Hidden Worlds

by Kristie Cook

  I groaned, lying still but sucking short breaths as the pain subsided. After a few moments, it finally did, like a pummeling, drowning wave returning to the sea.

  “You shouldn’t move too much. The salve hasn’t reached the very innermost part of your wound yet. Only then will you feel much better.” A faint foreign accent framed her words and sounded vaguely familiar. All I could make out as my dry, burning eyes opened was a swatch of deep auburn red hair.

  “Where’s Shade?” I croaked. My voice sounded dried up, like jerky, and I coughed as my throat stuck together in a violent rub of sandpaper. I blinked away the oozing tears that finally surfaced on my dry eyes. The woman came into focus. She was familiar, but I couldn’t quite figure out who she was.

  “We’ve sent our messengers to her. She’ll know soon enough where you are, Benton.”

  “How do you know who I am?” My vision cleared even more, but I couldn’t put a name to the beauty before me. If I’d had any blood left, I probably would have turned a bright, stark red. She was that gorgeous. “You’re a faery.”

  “Yes. You probably don’t even remember me.” She chuckled, and her tone wasn’t accusatory, just playful and sweet. It made me like her immediately. “It has been ages. I’m Sary, of the Vyn people of the southern region of Faerie. Your sister Shade is a good friend of mine.”

  I nodded, surprised she knew my sister. I took the glass of water she handed me and gave it a disappointed frown. Why couldn’t it be faery draught? That stuff was incredible, but I doubted it was as widely available outside of Faerie. “How’d you find me?”

  Sary leaned forward, inspecting my wound with a gentle lift of the bandage. I winced, and she quickly dropped it back down. She was trying hard not to frown at my injury, but I could tell from the look of concern in her eyes that I wasn’t out of the danger zone just yet.

  “Will I live?” I smirked, but it turned into a grimace as the pain prickled along my stomach.

  “Oh, you will. No dying today.” Sary’s smile reached up to her twinkling green eyes, which shined like two shiny emeralds gleaming in a pool of water. I sucked in a short, fast breath at her beauty. I decided I had seen her before, briefly, but up close, she was truly the epitome of beauty. Faeries were already perfect and beautiful as it was, but I’d never taken notice of any of them. Shade said it was to my advantage that I was a fire elemental; it made me immune to the charms of Faerie. I could come and go as I pleased without being much affected by faery magic. I thought it was my human side that kept me safe, but it was also what would make me weak. My magic kept it all at bay. Humans were highly prone to being charmed by faeries and could be enslaved if the wards of Faerie failed and let the fey out.

  And they had failed, let them all out. Here I was, cleaning up the damn mess, and it was a doozy. It had kept me busy for months, and I was nowhere near finished finding all the escapees.

  I leaned back as she shuffled about the room, gathering my dirtied and bloodied clothes to probably burn. I knew I wouldn’t attempt to wash the blood out. Maybe she had some faery magic laundry spell to get bloody stains out, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

  It was near noon from the position of the sun shining its little face through the dusty windows. I couldn’t tell where I was or how far I’d been taken from the spot I’d fallen and almost left this world. I hoped it was far enough from any prying eyes. Faeries tended to place glamour over themselves or places of sanctuary to keep others out or bespell them to avoid the area at all costs. I wondered if Sary and the other woman had done that. Most likely, they had. Whether it was a makeshift hospital or was a permanent one, I didn’t know. I seemed to be the only patient.

  “Here.” Sary handed me a heavy goblet, sloshing with acrid-smelling, warm fluid.

  I lifted an eyebrow. “What’s this?” I sniffed it and made a face. “It smells like gym socks.”

  “Oh, just drink it. It will heal you from the inside.” She pressed her lips firmly together, making me feel like I was being coddled by my mother.

  The reminder of Mom made my heart clench. Her untimely death at the Scren battle was still so fresh in my mind that it felt like I’d reopened another wound by thinking of it. It hurt worse than my abdomen, for it was incurable and permanent. I quietly took the goblet and downed it faster than I’d ever drunk anything in my life. It burned going down but turned into a warm, calming sensation as it made its way through my stomach and deep into the tissues near my injury.

  The pain suddenly stopped, like someone had reached in, solidified it and yanked it out.

  “Wow, that’s wicked!” I had to touch the site of the wound to even believe it was still there. It remained sore but was infinitely better than it used to feel. It would do. I sat up, only to be shushed and scolded to lie back down.

  “You’ll reopen it. It’s not completely healed yet. Only time can take care of that.” Her frown made her face contort, bringing out the worry stamped across her features. I wasn’t her only concern today. I wondered what—or who—was going through her mind.

  I hoped it wasn’t a who.

  Was it bad that the thought of her thinking of someone else made the jealously flare up within, a feeling I was quite unused to? Why would I feel such a thing toward a stranger? Well, so okay, she wasn’t a complete stranger, but an esteemed friend of my sister. Still, I didn’t know her, but her deep, fiery red hair and gleaming green eyes seemed to throw me into a trance I found hard to shake. I wanted to know more about her, hold her, kiss her soft lips and make her body shiver.

  I shook off the eerie compulsion. Get a grip, man.

  Pressing my eyelids together to push her charms away, I groaned. I was still human, still extremely vulnerable to Faery charms, but I had to sometimes concentrate to focus my immunity. If I lapsed in my defenses, this woman could very well reel me right into her glamour and make me a complete zombie idiot.

  What a way to piss someone off.

  “How long before I can leave this joint?” I fidgeted against the headboard, following her as she left the room, unaware her little tricks hadn’t worked on me. Her voice echoed back into the room, and it had me wondering what she was going to do now.

  “Tomorrow, you’ll be right as rain.” Her sudden reappearance at the doorway to my room had me flinching a bit, and I could see her fighting the tiny smile trying to form on her pretty, pink mouth. “Until then, eat up. You need your strength.”

  Keeping my mouth shut, I nodded. No sense in making two of us mad, really.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I readily accepted the tray of food she handed me, staring hungrily at the variety of fresh fruit, meats and bread rolls filling the plate, alongside another jug of juice and a bowl of what smelled like some sort of vegetable broth. That was one thing I’d loved about living in Faerie with Shade: the food was the best I’d ever tasted. It’d been weeks since I’d been back, so this was definitely a most welcomed delight.

  “So what are you doing out here anyway?” I talked with my mouth full and made a show of it. No one said a mercenary had to have manners, right? I almost choked on it as Sary watched me with a look of pure disgust painted on her face. I took a swig of juice and swallowed, giving her a nice, wide grin.

  “Do all human men have such atrocious manners? You’re like a starved ogre!” Her eyebrows lifted as she studied me. I was pretty sure she was on to me, but I felt flushed all of sudden and had to look away. I hated being looked down on, but hey, no big deal. I’d been called worse.

  “Well, not all can be quite as charming as me.” I smirked, showing off what probably was a rack of teeth with an array of food bits stuck all across them. She rolled her eyes and tossed me an extra blanket.

  “Get some rest. This is our temporary quarters. Braelynn is accompanying me to Chicago once you’re well. We leave here as soon as you’re healed.”

  “Wait …” I had to know why she was headed that direction. “What’s in Chicago?” Something about it rang a bell in my memory, but I couldn’t p
ut a finger on it.

  She paused at the doorway, not turning back, but her shoulders sagged ever so slightly. “I’m looking for my brother, Ferdinand. Shade told me he was there, that she’d met him.” Sary turned to look over her shoulder, her liquid green eyes burning into me, as if I was intruding on something. “I need to speak to him. I just hope he’s still there when we arrive.” With that, she left the room, a cool breeze trailing in her wake.

  I’d lost my appetite, but was feeling the need to heal and get the hell out of there, so I stuffed another roll into my mouth and chewed slowly. I couldn’t explain it, but something told me, a deep gut feeling really, that I should follow them, go with them to Chicago. Something was there, and it would tell me a lot about the escaped Sluagh and Unseelie and how to find them more easily.

  Ferdinand. The name stuck in my brain like a thorn. Shade had met him so … wait! He was the guy she’d met on her last trip to the mortal world. Some dangerous, territorial faery who called himself The Siphon Lord of Chicago, kidnapping unknowing Seelie Faeries to steal their magic and bottling it up for sale to the local fey exiles who were condemned to dwell in the cities. He’d let her, Dylan and Nautilus go when they’d inadvertently fallen into his clutches, only because she was Sary’s friend. Even so, they’d barely escaped. The guy sounded dangerous, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be happy to see Sary, even if she was his sister. I’d gotten the feeling that he didn’t want Sary to know what he did for a living in the mortal world.

  I could sense Sary still lurking just outside the door. “Did Shade ever tell you what he was doing in Chicago?” I called. “Your brother, I mean.”

  She reappeared in the doorway, her liquid eyes turning to stone as she sharpened her gaze on me. I wasn’t that skittish, but that stare made even me shift in my britches. I’d obviously pissed her off for sticking my nose where it wasn’t wanted.

  “No. But it wouldn’t matter what she said. I’d still be heading there now.”

  I nodded and flinched away from her stare. So I was mostly impervious to fey magic, but it sure made my skin crawl like a million tiny worms had decided to dig in and call it home. I fiddled with the frayed ends of the woven quilt draping my thighs. I could still feel her eyes upon me, but the crawling feeling faded as I breathed in slowly.

  “You don’t have to use up any of your little faery tricks on me. They don’t work so well.” I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see her reaction.

  “Hmf!” Sary stalked away, not bothering to apologize as she continued, right out the front door, letting the violent slam that followed shake the entire apartment.

  Apparently, Shade hadn’t told Sary about Ferdinand’s illegal siphoning of magics. This would devastate her. I hoped she’d understand when she found out her brother’s true nature. I pondered telling her myself, but talking about Ferdinand had already backfired on me. Regardless, I felt compelled to go with her, even though I didn’t have the slightest clue as to why.

  I rubbed my chin, leaning back as I shoved the tray aside on the large, creaky bed. I’d have to let her find out for herself. This was none of my business, right? That didn’t mean I couldn’t go along with them for protection. I may have been human, but as even my mother told me once, I was an equal, if not more powerful than a Faery. Shade had the best of both worlds, but I had power to match any fey’s. Some weird balance of nature I guess. Still, I could be of use on this mission, not just to help Sary find her brother, but to find more of the missing Unseelie and Sluagh escapees I was sent to track and dispose of. A mutual benefit.

  Besides, whatever was calling me to Chicago, this dire compulsion needed to be heeded.

  Chapter Three Fire Lessons

  Fire Lessons

  Circa one year ago …

  The words began to blur as my eyes cramped, causing me to rub them furiously. This particular grimoire had hooked my interest because it was from my great, great, great uncle Brendan, who apparently discovered the Empyrean blade now in my possession. It’d been a gift from a legendary sword smith who knew about Elemental beings. How he would have met such a person, was beyond me since I’d never heard of anyone in the human realm who spoke of Elementals. Though this was a diary of sorts, as most grimoires were, he tended to leave out important details like that.

  Maybe he was just really full of it.

  I sighed, so entirely ready to go to bed. Anna had already hit the sack an hour earlier. So why was I still down in the dredges of our underground witch hole? Because I was hooked. I hated to admit it, but the knowledge buried down there was mesmerizing and comforting. Still, no matter how addicted I was to discovering all I was capable of as fire elemental, I’d worked myself into a deep sucking exhaustion.

  I shut the grimoire, replaced it on the table and slipped my Empyrean blade onto my belt. It flickered a soft yellow-orange fire, warming my skin as I looped the sheath across my waist. It made me smile, knowing it wouldn’t burn me. Being impervious to flames, fire and anything related to the element was wicked fun. When I’d discovered my abilities, I’d been clumsy, awkward and untrained. The more I used it and learned about my powers, the easier it became to use.

  In fact, you could almost say I was made of fire. I’d learned to throw fireballs, teaching myself the skill before my mother got her memory back enough to help me refine my skills. She’d turned out to be a drill sergeant about training me and my remaining siblings, Anna and James, on how to use our powers. I wondered if my older sister, Shade, who’d been in the Land of Faerie learning of her own magical heritage from her paternal grandmother, would learn enough to use her elemental powers as well as we now did. I hoped so. Shade could use all the help she could get in Faerie.

  I stomped out of the room, feeling the slight shiver of the barrier ward that kept the room hidden from the rest of the basement. I shook it off as I made my way toward the stairs, up to the rest of the house to scavenge for a late dinner. I was famished. Studying was some seriously draining stuff, and my stomach was on a constant prowl for food and fuel, capable of emptying the fridge of every edible thing.

  “Hey, Mom.” I passed her as I bee-lined for the fridge and jerked the door open, scanning the contents. “Starving.”

  Mom shut the sink water off and dried her hands on kitchen towel as she crept up right next to me, reaching over my shoulder to point out a foil wrapped plate.

  “Your dinner is under there. Heat it up yourself.”

  She turned and headed out of the kitchen in a somber mood, but I just chalked it up to the stress of training us and shrugged as I watched her leave. I grabbed the plate and held my hands over the foil, forcing the heat into it. Food reheating was one of the first lessons Mom taught us. Really minor, I know, but we had to survive any way we could. It was a simple but vital lesson that could change my life. I knew that in the Land of Faerie, it would definitely come in handy. The wilderness out there was more primeval and unforgiving than anywhere else on earth. The fact that my sister Shade was out there winging it as she learned how to wrangle her own faery magic and fire powers kept all of us on edge. Especially my mother.

  I shoveled the dinner down my throat before heading toward my room. I paused at the door to the basement, wondering if I should read some more about Uncle Brendan’s adventures before bed or give it a rest. I sighed, feeling the fatigue flex its achy fingers through my shoulders and neck. Who ever said magic made everything easy? I had twice the amount of homework now: school and magic lessons. There just weren’t enough hours left in the day for sleep, too. It was starting to catch up to me, to say the least.

  “How long do you think Shade will be gone?”

  I jerked my head around to find my younger sister, Anna, lingering in the doorway to her room, looking pensive. How’d she get so quiet moving about? Usually it was me freaking everyone else out with my stealth skills.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s got a lot going on.”

  Anna nodded. “I miss her. I wonder if she even wants to
return.” She leaned on the doorframe, picking at the wrecked nail polish on her fingernails. One hand was clean of the polish while the other looked like she’d hammered the color off. The smell of nail polish wafted from her room, making me cringe.

  “What are you doing in there, getting high off the paint fumes? Yeck.” I wrinkled my nose, and she stuck her tongue out at me, making a point to roll her eyes like she was five or something.

  “I was doing my toenails. Can’t let the summer come on up and let my feet look like snarled tree bark.” She huffed and turned back into her room, where the sounds of the latest teen heartthrob songs were blaring from her stereo. The resonating boom of her door slamming left me there, rolling my eyes to no one.

  Yeah, well. Whatever. I shook my head and headed to my room. Well, it wasn’t actually just my own room since I shared it with my little brother, James. The girls didn’t have to share. Shade, who was never there, had her own cave, which I was thoroughly eyeing to take over and boot her stuff out if she didn’t come back soon. I gave her silent door a stare down before slumping into my own room where James was out cold on his bed, curled up like a little snail under the mountain of his tangled comforter.

  A dim lamp sat on the nightstand table situated between our beds. Its soft glow lit up the room in an ambient blue light. I sighed and grabbed my MP3 player, stuffed my earbuds in and flipped through the list of songs before settling on one with a relaxing, techno-electronic beat. I laid back on my rumpled sheets—I never make my bed—and stared at the ceiling and let the beats take me away.

  Nothing like being tired but fully awake.

  My mind wouldn’t leave the pages of Uncle Brendan’s journal. He would’ve been an awesome mentor, especially since I lacked a father figure. My mother’s recent recall of all her powers after a long seventeen years without any memory of them had shocked us all. Headstrong, she was an awesome teacher, but constantly being surrounded by females was a lonely kind of life. I definitely wasn’t including my younger brother in this—he didn’t really count and wouldn’t understand anything I went through right now.