Standing on the empty sidewalk, I suddenly felt very alone.
Chapter 22
The waterfront was a ghost town, sans tumbleweeds.
Ever wonder what it would be like if the zombie apocalypse hit your city? I had a nagging suspicion that it would look something like this.
Streets that were normally filled with people out enjoying a summer night were empty. No couples holding hands as they strolled along the boardwalk, no rowdy drunks stumbling along their nightly pub crawl, no smokers standing in clusters outside doorways, and, most strange of all, no police. The Old Port normally has a strong police presence at night, with mounted cops, bike cops, and the regular cruiser and SUV patrols.
During a threat to the city, such as a hurricane or tidal wave, emergency personnel would normally assist in evacuations, medical triage, and the prevention of looting. But there were no police, or EMTs. There was no one in sight—not a living soul.
Lights remained on, shining out from shop and restaurant windows, as if no one could spare the time to turn them off. That was unusual. During a weather emergency, most business owners would normally make an effort to shut down electricity to prevent fires. I think, deep down, people could sense that something more than a storm threatened out there on the bay.
If preparing to face the each uisge, would you want to be left in the dark?
People had been here, less than an hour before, and they obviously left in a hurry. A sandal sat on its side, in the middle of the sidewalk. Someone had run out of their shoe, and hadn’t bothered to stop and retrieve it. Who continues to run half barefoot along city streets, leaving their shoe behind? A person terrified of what was coming—that was who.
There were similar signs of panicked escape all up and down the waterfront. Doors hung open on their hinges, radios and televisions continued to play, and upended chairs lay where they had fallen. Café tables held half eaten meals and hundred dollar bottles of wine. Cash tips fluttered from under salt and pepper shakers, never to be retrieved by wait staff. Even thieves had passed the source of easy money, in their rush to evacuate.
With the dark, churning water of the harbor to my left and businesses topped with apartments to my right, I ran. I was like a ghost sprinting along the waterfront—a specter flitting from shadow to shadow. A lone survivor left behind.
At least, I had thought myself alone. A dark figure leapt down from atop a three story brick building, to stand in my path. With a yelp, I stopped running and took an involuntary step back.
The man was tall and slender and moved with a grace and agility that I attributed to fae reflexes. He reminded me of the faerie bard I’d just left behind. Sweeping his long coat behind him like a cape, he strode toward me.
What did he want? Was he a messenger carrying a directive from the glaistig? I really didn’t have time for this. I needed to reach my friends before the each uisge overtook the merrow, an eventuality that seemed more than likely by the screams and snickers coming from the water. I clenched my fists and tried to tamp down my impatience.
As the man drew closer he smiled, showing a flash of fang. Ah, not a faerie then. Illuminated by a flickering street light, I could now see through his glamour to the details of his corpse-like visage. No self-respecting faerie would be seen with skin that dry and dusty. I slowly moved my hands closer to the pockets that held my lighter and makeshift stakes.
The man towering over me was a vampire.
“You made a deal with The Green Lady,” the vampire said.
It was a statement, not a question, but I answered just the same.
“Yes,” I said. “It doesn’t change the promises made by your boss.”
The vampire hissed. This guy answered to someone, so it made sense that his boss, or his boss’s boss, was one of the bags of bones I’d met with. Funny, he didn’t seem happy at the mention of his superiors. Most megalomaniacs don’t appreciate being reminded that someone is higher up than them on the food chain. This vamp wasn’t any different.
“You should not have made a bargain with the faerie queen without consulting the vampire council,” he said.
I shrugged. I wanted their help to protect the people of this city, but if the vampires decided to revoke their promise to defend Harborsmouth, there really wasn’t much I could do about it.
“Is that it?” I asked, tapping my foot. “Your bosses are bent out of shape because I made a deal with the glaistig, and now they’re refusing to fight?”
The vampire cleared his throat, a strange left-over nervous habit from the days when he still had flesh. It sounded like a cat coughing up a fur ball that was wrapped in a paper bag.
“Well, no, not exactly,” he said, pulling at his collar. “The vampires of this city will fight, if this battle reaches land, but I was sent to voice the displeasure of the council. In the future…”
“Look, I don’t have time for this,” I said. “If you don’t get out of my way, now, there won’t be a future.”
Without waiting for the vampire to move, I circled around him at a jog. I tensed as I ran past, but he didn’t try to stop me. After running two blocks, I looked back over my shoulder to see him still rooted in place.
Vampires are not the most adaptable monster. I suspected it had something to do with mixing immortality with human stubbornness. Whatever the reason, they tended to become easily flummoxed when things didn’t go their way. This one would probably stand there, in that creepy, super-still vampire way, until birds came to nest in his straw-like hair.
The council of dusty leeches was upset with me? A felt a slow grin spread across my face. Well, they could just take a number and get in line.
As I ran, the ringing in my ears lessened and my hearing returned. I wish it hadn’t. Nightmare sounds came from all over the bay. Splashing, shrieks, and cries were growing louder which meant the battle was drawing closer to shore.
I hurried on, nearly at the edge of the cloaked hunter encampment. At this range, I could see the waves of flickering power running up and down the magic barrier. I hoped there was a way to pass through the curtain of blue and purple flames. I didn’t come all this way to be fried extra-crispy by friendly fire.
Chapter 23
As I approached the enchanted barrier, a woman on sentinel duty came into sight. She was younger than me, perhaps in her late teens or early twenties. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t old enough to buy beer, but that didn’t make her any less of a badass. Her freckled face and flame red hair cut into a pixie-cut would have been cute on anyone else, but she was a hunter. Hunters are always deadly serious—they don’t do cute.
She stood with feet hip width apart and left hand at her side, within easy reach of her weapons. She wore a sword at her hip, knives in forearm sheaths, and a gun holster strapped around her thigh. Her right hand held a crossbow that was trained at my head.
Most monster movies promote the idea of shooting through the heart to kill supernatural creatures, but a head shot is more reliable. Even if it doesn’t finish the monster off, a head wound will usually make them pause long enough to come in for the kill. Of course, there is always the chance it will just piss them off. There’s a reason why Hunters have the average lifespan of a fruit fly.
Wariness and knowledge of their enemy is often what keeps a Hunter in one piece. Hunters have libraries of supernatural info that they study, like the encyclopedia I borrowed from Kaye, to make monster identification easier, but vision isn’t foolproof. I was gifted with second sight, but that was a rare ability in humans. And Hunters are always human. They may ally themselves with supernatural races at times, but their membership is made up exclusively of Homo sapiens.
This Hunter was sizing me up, but not letting down her guard. Kaye would have told them I was coming. This young woman had probably been given a description of me, possibly even a photograph, but Hunters know to distrust their eyes. Glamours and shapeshifting were too prevalent in the supernatural community for her to believe what she saw.
/> “I’m really not a big fan of piercings,” I said, raising my voice to be heard across the distance. “Would you mind lowering that thing? I’m here to see Kaye.”
No laugh. No smile. She didn’t even blink.
“State your name,” she said.
“Ivy Granger,” I said, letting out a sigh. “If you don’t mind, I’m in a hurry. There’s a war going on, in case you hadn’t noticed, and I need to see Kaye, now.”
Yes, I was getting, as Jinx would say, a case of the grumpy pants. I was tired, my legs were cramping, and I didn’t want to stop here long enough to think. I felt in my gut that that way lay insanity. The image of corpses, families torn apart, strewn across a carnival pathway, was already creeping in. I needed to keep moving. There would be time to fall to pieces later.
The Hunter pulled something from her vest pocket with her free hand. Keeping her crossbow aimed at my face, she started scrolling down through something on her phone. Each flick of her thumb was like nails on a chalkboard. I tried to distract myself by looking for patterns in the wall of magic flickering behind her. I could just make out a lopsided butterfly when she grunted, stopped playing with her cell phone, and slipped it back into her vest pocket.
“Your name is on the list,” she said.
I knew that Kaye wouldn’t forget to mention me to the guards. Looked like I had permission to pass the barrier and enter the encampment.
“So, how do I get through that thing?” I asked, gesturing at the wall of magic.
“You can see it?” she asked. Her eyebrows raised and for a second she seemed impressed. The expression took a few years off my earlier assessment of her age placing her squarely in high school. Mab’s bones, she was just a kid.
“Yes, and I don’t feel like having my brain short-circuited,” I said.
“Right,” she said, returning to her stoic, unimpressed self. “Hold out your hand.”
I did as ordered and she came forward…and dumped a sports bottle of water over my hand. Nothing happened.
“Holy water?” I asked, wiping my hand down the front of my shirt and pants.
“And a few other things,” she said vaguely. “You can go ahead. The magic will let you through.”
She stepped out of my way, lowering the crossbow to point at the ground. She didn’t, I noticed, remove her finger from the trigger. I felt an itching between my shoulder blades as I walked past the guard, to the magic barrier. I could imagine her raising the crossbow again to aim it at my back. If she remained that cautious, she may actually survive until her twenty-first birthday—if we all survived the night.
I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked through a wall of potentially deadly magic. Though the barrier looked like a curtain of flame, the magic felt cool. It was like walking underwater—if the water was filled with hundreds of stinging jellyfish. My skin tingled where tiny needles of energy brushed over me. I held my breath and rushed forward. It seemed as if the magic had been tasting me. That was a disturbing thought.
I felt a sensation of pressure, and a popping in my ears, as I was pushed through and out the other side of the barrier. Rubbing my arms, I checked to make sure I was still in one piece. Except for a whopping case of goose bumps, I was just the same as when I’d entered.
I looked around the encampment for my friends. Part of me hoped to see them here, under the protection of the Hunters and magic community, but I also wished them home behind wards and solid walls.
Before leaving for my appointment with the city vamps, I’d helped Jinx ready the loft. After carrying in armloads of groceries and bottled water, I had put the hammer and nails to good use. I’d secured plywood over our office window, then returned to the loft to add the remaining iron nails to our line of salt and herbs at every windowsill.
Without my phone, I had no way of checking on my friends. I just hoped that Jinx, Hob, and Marvin were all somewhere safe. I caught sight of Kaye and hoped for her safety as well.
Kaye remained at the center of the casting circle. She was standing on some kind of raised platform, making her visible above the bowed heads of every magic user in Harborsmouth.
Well, nearly ever magic user.
A woman jogged toward me. Her thick glasses slid low on her nose as she checked the clipboard in her hand.
“You must be Ivy Granger,” she said. “You’re prettier than your photograph.” I tried not to groan, wondering which embarrassing picture Kaye had circulated. “Kaye informed us that you were coming. Um, how is it out there?”
“Bad, but it could be worse,” I said. I tried to forget the image of small bodies held in their parents’ arms, and the screams coming from the bay. “The each uisge have attacked the carnival, but the glaistig and her people are fighting against them. After the first attack, the emergency weather sirens started blaring and humans left the area around the water for higher ground. The merrow have also joined the fight, pushing the battle back out into the bay and away from the waterfront.”
But it was only a matter of time before their lines broke and the each uisge poured into the city.
“Glad to hear the city itself isn’t under siege, yet” she said. “Most of us have been too busy here to find out if our efforts are having results. That was us, by the way, triggering the alarm system and casting a huge keep away spell.”
“I thought so,” I said, nodding. “Good thinking…”
Two young men, boys really, ran forward pushing past us. A woman from the casting circle had fallen to the ground unconscious. Blue light flickered from her fingertips, fizzling to nothing as she was pulled free of the circle.
“That’s been happening more and more,” she said. She gestured at the woman being lifted and carried away. “Everyone is supposed to work in shifts, but that last casting, to encourage all humans to leave the waterfront, required more magical energy. Every practitioner had to pitch in. They should be taking breaks again soon though. It won’t help anyone if our circle falls.”
“Do you know if Kaye is due for a break?” I asked. “I really need to speak with her.”
“She needs to rest now more than anyone,” she said. “Stay here and I’ll see if I can have a message passed to her through the circle. Just don’t touch anything while I’m gone.”
With one last glance at her clipboard, she lifted her chin, pushed her glasses further up her nose and turned to face the casting circle. Squaring her shoulders, and holding her clipboard like a shield, the woman looked like she was preparing for battle. Perhaps she was. Convincing Kaye to take a break would not be easy.
*****
I was surprised when the woman returned with Kaye less than ten minutes later. My friend looked exhausted. Even from ten yards away the dark circles under her eyes were evident. Her skin held a sickly gray pallor and a film of sweat reflected off her brow and cheek bones that suddenly appeared too pronounced. She resembled someone who had survived a month starving in a refugee camp.
I bit my lip and tried to force a smile. I was relieved to see Kaye, but her frail appearance was worrying. It was difficult to reconcile the ailing woman before me with the friend whose kitchen I sat in, just hours before.
The woman had an arm around Kaye’s waist, helping her to shuffle along. That was surprising. Kaye must really be in dire shape, if she was willing to let someone assist her. Normally, a helping hand would risk a rap on the knuckles from one of Kaye’s staffs or kitchen spoons.
The woman and I settled Kaye on an overturned crate. Even then, I didn’t receive a cuffed ear or a smack on the wrist. But I stepped back quickly, just in case. The woman with the clipboard walked away at a gesture from Kaye. She was within shouting distance, in case we needed anything, but we had our privacy.
“Ivy,” Kaye said. She coughed into a kerchief that matched the blue of the one tied around her head. It came away with dark, wet blotches that turned purple against the vibrant blue. “Did you have any luck with the glaistig?”
“Yes,” I said. “I made
a deal with her.” That received a shrewd, narrow-eyed look and I quickly continued on. “She has agreed to have her people join us in the fight against the each uisge.”
“Thank the stars,” Kaye whispered.
“The each uisge have already attacked the carnival and wreaked havoc on property at the edge of the waterfront, but your spell worked,” I said. “Every human has left the waterfront. And the merrow have joined the fight. They’ve driven the each uisge back out into the middle of the bay.”
Every living human—the bodies remained where they lay.
“By my wand, I did not think this would come so soon,” she said. “But you have done well, girl.”
“There’s more,” I said. “The glaistig shared a secret about the each uisge. Every each uisge carries a piece of magic seaweed that, when stolen, can render them helpless. The seaweed works similar to the kelpie’s bridle. The way I see it, there are two problems. First, we need to find a way to identify the piece of magic seaweed on a creature that wears their own weight in the stuff. Second, getting close enough to steal the seaweed is extremely dangerous.”
Kaye sat up straighter and a smile slid onto pale lips.
“I may have a solution to our first problem,” she said. Her eyes glittered with a familiar inner light, that only moments before had appeared permanently extinguished.
“Good, because I have an idea about how to deal with the second,” I said.
*****
Kaye had returned to the center of her casting circle. An outsider may not recognize any difference from now and thirty minutes ago, but for me it felt like everything had changed. It’s funny how hope can alter your view of things.