Druid (Secrets of the Fae Book 2)

by Rebecca F. Kenney

  "Study anything you like. Everything you're interested in. You've got plenty of time, and Arden can get you money— or I can. I've got plenty of it. I only have myself to spend it on, and besides the loft and the Audi, my tastes are simple. I'd be happy to give you as much as you need."

  "You'd do that for me? Why?"

  "You're special to me. You know that."

  I'm slightly behind him, my hand pressed against his side to hold the cloth in place, and I'm suddenly conscious of how close we are. Of the slope of his stomach and hip down to his jeans, the heat and smell of him, and the muscles standing out on his forearm as he props himself up on the slippery slope. Suddenly I feel very lightheaded, and not from magic or sunstroke.

  Friends. I say the word firmly to myself. He's the Far Darrig. Protector of baby-stealing leprechauns and man-eating kelpies. Trickster. Deceiver. Curse-maker. Not someone I want to be with. Not when I already have the perfect boyfriend.

  "Like I said, the cut's not bad." I take his hand and put it over the crumpled cloth. "Pressure till it stops bleeding, I guess. We'll have to make sure you don't bleed all over the seat in the Audi."

  I keep going, down the mountain. Idiot. He could have done all that himself. He's probably patched himself up from much worse. He didn't need you to take care of him; you just ended up looking silly.

  This whole amazing day needs to end, and fast. I stop where I am. "Do you think this is close enough for a jump to the car?"

  "All the way down, Aislinn," he says. "It's part of the fun."

  Fun? That's debatable. Grumbling, I keep working my way down until we're finally on level land again.

  "Now can we jump?"

  "Why are you in such a hurry?"

  "You're bleeding."

  "And you're acting strange all of a sudden."

  "Just— hush, and let me do this."

  I put my arms around him again. I was right— even the Tuatha dé Danann smell not so great when they're sweaty. But there's still something sexy about his scent, something natural and primal. Darn pheromones.

  Focus, Aislinn.

  I can't picture the exact spot where we left the Audi, but I do remember the entrance to the parking lot, so I transport us there.

  As it turns out, we're lucky not to end up next to the car— because there's a girl with chunky boots and purple hair, and a plain-looking man with glasses right there, peering in the Audi's windows. The pixie, Rimmle, is with them.

  Quickly I grab Kieran's hand and pull him behind a bush.

  "Investigators!" I whisper.

  He peeks out at them, brows furrowed. "Those are the investigators? The ones you told me about?"

  "Yes. What?"

  "Hm," is all he says. But I can tell he has thoughts and opinions about them, what they are, what they want. I wish he'd share.

  "I'll get them away from the car," he whispers.

  Off in the forest there's a sudden snatch of lilting song in Irish— a cheerful tune someone might sing while he's out walking. It's the weirdest thing to watch Kieran smiling, lips parted but barely moving, and know that he's responsible for the faraway song.

  The three by the car straighten up, alert. June pulls a bottle of something from her purse, and Malcolm takes out— a gun? With Rimmle trailing behind, they hurry off into the woods, toward the place where they think the song is coming from.

  Kieran and I make a dash for the car as soon as they're out of sight. He grabs a blanket from the back seat and puts it between his cut and the upholstery, and then we're screeching out of the parking lot and skimming along the road home.

  "Kieran, why do they want you?" I ask. "Malcolm had a gun. A gun!"

  "I'm not sure what they want. You're right, though, the gun doesn't look good for me."

  "Is it because of the leprechauns, and what they're doing? Maybe that's why the Fae Council is after you."

  "Aislinn, there is no Fae Council. Those three are definitely not who they say they are."

  "Then what are they?"

  "I'm not sure yet."

  He's quiet, thinking; but I'm not done with him.

  "The leprechauns took another baby, didn't they? A couple days ago. I saw it on the news."

  I hear the answer in his silence.

  "Kieran, this has to stop. You have to find a way to keep them from doing this."

  "I've told you, I don't control everything they do," he says.

  "But you have influence. Use it to keep them from destroying families like this. They're killing tiny, cute, innocent babies— ending their lives before they even get a chance to start. Those little babies will never learn to talk, or walk, or go to college, or fall in love. Their mothers waited nine whole months, growing them, birthing them, and now they're gone. Just gone." I'm almost crying now; I can't help it. He glances at me, concern on his face.

  "I'm sorry," he says.

  "Don't be sorry! Do something about it."

  "What am I supposed to do? You can't just tell a leprechaun not to take Life-Stream, any more than you can just tell an addict not to shoot up."

  "Maybe they need a rehab program."

  "Love the sarcasm, sweetheart, but you know that won't work. They are who they are. There's no changing them."

  "Like you? There's no changing you, is there?" I wipe my eyes and glare at him. "You might be able to adapt on the surface, but underneath you're the same person you've always been. Finding loopholes, working the system for your own benefit."

  He's silent, his jaw muscles hard.

  "You can't just keep doing something wrong, hurting other people, because it works out well for you. So what if you get fast transport, spies, servants? The leprechauns get to run around stealing from banks and killing babies. Do you see how bad that is?"

  "I can see how it looks to you."

  "Yes, to me. Because I'm the only one who cares, Kieran. I'm the only one here to tell you that you're doing something wrong. That's what friends do. Friends are not just for hanging out and dancing or mountain climbing, okay? They're also for calling you out when necessary."

  "How do you know so much about friendship?" he says. "Little seventeen-year-old Aislinn, who's had human friends for barely three months?"

  "Being young doesn't mean you can't be right. And I'm right."

  "Yes, you are."

  He says it like he means it, and for a second I'm stunned. I watch him in profile, his dark lashes dipping over his silver eye— then the slant of his cheekbone, the faint hollow of his cheek, his angled jawline. Perfect nose, and lips just full enough.

  Then he looks at me, and I glance away, hoping he didn't see admiration in my eyes.

  "I want you to know I'm taking in what you've said," he says. "I'll take it to heart, and I'll do something about it. I'm not sure what, but— you're right. This has gone on long enough."

  When we reach the apartment complex I share with Arden, he gets out of the car when I do. "Do you still want to study?"

  There are limits to how much one guy's girlfriend should do with another guy, even a friend, and I've pushed those limits way too far today. I'm done.

  "Thanks, but I'll study on my own," I say.

  As I go up the steps to the second floor and unlock the door, I can feel his eyes on me. Suddenly I turn around, march down the steps, right up to him, and kiss him on the cheek.

  "Thank you for today."

  Then I run back up the steps and into the apartment as fast as I can.

  12

  RUMOR

  Zane

  I don't usually have nightmares. Aislinn has had more than her fair share, but it's not really a thing for me. When I was a kid I had some bad dreams for a while, mostly about the old movie The Time Machine, and those creepy-ass Morlocks with their saggy jowls and blue skin. I also had nightmares about the girl who gets all swollen and blue and juiced up in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I guess blue skin does bad things for me.

  I've heard that nightmares are triggered by stress in your lif
e. That could explain it. Or maybe the really old medallion Aislinn gave me had a side effect she never expected.

  Whatever the reason, I have the worst nightmare of my life one night, a few days after our dance party at Julio's.

  It starts out nice. I'm standing on the beach, and it's hot and sunny and beautiful, with gentle waves cresting and rolling in, washing around my feet. There's Aislinn, not far away, in her one-piece. I wish she'd wear a bikini sometime.

  She's waving to me. And then I notice that her hair is blowing, whipping around her, as the sky darkens. I look out to sea, and there's a storm coming, a big rolling mass of thick gray hurricane clouds. Whirling around inside the clouds are things like chairs and refrigerators and pieces of roof.

  I look back at Aislinn, and her mouth is open and her neck is straining like she's yelling to me at the top of her lungs, but I can't hear a word. All I hear is the roar of the hurricane billowing closer on my right. I can't move, either, my feet are rooted in the sand.

  But then I look down, and it's not sand. It's a mass of eyes and green lumpy faces and sharp yellow teeth, and the things have their claws around my legs and they're dragging me down, down. Aislinn runs to me and reaches for my hand to pull me out. But right before she can grab my fingers, the Far Darrig appears behind her, and he wraps her in both arms, holding her back.

  Instead of trying to get to me, she turns around and kisses him. Right on the lips, tongue and everything, they're going at it, while I feel the sharp pricking of claws all over my body and I'm sinking into a swirling mass of knobby green arms and legs and bodies.

  Right before my head goes under, I see the hurricane strike Aislinn and the Far Darrig, and they're broken and smashed from its force— just ripped apart and strewn in bloody chunks over the sand. I roar with shock, and my mouth fills with sand and with leprechaun skin and claws.

  But it doesn't end there.

  Everything goes black. The floor, black. If there are walls and ceiling, they're black too. I'm standing, but otherwise it looks like nothing, all around me. Just blankness, emptiness. I look down at myself, and I'm in color— normal-looking, as if there's a light source somewhere. Except there isn't.

  And then, right in front of me, there's a crack in the blackness. Like the dark grew a giant, horrific, swollen pustule that's bursting open. It's a crooked, narrow fissure, splitting into a thousand hairline fractures at the edges. The seam swells and splits wider, wider, until I feel like I might scream with the horror that's about to come out of it.

  A white, clawed foot creeps around the edge of the crack, its nails scritch-scratching. A long, sinuous neck follows, pale as death, with a blunted head and slits for eyes. I've seen something like this thing before— it looks like Aislinn in Beast form. Behind it, vying for space, there's another monster, a hulking black beast with huge muscled forelegs and a wrinkled, bat-like snout. And behind that, I glimpse more shapes, snatches of webbed wings and lashing tongues and pointed tails and snapping jaws.

  The first Beast manages to squeeze through the crack, popping out and landing on its clawed feet before me. I can't move, can't speak. Can't scream.

  The creature twists its neck grotesquely and brings its smooth, pale snout close to my face. Lips pull back from shark-like rows of razor teeth. The thing's tongue slides over them, nicking itself and leaving flecks of blood behind. And then it whispers to me, an alien hiss.

  Just one weird word. Sow-wen.

  And then it screams in my face. Ploughs right past me, and suddenly all the beasts and monsters are pushing, pushing through the crack, pouring out into the darkness and running past me. It's a flood of them, a cascade that can't be stopped. They topple me over, trample me into nothing.

  And then I wake up.

  I'm not a weak guy. But the minute I come out of that, I'm running for the bathroom and throwing up, over and over till there's nothing left.

  I swear in a whisper, again and again.

  What was that? What the hell was that?

  That was something. That wasn't just a regular nightmare. It felt more like a warning.

  When my stomach settles, I wash my face and go back to my room. I debate looking up "sow-wen" on my phone. Do I really want to know what it means?

  Damn it. I do.

  I pull out my phone and type it into the search bar.

  First thing I find out is that it's actually the Gaelic word Samhain. I would never have put that spelling with that pronunciation, but what the heck do I know? Samhain it is.

  Turns out Samhain is an old Celtic festival, celebrating the start of their New Year. And it's on the night of October 31. Halloween.

  But this isn't the Halloween I know, with the candy and costumes. This is dark stuff. Apparently the old druids thought that during Samhain, the "Veil Between the Worlds" thinned, and they could contact the "other side." They also thought that the dead and the monsters of the Otherworld could cross over sometimes, so they'd wear masks to confuse supernatural creepers. For extra protection, the Celts also made sacrifices and left out offerings for the Aos Sí, the beings from the Otherworld.

  Spooky stuff, and not the kind I want to be reading before I go back to sleep.

  What really freaks me out is that I've never heard of Samhain. If I'd seen the word printed somewhere randomly— even if my subconscious picked up on it somehow and worked it into the nightmare— I wouldn't have known how to pronounce it in my dream. Which means my dream wasn't a dream at all— it was some kind of vision.

  I don't want visions. I'm going to be a college student. A cop. No more magic— I'm done.

  I take off the medallion Aislinn gave me and put it into a drawer and close the drawer. Then I open the drawer again, shove the medallion inside a sock, ball that sock up with another sock, and bury the two under a pile of boxers.

  If I have any more dreams like that, I'm gonna burn that medallion.

  13

  Broken

  Aislinn

  "Can you meet me sometime tomorrow?" The text from Kieran is cryptic, but it's just the sort I like. It means he has a plan, probably some new experience he wants to share with me.

  "I'm free in the morning," I text back. Zane is off work in the afternoon, so I'll be busy then. Again, the twinge of guilt. It's like I'm dating both of them.

  Compared to other human teens, Zane is anything but normal. He's above average in height, strength, looks, intelligence, and sweetness— pretty much everything a girl wants. He has a real future. A future with a house, a couple cars, kids, a career, vacations, holidays at home with relatives. A future that looks nothing like mine, because I'm going to look 25 when he's 50, and 60, and 70.

  Why am I still selfishly inserting myself into his life? I'm only making his future more complicated. I don't think he even fully realizes yet what's in store for both of us if we stick together.

  But he's such a good kisser, and those muscles— and he's kind, and I love his family. He's like a warm, comforting piece of my life that I never want to give up.

  Then there's Kieran.

  I will not picture myself with him. I will not. Because if I do, my heart rate zooms sky-high and everything I always thought I wanted flips upside down.

  Kieran texts me a photo of a swampy lake, ringed with rushes and dappled with lily pads. I know the place. It's not far from where his leprechauns once ran me off the bike trail, and where he and I sat on a wooden bench for our first real conversation.

  "Can you come at dawn?" he asks.

  I groan. Dawn? Really? I send him a grouchy face and a "Fine."

  He texts back, "Thank you." And then, "Don't be surprised by what you see. Just stay quiet, and when it's done, take me back to the loft. Please."

  That really confuses me. When what is done?

  I have a hard time falling asleep, because I'm researching all the Fae folk I can find, to see if I can figure out what he's planning to show me. There's something called a dobhar-chú that lives in Irish bogs or lakes, but it's probably
not living in a humid South Carolina swamp.

  When I finally fall asleep, I'm jolted awake by my alarm about two seconds later. At least that's what it feels like. Groggily I brush my teeth, pull on pants and a shirt, add a little makeup. Kieran is going to have to deal with what pre-dawn Aislinn looks like.

  Grabbing my phone, I take another look at the photo he sent and will myself there.

  It's a good thing he warned me not to be surprised. I am surprised— shocked, actually— but because of his caution I swallow my horror and try to look calm.

  Under the pale pink and yellow sky, the shore of the swampy lake is crawling with leprechauns. Bigger ones with long, oddly jointed legs; small squatty ones like toads; thin ones with sharp elbows and sharper claws. They all look toward me when I appear; I'm facing a crowd of green-skinned, lumpy, malevolent faces. Several of them squint their yellow eyes at me, and a few run their tongues over their pointed teeth, as if they're anticipating a snack.

  For a second I almost transport back to my room. The Far Darrig tricked me into coming here so they could kill me. Everything he has said and done was a lie, leading up to this.

  "Aislinn." He's behind me. I turn my head, not wanting to turn my back on the unfriendly crowd. "It's all right. I called you here as a witness."

  "Witness?" I whisper.

  "Just watch, and don't speak," he says.

  He walks toward the sea of leprechauns— there must be nearly a hundred of them— and they part for him. There's greed and grudging respect in their eyes; he's like a god to them, but they are still rebels with their own paths and desires. They value him only for what he can give them.

  "My friends," he says, and I cringe to hear him call these beings 'friends,' when he knows what they've done. "We have been together for a long time. You gave me help when I needed it. You've been my bodyguards against druids and Fae, and I've kept you safe from the humans. We share information, we share gain, and we work together. We survive."