Fixing Fae Problems

by Isa Medina

  He didn’t. The screech of tires alerted me of his presence as an old car came to a stop in front of the house. Lockhart jumped out and slammed the door.

  “You,” he said threateningly, coming around the car and up the

  small dirt path. His dark expression changed into speculation. “Do you

  have news about the Skull? You could’ve called instead of messing with my wards, you know.”

  “No phone,” | answered simply. “Can we go inside?”

  Lockhart nodded sharply and opened the door. The air of neglect continued inside the house. It wasn’t overly dirty or in shambles: it was just the kind of place that wasn’t lived in. The one exception was the kitchen, which was clean and pristine, if old-fashioned.

  The sore led us there then rested a hip against one of the counters.

  “Well? Spit it out.”

  If only I had been chewing gum or something—what a missed opportunity! I smiled broadly and retrieved the Eye-less dagger from its sheath threaded through the back loops of my jeans. I had left the messenger bag behind with the artifacts.

  “What?” he said, unimpressed. “You think you can take me?”

  The kitchen table stood between us, still laden with chemistry

  equipment. The beaker he had used to make my potion a day earlier

  still stood on the drying rack by the sink. He followed the direction of my gaze, and I] used the distraction to slice one of the wooden table legs with the dagger. It cut the wood easily, but I didn’t go deep.

  “Tell me who hired you to do the memory spell,” I demanded in a serious tone.

  Lockhart rolled his eyes. “We’re back to that? I told you what you need to do to make that happen.” He looked pointedly at my hands. “That doesn’t look like the Skull. Unless it’s the bump in your pocket, which I doubt.”

  He was right; the bump in my pocket would be the Eye. Probably quite annoyed by now at being kept in such tight confines.

  Once again, I gave thanks it was restricted to displeased blinking and couldn’t grow a mouth to bite me.

  “Aidan already promised to find the Skull,” I said, savoring these minutes of peace before chaos erupted. I casually ran the dagger against

  the table leg again. “Why do you insist I do it, too? I’m a newbie at

  this—Aidan is the man you want on the job. And he can’t do the job if he’s being kept under investigation. And if he’s permanently removed from the Institute… That’s a lot of lost resources he could’ve used to track the Skull, don’t you think?”

  Lockhart hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans, giving me a knowing look. “Something tells me you are very resourceful when cornered. I’m sure you’ll make great inroads in figuring out where it is. Tell you what,” he added magnanimously, “nd me any actionable intelligence on the Skull’s location, and I’ll tell you who hired me.”

  “Wow, what a deal,” I said dryly.

  He grinned. “I am not completely heartless.”

  I made a show of thinking this through, then shook my head. “Nah, I think it’s better if you tell me who it is, and then you may help me fig-ure out how to take them down.”

  Lockhart barked a laugh. “Or what? You’re going to use that dagger

  to prick me into submission?”

  “Dang,” I said, beaming, “you are smart.”

  Then, as if ] had timed it to perfection—which I kind of had— Lockhart yelped and looked at his forearm. He pushed the sleeve of his T-shirt up to his elbow, revealing a red, bloody line crossing his skin.

  “What the hell?” he demanded in shock. His gaze fell on me then on the dagger in my hand. Fury filled his expression. “Is that a Fae dag-ger?”

  “Duh.”

  “Give it here,” he demanded, springing toward me.

  I sidestepped, keeping the table between us. “Nuh-uh. Tell me who the client is.”

  “Look here you litthk—ouch!” He jumped and raised his T-shirt. Another red line had appeared on his side, this one bleeding a tad harder. His eyes filled with disbelief as he raised his gaze to meet mine.

  With a Machiavellian smile, I leaned the dagger’s pointy end on the

  table, and slowly—oh, so slowly—dragged the blade across its surface.

  We stared at each other for a few seconds, then all chaos broke loose.

  “Give me that!” he shouted, lunging at me across the table, sending glass instruments crashing to the floor.

  “Tell me who it is!” I yelled back, jumping away and running to the side when he went around the table again. For extra measure, | grazed the table with the dagger.

  “I’m not going to tell you anything until you give me that.” He changed course, but I was fast and narrowly avoided his grip. “What is wrong with you?” he demanded, panting.

  “What is wrong with you?” I retorted, bouncing on the balls of my feet, ready to leap out of his range. My pulse thundered in my neck, all adrenaline and exhilaration. “Just tell me who it is.”

  He shoved the table forward, trying to trap me against the counter, but the table was heavy and dragged slowly. I grabbed the kitchen

  towel, bunching it into a ball, and pressed the dagger against it.

  Lockhart stopped, paling.

  “Yup,” I confirmed. “I think bad things might happen if 1 stab this deep. 1 mean, you might grab me after, but the damage will already be done. Who knows where it’ll stab you?”

  He growled in frustration. “Why are you being like this?”

  My mouth fell open. “Seriously? You’re the one being greedy. You already got a promise about the Skull, and, hey, I’ll promise to search for it, too. So there, two promises. What else do you want, my first-born?”

  He snorted. “Heaven spare us if you reproduce.”

  “Wow. Rude.”

  Straightening, he gave me an arrogant look. “You want to play hard-ball? Let’s.”

  The atmosphere around us changed. My blood came to attention, prickling in my veins. A sense of power drenched the air, a sense of

  waiting—Lockhart was awakening his magic.

  Now, I wasn’t well versed in what a sorcerer could or couldn’t do,

  since they were so rare, but 1 was fairly certain he couldn’t conjure

  magic ropes out of nowhere to tie me up with. Therefore, I concluded,

  he must’ve been trying to frighten me with a show of power.

  “That’s not going to work.” I repressed a shudder—his magic was sending mine haywire.

  “Oh, itisn’t, is it?” he said smoothly, taking a step forward.

  I lifted the dagger and the towel in warming. I should’ve brought the Keeper, dammit, but I hadn’t wanted to risk losing it if things didn’t go my way. “Stay over there.”

  “Or what? Maybe I can heal myself: Have you thought about that?”

  “Can’t heal yourself if the dagger stabs your brain, can you?”

  His expression soured. “If I die, how will you find the person who hired me?”

  “I don’t know. But do you really want to die?”

  The magic in the air kicked up another notch. Everything felt dense,

  like if I attempted to move, it would be like wading through transparent mulch. Lockhart’s intent eyes were fixed on me, gauging my reactions, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

  Then his attention snapped to the kitchen’s windows. The magic pressure disappeared, leaving me lightheaded.

  He swore foully and pointed at me with outrage. “What did you do?”

  I eyed him warily. “What?”

  “Someone just crossed my wards. Several someones.”

  “Uh…”

  His mouth opened in further indignation. “Someone followed youl”

  “No way,” I protested. “I couldn’t have been followed.”

  “A tracking spell!”

  “Why would anyone put a tracking spell on me to find you—ch.” I thought of Carr. But we hadn’t touched, and I ha
dn’t sensed the telltale

  snap of a spell being activated. “Nope, no way. I was careful.”

  “Who did you talk to? How did they know you’d come to me?” His voice reached top pitch when he spoke next. “You went to him, didn’t you? You went to that old asshole!”

  The loud crash of breaking glass made us wince. Something thud—

  ded in the next room, followed by a loud pop. Immediately, tendrils of

  smoke drifted into the kitchen.

  Lockhart swore again.

  “Is that gas?” 1 asked, shocked. A cough wracked me. Whatever it was, lt acted fast.

  “Come,” he ordered curtly, suppressing his own cough.

  I covered my nose and mouth with the towel and followed him out of the kitchen. He used the neck of his T-shirt as a mask, coughing a few more times as we hurried through the house and down the steps into his basement. The air here was stale but free of fumes. I wiped my eyes and watched him go to the hole into his second basement.

  I hesitated for an instant before going into the murder hole but then

  hurried after him. He wouldn’t wait for me, and I didn’t want to take my chances with whoever was attacking the house. Heavy thuds echoed above us—they had entered the house.

  I used the steep, earthy steps, jumping off halfway down. Lockhart’s underground portal was activated, and he was already almost gone. | leaped after him.

  The portal’s magic was a caress across my body as ] went through the glassy surface. Once on the other side, Lockhart gripped my arm to yank me the rest of the way and closed the portal.

  Soft raindrops hit my skin. I inhaled deeply, willing my heart to slow down, and took stock of our surroundings. The usual bright Faerie light was dimmed by gray clouds overhead, tinting the sore’s garden in shades of gray and blue.

  I turned my face up to the rain, enjoying its freshness against my

  overheated skin.

  *T didn’t know it rained in Faerie,” I murmured.

  “What, you think I run a hose every day from my house?” came the dry reply. Lockhart had one hand on his portal, the other held loosely against the cut in his side. He wasn’t looking at me but was wholly focused on the clouded surface of the portal.

  Lifting the dagger protectively, I went to stand by the other side of the portal’s frame. “Can they come through?”

  Lockhart flashed his teeth. “Of course not.”

  That was a relief. “Who do you think it was?”

  “You tell me,” he said with a bit of a bite.

  “I wasn’t followed. No way. I came through the ley lines.”

  He blinked in surprise. “You what?”

  “Never mind. What do we do now?” | waved at the portal. “Can it open to another place?”

  “Of course it can open to another place,” he snapped. “They’re doing something to it, keeping the connection to my basement alive

  somehow. They can’t open the portal, but I can’t sever the link.”

  And from the unhappy expression on his face, 1 gathered that as long as the link was there, we couldn’t use this portal to go elsewhere.

  “Let’s use another portal, then,” I said.

  “There’s no other.”

  “Then let’s do a portal spell. You can do those on your own, right?”

  “Not easily. The wards get in the way.”

  I stared at him in disbelief: “You mean, this is the only way in or out of this place? Why would you have only one exit?”

  “Whatever,” he said, irritated. “This is all your fault.”

  “How is it my fault?”

  “Why did you even go to Carr?”

  I pointed at him with the dagger. “You wanted the Skull, so I went looking for the Skull.”

  “And you didn’t think I’d have already exhausted the obvious places?” he said, still aggravated.

  “Hey, don’t blame me for people hating you. What did you do to the

  guy, anyway? He got really mad when he realized I was there on your behalf”

  “See,” he exclaimed. “That, right there. Why would you go and tell him you were working for me?”

  “He guessed it!” I sniffed. “I’m not that useless, you know.”

  We stared at each other for a few silent moments, then I sheathed the dagger and examined our surroundings again. “Okay, not a big deal. Drop the wards and use a spell. Or we can use Greenie.”

  “Greenie?”

  “A friend. Can you lower the wards from here, or do we have to walk to the edge?” I shuddered at the memory of the last time I had gone through this garden.

  “T have a better idea,” he said, relish in his tone. He was looking at the portal like a delicious meal was about to appear. “I’ll just open the portal and kill them as they come through.”

  “And if they don’t?” I asked cautiously.

  “lll go in and kill them over there,” he answered happily. “The gas must’ve dispersed by now.”

  “Is this a thing you do a lot? Mindless killing?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t want to brag, but…”

  Ooookay. “What if they laid traps or spells and they’re waiting for you to cross back to trap you?”

  “Hmm.”

  “They must’ve come prepared to deal with you,” I cooed to the apparent mass murderer. “Let’s get out of here some other way and make a plan.”

  With a last look of longing, he released the portal. “Fine, but we’re in the middle of Faerie.”

  “Can’t you just make another portal with a few branches? Or lower your wards and do a portal spell.”

  “Portals take a lot of preparation and power,” he informed me

  stiffly. “And the moment I lower the wards, all of Faerie will know of

  this garden. We’ll either get attacked by creatures or by curious Fae.”

  “Really?” I studied him from head to toe and arched a brow. “Aren’t you supposed to be some super powerful sorcerer? Fae come to you for the best spells, etcetera, etcetera?”

  “God, I want to strangle you.”

  I cackled. “Don’t blame me for your shortcomings.”

  “Oh, shut up. Okay, I can do a small portal spell. It should be enough to put us right outside the wards.”

  “You can’t take us to the surface?”

  “It’d be too complicated, take too much magic, and I need my reserves.” He gave me a nasty look. “Since someone brought people to one of my safe houses, | have to be prepared.” I was about to reply when he continued, “And I assume you want us to survive whatever happens to find us outside. I don’t think your little dagger is going to be of much

  use against one of them. Tell me about this Greenie. How can he help

  us?”

  “He’s a Fae hound. He’ll be able to take us to the surface, but he can’t get past your wards.”

  He tapped his chin, thoughtful. I had expected a bit more of a reaction at me having a Fae hound mount, but he probably had seen plenty of bizarre happenings himself. “You can call on him? Are you sure he’ll come all the way here?”

  “He’s very good at finding me, yes.” When he felt like it But, eh, details.

  “All right, watch the master perform.”

  I bounced in excitement, eager to see just that. My reaction must’ve satished him because he stood straighter and took on an arrogant air.

  “Normally, I would use one of my specially treated inks, but since I had no time to grab them, I’ll use my blood.”

  I recalled the golden liquid Aidan had used for his basement portal. “Does that attune the user to the portal?”

  “In a way. It acts as a conduit, similar to a potion.” He squeezed the

  wound on his forearm, and blood beaded along the cut Muttering, he wiped it with his thumb and dragged the finger along the ground, drawing a circle.

  “You only need that little blood?”

  “What did you expect, a gallon of blood? Never mind, don’
t answer that, I can see that you did.”

  I smiled innocently. Perhaps not a gallon, but I had expected it would take a bit more. Then again, magic made blood seem to gain a life of its own, judging by my previous experience of watching Aidan use his blood to call on the Fae.

  Lockhart finished the circle and told me to come closer. He smeared a bit of blood on the back of my hand—which, ew—and frowned in concentration.

  The dirt inside the circle began to vibrate. After a couple of seconds, it stopped and melted into a silvery pool reflecting the clouds overhead.

  Lockhart wiped his forehead and grabbed my wrist. “Go,” he

  ordered and stepped into the circle, dragging me along.

  7 Going through the portal was the weirdest feeling. On the garden side, I had stepped down, but on the other side, I stepped out, like I was walking through a vertical door. The rest of my body followed suit, my stomach highly unhappy with the physical shenanigans. I swallowed some bile, deeply regretting that energy bar, and breathed through my nose,

  We had landed in a small, austere room. Light gray stone walls, bare stone floor, a wooden door. An empty closet, perhaps. The portal we had come through had been embedded in the wall opposite to the door.

  I watched in horror as it disintegrated in front of my eyes, the branches that had once encircled it crumbling into a pile of dirt and small twigs. Another perfectly good portal gone to waste.

  “What happened to it?” 1 whispered.

  Lockhart looked unconcerned. “It must’ve been a temporary portal.

  My spell was designed to hitchhike into the closest possible portal, if

  any available.”

  “But why did it break? Was it a one-time use?” That seemed awfully wasteful.

  “It must’ve been keyed. My spell brute-forced our entry but rendered the portal useless after.”

  “Where are we?” I asked. We must still be in Faerie—the number of wards surrounding us was almost overwhelming.

  “Somewhere we shouldn’t,” Lockhart answered, somewhat cheerfully. He took my hand and pressed on the smear of his blood. A whisper of his power coursed through me, leaving a million tiny pricks in its wake.

  “What was that?” I whispered. Had I come all the way here for him to put some horrible spell on me?

  “I’m dampening our presence,” he said, going to the room’s entrance. “This must be one of the Fae houses. We need to either get outside or find another portal.”