“Uh, help,” I say, trying to swim my way down to the ground.
Below me, the albino guy is still holding his own, using those little pebbles from the pouch at his neck to keep the Fey at bay, the pages cowering behind him.
“Don’t have much left!” he yells at me. “Update?”
“Update?” I repeat, looking about my dangling feet. “We’ve still got five Fey here, and they’re all grouped around you.”
“I meant, is any help coming?” the man yells back.
I look around, and find myself rising further up into the air like a hot air balloon, until I can see over the school’s tall building and all the way down to the landing docks.
I squint in the sunny glare and bite back a cry of shock when as waves of dark figures swarm all over the newly reconstructed pier, knights trying to push them back while dousing the fires all around them.
“No help’s about to come,” I yell at the albino man, looking down at him.
I see one of the tapir-men’s tongue lash out, and a girl screams as it wraps around her leg and pulls her up. The albino man tosses another of his rocks, this time straight at the Fey, and its head disappears in a loud explosion.
The page’s cry of fear turns to one of shock and pain as she drops back down and a brown liquid oozes onto her from the now-severed tongue, burning through her uniform. I hear the albino man swear as he rushes to her side, and the other Fey creatures take that opportunity to bear down on the remaining three children.
“Morgan!” Elias squeaks, a small knife shaking in his hands.
Heart beating wildly, I dive.
“Stay away from them!” I yell.
But as I draw closer, the tapir-men suddenly part in a circle and lash out at me together. I jerk to a stop a couple of feet from the ground, both my wrists caught in their slimy tongues.
“Let me go, you driveling beasts!” I cry out.
“Not poosssssible.”
I shudder at the strange voice coming from behind my captors.
Without a sound, a large, stooped shadow glides over to us. I feel my innards drop, cold sweat slicking my forehead, and watch, helpless, as the Shade stops before the frightened children.
“Run!” I try to yell, but another tongue wraps itself around my neck and the word gets choked off.
The albino man throws his last couple of rocks at the Shade, but the shadows around it seem to pulse and the projectiles bounce harmlessly off its veil of darkness.
Slowly, a long, pale hand emerges from the black mists and latches onto Elias’s skull. The boy’s mouth drops open in a silent scream, the knife falling from his hands. I see his eyes roll back inside his skull as his veins blacken, turning his face into an inky spider web.
Rage wells up inside me and the tapir-man to my left gives a whimper before exploding, his charred carcass crumpling to the ground.
“We need to get you out of here!” the albino man says, rushing to my aid.
He brings down another of the tapir-men and I yank on my other arm, fury lending me the strength to finally wrench myself free.
“No!” the albino man yells as I dash towards the Shade.
But I don’t listen. That creature of darkness has killed his last victim, I’m going to make sure of it!
I feel my anger bubble to the surface and, hands held out before me, ram into him, sending bolts of electricity into his ethereal shape.
The Fey hisses in surprise and drops Elias. I pull back and punch the Shade again, lightning bolts shooting from my fists with every blow.
With a growl, the Shade straightens up to its full height, grasping my hand into his vice-like fist. Slowly, I feel my feet raise off the ground as the putrid smell of decaying flesh reaches my nostrils.
I bite back a scream as all sensation in my hand dies out.
“Morgan!” the albino man yells.
“Get the pages out of here!” I gasp as the Shade pumps its poison into me.
I peer into the shadow’s depths, trying to see the face of the one who murdered my father. Slowly, the dull-white profile of an emaciated face comes into definition within the darkness.
“Release me, you anorexic bastard!” I say through gritted teeth.
The face disappears from view as the noxious fumes close back over it. “You coooooome with meeeeeee,” it breathes in a hoarse voice that sounds like it hasn’t been used in over a century.
There’s a loud, blood-curdling shriek and something bounds onto the Shade, a black blade flashing in the air before it imbeds itself into the Fey’s back.
The Shade shudders then releases me and I fall to the ground, clasping my numb arm to me. Another hair-raising howl pierces the dusky air and I see a bundle of dirty rags jump off the Shade.
“The banshee?” I gasp, shaking my head to clear it. What is she doing here?
The Shade lurches around, seeking its attacker, but the banshee moves out of its reach.
“Morgan!” Arthur shouts as he, Percy, and a tall woman run towards us, swords out.
At their sight, the banshee scrambles away, disappearing as the three knights fall upon the remaining tapir-men, quickly cutting them down. With a hiss, the Shade folds back on itself then vanishes in a gust of wind.
“Oh, no you won’t!” I shout at it.
I stomp my foot on the ground, propelling myself into the sky after the creature of darkness.
“Raido!” I hear Arthur shout, and I know he’s coming too.
I keep my eyes trained on the ground, following the dark Fey’s tracks—the patches of dead vegetation clear against the vibrant green of the grass surrounding it. Just like up on Island Park when Arthur and the others made Nibs take them to the abandoned house.
I pause as the trail ends abruptly and Arthur catches up with me, his sweaty face pale.
“I thought you were…,” he starts, his voice breaking. “But you’re alright?” His eyes travel down my face then widen when he sees the state of my arm. “Morgan, you need to go back,” he says. “We need to take care of your wound.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say distractedly.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a dark shape streak through the air, and jerk my face towards it.
“There!” I shout.
I instinctively strain towards it and my body responds right away, shooting straight for the fleeing Shade.
“Again?” I hear Percy say.
Arthur responds with a string of curses before flying after me. I brace myself as I near the edge of the sky, but I fly through the waters of Lake Winnebago without any trouble, my power surrounding me in a protective shell. Seconds later, we breach the surface of the lake, breaking through the icecap like bullets.
“Not too high,” Arthur starts.
“Or the laymen are gonna catch us on their radars and try to shoot us down,” Percy adds, appearing through the hole we’ve left behind in the ice sheet.
I nod, scanning the horizon for any sign of the Shade, the setting sun’s reflection off the snowy landscape stabbing at my eyes. My stomach clenches with the fear of losing the creature. This is my chance to make the black-vein murders stop, my chance to make him pay for what he did to my father.
“North,” says a feminine voice.
I look over my shoulder, expecting to see another knight, then drop a few feet in the air in surprise.
“Blanchefleur? What are you doing here?” I ask.
The wind whips the Fey warrior’s brown curls about her oval face. “I was sent as a replacement for my sister,” she says.
“Your sis…you mean Sameerah?”
Arthur’s frown deepens. “I thought she was a Watcher?” he says, looking at me questioningly.
“She is,” Blanchefleur says with a cynical smile. “But all Watchers were warriors at one point, and it’s hard to quell one’s nature entirely.”
“Not that I’m not enjoying this little reunion party,” I say, “but the more we linger about, the more my prey’s getting away.”
I hear the others launch after me as I graze the growing cloud line, hoping to get another sight of the Shade.
“Keep going,” Blanchefleur says, closing the gap between us as I slow down.
“How can you tell?” I ask her.
“The Aether,” she says, and in a burst of speed she zooms ahead.
“Ain’t she grand?” Percy shouts at me, letting out a whoop as he trails after her.
We follow Blanchefleur over the length of Lake Winnebago, passing the site of our battle with Mordred’s hordes, before veering along the highway and resuming our course northward. As the sun slowly sinks over the horizon, setting the world ablaze, I find myself shivering in the freezing wind and wish I had a thick, winter coat on. But the weather down in Lake High is always so fair, I have a tendency to forget what it’s like up at the surface.
Blanchefleur suddenly swerves left, and the rows of houses give way to long stretches of snowy fields. Then, at long last, the Fey warrior dips towards the ground.
“He’s here,” she says as we land beside a small farm.
“How can you tell?” Arthur asks, his breath fogging in the air.
“I can feel him,” she replies, her jaw set with determination. “He is like a blight upon this world, can you not sense it?”
She unsheathes her sword and the crystal blade lights up, reflecting off the snow in a myriad of tiny rainbows. I try to open up my senses, like Lugh’s attempted to teach me, and for a moment I think I can feel the earth around me, vibrant with life despite the winter.
Except for one place.
I stare at the farmhouse standing peacefully before us. Something is in there, distorting everything around it like a vortex. I gasp at the shock of the sensation, my vision doubling, then the feeling is gone.
“What’s the matter?” Arthur asks me, his longsword held tightly in his gloved fists.
“Death,” I say, darting towards the building.
I reach the front porch to find the door ripped off its hinges, parts of the wall around the frame crumbling to dust. The air crackles with energy as I step over the rubble and inside the hallway.
The wooden floor creaks as the others walk in after me.
“What’s that?” Percy whispers, pointing at strange, moldy patches leading further into the house.
“Blood,” Blanchefleur growls. “His.”
A satisfied smirk stretches my lips—I’ll have to remember to thank the banshee for her good work today, if I ever get to see her again.
As I make my slow way forward, my feet moving silently over the barren floor, I see the shadows shift and turn around as a dark shape throws itself at me. We fall together on the floor, the air rushing out of my lungs.
With a sharp war cry, Blanchefleur launches herself at the Shade, her crystal blade cutting through the monster’s shadows. I gasp as the Shade’s face emerges from its tenebrous cowl—his eyes have been sown shut and, from beneath his sutured eyelids, seeps the dark, poisonous mist.
The Shade lifts itself from me with a roar, a column of black fog erupting from him and into Blanchefleur, sending the Fey warrior crashing through the wall and into the next room.
“Milady!” Percy shouts, running over to her as Arthur edges my way.
I see the Shade prepare to launch another attack and react intuitively. I raise my hands, willing the creature to be blasted away. A surge of power bursts out of me, lighting the whole room with its fire, and catches the Shade square in the back.
The creature lets out another roar before slowly turning towards me. I blink through the haze of pain burgeoning in my head as the Shade’s ghost-pale hand emerges from the depths of its shadows. I cringe away—can nothing stop it?
But before it can touch me, Arthur’s sword swings down towards the Shade. The Fey creature hisses, pulling back, then slams its fist down, black poisonous tendrils of smoke swelling from it. Arthur calls forth an air shield before the poisoned vapors can hit us, but the sylphid screen blasts apart at the contact. Arthur cries out as the ogham shatters on his finger in a flash of light.
“No!” I yell, reaching for Arthur as the Shade’s hand now reaches for Arthur.
The distant sound of a horn echoes in the distance, strong and insistent, and the Fey stops. There’s another long blast, and the Shade finally retracts its hand.
“Soooooon,” it promises, before tearing through the closed windows.
I push myself up onto my feet, ready to follow, when Arthur grabs my arm.
“Don’t,” he says, gasping. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I can’t let it get away,” I say, struggling to get out of his grasp.
Arthur wraps his other arm around me, keeping me anchored to the ground. “Please,” he says, and the despair in his voice makes me pause. “I almost lost you again, I can’t let it happen a third time.”
I grind my teeth together, and a couple of sparks dance over my skin as I try to force myself to calm down.
“Would ya look at that?” Percy calls out at us.
Arthur and I cross over to the other room through the wrecked wall. In the light of Percy’s floating salamander orbs, we see four bodies lying on the carpet in the middle of the living room, the smell of rotten flesh heavy around us.
“It fed on them,” Blanchefleur says, looking fine except for a thin trail of blood down her cheek.
“It what?” Percy asks, looking revolted.
Blanchefleur points to the bodies, their flesh streaked with black. “It’s a Dark Sidhe so it can’t use any outside energy like we do,” she explains. “That means it has to steal it.”
“I thought you were all linked?” Arthur says with a frown.
“Regular Fey are,” Blanchefleur says with a shrug. “But these? They’ve gone too far. The only way for them to get unlimited powers like us would be…” She stops, then shakes her head. “But no, that wouldn’t happen.”
“What wouldn’t happen?” I ask, my vision blurring as a wave of nausea hits me.
Blanchefleur’s limpid blue eyes alight upon me, and she frowns. “If they were to open the Gates of Hell,” she says at last.
A sharp pain blooms behind my eyes, pulsing along with my heartbeats, and my hands fall limp at my sides. I have the brief sensation that the earth is tilting crazily to the side before Arthur catches me.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, checking my vitals.
I try to flick his hand away but I barely have the strength to keep on breathing. Arthur’s hand grabs mine and he holds it up, and through my hazy vision I can tell the black veins have started to recede.
“She’s healing,” he says, “so why is she like this?”
Blanchefleur’s face appears next to his. “She’s drawn too much of her own energy,” she says with a snort. “It’s a wonder she’s held this long, really.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Arthur asks.
“You need to let her rest,” I hear Blanchefleur answer in a carefree way. “But what she should do is figure out how to link up to the Aether.”
Chapter 22
“Just a little further…that’s right…be careful, there’s a step here…”
“Arthur, I’m tired, not dumb,” I say, irritated, as he leads me out of the farmhouse and to the lone pickup truck we’re going to have to steal now that neither of us can fly.
“Which makes you so much more docile,” Arthur says with an evil smile.
I glare at him, wishing Blanchefleur and Percy had stayed with us. But Blanchefleur hates any machinery, and Percy, like the love-struck puppy that he’s become, went with her, leaving me with an overprotective Arthur.
It doesn’t take long for Arthur to jumpstart the farm’s pickup truck once he’s helped me inside, and we’re soon on the road back to North Asylum Bay.
Despite my fatigue, I’m wound up as tight as a spring. We
left the school while it was still under attack—what will we get back to?
“Did they come for the Sangraal then?” I ask, after we’ve been driving for a while.
“Probably,” Arthur says. “And they knew precisely when to strike. Today was the only day the Sangraal would’ve been out of our school’s protective spells….”
His voice trails off but I know what he’s thinking about—the spy.
“What I want to know is why they attacked us on two fronts,” Arthur says after a while. “The second team was too small to cause much of a diversion, so they must’ve gone for stealth, trying to get to a specific target.”
I sink further into my seat, feeling crabby. “Me,” I say, trying to sound composed and failing miserably. “It wasn’t just my blood they wanted. That Shade was trying to get me to go with it.”
“What for?” Arthur asks.
I shrug. “Beats me.” Unless they’re planning on serving Carman my head on a platter, nice and fresh.
Arthur tightens his hold on the steering wheel until the leather of his gloves creaks, then he lets out a long, drawn-out breath. “That must be why Lugh wanted to give you protection,” he say.
“I guess,” I say with a loud yawn. “Though to be perfectly honest, since he mentioned the Board, I thought he meant against, you know, other knights and stuff.”
Arthur’s jaw tightens. “You mean Jennifer. Unfortunately, there are some reports that say you attacked her.”
“What?” I exclaim, straightening up, all fatigue gone as my blood boils at this new injustice.
“Of course, I don’t believe them,” Arthur says, glancing quickly at me, “but there’s no proof either way.”
“The whole class was present!” I yell, outraged. “They all saw her pull a gun on me!”
Arthur nods. “Perhaps, but no one will attest to it.”
“Not even Keva?” I ask.
“The word of a squire,” Arthur says carefully, “doesn’t always hold much against that of a full-fledged knight. And Keva’s your friend, which makes her an unreliable witness.”
Morgana Trilogy Complete Series Page 65