Weald Fae 02 - The Changeling

  Closing the front door and bolting the locks, I hid in a closet near the foyer and focused on channeling the energy from the air inside. Disappear! Disappear! Had Smokey detected me? Had he caught the overpowering scent of a full tablespoon of Coty? Stop freaking out!

  My eyes began to adjust to the darkness, but my nose refused to accept the musty stench of shoes that filled my nostrils. It surprised me that anything could smell worse than I did at the moment, but the closet floor lay buried beneath mounds of old shoes and boots. Taking long breaths through my mouth kept me from gagging, and it also calmed me down. Smokey continued down Mountain Street and then turned left, twice, and began heading back in my direction. Despite my best efforts, my heart sped up again and I felt like an animal caught in a trap.

  Huffing like a steam engine as the distance between us disappeared, I fought the urge to sprint out the back of the house. What do I do? Think! Think! At the last moment, I froze. Holding my breath as Smokey passed my hiding place, my lungs burning for air, I didn’t exhale until he floated down the street and out of my range. He didn’t detect me. The Fae were searching in a pattern, looking for me in the open. Oh god! My senses told me he was back again. Drawing in a quick breath, I fought with a spontaneous whimper, when he slowly moved back into my range and searched Elk Street behind me. If I had bolted a few moments ago, he would have caught me.

  Staring at the scuffed face of my watch, and examining the heavy coats and boots tucked in the closet, I waited for twenty minutes before I dared to crack the door. Light appeared in narrow slit between the creaking door and the chipped paint of the jam. Wincing as it blinded me, I pushed the door open further and allowed the fresh air to greet me. Reflexively, I pulled another breath into my lungs, trying to purge the sour stench of old, filthy shoes and Coty.

  In a downstairs bath, I found rubbing alcohol. It helped to cut the smell of the awful cologne. I tried to cover up what was left with some White Diamonds I found on the counter. If the Fae did try to track me by scent, I’d blend in to this home and simply disappear on the street…or so I hoped.

  Do I risk going back outside so soon? I have to at some point, I know, but they’re looking—everywhere. How long should I wait? Staring at the mirror, focusing on nothing but my eyes, the decision came. “I have to get out of town. Now!” Channeling the energy from a light breeze, I emerged onto the shady street and walked two blocks down the hill over to Candace’s house on Spring Street, just a quarter mile from the Basin Park Hotel. Smokey drifted in and out of my senses as he searched a broader area of town. Gusty, who was still watching the hotel, didn’t react when I slipped through the wrought iron gate at Candace’s house, even within the short distance.

  Candace opened the door. “Um, can I help…Mags?” She looked me up and down, fighting a smile. “Ewww, girl…tragic costume party?”

  “Can I please come inside?”

  “Yeah, sure. Explain.”

  She closed the door behind me, and winced as she drew a sharp breath through her nose. “Oh, god! Why do you look like a drag queen? And what in the world is with that god-awful perfume? You smell like a candle store.”

  “I found Mitch.”

  Her mouth dropped open as everything seemed to register. “You’re hiding from them, aren’t you? What do you need? You alone? What can I do? Oh my god, where is he?”

  “Did Danny call you?”

  “Yes…but I never guessed. What do you need?”

  “Can I hide here for a little while? And, uh, I kinda need a car.”

  “Sure, of course. Where are they?”

  “Searching for me. Close.”

  Not that it would help hide me from the Fae, but she darted from window to window yanking the curtains closed.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  DARKNESS

  Candace stopped asking questions when I promised to explain everything later. For ten minutes I stood in her shower and let the hot water rinse off the last traces of perfume and gaudy lipstick. Candace gave me the keys to her MX-5, and loaned me one of her mom’s sundresses. It was a better fit than the floral tent I’d been wearing. She begged to help, so I told her to text Ronnie and Doug to meet her at the Byrne’s cottage where they’d be dropping my car off, but to wait for her phone call before they did. “I need you to be on your way before they start following you—don’t call Ronnie until you’re at Sara’s. They will follow you. Are you okay with that?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “When Doug and Ronnie get there, knock on the door and give Sara my keys. Tell her I said I’d be by to pick the car up later. Play dumb. She’ll figure it out and make sure nothing happens to you. Just take the guys and come back here.”

  “Can we help you with anything else?”

  “By staying here, out of harm’s way, you’ll be helping me more than you can imagine. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.”

  She hugged me tightly, whispering, “Don’t let anything happen to yourself. Swear it?”

  “I swear it. I’ll see you tonight, I promise.”

  She continued to hold on, and I knew she was afraid for me.

  “Candace?”

  “Yes,” she said, hugging me even tighter.

  “It’s time.”

  She finally released her death grip on me, and sent Ronnie and Doug a text exactly as I dictated. Thirty seconds later, she received a reply from both. “Ready.” She grabbed her keys and phone and ran down the stairs.

  I donned the blond wig and glasses, and waited. Twenty minutes later I sensed the Fae moving toward Main Street. Smokey had been conducting a house-to-house search several blocks away and Gusty had lingered down by the hotel. They converged downtown at break-neck speed when, I assumed, Ronnie and Doug had taken my car. That had to be it, I thought, the Fae were following something on Main Street that was moving faster than a pedestrian. “Here goes.”

  Candace’s yellow convertible hummed to life and I sped north and away from the Fae. With the summer foliage passing in a blur, I drove by the old train station and headed toward Highway 187. Memories of Billy and Sara telling me about the Second Aetherfae flooded back when I crossed the blue and yellow one-lane bridge to the hamlet of Beaver. The memories faded quickly as I pressed on toward Holiday Island. I drove for an hour. My nerves calmed the closer I got to Fayetteville.

  Just a few miles from the farmhouse, I rendezvoused with Danny at a Holiday Inn Express on the west side of Fayetteville. He was waiting in the lobby, and he glanced dismissively at me when I walked up. As I walked closer, he studied me again and his expression changed to bewildered fascination, recognition, and then he began laughing.

  He crossed his sinewy arms, muscles flexing under the dark blue silk suit, and drummed a finger against his thick cheek. “Impressive wig,” he said.

  “You didn’t recognize me, did you?” I shot back.

  “That’s true. Big blond hair, enormous sunglasses—bourgeois housewife from Dallas?”

  I laughed.

  “Terrible dress,” he said. His thick mane of brown hair danced on his collar when he shook his head.

  “You should have seen the last one.”

  He closed his dark amber eyes, “I don’t sense anyone following you.”

  “No, I got away.”

  He pointed to the door. “Shall we?”

  He led me to the parking lot and handed me a set of keys. “You said a fast car.”

  I pushed the lock button on the key, and the headlights flashed on a low slung, bright red Mustang, with white stripes, glowing brightly in the early-afternoon sun. Below a chrome cobra on the front fender, a logo said GT500.

  “What? You don’t like it?” he asked, studying my face.

  “No, it’s great, just a little loud.”

  Danny smiled and placed his hand on the hood. Immediately it turned the same dark green metallic as Dad’s GT.

  “What if someone’s watching?” I glanced back at the hotel windows.

  He gave me an exaspera
ted look. “I’m Fae, Maggie. Do you like the color?”

  “Yeah, much better.”

  “You need to be careful driving it.”

  I rolled my eyes, “I’ve driven fast cars before…”

  “Darling, you’ve never driven anything like this.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll be careful.”

  He raised his left eyebrow.

  “I promise, jeez. You’re worse than Mom.”

  He handed me a room card. “324.”

  “Thanks.”

  He lowered his chin and studied my face. “Are you ready for this?”

  My stomach knotted. He frowned, sensing the muscle spasm. I nodded my head and smiled, projecting confidence.

  He cupped the ball of my shoulder in his hand. “My dear, I may not be able to read your real emotions, but I’ve been a lawyer for a hundred eight-nine years and—pardon the vulgar human vernacular—I can smell a load of bullshit from across town. What’s wrong?”

  “I’m just nervous. If the Fae are there, and I have too, you know…”

  He cut me off. “Maggie, taking life is perverse. There is nothing I can tell you to change that, and no argument to the contrary will convince you otherwise. Killing may be necessary, however.”

  My head shook involuntarily. “I hate this. I hate thinking about ending anyone’s life, even one of theirs.”

  His mouth pulled to the side, forming a sympathetic half-smile. “That’s not really the problem, is it?”

  A noisy huff escaped from my lips. “No, it’s not. What I hate worse is how much I want to…do it. They murdered Aunt May, murdered Rachel…they plan to murder my family.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “I hate them…I want all of them to die,” I growled.

  Danny took my hand and exhaled slowly, allowing me to catch my breath. “You’re afraid you’ll change?”

  “Thinking it is one thing, acting on it…my god…sorry,” I muttered.

  “Don’t be. You’re in an impossible position.”

  “Impossible?” Great, thanks…

  “Yes. Impossible in that you can’t emerge from this unscathed. Impossible because you have been given no easy choice—kill or die. I hope for your family’s sake you choose the former, if necessary.”

  Despite being uncomfortable with the violent thoughts flashing in my head, I had little doubt about what I’d do if I faced an Unseelie. I nearly killed Chalen last year, and I knew I wouldn’t hesitate if I got another shot at him. That really bothered me—I didn’t want to become that person. But my god, they’d given me no choice. “I’ll do what I have to do,” I said.

  He nodded. We spoke a few more minutes before I went to my room, alone, to wait for nightfall. Behind closed doors I pulled the wig off and changed back into my clothes. Big brown eyes, determined and ready, stared back at me in the big mirror in the bathroom. Steady hands, calm heart beat, slow even breaths—I repeated, “Mitch, I’m coming for you.”

  With a little concentration I channeled the pure essence of the Fire element. The connection came, oddly, from deep within the earth, but it was precisely the same energy I’d felt in the gazebo. It remained amorphous and translucent for many minutes as I concentrated on condensing it. Goosebumps formed on my upper arms when it melded into a thin red stream in my hands, flitting around like a dandelion plume caught in a light breeze.

  I dropped the connection and recreated it several times. In forty-five minutes I could form it with a mere thought. For the next hour I did the same with Earth, Air, and Water, each one easier than the last. It became easier to create all four at the same time. My confidence at an all-time high, I concentrated on the elements and kept my mind off everything else.

  Combining Earth and Fire, I created Quint. The glowing orange orb was just as malleable as the raw elements, and within a few minutes, controlling it grew easier. A sphere, tendrils, I could make anything, but I still didn’t know what it did. When it sliced through the marble countertop, I gasped. It even sliced effortlessly through the strongest Air barrier I could muster. “Oh, my god,” I kept saying with each experiment.

  Clóca, the shimmering combination of Water and Air, was more difficult to figure out. It didn’t cut anything, and while I could feel it, it became invisible to the naked eye when I spread it out. Wrapping it around my body, like I did with an Air barrier, didn’t appear to do anything either—until I stood in front of the mirror. My heart rate sped and I felt dizzy. “Oh my god, I’m invisible,” I muttered in the darkened room. “Not even a shimmer.”

  It was possible to make objects disappear, too. An empty Diet Coke can vanished when I wrapped the substance around it. “Ohhh…no way…” From across the room, the can was utterly imperceptible to my eyes and my senses. This is what Tse-xo-be meant when he told me to, “reflect on it.”

  My lucky watch read 5:35 pm. With only a few hours before nightfall, and too nervous to eat, I sat alone in the room practicing. Though I tried for an hour, the secret to Aether, unfortunately, remained a complete mystery. Combination after combination failed, and alternating the strength of the substances, even the order in which I combined them, produced the same disappointing result—when the four elements met, they formed an unremarkable white light.

  Walking through the lobby felt surreal as I passed a dozen people. They were going to dinner, most of them. We were in different worlds tonight. Two minutes later, the GT500 rumbled to life, growling like an angry predator. Just a tap of the accelerator made the engine roar, and each time I did it, my confidence grew. The car seemed angry and ready to battle—at least that’s what I told myself.

  The sun was setting in the western sky, washing out the vibrant colors of green foliage with glowing gold light, when I slipped the car into gear and rumbled out of the parking lot. Its reaction to the slight pressure from my right foot pinned me back into the seat. Danny was right. The Shelby snarled past 60 in a few seconds, the exhaust sound nearly as intoxicating as the new car smell of the leather interior.

  I followed the navigation on the dash, and drove into the darkening countryside west of Fayetteville. Your destination is on the left. My stomach folded and I took a few deep breaths before I opened the door to the warm summer air. My mind focused on every sound when the door shut. The pinging sound of the engine cooling blended with the rustling sound of leaves in the occasional breeze and the songs of a dozen species of birds and tree frogs. The omnipresent Ozark soundtrack played at full volume.

  The car seemed pretty well hidden from the road, but to make certain it was still there when I got back, I snapped off a half-dozen wild bushes and forced them into the ground around it.

  I wrapped myself in Clóca, studied the navigation screen on my phone, and set out through the woods to cover the mile between Mitch and me. Spreading my mind as wide as I could, my heart raced a little when I sensed absolutely no Fae in the area. Using my senses, I scrambled down the hill, between trees and around underbrush, trying not to make a sound.

  Clóca worked so well that I snuck up on several squirrels and a couple of deer without them noticing anything but my footsteps. Each animal turned its nose to the wind, studying my scent, but they scanned the woods in vain trying to locate me.

  My heart beat fast and I felt short of breath when I edged up to the clearing where the farm lay. It appeared much dirtier to my physical eyes. Four people were in the house: three downstairs and Mitch, I assumed, in the attic. The fifth person was in the barn directly in front of me.

  Even though I was invisible, and I’d confirmed that the Fae were nowhere around, it took all my will power to step into the clearing. A shabby mixed-breed dog that I hadn’t seen on my astral visit trotted to the barn. It slowed and began sniffing the air, warily approaching the place where I stood. Sorry puppy! I created a dust devil and chased the poor creature completely out of the yard.

  Walking as quietly as I could toward the house, I momentarily saw stars as adrenalin filled my body. The woman and her children were watching television in the li
ving room, forcing me to walk between them to get to the stairs. Each step I took caused the floor to creak. The little girl noticed first, and she clutched her doll to her chest and stared wide-eyed past where I stood.

  Pity roiled in my chest when I thought of what would happen to her when the Unseelie found Mitch gone. I walked quickly to the stairs and then noisily made my way to the second floor. The woman clutched both of her children, trying to soothe their frayed nerves. All three stared at the clunking sounds my steps made. The stairs to the attic were narrower and steeper. Reaching out with my mind, I forced the door open and emerged in the hot, stuffy space. The smell of urine and feces festered in the stale air, and I grew angry. No, I was completely pissed off. The air was slightly better in the room where Mitch lay still as a corpse and covered in sweat despite a small box fan whirring loudly in a small window.

  Tears filled my eyes as I scooped him into my arms. His breathing changed, speeding up, but he remained dazed. Clutching him to my chest, I couldn’t do anything for a few minutes except kiss his forehead and whisper how much I loved him. The presence startled me.

  “Thank god,” she said.

  “Aunt May…”

  “Girlie girl, ya need ta get yer brother outta here. That man’s comin.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Lifting Mitch was easy. While he looked better than Drevek did, I guessed he weighed less than forty pounds. Walking back across the attic floor, I felt two people coming up the stairs. “Oh crap!”

  The window in the end of the room was small, and I wasn’t sure whether I could carry Mitch through, but I decided to try. My concentration faltered, and I dropped the Clóca shield. I fumbled to re-form it, but before I could, the door to the attic sprang open and the round-bellied redneck stormed through. He focused on me, pointing what I guessed was a shotgun. His wife peered around the corner with a frantic look on her face, clutching the doorframe.

  “Ya put that boy down,” he rumbled in that awful accent.

  I calmed my nerves, and sent my mind across the room until it made contact with the barrel of his rifle. “Go to hell,” I said calmly.