Len shoved them in his pockets and glanced at Guthrie, who gave him a small nod of acknowledgement. He returned it, trying to convey a silent promise to do everything he could—for humanity... for Zorah and Rans. Not to mention, for the suicidal Fae asshole standing next to him.
“Let’s go,” he told Albigard.
EIGHTEEN
CILLIAN STARTED TO follow them as Albigard headed away from the church grounds, through a gate at the edge of the cemetery and toward a brilliant, rolling green field of grass. One sharp look from the Fae froze the man in his tracks, however, and they proceeded alone.
Len scanned their surroundings, taking in the folds and patterns in the landscape around them that were too regular and geometric to be natural. “So this is some kind of ancient burial site, huh?” he asked, mostly to break the unnerving silence. “Mounds, standing stones, that kind of thing?”
The Fae nodded, walking tense and straight-backed beside him. “It is. The early predecessors of the Druids were quite sensitive to Fae magic, and were drawn to the area around the gate between realms. In fact, it was they who discovered the opening in the veil—not my own people.”
Len flicked a surprised glance at him. “Really?”
Albigard made an affirmative noise. “They built a mound of earth and stone around the site to mark it. For more than a thousand years, they buried their high-ranking dead here after cremating them—scattering the ashes on the floor of the tomb and placing fresh stone slabs over them. When all of the interior space was filled except for the central corridor leading to the gate, they started digging pits in the top of the mound and burying people there, as well.”
“So they thought the gate led to some kind of afterlife?” Len speculated.
“Perhaps,” Albigard replied. His tone was distant, and Len got the impression he was talking mostly as a way to keep himself from thinking too much. “It’s possible that some unfortunate human who passed through and was driven mad by Dhuinne’s magic escaped, returning to gibber about an otherworldly paradise existing on the other side. Whatever the case, the mound contains the mortal remains of hundreds of Neolithic and Bronze Age humans.”
“Not to mention the gate to another world,” Len mused. “Wow. That’s... quite a story.”
They approached the mound—a circular hill covered in grass, perhaps ten feet tall and forty or fifty feet in diameter. The dirt walking path they were following bent in a wide curve, maintaining a constant distance from the mound’s edge, rather than continuing in a straight line past the stone-lined opening cut into one side. Len tilted his head curiously, and stopped when they had a good view of the iron-barred entrance.
There was no trail of trampled grass leading up to the door; no evidence of tourists coming up to peer into the dark interior. And this place was definitely a tourist site—though maybe not a hugely busy one. Plaques poked up from the ground at odd intervals, noting points of interest in the sprawling collection of standing stones and earthworks scattered across the field. A few other people wandered the area, stopping here and there to take photos. None of them approached the mound, or paid Len and Albigard any notice despite their unusual clothing.
“Hiding in plain sight?” Len suggested.
“Indeed.” Albigard gestured toward the dark opening in the side of the hill. “The gate to Dhuinne has many protections in place, but they are subtle.”
Len made to step off the path, and paused mid-step. “Oh,” he said. “Is this what Vonnie was talking about?”
“Yes,” the Fae replied. “Doubtless you’ve had enough practice ignoring my influence recently that it will prove no great hindrance to you.”
Len shot him a sidelong glance in response to the cutting tone. He looked at the entrance again, feeling out the odd mental resistance that was attempting to convince him not to take another step toward it. Now that Albigard had mentioned it, that strange compulsion did have a bit of a familiar flavor to it. He closed his eyes and gave his head a sharp shake to dispel the external influence trying to twist his mind into odd shapes.
The compulsion snapped loose like a rubber band breaking, giving Len a momentary case of mental whiplash that sent him reeling back a step. He caught his balance and turned his attention back to their goal. This time, it wasn’t difficult to step forward, off the path. When nothing bad happened, he gave Albigard a little shrug and headed for the rough iron gate blocking the entrance. The Fae followed wordlessly behind him.
Len’s ears popped as he reached the entrance into the mound. He turned, about to make a scathing comment about the presence of the huge padlock holding the barred gate shut, when he felt something warm and wet trickle onto his upper lip. When he jerked his hand up to swipe at it, his fingers came away red with blood.
“Shit,” he said in surprise. With the ease of long practice—thanks to an unfortunate history of cocaine use on top of his EMT training—he pinched his nose shut and tucked his chin against his chest to keep the blood from draining down the back of his throat.
Albigard gave him a critical onceover. “A reasonably impressive showing,” he decided.
“If you say so,” Len told him in a nasal tone, glaring as best he could from his undignified position. He eyed the gate again. “Now what?”
“Perhaps you should take a few moments to recover.”
Len rolled his eyes and took Albigard’s advice, only removing his fingers from the bridge of his nose when he was reasonably sure he wouldn’t immediately start leaking again.
“So, that’s the Fae’s security system? You give people nosebleeds?” he asked, rather pointedly.
“Bleeding nose, bleeding eyes, bleeding ears—bleeding from all the orifices, really,” Albigard said. “The idea is that humans don’t generally get that far in the first place.”
“Nice of you to warn me ahead of time,” Len told him.
The Fae gave an unconcerned shrug. “As I predicted, it was not an issue.” He lifted a hand and flicked a portal into existence. It covered the entrance, the metal bars wavering out of reality as it formed.
“Right,” Len said uncertainly, and stepped through the gap. He emerged just inside the shadowy corridor, and moved out of the way to make space for Albigard to come through after him.
The flickering orange flames of the portal illuminated a claustrophobic space. The ceiling of the stone-lined passageway barely cleared Len’s head, forcing him to hunch instinctively when his teased fauxhawk brushed against it. The walls were narrow enough that he wouldn’t have to stretch his arms very far to touch both sides at once. They were carved with primitive symbols—spirals and circles, wavy lines and asymmetrical X-shapes that seemed oddly reminiscent of human chromosomes. Ahead, the narrow passage disappeared into darkness.
The portal snapped closed, leaving only the gray light of a cloudy Irish day as illumination—and Len couldn’t help the little shiver of apprehension that went through him, now that he was effectively trapped inside the mound. Albigard’s lithe body slipped past him in the narrow space, silk brocade brushing Len’s bare arm and raising gooseflesh in its wake.
“Show yourself, guardian,” said the Fae, and a new light source flared at the far end of the tunnel.
The ball of glowing sparks hovered in one corner of the passage, illuminating a Fae woman with strawberry blonde hair braided and pinned into a complicated pile on top of her head. She looked like the sort of person who probably hunted deer with a bow and arrow for fun on her afternoons off, and ran sword drills for new military recruits every day at dawn and dusk.
Eyes the same color as Albigard’s regarded them with mild interest. “Greetings, son of Oren,” she said in a husky tone. Her attention fell on Len for a moment. “Goodness. Your human is certainly interesting.”
Len chose to interpret that as commentary about his unique ideas regarding personal branding rather than insight about his necromancy. He also knew enough to keep his mouth shut, at least for the moment.
“Interesting is one
possible description, yes,” Albigard replied. “As I attempted to convey through your messenger, this human has some rather unique abilities that may be of use in controlling the Wild Hunt. Has the Seelie Court accepted my petition for an audience, in exchange for surrendering myself to Fae justice?”
Her expression sobered. “They have. However, the full Court will not convene until tomorrow morning, and the Unseelie have been arguing that they, too, should be present during your hearing. The matter is still up for debate, but until it is decided, you are to be held as a prisoner rather than a petitioner.”
Standing just behind Albigard’s left shoulder in the tight space, Len could feel the Fae’s carefully maintained stillness.
“Very well,” he said. “And my human vassal?”
Again, the Seelie woman glanced past Albigard to examine Len with interest. “He appears harmless enough,” she said. “Perhaps I can persuade the guard commander to allow him better accommodations.”
Unease settled in Len’s gut. “I’ll stay with him, thanks all the same.”
The woman tilted her head, considering. “As you wish, human.” With that, she unhooked a set of metal rings connected by chains from her belt and tossed them down the length of the narrow passage, where they landed with a clatter at Albigard’s feet. “Please place the collar and shackles on the prisoner, human. I give you my word that you will not be harmed before your appointment with the Court tomorrow.”
Len looked at the iron restraints, and back at the female Fae standing at the end of the corridor. “What about him? Will you give me your word that he won’t be harmed?”
A faint smile tugged at one corner of her wide mouth, and was gone an instant later. “No permanent harm will come to him before his audience. At least, not unless the Hunt comes for him before then. If that happens, nothing can save him.”
I can, Len wanted to say... but right now, that was probably a lie. Without the protective cloak of dead animus surrounding him, it seemed likely the Hunt would simply kill him, too.
“Do as she asks,” Albigard said quietly, his shoulders still an unmoving line of tightly held tension. He stood aside, giving Len room to squeeze past and retrieve the shackles from the floor.
Len ran his fingers over the cold, dark metal, untangling the chains. As the woman had described, the restraints consisted of a hinged metal collar with a welded ring at the front, from which hung two short lengths of chain attached to smaller wrist shackles. He lifted his gaze to Albigard, trying to ask a question with his eyes.
Are you sure?
Albigard gave a tiny nod. Len took a steadying breath and opened the collar. The Fae swept his hair out of the way and held it up as Len eased the heavy hunk of hinged metal around his throat and closed the two halves. He’d hoped to arrange it over the high collar of Albigard’s tunic to keep the iron from burning his skin, but it was a snug fit. In the end, he had to pull the collar out of the way before he could close it properly. The padlock hanging from the hasp wasn’t locked. Len swiveled it open and pulled it free before closing the hasp and threading it back into place. It locked with a decisive click.
I successfully picked locks like this one in the cave in California, he told himself firmly. I can do it again if I have to.
This assumed, of course, that the Fae would helpfully leave him a selection of lock picking tools wherever they ended up being held. He gritted his teeth and lifted Albigard’s right wrist, snapping on the shackle and locking it. He repeated the process on the left wrist. The chains were short enough that Albigard had to keep his elbows bent at right angles, hands held in front of him at waist level.
Len clenched his fists hard at his side to prevent himself from making some sort of reassuring gesture—one that would only draw contempt from the watching Seelie guard. A stroke of the jaw... a squeeze of his fingers. A palm resting over Albigard’s heart for a moment, as he’d done twice before to help calm him.
Instead, he forced himself to step back.
“Thank you, human,” the woman said, not unkindly. “Son of Oren, I will have your word that you will not attempt to escape from custody during your stay in Dhuinne. Then we may cross through the gate.”
“You have my word that I will not attempt to escape from custody,” Albigard told her.
Len’s heart sank, even as he prodded at the promise, seeking loopholes. If Len were the one to mastermind the escape, would Albigard allow himself to be rescued? And realistically, what were the odds of Len masterminding a single goddamned thing while being held by beings as powerful as Fae?
“Very well,” said the Seelie woman. “Follow me.”
She placed her palm against a spiral carving in the wall at the end of the passage, and light began to spill outward from the shape. It spread until Len had to squint against the glare, the whole wall glowing like the sun. He blinked rapidly as the stone dissolved, revealing an alien landscape beyond.
The Fae realm was wild and overgrown. Tall grass choked with vines and flowers covered the windblown hillside beyond the gate. The sky was vaguely reminiscent of the pocket realm—tinted too far along the purple end of the color spectrum for comfort. The fluffy white clouds sculling across the sky were pink on the bottom rather than gray. Basically, the place looked like Walt Disney had gone on a bad acid trip and thrown up all over everything. Len half expected singing teapots and cheery, chirping bluebirds to show up any minute.
Their guide—or guard, or whatever she was—stepped through the boundary between realms as easily as though she were walking through a doorway into another room. Albigard followed, trying and failing to hide his tense wariness as he handed himself over to his own people. Len brought up the rear, stumbling a bit in response to the abrupt wrenching sensation as he passed from one reality to another. His stomach turned over, and he swallowed hard, forcing it to behave. An odd buzzing sensation skittered at the edge of his awareness, like high-frequency sound waves hovering just at the edge of his range of hearing. He shook his head sharply, trying to clear it.
That was when he noticed the two dozen or so heavily armed Unseelie warriors closing in on them from either side. And from their stony expressions... they weren’t happy.
NINETEEN
“WHOA!” LEN TOOK an involuntary step backward, and nearly stumbled again when his heel hit a thick clump of grass. Several of the armed guards moved in. Two grabbed Albigard by the arms, and another two grabbed Len.
Instinct screamed at him to struggle; to kick out at kneecaps and aim elbows at kidneys. An inner voice honed by too much time spent on the streets whispered about all the bad things that could happen when a crowd ganged up on you—
“Do not resist.” Albigard forced the words through clenched teeth. “It’s... possible I may have made something of a negative impression among the guardsmen, during my escape from captivity a few weeks ago.”
A swaggering Fae who looked like he might be the one in charge walked up to Albigard and stopped an arm’s length in front of him.
“You think?” he asked, and punched Albigard square in the jaw.
Len winced as the Fae’s head snapped to the side. Albigard sagged in his captors’ grip for the space of a couple of heartbeats before getting his feet underneath him again.
“That’s enough,” the female Fae snapped. “Take them to the incarceration area and make certain they are secure. They are both to be delivered to the Court in the morning. Unharmed.”
The Unseelie leader sneered in Albigard’s face. “Of course, Daeana,” he said without turning to the woman. “It will be as you command.”
And... hey... color Len not at all reassured, thanks very much.
“Portal,” the man snapped, and another of the guards hurried forward. His face scrunched up in concentration as he gestured in a broad oval, and a shaky portal formed in the air, wavering and sputtering. Len’s state of un-reassuredness ratcheted up another few notches.
He yelped as he was unceremoniously tossed through the hole in realit
y, staggering as he landed on the other side. Once through, he barely managed to turn his shoulder to take the brunt of the impact as he slammed against a solid wall that appeared to be made of splintery, unfinished wood.
Albigard stumbled through after him, but caught himself with Fae grace before falling or running into anything. Finally, the Unseelie guard with the bad attitude strolled through. He caught Albigard by the hair and kicked his right leg out from under him, forcing him to his knees and shoving him backward against the oddly curved wall.
Albigard stayed where he was put, teeth bared, and Len realized with a jolt that the Fae was bracing himself for the ropes of magic that their Unseelie captor flung at him next. As though the wall were steel and Albigard’s body was a magnet, his back and arms impacted the wood and stuck fast, binding him in place.
Len stood poised on the balls of his feet, ready to charge at the guard if he made another move to strike Albigard while he was helpless—but the man only turned and stepped through the open portal without a word. The wavering oval collapsed on itself... and just like that, they were alone in what was obviously meant to be their jail cell.
He looked around, struggling to make sense of their surroundings. The area enclosed by a roughly circular wooden wall was maybe eight or ten feet in diameter, and notably lacking in doors or windows of any kind. The floor was bare dirt—uneven, and riddled with half-exposed roots. Light filtered down weakly from above.
Searching for its source, Len craned his neck to look up.
Way, way up.
“Albigard,” he began slowly, “are we... inside a giant, hollowed out tree?”
“Yes,” said the Fae, his voice hoarse with strain. “This part of the Dead Forest is used to incarcerate criminals awaiting sentencing. For what it’s worth, we will be safe enough here until they come for us in the morning... though the night will no doubt be an unpleasant one.”
Forsaken Fae: The Complete Series, Books 1-3 (Last Vampire World) Page 32