Dreams of the Forgotten Dead

by Eric Asher

  “You and me both.”

  It took me a few minutes to find the box that I’d packed the rest of my jeans in. Maybe Nixie had been right about labeling them a little bit better before the move. I smiled at the thought and then searched four more boxes before I found my T-shirts.

  I took a deep breath and opened the door to the apartment, taking in the view down the aisle of the library into the reading nook. That was something I could get used to, other than the bright blue bird staring up at me.

  “You ready?”

  The bird danced back and forth on his feet before racing down the stairs, tail bobbing the whole time. I followed, the sweet scents of breakfast cooking reaching me about halfway to the first floor.

  I found Nixie and Foster back to back in the kitchen. The fairy worked with the waffle iron while Nixie cracked a few more eggs across an electric griddle.

  Foster glanced over his shoulder when he heard me coming. “It lives!”

  I scowled at the fairy and pulled some plates out of the cabinet. It wasn’t long before Frank arrived to open the shop. He took a few scoops of scrambled eggs and dropped them on a waffle as he headed to the front.

  He stopped at the saloon-style doors and glanced back at us. “Don’t get yourselves killed today.”

  “They will not be alone,” Hess said from just behind Frank, startling the poor man to the point he juggled his waffle and lost part of his eggs to the anxious cu siths below.

  “Good, that’s good. Don’t die. Don’t do that.” Frank rambled a little more as he made his way out of the room.

  We ate in relative silence, joined by Aideen shortly after. It was only then that Hess held out the veil mirror so the fairies could see it.

  “Aideen, Foster, I have spoken with Damian, and with your blessing, I would release the Utukku trapped inside this abomination.”

  “Here?” Foster asked, staring at Hess in horror.

  “No, Demon Sword. Within the Spirit Hunt, so Aseer may have a chance to rejoin the realm she was so long denied.”

  Aideen reached out and squeezed Foster’s wrist. “That mirror will do good for no one. It is cursed. You know this.”

  “I know. We don’t have much of Cara left, though.”

  Hess knelt by the table and placed the mirror face down. “The handle will be returned to you when all is done. The glass will not survive, but you will see the runes scrawled upon its frame.”

  “I’d like that,” Foster said. “And I appreciate the gesture. Please, do what you must. You have our blessing to destroy it.”

  “My thanks, Demon Sword.” Hess stood and started after Popcorn when she stuck her nose out of the wall before vanishing into the cu siths’ lair. I supposed we weren’t the only ones who needed to say goodbye.

  “I’m coming with you to Samir’s,” Aideen said.

  “No arguments from me.” I poured a little extra syrup over my waffle and didn’t miss Foster’s longing glance at the sugary stream.

  “We just have to stay behind Damian and Hess.” Foster glanced between Nixie and Aideen. “Let Nugget lead the way, and maybe we’ll get out of this without getting turned into garden gnomes.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at that visual. “If you do, I’ll get you a pointy hat. And I’ll set you up next to one of those little fairy doors. You’ll look great in the garden. Is Nog still living in the pool shed at the Pit?”

  “You don’t have a garden,” Foster said, apparently ignoring my question.

  I grinned at Foster. “I will.”

  Foster narrowed his eyes and hacked a chunk of butter off with his sword before dropping it into the pocket of a waffle.

  “Nog and the hobgoblins are still at the Pit,” Aideen said.

  I grinned at that. It had been an unexpected encounter when they burrowed into Sam’s bedroom in the basement. She’d negotiated a truce of sorts, but I was looking forward to seeing what kind of mischief those sentient garden gnomes would get up to.

  “You must focus in the basilisk’s lair,” Hess said, drawing my attention and taking a seat at the table. “There will not be time for such jest.”

  Nixie finished a strip of bacon and wiped her hands off. “Have you met Damian? He will one hundred percent be shouting a bad pun as he dies.”

  I nodded solemnly. “We can only hope it’s captured on film.”

  Aideen groaned and cut a small piece off Foster’s waffle. “Don’t encourage him. For all of our sakes.”

  Hess blinked at me, but said no more on the subject. Instead, she described some of the historic battles Utukku had engaged in with basilisks throughout the centuries. The more she told me of her fallen brethren, and those few who had succeeded in slaying a basilisk, the more I realized how much trouble we might be in. And perhaps just how much the clan for Sri Lanka was worried about Nixie.

  “Do you think Shamus would fight with us?” I asked.

  Nixie nodded. “I have little doubt he would if I asked. But Shamus is too important to the undines to risk against the basilisk. I would prefer he stay with Alexandra, or return to Atlantis to receive the wanderer.”

  “And you don’t think the queen of the undines should use that kind of caution as well?” Aideen asked.

  I sat up a little straighter. If I had asked Nixie that question, I would have expected a rather sharp response.

  “No,” Nixie said. “Should something happen to me now, I would be a martyr, and it would unify many of the clans.”

  “Fuck that,” I muttered.

  Aideen nodded. “I understand what you mean, but I side with Damian on this. You are more important than you realize, which is a surprise to me. You are a bridge to Atlantis, a means for Shamus and his ilk to rejoin our society without threat from the Mad King.”

  “Maybe. I only hope it is enough. Hope I am enough.”

  I frowned at Nixie. I wasn’t sure where this thread of thought was coming from. She hadn’t spoken to me of any doubts since my return. But it had me wondering what else had happened while I’d been trapped in the Abyss, and what else might be occurring among the water witches.

  “Did something else happen?” Foster asked, as if he had the same question I did.

  “No,” Nixie said with a shake of her head. “It is only the rift with Lewena’s faithful. A divide all undines must work harder to heal.”

  Aideen leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I see. And you cannot do that from here.”

  Nixie offered a small smile. “I can’t. I will need to return to Atlantis, and spend time in Europe once more, as they need to hear what has happened from me. Euphemia is capable, but some of the happenings in this world must come from their queen.”

  “You do what you have to do,” I said. “I promise to come visit anytime you have time. And thanks to Gaia, that’s quite a bit easier now.”

  Nixie leaned over and gave me a small kiss. “I know. But that does not make it simple.”

  I nodded. “You know we’re here for you. Whatever you need.”

  “And that means more to me than any of you will ever know.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  A short time later, I found myself behind the wheel of my car once more. It was still morning, but not by much, and rush-hour traffic had long since thinned out. That made for a relatively uneventful drive down to Samir’s.

  I spent most of the time reviewing everything I had in my backpack. If we were going up against Fae or werewolves, I’d feel pretty good about it, but even with Hess and Nugget, I didn’t feel ready, as if we were walking into a fight wholly unprepared. The fact we knew what waited in those tunnels made it a hundred times worse.

  I steered us into the parking lot at the shop, surprised to see the place shut down in the middle of the week. Apparently, Samir had decided not to take any chances, and I couldn’t blame him for that.

  He waved to us from a garage bay and gestured for me to drive inside. The sun vanished as we crossed into the bay, and Samir shut the door behind us.
I turned the car off, and we slowly piled out.

  Hess came after, the peacock and the ghostly cu sith trailing her.

  I eyed the ghosts around us and those lingering deeper in the shop. There were more than the last time we’d been there, and not all of them were whole. I saw more than a few drifting gray shadows, fragments of a loop that had decayed into almost nothing. But still, they had come, drawn to whatever lurked beneath Samir’s.

  “I planned to keep the shop closed until tomorrow,” Samir said. “You think that will give you enough time?”

  I rubbed my chin. “It will either be enough time, or you can add us to your garden.”

  Samir glanced between me and Nixie, clearly confused at the reference.

  Nixie rolled her eyes. “Just ignore him. I find that’s best sometimes.”

  Hess stepped to Samir’s side and gestured to him. “Proprietor, I have a request of you.”

  Samir pointed to his chest. “Me?”

  “Yes. May I hunt beneath your lands? Would you give me that right?”

  “Of course,” Samir said. “My shop and everything beneath are yours for whatever you need. Basilisks are bad for business, I imagine.”

  “I am honored, Samir. May you always find a safe haven with the Utukku. And for our part, we will hunt the beast that stalks these lands.” Hess’s speech changed into a series of clicks and snaps, and she walked toward the back of the shop.

  “I guess that’s our cue.” I followed the Utukku as Foster and Aideen exploded into their Proelium state.

  The last thing I heard as we passed through the storeroom and came face to face with the entrance to the basilisk’s lair was a very confused Samir.

  “Glitter?”

  * * *

  “The basilisk is not near,” Hess said. “I cannot hear its breath or its movement.”

  “What if it’s asleep?” I asked, sweeping my flashlight across the tunnel. “Are we just going to stumble right into it?”

  “No, I would still hear the beast. Come, we must venture farther inside to be sure the magic of the Spirit Hunt remains confined inside these walls.”

  The air around us shifted as we went deeper into the lair. The warmth and humidity of St. Louis changed to something cooler, though the humidity was still there. I doubted there was a square inch of the city that didn’t feel like it was underwater on its warmest days.

  I’d spent some time in New Orleans several years before, and that was one of the only places that felt muggier. Even then, it was a near thing. I tried to pin down my wandering thoughts. I was relying on Hess to tell me when trouble was near, and I needed to be paying attention to everything I could.

  Forcing myself to focus, I could hear the slow drip of water somewhere in the tunnel, the distant crack of a falling stone, or something else in the darkness with us. I shook off the darker thoughts and followed the corporeal ghost.

  Hess slowed when we reached the first intersection. “This is where the hunt begins. Let the magic flow through you. I do not wish Aseer to strike at you.”

  Foster exchanged a glance with Aideen. “Sounds reassuring.”

  “Most reassuring.”

  Hess smiled before she knelt between the ribs of dirt carved into the tunnel by the basilisk, pulling the mirror from the cinched leather belt at her waist. As soon as the mirror’s surface caught the beam of a flashlight, I could see the fiery Utukku within.

  The longer we waited in that place, the closer Nugget came to me, as if he knew what Hess was doing, and he wanted no part of it.

  “How long will this take?” I asked, turning to Foster.

  He shrugged. “I’m not familiar with the ritual. Nixie? Aideen?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “What worries me more is how large these tunnels are,” Nixie said. “And I don’t mean the size of the basilisk, which is obviously formidable, but if these tunnels stretch from here to St. Charles, how are we ever going to find this thing?”

  It was a damn good point. And it was a reminder I needed to try something that, if I was being honest, I hadn’t been looking forward to.

  I crouched down next to Nugget and watched as golden light started at his beak and trailed back through his feathers before opening in a wide display. “You ready to try this?”

  The bird honked, but whether that meant yes or confirmed he did indeed want to eat my soul, I had no idea.

  I took a deep breath and centered myself, letting my Sight focus on the bird and my own aura. If Gaia was right, I should be able to amplify the vision from the bird by incorporating a tiny thread of Titan magic. What would be even better was if I could hold that vision together like a HUD, but I’d be happy if we could just find the damn basilisk. Or basilisks, as the case might be.

  The peacock’s glow grew blinding with my Sight open wide. I reached out with my aura and touched the bird, visions of the underground flashing past in a mad cacophony of light and shadow. I could see to the end of the tunnel we stood inside, and the first branch that dove deeper into the earth and crawled through one of the lost corridors of Gorias.

  Armor and statues had been pushed to the edges of the corridors, thrown into random piles like a kid stuffing every toy they owned into their closet to clean their room. It was a strange thought, and one that brought back memories of me and Sam when we were kids.

  The vision shuddered, and the peacock showed me another path, racing forward like a magical drone. This path rose until it breached the storm sewers above us. Another second, another tunnel, and another, until finally, something else flashed by. I almost missed it in the quick images of glowing bricks, and the visions continued even as I concentrated on what had come before.

  I was sure of it. The wall had moved in that sequence. Nugget’s vision wasn’t a static image; it was a living map. I focused on the latest series of flashes and looked for the smallest details, the rodents that scurried through the ribbed tunnels. I extended the thread of Titan magic, pulling it away from my necromancy before I let it touch Nugget’s aura.

  The bird bristled in surprise at the contact, and his golden glow merged with that of the Titan magic. I gasped when the shadows and outlines of the tunnels grew more defined, and I could see the fur on the mice scurrying through those sewers, the antennae on the cockroaches in the walls of Gorias.

  And the fangs of the basilisk deep beneath the earth.

  I cursed and stumbled backward as if the thing were right in front of us. But that broke the vision, and I saw the dark tunnel where Hess continued her ritual, the cold beams of flashlights the only real illumination aside from the peacock.

  The bird stared at me for a time before he strutted away, circling Nixie and Hess and returning to my side. He didn’t honk, instead making quiet sounds as if he were muttering to himself. I had to suppress a half-insane laugh at that idea.

  Foster squeezed my shoulder and whispered. “Did you see anything?”

  “No, I just like cursing randomly.”

  Foster’s lips flattened into a thin line.

  I grinned at the fairy. “Yes, I saw a basilisk. It’s far from here, and deeper than we are. I saw two corridors from Gorias between us and it. Looked like it was sleeping. I also saw the wall move in another part of the tunnels.”

  Foster frowned at that. “The wall moved?”

  “I think it might have been another basilisk.”

  Aideen drew one of her swords. “Then we assume there are at least three. Better to be prepared for the worst and be pleasantly surprised.”

  “Pleasantly surprised isn’t something I’d associate with being trapped underground with a basilisk,” Nixie muttered.

  Popcorn stood up at Hess’s side, staring forward at something I couldn’t see. It was unnerving, knowing that ghostly cu sith could likely see things we couldn’t. And it was all the warning we had before the circles around Hess ignited into a fiery blue maelstrom of power.

  “The Spirit Hunt begins,” Hess cried out, raising the mirror ab
ove her head. I didn’t even have time to think before she smashed the mirror on the stone at her feet, and a whirlwind of fire and bones erupted from the shattered surface.

  I watched in a mixture of awe and dread as those brilliant flames poured from broken glass. The skeleton pieced itself together like a jigsaw puzzle, bones spinning rapidly until they cracked together into recognizable forms.

  I half expected the fires to dissipate when the skull settled into place, gleaming eyelights piercing the darkness. But they didn’t. Instead, the flames stayed strong, bound to the skeleton as if it was made of fire.

  “Sister,” Hess said. “You have your freedom. Now join me in one last Spirit Hunt.”

  Even with my Sight raised, I couldn’t tell what I was looking at. She didn’t look like a ghost, but she didn’t look like an Utukku either, hunched forward with claws that looked like they belonged on a raptor.

  “Who was she?” Nixie asked, stepping closer to Hess.

  “Aseer. One of the taken. That is all you need know. An Utukku stolen from her home by the Fae and tortured for as long as she can remember.”

  Aideen reached out to the fiery spirit and pulled her hand back. “And all the veil mirrors have a spirit trapped inside of them.”

  “It is how the mirrors work,” Hess said. “Are all Fae not aware of that?”

  Aideen shook her head. “I imagine only the Fae who forged them, and those who have studied the veil.”

  Utukku nodded and turned to the spirit at her side. Her teeth clicked together she made a series of popping noises. The fiery spirit bowed and looked into the tunnel.

  Hess glanced back at us. “I have told her as much. She will not attack you.”

  Aseer answered in clicks and pops.

  Hess bared daggerlike teeth. “I stand corrected. She will not attack you unless she decides she does not like you.”

  Aseer raised her arms over her head and a surge of magic flowed away from her to either side of the tunnel. I’d seen something like that before, in my nightmares, and when Gwynn Ap Nudd summoned the Wild Hunt. But this was not shadows and skeletons rolling from the spirit. This was blue fire and brilliant light that crawled down the tunnel like an explosion.