The Cardinal Gate

by Amy Cissell

  The Cardinal Gate

  An Eleanor Morgan Novel, Book One

  Amy Cissell

  The Cardinal Gate

  An Eleanor Morgan Novel, Book One

  Copyright © 2016

  by Amy Cissell

  ISBN: 1543023142

  ISBN-13: 978-1543023145

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author at amyrcissell@gmail.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Skyla Dawn Cameron, Indigo Chicks Design

  Edited by: Jennifer Severino, Twitching Pen Editing

  To Dad

  because you always knew I would

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  The Waning Moon

  Also by Amy Cissell

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank my beta readers, Jamie and Marci, for their time, critiques, and encouragement.

  * * *

  Thank you to Elizabeth Hunter, Colleen Vanderlinden, and Mel Sterling for all the amazing advice on navigating the world of self-publishing.

  * * *

  I’m grateful to my editor, Jennifer Severino from Twitching Pen Editing, for her expertise, patience, and comma rehabilitation.

  * * *

  Special thanks to my cover artist, Skyla Cameron from Indigo Chick Designs, for her excellent work on bringing Eleanor to life.

  * * *

  Thank you to Chris for your patience and support as I went through the pain of the editing process. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  * * *

  The biggest thanks, however, are reserved for Cat. You were not only my first reader, but the sounding board for all my questions, doubts, fits of ridiculousness, and airing of personal laundry. You are everything a woman could want in a PSM.

  Chapter One

  I WATCHED THE sun go down from my porch swing, admiring the pile of branches I’d cut from the large hedge that had been growing like a weed lately and threatening to overrun my property. As the sky was purpling into dusk, a flash like animal eyes in the dark shone from the hedge.

  The hedge moved. Whatever it was, it was quite large.

  “Shoo! Get out of here!” I flapped my hands towards the movement.

  A tall figure glided onto my lawn. His suit made me think he’d gotten lost on the way to a Steampunk convention. He bowed with a dramatic flourish. “Your powers of perception are indeed amazing, Ms. Morgan.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” A wave of queasiness washed over me. He knew my name.

  “It was remiss of me to not introduce myself immediately. My name is Jonathan Deacon.” He bowed again.

  “The bowing is a bit melodramatic, Mr. Deacon.”

  “Please, call me Jonathan. May I call you Eleanor?”

  “No. Why were you in my hedge? How do you know my name? What do you want?”

  “So many questions! I would be delighted to answer them all for you, but wouldn’t we be more comfortable in your living room?”

  “I wouldn’t be. I don’t invite peeping Toms into my house. Answer my questions or I’ll call the cops.”

  “I don’t think you’ll do that, Ms. Morgan,” he whispered into my ear. I jumped at his sudden and inexplicable proximity. “I’m sure you don’t want any trouble.”

  I had never felt like prey before, but this unnatural creature rang every one of my alarm bells. “What are you?” I whispered.

  “Your worst nightmare and the one who will claim the bounty.” He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. “I’ve never drank a fairy before. This should be excellent.”

  I screamed as his teeth elongated into fangs, and then thrust my knee into his groin, grabbed his arm, and attempted to throw him off me. His grip was unyielding, even as he bent double.

  “I could’ve made this pleasant for you, Princess,” he snarled. “Now, however, this will hurt.”

  He lowered his mouth towards my neck. His teeth broke my skin and I whimpered when searing hot pain started coursing through my veins. Before he’d had more than a swallow, the pain abruptly ceased, and he dissolved in front of me. The particulates in the air slowly fell to the ground in a pile of dust and ash.

  Finnegan Byrne, my best—and only—friend, stood on the other side of the pile of ashes with a laurel stake in his hand and shit-eating grin on his face. “Good thing you had all this wood around.”

  He dropped the stake when I kicked him in the shin. “Ow! What the hell? I saved your life!”

  “What are you doing here? Are you another stalker like this…” I struggled with the word before spitting it out, “vampire? How did you know my life needed saving?”

  “You called me.”

  “I did not. I didn’t have a chance.”

  “We’re…connected. When you screamed in fear, I came. I’ll always come to help if I’m able.”

  “This is too much, Finn. I was attacked by a motherfucking vampire who knew my name. What. The. Fuck?”

  Finn shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground. “I have something to tell you, and you’re not going to believe me.”

  “What do you mean, you have something to tell me? Something relevant to this?” I waved, rather wildly, at the pile of ashes in front of me.

  “I don’t know how to begin. I’ve had this conversation a hundred times in my head, but now that it’s time, I’m not sure how to start.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and glared. Finn cleared his throat. “Ellie, can you calm down? Or take a couple deep breaths or something? You’re upsetting the hedge.”

  My mouth dropped open. “I’m upsetting the hedge? I don’t even know which word to emphasize in that sentence.”

  “Look.”

  I turned my attention to the hedge I had just spent hours trimming. It had grown a couple of feet in the last few minutes. “What the hell is going on? How is that my fault?”

  Finn closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re a fairy.”

  “That’s what the…vampire said, too. I don’t understand.”

  “Magic, vampires, fairies—everything you read in your childhood books is real. The Fae—fairies—were locked away in their land a thousand years ago. It’s kind of a…parallel universe. The gates between our worlds were sealed up with magic, and only a few holes were left.”

  “I don’t understand those words in that order.”

  “You were sent here from the Fae plane so that when the magical barriers began to weaken, you’d be here to open the doors, allowing the Fae
access to this world again.”

  “What about my parents? Were they my parents? Am I a changeling like in Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene?” Is there a human somewhere who should’ve been raised by my folks?”

  “Your human parents were good people who desperately wanted a child but couldn’t conceive. It’s a fairy tale in every sense of the word. You were left on their doorstep with a note and a check, and they raised you like their own. They were your parents.”

  “Holy crap. I’m like Harry Potter! Did they know who I was?”

  “All they knew is that you needed a home.” Finn ran his hand through his red hair, making it stand up in little spikes. “I know it sounds weird and it’s impossible, but look at your hedge. The vampire. It’s time. The magic pendulum is starting to swing, and you’re the one who will open the gates. You are magic. Once you open all the gates, the boundaries will fall, and the Fae can once again access this land.”

  His words punched through me and sat heavy in my gut. I couldn’t tell if I was about to cry or puke or both. None of this could be true. It didn’t make sense. Fairy tales weren’t real, and even if they were, I was not part of them. I was Eleanor Morgan, data entry specialist and avid gardener. I had more hobbies than friends. I was not the heroine of some great tale.

  “I’m getting a beer.” I turned and strode into my house.

  Finn followed me in and sighed. “Ellie, I wish I had more time to explain what was going on. I wish you had the luxury of adjusting over a period of years instead of a day, but you don’t. I’ll start with what you need to know and do my best to fill in the blanks as we move forward. It’s my job to guide you through this process, to help you find the gates, and to be a resource as you learn more about your powers and your people.”

  I took a long swig of my beer. “Finn, we’ve known each other for years. You’ve had time. More importantly and exponentially creepier, if I’m your ‘job,’ then it wasn’t chance we met when I moved here after my parents died. You orchestrated that meeting. I took you home the night we met and was surprised when we kept running into each other. It wasn’t a coincidence; it was part of a convoluted plot so you could keep an eye on me. That is a violation of everything, Finn. Everything. How can I trust anything you say at this point? You lied to get into my bed and lied for years after. You pretended to be my friend, and this whole time it was pretext.”

  “It’s not like that, Ellie. I swear. I did seek you out when you moved here. I knew who and what you were. Going home with you was not part of my plan. Sleeping with you was not part of my job description. It was more of a bonus.”

  “Are you fucking kidding? Did you refer to fucking me as a job bonus? At least I put an end to that long ago.” Red, hot anger was brewing in my chest. We’d been friends for years, and regardless of his feelings for me now, he’d used a lie and my good will to creep into my life. Every time he’d joked about us being a couple, every time I’d called him when I was lonely and needed a friend, every time we’d shared pizza and beer—it was all based on a lie.

  “No! No, definitely not. I meant that you’re amazing! I like you and regardless of why we met, I still want to be your friend, more than friends if you’ll let me.”

  It was the same refrain he’d been singing since I’d changed our relationship from “friends with benefits” to “friends only.” I couldn’t reciprocate his feelings, so I’d ended it. He’d wanted to stay friends, but that hadn’t stopped him from trying to talk his way back into my bed, and presumably from there into my heart, ever since.

  I couldn’t deal with the emotional backlash from him and the sea of emotions I was drowning in with everything he’d just told me. Part of me wondered if this was some elaborate ploy to win me back, but then I remembered the vampire. I shuddered and the tug of war between tears and vomit was leaning towards the latter at this point.

  “Finn, I’m tired. It’s been a long day. Can we table everything until tomorrow? I believe that something is going on, and it looks like I’m involved whether or not I want to be, but I’m bleeding from the neck, and I need one more night before I give up reality for whatever’s coming next.”

  “Of course. We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll stay in the guest room in case you need me.”

  I started to object, then thought about the pile of ash on my porch. “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea. I wasn’t prepared for a vampire attack.”

  I locked the door. “Do you need anything?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Perfect.” I climbed the stairs and closed my bedroom door firmly behind me.

  I’d forgotten to close the curtains on my east-facing window so I woke with the sun. I rubbed my eyes and stumbled downstairs to following the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Finn stood at the stove flipping pancakes. “Good morning,” he said.

  I didn’t answer, although I did take his peace offering of breakfast.

  When I finished eating, I took my coffee to the porch. I sat in the middle of the porch swing to make it perfectly obvious he was not welcome to join me. He sat on the railing across from me and opened his mouth.

  “Wait.” I held up one finger to silence him. “Let me have one more moment.” I took a sip of coffee and side-eyed the hedge. It was twenty feet taller than it had been last night. I turned back to Finn. “Okay. I have a few questions I’d like covered and then we can get through the things you’d like to say.”

  Finn nodded. “That sounds reasonable. What do you want to know?”

  I ticked off my questions on my fingers. “One—who and/or what are you? Two—if I’m a fairy and the land of the Fae is locked down, how did I get here? Three—vampires? Seriously? What else should I worry about? Werewolves? Sorcerers? Are there unicorns? Four—gates? Opening? Explain.”

  I held out my thumb, looked at it, then looked at Finn. “I guess that’s it for now. Go.”

  “You know who I am. I’m Finnegan Byrne. I’m Irish. Ish.”

  I interrupted, “Irishish? That’s a lot of ish. You don’t sound Irish.”

  Finn laughed. “I didn’t live in Ireland for long, comparatively. To answer your second question…”

  “Oh, no. You don’t get away that easily. You missed the ‘what are you’ part of the question. I know you’re not exactly human since you managed to show up in time to save me because you knew I was scared.”

  “Can’t pull one over on you, can I? I’m also Fae. Kind of. I’m more of an exile. My mother was Fae and my father was Irish. She snuck through a hole in the border and met my father. It was either a grand romance or a terrible one-night stand, depending on her mood when she was telling the story. When I was born so obviously part human, she came to this plane permanently. I was contacted when they needed someone familiar with the human world to keep an eye on you.”

  My mouth hung open a bit. Finn reached forward and pushed it closed. “I came to Portland when you did but things didn’t go as planned. I found myself buying you a drink instead of watching from the shadows and you know what happened after that.” He winked, and I curled my lip at him. There was no amount of charm that would cause me to forgive him this quickly.

  “Okay, fine. You’re half-fairy because your mother walked through a hole in the boundary—more than once, apparently. If there are holes, why do they need me? Can’t they map the holes and come and go as they please?”

  “There are doors, but there aren’t many and there are fewer every year. The more they’re used, the less likely they are to be there next time. When a door is found, it’s guarded to ensure that it’s only used for critical business—like sending through a fairy princess who will save the world. Unlawful use of a portal can carry a death sentence.”

  The more he explained, the more ridiculous things sounded. I kept expecting to wake up, or find out I was the victim of an elaborate practical joke. But even though it was completely insane, I did have the reputation of having weird things happen around me all the time. I was the bane of the IT department because they
had to replace my computer a couple times a year when the motherboard would fizzle out. I couldn’t wear a watch, compasses went haywire when I held them, and after the fire department had to be called both times I’d fallen asleep in front of my fireplace, I’d given up hanging around open flames.

  “Princess?”

  “That’s not an official title on the Fae plane, but it serves. There are two realms, the Dark and the Light. Your father is the king of the Light Sidhe. You are his only heir.”

  “Do you know him? What’s he like?”

  “I met him when he selected me for this mission. He has ruled for centuries, and is well-respected. There is little else I can share with you.”

  “Why send royalty? Wouldn’t a commoner be more disposable in case something went wrong?”

  “That is awfully classist, but that wouldn’t have worked anyway. Royalty isn’t an accident of birth—at least not the way it is here. Royalty is determined by the amount of power you have, and they needed someone of extraordinary power to open these gates.”

  I digested that information. At this point, my rank probably didn’t matter. There weren’t more than a handful of people around who’d be impressed anyway.

  Finn pushed forward, “What was next?”

  “Vampires? Werewolves? Witches? Unicorns?”

  “You saw the vampire. They drink blood and eschew sunlight. A stake through the heart—either wooden or silver—or beheading are the only ways to kill them. I understand immolation is effective, but it’s pretty hard to get them to stand still long enough. Garlic isn’t a deterrent, they have reflections, and as far as I know, they can’t fly. They can hypnotize humans into doing things they might not want to, like acting like a walking juice box and then forgetting it, but they won’t have that power over you. Most of their daytime activities and errands are carried out by Renfields—humans who are both snack and servant to the vampire. The Renfields drink a little vampire blood regularly which prolongs their lives and ties them to the bloodsucker.