"Says who?" Satterly frowned.
Polly looked at Jasmine. "Quiet, stupid," she said. "He doesn't know things."
"Voila!" shouted Meyer. He stood by one of the oblongs in the cave's rear. He reached for the edge of a tarpaulin and pulled, revealing a sight that nearly brought tears to Satterly's eyes.
It was a red convertible, big, wide. Human. A 1971 Pontiac LeMans.
"This is the greatest automobile ever made," said Meyer, brushing over the paint with his fingertips. "A wolf in sheep's clothing. A '71 LeMans Sport, with an extremely rare 355 horsepower, 455 cubic inch V8. Aluminum intake manifold. Four-barreled carb. Four on the floor, with a power top, Rally wheels, and an AM motherfucking eight-track stereo in the dash."
"Just ignore him," said Linda, coming up behind them. "Once he starts talking about that thing there's no stopping him."
Meyer rolled his eyes. "It's only the greatest car ever made," he said.
Satterly was shocked. "But it looks so good. There's no way this car's been here for fifteen years."
"Time goes slower in the cave; it's great for the cars, but every minute we spend back here is more like twenty outside. So get back there and start pushing."
"A shifting place," said Satterly. "Okay, but why are we doing this exactly?"
A few feet away, Jim Broward took the other tarp off of his own vehicle, a mideighties Chevy pickup that was badly dented on the passenger side.
"Linda take you out to see the Hole?" asked Meyer, pushing the Pontiac from the driver's side, holding the wheel through the window.
Satterly grunted a yes.
"Well, it's been climbing that hill for years now. Problem is that it's now about fifty feet off the ground in our world." He leaned into his work. "We have to bring it down to earth."
Satterly wiped his forehead. "Mind telling me why we can't just drive out of here?"
"Batteries won't hold a charge in this place," said Meyer. "We have to roll them down the hill."
Broward stood by his truck, scowling. "Hey, you two. Stop screwing around and push."
It was backbreaking work pushing the two automobiles up the sloped floor of the cavern and into the sunlight. Satterly looked out across the hilltop and could see what looked like spires protruding from the mist in the distance. Past the hilltop the ground grew level; only baked earth and lonely trees separated them from the veiled city.
"What's that?" he said, pointing.
"Fae city," said Meyer. "Sylvan. We don't go there."
In the other direction lay the blue sphere, or the Hole, as the humans called it. By day it wasn't particularly remarkable, just a swatch of color in the dirt. From the mouth of the cave, the ground sloped downward to where the Hole lay in its ditch.
"When we're ready, we'll start the cars rolling, pop the clutches, and put the cars in place running," said Meyer.
Paul, the former truck driver, reached into the back of Broward's pickup and pulled out a length of chain that rattled metallically against the truck bed. At its end was a menacing steel hook.
"Is it strong enough?" said Broward.
"How the hell should I know?" said Paul, tugging on the chain.
Broward nodded. "Let's go get Hereg."
Satterly felt a tug on his shirtsleeve. It was Rachel, Linda's daughter, her hair done up in pigtails.
"Mister," she said, her face grim. "Once they all leave, can we go with you to Sylvan?"
Satterly frowned. "No, honey, we're all going home together." She made him uncomfortable; it was a discomfort he'd experienced before but couldn't place.
Rachel shook her head. "I am home," she said. She reached for the bandages around her ears and tugged. They came off, revealing ragged wounds dried to the color of rust, sliced across the tops of her ears. Despite having been cut, however, Satterly could see the beginnings of two perfect points sprouting from the raw flesh. The points were perfectly formed, perfectly Fae.
"See," said Rachel. "I am home." She pointed at Satterly. "You don't know it yet, but so are you."
Chapter 29
homecoming
Satterl stood in front of the cage, feeling like a traitor.
"Mauritane, can I talk to you?"
Mauritane seemed to take a moment to recognize him. The influence of the steel bars was worsening. "What?" he said, keeping his distance from Satterly and the bars.
"It's just that these people have found a way back to my world," said Satterly, looking into the dirt. "And that's all I wanted, was to go home. And also, you know, I was never much help to you anyway. It seemed like I was always getting in the way or getting yelled at or laughed at by somebody. So, I think I'm going to go ahead and leave with these people. Back to my world."
Satterly looked up at Mauritane. Mauritane's face was tired. The lines in his face were deeper and the number of gray hairs in his head seemed to have doubled since they'd met.
"You betray me as well?" said Mauritane. "I should have expected it from you. I never trusted you. I trusted Mave."
"This isn't easy for me," said Satterly. "If that's any consolation."
Mauritane laughed and staggered away, his right hand constantly reaching for a sword that was not there.
"Come on!" said Chris Broward. "We don't have all day!"
Chris and Meyer Schrabe opened the gate to the cage, shotguns at the ready. No one in the cage moved. Raieve glared out of the bars at Satterly and spat into the dirt.
The two men took Gray Mave beneath the arms and dragged him out of the enclosure, his boots making double lines in the muddy ground.
"God, this guy is heavy," said Meyer. "We should have brought my car around."
Satterly waved, awkwardly. "Bye," he said. "I'm sorry."
Only Raieve watched him leave. Silverdun and Mauritane sat with their eyes cast downward, their fingers drawing idly in the dirt.
Hereg had been painting symbols all morning long. He carried a handful of brushes, painting on every available surface in blue, green, and black. Meyer's wife, jenny, followed him around with a collection of earthenware jars, each containing a different color of ink. Slowly, methodically, he worked. By midday he'd covered most of the small clearing with Fae runes, their multicolored angles and curves covering the stone ground, the rocks, the tree trunks. Even the flowers of the magnolia tree at the top of the hill had been painted. Meyer complained when Hereg began applying paint to the LeMans but relented after a withering stare from Broward.
As the day wore on, Satterly helped push the cars into place and attach the chains to the makeshift harness that Paul had built for the Hole. When sent down the hill to retrieve something from the huts, he studiously avoided his former companions in their cage. Several times he stopped and spoke with Linda. She was flushed and nervous; she continuously moved her hands. Satterly understood how she felt. As Hereg's spell came closer and closer to being cast, Satterly found himself remembering his own home, his own past. He started opening doors in his mind he'd long assumed shut for good.
"Do you know what?" he said to Linda. "I can't remember my phone number. I can remember my locker combination from tenth grade, but I'll be damned if I can remember my phone number. Can you?"
Linda thought long and hard and eventually gave up. "It started with a three. I'm pretty sure of that. But we'd just moved, so that's hardly my fault."
Satterly laughed. He threw his arms around Linda and hugged her. She hugged him back. What the hell? They were going home.
Hereg finished lighting his candles and approached Satterly, plucking bits of dried wax from his fingertips. "Your companions will survive," he said in halting English. "I will release them once you have gone."
"Thank you," said Satterly in Common. "I would hate for anything to happen to them because of me. I don't know how you survived so long in there."
"I am schooled in the mind and body art of meditation," Hereg said. "I taught them a few lessons. It should keep them."
"You seem much improved," said Satterly.
"O
ne thing," said Hereg, still in English. "The children. Will your companions take them once you are gone? I know nothing of children, and they would not be welcome in the Unseelie lands."
Satterly squinted at the tired scholar. "Why do you say that? The children said the same thing. Aren't they coming with us?"
Hereg smiled, a broken, wasted gesture. "You'll see."
"The thing begins now!" he suddenly shouted. "Bring the wagons! Pray to your gods. The thing begins now!" He swept his robe around him and began chanting in an ancient dialect of High Fae. "Kho felas she annas! Kho fel ess biret! Kho felas ananaar!"
Hereg walked to the ravine, where the blue sky of Earth glittered like a sapphire. He knelt before the sphere, where it rested in the center of his runic scrawl. Satterly tried in vain to follow what Hereg said. Something about naming the axes of motion, calling out for the true names of something, a plea to something deep within. Satterly could not understand it.
Satterly looked up to the hill's highest point, where the LeMans and the pickup waited. Meyer was behind the wheel of the convertible, and Jim Broward was in the truck. At a signal from Hereg, they both released their brakes and began rolling slowly down the hill. Dried leaves and twigs crackled beneath their tires. Broward's truck stuttered in its motion. The engine coughed and sputtered to life, lurching the truck forward. Broward revved the engine and dropped the truck into a higher gear.
Meyer's first shot at popping the clutch failed. The LeMans growled once, twice, then died, continuing its slow roll down the slope. Meyer, his hair blowing in the slight breeze of the car's motion, froze. The car continued to roll forward, now halfway down the slope. In a few moments he would be at the level of the ravine.
Broward honked his horn. Hereg jumped, frightened by the sudden noise. Meyer started, nodded furiously. He jerked the gearshift and leaned backward. The car coughed again and the engine caught, nearly bottoming out on the slope.
"Give it gas!" Broward shouted through his open window. Meyer closed his eyes, wincing. The LeMans eased slowly to life, idling with a steady roar.
"Let's go!" shouted Broward. "We don't have much time!"
They drove the rest of the way down the slope without incident, stopping at the level of the sphere. Their camp was at the far bottom of the hill, where the ravine expanded and leveled out into the forest.
Satterly felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. It was Linda. "Can you believe it?" she said. "It's really happening."
Satterly nodded. He looked to Hereg's left, where Gray Mave lay, tiny runic markings covering his entire naked body.
"Satterly!" cried Mave, catching his gaze. It came out as a whisper.
"Uh, I'll be back," Satterly said to Linda. He approached Gray Mave.
"I can already feel it beginning," said Mave. "I can feel him pulling the life out of me. He's channeling my Gift, pressing it into something larger. More focused. It's beautiful."
"You're going to be okay, Mave," said Satterly, kneeling beside him.
Mave shook his head and coughed. "I'm beyond that now, Satterly. Look." He ran his hands over his chest wound. The skin there was black and rotting. "Those bugganes really got me. It was all I deserved."
"No, Mave. You didn't deserve it. You did what you thought was right."
Mave reached out and took Satterly's hand in his. It was surprisingly soft and warm. "I always knew what I was doing was wrong," he said. "Now, at least I can atone for it."
"Dammit," said Satterly. "It's not true. You don't deserve to die."
Mave tried to sigh but only produced an ugly wet cough. "Satterly, don't cheapen my death. Let me be noble for once."
Satterly sat down hard on the hard ground. Somewhere, a hot wind began to blow.
"Move away," said Hereg, taking Satterly roughly by the shoulder. "Get out of the way."
Satterly stood up and stumbled backward, toward Linda.
Hereg turned to face the sphere and called out a few more phrases in his ancient dialect. The sphere began to shimmer, clouding over.
The wind Satterly had felt on the ground now grew to a gust, racing over his skin like the Santa Ana he'd felt once in Los Angeles, a wall of hot air. The trees around them began to shake and sway, their few brown leaves scattering and swirling in the wind.
Hereg cried out something unintelligible and the sphere began to grow. The wind intensified, and Satterly felt Linda holding on to him for balance. The whisper of the floating leaves grew to a roar as the trees for dozens of yards in every direction started to bow crazily, shaking loose entire branches that dropped to the earth with ugly thuds.
Satterly inhaled a mouthful of old dust, rotten ice, and dirt. The sphere was getting larger, now the size of Hereg, continuing to expand.
The sphere sat precariously now at the top of the ravine. Directly before it stood Hereg, the wind blowing his robes around him. Behind him, Mave lay on the ground, his body beginning to shake. His eyes were closed. Behind Mave, Meyer and Broward were backing their vehicles into position on either side of Mave's prostrate form.
Paul stood alongside holding a length of chain in each hand. When Meyer and Broward were in position, he ran behind the cars, clipping his chains to their frames. He walked along the chains' length, checking their position, allowing them to flow through his hands as he circumnavigated the sphere. When his circuit was complete, he nodded to Hereg, handing him a loop of heavy wire that terminated one of the chains. Hereg's skin crackled when it came into contact with the steel of the wire, but if he felt pain he did not show it.
"Avi ke'ele.!" called Hereg. From what little he understood of Fae thaumatics, Satterly recognized the call to a triggered memory spell, a keyword that launched a previously spoken bit of magic. The sphere changed colors, sparked; electric flashes shimmered inside its depths. It became completely opaque, darkening to black.
"Now," said Hereg. "I have placed a solid skin around it. It can be moved now. But it must be done quickly!" He stepped quickly to the side, dragging Gray Mave's limp form with him.
Paul signaled to the men in the cars. He ran and stood behind the sphere, taking a coil of the chain, the one Satterly had seen earlier with the hook at the end, and hurling it over the black shape. Hereg caught his throw clum sily and fastened the hook to the loop that he held. He waved to the drivers again and leapt out of the way.
Both Broward and Meyer gunned their engines, dropping into first gear. Both autos lurched forward and stopped short as the chains pulled tight against the hard surface of the sphere. There was a sharp grinding sound, the chains grating against the unnatural black exterior of the Hole. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the giant shape began to move.
They drove downhill, along the path that Linda had led Satterly up the night before. They passed the unknown dead man's tow truck, Linda's Volvo, Paul's semi. The Hole continued to expand, growing to the height of the tallest trees. It radiated waves of energy, like a hot road on a summer's day. The wind continued, boring its way through Satterly's clothes, stinging his eyes. He helped Hereg drag Gray Mave down the long hillside.
When they reached the bottom of the slope, the LeMans died. The sphere's progress halted instantly and Broward shut off his truck, leaping out of the cab.
"Let's go!" he shouted. "Let's go!"
"I need the blood now!" Hereg cried over the wind. He held a long curved knife.
"Take mine," shouted Broward. He held out his hand.
"What about the children?" Hereg shouted back.
"We share the same blood, all of us! They're our kids! They're human!"
Hereg shook his head. Broward took the knife from his hand and sliced across his own palm, letting his blood seep onto the ground.
"The blood of life calls its people homeward!" Hereg called, his voice suddenly grown louder, stronger. "Make straight the path!"
The sphere responded with a brilliant white flash. Suddenly, within its confines, a paved street appeared, lined with low brick homes. Young trees
were dotted over freshly mowed lawns. Minivans and late-model sedans were parked in the driveways. It was dusk there.
For a few breaths, no one moved. No one spoke. Satterly only heard the sound of the wind rushing through him, saw only the vision of home. Hereg broke the tableau.
"It will only hold for a few minutes. You must go now!"
Broward threw up his hands. "You heard him! Go!" He pushed Paul toward the sphere. Paul took a deep breath and stepped across the threshold. The light coming across the border refracted his silhouette; for an instant he appeared in double. Then he was standing on the street. Tears were streaming down his eyes. He screamed soundlessly, his fist to the skies, laughing. One porch light snapped on, then another. Doors opened and young men in blue jeans and women with babies at their hips stepped onto their concrete porches. Paul sank to his knees, weeping.
"Let's go!" said Broward. He pushed his own son. "Go!"
Chris stepped through the Hole, much to the shock of the suburban audience. Satterly tried to imagine the lean, scraggly Chris Broward materializing from nowhere onto their master-planned street. He laughed out loud.
Meyer and jenny each took one of their daughters' hands, and they walked toward the sphere, the four of them in a line. "Welcome home, girls!" shouted Meyer. They stepped across the boundary of the sphere.
The two parents doubled and passed through to Earth. The girls, however, simply walked through the Hole as though it were not there. When they had passed all the way through the mass of it, they stepped out the far side, their faces solemn.
Meyer and jenny turned around, bewildered, looking for their children. They stepped backward toward the sphere, but when they reached its edge, they did not reappear. Instead, they disappeared from view entirely.
"They can't come back," whispered Satterly.
"Damn you, Hereg!" cried Broward. "Damn you to hell!" Broward pulled a pistol from his vest and leveled it at Hereg, his face red. "Send those girls through, right now!"
Hereg shouted back. "I told you I cannot. The children are Fae. They are children of the land, whether you wish it or not."
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