Destroyer Rising (25 page)

Bubbles sniffed and curled up on the stony earth.

“That’s how her spirit returned to the ley lines?”
Mike asked. “The cu sith was like a link home?”

Foster nodded.

I frowned and watched the cu sith panting beside the
fairy. Without access to the ley lines, Cara’s spirit never would
have returned to our realm. She would have faded away to nothing
here, never returning to the lines to reach the eternal sleep of
Faerie.

“Take us home,” Foster said, looking up at Mike.

Mike nodded and drew the Smith’s Hammer from his
belt. He started carving patterns into the stone around us until
the fairy spoke again.

“Maybe there’s still time to stop Sam.”

My eyes snapped to Foster. “What?”

“They heard from Vassili. He’s offered to treat with
the Pit.”

“Bullshit,” I said, my heart lurching at the thought
of Sam already being in more danger. “What’s he want?”

Foster shrugged. “Tanks arrived in the city after you
left. We don’t know what the military is planning either.”

“Fucking hell. What next?”

Foster ran his fingers through the cu sith’s fur. A
crease formed in his brow. “There are other things that worry me.
Glenn’s actions will shatter the Courts.” Foster looked up at me.
“To betray the Sanatio?” He shook his head. “I don’t know, but it
will be violent.”

“Whose side are we on, then?”

Foster frowned and looked away.

“Ready,” Mike said, breaking into our darkening
conversation. “Now, this may not be the most pleasant trip you’ve
ever taken, but I shouldn’t have to set you on fire.”

“I guess I should be happy for the little
things?”

“Yes,” Mike said an instant before he slammed the
Smith’s Hammer into the center of the circle. Fire raced across the
design, looping through the knots and whorls before a pillar of
flame shot up around us.

I waited for the burn as my stomach lurched to one
side and heat surrounded me. Instead I felt acceleration like I’d
been fired out of a cannon, and then nothing. The stop was as
sudden as the start, and I fought against my urge to puke.

The room spun, and I slowly looked around. We were
back at Death’s Door, on the floor of the library upstairs.

“I have the spins,” Elizabeth said, holding a hand
over her mouth. “Oh god, this sucks.”

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. A tuft of gray hair
appeared at the end of the hall, and a fairy zipped past before
exploding into Aideen’s full-sized form.

“Damian?” Frank said. “You’re back. Sam’s been so
worried.” He pointed behind me. I turned to look and found Sam, one
arm slouched over a chair. She was slack-jawed and snoring.

Bubbles hopped over me and pounced on my sister. Sam
woke with a start, flipping the cu sith into the air. I could have
sworn Bubbles was scowling at the peak of her flight, legs dangling
for a moment near the ceiling, before Sam caught her and set her
down.

“Damian?” Her eyes flashed around the group before
locking on Vicky. The child was still sleeping on Happy’s back.
“How is she? Did it … did it work?”

I nodded.

“Where’s Cara? She went to help.”

Silence overwhelmed the room.

“Foster?” Aideen asked, her voice not much above a
whisper.

His head tilted forward as he shook it, his lips
twitching into a frown. “She’s gone.”

Aideen winced and stepped around me. “I’m so
sorry.”

“What?” Sam said, jumping out of her seat. “Cara? No
… no!”

Aideen wrapped Foster up in her arms and they stayed
that way for some time. Frank made his way over to Sam, and her
tears cut me to the bone.

“What about Glenn?” Mike asked, breaking the silence.
“Who do we ally ourselves with now?”

It brought me back to my earlier question. “Whose
side are we on?”

“Nixie’s,” Aideen said, glancing up, “and possibly
the commoners’. It may be time they learned how to kill the
Fae.”

“What?” Foster said, leaning away from his wife.

“We can’t battle Faerie itself,” Aideen said, placing
a hand on either side of his face. “Not on our own.”

I stared blankly at the fairy. Is that what this
meant? We were going to go to war against Faerie? “We can’t.”

“Not at first,” Aideen said, “but eventually. We need
to see how the Courts fracture around the death of the Sanatio. If
fortune is with us, we may have powerful allies to pursue the
king.”

“We need to be sure they know the truth,” Foster
said, his hands clenching into fists.

“And so they will.”

My eyelids tried to close, and realized how exhausted
I was. Elizabeth, the blood mage, was already snoring, leaning
against Sarah, who in turn had smashed her face up against Mike the
Demon.

“You should sleep,” Aideen said. “We can talk in the
morning about more of what has happened in your absence.”

“All good things?” I muttered as I slid down to lean
against the ghost panda.

“Rest now, and find peace in the child you
saved.”

I thought that seemed like a nice thing to say as my
eyes fell closed. There was peace, briefly, before the nightmares
came screaming back to greet me.

***

I sat at the little Formica table in the morning,
flanked by a blood mage, my sister’s epic bedhead, and Frank. Mike
and Sarah had left. The fire demon wanted to find Koda and ask him
what, exactly, I’d done to Sarah. Lord knows I didn’t know. Vicky
slept upstairs, still nested against Happy. The panda refused to
move, but he did let me toss an order of hash browns down his
throat. I didn’t think that was standard panda fare. Maybe standard
samurai panda fare?

Jasper rolled around the center of the table, his
eyes locked on the tower of breakfast sandwiches Frank had brought
in, while Bubbles sat stoically beside Sam.

“I need to check in with Ashley,” Elizabeth said.

I took an excessively large bite of a sausage
biscuit. “Ymmf tmmf cmmf wff?”

Elizabeth just stared at me.

“He asked if you want to come with us,” Sam said,
giving me an exasperated look.

“Oh, are you going to visit the Coven?”

I nodded.

“Good,” Frank said. “Some of the amber Ashley ordered
came in. We got some new tea for her too. You mind taking it with
you?”

“Not at all,” Elizabeth said.

Foster and Aideen glided out of the grandfather
clock, gently landing beside the leaning tower of sandwiches.

“Morning,” I said.

Foster nodded and started pulling a wrapper
apart.

I glanced at Aideen and tried to ask how Foster was
doing, without asking how he was doing. Aideen looked at the fairy
and then back to me. She nodded slightly and smiled a bit. I hoped
that meant good things.

Sam picked up another breakfast sandwich and
unwrapped it. Bubbles wiggled a little bit and sat up straighter.
Sam held it out and a wet pink tongue rolled out to slap against
the tabletop.

“Eww, no,” Sam said. “That’s not what I meant.” She
placed the sandwich on the cu sith’s tongue, and Bubbles sucked it
right in, snorting and smacking as she finished it in a few quick
chomps.

It reminded me of Cara, being lenient and strict with
the cu siths all at once. I’d never hear that stern voice again,
never be silenced by one of her epic glares. I took another bite of
food, but it tasted bland and lifeless. I took a deep breath and
set the biscuit on the wrapper. It was going to be a long time
before things were back to normal.

Jasper rolled up to Sam and stared.

“You want one too?”

A gaping black hole opened at Jasper’s center, lined
with silver gray fangs. His cohesive furball state broke down into
piles of dust bunnies. Dust bunnies with a cluster of fangs. Sam
tossed a sandwich in without unwrapping it. Jasper didn’t seem to
mind. Three seconds later he spit out a fully intact wrapper, with
no trace of sandwich, before pulling himself back together.

“Things have gotten worse since you’ve been gone,”
Frank said.

I raised an eyebrow.

“The military presence in town is huge.”

“We heard about the tanks,” I said.

“That’s only part of it. They placed watchtowers down
by the river and up by the hospital. Manned twenty-four seven by
snipers.”

“What?” I said.

Sam nodded. “I’ve seen them.”

“Is it just here?” I asked. “I mean, just in Saint
Charles?”

Frank shook his head. “It’s everywhere, really. If a
Fae sighting has been reported, chances are good the military has
moved to investigate.”

“They treat us like an enemy,” Aideen said. “They
don’t understand that we have lived beside them for millennia.”

“Their ego probably stings from the failed bombing
run on Falias,” Elizabeth said as she wiped her fingers off. “Now
they want to flex some muscle.”

“They already had a presence in every major city,”
Frank said. “This seems unnecessary.”

I agreed with him, wholeheartedly. “It’s what
governments do,” I muttered. “Overreact and shoot things.”

Foster looked up at Frank. “They’ll have plenty to
shoot when the dark-touched threaten their cities.”

“How many are there?” Elizabeth asked. “Should we be
worried?”

“We don’t know how many crossed over,” Aideen said.
“The Seal was broken long enough for any number of them to be in
our realm now.”

I tried to imagine those things attacking humans.
Commoners wouldn’t stand a chance against a super-charged vampire
that could heal itself from almost any wound.

“You never need to worry in the daylight,” Foster
said quietly, wiping his hands off on the corner of a napkin. “The
sun is deadly to the dark-touched.”

“What will Glenn do?” Frank asked.

“Without Mom there to stop him,” Foster said, “he
could do anything. I don’t know. If he’s working with Hern, they
could be planning to expand Falias across the country.”

The thought of that sent a chill down my spine.
Enough people had died already. How many more would have to die for
that? A small ocean of muttering sounded in my head, and it was
only then that I realized the voices had been quieter, more like
they had been in the Burning Lands.

Sam held out her hand to Foster and he climbed onto
it. She held him up to her shoulder and he hopped off, settling
into her wild tangle of hair.

“Your bed head is a disaster,” Foster said, pushing a
snarled knot of hair to the side.

Sam grinned. “Cut if off and I’ll swat you.”

“She’s so cute when she’s violent,” Foster said.

Aideen sighed. “The key to my husband’s heart,
smashing things.”

Elizabeth laughed and tossed a wrapper into the
trash. “What about Vicky?”

The room quieted. I glanced toward the staircase at
the back of the room. “I think she should go home.”

The bell on the front door jingled.

“I’ll check it,” Frank said. He froze at the
saloon-style doors. “Sergeant?”

“Frank,” a pleasant voice said. “I wanted to give you
fair warning.” The pleasant tone tightened and the man grunted in
pain. “The commander is planning on issuing a curfew. You need to
be locked down by ten o’clock tonight.”

We all sat silently at the table, listening in to the
conversation, until its pitch took a sharp turn.

“Is that blood?” Frank asked, pushing through the
door. “You need a hospital. What the hell are you doing here?”

“We lost a unit by the river, not far south of the
bridge.”

I sprang out of my seat and followed Frank into the
front of the shop. “Fuck.”

The sergeant turned at Frank’s insistence, revealing
the slash tracing his shoulder and deepening as it reached his
kidney. He had to be in shock, or he’d have been screaming.

“Aideen!” Frank shouted, his foot slipping on a thin
trail of blood. “Oh Jesus, Aideen!”

The fairy ran in behind me. The sergeant’s eyes
glazed over. He barely took notice of the seven-foot fairy as she
circled around him.

“Poisoned. This is no ordinary wound.” She began
whispering and tracing the edges of the cut. Green fluid pooled at
the base of the gash before floating to the fairy’s hand. “Who did
this to you?”

“The river. It was the damndest thing. Just … I need
to sleep.”

“Hold him still,” Aideen said. “The shock will fade
when the healing begins.”

“Can I help?” Elizabeth asked, moving up beside
me.

Aideen shook her head. She frowned and framed the
wound with her hands.
“Socius Sanation.”
White light bathed
the room, bright enough that the fixtures and people turned to pale
outlines against a sun.

The sergeant screamed a moment later and wrenched
away. His arm slipped in my grasp until I locked it down. He shook
and cried out as the wound tightened and closed. He slid to the
floor when the light faded. I helped Frank lower the sergeant.

“What … what was that?” he said, looking around
frantically. “Aideen?”

“You are healed now, Sergeant Park.”

The man looked torn between gratitude and horror.
“Frank said I’ll owe you a child. I can’t do that!”

Aideen scowled at Frank.

Elizabeth snorted a laugh, and then covered her mouth
with both hands.

“No, no,” Frank said. “It was a joke. Relax, you
don’t owe anybody a thing.”

I’d seen the sergeant before. I was sure of it, but
Frank had an easy way with the man like they were at least
acquainted. It was a mystery to me whether I’d had my nose buried
so deeply in research that I hadn’t noticed the military presence
as much as I should have the last few days, or if Frank had a
history with Sergeant Park.

“Tell us what happened,” Aideen said.

Park’s brow furrowed and he rubbed his forehead. “I
don’t know exactly.” He struggled back to his feet. Frank grabbed
him the stool from behind the register and the sergeant thanked
him.