Sarah Remy's Blog, page 5

Summer Chapter Two

LOST

Summer watched Barker as he approached the sword. She knew he was afraid by the way he walked, loose and slow, like a lion stalking difficult prey. She’d seen lions at the Central Park Zoo, and on Animal Planet, and she thought they were beautiful.

But she thought Barker was more beautiful by far, with his dusky skin and wild red dreads, and those yellow eyes that seemed to notice everything.

When she was ten, Summer decided she’d grow up and marry Barker, and they’d have pretty yellow-eyed children, and live together in a posh penthouse off Central Park. That was before Winter told her Barker had a boyfriend back at Fairy Court.

Winter lied sometimes, but as she grew older, Summer decided her brother probably wasn’t lying about that and she mostly forgot her crush.

Mostly.

“It’s called Buairt,” she said now, about the sword. “It means ‘Sorrow’.”

“I remember,” Barker replied. He stood over the sword, scrutinizing the blade where it lay on display on Summer’s hotel-room desk. Summer had spread an old Chanel coat across the desk under the sword, partly because the cheap desk was gross, partly because she thought the ugly sword looked better against hounds-tooth.

“I don’t feel anything,” Barker admitted. “Nothing at all.”

Summer, sitting cross-legged on the hotel bed, chewed at her lip. Her mother would go into a temper if she knew they were experimenting with the sword that had killed the Prince of Fairies. Buiart had almost killed Barker, too. It had taken a human priest to save the yellow-eyed fay.

Luckily, her mother was still stuck on the island of Manhattan and had no idea what they were about.

“I think Brother Daniel gave you a soul,” Summer said. “That’s why you don’t feel anything. He gave you a soul, a mortal soul, and now the sword doesn’t want to eat you anymore. Pretty fucked up, if you ask me. But cool.”

Barker shot Summer a disgusted look. She noticed he still wouldn’t touch the sword.

“Souls aren’t accessories,” he said. “And the human gods take no notice of our kind.”

“Ask Brother Daniel,” Summer challenged. “He’ll be back any minute. But first – pick up the stupid sword. Stop sulking, do something useful. Pick up the sword!”

Barker growled. His fingers twitched. Then he bent in a swoop and grabbed Sorrow by the hilt with both hands. His knuckles clenched when he lifted the rapier off the desk. Summer knew the sword wasn’t heavy; she’d carried it herself. She thought maybe Barker was trying to make himself not let go.

She met Barker’s yellow stare. He glared back. The cheap analog clock on the wall over the hotel bed ticked three times. Summer released a long breath.

“See,” she said, relieved. “Nothing. Soul or no soul, it can’t hurt you anymore. Which means you’re coming with.”

Barker set Sorrow back onto the desk. He scrubbed his hands on the fresh new Levis Summer had found on sale at Macy’s. His old jeans had just bagged, he’d lost so much weight. His favorite Stones shirt hung from his shoulders the way her papa’s shirts used to hang on Winter, when Winter was eight, before he’d left home.

“I am not,” he said, “‘coming with’. I’ll get you safely to Yorktown, because I owe it to Himself. After that, my debt is paid.”

Summer drew her knees up under her chin and put on her best pout. She wasn’t really irritated. She knew Winter would change Barker’s mind eventually. She was puzzled. Since she’d been old enough to understand the stories, she’d known every sidhe Exile wanted nothing more than to cheat Gloriana’s geis and find a Way between worlds and return home to Fairy Court. Some of her papa’s people would have killed for a return ticket home. One or two had tried.

Barker, on the other hand, didn’t seem at all jazzed about the Cornwallis Cave, or the possibilities it might hold.

“If Mama knew you’d made it off the island,” Summer said through her pout. “I bet she’d make you promise to be my bodyguard, and to help Winter kill Gloriana.”

Barker ignored her. He walked away from the desk and the sword, instead positioning himself against the closed door dividing Summer’s room from Hannah’s. There he crossed his arms over his chest and went back into what Lolo liked to call ‘CIA Mode’, all watchful and super remote.

Summer squelched a pang of jealousy. She wanted to like Hannah, and she felt sorry for the other girl. But she was tired of watching everyone treat Gloriana’s daughter like she was the queen-of-everything, when really it should be just the opposite.

“You Warded her doors.” Summer slid off the bed, crossed the room, and rummaged in the tiny mini-bar. She snagged a bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms and a tiny bottle of Perrier. “We’ll know when she wakes up. Maybe you should catch a nap, too. Because as soon as Winter gets back you know he’ll want us on the road right away. Win’s always worried about wasting time.”

Barker didn’t answer. He was doing a pretty good job of pretending she wasn’t in the room, but something had him rattled. He might be lounging all panther-like, but Summer could see the jumping pulse in his neck and smell the tang of fear off his lovely mahogany skin.

Even though she sometimes pretended otherwise, Summer didn’t really like watching other people suffer. So she decided to give the older sidhe space and took her snack out into the hotel hall. The carpet and the wallpaper were the same color – a dirty beige with green paisley – and the repeating pattern was dizzying.

She propped the door open with one of Lolo’s discarded shoes, then slid down the door-jam until she crouched on the threshold. She used her teeth to rip open the bag of M&Ms and dug for the green ones.

She’d eaten fifteen green and started on the blues when the elevator down the hall chimed and Lolo jumped out. He came down the corridor in a flat-out run, only slowing when he saw her.

“You don’t need to run, Win’s not back yet.” Summer uncapped her Perrier and took a healthy swig. “Where’s Brother Daniel? You didn’t loose him, did you? We need him.”

Lolo snatched the bag of M&M’s from Summer’s hand. He leaned against the wall and dumped candy into one palm. Winter had made the younger boy wash his dreads in The Plaza’s giant shower; his hair had been full of a year’s dried sluagh goo. Lolo had added red wooden beads and bits of ribbon to his new look, plus a necklace of tiny grinning skulls.

Summer thought he looked a little too Rasta, but at least he smelled better.

“I keep trying to loose him,” Lolo admitted around a handful of chocolate. “He’s scary-impossible to shake and I don’t think he’s even trying that hard.” He shook his head, beads clicking. “We’ve got a problem, Summer.”

Summer slid back up the door jam.

“What now?” she asked, just as the elevator dinged again. Brother Dan stepped out into the hall. A plastic grocery bag dangled from each of the friar’s large hands. He didn’t look in any hurry at all.

“Told you,” Lolo muttered. Then; “Win’s gone.”

“What?”

Summer put her hand against the wall so the world didn’t tilt. Ever since Michael Smith had killed her papa, she’d been practicing not feeling. Every morning after she woke she’d stare at herself in the bathroom mirror for a good five minutes, until she was sure she wasn’t going to cry, and those cold, scream-your-head-off in the shower feelings were safely buried in the pit of her stomach.

She’d almost managed to convince herself that no more Bad Things would happen, because nothing could be worse than watching her favorite parent bleed out on a 6th Avenue sidewalk.

“What do you mean, gone?” There were little patches of white sparkling in the air. She shook her head to clear them and discovered she was leaning on Brother Daniel’s arm, gripping his sleeve with both hands. “What do you mean?”

Brother Daniel led Summer back into the hotel room. He sat her down in the room’s one chair and pushed her head between her knees.

“Breath,” Daniel said. “Your brother’s fine, as far as we know.”

“As far as you know?”

That was Barker; soft, smooth and dangerous. Summer felt a little better hearing his voice. She stared between her Chanel ballet flats at the carpet and reminded her fluttering heart that Barker was almost as good as Winter at fixing things.

“We followed him down into the Metro,” said Lolo. “Then he sort of disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Summer felt a little better. She lifted her head. “That’s just Winter. He disappears all the time. He’ll be back.”

Lolo was holding her abandoned Perrier. He looked down into the mouth of the bottle instead of at her face.

“No. He really disappeared. Like – zap – through his portal.”

“Your friend closed the rift,” Barker argued. “Blew it to hell, along with half the triangle.”

“Yeah, well.” Lolo shrugged. He handed Summer her water, even though she didn’t want it. “It, like, moved, or something. Or maybe he called it up again.”

“He wouldn’t do that!” Summer spat, insulted. “He’d never do that. Win wanted that Way gone more than anything else in the world, because then he could come home.”

Lolo turned away, shoulders slumped. Daniel crouched at Summer’s side. He took her cold fingers in warm hands.

“We watched Winter step into the rift. Lorenzo shouted, but your brother didn’t answer.”

“You should have gone after him,” Summer accused the backside of Lolo’s head. “You should have brought him back!”

“I tried,” Lolo said over his shoulder. “Brother Asshole stopped me. It’s like arguing with a bear – a bear with a shank.”

“It looked dangerous,” the friar replied. “And an empty Glock won’t do you much good against demons, hermano.”

Summer knew Lolo had been carrying Winter’s gun. She didn’t know he’d been carrying it without Richard’s special iron bullets. It occurred to her maybe that was why her brother had gone back into the collapsed Metro: they were out of ammunition.

“He wouldn’t leave me,” she said. “He knows Mama’s counting on him. He wouldn’t leave me. He’s coming back.”

Barker straightened. Summer didn’t like the pity she saw on his usually impassive face.

“We’ll go and see,” he said. To Summer’s surprise he crossed the room and picked up Buairt, scabbard and all. “If the Way is open again, her ladyship will need to know.”

“Better wait until after dark.” Lolo drifted around the room, television remote in hand. “The Triangle is crawling with cops and Feds and Homeland rent-a-guns. It’s like they think it’ll blow up all over again.” He scowled at the TV. “Can’t believe this place just gets local. Who watches local?”

For a vivid minute Summer hated Lolo. Couldn’t he see her world was falling apart? Didn’t he care? She wanted to burst up and pull on his stupid beads until he paid attention.

Then she noticed the way he was chewing a hole in his lip while he played with the remote. She realized he was just as scared as she was and that made her have to put her head between her knees again.

“After dark, then,” Barker said. “What about the Changeling?”

Summer felt the room practically hold its breath as everyone eyed the closed door between suites.

“I’ll stay,” Brother Daniel said.

“You’re big, but without Win here to scare her, she’ll probably set the whole building on fire.”

“I’ve got a few of tricks up my own sleeve,” Daniel dismissed Lolo’s concerns. “I’ll stay.”

 

There wasn’t much moon up when Summer, Barker and Lolo left the Capitol Holiday Inn: just a sickly yellow sliver. There wasn’t much artificial light, either. The power grid still hadn’t recovered from Richard’s bomb. As far as Summer could tell the city blocks were lighted in random and unreliable squares.

She expected Barker to Gather enough light so they didn’t trip over some collapsed junkie or fall into a hole. Instead he pulled three heavy flashlights from thin air, which was really even more impressive.

When he handed Summer hers, the metal casing was still warm.

Lolo whistled softly. “Can you do that? Pull whatever you want from nowhere?”

“No.” She wasn’t going to tell Lolo that she’d spent half of her life trying, and never managed to Summon a single thing. “Neither can Winter.”

“Let’s go.” Barker switched on his light. He stated through the night, black biker-boots soundless on the pavement.

Summer followed, trying to be equally silent. It took a small tug of power, and a lot of concentration. It helped that she’d bypassed fashion and worn a pair of soft-soled sneakers. When they crossed through a gloomy park covered with frozen leaves, Summer didn’t even crack a twig. She felt a surge of pride.

Lolo rustled through the drifts like an eager puppy, swinging his flashlight from side to side.

“He’s cool and all,” he said, aiming his beam at Barker’s heels. “But in a creepy creeper sort of way. I get the feels he’d cut me into little pieces if you asked him too, and he’d probably like it.”

“He would.” Summer was glad she’d remembered her gloves, all the way from Manhattan. It was almost as cold in D.C. as it was up north. She stuck her flashlight in one armpit and zipped her coat up as far as it would go. “He’s sworn to protect me. Sort of like another geis. I’m not sure he’d actually like dicing you up, but he’s good at it.” Then she whispered: “Remember, he’s terrified of the dark.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Lolo demanded. “Hold his hand?”

“Children.” Barker managed to pitch his voice so it slipped around the skeletal trees, a whisper, then rang loud in their skulls. “Quiet!”

Summer muffled a snort of laughter when Lolo jumped like a startled cat.

“I can’t do that, either,” she said, then hurried to catch Barker.

 

The National Mall blazed with the light the rest of the Capitol was lacking. Herds of generators crouched in groups, linked by masses of thick black cable, polluting the night with their rumbles and groans. The generators powered tall, grilled emergency lights, almost all of which shone down into the exposed Metro.

Only, when Summer pressed against yellow police tape, standing high on the toes of her sneakers, she saw there wasn’t much of the Mall Metro left. Mostly it was one gigantic crater, torn out of the earth by explosion, then smashed further into the ground by rogue bits of the fallen Washington Monument. Steam rose from the mix of soil and metal and torn pipe; it rolled back and forth like white fog beneath the lights.

“So much for waiting until after dark,” Lolo said. “Spotlights aren’t gonna keep the sluagh down in their hole.”

“I imagine the mortals have other monsters in mind.” Barker muted his flashlight. He regarded the crater, then the armed men and women in military fatigue surrounding it. “How did you get in?”

“Not this way,” Lolo scoffed. “And it’s not the Marines you should be worrying about. It’s the one’s like her.” Casually, he jerked an elbow sideways.

Summer tried to look without turning her head. A woman in a grey trenchcoat and battered ball cap stood not far away under one of the spotlights. She seemed to be moon-gazing. Then the woman swiveled, looking over the crater and directly at their small group. Summer felt a prickle of unease.

“What makes you think I was worrying about the Marines?” Barker retorted. “Show me how you got in.”

Lolo led them away from the crater. He whistled softly as he walked. Summer couldn’t place the tune. She trailed behind as they crunched over another expanse of frozen grass, past the Smithsonian Institute. The castle was dark, but the glow of emergency lights cast spooky shadows over the brick facade, making her shiver.

She wondered what Barker thought of his new freedom. She’d been allowed to visit Winter once or twice since he’d been sent away and she’d always been excited at the chance to explore a different city. But Barker had gone straight from Fairy Court to Manhattan, then lived centuries trapped on the island.

Summer was a little surprise he wasn’t running about in mad circles, trying to see everything new all at once. Maybe he thought one mortal city was the same as another. Maybe he didn’t feel well enough for enthusiasm or awe.

Maybe he was still mourning her papa.

She buried that thought quickly, squinting hard at Barker’s rigid shoulders until she was sure she wouldn’t cry.

Lolo turned right just past the castle, and walked them south past the Air and Space Museum. The damage from Richard’s bomb didn’t extend much beyond the Smithsonian, except for the dust and a few lost chunks of concrete and grass.

“Win’s portal wasn’t exactly right under the Washington Monument,” Lolo explained. “But close enough. Richard must have set off his C4 as close to the sluagh hole as he could get. MetroRail’s not as massive as the New York Subway, but it’s not small, either. And Richard’s tunnel is on the other side of L’Enfant.”

He gestured again, this time with his flashlight, as they passed L’Enfant Plaza Station. The station was cordoned off and under guard. Summer felt another unwelcome pang of grief. L’Enfant was Winter’s territory and now Richard’s stupidity had started mortals sniffing about.

“Federal Center’s actually closer to home,” Lolo continued. He hopped off the curb, still humming under his breath, then cut sideways across an old, cobblestone alley lined with leafless trees. “And it’s got another totally sweet perk.”

“What would that be?” Barker asked. The sidhe ghosted silently alongside Summer. He’d switched his light back on, muffling the blaze with a wad of his shirt hem, even though Summer knew he could see as well as a cat in the dark.

She tried not to feel sorry for him, in case he heard the sympathy in her head.

“Federal’s far enough away it’s local cops watching it,” explained Lolo. “And they know me.”

“How’s that a good thing?” Summer demanded.

Lolo only shrugged. “No funky fay Glamour required. Just the right words in the right ear.”

“Bran,” Summer guessed. “He taught you a secret police password, or something.”

Lolo made a rude noise.

“Bran’s a suit,” he said, as if Summer had suggested something dirty. “They’re not going to like you, though,” he told Barker. “‘Specially the demon eyes.”

“They won’t notice me,” the sidhe replied. “Lead on.”

 

The two cops guarding Federal Station didn’t exactly smile when they saw Lolo, but they relaxed enough make Summer think they recognized him as a friend. When the tiny policewoman bumped Lolo’s fist and then slapped him on the back, Summer wondered if maybe they were more like family.

“Hola, como esta?” The woman stood proud in her blues, but she was barely taller than Lolo, even in her chunky boots. “What’s happening, mi hijo? It’s not a good night to be out.”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad,” Lolo replied. Summer noticed he kept Winter’s gun carefully hidden under his ratty denim coat. “We’ve got business inside, Mary-Beth.”

Mary-Beth’s bulky partner shifted, but didn’t say anything. Mary-Beth looked from Lolo to Summer. Some of the humor left her mouth.

“This weather, every squatter in the triangle wants to sleep in the tunnels. We’ve just finished clearing them out, best we can. Why would we want to let you in?” She looked Summer up and down again. “You messing with Park Avenue trouble, Lolo?”

“No,” Lolo answered quickly. “No drugs, nada, you know me better, Mar. Business inside is totally kosher, and it won’t take long. Camera’s still out?”

“Like the rest of the electricity.” Mary-Beth’s partner turned his head and spat on the cement, just missing the square of concrete Barker had occupied a few seconds earlier. Barker himself had vanished. “It’s not exactly safe in there, and I don’t mean the structure. Tunnels are wormy with vagrants, and hookers, and some that are looking for that Park Avenue thrill. We can’t round ’em all up, they mouse back in so fast.”

Lolo nodded. “That’s why we’re here. Summer’s lost her brother. Word on the block’s he’s gone under looking for a high. We just wanna find him and take him home before his padre gets wind, or before he picks the wrong dealer.”

Summer felt Mary-Beth’s stare a third time. She scowled at a the toes of her sneakers and tried to look worried. It wasn’t difficult. Her stomach knotted every time she thought of Winter.

He’s not gone, she promised herself, but the toes of her shoes blurred. He wouldn’t leave me.

Maybe the cops noticed the tears leaking down her nose.

“Okay,” Mary-Beth relented. “But you be careful. And stay away from the blast site. That will come down around your ears, you breath wrong.”

“Gracias,” Lolo bumped the cop’s fist again. This time Summer saw the wad of money as it changed hands, a quick flick of green between fingers.

The other cop spat a second time as they slipped into the station’s dark and gaping mouth.

“That looked like a lot of cash,” Summer said once they were out of earshot.

“Not really.” Lolo pointed his flashlight into the depths. Summer saw the prickly slope of a stopped escalator and the impression of squares on the barrel-vaulted ceiling above. “I keep a few Benjamins around for emergencies. Mary-Beth’s got a sister in one of those shiny Connecticut coke hospitals. Her family could use the tax-free donation, no skin off my ass. Knew she’d fall for the lost brother story; Mar’s got a boner for happy-ever-after rehab stories.”

“Lovely.” Barker detached himself from the shadows at the bottom of the motionless escalator. “Your empathy is over-whelming.”

“Talk out loud.” Lolo clattered down the escalator. “Make noise. People down here, they don’t want to be found. Give ’em time to hide away: no trouble.”

Barker watched Lolo with unblinking yellow eyes, but stepped aside and let the boy take the lead. Summer wanted to run back up the escalator and into the night. She took a deep breath and followed Lolo. Barker walked silently at her back.

She’d been in the Metrorail tunnels before, of course. The very first time she’d thought of it as a game; Winter hiding beneath a mortal city, walking among the humans all unknown. Then, he’d given her a tour of Richard’s money-train tunnel, served her Thai food in the makeshift kitchen.

He’d been all of ten. She’d been eight. And Winter hadn’t let her sleep over-night in the tunnels, not once the trains stopped running and the sluagh came hunting. No, come dark she’d been safely tucked away in a nearby hotel with Gabby to guard her dreams.

“Watch it,” Lolo cautioned. The beam from his flashlight arced back and forth across the station platform, picking out bits of trash, and chunks of fallen rocks. “The third rail’s dead, but don’t go tripping over it.”

Summer stood at the edge of the platform. She looked down at the tracks. More trash, and rocks, and in the white circle of her own shifting light: a dead rat.

“Gross. Seriously gross.”

“Iron,” Barker hissed, more interested in the tracks than road-kill. Summer knew it was a reflexive reaction. Most of the Exiles were iron-immune. Centuries of living around mortals and mortal steel dulled the iron-sickness.

But Barker had recently been pierced through by a sword forged of consecrated, Church iron. Summer couldn’t blame him for holding a grudge.

“Chill.” Lolo bent at the knees, then dropped off the platform. He landed in the trench, one foot on either side of the third rail. “You’re cool. Train’s aren’t running.”

Barker seemed to float from platform to dirt. He held up a hand for Summer. She ignored it, hopping into the trench behind Lolo.

“Stinks,” she complained. “Like a toilet.”

“Pinch your nose and suck it up. Follow me. Don’t look to the side, even if they try to make you. Don’t engage.”

“What are you talking about? Engage who?” Summer stood on her toes and peered over Lolo’s shoulder.

Lolo lifted his arm, pointing his light straight ahead. The Federal Station platform ended ten feet ahead. Where the station trench ended, the underground waited, a gaping tunnel mouth. Lolo’s flashlight turned the entrance grey, and illuminated a few more feet past the entrance.

“Them,” said Lolo, and Summer saw they weren’t alone.

Summer Chapter One

WINTER

The moment I stepped into sluagh-world, my lungs rebelled.

I’d hoped to hold that last, deep breath of fresh air I’d inhaled before stepping through the Way long enough to Gather starlight and get a quick look around, maybe even manage a quick Cant for warmth.

But the atmosphere was as bleak as the landscape, and it came at me like a punch to the gut, squeezing the good air from my lungs, hissing as it sizzled against my skin and snuck through my nose.

I collapsed, gagging, and curled into a ball in the sand, arms pressed against my face. The poison air seared the inside of my nostrils, my tongue, my lungs. Even squeezed shut, my eyes overflowed with bitter, caustic tears.

Don’t come home until you fix the problem, scolded a voice from the recesses of my subconscious. It sounded exactly like my mother. Don’t die until you fix the problem, Geimhreadh.

My mother’s the last true Fay Queen. She’s also a supremely cold-hearted bitch. She’s nothing if not stubborn. And I know better than to let her down.

I didn’t die, not then, not there in the grey, gritty sand. I shook and groaned and coughed foul-tasting liquid down the front of my coat and onto the ground. Slowly the fire in my lungs eased. I could breath, if I inhaled and exhaled shallowly.

My tongue felt numb and tasted putrid.

I rolled carefully onto my side, then to my knees. I dashed still-flowing tears from my face and realized my nose was bleeding. In the inky light my blood looked black. I tried to stop the flow with the cuff of my sleeve.

Then I remember the mouse in my pocket.

“Gabby!” It hurt to talk. I dug into the lining of my coat, searching for the warm little body.

My pocket was empty. I checked every other possible place in my coat, in my shirt, in my jeans. Nothing.

My burning eyes made everything blur and waver. I huddled on the ground, shaken, and a cold wind blew up off the lake. The wind moaned as it slipped around grey boulders and scraped across my shoulders. I’ll admit I sat for longer than you’d think, butt planted in the strange sand and knees under my chin, before I understood.

I hadn’t heard a single sound other than the mostly frantic muddle of voices projected into my skull for ten years. Ten years, three months, and fifteen days, and I don’t need marks on a calendar to keep track. The day my mother placed her punishing yellow jewels into the lobes of my ears is a day I’ll never forget.

Gaping like an idiot, I put my hands to my ears.

They popped, loudly, and suddenly I could hear more than just the angry wind. I could hear the thump of my heart in my chest, the scratch of the grains of sand beneath my jeans, and the distant splash of waves on the shore of the lake.

The cold burned my face, but the growl of the wind made me bare my teeth in a disbelieving smile.

I walked my fingers along the curve of my ears. The jewels were still there. I was eight when Siobahn attached them. In ten years I hadn’t found a magic that would remove their torment, and I’d spent a lot of free time looking. Once, on a particularly bad Christmas Eve, I’d tried to cut the fairy amber out of my skin.

Needless to say, it hadn’t worked, and there’d been so much blood Richard had made me swear never to try it again.

“Pog mo thoin,” I muttered. “I can hear.” My voice was deeper than I remembered, more alive than the flat timber I’d grown used to in my head. “I. Can. Hear!”

The last was a howl, as loud as I could get, until my lungs hitched and my throat cramped. I rose on my heels in the sand, laughing. I felt light and bubbly and drunk, just like the time Lolo had snatched a bottle of prime Moët & Chandon from the Capitol Hill Hotel, and the three of us had spent an evening sharing it out as the stars rose in the reflecting pool.

I put two fingers to my mouth and whistled, long and low and sharp. The whistle bounced off the rocks around me, then echoed across the lake. The clear beauty of the sound made me shiver. It also cleared some of the fizzy joy from my head. Common sense woke.

In that strange, empty landscape any sound was loud and I was pretty damn sure I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

I stood up, wincing because the bare skin on my hands and face was already chapping in the harsh cold. My eyes ached and burned. I pulled the collar of my coat up around my throat, and tucked my fists into my armpits. Then I turned around and looked back the way I’d come.

My portal was still there, undulating about four feet above the sand. The rift between worlds was about the size of a refrigerator, wavy at the edges, like too much heat over an asphalt road. I could see clearly through back into the pit. It would be easy to step right back through, back into the D.C. Metro, back home.

Instead I swiveled on my heel, dismissing the rift. I’d come to rescue Aine, and Richard, and I didn’t have time for regrets and second-guesses. I’d made my choice. I wouldn’t change my mind.

My eyes were watering buckets. I squinted, trying to get a better look around. The moon or sun – I wasn’t sure which – hung luminescent in the sky over the lake, but the light it shed seemed to shred away into nothing when it hit the sand. Rocks and low, jagged hill rose out of the ground, one dimensional in the strange twilight.

The shadows and planes seemed off. I couldn’t tell if the rocks hid sluagh or something worse. And my nose, which usually served me well in the mortal world of sweat and stink, was useless in the acrid air.

I started walking toward the lake. The ground slanted gently downhill toward the water. As I walked I scanned the sand around my feet. A small part of me hoped I’d find Gabby, maybe thrown from my pocket as I fell out of the rift. A bigger part hoped I wouldn’t, because I was pretty sure the aes si had been near death when we crossed over, and I didn’t want to find her corpse.

As I got closer to the lake the fine grey grains of sand thickened and became small pebbles. They slipped beneath the soles of my boots, rattling. It took me a few steps to identify the sound, and a few more steps before I could stop obsessing over the scrape of pebble against pebble.

I wondered if every new sound would be the same way: a delicious, all-consuming taste of a feast I’d forgotten.

My stomach growled, reminding me that it had been hours since I’d had anything more than a cup of coffee and a Danish, and even that small gurgle almost sent me into a frenzy of celebration. Except every time my heart lifted it fell back again to that place behind my ribs where trepidation lurked.

As I drew nearer to the water, the air worsened. I pulled my knitted cap down over my forehead, almost past my eyes, and pressed my arm over my nose and mouth. Still, every bit of naked skin stung and burned. The atmosphere grew heavier, humid.

Literature’s my thing, dead poets – mortal and sidhe – are my hobby. I’m no science geek. But I figured out pretty quickly it was the lake poisoning the air, whether through evaporation or osmosis or just the rush of wind over surface water. Waves tossed grey foam up into the air and onto shore. Where the foam hit, steam rose. The boulders nearest the water line were eroded, melted things etched into strange, ugly shapes.

I stopped walking. The black lake spread left and right, mirroring the horizon. I couldn’t see the other side, only the sun/moon mirrored on the water. And either that orb was growing less bright, or my eyes were failing in the mist, because it was getting harder to see where I was putting my feet, and I kept slipping on pebbles and shale.

“Damnu air,” I muttered, one of my mother’s favorite Gaelic curses, to hear my own voice again, and because I was starting to get worried. I’d had no real plan when I stepped through the rift. I’d been thinking only of Aine, and of the monstrous sluagh, and how they’d bleed her into a shell, and then snack on her bones.

I looked over my shoulder, back up the rocky slope the way I’d come. I couldn’t see the Way any longer, but I could feel it. The magic thrummed in my bones, and in my teeth. It was still open. I could turn go back, before the tainted air ruined my lungs and skin, before I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

Instead I continued parallel along in the shore, the moon at my left shoulder, in what I thought of as a sort of southern direction. The beach was pretty level. The slope rose up alongside my right shoulder. I thought maybe the lake had formed at the bottom of a crater, from rain or run-off. I also thought I’d probably be wiser to climb my way out of the hole, away from flesh damaging spray, only I’d noticed something about the shore.

I had to go down on my hands and knees to be sure. The grit was damp, the sand beneath wet. The moisture immediately blistered my palms. I hissed, rocking back up to a squat, barely remembering not to stick my fingers in my mouth. I hated to think what the lake water would do to my tongue.

My watering eyes hadn’t deceived. What I saw made me forget the pain in my hands. Drag marks in the gravel, and where the sand was brushed free of shale, bare foot prints, and not your ordinary pleasant-stroll-on-the-beach picture-book prints. Deep, wicked-looking claw marks scored the ground.

“Found you!” Triumphant, I Gathered starlight for a better study.

Only, the starlight didn’t come. For the first time in my life the Cant failed. I could feel the magic buzz on the tips of my fingers, but instead of exploding into life it fizzled away, like a Fourth of July rocket with a bad fuse, all anticipation and no explosion.

I tried three more times before I gave up.

“Well, crap.”

I’d been born a Fay prince in a mortal world. I’d never been without the reassurance of innate power. Maybe I’d felt a little sorry for humans, that lesser race who couldn’t summon fire with a word, or turn an especially annoying family member into a frog, if only for a few hours.

The sidhe are a prideful folk. What had Aine called humans? Insects. And useless.

Now it appeared I was no more than a useless bug, and shit-out-of-luck.

“Okay. Okay, right.”

Maybe I panicked a little. Maybe it was growing way too dark to see, and it was getting harder and harder to breath, and if I couldn’t have my magic, I really wanted my Glock, but I’d left the pistol on the other side with Lolo, because I hadn’t planned ahead.

Rookie mistake. Real rookie mistake, Win.

I wasn’t sure whether that was Siobahn or Bran’s voice my subconscious was borrowing, but they were both right. I always plan ahead. It’s how I survive.

I crouched on the sand, arms wrapped around my chest, maybe shivering a little, maybe trying to convince myself that it wasn’t magic or iron bullets that made me fierce. That it was quick thinking and a thick skull that’s kept me alive in the D.C. underground for the last decade, the Dread Host on my tail.

Only, I’ve never been particularly good at pep talks, and I just couldn’t get this one to fly. Truth is, I might have shuddered there on the beach until the fog etched my skin from my bones and my lungs bubbled with poison, except as the moon gleamed its last effort, somewhere down the shore someone sounded the Horn.

It felt like my heart jumped into my throat, and not because the sound was clear and lovely and real. It rang in my ears, loud as I’d always imagined the carol of church bells, but it was more than music I’d forgotten, it was a family legend, and it was a call no sidhe could ignore.

The Queen’s Horn. Once Finvarra’s, it was herald and threat and summons all at once. Even without my magic it was a trumpet I couldn’t resist; my blood pounded in response.

I staggered to my feet and half-shuffled, half-ran toward the repeating blast. In the dark I stumbled and fell several times, scraping my already tender palms. I don’t know how long the call lasted, or how many times the Horn sounded. I do know the spell lasted even after I couldn’t run anymore and I had to crawl like a worm over the shale, helpless to refuse.

Eventually my strength gave out and I lay curled on the ground. The Horn still pulled, a string to my very center. I had just enough sense to do what I should have done in the first place: I yanked my coat over my head, and pressed my fists hard against my ears, stuffing fabric into my ear canal.

It worked, the way biting the inside of your cheek works when you can’t reach into your boot and scratch that insane itch on the bottom of your foot. Which is to say, I managed to muffle the sound, but I couldn’t block the Horn completely.

I’m not sure how much time passed before the dark landscape grew silent. I know when I came back to my senses I was face down on rock, my fingers still stuffed in my ears. Cramps knotted every muscle in my body, and I had sand in my mouth; I could feel the poisonous grains eating into my tongue.

“Winter. Get up.”

Something grabbed me under the elbow, and hauled me upright out of the sand. The part of me that had grown up in the Metro chasing ghouls knew it was time for heroics. My adrenaline surged, but I could barely sway on two feet, and I couldn’t see at all. Simply breathing was an impossible, painful task.

I knew I was dying. Instead of angry, or defeated, or even scared, I just felt stupid. Really stupid.

“Winter! Pay attention, child!”

I’d heard that voice in that tenor in my skull for most of my life. I’d learned better than to ignore it.

“Gabby?”

“This way.” The grip on my elbow tightened, supporting my weight. I knew it hurt badly, that pressure against my blistering flesh, but the pain was growing distant, and I couldn’t drum up enough energy to care.

“Hurry, Winter. Walk!”

That made me giggle, because I couldn’t even feel my feet. In fact, my entire body seemed a foolish thing, too heavy for use, too much work to tend. A few gentle wriggles and I would float free.

Gemreidh! She slammed me back into my almost-corpse, built an invisible wall around the bit that was me, and filled the rest of my head with Gabbiness. Then she made my body walk, a puppet to her strings.

She’d never done such a thing before; she’d never had the strength to even Summon a slice of pepperoni from my plate to her tiny paws. And I know she’d tried.

It took a powerful Cant to possess someone so easily. My father might have managed, but I’m pretty sure it’s beyond even Siobahn’s skill. Before Gabby had forgotten how to be sidhe, before she’d become mouse, she’d been aes si, a skilled sorcerer, valued beyond gold and jewels in the Fairy Court.

I hated being locked away in my own head. I fought with everything I was to break free, but my magic is nothing compared to an aes si. Our roles were reversed; I was the mouse scratching on the prison wall.

“I’m sorry, Winter. It’s the only way.”

I heard honest regret, but also determination. She knew what she did was loathsome, but she wasn’t going to let me free. This was far worse a betrayal than when my mother stole my hearing.

Gabby was taking all of me. And I’d never loved Siobahn as I did the aes si.

I howled, all rage and disbelief and insult.

“Oh, child,” Gabby sighed, ineffably weary.

Then she snuffed me out.

 

I inched back to wakefulness under my own power, and immediately wished I hadn’t. My lungs were on fire; my mouth and tongue swelling toward asphyxiation, my eyes crusted shut. I clutched blindly at my throat, clawing against strangulation.

“Drink this. Quickly.” 

At least this time she gave me a choice. Obedient in desperation, I opened my mouth. Someone poured sweet, warm liquid onto my tongue. The drink stung like liquor when it swirled around my teeth, then, impossibly, began to sooth.

“Swallow,” Gabby ordered.

I tried. I choked, gagging the draiochta back up and all over my chin. The potion hurt worse than Cold Fire on my suppurating flesh, but it healed even as it stung.

“More,” I begged.

A cup touched my lips. This time I was able to swallow a mouthful, then a large gulp. The draiochta bubbled as it ran down my throat and into my gut, but this time I kept it down. All at once my throat unlocked. My lungs eased. I could almost take a full breath.

“Good. Now your face.”

A wet cloth soothed my fingers. Another pair of hands helped me lift the cloth to my face. Gingerly I rubbed it over my cheeks, and across my eyes. The potion felt unbelievably horrible and indescribably wonderful at the same time. Groaning, I pressed the cloth into the corners of my eyes.

“Bless us.”  I could hear the rush of relief behind Gabby’s sigh. “Your mother always said you were my punishment, Gemreidh, but I never thought I’d been so wicked. How many times have I watched you almost die, child?”

“Three times. Maybe four.” My lips still felt floppy. I rubbed the cloth carefully against my mouth. “I’m stubborn. But I thought I’d killed you, Mistress.” Tears leaked between my sticky lids. I let them fall.

“Child.” Hands cupped my trembling fingers. “It takes more than a jump between worlds to kill this old woman.”

Wary, I opened my eyes. Even though I’d felt her touch, I still expected the mouse. Instead I sat almost nose to nose with an unfamiliar fay elder.

Mistress. Wise-woman. Wizard. Aes si. Before she’d earned exile for conspiring against the Fairy Court, Gabriel had been advisor to Kings and Queens, valued for her powerful magics and her treasure trove of old sidhe knowledge.

I’d known her always and only as white mouse with a granny’s protective nature and a preference for ‘healthy’ teas.

I couldn’t help myself; I scooted back away from her touch. I don’t like or trust strangers, and I’ve cultivated a really large bubble when it comes to unfamiliar fay; they’re usually half-mad and they’re always dangerous.

Mistress Gabriel pressed her lips together. She huffed slightly. The sound of her disapproval was new, but the wrinkle above her nose belonged to the mouse. I could almost see imaginary whiskers twitch.

I relaxed enough to glance away and look around. Grey rock closed in on either side, behind and in front. A low ceiling almost scraped the top of my head, and I’m not tall, especially when groveling in the dirt.

“Nice hole.” I couldn’t help but notice the bright ball of Gathered starlight glowing merrily against the ceiling. “Bit of a step down from Metro. Where are we going to put the fridge?”

Gabby huffed again. She was tall, taller than me, taller than Siobahn, maybe even taller than my father, and Malachi was the oldest sidhe I’d known. Gabby had to curl in on herself beneath the rock ceiling. She looked uncomfortable.

But alive. Very much alive.

I grinned, and it hurt, but it was better than the tears, and I couldn’t stop.

“A good rat knows when to hide. Small spaces work best.” She shook her head, at herself, I thought. “And this one is far enough away from the lake that the air is breathable.”

She’d plaited her long white hair into a single braid down her back, and conjured white robes to match. Her right wrist was bound in the same fabric, the make-shift bandage still red and bloody.

“Christ, you’re hurt! I thought you were dead.” I knew I sounded like an idiot, but I couldn’t help it. Maybe I was managing to smile and weep all at the same time, maybe I was falling into a few ragged pieces. I reached for a simple Healing Cant. My magic rose and retreated, useless, there and then not.

“It doesn’t work.” Baffled, I looked up. “I can’t get it to work.”

Gabby nodded. Gloriana created this prison to keep the Dread Host confined. Most sidhemagic is useless here, else they would have freed themselves long before you accidentally ripped a hole between worlds.”

“Most?” I echoed. The Gathered starlight in the ceiling, no larger than a tennis ball but white and clear, pulsed with Gabby’s heartbeat. And I knew she hadn’t carried that healing draiochta through the Way in her mouse cheeks.

“There are other ways,” she replied, arch.

Gabby rescued me from the streets of D.C. when I was eight. She’d taught me how to survive on trash and hand-outs, in soup-kitchens and YMCA bathrooms. She’d taught me how to fight the sluagh, and she hadn’t laughed when I’d sworn to protect every mortal in the Capitol from the Dread Host’s predatory hunt, even though she must have known as I knew now that it was an impossible task.

Siobahn broke my heart. Gabby healed it. And although her sidhe face was harder to read, I knew when my mentor was talking shit.

“What other ways?” I demanded. She twitched, guilty and, looking across at her bandaged wrist, I understood.

“Blood Magic.” I hissed.

Gabby lifted her chin, defiant, and just missed cracking her skull on the ceiling.

“You were dying, child. And, aye, so was I. We were all but corpses on the sand, and I won’t let your mother say I’ve failed her.”

“My mother hates Blood Magic more than anyone. More than anyone,” I added, “except you.”

My family plus one hundred more sidhe were exiled from Court for protesting the Queen’s casual and careless use of Blood Magic. I’d been maimed because I’d been too young and too proud to resist its temptation. Blood Magic is a perversion of the old, true magic, and like all perversions, it walks hand-in-hand with corruption.

“You should have let us die.” I said, bitter. “Mother won’t forgive us this, not now. Better we’d stayed corpses on the sand.”

Gabby shifted. Grey dust off the rock stained her robes, and blood still ran sluggishly from beneath her bandages.

“Better I’d stayed a mouse in Manhattan,” she retorted. “But you had other plans. There are some stories even Siobahn doesn’t need to hear. We’ll go home, and we won’t speak of this. Ever.”

I stared around the hole, at the walls, at the low ceiling. At the pulsing Starlight, at the scars slowly healing on my hands, at the blood and pus crusted on the discarded rag, my blood and pus.

My jeans and coat were tattered and torn where I’d fallen on sharp rocks trying to answer the Horn’s call. Somewhere I’d lost the knit cap Lolo had given me. My boots were still in one piece, and probably the only shiny thing about the mess that was me.

When I’d fidgeted and wiggled and looked around at everything except my mentor, and finally couldn’t dick around anymore, I met Gabby’s steely regard.

“I’m not going home,” I said.

Summer Serial

As a run-up to the Summer’s early spring publication date, I’ll be posting the first ten or so chapters in an orderly, weekly fashion. A teaser-taste, so to speak. Enjoy!

If you like what you read, and wonder what happened before, you can find Summer and her friends here, in volume one of The Manhattan Exiles.

 

 

Obsessions

Sometimes an idea, attraction, desire, hunger gets stuck in the mind and no matter how hard one tries to chase it away it comes circling back, an ear worm of the soul.

I'm no angel, but I am a good person, and so when those soul worm obsessions threaten to damage real life, I put them down on the page, my fantasy life.

What do YOU do?

Started

Chasing Fire and am already nearly finished. I find the Montana Zulies as attractive as the heroine/hero mix, maybe because Montana is my backyard.

Rattlesnakes and Bears

Spent the last two weeks running about like a headless chicken, trying to show one horse, rehab another horse and take care of two sick children all at the same time. I'm not sure I even glanced at the computer.

I did manage some time at our lake cabin, sweeping and setting up for summer - if summer ever comes.

Almost stumbled upon a black bear wandering in the woods, luckily he paid no mind to me. The giant rattler I later encountered squiggling across the barn road also found me unremarkable. I can't say I complained.

In between spring cleaning I finished G.R.R. Martin. Very pleased the second time around, probably even more enjoyable than the first read.

I've picked up Julia Quinn, trying to slow down the busy and get back in the mood for kisses and conversation.

May The Fourth Be With You

Don't forget to celebrate May the Fourth, or International Star Wars Day. I plan to don my son's Captain Rex Clone Trooper helmet and stomp around the house, shouting orders.

And speak in Yoda tones, I may.

Took GRRM with me to my yearly physical. I like the addition of Theon and Davos as chapter POVs. I am trying and failing to feel some sympathy for Theon. Davos I like a lot, the Onion Knight.

The rest of today will consist of cleaning, recess aiding and writing - hopefully outside in the warmer weather. 60 degrees or above deserves Woohoo!

Teacher Appreciation Day

Don't forget to stop and appreciate those special instructors who taught you to love the written word.

Teacher, grandfather, big sister, coach.

We honored our 5th and 2nd grade teachers with cupcakes.

They Say It's Your Birthday

A birthday at the Remy Abode today.

I've made chocolate mint chip cake, the green beans are simmering and the mashed potatoes waiting. The steaks are happy on the grill in the rain. Yuuuum.

Being a sweet tooth I'll eat less meat and more cake.

All this cooking after a day at the barn setting up jump courses and then jumping the same fences. At least we were outside. EVERYTHING is better done outside.

Yes, everything.


A Game of Thrones finished nicely. I remembered Joff's betrayal as I came upon it, and I remembered the dragons in the pyre.

I remember nothing of A Clash Of Kings so I am very much looking forward to it tonight.

Bloomsday

Another Bloomsday 'race down'. 8 miles in lovely weather. The sun came out to warm our bones and I actually came away sunburnt.

Which I shouldn't celebrate, but I am, just a teeny tiny ttch.

Did absolutely nothing constructive today, although I do plan to finish reading A Game Of Thrones tonight.

I do so wish Tyrion would just stab his daddy. What an annoying man. And I can't remember if he improves or dies.

Oh! Finally watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I last night. Lovely scenery. That's really the only positive thing I can say about it. Not that there was anything negative to say, exactly. But...

Lovely scenery.

Behold The Turtle

Pages is installed and I spent a good two hours last night working from it. As a long time Microsoft User I can say the switch over is pretty simple. Not sure why I waited so long to switch, but we'll see.

Started on the new manuscript, which as yet has not even a working title, poor thing. It's simply The Book With The Ghost In It.

Today we shall install fencing around the vegetable garden and then make for the barn.

'We' as in the queenly we, although I am lacking the fancy yellow hat.