by Natasja Rose
Tina considered that to be a sensible option either way, though she was scowling for a different reason. Northampton may not have had the ghost population of the rest of the British Isles, with the spirits being drawn between worlds and away from the mortal realm, but the land of the Fae more than made up for it.
The sheer number of disgruntled shades of Fae from both of the Courts, invisible to their own kin but obvious to Tina’s psychic eye, indicated that if an outright war wasn’t currently occurring, then there had been one in the recent past. All being incorporeal, there wasn’t a lot that they could do to the mortals or to each other, but it gave Tina an idea.
She signalled for the team to stop for a moment, elbowing Rachel to gain her attention and addressing the ghosts directly. “How do you feel about doing something productive?”
Rachel concentrated, a flicker of surprise crossing her face at how much easier it was to call them while in Fairyland. The others jumped slightly at the sheer number of shades that materialised around them. A Fae woman, her cause of death apparent by the flint-headed arrow piercing through her, looked both amused and pleased at their surprise, but made no comment on it. “I am intrigued. Explain your meaning.”
Not quite as eager as Tina had expected, based off her experience with ghosts who couldn’t wait to tell their life- and death-story to anyone able to listen, but not a flat refusal. As interactions with the Fae went, it was fairly promising.
Valerie, as team leader, stepped forward. “We’re here to retrieve the stolen children. You can create a distraction by Rachel drawing you forth and allowing you to interact with the ones you are lost to.”
The shade of a small, twisted, goblin-like Fae perked up, “You mean we can continue fighting? We won’t be invisible to them?”
The first shade tried to hush it, and was coldly ignored as Rachel nodded solemnly. “They will see you, and I swear by the moon and stars that if you join us, this will be the only time I summon you.”
The unspoken but barely implied threat that Rachel might be able to summon them at any other time (inside an ironworks, if she was wise) was a nice touch. The temporary spokesperson for the shades frowned, but she and the twisted one nodded their collective assent. “That is fair. Lead the way.”
They moved on, Tina managing to signal for the other mortals to shut up before any of them accidentally thanked the Fae. Shades or not, thanks implied a favour done and owed, and Tina really didn’t want any of them showing up at a later point to collect on the perceived debt.
Christopher kept his voice low. “I was expecting that we would have run into someone by now. Does anyone else get the feeling that we’re walking into a trap?”
One of the shades laughed sadly. “You should have, but war carries a great price, and Fae do not re-populate as easily as humans do, it’s one of the reasons we were known to seduce mortals or take their children. Doubtless we will come across them soon.”
Tina briefly wondered how many of the Changeling Children were half-Fae, taken to avoid repercussions from the mixed heritage that they knew nothing about. On the other hand, that opened a can of worms that she had no desire to touch with a ten-foot bargepole, so she put it out of mind.
Just in time, too, because a small flock of birds that had risen from the trees with their passing suddenly swooped down, transforming into warriors clad in gleaming armour when they neared the ground. Others slithered out from cracks in areas that were suddenly quite boggy, transforming from the form of snakes or lizards, becoming Unseelie.
One of the latter, looking like nothing so much as the unholy offspring of a spider and a cockroach, blown up to roughly the size of a St Bernard, charged at Tina. On later reflection, Tina would laugh that it was a blessing in disguise, as the instinctive urge to obliterate either of the two species with extreme prejudice completely wiped away the abject terror that had gripped her.
Planting her feet, Tina wrapped the wire-wool crochet around her hand, standing back-to-back with Thomas as Kayla took up a protective position next to Rachel as the other girl closed her eyes and pulled.
Several of the Fae were startled enough at the appearance of hundreds of shades that they stumbled or collided in mid-air, landing in a rather ungraceful heap. Tina restrained a gleeful smirk as she cracked her crocheted weapon against a Fae who got too close. Rachel re-oriented herself, pulling out a knife and her gun as she joined the others in bulldozing a path through the startled Fae. It was easier than expected, as they clearly hadn’t been expecting a fight, much less an effective one.
Tina had made sure to describe the clearing in her dream, where she had seen the lost children, to the others in great detail. Searching for it as they fought their way through the chaos formed by disgruntled shades joining the fight, Kayla spotted it first. Kicking a Seelie between the legs and clubbing him over the head to make sure he stayed down, she pointed with her off-hand, “There!”
Christopher literally threw off an Unseelie that was trying to bite his arm off (luckily too small to have much success) as he and Valerie seamlessly changed direction toward the clearing. Thomas yanked Tina out of the way of a sword-thrust, his own fencing sabre flickering out to catch the Fae in question across the elbow tendons of their sword-arm. She spared him a brief nod of thanks as she whipped another one across the face - or what could be seen of it behind the elaborate helm - earning a feminine-sounding screech of pain and rage.
Tina blinked in surprise, then mentally shrugged it off. There had been no stories that she had found of female Fae warriors outside of some older goddesses like Morrigan and Adaste, the women of the Sidhe preferring guile and trickery to achieve their aims. On the other hand, war provoked necessity, and many of the great leaps in Civil and Women’s Rights had come in the aftermath of war. There was no reason to believe that the Fae would be any different, especially if their population was as decimated as the shades had implied.
The missing children, mostly girls but also few boys, were huddled in a group, their expressions dazed, guarded by a literally shining warrior, who wore a coronet (thank you, Lizzy, for that lecture on different types of crowns and their meaning) and practically radiated power.
He waved a hand, and Valerie’s gun turned into a bunch of long-stemmed roses. Perhaps the iron bullets or the steel of the weapon itself thwarted the spell a little, because the flowers were still made of metal. Scowling, Valerie adjusted her grip on a relatively thornless part of the bouquet, using it as a cudgel.
The probably-important Fae did better with Tina and Joshua, expending more power (if Joshua wincing and shielding his eyes at the flare of energy was anything to go by). Joshua tried to deflect it, but only managed to transmute the flowers into silver, rather than plants.
Tina tucked hers into her belt, certain that she could find a use for them if they all survived, and reverted to basic hand-to-hand.
Fortunately, the concentration needed for the Fae’s spells distracted him long enough for Thomas to get within sabre-reach and engage in combat. They were quite evenly matched, but slowly, Thomas’s tactic of feints and display moves slowly drove the Fae apart from the girls.
Despite their dream-like state, the children promptly bolted for the relative safety of the Agents, who formed as close a circle as they could with only six people around them. Seeing this, the warrior roared in fury, sending Thomas flying through the air as he lunged at Joshua, thinking that without a weapon and with Tina, likewise unarmed on the opposite side of the circle, he was probably their weakest point.
Luckily for the Agents and the stolen children, the Fae was prevented from doing so as a familiar form stepped into his path, a wave of it’s hand reversing the warrior’s direction in mid-air. He hit a large tree with a painful-sounding crash, and did not rise.
The shrouded figure that had first lead them to the cavern was back, speaking for the first time in a tone that made polar icecaps seem warm and inviting. “Not so hastily, my dear.”
Chapter Fourteen
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Some famous general had once said that no plan ever survives the first five minutes of enemy contact. Another had suggested that strategists should hope for the best, yet plan for the worst, with the underlying idea that this would average out to land them somewhere in the middle.
Right now, Tina wished both of them a long walk off a short pier, into a bay filled with sharks. Out loud, she swore creatively as the shadowed figure pushed back their hood, revealing a woman’s face, inhumanly beautiful as all Fae were, but marred by a jagged scar down one side of her face and further twisted by a malicious smirk.
Thomas sighed in exasperation. “I suppose we should have expected something like this to happen, given how well everything was going until now. I’m confused why you don’t just conceal the scars, though.”
Clearly, Thomas’s ability to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time was still going strong, because the Fae woman’s malicious smirk instantly changed to a terrifying scowl. “Scars of cold iron are resistant to glamour, and if the Fae are expected to be without flaw, our rulers cannot appear so.”
Ouch. Despite the potentially once-queen’s semi-betrayal (she had never actually declared to be on their side, though the desire to conceal her identity explained why she never spoke) Tina couldn’t help but feel a small pang of sympathy. The side-effects of her gift could be explained away easily enough, but Tina knew what it was like to hover on the edges of the crowd, excluded for something that you couldn’t help, but which marked you apart.
At least in Tina’s case it was unconsciously done, and she managed to have supportive friends, regardless. She attempted to sound supportive, hoping that it would cool things down, blurting out the first thing that popped into her head. “At least you’re in good company now.”
Kayla sniggered quietly, earning the entire group an upgrade in the murderous glares that they were already receiving from the injured Fae. “Well, you’re not wrong.”
Valerie only gritted her teeth. “If you tell us that the kidnapped children, the mysterious deaths, leading to our venture into Fairyland -”
The ex-queen interrupted her, a touch indignantly, “Elfame.”
Valerie waved the correction off, “I don’t care - was all a set up to get revenge on your people for the way they treated you, I’m going to give you several more scars to match.”
The ex-queen shook her head. “I had nothing to do with any of that… but I will not deny that the thought of you making life difficult for the rest of my people was an appealing one.”
Tina resisted the urge to punch her in the face. “Well, now you can start a kingdom of the marred and make life difficult for them yourself, while we take the kids and go home.”
One of the iron-injured Fae, perhaps thinking that he had nothing more to lose, folded his arms in a sulky pout. “And what makes you think that we’ll let you go so easily?”
Thomas’s sabre flickered out, almost as fast as thought, stopping just short of adding another wound. He said nothing, but allowed the clear threat to speak for him. The rage on the Fae’s fair visage was frankly terrifying, but swiftly turned back into sulkiness. He stepped out of the way, allowing them to pass.
Valerie looked around, gripping her own weapons tightly. “That goes for whoever was behind the incidents at St Andrew’s, as well. If we hear about any more child-stealing, we’ll be back, and we won’t be nearly as nice about it as we were this time.”
The once-Queen had the temerity to look affronted at Valerie’s statement. “I already told you I had nothing to do with that. I learned my lesson the first time.” She traced her scar in an absent gesture, “Besides, the one responsible this time around is lying under that tree, and I’ll make sure that he won’t be doing anything for a while to come.”
Clearly there was some bad blood there, but none of the mortals felt like touching that issue with a ten-meter barge pole.
One of the children, a boy, stepped away from the rest. “Thank you for your efforts, but I intend to stay.”
Tina resisted the urge to hit something. All the effort to even get here, all of the visions and nightmares, and he chose now to be contrary? She tried not to grit her teeth, “Why is that?”
The boy smiled sadly as another boy, a relation by their similar looks, joined him. “I counted the times that the pathway was open. We’ve been here nigh on two hundred years. There is nothing for us back in the mortal realm.”
A girl, older than the rest, joined them. “My family isn’t interested in me getting better, just better enough that I’m not an embarrassment. I’ll stay, too.”
Joshua and Rachel were looking nearly as angry as Tina felt, and Valerie glared around. “If anyone else wants to stay, say so now, because we’re leaving.”
Luckily for Tina’s blood pressure, none of the rest did. Tina and the Agents formed up around the remaining stolen children, who huddled together, not entirely willing to trust the Fae at their word until they were safely away and could find a priest to take precautions against any further interaction.
Joshua took point, guarded by Christopher, trying to locate the feel of a portal back to their own world. The one to St Andrews wasn’t operating at the moment, but there was another with an almost-identical feel to it.
Moving swiftly, he led the way out from Under the Hill, toward home.
Chapter Fifteen
True to their word, and wanting to dodge any awkward questions, the team called a taxi out of Northampton almost as soon as they returned from Under the Hill.
The fact that passing between worlds dropped them off at the opposite end of town helped a bit, as did the fact that they were near enough to the local station that the Agents could drop the girls off and make themselves scarce without having to answer any awkward questions. Sneaking back to the Poplars proved a bit more difficult, Valerie checking them out while Tina sent an email to Dr Davies, explaining everything, and called for transportation.
The driver gave them a suspicious look when he saw them, but didn’t ask questions when Kayla promised a large tip. Given that they were all banged up and staggering from exhaustion, Tina wasn’t all that surprised at the driver’s concern, and hoped that he just thought they were on their way back from an all-night party.
Within half an hour, Northampton was swiftly vanishing behind them as they made a beeline East.
Protocol apparently meant that the Psychically Gifted had a few days grace as far as mission reports went, as long as their non-gifted Team-mates reported promptly. Thomas, Kayla and Christopher would be dropped off near London HQ to report on the basics of the mission, while the others caught a train up north for a day or two at the Journeyman’s Rest.
If nothing else, they owed Madge the good news that they had been successful, and to thank her for the assistance her memories and information had provided.
They arrived at the Journeyman’s Rest in the lull between lunch and dinner, when any guests (judging by the small tour bus outside the Inn) were out exploring the village or in their rooms resting.
Ben was rounding the stables as they pulled up, and waved cheerfully despite a faint limp, calling that he’d see them after he had a shower. Valerie waved back and headed inside to break the good news.
As expected, the Innkeepers were thrilled at the (somewhat abbreviated) report, and pleased that they had been able to help, if only indirectly. James looked nearly as happy as his grandparents as he put a loaf of freshly baked bread and a selection of butter and jams down on the table. “The only thing that I wonder is, if they were that desperate for mortal assistance, why they didn’t come back for Nan, after she was returned.”
The kindly old woman actually smirked, the amusement of someone who has just benefited from someone else’s foolish assumptions. “It’s harder to steal a child a second time, once they’ve been retrieved. Besides, I think it amused them that I would be spending my life in rural isolation, changing the splendour of the Sidhe for obscurity and the company of ghosts.”<
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Valerie leaned forward, already reaching for her phone in case she needed to call the non-gifted back in London. “We escaped, rather than being retrieved. Do you think that any of us should be on the lookout for reprisals of some kind?”
Madge and Richard shook their heads in oddly adorable synchronisation. Madge patted her husband’s hand, letting him answer. “I doubt it. You proved yourselves formidable opposition, and I doubt they’ll be keen to provoke you. More likely they’ll be busy trying to consolidate their positions before the other side has the chance to renew hostilities.”
Madge hid a satisfied smile behind her teacup. “It is unkind of me, but I hope it takes a while.” Tina looked at Valerie, feeling an odd surge of protectiveness, given how little time they had known each other, and steered the conversation away before it became uncomfortable. “Well, that’s a weight off my mind, at least.”
The conversation was diverted when Ben came down the stairs, hair still damp and barefoot. The reason why became obvious when Tina looked at the foot he had been limping on, which was now bruised and swelling. “What on earth did you do to yourself.”
James helped him to a chair, while Lizzy went for the first-aid kit. Ben winced as James gently felt about the foot, testing for breaks or fractures. “It was that monster of a Clydesdale’s fault.”
Tina wasn’t entirely sure what a Clydesdale was, but everyone else winced in sympathy. She sent Lizzy a questioning look as her friend opened the kit and pulled out an icepack, wrapping it in a handkerchief she pulled out of her pocket. “Very large horse, currently used for farming and hauling machinery, also as warhorses in the 19th and 20th century. We hire out use of the Inn’s old stables to some of the smaller farms, and the people who do cart or carriage rides.”