by D. D. Chance
“That’s what I’m smelling? Monster realm rot?” Something about that bothered me, but it was difficult to think as bad as it smelled. “There are more places like it?”
He grimaced, squinting around with his one working eye. “I didn’t know this one existed, so it’s probably premature to say there aren’t more. The business of the monster realm is their own to manage.”
I scowled. He wasn’t wrong, but the business of the monster realm was now affecting the realm of the high Fae. And the human realm was influencing both. It might be time to reassess the rules that governed us all.
Niall stiffened, wheeling around. “That’s Belle,” he announced, and irritation slashed through me. How could he sense the Hogan witch more effectively than I could? I could barely draw breath, the air around me was so heavy.
“Are you sure? I can’t tell,” I growled, and he glanced back at me, surprised.
“Wards,” he muttered. “The Laram warned us that the Fae weren’t allowed. Maybe the more Fae you are, the worse it is? But why? What’s that about?”
I shook my head. “For now, we follow your lead. If it gets us closer, that’s what matters.”
Niall turned and strode off—fast, but not rushing. At Jorgen’s insistence, we’d come cloaked in the guise of the Laram, the illusion of our smaller build, silver hair, and silver eyes enough to pass inspection by all but the most critical observers. We didn’t draw any attention, but I also didn’t see a lot of Laram hanging around. Eventually, we would be noticed, but with any luck, we would not be here for long.
“There,” Niall grunted. I saw a movement in the shadows ahead, but it didn’t seem right. It was too low to the ground, too fast, but he suddenly burst forth with the kind of speed I’d come to value during battle. I kept up as well as I could, while letting him take the lead. He turned down an alleyway, then shouted with dismay.
“It’s an empty fucking box,” he snapped. “An empty fucking box. But it can’t be empty now, can it? No, it can’t.”
His voice had gone low, menacing, a warrior with his prey in sight, but as I wheeled around the corner, I could see what he meant. The alley had been blocked with a makeshift wall of cast-off crates, easily twenty feet high. Nothing was getting out of this trap without coming back our way. I blew out a long breath, struggling to sense Belle and still failing. There was a hint of her, a flash, but Niall pressed forward, almost as if he could hear my discounting thoughts.
“Oh, she’s here,” he muttered, but his voice was tight, determined, as if he was hunting for something other than Belle. He stepped forward another long stride and reached out, the start of a triumphant laugh sounding in his throat, when suddenly, a snarl of outrage ricocheted around the cramped alley. Niall flinched back, and a sleek, tawny-haired cat bounded out of the corner where he’d cornered it, where a moment earlier it had not been there.
Illusion magic, I knew at once, but now I could smell Belle, could feel her touch all over this cat when she streaked by me. It was a simple thing to lurch toward her and tackle her to the ground. A cold burst of air blew out of the alley, and a second later, I found myself grappling with a human female a full half head shorter than Belle, and a damn sight more slippery too. She wriggled out of my hold, then came flat up against Niall, who wrapped his arms around her and lifted her high, ignoring her kicking feet, her flailing arms.
He swung her around toward me, his face fierce with dismay. “Not Belle,” he acknowledged.
“How did you even see me?” the woman demanded. “I was calm. It was working.”
“I didn’t see you,” Niall said, hiking her higher as she got in a particularly good jab to his kidneys. “Your spell held, kitten, until your anger pierced it. My eyes surely wouldn’t have.”
He spoke in soothing tones, even as he tightened his grip on the agitated female, but as she writhed, I understood why Niall had thought this was Belle. Her scent was all over this witch, and the spell…
“Where is she?” I demanded. “The female who was with you.”
“Dead, most likely,” she spat. “If she’s lucky, she found a way back to her own realm, but that’s not likely.”
Her own realm? But this witch was human, no matter how good her illusion magic was.
Niall was clearly confused too. “Why didn’t you protect her?”
The woman huffed in exasperation, still squirming as she reddened, getting only angrier. “They came with fire,” she said, finally slumping a little in Niall’s arms. “I’ve been burned before. I’m no good with it.”
I lifted my hands, taking advantage of her momentary break in hostility. “We’re friends of Belle’s,” I said, though I wasn’t sure Belle would characterize me in quite the same way. “We want to find her.”
“Like I’d trust the Fae asshole who cursed her into this place,” she sneered, rolling her eyes before grunting as Niall tightened his hold on her.
“She was with you. She taught you that spell,” I insisted.
Her eyes brightened as if she suddenly realized the truth of that statement.
“She did,” she said smugly. “She said she could, and she did. That kind of follow-through is a rarity in the Riven District, though since you guys are slumming, you may not know that. Let me down, you big oaf. I’ll take you to her. But if we find her, you have to get me out of here too. I’ll leave you the moment we clear the borders, but that’s the deal.”
I arched a brow at her bluster as Niall settled her back to her feet. “If you know the Fae, you’d know better than to try to make a deal with us.”
She rolled her eyes, stepping away from Niall and rubbing her arms. “I’m the one who’s given you the terms. I find your witch for you, it’s up to you to spring her, but if you spring her and get her out of here, you get me out too.”
“To do that, you’ll have to agree to do what we say,” Niall said, his tone brooking no argument. The woman didn’t offer any.
Instead, she shrugged. “Whatever. My name’s Celia, but don’t say that out loud. I’ve made my share of enemies as well as allies in this district, I don’t want any of them knowing where I am. Especially if I get out.”
“You know where Belle is?” I pressed, and her eyes brightened.
“Belle, huh? She didn’t give me her name, but it suits her. And yeah, that human has a nose for trouble. If she hasn’t been caught by the warden already, she’s in his sights. She’s different, and there’s nothing that he likes better. You’re going to want to get her before they take her inside. Their place wards…”
She shuddered, and Niall shifted beside her, his face darkening. “They’ll hurt her? They hurt you?”
She hissed as she pulled away from him. “Two different questions, and we don’t have time.”
Irritation zipped through me again, and I gestured her on. “Go. We’ll keep up.”
“That’s what they all say.” She smirked. Then she bolted away, shifting easily into the form of a large cat. Niall and I stared after her.
“I thought she was human,” he huffed.
“She is human,” I said. “Something…very wrong is going on here.”
We took off after her.
5
Belle
I ran fast and hard, my heart in my throat, blood pounding in my ears. Every new figure, every darkened doorway, was a danger to me.
This is how it feels to be hunted. My mind instantly went to the terrified women I had shuttled through the White Crane and briefly into the In Between before sending them through another portal to a new life elsewhere in the human realm. Even the monsters I’d given safe harbor to generally hadn’t been so terrorized. I didn’t know these witches’ fates. I couldn’t know them until they sent back their cryptic notes of thanks for me to post on my bar cabinets. But though three generations of Hogan witches had taken part in their passage to safety, they were the real ones at risk, not us. Especially not me.
I’d always had a place to call my own, a place where, up until very
recently, I’d felt safe. I’d been taught that as long as I never left that place, I’d never be the subject of anyone’s hunt. That knowledge had allowed me to remain distant, aloof, even somewhat rational, calming the fears of the women I’d helped at least long enough to get them through to their next checkpoint.
I wasn’t calm now. Fear ignited every nerve ending, freezing the air in my lungs. I found myself looking everywhere, ahead and to either side, occasionally throwing a wild glance behind me, like a rabbit caught by dogs who were closing in on all sides. I forced myself to slow, to walk, desperately trying to calm the clamor in my brain.
“Fear doesn’t make you remember any better,” I reminded myself, the same as I’d told so many women over the years. “Fear makes you forget who you are.”
Around another bend, I slowed more. This alley was quiet, almost abandoned, which meant there were no nearby places interesting enough to draw the foot traffic of the idle or curious. I was in a part of the village given over to official business that apparently was conducted only during the day. There were no windows on either side of the alley, and I hurried along it, almost whimpering with relief as I made it to the other end and stepped out onto a stone courtyard.
An official-looking building loomed large at the far end of the space, but there was no door, no signage of any kind, and no guards. This was the back of some main building, I decided, but that didn’t help me much. I needed to get out of this village. Instead, I’d only dug myself in deeper. That said, what would I do when I did make it out? Sure, I’d get out of the Riven District, but what did that mean?
I didn’t think I’d miss the jittery Celia so quickly, but I did.
Slowing even more, I hunched closer to the shadowy wall, glancing back compulsively to see if anyone was following me. They weren’t. I was alone in the shallow courtyard, and I could see from the reflected moonlight that there were wide entryways cut into the building I was sidling along, flat and unadorned. Garage bays for deliveries, maybe. But deliveries from where? My foolish brain skipped ahead, imagining that I could somehow wait until a truck arrived, assuming they used any sort of truck in this realm—a wagon, cart, whatever—and I could stow away on it when it left.
I rejected the thought, rolling my eyes. A cart wasn’t going to solve my problem. I was a witch. Magic would solve my problem.
My breathing flowed a little steadier, my brain settled down. What spells did I know? Healing came easiest, and my invisibility spell gave me protection in a crowd. I had never practiced the magic of harming another human. I hadn’t wanted to get good at that. But I had read those kind of spells once or twice over the past few days, seated in my tiny office in the Witchling Academy, where I’d been charged with teaching magic to the high Fae. I’d read those spells and imagined invoking them too.
But when I had gotten the opportunity to fight—stepping in to lend a hand during Aiden’s defense against the slithering, long-armed Fomorian—my first instinct hadn’t been to fight or heal. No, I’d only wanted to stop the fighting, to clear the battlefield so that the injured could be healed, the dead mourned. I had taken out those creatures with my magic and told myself it was okay because they had been the aggressors, the oppressors. They’d wished to kill and then suck the souls from their victims. They’d been monsters too, which had somehow made it more okay. But how more monstrous were they, really, than the long-ago coven my own family had belonged to, who trafficked in the souls of members too weak and inexperienced to argue, too afraid to break free?
I sighed, stopping to lean against the wall, my back pressed against the cool stone, my head tipping up to take in the far-off moon and stars. At least the moon looked the same in the monster realm. I could only see one moon too, and it looked enough like my moon that I felt comfort seeing it hanging in the sky. For the moment, I was safe.
I felt the shift in the stone behind me a second too late. Thick, bulky arms burst out to either side of my shoulders, another set at my hips, and still a third at my ankles, pinning my arms to my body and clamping my legs together as long grasping hands and sharp talons of steel curved around me, the skin slick with slime that sizzled against my clothes. The spike-fingered paws yanked me bodily through the stone wall and into the building, then tossed me across the floor.
I slid in a flippety-floppety heap until I was stopped by thin metal bars. A cage. I’d gone running through the freaking Riven District, making one bad choice after the other, and now I was in a freaking cage. I should have stayed in Celia’s bar—hell, I should have stayed in my own tavern and been burned to the ground with it. I probably would have been better off.
I scrambled to my feet, whirling around. Cameras? Did they have cameras here, some sort of detection system? Surely they had to know that their trap had been sprung, and here I was, a scurrying rat, neatly caught by a vendo-prison guard that could reach through brick walls.
“Stupid,” I muttered, in no mood for positive self-talk. But no guards came, and no lights flared to life. I seemed to be alone in the storeroom, though this was obviously a cell, one of several that lined the walls—all of them empty. I felt my way along the cage wall, until I came to the door. I tried it, absurdly relieved to find it locked. It would have to be locked for a trap like this to make any sense. I scowled. There were lock-picking spells, of course, dozens of spells of opening, but did I dare use them? I could be tracked, discovered…
I twisted my lips into an ugly laugh. Yeah. I was already captured, so that ship had sailed. Now it was a question of speed.
I breathed a spell of opening, and a second later, the lock clicked beneath my hands. I pushed my hands forward, my eyes going wide. That was…a little too easy. But I wasn’t going to ask too many questions of an open door. I stepped through quickly, assessing the corridor. The gloom wasn’t lightened at all by the tall, thin windows surrounding the space—it was full night outside, after all—but my initial impressions held up. The place was swept clean—no dingy, dirty jail block here. I jogged down the center of the floor-to-ceiling cells. When I got to the far end of the chamber, I was rewarded with another door, this one also responding easily to my targeted spell of opening.
Instead of making me cockier, though, this scared me a little more. It was a trap, the whole place felt like a trap, but what options did I have? I hadn’t learned the spell to walk through walls, I couldn’t create a portal…
I frowned.
I couldn’t create a portal to get me out of here, but Aiden could create one into this place, I was pretty sure. Could it really be that easy?
“Aiden?” I asked, speaking the name aloud. For added oomph, I pressed my temples with my fingertips, adding my own pressure to the constant weight of my invisible crown. I pushed out with a pulse of longing, of need, but I got nothing back. Maybe our connection didn’t work inside the Riven District, or maybe I wasn’t strong enough. Or maybe I was in a prison bunker, and my magic needed its own type of cell reception in order to work.
I grinned despite myself. Cell reception. Heh. The momentary spurt of humor emboldened me to open the door and step through it, closing it quietly behind me.
A short corridor terminated in a steep flight of stairs, but there was nowhere else to go but down. I descended into total darkness, then groped along another hallway, my heart leaping into my throat every time my questing fingers detected doorways cut into the wall. None of the doorways were open, and nothing seemed to move behind them as I hurried past. At the end of the corridor, there was a second set of stairs. What goes down, must come back up.
I picked up my pace as I moved toward the stairs, and the moment my foot hit the bottom tread, I posted my request for Aiden’s aid again. Again, I was met with nothing, and I climbed the stairs more quickly, trying to stay as quiet as possible. If I could get to an upper floor, maybe our connection would be easier, less blocked. Made sense to me, and I was happy to hold on to even the faintest shred of a plan.
I reached the top of the stairs and the gloom
lightened somewhat around me. I could pick out a small landing that ended in a T intersection of a barely lit corridor, and my heart skittered. Light! If there was light, there might be a window, and I could—
I turned the final curve, and suddenly, lights blazed all around me, and two Taser-wielding guards burst out of hidden doorways. I threw up my hands in self-protection, but one of them barked a sharp command, and twin jolts of power zipped through me, completely frying my nerve endings from my brain all the way to my toes.
Ouch.
6
Aiden
I wheeled around sharply as the cat leapt away, my attention drawn in an entirely different direction.
“Belle,” I said flatly, and Niall stopped. His gaze swiveled from the direction Celia had shot off to, back to where I was facing.
“I know!” she snapped, whirling back to scowl at us. In her cat form, her words sounded only in our minds, but there was no denying the twist of her heavy lips. “But if you travel the way the crow flies, you’ll drop right into their trap. This way is better. I don’t give a shit if you trust me, but that’s the game. Now, come on!”
She took off again, and this time, we followed more closely. I thought I felt Belle reach out again, but the cry was weaker now, as if she was heading deeper into a cave, not emerging from it. She would be scared, on the run—how would she react? I’d seen her frightened, but never seen her truly terrified. In my limited experience, I believed she would get angry and lash out. What would the impact be, given her newly reclaimed abilities?
“Up ahead,” Niall said, and I refocused my attention to the path before us. Sure enough, another beacon of magic flared up, this one emerald green. Celia, now only a few yards ahead of us, cackled in our minds.
“She’s pissed,” she said, and while I agreed, I looked at her sharply.