by Caleb James
“I have lived centuries at May’s court. I learned to hold my tongue, to do her bidding, to stay alive, and above all else, to watch and to learn. Your spell bounced.” Not breaking her gaze, he spoke one of the rules of magic. “What you send to me, goes back to you times three. For good or for ill.”
“That,” Katye said, looking away from Liam and toward Alex, now surrounded by his two mothers, Alice, Adam, and Jerod. “That is the truth. I was indeed tricked into my tragic love with Lance, the loss of most of my magic, as was Lizbeta pulled into the fabric of her own power. But it was less May’s doing than our own magic bouncing off of hers and hurtling back at us.”
Finn shook his head. “You didn’t know what would happen. So you what? Figured, what the hell, let’s roll the dice and see—”
“Hush,” she interrupted. “I have tipped my hand, at least as much as I know of it. It matters not, for none of us have the ability to go back in time. And Lizbeta and I have bought a millennium where human and fey have not slaughtered one another.”
Still sitting sentinel on the arm of her chair, Lance croaked.
“Yes, love. It brought me to you. But enough of this. There is work ahead of us.” She turned to Finn. “I pray that your journey was not in vain. Hound, tell us what more you’ve learned.”
And here it comes, Finn thought. Like running a case with a marshal colleague, he ran the facts before jumping into what he knew was madness. “May grows strong. She is not whole. She wants to rip out my heart because apparently hers is in here as well. Next, you should know that she has raised an army of addicts. Thousands of them. In all shapes and sizes.”
“Dust,” Alice whispered.
“Yes, she makes the stuff by the truckload, and it’s highly addictive. Though it’s not clear it does much to humans.”
“We know,” Charlie said. “After all the fires last month, there was fairy dust in the craters. It doesn’t do much to humans, but half the expat fey in Manhattan are hooked on the stuff.”
An uncomfortable silence spread as furtive glances darted around the room.
“Just say it,” Alice said. “May got me hooked. She took possession of me the way she’d done with Alex. Only different, because I saw and heard, even felt every sick thing she did. I was so dusted, I didn’t mind. All I cared about was more, that the supply would never end.”
“Alice,” Alex said, with Nimby’s body cradled in his hands, “you don’t have to do this.”
“I do, brother, because while I know you love me, and Jerod….” Her words trailed. She stared at Nimby and then across at her real mother and the carbon copy, changeling. “Since Liam ripped May from inside of me, my life is pain. At first physical, wondering if I were going to die, though I guess we hafflings have a hardy constitution, and the occasional giant-salamander possession doesn’t keep us down.”
Her attempt at humor was met with silence as everyone stared at her.
“You are the girl who went down the hole,” Marilyn said as she crossed to her daughter and attempted to hug her.
“Don’t.” Alice shrugged her off and pressed back against a wall. “If May has created an army of addicts, then it’s an army that will not care if they live or die, as long as their supply is uninterrupted. A month after my last taste of dust, I truly believe that death is preferable to a life like this. And brother, despite what you said, it does not get better with time. True, the rip and tear of the first two weeks when I was withdrawing has gone. It did not kill me, though I understand that was a possibility. Maybe it’s our unique constitution, half human and half fey. But now a month has passed. A month of getting up every day and wishing I was dead.
“Everything hurts. There’s no color, no joy. And worse of all, I know that this will never get better.” She looked around with red-rimmed eyes etched with dark circles. She looked at the floor, and like the curtain coming down, her hair hid her face.
No one spoke.
Silent seconds stretched into a minute.
Charlie’s attention was pulled by a weird shimmer in the air. It hovered over Finn. “Finn, what’s happening?”
Finn growled and convulsed.
“Holy mother of God,” Flora gasped.
With all eyes now on him, Finn shucked off his human form, clothes and all, and was replaced with a massive Irish wolfhound, whose head and shoulders towered over the seated Katye. Unbidden, he strode with curiously dainty steps toward Alice.
He stopped in front of her and extended a paw into her hair-blocked line of sight.
“What?” she muttered and looked up. Despite the Hound’s size, she appeared unafraid. “Whose dog is that?”
Flora answered. “It’s the Hound, Alice.”
“Oh.”
The Hound lowered his head to where Alice could reach up and pet him, which she did.
“He’s so soft,” she said, letting her fingers play in the silk of his fur. Her expression softened as she did. “Nice doggie. Soft, like a puppy.” Her voice took on a dreamy quality, free from her earlier anguish. For the first time in over a month, her mouth turned up into a smile.
The Hound moved in closer, his body next to Alice’s as she let her hands roam across his broad, silky back.
“Hell no!” Jerod shouted as the Hound lifted his rear leg closest to Alice. He ran toward them.
“Don’t!” Katye yelled.
He’d have been too late anyway.
A stream of dark amber pee that glittered in a shaft of light sprayed down Alice’s leg. She didn’t appear to mind. The expression on her face shifted from a smile to a serene daze. “Thank you,” she whispered as she scratched between the Hound’s ears. And with a voice of awe, “I feel better. I feel normal….”
Flora clapped her hands to the sides of her head. “We’ve just learned something new.”
Thirty-Three
WITH SWORD in hand, battle blood raced through Redmond’s veins. He stood in the Center’s western courtyard and braced for what was to come. It has fallen. All I have fought for.
A hole had been pierced in the outer wall, and the wards had been breached. He didn’t need to be told his tactical error. When Finn left, she saw the opening and took it. But is that all? And here she comes.
May, resplendent in her gold breastplate, sat upon her salamander self as hordes of dusted fay swarmed in behind her. At her side flew a creature half human and half praying mantis. He recognized her as May’s closest confidant.
His gaze darted over the breached wall, and he searched for any sign of Finn or the Hound. He got away.
Behind him, students and guards trembled. The former, a small cadre of mixed fey, tried to look brave. The ogre guards did what they did: they grumbled and complained. “If you’d only let me backfill those positions, we wouldn’t die so fast.”
Screams filled the air.
High atop the back of her engorged salamander, May reveled in her triumph. “Your great center has fallen, Doctor, as I knew it would. Your pathetic attempts to confine me, to keep my kingdoms from me, have failed. You have failed. And now there’s just one thing left before I put you out of your miserable existence. Tell me the location of the Hound. He has something that does not belong to him.”
Schooling his features over a gut roiling with terror, Redmond knew This is where I die.
However, just as May had said, it was a day he had anticipated. So while he and several dozen beloved students and well-compensated guards remained to fight and to die, a thousand others now raced for their lives through a network of warded tunnels. Yes, she might hunt them down later, but at least for today, Every second I buy will give safety to some. And maybe Finn… the thought of him raised the ghost of hope. No, he must stay away. Be safe, Finn. Be safe, my Hound.
He held his ground and his sword as May, flanked by her dusted minions, advanced. He pictured Finn, the way he first met him and in his other forms. It kept his hand steady and his knees stable. He replayed that first kiss, their night together, and the morni
ng after.
The air reeked of fairy fire. Buy time. “You lead an army of addicts,” he shouted.
Her eyes narrowed, and she did not stop. “You could join them, Doctor.”
“No, I got over that. I’m cured.”
Her head cocked, the salamander, unconcerned by his sword and those of his quivering and grumbling backers, stomped toward him. Her broad head darted forward, and she bit his sword in half.
“This is not possible,” Dorothea spat out. “Once dusted….”
Redmond thought to run but instead looked the salamander in the eye. Here it comes.
Its head darted about his own. She sniffed him from top to bottom and then back again.
The two Mays appeared perplexed. “Not possible. You’re not dusted, and yet you were. You should be sick. There is no sign of that. Tell me the way of it.”
“He lies,” Dorothea chattered. “Bite off his head. He buys time and stalls the inevitable.”
“No,” May purred. “I will know of this.”
So now I have two things that you want. Frightened as he was, it was hard to hide the smile, remembering how the Hound had peed on his stash and how over the course of a night’s lovemaking he’d woken free from his addiction. Every second, more get away. “It is a process, my queen. A fusion of mortal chemistry and fey alchemy.” Every second…. “I can show you.”
“Your Highness,” Dorothea said.
“Yes, he buys time, but it will not matter. For I will end him. This is of use. Show me here. Show me now.”
“The proof is in my chambers.”
The salamander sniffed him again.
“I smell trickery, Doctor.” May pointed to two pixies, Luluba and Seamus. Redmond stiffened.
“Excellent, those two will do,” she said, and then to a pair of her dusted ogres, “I will snack on them… slowly. I will do it before your eyes, Doctor, if you do not give me what I want. So yes, let us go to your chambers for proof, and then you will quick quick like a bunny show me how to do this thing, how to undust the dusted. Then you will give me the Hound, and we will end this farce. It has gone on too long. It is time to take back what is mine. And it is time for others”—her gaze fixed on Redmond—“to be my just desserts.”
Thirty-Four
FROM OUTSIDE New York University’s Chemical Sciences Building, Finn, Alex, Jerod, Alice, Charlie, Lianna, and Frederick Flowers watched Liam approach the weekend guard. The blue-uniformed security officer, a paunchy guy in his midfifties, stared slack-jawed into Liam’s eyes.
Alice whispered to her brother, “So that’s the thing I do… he’s way better at it.”
Charlie growled under his breath. “Yeah, he’s real good at it.”
“Jealous much?” Finn asked.
“Can’t help it. Though I know there’s no reason for it. Makes me feel like a shit.”
“With a dude that hot, you’d be crazy not to feel it.”
“It’s not just that’s he’s hot,” Charlie said.
“I get it… got it. I was there. I saw him deliberately throw himself in front of her.”
“He’s good, Finn. I really love him.”
A smile played across Finn’s lips. Standing there with Charlie, who looked a lot like Rory, he realized that the ache in his chest was gone. In its place was a soft sadness at the loss of his best friend, but that other piece, that hole inside of him… gone. “Redmond.”
“What’d you say?” Charlie asked.
Finn grinned. “I met someone.”
“Really? And by the way, like the changes. I always thought of you as Rory’s hot friend. But now… if I wasn’t spoken for….”
“Thanks.”
“So tell me about Redmond.”
Before he could, Liam turned from the starry-eyed guard, who handed over his ID badge. “Come on,” Liam said. “He’ll be dazed for a couple hours, then good as new.”
“Tell you later,” Finn said as they pushed through the revolving glass door, bypassed the befuddled security man, and piled into an elevator.
“Is he going to be okay?” Alice asked Liam.
“Yeah, no permanent damage done.”
“Teach me.”
He looked at her. “You’re stronger than you look.”
“Tell me,” she said as the others listened in.
“I’ve seen what dust does,” Liam said. “Few recover. Those that do often walk like ghosts through the Unsee. You’re well and truly better. Your eyes are clear. Tell me if you still crave.”
She shook her head. “I got peed on. That seemed to do the trick.”
“No symptoms at all?” her brother asked.
“No, Alex, though at some point we should talk about what it’s like playing host to May. She’s not really mad, you know.”
“Are you kidding?” Alex replied as the elevator coasted to a stop, a bell dinged, and the door whooshed open.
“I’m not,” she said as they followed Alex down the deserted corridor toward the labs. “I think we make the same stupid mistakes over and over. Maybe she’s mad, but before we start saying that, we have to remember she’s not human. She doesn’t think like us. She’s as close to a god as exists. And our rules and our silly sense of fairness, it’s nothing to her. Why should it be?”
Alex stopped. “What happened to my sister? She’s been replaced with—”
“You,” Alice replied. “You think I don’t listen. I saw what you had to do all those years to keep us out of another nightmare foster home. I’m grateful. But Alex, even you couldn’t stop the worst of it.”
He held her gaze. “I know. I’m sorry.”
The others hung back, still in hearing range but knowing to give the brother and sister a moment amid the danger, loss, and chaos.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. I suppose in my case, being a dusthead, being possessed by May, even the stuff that happened all those years ago.” With a sweep of her hand, she pushed the hair from her eyes and looked at him. “Alex, there’s something I’ve always wanted to know and have never asked.”
“I think I know.”
“Did you kill Sean McGuire?” Referring to the foster father who had molested her and dozens of other children before falling to his death down the basement stairs.
Alex hesitated.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. No, on second thought, it’s not. Because if you did, you shouldn’t have to carry that alone.”
He swallowed. “It was both of us. Nimby helped.” Unable to speak through his tears, he led them to the end of the hall and a door marked Organic Lab II.
Lianna approached Finn as Liam used the guard’s ID over the keypad. “Katye said we didn’t have much time. What’s happening back there? In the Unsee?”
All listened as they entered the massive room with its rows of narrow stainless-steel tables outfitted with alcohol burners and metal stools. Through the tall windows, they glimpsed Washington Square Park and the south-facing buildings.
“It’s war. May has either eaten or addicted much of the population. The one safe place, the Center, is under siege. But here’s the thing, and I’m not one for raining on parades… though apparently I might be pissing on one, if we’re able to synthesize hound urine. How the hell do we get it back there? We’re going to need a few thousand gallons of the stuff.”
Alex walked over to them, his eyes moist. “Maybe yes, maybe no. Shit!” He gritted his teeth. Jerod put a hand on his shoulder as Alice rested her head against his side. He nodded, but the grief was too much. “I was given a pixie, and most of the time I was fucking mean to her.”
Jerod smoothed circles on Alex’s back. “She could be a pain in the ass,” he said as his own tears fell.
Alex took a deep breath. “Yeah, she could.” He looked to Finn. “Urine is mostly water. We need to find what yours is made of. It’s going to be a crystal, like uric acid or something. Though I doubt we’ll be that lucky. From there we can rehydrate when we get to the Unsee.” He grabbed a Pyr
ex beaker and handed it to Finn. “Here. The restroom’s down the hall.”
“Be right back.”
“You know,” Charlie said to Liam. “We traveled to the Unsee in Engine Twenty-Five. It holds three thousand gallons. And talk about something designed to spray, ’cause that is what we’re talking about. Pissing on the masses.”
“What? But how?” Jerod asked. “We know the rules…. Nimby gave her life for them. And who the fuck set those twisted things up?”
“I think we now know,” Liam said.
“And?” Charlie asked.
“While we don’t lie, the fey certainly twist and conceal. The rules, the Mist, the separation of the realms, this is all the doings of Lizbeta and Katye. All part of their efforts to contain May. That it backfired on them both, trapping Lizbeta in the Mist and Katye to the See, was not deliberate. Katye was telling the truth.”
“Or some fraction of it,” Alex blurted. “While I can’t believe I’m saying this, it almost makes you feel bad for May.”
“I told you, brother,” Alice said. “She’s not as crazy as everyone says. This is payback. But more.” She looked at Alex and Jerod, Charlie and Liam. “She had her heart broken. What they did to her was cruel, like pig’s blood at the prom cruel.”
“I get that,” Alex said. “Do you want me to feel sorry for her?”
“I don’t know, Alex. I’m glad she’s out of me. And for the first time in over a month, I don’t wish I was dead. But when May was in control, it wasn’t all bad, and I haven’t sorted that out. But something about the way she approached the world, and not the ‘let’s eat everyone we can’ part, but her confidence, her absolute belief that she was meant to rule, it felt natural. It fit. You know, like the best pair of sneakers you’ve ever had.”
Lianna spoke. “Truth. Some are born to rule. Those are the shoes that fit.” She and Frederick nodded in unison.
“That’s just strange,” Jerod said. “So bouncing from freak show to freak show…. Charlie, your turn. I still don’t understand how you got a fire truck into the Unsee.”