“All right. So...?” Len prompted, trying to follow.
“I assume my captors intend to throw me through the gate to Hell, in hopes that the Hunt will follow me inside and become trapped there with me,” Albigard said distantly. “Which would neatly solve both the problem of the Hunt itself, and potentially the long-term issue of our enemies the demons, as well.”
Len’s mind stuttered over that, grinding to a momentary halt before he dragged it free. “But... demons can’t die. The Hunt couldn’t kill Nigellus.”
“There are humans living in Hell, as well as demons,” Albigard replied. “Specifically, the kidnapped children sent by Dhuinne as a tithe over the years, in place of our own Fae children. The tithe of souls to Hell was one of the provisions of the peace treaty.”
Len’s stomach churned.
“What do you think happens to the human infants who’ve been replaced with Fae changelings?” the cat-sidhe added tartly. “And while it’s true the Wild Hunt cannot kill demons, there are those who seem willing to gamble that if it’s trapped with them in Hell forever, it may weaken them enough to prevent them from threatening the Fae again in the future.”
The horror of it hit him properly then. Not content to sacrifice Albigard to the monster that lurked under every Fae child’s bed, his captors first intended to throw him—chained and helpless—into the maw of his people’s hereditary enemies. Len closed his eyes, remembering the way every Fae present had flinched in poorly hidden terror when Nigellus had called up his flaming sword.
“I’m trying really hard not to hate your people right now,” he told them, jabbing the pin deeper into the lock and sawing it rapidly back and forth across the tumblers. “But you aren’t making it very easy for me.”
Whether either of the Fae would have said something in reply would remain a mystery, since the padlock chose that moment to pop open.
“Ah! Well done, human!” The cat-sidhe exclaimed. “Quickly, now—the others.”
Len unwound the chains from Albigard’s torso and legs, making note of the link-shaped burns where the iron had rested against bare, pale skin. When he was done, the ends of the chains hung loose from the rings of the collar. They probably weighed a freaking ton, so he tackled that padlock next. Albigard turned his head away, clearly uncomfortable having Len’s face so close to his. The movement caused a few strands of his long platinum hair—still matted with blood in places from the car accident—to fall over the padlock. Len awkwardly smoothed them back and hooked them over a delicate, pointed ear so he could work.
“So... you realize you totally wrecked my car yesterday, right?” he asked, with most of his focus still on the lock. “I’m pretty upset about that, actually.”
“It was not a very good car,” Albigard retorted, his tone gruff.
“I already told you—it had character,” Len said by rote, and surprised himself by choking up a bit as he thought about the old land yacht. He cleared his throat. “And as you might guess, unexpectedly coming upon a wrecked car that was being driven by someone I know isn’t my idea of a good time.”
There was a short, tentative pause before Albigard said, “Because of your friend from Detroit... Yussef?”
“Yes,” Len confirmed patiently. “Because of Yussef.”
The second lock clicked open—tripping the mechanism had grown easier now that he had a better idea of how the innards of the thing worked. A sharp inhalation signaled Albigard’s relief as the heavy weight of the collar and chains fell away from his neck.
“I believe I mentioned the need for haste,” said the cat-sidhe.
“I’m working as fast as I can,” Len snapped, then consciously softened his tone. “Albigard—look, man... I know you’ve got your whole thing about not being touched, but I’m going to have to get a bit personal to reach these wrist shackles, all right?”
Albigard was silent—still not looking in Len’s direction, though his jaw tightened visibly. When it became clear he wasn’t going to answer, Len shook his head in frustration and reached up, craning to get at the first padlock. With Albigard’s wrists stretched above his head, Len couldn’t really see what he was doing as he stood on tiptoe. They were about the same height, and he basically just had to poke around with the dagger and the pin, trying not to let either item slip free and accidentally cut the Fae’s skin.
The one on the right wrist wasn’t too bad. Since Len was right-handed, he could brace a hip against the cave wall next to Albigard’s body and still reach the padlock to manipulate the pin back and forth against the tumblers while he twisted the dagger to put tension on the mechanism. But when he moved to work on the Fae’s left wrist, there was nothing to brace against except Albigard himself, since Len couldn’t manage the pin left-handed.
This was awkward enough to start with, as Albigard held his body in a state of trembling tension that Len put down to his distaste at the close contact with a human. It became about a hundred times more awkward when Len’s left-handed grip on the dagger slipped. He managed to avoid slicing Albigard’s wrist open, but when he twisted in place to keep his balance, something hard, thick, and completely unmistakable pressed against the crease of his thigh.
Len swallowed a curse as he righted himself and threw an incredulous look at the Fae. Albigard still refused to turn his face in Len’s direction, and Len narrowly managed to hold in the quip that wanted to escape—‘Tell me, O Mighty, Untouchable Fae... do you frequently find yourself popping a boner for the metaphorical orangutans at the zoo?’—because this definitely wasn’t the time.
“Sorry,” he muttered instead, and rearranged himself to get at the lock again.
“Guards are coming,” the cat-sidhe warned. “Remember, youngling—you must flee to a place where you cannot be found. Dhuinne’s future depends on it.”
“The iron,” Albigard said. “I am too weak—”
“I will lend you some of my strength to bolster your own, and delay the guards for as long as I can.” The sidhe looked worriedly between Len, Albigard, and the entrance of the cave. “Human... you must work faster.”
“I’m almost there. And I’d work faster if you stopped distracting me!” Len said through gritted teeth.
The cat-sidhe huffed out a breath. “Too late,” said the little Fae, and slapped a hand over Albigard’s heart. Light flared from the point of contact. Albigard grunted in surprise, trying to jerk away as his tattoos writhed across his skin, moving independently. But the sidhe was already dashing off, changing form in mid-stride.
Len couldn’t help craning around to look as the sound of shouts echoed dully at the edges of the silencing charm. His mouth fell open as the sidhe’s form swelled—no longer a housecat, but rather a huge panther with a hide so dark it swallowed the torchlight. Several figures appeared at the entrance, skidding to an abrupt halt as they took in the sight before them.
“The lock!” Albigard hissed, and Len wrenched his attention back to what he was supposed to be doing.
Bolts of magic flew around the cavern, sending rock shrapnel flying as he poked madly at the tumblers.
“Shit, shit, shit, fuck—” he cursed, fully convinced that they were both about to be blasted to kingdom come.
A bolt of crackling energy hit the wall next to Albigard at the same instant the last padlock finally gave way, and Albigard spun to the side to avoid it, taking Len with him.
“Whatever you’re planning on doing, do it now!” Len said with a gasp, as another blast shattered rock above their heads.
Albigard’s jaw clenched so tight the tendons stood out in sharp relief. He lifted a hand, fingers curled into claws as he called up the brightest, sharpest portal Len had ever seen. Len let himself be dragged through it, the pair stumbling out the other side in a tangle of legs and arms. He only had time to take in the utter desolation of the dead landscape that materialized around them before his mind short-circuited. He staggered like a drunk, his muscles instantly seizing beneath an uncontrollable magnetic pull that felt al
l too familiar.
EIGHT
“STOP!” THE WORD was a snarl, and green eyes materialized in the forefront of Len’s wavering tunnel vision. “You will focus on me, and not on this mirage of death! There is nothing here for you, necromancer.”
Perversely, it was irritation at the necromancer barb more than anything else that pulled Len’s mind back from the brink. He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, every muscle in his body turning to rubber; his brain feeling like someone had just hooked it up to a live car battery.
“Fucking... ow,” he managed, waiting for the flashbulbs to stop going off behind his eyelids. Another body flopped down next to him in the dusty sand, breathing heavily.
“No... no... no. This cannot be right,” Albigard muttered. “This cannot... be.”
Enough synapses were firing now for Len to make the connection between his body’s reaction when he’d first stepped into the dead zone in his neighborhood, and what had just happened to him. He blinked at the cloudless sky and tried to make sense of his surroundings.
“Is this Chicago?” he asked, forming the words around a tongue that seemed a couple of sizes too large. But that didn’t feel right. For one thing, the sky in Chicago hadn’t been lavender-colored the last time Len had checked. Chicago had also had more plants and buildings and... stuff. Like... lots more.
Also, and perhaps most importantly, it hadn’t been dead. Not except for a tiny patch of forest near the edge of Albigard’s wards, anyway.
“Please say this isn’t Chicago,” he urged.
“This is not Chicago.” The hoarse note in Albigard’s voice had returned.
Silence fell, eerie and absolute. After a few moments, Len managed to get his muscles working well enough to sit up and look around. They had emerged onto a gently sloping stretch of sand leading down to a good-sized body of water. Uphill from them, Len could make out the skeletons of trees forming a dead forest... or, at least, he thought they had probably been trees, once. The proportions and shapes of the bare branches were subtly... off. Alien, almost. Beyond the maybe-trees lay a steep, rocky hillside.
“Dude. Help me out here by using your words, okay?” he pressed. “Where the hell are we?”
Albigard wet his lips, drawing Len’s gaze to his mouth before he jerked his eyes back to the Fae’s.
“Far from Hell,” Albigard said slowly. “Far from anywhere, in a place where we will not be found by the Unseelie. This is... a pocket realm, I suppose you’d call it. An uninhabited backwater of reality.”
“A pocket realm,” Len echoed dully. “So, it’s like another parallel dimension. But... what? Smaller?”
“Yes.”
Len blinked at the Fae. “And, y’know, dead? What’s that about?”
“It should not be dead.”
This time, Len waited him out rather than pushing. Albigard rolled to a sitting position and wrapped his bare arms around his knees. Sand clung to his skin.
“I discovered this place when I was young, while secretly practicing magic that I should not have been using at such an age,” the Fae said eventually. “It was a lush area, full of plant life, but with no animals larger than insects. I used to come here sometimes to hide from my family, or from my tutors. I have not been here for a very long time.”
“But everything’s dead now,” Len said, feeling the words out as he spoke. “Which means the Hunt has been here... because it could sense the traces you left behind?”
“This should not have happened.” It was a whisper, barely audible. Then, louder, “I am responsible for the destruction of an entire realm.”
Len squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment, trying to pull himself together.
“No,” he said. “Don’t say that. The Wild Hunt is responsible for the destruction of an entire realm—and we already knew that was the kind of risk we were facing. Better this realm than someplace where people live, right?”
“This was a beautiful place,” said the Fae. “It was a haven. A refuge.” He sounded utterly lost, which both freaked Len out and kindled something complicated and unwelcome inside his chest.
Rather than engage with that response in any kind of a meaningful way, Len concentrated on getting his feet under him and standing up. He swayed for a moment, but succeeded in locking his knees and staying upright.
“Look,” he said, “it sucks that this happened. I won’t argue that part. But I also stand by my statement that it could be worse. And right now? We need to come up with some kind of a plan, because while this might be a great hiding place from the Fae who want to chuck you into Hell, it’s apparently a less than stellar place to hide from the Hunt.”
Albigard was silent, still sitting hunched on the ground.
Len sighed and plowed onward. “So, the way I see it, we’ll have a bit of breathing room before we have to worry too much, because the Hunt’s already sucked the place dry. I can’t imagine it’s a very attractive lure anymore... at least, not until it realizes that you’re actually here this time, and your scent or whatever isn’t just traces from long ago. So we can probably chill out here for a few hours while we brainstorm where to go next. I was thinking, maybe if there are other pocket realms like this one—”
“We can’t leave.” The three words cut across Len’s stream of consciousness abruptly.
“What?” he asked with a frown.
Albigard finally looked up, his perfect features twisted with frustration and anger. “We. Can’t. Leave.”
Len blinked at him, trying to rewind his brain until he found some kind of context around this declaration that made sense.
“You mean... because you’re too weak from the iron chains to make another portal yet?” he hazarded. “Um... okay. No big deal. We can hang out here until you’re rested up. Like I said, I doubt the Hunt will be in a huge hurry to come back here.”
Hopefully, he added in the privacy of his thoughts.
Furious green eyes pinned his. “You are not listening. This place is dead. There is no life here from which I might replenish my magic. I am not strong enough to make another portal between realms, and I will only grow weaker as more time passes. There is no food. The water may or may not be safe to drink. And, as you so helpfully point out, the Wild Hunt will return eventually. We are trapped here, and we are going to die here.”
The sense of the words penetrated, but Len’s mind rejected them immediately. He shook his head slowly back and forth, barely aware of the movement.
“No,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t know that for sure. We can walk around... explore a bit, and find someplace that the Hunt didn’t drain so you can top up your magic.”
“Do you smell any decay in the air?” Albigard’s voice was a snarl. “Do you smell anything except rock and sand and water? Not even the smallest single-celled creature has escaped the Hunt’s destruction! There is no life here!”
Len’s hands balled into fists. “You can’t be certain of that!” he shot back, his voice rising to a shout. He dragged himself under a semblance of control and continued in a more reasonable tone, “Just because the area around here is dead doesn’t mean all of it is.”
The Fae let out a huff of bitter laughter. “This realm is tiny. We could circumnavigate it in a day. If there were anything left alive, I’d be able to sense it.” He covered his face with one hand, grimacing.
Len looked around in increasing desperation, taking in the unnatural stillness and quiet. Barely a ripple disturbed the lake beneath them, and no wind rustled the branches in the dead forest.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, just let me think for a minute. What if... you gave me a gift, and sucked energy from me the way you did from Zorah when you portaled us to Chicago that first time?”
The ache of grief at saying Zorah’s name aloud felt oddly muted—buried beneath the growing fear that he and Albigard might be about to meet the same fate she and Rans had.
“I need life to power my magic,” Albigard snapped. “Not more death!”
Necromancer. The word hung in the air, unsaid.
Against his will, Len’s mind started cataloguing all the things they didn’t have access to in this place. He thought about the rule of threes—humans could survive for three hours without shelter in extreme conditions. Three days without water. Three weeks without food.
And that was completely separate from the threat posed by the Wild Hunt. The Hunt was a whole different level of danger, but it wasn’t something that Len could control. At least, not beyond jumping in front of Albigard if it showed up, and hoping that the thing was still afraid of him.
The temperature in this dead pocket realm was pleasant enough right now, but that didn’t mean it would stay that way. Len was dressed in jeans and a henley with a light, open-front hooded cardigan thrown over it. Albigard was wearing what amounted to loose cotton pajama bottoms and nothing else—a fact that had become uncomfortably obvious when Len had accidentally rubbed up against him in the cave.
On the positive side, there was a huge body of water only a few dozen yards away. If Albigard was right about all of the single-celled organisms being dead, it would be sterile. That might or might not mean it was safe to drink. Some bacteria released toxins as they died, and Len was willing to bet that a lot of bacteria had died in that lake when the Hunt sucked the life out of it.
When it came to food, however, they were probably fucked. Len remembered in vivid detail what had happened to the vegetables in his fridge, reduced to useless husks. He doubted whatever was left of the plants in this realm retained any nutritional value. Albigard had said there were no animals bigger than insects, which was too bad. If there’d been dead fish floating in the lake with no microorganisms to rot them, they might still have been edible.
Maybe there were some bug carcasses lying around...
He blew out a breath, and concentrated on prioritizing. “Fine,” he said, and gestured at the lake. “Do me a favor and go drink some of that water. Tell me if it makes you feel sick afterward.”
Forsaken Fae: The Complete Series, Books 1-3 (Last Vampire World) Page 23