Sovereign (Realmwalker Book 3)

by Jonathan Franks

  Gabby’s body stiffened with tension as she entered the hospital.

  “Mom, you don’t have to come in if you don’t want to.”

  Gabby shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  “Okay. Then let’s go.”

  George led her to the elevator and they rode to the fifth floor – intensive care. They rushed to room 515. Gabby’s mother, Anne, was in the hospital bed, connected to machines by tubes and wires. Several bags hung from her IV-stand. Laura sat in a chair with her arms and chest splayed out over the bed. Her entire left arm was encased in a thick, white plaster cast.

  Laura picked up her head and slowly turned around. Her face was bruised. Her left eye was swollen shut and she had a large cut across her forehead. Her lip was split.

  “Oh my god,” George swore. “What happened?”

  Laura burst into tears when she saw him. She tried to get up and run to him but the cast made moving so awkward that George was at her side before she could even push the chair back far enough to stand.

  “Baby, oh, honey,” George petted the back of her head. Laura winced and George felt more stitches in the back of her head. “What happened?”

  Laura was sobbing. “We went downtown for Christmas shopping. We went to Marshall Field’s to see the tree and the lights and we went shopping at Water Tower Place and we drove home. A drunk driver lost control of his car and slammed into us. We got pushed over the median and a semi truck going the other way crashed into us. My dad’s gone. He didn’t make it to the hospital. And mom...” She looked at her mother, who was in a coma and hooked up to life support.

  “Holy shit,” George said. “I can’t believe it. Are you okay? What happened to you?”

  “My arm’s broken and my shoulder, too. My collarbone has a fracture, I think. I’m not even sure. They said if I didn’t have my seatbelt on, I would have been killed. But my dad had his seatbelt on and...” She started to cry again. She said something but George couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  “Who was driving?” George asked.

  “Mom. We were in the van. The wheelchair came loose and it slammed into me. I think that’s what happened to the back of my head.”

  “Sorry,” George said. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”

  He had no idea what to do or what to say. Mr. Lachance is dead. Mrs. Lachance is on life support. Laura’s banged up pretty badly with several broken bones. He looked to his mother for support, but she was gone. Shit, he thought. I guess she couldn’t handle being back in a hospital after all. He put his arms around Laura as carefully as he could.

  “Are you okay?” He felt stupid even asking it.

  Laura didn’t answer him. She tried several times to find a way to rest her head against George’s shoulder, but everywhere she tried made her injuries hurt. Finally, she leaned away and slumped back in the chair and cried.

  “Where’s Shelly?” George asked.

  “She didn’t want to come into the city with us. She stayed home. Now, she’s home with my neighbor. They didn’t think it was safe to drive out here in this weather.”

  “It’s terrible out there.” George felt lame even saying it.

  “And one more thing,” Laura said, sniffling. She started to cry again and she turned to the small bed table and then back to George. She held up her ruined engagement ring. “My hands were so swollen from the accident, they had to cut it off my finger. I’m sorry. I’m just sorry. Oh, George...”

  “Hey, it’s okay. It’s, uh, it’s insured, you know? It’s fine. I’m not worried about the ring.”

  Geoff slipped as he entered the room. His shoes were still damp. “Laura, are you okay?” He saw Anne on the bed. “Oh, my god. I’m so sorry.”

  “Her dad didn’t make it,” George said softly.

  “Oh, Laura, I’m sorry.”

  Laura adjusted her position in the chair. She couldn’t get comfortable. Her entire left side was in stabbing pain and her head ached.

  “Shouldn’t you lie down?” George asked.

  “I have a concussion. They want me upright, I guess. I don’t know. I’m not totally sure what they told me to do.”

  “I don’t think they’ll talk to you,” Geoff said.

  “So, since we’re not married,” George said, “I have to go and find a doctor and bring him back here so that he can explain Laura’s treatment to her again, so that I’m here in the room and I can hear it because he won’t tell me directly.”

  Geoff shrugged. “Yeah, that’s kind of the way it works.”

  “Mom left. I don’t know where she is.”

  “She’s sitting outside in the cold with the smokers. I’ll go get her in a bit. You stay here. I’ll go find Laura’s doctor.”

  George sat with Laura while they waited. Laura didn’t say anything. She cried and trembled and shook and clung to George. Eventually, Geoff, Gabby, and a doctor came into the room.

  “You’re the boyfriend, then?” The doctor asked.

  George nodded. “Yes, sir. George Summers.”

  The doctor shook his hand. “I’m Dr. Donahue.” He turned to Laura. “Do you object to my openly discussing your diagnosis and treatment options with all of these people in the room?”

  Laura nodded, then looked confused and shook her head, then nodded again. “Wait. No. I don’t object. Go ahead.”

  The doctor explained that Laura had a concussion, a fractured rib, a broken clavicle, a fractured collarbone, a fractured humerus, and several bruises and lacerations along her face and head. He said that they cast her and stitched her, that they weren’t going to admit her, and told the Summers what they could do for her. She needed to follow up with her GP on Monday, and the stitches should come out on Thursday, again, at her regular doctor’s office.

  “And what about my mom?” Laura asked.

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Laura. It’s touch and go. If she makes it through the night, chances are she’ll be all right.”

  “But we don’t know.”

  The doctor shook his head. “I’m afraid not.” He gave her papers about concussion care and about the painkillers they’d given her, several prescriptions for more painkillers and anti-inflammatories, then he excused himself and left the room.

  Laura tried to keep her tears under control. For a little while, she did, but she started crying not long after the doctor left. She stared out the window at the snow, which was being blown horizontally by the strong wind. She held George’s hand with her right hand and she kept looking at the reflection of her mother in the window. She spun around, wincing in pain from the sudden movement, when she saw Anne twitch.

  “She moved!”

  Anne twitched again, and then began convulsing. The steady beeping of the machines had been replaced by a wild pattern of angry-sounding beeps and buzzes. Several nurses ran into the room and told them to step back. A minute later, the doctor ran into the room. There was a flurry of activity.

  “She’s septic,” one of the nurses reported.

  They rushed everyone out of the room and busied themselves with treating Laura’s mother.

  George, Laura, Geoff, and Gabrielle stood in the hallway, not knowing what to do. One of the other nurses told them they should go to the waiting area and to keep the hallway clear. They sat in the uncomfortable chairs and watched a fishing show on the small TV. It was muted, but the closed captioning was turned on. There was no remote, so they couldn’t change the channel or raise the volume. They simply sat together in the waiting room, reading exchange between the fishermen on their boat. “Oh, yeah, she’s a real beauty.” George wanted to throw his shoe through the television.

  Partway through the next episode, the doctor met them in the waiting room. Laura saw the look on his face and she started to cry again. Geoff touched her on her good shoulder and stepped toward the doctor.

  “I’m really sorry,” the doctor said. “We did all we could.”

  Chapter 18

  The ground shook. It wasn’t a big earthquake.
It was only a minor tremor. Hawn wrapped herself around Shae’s leg and Shae reached down to pet her head. Hope looked up from her packing and looked out the window. The stark grayness of The Void was gone, replaced by a clear, dark, moonless night.

  “She did it!” Shae cheered.

  “I should have gone with them,” Hope sighed. “Do you see anything?”

  Shae shook her head. “Nope. I think it’s the transition from The Void to the Realms. Sometimes it clouds things up and I can’t see any of the future at all. That might not be it at all. It’s just a guess.”

  “Come on,” Slynn said. “Let’s finish getting ready so we can get moving as soon as they get back.”

  They finished packing their gear, then they waited.

  “It’s been hours,” Hope said. She paced back and forth through the living room of Ivy’s old, broken house. “They should have been back by now.”

  The sinkhole filled back in when The Meadows was restored, but the house remained split in two, and all of the shattered debris that had lain at the bottom of the hole now sat at ground level.

  Hope threw her cloak on and adjusted her wings through slits in the back. “I’m going to go see what’s going on.”

  “I’ll go with you!” Shae put her cloak on, too, and followed Hope out the door.

  Slynn grumbled and followed the fairies to the ring.

  The entrance to the Chamber was still open. Hope, Shae, and Slynn climbed down the ladder and walked through the tunnel. The Heart hovered, slowly spinning, in the center of the Chamber. Nobody else was here.

  Hope walked all the way around the Heart, and then back into the tunnel. “Where are they? Where’d they go?”

  They climbed out of the Chamber and looked around. Hope looked carefully at the ground around the ring.

  “Hope,” Slynn called. “Look.”

  Hope flew over to him and looked down at the ground. A thick, slimy, gray leech-like creature lay dead in a thick pool of blood. Hope crouched over it and examined it. She took an arrow out of her quiver and prodded the lamprey. Its body was smooth and slightly rubbery. She turned it over and saw that it had several large splits along its sides. She looked up at the sky.

  “This thing fell and ruptured when it hit the ground,” she said.

  “It’s a lamprey,” Slynn said. “We have these in The Void. They mostly live in stagnant water and suck blood from their prey. Usually, that prey is something like a crocodile shark or a lake dragon. I get the feeling that this guy’s last meal was fairy blood.”

  “It looks like it was fully engorged when it hit the ground. Do they usually let go on their own when they’re full?”

  Slynn nodded.

  “That thing is gross,” Shae said. “You mean that it sucked all of that blood out of Gen?”

  “Or Herron,” Slynn said.

  “Or Herron,” Shae echoed. She was both chilly and worried and she clutched her arms across her chest.

  Hope turned it over once again, then she prodded its gaping, toothy mouth and it reflexively snapped shut on her arrow. Hope yelped in surprise and scrambled back a step. “Skies above!”

  “It’s a reflex,” Slynn said. “Don’t worry. It’s quite dead.”

  Hope smirked at him and turned back to the lamprey. She slipped her arrow out of its teeth, looked at the marred shaft, and dropped the arrow to the ground. She circled the opening to the Chamber and stopped at one point. She crouched and ran her fingers over the grass.

  “Look,” she said. “An impact here, then two smaller depressions here and here.” She positioned herself in front of the ladder, then kneeled down, facing away from it. She nodded. “It was Gen. The knees are too small and too close together to be Herron’s. And the smashed grass, there. I think she carried him up and then hoisted him up before she climbed out, herself.”

  She stood, then bent down over the large depression in the thick grass. She nodded. “See?” She stood in a pair of footprints next to where she thought Herron’s body had lain, then she squatted as though to pick him up and stood again.

  “So Herron got his blood sucked by these leech things and then Gen carried him?” Shae asked.

  Hope nodded. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Where would she have taken him?” Slynn asked.

  Hope thought. “I have no idea. To a healer, probably. I know we don’t have one in The Marsh. I don’t know where there’s a healer around here. I’m not from here. And I can’t track her after she left the ground.”

  “What’s your regrouping plan for when you get separated?” Slynn asked.

  Hope blinked at him. “Uh…”

  “I see,” Slynn said. “I would presume that she’ll come back home sooner or later. Probably here first, then the Keeper house.”

  “That sounds logical,” Hope said, ashamed that they’d missed such a critical part of traveling as a group. “I guess we’ll wait for her at the house, then.”

  They returned to the house and waited. Hope paced anxiously back and forth. Slynn went to lie down in one of the bedrooms. Eventually, Shae shouted, “Stop pacing! You’re driving me crazy! Just sit down and wait patiently!”

  Hope glared at her. “I can’t just sit down and wait patiently!”

  “Well, try, at least! You could…” Shae’s voice trailed off. She blinked and cocked her head, then she turned to the door and stood up. “Someone’s coming.”

  “Is it Gen?”

  Shae shook her head.

  “Okay,” Hope said. “Come on. Let’s go outside and see.”

  Hope and Shae went outside and waited. In a few minutes, Hope heard someone approaching–flying toward them. She rested her hand on the hilt of her sword and muttered, “Wish I had a bow right about now…”

  “There he is,” Shae pointed.

  “He? It’s a he?”

  “Yeah. And he’s weird.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The sun was beginning to rise. In the dim morning light, Hope could clearly see the stranger who approached them. He looked like a fairy–almost. He flew near Shae and Hope and hovered for a minute, then touched down near them on the path that led to Ivy’s porch.

  “Hello, there,” Hope said. She glanced quickly at Shae, then back at the stranger.

  “Uh, yeah!” Shae tried to make herself sound tough. “Hello, there!”

  Hope tried not to roll her eyes and looked at the stranger. He was tall for a fairy. He wore his dark hair long, down to his shoulders. He was wearing a gray tunic that was belted around his waist and comfortable-looking footwear that looked like something between a sandal and a boot. They looked completely unsuitable for traveling. The tips of his ears were rounded, rather than pointed like a fairy’s ears. But what caught Hope’s attention were his wings. He had a wide wingspan and when he set his feet on the ground he folded his wings behind him like a bird. His wings were white and feathery, like the wings of a dove. They looked very different from the fairies’ insectoid wings or the pixies’ bat-like wings.

  The stranger bowed, giving Hope a better view of his odd, feathery wings. When folded, they didn’t extend taller than his head, and the shapes of the feathers were very much like those of a bird.

  “I’m David,” he said. “I’m an angel.”

  “An angel?” Hope asked. “Where are you from?”

  “The Chicago Enclave.”

  “Where? What Realm is that in?”

  David shook his head. “Angels don’t live in the Realms. We live in the human world. I came here through a Bridge.”

  Hope felt a chill creep up her spine. “A Bridge? Where?”

  “I don’t know the names of your Realms. It was in a cave. That way.” He pointed in the direction of the border with The Marsh.

  “That could be the Bridge in The Foothills,” Hope said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m looking for a link-seer.”

  Shae tilted her head and looked at David. “No link-seers here,” she sai
d.

  “I know.” He slipped his golden arrow out of his belt. “Find me a link-seer.” The arrow snapped around and pointed away from The Marsh.

  “Oh!” Shae squealed with excitement. “A golden arrow! Yeah, that’ll find you what you want, all right!”

  The door opened behind Hope and Slynn stepped out. “What’s going–”

  Instantly, David drew his sword and dropped into a fighting stance. Slynn and Hope both drew their swords.

  “Wait, you guys!” Shae stepped between them. “What’s going on here, angel?”

  David spoke coldly. “I’m here to stop a bunch of pixies from continuing to murder humans. I’m not sure why, but pixies have come to the human world and they’re stalking humans. My human’s wife was murdered by a group of pixies.”

  Slynn straightened and sheathed his sword. “Jeegan.”

  David looked at Slynn, but he didn’t put his blade away.

  “The Void Master,” Slynn continued, “Jeegan brought an army of pixies into the Realms. We’re not entirely sure why. He threatened to invade the Realms but we think he was really trying to distract the fairies while he brought pixies through the Bridges.”

  “For what purpose?” David asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you want a link-seer for?” Shae asked.

  “I asked the Oracle for some answers. He told me the answer to this lies in the past, not the future, so I went to see a past-seer. He saw the murder happen but he couldn’t tell me why. He said it had something to do with another human the pixies are trying to kill: Molly Ritchey.”

  Shae gasped. Her hand covered her mouth and her eyes widened.

  “Shae?” Hope asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Molly Ritchey,” Shae said, “is my human’s little sister.”

  “Really?” Slynn asked.

  “Your human is this Molly’s sister?” David asked.

  Shae nodded. “Portia Ritchey. Molly’s just a little girl! She’d never hurt anyone! What could they want with her?”