eldritch files 07 - elemental blood

by weldon, phaedra

  Levi put his hand on Crwys's shoulder. "Who's Artemis? You mean like the Earth Dragon?"

  Crwys nodded.

  "You said they were all dead except you and Lethe."

  "Of course I said that." Crwys was having a hard time holding it together. A lot of things were starting to add up in his head, and he realized Sam's fears of Yolyn targeting him might be dead on. If Lethe knew the legend, she could be working to find a cure for the curse and offering him up as the prize. "I'm not going to tell people five Dragons still exist in the world today." He said it a bit harsher than he meant to. Levi didn't deserve the brunt of his frustration, but as his best friend and partner, the Revenant had built up a thick skin over the years.

  "Christ, Crwys. It's me. When are you going to start being honest with me?"

  Or maybe not.

  "Look, you two have to move or we're going to move you!" said the fireman as Crwys and Levi stood.

  "Wait," Captain Prescott said as she and her retinue approached. She was dressed in a dark coat and a sour expression. "Those are my men. I'll handle it."

  "They're too close to the scene. We have to set up a perimeter."

  Prescott nodded and then waved Crwys and Levi to follow her. Out of the residual heat of the now extinguished and heavily smoking area, she faced the two of them. "What the hell happened? Why are you here? Who set this on fire?"

  Crwys didn't know if she'd been to the morgue yet and didn't want to let on they'd already seen it and not contacted her. "We saw the smoke and sped over here."

  "And?"

  Crwys and Levi looked at each other. "Everything was gone," Crwys continued.

  "No idea who set the fire?"

  Levi shook his head.

  That's when Prescott spotted the glove-wrapped cell phone in his hand. "What's that?"

  Levi started to say something, but she took it from him. Turning it in her hand, she pressed the on button and saw a picture of Crwys and Sam. She looked at Crwys. "This is Miss Hawthorne's, isn't it?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "And I know you found it here because it's scorched, covered in soot, and Detective Tulose was holding it with a glove."

  "Ma'am, I—"

  "And I saw Miss Hawthorne's Jeep parked in the lot. You care to tell me why you found her phone here?"

  "Captain," Levi spoke up, "we don't know. We didn't expect to see the Jeep or find the phone."

  "Captain Prescott!" one of the firemen yelled out.

  Keeping the phone in her hand and giving the two detectives a glare, she stalked to the fireman. Crwys and Levi followed. "Yes?"

  He pointed to the ground and shown a flashlight. "Just saw these."

  Crwys's heart leapt into his throat as he recognized Sam's keys and bent down to retrieve them.

  "Stop right there, Detective Holliard," Prescott said in an icy voice.

  He did and looked up at her. "Captain—"

  "Those are her keys, aren't they?"

  "I'm not sure—"

  "Sergeant—" She looked at a uniformed officer to her right. "We need to help them cordon off this area. And escort these two to my car."

  The officer nodded and turned to order two more uniformed men to clear the area before he gestured for them to follow him. With a glance at Levi, Crwys took the lead and made his way back to the parking lot and the captain's car. There, the officer stood by but didn't say anything.

  Levi leaned in. "She's not thinking—"

  "Of course she is. She hates Sam. And if she can pin this fire on her, she'll do it. But I don't care about that right now. I just want to know she's okay and not in…" He glanced past Levi at the smoke and looked at the ground. He was going to lose it again if he wasn't careful. His life had become too much of an emotional rollercoaster this past year to keep going through this. He wanted Sam with him. He knew she loved him. But there was little he could do if Lethe had…

  No, he wasn't…he couldn't think about that. Not now. He had to think this one out. Why would Sam be here? The only thing that kept coming up for him was she Tracked Lethe here.

  "Can this Artemis help?" Levi said.

  "I don't know. I'm not even sure that's who this person is. Remember, we can hide ourselves from each other and most everyone else."

  "Except Sam, because she can Track?"

  "Yes. Even when we met she knew I wasn't human. She just didn't know what I was." He looked at Sam's Jeep.

  "Do I know this person?"

  "You've met him. Like I said, I'm not sure, but given his level of magic and age…and the fact he was there the night Elizabeth was killed…he had to have been the one to give Elizabeth that arrow."

  "You're talking about Papa Dumaine."

  Crwys looked at him. "Yeah. Let's hope I'm right." His phone rang and the officer started to say something as Crwys fished it from his pocket. But Levi gave the officer a death stare, so he backed down.

  "Kyle—have you seen Sam?"

  "No, I was going to ask you the same thing. Ivan said the last known location of her Jeep is in the park, at the golf course."

  Crwys looked up and around, then at the Jeep. "You got her Jeep lo-jacked?"

  Kyle paused. "I'm not gonna answer that. But there's something else happening here."

  "Where?"

  "At the shop. You're…there's no way you'd believe me if I told you. Just trust me when I say we can't get in."

  Crwys saw Prescott coming toward them. "What do you mean you can't get in? Isn't Tas there? Or Brahms?"

  There was a pause. "It's a bit more complicated than that. It's why I'm trying to find Sam. Just get over here as fast as you can."

  The look on Prescott's face when she saw him on the phone was not a pleasant one. "I'll try." He hung up. "Captain—"

  "Save it," she said as she went to her car. "You're coming with me so I can keep an eye on you two and we can find your girlfriend."

  "Ma'am?"

  "I want you both in interrogation. Someone set that fire, boys. And odds are it was Miss Hawthorne since we found her keys and her cell phone at the scene. Not to mention, I have four officers missing. Now I don’t want to accuse her of doing something to them, but where are they?" She opened the back door and pointed. "Get in."

  Levi spoke up, "But we've got—"

  "Now."

  Crwys stepped back. "I've got a car, ma'am. I'll meet you there."

  "Officer"—Prescott pointed to the man who escorted them to her car—"go with him."

  But Crwys wasn't going to have any of that. He looked at Levi and spoke to Ashur, Get away when you can.

  Certainly. Just be careful. She's very, very angry.

  I'll bet.

  Crwys had his keys out and ran to his Mustang. He was inside with the doors locked before the officer could yank up on the door handle. With a wave he cranked the high performance car, backed up, careful not to take the man down, and sped off.

  Yeah…Prescott might have him arrested for this…but damn if he was going to spend the night in some interrogation room while his lover could be in trouble. An insane Dragon was loose in the city, and a possible ally remained hidden.

  EIGHTEEN

  Dragons were long-lived, as long as they took care of themselves and hibernated when Sleep called them. So during that long life, they experienced many things. They witnessed the rise and fall of kingdoms, the subjugation of entire races, and the civil wars of the oppressed. Crwys had seen many of these things and stored them away in his long memory.

  But when he turned down Bourbon Street in the direction of Bell, Book and Candle…well, there was always something new.

  And this was definitely new.

  No one was about at 9 a.m. There should be a plethora of tourists up and about, as well as businesses open. But no one walked the streets. The second oddity was the street lights had been replaced by thick, wrapping brown and green vines with glowing glass globes on top. All of them emitted a soft, greenish glow. Inside of the globes something moved erratically, as if s
wimming in a murky pond.

  He slowed the Mustang to a stop a block and a half from the shop, threw it in park and got out, his jaw practically dragging the ground. From where he stood, the street dissolved into a thick, vine-entwined forest. He'd seen these sorts of thickets before, mostly in Oregon where the Nisse kept to themselves. During his youth, he and Lethe had blundered into one and barely escaped with their lives. Back then, it seemed fun and daring to disturb a thicket of Nisse.

  Not today. The fact he was looking at an actual thicket on the far end of Bourbon Street set off his internal alarms. Now he knew what it was swimming in those globes.

  Humans. He ran to the nearest one and peered up into the pulsing light. There, just inside, he could see the tiny spirits of the human souls the Risi had harvested. Usually, they harvested animal souls within the Greater Kingdom, or enemies, those foolish enough to encroach on their lands, to light their orbs. He knew many Wolves who’d vanished over the centuries had possibly ended up in them as well.

  But this wasn't possible. The Risi had no claim to human lands, not in this realm. Their places were hidden underhill, spelled and protected by the Jötunn and the Trolls—

  "Crwys!"

  He nearly jumped at his name and turned to see Kyle jogging toward him. Just past the Witch, Crwys could see Ivan, Dharma, Jack and…

  Bastien.

  Crwys took off at a dead run, breezing past Kyle and the others and landing a solid, jaw-cracking right cross to Bastien's face. The larger man went down, dazed, and sat on his ass for a few seconds, but he did not get up to retaliate.

  "Crwys…what the hell?" Dharma said.

  He pointed down at the Wolf. "I know what you did, and I know why you did it," he said, admitting that he understood Bastien's reasoning. The Wolf knew Sam as well as he did, having bonded to her over a year ago. Bastien had known there was nothing they could do to stop Sam from going after her mother's murderer, so he'd accompanied her. To keep her safe. "But don't you ever…ever…do it again."

  Bastien wiped blood from his nose and lip before he stood and glared down at Crwys. Dragon and Wolf…a deadly combination. But even in battle, as Crwys had proven a few months back, the Dragon had the upper hand. "Oui, Dargon," Bastien said. "Do you know where she is now?"

  At that question, Crwys's bravado deflated some. Secretly, he'd been hoping Bastien knew. That maybe she'd gone to him to help her with whatever it was she'd been doing. He shook his head. "We found her keys and her phone at the park." He looked at all of them. "The human stone statue is gone. Burned to the ground, along with everything else. The stone parts at the morgue are also gone. They turned to dust."

  "It all went up at once?" Kyle narrowed his eyes. "Convenient," he said in a sarcastic tone.

  “Weird,” Ivan said.

  "Yeah." Crwys held out his hand. "But it's not as weird as this—" And then he noticed the larger, vine-and-tree-encased structure in front of him. The streets, sidewalks, pavement, everything had been overgrown with grass and lichen. Plants, lush with green leaves and thick roots, sprouted from every crevice and hole in that pavement. The trunks, leaves, and branches rose into the sky in a twisting spire that rivaled the tallest building in downtown New Orleans. "You guys realize what this is, don't you?"

  "It's a thicket," came a familiar voice to Crwys's right. He turned to see Solomon Dumaine approaching. He wore a nice suit, still immaculately clean, even after climbing out of a bush of pink and red flowers. His hair was silver and his accent London. This was the man teaching Kyle the art of Southern Conjure. He was also Crwys's best guess for Dragon candidate.

  "Why is there a thicket at the shop?" Dharma said.

  "You know what that is?" Ivan said. "I had to go to Google to find that out."

  "I already did a bit of research on the Nisse after that first encounter, but just because I know what a thicket is doesn’t mean I know why one sprouted on top of Bell, Book and Candle…" She shook her head.

  Crwys put his hands on his hips. "Me either. I got a missing girlfriend, Nisse thicket in the middle of the French Quarter, humans locked in Nisse lamps, and has anyone listened to the radio?"

  "Nothing on there about all this. No news stories," Jack spoke up. "Check your phone. Once you passed that edge"—he pointed back to where the Mustang sat—"you entered no satellite land."

  Crwys pulled out his phone and checked. Jack was right. No bars, no nothing. It was dead. "I'm surprised there's been no action taken against this," he said as he pointed to the now surrounding magical forest.

  "There won't be," Solomon said. "Because the humans can't see what we see. This will simply look like a dead end. There are Jötunn present, unraveling memories of it as we stand here. But because we are within the heart of the thicket, we are protected."

  "That can't be right, Solomon," Ivan said. "From what I’ve read, Jötunn don't do that kind of thing unless the King tells them to, and not in the middle of a human area."

  "But this isn't human land anymore, Mr. Westerfield," Solomon said. "It's Nisse land now. Legitimately deeded to a royal representative."

  Everyone looked at Solomon in surprise, but it was Crwys that spoke up, "I suspect Sam signed it over to Brahms during that fight in order to keep Yolyn from gating in and attacking. It’s what saved us before. I would assume it was just temporary, but this…"

  Solomon looked sad. "Have you ever known the Nisse to be as the Faerie, Apollo?" The use of his given name made Crwys believe he'd been right, and this was indeed Artemis. "Faerie are bound by their word, but the Nisse are not. They have wanted a foothold to this world for some time. Not King Satar, but those who do not support the peace they've found over thousands of years."

  Dharma spoke up, "You mean those like Yolyn."

  "Wait…Tas was in the shop with Brahms. Where are they?" Crwys said.

  "I'm afraid that's where the story goes south, Detective," Solomon said. "You must realize it's not just the land that's been deeded to them." He turned.

  A noise came from the direction of where the shop should be. A hole spiraled into the air and opened. Yolyn, looking very well and rested and not wounded at all, followed by ten of her soldiers, stepped out. Dressed in their full leather armor, they fanned out in a line as if protecting their new digs. Crwys stepped forward, his hands down at his sides. He was fighting the urge to set everything on fire and watch it burn. But if he let anything happen to Sam's shop, she'd never forgive him.

  "What the hell is going on?" Crwys said.

  "What is going on, human," Yolyn said, "is that this land has been claimed by the Risi nation. You are trespassing. And by doing so, you and all your possessions are now ours."

  Crwys snorted. "That's not how this works. Where's Brahms? Did you kill him and take the land from him? Deeding it to him was just to keep you out."

  Yolyn looked behind her and then stepped aside. Crwys heard a gasp from Dharma as Brahms, now dressed in elegant, gilded armor and wearing a circlet about his head, stepped up to stand proudly beside Yolyn. His hair was no longer silver, but green, as Riven's had been. Though Brahms's ram horns remained the same. "That was the original bargain, but I made a few changes. Now everything she owned is mine."

  "What the hell?" Kyle stepped forward, but Jack put out a hand and stopped him. "This is Samantha's land!"

  "I'm afraid not," Brahms said. "She freely, of her own will, signed it over to me."

  "Who the hell are you, really?" Crwys said, starting to see through it all. He looked from Yolyn to Brahms and groaned. "You gotta be kidding me. You're her son."

  Yolyn smiled. "Good deduction, detective. Can you deduce anything else?"

  Crwys narrowed his eyes. "Not really. Though I'm pretty sure Brahms isn't the one that gated the King to safety, but one of his supporters."

  "You would be correct," Brahms said. "A Feyn named Riven."

  "Feyn?"

  Yolyn sneered. "He has the blood of a Leanan Sidhe. He was the King's real Chevalier."

  "Wa
s? Until you killed him and took his place."

  "That would be correct," Brahms said.

  Dharma clasped her hands in front of her as she gasped. "He was the King's son, wasn't he? That's why he risked his life to save the King."

  Yolyn gave Dharma an accusing stare. "Who are you to know such things?"

  But Brahms held up a hand. "She is a Water Witch. It's not surprising she's picking up on strong emotion here. This thicket was sprouted by a seedling from the King's own Thatch." He looked at Cryws. "Yes. That is why Riven risked his life. We believed at first he was working with Arden Vervain, since Riven had cut such a direct path to that particular Cairn."

  "I see," Cryws said. "So that's why you took her and tortured her, to find out the truth."

  Yolyn smiled. "Yes. I found that experience…most satisfying. It was Brahms here that convinced me she shouldn't die. I hope she is doing well in your hospital?"

  "You leave my aunt alone, bitch." Kyle was more than pissed off. Crwys was happy Jack was there to try and calm him down. He doubted Kyle understood the kind of power the Risi had on their own land. They were all in danger the longer they remained where they were.

  Brahms shook his head. "Too bad she didn't possess the knowledge to open the door. No matter, we will succeed and when we do, we will satisfy the Quest and Tolyn will be Queen."

  "You don't have a Dragon's heart," Solomon spoke up. He didn't look at anyone, just watched Brahms.

  Yolyn smiled. "Oh, but we do. Again, thanks to him."

  All eyes focused on Crwys. He returned the stare, thinking in the back of his mind that this was it. They were going to try and take him. He couldn't wait to unleash his form if they did. He doubted they'd ever actually fought with a real Dragon before.

  "You think he's a Dragon?" Solomon nodded to Crwys, a bit of a smile on his face.

  "No," Yolyn said. "But someone who hates him knew of a Dragon hiding amongst you. And now she's ours."

  She. Crwys's world stopped for a second. It wasn't Solomon? He looked at the Conjurer, who shook his head slowly. Hiding amongst us… The only Dragon hiding is me. So…who…