Unfamiliar Territory, page 23
I’d bet anything it was the piece of Wren’s soul.
Unfortunately, I was in no position to do anything about it.
Annie pursed her lips as she inspected me, oblivious to my own inspection of her.
“So,” she finally uttered, “why are you really here?”
The question was directed at me, but Wren, bless her brave heart, answered, “I told you. I couldn’t bring my brother, so I brought her instead.”
“It isn’t polite to lie to your elders, young lady,” Annie replied icily, returning her gaze to Wren. She then focused her repugnant face back on me. “And you,” she practically hissed, “I’m not sure what your angle is, but mark my words, you will see your death here.”
Well, crap. I was very much hoping that Annie Coddle would turn out to be one of those incompetent villains that took no skill at all to bring down. Clearly, Annie was a sharper tack than that, unfortunately for us.
On Annie’s right, I spied a small table which housed open vials, loose herbs, and a single colorless crystal a foot tall and four inches in diameter. Annie reached over and brushed her fingers down the crystal, almost in an absentminded manner.
“Wren, Wren, Wren,” she cooed in her cracking ageless voice. “I don’t want you going anywhere this time. Your eyes are blocked to me now. What did you do?”
Wren didn’t answer but stared at her feet as if ashamed.
Annie grasped the silver pendant around her neck in the hand that didn’t stroke the crystal. She cracked a smug smile, allowing a mien of evil to bloom on her face. “Let’s keep you close for now,” she decided, and then swiftly she raised her hand above the crystal and sliced her finger upon its sharp point. Flinging the wounded appendage at Wren, she shouted, “Sleep!”
The air around me crackled with unseen energy. Wren crumpled beside me. It took all of my effort not to scream her name.
With Wren out for the count, I was out of options. Truthfully, I didn’t really have a plan anyway. I suppose I was hoping that once I saw Annie Coddle, my lineage’s magic would kick in automatically. But, quite unfortunately, I still had no clue what that magic was.
But I still wasn’t completely helpless.
I thanked Freya in my head as I realized that neither Wren nor myself had been searched when we had been taken into custody. I had just one more trick, and it was hidden in my boot.
With more grace than I thought my human body could muster, I bent down, retrieved Hail Mary, and straightened.
“It’s not nice to pick on little girls!” I yelled as I flung my knife straight for Annie’s heart.
It flew through the air, blade over handle, with perfect aim. And stopped just a foot shy of Annie’s body.
My eyes couldn’t quite believe what I had witnessed. Hail Mary hovered. My heart lurched when my brain finally caught up. Annie’s magic had somehow stopped the blade from hitting its mark.
The witch looked at the weapon thoughtfully as it stayed poised before her. After a few seconds, she casually plucked it from the air with her unbloodied hand and observed it closely.
“Interesting. This is a refined charm indeed. You have some powerful friends.”
“That’s right,” I blustered.
Annie Coddle shot me a sly look, a slight grin beginning to form upon her lips. She stood up and casually strolled over to Wren’s form. “Too bad they aren’t here, then. You might have stood a chance.”
She leaned over Wren and picked up a limp hand. And then she pierced Wren’s forefinger with Hail Mary.
“No!” I shouted before I could stop myself. Annie dropped Wren’s hand, which landed with a boneless thud. The punctured fingertip welled with crimson blood. Blood that was now coating Hail Mary and activating its enchantment.
Annie straightened. Still smiling, she licked her own bloody finger, the one she had sliced on the strange crystal. As she removed her finger from her tongue, her face turned sour. “You,” she yelled at the guard behind me, “which one are you?”
“It’s Groban, Mother,” he replied with reverence.
She waved her hand in a dismissing gesture. “Take this one to the dungeons.” She sneered. “We’ll see if things get more fun when she’s more worn out.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Groban grabbed my arms and led me out of the throne room. He placed the sharp crystal blade against my back, a threat not to try anything heroic. I turned to take one last look at Wren’s recumbent form on the floor, and then I swiveled to meet Annie’s eyes. I narrowed mine menacingly. She just smiled evilly and wiggled her fingers at me in a “toodle-oo” gesture as Groban manhandled me out of the room.
Chapter 24
Back in the maze of tunnels, I tried my luck with Groban. I figured that Annie seemed to have a shabby relationship with him, so maybe I could persuade him to help me out.
“So, you said your name is Groban?” I asked conversationally.
No answer.
“Well, uh, Groban, where in Gaia’s greenness did you come from? I didn’t think anyone else was supposed to be here.”
Just when I didn’t think he’d answer, he responded, “From Mother.”
“Mother? Do you mean Annie Coddle?”
“Yes, they are one and the same.”
Well, that was an odd leadership title. “She kind of treated you like dirt out there. Why listen to her?”
We did not pause our walk through the tunnel—which was decidedly slanting downhill—but he seemed to consider my question.
“Because she is life. Without her, I would not exist. I owe her everything.”
“Okay, then. So, I take it I can’t convince you to help us out? Not even a little bit?”
I could sense the head shake behind me. “No. Mother must be obeyed. We dare not face the consequences.”
“Worth a shot.” I muttered.
Groban did not offer any more words of wisdom, not that I quite understood what little he had said. We continued to trek down for quite a while, weaving deftly through the maze of tunnels, until finally our path ended at a door. He pushed me into a wall with one strong arm while the other took a keychain and unlocked the door before us.
Once the door was opened, I was manhandled inside. It was indeed a dungeon in here. Rows of prison cells lined the wall, at least ten in all. Wasting no time, my guard took me to the nearest cell and pushed me in through the opening, before shutting the cage with a loud clank and turning the key. His job done, he swiftly exited like an automaton.
“Wait!” I called to his retreating back, “you forgot the mint on my pillow!”
My quip didn’t even slow him down.
Once the door to the dungeon had clanked shut and locked, I let out a loud sigh. Now that the adrenaline of the events had subsided, I could once more take note of every ache and pain in my body. My head hurt, my eyes were strained, and my muscles groaned. The bad news was it was only getting worse. I slid down the cell wall to rest on my butt, keeping my eyes closed.
“You’re not the usual,” a high-pitched voice in front of me said.
I opened my eyes to see a small woman watching me through the bars. She was being housed in the cell adjacent to mine. High cheekbones and big violet eyes graced her face, which had a slight greenish hue to it. Her hair was a dark forest green, and it lay limply in long disheveled tresses. Her gossamer dress was torn and dirty.
“What do you mean? I’m not the usual?” I asked her, not moving a muscle from my spot in exhaustion.
“I mean, you are clearly not Fae. You aren’t one of her daughters, either.” The petite woman studied me.
“Whose daughter?”
She laughed. “Who else? Madam Annie, of course.”
“Wait a moment.” I sat up, intrigued. “Annie Coddle has children? She’s actually a mother?”
The woman before me squinted her large eyes. “Where did you come from?”
“Elsewhere. Please, answer my question,” I practically begged her.
She cocked her head. “Well, yes, all of the people living here are either Madam’s children or grandchildren.”
“Ewww,” I uttered, jumping to my feet. “She really is a naked mole rat queen!”
The woman cocked her head in confusion. I waved it off. “Not important,” I told her. I thought about the ramifications of Annie having children. Despite not knowing the details personally, I did know the basics on procreation. “How is it possible, though?”
She frowned at me. I shook my head. “I don’t mean it quite that literally. Nor do I want that mental image. Ever. I mean, this world was supposed to be abandoned. Who the heck is the father?”
“Oh.” The woman nodded. “That’s easy. I’m from a dimension of Fae. This world is used as a prison for the worst kind of Fae criminals. Madame Annie takes advantage of this fact.”
Well, I’ll be darned, Fleurette was right. Fae did exist.
I’m not sure which part of her sentence surprised me more, though, the fact that there was a whole dimension of Fae, or the fact that they were using this place for their own nefarious plans.
I’m pretty sure my eyes bugged out at her. “Since when has it been used as a prison?”
She screwed up her greenish face in thought. “Since, oh, about four-hundred and seventy years ago.”
“Well, that’s just fantastic,” I groaned sarcastically. “This dimension was supposed to be magic-free to keep Annie here forever. Clearly, she has some magic. How did this happen?”
The Fae woman scrunched up her face. “You seem to be a fountain of knowledge when it comes to Madam Annie,” she said, her tone accusatory. “Care to explain? I think I’ve been more than forthcoming.”
I closed my aching eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “My ancestor was the one that sent her here,” I told her, reopening my eyes to look at her, “Annie was banished here without any magic powers, and the place was supposed to be magic-free. And people-free, for that matter.”
“Oh, I see,” the friendly demeanor was back again. “Well, the Fae council chose this dimension as a terminal prison because it was non-magical. It basically sucks Fae dry of any residual magic, which kills us faster. I don’t think they knew Annie Coddle was here when they chose it. And since none of the blowhards has ever stepped foot here since making it their prison, still no one knows she’s here.”
“Bureaucracy at its finest,” I muttered. The woman nodded in agreement. Something occurred to me. “If this is a prison, what are you doing here?”
She shrugged. “Oh, I’m a prisoner too. I was sent here about three weeks ago.”
I almost didn’t want to ask, but curiosity got to me. “What did you do?”
She winked at me, and then replied, “I ate all of my siblings.”
“Ohhhhh … kay,” I responded, trying my hardest to keep from sounding horrified.
She laughed. Her incisors were sharp, like shark teeth. “It sounds worse than it is. I can see intentions deep inside of people. My siblings had dark intentions, so I ate them. It was the best possible outcome. But the council didn’t see things my way. So here I am.”
Here she was. I looked around my cage for a moment, taking stock of my surroundings. It was barren of everything but a big stone bowl in one corner, and a pile of rags that I assumed to be a bed in another. The right-hand wall was solid stone, and the other three sides were comprised of bars. On closer inspection, they were fashioned from stone, not metal, and it appeared that the bars and cells had also been carved from a solid piece of stone.
The Fae female in front of me stuck a dirty greenish hand through said bars, offering it to me. “I’m Dunisha.”
I hesitated for a split second before taking the proffered hand, not wanting to offend the apparent serial killer in front of me. Shaking her hand, I said, “Cressida.”
Handshake done, we both stepped back from the bars again. “Don’t worry, Cressida, I can see your intentions. They shine bright with goodness. I don’t want to eat you.” Dunisha winked at me, her cheeky smile unnervingly pointy.
“Thanks for that,” I told her. “I can’t read intentions. You’ve been here for three weeks. How did you end up in the dungeon?”
“Oh, that,” she waved a hand in the air. “Madam always snags the fresh meat as soon as they arrive. From what I’ve gleaned, the men she usually takes for herself, unless she’s currently pregnant. The women are reserved for her sons. They’re just wearing me down first before I’m put to breed.”
“Ugh, barf,” I retorted. “That’s disgusting. And I don’t get it. Why does she want to keep popping out babies? Based on her interaction with her son the guard, she’s not a very fit mother.”
“She’s creating magic, of course.”
“Come again?” I was intrigued.
Dunisha nodded. “Creating a life also creates a very small amount of magic. Normally it’s so slight that it’s like a drop in the ocean, but here in this barren land a drop adds up. She’s storing this magic somehow. But it’s such a tiny amount that she has to keep breeding for it to pile up.”
“Interesting.” As much as I didn’t want to picture Annie doing anything remotely romantic with someone, it was fascinating. And clearly, based on the sleep spell she placed on Wren, it was working. Annie had built up a good amount of magic over the last five hundred years. “But how is she able to store it?”
Dunisha shook her head. “I don’t know. This world naturally sucks up magic like a sponge, ridding it from the environment and rendering it null. Madam Annie has clearly found a way around that. She’s also collected everything from every unfortunate person that comes her way. Any herbs, potions, metals; you name it, she saves it. And when people die, she makes potions out of their body parts.”
“Waste not, want not,” I muttered.
“She knows what she’s doing, that’s for sure,” Dunisha agreed with a little too much cheerfulness for my comfort.
A bolt of pain shot through my skull, making me wince and screw my eyes shut. It faded as quickly as it had come, but a throbbing ache stayed put. I sighed in frustration. Clearly, without being able to revert to my cat form, I was failing in the health department. And fast.
“Well, Dunisha, this has been the most disturbing conversation I’ve ever had, and I’ve had some doozies lately,” I told my fellow detainee with forced cheer. “But I can’t stick around. I need to get out of here. Any ideas?”
She frowned at me. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously.” A lance of pain pierced my left eye from the back. I winked it closed with a grimace. “It’s my destiny to save my world, and by proxy all the other worlds, by keeping Annie here, and I can’t really do my job from inside a cell.”
She furrowed her brow at me in thought. She may have been the one to eat her family members, but I could tell that she was considering me to be the crazy one in this situation. “What’s in it for me?” she asked.
“Um, I’d love your help. I also need to get my hands on Annie’s pendant. You know, the one around her neck? It’s really important.”
“Why?” Dunisha countered with narrowed eyes.
In for a pound, at this point. “I traveled here with a little girl. A part of her soul is inside of it, and if I don’t get it back, she’ll die. And she’s my ride back to my dimension, so I need her to not die.”
The Fae woman considered my words and then she visibly brightened. “She can dimension hop? Okay, I’ll help you, but only if you take me with you back to your dimension.”
I should have seen that one coming.
“Oh, um…” I hesitated. Should I accept the bargain and let a Fae murderer loose on my dimension, or should I decline and try to get out on my own? And even if I accept, what were the odds that she could even do anything to help me? And what if she really was acting for the good of her world by eating her siblings, and was wrongly incarcerated?
So many questions. So little time. My left eye throbbed again.
So, I went with my gut’s deep-down feeling. “Deal.”
“That was a struggle, wasn’t it?” Dunisha said with a wry smile. “Good thing I can see that you intend to keep your promise, otherwise I might not have trusted you enough to actually help.”
Gulp. “Good thing,” I agreed wanly. Dunisha smiled more broadly, displaying those sharp little teeth.
“Do you have a plan?” she asked.
“Other than kicking Annie’s butt to kingdom come? No.”
“I see.” The Fae screwed up her face. “So, I’m to be the brains of this operation?”
I shrugged. “I think I just need help with getting out of these cages. Once that’s done, I’ll have more say.”
“And how exactly do you propose we break out?”
If I could become a cat, I could breeze through these bars and be done with it. I contemplated doing just that, but ultimately decided that the risk of being barbequed before I could turn back to human was too great. Especially since my shimmer was being weirdly sticky.
I didn’t want to give away my secret to my nice new criminal friend, anyway. So instead, I suggested, “I was sort of hoping you had a trick up your sleeve that could get us out.”
She frowned at me. I smiled winningly at her in response. Finally, Dunisha rolled her eyes. “I told myself I’d never do it again. But Groban, based on his intentions, is to be my intended.”
“Pun intended?” I interjected.
She sent me a half-hearted glare, but then changed it to a smile. “Groban is nothing more than an automaton of Annie’s. Not literally, but the man has no character. Except when it comes to me. He has a sweet spot for me. I think I can work with that.”
“Excellent!” I exclaimed, clapping my hands together once. The pop of the clap sent a throb of pain through my skull. Oops. “How soon will he be coming back?”
“I couldn’t say,” Dunisha said with a little head shake. I sighed loudly. Time was running out for me, I could tell.
For once, however, luck seemed to be on my side. We stewed in our cells for only twenty more minutes before the telltale sound of a key in the lock met our ears. The two of us sprung apart, me to the rag bundle in the corner and Dunisha to the door of her cell. Groban entered on cue, holding a plate of what I guessed was food. He made a beeline for us.
