Chapter Twenty-Three
I didn’t recognize it at first since my body was still shuddering as if I had fallen from a height and because I’d never seen this place before, having only been allowed to kick my filthy human heels in the atrium. But I was pretty sure of the location anyway. There was an elaborate table serving as a desk, gorgeous floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the undersea world, and enough sumptuous carpets, fine paintings, gilt mosaics, and expensive spell light to do a king proud.
If there was any doubt about Feltin’s pretensions, one look at that office would have dispelled them. Not that I needed it. Because he was talking.
“What do you mean they missed them?”
It would be more accurate to say that he was yelling, although he didn’t need to; the guard with the purple-dipped hair in front of him was only about a foot away. He looked like one of those who’d attacked us, to the point that I felt my fist clenching and Pritkin’s hand on my arm tightening. But this soldier wasn’t splattered with red like the one behind him, with his shiny armor streaked like someone had thrown a bucket of paint over it.
Or had bled out in his arms, because he was looking furious.
The guy at his side, the only other occupant of the room, wasn’t looking like much of anything except half dead. His pretty complexion was burnt all along one side, making me think of Enid and how he’d match her soon if he survived. Only that didn’t seem to be likely, especially as he’d just sank to one knee.
“He needs a healer,” his blood-splattered buddy said, only to recoil slightly when Feltin got in his face.
And there was something about that movement, like a bird of prey swooping down on a mouse, that made me blink. I’d seen someone else move like that not so long ago. Someone else . . .
Who shouldn’t be here.
Or maybe I was finally losing my mind, I thought, staring at Feltin’s surfer-boy good looks. They were draped in a royal blue robe glittering with embroidery and open at the front to show off the finely sculpted lines of his chest. A pair of matching long, silky trousers, barely clinging to his hip bones, completed the look, which was topped off by a mane of rumpled blond hair that appeared to have air-dried after having agitated fingers run through it.
He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, but he hadn’t been to bed, had he? He’d been here, drying off after getting dunked in the ballroom and pacing the floor in his bare feet, waiting for the news that we were dead. This must have occurred hours ago, but Faerie was just showing it to us now.
Because Alphonse had been wrong.
Tony wasn't the problem, or if he was, he had help.
And then I saw it again, not a glimpse this time, but a ghostly face pushing out of Feltin’s. A very familiar ghostly face. And, suddenly, a lot of things began to make sense. Zeus, I mouthed at Pritkin as my heart started to slam in my chest.
I didn’t think that anyone else could see him. Two of the fey didn’t react, not even by a finger twitch, which you’d expect if they were having a divine visitation. Only the leader flinched, and that was because Feltin was back to spewing spittle in his face.
“I cursed him myself!” Feltin snarled. “I know it took!”
“That may be, but he fought like the demon he is,” the wounded man gasped, beyond caring about things like diplomacy. His long, dark brown hair had come unbound and fell into his dead white face. “It felt like we were facing an army—”
“We were,” the leader said, glancing back at him as if worried about his condition. “Some of the kitchen staff helped him.”
Which . . . was probably not the best thing he could have said. Or maybe Zeus-as-Feltin wasn’t used to having anyone look away when he was screaming at them. The next moment, the leader found himself grabbed by the neck hard enough that the metal gorget protecting his throat was slowly indented.
“The kitchen staff?” Fletin said, his voice starting low and getting louder. “The kitchen staff? Are you mad?”
“They were powerful,” the bloody man insisted, looking from the angry pseudo-king to his captain and back again. “Far more so than they should have been. Only the weak are supposed to be sent back, but those weren’t—”
“Shut up!” Feltin all but screeched, causing all three men to stare at him as if he’d sprouted horns. I guessed that sort of thing wasn’t considered kingly. But Feltin wasn’t looking much like a king at the moment, except possibly a mad one.
He reminded me of Aeslinn when Zeus was in residence, or Nimue when she was under the influence of a piece of Ares’ old armor, which had been infused with a bit of his corrupt soul. I guessed having a god ride you wasn’t fun, but Aeslinn and Nimue had had more power to help handle it. Feltin didn’t.
But he looked better than I’d have expected, as the other of Zeus’s little puppets were a powerful demon lord and a few demigods. How was Feltin even still on his feet? And why was Zeus’s indistinct face suddenly wavering like a bad phone connection?
Because it was, and then it blipped out entirely, leaving Feltin panting and stumbling back against the table, appearing dazed. And then livid when he caught the side eyes the others were sharing. “Are you elite troops or not?” he roared.
But the leader was made of sterner stuff than I’d thought. “We were,” he answered flatly. “But now a quarter of my men are dead, and more are missing—”
“Burnt to death,” the injured fey gasped. “Turned to powder.”
“It happened in an instant,” the third man said.“The goddess cursed us, like she did the Kraken in the hall. I know she did!”
Considering that I hadn’t done anything of the kind, I didn’t know what he was talking about until Pritkin spoke low in my ear. “Bodil’s people helped us in the deep but couldn’t get to the kitchen in time. Rhosier and I immolated half of the fey in the corridor before the rest broke through your time spell. Most of those remaining chased after you, but a few retreated toward the kitchens and must have gotten away.”
“You mean the ‘goddess’ you were supposed to kill?” Feltin screamed before I could respond.
“It wasn't that easy!” the leader said, looking flushed. He was a tall, attractive-looking fey with dazzling blue eyes. His hair was still up, if only barely, and strands were falling into his face that he pushed back angrily. “You said she would be exhausted, that they both would. You said she’d be easy prey!”
Which got him a backhand hard enough to send him to the floor. Because Feltin’s muscles weren’t just for show, and he was more than furious; he was afraid. I saw it in a flash of those baby blues, in the way his other hand clenched at his side, and in the spittle-soaked reply. “I want them found! I want the woman dead and the ‘prince’ captured. I want whoever is helping them tortured—”
And, okay, I was starting to see why Bodil was so pissed.
“—to find any more! And I want to know why my damned spell isn’t working!”
“He’s a demon,” the injured fey said, looking up with fury because he didn’t seem to like Feltin mishandling his officer. “Who knows if it even took—”
“It took. Barne-Mora always takes! He should be fleeing in terror right now. He should be overcome with it—right now!”
I felt Pritkin stiffen beside me, but he didn’t say anything. Possibly to avoid us breaking deep emersion, which led back to that hazy, echoing place we traveled in when going from one vision to the next. Or because the third man was speaking.
“She is likely shielding him,” he said. “The goddess, I mean. She was there beside him the whole time—”
“That ‘goddess’ is a woman !” Feltin spat. “A frail, human woman no different from our slaves! And I want her dead—along with the damned traitors on our staff!”
“We don’t know where they are,” the leader said from the floor. Unlike his men, he was carefully expressionless, and his voice was neutral and calm—dangerous. If I’d been Feltin, I would have been worried.
But I guessed when you had an elder god riding your ass half the time, it put a different perspective on things.
I suddenly wondered who, exactly, had let the assassins in here that had almost killed Nimue. Forcing her to run away to save her life and somehow end up dead at the hands of Aeslinn’s estranged wife, or so the rumors said. Because it had to be somebody in charge, right? With enough knowledge about this place and enough ambition to decide that he was tired of playing second fiddle?
If so, he didn’t seem to be enjoying his power all that much at the moment, nor did he seem to notice that the soldiers were still armed. Or maybe he was just past caring. He grabbed the leader by his sensible ponytail and jerked his neck back, causing the wounded soldier, weak though he was, to growl and grab for his dagger.
But the leader put out a hand, stopping him.
Feltin never even noticed.
“Then you find her, you find both of them and finish your task. Or I will finish you. Do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
“Then do it now!”
And I guessed that was all we needed to see because we were abruptly jerked out of there. However, I couldn’t see where we were headed this time because the lights had just gone out. And because our speed was so dizzying that I started to wonder if this sort of thing could do permanent damage.
Then we came to a stop, hard enough to give me whiplash if I currently had a neck, and I stopped wondering about anything. I felt nauseous and unwell, although not as bad as before; Faerie must be compensating. And I still couldn’t half see, just torchlight splashing on rough-hewn stone.
My eyes slowly adjusted enough to make out the vague outlines of a tunnel full of the same group of slaves from the makeshift hospital.
This must be later than the previous vision with them, as they were on the move, with people being carried on stretchers or limping along, helped by their healthier friends. And were almost shoulder to shoulder because the tunnel was narrow, and the poorly excavated walls had plenty of pointy bits that would tear your skin if you got too close. That left everybody bunched in the middle, obscuring my view, and I guessed Faerie must have realized that.
Because she started pushing us forward, even through people’s bodies at times, as if we were the ghosts that this place didn’t have. Until we burst through the last of the crowd, and I spotted Alphonse up ahead with a heavily bandaged arm, although not because he was injured. Masters heal faster than that, even relatively low-level ones like Alphonse, but he was swinging a torch around in that hand and didn’t want to risk the sparks hitting his skin.
The light it and the few other torches shed bounced unevenly off his face, which was tilted upward like master vamps do when on a scent. Alphonse wasn’t as gifted as some, but he was a master, and their noses were as good as a bloodhound’s any day. And his was twitching.
“This way!” he called after a brief pause, and we were off again, down a branch in the tunnel to the left.
Everyone followed him even though Alphonse was as much of a stranger here as I was. Enid seemed confused about that, too, and quickly caught up with him. And grabbed the arm with the torch, its radiance turning her hair to flame and causing him to curse and whirl on her.
And then his features softened.
Maybe because she hadn’t bothered to reapply the glamourie since nobody else down here looked any better. Or perhaps she didn’t have the juice. She appeared exhausted, with pale, pinched skin beyond the vicious scarring and wild eyes.
“Don’t grab the torch,” Alphonse told her just as Faerie plunged us out of the gray haze of transit and into full immersion.
“How can you smell anything past that thing?” she demanded. “And are you sure we’re going the right way?”
“Pretty sure—”
“That isn’t good enough! Nimue’s personal bodyguard is hunting us as we speak!”
“Yeah, I kinda got that.”
“So, what if you’re wrong? Nobody even knew this place existed!” she gestured around wildly at the tunnel, almost hitting me in the face again, only this time, I ducked.
“I’m not wrong.”
“Then what is that?” she demanded, pointing at the floor, where a thin stream of water was sloshing underfoot.
“A good sign,” Alphonse said and was off again.
But Enid didn’t like that answer, although, at the moment, she didn’t look like she’d like much of anything. They were presumably running from the bastards Feltin had put on their trail, which was absolutely the right move, but she disagreed with it. She might have been exhausted, in pain, and almost out of magic, but she wanted to fight.
She reminded me of those witches I’d seen back in Wales and their resolve, their courage, and their fury. It seemed that the best part of the ancient covens’ blood had ended up in Faerie. I could see it in every line of her body, in the shape of her jaw, and in the way she caught up to Alphonse again and—
“Don’t grab the torch!” he told her, pulling it away just in time. “Unless you want your guide to go up in flames!”
“You’re a vampire—”
“Exactly. And we’re flammable. ”
She stared at him. “Then why are you holding the damned thing?”
“To see that,” he said, pointing ahead with it.
I peered through the darkness but didn’t have a vampire’s vision. But a moment later, I didn’t need it when the crazy cavalcade burst out of the side of a hill and into brackish-smelling air. It wasn’t exactly fresh, but after the suffocating tunnel, it felt that way.
Alphonse quickly extinguished the torch in the muddy ground and called back a warning for others to do the same. For a moment, all I could hear was the hissing of torches and people’s panting breaths. But I realized that I was straining for something else: the sound of pursuit, a shouted warning, an attack—
Which didn’t come.
“Where are we?” Enid demanded after a pause as if she’d been listening, too.
“On the left of the Myrgard, near the Black Tower,” Rhosier said, coming up from somewhere behind us. “You can see the old watchtower there, to the left, through the mist.”
“How? There aren’t supposed to be any tunnels here!”
“No, there aren’t.” He glanced at Alphonse. “How did you come to smell it, vampire?”
“Easy,” Alphonse said, still scanning the landscape, half of which was forested, and the rest was water sparkling under a crescent moon. “A guy I know came through it recently.”
And just like that, Pritkin and I were out, falling back into our cell with no more warning than when we’d been snatched out of it. As if Faerie was saying, now that you know what’s happening, do something! Only I didn’t.
I didn’t know anything.
But I was damned well going to.
“What’s Barne-Mora?” I asked Pritkin because it seemed the most pressing.
“Nightmare,” he croaked.
I turned to see him looking like he’d just woken up from one, with his face pale enough that the blond scruff looked dark by comparison. And then the eyes changed, from wide and shocked to livid, the green flooding them so brightly that they almost glowed in the darkness. And, okay, I thought.
That was more like it.
“A nightmare,” he repeated savagely. “With the ‘mare’ or ‘mora’ in that term a demon thought to torment people with frightening dreams. Some have confused it with a visitation from an incubus. I suppose Feltin thought it fitting to curse me with a spell named after my own kind!”
He got to his feet even though there was nowhere to go, even after he slammed a fist into whatever shield protected this place hard enough to rattle it and make the whole room shiver. And groan as if the rocks themselves had woken up and were unhappy about it. As one demonstrated by shocking the hell out of him.
“Are you okay?” I scrambled to my somewhat unsteady feet because he didn’t look okay. His hair was smoking! But he waved me off and then just stood there, vibrating because he was so furious.
“Curse you how?” I asked after a minute.
“Barne-Mora is an Old Norse curse that magnifies someone’s fears a hundredfold,” he grated out. “Making their worst nightmares stalk them in the waking world.”
“Nightmares like us losing?” I said, starting to see where this was going.
“Nightmares like me losing you!” He grabbed my upper arms as if to reassure himself that I was really there. Because the spell was still on him, wasn’t it? It had been all along, which explained a whole hell of a lot.
Like why, every time we fought, it seemed to clear his head. But as soon as he had some time alone, when no one was reminded him of the stakes, the damned curse took him again. Damn it, I knew he’d been acting weird, but I’d never thought of that.
Pritkin had always seemed immune to such things.
But not when a god was casting it, Cassie!
“Feltin cursed you,” I said. “That must have been step one, even before the attempted poisoning. That’s why I haven’t been able to get through to you, why you were so eager to walk away, even if it meant walking into the hells. You’re cursed .”
Pritkin didn’t say anything, but his stance—wide-legged, stiff-backed, and closed off, told me the answer to my next question before I asked it. “Can you break it now that you know it’s there?”
“No.” It was stark.
“But when you rest up a bit? When you’re stronger?”
And okay, that got a reaction. “Stronger than who?” he demanded, eyes flashing. “Feltin, or the one who rides him?”
I crossed my arms. “Zeus isn’t here, Pritkin.”
The won me a laugh, and it sounded shrill. “Isn’t he? It feels rather different! Like barbed chains that bind me and dig deeper whenever I try to—”
He broke off, red-faced and furious. He knew what the problem was now, but he couldn’t throw it off. He couldn’t break it.
“I still want to run,” he told me, the words sounding forced. “To pick you up, throw you over my shoulder, and sprint for the nearest portal out of here— and I would . Even knowing—” He broke off and glared around our cell. “Even knowing what it would do, the price we’d pay, I still would. If not for these walls, Feltin and his master would get what they want. It’s been building since you came, and no matter how much I reason with myself or tell myself that it’s a lie, it grows .”
He looked at me, and his eyes were back to that startled look I’d seen before, as if whatever magic this was, he didn’t know how to counter it. For perhaps the first time in his life, he didn’t. And it terrified him.
“I can’t guarantee that I won’t do exactly that as soon as we’re free,” he said. “If it worsens, I can’t guarantee what I’ll do.”
I looked at him for a moment and felt my own eyes narrow. Because, yeah, I knew the feeling he was describing, knew it intimately, as those barbs had been inside of me once. After Zeus and I met for the first time when he was riding his other puppet, Aeslinn.
We’d battled on the Thames after the All-Father grabbed hold of one of my shifts and followed me to Gertie’s, where we’d had a colossal fight that I’d barely survived. And only because I had absorbed some of the godly aura surrounding Aeslinn and used Zeus’s own power against them. But tricking an elder god has consequences, as I’d quickly discovered.
Once he realized what I’d done, he used the remnants of his power in my body to start tearing me apart. Literally. And yes, it had felt exactly as Pritkin described—barbs in my skin, shredding it, shredding me, and the worst part had been that I couldn’t do anything about it.
But Zeus wasn’t here. I knew that as certainly as I knew my name, and not only because I’d seen him wink out when he lost whatever tenuous link he had to Feltin. But because if he had been, Pritkin wouldn’t be writhing in the grip of some curse; he would be dead. Just as I would have been in London if he and Mircea hadn’t saved me.
And not just them, because there’d been a fourth person there that night when we battled for my life, hadn’t there?
“I need to see the other guy,” I said abruptly.