by Caleb James
“No clue. I was asleep. It was in a dream, or so I thought.”
Liam interjected, “We were both dusted, and….” A shy smile spread across his beautiful face. “It was in that first bit of love. So there was lots of magic, fey and human at the same time. Don’t know if that’s the solution, but….”
“It had to have been the dust,” Charlie said. “And that neither one of us broke was because of love.” He broke into a grin. “And that’s kind of the proof right there that you didn’t glamour me into loving you.”
Liam was about to speak when Finn returned with a beaker full of golden pee. Alice giggled. “There’s glitter in it.”
Alex took it and held it up in a shaft of light that streamed through the window. “It does sparkle. Did you put something in it?”
“Just get on with this,” Finn said. “So I have twinkly pee. We already figured there’s something different about it.”
Alex put the beaker on a lab table, flicked on a burner, poured Finn’s piss into an Erlenmeyer flask, and hooked that up to a clear reflux chimney. The liquid started to boil, and a dense fog climbed up the Pyrex tubes. A colorless liquid trickled out as Finn’s sample shrank.
“It really sparkles,” Alice remarked as the sample diminished and darkened.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Alex agreed as whatever was in the flask caught the light and refracted it back in brilliant golden bursts.
Finally, when all the liquid had separated out, what remained was a dark gold crystal that crackled with light and energy.
“Pretty… and weird,” Alice said. “Now what?”
“This way,” Alex said, and he led them through the maze of workbenches toward a locked door with a sign—Authorized Personnel Only.
Alex waved the guard’s badge over the keypad. Nothing happened.
“I got this,” Finn said, and with his bare hands he twisted the handle and broke the lock.
“Big and strong,” Charlie remarked.
“Do not flirt, Charles Michael Fitzgerald,” Liam said.
Charlie cracked a smile and grabbed Liam’s hand. “Now you know what it feels like.” Before Liam could respond, Charlie kissed him.
“Woof,” Finn said, and he threw open the door.
“What is all this stuff?” Alice asked as they took in the computer equipment that looked a bit like an industrial copier.
“It’s a mass spectrometer,” Alex said as he carefully spooned a tiny bit of the crystal into the sample chamber. “Every compound resonates with a unique frequency. It’s like a fingerprint. If it exists, this machine will tell us what it is.”
Finn muttered, “And if it doesn’t exist?”
“We’re screwed.” Alex pressed Start.
Within seconds the LED displayed a bar graph with several spikes. An integrated printer spat out the hard copy.
Alex took that and fed a series of related numbers into a computer next to the spectrometer. “Crap!”
“What?” Jerod asked.
“No match. Either there’s a contaminant, or—” He stared at the screen and then at the printout. “Wait a minute.” He grabbed the flask with the remaining golden crystal and ran back to the lab. The others trailed behind. He dissolved the crystal into a second solvent and again attached the refluxer. He looked back. “I think I know what it is.”
“You going to tell us?” Finn asked.
“I need some dust to be sure,” Alex said.
“Sadly,” Lianna said, “I know where we can find some.”
“I’ll go with you,” Jerod said. He looked to Charlie. “Okay if we borrow Liam for a bit? We might need his special talents.”
“Great,” Charlie replied.
“It’s my pleasure,” Liam said.
“You think there’s dust in my pee,” Finn stated as he helped Alex set up the apparatus.
“We’ll find out.”
They stared as fluid bubbled up the chimney, only instead of clear, this time the fluid was gold, and what remained at the bottom of the flask sparkled like diamonds with a bit of a red-silver goo that clung to the original fluid line in the flask.
“Damn,” Alice said. Her expression clouded as the familiar smell of baking cookies wafted out.
“You’re right, definitely dust,” Finn said as he and Alex took the golden liquor, set up a second chimney, removed the solvent, and were left with a smaller mound of a metallic substance the color of gold. There was also a bit of the rust-red goo. Its molecular structure, altered by the solvent, had clumped into a ball about half the size of a pencil eraser.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Alex said as he took the three products back into the analytics room. One by one he put them through the spectrometer. The metallic white powder had no matches in the catalog of known substances. The gold turned out to be gold. And the goo was organic with a strong peak for keratin and a bit of noise that was probably the red pigment.
Alex looked from the readout to Finn. “Give me a piece of your hair.”
Finn gripped a couple of strands on his chest and plucked them out. No stranger to the lab or the equipment, he looked over Alex’s shoulder. “It’s a match. I have hair in my pee.”
“Apparently.”
“That can’t be good.”
Not even ten minutes later, Liam, Lianna, and Jerod returned with two dust bunnies they’d purchased in Washington Square Park. Even on visual inspection, it was clear they were a match for the white powder. To be certain, Alex ran a sample through the machine.
Jerod placed a hand on his back as if reading his thoughts. “It was her choice to do it, Alex.”
Alex tried to focus as tears streamed. “She loved coming to the lab, would make me crazy and write stuff in my log books that I’d have to try and explain to the TA.”
“I know.”
“Why?” Alex said. “Why did she do it?”
Jerod paused. “For you, for me, for all of us. She knew what she was doing.”
“She’s really gone.”
“Yeah.”
Finn quietly ran a finger through the two substances. “Fairy dust and gold. A marriage of magic and mortal. It’s symmetry. One has the power to enslave humans and the other fey. Combined….”
“It cured me of my addiction,” Alice said.
“So now”—Finn looked over their tiny band—“all we need is to mix up a couple thousand gallons of the stuff, get it into a truck, and drive said fire engine into another dimension.”
Alex pulled up the calculator on his cell. He punched in figures on the pad and quickly guesstimated the amounts of the three ingredients. “On the plus side, it’s mostly water. From there we’re looking at three parts of fairy dust to one pound of gold dust. So.” He groaned. “Let’s say five pounds of 24K gold dust and fifteen pounds of fairy dust.”
Charlie’s phone rang. It was Gran. “Charlie, Katye thinks she knows how you and Liam made it through. It was the dust, and you must have attracted a nightmare.”
He put it on speaker. “Come again.”
“A puka, Charlie, so it wasn’t a real engine that can carry thousands of gallons of whatever you hope to mix up.”
“This doesn’t sound like good news.”
“It’s not.”
Katye got on the line. “Charlie, tell me if Finn and the others can hear.”
“They can.”
“I believe there is a way, Finn. Pukas are strong, they are ancient, and they are deadly. There will be a cost, and we haven’t much time. But like you, they are two-natured. The puka will come if the Hound… if you… call him. Tell me the answer to the riddle of your piss.”
“Fairy dust, gold, and a bit of hound hair. All together they neutralize the dust and the addiction. Problem is we need a lot of all three.”
“Gold I have, Finn. And the dust is out there. May left more than enough when she ravaged our city. And you seem perplexed by the bit of fur.”
“I’m not,” Liam interjected. “It’s a magic joke.”
“Confused human here,” Charlie replied.
Alice groaned. “That’s just cheesy…. Hair of the dog that bit you, Charlie.”
“Yes,” Katye explained. “It’s a principal both magic and scientific; a thing may be both cause and cure. We cannot delay. And now we know what must happen. The faster the better. I sense horrible things are happening… have happened in the Unsee. I pray we’re not too late.”
Finn narrowed his gaze and pictured Katye. Like Liam, and Alice too, he saw the effect she had on the others as they hung on her every word. He wasn’t buying it. “What aren’t you telling us?”
There was a pause. “I’m sorry, Finn. But I believe the Center has fallen. I’m truly sorry.” She hung up.
Finn stood slack-jawed. He pictured Redmond, and then Nimby who’d given her life to save others. Rage pulsed through his chest and down to his clenched fists. He threw back his head and howled and howled and howled.
Thirty-Five
REDMOND LED the two halves of May and her entourage up to his chambers. He dragged his feet, and his knees shook. Buy time. Just buy time. Every second buys a life.
Her dusted ogres, some who had once been members of his own security force, restrained his two pupils. Luluba’s lip trembled as she struggled to hold back tears. Seamus, unable to take his eyes off the white salamander, seemed frozen, like an animal who knew it was doomed.
“This is where I kept my dust.” He led them to the small chest.
Both Mays sniffed its contents. Her humanoid half ran a finger through the interior and brought it to her nose. She turned to Redmond, and her costume shifted from a gold battle breastplate and riding britches to army camo. “Tell me.” She stood inches from his face and stared into his eyes.
He could not move. Every second I keep her here, more go free. The thought brought small comfort.
“Hmm.” She appeared perplexed. “You are truly free from the dust.”
“Yes, my queen.” He searched his memory for the hours he’d spent with her, hunting for anything that might buy another minute. He pictured the tunnels under the Center. She would not know of those. Is there a way I can save Luluba and Seamus? He could not turn his head to see, but his other senses were riveted on the terrified sprites. What do I know of her? What can I use? He stared into her amber eyes as a stiff gold collar of lace formed around her neck and her long hair braided itself into an intricate woven do. She is driven. She is the most powerful creature in the three realms. None of that matters.
“Oh, Doctor, I can almost hear your thoughts. You know that when I eat you, for the briefest time, I will share your emotions, your memories… your love.”
Her mouth twisted as if she’d tasted something bitter. “Tell me where he has gone. Tell me where my little dog has scampered to.”
And this is the heart of things… literally. The Hound has her heart… my heart. Stay away, Finn. She will gut you like a fish. Be safe.
“So silent,” she whispered, her lips inches from his own. She held a finger before his eyes and grew the nail into a two-inch talon. She placed it at the notch of his neck. “But no, you’re the snack that’s saved for later. These two, on the other hand—”
Like a vise had been removed from around his neck, he could move. He followed her with his eyes.
“So tender.” She sauntered toward Luluba and Seamus. “You can’t imagine the food I had to endure in my sister’s mist. Too much troll and ogre. All so brutish… but powerful.”
“You are all powerful,” he said, his tone the most soothing he could muster. His hope fixed on a desperate gambit. Her ego. Play to her ego. Through pursed lips, his words flowed on the currents of his ability to comfort and soothe. “I see where so many have horribly underestimated you. They betrayed you in the most cruel manner imaginable.”
“Yes.” With talon extended, she turned as the salamander joined her, and like a monstrous puppy, it settled on the ground around her.
“You are magnificent,” he said without guile as he beheld her, now in a glittering gold gown, her hair laced with jewels, surrounded by a throne of the white monster. She sat on the beast’s accommodating hide.
“I will say this, Doctor. You may be the only one in all these many centuries who understands. The stories of me, how I am painted. It is not fair. It is not true.”
“I do see that. None of this was your fault. And now you seek to undo wrongs of the past. To restore an earlier balance. To regain what should be yours. It is horrible, unforgivable, what they did to you.”
She winced.
“I’m sorry.” His words like honey to a bear. “I did not mean to remind you of your sorrow.”
“But you did, Doctor.” She braced a hand on the salamander’s flank. “There are so many layers to my sisters’ betrayal. But worse, they thought to fool me. They thought me stupid. That Lizbeta presumed to wrap me in a fog, and the other…. you know of what I speak.”
“Yes. They worked potent magics on you. They made you forget how magnificent you are. They made you forget”—and as the words left his mouth, he knew he had to say them, and he regretted them—“your heart and the Hound.”
She gasped. “I should have known it was him. It was always the Hound.” She glared at him. “Seriously, Doctor. Now is not the time for your tricky tricky.”
Crap!
“Tell me his location.”
He fell onto bended knee. “He traveled into the Mist.”
“Tell me his purpose.”
While not a lie, Redmond shaded the truth and colored his voice with magic. “To return a dying pixie to her family in the See.”
“Tell me how. There are few ways to travel without breakage, whether human or fey. It’s only the haffling, the puka, the true lovers, the sacrificial lamb… and…. Oh, Doctor, it’s all Lizbeta’s mist. It clears before my eyes. These are all her magics that she has set against me.”
She stood up from her fleshy throne and glared at him. “You hide something from me.” The salamander rose at her side as she crossed back to him. With death-tipped fingers, she stroked his cheek.
He stared at the floor and smelled the salamander’s fetid breath. He heard its jaw unhinge.
“I am, my queen, and I will tell you all, but—”
“No buts, Doctor. Tell me.”
“I hesitate, because to tell you all, I will reveal things you’ve shared with me in private. If it is your wish that I lay all bare, I will do so, but there may be things you’d not want others to hear.”
The Mays looked around the room, dusted ogres, the restrained students… Dorothea. “A couple good meals and all who hear will be dead. But not you, Dorothea. Of all, you are the only one who has stayed true.”
“I am that, Your Highness.”
“As you wish,” Redmond said. “Then I will start with the time when you and the Hound were joined in the bliss of bodily union. When his flesh and your flesh—”
“Wait! Leave us.” She turned to the guards. “Empty the room. I would be alone with this one. You too,” she said to Dorothea.
Redmond caught Luluba’s eye. He gave her the briefest of nods. Out of the queen’s sight, she’d soon be out of mind… and with that came hope for her and Seamus.
He returned his gaze to the floor. And drawing on his magic, he launched into a retelling of May’s story, with her as a shimmering heroine. Buy time. “Those who should have followed and loved you tricked and betrayed you, and still….” His voice filled the room and brought her a sense of peace. He painted her sorrows with broad strokes. “You have overcome tremendous obstacles and enemies. And still, your greatness is not appreciated.”
“They were mean to me,” she stated, lulled by the drift of his voice and the warmth of his compassion, like a mother’s kiss.
“They were, and in the cruelest way imaginable.”
“I could eat them.”
“You could. Though you did get some revenge, as their magic bo
unced off of your own.”
“Yes, what goes around.” She smiled. “I know what you’re doing, Doctor. I allow it… for now. But stop with the prevarications.” Her tone lost its dreamy lilt. Her amber eyes and the salamander’s flame-red ones bore into him. “Tell me of the Hound.”
Redmond grasped just how weak his abilities were in the face of hers. “He took back the houndstone. Lizbeta gave it to me. She told me it would protect me as I looked after you.”
“Apparently my sister was wrong. Though it raises the question of how she got it.”
“From your other sister.”
“I will eat them both. Tell me his location.”
“The See.”
“Of course. Tell me his intent.”
Every second and more go free. Redmond gauged May’s responses. He played out his vocal magic but hid it in a more conversational tone. “He seeks out the haffling children.”
“Vile creatures. But useful.”
“Yes.” His words again washed over queen and salamander. “They are of use, for they represent safe passage.”
“I’ve ridden two of the three,” she offered. “Pity that the last is a boy. Tell me what you know of him.”
“I don’t know anything,” Redmond admitted but added, “I’ll tell you what I suspect.”
“Do.”
“That if I were his parents. I’d hide him well.”
“They did,” she said. “They nearly succeeded. But I huffed and I puffed and I—” She stopped in midsentence.
Redmond observed the shift in both sets of her features. The salamander shivered.
“Something went sideways,” he offered.
“Yes. The boy and his parents fled from me. As you are clever, Doctor, speculate. Tell me where you think they’d flee.”
“To the See,” he said without pause. “It makes sense. The boy can travel unbroken. I cannot speak to the parents. But in desperate times….”
“Yes,” she sighed. “It is tiresome.”
“You have done so much, my queen. Surely, you deserve a rest.”
Outside, day had darkened to dusk. Redmond did not stop. He helped May recall her greatest victories and let her know that she was not to blame for any misfortunes. He played priest and cheerleader. And while she never totally let down her guard and fully intended to eat him, his words were like a balm; they lulled and soothed. “I will save you for later,” she muttered, close to sleep.