I slowed the car. The whole stupid thing was right in front of me; I was going to have to get out and do something about it in order to get to the high school. I addressed a silent prayer to the skies: I’m an idiot. Please don’t let me die for the sake of a black cow-thing.
I jumped. A glowing ember had smacked the windshield of my car, burning a black spot on the hood before sliding out of sight. I almost swore again, before remembering it was Delia’s car. Outside, the whip men laughed before turning back to their torture; they thought they were playing a prank on someone who couldn’t see them.
I grabbed the jar from the passenger seat, opened the door and got out to face them. I’m brave. I remembered an episode that happened when I was thirteen or so, when I found one of the neighborhood boys piling dirt on an injured bird and watching it struggle beneath the dust. I had just stood for a long moment, trying to think what to say to stop him, frustrated by my shyness and by the boy’s cruelty. Then James had appeared at my shoulder and said to the boy, “Do you think that’s the best way to be spending your admittedly miserable life?”
I took strength from the memory and adopted my Ice Queen posture. My voice oozed contempt. “Having a nice Solstice?”
The whip men’s heads turned to look at me. Their narrow bodies were black as tar and seemed to absorb the firelight instead of reflecting it. The giant bull, on the other hand, was pale dun beneath the ash that covered his coat, and I saw panic and rage in his liquid eyes.
“The cloverhand,” hissed one. The voice was the same I’d overhead talking to Luke; many voices all rolled into one. “She is the cloverhand.”
“That’s me,” I agreed, still standing next to the car. I was scared snotless, but I stood perfectly straight. “I’d think there’d be better things for you to do, on this night of all nights.”
One of the whip men turned to me, his mouth curving into a smile. With a jolt, I realized he had no eyes beneath his brow—just empty hollows, with smooth skin in the shadows. The others looked at him, also without eyes, as he spoke. “Truth, cloverhand. I can tell the truth when I hear it. Can we do you on this night of all nights?”
“Go to hell.”
After I said it, I thought it might be a bit redundant, since they looked like devils already. But the whip man said, his voice grating in a thousand whispers, “Hell is for those with souls.”
Another, equally tall and with too many joints in his spine, said, “Come to our fire, tell us what you want of us. Make us a trade: the tarbh uisge’s body”—he gestured to the massive dun bull—“for yours?”
I unscrewed the lid of the jar. “I have a better idea. How about, the bull goes free or all your fun stops for the night?”
The whip man who had suggested “doing” me approached; his walk was all wrong, and it sent a shiver through my body. “That does not sound like a truth to me, cloverhand.”
I scooped out a warm handful of the green muck in the jar, trying not to think about just how nasty it felt (exactly like picking up a handful of fresh dog crap), and hurled it onto the faerie.
For a moment there was nothing, and I thought Granna, you let me down. But then he began to sigh. His breath went out and out and out, and then he just fell to the parking lot, still breathing out, until he was empty.
I’d thought I might feel bad, but I just felt intense relief.
I held the jar out toward the others. “Not much left, but probably enough for each of you. Let it go.”
One of them hissed, “I don’t think you want to see the tarbh uisge freed. He will bear you down into the water and your salve will not help you there.”
I looked at the wide eye of the bull as its massive body trembled, lit both by the bonfire and the green-gray light of the streetlight overhead. It didn’t belong here; it was a remnant of another time and another place, and I saw its fear of the present weeping from every pore.
“I’m not afraid.” I took a step forward, forcing myself to step over the body of the one I’d killed, though part of me imagined it grabbing me as I did. “Leave this place.”
With angry buzzing, like distant bees, the whip men backed away, toward the fire, their posture deferential. They backed directly into the fire and their bodies incinerated instantly; I would have thought they’d died if I hadn’t still seen hints of their eyeless faces in the coals and wood of the bonfire.
The bull lowered its head and stamped a hoof at me, its eyes enormous and sentient. Something about it was so ancient and pure that I ached for an intangible past I had never known.
I gave a little bow. “You’re welcome.”
It blew its red-lined nostrils at me and plunged into the night.
My skin prickled. Faerie pressed in around me. I had to go back to the beginning before it was too late.
Book Five
My love, fond and true,
What else could I do—
But shield you from wind and from weather?
When the shots fall like hail,
They us both shall assail—
And mayhap we shall die together.
—“Ned of the Hill”
twenty
The high school doors were locked, but with the moon behind me I wasn’t worried. It only took a moment to mentally click the doors open, and then carefully lock them behind me. Inside, the halls were lit sickly blue-green by the fluorescent lights, and the windows to the classrooms were black squares in the doors lining the walls. The familiar smell of hundreds of students and books and cafeteria food turned my stomach with anxiety. It was as if I’d never left. It took me a long moment to gather my nerve and remind myself just how strong I could be now.
Still, I hesitated in the main hallway, uncertain of where to go. It ends at the beginning, the dancing faerie had said. But where was the beginning? The bathroom where Luke had found me throwing up? The picnic bench out back where we’d flirted?
No, of course not. It had all started when we played onstage and silenced an auditorium full of people. That was the beginning: the first time I’d ever used my powers, though I hadn’t known it then. It was painfully obvious—what James called a “major duh moment.”
My shoes squeaked as I walked down the hallway toward the auditorium. I felt painfully conspicuous. I listened for other footsteps, though I didn’t know if I’d even hear them over my stupid squeaky shoes. I glanced at every dark classroom window to make sure I wouldn’t be ambushed by some strange faerie creature.
But the high school seemed abandoned, chilling in its emptiness. In my head, Luke’s voice said, trust yourself.
The memory of his voice gave me courage, and I squared my shoulders. I’m strong. I pushed open the doors to the auditorium.
The bulk of the auditorium was in darkness. Rows of invisible folding chairs stretched out before me, but the stage was lit as if a production were in progress. Pieces of half-erected set lay in the corners of the stage, remnants or beginnings of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the middle of the clutter, there was a bare circle. And I saw a little dark pile in the middle of it, with a spotlight trained on it.
It could have been a pile of anything, but I knew exactly what it was. I wanted to bolt down the aisle and vault onto the stage, but logic told me it was a trap. Why else would They have put James under a spotlight, if not to encourage me to bolt up there?
So I made my way cautiously down the dark aisle, spinning, surveying every seat, listening for rustling and smelling for thyme. But it seemed empty like the rest of the school. I made it all the way to the stage stairs, up the stage stairs, onto the slick pale wood of the stage; and still I was alone.
Feeling exposed under the bright, hot lights, I crept over to the pile and recognized the color of James’ favorite Audioslave T-shirt. I couldn’t see his face, but after seeing the crash site, I knew I wasn’t going to like what I saw. I swallowed; I wasn’t ready for this. Please be alive.
I crouched, hovering a hand over his shoulder, hesitating. “Please be alive.”
/>
The head turned toward me, and Freckle Freak grinned up at me. “I am.”
I scrambled backward, shoes slipping on the floor, and Aodhan stood up, wearing James’ bloodstained shirt, his torc glinting at the edge of the sleeve, his smile widening at my shock. His nostrils flared as if he were taking in my scent, and he ran his tongue across his lips.
“Where is he?” I snarled, putting more space between the two of us. As repugnant as the thought of Aodhan touching me was, for some reason I was stuck on the idea of him wearing James’ shirt. He’d taken it while James lay bleeding; I just couldn’t stop thinking of that. “What have you done with him?”
“Very little. The car really did most of the work.”
I had nowhere left to back up to; my next step would take me down the stairs, into the darkness. Breathtakingly fast, Aodhan was beside me, his herbal scent so strong it made my head spin. “Soon,” he whispered into my ear, thyme infecting every bit of me, “I’ll be able to touch you.” He spread his fingers out and pushed his palm toward my collarbone. It hovered, millimeters from my skin, so close that I could see every nick and stain on the leather bands around his wrist. Again I saw Luke’s memory of him tormenting the girl, saw the red-stained leather at his wrists.
Do something. Do something. Instinct kicked in. My knee jerked up, missing his family jewels but slamming him in the thigh. I struck at his face, thinking of how nice it would be to smash out a few of his grinning teeth. He took a step back, easily dodging me, and watched with an easy smile, his head cocked charmingly. For all the world, he looked like an extremely evil model who had escaped from the pages of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.
I scrambled away from him, back toward the center of the stage, thinking only that I needed more room to maneuver. Aodhan followed my progress with a mild smile on his freckled face. “I asked Luke if he’d share you after She had punished him for his disobedience. I’m pretty sure what he said was ‘yes.’”
“Asshole.”
Aodhan chewed his thumbnail and then jerked his hand toward the stage behind me. “Watch your step, lovely.”
I jerked to look behind me. Oh crap oh crap oh crap. There, lying in a pile of broken lumber jutted with nails and set debris painted an ugly green, was a shirtless body. Though I didn’t want to see more, I took a closer look at the dark, stained jeans, the smeared chest, James’ bruised face under a mop of hair. I swallowed vomit.
“I think he punctured a lung, poor thing,” said a bright, clear voice above me. “He stopped breathing just as I brought him in here.”
I looked up at Eleanor’s beautiful features. She gazed down benevolently at me. Blood was smeared all over her elegant white dress, and she examined a spattered nail before licking her finger clean. My world swayed.
“Oh,” she said, voice so lovely I wanted to cry, looking down at the pile of James. “There he goes again. He is a fighter, don’t you think, Aodhan?”
Beside me, James took a shuddering breath, and then, too far apart, another one.
“Bitch!” I burst out. I wished I knew a worse word.
Eleanor gave a lovely, perturbed frown and exchanged a look with Aodhan. “I always forget how angry they get.”
Rage boiled inside me, swelling and mixing with the night already in my heart. I felt as if my skin would burst with the enormity of my anger. Freckle Freak reached to touch me again, and I exploded upward, striking out with my hand and everything inside me. He literally blew across the stage and into the orchestra pit; I didn’t hear him moving, but I was sure he wasn’t dead.
Eleanor covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh. Ah ha. That was not very nice.” She shook her head at me. “Oh dear, that won’t please her at all. She’s going to stop all our fun early if you provoke her.”
Fun. I couldn’t even begin to speak. How could I reason with creatures who thought this was fun?
“Deirdre Monaghan,” Eleanor tried the words out; they sounded elegant in her mouth. “I’m sorry that you don’t seem to be enjoying this.”
“I’m not here to enjoy myself,” I muttered.
“Oh, right,” Eleanor laughed delicately and the fine hairs on my arm stood up, very slowly. “You’re here to rescue your friend from our clutches. And free Luke Dillon from Her clutches.” Her smile was winning. “I knew right when I saw you that you were a very ambitious girl.”
She stepped closer and ran a finger through the air next to my cheek, so close that I could almost feel her. “But I don’t think you’ve quite thought it through. Would you like me to help you wrap your mind around your—your conundrum?”
“Not really.”
Eleanor laughed as if I were very funny, and then she stepped into the spotlight. Holding her arms out, looking like a crucified beauty queen with the red stain on her dress, she said grandly, “All the world’s a stage. It seems a shame to waste this one, doesn’t it? Let’s put on a little production. Aodhan, get up, we need you.”
Aodhan, however, needed no prompting—he was already climbing the stairs to the stage. My explosive attack on him didn’t seem to have misplaced even one of his fashionably spiked hairs.
“Look now,” Eleanor said. “We even have props. Lights, please!” She clapped her hands. The sound resonated through the room, and small, twinkling lights like fireflies dropped from between her palms. She breathed on them, sending them whirling to the back corner of the stage.
My harp. I was unexpectedly floored by the appearance of it. They’d been in my house. They’d taken my harp. I imagined Delia smiling and opening the door for them.
“No play is complete without good props.” Eleanor held a hand out to me, gesturing for me to sit at the harp. “Will you play, Deirdre?”
I spoke through gritted teeth. “I’d rather watch.”
“Very well. I’ll be Deirdre.” She put her palm to her chest and I felt a gasp of energy pulled from me. And before me stood another Deirdre, but with Eleanor’s voice coming from it. “Aodhan, will you play the unfortunate and doomed Luke Dillon?”
“I’m too handsome for the part. But—” and he looked at me— “being Luke Dillon has its uses.” I knew enough to steel myself against the energy drain this time, but as Aodhan’s features melted into Luke’s, I saw James jerk on his pile of rubble.
Eleanor frowned, her pout achingly pretty even on my face. “Oh, now, that was selfish. You could spare it far more than him.” She cast her eyes around the stage. “And as you won’t play, and everyone else is out enjoying Solstice, I suppose we’ll just have the corpse play the piper.” She gestured casually toward James. “He’s doing a good job, anyway.”
She clapped her hands again. “Music, I think!” My harp began to play, of its own accord, my arrangement of “The Faerie Girl’s Lament.” Eleanor sang,
The sun shines through the window
And the sun shines through your hair
It seems like you’re beside me
But I know you’re not there.
You would sit beside this window
Run your fingers through my hair
You were always there beside me
But I know that you’re not there.
She paused on the stage and held her fingers to her chest. “Oh, dearest Luke, I love you so.”
Aodhan laughed derisively. It was so bizarre on Luke’s face that I looked away. “And I you, my lovely.”
“I would free you from your chains.”
Aodhan stepped closer to Eleanor. “And I would free you from your clothes.”
Eleanor smiled. “Truly, it is destiny, is it not? We will run away together.”
“We’ll do something together.” Aodhan reached for Eleanor’s hand, but she pulled it away and held it under her chin in a mockery of deep thought.
“But what of my rejected lover? The piper lies dying.” Eleanor wandered over to James’ body and looked down upon it, her sorrow almost convincing. “Ah, but I know. I’ll take him to a doctor for repair.”
“What God
has made, let not Fey eviscerate,” Aodhan noted.
Eleanor reached toward James and began to lift one of his arms; the horrible gasp he made had me halfway across the stage toward him before Eleanor held up her hand to stop me. She dropped his arm back onto the rubble and turned sadly to Aodhan. “It’s no use, Luke, my love. The piper is beyond human help. Let’s leave him and run away.”
She rubbed her palms together as if working hand cream into them, and then worked them slowly apart. In between her fingers was now a specter of a dirty pigeon. “I have found your soul. I will free you.”
Aodhan stepped forward dramatically and thrust his chest forward. “Let’s get it on.”
Eleanor pressed the ghostly pigeon into Aodhan’s chest and began to sing again.
To the haunting tune of the harp
For the price I paid when you died that day
I paid that day with my heart
Fro and to in my dreams to you
With the breaking of my heart
Ne’er more again will I sing this song
Ne’er more will I hear the harp.
Under her fingers, Aodhan smiled large, and then his face turned to ash. With a crash, he hit the stage and closed his eyes. Eleanor pretended to wipe a tear away as she faced an imaginary audience. “Dear audience, you may find this turn of events … shocking. Why should my love lie dead when I have freed him? Oh, but you forget how old the gallowglass is. And how can a thousand-year-old boy live once he is whole again?”
She turned to me, and as she did, her face melted once more into her own. “Do you see what a fool’s errand you’ve come on now? He cannot be freed, no matter how noble your intentions. Either tonight or a thousand nights from now, his soul is going to hell. I have seen his life, and believe me, he has earned it.”
I stared, frozen, at Aodhan-turned-Luke lying on the stage. I couldn’t move until Aodhan stripped himself of Luke’s form and stood up again, watching my reaction with evident pleasure.
Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception Page 22