Box of Frogs (The Fractured Faery Book 1)

by Helen Harper

  ‘You deserved that too,’ she answered serenely. ‘Let’s all go and sit down in the next room and talk about this like adults.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Madrona,’ Morgan said in a strained voice. ‘Do you have any idea what is going on here?’

  ‘Not a gasbudlikin clue.’

  The Redcap holding the gun snarled at Morgan. ‘Why are you with her?’ he asked. ‘You’re supposed to hate your brother. Are you back with him now? Is that what this is all about?’

  Julie flung back her head and let out a high-pitched scream. Yet again we all looked at her. She stopped the ear-piercing noise and smiled benignly. ‘That’s better. Honestly, I thought actors were hard to deal with but they’ve got nothing on you lot.’

  ‘We’re not sitting down on the sofa and having a little chat, Julie!’ I said. I didn’t trust her, not with the way she was acting and the fact that she didn’t appear to be a prisoner.

  ‘That’s fine then,’ she answered. ‘Stay here. Then once everyone has said their piece, you can kill each other and I can go on my merry way. But let’s talk first.’ There was something about her tone that brooked no argument. ‘You start, Mads.’

  I was about to refuse but something in Morgan’s eyes stopped me. ‘Alright.’ I glared at both her and the Redcaps. ‘I’m a faery.’

  ‘They said that too,’ Julie murmured. ‘We’ll have to compare supernatural notes later.’

  If there was going to be a later; right now, I wasn’t so sure. ‘Yeah,’ I said unconvincingly. ‘Anyway, I woke up on a golf course last Saturday night. I don’t remember anything before then, not my name, not my ethnicity, not anything. There was a dead body next to me and, before I could call the police and ask for help, those arsebadgers attacked me and tried to kill me.’ I narrowed my gaze at the Redcap underneath me.

  ‘You’re still alive, aren’t you?’ he said, his expression twisting. ‘The same can’t be said for Winn. You killed him.’ He flicked a disparaging look at Morgan. ‘So did you. You did it together. We were going to approach you for help. Just as well we chose not to.’

  ‘Winn? He’s the Redcap who came at us on the country road?’ I asked.

  He sniffed. ‘Yeah. He was our brother. He was a good guy and you broke his neck without a second thought.’

  ‘That was not our intention. We weren’t trying to kill him,’ Morgan said. ‘His death was entirely an accident. We were only trying to stop him from killing us.’

  ‘And abducting you,’ I added to Julie. ‘Although I’m beginning to think all that stuff about getting stalked and kidnapped was a lie.’

  ‘I wasn’t lying,’ she said very quietly. ‘Not about any of it.’

  The Redcaps exchanged glances. ‘We were trying to kidnap her,’ admitted the one next to Morgan. ‘But we have our reasons.’

  ‘Go on then,’ I hissed. ‘Spit them out.’

  ‘There’s actually only one.’ He hesitated, uncoiled tension lingering in his large body. He looked at Morgan and then at Julie, who nodded encouragingly. He sighed and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. ‘Rubus. We’re trying to stop him.’

  My brow furrowed. ‘But you work for Rubus.’

  He shook his head. ‘We pretend to work for him. As Redcaps, we’re beneath his notice. He’ll use us for dirty jobs when he needs to but most of the time he ignores us. That suits us because we’re smarter than he thinks and we know exactly what he’s up to. Our plan is to stop him. There’s no other choice.’

  ‘How are we supposed to believe that?’ I asked.

  ‘How are we supposed to believe you have amnesia?’ he countered.

  I shrugged. ‘It is what it is. You did kidnap Julie.’

  His answer was calm and pragmatic. ‘She’s special. We can use her. She’ll help us bring the fight to Rubus and she can help us win. At least,’ he added with a sneer, ‘we’ve not hurt her. The only killers around here are you faeries.’

  ‘Not through lack of trying on your part!’ I responded.

  The Redcap I was sitting on stiffened, his anger flaring up again to match mine. ‘We were only trying to wound you, not kill you. Our bullets would only have slowed you down. Even if we’d hit you, the fact that you’re a faery means you’d have survived. Besides,’ he sniffed, ‘if we’d succeeded in ending your life, Winn would probably still be alive.’

  I tightened my grip on his neck and snarled. I wasn’t going to take the blame for this mess. I wasn’t convinced I could have done any differently, given the information I’d had at the time. Besides, I knew that murder had been on their mind that night up at the golf course, no matter what they said.

  This time, both Morgan and Julie stepped in to soothe the waters. Morgan offered me a reassuring smile, his posture relaxed despite the gun still pressing into his flesh, while Julie knelt down and smiled at the Redcap I was holding. His chest rose and fell with fast, furious breaths; he still looked as if he’d happily slit my throat given half the chance. I imagined that the expression on my face was the same.

  ‘I apologise for what happened to Winn,’ Morgan said. ‘We were only trying to wound him and protect ourselves. I vow to you that killing him was not our intention.’

  Morgan’s Redcap, who was maintaining more stoicism than his brother, jumped in. ‘We can point fingers and lay blame later. Let’s stick to information sharing for now, shall we? We got the idea to use others from Rubus. He’s been using humans to do his work for him. He tried to get a dragon to work for him too but that didn’t pan out. Luckily for us, he doesn’t know that any other supernatural species exist. In our demesnes, they’re common knowledge. If vampires and werewolves are there, it stood to reason they were here too. We just had to find them.’ He raised his shoulders in a massive shrug. ‘We researched. We found her.’

  Julie smiled prettily in response and stood up again. ‘Lucky old me.’

  ‘There are werewolves?’ I asked.

  Morgan coughed. ‘She’s a vampire?’

  We looked at each other. ‘Well,’ I said to him, ‘we’re faeries.’

  Both Redcaps snorted in unison. ‘All you high-faluting species are the same. You have so much power, you think you’re the best, that there’s no one else like you. There are faeries and there are vampires and there are werewolves and there are dragons. Just because you don’t see them, or haven’t met them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. You’re so up yourselves, you never to stop to consider whether there are other magical beings like yourselves.’

  I had to concede that he might have a point. ‘Ethnicity and egos aside,’ I said, ‘what is Rubus doing that’s so bad you have to infiltrate his organisation and spy on him? I mean, I understand he’s evil.’ I shot a quick look at Morgan, whose expression was suddenly inscrutable. ‘I don’t remember who Rubus is or what he looks like, but I’ve learnt enough to believe that he’s not a good faery. But why do you care if he sells drugs to other faeries and gets some humans to help him? What’s the big deal?’

  The Redcap beneath me laughed humourlessly. ‘You really don’t remember anything, do you? Pixie dust is just a sideline. Rubus,’ he all but spat the name, ‘has far more grandiose plans. He thinks he’ll find a way back home. He couldn’t be more wrong.’

  I frowned. ‘What do you mean? What way back home?’ I noticed that Morgan had gone pale, as if he already had a dreadful inkling about what the Redcap was referring to.

  ‘Rubus thinks all he has to do to re-open the borders and get everyone back to where they belong is to destroy this demesne.’

  ‘The entire planet?’

  ‘In a sense.’

  That was stupid. ‘What’s he going to do?’ I enquired. ‘Set off a nuclear weapon? Or several?’

  The Redcap shook his head. ‘He’s going to flood this demesne with magic.’

  I still wasn’t getting it. ‘How is that a bad thing?’

  ‘This world is run on technology,’ Morgan said quietly. ‘Magic has no place here.
This demesne can withstand small amounts but a surge of magic could destroy everything. That’s why altering time is forbidden. It’s too much magic to use in one go.’

  ‘You mean every time I did that, I almost brought down the apocalypse on all our heads?’ I shrieked. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘No, you bloody didn’t! All you said was that it was forbidden!’

  ‘Well, there you go. I told you more than enough.’

  ‘You’re very lucky we’re friends now,’ I told him.

  ‘Actually,’ the tall Redcap said, ‘altering time, as long as it’s just a temporary, short-lived measure, isn’t going to cause that much harm.’

  ‘There are still risks,’ Morgan said, ignoring my look. ‘Even if they are minor.’

  ‘Anyway,’ the Redcap said, ‘we’ve heard enough whispers and seen enough evidence that Rubus has worked out how to bring magic here. Chen, the ancient Chinese dragon I mentioned earlier, was working on a device that would suck magic from other demesnes and bring it here. He thought it would help him in his bid to garner more treasure from other worlds. He only realised after its inception what damage it might cause. He had no trouble keeping it away from Rubus.’ His mouth flattened. ‘Dragons are good at keeping their possessions to themselves. But he died last week and now all bets are off. From what we’ve gathered, the device is still here in Manchester. We don’t know exactly where it is or what it looks like, but we know that Rubus doesn’t yet have it.’ He pointed at me. ‘She was hunting for it. So were others. That’s why we were on her trail. We thought she’d found it and we were prepared to do anything to stop her.’

  I stiffened. ‘The bogle. On the golf course. The dead bogle whose head...’ My voice trailed away. I looked first at one Redcap then the other. ‘Did you do that? Did you kill him?’

  Both of them looked confused. ‘We’re pretty sure that was you.’

  ‘Me?’ My voice almost reached a screech. Without thinking, I released my hold on the Redcap and stood up. Julie and Morgan were watching me with concerned expressions, although there was a far steelier watchfulness behind Morgan’s eyes.

  ‘The sword was yours. We saw you with it earlier in the day.’

  ‘No.’ I shook my head vehemently. ‘It was coated with rowan. That’s poisonous to faeries, not to bogles.’ I checked with Morgan. ‘Right?’

  He nodded. ‘That’s correct.’

  The Redcap stood up and dusted himself down. He glanced meaningfully at his brother and, in response, his brother lowered the gun from Morgan’s throat. Relieved, I ran a hand through my hair. When I realised that hand was shaking, I dropped it hastily. Alas, from the others’ expressions, I wasn’t fooling anyone.

  ‘DTs,’ I said quickly. ‘I think I might be an alcoholic.’ I licked a few drops of gin from my bare arm. ‘Mmm. That’s better.’

  The Redcap next to Morgan scratched his head. ‘I always wondered why you were called the Madhatter,’ he said. ‘Now I know.’

  Morgan snapped his fingers. ‘I should have realised.’ He looked at me. ‘I gave you that nickname for no other reason than that Rubus hated it. He forbade anyone from using it. Anyone loyal to Rubus would have done whatever he asked, but you said they called you Madhatter at the golf course.’ He raised his eyes to the Redcaps. ‘You really aren’t loyal to him.’

  They bowed together. The slightly taller one nudged his companion. ‘It’s details like that which can get us killed.’

  I hissed. ‘Can we get back to the part about me on the golf course carrying a big, old, poisonous sword? Because that can’t be true. I don’t believe I killed anyone.’

  ‘All I’m telling you is what we saw,’ said the Redcap ‘We didn’t know what was going on when we found them so we disposed of both the body and the sword. We drove them to the coast and tossed them off the nearest cliff.’

  ‘Maybe, Mads,’ Julie interjected, with an inappropriately bright tone, ‘you wanted everyone to think that this bogle attacked you, instead of the other way around. Coating the weapon with something that’s poisonous only to you would make everyone believe your story.’

  I tried to ignore the oily upsurge of nausea. ‘You’re saying that I followed that bogle up there with the intention of killing him and then covering it up. You’re saying I’m a murderer. You’re saying I committed premeditated murder.’

  ‘It’s only a theory.’

  ‘Do you know anything about the bogle?’ I demanded. ‘Who was he? Why would I have killed him? If…’ I swallowed. ‘If I killed him.’

  ‘His name was Charrie. He showed up from time to time. As far as we can tell, he was tasked the same sort of jobs as we were. We know he visited Rubus three days before he died, but we don’t know any more than that. You should know more than us – you’re the one who’s closest to Rubus out of all us.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about Rubus!’ I realised I was shouting so I tried to lower my voice. ‘I don’t remember anything about him,’ I said, my shoulders slumping in defeat. ‘I don’t even know if I want to remember anything any more.’

  Morgan moved over to me. The Redcaps tensed but all he did was put his arm round my shoulders and squeeze them gently. I leaned into his embrace for the briefest moment then something vital occurred to me and I pulled away. ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘The bogle guy had a sheath.’ At their expressions of confusion, I explained further. ‘At his back – he had an empty sword sheath. So either you’re mistaken or,’ I added grimly, ‘simply lying through your crooked, yellow teeth. The poisoned sword had to be his.’

  ‘We’re not lying. We were not present when the murder took place but you were definitely the one who brought that weapon to the golf course. For one thing, the reek of rowan is how we managed to tail you.’

  ‘You had money,’ I said, reaching for any detail I could use to protest my innocence. ‘You all had exactly the same amount of brand new bank notes in your pockets. You were paid to come after me.’ I glanced at Morgan. ‘Probably by Rubus.’

  ‘You need to stop jumping to conclusions. Yes, we had money. We were planning to get hold of you and take you to Morganus. We realised we were out of our depth and we needed help to stop Rubus. We each had the same amount of money because we emptied our bank accounts and split the cash between us so if we were separated…’

  ‘Or killed,’ interrupted the other Redcap.

  His brother nodded. ‘Or killed, we’d each have our own bargaining power. We’d have a chance of escaping.’

  Morgan’s eyes were dark. ‘You thought you could pay me off? Throw me a bit of money and I’d do whatever you asked?’

  ‘Not really. But we thought we could shoot her,’ he pointed to me, ‘and bring her to you as both proof of Rubus’s deeds and as collateral. Then you might listen to us and consider helping.’

  Morgan rubbed his chin thoughtfully while I just glared. ‘Shoot Madrona?’ he murmured. ‘And bring her injured, bleeding body to me?’ He nodded. ‘Yeah. Good plan.’

  My jaw dropped. Arsebadger. He flashed me an amused smile. I rolled my eyes.

  ‘Julie,’ I said suddenly. ‘She had threats. Nasty letters and icky animal parts shoved through her letterbox. You can’t tell me you’re pretending to be the heroes of this piece when you did things like that to her.’

  ‘That wasn’t us.’

  ‘But we found the guys who were doing it,’ his brother said. He bared his teeth. ‘They won’t try anything like that again.’ His eyes took on an odd sheen of glee that was somehow the most terrifying thing about all of this.

  Julie grinned. ‘Once you’ve sorted out this Rubus fellow, you should think about becoming bodyguards. Is it a profession either of you have considered?’

  ‘Hey!’ I protested. ‘What about me?’

  ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘I was abducted from right under your nose. I’m no longer convinced this is your best career path.’

  She had a point but that didn’t mean I had to be happy about
it. I’d never even got chance to wear a real earpiece or had time to learn kung-fu.

  ‘What are your names?’ Morgan asked, addressing the Redcaps.

  They exchanged looks. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Yeah, Morgan,’ I drawled. ‘Their names don’t matter.’ I paused. ‘Unless you need them for their gravestones.’

  Morgan grimaced, exasperated. ‘You are not helping, Maddy. We need to know their names because it’ll be easier when we start working together.’

  Julie clapped her hands in delight and the taller Redcap pursed his lips. The other Redcap and I exploded. ‘We’re not working together!’ we spat in unison. Then we turned and glared at each other.

  ‘You killed our brother,’ the Redcap yelled at me.

  ‘It was an accident! And you tried to kill me!’

  ‘We weren’t trying to kill you! We just wanted to make you bleed a bit and kidnap you!’

  ‘Well, that makes everything better then, doesn’t it?’ I said sarcastically.

  Morgan sighed. ‘We keep going round in circles. Whatever has happened before, and however we feel about each other, it appears we have a common goal.’

  The tall Redcap nodded. ‘Stopping Rubus once and for all.’ He looked at Morgan. ‘I’m Jinn.’

  ‘Don’t tell them our names!’ his brother howled.

  I smirked. ‘He’s Jinn. Your brother was Winn. Let me guess … you’re Rubbish Binn?’

  ‘He’s Finn.’

  Finn huffed and stamped his feet. Jinn raised his bushy eyebrows at him. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’

  ‘That bitch is not my friend!’

  ‘You got that right,’ I added.

  Julie tutted. ‘You’re frenemies. I have loads of them and they really can be tremendous fun. Let’s go back into the other room. There are more glasses and there’s definitely more gin.’ She smiled at me. ‘As hideouts go, this really isn’t so bad.’

  I sniffed. ‘The décor leaves something to be desired.’

  Jinn shrugged. ‘We had to do something to hide her from the super hearing of faeries like you.’

  I nudged Finn. ‘Super hearing. That’s because we’re superheroes. Unlike you.’