Chapter Twenty-Six
Munro
Hollen was asleep when they landed before the blue house that Munro hadn’t seen in a decade. Hollen’s head was firmly placed on his shoulder and his lips parted in a soft snore from a rest he’d slipped into for hours.
Munro had half-expected Gorgo to appear after Hollen had slipped away, but the demon had kept his part of the bargain. “As long as you save Hollen, I won’t interfere.”
Hollen stirred as Munro retracted his wings, stumbling at the loss of their comforting weight. It had been a long time since he’d flown more than a few blocks—and longer still since he’d done those kinds of acrobatics. His back was aching now and probably would be for a week.
“Where are we?” asked Hollen, his eyes still closed as he let out a yawn.
Munro frowned, the stillness of the air grating him as even the crickets went silent. Compared to the others close by, the house wasn’t modern, a small dip in the roof showing where age had taken its toll. The siding was still fresh, though, the swing on the porch painted and swaying in the breeze. Something about the smell was off, a wisp in the air that reeked of earth and trees.
“Did Adair make it okay?” Hollen fluttered his eyelashes before he went silent again, a slow breath pushing through his lips.
Munro didn’t answer. Erie and Adair were probably an hour or so behind them even after their brief rest stop, but he couldn’t wait.
“Sleep.” Munro touched his cheek, his frown deepening at the coolness of his skin.
Hollen shifted, snuggling closer to Munro and shoving his face against his neck. “I’m so tired.”
It would only get worse. Their aerial acrobatics seemed to have drained the rest of the life from Hollen’s limbs, and he’d slept the entirety of their time after. Even when they’d landed, Munro had gently cleaned him and tugged his pants on properly, all while Hollen dozed.
Hollen lifted his head, slowly blinking as he looked around. “This place looks familiar.”
“Shhh.” Munro touched the back of his head, easing him to settle into sleep again. “Sleep, my love. This will all be over by the time you’re awake.” I hope.
A few crickets spoke up, only to go silent again as Munro took a step onto the property. With a ripple of heat, the air changed. The natural blue of the siding and roof flickered to piled stone and thick moss. Close-cut grass gave way to long stems that swayed with the heaviness of seeds at their tips.
What had seemed like a manicured lawn became a wilderness, as Munro forced his way through the illusion. Even if magic had been lost, faeries excelled at illusions, able to morph an ethereal face into a beautiful one and a wild landscape into one which was much less likely to be on the HOA’s radar.
“We’re in the right place,” said Munro, tucking a few loose strands behind Hollen’s ear. He didn’t stir this time, wrapped deeply in a sleep that got closer to permanent with every heartbeat.
“Stop there.”
Munro looked to the source of the loud voice, grinding to a reluctant halt. A woman had stepped onto the porch, one hand on her hip and the other clutching a spatula. Her hair was graying, wisps clouding around her face from the humidity, but her eyes almost glowed. Whatever illusions she had on her body, they were so thick that Munro couldn’t see through them.
She glared, pointing the spatula at him threateningly. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.” The crickets grew louder, the brightness of the sun slipping behind the rooftop of the house. It cast a shadow over them, thick and haunting. The smell of tomatoes and garlic wafted from the house, some sauce speckled on the apron she wore.
“Candara.” Munro nodded his head in greeting. “I never thought I would have the pleasure of seeing you again.” He shifted Hollen against him, offering his hand.
She narrowed her eyes, her lips set firmly. “It’s Dara now, as you well know. I left my old self behind years ago.” She brandished the spatula, a dollop of sauce smacking onto the porch.
“Apologies.” Munro nodded. “I had forgotten.” Twenty or so years ago she had wandered into his teahouse, her back still singed and her psyche torn to bits. Between sips of cinnamon and nutmeg, she’d asked him to take it all away—every memory and scar. But he’d been unable to convince her mind to forget when it was built on so many layers of illusions.
“I haven’t.” She raised her chin. She seemed to catch sight of Hollen, taking a step back. “What are you doing with him? Is he?” She trailed off, lowering her spatula and taking a forward step onto the porch that was made of accumulated logs instead of the perfect wood it had seemed to be before.
“I didn’t drain him.” Munro thinned his lips. It was so rare nowadays for a vampire to drain someone, yet the rumors always spread. It was so much easier to just pluck a memory away. “He’s possessed.”
Dara let out a laugh, standing much too tall for a crooked old lady. “Now I know you’re lying.”
Munro took a step closer to the house. The long grasses extended toward him, grasping at his clothes with sandpaper fronds. Below, branches of ivy tried to catch his feet. He stomped on a flower, grinding it into the dirt. “The demon Gorgo latched onto his soul and is draining him as we speak. He’s close to death.”
Munro lowered his gaze. Hollen was so pale, a furrow between his eyes and his lips parted in sleep. His lashes didn’t flutter when Munro swept a thumb over his cheek or when he placed a kiss on his forehead.
“Never heard of a Gorgo before.” Dara’s glare intensified.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Munro nodded. “The last person with magic sealed him away centuries ago. I’m sure you’ve heard of the massacre and the fires that night. Even faeries aren’t so short-sighted that they completely forget the past.”
Dara stiffened as Munro grew closer. Hollen moved in his sleep, his head lolling back onto Munro’s arm and exposing him to the light. He let out a soft groan as a strip of sunlight strayed over his eyes.
Dara’s snapped her gaze to him in an instant, her spatula falling to the porch as a gasp left her lips. “Oh my God.”
The sound of a car roaring behind them drew Munro’s attention. He turned just as the vehicle hopped the curb, Adair shooting out of the passenger side before the car was even turned off. When Erie flung the door open, Munro could sense his rage.
“I told you to wait,” said Erie, his hackles raised and his sharp teeth on display. “For once in your life, why couldn’t you listen? Dara is my friend, not yours.”
Friend? Munro held back a sneer. Faeries had so little to offer to the world except their looks, and even that was an illusion. The span of friendship never extended between their two worlds.
“Grandma!”
Munro turned at Adair’s shout as he raced around the car, speeding past them and throwing his arms around the woman.
Adair was speaking rapidly, bouncing on his toes as Munro’s jaw went slack.
“I told Erie that I knew where I was, but he wouldn’t listen.” Adair hugged her tighter, a whoosh of air escaping Dara. “I get to see you a whole month early. How are you? You look great. Are you making lunch? Erie wouldn’t stop, no matter how much I complained. I had to pee in a ditch, Grandma—a ditch!”
Munro arched one eyebrow at Erie, who gave him an exhausted shrug, probably too tired to be surprised. The lines on his forehead were deeper, the whites of his eyes almost entirely pink in what had to have been exhaustion.
“What are you doing here, darling?” Dara asked softly, returning the hug with the same fierceness. “And what are you doing with them ?”
Adair leaned back, a laugh on his lips. “We’re looking for a faerie, according to Hollen. Can you believe they actually exist? If anyone else would have said it, I would have called their therapist or something.”
The silence was so thick Munro could have sliced it with a well-placed flap of his wings.
Adair didn’t seem to notice much, but his excitement faded when he caught sight of Hollen in Munro’s arms. His face fell, exhilaration replaced with concern. “Oh my God, Hollen! Munro, what did you do to him?”
“Adair.” Dara’s voice was sharp, but Adair didn’t seem to notice her, reaching for Hollen instead and touching his cheek.
“Hollen? Baby?” He glared at Munro. “You told me he’d be alright—that you’d look after him.
“ Adair. ” Her voice cracked through the air this time, and Adair froze, his hand still on Hollen’s cheek. “Get in the house. And get away from him.” This time she wasn’t glaring at Munro, but straight at Hollen. “There’s a terrible darkness in his soul. Don’t touch him.”
“Grandma?” Adair snatched his hand to his chest, his eyes filling with sudden tears. “You know Hollen—he’s my best friend. I know it’s been a while since he’s come to visit, and things have changed, but you can’t talk about him like that.”
Munro resisted the urge to tap his foot on the ground. This was no time for a family reunion or to dig into the mysteries of Hollen’s best friend. Hollen had never said a word about it to him, but he probably didn’t know that there were two fleshy stumps protruding from Dara’s back—or that her house was made more of leaves and wood than plaster. There was no way he could break an illusion the way Munro could.
Dara let out a heavy sigh, her shoulders slumped with more than years. “Perhaps it’s best if you come inside.” She looked to the mismatched group on her front lawn. “All of you.”
Adair went quietly, slipping his hand into Hollen’s limp one before he followed Dara while keeping pace with Munro. The porch shifted beneath Munro, one of the loose logs rolling underfoot. Adair hardly seemed to hesitate before he hopped to the next, tugging them along.
Stepping inside was like popping through another illusion, the sounds of the city falling away to crickets and chirps of the forest. The walls were a deep forest green, ivy seeping between thick cracks in the wall. The roof was open, sun cascading from above with a few small birds perched in the branches of the high trees that leaned heavy against the walls.
To the left was probably a couch made of three massive and hard mushrooms as strong as wood with a knitted blue blanket tossed overtop. The kitchen took up the center of the room, a real fire crackling in a woodstove with the stack pushing a thin line of smoke into the air.
Without the trees and the plants, the heat would have been oppressive. But instead, the coolness of the leaves seemed to linger, moisture clinging to the walls as a pot bubbled on the stove.
“You dropped something, Grandma—a wrapper, maybe?” Adair leaned over, grasping a few stray leaves from the floor. They crumpled in his hand, dry and brown with a few wisps trickling back to the thick grassy floor. “Where’s the garbage?”
There was no way that Adair was seeing the reality that was before Munro’s eyes. In his eyes, a small wartime house was reflected, with a rickety porch and an electric stove, the green-tinted appliances older than the walls.
Munro looked sharply to Dara. “He doesn’t know.”
She shook her head, sadness mixed with a heavy regret. “Nothing.”
Munro barely knew Adair, but that still hit hard. Lies from someone close to you were one of the deepest betrayals, especially for a faerie. Family was everything to them. Without it, they lost their wings in a savage ritual that cast them out. Some of them struggled to live after that with nothing left to their soul but slivers of themselves.
“Know what?” Adair looked at them, his eyes wide and so cluelessly innocent.
Munro shook his head, dropping his gaze to Hollen. His face was ashen, the last of the color faded away. His chest was barely able to rise and fall, stuttered and slow as sweat beaded on his brow.
“I don’t have time for this,” said Munro, a growl in his throat. “Faeries lost something important, but it was your own doing. Now, can you help us or not?” He turned until Hollen’s face was under the stream of sunlight that peeked through the open roof. The golden light did little to correct his pallor.
Dara shook her head. She turned away, reaching for the lid on the pot and tugging it free. Steam swirled in the air, tomatoes and spices thickening the room. “I don’t know what you expect me to do. I thought demons had been exterminated, but you brought one to my house. How were you expecting I could help?”
Munro curled his lips back, exposing his fangs. Adair took a step back, his eyes wide.
Erie spoke up for the first time, his voice soft. “Magic.”
Dara went stiff, her knuckles going white on the fresh ladle she’d grabbed. The flames in the stove had dimmed to orange coals, the color dropping. For a split second she looked at Adair, her gaze giving everything away.
“You know they didn’t give Adair a chance.” Dara let a breath out, and the room seemed to dim. Adair looked to the ceiling as if he could see flickering lights and not a cloud overhead. “They murdered his mother, my most precious daughter, calling it a betrayal. I couldn’t stop them from taking his wings—cutting them off with that blasted cursed knife. I made them take mine afterward to settle the score.”
When she faced them completely, there were tears in her eyes, a few streaked over her cheek. “Those bastards cast me out when I refused to leave him. They never knew that he was different, and I didn’t either, until so much later.”
Munro tapped his foot. Hollen was fading faster than he could fathom, his heartbeat slowing as Gorgo leeched more from him, intentionally or not. Between one breath and the next, he threatened to fade away.
Dara caught his eye, her gaze steady. “He can’t help you. He’s not like what you think. He’s something this world has never seen before. His magic—or whatever it is-- won’t save Hollen.”
It was worse than a stab through the heart and the twist of a rusty blade.
She wiped the tears from her eyes, her lashes clumped together. “You know there’s only one thing left to do.”