I clapped a hand over my nose and wished that I, too, didn’t have to breathe. “What are they?”
“Dark Fey,” Marlowe managed to say. “Giants and oak men.” The roots had withdrawn as quickly as they had come, baring him to the shoulders. I realized why when a ten-foot giant strode forward and knocked him in the temple with a club the size of a small tree. Marlowe sighed. “It’s always the head,” he murmured, then his eyes rolled up and he collapsed.
I backed away, lifting my hands to show how harmless I was. Unfortunately, it was the truth. The pack with my gun in it was too far away to reach and I had no other weapons. The shorter one laughed and said something in a guttural language I couldn’t understand. Judging by his expression, that was probably just as well. I backed away as they stalked forward, trying to keep an eye on them and also on the root-strewn trail. It didn’t work, and I ended up sprawled in the scattered leaves. As soon as I was down, roots wrapped around my wrists, trapping me. The next moment, the taller thing was on me, his breath like a ripe compost heap in my face.
“Cassie!” I heard Mac’s voice and looked up in time to see him slide through the weakened hold of the roots and sprint for me. Everything seemed to slow down, the way it does when you see what’s about to happen but can’t stop it. The roots dove for him, and before I could draw breath enough to scream, one had pierced him like a living spear. All I could do was lie there and watch as he twisted in pain, a wooden limb as sharp as a knife erupting from the flesh of his upper thigh. He wavered and went down hard, dropping to his knees as I finally managed to scream.
I felt rough fingers on my legs; then they found the fastening of my shorts and broke the zipper in their haste to get them off. I barely noticed, watching in horror as Mac writhed on the ground, trying to pull out the wooden mass that had pierced his thigh. He managed to get the slender spike out with steady hands, ignoring the abrupt wash of blood that stained his clothes, but another immediately wound itself around his neck, choking him.
“No! Leave him alone—you’re killing him!”
The roots either didn’t understand or didn’t care. The creature on top of me yanked at the gaping material of my shorts, baring my upper thighs, then in one swift movement jerked them halfway down my legs. I kicked at him, but it was like hitting wood instead of living flesh and I don’t think he even noticed. I looked around wildly for help, but Tomas’ limp form was being shoved less than gently into a large sack. And although Marlowe had regained consciousness, he was being held down by three giants while another tried to get a sack over his head.
Mac had managed to get the root loose and was struggling one-handed to unwind it from around his neck. His other hand was held over the ragged wound in his leg, which had already drenched the ground beneath him as if it had nicked an artery. But at least the other roots had backed off. If he wasn’t struggling, he didn’t seem to interest them. I could only hope he’d stay down, and maybe play dead before he really was.
I realized in a rush of adrenaline that I was on my own, and that none of my usual defenses would work here. My bracelet was no more than a decoration, and my ward was useless. Sheba had disappeared after attacking the Consul, and the geis was silent. Either its power didn’t work in Faerie, or these creatures were too alien for it to recognize them as threats. My amulet might have helped, but it was caught under my shirt and I couldn’t reach it with my arms stretched over my head.
The skinny creature tore the shorts the rest of the way off and flung them aside while the fat one started pawing at my top. The tank was a stretchy knit that resisted tearing, and his clumsy fingers couldn’t seem to get it off. He paused to lick my face as if tasting me, and a rope of saliva dripped from his mouth onto my cheek. It slowly trickled down my neck, cold and viscous, completely unlike bodily fluids are supposed to be. I tried to scream but got only a mouthful of grimy, foul-tasting hair instead of air.
I was temporarily blinded to what was happening, trapped under the suffocating mass on his head, but I felt the tug of fabric and the sudden shock of air against me when my panties were ripped away. I tried to shift, at that moment not caring about the consequences, but although I felt a deep, sluggish pull of my power, it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t grasp hold, and it remained a lifeline hovering just out of reach.
I turned my face as far toward the path as I could, desperate to find some air, and then I saw it. One weapon did remain nearby, if not exactly within my grasp. The rune must have fallen out of my shorts when they were thrown into the bushes, and it was so small that no one had noticed. It lay tantalizingly near my head, a pale sliver of bone half buried in damp leaves. But although it was only inches away, I had no way to grab it.
While I struggled to figure out how to cross those few inches, two slender but strong roots wrapped around my ankles and started twining upwards. When they reached my knees, they began pulling outward. The living bonds curled up to my thighs, biting into the skin as they brutally forced my legs so wide that, for a minute, I thought they meant to tear me in two. They finally stopped when my hips would give no further. I tried to fight, but nothing I did made the slightest difference, and my rising panic made it almost impossible to think. A stick bearing a few bright green leaves tumbled through the air from high above and landed on my face, a whisper of a caress, while the things above me started to wrestle over who would get to rape me first.
It was a short fight. The skinny one picked up his companion and threw him against a tree, the branches of which trapped him in a wooden embrace, like a cage. Then he turned and fell on me. Two coarse, knotted hands grabbed my shoulders painfully and I stared up into flat gray eyes that had nothing human in them. He wriggled down my body, his tough, uneven skin scraping against mine except where the tank protected me.
I ignored the pain his movements were causing and grabbed the stick, my only tool, in my mouth. My eyes zeroed in on the thong threaded through the top of the bone disk, despite the fact that it was brown and barely poked out of the scattered leaves. I knew I might get only one chance at this, and I had to concentrate. I managed to get the end of the stick through the small loop and began trying to work it closer. If I could get it to touch my skin or even just my aura, it might be enough. Then I heard a squelch, and something slick and clammy nudged my belly. I froze.
It felt like something old that had been left underground to rot for a very long time, spongy and moist and bloated. But it moved sluggishly, twitching against my lower stomach. I couldn’t see anything except my attacker’s shoulder and the small patch of path, but my brain conjured up images of an enormous white grub or a fist-sized slug. When its chill dampness slithered eagerly between my legs, I swear my heart stopped.
I was so paralyzed with horror that I just lay there as the inhuman thing swelled against me, like a rotten fruit about to burst. Its sodden cold raised goose bumps across my entire body as it leeched away my heat, numbing me as if an icicle was being rubbed over sensitive areas. Through the shudder-inducing revulsion, I understood that the horrible gelatinous shifting was it changing forms, trying to find one compatible with my body. But the one it came up with bore no resemblance to human virility. It suddenly grew firmer, its slimy consistency congealing into a fat, rigid shape as unyielding as a wooden stake. If the thing pierced me, I knew I wouldn’t survive, that it would eat my heat and replace it with its damp chill. The green man, some part of my brain recalled: the old Celtic peoples had sacrificed one of their own to the land, so it would grow rich and fertile off his flesh. Only it looked like this forest preferred a green woman.
When the parody of an organ began to thrust, the action so very male, so very human, my paralysis broke. I screamed and jerked my head in a violent negative motion. I hadn’t planned it, had almost forgotten what I’d been doing, but the action caused something small and hard to land on my cheek. My crossed eyes identified it as the rune disk and my heart started up again. I wasn’t sure how to cast it, wasn’t convinced that it would work at all.
But I screamed the name inside my head because my mouth didn’t seem to work.
I don’t know whether that was the right procedure, but it did the trick. Sort of. With no warning, I found myself, not twenty minutes back in time, but maybe two. The oak men were coming for me, and Mac was leaping to intercept them, so focused on saving me that he didn’t see the roots straightening themselves into spears, coming for him. I didn’t hesitate this time, but yelled a warning and fled down the path towards his discarded backpack.
I was sobbing now that I could breathe freely again, and my hands were shaking so hard that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get the pack open. The shorter creature reached me when I had only one buckle undone. He grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled, and he must have had better leverage on his feet because this time, the tank ripped. My amulet tumbled into view, jostling Billy’s necklace for space between my breasts, and my attacker let out a screech and jumped back. He cradled the hand that had brushed against the charm as if it had been burned, and a black mark appeared on his skin in the shape of the rowan cross. I plunged my hand into the half-open pack and finally clutched the gun.
I am not the world’s greatest shot. In fact, I suck. But even I don’t usually miss when my targets are three feet away. I didn’t worry about aiming, just let off a barrage of bullets that splintered the barklike skin of the oak men as if I was firing at actual wood. The taller let out a squeal and took off down the trail, while his fat companion huddled on the ground, hands over his mossy head. The iron bullets obviously caused them pain, but although they were oozing a syrupy substance from every wound, they were both alive and moving when my clip ran out. I stared at them in disbelief; what did it take to stop one of these things?
The coat Pritkin had given me was lying nearby, where I had dropped it alongside the pack when we stopped to rest. But I had no time to search for the right bullets. The short Fey realized that I had stopped shooting and grabbed for me. I flattened the rowan charm against his forehead, pushing it into his skin as hard as I could. The flesh around it immediately turned black and start smoking, giving off a smell exactly like a burning campfire.
He tore away from me, clutching his head and screaming. I don’t know whether he would have tried again, because the pixie suddenly appeared and, despite the fact that he was momentarily incapacitated, slapped him with the flat of her sword. The blow must have been more forceful than it looked, because he went sailing into the forest until he was stopped by an overhanging limb. He hit the ground hard, unconscious or worse. I didn’t wait to find out, my only thought to get to Mac.
Huge hands descended on me at the same time that a scream reverberated through the forest. I looked down the path in time to see a root as large as a small tree erupt from the scarred ground right under Mac’s feet. Time seemed to stop—I couldn’t even feel my heart beating anymore—and then everything suddenly sped up. The root ripped out of the ground, piercing Mac through the center of his back. “No,” I breathed, but no one heard, no one cared. Mac’s body strained upward until his spine left the grass completely, his fingers digging into the hard-packed dirt, then the root burst out of his torso in a great gush of blood.
The pixie nodded once to the guards and they released me. I shot down the path, but Mac was already limp by the time I reached him, sightless eyes staring up without recognition. “Mac,” I shook the unresponsive body gently. “Mac, please . . .”
Unresisting, his head lolled to the side just as a shower of gold hit the dark ground. My blood ran cold when I realized what had happened. Mac’s wards had solidified and fallen away, leaving the skin between the unmoving leaves as pink and unmarked as a newborn’s. I picked up one of the small shapes with a shaking hand. It was the tiny lizard, frozen in midleap. Next to my knee was a snake as long as my arm, uncurled from its usual place around his neck. And beside his ruined chest lay an eagle the size of my hand.
I stared at them numbly, knowing what it meant that his wards had deserted him, but not willing to let my brain shape the word. A deafening din rose up from the assembled spectators, but I didn’t even look up at the screeching and howling. Until the roots came back.
If I had thought there were a lot before, I was instantly reminded how many are needed to feed even a small tree. They were suddenly everywhere, shooting out of the forest, erupting from the ground, diving from the underbrush. A few paused to leech Mac’s blood from the spreading puddle that had almost covered the path, but most dove for him like hungry sharks. The flailing mass flogged my body like bark-covered whips, while the earth around Mac boiled with activity. Dozens of roots wrapped around him, binding him, as thick as a shroud. Then a huge knotted specimen slammed into my stomach, driving the air out of my lungs. I fell to my knees, and when I looked again, Mac had disappeared. The only sign that anything had happened was the golden wards that stuck up here and there out of the churned-up dirt.
The pixie said something to the lumbering giant standing behind her. He would have made a couple dozen of her, but he moved at her command without question. His bulk coming towards me down the path was the last thing I saw before the world went black and I realized that I’d been stuffed into a sack. I remember being slung over someone’s back; then my brain shut down completely and I fell into darkness.
I awoke in a cold sweat, gasping for air, my heart hammering in my side. I stared into absolute blackness in dry-mouthed terror. I was sure something was about to grab me and that it would all start again. But minutes passed and nothing happened, and I couldn’t hear any breaths except my own labored ones. My chest hurt as though I’d run for miles and I wanted nothing more than to curl around the pain until it vanished, but I couldn’t afford the luxury. I had to find out where I was, had to know what had happened.
By feel I discovered that I was on a crudely made cot in a stone cell, naked, with only a short, scratchy wool blanket as a covering. I guess the tank top hadn’t been worth saving. I was thick-headed, bleary-eyed and trembling with the memory of what had almost happened. I examined myself, but other than being bruised, grubby and severely shaken, I seemed to be okay, although the welts the roots had given me throbbed in time with the eagle’s claw mark on my hand, making it feel like my rapid heartbeat was echoing throughout my body.
More than anything, I wanted a bath. I groped around until I found a large bucket of water that had been left by the door along with a sponge, a bar of homemade soap and a towel. The floor was bare except for a little straw that had leaked from a tear in the mattress, and there was a drain in the center of the slightly sloping stones. I threw off the blanket and scrubbed my skin until it was raw in places and I couldn’t smell anything but the sharp tang of the soap.
I tipped the rest of the water over my head, but despite all my efforts I didn’t feel clean. I toweled off, trying not to think about Mac, but it was impossible. The Fey must have gathered up his charms and brought them along, because they were in a pile on the end of the cot, recognizable by their shapes, but cold and lifeless under my hands. I wondered if they were supposed to be some kind of message— a reminder of how helpless our best magic was here. If so, I didn’t need it.
I still felt disoriented and could not quite believe what I’d just seen. But the image was seared onto my eyes. I could hear Mac’s last scream, see his fingers clawing at the ground, seeking a weapon he didn’t have because he’d given his only Fey charm to me.
And I’d lost it.
I tried to summon my power again, but although I could feel it like a great wave beating against a seawall, it couldn’t quite reach me. Maybe there was a way of compensating for the dampening effect but if so I couldn’t figure it out. Now that my eyes had adjusted, I could see a faint light outlining the cell’s door, so dim that when I blinked it disappeared. As far as escape went, it didn’t help, and there wasn’t a lot of inspiration in the bare cell. Other than the cot, there was no furniture, and except for the heavy, locked door and a high, barred window, there was no way out. I wrapped
the blanket around me in lieu of clothes and dragged the cot over a few feet, wincing at the sound it made on the stones. When I clambered on top, I could just reach the windowsill, but when I felt around with my fingertips, I found only dust and what felt like a dead spider. No moon or stars were visible, but by feel I discovered that the bars were metal and as big around as my wrist.
I sat back down on the cot and wrapped my arms around me to keep from shivering in the chill night air. Bathing and checking out escape possibilities had given my brain something to do, but now it kept trying to go back to the horror in the forest. The more I tried not to think about Mac, the more the other images crowded my mind. I could smell the awful breath in my face, see the hunger in their expressions and feel that decayed mass squirming between my legs, seeking, thrusting, invading.
Despite my efforts, I was shivering anyway, so much that my teeth started to chatter. I used anger to push away the panic, to let me draw a deep breath, to let me think. I was alone and defenseless, and I hated it. Fear was an old companion, familiar in its way, but this wasn’t fear. What I was feeling went beyond words, a bone-deep chill and a certainty that, even if I survived, I would never feel secure again.
I drew the blanket further around me, but it did little good. The cold that permeated me didn’t come from the outside. I walked up and down the confines of the cell anyway, trying to force circulation into my icy center. It didn’t warm me, but it did clear my head. I could examine my mistakes later. I could grieve later. Right now, I had to get out of here. And, somehow, I had to make sure that I was never, ever this helpless again.