changeling chronicles 03 - faerie realm (18 page)

“The life-drinker,” said Vance, turning the first thorn over in his hands.

“Exactly. Velkas did it to me. He sucked my magic and energy right out of me.”

“You beat him.”

“In Faerie. If whoever has the talisman is doing what Calder did, boosting their power artificially, they’ll be stronger than I am.” Unless I found an equal force to oppose them. Which probably didn’t exist. “I can fight with faerie magic, but not against a talisman that powerful. Not here.”

Step by step, Faerie was luring me back in.

Still… the phrase
life-drinker
kept rebounding in my head. Life-drinker. Faeries who sucked the life out of others found their power dissipated twice as fast. Seelie exiles rarely lasted long in the Grey Vale. There was a reason exiles from Winter like Avakis lasted longer. They fed on death, not life. Even a talisman would lose its power in the Grey Vale. Maybe that was how the Lady had picked it up from beside Velkas’s dead body and brought it here without being overwhelmed by its power.

But was she really responsible for the thorns?

Vance looked up at the darkening sky. “The shifters will be out soon. I’ll send a couple of mages to watch the road tonight in case anything else happens.”

I shook off all thoughts of thorns. “We have wards in place. Strong ones.”

He scowled at the fence. “Yes, but someone’s trying to threaten you.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” I leaned closer to him. “You. Get some rest. Stop trying to solve everyone’s problems at once. You aren’t superhuman.”

He looked down at his hands like he expected to see claws. “I’m not entirely human, Ivy.”

“That makes two of us. Call me, okay?”

My hands dug into the front of his coat as I kissed him, as though if I held on tight enough, I could anchor him right here.

He disappeared, and I knew, beyond all shadow of a doubt, I’d walk back into Faerie for him again in a heartbeat.

“Earth to Ivy?” said Isabel, waving from the garden. “I thought he was going to take you with him.”

“I wish.” I walked over to the fence. “I’m gonna try a tracking spell out here. It’s not ideal, but some shithead’s got their eyes on the flat anyway. I’d rather check while I can.”

She nodded. “All right. Then I expect an explanation. What was that about talismans?”

Crap. She’d heard. “Don’t panic.” I took a tracking spell from the inside pocket of my coat. “I’ll see if I can get a lead on whoever brought those thorns here. Since they’re magic, I might not be able to track them.”

Or it might be a dead end. Or a trap.

Isabel rearranged the spells in her arms. “Whenever you tell me not to panic, it means you’re planning to blow something up.”

“Pfft. You’re the one field-testing explosive spells.” I scanned the road. No traces of the thorns remained. Hopefully the tracker would still work. “Anyway, I’d check our wards are active. Make sure whichever asshole left those thorns didn’t screw with anything else.”

I moved into the road, setting the tracker down. The spell activated immediately, glyphs swept up my arms, and images rushed through my head, following a familiar trail.

Half-blood territory.

I swore softly. We’d need to go back there first thing tomorrow.

Looking back at the house, I saw George watching from the window. There were kids in danger from this. So many lives depended on the killer being caught.

I’d do anything to save them. Even though the vow I’d made to the Lady of the Tree might cost my life, I’d make the same decision again.

I just hoped keeping my promise wouldn’t take more lives than it saved.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Screaming woke me.

I jolted upright, disorientated, before my panic response kicked in. The faeries had found a way into the flat. They’d taken George. And Isabel—no, she was the one screaming.

“Bad faerie!” Erwin the piskie screeched.

I lurched out of bed, snatching up a dagger from my bedside table, and ran into the living room.

Isabel stood by the window, palms pressed to the glass. Behind her, George sobbed quietly, curled on the sofa. They hadn’t taken him. I lowered the dagger.

“Ivy,” croaked Isabel. “L-look outside.”

Heart drumming against my ribcage, I hurried over to her. Then stood, transfixed with horror.

A dead body lay outside the flat.

Well. Parts of a dead body. Two arms were speared on the cacti by the fence. The head sat atop the post at the side of our gate. The rest of the guy lay across the flowerbeds, entrails spilling out in bloody ropes.

I gagged, falling back onto the armchair. “What in the actual living hell?”

“Bad faerie!” screamed Erwin, colliding with the wall.

A rattling crash shook the house. The sound of footsteps thundering downstairs, then the front door opening.

Oh, shit. Henry crossed the lawn, staring in horror.

Another shifter.

Someone had killed him outside, then thrown him
over
our wards. A lifeless dead body, not undead, wouldn’t trigger our security. They’d done it on purpose.

Faeries. Again.

“Crap,” said Isabel, hands over her mouth. “He’s going to kill someone.”

I cursed loudly. I went to my room and grabbed my phone, firing a quick message to Vance. Then I pulled my clothes on and grabbed two more daggers. Erwin buzzed around screaming, “Bad faerie! Bad faerie!”

By the time I joined Isabel in the hall, armed with my sword, no fewer than twelve people had gathered on the lawn. A flash of light indicated a witch’s spell. Someone must have used a tracker.

“Hang on,” I said to Henry, who stood next to the dead man’s head mounted on the gate post. His furious stillness made me wary to get near him. I kept my hand on Irene. “Don’t do anything rash.”

Henry ignored me. “Who did it?” he asked the two shifters standing next to the tracking spell.

“The trail leads to half-blood territory,” snarled a blond female shifter. From the bloody marks on her face, I could tell she’d had a rough shift. “The murdering scum.”

“Kill them,” said another.

Crap. Things were unravelling fast, and I was barely awake. I grabbed my phone again, for all the good calling Vance would do. Even the Mage Lord might not be able to stop a dozen shifters from breaking down the doors to half-blood territory.

Henry opened the gate and the other shifters followed him out the garden. I one-handedly typed another message to Vance on my phone, mouthing to Isabel,
stay there with George.
Tugging my jacket into place, I ran out the gate and into the road.

“Hang on a moment,” I called to them. “If you go in there spoiling for a fight, you’ll piss off the entire community. The person doing this isn’t a friend of the half-bloods.”

“You’d say that,” said the tattooed shifter dude who’d confronted me over the body yesterday. “Would you say the same if it was one of
your
friends torn up back there?” Yellow flared through his eyes. Two more shifters stepped up on either side.

I pulled out my sword, but I didn’t dare provoke them. Even my magic couldn’t stand up to twelve enraged shifters who’d barely turned back into human form post-shift.

“Henry!” I said. “Your son’s back there. Don’t be an idiot.”

“Susie can take care of him,” he growled. “This has gone on long enough.”

I kept up a desperate stream of discouragement all the way down the road, but I might as well have been arguing with a brick wall. Nobody listened to a word. Panic had begun to overtake the sluggishness in my head by the time we reached Acacia Road, and half-blood territory.

A line of figures stood in front of the fence. Not faeries. Mages. Vance must have got my message after all.

The Mage Lord himself stood in front of the group of mages. “Stop,” he said. “Nobody on this territory committed the murder.”

“You lying faerie sympathiser,” spat Henry, stalking closer to the gate.

“There are no murderers on my territory,” said the Chief, from behind the gate. Guards surrounded him on all sides. Considering all the shifters, I didn’t blame him.

“You’re lying,” said one of the other shifters. “It’s your sort who are behind these killings. People are dying because of you.”

“Murder is illegal,” Vance interjected. “No matter who committed the crime. If this is a rogue faerie, the Chief has agreed to assist in putting them down.”

Yeah, right.
Probably, the mages would have to deal with it.

The shifters moved in, and from their muttering, it was clear none of them believed him. But even they didn’t dare contradict the Mage Lord. Not least because at least twenty mages accompanied him, and armoured half-faerie knights stood behind the gates, along with several half-trolls, ogres and other beasts I’d never thought I’d be glad to have on my side.

“Furthermore,” said Vance, “it seems foolish to start a war when the cause of death has not yet been determined, and one of your own lies dead and unburied.”

An angry rumble went through the shifters.

“Don’t tell us what to do,” said the tattooed guy. “If someone killed one of yours, wouldn’t you go after the killer?”

“Nobody knows who the killer is,” I interjected. I wouldn’t tell
them
my suspicions. The murderer had blasted three of them to pieces already, and even a fully transformed shifter stood no chance against a talisman. “Starting a war over this won’t bring your friends back.”

“Ivy,” said Henry. “This is none of your business. Stay out of it.”

“But it’s
my
business if you planned to start a war here in my city,” said Vance. “Whatever your motives, our aim is to avoid a repeat of the last war. Need I remind you of the losses suffered, on both sides?”

The underlying threat, accompanied by a crackle of thunder, elicited no response from the shifters. Everyone knew they’d come off worse from the war. More shifters had died than any other species. Magic or not, faeries had the upper hand. The Chief’s barely concealed smirk told me he knew it. Moron. If not for the gate and his guards, he’d have run away.

“This isn’t over yet, half-bloods,” hissed the tattooed shifter. “If another one of ours dies, we’ll take one of yours.”

The sharp noises of weapons being drawn sent a tremor through the air, swiftly drowned out by a thunderclap. Everyone braced themselves as the air shook with the wind, which ripped leaves off the hedges and sent the retreating shifters backwards, away from the gate.

“Enough,” said Vance, his voice amplified. “I will stay here until we can be sure there will be no more deaths today. Remove your friend and do what you will to search for the killer. You will not find them here.”

How do you know?
Either he believed me wholeheartedly about the Lady of the Tree being the culprit, or he and the Chief had come to a new agreement.

The shifters sloped off, tailed by Henry. He shot me a reproachful look, enough to reassure me I’d be getting an earful later. Once he’d cleaned the corpse off our lawn. I hoped Isabel wouldn’t have to deal with it.

As for me… I had a killer to catch.

I walked over to Vance as the mages began to leave, too, in small groups.

“Crisis averted,” I muttered.
For now.
I doubted the shifters would accept the same excuses a second time around. Worse, the deaths were a precursor to something worse. If the veil opened, if we had a second faerie invasion, every one of them would succumb to the beast inside and the fragile peace would be shattered.

“We’re not done yet,” Vance said. “You wished to speak with the Chief.”

Not really.
The Chief had already moved back into his own territory, flanked by two brutish half-ogres. Seven feet tall and covered in mottled green skin, they waved huge clubs threateningly at me and Vance, apparently not finding the Mage Lord intimidating in the slightest.

“Chieftain Taive,” said Vance, ignoring the ogres. “We wish to speak to you in confidence.”

“What is it?” asked the Chief. “You’ve already brought threats to my territory today. If it turns out you’re mistaken, you’ve put my people in danger for nothing.”

“In confidence,” said Vance, in his most dangerous voice. Whatever had amplified it earlier had gone, but his authoritative tone ensured nobody challenged us this time.

The lawns were packed out with half-bloods, some in armour, some not. More than a few carried weapons, and there appeared to be an equal mix of Seelie and Unseelie. Winter knights with ice-coloured hair wielded spears, while Summer fey with coats of thorns and eerily beautiful faces watched us pass. A current of unease passed through my body. Some of these faeries easily fit the description of the killer. Sure, I trusted Vance’s judgement, but did I really trust these people, who were more faerie than human?

I’d never expected to end up defending the offspring of the faeries. What was the world coming to?

The Chief led us to an empty clearing I recognised as the place where Vance and I had once sneaked off with blood from a couple of dead bodies. The Chief dismissed his guards and ordered them to stand outside the clearing, leaving us alone. His two ogres sloped off, glowering at us.

“This had better be good,” said the Chief.

“I think I know who the killer is,” I said.

The Chief’s mouth fell open. “How?”

“First,” I said, “I want to know—can any other magic stand up to a talisman? Even a Sidhe lord’s?”

Vance moved slightly at my side, but he didn’t intervene.

“Depends on the strength of the talisman,” said the Chief. “They mature with time, and the amount of magic poured into them.”

Poured into them.
My spine stiffened. “Life-drinker.”