Shadeland (The Ethereal Crossings, 1)

by D.L. Miles

  Chapter 17

  “So what you’re saying is that while I’ve been in jail, you’ve been going around with some bounty hunter, collecting ingredients for a spell to summon an ancient demon so you can kill it and prove my innocence?” Luke stared at me from across the couch, eyes filled with disbelief. When he put it like that, even I found it a little hard to believe. I also found my reasoning a little confusing and yet there I was…

  Right now though, it was easier to tell him the truth rather than lie to him. He had finally come out of his room and talked to me, I thought it was best to update him on the situation, especially with Jared and Dr. Wineman out of the picture.

  “Yes,” I said, reassuring him with a nod, “but now that Jared is… a statue and Dr. Wineman is doing something else, it all came to a standstill.” I looked away from him, not wanting to see his reaction. There was a dark feeling inside my chest that told me everything was hopeless; I didn’t need to see Luke’s expression to know he would be disappointed.

  “Have you lost your mind?” he shouted, jumping to his feet. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? What would your brothers think? What would your father think? I…I can’t even…you could have been killed!” He threw his hands in the air and stalked to the couch.

  “I just wanted to help,” I said, caught off guard. His face was red, his eyes just a little too narrow. The way his shoulders didn’t do their usual slope downwards worried me; I had expected him to be upset, but not this mad. I had never seen him this mad before.

  “Of course you haven’t seen me this mad before,” he stood in front of me, “you’ve never done something like this before! Though I should have seen it coming, after you broke into—” he began to pace around the coffee table when I cut him off.

  “What?” I asked. “What did you just say?” I stood, watching him as he realized what he had done.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t…mean it…I just…it just happened.” His voice was quiet.

  “You promised,” I whispered, feeling a lump in my throat, “you promised.”

  “I’m sorry, it was an accident.” I could see the pain in his eyes over his mistake. When we were kids, he had promised to never use his psychic powers on me, unless I let him or a situation arose that he could use them without penalty. He’d never accidentally done it before, not like this, and there had never been a time when he used them and I hadn’t felt it. This time, I never would have noticed unless he had said something. It made me wonder if it was really an accident. It made me wonder how many times he had done it and I hadn’t felt a thing. It made me wonder if he was still listening in on my thoughts.

  I pushed those ideas away quickly, not wanting to persecute him, after everything we had been through and everything he was still going through. Sitting down I took a deep breath. It was an accident, and that’s where I was going to leave it.

  “Have there been any more killings?” I asked, wanting to change the subject quickly. I didn’t have the time or the energy to feel angry as we sat back down on the couch.

  “No,” Luke said, sitting down next to me, for the first time there was a space between us. “What are you thinking?”

  “That I hope the doctor gets back soon to cure Jared so we can continue collecting the ingredients for Yamuna.”

  “We don’t need him,” Luke said, almost sounding angry again. “Why can’t we just do it ourselves?”

  “Do you know how we can get some pixie’s dust and the blood of the last victim?” I questioned, as if he would really know. He’s either been locked in his room, or locked in a cell for the past week. There was no way he was getting anywhere near the victim’s blood, wherever that was. “Or have you developed a new ability you haven’t told me about?” He went rigid in his seat. So much for not having the energy to be angry…

  “Well, about that,” he started playing with his hands, “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.” He crossed his legs away from me as I turned to face him head on. He had never hidden anything from me before; this Luke was very different than the Luke I had grown up with. I didn’t like it.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m…well you know I was adopted, right?” I nodded my head, growing more anxious with each passing second. “And my parents had always just sort of said I was psychic so that’s what we always said, because I could get glimpses of the future and get into people’s minds and…some other things.”

  “Does this have to do with why Dr. Wineman wanted to talk to you?” I touched his shoulder, hoping to comfort him, at least a little. Suddenly my anger was gone, replaced with concern. Luke was rarely this serious. He looked down at me and I knew I was right. This was also probably why the doctor had taken such an interest in him, in both of us.

  “I’m not really psychic, like we thought,” he admitted, “Dr. Wineman told me what I am; I’m a Fae.” He gave a meek smile and shrug. I had no idea what I was supposed to say. For years I had thought, I had known, that Luke was a psychic, but now he was telling me that wasn’t true. I could see in his eyes that he was happy with what he was, or maybe he was just happy that he knew for sure what he was. Or maybe he was happy because he had finally found someone he could truly confide in about himself…

  “A Fae?” I asked, not recognizing the term and trying to not think the way I was. Later I would have to search the library to see what came up. “What’s that?”

  “Well, remember in class how I asked about purebloods?” I nodded again. How could I forget the doctor’s reaction? He had looked completely confused as to why Luke would ask such a thing. “Well,” Luke smiled knowingly, “I am one; at least according to Dr. Wineman.”

  “You’re a pureblood Fae?” I leaned back on the couch, still trying to organize my thoughts. So that was why the doctor had pulled him aside after class, that was why he vouched for him to the detectives. Jared did say something about them protecting each other.

  “Yeah,” he leaned back with me, “I’ve been doing a little research on them…me…and I haven’t really learned too much. I think I really need to talk with Dr. Wineman to find out more.”

  I wondered if the doctor would still want to talk to him after Jared and I summoned the creature. Or if we summoned it that is.

  “So what have you learned so far?” I asked, hoping to keep my mind off of Jared.

  “I’m going to live for a long time,” he said, sounding a little sad, “but I can still die from wounds and stuff. Apparently I can die from a broken heart as far as the myths go.” Luke looked down into his hands, despair written all over him. I could understand that, if he had ever been willing to date someone and they happened to break up with him, he could be dead.

  “Can’t everyone?” I asked, wanting to make the situation sound better. The mermaid had died from a broken heart after all so what I said wasn’t completely untrue. Luke glanced up at me, surprised at my answer before realizing that it wasn’t technically a lie. Everyone can die from heartbreak, one way or another. “Anything else?”

  “Just that there are different classifications of Fae, like Light and Dark,” he scratched the back of his head. “I can’t find anything else that sounds real; a lot of the information contradicts itself in other areas.”

  We sat in silence for a moment, becoming aware of how real everything was. It was one thing to see murders reported on television, to see how the world was changing but it still never felt…real. I grew up knowing that the things that hid in the dark existed, but now…it was just hitting me now how dangerous everything was. Before now Luke was really the only Eidolon I had come in contact with. I was almost killed by a mermaid earlier, then I was almost shot, more than once and I could have been turned to stone by a Cockatrice.

  To top it all off, I was trying to kill an ancient creature from what sounded like an alternate dimension. I rested my head back and closed my eyes; this was insane. But if I didn’t try and do thi
s, then who would? My eyes opened, staring at the ceiling but not really seeing it.

  Now that Jared was out of the picture, I was the only one left. Yamuna wasn’t going to go and get the ingredients; she couldn’t even if she wanted to. The doctor wasn’t about to do it either and the police seemed to have less than nothing on the case, at least in terms of suspects other than Luke. I was the only other person that was willing to do it.

  “We need to get that dust,” I said aloud, “we need to stop these murders.” I looked to Luke to see that he had turned the television on, leaving the sound off. Cindy sat on the screen again, reporting the news that Luke was in fact innocent. Luke didn’t seem to hear me as he watched the screen, a hardened expression on his gentle face.

  “I kind of like her now,” he said, “this Cindy woman. I know that’s stupid, but she’s the only reporter that actually seems sorry for accusing me.”

  “She apologized to me,” I said, “the other day in the diner. She was there with a guy and she said sorry.” Luke’s lips hinted at a smile but he kept his eyes on the television.

  “She said it to me too,” he told me, “she came by the apartment earlier with the weather girl and they both apologized. I had no idea what to say especially since the weather girl wasn’t really involved in it.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That I forgave her,” he turned the television off, “that she was given misinformation by the detective and that she was just doing her job.” Luke shrugged the topic away, wanting to leave it at that. He was always taking the high road and I let it go, following his lead. It was a better way to go anyhow.

  “I think we need to get to work,” I said, determined to find the killer, “nobody else is going to try and stop it.”

  “Where do you want to start?” he leaned his elbows onto his knees and looked to me.

  “The pixie’s dust should be easiest for now,” I said, praying that while we got the dust, the doctor would have a cure for Jared and he would know how to get the blood. “I just don’t know where to find that.” We sat and thought about it, I came up with nothing though.

  “There is a place downtown,” Luke said slowly, “they sell witches supplies and stuff. Maybe they have some dust?”

  Well, it was worth a shot.