by Anthea Sharp
“No.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “But this way the Terribles can rule supreme without having to take you out. And you can still appear onstage at Bella Boingo’s concert tonight.”
“Oh joy.” The pop star’s music had never been to Spark’s taste. The singer’s fan base overlapped with hers, though, so VirtuMax had set up the special guest appearance.
Originally, Spark was scheduled to run a quick demo on the FullD, but her injury made that impossible. Vonda had scrambled and arranged for footage of Spark’s SimCon demo to be shown instead.
“I know why you sprained it.” Niteesh flashed her a smile. “You won’t have to sign autographs.”
“I’m right-handed, goof.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Still, it feels like a cheat, just to show up and do nothing at the concert.”
“Nah. Your fans want to see you. That’s enough.”
“Well, that and the extra VirtuMax swag the company will be handing out.” She yawned. The swaying of the tour bus, on top of her pain meds, was making her groggy.
“Here.” Niteesh handed her a pillow. “I’ll wake you up when we get to the next hotel.”
Spark tucked the pillow under her head and tried to get comfortable. Impatience and worry beat through her, throbbing in time with her wrist.
Jennet hadn’t messaged her back yet, and the taste of failure was bitter ash on her tongue. Some Feyguard she’d turned out to be. She dozed as the bus flashed through quiet towns and winter-bare fields.
Niteesh’s hand on her shoulder roused her from fragmented dreaming.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “Hotel sweet hotel.”
She sat up and rubbed her blurry eyes.
“Hey,” she said. “Do you think you could talk Vonda into letting you have a FullD in your room, for extra practice?”
“So you can sneak onto the system?” Niteesh frowned and glanced at her wrist. “Seriously? You can’t play, Sparky. What’s the big hurry?”
“I have to try.”
“If this is about the Terribles, I don’t think you need to worry about them.”
He glanced to the front of the bus, where it seemed Roc and Cora had been behaving themselves. Spark almost protested that the twins had nothing to do with her need to get back into Feyland. But they provided a good excuse.
“Help me, Nit. Please?”
He blew out a breath. “I’ll ask,” he said. “But no promises.”
***
Aran woke after sleeping for hours. In the real world, he’d call it morning, but that word didn’t belong in the Dark Realm’s unchanging darkness. He pulled on his clothes, then grabbed his tablet. The dinosaur was a comforting lump in his jeans pocket, though he didn’t plan on contacting the human realm today.
No, he was going to concentrate on that wall between the realms. Soon as he opened that, he could collect his reward from the queen and return to the real world a rich man.
And the first thing he planned to do was find Spark Jaxley. They had all kinds of unfinished business between them.
Without waiting for Thomas, Aran tucked his tablet under his arm and left the tent. He was pretty sure he could find his way back to the clearing Thomas had shown him yesterday. And since the queen wanted him to work on the wall, he figured the magic of the realm would help lead him there.
After one wrong turn that dead-ended in a marsh, Aran backtracked along the path and found the clearing. With a deep breath, he stepped into the mushroom ring. The wind rose around him, and he welcomed its familiar, sharp bite.
When the wind stopped buffeting him, he was even gladder to see he’d arrived at the mirror-image clearings. Slowly, he walked toward the middle clearing, one hand outstretched. He encountered the invisible wall and traced its slight curve until he felt the thin crack under his fingertips.
Time to see if he had the skills. Adrenaline rushed through him—half fear of failure, half excitement at the challenge.
He settled on the soft mosses of the clearing, the wall firmly at his back, and powered up his tablet. It flickered to life, showing the normal menu screen. Now—how to get the tablet to display the code, so that he could modify it?
After a frustrating half hour, Aran set his tablet down. Leaning forward, he rested his head against his bent knees. Nothing he tried worked. Not inputting search terms like “faerie realm computer code,” or holding his tablet flat against the wall, or even wading through the guts of the tablet’s operating system, hoping to find a new, hidden protocol.
Something was digging into his thigh. He shifted uncomfortably, then froze. Oh, he’d been an idiot. The dinosaur was the missing link. He knelt and pulled it out of his pocket. Holding his breath, he set the garish toy on top of the tablet.
The display emitted a bright flash, and for a horrible second Aran thought he’d burned it out. Then the light steadied, forming glowing lines of code marching across the screen. Yes!
Leaning over the tablet, Aran scrolled through, looking for something familiar—a chink he could slide through, a gap in the programming. At last, his vision blurry from staring at the screen, he found it.
Despite the excitement rushing through him, his fingers were steady as he typed out commands. The first two did nothing—just lay there, limp as dead worms. When he ran his third script, he felt the wall beside him shudder. Not only that, it became visible, the code revealed in glowing green rows.
That was the tactic, then: a subversion of the ENOX to PH converter on the back end. He could work with that. A tweak here, a nudge there, mapping to the underlying conversion and adding bigger parameters…
The wall shook again. Then, with a sound like a hundred china plates breaking, the crack widened a full two feet. Aran scrambled to his feet, then turned to admire his work.
The light from the middle clearing spilled through the passage, tangling with the shadows of the Dark Realm to create an intricate knotwork pattern. The air shimmered with magic, and promise.
The way to the mortal world was open.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Spark’s head throbbed in time to Bella Boingo’s latest hit. The singer’s voice reverberated through the stadium, and the thick, warm air barely felt breathable. Spark hoped the painkiller she’d taken kicked in soon, because her cue to go onstage was in twenty seconds.
The dancers hopped frenetically around the stage, and a synchronized light show flashed overhead while Bella sang. It was so loud, Spark only caught a few of the words—something about boys and candy and flying.
Bella ended the song and struck a pose, her mirrored costume throwing shards of light all over the stage, and the crowd roared. Really roared, like some hungry, devouring beast. Spark had experienced her fair share of adoration, but this was a whole new level of fame. Under Bella’s bubbly-sweet exterior, she must be tough as rocks to handle that kind of adulation night after night.
“I have such an exciting surprise for you tonight!” Bella said into her mic, once the crowd quieted a little.
Spark’s appearance wasn’t really a surprise, but hey—she could go with it. She slipped her wrist splint off and set it on a nearby table, then picked up her mic. No need to let the world know about her injury.
“Help me welcome superstar gamer Spark Jaxley to the stage!”
The crowd went wild again as Spark strode forward into the blinding lights. She could just make out some members of the audience waving magenta light sticks in her honor, and the sight turned her smile more genuine.
She waved to the crowd, then turned her mic on and joined Bella.
“Thanks for sharing your stage with me tonight,” Spark said. “It’s a real pleasure to be here in Landover.”
Bella put her hand on Spark’s shoulder. “Thank you for emerging from the amazing world of Feyland to say hello. Speaking of which—we have some killer footage of Spark in-game. Check it out!”
The stage lights dimmed as the screens flared to life. Spark wasn’t sure she liked the implication that sh
e was actually a character inside a game, but whatever. VirtuMax and Bella’s PR people had scripted the dialogue, and they generally knew what they were doing.
The audience screamed and applauded as highlights of Spark’s SimCon demo played. Her defeat of the basilisk got a cheer that vibrated the bones of her skull.
The vid finished, and in the split second before the stage lights came up, everything went sideways.
A mournful wail cut through the air, loud enough to bring the crowd’s cheers down to a low murmur. Spark’s breath caught in her throat as an unwilling shiver raced over her skin. The call of the Wild Hunt! She looked wildly around for a weapon. The nearest thing was a backup singer’s mic stand.
Spark ripped the mic off the stand, handed it to the startled singer, then took up a position next to Bella. Despite the hot twinges of pain in her wrist, Spark hefted the stand, holding it crosswise like a staff.
The air in the center of the stadium roiled, forming an unearthly ball of light. It hung, suspended in the middle of the vast space. Then red-eyed hounds emerged from the sickly glow. Baying, they lunged forward through the thin air, heading straight for the stage. Behind them, mounted on horses with flaming hooves, came the rest of the hunt: elfin lords and fey creatures, their terrible beauty almost too much for mortal eyes. And towering above them all, the antlers of the huntsman. Spark gulped in a breath of sweaty air.
Thing had just gotten very, very serious.
“What’s going on?” Bella asked, keeping her mic off. “Is this some kind of VirtuMax special effect?”
“Get ready to fight,” Spark said. There wasn’t time to explain.
The first hound reached the stage. Spark swung at it, using the heavy base of the mic stand for momentum. She connected, and the hound went flying. Beside her, Bella kicked out, her high-heeled boots surprisingly effective.
The rest of the band got into the action as hounds swarmed the stage. The musicians and dancers were laughing and shouting, bashing away with mic stands. They had no idea it wasn’t a VirtuMax special effects show, but something far more dangerous.
Floating in midair, the huntsman watched from the center of the stadium, his eyes black pools. He raised his ivory horn to his lips and blew a sharp blast. The hounds turned and ran back to their master, and the audience went into a frenzy of clapping and cheering. Damn—they all thought it was part of the performance.
Spark’s breath came in quick bursts, and she set down the heavy stand. The fingers of her left hand were numb, and she hoped she hadn’t damaged herself beyond repair.
The huntsman gestured, and this time the riders of the hunt galloped across the air. Instead of targeting the stage, they began to fan out over the audience, pale hands outstretched. Fear spiked through her. They were looking for humans to harvest and take back into the realm. There was no way she could stop them, not by herself.
“No!” Spark yelled. “Elder Fey, help!”
A thunderclap shook the dome, and the Wild Hunt halted, some mere inches from their intended victims. From the darkness at the roof of the stadium, a dim form took shape. Winged and ancient, outlined in eerie purple light, the creature spoke.
*Cease,* it said—though it was more like a voice sounding through her bones than any word said aloud.
“Our prey,” the huntsman said, his voice the shadows of deep night.
*No. Begone.* The Elder Fey clapped its wings together, sending a blast of wind screaming through the stadium.
Spark closed her eyes against that fierce gust. When she opened them again, the Wild Hunt was gone—the last hound leaping through the portal. The glowing ball of light shrank to a pinpoint, then winked out.
The audience went mad—jumping to their feet and shouting until the stage vibrated. Beneath that surge of sound, the creature spoke to Spark.
*The way between this word and the realm is open, Feyguard. You must close it.* As suddenly as it had appeared, the Elder Fey was gone.
Somebody at the light board was quick-witted enough to bring up the flashing stage lights. Bella’s drummer laid down a beat, and her rhythm guitar player started strumming along.
“Nice show,” the singer said to Spark. “VirtuMax has some prime special effects.”
“Yeah.” Spark hung on to the mic stand, suddenly dizzy.
“Thanks for coming,” Bella said, then flicked her mic back on. “Let’s give Spark and the whole VirtuMax crew a Bella Boingo wave!”
The singer lifted her arms high overhead, then brought them down. Most of the stadium followed her action, the glow sticks and illuminated messagers flashing in a river of light.
Spark waved goodbye, careful not to move her left arm. Keeping her head high, she strode off the stage as Bella segued into the next song on her set list.
For all everyone knew, VirtuMax had just put on an incredible holographic show. Spark swayed, lightheaded and sick. She had to get that gateway closed.
***
“You did what?” Thomas shouted—actually shouted—and jumped up from the table, spilling his cup of tea.
Aran took a step back toward the tent door.
“I reverse-hacked the wall between the realm and the human world. Just like the queen asked me to. Now, will you come with me or should I go talk to her by myself?”
Even though he’d been successful, the Dark Queen scared Aran. He’d rather have someone else along when he went to demand his reward. Although Thomas wasn’t exactly being supportive.
The bard’s eyes flashed with anger and he clenched his fingers into fists, then uncurled them, over and over.
“You stupid, stupid boy. The mortal world is completely unprepared for the havoc the fey folk will wreak. Oh, had I but known—”
“What, you would have disobeyed your ruler? I doubt it. Look, the queen said that without access to humans, the realm would die. I couldn’t let that happen.”
Aran tried to ignore the sick clench in his gut at Thomas’s reaction.
“Did you not see the crack in the wall?” Thomas set a fist to his forehead. “I should have spoken sooner, but I never dreamed you would succeed in such folly—or that Spark would fail to remove you from the realm. There is still time to undo the damage. Repair the break, BlackWing.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
He couldn’t close the gateway back up. For one thing, he needed the money and had won it fairly, and for the other, he didn’t want to contemplate what the queen would do to him if he backtracked and denied her.
“You must close it.” Thomas’s voice was strained. “The queen and her court are dangerous. If allowed to enter the mortal realm unchecked, they will cause utter mayhem.”
“According to you, they already have access. And there’s a police force at the ready, right? The Feyguard can handle it. Now, I’m going to collect my reward, before the queen changes her mind.”
He was beyond ready to get out of the Dark Realm and its treacherous loyalties.
On the way out, he grabbed his black cloak from its peg beside the door. He wasn’t changing into court finery, but it wouldn’t hurt to wear the cloak over his jeans and T-shirt. Plus it had a wide inner pocket big enough to carry his tablet.
“I will accompany you,” Thomas said, his voice cold.
The bard’s stride was stiff with reproach as he accompanied Aran to the clearing of the Dark Court. Still, Aran would far prefer to have the bard angry at him than the Dark Queen. Thomas wanted him to renege on his deal, but no way did the bard have enough power to protect Aran from the queen.
The purple bonfire flared up as they passed, and the noise of the feasting revelers seemed louder than usual. Harsh and chiming laughter filled the air, underscored by the sound of a furious reel played on fiddle and drum.
The queen reclined upon her throne, her face lit with a terrible mirth.
“Well done, mortal,” she cried, beckoning to Aran with her sharp-nailed fingers. “You have saved my realm.”
“Your majesty.” Aran perf
ormed his court bow, complete with the cloak swirl at the end.
Half of him was proud, but the other half wondered if he’d made a mistake. Thomas’s reaction pointed to the second. Aran swallowed. He’d get his treasure and duck out of there. Whatever other issues were going on were the Dark Court’s to deal with.
“Come closer,” the queen said.
He took a step toward the throne.
“Closer,” she said again.
Heart racing, Aran walked the three steps to the foot of the throne. The Dark Queen reached one hand and gently ran her nails down his cheek. Her eyes were full of endless midnight.
“Such a pretty one,” she said. “A pity I have to let you go.”
“Yeah. You do have to let me go. And pay me.” Aran forced the words out, trying to keep himself from falling into the queen’s fathomless eyes.
She laughed, the sound like ice shattering on a frozen lake.
“Ladyslipper, bring his reward,” she said.
One of the pale faerie maidens left her place beside the throne. She carried a black velvet sack in her hands, and wordlessly offered it to Aran.
He took it, surprised at its weight. Anticipation firing his fingers, he wrenched open the mouth of the sack, and saw the glint of gold inside. Oh yeah. He was going to be set.
“Many thanks, my lady,” he said, bowing again to the queen. “It was a pleasure working for you.”
“The pleasure was entirely ours, mortal,” she said, her expression filled with secret amusement. “I presume you wish to return to your world now?”
“Wait.” Thomas stepped forward. “BlackWing must remain in the realm. What if something goes awry with the gateway?
The look the Dark Queen gave her bard made Aran shiver.
“Methinks there is more danger of that should the boy stay,” she said, her voice treacherously soft. “The gateway is precisely as it needs to be, and you will meddle no more, Bard Thomas.”
Thomas hung his head, weary defeat in the stoop of his shoulders.
“I’m ready to go home,” Aran said.
The bard glanced up at his words. “Safely home,” he said.