“How do we know he is a Knight?”
“Well, Van Helsing and Baba Yaga seemed pretty sure, but there’s no way to know until we can actually talk to him. I’ll point out that Matthias also thought he was the real deal, and he spent years looking into this stuff.”
He nodded slowly, not looking happy, but acknowledging the opinions of three old and powerful supernatural persons. “I still don’t understand how no one has found the knight these past centuries. And if the Mad Hatter is so interested in this topic, where is he?”
“Being a hermit somewhere, I guess. He took that fight with Castor Queen… hard,” I finally said, trying not to remember too many of the details. “Why are you asking about all this again?”
His claws extended and he resumed cleaning them with more force than necessary. “I’m bored.” He met my eyes between licks of those lethal claws. “Very, very bored.”
“We’ll see action soon enough…” I muttered, thinking about our upcoming trip. To Hell.
Alex shuddered instinctively. He – and everyone else – thought we were taking another one of our frequent trips to Fae. And Alex had particularly bad memories of that place.
I actually was taking Talon and Carl to Fae, but just for a brief recharge before heading onto our final destination – Hell.
Heh. Final Destination. Hell.
If any of my friends heard about that they would have tied me down to a chair for a year.
We continued down the trail, heading back to the mansion. For fun, I had taken Alex and Talon out to see my old childhood hideout – Chateau Defiance. Alex had smiled distantly, but it had seemed to sour Talon’s mood, reminding him that we had been unknowingly separated after childhood, and that I had found a new best friend – Gunnar – to replace him.
The two were still trying to come to grips with who actually held the Best Friend Title Belt, rather than accepting that it didn’t have to be one or the other.
The walk back to the mansion had been brittle rather than pleasant, thanks to Talon’s mood.
All in all, I was ready to get out of town. My friends didn’t need or want my help anyway, and I had always hated sitting on my hands.
First, we would go to Fae.
Talon and I had spent a lot of time there recently. Well, that was relative. We had only gone a half-dozen times, fearing the time slippage in the real world. I had hoped to find a calculation that would let me know how much an hour in Fae cost me in the real world.
But that had been a big fat failure.
The first time we went, an hour had cost us a day. The second time, an hour had only cost us about four hours. Repeated attempts yielded even more varied results. Basically, there was no logical explanation for the time slippage, no way to calculate it ahead of time.
And no way to explain Alex’s suddenly rapid aging.
Wylde – my inner Fae – had tried to tell me it was futile, but I had refused to listen.
Wylde…
The two of us were becoming less… distinct. Each trip to Fae brought us closer and closer until I had hard times distinguishing my thoughts from his.
The short of it was that I had been conceived and born in Fae by two human wizards. My parents had broken into Fae to steal a few things from the Queens – an Hourglass and a War Hammer – and as a result had found themselves trapped there. They hadn’t been romantically involved at the time, but being locked up in a cave for long periods of time has consequences. Something about that specific chain of events had tainted me. I was a Manling Fae or something equally bizarre. A Catalyst. I didn’t have pointed ears or anything, because I wasn’t actually Fae. I was just born there.
My parents named me Wylde.
They kept me there for years, still hiding from the Queens. Until Pan – the Wild God – came along with a rescue kitten warrior he had found in a ransacked city. I had named him Talon the Devourer, and the two of us had fast become friends. Pan agreed to help keep my parents – and me – safe from the Queens. He kind of shacked up with us like a crazy distant uncle.
To everyone’s surprise, I soon showed a knack for Fae magic. The only way I can think to describe the power was… primitive. Wizards in our world can use magic – fire, ice, wind, earth – and manipulate it to their will. But it must obey the laws of physics.
Fae magic kind of had its own unwritten set of rules, and physics was more of a quasi-flexible set of guidelines rather than concrete rules. For example, I could pull starlight from the air, use a moonbeam as a spear, command tree-people – things like that. Like I said, bizarre and not easily categorized. If I wanted something, I just kind of tried to do it. There were still rules, I think, but the drunken shaman who must have come up with them forgot to write them down.
It was more like an instinctive, primitive knowledge – fire hurts. Knives cut. People die.
When my parents were finally able to escape Fae, they blocked my memories and took me back to earth. Since they had used the hourglass stolen from the Queens, time hadn’t passed in our world – luckily, because we had spent the better part of two decades over there – and when I stepped foot on earth for the first time, I was a child again.
And I had no memories of Wylde, Talon, or the Fae.
So, I got to grow up again, totally unaware of my past.
But Wylde had spent those years haunting the Land of the Fae as some kind of spirit memory.
Reunited, Wylde and I had a lot of growing pains to overcome. He needed to be recharged by occasional visits to Fae, and I wanted to wring out every scrap of Fae magic he knew. Each visit to Fae brought us closer together, merging our lives, memories, and powers. I wanted to know – and feared – the final result of that merging, of becoming one person again.
I was a Catalyst. Cue dramatic thunder and lightning, I thought to myself.
Whatever the hell a Catalyst was, my parents had been pretty confident I was one.
Pan hadn’t known what it meant – because my parents had never told him. For Pan, the Wild God, to not know something, it had to be a doozy. Which meant I needed to go to the source.
To talk to my parents. Who currently resided in Hell. Or… at least the Underworld. Gods kind of used the terms interchangeably, informing me that there were many dimensions in the Underworld – some were paradises, and others were eons of torture and anguish.
My parents were now legal citizens of the Underworld, and Death could no longer take me on a short trip to see them because I had a lot of… dangerous questions. I had argued with him.
He had stared me dead in the eye and said, “The fact that you even know the questions is what is limiting me from taking you to them myself. The act of awareness has eliminated that path. The only way down now is to pay to play.”
He wouldn’t – or couldn’t – tell me what that price would be. Like a big girl, I had to buy my own bus ticket for this trip. I had told him to set it up.
Remembering Death’s comment from the wedding sent a chill down my spine. Three may enter, but three shall not leave… I had told Talon and Carl about it – the two I had chosen to join me because they were both otherworldly and scary as hell – but they hadn’t known what to make from it, other than the obvious. That we might not all make it back.
This hadn’t changed their minds. Both had piped up that they were willing to remain down below in order for the others to get back.
I had thoughts on that, but I had accepted their offer of support, not sharing my opinion about Death’s cryptic warning. I blinked as we finally stepped out of the woods and Chateau Falco loomed ahead over the manicured lawns.
Chapter 18
Talon purred approvingly as he stared at the house. I smiled distantly, remembering growing up here and getting into all sorts of trouble. Seventeen-thousand-square-feet of places to hide, explore, and desecrate. Gunnar and I had had a blast as kids.
But I was beginning to learn that it was much larger than the blueprints told. The house was actually alive. Literally. Becaus
e a powerful Beast named Falco was magically bonded to it. Secret passageways, hidden levels, and odd distortions in space likely doubled or tripled its size.
And now… Falco was pregnant. But that was on a need-to-know basis.
A large alicorn – a fancy name for a winged unicorn – with long black feathers sporting red orbs on the tips like a hellish mockery of a peacock, slashed great divots in the ground in the distance near the labyrinth beside the mansion where a large crystal I had bought for him hung from a high branch. The alicorn snorted and neighed, but it sounded more like a vicious snarl as he clawed his razor-blade hooves and barbed horn into the ground, attacking dozens of…
Rainbow reflections zipping back and forth across the ground.
Alex chuckled. “I don’t think I will ever hate something as much as Grimm hates rainbows.”
I smiled, shaking my head. Grimm fucking hated them. More than anything. His brother, Pegasus, had even told me that Grimm traveled across worlds – plural – to hunt down rogue rainbows and destroy them. Apparently, his horn could… kill them. Even though they were just reflections of light. I heard a shattering glass noise and then a triumphant scream from Grimm.
Pegasus, the fabled winged horse was napping in the grass, but lifted his head at the sound, nodding his amused approval at his brother’s accomplishment.
“Wow. He really can break them. I’ve never heard him actually get one!” Alex whispered.
“Is that Carl?” Talon asked, ignoring Grimm and the flickering lights – which also annoyed him to no end, being a cat. He pointed to where a giant white tree had recently stood, but now only a wide circle of ash, coal and charred husks remained. I had thrown my War Hammer at it.
Allegedly.
I squinted and saw a tall, albino lizard in armor made of leather straps with his hands on his hips. Carl was an Elder – dangerous creatures who had been banished from earth long ago. By everybody. Like that one guy at the party no one wanted around, turning the music down and hiding when he knocked at the front door. I didn’t quite know why Elders were so feared.
No one would talk about them.
Carl was staring at a cute little treehouse in the center of the chaos. It had been in the tree when it burned down, but for some reason hadn’t burned away. It resembled a tiny, fort-sized cottage made of white wood. Kai – the Beast who had briefly resided in the tree had made it for Alex, saying every boy needed a treehouse. No other explanation had been given. It had just been there one day. Only a single shoot from the giant white tree had been found unharmed, and Alex had planted it with loving care beside the treehouse as if in memory of the Beast – Kai – who had briefly resided there. They’d been close friends, even if only briefly.
Kai had decided to knock up Chateau Falco before becoming a martyr.
His death had struck everyone hard, but no one harder than Alex and Falco. The lone sapling seemed to be healthy, sprouting a few new leaves since we had planted it.
“We better go stop him from… whatever he’s doing,” I said as I made my way towards him.
A few minutes later we stepped up behind him. Other than his ear holes constricting, he didn’t immediately acknowledge us. A plaque had been hammered into the earth beside the cottage and tree. It said Kai, a free Beast. Alex – the one who had put it there – read the words with a sad look on his face before walking over to Pegasus and sitting down, pulling out his phone as he leaned into the winged horse’s ribs.
Pegasus nuzzled him for a moment before resting his head back down. Alex stared at his phone in silence, occasionally swiping with his thumb. Probably reading another book related to King Arthur. He’d read most of them by now, but had seemed particularly interested in the story about Tristan and Isolde. He was determined to help as much as possible on the whole Round Table and Sleeping Knight-y issue, resorting to even fictional tales to try and find answers that might help us figure out what was so important about it. Or what we needed to do to wake the Knight up, and what to ask him when he did wake up. Anything was helpful at this point since Matthias Temple was hiding out in solitude and not helping.
“Is it getting bigger?” Carl finally asked, interrupting my thoughts as he turned to me.
I frowned at him, then peered at the tree house where he was pointing. “It’s a treehouse, Carl. Wood doesn’t just get bigger—”
But I cut off abruptly, staring at it harder. Was it bigger? I couldn’t actually tell because I hadn’t ever measured it, but… something was different.
I glanced back at Alex since the treehouse had initially been built for him by Kai. He was smirking to himself as he read. I spotted motion near the house and turned to see Alucard jogging our way, not in a rush, but as if glad he had spotted us.
Talon had his head cocked, staring at the treehouse. He saw Alucard – now within earshot – and pointed a feline paw at him. “I have heard Alucard talk of wood that can grow. He called it the D. Tory didn’t look pleased when he spoke of it, so perhaps it’s a secret… Ask him about this magical D.”
I coughed into my fist, wanting to burst out laughing, but also wanting to stretch this out as long as possible. Alucard had skidded to a halt, rubbing his ears as if he hadn’t heard correctly.
Deciding to be mature for once, I shot Alucard a warning look before answering Carl. “It’s a treehouse, Carl. Wood can’t grow on its own. This wood is dead.”
“The wood is dead. Long live the wood,” Alucard chimed in, ever helpful.
I glared at him.
Talon grasped his arm conspiratorially, as if making sure Tory wasn’t nearby. “Nate says wood can’t grow on its own, but I heard you say otherwise. Tell us about this secret D.”
I subtly began shaking my head from behind Talon, warning Alucard to put a stop to this before it got out of hand. Carl was leaning close to Alucard, practically on the balls of his feet. A very serious look settled over the vampire’s face and I let out a sigh of relief.
“I must understand this world better,” Carl pleaded. “You are always teasing me about things I don’t understand. Tell me about this growing wood. This D.”
Alucard sucked in a breath, eyes twinkling as he tried not to laugh. Then, with a straight face, he gave Carl exactly what he asked for – the Legend of the D. “It’s very rare, but I’m not supposed to talk about it. I’ve found most women are very good at finding the D. You just have to ask them. Politely. It’s a secret they don’t like to share.”
I groaned, opening my mouth to stop the madness.
“Why do women love the D?” Carl asked, tongue flicking out through his inky black teeth.
Ohmygod. Alucard shrugged hesitantly, leaning down to whisper. “Ask the Huntress. Tell her you know of her love of the deep wood and want to know the secret to growing the D.”
“Carl—” I began, but the Elder was nodding to himself and striding up to the house.
“I will get to the bottom of this,” he called over his shoulder.
Talon was staring at the two of us, frowning as Alucard struggled not to burst out laughing with Carl in earshot. “You’re a dick, Alucard,” I sighed.
He grinned. “What harm is there? You said you three are leaving soon for Fae.”
Talon, not wanting to prove his ignorance, chose not to ask anything else. He probably didn’t trust us to tell him the truth. The thing about Carl was that he was the only Elder on earth. And since his kind hadn’t been around humans for quite some time, he had no understanding of our ways. Especially not sarcasm or crude humor.
He provided endless joke material.
Talon, having grown up in Fae, was also ignorant of many things about humans, but having spent his life around semi-human Fae, he had at least a basic enough understanding not to make himself the brunt of too many jokes. He was also notoriously vicious and would likely torture anyone who pushed him too far, or pulled a prank on him.
But Carl? He fell for everything.
“I just hope he doesn’t wear his red heels wh
en he asks someone about the D,” I muttered, glancing back at the treehouse. It did seem bigger. Maybe. Or maybe it was just because the question had been asked and the possibility had entered my mind. One of those tricks of the eye. Someone tells you to find something specific in an inkblot, and you can suddenly see it, when in reality, no such thing exists. Your mind simply shows you what you tell it to see, connecting random variables into the outcome that you told it to find.
Alucard’s voice grew more serious, making me look up as he spoke. “Can we head inside? We need to talk.”
I nodded, not liking the dread in his tone.
Chapter 19
We sat in the Sanctorum, sipping rare fifty-year Macallan that Mallory had left out. He usually kept it hidden from us. Maybe he’d left it out as a gift since he knew we were heading to Hell. He was the only other person I had told about our travel plans. Or Falco’s pregnancy.
Talon was lying on a couch a few paces away near the waterfall that occupied one wall of the massive cavern turned private library. The ceiling was easily fifty feet high and covered in gems to represent constellations, and railed walkways marked each floor – complete with rooms, bookshelves, and furniture. I’d barely managed to explore the entire place. Only in a cursory fashion to make sure nothing dangerous lurked behind one of the closed doors. Some trapped demon or something.
Other than dusty piles of books, manuscripts, and strange artifacts from all over the world, I hadn’t found anything concerning. Some of the rooms seemed more like ancient antique stores than anything, with tan sheets covering the furniture, shelves, and lamps.
On the main floor sat an ornate desk that had belonged to my ancestors, those former Masters’ Temple. Our family had always used the title for the head of the house, but it had only recently come to my attention that it used to have actual meaning. The original Master Temples used to be Makers – those extremely rare beings who shared headspace with a Beast, a creature of unknown origins and powers. One of those Beasts had actually been freed from her partnership and had instead been fused with the mansion we now stood in.
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