Black hat 8 gray seas, p.22
Black Hat 8 - Gray Seas, page 22
“Better?” Asa kept his hands on my shoulders. “You feel steadier.”
As soon as I gained my bearings, I noticed our surroundings. “We need to get out of here.”
Since he had a clearer head than me, thanks to his fae heritage, I was happy to let him guide us to safety behind a stone hut with a thatched roof. We hid behind it while I gave myself a chance to acclimatize.
The brief respite allowed me to absorb my surroundings, which made no sense whatsoever.
Anyone who has walked through the lush green forests of the Pacific Northwest could describe Spring. A vibrant sense of aliveness coated everything. Moss clotted on thick trees, vines strung lacy canopies over our heads, and flowers blossomed in every color of the rainbow.
Even the eight small cottages faded into the landscape with their stone walls and straw roofs. With their simple design, I might have believed they were remnants from another age, but they were too tidy to be vacant. Where were we? For that matter, where were the bodies?
“Where is everyone?” Asa pitched his voice low. “I smell fae nearby.”
Leaning to one side, I spotted a garden that stole my breath in a different way than the quaint village.
“Asa.” I felt him behind me, peering over my head. “Look.”
“There must be thousands of them,” he murmured. “Centuries’ worth.”
Skulls.
Not bodies.
Though, to be fair, the various other bones must have numbered in the tens of thousands.
Someone had lashed femurs, tibias, humeri, ulnas, and fibulas together with sinew to create a fence to enclose a field populated with headstones…and king killer. The plant resembled lavender in shape, with soft purple-green leaves at the base and long stems swaying under the weight of tiny blossom clusters.
Each post was capped with skulls from a different, and terrifying, species. Had I not known the building materials had been dumped here, that these architects weren’t also the killers, I would have yanked on our tethers and snapped us back to the compound in the blink of an eye. But they were simply making use of a handy resource.
Sure they were.
Troubled by the markers, I had to wonder, “Why did some of them rate tombstones?”
There weren’t nearly enough stones to account for all the skulls.
“Perhaps the graves belong to whoever lives here.” Asa swept his gaze over the village, searching for movement. “The fence materials must be the bodies Black Hat dumped here.”
That made sense. Except for the part where anyone in their right mind elected to live inside a landfill. Or grow king killer so close to a gateway anyone could walk through.
“How does no one know about this?” I was thinking out loud. “How has the director kept it secret?”
“The story about the high fae and the closet could have been just that—a story. But, on the off chance it was true, it serves as a cautionary tale for new agents. Not many earthborn supernaturals would want to find themselves trapped in Faerie. Fae are not kind to trespassers.”
“And yet,” an accented voice spoke from above us. “Here you are.”
A lean woman with sun-kissed skin, golden hair, and bright-green eyes leapt from the roof of the hut where we sheltered to the ground beside us. She stood with a spear gripped in her fist, its narrow tip a lethal wedge of what could only be cold iron.
“You are Rue Hollis.” She touched my cheek with cool fingertips. “I was told to watch for you.”
The gentle caress unsettled me more than her foreknowledge of our coming. “Any particular reason why?”
“Grandmother said you would come.” She snagged my hand and jerked me to my feet. “This way.”
Asa rose and trailed behind us, his attention jumping from roof to roof in search of her kin.
“I’m Caro.” She bounded ahead, flashing a smile for me. “You are our first guest in my entire life.”
“Oh?” I found that hard to believe, given her apparent age. “How old are you, Caro?”
“Thirty-five,” she sighed. “Grandmother won’t let me leave the village until I’m grown.”
“And when will that be?”
“Another sixty-five years.” A growl revved up her throat. “Until then, I am the lone Guardian of Ish’ran.”
Mind spinning with this influx of information, I tried to keep up with her. “The portal?”
“Ish’ran is not a portal. It is a god mouth.”
Theology wasn’t my favorite subject, so I dropped the topic, figuring Earl’s natural occurrence had earned it her reverence. “Apologies.”
The girl, who might look grown but had the exuberance of a child, hustled me into the centermost hut.
Had it not been open on three sides, Asa and I might have been forced to explain our tethers and politely decline removing them, but we managed to sit at the table she indicated without incident.
“Grandmother.” She bounded into a closed-off portion behind a low wall. “Grandmother.”
An elderly woman with silver hair and a map of her life folded across her face shuffled into the room.
“Sit, child,” she chastised Caro in a bell-clear voice devoid of age. “Your bouncing gives me indigestion.”
“Yes, Grandmother.” She rushed over to take the chair beside me. “This is Rue Hollis.”
“I can see that.” The old woman squinted at me through milky green eyes. “It took you long enough.”
She came up to me and cradled my face between her palms, tracing the contours of my cheeks with her smooth thumbs as if to get a better idea of how I looked than her vision supplied her.
“Well?” She cultivated an air of expectation. “Nothing to say for yourself?”
“We apologize for dropping in without an invitation.”
“Come with me.” Her knuckles creaked as she curled her fingers. “I will explain why you are here.”
Since she had yet to attempt to kill us, or even maim us a little, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to indulge her.
The old woman scuffled toward the cemetery, and Asa and I kept pace with her while Caro ran ahead.
“This is lo’hian, where we bury our dead.” She stopped before a simple tombstone. “Do you see?”
Hard to miss, given the grave markers. “Yes.”
“No, you don’t.” She knocked her knuckles on my forehead. “The un’hi’tan grows here.”
Wary I might earn another head rap, I ventured, “King killer?”
“No.” She jabbed a pointed finger in my side. “Un’hi’tan.”
“We understand,” Asa said, smoothing over the woman’s glare with his polite deference.
“Un’hi’tan grows on the dead.” She gestured to the massive field of swaying stalks. “This place is Garden of the Dead.” She poked me again, right in the ribs. “Your dead.”
They weren’t all mine, but I had certainly contributed to their number.
“What do you do with un’hi’tan?” I sidestepped in case she went for me again. “What is its use?”
“It kills.” She stared at me like I was an idiot. “The plant absorbs violent death and becomes poison.”
“Violent death,” I repeated like a Mystic Seas parrot, but she got me thinking.
This might very well explain why king killer was so hard to grow. If it required victims of violent death to seed the plants, it would take a mass grave like this one to produce a yield worth cultivating. One that met its other requirements for sunlight, ambient magic, temperature, and rainfall.
The combination of those factors made Spring an ideal garden, but Earl made it perfect for king killer.
“How is it you know Rue?” Asa continued to press his luck. “Caro mentioned you were expecting her?”
“Ish’ran foretold her coming.”
In my experience, Earl wasn’t the most talkative guy, but I wasn’t a void worshipper either.
“And Mother warned us you would come.” Caro laughed at her grandmother’s scowl. “Well, she did.”
That made about as much sense as Earl giving them a heads-up, but I didn’t want to earn another jab.
Gnarled finger trembling at the tombstone before us, she demanded, “Do you see?”
Afraid to give the wrong answer, I wet my lips to buy myself a moment to think, but Asa beat me to it.
“Tiana Nádasdy,” he read the name chiseled into the stone. “Who was she?”
The old woman waited, her eyes thinning to slits, her hand loose at her side, ready to strike.
Clearly, I was on the hook for the next revelation, which I found on the following marker. “Orla Nádasdy.”
Asa and I moved down the row. Not because I was scared of an old lady with a short temper and oddly strong fingers, but to get a better look at each birth and death date.
Yeah.
That was the reason.
“These are all Nádasdy children.” A ringing filled my ears. “They died within days of being born.”
“Saint wasn’t the director’s first child.”
“Who…?” The question ripped out of my throat. “Who was their mother?”
“My Siobhan.” Her head dipped, her chin almost hitting her chest. “Gods bless her damned soul.”
Certain I would regret asking, I did anyway. “Why is her soul damned?”
“We guard Ish’ran.” She set her hand on Caro’s shoulder. “That is our sacred duty. Our destiny. We lie with a chosen Brother of E’rin’t, only once, to bear a daughter who will continue our line. That one life, one act of creation, is all we are permitted.”
“But these weren’t offspring of a chosen.” I saw the problem. “They belonged to a black witch.”
“Albert Nádasdy.” She spat on the dirt. “How they met, I do not know, but her love for the gods changed to adoration of him. He visited her once every ten months, on our holiest of holy days, for a decade.” Her composure faltered as she gestured to the cemetery. “This was the fruit of their efforts.”
“Your daughter…” I searched for a delicate way to phrase it, “…was she a high priestess?”
That wasn’t much clout, in his mind, but it might do.
“We have no priestesses here.” The old woman’s lips pulled down into a frown. “High or otherwise.”
“She was simply a guardian?” I rushed to patch that hastily spoken slight. “I mean—”
“He had a high opinion of himself.” She understood just fine. “He wouldn’t have lowered himself to breed with her, had it not been for the Blessing of Ish’ran.”
When it became plain I had no idea what that meant, Caro spared me from another swat and/or lecture.
“It means we are more fertile than most fae.” She patted her flat stomach. “One coupling with a chosen will produce a female child.” She made a gesture between her navel and forehead. “It is Ish’ran’s way. That is how he selects the next soul to lead the guardians, and the village.”
A female guaranteed to give birth after intercourse would appeal to him, and his busy schedule. All he had to do was pencil her in on the holiest of holy days once a year and forget about her between trysts.
With the promise of children, I could better understand why the director built here. His vision for a brighter future, with superpowered heirs, had been within his grasp. Had he ever realized, I wondered, it was all for naught. He would have grown to resent them, to distrust them, the same as he had with Dad.
“That would definitely explain why the director would single out Siobhan.”
Most of the long-lived races had low birthrates, and fae were no exception. Unless they bred outside the species, they could go centuries without a viable pregnancy. So, I could see the director dedicating years to the effort before he ended things and moved on to the next candidate.
“They must have reached an ironclad agreement prior to construction of the compound.” Asa canted his head toward me. “To each prevent the other from using the portal to wage war if they failed to produce children.”
“Had it worked—” I had to hand it to him this scheme should have been foolproof, “—there would have been a handy portal in the basement to make shared custody a breeze.”
“Had it worked—” Asa picked up where I left off, “—the director would have had multiple heirs.”
To ensure he raised the ideal successor, he would have wanted spares in case the eldest failed him.
If Stavros had taught me anything, it was what powerful men did to children who disappointed them.
“So, they break up, and he decides to spit on their relationship by turning their former rendezvous point into a body dump.” I snorted. “Nothing says our love has died quite like a mountain of corpses. Not that I believe he’s capable of love, even for the children he’s lost.”
“What was wrong with them?” Asa flexed his fingers against me. “Genetics or—?”
“Ish’ran did not bless their union.” She patted Caro’s cheek. “Siobhan had to repent to bear a life.”
“Siobhan is your daughter and Caro’s mother.” I made sure I had it right. “Caro’s father was a chosen.”
A creeping sense of unease filled me when Asa asked, “Where is your daughter?”
“Now you see.” The old woman pinched his cheek. “She fulfilled her duty, gave Ish’ran his heir, and then she broke her most solemn vows.”
“She travels to your world now,” Caro volunteered. “Perhaps you’ve seen her there.” Her bright mood dimmed a bit. “She returned last week, but she only stayed for noon prayers and to share a meal.”
The uneasy sensation amplified until a bitter taste flooded my mouth. “Did she take anything with her?”
“Un’hi’tan,” Asa answered for her. “Your daughter came to harvest as much as she could carry back.”
“Go, child.” She nudged Caro toward their hut. “Let the adults talk.”
Once Caro was too far away to overhear us, the old woman tilted her face to the sky.
“The children kept dying, and he kept leaving.” She shut her eyes. “Then, one year, he didn’t return.” Her expression pinched. “Siobhan was never the same after that. He broke her. Ruined her. She fulfilled her vows to Ish’ran, and she began to plan her revenge on the man who had wronged her. That was her new vow: vengeance.”
“Does the name Luca mean anything to you?”
“The last grave,” Asa murmured. “I was skimming only for the dates at the end, but that one…”
“Luca Nádasdy.” The old woman nodded that he had the right of it. “The last child she bore him.”
“Luca is Siobhan,” Asa said, making the whole thing too real.
That explained how she knew to warn Caro and her mother we would come. Luca expected us to find our way here. She rubbed the drug in our faces with the deaths of those agents and set us on this path. But it made no sense for her to lead us to her home, her family. Unless she wanted us to know her story.
What did she think that knowledge would change? Had it been meant to earn my pity? My empathy?
I just traded favors with one of the director’s scorned women, and that worked out spectacularly for us.
Calixta was still MIA, meaning Aedan was still MIA, and Stavros was still warming his throne.
Learning why Luca was gunning for the director earned her my sympathy, but I couldn’t offer her more. I had to think of my home, my family, and the threat she posed to them.
“She has taken a new lover.” She massaged her gnarled hands. “She shared his…photo? This last time.” Her jaw trembled with her anger. “She wanted us to know him, should he ever come.”
A lover was a fresh complication, but also another thread leading back to her. “What’s his name?”
“Cale,” she spat, the pain in her hands forgotten as she made fists that shook. “Kenneth Cale.”
Vertigo swept over and through me as the final mysteries solved themselves. “Another black witch.”
I could say one thing for Luca. She definitely had a type.
No wonder she wore the pottery shard. To seduce black witches, you couldn’t be seen as prey.
“He led us here.” Asa rolled his shoulders as if a heavy weight had landed on them. “On her orders.”
Nan was in on it. She had to be. We followed her credit card charges down the coast right into a bit of theater staged for our benefit. Cale managed to come off earnest in his reluctance to do business with Nan, and we bought the act. Maybe I could blame Mystic Seas for how, when Cale presented us with a map, we leapt at the opportunity to find where X marked the spot.
“Why would Luca want us in Faerie?” I pinned the old woman with my stare. “Why now?”
Unease slithered down my spine, prickling in the back of my mind like a half-forgotten warning.
“I do not know.” She spread her hands. “I swear on Ish’ran, if I knew, I would tell you.”
Cale had bought us this cooperation, this willingness to turn on her own child. Because by leaving, by falling back in with black witches, Luca had spat in the face of the old woman and her beliefs.
“What does she want with the un’hi’tan?” I straightened my spine. “What is she planning?”
“Death,” she said simply. “She is planning death.”
Maybe the Ogunquitch could shed more light on their master plan, if we could lift her geas, but—
A sharp pinch at my waist had me recoiling from her, but she hadn’t lifted a finger. Reaching down, I brushed a fine thread and remembered I was still wearing the tether.
“What’s wrong with it?” Asa held his, which had gone slack. “The magic is…”
A deep vibration hummed through my feet. I caught the old woman before she fell as the tremors shook harder. The sudden clatter of stone striking stone was deafening, and then Caro sobbed out a scream.
“Wait here.” I helped the old woman sit. “Asa, you’re with me.”
We ran the short distance to circle around the huts and get a clear line of sight on Earl.
The portal—god?—was vomiting eerily familiar debris in a massive pile where Asa and I had stumbled out.
“Ish’ran is dying,” Caro wailed, her shrieks piercing. “We are being punished for Mother’s sins.”
