by K. C. Lannon
James felt his face warm. He wanted to retort with something witty but found he was too embarrassed to think of anything. “Regardless,” he huffed, “I’ll be staying outside.”
Deirdre was still giggling to herself, and she reached over and quickly ruffled his hair before he could push her away. “Whatever you say, Mr. Germs.”
* * *
The scenery rushed and bounced past in a blur as the military truck thundered down the dirt road. The vehicle left a swirling trail of dust in its wake. From either side of the road, birds burst out of the tall grasses and foliage, scattering into the sky. Iain sat in the passenger’s seat, gazing out the window, scanning for any human shapes, and currently avoiding any kind of contact with the man in the driver’s seat: Commander Philip Prance.
“They can’t have gone far,” Philip said brightly over the sound of the massive truck tires crunching over gravel. “I imagine we’ll catch up to them very soon. We’ll head over to the nearest town and ask about.”
“If they even took the road.” Iain shaded his eyes from the sun, leaning his head out the open window to get a better look. Had he not been so focused on finding his brother, he might have enjoyed how refreshing the breeze felt.
“Huh. That’s not bad thinking there, Callaghan.” He sounded mildly impressed. “If I were a faery that’s been trapped in a city for a few days, I’d be right eager to stretch my legs out in these fields, get some fresh air.”
The countryside before them was expansive, seemingly unending. “How will we know which way they’re headed?” It seemed almost hopeless, the idea of finding James and Deirdre out there. Iain knew it didn’t really matter how difficult the search would be; he would find James regardless. He’d never stop searching.
“There are ways to track ’em.”
After realizing he had no reason to keep information from Philip, Iain told him about their latest visit to Ferriers Town and how Deirdre had her fortune told, what had been said. There were still too many variables, too many things that made little sense, so Iain shared the only solid piece of information he had: “Which direction leads to the Summer Court?”
“That’s to the north.” As an afterthought, Philip said, “Why would the banshee tell an Unseelie faery to go to the Summer Court anyhow?”
Iain shrugged. It made no sense, but it didn’t have to. He had orders, regardless of whether or not the pieces of knowledge he had clicked perfectly together. “North then,” Iain said. “That’s the direction we’ll go.”
“Oi, you can’t give me orders, Callaghan,” Philip said, feigning insult. “I say where we go, and I say we head north.”
They parked the truck on the side of the road, nearly in the grass (after a farm tractor couldn’t pass them and the driver began hollering and making rude hand gestures). As Iain shouldered his backpack, Philip walked up to him and thrust a sidearm at him.
“We’re not going to bloody shoot her, are we?” Iain exclaimed, unsettled by the very idea. Faery or not, she was still just a teenager. He’d never been comfortable with shooting a gun during training. He was always more adept at close range, hand-to-hand combat.
“Good Lord, no.” Philip scoffed, giving Iain a hard slap on the back. “But you never know what kind of creatures you’ll encounter out here, especially once evening rolls around. You remember the beast that wound up outside the walls a couple of days ago?”
Iain remembered but still stared at the weapon for a moment before holstering it on his belt. Philip then held up his pair of iron handcuffs and suggested that Iain keep his on him as well.
“That’ll do it,” Iain murmured to himself, patting the cuffs on his belt.
Philip and Iain had not been traveling off-road long before they came across telling signs that someone had crossed the same path before them. There were tread marks from two pairs of shoes in the muddier parts of the field. Philip found a receipt from a library book on different types of edible plants.
Iain began to pick up the pace, going ahead of Philip, feeling confident that he’d find James within the hour. He’d find James, and whoever orchestrated the assassination of King Eadred would be brought to justice, and the military would relinquish power back to the government, and everything would be just as it was before. If he could just find James, he could forget about all that he’d seen. If he could just find James…
He began to go over his training in his head. It had been a while since he’d shot a gun, so he began to mentally disassemble the weapon like he had every day to clean the parts and assemble it again. He thought about the various ways they were taught to deal with different types of Fae. Iron was a safe choice for nearly anything, unless it was one of the ancient Fae. In that case, it was best to run or try to confuse it…
“Oi, Callaghan.”
Did James even know how to defend himself? He would be helpless against most Fae. He certainly had no iron on him. He was helpless against a faery like Deirdre.
I should have warned him. I should have taught him better.
“Callaghan!”
Iain jolted as Philip grabbed him by the shoulder from behind. Philip was struggling to keep up with his pace.
“What?” Iain asked, disoriented. He hadn’t heard Philip calling him.
“You… you all right, Callaghan?” Philip stared at Iain like he had suddenly sprouted little pixie wings from his back. “You look…”
“I’m fine.”
Philip moistened his lips. “We’ll find your brother and get him back home soon.”
“I know.”
After a few minutes of walking in silence, Philip spoke up again. “You know, the Irish have always had the right idea about the fair folk. We left them alone, but it was done so with mutual respect. And when we did cross paths, it was either something beautiful that you’d never forget or something that put you back in your place. I’d like things to go back to that, myself.”
“You and my father have very different ideas,” Iain pointed out conversationally.
“I’m starting to figure that out too. Only, I hope I haven’t learned it too late, Callaghan.” When Philip sighed, Iain turned to look at him, slowing his pace somewhat. Philip’s head was lowered, and his usual smile was absent. “I’m not the brightest man. Not like you anyway.”
Iain’s mouth hardened into a thin line.
“I’m not insulting you,” Philip clarified. He chuckled. “You forget which brother you’re talking to.”
Iain pressed onward. “You’ve forgotten too.”
“Yes, your brother has his books and his grades. I’m talking about instinct. You get a good read on people.”
“Not always.” Iain thought of Elaine and distractedly rubbed the back of his neck.
After thinking on it more, Philip added, “Aye, not always though. You are a man. Most of us aren’t immune to going against our warning instincts for the sake of other, less selective ones in the name of love.”
Iain managed a laugh. He didn’t think love was exactly what Prance meant.
Wanting to change the subject, he asked, “What do you mean, you might be too late?”
“I’d say there’s no ‘might’ about it. There’s not much we can do after what happened today, now that General Callaghan is in charge. I’m too daft to make any sense of it. All I know is he’s got Boyd involved. Earlier today when I left the parade to go break up a fight? There wasn’t no fight. Boyd called it in, but there was nothing there. I think he meant to get me away from the attack. And he’s been talking strangely, about how things are finally going to change for the better, how General Callaghan was going to take over and eliminate the Fae from Neo-London. It was like he knew all this would happen.”
Iain felt cold. “You’re accusing my father of treason,” he stated with a calmness that surprised even him. He was calm, he realized, because he did not believe it was true. “Do you have proof?”
“I don’t have solid proof yet of just how much General Callaghan was involved in the
attack, but I know for a fact that he has been involved in illegal activities for some years now—working outside the military.”
While the accusations sounded like the ravings of a mad man, Iain had always known Philip to be a simple but clearheaded man. And he wasn’t a liar. He knew what liars sounded like. Still, the fact remained that Philip wanted something, or he wouldn’t be telling him any of this.
Iain narrowed his eyes and hunched his shoulders against the wind. “You’ve known about these illegal activities. Why not report him sooner?”
“He—” Philip cleared his throat, pausing. “Ah, damn. This is hard to say.”
Iain realized with a jolt that Philip was trying to collect himself. He kept busy by picking up a rock from the ground and tossing it as far as he could, pretending not to notice.
“General Callaghan knew my family back when they were still running the Underground of the city, back when the Dearg-dues were still a feared name. He told me he worked with them for a while as a liaison with the Wardens, kept them out of prison while they ran the streets and intimidated the people he wanted silenced. General Callaghan betrayed them eventually, handed them over to the Wardens, and made certain they were executed on site.”
It sounded as if Philip was describing someone else entirely. General Callaghan would never break a law or work outside the military with thugs like the mob or plot against his king and government. His father had always put his country, his city, and the people in it above everything else.
“I owe him for that,” Philip said firmly. “Thanks to your father, my brother and I grew up away from all that violence my family was involved in. Life for us before your father was rough, and it was ugly. I made it out okay, but Boyd never recovered.”
Iain’s mind began working furiously, dizzyingly. The sun was too bright in his eyes. He pushed himself harder, walking faster.
Just find James. Find James.
Philip went on uncertainly, sounding more like he was ranting to himself than to Iain. “Boyd threw himself into his work, into your father’s ideology. I don’t blame him for that. I don’t think you’d blame your brother either. See, I think if Boyd can just start to see things clearly, maybe all this can be resolved. General Callaghan needs to be investigated. Maybe when we get back, I can enlist your help. That’s part of the reason why I volunteered myself for this mission, to talk to you—”
Iain halted midstride. “What do you get out of dragging me into this, Commander? You said yourself you don’t even have solid proof.”
Why is this all happening now, just when things were starting to be all right again?
Iain had started to picture how things would be for them in the future, once he and James had moved out. Iain would fix up the house for his father. He and James would visit their father now and then, and things between them would no longer be fraught with tension and old wounds. James would finish school and go on to university, prove everyone wrong. He could see it all so clearly, and while the reality of it would never be how he truly wanted it, it would be enough. Just enough. He could keep the only family he had left together.
That’s how Mum would’ve wanted it.
“I’m not trying to get anything. It’s our duty to speak up if something illegal is going on.”
“And your pitting me against my father has got nothing to do with you and Boyd?” Iain smiled mirthlessly. “Almost everyone’s got an agenda, Prance.”
Philip gaped at him. “If anyone’s been pitting anyone against anyone, it’s your father. He’s pit us against you and your brother since he took us under his wing. Lying to us, hiding things. You’ve got to know he’s manipulating all of us. Especially you and Boyd.”
“So my dad told you what to say, yeah? He told Boyd what slur to call my brother and me? He told you not to stop Boyd from giving me a beating?”
Philip was silent for a long moment. “Not outright. But he knew what was going on, and he encouraged it.”
Iain shook his head. Philip was wrong.
If Dad knew what Boyd was doing, he would have put a stop to it. He would have cared.
“See, me, I make my own mistakes,” Iain explained calmly. “It wasn’t my father who told me to hate you. He didn’t have to. I just did. No one ever had to tell me to screw up, and I don’t blame anyone but myself, got it?”
“That’s it then? You just can’t be bothered now? You know he’s up to something.”
“You said you don’t know anything for certain. I need more evidence than just your word before I start calling my father a traitor.”
“You’ve got evidence already. What’s your gut telling you?”
Iain couldn’t trust his instincts anymore.
“You don’t give people much reason to like you, Iain, but I know you care on some level.” Philip exhaled sharply. He sounded defeated. “Maybe my instincts were wrong again.”
“Probably, yeah.”
“I don’t think I’m wrong about you.”
Iain just glared back at him, when his foot caught on something solid and he pitched forward onto the ground. He landed hard on his stomach. He groaned, climbing to his feet again, unhurt but his hands muddied.
“What tripped you?” Philip asked. There was a faint smile in his voice, and he no doubt enjoyed seeing Iain face-plant.
“Nothing tripped me,” Iain replied slyly, wiping his hands off. “I make my own mistakes, remember?”
He nudged at whatever he fell over with the toe of his boot. It was a plank of wood that must have belonged to a fence of some kind. It was completely splintered in some places, like something huge had struck it. He couldn’t think of anything natural that could have caused it.
“What the hell could’ve done that?” Philip asked, as if reading Iain’s thoughts.
“Dévla!” Iain suddenly noticed the foul stench that was emanating from the surrounding area. He covered his nose in the crook of his elbow and went to investigate.
“Whatever did that to the fence must have done this too.” Philip pointed out a dead sheep—or at least that’s what it might have looked like once—that was completely rent apart a few paces ahead of them. Among the redness, a few of its curly white hairs ruffled in the breeze, carrying with it a powerful scent.
“Good thing I didn’t fall in that, yeah?”
“Good thing you’re a bloody oaf, Callaghan, or we might not have noticed it.”
Iain chuckled.
A sound reached their ears. It was almost like the whistling of wind, the way Iain recalled the train sounding when it rocketed through the concrete tunnel on his rout to work. He expected to feel a breeze that might cool the sweat that had beaded on the back of his neck, but none came. Nothing but still air.
Philip’s hand went to his own gun holster. “Let’s keep moving.”
Iain nodded in agreement. “Yes, Commander.”
Chapter Fifteen
As it grew darker, they selected a camping area on James’s map and went off course slightly to reach it. Deirdre was beginning to tire, and her stomach grumbled loudly. Quiet for the past hour, James trudged behind her, his head down, looking defeated by the day’s exercise.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” she said, giving him an encouraging smile. He didn’t respond but kept walking.
They were following a deer trail between two groves of trees when suddenly the birds shot up from the branches around them, beating their wings fast into the sky, crying out in alarm. They both stopped, looking around.
“Do you see anything?” James asked, sidling beside her.
She shook her head and was about to reply when the ground shook hard beneath them, knocking them both off their feet. Immediately she pushed herself up, her gaze darting up and down, searching through the darkening groves.
The ground shook again, but this time they were ready; they both got to their feet, and Deirdre tugged on James’s shirt for him to follow her. Staying low, they continued down the narrow path, both alert as hunted rabbits
.
Once again the earth shuddered, making them stagger.
“What is going on? What’s happening? This can’t be an earthquake,” James began to ramble in a hoarse whisper. “It could be a giant monster or something with earth-shaking magic or—”
“James.” Deirdre grabbed his shoulder hard, nodding up above the nearest tree, her mouth a grim line.
He followed her gaze and gasped.
Behind the nearest tree was what first looked like a gigantic, grey-green boulder, thick as five trees. But through the leafy branches a gigantic, single eye looked at them. The eye was humanoid save for its size and deep bloodshot color, and it stared at them without blinking. The rest of the face was hidden.
James was gibbering, perhaps trying to guess what it was but falling short of pronouncing anything clearly. They were frozen as the eye considered them, looking from one to the other.
Then it shifted, and they heard a low growl as the eye rose up higher, narrowing slightly, fixed on them.
Run. Deirdre willed her frozen legs. We need to run. Run. Run…
Then the eye stopped and there was a slow sniffing sound. It continued on for nearly half a minute, the pupil of the eye looking away and around, an invisible nose loudly smelling the breeze.
Then, without another glance at them, the eyeball disappeared and the ground shook again and again. With each stomp, the hidden giant moved farther and farther away, the clomping and sniffing fading off into the distance.
“W-w-what was that?” James finally gasped. “Was that… what…”
“A…” Deirdre gulped. “It was a giant or something, I guess. And it didn’t seem to be all that interested in us.” She giggled hysterically. “Lucky us!”
“It could have been a giant. But wasn’t it a bit small? And there aren’t many giants.” James rambled on, “Probably it was something else, like a Red Cap or troll or a Fachan, or maybe…”
“A Fachan? Fachans come down this far? I thought they were only in Scotland.”