by D V Wolfe
It was a moment before Gabe said. “No, I’ve had some help. There’s a blood spell.”
“Help, huh,” I said. Blood magic was this creepy, intimate thing. It used a bond to make it strong. Sharp kick to the inside of my ribs from the pointy-toed shoes again. I almost didn’t want to know who was giving him ‘help’.
“Yeah? So?” Gabe snapped.
I decided to press on rather than calling him a man whore. I didn’t really have a dog in that fight with our history and I knew deep down I had no right to inquire further. But it didn’t stop me from being curious. I shoved that line of thinking aside. “Are you able to do the same spell to find them again?”
Gabe sighed. “Probably not. I had to mark my link and my guess is that they probably figured it out and killed him.”
“Might be the scraps I talked to,” I said.
“That’s my thought,” Gabe said. “So where are you headed?”
“Why? Are you going to start tracking me now?” I said annoyance at him, and annoyance at the situation were getting tangled together and coming out pissier than I’d intended.
Gabe snorted. “Why would I? You apparently have all the help you need.”
“True,” I snapped. “I guess that makes two of us.” And I hung up. I recognized that tone of voice. The ‘head-pat, I’m a better hunter than you are, let me help you, dear’ look that went along with it was the face that made me kick him in the ass and open up his stitches again.
I threw the phone down and turned my attention back to the road.
“So now what?” Noah asked, his tone lighter and happier than I’d heard in the last day or so. I shifted him a look and had to force myself to keep from smiling. I was glad Gabe was annoyed at the thought of me working with someone else. Screw him. He never seemed to remember all the times I’d saved his ass. He just seemed to think I was always in need of a babysitter.
But the fact remained, I was fresh out of leads and I’d talked to Gabe who was back to square one himself if Mr. Disembowelment had been his link. Which, if Sister found out, would definitely explain why they had tortured him and left him for dead.
“I guess we head back to Rosetta’s and regroup,” I said.
“So that was Gabe you hung up on?” Noah asked.
I didn’t answer him. I just turned up the radio.
It was a couple of hours later as we were coming up on the exits to Lexington when my phone started ringing again. Noah and I both just glanced down at it.
“You gonna get that?” Noah asked, almost sounding giddy. I was going to have to nip that line of teasing in the bud. I snatched the phone up and looked at the caller ID.
Gabe’s had been blocked, which was just peachy because it gave me a legitimate excuse to never have to call him back. This ID was all ‘3’s.
I shrugged and flipped the phone open. “Hello?”
“Oh my gods, please!” The voice was deep and smooth, despite his obvious distress. A strange ethereal pulse wafted over me, somewhat dampened coming through the phone, but I could still feel it humming against my skin. I hadn’t heard him speak in a long time but I still knew who this was.
“Sprig?” I asked.
“The Puca?” Noah hissed beside me. I turned to Noah and gave him a curt nod.
“What’s happening, Sprig?”
“She’s got them. She’s got all of them. And she won’t let them go. She won’t let me in and there’s blood, so much blood coming from under the door. You gotta help me!”
“Vix? Vix has who?” I said, but I could hear Sprig banging on something and calling for his sister, so the question was redundant. I heard his panicked breathing come back on the line and I changed tack. “Where are you?”
“Uhhhhh,” I could almost see Sprig looking around at his surroundings trying to place his location. He’d always had a hard time adapting to this plane. His sister could slip in and out without an issue, but Sprig would rather have stayed home. “Rest stop,” Sprig gasped.
“Ok, where?” I said, trying to keep him talking.
“Uh,” Sprig said. “South of uhh, Knoxville, 75.” There was the sound of a man screaming. “Oh gods, Vix! Stop! Don’t hurt them!” Then the line went dead.
7
It was a four and a half-hour drive from Lexington to Knoxville. We made it in three. Noah was white-knuckling the dashboard and I had the steering wheel in a death grip. We picked up one state patrol unit, lights blazing and sirens whining, but after a quick roll around an interchange it lost interest and turned off, chasing a Miata.
“When we get there,” Noah began, his voice very small and strained as Lucy groaned beneath us and I coaxed her over ninety. “If we get there…”
“You should be used to my driving by now,” I said.
“Stuff it, Bane,” Noah said, squeezing his eyes shut as I took a curve, drifting into the outer lane. “Anway,” He said after we were running down another straightaway. “Are we going to have to kill the Pucas?”
I sighed. “We probably will. It depends on how much of a mess Vix is making.”
“I mean, it’s gotta be bad if her brother is having to call you for help, right?”, Noah asked. “So bad that he can’t handle it on his own. I mean, he’s a big guy, and she’s…”
“Way more adept in this plane than he is,” I said.
“Plane?” Noah asked.
“Yeah, they’re from Tir na nOg. The uh, Irish ‘otherworld’,” I said. Noah snorted and I looked at him. “What?”
Noah shook his head, “Oh, just laughing at life. Two weeks ago, I was just this unpopular kid in my senior year of high school, nervous that I’d look like a loser and embarrass my prom date. And now I’m dealing with the Irish ‘underworld’ and cannibals.”
“Otherworld,” I corrected him.
“This is my second time dealing with them and I know it’s been more for you, so why exactly haven’t you killed them?” Noah asked.
I sighed. “They’re not exactly cut-and-dried evil. Pucas are pains in the ass, but they’re not always bad. So I told Vix that if she and Sprig could behave themselves, I’d let them live.”
“But now?” Noah asked.
I didn’t answer him. Kess Dorfin had told me not to kill the Pucas. They were apparently rare in the U.S. and she had said their visits were often marked by successful crops for the next fifteen years in the midwest. A little close to home for me. I really didn’t want to have to kill them. But, after the last time….and if Vix was killing innocents now…
We passed the last exit for Knoxville and I slowed down to eighty-five searching for the rest stop sign. Beside me, Noah was tugging on his shirt. I turned to look at him and was almost blinded by his pale, boney chest.
“Jesus, Noah, a little warning before you light the beacon.”
“Hilarious. At least I won’t have to slow down when we get there to fix my shirt,” Noah said and I realized he was turning it inside out. Two points to Noah. He was rustling in the glovebox and pulling stuff out, dumping it in the seat. “Watch it!” I said, snatching my mom’s wedding ring and the silver chain I kept it on, out of the pile.
“Well, where’s the freaking bread bag!” Noah said. He found it at the bottom of the glove box and pulled out a fist full of bread crumbs before stuffing them into his shorts pocket.
The brown metal sign announcing the rest stop reflected in Lucy’s headlights and I let off the gas. We took the exit on two wheels and the black mustang came into view, parked diagonally across three spots in front of the public restrooms. I whipped Lucy into the parking spot closest to the mustang and yanked my shirt off. There was silence in the cab around me. “Noah,” I said. “Get the wooden box from the rack.”
Nothing. “Noah?” I pulled my tank top on with the seams out and twisted it around to put the printed tag in the back. He was staring at me, his face turning red. I met his gaze and he looked down into his lap, fiddling with the bread bag. I reached up and pulled the box down from the rack and flipped it
open. I pulled the iron dagger out of the box and kicked my door open. “Noah!” I barked again and he looked up. “Bread bag?” Noah shoved it at me and I stuffed the whole thing in my front pocket.
Noah climbed out and came up onto the sidewalk next to me. “What should I...I mean, do you have another dagger?”
I looked at him, “No, it’s best if you’re not armed. If Vix has lost her shit, she’ll focus on whoever is the most dangerous to her and I’d much rather have that be me. I told her I’d be the one to kill her if it came to that. Just...just try to stay back.”
“Gods! I thought you’d never get here!” It was Sprig, his voice ethereal, and booming as he ran across the grass towards us from the far side of the restrooms. “It’s been three hours!”
“Nice to see you too, Sprig,” I said. “We were in Lexington, it takes us mortals, some time to get from one place to anoth…” I paused. Sprig didn’t look good. Even taking into account the fact that we were under terrible parking lot light, he looked like a shadow of his former self. He was still a hulking, tall figure, built like a linebacker, still somewhat vacant expression on his flat face, except around his eyes which were sunken and dark, panic creating the only light within them. “No offense Sprig, but you look like shit.”
Sprig was running his hands through his hair and for the first time, I saw his pointed ears which were usually tucked neatly against his head, poking through the untidy locks. “I don’t know what to do!”
“Where’s Vix?” I asked. Sprig took off, around the front of the restroom area. I flipped the dagger backward in my hand and followed him, Noah, at my heels. The women’s restroom was on the far side and immediately, I knew we were in the right place. Voices were crying for help from inside and the security light over the door was flickering, illuminating a dark red pool of blood oozing out from under the door. Not good. Kess had told me that Pucas could be every bit as destructive as they could be helpful. I tried the door. No, go. “Hey!” I called through the door. “How y’all doing in there?”
“Oh, fan-freaking-tastic!” A male voice called. “Get us the hell out of here! She’s insane!”
“What’s she doing?” I asked.
“What?” The voice called back. “She’s freaking out! What does it matter what she’s doing! Get us out of here!”
“Listen carefully,” I said. “I need to know exactly what she’s doing.”
Another voice piped up. “She’s...scratching herself and pulling her hair out. She’s bleeding...everywhere. She’s a freaking whack-job.”
“Is anyone else hurt?” I asked.
“Uh...not...physically,” a third voice said. “But...fuck.”
I rolled my eyes. “We can talk about your psychological scars after we get you out of there.” I looked back at Noah. “Go get my lockpicking kit out of the truck. It’s in the toolbox.”
Noah heaved a sigh. “I know where it is and I also know it’s a good thing she’s not tearing those dudes limb from limb because if we had to wait for you to pick the lock to save their lives, we’d pretty much be a mop-up crew.”
“Just go get the kit, smartass.”
Noah walked away and Sprig scratched his chest. “Man, what is it with you mortals. Whenever you’re around, you give me the hives.”
“Pretty sure that’s just Noah and I,” I said, examining the door hinges. They were solid. I moved back to the door handle. I might be able to drill the lock through with a bullet but I couldn’t guarantee the ricochet inside the bathroom. “And there’s not just a deadbolt lock thrown on that side?” I called through the door.
“No, it’s a keyhole in here too. How’d she….”
I turned away from the door and looked at Sprig. “So walk me through the earlier events of the day.”
“We were just driving down the highway and Vix wanted to stop here for a break and she was acting...different,” Sprig said.
“Different, how?” I asked.
“Murderous,” Sprig said. “Like she did when she was a general in the service back home. But almost like she wasn’t...in there. You know, almost like there was something...taking over inside her.”
“And how did these dudes end up in the women’s restroom, locked in with your sister?” I asked Sprig.
“She lured them,” Sprig said. “I thought she was going to blood bathe or something like the old days.”
“You were going to let her blood bathe?” I asked, tightening my grip on the dagger.
Sprig shook his head like a dog coming in from the rain. “Uh-uh, no. She was so fast at luring them in, it was too late by the time I figured out what had happened. I was trying to break the door down, to stop her. She wouldn’t speak to me.” His face crumpled and for the first time, I saw real fear dominate Sprig’s expression. “But now she’s hurting herself!” Without thinking I reached out a hand and touched his arm. He drew back as if I’d burned him. “No offense Bane, but that really stings.”
I nodded. “Sorry, forgot.”
Noah dropped the lock picking kit on the concrete next to me. “Any other acts of futility you want me to carry out?”
“How about shutting your cakehole?” I asked, flipping the kit open.
Luckily, the door was fairly new and the lock wasn’t rusty. Always made things easier. It still took a longer time than it should have, accentuated by snide comments from Noah and the men on the other side of the door and Sprig’s anxious callings to Vix. I finally felt the lock turn and I was knocked backward by the force of three guys pushing against the inside of the door. From my position on my back, I saw two of the guys sprint for the far side of the lot where three cars were parked while the third one bent over and heaved into the bushes that lined the Visitor’s Center sign, before staggering after them. Sprig sprinted past them and into the restroom and Noah came over to look down at me,
“You gonna lay there all night?” he asked.
I gave him the finger and sat up. “Well, at least this little display should shut you up about my lock picking skills.”
Noah snorted. “You’re right. If there’s ever a ticking bomb locked behind a door, I definitely want you and your ‘mad skills’ in the cockpit, picking that lot.”
I pushed past Noah and slogged through the blood into the restroom. Sprig was squatting next to Vix’s huddled figure, long hair hiding her face and long bloody locks littering the floor around her.
“Oh my god,” Noah said. “Is she still alive? This is a shit ton of blood.”
“Faes bleed infinitely,” Sprig said. “We replenish quickly,” he looked back at his sister. “Though, not as quickly as she would at home.”
I went to join Sprig. He was holding Vix’s hands, trying to keep her long fingernails from finding the cut flesh on her arms and legs. Scratch marks crisscrossed her skin, some bleeding, some forming fresh scabs. She’d ripped locks from the top of her scalp, the blood soaking into the hair that remained, staining it darker.
“Vix,” Sprig said, his voice calmer now.
She raised her head to look at him and I almost swallowed my tongue. Vix’s perfect face was scratched, bleeding and pale and her violet eyes were dull. She looked at Sprig like she’d never seen him before, and then her gaze swung to me and she smiled. A simple kind of smile, and then her eyes grew dark and she struggled against Sprig, trying to dig her nails into her legs again.
“What do we do now?” Noah asked.
Sprig looked at me, his expression echoing Noah’s question. I only had one idea.
“Kess,” I said, then realized that neither of them would have any idea what I was talking about. “Kess Dorfin, she’s a Celt Druid.”
Sprig looked up at me in surprise. “A Druid?”
I nodded. “She’s the only one I know who might be able to help.”
“How do I keep Vix from hurting herself?” Sprig asked, looking back down at his sister.