader is confirmed, the purple glow from the circle highlighting his tattooed face—he’s the one who threatened Lugh and came to fetch Carman upon her liberation!
I nervously scan the horizon, expecting the Fey witch to show up at any moment and blast me to bits. Keva was right, I should’ve stayed by the cars. There’s nothing I can do here.
But as I make to backtrack, I see a little boy come to stand at the circle’s perimeter and my blood runs cold. The child can’t be more than seven!
Rise of the Fey Page 12