But the weight of this place… well, it brought home the reality. Their spirits, although metaphysical and real, were merely delusions. Projections of the fact that I would never again be able to truly touch them. Hold them. Hug them. Shake hands with my dad on my wedding day.
Indie would never get to dance with my father at our wedding.
And I would never be able to prop up my hysterically sobbing mother during a mother-son dance.
I wiped my eyes.
Stupid, dusty buildings. I needed to remind Mallory to replace the filters or something.
“We’ll all dance in the Armory, guys. I’ll make sure Indie wears her wedding dress, dad…” I whispered. I heard Tory let out a sob, and Mallory softly comforting her.
I cleared my throat, removed my hand and turned to them. “Okay. Let’s go.”
I began to walk back to the front door, but upon passing the family tree, I paused, turning to study it acutely. I was only interested in the names. Perhaps I could trace the tree back to who had originally built Chateau Falco, and then somehow use that information to find updated blueprints. Accurate ones. I needed to verify that my home was impregnable. I had gone through too many experiences lately to push it off any longer. Especially now that I was the only Maker in the world, and that Indie was the only Grimm…
And that we were going to marry each other.
You could say that the world would likely not be too pleased with any of those statements.
And you would be grossly underestimating the situation…
I began at the top of the root system, going back as far as our recorded history allowed, which was incredibly extensive. The tree was huge, standing two stories, but each name was etched in silver, so that it was easily read. In fact, the carving was the reason the building looked so large from the outside. They had literally designed the building around the carving. A sad thought hit me. They had probably feared that the number of descendants would someday crowd out the bottom, providing a future ancestor with a very large problem. But then again, the carving had been created with magic, so maybe a basement would suddenly appear to resolve the situation.
Then I shook my head. I was the last Temple, and unless Indie and I were very lucky, the dynasty would end with me. Which meant magic wouldn’t have to go out of its way to fix the problem. The tree was already complete.
I forced the dark thought down and read the names, committing them to memory. It was akin to taking pictures for later review. I had an eidetic memory when I so chose. Or as close to one as was possible, anyway. I had the ability to remember almost everything I read, observed, or witnessed. As long as I was fully paying attention. Of course, if my mind wandered, and I wasn’t paying attention to what I was reading, I wouldn’t be able to recall it later, but I think it was safe to say that I was in the upper ninetieth percentile on recall ability.
I absorbed the tree before me, mentally recording the list of elaborate names and their relation to each other so that I could rewrite it later. I hadn’t ever found another copy of our family tree at Chateau Falco, so this was my best bet.
As I read down the line, my eyes passed over a section, roved on, and then jerked back. I gasped in surprise at a glimmer. But then it was gone.
“What is it, Laddie?” Mallory asked softly.
I cleared my throat, hiding my inner thoughts. “Nothing. Just a thought that hit me out of left field.” I studied the tree a few more moments, trailing down to my name at the bottom, and then turned away. “Okay. Now I’m ready,” I murmured, mind racing with possibilities.
They were studying me acutely, then shared looks with each other before simultaneously holding out hands as if to state they would be right behind me. Almost as if it had been planned. They blushed at their identical actions, but I pressed on.
They could be as curious as they wanted.
I was too distracted to care. This changed everything…
I approached the door, but Mallory quickly stepped past me to type into the keypad. The door opened again on silent hinges, and Mallory darted ahead of me, studying the humid air around the building with a calculating eye. I rolled my eyes.
“It’s a freaking cemetery, Mallo-”
“Get down!” He roared, and I was suddenly yanked back by the collar of my shirt as something whizzed past my nose close enough to tickle a bit. The object cracked into a wall behind us, and I glanced back quickly to see an arrow quivering in the stone.
What the hell?
Mallory was roaring in defiance, a lightning spear clutched in one hand as I shook free from Tory’s grip, ready to throw myself through the doorway and unleash hell. My hand was gripping my cane tightly, and I hadn’t recalled doing it. That wasn’t good. I let go quickly.
Tory flew past me, and the door began closing, locking me inside the House of Death.
Chapter 36
A melodic, taunting laughter split the air from beyond the closing door. I quickly dashed through, instantly rolling to the side, using basic warfare assumptions. Sniper tactics. The first arrow had skimmed my nose and would have easily split the center of my cranium open if Tory hadn’t yanked me out of the way. I assumed our attacker was flushing us out, and that striking the keypad with an arrow had been a deliberate move, leading me to an assumed course of action.
I wasn’t wrong.
But rather than an arrow, a full-sized spear slammed into the wall where my torso would have been had I been running.
Which let me know something about our attacker. One, it was a person who thought like a hunter. Or a soldier.
Two, it was a woman, judging by the laughter. Then I heard a roar from a massive bearlike creature as I ducked behind a tombstone, narrowly dodging a second spear.
Hello, Huntress. Or whatever her real name was.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” the confident voice teased. The voice seemed to reverberate throughout the cemetery, echoing off the tombstones around us and distorting my ability to locate her accurately. And a fog was blanketing the area, where none had been before. Then I felt something zip past my ear, and a slice of pain like a papercut hit me. Then another one. All I saw was a sparkly blur this time. I waggled my hands around my head like a maniac as I saw another blur racing at me.
What the hell? Ninja stars?
Then my fist coincidentally connected with one, hammering it into the tombstone behind me. I glanced down to find a dazed pixie staring up at me with wide, surprised eyes. The creature looked like a Lilliputian human. He hissed at me, so I swatted him again.
Lightly.
Look, he was tiny. I hissed at what felt like a freaking cactus pierced a thousand places on my palm. I tore my hand away only to find a dozen or so tiny spikes. I began tearing them out of my flesh with my teeth and stared down at the pixie as I did so. One of his wings was now broken, and he was unconscious, but his clothes resembled more of a porcupine – if porcupines were made of diamond.
The slivers I pulled out evaporated into puffs of air as they left my flesh, a single crimson stain on each tip. I shivered, hoping that my blood disappeared with the thorns, and not that my blood had just been Fed-Exed to the land of the Fae…
“One down… You should really pick on someone your own size…” a voice hissed. I dove to the side, fearing the worst. The only thing was, that the voice had predicted my evasion much better this time.
I realized this because a white-hot pain suddenly grazed my outer thigh. Knife. I swung wildly with my fists, shambling behind yet another tombstone. I couldn’t see anything to attack with my magic, but I was saved by twin spears sailing off into the cemetery in entirely different directions, too fast for one person to get to so quickly. My wound wasn’t serious, thankfully.
But Mallory was never wrong. He was a deadeye shot.
The Huntress had some kind of teleporting gimmick. Just like me.
Lucky me, that had been one of the first things I had learned to use with my magic. I evaporated to nothing, pref
erring to Shadow Walk rather than to open a telltale gateway. Having walked this cemetery countless times over the years, it wasn’t difficult to assemble the layout in my mind, despite the fog. I rapidly shifted from one spot to the next, randomly, all over the place, and then froze on top of the Mausoleum, silently scanning the scene. A cloud of the tiny fairies stalked the fog, zipping about like a school of fish in the ocean. They were steadily circling in on Tory, who was darting from tombstone to tombstone, head low.
I wanted to warn her, but then I saw the source of the roar a few moments ago.
The damned Gruffalo-looking thing was sniffing and snorting through the air, turning his head this way and that. I saw a shifting of fabric behind a tree, but it was gone when I focused in on it. The Huntress was searching for me while my friends were hiding.
Her voice called out from another section of the cemetery. “Where…”
Then the opposite side of the cemetery. “Are…”
Then from up in an old tree fifty paces away. “You…?” I squinted, trying to spot her, knowing she was likely gone. She was shifting as she spoke, casting her voice all over the place. No wonder I hadn’t seen her. One of Mallory’s lightning spears suddenly launched from an empty pocket of air beside a tombstone, sailing up into the tree, but I only heard laughter reply. I stared at the origination of the spear and saw it quiver slightly.
Then I blinked in understanding.
Mallory could make illusions? What the hell? I calmed my sudden fury at realizing he had been hiding another ability from me. Both in anger, and disappointment at realizing he must not have trusted me with the-
“Boo,” a knife slashed across my back, but me flinching saved me from being fileted. I instantly Shadow Walked to a space closer to Tory, and found a swarm of hostile fairies sailing at my face. I Shadow Walked again behind a nearby tree, and those creatures sailed directly at Tory. I glanced back to see the Gruffalo zeroing in on her as well in a classic pincer movement. I wasn’t sure if Tory was aware, but there really wasn’t much I could do to change it without giving myself away to the Huntress.
I heard more sizzling bolts of lightning arcing through the scene, and the resulting grunts of outrage from the Gruffalo as they struck home. Mallory was still in the field. As long as the Huntress didn’t catch onto him. We needed a game changer, and it looked like it had to be me.
Only problem was, I wasn’t as well versed in my newfound powers as I needed to be in order to truly help. I needed a plan. Something clever. Something wily.
My mind raced as I closed my eyes, trying to imagine something I could use to turn the tables. I could make a copy of the book to toss at the Huntress, but I didn’t know exactly what the book looked like, and I was confident that even if it did fool her, she would kill us all anyway upon nabbing the book in order to thwart her competitors.
I opened my eyes, ready to go with the tried and true slugfest.
And saw the darndest thing.
Tory stood before the crowd of fairies gripping a massive branch in one arm as if ready to use it to bat them all away. New growths of branches and leaves sprouted from the wooden club, and green tracers of light began racing up and down Tory’s arms as the impromptu weapon grew, and grew, filling out as a much better deterrent to the swarm of fairies about to attack her face. She glanced down, eyes startled, and I caught a green glimmer in her look. She turned back to the fairies to find them staring at her with astonishment. The swarm quivered as if battling a gust of wind, and then froze as Tory’s eyes flashed a brighter iridescent green, the same light I had just noticed a moment ago. The lead fairy trembled, and finally bowed his head to her. She blinked back, as if not fully understanding what had just happened.
The Gruffalo roared as it stomped into view, spittle flying from its massive tusks and its matted hair reeking to high heaven. The beast took a single threatening step and Tory turned her fiery gaze upon the creature.
It froze.
Then began to whine, shaking its head as if to battle a particularly painful sound. It stomped its heavy foot into the ground hard enough for me to feel it from behind my tree, but came no closer to Tory.
The Huntress screamed. “Kill her!”
The tormented Gruffalo flicked its gaze from Tory to the top of the Mausoleum, where I assumed the Huntress stood, shouting her demands. The beast shook its head again, eyes dancing wildly in frustration. It tried to take another step closer to Tory, but froze, snorting loudly.
Then, as if in a trance, Tory slowly lifted the branch to point at the stomping feet of the Gruffalo. Like ants to honey, the swarm of fairies dove onto their new target in a bloodcurdling scream of tiny voices. Again, and again, like a school of piranhas.
The Gruffalo shook his head violently, swinging his arms to and fro to bat them away, but they were always just out of reach. I heard the Huntress scream in fury as the Gruffalo turned and ran, the crowd of fairies pestering him the whole way. The air flickered, and all of them disappeared through a tear in the haze.
The Huntress screamed again, and raced after them. “This isn’t over, Temple!” She shrieked.
I turned back to Tory, not hiding my disbelief, and was just in time to catch a weak smile before her eyes fluttered closed and she collapsed, the branch in her hands thudding into the ground beside her.
“Mallory!” I bellowed, rushing to Tory. I heard twigs crackling underfoot as he raced toward my voice. I cradled her in my arms, thumbing back her eyelids. No fiery green light. And no response. But I did catch a pulse.
Mallory landed beside me as if from a great height, kneeling instantly to place a comforting hand on Tory’s stomach. His eyes flashed a golden yellow as his hand hovered just above her shirt, and yellow heat waves pulsed down into her. He closed his eyes, breathing slowly for a time before opening them to stare at me. The fog rapidly began to dissipate. “She’s fine…” he was shaking his head. “Just exhausted, Laddie. You need to get her to safety. No telling when those monsters will be back to finish what they started… and what she finished.” His look was curious, thoughtful.
I nodded, picking her up with a slight groan. Her head lolled into my shoulder. She had just saved our lives. Now I had to make sure she survived, because we definitely had some things to discuss. “Okay. You’re driving.” I wheezed, striding towards the car.
I didn’t hear him following so glanced over my shoulder. He was standing still, staring back at me, face torn. “Well?” I asked, impatiently.
He pointed back at the door to the Mausoleum. “It’s unguarded, boy…”
As if that was all the answer I needed.
I stared back incredulously. “And Tory is alive and injured. Who cares about a bunch of skeletons when Tory might be in very real danger?” I demanded, readjusting my grip. She was tiny, but dead weight was nothing to blink at. She didn’t even stir, she was so exhausted.
Mallory finally grunted. “I can help you to the car.”
“No, you can fucking drive, or do your magical nonsense on her to make sure we don’t lose her.” Mallory took her weight from me and I raced to start the car. I could have teleported us out of there, but I didn’t want to leave the car behind, announcing to all that we had been here. Especially when giant footprints covered the grounds and arrows were found embedded into the trees and Mausoleum. We tucked her inside the backseat safely and closed the door. Mallory stood still, uncertainty on his face.
“Get in,” I said, opening the driver’s side door.
He shook his head. “I cannot. The Mausoleum cannot be left unprotected. Your father’s orders. Even from beyond the grave.”
I stared incredulously. “And please tell me what is so important or dangerous about a building full of tombs? I would love to hear it,” I growled sarcastically.
He hesitated. “Some other time, Laddie. Looks like ye’ have enough on your plate as it is.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hurry up and lock the place down then, Mallory. But know this. If anything happens t
o her as a result of you prioritizing an empty building over her life, there will be a reckoning,” I promised, staring as intently into his soul as possible.
“Aye,” he added, lowering his gaze in shame.
“This isn’t over, Mallory…” I warned.
He was shaking his head with a sad frown. “Ye’ have no idea, Laddie… No idea…”
I didn’t have time for this. I climbed into the car, slamming the door as I did so. Mallory nodded once, and turned back to the Mausoleum, glancing left and right as if for a threat as the lightning spears came back to existence in one of his scarred fists. The other was already punching in a phone number on his cell phone before he placed it next to his ear, talking as his eyes continued to rove the area.
I shook my head, pulling out of the cemetery and glancing back at Tory’s unmoving form.
“Don’t die on me, Tory. You’ve got the Reds to look out for. And I need to know what the hell you just did,” I murmured to myself, angling the rear-view mirror to see her sleeping form. Her chest rose softly as if merely in a deep sleep. “What are you…?” I whispered to myself, remembering the flash of green in her fiery eyes, the rapid growth of the limb in her hands, the nullification of Baba’s magic, and the apparent immediate mind-fuck she had given the Gruffalo and fairies…
What was happening to everyone lately?
I was supposed to be the one taking care of them, but it seemed the girls were doing just fine without me, and I was merely bringing them problems to confront.
I turned my gaze back to the road, heading towards home base for safety.
Chateau Falco.
Chapter 37
Alucard stood in the driveway near the fountain, watching as I pulled up to the front door. He had called, telling me that there was too much heat outside the bookstore. The damage had been reported to the police, and although no one had seen anything, it seemed Greta had capitalized on the media – the fact that a group of Christian children selling cookies had been attacked in broad daylight.
Silver Tongue: A Novel in The Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Series (The Temple Chronicles Book 4) Page 19