Iron Bones

by Yasmine Galenorn

  Yawning, I glanced at the clock. It was barely eight, and I was still tired, but Herne had given us a nine o’clock start time.

  “Okay, time to get up.”

  Setting him to the side, I slipped out of bed and into the shower for a quick rinse. I braided my hair back and slapped on a quick face of eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss. A glance out the window told me we were due for a hot day. The sun was already bearing down on the city. I chose a pair of capri pants, a light tank top, and a gauze overshirt. Just in case we had grunge work to take care of, I threw a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve V-neck sweater into a bag to take with me, along with a pair of sneakers. Sliding on my sandals, I buckled them, then headed into the kitchen.

  Angel looked just about as tired as I felt. She handed me toast and a latte, and we silently gulped down the bread, followed by a piece of sharp cheddar to give us protein to go on.

  Just as we were about to head out, both our work phones beeped. I pulled mine out and saw that Herne had sent everybody a group text.

  if you’re thinking of skipping work today, don’t. get in here stat—we have news.

  “Okay, then. Definitely no playing hooky today, it looks like.” I shoved my phone back in my pocket and we headed out. I was still wiped out from the night before, so Angel offered to drive and we took her car.

  “What do you think the news is about?” Angel asked, sliding on a pair of sunglasses to block the already-glaring rays.

  “I dunno. For all I know, they could have found a way to transmute lead into gold.” I stared out the window the rest of the way, realizing that this job came with a tremendous amount of stress. No wonder they paid us so well.

  By the time we got there, Herne was waiting by the front desk.

  “Good, you’re here. Everybody else is already gathered. Come on.” He gave me an absent-minded peck on the cheek, and we followed him into the break room.

  As we entered the room, I saw that both Ferosyn and Kipa were waiting. Ferosyn was eyeing Kipa with distaste, and Kipa was just grinning at him. Talia let out a relieved sigh as we entered the room, and Yutani and Viktor straightened up in their chairs.

  “About time,” Yutani muttered, but he flashed us a smile.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as we took our seats.

  “Ferosyn has some important news for us regarding the case. And Kipa just returned from a night at the hospital. Let’s get that out of the way first. What news do you have for us?” Herne motioned toward Kipa.

  Kipa shrugged. “It’s not bad. I found her soul and coaxed her back to her body, but she’s going to be out of commission for a few weeks at least. That kind of trauma takes time to recover from. However, I can tell you this: You should have your house cleaned professionally. I can do this, but only with both of you present.” The way he said it made it sound like an indecent proposal.

  I blinked. “Oh?”

  Herne let out an exasperated sigh. “Never mind the innuendos, Kipa. If you can clean the house, then good. We’ll all be there. But I’m afraid it will have to hold for a few days until we take care of the news Ferosyn brings. I hate to ask, but can you stick around for a while?”

  Kipa laughed, a deep resonate laugh that sounded both sultry and frightening. “That’s the first time you’ve asked me to stay, rather than told me to get the hell out, cousin. Of course. How can I refuse? But I need a place to stay.”

  Viktor cleared his throat. “You can stay with me.”

  Herne blinked, looking at the half-ogre. “That’s generous.”

  “It will keep you from throttling Kipa, won’t it?”

  I couldn’t help it. I nearly snorted my latte through my nose. “Dude, that…”

  “Is accurate,” Talia finished for me. “It’s settled. Kipa will stay with Viktor for the meantime.”

  Kipa shrugged again. “Fine with me. Do you have an extra key? I had a long, difficult night hunting down Kamaria’s soul, and I’d like to rest and meditate.”

  He ran his hand across his eyes and I could see the fatigue setting in, which surprised me. A part of me had assumed the gods never got tired or ran out of energy; that they slept merely because they enjoyed it. I hadn’t really asked Herne about it.

  Viktor took a key off his keychain and handed it to Kipa. “Don’t lose it. And don’t let anybody else in my apartment. Got it?”

  “Of course,” Kipa murmured. “Your address?”

  Viktor wrote it down for him, and Kipa headed out. When he was gone, Herne leaned back in his chair.

  “Good, I’m glad he left. I don’t want him interfering with this case,” he added sternly. “Which means, don’t invite comments or suggestions from him. Oh, and Ember? I’ve given Ferosyn those ingredients we got from Nigel. He’ll test them for presence of the virus.”

  “Good,” I murmured.

  Ferosyn cleared his throat. “If I might present my findings? I have to get back as soon as I can to my research.”

  “Of course,” Herne said. “I’m sorry for the delay.”

  “Right.” Ferosyn opened a notepad and I could see notes in a language I didn’t recognize. I assumed it was Elvish. The healer frowned as he straightened his shoulders and looked around the table at us.

  “I have discovered a way to make an antidote to the poison. While it won’t kill the actual virus, it will negate the poison’s effects, and the only thing left will be a nasty cold. You see, whoever engineered this was able to insert the poison into a virus that attacks the respiratory systems of Fae. First it was ingested, but then it spread through airborne contact. Now, a number of Fae have a natural immunity to the cold virus that the engineer used, so they didn’t ‘catch’ it, and the poison couldn’t take hold. So there’s a subset of the Fae—both Light and Dark—who are naturally immune to it.”

  “Can you make a vaccination against it?” Yutani frowned, staring at his computer. “I mean, humans make vaccines against various diseases.”

  He shook his head. “Not an effective one, at least not fast enough to matter. For the long term, yes, I can probably do so. But at least I can make an antidote to the iron poisoning.”

  “Then that’s a good thing,” I said. I paused, because he didn’t look like it was a good thing. “Isn’t it?”

  Ferosyn smiled, but faintly. “Yes, it would be except for one thing. Let me explain. I’ve made more inroads on the meteoric iron. I am wagering that you didn’t find any results on sales in this area recently, correct?”

  Talia nodded. “How did you know?”

  “Because, as I mentioned before, the meteoric iron we’re dealing with is ataxite. This makes it extremely rare. And there’s more. Not only is it a rare specimen, but I found evidence of bone in the poison. The bone structure is complex and even more rare than the ataxite.”

  “How’s that?” Viktor asked.

  “The bone structure is one I’ve only seen twice before during all the millennia I’ve been working for Cernunnos. It comes from the Aillén Trechenn.” He looked over at Herne, who stiffened.

  “The Aillén Trechenn? You can’t mean…” Herne stopped, his brow furrowing.

  “That’s exactly what I do mean,” Ferosyn said. “For me to make an antidote, we have to find the bones of the creature itself.”

  The room fell silent, then Angel asked the question that I was thinking. “What’s the Aillén Trechenn? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Me either,” I said.

  “Most people haven’t, be they human or Fae.” Herne stood. “I’ll be back, I need to get my bestiary.” He vanished out the door.

  Viktor was staring at the table, and by the look on his face, I could tell that whatever we were facing was grave. “Whenever Herne has to get his bestiary, you know we’re in for a tough road ahead.”

  “You can say that again,” Yutani muttered.

  Talia said nothing, but simply sat there, her attention focused on Ferosyn. The room stayed frozen in the silen
t tableau until Herne returned, a giant book in his hand. He set it down and even from here, the tome seemed to emanate an aura of times long gone. He flipped through the handwritten pages until he finally found what he was looking for, then he turned the book around so we could all see.

  On the page was what had to be a giant creature walking on all fours, though it looked like it could rear up onto its hind legs. It looked almost like a cross between a dinosaur and a komodo dragon, and I could see someone had drawn in measurements as to its length and height.

  “Is that…what did you call it?”

  “The Aillén Trechenn. Yes, it’s a creature out of legend, rarer than unicorns, rarer than dragons. It’s also known as ‘Iron Bones’ because it spawns off meteors come flaming to earth. Its bones include ataxite iron from the meteor. It’s only been seen a handful of times by the gods, and can take centuries to spawn off of a fallen meteor. When it dies, the flesh eventually decays but the bones remain. It’s anathema to the Fae, due to the iron content, but mostly only the elders of both Courts even remember that it exists.”

  “Herne is correct,” Ferosyn said. “The bones are what was used to make this poison. By the relatively small number of cases—and yes, I know there have been a lot—but by the number of cases versus the potential, I am thinking that the engineer of the virus only found one bone of the Aillén Trechenn. The creatures are huge, as large as a full-grown elephant. If they had found all of the bones, they could have wiped out both Fae cities within a matter of a week.” Ferosyn let that sink in.

  “Then…where are the rest of the bones? And who would have the knowledge to do this?” The thought that one skeleton could end my race—both sides of it—was terrifying.

  “That’s the question. Probably still out in the mountains.”

  Talia rubbed her forehead. “How do we know where it came from?” Then, she stopped, eyes wide. “When did this creature spawn? Is there any way to know?”

  “Probably a thousand years ago? Maybe more. So you won’t find mention of it online.”

  “Perhaps not,” Talia said. “But we might find mention of it in some of the legends from the Cryptos who have lived here. Let me look on Encyclopedia Mythatopia.”

  Encyclopedia Mythatopia was an online database of myths and legends from the various Crypto communities throughout the years. Not every story had been entered, but it was a growing site and updated continuously with new information.

  She tapped away. “I’m trying both the name as well as a general description of a massive creature. Do you have any characteristics for it, other than it’s as big as an elephant?”

  “Quadruped capable of standing on its hind legs, belligerent nature, dark fur that almost gleams, long swiping claws on the front paws—it walks on its knuckles like an anteater—and razor sharp teeth.” Ferosyn frowned. “Do you really think you have a chance of finding anything?”

  Talia nodded. “Yeah, I do…and bingo.” She pumped her fist. “Yes. We may have a winner.”

  “What does it say?” I asked, moving around to look over her shoulder.

  “This is from the Rainier Puma Shifters history.” She enlarged the text and began to read to us. “About a thousand years ago, a strange light streaked out of the sky, landing in an area now believed to be near Cavanaugh Peak, up on Snoqualmie Pass. The light fell into an area near a small lake. The shifters who inhabited the mountain found the rock that fell from the sky, but it was red hot, and they took it as a sign to leave the area alone. Their legends say that five turns of the sun later, a monstrous beast came out of the belly of the crater, and that they had to leave their lairs and travel to Rainier to find a new, safe home. No other reports of this monster were ever found, and the legend is thought to be a metaphor for some natural disaster that chased them from their lands.”

  Ferosyn nodded. “That sounds like a meteor. And since the Aillén Trechenn wasn’t known in shifter lore, no wonder they had no context for it. So if the meteor fell near Cavanaugh Peak, and the creature lived there, it probably died near there too. The Aillén Trechenn don’t usually travel far from their spawning sites.”

  “Okay, we have a place to go look. But that could a lot of places. What lakes are near Cavanaugh Peak?”

  “The closest that you can see from the mountain peak is Hidden Lake,” Yutani said, searching an online map. “The trail is similar and not too far from the Snow Lake Trailhead. It will be a good three-hour hike, if not more, to Cavanaugh Peak from Alpental. The going isn’t a simple trail through the woods. We’ll have a six- or seven-mile jaunt each way, with a lot of rocky terrain. We’d better plan for a night’s camping just in case. We don’t know how long it will take to search the area, or what we’re going to encounter.”

  I stared at him. “You mean we’re going hiking out in the woods, looking for those bones?”

  “I need them to make an antidote,” Ferosyn said. “If I don’t have them, your people will keep on dying.”

  I groaned but nodded. “Yeah, I get it.” The thought of a long hike wasn’t exactly the problem. It was coming close to the bones that were contributing to the death of my kind. “What happens if I accidentally touch one of the bones?”

  A look of understanding swept over Ferosyn’s face. “You won’t catch this plague that way. No, you’d burn yourself since they do have meteoric iron in them, but unless you decide to gnaw on one, I don’t think you’ll have any problem being around them.”

  “I have a question,” Angel said.

  “Yes?” Ferosyn turned to her.

  “Just who would be able to engineer a virus like this? Surely the Human Liberation Army isn’t quite up to speed on the process? And would they go to such extremes? Why not just fire a few bombs into the cities?”

  “That’s a very good question,” I said. “Any ideas?”

  Ferosyn hesitated, then said, “Yes, I do. I’ve had a growing suspicion the longer I’ve studied this virus. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. Given all we know, to create such a virus it would require an adept in both magic and alchemy at a level that we rarely see in the world. I’m thinking one of the Force Majeure is behind this.”

  The Force Majeure? The name sounded familiar, like I had heard it long ago, but I wasn’t sure just where.

  “Who are they?” Angel asked.

  Herne stood, leaning on the table as he stared at Ferosyn. “Are you positive?”

  “No, but I’d lay good money on it.”

  The look that passed between them chilled my blood. Whatever this was, it was powerful and dark. I closed my eyes, thinking back to the monster that I had dreamed about, but then I realized it wasn’t the Aillén Trechenn that I had been hiding from. It had been whoever had dug up the creature that I had been running from.

  Ferosyn worried his lip before answering Angel. “The Force Majeure are a secret society of magicians, witches, and sorcerers. There are only twenty-one of them in the world at any given time. The only way to join the society is to be hand-chosen by the others. The only way to exit the society is to die.”

  “To give you an idea of what kind of power is necessary in order to be tapped for membership, one of the members is the Merlin. He’s my grandfather—Morgana’s father. Another member is Taliesin, one of the ancient Celtic bards. And Väinämöinen, the Finnish bard who rose to become a hero, is yet another.” Herne sat down again.

  I walked over to the counter to pour myself another cup of coffee. The explosions just kept coming. “Merlin is your grandfather?”

  “He is, yes. I have no idea where he is right now. He set out to wander the world some thousand years or so ago.”

  I digested this bit of information. “Is Morgana one of the Force Majeure?”

  Herne shook his head. “She chose deityhood over a life spent with her father’s people. She fell in love with Cernunnos, so she stepped into the role of goddess.”

  “I thought Morgana was originally human,” Angel said.
/>
  “Human…covers a wide variety of peoples. But no, not in the way you think of it. Her mother was Dark Fae, and her father, Merlin. The Force Majeure are…human…if you will, but they are to the magic born, and their life spans and DNA are different because of this. Call them cousins to humans. Closer than any of the Fae, or shifters. Hell, I look human—at least right now—but I’m a god. Demigod, rather.”

  Morgana was half-Fae. “How come the Fae accept her as their goddess if she’s not full-blooded?” I couldn’t imagine how they would kneel before a goddess who contained unwelcome blood.

  “Because the Force Majeure are revered by the Fae. So her father’s blood is accepted as royal, and since her mother was Fae, she’s acceptable to them.” Herne shook his head. “Don’t get me started on your people’s ethics and moral codes.”

  But I was already onto another thought.

  “Who are the other members of the Force Majeure? Do any of them have a strong-enough grudge against the Fae that they would set out to commit genocide?” I wanted desperately to believe that Herne’s grandfather wouldn’t have participated in an exercise of genocide, but I was quickly learning to hold my belief until it was proven.

  Ferosyn wrote something on a piece of paper and showed it to Herne.

  A light dawned in his eyes and he nodded. “You’re right.”

  To the rest of us, he said, “There is one member of the Force Majeure who would have every reason to do this. Her name is Ranna, and she’s the mistress of the Fomorian King, Elatha.”

  I sank back down in my chair, almost spilling my drink.

  The Fomorians? Even I knew who they were.

  “You can’t be trying to tell me that Elatha has returned from the mists to destroy the Fae?”

  “I believe that this is exactly the case. Cernunnos received word last night from a credible witness that Elatha has indeed returned. Which means, we must find the rest of those bones before he sends out a search party to look for them.” Ferosyn threw his notepad on the table. “Because I’ll guarantee you this: if Ranna finds the rest of the bones, the entire Fae world is in danger of extinction.”