by Laney McMann
“Don’t ever threaten Layla.” I stood completely still, glaring, hands open wide, feeding off the churning wind in the room. Part of the second story landing ripped from its foundation and crashed to the bottom of the chamber at the King’s back. “You don’t know me—or what I’m capable of.”
He grinned at me as if there were no threat.
“If you’ve done anything to Layla—anything at all—”
“My son, an Ancient Fire Born. I must admit, this changes certain … events—plans.” His smile grew. “A proud day for me.” He nodded. “A very proud day. I think we will get along splendidly.” With another nod, the guards rushed in and wrenched my arms behind my back. “Get him out of here. And rebind his wrists before he destroys the castle.” He turned and walked away. The remaining landing swayed precariously, clinging by loose boulders on the side of the worn, crumbling structure.
“All those henchmen you sent after Layla—” I shoved my elbow into the guard’s gut behind me, back-fisted the other one in the face, and yanked out of their hold. “The ones who never came back—”
The King stopped, his brow crunched, as he turned toward me.
“I killed them. Every. Last. One of them.” Thunder rumbled the atmosphere, and Elethan stared at me as if seeing me for the first time. “I am not like you. I will never be one of you. Remember that.” I held my ground as more guards rushed into the chamber and bound my hands, forcing me out of the chamber.
13
Layla
I caught up to Justice on the High Road, his weapons swinging on his massive back. The sun still hadn’t risen in the Otherworld, leaving the early morning sky a dusky purple-black color.
“Oh, no, no.” He held his gnarled hands up and shook his horned head, a look of irritation on his face. “What are you doing here?”
I smiled, trying to slow my racing breath. “You didn’t think I’d just do what I was told?”
“You ran here?” He shook his head and turned away from me.
“Yeah.” Pulling my backpack off my shoulders, I found the water I’d packed and chugged it.
“Well, you can’t come with me.” Justice continued walking through the thickets, the leaves and twigs brushing his stony gargoyle form. “So, you followed me for nothing.”
“You can’t make me leave.” I came up behind him.
He stopped and stashed the sack my grandmother had packed for him in a tall clump of overgrown weeds and sea grass off the narrowest side of the road.
“What are you doing?”
“Hiding this so I know where it is when I come back for it.” He picked up a medium-sized boulder and lugged it into the bushes. I assumed marking the spot.
“When you come back from where? You’re supposed to be looking for Max. Finding the doorway.”
Brushing his hands together, he stood upright. “That is what I’m doing. I’m just … going about it in a different order than your grandmother thinks.”
“Okay … how, then?”
His deep blue eyes appeared sunken within the protruding horns and fangs, masking his real face underneath the gargoyle guise as he gazed at me. “You’re not coming.”
“If it’ll help find Max, I am.”
“Let me rephrase that. It’s not somewhere you can come. Sorry.” He gave a quick, fake smile and turned around, fussing over the backpack in the bushes again. “Your grandmother will freak when she realizes you’re gone, you know? Not to mention Lorelei.” He said my mother’s name the way someone might if they’d tasted something rotten.
“They’ll figure it out.”
“Exactly. Which is why you need to go back. They’ll blame me.”
“I’m not going back, and you’re not leaving without me.”
He stopped, hands resting on his hips. “Are you always such a pain?”
I tilted my head and grinned.
“When this whole thing goes south, I’m selling you out to your grandmother. And if anything happens to you—” He shook his head again. “Nothing better happen to you.”
“I’m going to find Max. With, or without, you.”
He huffed and started down the deeply wooded path again. I followed. “What’s wrong with you, anyway? I heard your grandmother before. Are you sick or something? Because I don’t do sick. I mean, if you pass out or throw up, I won’t be any use.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong.” I shrugged, not wanting to think about it. “It’s something to do with my Ogham Etchings.”
He marched on. “Well, if you throw up, I’ll throw up. So don’t.”
“I’m not going to throw up.”
“Good.”
“So, where are we going?”
“It’s only a little ways farther. We’re flying, though. You up for that?” He sneered toward me. “I know you’re not supposed to shift into the Raven anymore. Your grandmother’s orders, right?”
I took a deep breath. He was right, I couldn’t shift, but he didn’t need to know the reason. “Then, I guess you’ll have to carry me.”
“Carry you?” His eyes widened to the point I thought they’d pop out of his head.
I grinned.
He kicked a small rock off the trail and bent down on one knee. “Max is going to owe me for this.” He weaved his fingers together like he was creating a step and said, “Well, come on then. Let’s get his over with.”
“Get what over with?”
“This carrying thing. Put your foot here and push yourself up.”
I eyed him with a half-laugh. “Push myself up where exactly? You’re all … stone. Nothing to hold onto.”
“Oh, my god, how did I get stuck with you?” He snatched me up by the waist and tucked me under his arm like I was a doll and shot straight up into the air. “Hang on.”
If I’d though shooting like a rocket through the air, and then plummeting into the ocean, with Tristan had been bad, flying with Justice was worse. I had to keep my eyes closed, along with my mouth, and pray I didn’t throw up all over both of us. He moved so fast, we probably broke the sound barrier. I couldn’t open my eyes to see, and I had no desire to. By the time I felt the air start to warm slightly, and took the risk of squinting, I immediately regretted it.
Apparently unable to slow himself down fast enough from the supersonic flight, Justice nearly dropped me on the sidewalk near The Pub’s outdoor seating area.
“Here? Here is where you needed to come?” I said, wobbling to stand up. “What does The Pub have to do with finding Max?”
Justice changed into his human form the second his own feet touched the sidewalk. “How much do you weigh?” He groaned. “It’s like carrying concrete.”
“How could you even tell?” I snapped. “You were flying so fast you probably defied gravity.”
He laughed. “You always hated going too fast.”
“What?”
He eyed me strangely. “Keep your voice down,” he said, while doing some kind of leg lunge in the middle of the sidewalk, as if my weight had thrown his stone back out.
“You’re the one talking.”
“Just be quiet. And keep your head down, too.” He did a side bend, stretching his arm out.
“You must be really great with girls.”
I gave me a stupid look and started down the sidewalk.
I followed him in silence to the end of the building, where he veered into the alleyway that separated The Pub from the bakery next door. A bright blue sign lit up the dirty glass-fronted doors and read ‘OPEN’ in crooked neon letters, but it never was.
“What’s with the whole attitude thing you have going?” I asked.
“Me?” He laughed again.”Just hush for two seconds. Two seconds. Can you do that?”
“Where are we going?”
“Oh, dear god, you made it for a point of a second. Half a second.”
“Fine.”
Broken bottles and trash littered the dirt ground between the buildings, and the tight space reeked of stale beer and smoke
. Justice stopped at the end of the alley and knocked twice on a steel door covered in too-bright green and yellow illegible graffiti.The door creaked back about an inch, and the tiniest glimpse of reddish light slipped through, along with a bright orange eye. It peered up toward Justice and over toward me before narrowing.
“Closed.” The door began to shut, but Justice shoved his foot forward, blocking it.
“Not to me. I need to talk to Ryan. The alley’s fine, if he wants to come down, but I’m not leaving.”
The orange eye found me again. “No Fire Born.”
What?
Justice stepped in front of me. “The girl’s with me.”
“Don’t care who she’s with. No Ancients.”
Justice shoved the door, pushing the guy with one orange eye and one brown out of the way. “I’ll repeat myself because clearly you didn’t understand. I need to see Ryan.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” The guy moved to the side, staring at me.
Justice steered me inside. “I won’t.”
Red light from various spotlights hanging from the high ceiling illuminated a small room. Lined with stainless steel tables, glass display cases, and four very large ovens, the place smelled of sweet vanilla and cinnamon.
“We’re in the bakery? The bakery that’s always closed?” I asked.
“We’re walking through the bakery. And it’s not always closed. They have awesome carrot cupcakes.” Justice stayed a few steps in front of me.
We followed the guy with weird eyes down an off-white empty hallway with a number of identical off-white doors that were almost invisible except for the black doorknobs. The hallway ended at three staircases, each one winding up in a different direction. Right, straight ahead, and left. Following the one on the left, a series of more off-white doors flanked another nondescript hall. Like in a labyrinth, it was hard to tell which way we’d come from—or how we’d find our way out.
A final passageway, lit with surreal green light, led us upward. Pounding music thudded through metal steps under my feet. The volume grew, beating in my chest like a mechanical heart, until the stairs ended at a steel door. The word ‘REBELLION’ had been scrawled across it in red spray-painted letters that had dripped paint onto the ground and created dried blood-like puddles.
Our ‘guide’ swung the door open, and a crowded dance floor beckoned within arm’s reach.
“Keep your head down and your face hidden,” Justice said under his breath.
“Am I enemy number one now?”
He eyed me.
Shining off green and purple walls, strobe lights pulsed in time with the beat of the music. A mirrored crystal ball rotated in the center of the ceiling under a massive glass chandelier bedecked in black candles that dripped hot wax onto the crowd below. The rich, sharp, sweet odor of liquid fog rolled over me and shrouded the space in thick white smoke. As it cleared, all eyes turned toward us.
Justice grabbed my elbow and bee lined across the dance floor toward the bar in the far back. Lit by black lights, everyone near it glowed with a greenish-white luminescence.
Five guys took up stools facing the bar. Dusty wine glasses hung above their heads from a rack that appeared to have been assembled out of bones. The bartender’s eyes narrowed as we passed, and I could have sworn his jaw dropped open when I looked back at him. To the left, another guy sat alone, head down, counting a stack of money at an old card table with rickety metal legs. It was hard to tell in the low light, but it looked as though his shaved head was covered in dark markings.
“Ryan.” Justice pulled a chair out and spun it around so he was sitting it in backward, facing the table.
“Justice.” The guy—Ryan, raised his eyes toward me and redirected them down again. “No Fire Born allowed.”
My gaze narrowed, as I stood at Justice’s back, not wanting to sit down—not wanting to be there at all. I had an intense urge to leave. As if an immediate danger hung around the place like impending death. The gazes and glares were akin to heat on my back, my cheeks, my neck, and without warning, the Shield on my shoulder moved under my skin. My pulse rose and blood warmed, and I placed my hand over the Ogham in an attempt to stay calm. It rotated when I placed my fingertips over it like it was alive.
Ryan glanced toward me again. The designs on his shaved head, I guessed, were tattoos, although they looked more like injuries—slashes and lacerations across his scalp. He reached for a flat-billed baseball hat on the table and shoved it onto his head backward. The bottom of the hat rested just above his eyebrows, framing his glittering, steel blue eyes.
I looked down to the table.
“She followed,” Justice said. “Nothing I could do.” He leaned forward, resting on his elbows. “I’m sure you heard what happened.”
Ryan shuffled twenty dollar bills in his scarred hands. “I did. Not my problem.”
“Used to be.”
His gaze found mine again for a brief second. “Is that why you brought her? To remind me of what used to be? Brave of you. Or stupid.”
“Dude, I told you—she followed. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need your help, you know that.”
“And why would I help Max?” Ryan’s tone held bitter spite. He placed the stack of money down on the table, and tilted his head toward Justice, eyebrows lifted as if waiting for an answer.
“What’s going on, Justice?” I gripped the back of his chair, which slightly glowed from the black lights over the bar.
Ryan’s gaze roved toward me again from the corner of his eye. “Unless Max has changed his … position, I’m not concerned about his welfare, or his whereabouts. Are you telling me his view has changed?”
Justice bowed his head. “No. I’m telling you I need your help. He needs your help.”
Ryan pushed away from the table and leaned back in his chair, lifting the front legs off the ground, and crossed heavily inked arms over his chest. “Max never helped me. Or you … Tristan—” He set the chair legs back down on the ground with a thud. “I’d say sorry that I can’t help, but I’m not. Max is worried about his own, always has been.” He eyed me. “Don’t see that changing. Especially now.”
Justice sighed and pushed to his feet. “You know, at some point you’re going to have to accept what happened. It wasn’t his fault. Come on, Layla.” He headed toward the door with me in tow, and more heads turned as we crossed the dance floor.
“Maybe I could accept that if I wasn’t still stuck like this.” Ryan raised his voice.
Justice stopped and turned back, and as I followed his cold hard stare, a gasp left my lips. Ryan stood tall, shoulders broad and proud. He had shifted from human into gargoyle, but unlike Justice and Tristan, or even Sam, Ryan’s transformation wasn’t only monstrous, but frightening. Slashes striped his face in a bloody yellow-red tinge, as if they hadn’t healed and were pus’d over. Gouges of flesh were torn free from his arms and legs, like he’d been attacked and bitten savagely.
Justice’s fangs cut over his lips, horns protruded from his head, and he loomed beside me, breaths heaving as he transformed as if it had caused him pain. “We’re all suffering, Ryan,” he said, fists tight. “Hating Max won’t free you. Or any of us.” Grabbing my elbow, Justice steered us both toward the exit.
“Don’t bring her around again. I might not be so nice next time.”
As I glanced back, all the people in the bar transformed. Mangled, bloody faces stared through the strobes of green and purple lights. Gargoyle horns, torn away from their heads, hung by shreds of loose flesh. Talons, ripped halfway out of clawed hands and feet. They all gathered around Ryan.
“Really?” Justice said in a low, dangerous tone. “Is that how it is, now?” His eyes darkened.
Ryan crossed his arms. “As long you’re with her—yeah, that’s how it is.”
“It isn’t her, Ryan. When are you going to drop this?” He shifted back into his human form and shuffled me out of the club, closing out the sounds, smells, and the gargoyles
.
“What the hell, Justice? What was that about?” I pulled free of his grasp, while he continued a steady stride down the slowly lightening alleyway between buildings.
“Just a friend.” He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk in front of The Pub. “Okay, so my plan failed miserably. I guess we’ll go back to the Otherworld and follow your grandmother’s.”
“I—huh, wait a second. What do you mean just a friend?” He didn’t look like your friend.
He shrugged. “Ryan has some … pull with some of the others who hang out in the Underworld clubs and haunts. I was hoping he’d care enough to want to help us out. Clearly, he doesn’t. None of them do.”
“Some of the others? You mean gargoyles.”
“I do.”
“Okay, what’s up? How many of you are there? And Ryan—” He did seem like a fallen angel. Except for his eyes. They weren’t only not demonic, but … pure. “What happened to him?”
“There are only two of us. Me and Tristan. Don’t compare me, or my brother, to all the other gargoyles. We aren’t the same. Not anymore.” He turned and walked away with his back to me. “And the deal with Ryan is complicated. We don’t have the time to get into it right now. And nothing’s ‘up’.” He made little quotations with his fingers in the air. “Ryan’s just … pissed off. You probably picked that up.”
Yeah, I picked it up. “Why does he hate me and Max? And don’t tell me he doesn’t, either.”
“We can’t all get along, Layla. It’s not all kittens and butterfly kisses.” He picked up his stride as I followed behind him. “We need to go before your grandmother sends out a search party.”
14
“You’re from here,” Justice complained, his voice pitching, after we cornered the same cluster of trees in the Otherworld forest for the fourth time. “Don’t you know your way around?”
“I don’t know every inch of the woods, and besides that, I had my memory washed, in case you forgot.” I was already sick of his smart-mouthed remarks, wondering if my coming along was such a good idea, after all. Maybe I should’ve followed my own plan. “It’s not my fault you had no idea where you were going. I thought my grandmother told you how to get to the Fae Realm.”