Arthur’s frown deepens. “I thought she was a Watcher?” he says, looking at me questioningly.
“She is,” Blanchefleur says with a cynical smile. “But all Watchers were warriors at one point, and it’s hard to quell one’s nature entirely.”
“Not that I’m not enjoying this little reunion party,” I say, “but the more we linger about, the more my prey’s getting away.”
“Your prey?” Arthur asks angrily, but I fly off before he can stop me again, tearing through the sky towards the northern shores.
I hear the others launch after me as I graze the growing cloud line, hoping to get another sight of the Shade.
“Keep going,” Blanchefleur says, closing the gap between us as I slow down.
“How can you tell?” I ask her.
“The Aether,” she says, and in a burst of speed she zooms ahead.
“Ain’t she grand?” Percy shouts at me, letting out a whoop as he trails after her.
We follow Blanchefleur over the length of Lake Winnebago, passing the site of our battle with Mordred’s hordes, before veering along the highway and resuming our course northward. As the sun slowly sinks over the horizon, setting the world ablaze, I find myself shivering in the freezing wind and wish I had a thick, winter coat on. But the weather down in Lake High is always so fair, I have a tendency to forget what it’s like up at the surface.
Blanchefleur suddenly swerves left, and the rows of houses give way to long stretches of snowy fields. Then, at long last, the Fey warrior dips towards the ground.
“He’s here,” she says as we land beside a small farm.
“How can you tell?” Arthur asks, his breath fogging in the air.
“I can feel him,” she replies, her jaw set with determination. “He is like a blight upon this world, can you not sense it?”
She unsheathes her sword and the crystal blade lights up, reflecting off the snow in a myriad of tiny rainbows. I try to open up my senses, like Lugh’s attempted to teach me, and for a moment I think I can feel the earth around me, vibrant with life despite the winter.
Except for one place.
I stare at the farmhouse standing peacefully before us. Something is in there, distorting everything around it like a vortex. I gasp at the shock of the sensation, my vision doubling, then the feeling is gone.
“What’s the matter?” Arthur asks me, his longsword held tightly in his gloved fists.
“Death,” I say, darting towards the building.
I reach the front porch to find the door ripped off its hinges, parts of the wall around the frame crumbling to dust. The air crackles with energy as I step over the rubble and inside the hallway.
The wooden floor creaks as the others walk in after me.
“What’s that?” Percy whispers, pointing at strange, moldy patches leading further into the house.
“Blood,” Blanchefleur growls. “His.”
A satisfied smirk stretches my lips—I’ll have to remember to thank the banshee for her good work today, if I ever get to see her again.
As I make my slow way forward, my feet moving silently over the barren floor, I see the shadows shift and turn around as a dark shape throws itself at me. We fall together on the floor, the air rushing out of my lungs.
With a sharp war cry, Blanchefleur launches herself at the Shade, her crystal blade cutting through the monster’s shadows. I gasp as the Shade’s face emerges from its tenebrous cowl—his eyes have been sown shut and, from beneath his sutured eyelids, seeps the dark, poisonous mist.
The Shade lifts itself from me with a roar, a column of black fog erupting from him and into Blanchefleur, sending the Fey warrior crashing through the wall and into the next room.
“Milady!” Percy shouts, running over to her as Arthur edges my way.
I see the Shade prepare to launch another attack and react intuitively. I raise my hands, willing the creature to be blasted away. A surge of power bursts out of me, lighting the whole room with its fire, and catches the Shade square in the back.
The creature lets out another roar before slowly turning towards me. I blink through the haze of pain burgeoning in my head as the Shade’s ghost-pale hand emerges from the depths of its shadows. I cringe away—can nothing stop it?
But before it can touch me, Arthur’s sword swings down towards the Shade. The Fey creature hisses, pulling back, then slams its fist down, black poisonous tendrils of smoke swelling from it. Arthur calls forth an air shield before the poisoned vapors can hit us, but the sylphid screen blasts apart at the contact. Arthur cries out as the ogham shatters on his finger in a flash of light.
“No!” I yell, reaching for Arthur as the Shade’s hand now reaches for Arthur.
The distant sound of a horn echoes in the distance, strong and insistent, and the Fey stops. There’s another long blast, and the Shade finally retracts its hand.
“Soooooon,” it promises, before tearing through the closed windows.
I push myself up onto my feet, ready to follow, when Arthur grabs my arm.
“Don’t,” he says, gasping. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I can’t let it get away,” I say, struggling to get out of his grasp.
Arthur wraps his other arm around me, keeping me anchored to the ground. “Please,” he says, and the despair in his voice makes me pause. “I almost lost you again, I can’t let it happen a third time.”
I grind my teeth together, and a couple of sparks dance over my skin as I try to force myself to calm down.
“Would ya look at that?” Percy calls out at us.
Arthur and I cross over to the other room through the wrecked wall. In the light of Percy’s floating salamander orbs, we see four bodies lying on the carpet in the middle of the living room, the smell of rotten flesh heavy around us.
“It fed on them,” Blanchefleur says, looking fine except for a thin trail of blood down her cheek.
“It what?” Percy asks, looking revolted.
Blanchefleur points to the bodies, their flesh streaked with black. “It’s a Dark Sidhe so it can’t use any outside energy like we do,” she explains. “That means it has to steal it.”
“I thought you were all linked?” Arthur says with a frown.
“Regular Fey are,” Blanchefleur says with a shrug. “But these? They’ve gone too far. The only way for them to get unlimited powers like us would be…” She stops, then shakes her head. “But no, that wouldn’t happen.”
“What wouldn’t happen?” I ask, my vision blurring as a wave of nausea hits me.
Blanchefleur’s limpid blue eyes alight upon me, and she frowns. “If they were to open the Gates of Hell,” she says at last.
A sharp pain blooms behind my eyes, pulsing along with my hearbeats, and my hands fall limp at my sides. I have the brief sensation that the earth is tilting crazily to the side before Arthur catches me.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, checking my vitals.
I try to flick his hand away but I barely have the strength to keep on breathing. Arthur’s hand grabs mine and he holds it up, and through my hazy vision I can tell the black veins have started to recede.
“She’s healing,” he says, “so why is she like this?”
Blanchefleur’s face appears next to his. “She’s drawn too much of her own energy,” she says with a snort. “It’s a wonder she’s held this long, really.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Arthur asks.
“You need to let her rest,” I hear Blanchefleur answer in a carefree way. “But what she should do is figure out how to link up to the Aether.”
“Just a little further…that’s right…be careful, there’s a step here…”
“Arthur, I’m tired, not dumb,” I say, irritated, as he leads me out of the farmhouse and to the lone pickup truck we’re going to have to steal now that neither of us can fly.
“Which makes you so much more docile,” Arthur says with an evil smile.
I glare at him, wishing Blanchefleur and Percy h
ad stayed with us. But Blanchefleur hates any machinery, and Percy, like the love-struck puppy that he’s become, went with her, leaving me with an overprotective Arthur.
It doesn’t take long for Arthur to jumpstart the farm’s pickup truck once he’s helped me inside, and we’re soon on the road back to North Asylum Bay.
Despite my fatigue, I’m wound up as tight as a spring. We left the school while it was still under attack—what will we get back to?
“Did they come for the Sangraal then?” I ask, after we’ve been driving for a while.
“Probably,” Arthur says. “And they knew precisely when to strike. Today was the only day the Sangraal would’ve been out of our school’s protective spells….”
His voice trails off but I know what he’s thinking about—the spy.
“What I want to know is why they attacked us on two fronts,” Arthur says after a while. “The second team was too small to cause much of a diversion, so they must’ve gone for stealth, trying to get to a specific target.”
I sink further into my seat, feeling crabby. “Me,” I say, trying to sound composed and failing miserably. “It wasn’t just my blood they wanted. That Shade was trying to get me to go with it.”
“What for?” Arthur asks.
I shrug. “Beats me.” Unless they’re planning on serving Carman my head on a platter, nice and fresh.
Arthur tightens his hold on the steering wheel until the leather of his gloves creaks, then he lets out a long, drawn-out breath. “That must be why Lugh wanted to give you protection,” he say.
“I guess,” I say with a loud yawn. “Though to be perfectly honest, since he mentioned the Board, I thought he meant against, you know, other knights and stuff.”
Arthur’s jaw tightens. “You mean Jennifer. Unfortunately, there are some reports that say you attacked her.”
“What?” I exclaim, straightening up, all fatigue gone as my blood boils at this new injustice.
“Of course, I don’t believe them,” Arthur says, glancing quickly at me, “but there’s no proof either way.”
“The whole class was present!” I yell, outraged. “They all saw her pull a gun on me!”
Arthur nods. “Perhaps, but no one will attest to it.”
“Not even Keva?” I ask.
“The word of a squire,” Arthur says carefully, “doesn’t always hold much against that of a full-fledged knight. And Keva’s your friend, which makes her an unreliable witness.”
“The world certainly blows, doesn’t it?” I mutter.
I watch the freeway’s lights gleam off Arthur’s remaining rings, and my thoughts drift back to the Shade, to that moment when Arthur’s ogham gave out and left us both defenseless. If it hadn’t been for that horn—Mordred’s horn, I now know—we might both be dead right now.
“Uh oh,” Arthur says.
“What?” I ask, looking outside the window to see if the Shade is following us.
“Out of gas,” Arthur says with a sigh. “Hopefully they won’t pay too much attention to our clothes.”
“Why?” I ask.
“I’m wearing my battle armor,” he says, “whereas you’re still in your school uniform. And there’s a curfew, remember?”
He exits the freeway and pulls into a lonely gas station.
“Won’t they notice that this is a stolen vehicle?” I ask.
“Not if we don’t stand out,” Arthur says. “So stay in the truck.”
“How long’s it going to take?” I ask. “’Cause I’ve really got to pee.”
Arthur lets out a defeated sigh. “In, out,” he says at last.
I rush over to the back of the building where the restrooms are while Arthur fills up the tank. But by the time I’m done, he’s waiting for me at the lavatory’s door.
“What are you—”
“Shhh,” Arthur says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
I stiffen up, but he holds me close to him and I don’t have the strength to push him away.
“Just play along, and don’t say a word,” he whispers to me as he leisurely guides me back to the truck.
And then I see it: A black and white police car, its owner drinking a steaming cup of coffee while waiting for the car to fill up.
“He’s looking at us,” I whisper anxiously.
“Don’t bite,” Arthur says, leaning in.
And before I can ask what he’s talking about, he kisses me. A deep, long kiss that makes me dizzy from lack of air. I try to smack him but Arthur keeps his arm firmly anchored around my shoulders, steering me past the cop car to our stolen truck.
Finally, Arthur breaks away to open the door for me.
“Good evenin’,” the cop says, raising his cup of coffee in salute, though I spot no smile under his thick moustache. “Cold, ainna?”
Mouthing off a curse, Arthur pushes me into the passenger seat before slamming the door shut. Then, before my very eyes, his whole posture changes.
“How’s by you, officer?” Arthur replies with the thickest Wisconsin accent I’ve ever heard.
The man nods, but drops his friendly smile as he stares through the windshield at me.
“Heard dey got another ten feet of snow up nort,” Arthur says, oozing calm and composure.
“Uff-da,” the cop says. “So whatcha doin’, hey? Shouldn’t ya be back home? There’s a curfew goin’ on.”
Arthur grins sheepishly. “Me an’ mah girl, we on da way back, but we run outta gas after stoppin’ to da Pig31…”
I see the cop frown then, after one tense minute, he relents. “Better get back home quick, now,” he says at last. “’N drive safe.”
“Yes, sir!” Arthur says.
He quickly gets back inside the truck and drives off. I watch the cop stare pensively at us in the side view mirror, praying he doesn’t suddenly change his mind and pulls us over.
“Hopefully they won’t find this truck too quickly,” Arthur says. “Because when they do, they’re going to find who really owns it. And when they find out who owns it, they’re going to find—”
“—the dead family,” I finish for him. “Which means…”
“You and I are going to be wanted men,” Arthur says with a bright smile.
I stare at him, wide-eyed. How can he take this so lightly? Then again, he’s never been falsely accused of murder before. Probably.
“Don’t worry,” Arthur says. “The Order’s good at covering our tracks.”
He tries to pat my knee but I jerk away, and Arthur’s frown returns.
“Our lawyers will deal with anything that may happen,” he says. “Besides, Luther owns half the businesses in the area, which tends to get the local authorities to turn a blind eye on our unusual activities. It might not abide by the rules of knighthood, but I must admit it can come in handy.”
“I’ve always wondered,” I say, Neenah city’s lights now at our backs, “why Wisconsin? I mean, there’s millions of lakes out there in the world, why this one? You could have settled in a bigger town, like New York or Chicago, for example, considering how much Luther and the others travel.”
“It’s because it’s not a big city that we’re here,” Arthur says. “Do you remember your Lore class? How Carman’s sons left the old world after her defeat?”
“Sir Lincoln may have mentioned it,” I say evasively.
“That was just the start,” Arthur says, “especially after the Industrialization Age started. A lot of Fey migrated to the Americas for survival, and to the Midwest in particular, where the great, empty spaces provided them with some measure of safety.”
“So you guys followed them here,” I say.
“That’s right. Wisconsin turned out to be as good a place as any to create our link to Avalon. We even had Carman’s prison set up here under the theory that too much human interference such as modern buildings and machinery would have weakened the spell. Although urbanization did catch up with us, eventually, which is one of the reasons why I believe the wards around Carman
’s prison were overcome so easily.”
I repress a shiver. Twelve people have been forced to give up their lives for Carman’s freedom; I can’t call that easy. I close my eyes as Dean’s last moments replay in my mind, as he willingly offered his life to save me. Or, I suddenly wonder, was it because he had another purpose for me? If only Dean were still alive, I’d be able to ask him what he, Mordred, and now that Shade want me for.
“Saint George’s balls!” I exclaim, making Arthur nearly drive off the road in surprise. “Elias was right, those freaks must be her sons too!”
“Who is whose son?” Arthur asks.
“That Shade and Mordred must be Carman’s other two sons,” I say. “Dean said he wasn’t working alone, and I saw traces of the Shade over on Island Park when you guys had Nibs give you a tour. And then Mordred showed up when she escaped. And isn’t it also funny that they now both want me for something?”
Arthur nods pensively. “It’s a possibility. They’re both certainly powerful enough. But there are a lot of powerful Fey out there. Lugh’s one of them, for instance. Lady Vivian another.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” I say, annoyed he’s not jumping to the same conclusion I have despite my stunning evidence, “but they don’t quite exude the same vibes as these creepy guys.”
“I’ll keep your theory in mind,” Arthur says as we exit the highway. “Just don’t mention it to anyone else until we’ve got definite proof. People are already on the fence when it comes to you, I don’t want to add fuel to the fire by suggesting you know more about the Dark Sidhe than we do.”
“Fine,” I retort, sullenly. “But don’t blame me again when the shit hits the fan.”
Unfortunately, the shit has hit the fan, and hard, as our return to Lake High makes abundantly clear.
“What’s the update?” Arthur asks Lance the moment our barge lands by the arena, away from the battle’s carnage.
Lance shakes his head, his hair sticking to his scalp with what I can only assume to be blood. “We repelled their advance,” he says, “unfortunately they got the Sangraal.”
Arthur’s footsteps falter as we make our way up the stairs to the KORT room, but he quickly resumes his ascent.
Rise of the Fey Page 26