by Terah Edun
Katherine’s stomach dropped completely.
“Now hold on a minute,” urged the fire marshal.
The king turned furious eyes to the fire marshal. “This has gone on long enough. We’ve tried your way, now we will try mine. A new queen shall rule. One who will root out this evil. One who will destroy the clan that has wreaked this havoc.”
Katherine’s eyes twitched. “What if I can find the source? End it for you?”
“You?” scoffed the dark faerie king. “You are a child.”
“Besides,” said Ceidian, “I already know the source, and by the fall of the sun I will kill the were-peacocks for their shame.”
Katherine jumped. “You just said you don’t know where the tainted goods are coming from!”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t know who’s distributing them,” said the king softly. “And they will rue the day they brought these tainted goods to my kingdom.”
Katherine turned to the fire marshal in desperation. His eyes looked void of hope.
She turned back to the dark faerie king. “You’re talking about starting a war.”
“No,” said Ceidian with a smile. “The war started long ago. I merely mean to finish one.”
Horror built up in Katherine’s throat, because she knew he was dead serious.
Just as she stepped forward to speak again, the sound of the truck horn blasted through the serene sound of the waterfalls behind them. Katherine turned to see her cousin frantically laying on the horn and waving at her. Katherine shook her head and prepared to get out her cell phone to tell Cecily now wasn’t the best time. Although really Cecily should know that already. When Cecily opened the truck door and looked like she was about to jump out of the cab, Katherine quickly turned and ran toward her.
Over her shoulder, she shouted to the king, “I’ll be back in like half a second.”
Rushing to the truck, she opened it and stood in the doorway jam.
“What?” Katherine said.
Cecily said, “We’ve got more problems.”
Katherine looked down at her watch. “Worse that a faerie king dead-set on wiping out a clan of were-peacocks in less than half an hour?”
Cecily put a hand over the watch. “Maybe. I don’t know. How do you feel about blood ceremonies?”
Katherine looked at her. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“I was scouting the faerie from here. Whatever they drank wasn’t intended to give them a high,” Cecily said. “In fact, it gave them a disease.”
“Run that by me one more time?” Katherine said.
“The faerie people are sick,” stressed Cecily.
“Yeah, I know,” said Katherine while looking through the windshield at those who stood closest to them. It was perfectly clear that something was wrong with them.
“No, I don’t think you do,” Cecily said in exasperation.
“They’re not just physically addicted, they’re dying.”
Katherine’s eyes were still trained on the mass of individuals gathered below their king. “That’s not possible.”
She didn’t bother turning around to debate the point. There was nothing to do debate.
Still Katherine said aloud, “The faerie people don’t get sick. They don’t get headaches or ailments. They are in perfect health from the day they arrive to the day they leave.”
“I didn’t say they were dying, Katherine,” Cecily pointed out. “I said they’re ill. Just look at them for a moment. All of the signs are there, Katherine. The skin, the hair, and even their posture. Those aren’t the signs of being high from moon nectar. That is a people being drained of their life forces.”
Katherine looked around her. Hesitant. It was one of the most outlandish theories she had yet.
“I want to believe you. I really do,” Katherine said. “But you have no proof and we’ve been here less than fifteen minutes. How can you diagnose an entire race as sick when you haven’t spoken to one of them?”
Cecily sat back and irritably pushed away a clump of curly hair that had descended into her eyes. “Their auras,” she said flatly.
“Will give you a hint of their powers and emotional status,” ventured Katherine, “Nothing more.”
“But you don’t get it, Katherine,” Cecily insisted. “Faerie are different. Their entire being is caught up in their magic and sense of self. Strip them of their powers and you’re stripping them of a life force. Strip of a witch of her magic and she becomes human. She doesn’t wither and die.”
“That’s not proven,” countered Katherine.
Cecily glared at her cousin.
Katherine amended her statement. “All right, the faerie part isn’t proven.”
“What more proof do you need than what is standing right before you?” countered Cecily.
When Katherine didn’t answer Cecily let an irritated growl release from her throat and made a move as to throw open the driver’s side door. Katherine leaned over to hastily grab her arm before she could exit the cab.
“Wait!” Katherine said desperately. “Just wait a moment.”
Cecily turned back to her cousin with defiant eyes. “If you want to know if the cause and effect is true, just ask their king.”
“And sign our death warrants? I don’t think so,” said Katherine shakily. “His people are immortal. Everyone knows that.”
Cecily opened her mouth to argue and Katherine shook her arm impatiently. “Don’t you get it? He would fight to maintain the reputation. It is legend that nothing can kill a faerie warrior. To see them take down by addiction would be incalculable.”
“He would rather let his people die slowly?” Cecily said.
“I think,” Katherine said with a deep breath. “He would rather find a way to end the supply without making it known that the effects are work than just being an opiate haze.”
Slowly Cecily removed her arm from Katherine’s grip and rubbed circulation back into the offended flesh.
Katherine barely noticed as she sat back in the passenger’s seat. “So we know two things. Ceidian’s right. And the moon nectar given to his people is spiked in some way.”
Cecily nodded. “Because the faerie have been taking it since arrival within the lands of the original colonies with no problem like this. They don’t become addicted; they are generally the addiction for unwary mortals. Their recreational opiate has become their death sentence.”
“And someone that same nectar is now not only addictive to them but...fatal?” Katherine wondered.
Cecily grimaced. “It’s not the drug this time. I think it’s the holes in their auras.”
Katherine raised curious eyebrows. “Do tell.”
“Picture glowing white bodies,” Cecily said as she shifted uncomfortably in her seats. “In a dark field. Each of the bodies is filled with a luminescent white sheen of power. Now imagine that power being drained from their bodies into the night sky.”
“Is that what you’re seeing?” Horror laced Katherine’s voice.
“More or less,” Cecily said with a rub of her eyes. “Some of the faerie are better off than others and the king is not affected at all, but they all are losing their gifts, which means they’re losing the essence of who they are.”
“Poppycock,” Katherine cursed as she sat back against the headrest with a thump. “And I thought the day couldn’t get any worse.”
She believed Cecily. How could she not? The evidence was right before them. And the faerie king was bordering on madness. Not because he feared losing his people to an opiate. But because he feared death itself. What was war when an individual had nothing to lose?
Katherine looked back at her. “Where is the power going?”
“I don’t know,” was the disappointing answer Cecily gave.
“Then how about a source? How does someone infect an entire population and drain their powers without other people noticing? Lots of other people?”
“You mean besides preying on the mild addiction they
all suffer from, turning it into an all-out epidemic, and siphoning off the powers as the result? The entire combination makes it look like something less complex than it is. Even Ceidian seems to think his people are merely suffering from the effects of a drug spike?” Cecily said a little too smugly for Katherine’s taste.
“What kind of tampering would break down their shielding and open up their power cores to something like this? What could they have possibly done to the moon nectar to cause all of this?” Katherine felt like pulling out her hair.
“Do I look like a biologist to you?”
At this point Katherine was talking to herself. “And who would benefit from it?”
Cecily sighed. “I hate to point it out, but certain denizens of the western forests near Sandersville have been really agitated lately.”
“Agitated?” said Katherine flatly.
Cecily shrugged. “That’s one way to put it.”
Katherine took in a deep breath and let it out. “You really think the were-peacocks had something to do with this?”
“With how chummy they’ve been with the unicorns lately?” Cecily said. “I wouldn’t put it past them and I think we’d be fools not to find out,” Cecily replied.
“Any chance you’re wrong?” Katherine said slowly.
“About sixty percent,” Cecily replied straightforwardly. “But I read their auras. This is no joke. Regardless of whether or not it’s the moon nectar that’s the cause, we need to track down who is stealing their powers, and fast.”
“Because a people’s lives are at stake?” Katherine said a little uncertainly.
Cecily shook her head until her earrings jingled. “Because this is nasty stuff. I’d hate to see it spread to other fae or witches. That is one trouble we don’t need and every species, regardless of ability has a weakness. This just exploits the faerie. What happens when it’s the selkies or the dragons or the lamia or the kiltern or anything else, really.”
Katherine held up a hand. “All right, I get it. Grave magnitude. Much bad juju.”
Cecily gave a chuckle. “That’s an understatement. This is like wading through a sticky mass of dark death and illness. I so need a shower now.”
“Okay, so what do you suggest?”
“This is so far out of my field, Katy,” Cecily said. “Sorry.”
Katherine grimaced. “Yours and mine both.”
They turned to look out on the gathered fae. Katherine took a deep breath and exited of the truck. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“You’re welcome,” she heard her cousin say as she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and walked out once more into the faerie mass. It was like being surrounded by once-beautiful corpses.
Katherine gave a small shudder that she kept from her face when she looked back to check on Cecily, who she could see was in the driver’s seat with her nose pressed to the window.
Then things got interesting.
Katherine walked back to the fire marshal. Her stomach in twists because she knew the sun would set in ten minutes.
She prepared to speak with him and he said, “I already know.”
She looked at him curiously.
He said tersely, “Diseased fae is a hell of surprise. Never thought I’d hear that combination.”
“How did you know?” asked Katherine.
He tapped the radio on his shoulder. “There’s another radio on in the car.”
“Any bright ideas, then?” she asked the fire marshal.
“One,” he said reluctantly. “Offer him an antidote.”
“You’ve got one?”
“We’ll get one,” he said darkly.
She swallowed and looked over at the dark faerie king. Ceidian was inhumanely beautiful, but she had the gut feeling that he was inhumanely scared, as well. Scared for his people.
Stepping forward, she looked directly in his eyes. Searching for something. Compassion. Fear. Anything she could connect with. She found nothing. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
“What if I could offer you an antidote? To cure your people’s ill?”
“There is no cure for addiction,” he said after a moment.
She raised her chin. “Addiction, no. Pestilence, yes. We believe that there’s more to the moon nectar than meets the eye.”
“And you’re basing this assumption on what?” he snarled. “The child in the truck’s supposition?”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Yes, I heard the whole thing,” Ceidian said.
“Then call it a really good premonition if it’ll make you feel better,” snarled Katherine.
“Then you know that child is a future prophet,” said the fire marshal at the same time.
Katherine nodded in agreement. “Cecily may be young, but her visions are always true. Let me prove it to you. Give us two days, a sample of the tainted moon nectar, and we’ll get your antidote.”
The king traced a thoughtful finger on his lips. “And I suppose you want me to stay here and watch my people waste away while you do?”
Katherine said, “Forty-eight hours won’t kill you, and it won’t make a difference if you assault the unicorns now or then. Give us a chance and your people might recover.”
The king looked at her with darkened eyes. He said nothing for a moment.
“You have twelve hours,” he said slowly.
Katherine didn’t protest. It was better than nothing.
He gestured for a withering fae to give a stoppered flask to the fire marshal. He took it gingerly. They would have to get samples of the nectar to the nearest bio-facility as soon as possible, though.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” She turned to leave.
“Wait,” Ceidian commanded.
Katherine turned to look back at him with wariness.
“You will take Nestor with you,” said Ceidian, waving a subject forward. “He will be my eyes and ears.”
Katherine’s lips twisted as she fought back a knee-jerk reaction. Instead, she politely said, “That’s not necessary.”
“I insist,” the king snarled. He wasn’t backing down.
“Very well,” she said with reluctance. She didn’t have a choice.
Out of the crowd Nestor came forward, and Katherine’s jaw dropped.
Chapter 13
This time her knee-jerk reaction won out.
Katherine Thompson opened her mouth in order to protest and protest hard. There was no way in hell this man she knew well, or thought she knew well, was the king’s subject. He couldn’t be. There must be some mistake. If there wasn’t, the man had some explaining to do. Even if was a mistake, the guy still had some explaining to do. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him as he turned a neutral gaze on her and took a step forward, not sure yet what she planned to do, but knowing that it might involve two felonies and a misdemeanor.
Fortunately, before she could take more than a step she was halted. The fire marshal nearly cut off the blood circulating in her arm when he gripped her hand so hard she squeaked.
She shut her mouth with a snap. She said not a word. Not in front of the faerie king and certainly not in front of his subjects.
Nestor came up on the other side of the fire marshal. To his credit, he didn’t look happy about being called from his hiding place among his fae brethren. Katherine couldn’t blame him. The faerie king had effectively blown his cover with one command. A command that, if he was true fae, he could not disobey.
Katherine’s mouth was suddenly dry. She couldn’t speak.
Fire Marshal Ford spoke for them both. “Nestor, I’m Fire Marshal Ford. This is Katherine Thompson, the Queen of Sandersville’s daughter.”
“We’ve met,” said Nestor coolly.
That was enough to unlock her silence.
Katherine’s eyes were flint ready to spark a fire. “We’ve met? We dated for six months. What the hell, Ethan?”
She was beside herself with fury. Ethan stood there in jeans and a t-shirt as calm as a cucumber with
his hands in his pockets as he stood encircled by fae and facing down his irate former girlfriend. A look of boredom was on his face.
“Is there a problem?” asked Ceidian from his throne upon the rock.
Katherine turned to him. “Yes, there is.”
“No,” said the fire marshal shortly.
But Ceidian’s gaze was fixed on one person. Katherine.
“Katherine Thompson?” he purred her name as a question.
Katherine’s face twitched. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say the king was enjoying this. She turned her head slowly and took in Nestor-cum-Ethan or whatever he was choosing to call himself. Nestor didn’t blink, but for a moment the ring around of power around both of his irises faded and for a few seconds she saw the eyes had come to know. The eyes of Ethan Hawke, the normal but slightly magical mortal she had once loved. His eyes asked her for leniency. She felt like punching him in the jaw, but she’d given him time to explain. Besides if she hurt him in front of his court Ceidian wouldn’t take that nicely. Oh no, she could hear him declaring war on not just the unicorns but the witches, as well. On top of his case for political impeachment against her mother that is.
Katherine nodded slightly to Ethan. He nodded back. Almost imperceptible unless you stared hard at both before they turned to look back at the king. They had an agreement—they would discuss their personal issues later. Guy-to-girl. But for now the king’s will needed to be done. To save numerous lives.
“No, my lord,” said Nestor smoothly. “I was just introducing myself to the witch queen’s representatives.”
“Very well,” said Ceidian in a tone that clearly questioned why they were still there.
Katherine stalked back to the truck where Cecily waited in the driver’s seat with wide eyes.
“Is that...my brother?” said Cecily. “What’s Ethan doing here?”
“You got me,” grouched Katherine. “But we’re going to find out. Mind sitting in the back?”