Weald Fae 03 - The Aetherfae

  After I wandered away from the climbers, I called to Bastien again.

  No reply.

  My gut told me he wasn’t there, so I turned my attention to the next area Louis had circled on the map. Four or five miles to the west lay a huge area of boulders called Trois Pignon. I studied the map and memorized the path. I didn’t intend to hide, hoping that Bastien would hear my inner pleas, but Markus entered my range. The Fae had apparently figured out what direction I went. My heart rate increased and all the moisture disappeared from my mouth.

  Behind Clóca and Air, I moved along another path as fast I could safely manage. A few minutes into my trek, I realized I’d picked a mountain bike trail that crawled up and down a series of hills that weren’t indicated on the map. Had I ridden under my own power, it would have taken me forty-five minutes or longer to wind my way to Trois Pignon. With an elemental assist, I covered half the distance in five. Once again, I put enough space between the Rogues and me that I didn’t sense anything beyond the natural energy in the forest.

  Passing underneath a busy six-lane road, I happened on another parking lot. Like the last, this one was full of cars and no people—I was close to another bouldering area. I dropped the Clóca and crawled off the bike near a more detailed map on a marquee. It was full of bad news. There were dozens of places to climb and they were spread out over a huge area. My stomach cramped when I realized I didn’t have time to search miles of trails with the Rogues actively seeking me out.

  “Bastien, are you here? Please, I need you.”

  As before, there was no reply.

  I wanted to pick a place that sounded like it was important and start looking, but everything was written in French. I might as well have been going in blind. “Man, I wish I’d taken French instead of Spanish, but who knew?” I decided to go with the closest point on the map—and pray.

  As I started off across the parking lot, I saw the rear end of a familiar car. It looked like the rusty, hideous old Citroën that had carried me to Veluwezoom. No, it’s similar, but not the same car. The more I looked at it, the more convinced I became that I was wrong. Completely convinced it couldn’t be the one, I took off toward the path to the first set of boulders.

  “Are you planning to steal my car again?” asked a familiar voice.

  When I turned in the direction of the voice, I saw the friendly face of an elderly black man. Jean peaked out of the driver’s side window. I shook my head, and he laughed, exposing long crooked yellowed teeth.

  “You didn’t steal the bicycle did you?”

  I felt my face blush. “I paid for it—five thousand Euros.”

  I need to get moving. Just be polite and say goodbye.

  He winced, wrinkling the skin on his weathered face even more. “Oh, that is too much, I think.”

  “Yeah, I know. He wasn’t receptive to any bickering.”

  Jean studied me, his dark, cloudy eyes fixated on mine. “Where are your friends?”

  “Alsace.”

  “Ah, wine tasting?”

  “Yeah, taking it easy…”

  He slowly crawled out of the car. “Why are you in the forest? Do you climb?”

  I laughed. “No, I don’t. I’m looking for…a friend…of a friend. We share a mutual interest in archeology.”

  He strolled up to me. “Archeology? Here?”

  “Yes sir. I heard that some of the boulders are carved—some of the oldest ones in the world.”

  He grinned again. “Interesting. It seems they are right—they being, well, the people who say such things—you do learn something new every day.”

  “Jean, why are you here?” I really needed to get moving, but how could I leave him here? Seeing me again put him in more danger.

  “It is on my, how do you say, bucket list?”

  “Yeah, that’s the term.”

  He glanced into the woods. “I have heard this is a popular place for Parisians. I came down to see why.”

  “What do you think?’

  “I think Parisians need to get out more. As far as I can tell, there really isn’t much remarkable about the area—trees, hills, sand, and boulders. The Alps are far more interesting. But what do you really expect of Parisians, yes?’

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been to Paris.”

  “You must go, at least once. If nothing else, you can say you’ve been and then sit around with everyone else who has been and convince each other of its magnificence—and then complain about the imps who live there.”

  I laughed. “I take it you don’t care for Paris?’

  He stuck his tongue out over his lower lip and grunted. “Where is your friend?”

  “Who?’

  “The archaeologist you’re meeting, of course.”

  “Oh, yeah. I don’t know exactly, I think…” The words froze in my throat as I felt Markus in the east. He was definitely on my trail.

  “Is there something wrong?” Jean asked.

  Fear bubbled up in my chest again—Jean was in danger. The Fae would surely find him and figure out that he’d seen me. I needed to get away from him, try to convince him to leave.

  “Jean, I’m sorry, I need to ask you something—a favor. It’s going to sound very strange.”

  A scowl appeared on his face. “You are in trouble again, aren’t you? You didn’t really destroy that bridge did you?”

  “No, oh my god, you heard about that…no I didn’t, I swear.”

  “Tell me, child, are you running from the authorities?” He backed up a step.

  “No…I…well, yes, I am, but I’m being framed. Please, you have to believe me—there are people looking for me who are much more dangerous than the authorities. I don’t have time to explain—you wouldn’t believe me if I tried. The important thing is for you to get as far away from me and as far away from here as you can. If they find out that you’ve been talking to me, they will…do bad things.”

  Jean backed up several more steps. In the distance, it appeared that Markus had caught my scent. He was moving quickly toward us. But so far, there were no others.

  “Jean, please, I have to go. You need to leave this place and drive away—far away.”

  “What have you done, Maggie? Will I be in trouble for driving you and your friends to the Netherlands?”

  “I haven’t done any of the things I’ve been accused of,” I said, climbing back onto my bike.

  The road wasn’t far. If I left now, I could get on it and go south. I might even get away. Jean fumbled behind himself for the door handle, whispering something to himself in French. He shook his head and looked me up and down. I needed to go, but I had to make sure he left first. Jean helped me and I wasn’t going to leave him with the likes of Markus.

  “Jean, please, you have to leave now. Drive fast…”

  Markus shot to the road. I was uncloaked and he recognized me. My stomach lurched and I threw up in the parking lot. Jean shuffled to my side as I begged him to go.

  “I’m not going to leave you while you’re ill. I will get you some help—”

  “No. You have to leave…” Tears ran down my cheeks when I felt Markus take physical form. Across the parking lot, several hundred feet away, a hideous looking wolf came out of the trees. Markus locked his cloudy eyes on me. His body was scarred and mangy—just like Chalen when he took an animal form. Jean followed my eyes and jolted backwards when he saw it, head down, yellowed fangs exposed, stalking us.

  A whisper slid over Jean’s lips. “Is impossible…”

  I channeled Quint into glowing orbs in my palms and blew my bicycle into a tree twenty feet away, warping the frame around the trunk. Jean’s huge eyes switched back and forth between the two of us and he slowly inched back toward the car. In a flash so fast it left me dizzy, Markus erased the distance between us. Before I could react, he let out a faint gasp and crumpled on the ground. His foggy eyes stared up at me briefly and then turned to Jean, who held a beating heart in his ancient yellowed fingernails.

  ?
??Bastien,” he gasped before collapsing into a ball of white light and flashing out.

  I threw up again.

  THIRTY-ONE

  EPIPHANY

  Like a rag doll, Jean had me strapped into the old car before I could react. The blur of trees and gray sky and parked cars whisking past the window left me disoriented. Jean drove east, under the busy road, and then north on a two-lane blacktop that cut through the forest. I still felt dizzy when we blew through a small collection of homes a mile ahead, and turned back east toward Fontainebleau. I didn’t understand at first, but as the car clambered toward the city, the Rogues streaked to Trois Pignon.

  “Are you really Bastien?”

  Jean nodded. It was completely surreal. The oldest living creature on Earth was driving me in a beat up Citroën. I shook my head trying to clear the fog.

  “But you’re human…completely and totally human. I can sense your energy.”

  In a silky smooth, deep, resonating voice that I hadn’t heard before, one completely devoid of accent, he said, “The best way to hide from my kind is to take the form of the one thing they are forbidden to contact. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I nodded. His wrinkled, bony hands gripped the steering wheel with all the apparent strength of an arthritic octogenarian.

  “Jean—”

  “We can drop that façade.”

  “Okay…Bastien, I need your help.”

  “I will help you, but it may not be the help you’re looking for.”

  I felt my body slump in the seat. “You won’t teach me how to create Aether?’

  He shook his head.

  “Is there any way I can change your mind?’

  “Maggie, I don’t know how to create it—I’ve never seen the point.”

  I sank farther into the seat as the first wave of disappointment wrapped me like a straitjacket. Not once since I’d started looking for him had I considered the possibility he didn’t know how to create Aether. Sure, there was a part of my mind where it seemed possible, but I’d buried it underneath layers of optimism.

  My chest tightened and I felt hopeless as I fought back the tears. At that moment, my hopes were completely and utterly dashed. Bastien was the oldest Fae in the world. If he didn’t know how to make Aether, then how could I hope to figure it out? I had tried, I failed, and time was running out.

  “Don’t despair.”

  “I’m trying not to. I just…”

  “Do you believe in destiny?”

  I did, of course. My belief in destiny was what drove me to do everything I’d done for the last two and a half years. But as we drove into Fontainebleau, I was beginning to surrender to self-pity. “It’s a ridiculous idea.”

  “By itself, I agree. That a person could enter existence for the purpose of fulfilling a predetermined course of action is fantastic, too fantastic. You, however, are not just any person.”

  Bastien drove me back to the place I’d purchased the bicycle. The rider was gone and nobody else was around. He pulled the Citroën into a parking spot exactly where I’d climbed onto the bike.

  “How did you—”

  “Scent, of course. You are rather…pungent. I suspect you are the only human who has been swimming in the reflecting pool of Fontainebleau Castle.”

  “That wasn’t by choice.”

  “I gathered that much.”

  “So, what you were saying about destiny, I am the descendent of Áedán—the second Maebown?”

  “Yes, you are descended from Áedán of Cnoc Aine.”

  “Cnoc Aine? Oh my gosh, I’d forgotten…” Sara and Billy told me that a year and a half ago when we drove to Mount Sequoyah in Fayetteville. I hadn’t made the connection. “I was just there.”

  “Yes, Áedán’s children, two daughters and a son, were vulnerable when Áedán died. I took the daughters to the Corcaguiney Peninsula. The eldest, Aillean, had one son. His children flourished and eventually took the name O’Shea. The youngest of Áedán’s children, the other daughter, Brighid, died along with her baby during childbirth. Áedán’s middle child, his son, stayed near Lough Gur, hidden from Ozara and the Sidhe—for a time at least.”

  “Sean McLoughlin, the Sidhe Steward…are we related?”

  Bastien nodded. “He is the direct descendant of Áedán’s son, Cassán. I hid their identity, but I failed to hide their talent. Five hundred years ago, Dana discovered that the McLouglins had a powerful connection to the elements. They have been slaves to the Sidhe ever since. Ironically, Dana has no idea Sean is an heir of Áedán—its best no one knows.”

  “But if something happens to me, there is still hope.”

  “No, Maggie, you’re different.”

  My head shook without any conscious attempt to make it do so. “I have such a hard time believing that. Had you not stopped Markus—”

  “You would have destroyed him yourself,” he interrupted.

  “I would have? I’m not so sure.”

  “Yes, you would have. But your method would have taken longer. I merely sped up the inevitable. What is done is done. Maggie, you must not question your significance. Your connection to the elements is stronger than either of your Maebown ancestors.”

  I saw stars. “Either?” I shrieked.

  “Yes, either.”

  My mouth hung open.

  “You are the direct descent of Surero, as well.”

  “But he was Egyptian.”

  “Yes, and like Áedán he had offspring. I hid them, too. Two thousand years after Surero died, his lone descendent moved to present day Spain. His family flourished for centuries, by then unaware of their ancestry. They took the name Guerrero one thousand four hundred years ago. War and disease took their toll and four hundred seventeen years ago the Guerrero line was nearly lost. The surviving daughter married a man named Gutierrez. Their only son immigrated to Cuba.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true. Genetics, Maggie, it’s all about the genetics. I realized millennia ago that some humans possessed a more powerful connection to Naeshura than others. Those humans pass it on to their offspring. Your family is not the only one, but your two families have a stronger connection than any I’ve encountered. You are the most gifted of them all. That is why I had to meet you.”

  “Did you arrange my parents…you know?”

  He laughed. “No, I did not.”

  “The odds of that happening—“

  “I will ask you again, Maggie O’Shea—do you believe in destiny?”

  Before the smile could completely form on my face, I realized that Bastien wasn’t the only Fae to have figured out my family secret.

  “Yes,” he said. “It appears Ozara recognized the possibility. I’m quite confident she does not know with any degree of certainty what I just told you, but she suspects. For me, it’s as clear as looking into the face of an old friend.”

  “You knew them?’

  “In one capacity or another, I’ve known every generation of your family—on both sides. When the danger has passed, I should like to tell you about them. Would you like that?”

  “Are you kidding? I’d love that. There is so much I’d like to learn from you.”

  “You come from remarkable stock—O’Shea and Gutierrez.”

  My confidence came roaring back. “Why did you bring me back here?”

  “I am rather an expert at staying concealed without hiding. I’m creating a dead end. I have learned to leave no scent, and yours will disappear here. I’m giving you a head start, an advantage. Don’t squander it.”

  He touched my hand and a tingle ran through my body.

  “Step out of the car—go lean against the car in front of us.”

  I did as he said, turning my back to the black Peugeot and settling against it as though I was waiting for a friend. Bastien smiled and waved me back. A few seconds later a young, brown-haired women got in and drove away. We repeated the process several times. Car after car pulled into the spot ahead of us and waited. Eac
h time I felt a tingling sensation and Bastien would ask me to go lean against the car, or climb in and out of the back seat. Not once did the drivers or passengers even notice. After ten cars, Bastien transformed the Citroën into a silver Jaguar XKR and handed me the keys.

  “I’ve got to learn how to do that.”

  “It’s quite simple, rearranging solid matter—what you can do with Quint is far more impressive.”

  “So, this is goodbye?”

  “I’ve not said goodbye to anyone, Fae or Human, in several hundred million years. I’m not going to start now.”

  “Okay, but can I ask you one more question before you leave?”

  “Of course,” he said, pulling the door shut.

  “Do you know why Ozara has changed so much?”

  He smiled, the craggy lines around his eyes deepening. “She has not changed.”

  His words tumbled around in my mind. “Then she doesn’t mean to destroy the human race?’

  “That’s a second question.”

  I laughed. “It’s a clarification…please?”

  “She absolutely intends to destroy the human race. She always has.”

  My mouth fell open again. “But for ten thousand years—”

  “Actually, seven thousand, three hundred fifty-eight years,” he said. “For all that time she has been working the same intricate plan. Fae, like human, will do anything for love.”

  I gasped and stared out the windshield.

  “Zarkus?”

  He nodded. “Yes, Maggie. You know more than you think. They are paired. They have been for eight millennia. Another advantage of being my age—I don’t miss much. That information is much more powerful than any other you possess.”

  “You have to help me spread the word.”

  “It may seem callous, but I intend to pull that broken bicycle out of the trunk, and ride it back into obscurity. This is not my fight, child.”