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Last Car to Annwn Station

Page 11

by Michael Merriam


  Mae rose to her knees. Her coat sleeve was soaked through with blood and she was starting to lose feeling in her arm. She looked around for help, but the street was strangely devoid of traffic. She could hear sirens in the distance.

  Mae knelt in the dirty snow and glared at what she suspected was the lead hound. Her breath came hard and raspy after her run.

  “Do it!” she cried. “Get it over with!”

  The presumed pack leader lunged at her, his mouth morphing into a long, tooth-filled muzzle. Mae closed her eyes.

  A surprised yelp of pain made Mae open her eyes again.

  Kravis ap Thimp, the ugly man-like thing who had greeted Mae on her first streetcar ride, stood in front of her. His right arm was wrapped in heavy bandages and his left wielded a wicked-looking curved blade. Kravis made quick work of the first hound, leaving it dying on the sidewalk, bleeding black on the snow. Mae rose to her feet as the bell of a streetcar rang out urgently.

  “Get on the car, Mae!” Kravis yelled, using his weapon to hold the other three hounds at bay. Mae realized he had lost the element of surprise and the hounds had regrouped.

  Mae started for the car when two of the hounds attacked Kravis from opposite sides. He stabbed one in the chest, but the other was on his back, tearing into his neck. The last hound rushed forward.

  Unthinking, Mae charged, placing her slight frame between the hound and Kravis. The larger, heavier creature crashed into her. She lost her footing again and fell on her back with a hard thud.

  “Police, everyone stay where you are!” a voice above Mae commanded.

  Mae fought back the pain, resisting the urge to either pass out or throw up. She managed to get two shallow breaths, followed by a slightly larger one. She tried to sit up, but her back felt on fire. Mae twisted around to see a woman holding an automatic pistol in one hand, a badge in the other. The woman held her weapon like she meant business. Mae recognized Sergeant Dean, even in her street clothes.

  The hounds turned and rushed the police woman. Mae heard gunfire and a scream as she rolled, scrambling to reach the waiting streetcar. Kravis was lying across the steps of the car, blood oozing from the back of his neck. A second burst of gunfire sounded. Bullets ricocheted off the buildings. Mae screamed in pain as something hot slammed into her middle. She was pulled through the doors of the streetcar. Behind her there was a wet ripping sound and a short, gurgling scream. The door of the streetcar closed.

  “Ten cents, please.”

  Mae stumbled to her feet and reached into her pants pocket. Fumbling, she withdrew a handful of coins. They were covered in blood. She looked stupidly at the sticky red liquid smeared on her hand before dropping the coins on the floor. Mae blinked to clear her blurry vision, looking down. Blood was spreading across her stomach, running down her pants and to the floor. At her feet lay Kravis, his eyes closed, his breathing labored and unsteady. She looked up for the conductor and found herself facing a disheveled William Hodgins standing in the aisle before her, still holding his injured arm awkwardly against his body.

  Hodgins raised the glowing crystal in his good hand. “Goodbye, Mae.”

  “You are not welcome here,” the conductor said, stepping up behind Hodgins and placing a hand on his shoulder.

  Mae slipped on the bloody floorboard and fell. Her face on the floor, she looked out the door windows. A pack of the Cn Annwn were shadowing them, pacing the streetcar despite the breakneck speed at which it was moving, running in the gray mists outside. Mae knew she should have felt afraid, but all she felt was cold and weak.

  She looked up at Hodgins and the conductor. They were struggling. Several creatures, some winged, some with animal heads, some who looked almost human, surrounded the combatants, reaching for Hodgins. As they started to wrestle him down, he dropped the clear crystal marble to the floor and—with a harsh curse—stamped down on it.

  There was a brilliant flash of light, and Mae felt the streetcar began to tip. She heard the high whine of the brakes. There was a moment of silence, and then Mae was flung like a rag doll around the inside of the car as it rolled over and flipped. The tortured screech of the wooden car breaking into pieces was overlaid with the terrified screams of the car’s occupants. The car tumbled twice more, breaking in half before coming to rest in the shadows.

  Mae landed with a painful crash halfway out a window. Through swollen, unfocused eyes she watched the white hounds close in on her. They gripped her coat with their teeth, dragging her wounded body out of the broken window and away from the wreckage of the streetcar, into the gray mist beyond.

  Mae blacked out.

  Dear Wall,

  Something has happened. Everyone is running around in panic. I can hear them outside my door. Every so often someone, usually Elise but sometimes “Grandfather,” looks into the room. Someone must have changed the binding magic on the door.

  They’re nervous. The last time they opened the door I could feel something different. The magic in the house was weaker. Not weak enough for me to break, but weaker.

  “Mother” came and checked on me once. She was frightened. I could feel the fear on her. She kept trying to hold me in her lap and pat my hair. She was crying a lot and bright with barely controlled magic. I thought for a minute she might do something rash, but Elise came and took her away.

  I wonder where Chrysandra is? I hope she managed to send my message. I hope she didn’t betray me because I’m pretty sure I’ve got enough power left in me to hurt her—undead or not.

  I really want something to eat, but I have a bad feeling that what I want is not something they are concerned about at the moment.

  They’re at the door, I can hear them taking down the magic to get inside. I can hear three or four people arguing.

  This can’t be good. I’d better go.

  How long she was unconscious, Mae did not know. When she opened her eyes she found herself lying on her back, snow falling on her face. She sat up. The hounds lay in the snow, encircling her. They watched her with blazing silver eyes, their tongues lolling out of their mouths and over their wicked, yellow teeth, panting from their exertion.

  She looked down at her wounds. Her coat was soaked with blood, completely ruined, but she could find no evidence that she was still bleeding. Mae unbuttoned her coat and shrugged out of it, being slow and careful in case she ripped or tore something.

  The bullet had gone in through her stomach; that was obvious by the location of all the blood. Shivering from the cold and frightened expectation, Mae lifted the bottom of her dark blue sweater. The wound looked bad but was no longer bleeding. She checked her arm where the hound had bitten her, pulling back the sleeve. One of the creature’s long canines had punctured her arm, but as with the bullet wound, there was no active bleeding. This did nothing to set Mae’s mind at ease about her situation.

  “Hello, Maeve Kathleen Malveaux.”

  Mae turned and looked into the eyes of Death. He was dressed in a tailored business suit, complete with a deep maroon tie.

  She scrambled to her feet, causing the hounds to come to attention as well. “Death.”

  “Welcome to Annwn, Maeve.”

  Her ponytail had come loose at some point, and she brushed the hair out of her eyes with a blood-covered hand. “No one calls me Maeve. I’m just Mae.”

  “As you wish.”

  She looked around. “So, this is Annwn.” Mae paused and frowned. She turned back to Death. “Would you care to explain why I’m in the mythological Welsh afterlife?”

  “The hounds brought you here. With their pack leader dead and their Master incapacitated, they had no direction. They looked deep into their memories for guidance and brought you to this place.”

  “Then—am I dead?”

  Death looked down at her. “Not yet.”

  Mae looked around and sighed. The landscape was all frozen winter. Snow fell and drifted on the breeze, trees were barren and sagging with large icicles. There were no signs of life, or at least of anythin
g animated. “This looks like a miserable place to spend eternity.”

  “It was not always so, Mae. Once, this was a place of eternal youth, free of disease. Once, this was a place of abundance where the dead were rewarded with a pleasing and painless afterlife. It was a splendid place for the souls of the departed to rest while awaiting rebirth.”

  “What happened?”

  “The death of Bebhinn.”

  Death began to walk forward, toward the frozen trees. Mae fell into step next to him. Around them the hounds spread out, flanking Mae and her companion. As they drew nearer the frozen forest, Mae could see how each tree was thick with ice, encased in a silver embrace.

  Mae frowned. “I thought Bebhinn was Irish.”

  “Perhaps she was Irish or Welsh. Perhaps she was a goddess of the Underworld and of pleasure. Perhaps she was a giantess, or the queen of the fae, or even a mortal Viking princess. Those are imposed labels. They are not important. What is important is that she was a daughter.”

  Mae searched her memory. It had been years since the two mythology classes she took in college. Even longer since she had heard the stories her father told her as a child. Still, she was willing to hazard a guess.

  “Arawn had a daughter? Bebhinn was the king of the Underword’s child?”

  Death smiled down at her as they walked through the icy landscape. “Not Arawn, but the later Lord of Annwn, Gwynn ap Nudd.”

  Mae nodded. She remembered a bit about Gwynn ap Nudd. Master of the Wild Hunt, king of the Tylwyth Teg, as the Welsh fae were called. At some point he became ruler of the Underworld, though Mae did not know the circumstances. She had not realized he was also a father. She gestured at the world around her. “Is this caused by his grief?”

  “Indirectly. He fell into grief and began to let his duties go. Like the Tylwyth Teg fae of which he was lord, Gwynn was prone to melancholy. His grief weakened the Fair Ones, making them vulnerable to outside manipulation. Without their Lord and Champion, they were at risk of being subjugated by stronger forces.”

  Mae and Death entered the frozen forest, crossing through the tree line. Mae looked closely at the hanging icicles. They were creatures. There were small, brown men and tiny, golden-haired women. Winged creatures hung like Christmas ornaments from the white branches. There were others on the ground, at the base of the trees—white cattle and hunched, hag-like women, encased in clear boulders of ice. Mae looked closer. There were human figures scattered among the fantastical creatures.

  “Like Hodgins?” she asked.

  Death nodded. “The children of the mortal world took advantage of the son of Nudd’s weakness, promising to retrieve his child’s spirit and return her to his forest. They corrupted him with their lies and bound him to their will. He was the first to fall.”

  Mae looked up at Death in confusion. “But if Bebhinn was dead, wouldn’t her spirit dwell in Annwn anyway?”

  Death gave Mae a sad look. “Remember Mae, for the departed to reach the realm of Annwn, Gwynn ap Nudd was forced to ride out with his hounds and collect the spirit.”

  “He couldn’t collect his own daughter,” Mae whispered.

  “To do so would have been to admit the death of his only child.”

  “But—but she would be reborn again, right?”

  “Yes, Mae. Bebhinn would have, as any spirit in Annwn, been reborn to another life after a time. But she would have no longer been Bebhinn. Her father could not allow her uniqueness to be lost. Like any parent, when faced with the death of his child, he could not give her up willingly.”

  They stopped in front of a large oak tree. Encased in the clear ice was a figure upon a rough-hewn throne that seemed to grow from the tree itself. Mae walked closer, placing a hand on the ice. It was a man wearing antlers, or at least an antlered helmet. His clothing was the rough leathers and furs of a hunter. A bow and spear was near his right hand, a horn around his neck. At his feet lay two frozen white hounds, creatures twice the size of any Cn Annwn Mae had encountered.

  She looked through the ice at the man’s face. His cheeks were shrunken, his hair unkempt. His open eyes were fields of stars at midnight

  Mae turned to Death, who stood a few feet away, watching her carefully. Several things clicked together in her mind. Gwynn ap Nudd, Thantos, Anubis, the Valkyries, the archangel Gabriel, Charon, the grim reaper.

  Death.

  They were incarnations of the same concept, a being who collected souls and carried them to the appropriate afterlife.

  “I’m sorry,” Mae said. “What happened to her?”

  Death stared at her for several moments. Mae waited patiently.

  “I do not know. I suspect Bebhinn’s essence roams lost, and shall do so until her father rides out and brings her home to Annwn.”

  Mae shook her head. It was a sad tale, though she was not sure how it pertained to her situation. She decided to bring the conversation back to the human mages and the hounds. That, she felt, was where the answers to her questions lay.

  “You said Gwynn was the first to fall. I see all these others imprisoned in ice. What’s happening to this place?”

  Death walked closer to Mae, standing so close she could feel him, though their bodies did not touch.

  “William Jefferson Hodgins and his allies have bound the son of Nudd to their will. They are draining his power, draining the spark of his existence from his physical form and his domain for their own ends. As they siphon off more and more of the magic of Annwn, the landscape changes, becomes the opposite of what it should be. The creatures that dwell here are as trapped as their master. But the power, the magic, is not limitless, and the mortal mages have nearly exhausted the energies of this place, so they have begun to seek elsewhere for power.”

  “Are they trying to take over another spirit world?”

  Death smiled. It was the kind of smile you did not want aimed in your direction. “No. This was a unique set of circumstances. They shall not catch another of us in this manner. Instead they send the hounds out to hunt down any of the Tylwyth Teg fae who still dwell in mortal. When they find an enclave of the Fair Ones, they move into their area and begin capturing them, bringing them here to drain their small magics and life forces. A large enough group of Tylwyth Teg can take years to hunt down.”

  “The mortal mages, Hodgins and his people, are they using the magic to live forever? To gain wealth? To take over the world? I mean, what exactly are they doing with all that power? And how long has this been going on?”

  “These mages have been creating havoc for centuries. As for what they do with the power they steal, it is the same that any mortal does with power, be it magical, physical or political. They extend their lives. They force their desires and their influence on anything weaker than they.”

  Death paused and stepped even closer to Mae. She took an involuntary step backward. “They cannot, however, live forever. They are able to extend their mortal span past the norm, but in the end, they are still mortal. Accidents, sudden violence, any number of things can cause their demise.” Death flashed Mae a wicked little smile. “I admit to taking an unseemly bit of pleasure when I come for one of them.”

  Mae nodded. It was all making sense to her, and if she could get back to the mortal world, she would be better armed to fight her opponent. Assuming that she was even still alive. There was one more thing she needed to know.

  “Why am I still here? I understand that this is the default place the hounds bring their prey, but I’m not a faerie creature. I don’t have any magic for these mortal mages to strip.”

  Death smiled at her. It was not a sinister smile, or a sad smile. It was the kind of smile that said, “I know something you don’t.” It was the kind of smile that made Mae wonder if she had missed something important during the conversation. It was the kind of smile that made her realize she might not have asked the right question, and time was up.

  “I swear to you, Maeve Kathleen Malveaux, you are indeed in the correct place. It is time for you
to begin the next part of your journey.”

  Mae opened her mouth to protest. Before the words could spill over her lips, Death reached out with his right hand and gently, tenderly, brushed his fingers across her cheek.

  Mae’s perceptions of the world around her turned bright, too bright to bear, for what might have been a heartbeat. There was a sudden explosion of sounds and smells and sights and tactile sensations and tastes on her tongue.

  She felt her body rising from the ground, being lifted up by two strong hands. Mae thought she might have laughed.

  There was a sharp pain in her chest.

  Maeve Kathleen Malveaux’s senses were plunged into a world of freezing cold and darkness.

  Dear Wall,

  Chrysandra managed to burn the picture in a fireplace! If I did everything right, the smoke should carry the message. All I can do now is hope my summoning worked.

  I hope this Mae Malveaux woman is tougher than she looks in the picture. I think that I’ve seen her somewhere before. She seems so familiar to me.

  Chrysandra told me Mr. Hodgins was injured, but she did not know what happened.

  He wasn’t at dinner. Afterward, Elise took me to their little magic workshop. “Grandfather,” Ilona and Robert cast the bindings on me. They’re weaker than Mr. Hodgins, but still too strong for me to fight alone.

  They performed a ritual, chanting for the aid of some creature whose name I didn’t recognize. Then “Grandfather” cut my arm and took some of my blood, putting it in a silver bowl. I felt the silver quiver and reached out to it, letting it know everything was okay.

 

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