by May Dawney
“None of your concern. Get down on the ground.” The others trained Tasers on her as well.
Claire glanced at Alena, whose jaw was set. Her eyes were open, despite the lingering jerks that tore through her body. She tried to shake her head—at least, Claire thought so.
She hesitated, but knew she wasn’t brave enough, or skilled enough, to take on four obviously trained and prepared men. “O-Okay.” She lowered herself down to the asphalt.
Alena caught her gaze and held it with such intensity that she must be trying to tell her something, but…what? Her hands flattened on the ground.
“Right.” The first man again. “Nobody make any sudden—”
Alena pushed up with a cry and swung her arm in the general direction of the men. Her swing went far wide and Claire’s stomach dropped. They’d Taser her again—all of them. Could a person survive four Taser volumes at once?
At the same time, a rumble started up under Claire’s body, then Alena swung again, with the other fist and in the other direction—wide again—but the rumbling turned into a roar.
The men hesitated for a second, perhaps surprised by her sudden resistance, or concerned about the roar.
Alena dropped down to a knee and punched the ground.
The asphalt cracked into chunks and upset the men’s footings.
They fired but missed.
Alena pulled her arms up and the ground exploded. Sand pushed its way through the cracks with enough force to throw their attackers to the ground.
Claire watched it happen, awestruck by the display. So, this was earth magic?
“Get up!” Alena’s command covered the cacophony of shouting men and cracking asphalt, of rushing sand and car alarms that went off because the ground shook and trembled as if an earthquake had hit.
Claire scrambled up and away from the men and behind Alena.
Alena ripped at the air and large chunks of tar and gravel were flung wide.
The men scrambled for their Tasers, but they were swallowed up by the ground below. Not long after, the men started to sink as Alena made swimming or digging motions.
“Get ready to run.”
Claire bounced from one foot to the other and grabbed the straps of her backpack.
“Get out—retreat!” The first man—at least Claire thought it was, they were a scramble of arms and legs now, sinking quickly—called out his command to no avail. Before long, they were buried deep with just parts of their heads, a random hand, or a random foot sticking out of the sand. Alena flicked her wrist and the sand closed over their heads in a pile.
“They’ll—!”
“They have air tanks, they’ll be fine. Go!” Alena grabbed her wrist and yanked her along. “Go, go, go! The place will be swarming with people soon.”
Claire kept up by sprinting at top speed. A stitch started up in her side only a few paces in, but she forced herself to ignore the pain. “W-Where?”
“My bike!” Alena weaved through parked cars until they reached another motorcycle, black and similar in type to the one she’d ridden in the US. This one had green accents.
She cursed in what was probably Greek as she struggled to undo the two chains she’d secured the bike with. Two helmets were liberated in the process. One of them, she handed to Claire before she stashed the chains in a compartment under the seat. She cast a glance at Claire. “Are you okay?”
The question caught her by surprise. “I…” She faltered when her voice cracked. No, she was not okay. Not by a mile. Tears welled up, so she dropped her head to hide her furious blinking to keep them contained.
“Hey…” Alena glanced around them, then stepped over and pulled her against her body. She leaned her cheek onto the top of her head. “You’re okay, Alice. Wonderland is a scary place, but you’ll be safe soon.”
Claire soaked the softly-spoken words up and leaned against Alena for as long as she dared. She sniffed and wished she could just stay like that, sheltered in Alena’s arms where it was safe and warm. “T-Thank you.”
Alena hummed and stroked the back of her head. “You got it. Now, come on. We’re not safe yet.” She put a bit of pep into her tone, but it didn’t cover the worry. “Ready?”
Claire pulled herself away and nodded. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Ready.”
“That’s my girl.” Alena swung her leg over the bike and pushed it off its kickstand. She gave the deserted parking lot one more glance before she did the hair trick and put her helmet on as well, then leaned forward and gripped the handlebars.
Claire’s heart sped up for an entirely different reason now. Alena’s girl…yes, that cheered her up some. She fumbled her helmet on and flung her leg over the bike. This time, she wrapped her arms around Alena without being prodded and pressed close instantly.
Alena patted her arm twice before she engaged the engine and sped off through the parking lot, past the entrance and into London’s busy traffic.
Because Alena did the trick with the aerodynamics again, the wind didn’t get a hold. Without the wind, she wasn’t freezing where she otherwise would have been. Alena’s body radiated heat.
No matter what awful fate she’d just escaped, and even with a thousand and one questions running around her head like hamsters in a ball, Claire finally relaxed some. A few seconds later, her adrenaline high wore off and left her dead tired. Claire leaned her head against Alena’s back and let her exhaustion wash over her.
They had made it out. Alena would undoubtedly make sure they weren’t followed. All Claire had to do was stay awake long enough to get to a bed.
If nothing else, she could do that.
* * *
London sped by.
Claire didn’t try to keep track of where they were going and never looked up to check for any of the monuments. She kept her helmeted head pressed against Alena’s back and tried to forget about the men Alena had buried alive.
They left London’s still-busy main streets behind around two p.m.; Claire heard the bells of Big Ben strike just as they turned away from one of the busier streets.
The streets became narrower as Alena drove them onwards. The buildings got older and the throng lessened. The heavy engine rattling under them soon became the loudest thing in the area. Hopefully, no one in the lopsided brick and wooden houses they passed would be too annoyed by their passing.
Another lazy turn later, Alena slowed and stopped. She disengaged the engine and sat up.
The sudden quiet had Claire shudder as she straightened—or maybe it was the loss of Alena’s warmth. She reached up, undid the clasp of her helmet, and took it off. The breeze on her skin felt good. She hadn’t realized how trapped she’d felt.
“We’re here, you can get off now.” Alena sounded amused.
Claire almost tripped as she scooted backwards, but she managed to steady herself before she went down. At least being stuck inside the helmet had made her cheeks hot already and Alena wouldn’t be able to see her blush. She turned around to take in her new surroundings.
They were just outside of an old cemetery, one with broken headstones and overgrowth. The graves and grass were unkempt and untended. It was one of those cemeteries that had been gobbled up by city expansion and had been forgotten about. One you could pass every day without ever noticing it was there.
Claire almost laughed. Of course they were outside of a cemetery! Where else would a medium-turned-ghost live?
Alena pushed the bike over to the fence she had stopped in front of and pushed down a rose-shaped handle.
Claire had expected a loud, jarring grind—the gate was that rusty—but it swung open without a sound.
The wrought iron rosebush parted, and Alena pushed her bike in. “Come on, you’ll catch your death out here.” There was a hint of a smirk on her features.
“W-What?” Claire looked up with wide eyes.
“A little gallows humor.” Alena held the gate open for her.
“Funny.” She forced herself to smile before she rubbed her arms. All this
talk about death made her skin crawl.
“I have my moments.” Then the teasing quality left Alena’s voice. “How are you holding up?”
Claire closed the gate behind them and walked along the cobblestone path. “I’m not sure.” She secured her backpack around her shoulders. “I’m tired. Jetlagged as well, I guess. Overwhelmed.” She swallowed. “Scared.”
Alena took her in, then nodded. “It’s been a long night. We’ll get you some food and a bed. I don’t think we’ll need you until after dinner.”
Just the mental image of something in her belly and comfy blankets had Claire bite back a moan. “Yes, please. Thank you.”
“Settled then. No problem, Alice. That’s my job, after all.” Alena nudged Claire and then inclined her head. “The shed?”
Claire didn’t see a shed but as it turned out, it was there. It was hidden by bushes and years of neglect and looked more like a collection of upright planks than anything you’d store an expensive bike in. It had a roof and a door, so the term applied—loosely.
“Could you open it?” Alena handed her a large, rusty key and Claire did as told.
Alena stashed her bike and the helmets, locked the door, and guided Claire deeper into the cemetery.
The headstones stood out against the grass just enough to spot their shapes. Most were rounded or crosses. A lot ended in jagged lines of various heights and she spotted chunks at the base.
“How old is this cemetery?”
“About two hundred fifty years, give or take.”
Claire looked around with a new sense of respect. Baton Rouge, as much as she knew and loved it, didn’t have that kind of history.
She followed Alena down the path to a small chapel, which stood out crookedly against the sky. Its windows were shattered and the words “Where is Jesus? In hell” had been spray-painted across the door.
Alena didn’t seem to pay the words or the shattered glass any heed as she unlocked the door and pushed it open. The hinges groaned, and the wood fell back into place with a thud that reverberated once she let the door go.
More graffiti littered the inner walls, mostly tags and images of penises. A few of the penises had a cross on the head, which seemed appropriate, given the location. Claire still looked away and her cheeks stung.
Huge, dripping letters had been spray painted onto the back wall. They were legible even in the dimmed light inside: “Everything ends.”
Claire shuddered. “I’m not sure I like this place.”
Alena reached down to the base of the stone lectern and sent her a smile. “That’s the point. It’s the back entrance. I stash my bike here, so I use it a lot. Not very inviting but typically quiet.”
Something clicked, and a grinding noise filled the room.
Claire looked around, but nothing had changed.
Alena pulled her keychain from her pocked and slid one of the keys into a keyhole Claire couldn’t see.
The lectern slid aside with that same noise of stone-over-stone to reveal a rectangular opening. A golden light from below ghosted across the words on the back wall and made them seem even more menacing.
Claire swallowed. “Ominous.”
“The graffiti or the secret passageway?”
“Both, I think?”
Alena smiled. “Both have been here a long time. As for the secret passage, well, they used to have more flare for the dramatic.” Alena stepped into the hole. “Come on.”
Claire found a narrow tunnel waiting for her at the end of a wrought iron ladder. Her soles sunk into a light coating of moss over brick when she stepped off.
Alena reached past her and inserted the ornate key into another lock.
The lectern grinded into place again, then secured with a thud and a click. A second later, a large stone slab slid into place as well to fill the rectangle. She pocketed the keychain and turned to take Claire in. “Welcome to the Den.”
Even with just tunnel in sight, Claire was impressed. She took in the crumbling brickwork, the tunnel lights, the age of it all. One side of the passage led deeper into the tunnel system, the other was walled off. The scent of saturated stone and rotting moss hung heavily in the air, but it wasn’t filthy, just old.
The tunnel was high enough to stand in. The lights that had been placed every 15 feet or so illuminated cracks in the cement where a thriving flora of moss, mushrooms, and small wetland plants had taken hold.
“What is this?” Her voice echoed off the walls and she snapped her mouth shut.
“An access point to the tunnel and sewage system connected to the old River Fleet.” Alena guided her forward.
“River Fleet?”
“A subterranean river that runs from Hampstead Heath to the Thames. We’re under King’s Cross now. The whole system was built in the 1950’s to get some of the filth out of the rivers and streets.” Alena glanced back at her with a grin. “There’s a poem about it. Want to hear?”
“Yes, please.” Claire made sure not to put her hands and feet anywhere with fungus.
Alena cleared her throat. “Sweepings from butchers stalls, dung, guts, and blood. Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud. Dead cats and turnip-tops come tumbling down the Flood.”
“Gross.” Claire crinkled her nose.
That made Alena chuckle. “Yeah, I guess. Well, the Flood took it all out to the Thames. Still does. The tunnels are closed to the public now and no one ever comes here except some members of the Environmental Agency. They’re easy enough to befuddle with a bit of magic.”
“What kind of magic?”
“A glamour of sorts. Mild hypnosis. Our current sorcerer is part Aos Sí and can produce any number of glyphs, wards and glamours. She enchants items for us.”
Claire tried to follow along, but all of it was unfamiliar. She glanced at Alena. “I’m sorry, I understood maybe half of that.” Her whisper never-the-less reverberated off the walls.
“Right.” Alena threw an amused look back at her. “I keep forgetting how fresh you are. Glamour: a type of magic that befuddles the senses; anything from making people believe you have a different hair color, to disappearing into the background—we call that shadow magic—to mild hypnosis.”
Claire nodded, as if all of this wasn’t straight out of one of her fantasy novels. “Thank you for explaining.” She put on a brave smile. “W-What was that other thing you said? Ees shee?”
“Aos sí: a species of Otherkin—non-humans. Also known as the Fair Folk or the Good Folk. They are rarely seen these days, but their history is long and entwined with humans. They live beyond the Veil but find their way to this side of it sometimes through the fairy mounds—Sídhe—by accident or on purpose.”
“Fairies are real?” Claire felt her eyes widen as a childlike hope caused a glow in her chest.
“Define ‘fairy’. Not the small Tinkerbell-like things. Folklore around these parts tells of the Tuatha Dé, the Tribe of the Gods. They were Gods way back when and ruled as kings and queens in pre-Christian Gaelic Ireland. By way of human trickery, the Tuatha Dé were forced into the hills and into the Otherworld—the world beyond the Veil. Here, they became, or produced by way of offspring, the Aos Sí.”
The glow died a bit. Mythology was not the same as fairytales, and Gods, well, she had a hard time believing in those. “I know you believe all of this.” She paused to best formulate her response; she really didn’t want to annoy Alena, after all. “But um, it’s a bit out there? Maybe?”
They came to a T-section and Alena took the left seemingly without thought. “You would say that.” She shrugged. “I can’t blame you. You’ll see it with your own eyes soon enough, and then stories like these won’t seem as odd anymore.”
Claire doubted that, but she gave Alena the benefit of the doubt. “How about, um, glyphs and wards?”
Alena hummed and took another left, into a small side tunnel that they had to stoop over for to get through. “They’re connected. A glyph is a type of ward, a protective mark or sy
mbol—we call them sigils—that is imbued with magic and set to go off when a specific criterion is met.”
Claire tried to keep up, both with Alena’s pace and the onslaught of terms. “So, it’s a kind of glamour?”
Alena shook her head. The tunnel split again, and she turned right, into a much larger tunnel that they could walk through side by side. “A glamour is transmitted. It influences your mind, so you believe it’s true; ‘My hair is purple’, or ‘I need to be obeyed’. A ward or glyph is only activated when the receiver acts, so when they step into a warded area or when they read a text that is imbued with magic like a magical scroll.”
Claire nodded. She tried to put the puzzle pieces together. “So, a glyph is a form of a ward and a glamour is…something else?”
“Exactly.” Alena nodded. “A glyph is always elemental in nature and tends to hurt.” She grinned. “I could create a geo glyph, for example, because I can control the earth element, or an aero glyph because I control the air element. I suck at glyphwork, though, so don’t get your hopes up too high.”
Claire smiled at the amusement in Alena’s tone. Her brain was starting to hurt with all the terms, but when Alena was happy, Claire was happy too.
Alena slid her hands into the pockets of her pants. “In theory, I could create a geo glyph and place it on that pipe there.” She nodded toward a large, rusty piece of tubing that extended from the ceiling and then bent at 90 degrees before it disappeared into the wall again. “I could tell it to go off if anyone came within a meter—three feet or so—of it and it would collapse the tunnel.”
“And a ward?”
“That doesn’t have to be elemental. We’ve already triggered about four or five of them now. Roos has a bunch in these tunnels, so she knows when someone’s here.”
“Roos?” Claire struggled with the pronunciation. It sounded like “road” but with an “s” at the end.
“Roos Molenaar. She’s our scryer and she’ll have had a look to see who’s trampling through the tunnels, just to make sure it’s a Society member and not a mundane.”
Claire didn’t even try to pronounce her last name. “Where is she from?”