Fate Fallen, page 25
part #3 of The Gallows Series Series
She wondered how she could see him, how Adrian had gotten her again. He took a breath.
“He had one of his minions get the necklace and put it on you so he could bring you here. You’re still wearing it. I can’t remove it. I can’t touch you. I don’t know what to do.” He stared at her helplessly. “I need to stop him, but I don’t know how.”
She tried to think. Roman had lost it, clearly, though he smiled a little when she thought that. They needed someone who could stop Adrian. They needed Shaun.
Where’s Shaun?
“I don’t know. He was supposed to be following me to stop you finding the necklace, and he just disappeared. I don’t know where he went.”
Something in his voice told her he wasn’t being entirely truthful with her. She wasn’t sure what reason he’d have for lying, but he hadn’t exactly proven trustworthy in the past either.
Roman! What are you not telling me? This isn’t funny. We don’t have time for lies.
“I think he walked through a mirror.”
You think he did what! She knew exactly what that meant. It meant their only hope was stuck in the Darklands. He wouldn’t know how to get back. She did her best to glower at her stupid boyfriend.
“I’m not leaving you,” he told her. “I can’t. Don’t ask me to.”
Go and get Shaun. We need him.
“I can’t leave you here alone. What if he comes back?”
Where we you when he took me in the first place?
It had to hurt but she didn’t have the time or the patience to be nice.
“I… couldn’t stop him.”
That’s why we need Shaun. Go and get him, Roman. Now.
He didn’t want to go. She nagged at him with her thoughts until he teleported away in front of her eyes.
Chapter Sixty-Three
The fruitless search eventually made Shaun regret chucking two-thirds of his late night snack away. His stomach was grumbling and his mouth was dry. He found chewing gum in his pocket and made do. The trek was getting ridiculous. Sarah was poking about at everything they passed in case the door was hidden in a bush or some such nonsense.
He sighed. “We’re stuck here. Let’s just resign ourselves to it and find a nice cave to lie down and die in.”
She snorted. “There’s houses, Shaun. There has to be, the amount of fairies that live here. We’re just out in the back of beyond right now.”
“If there’s houses there’s doors.” His attempt to be positive sounded extremely negative.
“Right! We just need to find the right kind of door, and we’re home,” she said. “It’s kinda weird that we both came through different doors. I wonder if those were doors that don’t exist all the time or something. Like Adrian and Pen just opened them for us.”
“Can you not…” He found a grin spreading on his face when he looked up and saw Teri’s boyfriend coming towards them. “Finally. Roman! What the hell’s going on? How do we get out of here?”
“That depends,” he said, sounding as weary as he looked. “Which mirror did you come through?”
“Mirror?”
“I think you walked through the hall mirror next to the basement in Teri’s house.”
“That was Teri’s house?”
Roman ignored the question to turn his attention to Sarah, who was looking at him curiously.
“Hey, we never met. I’m Sarah.”
“Roman. I’m sure it would be nice to meet you under other circumstances. Right now, it’s a problem. Which mirror did you come through?” He tugged at his sleeves.
Sarah shrugged. “I was at Pen’s house. I went downstairs. I was in the room next door to the big living room.”
He nodded. “I know it. Okay. We find Shaun’s mirror first. It’s not far, but I can only teleport us halfway there. The mirrors have their own gravitational fields. I teleport us too close to one and our bodies never reform.”
Shaun shuddered. “You said it was close, let’s walk.”
“Hurry up then, time’s wasting.”
“How’s Teri?”
“She’s wearing the necklace. Adrian has her at Shadows Grove. She sent me to get you.”
“Is she okay?” Shaun supposed he wouldn’t be there if she wasn’t.
Roman nodded quickly, but he looked pained. “We should hurry.”
“So the gates aren’t open yet then?” Sarah asked.
“No, but we have to stop him soon. He won’t wait around much longer. I think he’s waiting for midnight. It’s the anniversary of his death. That gives the ritual more power. It’s a sacrificial kind of thing. Spilling blood over blood. The gate will open in Shadows Grove and doorways will start opening all over the place. Anywhere there’s been a lot of bloodshed and pain.”
Sarah took it all in with thirsty eyes and ears. Shaun felt himself groan inwardly with every step taken towards his doorway home. It all sounded so horrific, and he was the one expected to stop it from happening. It was a lot of weight for one tracker’s reluctant shoulders.
“Right up here,” Roman told them, walking up a hill towards what looked like a cabin.
“Oh goody,” Shaun muttered. “So why do you need to find the other mirror for Sarah, anyway?”
He didn’t see why they couldn’t just jump through whatever mirror they came across to get back. Roman looked at him. “You need to go back the way you came. All kinds of mistakes can happen if you don’t.”
“What kind of mistakes?”
Shaun glowered at his sister and the ghoulish glee in her voice as she asked.
“Little things. Lost memories, accelerated aging, sometimes limb losses. It’s always different.”
“Crap. I guess we need to find my mirror then,” Sarah said.
“No shit,” Shaun muttered.
Roman pushed in the creaky cabin door. It was dark inside and had a weird, musty, damp smell. It certainly wasn’t someone’s home. Shaun walked in. Roman found the mirror and wiped at it with his arm. He withdrew with a massive relieved sigh. “It’s intact.”
“I didn’t come out through that,” Shaun told him.
“That’s not how they work,” Roman snapped back. “You won’t go back to Teri’s house either, just somewhere close by.”
“Okay,” Shaun said, wondering what the hell the arsehole’s problem was.
“Go. I’ll come and take you to Shadows Grove, and then I’ll come back for your sister.”
Shaun looked at it, dubious. “It just looks like a mirror.”
His uncertain expression stared back at him. It didn’t look like a magic doorway at all.
“Just walk towards it. It’ll suck you in and spit you out at the other side.”
“Is there anything I should know before I do this?”
Roman shook his head.
Shaun bit the bullet, striding towards the mirror until he was stumbling off the pavement and onto the road outside Teri’s house. “Holy crap!”
Roman appeared a moment later, grabbed his arm and teleported him inside the house Adrian grew up in. He was left in the upstairs hallway, Roman warning him not to touch Teri due to some spell or other she was under. He was ordered to protect her from Adrian. Shaun wondered where the hell the guy was. It seemed weird that he’d abandon her like this, even if she couldn’t move. He was up to something, whatever he was doing. The image of Pen’s writhing body came to mind. He supposed the guy could be prepping his demon bride for whatever her role was to be in the upcoming event. Adrian’s apocalypse was going to be big, after all. Death and destruction and a new fey rule over the earth. Chaos was coming and its name was fairy. Shaun snorted. He wished it was half as pathetic as it sounded.
He opened the bedroom door in spite of Roman’s warnings to leave Teri alone. She was awake but still, and she blinked when he entered.
“Hey, it’s just me. Roman said you couldn’t move or anything. Adrian’s not here, but he’ll be coming back. I’ll deal with him when he does.”
She didn’t speak. Roman had warned him she couldn’t and that only Adrian could touch her and had to touch her to break the paralysis spell he had her under. Shaun would need to be careful to let him break the spell before he launched any attack. He considered his options. It probably didn’t matter what he did, Adrian would know what he was up to. Gaining the upper hand was going to be tough. He frowned, going to the window. It was dark out, stars shining in the moonlit sky. Taking his phone out of his pocket, he checked the time. It was a quarter to midnight. Adrian was going to be cutting it fine. Shaun needed a plan and he needed it soon.
He reached into his pocket and got out his dagger. He still thought the fey steel was his best bet against the fairy ghost, though it probably would have been even more effective against the creep back in the Darklands. He cursed his inability to get in a good strike. The guy had too much power over him, like he had when they were kids. Nothing much had changed.
“Katie,” he said, wondering if she’d answer his call like Roman had. He pictured her: pretty, petite and irritable. “Katie.”
“What the hell do you want?”
“Tell me why I can make fairies appear on command,” Shaun said, turning to face her.
“We don’t have to show up,” she said, folding her arms. “If that’s the only reason you called me here, I’m leaving.”
“Wait! Why did you come?”
She was pissed at him, and he knew it. She wasn’t in the mood to be doing him any favours, and yet here she was. She frowned and made a disgusted noise.
“Look, I’m sorry about Melissa. I just…”
“You don’t deserve to be holding that dagger,” she spat out.
“It’s mine.”
“I gave you it.”
“Did you really?” He seriously doubted that now that he knew what it was. “So you owned the Seelie Dagger? You’re the Seelie princess?”
She scowled at him. They both knew she wasn’t. The little girl in the pictures was too young to be Katie.
“So you lied to me then,” he surmised. “That’s interesting.”
“You were supposed to be my Knight, Shaun. Not everyone’s. This is a mess,” she told him. “They asked me if you were worthy. I should have said no.”
“Who asked you?” He tried to ignore the spoiled little rich girl stuff and concentrate on what he needed to know. He didn’t have the time to indulge Katie’s pity party.
“The Seelie court. Bunch of idiots.”
Shaun rubbed at the scarring under his eye. It made sense that the court would assign the Seelie Knight, but it didn’t make sense that they’d assign someone who wasn’t fey.
“What happened to the last Seelie Knight?” He left out the whole not being told thing, for the time being. He figured he’d be best picking his battles with the pissed off fairy.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. The Dark Knight killed him or something.”
He snorted. The human movie reference she’d just dropped sent amusing pictures to his brain. “What, Batman?”
She did some more scowling. “You are an imbecile.”
“But apparently I’m also the White Knight,” he reminded, trying not to get too hung up on what that meant. He wasn’t overly keen on the idea that he’d been picked by a fey court to be their defender, or whatever the hell it was a Knight actually did. “I didn’t agree to it.”
She smiled. “You agreed the second you touched the dagger.”
“That seems a little underhanded and unfair,” he complained, though he mostly felt like an idiot for not knowing better when he’d found the box on his doorstep.
“Tough break for you then,” she said, shrugging.
“You tried to make it look like it was from you,” he reminded. “You wanted me to use it to kill Melissa.”
“Are you trying to piss me off?”
“How would your court take that information?”
She made another disgusted noise and turned away, looking at Teri’s motionless body.
“She’s going to die.”
“She can hear you, and she’s not.” He turned the dagger over in his hands.
“It’s getting too close to midnight,” Katie said. “I don’t want to be here when he comes.”
“You need my permission to leave?”
“Screw you,” she snapped, disappearing right in front of him.
“Nice,” Shaun said, mostly to himself.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Sarah kicked at the cabin door. Every second felt like it was stretching out to infinity. She couldn’t handle the waiting. The mirror caught her attention one too many times, so she stalked outside to make sure she wouldn’t be tempted. For once the potential consequences didn’t seem worth the short cut.
She considered the thought that the fairy may not come back for her. If Shaun was caught up dealing with Adrian she might find herself holding her breath a long time. Sighing, she paced around the outside of the cabin, trying not to let her impatience get the better of her common sense.
It needed to be the right mirror, or so the fairy had said. He hadn’t seemed like a liar, but what did she know? What felt like an eternity later, the guy appeared back beside her.
“Where the hell have you been?”
He frowned at her. “I was gone five minutes.”
“Yeah, right. Where’s this mirror?”
“I went back and checked to make sure I had the right one. It’s not far.”
“Okay, good.” She was getting worried about what her mother and Suze might be going through at the hands of Pen. “Well, lead the way then.”
He started walking down the hill. She rushed to keep up once he got going.
The guy who’d stolen her brother’s girlfriend didn’t appear to be the talkative type.
“How do you know her?”
He glanced at her. “Who?”
“Uh, Teri,” she said, remembering the real name Sawyer had given her months ago for Shaun’s new girlfriend.
“It’s a long story.”
“You’ve known her a while then?” She’d suspected some kind of heartache when she’d spoken to the girl the first time they’d met, and she was starting to wonder if this was the face of it.
“You could say that. I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation.” There was nothing snippy in his tone; he was very matter of fact about it.
“She dumped my brother for you, so I think it is.”
“That’s something I’d prefer not to think about.” That was more like it. His mouth tightened.
Sarah sighed. “He doesn’t click with women that easily. I liked her.”
“Sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
“I’m sorry he got hurt, but she was never his.”
“Possessive much?”
“Talking isn’t making this easier.”
She shrugged. “Whoever said life was easy?”
His response was to not even look at her. She followed him onwards, trying to keep her thoughts contained to her head. The fairy didn’t look like anything special. She didn’t get it.
“She already knew you. What kind of game are you playing with her?” She’d need to be stupid to not consider the option.
He breathed a weary sigh. “There’s no game.”
“So what then? You fell in love with a human? Darklands fairies don’t do that.”
“I wasn’t always… this has nothing to do with you.”
“Like hell it doesn’t,” she argued. “If you’re… you were earthbound?”
She knew she was right by the look he gave her. It was a cross between shock and relief. He’d died, then.
“Oh,” she said, slowing her pace.
He shrugged and kept moving quickly onwards. She rushed to catch him up, unable to come up with any more probing questions for him. He stopped at the edge of the woods. She recognised the area as where she’d met Shaun before.
“Right, this is as far as I can go.”
“It’s what?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Even if I promise to keep my lips zipped?”
He gazed into the woods. They looked a hell of a lot darker and deeper than the woods back at Burrow Meadows. “I can’t trespass. I’m not of this world.”
“Because you died to get here?”
He nodded. “It’s straight ahead. It may be covered in vines or hard to see. I don’t know exactly what it looks like.”
“This is sounding a little bit shady, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“I would be trapped if I went in there.”
“Even if you went through the mirror?”
“I wouldn’t be able to. I’d become intangible.”
“All right,” she said with a sigh. “But if anything tries to eat me, you’re dead. I mean more dead than you already are.”
“It was nice meeting you.”
She bit back a snarky reply and told him the same thing in return. She had to remind herself he wasn’t being sarcastic, he wasn’t Shaun. Taking a deep breath, she took a step forward into the woods.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Elle ignored Shaun and Katie’s conversation, attention otherwise preoccupied by the fairy from Haven kneeling in front of the bed. She didn’t understand how they couldn’t see him, unless she was maybe crazy and he wasn’t really there. He stared into her eyes, leaning forward but not touching her.
“Trust me, they can’t tell I’m here, but I assure you I am.”
Why are you here? She was a little freaked out by the sight of him to say the least.
“The pact will save you. I just need your compliance.”
No freaking way! She stared at him, horrified at the suggestion. He was nothing to her, a stranger, and she’d need to be insane to enslave her soul to him.
“This is what your mother wants. You’ll be safe if you agree. I cannot guarantee you anything if you refuse.”
Shaun’s going to save me. She wished she felt as confident about that as the fairy sounded about saving her.
“The tracker is distracted. He may not be able to destroy the Seelie Prince.” He drew a breath. “Adrian is near. We must have the pact in place before he arrives.”
Are you telling me I’m going to die? It felt wrong, too soon. She felt tears well up in her eyes. She’d left things with Bill on a bad note. He’d be so disappointed in her. She didn’t want to have to deal with being stuck in a place where everyone could read her every last thought, even if it meant she could be with Roman and see her mother again, supposedly. I don’t want to go there.
