"Yeah." Sam dusted herself off. Grey sat at her feet, wagging her tail. "My banishments aren't as strong when I do them alone. Now, if I could have my peeps with me, we could get rid of her for a longer period of time."
"Not permanently?" Mike said.
"No. The gates between the worlds are thin and in some places just plain broken. We have theories on why and we've been able to repair a lot of them, but it's just a small dent in a much bigger problem. All we can do is be little more than goalies and kick 'em back out. Whoever is in charge of keeping the worlds in balance is doing a shit job—it's like they want it to happen. The only world that seems to have serious countermeasures in place is Alfheim."
"This is true," Thomas said, finally striding toward us. "But those same measures were set in place by the ones you blame. Those inhabitants of what you call Alfheim are far more dangerous than in any of the other worlds. Other worlds fear them and the havoc they can wreak on everything else."
"You mean not just this world." Mike pointed to the ground.
Thomas removed his top hat. "Yes. Things are in flux now. Times are changing, becoming more mysterious as walls break, alliances crumble and old enemies wake in the dark." He untied the mantle from the hat, replaced the hat on his head and meticulously folded the mantle as he spoke. "Using the mantle to trade for another life is tantamount to asking Armageddon if it would like to come over for tea and then being surprised that it mounted your cat and escaped through the pet door." He finished folding the mantle until it was perfectly flat. Abruptly it sparkled and disappeared and then a piece of paper reappeared.
In fact, the paper looked like—
I wasn't ready or prepared for what Thomas did next. Neither were Sam or Mike. The prophet lunged toward me and thrust his fist and the piece of paper into my chest. I mean literally into my chest. His hand disappeared up to his wrist inside of me. The sensation wasn't painful, but it wasn't pleasant either. It was like getting a tooth filled on painkiller. I knew someone was inside of me, rummaging around and it was uncomfortable, and I knew on some level the pain was going to come later. And as long as his hand was in there I couldn't move.
Sam gasped and Mike lunged at Thomas. But the prophet held up his other hand and Mike stopped moving. For a brief moment—everything stopped moving, except for Thomas.
And Grey. She appeared in her human form.
"Darren, we've only got seconds so you have to listen to me." It was Thomas's words, but Grey's voice. They both glowed where they stood and I felt nauseous. "Maab cannot, under any circumstances, have this mantle. So it must remain with you, inside the book where it will be protected."
"But we have to get Brendi—"
"The Grimoire has a spell that will duplicate it, but the magic of it will only last a short time. If she tries to use the mantle, it'll evaporate into little more than dust. The veil is now in the book so the book knows what to do."
The slight pause alarmed me. "But?"
"In order to create the fake, you'll need Faerie Dust. The real stuff."
"And where do I get that?"
They both looked behind me at the retaining wall. I glanced back and saw the scorched entrance I'd left behind that day. "No…no I can't go back in there. You don't understand…I can't—"
"Darren, you have to get over that fear. Take Sam and Mike with you—"
"But I can't do that." My face twisted into an angry grimace. "You forget how sick I was when I came out of that place? If they go in with me we'll all come out in need of a hospital."
"Sam and Mike can go with you. If you use the Grimoire to protect them."
"I can do that?" This was news to me.
"Yes. It'll protect them but I'm afraid it'll also drain a good deal of your energy. So you'll have get in and get out. Also, you can't allow any of the dust to touch them. Nor can you allow any of the creatures trapped there to notice you. Once they do, Maab will know you're there and then it'll be up to you to get all three of you out."
I didn't like the sound of any of this. Why couldn't things just work the way they're supposed to? Just…get the mantle, get the kid and have pizza?
"Darren, you're right that the only thing that'll make her part with one of her little Sentinels is this mantle. But we can't—"
"I know, I know. I just…" I didn't want to go back in there.
"Is Brendi worth it?"
I looked back at Grey even though Thomas was talking. "Yes. She is."
"Just remember one thing." Grey reached out to me and touched my cheek. "When it's time to make the wish, you must make it. And no one else. But you must wait to use it."
The scene abruptly vanished as if someone turned off a switch. I landed on my ass and Sam dove down next to me. She pushed me onto my back and looked at my chest, pulled my t-shirt up to see my skin. "Hey!" I protested.
Well, I didn't protest emphatically.
"What the fuck did you do old man?" Mike had his gun out and pointed at Thomas.
But the prophet was gone. Grey came up and nuzzled Mike's crotch, promptly diffusing the situation.
Sam looked at me and then up at Mike. "What the fuck just happened? Where's Thomas? And where is the damned mantle?"
I pushed at her to let go of me and the both of us stood up. This time I dusted myself off before I spoke. It gave me a few minutes to figure out what to say. "I have the mantle. It's in the Grimoire."
"What?" Sam was anything but happy.
"Look, it's a long story. And it wasn't my idea. But…" I looked past her to the retaining wall. The gate entrance was still there. "Does anyone else see that?"
Sam turned.
"When the hell did they put that drainage grate in there?" Mike said as he stepped up beside me.
"That's not a real drainage grate," I said. "That's the Cairn." When they turned and looked at me, wide eyed, I told them what Thomas told me. Only I left out the fact he'd used Grey to speak to me.
When I finished, Sam wrapped her arms around her chest and started pacing. I thought she was chanting something, until she passed close by me and what I heard was, "Shit, shit, shit, shit…"
I was really starting to like her.
Mike didn't seem as upset. I could tell he was ready to jump in and do his part. He wanted his little girl back.
But me…I wasn't ready to put them at risk. I knew what the dust looked like. I'd seen it sparkle with the changeling. But what I didn't have was an idea of who these other creatures were Thomas warned me about. So I said as much.
Sam stopped pacing. "Could be anything. Rats, spiders, roaches. Anything Maab can use as her eyes and ears in the Cairn. Just like she'd used that changeling."
That didn't sit well with me. "Right. So…let me go in there and get the dust and then—"
"No." Sam and Mike spoke in unison.
I lowered my head. "Guys, it's too dangerous. I didn't run that far to get to this exit so she couldn't have had me too far in. She spilled dust so I can just run in, grab some there."
"Dags," Sam said and had a peculiar frown on her face. "Cairns don't work like that. They don't stay the same. What you walked out of you won't necessarily walk into."
"I'm not following."
"The Fae can't build Cairns, only the Faerie denizens can. But the Fae can manipulate them. That means they have absolute power over those places. Their whims manipulate the texture and landscape. The changeling probably made it look like a place based on what she believed your nightmares would be. Whatever it was she'd been pretty close to right. It shook you. But what's behind that grate now…." She shrugged. "Could be anything from a volcanic landscape to a butterfly meadow."
Oh. Great. "I'm going to need to protect the two of you if you go in with me."
"Protect us?" Mike holstered his gun. "Oh…I'd forgot. You were sick when you came out of there. Sam would that same thing happen to us?"
"I'm afraid so. Dags you know how to do that?"
"I'm going to have to just trust the book." I closed
my eyes and saw the book it in my mind and I asked it for a protection spell for them. Instantly the book opened and the pages turned. I held out my hands. Sam took one and Mike took the other. "Nasaru."
Warmth coursed from somewhere in my chest outward, through my arms and into my hands. Sam and Mike's grip tightened and within seconds they both yanked their hands away.
"Oh god…my ears popped," Sam muttered. When I opened my eyes she had her fingers stuck in her ears. If I looked harder at her I could see something twinkling around her and around Mike. I knew on some instinctual level that energy came from me and as long as the spell held, I would find them and keep them close. I wasn't about to tell them they sparkled.
"All right, we need to go in, grab the dust and get out." I looked at each of them. "My gut tells me I did some damage before."
Sam finally stopped messing with her ears. "Mike, how many rounds you got?"
"Two magazines in my pocket. And I have two knives. They're both steel."
"And the bullets?"
"Steel."
"Good. That'll hurt anything that comes at us, Fae or otherwise."
I glanced at Mike then Sam. "Steel? I thought fairies couldn't stand iron?"
"What do you think steel's made of?" Sam gave me an odd look as she bent down and pulled a really long knife out of the side of her knee high boot. "Steel's an alloy of iron and carbon."
I would have known that if I hadn't had my eggs scrambled watching her bend over like that. Was it wrong of me to see that as an extremely seductive gesture?
"It won't kill 'em the way straight up iron will." Mike came up beside me and showed me his magazine of bullets. "But it'll hurt them and it makes a really big hole that burns."
Oookay.
Mike slipped the magazine back in his pocket and Sam secured her knife to her belt. "I've got a few bottles in my little pouch." She patted the fanny-pack I'd noticed before. "And we know you've got the flaming sword of doom. I just wish you were better at calling that thing up on cue."
I agreed. But I had a better understanding of how magic worked with the Grimoire. "I need to try more than just fire and stop."
"Dead would be good." Mike said in a flat tone. "Though I don't mind the whole Johnny Storm routine."
"I don't think we're prepared to do this right now." Sam started toward the grate. "In fact I don't think we're even close to ready. But I have the feeling Thomas made sure the Cairn entrance was visible for a limited time and if we don't use it now, then we might not get another chance to get the dust."
If she had that feeling, so did I. The fact I hadn't seen it after Thomas helped me out of it and now it was visible again confirmed it for me. Going in there needed planning, strategy, and a bit of luck. We hadn't planned on a walk through a Faerie Cairn, the only strategy we had was grab the dust and get out if we're lucky. And with recent events, I was pretty sure luck hated me.
We stood in front of the grate and faced it. I did not want to go in there.
"How are we going to carry the dust out?" Mike said. "If we touch it…doesn't that mean we'll get stuck in there? Or worse we'll end up as obedient zombies to Maab?"
I turned and looked back at Grey. She hadn't moved from her spot, except to watch us. I didn't ask her a question, not in my head or aloud. I assumed she had an answer.
Use your strengths, Darren.
That's it?
Does there really need to be anything else?
I gave her a seriously irritated look and faced the grate. "We improvise."
"Figures," Mike said as he stepped forward, grabbed two thick bars of the grate, and pushed the entire door inward. It made the worst god-awful grinding noise I'd ever heard.
The scent of decay and the acrid hint of something burnt greeted us on a soft breeze.
He gave me a withering look. "I forget how you usually make this shit up as you go along."
DELiLAH
Mike went in first, then me, then Sam. Grey remained outside, having given me the best excuse not to go.
I escaped from there. Why in the hell would I want to go back in?
True dat.
Unfortunately for me the further in we went, the more possible it was for me to hyperventilate. I was freak'n terrified and kept my arms and legs firmly tucked into the bus. The closer we got to where I thought I was held, the more concentrated the charred smell became.
"Dags…does this look like it did when you were here?"
"Yeah." Our voices echoed against the walls. "It's exactly the same."
She didn't say anything.
"Why do you ask?" I asked.
Sam still didn't answer me and her silence just set off a dozen more internal alarms on the doom meter for me. When the changeling took me here, I couldn't see where the light had come from. But now it flickered and danced over shadows from lit torches along the rounded sides. The further we went, the dimmer those torches became until they were burned to a crisp. I could make out what remained of their stands, oddly deformed fingers that jutted out from the side.
The only light we had was what came in behind us and elongated our shadows. I did notice how the light coming in, once we were inside, would lead anyone to believe the sun was bright in the other world. When in truth I knew it was closer to three in the morning.
After a few minutes we reached the crossroads where I'd been tied to a chair. There wasn't a chair left, or the ropes. There was something else missing as well.
"Dags…I thought you said there were piles of faerie dust here…" Sam moved along the side. She held out her hand, blew into her palm and a blue and white light appeared in the center, about the size of an orange. She tossed it into the air where it stopped just below the dark, scorched ceiling and expanded into a flat disk. The diffused light illuminated the entire area. It wasn't as bright as the mini-sun she'd used before and reminded me of moonlight. "Because I don't see any."
I moved around in a circle, giving the floor a much harder look. "Neither do I."
"You sure this is where you were held?" Mike moved opposite of Sam and then looked at me.
There wasn't anything discernible about this particular junction. Nothing on the walls, or the floor, that told me this was the spot where I'd been tied up. The memory was still hazy from waking up and being disoriented at the time. The only clear memories I had were of pain, fear, and running the hell away. I stood in the center and tried to remember if I'd turned left or right on my flight out of the Cairn.
"Shit," Sam said in a low voice after watching me. "You can't remember can you?"
"No." I held out my hands. "Sorry for being freak'n scared out of my mind. I wasn't mapping out the tunnels in case I needed to return. I planned on never showing my face here again."
"Well, you said you could see the light at the end of the tunnel from where you were tied down, right? So I say we keep moving away from the light and we might hit another one of these junctions."
"Uh…Sam." Mike had moved away from us to the tunnel on our left. I could see him several feet in. "You gotta see this."
I followed Sam to the left into the tunnel. He motioned for us to turn around—and when we did, we were looking down the tunnel we'd just entered in front of the light. Physics wasn't one of my strong points, but I knew the basics of position. I knew that if you turned left off a hallway, when you looked back, you'd either see a blank wall which would be the opposite wall of that hallway, or you'd see whatever had been facing the left turn. In this case, we should have been looking at the right-branching tunnel. Or in this case, I should have been able to see the cross tunnel with Sam's little moon suspended in the air.
But I didn't. I saw a tunnel. Period.
"This sucks." Sam moved toward the light and abruptly disappeared.
"Sam?" Mike jogged forward just as her upper half popped up on the right side of the tunnel.
"Yeah?"
He stopped. "Are you in the tunnel we came in?"
"I think. Come toward me."
; We both walked toward her and I was sure we turned right, heading back out of the tunnel—
But it never felt as if we'd actually turned right. As one we turned back, with the tunnel's end behind us, and faced three branching tunnels.
"This is fucked up. If we head down any one of these tunnels, we're going to lose track of where we've been because where we've been doesn't look like where we think we've been."
The sentence didn't make a hell of a lot of sense on its own but I understood what he was getting at. I ran a hand through my hair and pulled it off my forehead. This was bad. No, it was worse than bad. But now I understood the legends about people saying they got lost in Faerie. Hell, I doubted they ever made it to Faerie itself 'cause they got lost in the Cairn.
Mike held up his gun. "We've got to check down one of these tunnels and find some dust."
I looked down each of the other three tunnels. The fastest way to do this was to split up and cover each tunnel at the same time. But that also meant isolating each of us, which also put each of us at greater danger and unless we could be sure of the direction we were going, then all three of us could get lost. The spell I'd commanded was only meant to guard from the influence of this place, not shield from any kind of attack.
And though there was nothing obvious I could see that would attack us, I didn't want to take chances.
"I know what you're thinking," Sam said. "And the answer is no."
"We can't split up." I turned to her. "Not all three of us. It's too dangerous."
"That might be, but you should take a look at yourself. You're paler now than when we walked in here. I see dark circles under your eyes and you're moving a bit slow. You keeping us protected is taking its toll on you. We gotta do this quick." She held her mini-sword in her hand. "You stay here with Mike while I check a hundred steps down that left tunnel. After a hundred steps I'll turn around and walk a hundred steps back. When I do, I should bump into you even though it looks like I'm heading down the tunnel."
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