The Maebown

  “No, she won’t.” Candace pursed her lips and put the back of her hands on her hips making her arms appear like boney wings. “Maggie said in her journal that she recognizes Fae when you’re in Naeshura, that’s how she knows who a Fae really is when she is around them. Ronnie and I, we have no idea who is who, except that you always take the same form. Always in the same form.”

  Caorann laughed and looked to Gavin. “You’re right, she is clever. Tell me more.”

  “Your council meetings take forever, right? The next time my mom projects, she needs to see Maggie sitting next to you, Bastien, and the others—and she needs to be in the middle of the group with the elders around her. Only it won’t be you, Bastien, or the others.”

  “And we draw Ozara away how?”

  “Let her know your existing plan. If Ozara thought that you, personally, were sending a force to attack the Alliance position in Africa, and she overheard that Zeus was leading another force from a different direction, like you plan to do, she would jump at the chance to take out the unprotected half of the Coalition.”

  “Yes, that is precisely why we have shared that information with none but the elders. She wouldn’t believe us if we came right out and said where we were going.”

  “Have Maggie do her Air Barrier. Make it seem real. Have Volimar protest the plan for authenticity. Drop a Fae name for a place—don’t use the human name—and have Volimar or Avery suggest a different tactic. Don’t give Ozara the full picture, but give her enough to figure it out.”

  Caorann turned to the window. “We cannot enter through their Seoladán, but we could use the one in the old Ometeo territory. If only we knew whether it was guarded.”

  “I can tell you that,” I said. “I remember where it is from when the Alliance attacked the Ometeo.”

  A few minutes later I had the answer. “There are five guards there. One at the opening, another two miles northwest of it, and then another. They’re spread out like a fire line.”

  Caorann nodded. “Just as I would do. The placement ensures that if one dies, a warning makes it back to the Alliance. Do you know who they are?”

  “The second and the fourth are familiar. They were Seelie guards in the Weald Garden. I don’t know the others,” I said, as I projected their images in my head.

  “I know these Fae. They are all young,” Gavin said.

  “Since we know where they are, it won’t be a problem. Candace,” Caorann turned from the window, “I will do what I can for your parents.”

  Candace sat next to Ronnie, her hazel eyes fixed on Caorann. “Thank you.”

  “Maggie, you can drop the barrier now. Dana is coming, she’ll expect to be let inside.”

  Dana stared at us with suspicion when she entered the cottage. She reacted to being inside like it was a filthy public restroom. “Caorann, the Senate would like to speak with you.” The Senate? Eh, so that’s what they’re calling themselves.

  “Good, I need to talk to them. We’re changing the plan. But first, Maggie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you need anything here? The accommodations are austere.”

  “Food. Please. I’m hungry and I know Candace and Ronnie haven’t eaten since the day before yesterday.”

  Caorann turned and glared at Dana. The accusatory glare had a profound effect—it made Dana angry. “Sean can make you something. I’ll see that it’s done.”

  Great, Sean. I’d always imagined meeting distant relations would be a lot more pleasant than the first time I met Sean. I’d pinned his arms to his sides and contemplated blowing him through the roof. For that matter, he wasn’t going to be thrilled to find out who was coming to dinner. Instead of voicing my concerns, however, I said, “That’d be great, if it doesn’t put him out.”

  Dana looked at me like I’d told a bad joke. “He’ll manage,” she said.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Sean wasn’t any happier to see us than he was when we’d visited two weeks earlier. He didn’t respond to any of the dozen attempts Ronnie made at starting a conversation. With each, Sean turned his head and acted like he hadn’t heard a word. He was handsome, despite the scraggly blond beard. We waited at the rickety dining room table, forcing a conversation about nothing in particular. So uncomfortable. For their part, the Fae stayed outside and seemed to be ignoring us. I invited Gavin to come, but like always, he sensed that the three of us needed a little human time together and opted out.

  After banging around in the kitchen for half an hour, Sean dropped small bowls of thin broth with a few bits of meat and vegetables in front of Candace and me before he tromped back into the kitchen. I couldn’t smell it, and after a tentative taste, the experience didn’t get much better. Luke warm, salty water with a hint of lamb flavor, I swallowed it with about as much enthusiasm as I would pool water. Sean returned with one more and plopped it in front of Ronnie, sloshing watery liquid on the scarred tabletop. No wonder Gavin turned down the invitation—he could probably tell from half a mile what was in store for us.

  “Where is yours?” Ronnie asked.

  Sean turned his hollow blue eyes to Ronnie. Everyone noticed when he wetted his lips. “I ate earlier today.” He spun and walked into the kitchen with all the coordination of a scarecrow.

  Candace winced and dropped the spoon. Ronnie nodded. “I’m going to see if he has any bread.”

  Ronnie reemerged from the kitchen and slowly sat, his eyes on the doorway.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Ronnie shook his head. “There’s not much in there. I think this was his dinner.”

  “I told ya, I ate already,” Sean said from the other room.

  “Sean?” Ronnie asked.

  There was no sound from the kitchen.

  “Hey man, I’m going to keep calling you until—”

  “What?” Sean snapped, poking his head around the corner, eyeing the bowls.

  “Will you please join us?”

  Sean looked at us, his thin lips pressed flat making his cheekbones look even more pronounced.

  “Yeah, please?” I asked.

  He frowned at me, like I was hard to look at, but when Candace spoke, it was like he’d taken a bite of silky chocolate. There was a slight twinkle to his blue eyes, and the edges of his lips threatened to turn up.

  “Will you at least sit with us,” she said, flashing her straight white teeth behind a warm smile.

  He eyed Ronnie and me before looking back at her. “Yeah, I suppose—and I’m sorry I don’t have any bread for ya.”

  “That’s alright. This is pretty good,” Candace lied. “What is it?”

  “Irish stew,” he said.

  She ate a few more bites. Ronnie and I did our bit, swallowing small amounts of the briny mixture. Fishing out a piece of lamb didn’t make it any better.

  Candace, who needed food more than either Ronnie or me, slid her bowl to Sean. “I’m really not very hungry—I’d hate for this to go to waste.”

  Sean acted as though he was doing her a favor, but began ladling one spoonful after the next just a little too fast. I felt horrible for him—Ronnie was probably right. It wasn’t much, but it was his dinner.

  “Do you ever go to Dublin?” Candace asked like she was merely making small talk.

  “No…not anymore. I haven’t been out of County Limerick in twelve years.”

  “Oh,” she said. “You must really like it here?”

  He glanced up, wiping droplets of liquid from his beard and nodded. He shot Ronnie and me suspicious looks, sending us back to our bowls.

  “You see your sister much?” I asked, waiting for the overwhelming taste of salt to dissipate from the surface of my tongue. He had mentioned her the last time we spoke, but apparently, my question was completely unwelcome—he scowled at me.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to butt in.”

  He nodded and glanced to the window, his face turning more and more red. I circled us with an Air barrier. He sat up straight, and his ja
w locked with a piece of lamb clenched between his teeth. I thought for a second steam was going to start pouring off of him.

  “They can’t hear us with it up—you’re free to talk. It’s safe.”

  His face relaxed and he turned to Candace. She nodded.

  “I don’t like it,” he said, gesturing at the Air barrier. “They will be suspicious.”

  “Suspicious of what?” Ronnie scoffed.

  Sean clenched his fists, a spoon gripped in one of them. “Ya don’t have any idea what it’s like here, not any idea at all. I appreciate that you want to play nice with the natives, but me lot in life doesn’t involve such things.”

  “Doesn’t involve what?” Candace asked in a gentle whisper.

  She affected him like a drug. He relaxed his shoulders and fidgeted with the spoon. “Doesn’t involve friends. No, I don’t see me sister—not in five years. She doesn’t like it here and I can’t say that I blame her. I keep this place for them—I keep the grass cut, tend sheep, and I run the bloody stupid tourists off the hill at all hours of the night. The Sidhe don’t like people, and the idiots marching ‘round the top of the hill upset them the most—they’re like a bunch a’ mentals playin’ follow-the-leader. It’s the nature of it—I keep to m’self. I made ya dinner ‘cause they told me to. It’s not that I dislike ya, but sooner r’later, the three of ya will leave and it’ll go back exactly as it was. I don’t have any friends, it ain’t possible—so if you don’t mind, I just as soon you finish and leave me be.”

  Candace welled up. She was an emotional basket case anyway. Sean’s tirade about his lonely life threatened to push her over the edge, but her reaction stung him.

  Sean huffed, “It’s a right holy show I’ve made. Forgive me for carrying on,” he said, standing. “I think it’s best to be getting on with it.” With that he grabbed the mismatched bowls and shuffled off to the kitchen. I dropped the Air barrier before he crashed into it.

  “That was pleasant,” Ronnie whispered.

  Candace wiped her eyes and glared at him.

  “What?” he snorted.

  “Nothing,” she snapped.

  I interjected before they began squabbling. “We should probably leave.”

  Candace stared at the kitchen threshold and then followed us into the night air.

  * * *

  The plan was set. We just needed the right moment. Bastien, Tse-xo-be, Caorann, Dana, Sinopa, and Zeus hid near the Seoladán south of Dublin. Pavati, who had learned Clóca in a few hours, would slip unseen through the Seoladán at Lough Gur to let them know when Chloe returned to Ozara. I waited at the top of Cnoc Aine hill with the elders and six young Fae who had taken the shapes of the awaiting elders. The changelings seemed convincing to me—if I didn’t look below the surface. I hoped Candace was right about her mother. We’d find out soon enough.

  The hours ticked by—it wasn’t a problem for the Fae, who could linger in one place for days, but I started getting cramps and my lower back stiffened from sitting on the ground. As evening approached, we started the canned conversation again and I remained silent, waiting for Chloe’s presence. Down at Lough Gur, the clans divided into two groups, patiently waiting for an assault that wasn’t going to happen. Candace and Ronnie spent time down the road, with Sara, Gavin, and Sean. Dinner with Sean had been an abject failure and afterward he’d been as aloof as ever, but Candace and Ronnie needed human interaction—Sean was better than nothing.

  Gradually coursing across the blue sky, the sun sank behind the western horizon, lighting the thin clouds in a hundred shades of orange. To the east, the first stars were becoming visible through openings in the thin, wispy clouds. That’s when I felt Chloe. A presence moved through my barrier, and I gave the signal. The conversation continued uninterrupted. Caorann’s double making a point, followed by Bastien’s double clarifying his position. They seemed real enough—I hoped Chloe could sell it to Ozara. Volimar questioned Bastien on a point, giving away no clues. Avery joined him. The conversation plodded along, like so many Fae discussions.

  An hour later, after Volimar dropped all the hints pointing to Africa, the fake Caorann turned to the Olympians and the Ohanzee.

  “We cannot afford to linger. Tse-xo-be and Zeus, take the first group and get ready. I will lead the second in an hour. We will converge at dawn.”

  Half the elders stood, and flashed down the hill. Chloe followed them to Lough Gur. She remained close to Petra, the Ohanzee playing the role of Tse-xo-be. If he even moved wrong once, Ozara would notice. One after another, each transformed to Naeshura and dropped into the ground at the stone circle.

  Chloe moved back to us, hovering near me as I chatted with Caorann’s imposter, expressing my concern over being left in Ireland away from the action. A few minutes into our conversation, Chloe’s consciousness shot away. Ozara had what she needed. I gave the next signal and Pavati disappeared. The game was afoot.

  SIXTEEN

  TEXAS

  I watched as Tse-xo-be closed on the fifth guard, the one furthest from the Seoladán. I couldn’t see Tse-xo-be under the Clóca, but I was trailing him, so I knew his approximate location. The guard was in the shape of a red Eagle, perched on the tallest limb in the tropical canopy. Tse-xo-be dispatched the Fae in a flurry of feathers and bright light. Two miles to the southeast and less than a second later, Zeus eliminated the fourth Fae on the jungle floor. I felt its telepathic shriek wash over my mind. The sensation left me feeling a little ill. In half a minute the six ancients gathered around Tse-xo-be and then moved north.

  The six of them were very fast, so it took constant concentration on my part to keep pace. The land beneath us turned from green to brown with scattered spots of green vegetation, and then even the spots of green disappeared. The elders fanned out and slowed. Immediately, I sensed the collection of Fae on the desert floor. I trailed Tse-xo-be as he carefully avoided the energy curtain of a perimeter guard. The raw energy around the center, where I sensed Zarkus, was conspicuously absent. Tse-xo-be paused. Something was wrong and I thought he probably sensed it as well.

  In a flat area rimmed by a dry, brown, jagged stone mountain to the north, Zarkus and two-dozen Fae congregated in a tight circle. Even though my body was half a mile away, my gut was screaming a warning. Something was definitely wrong. It was as if they were waiting on an attack. Get over it, Mags. Everything is fine. Ozara is not here.

  Ozara was gone, at least as far as I could tell. Candace’s family was not anywhere that I could sense. As I drifted past Tse-xo-be, I focused on Chloe. My mind sank deep into the earth. Well below ground, below the mountains, how far I couldn’t tell, I found her. She, Mr. Fontaine, and Kevin were being held in separate caverns. There were two-dozen Fae between them and the surface. Impossible.

  I drifted back to Tse-xo-be. He hadn’t moved. A lean, smooth skinned Arabic looking man stood just a few dozen feet from Zarkus. He kept his eyes on Zarkus’s face, but the essence of all four elements hovered at his fingertips. The muscles in his jaw tensed and he twisted his head just to the left. He’s looking for us…why is he looking for us?

  I couldn’t sense where the rest of our party was, and assumed they were locating their targets. Caorann was supposed to take out Horus, the most dangerous of the Alliance Fae. Bastien originally planned to eliminate Zarkus, but Zeus promised Poseidon, so Bastien was going to focus on the next in line. I didn’t know which Alliance Fae that was. Tse-xo-be would take the next, and Sinopa and Dana were supposed to stay hidden and eliminate any counter attacks.

  Even without my body, I felt jittery. There were so many Alliance Fae that I worried about the elders. Individually, none of the Alliance Fae stood a chance, and if they fled, a huge part of the threat could be eliminated. If they stayed and fought, though, the possibility of losing any of the elders was too frightening—the thought had me struggling against my tether.

  Time seemed to drag on, and another fear settled in my mind—that Ozara had discovered that none of the Coalition w
as in Africa, or that she hadn’t really fallen for our ruse. If she came back through the Seoladán with her force before the elders could escape, it would be devastating.

  Horus winced, and went to his knees. Green energy ripped through his chest, just below his collarbone, and then he collapsed and disappeared in a flash. There was an unmistakable energy in the Alliance Council Area—the terrifying residue of a dead Fae mixed with the unique pattern of Aether. I expected to see Zarkus fall next, and I sensed Aether around him.

  My first reaction was that Zeus had waited an instant too long for Caorann’s taste and she had decided to take the matter into her own hands. My mind refused to recognize what was actually happening until two Clóca barriers fell. Caorann’s and Zeus. She blocked the Aether directed toward her, Zeus could not. Quint and Plasma, stronger than I’d ever seen, sizzled and disappeared when it stuck the shield around Zarkus.

  The Alliance Fae didn’t retreat, those closest attacked with a frenzy I could not comprehend. Zeus went to his knees, his skin burning and peeling off. He struggled to keep the Aether away, but he was no match for it. Caorann blasted Zarkus backwards and cut off the Aether attack, but several hundred Fae closed on her. In an instant, she’d reformed Clóca and moved, but the residual charges of energy bouncing off the barrier left little doubt where she was.

  Two, then three of the Alliance elders died in quick succession. Then beyond them, more fell. Like fireworks, Alliance Fae flashed in death, but there were too many of them. Tse-xo-be blocked attacks on Zeus, as the Olympian struggled to heal. In the process, he gave away his position. The tall African looking Fae I’d seen on the truck closed in on Caorann, with a hundred others. Caorann picked off several in one instant, but her concentration left Zeus unprotected.

  Aether flashed across the fifty-yard distance between Zarkus and Zeus. It dawned on me at that moment that Zarkus was an Aetherfae. Bastien attacked Zarkus from behind, changing positions so quickly Zarkus couldn’t find a clean shot. Tse-xo-be destroyed a dozen young Fae with one swipe of what looked like a Quint bullwhip. Then spinning, he severed the head from a bronze-skinned woman.