Two more wisps zoomed in from either side.
*I think things are about to get nasty,* Alynon said.
A sudden flash of purple light somewhere far to our rear cast long, menacing tree shadows that seemed to swoop in on us. A second later, a loud BOOM echoed through the forest.
The wisps froze, then all zoomed in the direction of the explosion.
Reggie. He must have set off some kind of magical grenade and created enough energy static in the area to draw in all the wisps, masking our escape.
I just hoped he had escaped as well. Yet again.
* * *
We regrouped in a clearing near the far side of the forest, on the outskirts of a residential neighborhood. The cool night air caused the sweat and remaining damp from the waterfall to feel chilly on my skin, and I shivered, despite feeling hot from sprinting so long. I wanted nothing more than to put on some worn flannel pajamas and crawl beneath a heating blanket with Dawn right then.
Dawn pushed through the crowd as if summoned by my thought of her, and I gave her a tight hug. As we parted, she said, “I saw the explosion, and—” she shook her head, her hair dancing in front of her face, the usual springy coils having fallen apart into frizzy knots. She frowned and dug her ever-present scrunchie out of her pocket, then pulled her damp hair up into a ball. “This whole running for our lives thing was fun for a bit, but I’m kind of done with it at this point.”
Pete and Vee joined us and looked past me. “Reggie?” Vee asked.
Her brother, Zeke, had been Reggie’s partner once, both personally and professionally. With Zeke dead, Reggie was the closest thing to family she had left besides Petey.
“Created a diversion so we could escape,” I said.
Vee pushed her platinum blond hair behind her ears as she stared back into the dark forest. Pete put an arm around her and said, “He’ll be okay.”
She nodded.
Sal joined our circle, his wooly head blocking out the moon, and stood protectively behind Silene.
Silene looked up and back with a quick reassuring smile, then said, “We must make our plans, and quickly.”
“First, tell us what the heck is going on,” I said.
Sal grunted. “The Silver Archon ordered ourself’s Elwha steading to attack Bainbridge Shadows steading.”
“What? That’s crazy!” I said. “That’s not only going to escalate things with the Shadows, but the Department of Feyblood Management might just round you all up!”
Pete said in a gloomy voice, “Mort is with the Archon. He says the ARC won’t punish us.”
Mort, playing ambassador. “This is Grandfather’s doing,” I muttered, and said louder, “The Arcanites don’t just want to wipe out the Fey, they want the brightbloods to decimate each other at the same time.”
Sal rested his giant hands over Silene’s shoulders, and she touched them as she said, “It matters little who is behind the Archon’s orders. When no attack is made on the Shadows steading by midnight, the Archon will know we have defied them, defied him. He will be forced to move against us.”
I shook my head. “I just don’t understand it. Why would the Silver Archon work with the Arcanites? He knows they and their allies were trying to trick him and the Shadows into fighting, right?”
“Yes,” Silene said. “But your brother must have played to his vanity and greed, and those trump reason where he is concerned.”
My brother certainly understood vanity and greed. I sighed.
Sammy crossed her arms. “Um, isn’t the Archon a sphinx? I thought they were all about the wisdom?”
“Knowledge is not wisdom,” Silene said. “He gained his position through knowledge. Knowing what to say, knowing that which would most impress or influence, knowing how to let others do the work and what to say to take credit without appearing to lie. Yet for all that, he does not understand the needs of those he governs, does not understand the true purpose of his position.”
“Uhn,” Sal grunted in agreement. “Hisself does much to play leader, yet does not lead anywhere.”
Dawn snorted. “So, your basic middle manager then.”
“I feel your pain,” Sammy said. “I’ve had to work for more unqualified idiots than a congressional intern. But maybe we should be focused on stopping whatever Grandfather and his Tea Party of Doom have planned first? Stopping the Archon won’t do much good if all the Fey are dead, I’m thinking.”
“Do you know where they are or what they plan, then?” Silene asked.
An expression of frustration passed across Sammy’s face. “No. Not exactly. But I found them once. If I can get online, I can find them again.”
“If you can find them, Sammy, that would be awesome,” I said. “I’m just worried they might have learned their lesson and won’t leave you any clues this time.”
“You did nearly get your brain fried last time,” Dawn said. “And they weren’t expecting you then.”
“You what?” Fatima said.
Sammy gave a dismissive wave. “It wasn’t that big a deal. And this time I know what to expect as well.”
Pete, who’d been standing there looking miserable the whole time, said, “What about Mattie?”
I felt a near-instinctive urge to rush to Mattie’s aid, but said, “Mort made it clear he didn’t want us around. And if she’s with him, then I’m sure he won’t let anything happen to her. Hell, right now, he seems to be a lot safer than we are.”
Sammy gave a bitter laugh. “Yeah. He always was good at covering his own ass.”
Pete only looked sadder. “Mort is family. We should be helping him, too. They both need our help, even if Mort doesn’t know it.”
“Forget Mort, Petey,” Sammy said. “I hope that sphinx eats him.”
Pete got red faced. “Don’t say that! He’s our brother!”
“He’s a jerk,” Sammy replied. “I know you care about him, Petey, though for the life of me I’ve never understood why. But the only person Mort cares about is himself.”
“Mother said—”
“Don’t!” Sammy snapped. “Don’t bring Mother into this. She’s been gone a long time, ghost or not. And Mort’s done nothing but tease you, use you. Why would you risk your life to help him get out of a mess he made for himself?”
Fatima put a hand on Sammy’s back and said, “You’ve helped a lot of people who got into trouble, people whose families had abandoned them.”
Sammy gave Fatima a look of mixed hurt and irritation. “They had reasons for what they did. Their families were terrors, or they had abusive partners, or just fucking bad luck. And they got mixed up with bad feybloods seeking love. But I grew up with Mort and I’m telling you he has no excuse for being such a dickhead, except that he loves nobody but himself.”
I flashed on memories of Mort being constantly put down or treated like a lesser child when it became clear he didn’t have the Talker ability. To have been so dismissed by Grandfather in favor of me, and then to end up having to hold the family business together when I got sent into exile—
“He had some reasons,” I said grudgingly.
“Jesus, you too?” Sammy said. “What is this, make Sammy feel like a jerk day?”
“No,” I said. “He didn’t have to do the things he did, obviously. He made choices. I’m just saying, he didn’t exactly have a life free of suck. What I don’t get is why he’s helping Grandfather at all, when it was Grandfather who made it suck.”
*He cannot help but wish for the approval that was so long withheld from him,* Alynon said.
Silene cleared her throat. “Whatever your brother’s reasons, the results are that we are ordered to attack the Shadows. If we are to stop the Arcanite plot, and save my clan, then it seems our causes are joined, and the solution to both problems is the same.”
I sighed. “We have to confront Mort and the Archon, and get Mort to tell us what he knows.”
“Great,” Sammy said. “Why the hell did he have to take Mattie there?”
Pete replied in a sad voice, “I offered to watch her, but he said … he said—” he choked to a stop.
Vee held him close, and said, “Mort said he didn’t trust Pete not to bite her.”
My hands balled into fists. That assrat!
“And you’re still defending him?” Sammy demanded.
“He is her father,” Pete said in a small voice. “And I am dangerous now.”
“Oh, Petey—” I said.
Sammy snorted. “Fuck that. You’ve raised Mattie as much as he has, and you’ve done more to control your wolf than he did his lust for his pet succubus. Don’t ever let Mort make you doubt yourself again, Pete, or I’ll … I’ll make you eat an entire bucket of lentils.”
Pete’s eyes widened in horror. I might dislike lentils, but Pete viewed them practically like tiny monsters determined to destroy his mouth.
Father walked forward and put a hand on Pete’s chest. In a quavering voice, he said, “Mort is not your father. Your father is proud of you.”
Pete’s eyes filled with tears to match my own. Then Father blinked, and studied the hand he had placed on Pete’s chest, holding it cupped with his fingers spread and curled upwards as though a claw grasping an invisible ball. Then he waggled them and said, “Funny little finger stones, dancing in the danger zone.” He bounced his hand around and bobbed his head to a beat only he could hear.
I sighed as Verna gently took his shoulders and pulled him back.
Then I rubbed at my eyes, and said to Silene and Sal, “Looks like we’re off to see the Archon. So what’s the plan?”
* * *
The Silver Court Archon lived in a small complex on Whidbey Island, set back into a small patch of woods that butted up against one of the few remaining drive-in movie theaters in Washington. The theater had been around since the 1950s, built after the last Fey-Arcana War as part of the cover for the Archon’s property, just one of the many ways in which the ARC rewarded the Silver for their alliance in that war. Much of the forest surrounding the Archon’s property had since been cut back, and turned into fields and housing tracts. But the theater remained, and apparently had even expanded to include a small arcade and go-kart track. And there still remained enough forest for the Archon and his resident brightbloods to stretch their legs without too much fear of being seen.
We had to drive up and over Deception Pass to reach the island, as the ferries did not run so late. Pete drove the family hearse, with Vee and Dawn in the passenger seat. Me, Sammy, and Fatima sat in the backseat, while Father and Verna insisted on lying down in the far back. Silene, Sal, and the rest of the brightbloods were taking the fairy paths to Whidbey, much faster than this agonizingly long two-hour drive. Unfortunately, while much faster than driving, the fairy paths were bad for human health in much the same way shotgunning a bottle of vodka found in the ruins of Chernobyl while walking a tightrope over an industrial taffy stretcher was dangerous. Well, dangerous for anyone not possessed of a Fey spirit, that was.
The fairy roads, or “Fey Ways,” were remnants of a time when the Other Realm and our world were all snuggly. Whether some part of the Other Realm had merged with our world, or the fabric of our space-time had been warped in an attempt to reconcile with the chaos of the Other Realm, nobody knew. Only the results were known. No magic had been found that could protect human travelers from the paths’ warping effects; but the brightbloods, being of both worlds like the Ways themselves, were able to travel them safely. Usually.
With Alynon sharing my body, I’d managed to travel a fairy path once. But it had nearly mutated me, and in the end had strengthened the bond between Alynon’s spirit and my body, making it even less likely I’d ever be rid of him. Or so I had thought.
Pete and Vee could have traveled the paths as well, but insisted on driving us to make sure we arrived safely. I suspected Pete really just wanted to be around family for comfort. I couldn’t blame him.
So we all raced south from the pass now down the island, hoping to arrive at the Archon’s compound before Mort or the Archon did anything further to bring about a brightblood war.
I glanced for the hundredth time at my Casio. 2:19 A.M. If the Arcanites were planning to do anything today, it would likely be at dawn. Magic, particularly spells across the two worlds, were most powerful at the transition times between day and night, and dawn favored magic flowing from our world to the Other Realm.
That gave us, what, maybe four hours to figure out what the Arcanites were up to, and a way to stop them?
“So,” I said as I watched the streetlights zip past, trying to distract myself. “Are we going to circle around and sneak up through the woods?”
“No,” Pete said. “Silene says Vee and me—or, uh, Vee and I—we can just walk right up and demand an audience.”
“He’s not going to be happy to see you,” I said.
Pete shrugged, looking miserable. “I’m not happy to be seen.”
We arrived at the drive-in theater, and pulled into the lot. It was closed down for the weekdays, the movie lot empty, the colorful go-karts silent, the buildings locked and dark. Convenient, but also dangerous. If there’d been a lot of mundies in the area then at least the Archon wouldn’t make too big a noise about us showing up, not until we were through his front doors at least.
We got out of the car and stretched, my lower back spasming from the combination of exertion followed by sitting in the car for two hours.
Sal and Silene stepped out from behind the nearby building.
“Well met,” Silene said.
I looked past her. “You didn’t bring your army?”
“If the Shadows attacks our steading, we need our brightbloods there to defend. We few should be enough to confront the Archon.”
She led us toward the low snack bar, a blue cinder-block building painted with images of dancing popcorn and sodas. While Silene picked the lock with a wiggling root of some kind she pulled from one of her pouches, I took the opportunity to lift up a nearby gnome statue and scratch Priapus’s sigil in the dirt beneath. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen here with the Archon, but we were running out of time and options before the possible end of the Fey world, and that seemed as good a time as any to flash the Hat Sigil.
We entered the snack bar. All the lights were off, but moonlight through the windows cast the counter with its soda and popcorn machines in a pale glow. The floor, counter, and walls were all a stark black-and-white checkerboard pattern.
“This way,” Silene said, waving us forward, and headed toward the far end of the counter.
We were halfway there when my feet stuck to the floor. And not in the normal spilled soda and gum kind of way, but in a solid, unable to move, something-not-good-is-about-to-happen kind of way.
“Hello,” a voice said, coming out of overhead speakers. “If you wish to pass the gate, you must first answer a riddle.”
Silene looked around, and called back, “We are of the Silver, come under authority of our patrons. You must see us.”
“True,” the voice replied. “But there are those with you not of the Silver, one in particular I have been warned against. I cannot know his intent, or if you are under his power, without first testing him.”
“Fine,” I said toward the ceiling. “The answer is forty-two. Can you come up with the correct question?”
“That is a nice try,” the voice said. “But as I said, I have been told of you. And I shall give to you the same riddle I give to all: that question whose answer most eludes you.”
The air filled suddenly with the smell of popcorn, so overwhelming and delicious that drool practically shot out of my mouth in a Pavlovian river. But there was something more to the smell, something that made my arcana senses tingle.
Sammy began to sneeze violently.
Everything around me began to warp, and spin. The checkerboard stretched, and seemed to expand to the horizon, and I stood staring off into that psychedelic distance.
“Finn!” a voice shoute
d behind me. I found that I could move now, and I turned to see a small group fanned out behind me, a slightly different group than before.
Pete, covered in blood, his innocent face now a mask of pain and horror. Mother, a wasted shadow of herself, her once beautiful cascade of straight black hair now brittle clumps drifting off in the breeze. Alynon, looking like Ziggy Stardust’s prettier brother, bound in silver chains. Zeke, Vee’s brother, looking like Hulk Hogan with a Mr. T mohawk and Miami Vice outfit, except his skin peeled away burnt and blistered. Sal, his huge sasquatch body shaking as he wept, holding a knotted cord of hair in his hand whose color matched that of his dead sister. Felicity, our family’s au pair in my youth, her mouth working in a silent scream, her tongue removed, her eyes haunted. And Dunngo. Dunngo, who could not be here. Dunngo, whose spirit I had utterly destroyed beyond all hope of an afterlife.
“No.” Panic rose in me like the swelling soundtrack of a tragedy. “No!”
I fled.
30
JERRY WAS A RACE CAR DRIVER
The snack bar’s checkerboard landscape sped by as I ran, but when I looked back, the ghosts of all those I had hurt or who had been killed around me were standing there, as if floating on a fixed platform behind me.
“What do you want?” I shouted at them.
“Why?” Pete asked.
“WHY?” they all echoed.
“Why what?” I shouted back.
Pete clawed at his chest, and ripped it open, pulling out his heart. “Why did you destroy me? Why did you let me be turned into a monster?”
Mother wept tears of blood. “Why didn’t you come to see me when I was dying, mijo? Why did you not look after your sister and brothers like I asked?”
Alynon strained against his bonds, and said, “Why have you not freed me? Why would you torture me with watching your love knowing I am denied my own?”
Zeke spat, and said, “Why’d you let me die, fool? Why didn’t you protect Vee better like you promised?”
Sal held the knotted hair close to his chest. “Why youself kill sistermine?”
Felicity, her Austrian features the pale gray-white of death, her eyes shadowed with pain, said, “Why were you so oblivious to your grandfather’s plots, to your father’s actions, lost in your silly world of games and daydreams? Why did you not stop me? Why did you not save me?”
Smells Like Finn Spirit Page 32