Forged Steel

by H A Titus

  He burst into the kitchen, running too fast to stop. He wrapped his arms around his head and crashed through the door. Glass sprayed across the alley, and he rolled off the back steps, knocking me off my feet.

  Larae grabbed my arm and tugged me up and after her.

  We dashed down the alley. Roe led the way, zigzagging through the streets with a spryness that belied her age. After several blocks, she ducked into a narrow alley between a tall, sky-blue Victorian house and a rickety wooden fence.

  David stepped to the back of the group, pulling a pistol from his jacket and poking his head around the corner we'd just turned.

  Eliaster stumbled to a halt and doubled over, pressing his hands to his thighs. Blood streamed in ribbons from gouges on his arms and congealed on the right side of his face.

  "The sluagh?" Larae demanded, voice pitched high.

  "Down for the count." Eliaster spit to the side, and a red stain appeared in the dirt. "Didn't kill the sucker, but that iron poker sure didn't feel good either."

  "That was stupid, using iron when it makes you weaker," David said. "The sluagh could've sucked your soul easy, if it had dodged your attack."

  "The bet paid off, though, and I'm still standing." Eliaster grinned, revealing bloody teeth.

  Roe crouched in front of him and gently touched his chin, coaxing him to look up. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, clicking her teeth against her tongue as she dabbed blood from his face. "I don't even understand how the sluagh got in. Those silver wards…it should have worked. And all the doors and windows were closed."

  "I'm sorry," Eliaster whispered. "For bringing it down on you."

  She made an impatient tsk. "You needn't apologize to me."

  He pushed her hands away and stood. "We need to keep moving."

  Larae hitched her backpack higher on her shoulder. "No arguments here."

  "Where are we going?" David asked. "You're not going to find a place in the entire Underworld where you'll be safe."

  Eliaster smirked. "Sure we are. Unfortunately, it's only slightly more pleasant than facing the sluagh."

  Roe raised her eyebrows. "You really must work on showing your father more respect, Eliaster."

  Larae frowned. "We're going to your dad's?"

  "It's the only place we'll be safe long enough to regroup and think up a new plan." He started limping toward the Market. "Forward ho."

  Chapter 12

  We exited the Market by a different gate than the one we'd come in, and I could tell we were in a different section of the city. The houses were bigger and further apart, and a few had moss growing in front of them so it almost looked like a yard. Eventually, the houses were spread out by several acres each, looking like an upscale Overworld suburb. Hedges of moss-covered rocks separated the properties. More orange light globes hung from this section of the city, making it almost as bright as Overworld daylight.

  We trudged along the loosely graveled road until we reached a fenced-in property. A whitewashed Tudor mansion stood behind the fence, several hundred yards of moss separating it from us. A flicker moved on the roof, and I squinted. Against the dark roof of the house, next to one of the several chimneys, I could just barely make out the dark-clothed shape of a man cradling a weapon to his chest.

  Another dark-clothed fae stepped into view just inside the gate, a rifle slung over one shoulder. "Eliaster."

  Eliaster walked over to the gate. "Hey Lúkas. Open up for me and my friends?"

  "Your dad didn't mention that you were coming here today," Lúkas said.

  "My dad doesn't rule my day. Won't be here long, promise."

  Lúkas raised one eyebrow, then stepped to the side. His hand disappeared briefly behind one of the gateposts. With a creak, the black gate swung open. He motioned us inside.

  Just like most of the other houses, the yard was made with a spongy, bright green moss. As we crunched along the white gravel drive, a sprinkler system popped up and began shooting water over the moss. I looked up at the roof again and noticed that the sniper was watching us. He noticed me and tipped his head.

  I lowered my eyes.

  A few steps from the front door, Eliaster stopped us. "Okay, guys. Let me talk. The last thing my dad will want is all of us trying to explain things to him."

  "He's not going to be happy to hear you explaining it to him either," Larae said.

  Eliaster's jaw tightened. "Thanks for that." He turned and smacked his fist against the door.

  Another armed guard opened the door and nodded. We stepped inside to a wood-paneled foyer. The white marble floor was slick under my feet. I looked around the room, noting the niches for expensive looking paintings and the thin side tables, each tastefully decorated with one or two knick-knacks. Two cameras were mounted on the ceiling and trained on the door. There were probably plenty more both inside and outside that were better concealed.

  "Got enough security?" I whispered to David.

  "Counselor Tyrone is a bigwig among the fae leaders worldwide. He's made a few enemies in his time."

  If his dad was so influential, why did Eliaster strike me as a bit of a drifter, not really tied down anywhere? Why wasn't he working with his dad in fae politics? I nearly had to bite my tongue to not ask the questions. Instead, I kept looking around the foyer.

  Open doorways on either side showed what looked like a formal dining room and a ballroom. A closed door nestled to one side. Curving above it stretched a dark stone-and-wood staircase. The entire place looked rich and classy without being in-your-face.

  "Swanky joint," I murmured under my breath.

  "Built on blood and gravestones," Eliaster growled. "Don't be fooled."

  The door under the stairs opened and a slim fae with red-blond hair stepped out. At first glance, there wasn't much resemblance between him and Eliaster. The fae turned his bright green, piercing eyes on our group. Those were recognizable eyes.

  He frowned as his eyes fell on me. The look—eyebrows and lips pinched together, stern and irritated—made me want to squirm. I held myself stiff.

  His gaze moved to his son. "Hello, Eliaster."

  Eliaster squared his shoulders and clasped his hands behind his back, like a soldier about to give a report to his superior. "Sir."

  They faced each other for a moment, stiff and formal. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. David cleared his throat. Neither fae flinched.

  Yeah, this wasn't awkward at all.

  Roe stepped forward and extended her hands. "Cormac."

  Tyrone smiled with just his lips, the expression not touching the rest of his face, as he took her extended hand. "I'm sorry my son dragged you into his latest escapade, Roe."

  "No one drags me anywhere, you should know that by now. What Eliaster isn't telling you is that he had no intention of mixing you up in this until a sluagh came after him."

  Eliaster grunted in protest.

  Tyrone's jaw clenched, and a flicker of the same angry fire that burned in Eliaster came into his eyes. He glanced at one of his bodyguards and jerked his head at the door. The man left, and Tyrone glared at his son. "Anything else I haven't been told about?"

  "No, sir."

  "Good. Now what else do you need?"

  Eliaster started to speak, but Roe interrupted. "A safe place to regroup and decide our next step, Counselor."

  Tyrone stepped to the side and gestured at the door underneath the staircase. We filed past him into a large library. It reminded me a little of Roe's place, but this room was in perfect order, books filed correctly on the shelves, leather armchairs arranged in a stiff semi-circle around the fire, and no loose papers on the shelves or tables.

  Tyrone waited until each of us had found a seat, then strode to stand in front of the fire. He looked at Roe, his face impassive. "Please, tell me everything."

  She started all the way back to the spring, with

  Aiden's death. Apparently, Marc had found Aiden's journal entry as he'd gone through the stuff in his dad's s
tudy. He'd immediately taken it to Eliaster. Roe and Larae had been brought in right away, with Larae asking David to help some time later. But nothing had really happened until a couple of months ago, when Scyrril had approached Marc with the same offer Aiden had been given.

  As he listened, Tyrone's lips compressed and his eyes narrowed. When Roe finished, he remained silent for a moment, staring at the floor, the knuckles of his right hand rubbing against his chin.

  "I'd heard you'd been busy, Eliaster," he said finally. "I didn't think it was beyond your usual picking at scabs of wounds that should have been long healed. But messing with Blodheyr, of all people… And then to drag an incompetent Overworlder into this…"

  Hey now. I glared at the counselor.

  Eliaster folded his arms across his chest. "This proves what I've been saying since Iain died."

  At the name, a swift wince crossed Tyrone's face, gone so quickly I wondered if I'd imagined it. "As I've said before—I only repeat it for the benefit of all of you—" His gaze swept the room. "The Lucht Leanúna are dragged into it every time there's a rumble of unrest. Roe, you know that as well as I.

  Seelie and Unseelie alike are far too superstitious when it comes to the Dark Man."

  "I'd like to think so, Cormac, but this feels different than anything I've ever heard before," Roe said quietly. "With Blodheyr searching for this relic… And I'm afraid that this is no normal relic."

  "What do you mean?" Tyrone demanded sharply.

  Roe licked her lips and looked down at her clasped hands. For a long moment, she was silent, but when she finally did speak, her voice was soft. "Back in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, the curators put a ban out on all fae relics. It was around the same time as Prohibition." She smiled faintly. "You can imagine how that went over with the fae. Alcohol and their precious relics, banned at the same time."

  Tyrone nodded. "It was a madhouse."

  "Don't I know it. At one point, a dear friend of mine, Owen Craig, discovered that the curators were intent on finding one relic in particular. A very old, very powerful relic that, if the wrong people found it, could easily destroy both worlds. A pathstone."

  The room went silent. I glanced from side to side. David looked just as confused as I was, but every fae in the room—Roe, Tyrone, Eliaster, and Larae—had gone pale, their bodies stiff.

  "A…pathstone," Tyrone finally said. "Did you ever…"

  "No, we never found it. At least, we never found this particular one."

  "Then how do you know for sure that this—"

  "Because Owen and I were told, although not in so many words, that others possibly existed." Roe sighed. "I don't know for certain that this is a pathstone, but I'm willing to place a very large bet that it is."

  "And if it is a pathstone?" Eliaster asked. "The paths are lost, aren't they?"

  "We thought pathstones lost as well," Roe answered.

  "Still, it's just one stone," Larae said. "And you said earlier that no one would be so foolish—"

  "It can still create plenty of havoc," Roe returned sharply. "Believe me. I've dealt with this before. If it is a pathstone…" Her lips pinched together, and she shook her head. "As for no one being that foolish…well, I've been in denial far too long, I'm afraid."

  Tyrone let out a deep breath and looked at Eliaster. "Do you have any proof that Blodheyr is connected to the Lucht Leanúna?"

  Roe, Eliaster, David, and Larae all looked at me.

  I held my hands out. "What?"

  "Did you find anything on those computer hard drives?" Larae asked. "Anything that would implicate Blodheyr as one of the Lucht Leanúna?"

  "I haven't had time to dig into them," I said.

  "Hard drives?" Tyrone asked at the same time. "So that's why the Sluagh is after you."

  "Hey, this one? Not on me." Eliaster jerked his thumb at David. "Ask that genius. Blodheyr's assuming it was my fault."

  Cormac pinched the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. "Thankfully, the rath is warded against sluagh, so you did something right." He sighed. "I'll give you asylum for a few days. We'll see if I can convince Blodheyr to call his monster off, but that's as far as I'm getting involved. Fix this. And try not to do anything else stupid." He turned and left the room.

  I glanced at Eliaster.

  He ran his hand through his hair. "Okay. Josh, see what you can dig up from those hard drives. Try to find anything that could link Blodheyr to the Lucht Leanúna. Larae, why don't you help him. David, let's start planning a trip to Chicago."

  "What about rescuing Marc?" Larae asked.

  Eliaster stared at her. "Yeah, 'cause that went so well the first time!"

  She frowned. "I'm not leaving Springfield without him."

  "For the love of…" He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, and for a second, he looked a lot like Tyrone. "Just help Josh, okay? We can discuss this later."

  Roe stood. "Your father has a much more extensive library than I do. I'm going to refresh my memory regarding the pathstones. I might be able to find something useful."

  Eliaster nodded as he and David headed out of the room.

  I pulled my laptop out of my bag and turned it on.

  Larae leaned on the arm of the chair beside me.

  She was way too close. I shifted away from her and said, "There's not much you can help me with now. I just need to finish coding the program that will dig into the hard drives and pull out info."

  "What should I do then?" she asked.

  "You can come help me," Roe said, standing.

  Larae headed over to the shelves with her.

  I brought up the file I'd been working on when the sluagh interrupted us. The thought of that thing's pale, cadaverous face sent a shiver through me. As if trolls and goblins and creepy Unseelie weren't bad enough. What other monsters would we discover on this little adventure? I didn't remember a mention of the sluagh in my online research. What other monsters existed that the legends hadn't mentioned?

  I shoved the thought out of my mind and concentrated on my coding. Larae and Roe searched the bookshelves, occasionally bending over the same book to discuss something in low tones. After about an hour I laid down the last line of code and plugged the hard drives in to run the program. The last thing I remembered was checking the time on my laptop screen—four-thirty a.m.—and leaning my head on the arm of the chair. Just a quick nap…

  Larae woke me at noon, waving a plate of sandwiches under my nose. "You missed breakfast. Roe wouldn't let us wake you."

  I grabbed a sandwich and stuffed a bite into my mouth. "Did you check the computer? How'd the program work?"

  Larae shrugged. I picked the laptop up and brought up my program. A list of hidden data files popped up.

  We spent the afternoon combing through the files. At some point, Roe joined us in the library, but I didn't see Eliaster, David, or Counselor Tyrone for most of the day. Toward late afternoon, Larae and I struck pay dirt with old memory files that contained passwords to various websites accessed on the loan shop's office computer. One of them was a forum board called The Tree of Life.

  "Let's check this one out," I muttered, typing the forum's address into my web bar and hitting Enter.

  "Why that one?" Larae asked, leaning over my shoulder.

  I shrugged, using the movement to mask moving away from her. Blodheyr hadn't struck me as the forum-frequenting type—none of the fae did—but it held more intrigue than, say, the Amazon and Barnes & Noble accounts I'd seen passwords for. The Tree of Life sounded like something fae would be interested in.

  The forum popped up in my browser, a dark gray background with silver letters. I scrolled through the boards, then randomly clicked on one titled Tír Ni-all go Brách. A popup window asked for a password. I typed Blodheyr's into it, and after a moment, the website let me through to the message board.

  I scanned the posts, entered by people by the names of 'Silverhand', 'Bloodheart', 'Maev', and 'Carman'.

  As I went pa
st a post by the 'Carman' user, Larae inhaled sharply through her teeth.

  "What?" I scrolled back and read through the message.

  We are close. Soon, we will be able to bridge the worlds. A few more months…maybe a year, at most. Doirich will be our king once again.

  A chill raced over my skin. Could it be that blatant?

  "Why would they put this on the internet?" Larae asked.

  "It's not going to flag anything," I said, scrolling through the rest of the messages. 'Carman' was the most blatant of the posters—the rest merely spoke in vague terms about the coming of their king. And by the language used when they directly addressed 'Carman', I guessed he—or she—was a leader.

  "Yeah, there's nothing here that would flag anything," I repeated. "No one would be able to access this website except the feds and hackers, both of whom would probably assume this is just a text-based role-playing game of some kind."

  A reply to one of Carman's posts caught my eye.

  My lady…So it was a woman…we are working diligently on your orders in our search for the pathstones…

  My hands tensed on the keyboard. I turned to Larae. "Go find Eliaster. Roe!"

  Larae dashed for the library door, and Roe hurried to my side. "Yes?"

  I angled the laptop toward her. "Who is Carman?"

  Roe's face, already pale, drained of any color until her skin tone was the same as the sluagh's. She spoke in a soft, hesitant voice. "Carman was Fear Doiricht's wife and battle-mate. We thought she'd perished in the battle to close the paths."

  I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. "Ah, c'mon, you've got to be kidding me! Doiricht's wife is leading this pack of lunatics? I don't suppose this could get any worse?"

  "Not really." Roe leaned closer to the screen. "And they're looking for more than one pathstone."

  "Of course they are. Let's just make it a freakin' happy-go-lucky Indiana Jones adventure all over the world!" I shoved the laptop away from me, stood, and started for the door.

  Larae and Eliaster came in. I glared at Eliaster. He raised his hands and started to say something. I shouldered past him and stepped into the hall. Before the door shut behind me, I heard Roe beginning to explain to them.