I gathered my courage and tried to think of the creature in front of me as just another horse. Childhood riding lessons flooded back to me as I grasped a handful of wet mane in my left hand near the base of the kelpie's neck. I positioned myself in front of the it, avoiding the entirely un-equine like amusement in the watery turquoise of its eyes, and took a single, running step forward. Using my right hand as leverage on the side of the kelpie's withers, I swung my right leg over its back. I landed unceremoniously atop the beast, eliciting a snort and a kick. I lurched forward, wrapping my arms around its neck for support while it flailed around in irritation. At least I'd made it onto its back. That much at least, could be attributed to my undead strength. It wasn't easy to mount a bareback horse from the ground.
A burst of laughter escaped Scatach's lips as she flew past me, circling around the opposite side of the pond. I didn't have to do anything to get my kelpie to follow her. It took off with a whinny, not bothering to wait until I'd adjusted myself. I ended up bouncing around uncomfortably for several moments before finding an uneasy balance. The kelpie ran with an uneven gait that jarred the bones in my pelvis and neck. The eternally waterlogged mane streamed back with the wind and slapped at my cheeks and arms.
It was, to say the least, one of the worst rides of my entire life, but I endured by thinking of Rachel. Of what I would say when I finally saw her again. I wanted to get her out of Faerie, take her home with me. Ever since Corey had said we needed a new donor, I'd thought of her. He may not like her, but she was a safe choice. We could trust her to keep quiet. Maybe she could even stay in the mansion with us …
As we emerged from the dark thicket of trees, what I saw next took every ounce of oxygen in my lungs away.
CHAPTER FIVE
LIATH
“Every so often, a soul passes onto the next realm without a clear journey. Ofttimes, these souls have experienced a great trauma which requires healing before they are able to pass on to their next life successfully. Others are merely destined to be born among the ranks of the fae. To be of The Gray Ones is to be tested by the hand and hair of Queens.”
“Welcome to The House of Sticks and Bones,” the Queen said, reigning her kelpie to a quick stop. It spun in a circle, hooves slipping on dry bone and came to a stumbling halt in front of one the ugliest structures I had ever seen. A huge mound of dirt rose from the packed earth like a boil; it was covered from floor to rounded ceiling in twigs and bones and held together with filaments of black that looked suspiciously like hair.
I turned my head to the side, attempting to stifle the roiling of my stomach but ended up face to face with a severed head. Reflexively, I jerked back, startling the kelpie. One hand was around my stomach and the other across my mouth. Without a sturdy grip on my mount, I found myself looking up at the swirling purple and gray clouds that permeated Faerie's skyline. My lower back burned from the lack of oxygen as the impact knocked the breath from my lungs.
“What's the matter?” cooed Scatach as she floated over to me, her bare feet hardly touching the ground as she danced on relevé through a pile of dry, discarded bones, several of which had been marked by something with a wicked set of teeth. “I thought you'd like it here. These,” she gestured her hand at the row of severed heads that served as an Unseelie Queen's version of a white picket fence. “Are your kin, after all.” She stepped down hard, purposefully, on a massive femur bone. With a loud snap, it cracked in two, leaving the center a mass of tiny shards like pieces of broken glass.
I rolled to the side to avoid being maimed by the kelpie's dancing hooves, trying to miss another pile of bones. One that was decidedly … fresher.
I forced myself into a sitting position as I watched the Queen's pale rump roll down the dirt pathway to the mound's entrance. She glanced back at me once, black lips in a pout, before pushing aside the hanging that served as a door.
I rubbed my hands over my face again, wiping away bone dust and salty sweat.
The structure in front of me was more than just an eyesore, it was a mass of pain and suffering shaped into the semblance of a building. Most of the bones were yellowing, dry with age, but there were splashes of pink and red here and there punctuated by the wriggling bodies of little white maggots.
I adjusted my formerly white T-shirt to try and protect my nose from the sweet, almost sugary smell of new death. It wasn't easy considering the dried blood had turned the soft cotton into a dense, crunchy almost canvas like material. I only succeeded in making myself queasier as I abandoned the idea and peeled the fabric away from my skin as I tried to get some release from the oppressive humidity.
The two kelpie had wandered off into the trees leaving me alone with the thirty or so blank-eyed faces of the dead.
I avoided their interrogating stares and tried not to imagine what they might say to me if they were still alive.
“Don't go in there,” the rosy skinned fae to my right might say. “That woman is not just the Unseelie Queen. She's the Devil, Lucifer himself. Don't trust her for a minute or you'll end up trading stories with me until the crows pluck out your glassy eyeballs.”
I lunged to my feet, quickly. I'd made it three brave or possibly just reckless steps forward before I heard his voice.
“Be careful in there, Ms. French,” Amadan whispered from behind me. I whirled around to face him and found myself a scant three inches from his broad chest. I tried not to look down as he was once again, stark naked.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked him, ignoring the sane part of myself that knew I should never trust a fae. His opinion was no better than Scatach's. I didn't know when I'd started to think otherwise.
“I'll be right behind you,” he said, voice and image fading away like the Cheshire cat.
“Shit.” I turned back around and pushed my legs into action before I could convince myself otherwise. The flap across the door was warm and moist to the touch, like living skin. I touched it as little as possible as I ducked into the stifling darkness of the mound.
There was no furniture, just hard, packed dirt and two sidhe guards. Each was wearing nothing more than a pair of silver bands around his thighs and forearms. They carried spears, held stiffly at their right sides, faces frozen in perpetual frowns. They were nearly identical with a soft, minty green shade to their skin and glossy evergreen hair cascading down to their ankles. They were gorgeous but ironically tragic. Below their bellybuttons lay nothing but a rough patch of scar tissue where their members should have been.
I hurried past them, trying not to stare. They paid me no attention as I squeezed between them and down a steep set of stairs carved into the earth.
“Shit. Shit. Fuck,” I cursed under my breath as my hands reached out for something to hold onto. The blackness was so complete that I needed something to guide myself.
The psycho bitch even castrated her own guards. That was harsh. Not any harsher than the severed heads on pikes, but still, I'll be the first to admit that I was a tad bit shocked.
“Are you slow or stupid?” the Queen asked from somewhere below me. “Hurry up.”
I continued to fumble my way down the stairs until a soft, golden glow began to permeate the darkness ahead of me. The walls beneath my fingers began to change in texture from moist, tightly packed clay and dirt to smooth stone.
The Queen was waiting for me at the bottom, hands splayed over her slender hips, in a brightly lit hall of peach marble veined in rich bronze and gold. The hall curved smoothly away from the staircase on either side with no visible exits of any kind. It was empty but for Scatach and myself, devoid even of any decoration. Just smooth walls and light with no discernible source. I shivered once though it had to have been at least ten degrees warmer inside than out.
Scatach smiled and turned down the left hall, gliding around the corner and out of sight without a word. I shrugged my jacket off of my shoulders and let it drop to the floor in a moist heap. I was sweating a gallon a minute. It was taking all of my willpower
not to strip down to my birthday suit and walk around with my lady bits jiggling for all to see like the fae. They probably wouldn't have minded.
I shook my head. My clothing was just one more thing that differentiated the fae from me and I was keeping it. I wanted to maintain as much distinction between 'us' and 'them' as humanly possible.
I glanced around to see if I could spy Amadan, but if he was there, I couldn't spot him. I had no idea how small of an animal he could shift into. For all I knew, he could have been one of the many flies buzzing near the base of the stairs. The ones that wouldn't cross the threshold between clay and marble. I was in a place that even bugs were afraid of. I rubbed my hands over the goosebumps on my forearms. Fuck.
When I finally caught up to Scatach (again), she was busy brushing blood from the tips of her fingers onto a square, iron door set directly into the marble. It stood only about as high as my shoulders and although I was a good 5'8'', it wasn't nearly tall enough for me to walk through without ducking.
“I thought iron and fae didn't mix?” I asked, gathering the courage to ask Scatach the question. If she hadn't killed me yet, she probably wasn't going to, or she wouldn't have bothered to bring me there. The Queen didn't seem to enjoy being bothered with trivialities. She ignored me and pressed the palm of her hand into a round indent in the center of the metal.
It was molded into the shape of a human skull with delicately webbed butterfly wings where ears would have been. The harder the Queen pressed, the more blood spilled seemingly from her pores and ran down the metal. It was answer enough for me. Apparently, iron and fae don't mix.
“Shut your mouth and do as you're told.” I did and ended up feeling all the worse for it. Why did I always let other people order me around? I gave a mental sigh and decided that at least this somebody was a super powerful, faerie queen. I could at least cut myself some slack based on that particular premise.
“Ah ha!” the Queen cooed, rubbing one of her cheeks on the door as a swirl of corbeau colored smoke billowed out from underneath, coating my skin and hair with a fine dusting of shimmery, black powder. It reeked of old blood, like rusted iron but tinged with something sweeter, almost citrusy, like an orange. “Who's my good boy?” gurgled Scatach, standing back up and patting the door affectionately with her right hand. I was alarmed to see the amount of crimson dripping down the side of her face and onto the points of her pert nipples. They were standing at attention like soldiers. Something about the door, or maybe the room behind it, was getting Scatach excited.
I tried not to fidget, though I wanted to, as she grasped me with one blood-soaked hand and shoved open the massive iron door as if it was made of plywood. It slammed into the wall behind it with a horrifying crash that the Queen didn't seem to notice. The sound echoed about the massive chamber and made my ears ring. I gritted my teeth against the pain and tried to take in at least some of my surroundings.
The room was muted in a soft, gray fog and the ceiling and walls were so far away from me that they blended into the darkness. The floor was made up of rough edged pieces of slate, layered together in a mind bogglingly perfect pattern. They were fit so closely together that they looked like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The reds, oranges, blues, and greens of the stone were enhanced by their damp surfaces. Water dripped constantly from the ceiling and hit the floor with pleasant, little pings of sound. This room was just as hot and uncomfortable as the previous hall and only served to amplify the strange citrus infused scent of blood.
The area that Scatach and I were standing in was lit only by weak vestiges of light coming from a central source. A podium sat dead center in my field of vision in a hazy beam of white light. It was as if the room had been designed for that one miniscule piece of furniture. The podium itself was made of a gleaming, white wood which I suspected must have come from the strange, screaming tree that had tried to kill me. I hoped it had hurt like hell when whoever had cut it down, took the time to carve such intricate patterns of vines and arms, fingers outstretched, that reached towards the top of the podium and the item that it was holding.
The whole setup with the castrated guards, the hall, and the iron door seemed so silly when confronted with such an inconspicuous item. Silver sides gleaming in the pseudo spotlight, the scales didn't first appear to be anything special. They were just like the scales that the Lady of Justice holds in her left hand. The two silver plates were suspended by delicate chains from each end of a T-shaped stand. I could tell there was great detail in the piece, but it was hard for me to see from my vantage point. And although Corey had tried to help me with some basic magical training, he hadn't prepared me for this.
As Scatach roughly dragged me forward, a feeling of nausea overtook my belly. It was an odd sensation of pressure, almost as if there was something sitting inside of me that desperately wanted out. I almost puked.
“What is the matter with you, you silly fool?” Scatach asked, and I almost believed that she was genuinely interested. If not for my own well being, then at least for personal amusement.
“My stomach,” I said lamely, afraid to say more. I didn't want to piss her off by talking too much. She raised one, pointed eyebrow at me until it looked like she had a dark 'V' pointing up at her widow's peak. I waited, my fingers turning purple at the tips as she squeezed my wrist so hard that the blood supply to my hands was cut off.
“Your … stomach?” she parroted back at me, obvious confusion in her voice.
“I'm just a little nauseous is all,” I commented cautiously. Something in her posture had changed from pernicious confidence to what I conceived to be fear, or at least in the vicinity of said emotion. Her onyx eyes bored into me as her lids drooped suspiciously.
“I see.” The muscles around her mouth tightened considerably with her response. I stood frozen, still as death, trying to maintain an Arcadian presence. Her abrupt changes in attitude were downright frightening. Mainly because I didn't quite understand what was happening. I had a sour stomach, so what? But the Queen was looking at me as if I had just sprouted a set of floor to ceiling wings.
“Scatach, calm yourself.” The voice came from somewhere ahead and to my right. The figure was hidden in the brumous darkness, but at least whoever it was sounded pleasant. “You're scaring my guest.”
“Guest?” Scatach crowed. “Your guest? This girl isn't a guest, she's liath.” A harsh bark of laughter burst from the darkness as the owner of the voice stepped forth from shadows, a glory in white. Eyes so pale a blue that they nearly blended with the white around them sized me up in an instant as a smile played across frosty lips.
“Have you lost so much of yourself these days that you can't see what's right in front of you, Scatach?” asked the newcomer as she lounged towards us. There was really no other word for it. She walked as if she were lying down, limbs loose and dragging, almost like a rag doll that was being held up by the air itself. “Or have your troubles with Gadrael been all consuming as of late?”
Scatach bared her teeth but neglected to speak. The other woman smiled knowingly.
“Well, Georgette, you're much prettier in person than Corey was willing to let on.” Her smile crept towards lascivious as she continued. “Maybe he was afraid that I'd spirit you away.” Her head flopped to the side almost as if her neck was unable to support the weight of it or her floor length, argent hair. The water from the tiny puddles scattered across the floor was beginning to wick up the ends of her curve-hugging, white dress leaving little to the imagination. I wished Corey would've warned me that the fae were nudists, but at least his descriptions had been accurate enough that I now knew who I was talking to.
Aife. Queen of the Seelie and Scatach's sister.
“I sensed this girl's spirit the moment she crossed over,” Scatach ground out through her clenched jaw. I yelped as she jerked me forward with her, whisking us both across the slate tiles until we were standing directly in front of the podium. I thought I was going to pass out, the magic emanating from the podium
and the scales was noxious. “And she's in the book, Ee-fuh,” she spat, enunciating her sister's name like a curse. “I saw her in the book.”
Aife reached two, pale, blue veined hands up to her head and adjusted it until it was sitting straight atop her swan-like neck.
“She is my guest, Scatach. I've promised her my protection.” The Unseelie Queen let out a small scream of rage before releasing my wrist with such force that I flew several feet, rolling across the tiles and into a deep, warm puddle. The scrapes and bruises I'd no doubt be plagued with later paled in comparison to the pain in my gut from the magic. I was almost glad she'd thrown me farther away from it.
I pushed myself to a sitting position but neglected to stand. I felt like an impala faced with two waring lionesses. I didn't dare move lest I attract their attention. But I had to look. I hadn't the slightest clue of what was going on. I was in a book? What book?
“You can't deny the scales,” Scatach snarled, pointing one black talon at me. “You cannot deny her soul passage. My court is dwindled down to nothing, Aife. The hunt cannot ride and the horde cannot fly. What do you expect me to do? Pluck subjects from the air? Perhaps the mortal world as you're so fond of doing? Do you wish Gadrael to gain control of the Gray? Answer me!” Aife stood stone still, lips quirked as angry spittle flew from Scatach's mouth.
“I am not suggesting that we skip the scales, Scatach. I am merely asking you to keep your unholy ministrations to a minimum. This girl is an undead visitor from Above.” Scatach's pointy eyebrows rose another notch as she turned and glanced at me.
“I … see … ” I watched them both watching me and tried not to shake. Their gazes were so intense that I felt like they could see right through my glamour to the real me. The scariest part was, they probably could if they wanted to. “I suppose that could account for her odd behavior.” Aife nodded, head flopping forward just a little farther than should have been anatomically possible.
Gray and Graves: A Dark Fae Menage Urban Fantasy (The Three Courts of Faerie Book 1) Page 7