High Voltage

by Karen Marie Moning

  “Under the First Queen and Seelie King, Faery consisted of only the Seelie Court, a vast, resplendent land with four distinct kingdoms, with royal houses governing each: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Over them all, the queen ruled.

  “When the king left the Seelie Queen and became Unseelie, he expanded Faery to hold the enormity of his own demesne. Within his kingdom he constructed the nearly infinite White Mansion, and tied it to the truly infinite Hall of All Days. He also fabricated the Silvers as a secondary means of travel, initially for his and his concubine’s use only. Faery grew from a single court to an enormous tapestry of connected worlds. Some say the battle we wage here on Earth between mortal and Fae is happening on countless other worlds with countless other Fae courts connected by this network, in a multiplicity of universes.”

  He saw the look on my face and laughed. “Aye, the thought boggles my mind, too. Eventually, the Silvers were cursed and the terrain of Faery became even more complex, as if it wasn’t already enough of a mess. But for simplicity, think of Faery as the Light Court and the Dark Court, the Hall of All Days, the Silvers, and the White Mansion all in one enormous, otherworldly realm. But it’s no longer otherworldly. No walls divide us. It exists adjacent to, spilling into, our own.”

  Which was why we desperately needed Mac to figure out how to use her power as Fae queen, so she could sing those walls back up and restore our world to its normal order without Fae preying on humans. “How do you know all this?” I asked. This was the kind of history we’d long been seeking.

  “I sent my clan into the White Mansion, to the king’s true library, and had them bring me every book and object of interest they could find. The castle, as you’ll soon see, is stuffed with books and bottles and potions and endless artifacts that we’ve transported to Draoidheacht Keep. Heed me well, touch none of it. They’re not your usual books and bottles and such. Dani can tell you a thing or two about what might be found in the king’s collection.” He laughed. “Ask her about the Boora Boora books. But don’t ask her about the Crimson Hag, and no matter what you do, once you arrive at my castle, bloody hell, don’t open any bottles you might see lying around.”

  “If they’re so dangerous, why did you bring them out into our world?”

  “Many might prove useful. Knowledge is power. So is power,” he said dryly. “A controllable Crimson Hag would be a hell of an advantage. I don’t sleep, Kat, I study. I learn about myself, about the Fae race. I prepare. The gods and Fae are going to war again, and that battle could well destroy our world. The gods want humans eradicated, the Fae want humans enslaved. It’s a lose-lose for us either way.”

  I said, “What does this have to do with Sean? I’m assuming it ties in somehow?”

  “We, too, were made dramatically more powerful by the ancient melody. It was months before the full transformation occurred for me, and yet another few months after that for Sean. I suspect it’s moved slowly for the Seelie, as well. We all change at our own unique pace. I’ve learned to control what I’ve become. But Sean, ah lass, your Sean has not. And he must. He’s running out of time.”

  * * *

  π

  We arrived at the perimeter of Christian’s heavily warded kingdom just before dawn. He’d carved apart fifty thousand acres of the Highlands for his own, and begun repairing and fortifying the enormous, ancient castle he’d christened Draoidheacht Keep. It was in that great, sprawling castle he and Sean lived, in the finished parts of the crumbling ruin. As we soared over a final ben, Christian said, “Brace yourself, lass, it’s not pretty.”

  Even prepared, I was stunned by the vision that greeted us as we cleared that final ben, broke through clouds and soared over his kingdom.

  Everywhere I looked, the earth was black.

  Gone was the lush greenery, the abundant profusion of foliage and life. Beneath an endless bank of low-hanging, dense, rumbling thunderclouds that stretched as far as my eye could see—a churning, crashing dark gray roof—the earth was burnt and barren, as if it had been charred to a crisp.

  “What happened here, Christian?” I gasped, clinging more tightly to his shoulders as an icy gust blasted me. It was uncommonly cold, too. The temperature had plummeted thirty to forty degrees the moment we crossed the harsh line of demarcation

  “Months after the Song was sung, I took a flight through the Highlands, savoring the beauty. I’d only just begun to embrace my wings. I was in a buoyant mood that day and decided to take a stroll, visit our local pub for a wee dram before returning to Castle Keltar. I walked the last few miles, enjoying an unusual gentle hum I felt in the earth. It seemed to be seeping up through the soles of my boots, into my skin, deep into my bones. It felt good, Kat, a beautiful rhythmic vibration enlivening me. I didn’t understand what was happening, didn’t realize a dormant part of me was responding to the new magic in the earth, awakening. That I was becoming the Prince of Death who’d once existed three-quarters of a million years ago. When I strolled into the Cock and Crown that day, one hundred forty-two people—my people, under Keltar care—exploded into clouds of black dust before my eyes. I killed every single person in that pub, merely by entering it. Had I returned home instead of going for a drink, I’d have killed my entire clan, with the sole exception of Dageus.”

  I flinched. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ve spent the past two years scouring tomes from the king’s library, seeking information about what I am, what power I have and how to use it. It’s not as if I have anyone to ask. The Seelie would prefer us dead. Barring that, they want us on their very short leash, to be used as weapons. There are no Unseelie left to educate me.”

  “But don’t you sort of just know what you can do?” My gift was simple, it slammed me in the face every day. Since the Song was sung, it had grown even more potent, but thanks to time spent with Kasteo, I’d learned how to make and hold walls, Kevlar myself in emotional armor. Before I slept each night, I deliberately and carefully walled the world out, creating a blessed fortress of silence for myself, so I might face the next day rejuvenated, strong.

  “Not until I try,” Christian said. “And often I’m not trying to do anything at all. The power manifests without my consent, like the day I strolled into the pub. Shortly after I imprisoned myself here, your Sean joined me. He’s Famine. Wherever he walks, the earth dies, crops wither, the soil goes barren; in time enough, the world would starve. The same thing happened to him that occurred with me: he felt something seeping up from the soil and, as he walked, the earth around him began to die. Unlike me, he hasn’t been able to contain that power.”

  I winced. “It was Sean who destroyed this land?”

  “Aye. He tests himself, strolls out to a strip of what blanched green remains when he thinks he’s ready to try again. Each time he destroys the earth, he returns angrier, grows more bitter. Anger and bitterness aren’t emotions an Unseelie prince can indulge without catastrophic results.”

  “What is that? Who lives there?” I exclaimed. He’d soared us far to the north as we’d talked, and we now glided directly above the line of demarcation where the perimeter of his blackened kingdom met lush green again. I’d seen something like it before, the abrupt transition where the Shades had devoured everything in sight as they’d approached our abbey, but had stopped for reasons unknown.

  On the charred land to my right stood a small thatch-roofed crofter’s cottage in the midst of lifeless earth. On the grassy side, directly adjacent to it, was another small crofter’s cottage of stone that was welcoming and warm, surrounded by neatly tended gardens where flowers bloomed.

  The cottages were day and night, yin and yang, huddled next to each other. Far below us a couple walked on the grassy side, near the cottage, holding hands.

  “That’s Dageus and Chloe. He lives within my wards. She lives just beyond them. I’ve warded the fuck out of her cottage, too, but will not permit her inside my kingdom, le
st we inadvertently harm her.”

  “You came into our abbey yet killed no one. I felt you, Christian. You have it under control.”

  “There is no ward, no charm, no magic solution to harnessing a prince’s deadly powers. What I used to master it is the simplest yet often the most elusive thing of all: love. If I grow angry, if I allow myself any negative emotion at all, I can slip,” he said quietly. “The key to success is never being bitter, never being angry, never coveting, never succumbing to any kind of desire that contains darkness. Your Sean, lass, he’s consumed by it.”

  I blinked back a swift burn of tears. I’d wondered, so many nights, in my private garden of silence at the end of each day, where my childhood love had gone. Why he’d never texted or called. He’d simply walked away, without another word. It had pained me almost beyond enduring.

  Yet, all this time, Sean had been holed up in isolation, warded away from the world, trying to learn to control the Unseelie monster he’d become. All this time, I’d thought he’d left me because he didn’t want me, didn’t want us. And so, I’d given him his privacy. I’d not texted or called either. Stung, hurt. McLaughlin-stubborn and unyielding.

  But that wasn’t why he’d left at all. Sometimes, despite the open window I have into everyone else’s emotions, I can be blind and foolish about my own. “Take me to him, Christian.”

  “I hoped you’d say that.”

  Crawling in my skin, these wounds they will not heal

  I LOST ONE OF MY birds this morning.

  His name was Charles James Aubry. He was twenty-three. He hung himself in my flat on Desoto after only nine days off the streets. I just dropped in on him three days ago and even I’d been fooled.

  But I’ve seen many come and go and I’ve learned a bit about their ways; sometimes right before they check out, they seem better than ever, well-adjusted. Not giddy or tip-you-off kind of happy, but misleadingly balanced, and I wonder about that borrowed grace. Wonder about the enormous amount of pain they must be suffering to finally feel okay only when they decide to opt out of this crazy, beautiful world. You don’t see it coming, not even me. Although I’ve learned to watch for an unexpected, suspicious peace.

  He left a note: I didn’t ask to be born.

  I wish I had more time. I have a theory about depression. I think it comes from a shift in the chemicals in our brains because stress, trauma, and grief deplete our happy juice, disrupt the delicate, necessary balance and make the world go flat around us, get scary and monochrome, too heavy to bear. And once you’re there, with depleted brain chemicals and flat colors, you’re too depressed to fight your way out. I think exercise is a way to increase endorphins, rebalance the brain, and I wonder if my extreme velocity and constant motion feed my brain undiluted happy juice, constantly perking me up. I wonder if I figured out, say—the right blend of cortisol, 5HTP, and Bacopa, maybe a few other nootropics, plus lots of fun, physical activity, and loads of kindness and sunshine—then gave those people one happy, stress-free year without any responsibility, maybe I could turn their world around.

  I cut him down and held him. He was still warm; I may have missed him by an hour, he must have died shortly after dawn. Lingered to watch one more sunrise. If so, that slayed me because it meant he still had joy somewhere inside, if only someone had been able to reach and nurture it. I wrapped him in a blanket and took him to a cemetery I use for the lost ones. I don’t have a lot of time but I always bury them, and I always do something for them.

  Dublin goes dispassionately on. This beautiful, terrifying, packed with limitless possibility and peril chronic-town chug-a-chugs on, a locomotive barreling down the tracks, with neither deviation in schedule nor pause for fallen.

  They vanish, unnoticed, unsung.

  I blow the horn for them. Yank that cable down and let her rip.

  I graffitied his name on an underpass in three vibrant shades of neon ten feet tall telling the world that Charles James Aubry was here. It may have been brief but, by God, he was here and will be remembered. If only by me.

  He couldn’t stand the pain.

  And I couldn’t save him from it.

  * * *

  π

  I went straight to Chester’s after painting the underpass, and dashed up the stairs to Ryodan’s office when I didn’t find him below with the workers. I’d texted earlier, telling him I was fine and I’d be by around ten. He’s not a man you don’t text when he tells you to. He’ll come looking for you. And he’ll be pissed. I wasn’t in the mood to repair my door again. I still had to fix the elevator. And I hadn’t vacuumed in weeks. Shazam-hair was everywhere.

  When the darkened glass panel whisked silently aside, I stalked across the glass floor that always makes me feel suspended in space, flung myself into the chair in front of his desk, kicked my feet over the side, and told him what I’d decided late last night—or rather near dawn this morning—with neither preface nor preamble.

  “I think I’m becoming a Hunter.” I leaned back and waited for him to deny it. I didn’t actually think it myself. It was absurdly far-fetched. I was, however, quite certain I would turn completely black at some point. Still…the vision I’d had at the club last night seemed like…I don’t know, an invitation of sorts, and I wanted to bounce my worst-case scenario off someone who would laugh and tell me that was ridiculous. I wasn’t turning into one of those icy black demons with eyes like gates to Hell, no matter how benign it had appeared in my vision, sailing along next to me. To hear him say he knew a spell, a ward, or a charm that would make my deadly skin go away, because, by God, Ryodan knew everything.

  Criminy, he was beautiful this morning. Tall and dark, freshly showered and shaved, smelling good. Looking powerful and ridiculous behind that stuffy desk. He belongs on a battlefield. Like me.

  He said flatly, “You think?”

  I stiffened. That wasn’t the right answer, Ryodan’s version of duh. “What do you mean, duh? You didn’t even know I’d stabbed a Hunter.”

  He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows, his forearms strong, scarred, silver cuff glinting. I know Ryodan well, the fine muscles in his face were too tight. He was pissed about something. Extremely. “I knew you stabbed a Hunter. I read every paper you wrote. And your book. All editions. Your footnotes needed work. I didn’t, however,” he growled, “know your bloody hand turned black afterward. You neglected to mention that.”

  “It was no one’s business but mine. And how do you know it now?” And why was he taking this so seriously? I’d just told him I thought I was turning into one of those enormous dragons Jayne used to shoot at all the time, and I used to try to kill, species unknown, and he’d said only, You think? It was an absurd theory. I was small. Hunters were enormous. If nothing else, I lacked sufficient mass.

  “Kat told me that part.”

  “Kat,” I said disbelievingly. “When? What do you guys do, sit around and talk about me, or something?”

  “This morning when I texted her,” he said tightly. “I told her you were turning black and she knew all about it. Lor wasn’t watching you every moment. He did the best he could. Christian was supposed to relieve him sometimes and he’s still not fucking returning my calls. Do you know how infuriating it is to have to find out the details of your life from someone else?”

  “Do you know how infuriating it is to not even be able to find out the details of your life?” I countered just as irritably. “At least you can butt in and text my friends. I don’t have Lor’s number. Or Kasteo’s. Or Fade’s,” I said, working myself into a snit. “And if I did,” I continued, eyes flashing, “you’d have told them not to tell me a bloody thing just to keep me wandering around, forever stymied by the great big mystery of R.K. bloodythefuck S. And just what the hell do the K and S stand for anyway?”

  “Killian. St. Ja
mes.”

  “Huh?” Ryodan just told me his name? I rolled it silently over my tongue: Ryodan Killian St. James. I liked it. It was polished, urbane as the man he pretended to be. Killian was like killing, sharp-edged, and intriguing. St. James was lofty, old money, blue-blood and power. “Oh, now that’s just a pile of bull,” I said crossly. “That’s so bloody Irish and you’re not. How could you possibly have an Irish name?” It wasn’t even close to anything I’d ever come up with. And that made me even madder. I did something then so incredibly bizarre and plebian and…and…juvenile that I couldn’t even wrap my brain around it. I thought: Dani Killian St. James. It had a nice ring to it. Wait, what?

  “It wasn’t my first,” he said. “Though the initials are the same. It’s the one I took when I made my home here. We change our names to fit the clime, the time. I’ve kept that one awhile.”

  “So, you talked to Kat, she told you my hand turned black, and from that mere fact alone you deduced I was turning into a Hunter?” At least I’d had the vision to go on, the Ready? You fly, too. Although I couldn’t decide if it implied I would actually physically transform into a Hunter or just turn completely black, become lethal to the touch, yet receive the small consolation prize of being able to astral-project into the stars on occasion. Superhero rules are pretty obscure.

  He inclined his head in one of those imperious nods.

  “Some people might have thought it had infected me, and I was dying,” I told him. I’d briefly entertained the notion myself. It hadn’t resonated in my gut and, although I prize my brain, I value my gut just as highly. A lot of times more.

  “I’m not some people.”

  “You’re not even people.”

  “There is that. Are you so sure you are?”

  I shot him a sharp look. “You don’t think I am. And why didn’t I know you met me before I thought we met?”