The King's Leash (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 7) (9 page)

“No,” he said. “If this is their thing, it’s some other part of it than where I work. And, I don’t know, are we all sure we should mess with it?”

“Whatever the Departments reaction to our actions, they can’t be worse than dear Guin,” Arthur said. “Tell me, young Adam, have you ever had someone tear your heart from your chest and play keep-away with it? Or met a lady highly skilled in the art of seduction for the sole purpose of destruction? Or have you—”

I put a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Let’s go inside and stop her coming back.”

He nodded. “Lead on, sir wizard and witch. Let us embark upon this grand quest of keeping my wife away!”

Our entire party brightened at my brother’s word and the kind gaze he cast upon us all. Even I felt lifted to see his smile: to stand with my brother.

Merlin opened the door with some well-spoken spells. It swung open.

Inside, the faerie trees lay rotten and limp, lying in the gray and moldy grass that stretched in all directions. Where there had been flowers and vines full of glow sticks and tinsel before, now there were merely layers of disgusting muck. For as far as the eye could see, the ground had turned gray and filmed over with mold. Clumps of death cap mushrooms grew up here and there. Where the placid pond had been, the land lay thick with mud, no different than anywhere else.

“This is a faerie place?” Arthur asked quietly as we stepped in and closed the door behind us.

The place reeked of blood, blood, and more blood, so thick that I found myself holding my breath.

Merlin let out a low whistle. “Hells and monsters, it is moving much faster now. Perhaps our escape spurned some sort of action within it. When we left, I wasn’t imagining—”

“Nor I,” I said, sick that it had taken us so long to return. “The faeries…?” Where were the fallen and small bodies? Sunken down and hidden beneath the rot, no doubt.

“They all fled, the cowards,” a high voice called out and the mouse faerie stepped out from behind a moldy tree stump. “I told them to take a stand. To fight to the very death for our homeland.”

“They chose wisely,” Arthur said, stepping up and leveling a gaze on the small fae. “And you, sentinel with the stalwart heart, you must go and find them. Keep them safe until we slay the Gray. There are strange and bad magics here.”

Bombadrood glanced at Arthur’s sword and his eyes widened. “Are you…?”

“I will trust you with discretion,” Arthur said and gave him an enigmatic smile.

The faerie puffed up his chest and slipped past us and out to find the other faeries.

“You’re not a king of anything anymore, Arthur,” I said.

“And yet you still sound jealous, sister.”

I cast aside any retorts as we walked into the boggy and blood-scented ruin.

Lila moved just behind me, so close I would have been annoyed at bumping into her were she not able to move in tandem with me, graceful and flowing with her long arms and legs. “You remember our word, Morgan?” she asked softly.

“Stay close, be vigilant. Mordred,” I whispered back.

Arthur flinched and gave me a sharp look. In truth, now that my brother was back, I needed to change my code word with Lila, but there hadn’t been time. We had gone to Morgan’s Ephemera, gathered Lila and Adam, and come here immediately, explaining my brother’s sudden appearance along the way.

Every step forward was a misery as we slogged through the muck, heading in the direction of the pond. At least, in the odd way of faerie, we were making good time. I wondered if the Gray was in charge of such things now. I wondered if it wanted us near.

“I believe when we find this door I shan’t like it overmuch,” Arthur said with the perfect mixture of mirth and bravery.

Not for the first time, but not in a long time, I wondered whether he practiced his effortless nonchalance when he was alone.

We crossed the muddy field of the former pond, and then stood at the top of the hill. The incline ran with sludge. With every tree rotted away, we could see the flickering Gray, full of twisting hands and mouths, at the bottom of the hill. It was visible for a long moment and then disappeared.

We walked down the hill, closer and closer.

“When it appears again, do your best to destroy it. Mordred,” I told Lila.

“Will the destroying of it hurt her?” Arthur asked.

Before any could answer, the Gray appeared twenty feet in front of us. Whipping tentacles flew out from its base. They snaked through the mud and raced toward us.

I stumbled backward from those hands and mouths. That grayness.

I bumped into Lila and went sprawling onto the mucky ground. She paid me no mind as her wild Marid magic crackled out of her hands. Her blue magic hit it and pulsed within like lightning within a storm cloud.

The Gray flickered out of existence.

I got up from the ground and wiped my hands on my skirt.

“Is it gone?” Adam asked.

“I doubt it,” Merlin said uneasily.

Our small band of fighters drew close, waiting and watching.

The Gray appeared and reached for us again.

This time I was able to throw three rose quartz balls at it and yell, “
Dinistrio.
” My spell grew strength as it hurtled toward it.

“An encouraging thought,” Merlin growled the words of his spell and aimed his rowan staff at the door. Circles of power and magic flowed from the top of his staff toward the Gray.

Arthur took a step back and looked stunned. Adam pulled out a gun and shot at the thing with magic-laced bullets. Lila threw more Marid magic at it.

The Gray retracted its tentacles back into itself and shook as it took our spells in. Mouths and hands pressed along all sides of it, seeking us. Wanting us.

Merlin, Lila, and I kept up our magical assault and hit it with spell after strong spell. The Gray didn’t appear changed by any of it.

“This isn’t working,” Merlin growled. “It must be able to take in our magics and shunt it into the lands of the realm it protects, likely. We must find another way to destroy it.”

Another way. All I knew was magic. Did he expect us to Kung Fu it into submission?

“Be off with you, foul Guinevere, you won’t come through,” Arthur cried out and began running toward the Gray, with Excalibur raised before him.

No. It would destroy my brother. It couldn’t. I couldn’t let that happen. “Close the door, Lila! Banish it. Mordred,” I yelled.

Since I ordered it, she would have to do it. Since I ordered it without any softening words like try or attempt, she would have to.

I bit back anything to ameliorate my words. The Gray couldn’t have Arthur.

Lila growled and suddenly loomed fifteen feet tall. She wore a monstrous mask of rage as she screamed. Her hands flexed into fists, and when she opened them, blue magic flew off her, so bright that it blinded me. A boom, like a punch to my head, filled the air. A heartbeat later a burning blast of magic lifted me up and flung me backward.

Chapter 12

Doubled in Strangeness

I could see nothing. I could hear nothing. I lay curled on the ground, aching from the impact. I slowly unfurled, checking my feet and hands, my arms and legs, to see if anything was broken. Cold mud and slime soaked through the side of my dress. I blinked a dozen times until I could see vague specters of light. The world around me was unfocused and full of gray. The barest whisper of sound came through my ears.

I made myself sit up. Nothing within my body shrieked with pain. I was bruised, and my head had hit something hard, but I seemed otherwise intact. The world slowly came back into better focus each time I blinked. All around me lay the scattered bodies of my friends. Some were moving. Moving was good. I dragged myself up to standing and hobbled toward the nearest form. Merlin, I saw, when I bent close to him and squinted.

He looked dazed. He said something. I couldn’t hear his words. But he was fine and didn’t need immediate help.

I walked toward the next form and saw Adam. He held his knee with both hands and looked pale.

He too said something. I tried to lip read, but I was dizzy and unmoored from my temporary deafness.

Then sound fizzed back into my ears, suddenly and strangely. I nearly toppled over.

“She’s here, she’s here,” Adam said. “Turn around, Morgan. Behind you.”

I spun around, and with the sudden motion, I lost my balance and fell to the ground.

The wet and moldy ground seemed to tilt and sway beneath me as I tried to regain my facilities. I raised my head and saw Guinevere standing at the center of a blackened blast sight down the hill. Limp and gray storm clouds covered her legs. She shook out her skirts and cast me a long and weary look. Her skin shone with red marks that covered every inch of her. Scratches and bite marks. Bruises and gashes.

How long had she been in the Gray?

“Thank you to whoever uttered my name,” she cried out with an unsteady voice. “Was it you, Morgan? For without it, I was destined to be stuck in that damned portcullis. Without anyone claiming me on this side of Earth, I would never have come through.” She cleared her throat and spit. “It’s a damned smart trap, the last of many tricks to keep me in that nasty realm. Whoever made that door should be sentenced to live within it for all eternity.”

“Arthur uttered your name.” Arthur saved you, though it was not his intention, I didn’t say. I glanced behind me to check that he was okay. My brother lay on the ground, facing away from me. His aura appeared fine, and that would have to do for now.

I turned back to Guinevere. The gray clouds that surrounded her were thinning and sinking into the ground.

“We do not want you here,” I said. My mind searched for ways we might contain her, now that she was through. Any spell upon her must be well-made, else she would slither away.

“Some people want me here.” Guinevere said and ran a hand through her long golden hair. She flicked strands of thick mucus onto the mushroomed ground. Her clever and quick gaze scanned the hill where we had all been hurled backward by Lila’s magic.

Lila. I frantically searched for her, and then saw her standing not far from me. She had returned to her normal height, and held herself oddly still, like a statue of herself. She bore no obvious injuries, but her pallor had turned an icy blue. How depleted was she from the magic I had forced her to use? I shouldn’t have commanded her like that. I shouldn’t have. “Lila, are you—”

“I’m fine, boss,” she said with a hollow voice. She didn’t move a muscle.

“Fine? You clever creature!” Guinevere said. “You are more than fine. Oh, what I wouldn’t do to own you and—”

I threw a handful of exploding ball bearings at the witch. Before they got close, she batted them away with a casual gesture. Guinevere laughed and raised her hand toward me, holding some sort of muddy spell in her hand. But then her arm dropped and she stared at something behind me.

Arthur. He was rolling over and sitting up, holding his head and cursing in Old Welsh.

Guinevere leaned forward. Confusion covered her face. As the clouds around her continued to disappear, I saw that something black lay near her feet. I couldn’t tell what it was.

“Husband?” Guinevere cried out. “Might I say you are looking… dull and much too vanilla for my tastes, same as ever, but you are alive? How strange.” She flicked spit off her bare arms.

“And you are hideous,” Arthur replied.

“You always did know how to make a girl blush.”

The black thing at Guinevere’s feet twitched and moved.

“He didn’t tell me you’d be here. I might have decided to stay in the realm of nasty things,” Guinevere said. She scowled and kicked the black form that lay before her.

It growled and then uncurled from the ground. It flowed upward in a fluid motion.

Not an it, I saw, but a man who wore all-black armor. The suit of metal made no sound and moved with joints as natural as the body’s. The armor covered his face as well as the rest of him. It was a useful outfit for any who had been caught within the Gray.

The man’s helmeted head seemed to watch all of us as he slowly raised his hand toward it.

Guinevere scowled at him. “And who among you was dumb enough to say his name? I was hoping to leave him behind.”

I blinked, still slow-minded from the blast. Guinevere had said she needed her name said out loud on this side of the door for her to come through. So that meant….

A sick feeling filled my belly. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. He was dead, long dead, and though this was day where such things were not always true, I couldn’t believe it was him.

The man lifted up his helmet so that we could see his face clearly.

The day doubled in strangeness.

For there, standing next to Guinevere, was my old student: a man who was a natural with magic. A man who had reminded me of myself until he’d followed a different path. A path that was not so different from my own, but littered with many more bodies.

“Mordred?” I whispered.

“Mordred,” Merlin said and raised his staff.

“Mordred,” Arthur growled and ran at him.

Chapter 13

Acolyte

Arthur sprinted toward the man in black. His feet pushed against the muddy ground as he raised high his gleaming sword. Mordred stood and watched Arthur, doing nothing as my brother drew close.

Arthur made a guttural sound as he leapt into the air. Excalibur swung toward Mordred’s chest, and though that fabled blade could cut through anything, it made a loud metal-on-metal clang and bounced off. Arthur swung around again and hacked at Mordred’s knees. Nothing.

Mordred threw back his head and laughed as he punched Arthur’s belly with a metal fist. My brother flew backward and fell into the gunky mud.

Merlin cursed and hit the ground with his staff. Swirling red magic circled around the top of it.

“Come at me, old man,” Mordred mocked. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to—”