She turned to Jill with a frown as Mirallyn and Kravis stepped through the red door into the yellow machine, off on their search for Ellie or information about her fate. The car pulled away, swaying and clacking along on its tracks. “Have we figured out how these streetcars work? ’Cause I’m pretty sure I never saw any rail tracks anywhere near this place before that car showed up.”
“I thought it had to do with where the cars had traveled before, back when they worked in our reality. Sort of a case of phantom tracks for phantom streetcars, but that doesn’t seem to be how it works, at least not with this one.”
“It’s the fact that the sign reads Malveaux Express that freaks me out.”
Jill gave her a surprised look. “You’re just now getting freaked out?”
She shivered in the worn, fur-trimmed robe she had borrowed from her mother. “Well, for relative values of freaked out.”
Jill held out a hand to her. “Ready?”
“You look dashing,” Mae said, nodding toward the black eye patch and leather jacket Kravis had procured for her friend. It added to the overall “I am a badass, and you had best stay out of my way” effect Jill seemed to be projecting. Mae supposed battling faerie warriors and walking into the Underworld might put a little swagger in your step. She just hoped Jill was not getting overconfident.
Jill flipped her long hair and smiled brilliantly. “I have that pirate queen thing going on, don’t I?”
“More so with all the nicks and cuts all over your face,” Mae said.
“I earned them fair and square.” Jill laughed.
Mae nodded. “I know.” She paused and bit her lower lip as Jill opened the door and led the way into the kitchen. “Are you sure you want to keep hanging around with me?”
“Mae—”
“I’m just asking because, well, I nearly got you killed, and I couldn’t and wouldn’t blame you one bit if you changed your mind.”
They settled into the wooden chairs at the kitchen table. Mae looked directly into Jill’s face, hoping she would find understanding, afraid she would find something else entirely. She started to tremble as Jill regarded her with one pale blue eye.
Jill sighed dramatically. “You are the silliest girl in the world.”
Mae frowned. “I wouldn’t go that far. And who was worried about me changing my mind last night?”
“Yes, well, that is true. I’m not giving you up after all the work I’ve put into this relationship.”
Mae grinned, her good humor restored by Jill’s answer. “You realize the relationship’s only a few days old?”
“Beside the point. I tramped into and through the frozen wastes of the Underworld, battling hell hounds the whole way, for your skinny butt.” Jill leaned forward and gave Mae a mock leer, made all the more sinister looking by Jill’s eye patch. “And you promised me a tumble, girly. I’m holding you to that.”
“Need to get your piece of flesh?”
“Yes. But right now I need to get breakfast.”
“Let’s see what we can find.” Mae stood, but Jill waved her away.
“I know where everything is. I’ll take care of food.”
“Okay. You still need to call your boss too.”
Jill made a dismissive noise. “I’ll call Millard later. He’ll wonder what happened and start to worry. When I do call him, he’ll be so relieved I’m all right and didn’t quit that he’ll accept any old line I feed him.”
“That’s cruel,” Mae said.
“Yeah, but it will work.”
Mae watched as Jill bent down, nearly disappearing behind the counter. She heard a door open and the sounds of Jill searching the cabinet for something. Jill came back into view, holding a toaster.
Mae nodded toward the toaster. “How long will that take, because I’m starving.”
Jill set down the toaster and opened the freezer. “We’re having toaster waffles. It will be a handful of minutes at best, greedy.” She pulled out a frost-covered package of waffles and placed four in the toaster.
Mae smiled at her. Her smile vanished as she remembered the reason they were hiding out in the lake house. “Do you think you’ll be up for a little scouting after breakfast?”
“What about the Cn Annwn?”
Jill took a bottle of syrup from the pantry and placed it on the table. The toaster popped out crispy, golden brown waffles. She placed them on a serving plate and started four more.
“I stand in awe of your mad waffle toasting skills,” Mae said with a straight face.
“Then you can set the table. Plates are in that cabinet, silverware in this drawer.” Jill pointed Mae to the appropriate places. “Now, back to my original point. What are we going to do about those hounds?”
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” Mae said, pulling plates from the cabinet and placing them on the breakfast table. “We’ll just have to hope they don’t show up.”
Jill frowned. “There’s butter in the fridge. We’re going to need it. And when the hounds do show up?”
“We ad lib.”
Jill joined Mae at the table, waffles in hand. “That’s the worst plan ever.”
“The floor is open to ideas,” Mae said, grabbing a waffle with her fingers and moving it to her plate, dressing it with butter and syrup.
“I didn’t say I had a better idea.”
Mae took a bite and chewed, letting the butter, maple syrup and crisp fried dough melt in her mouth. She watched Jill, who was not attacking her food with her usual reckless gusto, but instead was being very precise in her cuts and chewing slowly, apparently savoring every bite.
Mae considered how they were planning to get into the Arneson house, free her sister and close the door to Annwn. Jill would be able to walk right through the front door as a guest. Right into a trap. Mae did not like the plan, but it was all they had.
She watched Jill set her fork on her plate and dab at her face with a paper napkin. Jill stood and grabbed her cell phone. “I’m going to call Millard.”
Mae took the two sticky plates to the sink and started to rinse them off, still lost in thought. She had been sure of herself earlier, and though she was wavering now, it did not change the need to rescue her sister. Cutting off the door to Annwn was secondary to saving Fay.
Mae left the plates in the sink and poured herself a cup of coffee. She heard Jill’s phone ring in one of the other rooms. Jill’s voice drifted into the kitchen. Mae was unable to understand anything Jill was saying, but the tone in Jill’s voice sounded surprised.
Mae sat back down at the table and looked out the window. A white winter world of snow-covered landscape greeted the morning light. They would have to take as close a look at the Arneson place as possible and hope an opening presented itself.
Jill walked into the kitchen holding her cell phone, a bemused look on her face.
“Did you reach your boss?” Mae asked.
“Yeah. No worries there.”
Mae nodded, waiting for Jill to continue. “You’re not going to believe who called,” Jill finally said.
“Santa Claus?” Mae deadpanned.
“Not even close.” Jill walked to the coffee pot and poured the last of the dark liquid in her cup before settling at the table across from Mae.
Mae decided she could not take the suspense anymore. “Okay. Who called?”
“My brother. Reminding me that I’m invited to attend a private event some family friends are throwing tomorrow night. He said he thought it would be good for me to meet some people who could ‘help me reach my true potential.’” Jill raised her cup to her lips and paused. “So…trap?”
“Trap.”
Jill grinned. “We’re going to walk right into it anyway, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Mae said. “We are.”
Dear Wall,
Chrysandra told me that “Mother” and Mr. Hodgins had a big fight last night about something called Halloween. “Mother” wants to take me, as “Chrysandra,” out trick-or-trea
ting. Chrysandra explained to me what this is.
I should have known that was why I could feel something coming. In two nights the veil will be thin. Death in all Its forms will walk near the surface of the world.
They’re going to try to switch us, Chrysandra and me, on that night. That will be the perfect night to perform their ritual, in their minds. I suspect that is also the night they plan on trying to attack the Court. They’re doing something to Annwn, I know because the hounds have been responding to Mr. Hodgins, and he most certainly is not Gwynn ap Nudd.
The silver answers when I call. It will do as I bid.
Mae turned to Jill and whispered into her ear. “Do you get the feeling we’re being watched?” She gave the gathering darkness another sweep with her eyes. The two women were slowly moving away from the Arneson mansion, the object of their scrutiny for the entire day, and back to the Hall lake house.
“Just from the moment we stepped onto the Arneson property,” Jill replied with a shiver that had little to do with the freezing cold. “That place is damned creepy.”
Mae silently agreed that the huge old Victorian mansion was an imposing structure, made the more so because they both knew what was going on inside the doors. “No. This is more like someone stalking us.”
Jill paused and lifted her eye patch. Jill’s new ability to see magic had probably saved them more than once during their little scouting foray, guiding them around the many magically enchanted and charged items they could have stumbled upon during their investigation. Mae had no idea what any of those magics could do. For all she and Jill knew, they had tripped some kind of security alarms or surveillance spells, but the fact they were still alive and had not been attacked was enough to make Mae thankful.
“I can’t see anything,” Jill finally said. “Come on, let’s get back to the house before it gets really dark. I don’t feel like stumbling around in the snow-covered underbrush, especially with my complete lack of depth perception.”
Mae started to reply, but the words in her throat turned to a startled shriek as shapes seemed to detach themselves from the trees and step into the gray light of evening. Jill stepped in front of her, blocking her view, and drew the baton from her pocket, snapping it open in one swift motion.
She’s taking this Champion thing far too seriously.
“Who’s there?” Jill yelled into the gloom, making her words a snarled challenge.
Mae stepped around Jill, standing to the taller woman’s right. The forms took on distinct shape as they moved closer.
They were each of them as tall as Mae, some a few inches taller perhaps. They were golden of hair and armed with curved swords and ornate bows covered in symbols. Their armor was polished and reflected the moonlight, their faces angelic and pale. Splashes of colorful ribbons and other decorations contrasted against the gold and silver of their beings. They moved forward, silent and grim, their weapons at the ready.
Mae realized they were the fae her mother had warned them about, and they had come to kill Jill.
“Jill—”
“I know.”
“We have to run.”
“There are too many of them. You need to get out of here while I handle this.”
“You really think you can fight all of them?”
“And win? No, of course not. But it’s not you they’re after.”
“Your paramour speaks the truth,” a voice, high and refined, called from the gloom. “We have no wish to harm you. Our quarrel is with the mortal woman who slew the Lord of the Llysllyn Court. You may go in peace, Maeve Malveaux.”
“I don’t think I’m going anywhere.”
One of the shapes stepped forward. As blond and golden as the rest, he was slightly taller than his fellows, with more in the way of ribbons and decorations adorning his armor. “We do not wish to harm you. We will if you interfere.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Mae said, stepping around Jill. She looked at the leader of the warriors. “I’m going to rescue my sister from her captors. I’m hoping to bring down the circle of mages that have almost destroyed your cousins in the Llysllyn Court. To do that, I need Jill by my side.” Mae held her hands in front of her, open and pleading. “Please. Give us until the dawn, two days from now to finish this. After that you can start trying to kill us all you want.”
The tallest faerie frowned. He glanced over his shoulder at his dozen warriors and turned to the two women. “I have my orders. The murderess dies tonight.”
“A challenge.”
All eyes turned toward Jill, who had shrugged out of her leather jacket.
“What do you propose?” the warrior asked.
Jill gave him a grim smile. “You and I fight it out, right here, right now. Champion versus captain. It’s a time-honored way to settle differences. If I win, you give us the two days we need.”
“And if I win?” he asked.
Mae felt a chill in her stomach. “Jill, don’t.”
“If you win then I’m already dead, and you’ve done what you came here for. You let Mae go about her business.”
“Rules? Conditions?” the captain asked, suspicion in his voice.
Jill smiled sweetly at him. “None. Anything goes.”
“I accept.”
Mae watched horrified as Jill sprang forward before the last syllable of the captain’s acceptance died in the air. She slashed down, her baton whistling.
The captain twisted, catlike, out of the way of Jill’s attack. He drew his weapon as he turned. The long, curved blade glowed blue in the darkness. He slashed at her unprotected back, his blade cutting a thin line through her sweater.
Jill made a hissing noise and turned to face her opponent. She batted aside his second cut with her baton, the metals screeching against each other, and stepped into him. He spun away.
Mae cried out as the faerie captain turned and threw what looked like a transparent glowing dart at Jill. There was a burst of sickly green light on Jill’s right thigh, and the black-haired woman stumbled.
The captain charged at Jill, his face demonic in the blue-glow of his blade, sure of his kill.
Jill threw a handful of snow and debris into his face, and surged forward, driving her shoulder into the faerie captain. Jill was taller and possibly heavier than her opponent. The two tumbled into the snow, both their weapons lost from their hands as they rolled.
Mae ran forward, trying to follow the struggling pair.
Jill landed on top of her opponent, striking downward with her forehead. Mae heard a terrible crunching noise and Jill’s scream of pain. She watched Jill, now sitting astride her opponent, bashing him with her right fist.
As Mae reached the two, the captain, his face covered in blood from his ruined nose, drew a small dagger from inside his armor. He stabbed at Jill, but she caught his hand in hers. For a moment they were still, locked in place, then Jill flung herself off her opponent and to her right.
The captain flowed to his knees, but stopped when Jill brought his own sword to his throat. She gave the edge just enough pressure to draw a thin line of blood.
“Yield.” Jill’s voice was cool and steady as she held the blade to his throat.
The captain glanced down at his glowing sword. He looked at Jill and favored her with a small smile. “I yield.”
The tension in the dark underbrush seemed to melt at his words. Jill lowered the weapon and sagged. Mae scrambled to her side.
“Are you all right?”
Jill handed the glowing sword back to her opponent, who nodded to her and stood, stepping away. “I’ll be okay. It’s not that bad a cut, though I guess this sweater is ruined.”
“Damn it, Jill!” Mae cried, letting her tears fall free. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that we couldn’t both die in some stupid fight over a dead faerie lord and misplaced notions of vengeance, not when we’re this close to rescuing your sister.”
Mae bit her lower lip. “I hate this,” she finally whis
pered.
Jill’s face softened and she reached out and gathered Mae into a hug. “I hate this too. Unfortunately, unless you think the police are going to go into that house and rescue your sister, it’s pretty much up to us.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Mae muttered into Jill’s shoulder.
“We should get back to the lake house,” Jill said, breaking the moment.
Mae released her grip on Jill and stepped back. “Yeah. I think we both need to clean up and have something hot to eat and drink.” She turned to the faerie hunting party, looking directly into the eyes of their bloodied leader. “Do we have a truce?”
The blood-covered faerie nodded. “Neither I, nor any of my brethren shall attack your Champion until the third dawn.” The captain gave Jill a cold glare. “At which point we will exact revenge for Lord Murlannor’s death.” He nodded to the women and turned away.
Mae watched as the silent shapes retreated and dissolved into the darkness.
She and Jill walked in silence back to the lake house, moving slowly. Jill kept limping on the leg that had been struck by the magic dart. Mae unlocked the door and locked it behind them once they were inside.
She turned to Jill. She was still angry at her reckless behavior, but she understood why Jill issued the challenge. It was an argument that could wait for later. Right now, Jill had injures that needed tending. The cut on Jill’s back was shallow and had already stopped bleeding. Jill’s hair was in disarray, tangled and matted with melting snow and mud. There was blood on her face, though Mae saw no signs of actual bleeding. She helped Jill limp to the kitchen table, settling her in one of the wooden chairs.
“Coffee, tea or cocoa?” Mae asked.
“Tea, preferably with honey and whiskey,” came the muffled reply.
Mae looked up to find Jill resting her head on her arms. She was watching Mae work on the tea.
“Are you hungry?”
Jill closed her eyes and frowned. “Maybe later. I think I’d throw up anything I ate right now, though a shower would be nice.”
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