Rise of the Lycans: Shadows And Secrets

Chapter 26 – Realms

Maeve

The decorations were gone, the pub was clean, and Remington was still nowhere to be found all morning. Most places are closed for the holiday, except for pubs and restaurants that are mostly open for tourists. New Year's Day is an official holiday in Scotland with long-standing traditions. Most people spend it visiting friends and family, eating, and exchanging gifts.

“It’s my favorite holiday in Scotland,” Kit mused while we walked along our usual path in the park.

“How long have you been here?”

“Here?” She repeated.

“In Scotland or the pub. None of you have a noticeable accent, and I know you’re demons.”

“Since before you were born,” she paused for a long moment. “Balor loved Scotland, everything from the Highlands to the Lowlands. The beauty of bonnie Scotland was unmatched in his eyes. He spent so much time in this realm that he developed a slight accent,” she smiled fondly. “He opened the pub as a haven for benevolents who wanted to escape.”

“Escape what?”

She glanced nervously over her shoulder before she whispered, “Asmodeus.”

“Tell me about Asmodeus?” I asked, sitting down on the bench near the fountain.

“He’s a powerful and malevolent demon,” she replied, sitting beside me.

“Is he the Demon King?” I asked, and she choked down a laugh.

“No, but he wants to be so he can cast out what’s left of the benevolent demons.”

“Why?”

“Because we choose to bring humans sweet dreams instead of nightmares, we choose to help instead of harm, to guide instead of mislead, and he doesn’t like it.”

A young couple slowed at the cast iron fountain before us, and we sat quietly. He held out his phone at arm's length, trying to capture the massive fountain behind them, along with the picturesque castle on the hill.

“Excuse me,” he said in a southern-sounding American accent. “Can you please take a picture of us?”

“Of course,” Kit replied sweetly, reaching for his phone.

The splash of water flowing in the fountain was peaceful and soothing. Tipping my head back, I let the crisp, fresh air fill my lungs and admired the clear blue sky. The barking of a dog in the distance drew my attention, and I instinctively turned my head to look.

I saw his red hair first, then the gray hair that belonged to Dori. I quickly yanked the hood of my coat up and tucked my hair in before pushing off the bench. As if she sensed my panic, Kit returned the phone and came to my side.

“Walk to the trees,” she whispered.

“Can you shadow jump?”

“Remington would never let me take you out if I couldn’t,” she replied as we reached the cover of the trees. Everything dimmed, and I knew the shadows concealed us.

“Wait,” I breathed out as an intense onslaught of kicking hit me again. I braced my hand against the tree and took a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” Kit asked. “I should get you back.”

“Just… give me a minute.” I rubbed my belly, hoping to soothe my little gymnast. It was just the two of them, Rex and Brianna were nowhere in sight.

Affection flooded my chest, and I wanted to run to her. I missed her cooking, the smell of real bacon in the kitchen mixed with her favorite black coffee. I even missed that old Elvis music Dori played in the kitchen and the way she seemed to know everything.

“We can go when you’re ready,” Kit whispered. “I’ve cloaked us, but they might still be able to scent you.”

“This is the Ross Fountain,” I heard Dori say. “I thought people jumped into the water naked on New Year’s Day around here. Something about dunking your donuts…”

“It’s called Loony Dook, and it doesn’t take place in a fountain,” Flaym told her.

“Are people naked at this dooky dunking?” She asked.

“It’s a Loony Dook, Grandma. People jump into the estuaries or lakes. I hear it helps with hangovers,” Flaym explained.

“I can imagine what the freezing water would do for the old meat and potatoes,” she tittered. “This loony dipping might be more popular if it helped slow aging like those faerie pools.”

“I like the old gal,” Remington chuckled, and I stifled a surprised scream. He had suddenly appeared in the shadow with us.

“We need to get back to the hotel, Rex and Brianna should be awake already,” Flaym suggested.

“Keep your shirt on, and come snap some pictures of me in front of the fountain,” she said, holding out her phone. “Make sure you get the castle in it too! Nooker will never believe this.”

They were at the hotel, still sleeping. Were they sleeping together? Why are they here? Did Brianna drag them here to look for me? Why didn’t she tell me she was coming? How did she know I was in Edinburgh?

The questions whirled around in my thoughts before I felt my feet leave the ground. The shadow was all around us, and the exit points started to flash. I had expected Remington to take us back to the pub, but we ended up in the shadow of a rock with spectacular scenery.

“Wow!” I breathed out.

It was a grassy glen with soaring rugged black mountains that appeared to have once fed the snaking rivers and streams with spring water. The wind greeted us, and I shoved my hands into my pockets for warmth. We moved carefully around the jagged volcanic rocks poking out from the ground.

“We’re on an island?” Kit asked.

“The Isle of Skye,” Remington nodded. “The old gal mentioned the faerie pools, but the cascading pools dried up a few months ago.”

“Is that normal?” I looked at the beautiful rocks of what was once the bottom of the pools. I could only imagine how beautiful it must have looked when the water was moving through here.

“The crystal-clear water has been flowing for thousands of years.”

“Thousands of years… what happened to the water?”

“This is why Della and the others have been stuck,” Kit said in understanding.

“Why would Della be stuck?” I felt like I was missing something important here.

“I wanted you to see this, Maeve. The water has gradually slowed over the last year, making it look like an act of nature. It completely stopped flowing on the night of the new moon a few months ago,” he turned to face me. “Do you remember what occurred that night?”

Embarrassment rushed through me. I remembered very well what happened the night of the new moon, and my hand involuntarily moved to my belly.

“It was Maeve’s eighteenth birthday,” Kit answered to my relief.

“Have a good look at the empty pool,” Remington motioned with his hand. “This is where the portal to the Fae Realm is, but without the magic of the water, the faeries cannot travel between the realms anymore.”

“But if Della is stuck here…”

“She becomes mortal slowly, with each passing day,” he continued. “I thought since the unseelie made an appearance last night that the water flow had returned.”

If the dark faeries could still come through, then there had to be another way. “There must be another portal!”

Remington moved slowly to the edge of a dried-up pool and jumped down onto the rocks. He turned to face me and extended his arms like an adult might do with a child at the edge of a swimming pool. I shook my head and stepped back.

“No way, I’m too heavy to jump into your arms.”

“Maeve, you’re not too heavy, now come here,” he insisted.

“What if you drop me?”

His mouth pulled into a smile. “I won’t drop you. Trust me.”

Trust me. He was the only one I had trusted for the last few months, but I wasn’t going to jump.

“Why do I need to come down there?”

“I want to try something. Now, come here,” he extended his arms out further.

I took a step forward, still reluctant to jump into his arms. My foot snagged on the corner of a rock, and before I knew it, I tumbled forward with a scream. His strong arms caught me and pulled me tight against his warm chest.

“I’ve got you,” he said soothingly. A whimper of relief left me, and he repeated the assurance. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

“Good catch,” Kit beamed up at Remington proudly.

“Maeve, I want you to press your hand against the rocky walls of where the waterfalls cascaded,” he said as he moved with ease over the rocky ground. I was still cradled in his arms, but I wouldn’t protest. He clearly had the strength of ten men to catch me the way he did.

Remington set me down but remained behind me, ready to catch me if I slipped. I moved slowly from one area of the rocky wall to the next, pressing my palm against it. I touched a large boulder, and nothing happened.

“What exactly are we expecting to happen?”

“You were able to unlock and enter the door to the underground bar despite the enchantments,” he said. “Which means the magic of a supernatural is still in your blood.”

“Mother Shipton said it was a trace.”

“Sometimes a trace is all you need. You were able to go through that portal, and I was hoping you could find this one.”

“Maybe there’s an incantation or something I’m doing wrong?”

“No, a faerie would just have to touch the water or wall and be able to cross through the portal,” he told me.

“Could there be another entrance?” Kit asked.

“That’s just it,” he shook his head. “Della and the others don’t know of another way.”

“But why would the water stop on the night of my eighteenth birthday?”

Remington and Kit exchanged a silent look. Her eyes dropped as if she had just discovered the most fascinating rock. I returned my gaze to Remington with my chin held high. This was not a question I was going to let him avoid.

“Why?” I pushed again. “What’s so special about my eighteenth birthday?”

“Well… Princess ,” he smiled as he emphasized the word Princess. “Did anyone ever tell you how difficult it is for faeries to have children?”

“You mentioned that was why there are so many stories of changelings.”

“The Fairy Queen, Morgana, has yet to produce a child of her own, though her much younger sister did.”

“Morgana?”

“Yes. Some may know her as Morgan le Fey.”

“Are we talking about King Arthur's fictional sister?”

Remington looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. “Humans are always getting things twisted. She wasn’t Arthur’s sister, but she was his lover.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he nodded. “The remains of Camelot are under Edinburgh Castle. The lady of the lake who gave King Arthur the sword was Eos. Merlin was a powerful wizard and also a former lover of Morgana.”

“And she’s still alive? After all this time?”

“Time moves differently in other realms, and every realm is different.”

“And what about the Dark Realm?”

“That changes with the mood of the Demon King. One day there can be a week here, or vice versa.”

“What about the Fae Realm?” I asked.

“One day here can be a week there,” Kit answered.

“I don’t understand why Morgana would seal off the entrance on my birthday…” I started to ask when it hit me. “Shite!”

Remington nodded as if he could see the puzzle pieces falling into place for me. Kit chewed her lower lip with anticipation.

“Mother Shipton had mentioned the Faerie Queen killing her sister… If she doesn’t have an heir, but her sister did… then…”

“You’re the next in line and a threat to her,” Remington said, looking up at the sky.

The tension radiated from him, and his eyes started to glow red. I looked at Kit, and she was searching the sky for something. Her lip curled, and a low snarl rippled from her. I heard dozens of bat wings flapping before I saw the dark shadows growing larger.

“Stay with Maeve,” he snarled. “If they get close, take her back to the pub.”

Remington turned into a cloud of black mist and moved across to the center of the glen. The fog swirled, and the ground shook. A heavy vibration charged the air, and a monster-sized demon appeared where the fog had been.

“Come on,” Kit urged me. “We need to get to a shadow large enough to jump through.”

My legs started to move, but I couldn’t resist looking over my shoulder at the beast that was Remington. A thick, long, leathery tail eagerly swished behind him as he waited to attack the flying creatures swooping low. Golden horns glimmered atop his head, making him look even taller than he already was.

We moved to the lower part of the pool to climb out, and I scrambled up. A loud screech echoed behind us, causing me to lose focus and slip. With a heavy thud, I fell to my knees and struggled to get back up.

“Are you alright?” Kit grabbed ahold of my arm to help steady me.

“I’m fine,” I wheeze, dusting off my knees as another sharp screech rippled across the sky. The dark faeries looked more like mutated birds of prey when they attacked.

A glowing scepter appeared in Remington’s hand, topped with the ankh cross. He wielded it high above his head, and the flying creatures started falling from the sky. The lower half of his demon form was covered in what looked like black leather and golden armor, but I couldn’t tell if it was his skin or pants. He stood on large paws that reminded me of lycan feet with claws.

“We need to move before they see you,” Kit hissed.

Several loud screeches echoed, and the demon roared in warning. Nearly two dozen faeries plummeted simultaneously for him, and he hammered his scepter to the ground, causing the volcanic rock to shoot up in the air with enough force to rip through the dark faeries. A slip of a scream caught in my throat at the sight of the carnage.

The demon turned his head, and I saw the glowing fire in his eyes. I expected to see a face similar to Remington's, but instead, he had the face of a wolf… similar to a lycan.

“Don’t freak out,” Kit warned me as I felt large, leathery wings wrap around me. She pressed me against a boulder, and I felt the shadow conceal us.

“We can’t just leave him here,” I watched in horror as more dark faeries arrived.

“He ordered me to take you back to the pub and wait for him.”

The shadow consumed us, and the floating feeling carried us away into a thick blanket of haze. The images of familiar places started to appear, and the dark corner of the bar downstairs emerged. We tipped forward and stepped out near the bottom of the stairs. The demons in the bar stood in silence as if waiting for a command.

Kit snarled something in a foreign language, and the demons charged for the shadow. I saw one shapeshift into something resembling a minotaur with an axe before turning to mist. The bartender sprang over the bar, shifting into a reptilian creature with wings before disappearing into the dark corner where we had just emerged.

“They’re going to help Remington?”

“I want to make sure none of those bastards return to their Queen,” Kit seethed.

“What happens to faeries when they die? Is there a different realm for them?”

“They return to nature,” she tells me. “The dark faeries turn into rocks, and the light faeries become trees or flowers.”

The idea that my mother didn’t move on to some afterlife, like the Realm of The Moon or Heaven, caused a wave of sadness to well up in me. My heart hammered in my chest as I remembered Remington never told me where demons went. There was a strange need to know and not know because my mind wanted to protect my heart from the truth.

A tight, squeezing sensation radiates across my belly, and I instinctively rub my hand over it. Moaning in discomfort, I hunch forward, hoping it will pass.

“Maeve?” Remington is suddenly standing behind me, rubbing my back.

“I’m okay,” I suck in a few more deep breaths. “I think it was a little too much excitement.”

“Maybe you should help her sleep again?” Kit suggests. “Until we can find a doctor.”

“What we need to do is find the entrance into the faerie realm so I can drink from the spring first,” I grit out, feeling another rolling pain.

“I have an idea, but I don’t think you’ll like it,” Remington says hesitantly.

“I don’t have time to sleep,” I moan.

“Time seems to be working against us in this realm,” he replies.

“Then we need to find the damn Faerie Realm before the clock runs out on me.”

“What we need is to slow the clock down,” he tells me, and I have a feeling I won’t like what he has in mind.

“What do you mean?” I ask, feeling the panic surge inside. “Owwww.”

“I think baby lycan is trying to break out of there,” Kit murmured.

“You’ll have to forgive me for this, but it’s for your own good.”

He threw his arms around me, and before I could protest, my eyelids grew heavy. Remington scooped me up in his arms with ease, and a black mist swirled around us. A dizzying sensation filled me as we traveled between realms, and I felt my world go dark.