Bloody Fairies (Shadow) (7 page)

“Ah, religion,” Pierus said out loud. “How like humans to use it as a marker of time. I know where we are now. Human woman-”

“Poppy,” Poppy said.

Pierus made an impatient noise. “Where are we, geographically?”

“In the tunnels under the old city of Thebes in Boetia. At least, it’s where
I
believe old Thebes is located, even if-”

“And what exactly are you doing here?”

“Looking for my hat.”

“Irritating woman. Why are you here?”

Poppy folded her arms. “You first.”

“We are seeking an ancient treasure with the power to send an army of vampires back into the Darkness from whence they came,” Pierus said.

“That’s fascinating. I’m looking for a herd of unicorns to ride around in the moonlight.”

“What’s a unicorn?” Hippy asked.

“It’s a horse. With a horn coming out of its head.”

“They live down here?”

Poppy groaned. “Honestly, is there something wrong with her?”

“Apparently she was dropped on her head as a child,” Pierus said.

“Hey!” Hippy kicked him in the ankle.

Pierus ignored her. He spoke through clenched teeth, as though dealing with two particularly fractious children. “Now young woman, you strike me as an intelligent sort, who wouldn’t blow holes in caves for nothing. Tell me why you’re here.”

Poppy straightened her back. “Pandora’s Box,” she said.

Pierus went a step closer to her. A tic jumped in his forehead. “Is that what they call it now? What makes you think it’s here?”

Something changed in Poppy’s demeanour. Her eyes sparked. She paced up and down on the spot, using her hands to emphasise her words. “I’ve been following the trail for a while,” she said. “I happened to have the opportunity to read a very, very, ancient fragment of text that led me to believe Pandora’s Box was not in fact an analogy for the dangers of arcane knowledge, or the loss of innocence, or whatever else, but in fact an actual physical object of immense value. According to what I read, the myth about Pandora opening the box was all wrong. It was a cautionary tale. The box was in fact created to hold something the ancients feared, and she guarded it. Of course I searched in all the wrong places, until I found irrefutable evidence that led me to believe Medusa was invoked to guard the treasure. I knew there was a temple to Medusa in ancient Thebes, so naturally I came here. To a sealed cave. And found you two and your acrobatic friends.”

Pierus scowled. “You were nearly right,” he said. “We are in fact in search of the same artefact. And it is indeed hidden here.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I helped to hide it. And if I have my bearings right-” he turned in a slow circle. “We must be close. Now tell me young woman, what did you intend to do with what you call Pandora’s Box once you obtained it?”

Poppy straightened her glasses. Her voice was perfectly friendly and even. “It would have to go to the museum, of course. It would be a national treasure.”

Pierus gave a low, deep chuckle and walked on down the tunnel. “Really. So you are not down here for any kind of personal gain?”

“I absolutely resent what you are implying,” Poppy said. “I’m trying to build a professional reputation as an archaeologist here.”

“And what do you intend to do when the fairy and I return to Shadow with it and leave you here?”

“Well seeing as you’re obviously both insane I’m not all that worried about you disappearing.”

“Then you won’t mind accompanying us for the moment.”

Hippy trotted alongside the two of them, only half-listening to the conversation. Somewhere nearby she could hear the unmistakable sound of water trickling over rock. She wandered away from them, seeking the source of the sound. The tunnel dipped down and the sound grew louder. All at once she teetered on the edge of a hole in the path. She yelped and jumped back.

“Hippy?” Pierus called from somewhere nearby.

“I found water!” Hippy dropped to her stomach and looked in the hole. Three feet below, a shallow, dark stream rushed past. She shuddered. She didn’t want to fall in that.

Pierus and Poppy caught up and leaned over the hole.

“Well done my dear,” Pierus said. “This is exactly what we were looking for.”

Hippy beamed.

“We’ll need to go down there.”

Her smile vanished. “Down there? Into the water?”

“Is that a problem?”

Hippy scooted back from the edge. “You go. I’ll wait here.”

Pierus raised an eyebrow. “I thought you came to help me, not sit around while I did all the work.”

“Oh for Heaven’s sake, you two.” Poppy put her hands on the edge of the hole and dropped down into it.

“Come along my dear,” Pierus said.

Hippy pouted. “I don’t like water.”

“Now.”

Hippy heaved a sigh, stalked back to the hole and dropped into it. She landed with barely a splash in icy cold water that went right up to her waist. She screamed.

Poppy, just a few feet away, put her hands over her ears. “Would you not do that? It echoes in here!”

Hippy quickly hiked up her belt to keep Fluffy Ducky dry and put her arms out to get her balance. “Yuck, yuck, yuck!”

Pierus swung himself down from the hole and slid into the water behind her. He had to bend his head to avoid hitting the roof of the tunnel. He looked both ways. “In which direction are we from the temple?”

“Just south,” Poppy replied.

“Upstream,” he said, and started walking against the current.

Hippy followed him. Walking against the swift flow of the water was difficult enough to start with. The wetter her leggings and dress got, the more difficult it became. Her bare feet slid on the slick rocks. Poppy’s torch lit up the black water just enough to make it look murkier and more dangerous. Hippy tried not to think about water monsters. Huge fish with sharp teeth. Swimming vamps. Eels with lights on their heads. Dragons. It was harder and harder to keep her balance when she started to shake.

Poppy grabbed the back of her dress and kept her upright when she almost slipped. “Steady on.”

Hippy grabbed her arm and held on tight.

“So let me get this straight,” Poppy said. “You can scale a vertical wall and drop ridiculous heights without batting an eyelash–I haven’t figured those out, but I will–but you’re afraid of water?”

Hippy nodded.

“What are you, a cat?”

She shook her head.

“You’re an odd one.”

“I’m a Bloody Fairy.”

“Yes, you said that before. What is that, some kind of circus cult?”

“No, it’s my family. We’re all afraid of water.”

“Why?”

Hippy blinked. “I don’t know! It’s just the way things are!” She flinched when the water lapped up to her ribs.

“I think you’re very brave to be facing your fear like this.”
Hippy beamed. “Really?”

“Really. Any idea where your lunatic friend is taking us?”

“No.”

“Wonderful.”

They walked in silence for a few more minutes. Each trickle and drip of water echoed in the tunnel. Pierus forged ahead, bending lower and lower when the tunnel narrowed. “Here,” he finally said, stepped out of the water and disappeared.

Hippy hurried to pull herself onto the rocks, where a set of crooked, dilapidated stone steps wound up into another passage. She took them two at a time to put distance between herself and the water. Poppy followed close on her heels.

They came out in a huge cavern, where a still, glassy lake mirrored tiny glowing lights on the roof. The air was so cold Hippy was quite sure icicles were forming on her wet skin.

Poppy swept her torch over the lake. The beam found a stone bridge so old it looked like part of the cave arching over to the other side. Pierus was already halfway across it.

They hurried after him. Fine granules of stone skittered away under Hippy’s bare feet. Behind her, Poppy’s heavy, wet boots crunched with every step.

Hippy tried not to look at the water below. She focused instead on Pierus’s back. There was a tear in his dark blue coat. When she caught up with him, he put his arm around her shoulders.

“Now is your time to shine, my dear.”

“Good. I like shiny things.”

Pierus stopped at the edge of the bridge. “Light please, young woman.”

Poppy shone her torch ahead over a big, empty sandy floor.

Pierus made the tiniest sound, perhaps a sigh of relief. “Up a little.”

The torchlight moved up and illuminated an enormous stone statue of
Medusa. Hippy’s eyes widened in awe. The stone was pitted with age. A chunk missing from her mouth made it look like she was snarling. Her blank stone eyes looked right through them all. Her hands were cupped in front of her. The snakes that curled from her head writhed in frozen fury.

Hippy smiled. She liked snakes.

Poppy said what sounded like a bad word.

Hippy repeated the word, intrigued. “What does that mean?”

“It means I find that thing incredibly disconcerting, dear.”

“Hippy you must go up to the statue,” Pierus said. “And bring me back what you find in those hands. Do not be afraid.”

Hippy tentatively took a step off the bridge. Then another. The statue didn’t move, so she gained confidence.

“Why her?” Poppy asked. “Why not you or me?”

“It has to be her,” Pierus said. “Nobody else can touch it.”

Hippy walked barefoot to the statue. Water dripped from her tunic, making tiny craters in the cold, fine sand. The statue’s hands were too high for her to reach, so she found all the tiny little niches nobody but a fairy could see and scrambled up the rock wall next to it. When she reached elbow height she hung onto the wall and leaned over to look in the cupped hands, but it was too dark to see anything. “I need light!”

The torchlight flooded over the stone hands, lighting up ancient fingers, stone palms, an empty bowl.

Hippy bit her lip. Pierus was going to be very cross. She gave a disconsolate sigh. “It’s not here.”

Pierus was very, very quiet. “What?”

“I said it’s not here.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s completely empty.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Pierus’s voice could have chilled a bearfly in the hive. “Look again.”

“There’s nothing there,” Hippy said.

“Look again!”

Hippy made a face at him and leaned across once again. It was very awkward to hang onto the rock with one hand and reach across a stone shoulder with the other, but she didn’t feel it would be very respectful to climb on the statue itself. She reached into the cupped hands and felt around. Nope, still nothing. She checked all of the fingers, in case it was a very small treasure, with no success. Pierus was just going to have to accept it, the thing was gone.

Something sharp scraped the palm of her hand.

Hippy scrabbled for the object. She picked it up between two fingers and studied it in Poppy’s light. She blinked. “Freakin Fairies!” she yelled, and promptly fell backwards off the wall. She heard Poppy shriek just before she flipped, rolled on her back and landed at Pierus’s feet.

“What do you mean, Freakin Fairies?” Pierus’s voice was positively icy.

Hippy stood up and opened her hand. Poppy shone her torch on the object in it.

“It’s a snake tooth,” Hippy said. “
Like the ones the Freakin Fairies who live in Quicksilver Forest wear in their hair.”

Pierus cursed black and blue, turned on his heel and stormed back over the bridge.

Hippy ran after him. “What does it mean? How do the Freakin Fairies even know about the treasure? What do we do now?”

“We find them,” Pierus said.

Poppy followed close behind them. “Are you two saying fairies took Pandora’s Box from a cave that’s been sealed for three thousand years?”

“Who else?” Pierus demanded. “Three thousand years ago Pandora was the only one who could touch the Apple of Chaos. Now that gift lies with her descendants. I knew that traitorous creature was going to come back to haunt me.”

“My God, you two really believe all this stuff,” Poppy said.

Pierus whirled on her. “You! Did you have anything to do with this? Are you in cahoots with the Freakin Fairies?”

“Back off!” Poppy planted a hand on his chest and shoved him. “See this? This is my personal space. I’m very particular about it. Don’t get in it. I’ll have you know I’m also very upset about coming all the way down here, at great personal risk, for nothing at all.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose, shoved past Pierus and stalked ahead.

Hippy giggled. “I like her. She’s just like a fairy.”

Pierus put a hand on her shoulder and matched his pace to hers. “If I were you my dear, I wouldn’t trust her.”

“Why not?”

“Just take my word for it. I know humans, and this one is not what she says she is.”

“Oh.” Hippy’s eyes widened, considering this. “
Can we keep her anyway?”

Pierus chuckled. “She’s not a pet.”

“But she’s fun. And she knows stuff.”

“You have a point there. She does indeed appear to know things.”

They descended the steps together. Hippy balked at the sight of the stream. “Isn’t there another way out?”

Poppy, who had just lowered herself into the water, looked back. “Actually no,” she said. “In fact the water may be our only way out, depending on whether your so-called vampire friends decided to cut my rope or not once we were gone.”

Silence greeted this statement. Hippy shuddered. She’d forgotten, briefly, about the vamps.

Poppy waded downstream.

“Go on,” Pierus said. “I’m right behind you.”

Hippy wasn’t quite sure if he was trying to be comforting or scary, but she splashed disconsolately into the water anyway and waded after Poppy. It was no easier going downstream than up, because now the water pushed her off balance the other way. She gritted her teeth and kept going.

When Poppy went right past the hole in the rock overhead, Hippy’s nerves tightened like screws in a cooking pot. “You were serious about the rope being cut?” She eyed the roof, which sloped down to meet the surface of the water. The rock was dark and slick with slimy condensation. Something with a lot of legs crawled on the rough surface, oblivious to the current below.

“In my experience it’s best never to leave a site the same way you went in,” Poppy said. “Can you swim?”

“Swim? No!” Hippy’s voice rose to a squeak.

“Probably a good time to learn, then.” Poppy dived and disappeared.

“Oh for Shadow’s sake.” Pierus put one arm around her waist. “Just hold your breath.”

Hippy had just enough time to grab Fluffy Ducky’s pouch and hold it above the surface before Pierus dived, taking her under.

The water deafened and blinded her. She was wet. All wet. Panic flashed through her brain. Surely no Bloody Fairy in history had ever, ever been this wet. The only thing that stopped her from complete terror was the fact her hand was dry, even if her knuckles did keep scraping rock, so Fluffy Ducky must be okay.

Bubbles escaped from her mouth. Pierus kicked his legs and propelled them through the water with his free arm. Stars burst in front of her eyes. Her lungs strained. Her brain threatened to explode out of her skull.

Then all at once they shot out into sunlit water and surfaced in open, empty countryside.

Hippy opened her mouth to scream because the experience had been so awful, but the sound only lasted a second before Poppy clapped a hand over her mouth and kept it there until she stopped.

“Not a good idea,” Poppy said in a low voice. “Just relax. It’s only water. Okay?”

Hippy nodded.

Poppy took her hand away. “Come on.”

Hippy was only too glad to get out of the water, flop onto the grassy bank and do her best to wring out her sodden clothes while still wearing them. First though she took out Fluffy Ducky to check on him. He sat on her hand trembling. Droplets of water shone on his hairs. He blinked at her with all eight eyes.

Poppy crouched down next to her. “What do you have there?”

“Fluffy Ducky.” Hippy held him up for her inspection.

“Cute. In a frightening sort of way.” Poppy studied him closely. “Looks like some breed of tarantula. Does he bite?”

“Only vamps. Well, mostly only vamps. He doesn’t like Pierus, which is weird. He’s normally such a good judge of character.”

Poppy snorted. “I’d say he’s perfectly accurate. You know I saw spiders like that in the Central American jungles a couple of years ago. Woke up with one hanging in a brand new web right across my bed.”

Hippy stared at her, impressed. “Did you bring him home for a friend?”

“`Fraid not, love. Thought he was better off in his natural environment.”

Hippy put Fluffy Ducky in his pouch. The hot sun was already drying her clothes off. She unpinned her hair and squeezed the water out of it, which was quite an operation, considering she could barely reach portions of it.

A footstep crunched on the grass nearby. Hippy looked up to see Pierus, his hair and clothes clinging to his skin, watching her. He had a funny tilt to his mouth that unsettled her.

“What is it?” Hippy wrung the last of her hair out and pinned it back into place.

Pierus muttered something and stalked away.

“That sounded like `just like Pandora.’” Poppy sounded amused.

Hippy stared after him. “You two keep talking about her,” she said. “Who is she?”

“Come on.” Poppy helped her to her feet and they followed Pierus through the long grass and up a sloping hillside. “Pandora was said to be the first woman created by the Greek Gods, long, long ago. Zeus, the king of the Gods, gave her a box to keep and told her not to open it. But of course she did and all the bad things that ever were–you know, greed, hate, envy–all came flying out into the world. The only thing left in the box was hope.”

“Sounds nasty,” Hippy said. “Why do you want such a box?”

“Can’t you imagine? Something so old and fabled would be infinitely valuable.”

“What happened to her?”

“Who, Pandora?” Poppy shrugged. “The usual myths don’t really say. Of course the ones I’ve been pursuing have been lost for so many years, it’s difficult to translate, but I’ve gathered she suffered some kind of punishment. Banished in darkness was the literal translation, but I’ve really no idea what that means.”

They gained the top of the slope and stopped. Ahead lay a flat grassy area strewn with rectangular rocks. To one side pillars rose from the ground, but supported no roof. Pierus crouched in the centre of the ruins. His coat flared out around him.

Hippy went and crouched down beside him. She plucked a blade of grass and twirled it in her fingers. “It’s a nice hill,” she said. “But the house is all broken.”

“Three thousand years will do that,” Pierus said in a low voice. “I had no idea it would affect me so much.”

“What would?”

“I lived over there.” He pointed to the south. “I used to come here often. This was a temple then, a beautiful stone temple.”

Hippy tried to imagine it, but she’d never seen a temple.

Pierus patted her hand. “Forgive an old man for getting maudlin,” he said. “I’ve been back to Dream from time to time, but never to my home. I had no idea it would be like this. It must be all this talk of Pandora. I brought her here once.” He brushed a lock of wet hair out of Hippy’s face and tucked it behind her ear. “You remind me of her.”

Hippy quickly stood up and stepped out of reach. She wasn’t sure why the look on his face made her nervous, but it did. “Poppy said Pandora opened a box and let all the bad things out.”

Pierus chuckled. “It didn’t quite happen like that.”

“How do you know?”

“Of all people, I should know. She was my wife.”

Poppy cleared her throat behind them. “Sorry to interrupt, you two,” she said. “Where’s your transport?”

“Transport?” Hippy looked at Pierus.

“Given we weren’t anticipating the theft of the Apple of Chaos, transport was not my first consideration when we arrived,” Pierus said.

“If talking like a pompous ass gave you wheels, you’d go miles. You’d better follow me. You don’t want to stay here.” Poppy turned around and walked down the slope toward a road that wound beneath the hillside.

Hippy skipped after her. Pierus followed a minute later. She thought maybe he was saying his goodbyes first. How odd, to think of Pierus as a young man with a wife. She wondered what Pandora had been like.

By the time they reached the road Hippy was hot and thirsty. She re-pinned her hair to lift it off her neck while they walked. The fabric of her tunic had dried all stiff and was gritty against her skin. Poppy seemed to know where she was going, even though the road was completely empty and wound on for miles and miles and miles.

After a while Poppy headed away from the road and towards a stand of trees where a black vehicle was parked. It was similar to cars Hippy had glimpsed in Shadow City the one time she’d been there, but it had the oddest dents all over it, a little round hole in the windscreen and no sleek shiny horns or buttons or dials to be seen. It was shrouded in foliage.

Poppy gave an apologetic shrug. “You can never be too careful.” She lifted a camouflaging branch off the bonnet and took a key from her pocket.

“How right you are, Miss Praeconius,” said an unfamiliar voice.

Something cold and metallic pressed into Hippy’s neck. She looked around in surprise.

Three men in black and white suits had appeared out of nowhere. One was short and bald, the other two were very big and had shoulders like tree branches. One pointed a gun at Poppy’s head, the other at Pierus.

Poppy slowly raised her hands in the air. She gave a nervous laugh. “Gentlemen, really, it’s so nice of you to come out and meet me here! I’m sure we can dispense with the hardware.”

“Dispense with the hardware? Really?” The bald guy made a wheezing noise low in his throat that could have been a laugh. “That’s my insurance. Where is it?”

“Gone.” Poppy looked steadily into his eyes and never flinched.

“Gone? Now why don’t I believe you?”

“She’s telling the truth!” Hippy scowled at him.

“Shut up Hippy.” Poppy kept a smile pasted on her face, but spoke through clenched teeth.

“Hippy is it?” Bald guy grabbed Hippy’s chin and twisted her face one way and then the other. “Yeah, she looks like a hippy. What do you know about the box, little girl?”

“I’m not a little girl,” Hippy said.

“Seriously she’s got nothing to do with it,” Poppy said. “Her and the old guy, I just met them up on the hill. They’re tourists. Now Tony I’m sure we can talk about this like civilised people.”

“Sure we can.” Tony jerked his head at a long black car that had just pulled up on the road behind them. “Get in. All three of you. No funny business or the hippy gets it, alright?”