As the hours lurch by, measured by our increasingly shorter breaths, we manage to cross the rest of the wasteland without another hitch, though the heat has turned us into sweltering gasbags with armpit stains down to our hips.
“Finally,” Keva says as we reach the first hill, plunking down onto a small, flat rock to pull her boots off and massage her blistered feet.
“Put your shoes back on,” I tell her, “we have to keep going.”
“Geez, Morgan, I’m not a Fey like you, I need time to—”
She stops, face paling with fear, and I turn around to find an old man leering at us from around the bend, dusty skin stretched tight over his prominent ribs. Definitely not how I’d pictured our first direct demon encounter to be, but I’m scared out of my mind nonetheless.
For a long second, we all three stare at each other, then the skinny man throws his head back and lets out a hair-raising cry.
“Run!” Keva yells, pulling urgently on my arm.
But it’s too late. A series of shouts answers the demon, and we watch as a dozen more emaciated men come hurtling towards us, brandishing long white clubs, scraps of clothing scarcely keeping their modesty in check. Not that modesty seems to be foremost on their minds, a part of my brain notes as they quickly surround us, greed filling their otherwise flat stares.
I flex my fingers, unconsciously reaching for my powers, but the usual fizzy response in my stomach isn’t there. I let out a soft hiss. Of course, I can make rocks explode in Keva’s face, but when I actually need them, my powers are MIA.
I glance at Keva, the smaller girl holding her steel-toed boot like a weapon, as if it’s going to make a difference.
I force myself to breathe. I knew something like this would happen at some point. I just didn’t realize it would be so soon. I turn to the one I assume is their leader, and square my shoulders.
“Uh, parley?” I tentatively call out.
My request has about as much success as when I used it with Blanchefleur the first time I met her. With a loud bellow, the demon charges, swinging his mace over his head. I take a quick step to the side, forcing Keva behind me, then lift my arms up to receive the blow, meaty parts out like I was taught in class. But before the man can reach me, a shadow darts in front of him, black knife flashing.
I let out a faint squeak as the demon drops silently to the ground, a bloody smile gracing his neck.
“Look,” Keva whispers, as the hunched figure moves onto a second target, cowled robe rustling as it ducks beneath the next man’s outstretched arm. A bony hand lashes out, slicing his belly open.
“Banshee?” I say.
The shadow pauses midstride. A second’s hesitation too long. With cries of outrage, the remaining men converge upon her. I watch helplessly as the banshee blocks the first attack, dodging a blow to the head before plunging her knife into someone’s back. But there are too many of them, and no matter how good the banshee is, they manage to swarm her.
I find myself moving forward, holding tightly onto a large stone I don’t remember picking up, dropping inside the nearest demon’s reach, then swinging my fist around in a sharp arc. There’s a loud thunk as my rock connects with his temple. The demon’s eyes roll back in his head, and I step to the side as he slumps forward, already aiming for the next one. But as I make my next move, a heavy blow lands on my shoulder, and I fall to my knees with a grunt, the stone falling from my numb fingers.
“Misssstressss!” the banshee howls, as a second blow lands on my ribs.
I fall face-first into the dirt, biting my tongue. Blood fills my mouth with its coppery taste. Coughing, I try to push myself onto my feet, but someone slams my head back into the ground. Pain explodes behind my eyes, my nose flattening with a deafening crunch.
And there, as I slowly suffocate on mud and my own blood, something finally stirs in the pit of my stomach, dark and demanding. It spreads, quick as wildfire, up my spine then down my arms, before bursting free. There’s a surprised shout, then the weight that was pressing me down suddenly lifts.
Gasping for breath, I roll onto my back, then recoil in horror at the dark mass spewing from the ground a couple of feet away, a geyser of black, viscous liquid that seems to have a will of its own. Even with my broken nose, its stench makes me want to puke. I watch, unable to tear my gaze away, as the thick jet crests languorously over my attacker, before finally tipping sideways and spilling over him, abruptly cutting off his screams.
For a long minute after, I stare at the shapeless lumps floating in the center of the pool of black tar, bubbles popping thickly around it. All that is left of the half-naked demon. Because of me. Bile rises to my throat and I heave, cold shivers running down my back.
“Morgan!” Keva shouts, scrambling over to my side.
I shake my head to dispel the spots dancing in my vision, fighting not to get sick, then look around for the banshee. I let out a relieved sigh as I find her near the base of the closest hill, limping, but still alive.
“Come on,” Keva says urgently, helping me up.
The remaining men have turned on me now, their rotten teeth poking from distended mouths as they hiss and snarl.
“Now would be the time to pull that magic trick again,” Keva tells me, her back to mine.
“It would, wouldn’t it?” I say.
But whatever just happened, whatever it is I did to take that one demon out, has left me completely drained, and I find myself struggling to stay on my feet.
“Watch it,” Keva says, yanking me back as a man lands in front of me.
I barely have the strength to duck as he swings for my face, the bone-white club whistling inches from my ear. The demon continues his spin, swiping my legs out from under me with a low kick, and I fall backward, taking Keva down with me. I catch sight of the heavy club as the demon whips it around again, and close my eyes, waiting for the fatal blow.
“What’s happening?” Keva asks, voice muffled. “Morgan?”
I crack my eyes open, surprised that my brains haven’t been bashed out yet, and find the demon frozen above me, eyes round with shock, the tip of a blade disappearing from his chest in a spray of blood.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
The voice is soft and sweet, and makes my skin crawl.
“Morgan, get off me!” Keva says, her sharp elbow digging into my ribs. But when I finally move off her, she presses herself close to me. “What. Is. That?” she asks.
We watch mutely as the latest demon goes through the remaining men like a scythe through a field of wheat in a blur of movements. I swallow hard.
“Is it…helping us?” Keva asks.
“I certainly hope so,” I say, the words coming out slurred. Or we’re totally done for. Especially if I feel the slightest movement’s going to make me pass out.
“All right, then, let’s go before…” Keva lets her voice trail off.
All at once, the chaos has ended. Slowly, we turn to look back at the newcomer, and I feel Keva go still against me. Standing quietly amidst a pile of dead bodies is another girl, her long, jet black hair hiding most of her pale face.
“Is she praying?” I ask, wiping my clammy hands on my dress.
“More importantly, is that our uniform?” Keva asks instead.
“Saint George’s balls, I think you’re right.”
Keva tilts her head. “You know what? I think I know who that is.”
“What?”
“Remember that KORT knight who went missing after her squire was found poisoned?”
“Rei,” I say, locking onto the memory of the first black-vein murder at Lake High. One for which I’d originally been accused.
“Well that’s her missing knight, Kaede,” Keva says.
At the sound of her name, the girl raises her head, and a pair of dark, almond-shaped eyes seeks mine out. There goes our chance to escape. Without once looking away, the Asian girl sheathes her twin swords behind her back, and
starts prowling towards us.
“You sure it’s her?” I ask, the need to throw up growing stronger with every step the girl takes.
“Well it looks like her…”
With a warning growl, the banshee bounds in front of us, and at last the girl stops in her tracks. Although they’re of a same height, this Kaede girl manages to make the banshee look frail in comparison. I flick my eyes to the bodies littering the ground, and have no doubt it would take the knight seconds to take us down too, if she wanted. My gaze slides back to the girl, and my heartrate spikes at the sight of her slowly reaching for her swords again.
“Are you Kaede?” I call out before she can stab the banshee.
The KORT knight’s footsteps come to a stop, and I try not to cower as she stares impassively at me over the banshee’s hunched figure. “Are you a Collector?” she asks at last.
“A what?”
“Col-lec-tor,” the girl repeats, enunciating every syllable like she’s talking to a daft child.
My nostrils flare, surprise turning to annoyance. The banshee growls again, as if in tune with my feelings. “Why don’t you answer my question first?” I snap.
“Play nice, Morgan,” Keva whispers urgently. “We’re not the ones with the sharp swords here.”
“Maybe she should explain what she means instead of talking down to me,” I mutter, feeling that sickening power stir in the pit of my stomach again.
Kaede’s lids lower in suspicion until her eyes are but tiny crescents in her moon-pale face, sending goosebumps down my arms. Keva’s right. This is clearly not someone to mess with—there’s a reason she’s survived this long in Hell.
The knight’s emotionless gaze slides over to Keva. “Are you not her offering for the Teind?” she asks.
“For the what?” I say.
Keva snorts in derision. “Her offering? Me? I can’t look that stupid, even if I did come down here for her.” She waves at me with a loud sigh. “This is Morgan, and I’m Keva, and we’re roommates in Lake High. Or were, before the school was taken over by the Dark Sidhe.”
“You’re a…knight?” Kaede asks with such genuine surprise that I look down as well.
The beautiful gown I’d worn for the ball is but a tattered memory, leaving most of my legs bare, my blood and dust-coated feet in full display. And despite our precarious situation, I find myself hugging Arthur’s jacket closer to myself, face heating with embarrassment.
“I know she looks fishy,” Keva says, breaking the awkward silence, “but there are attenuating circumstances. She’s a squire, you see, to Sir Arthur, actually. You remember him, right? And since he also happens to be her lover, he gave her his jacket at the ball in Caamaloth. Hence the confusion, I believe. But she didn’t get a chance to change, as that’s when our headquarters were invaded, and she actually was kidnapped. Of course, we got her back, but then Dub—”
“You wear no oghams and yet…,” Kaede says, cutting Keva’s lengthy explanations short, and motioning to the dark pool behind her.
My insides grow cold. I wish I could deny I had anything to do with the tar’s appearance, but it’s no use lying. Even if I could still physically do so.
“I, uh,…,” I start, panic striking me dumb.
How do you explain your abilities to a blood-thirsty knight before she can skewer you?
“She’s half-Fey,” Keva blurts out. “But she’s just recently started to learn how to use her powers, so she can be a little all over the place. Though I admit she’s never done anything quite like this before.”
“Fey, but not demon?” Kaede asks.
“No, not a demon,” Keva says firmly.
With a slow nod, the knight finally rocks back on her heels, and I finally allow myself to unclench my fists. “It is as was foretold, then,” she says.
Keva and I exchange concerned glances.
But before we can ask what she means, Kaede motions towards the hills. “Let’s leave before they awaken.”
“Where are you going?” I ask the knight as she swiftly walks into the hills, back the way she came.
“Come one,” Keva tells me, struggling to put her boot back on.
“But this could be a trap,” I whisper to Keva, finding it hard to focus on her small face.
“No, dummy,” she says, “she’s just following the knights’ honor code to help those in need.”
“Or maybe it’s a trap,” I insist.
But Keva ignores me entirely and rushes to the knight’s side. “I thought they were dead,” I hear her say through the buzzing in my ears.
“For now,” Kaede replies.
“You mean they come back to life?”
I shake my head sluggishly, trying unsuccessfully to get my hearing back to normal.
“We’re in Hell,” Kaede says, already moving. “Nobody dies here unless you give them the true death.”
“With a stake to the heart?”
“By destroying their oghams.”
I blink slowly as Keva waves impatiently for me to follow. Note her concern. See her mouth move soundlessly. Then the ground tilts sideways, and I’m dimly aware of the banshee catching me before I pass out.
Chapter 5
“Go lick your wounds elsewhere.”
I startle at the harsh voice, only to find myself standing in the middle of a wide, hilly field of blue flowers nestled between two steep cliffs. A breeze sweeps through the meadow, making the flowers shimmer under the pale sun. The hairs at the back of my neck stand up.
Bluebells.
Bluebells covering every inch of land like a giant blanket. Which can only mean one thing: I’m in unknown Fey territory.
“This isn’t good,” I hear Gauvain say ominously as his cousin steps around me.
“Surely he wouldn’t set a trap for us?” Hadrian says from further down.
“I wouldn’t mind a trap if it’s like the one Arthur got,” Gareth says, flashing a big smile.
“That’s because no girl in her right mind would want to go near you,” Gauvain retorts.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Gauvain smirks. “That’s funny coming from you.”
Gareth points at his cousin with his war hammer arm. “Your sense of humor is absolutely déplorable.”
“What I’d like to know,” Hadrian cuts in before the two can get into another of their infamous fights, “is who the Leanan Sidhe came to you as.”
A glint enters Gauvain’s dark eyes. “Great question, you still haven’t told us who the lucky girl is.”
“Please don’t tell us it’s that Fey-blooded bastard girl,” Daniel’s nasally voice chimes in, stifling a yawn. “If it were me, I’d have run away before she could stab me again.”
Gareth snickers. “Yes, we all know running away is your favorite course of action.”
There’s a dull metallic clang and we whirl around in time to see Hadrian toppling to the ground over Daniel’s unconscious body.
RUN!
My cry remains silent, unheeded, and I’m forced to watch helplessly as, one by one, the knights drop into the flowers like flies, Gareth the last of them. The ground suddenly wobbles around me, too. But before I can drop all the way down to the ground, there’s a flash of bright purple, and Lugh’s suddenly standing before me, a young Fey boy with pointy teeth at his side.
“Enough, Oberon,” he calls out, his chocolaty voice sending tingles down my spine. Without even noting my presence, he turns his brooding face towards the setting sun. “You know we have not come here to fight,” he continues, a little louder.
At his words, the soft breeze picks up, leaves and flowers clustering in its wake like a giant swarm of bees, heading in our direction. I squint as the air bends and waves, like on a really hot day, before coalescing into the shape of a man the size of a boulder. The Fey lord scowls at Lugh for a long moment, floral cloak flapping angrily around his stout legs.
“I don’t like having to repeat myself, Lugh,” the Fey says. �
�Coming here uninvited means you’re trespassing. I believe you know our laws on that.”
“Such laws are moot in times of war,” Lugh replies evenly.
“A war that I didn’t start and will make sure not to get involved in.”
“You may want to get all of the facts straight before deciding on anything,” Lugh says, looking down his nose at the shorter Fey lord. “Especially when both our worlds are at stake.”
“Do not presume to know what I want,” Oberon retorts, “except to have you out of my Demesne. So pick up your trash, and leave. Now.”
He snaps his fingers together, and the breeze starts anew, this time moving away from him. A minute later, the fallen knights wake up, confused looks turning to angry glares as they realize what’s happened.
Only then do I notice the tiny little creatures darting in and out of the knights’ reach, tiny wings beating furiously at the air, as if to shoo them all away.
“Dwarf pixies,” Gareth says with disgust, spitting on the ground.
At that, a scintillating cloud of blue lifts from the flowerbed to buzz angrily about his head in an offended series of screeches.
“Get those fleas away from me!” a tinny voice shouts, coming from the winged gerbil on Gareth’s shoulder, and I recognize the Fey creature I’d seen through Mordred’s scrying, the one that turned Gareth’s arm into a war hammer with an ill-fated wish.
“What happened to your usual guard?” Oberon asks Lugh, eyeing the weary knights with evident distaste. “Were you forced to adopt these pests because all of your people have deserted you?”
“Unlike others, I do not need a guard,” Lugh says, voice dropping dangerously low at the implied insult.
Oberon’s gaze lifts to Lugh’s eyepatch, and he smirks. “It’s not what it looks like to me. Think your daddy would approve of your new look?”
“We came together because we have forged an alliance,” Hadrian says quickly before Lugh can react to this new insult.
“I would much have preferred it had you sent Sameerah as your ambassador,” Oberon says, ignoring Hadrian completely. He smiles toothily. “She’s a damn sight finer to look at than your sorry arse. Not that she would have changed my decision in the least.”
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