Dance By Midnight (12 page)

A NEW PAGE iN THE BOOK

Mike walked through the place where Gabriel disappeared. The fires vanished. Blood flowed in small rivulets down the left side of his face and he had dirt on his cheek, but he looked good. He immediately came to me and put his hands on my shoulders as Sam released me. "That's some seriously cool blade work. Nice going, Dags."

Uh huh. Too bad I couldn't remember most of it, or how I'd done it to begin with.

"The
Grimoire
protects, Guardian." Thomas remained where he'd been the whole time. "But remember, it doesn't designate between friendly fire and that of the enemy. If you lose yourself to its Familiars, you could end up hurting someone you love."

I knew on a deep level he was right. Whatever force had taken over and wielded that sword hadn't really cared who Gabriel was. It saw a threat and had taken care of it. I turned and looked at Sam. One side of her face was darker than the other, but I didn't know if that was a bruise or dirt. I also had to ask myself, if she grabbed me in front where I could see her instead of from the back, would I have tried to hurt her as well? "You banished her again?"

"Yeah." Sam dusted herself off. Grey sat at her feet, wagging her tail. "My banishments aren't as strong when I do them alone. Now, if I could have my peeps with me, we could get rid of her for a longer period of time."

"Not permanently?" Mike said.

"No. The gates between the worlds are thin and in some places just plain broken. We have theories on why and we've been able to repair a lot of them, but it's just a small dent in a much bigger problem. All we can do is be little more than goalies and kick 'em back out. Whoever is in charge of keeping the worlds in balance is doing a shit job—it's like they want it to happen. The only world that seems to have serious countermeasures in place is Alfheim."

"This is true," Thomas said, finally striding toward us. "But those same measures were set in place by the ones you blame. Those inhabitants of what you call Alfheim are far more dangerous than in any of the other worlds. Other worlds fear them and the havoc they can wreak on everything else."

"You mean not just this world." Mike pointed to the ground.

Thomas removed his top hat. "Yes. Things are in flux now. Times are changing, becoming more mysterious as walls break, alliances crumble and old enemies wake in the dark." He untied the mantle from the hat, replaced the hat on his head and meticulously folded the mantle as he spoke. "Using the mantle to trade for another life is tantamount to asking Armageddon if it would like to come over for tea and then being surprised that it mounted your cat and escaped through the pet door." He finished folding the mantle until it was perfectly flat. Abruptly it sparkled and disappeared and then a piece of paper reappeared.

In fact, the paper looked like—

I wasn't ready or prepared for what Thomas did next. Neither were Sam or Mike. The prophet lunged toward me and thrust his fist and the piece of paper into my chest. I mean literally
into
my chest. His hand disappeared up to his wrist inside of me. The sensation wasn't painful, but it wasn't pleasant either. It was like getting a tooth filled on painkiller. I knew someone was inside of me, rummaging around and it was uncomfortable, and I knew on some level the pain was going to come later. And as long as his hand was in there I couldn't move.

Sam gasped and Mike lunged at Thomas. But the prophet held up his other hand and Mike stopped moving. For a brief moment—
everything
stopped moving, except for Thomas.

And Grey. She appeared in her human form.

"Darren, we've only got seconds so you have to listen to me." It was Thomas's words, but Grey's voice. They both glowed where they stood and I felt nauseous. "Maab cannot, under any circumstances, have this mantle. So it must remain with you, inside the book where it will be protected."

"But we have to get Brendi—"

"The
Grimoire
has a spell that will duplicate it, but the magic of it will only last a short time. If she tries to use the mantle, it'll evaporate into little more than dust. The veil is now in the book so the book knows what to do."

The slight pause alarmed me. "But?"

"In order to create the fake, you'll need Faerie Dust. The real stuff."

"And where do I get that?"

They both looked behind me at the retaining wall. I glanced back and saw the scorched entrance I'd left behind that day. "No…no I can't go back in there. You don't understand…I can't—"

"Darren, you have to get over that fear. Take Sam and Mike with you—"

"But I can't do that." My face twisted into an angry grimace. "You forget how sick I was when I came out of that place? If they go in with me we'll all come out in need of a hospital."

"Sam and Mike
can
go with you. If you use the
Grimoire
to protect them."

"I can do that?" This was news to me.

"Yes. It'll protect them but I'm afraid it'll also drain a good deal of your energy. So you'll have get in and get out. Also, you can't allow any of the dust to touch them. Nor can you allow any of the creatures trapped there to notice you. Once they do, Maab will know you're there and then it'll be up to you to get all three of you out."

I didn't like the sound of any of this. Why couldn't things just work the way they're supposed to? Just…get the mantle, get the kid and have pizza?

"Darren, you're right that the only thing that'll make her part with one of her little Sentinels is this mantle. But we can't—"

"I know, I know. I just…" I didn't want to go back in there.

"Is Brendi worth it?"

I looked back at Grey even though Thomas was talking. "Yes. She is."

"Just remember one thing." Grey reached out to me and touched my cheek. "When it's time to make the wish,
you
must make it. And no one else. But you must wait to use it."

The scene abruptly vanished as if someone turned off a switch. I landed on my ass and Sam dove down next to me. She pushed me onto my back and looked at my chest, pulled my t-shirt up to see my skin. "Hey!" I protested.

Well, I didn't protest
emphatically
.

"What the fuck did you do old man?" Mike had his gun out and pointed at Thomas.

But the prophet was gone. Grey came up and nuzzled Mike's crotch, promptly diffusing the situation.

Sam looked at me and then up at Mike. "What the fuck just happened? Where's Thomas? And where is the damned mantle?"

I pushed at her to let go of me and the both of us stood up. This time I dusted myself off before I spoke. It gave me a few minutes to figure out what to say. "I have the mantle. It's in the
Grimoire
."

"What?" Sam was anything but happy.

"Look, it's a long story. And it wasn't my idea. But…" I looked past her to the retaining wall. The gate entrance was still there. "Does anyone else see that?"

Sam turned.

"When the hell did they put that drainage grate in there?" Mike said as he stepped up beside me.

"That's not a real drainage grate," I said. "That's the Cairn." When they turned and looked at me, wide eyed, I told them what Thomas told me. Only I left out the fact he'd used Grey to speak to me.

When I finished, Sam wrapped her arms around her chest and started pacing. I thought she was chanting something, until she passed close by me and what I heard was, "Shit, shit, shit, shit…"

I was really starting to like her.

Mike didn't seem as upset. I could tell he was ready to jump in and do his part. He wanted his little girl back.

But me…I wasn't ready to put them at risk. I knew what the dust looked like. I'd seen it sparkle with the changeling. But what I didn't have was an idea of who these other creatures were Thomas warned me about. So I said as much.

Sam stopped pacing. "Could be anything. Rats, spiders, roaches. Anything Maab can use as her eyes and ears in the Cairn. Just like she'd used that changeling."

That didn't sit well with me. "Right. So…let me go in there and get the dust and then—"

"No." Sam and Mike spoke in unison.

I lowered my head. "Guys, it's too dangerous. I didn't run that far to get to this exit so she couldn't have had me too far in. She spilled dust so I can just run in, grab some there."

"Dags," Sam said and had a peculiar frown on her face. "Cairns don't work like that. They don't stay the same. What you walked out of you won't necessarily walk into."

"I'm not following."

"The Fae can't build Cairns, only the Faerie denizens can. But the Fae can manipulate them. That means they have absolute power over those places. Their whims manipulate the texture and landscape. The changeling probably made it look like a place based on what she believed your nightmares would be. Whatever it was she'd been pretty close to right. It shook you. But what's behind that grate now…." She shrugged. "Could be anything from a volcanic landscape to a butterfly meadow."

Oh. Great. "I'm going to need to protect the two of you if you go in with me."

"Protect us?" Mike holstered his gun. "Oh…I'd forgot. You were sick when you came out of there. Sam would that same thing happen to us?"

"I'm afraid so. Dags you know how to do that?"

"I'm going to have to just trust the book." I closed my eyes and saw the book it in my mind and I asked it for a protection spell for them. Instantly the book opened and the pages turned. I held out my hands. Sam took one and Mike took the other. "
Nasaru
."

Warmth coursed from somewhere in my chest outward, through my arms and into my hands. Sam and Mike's grip tightened and within seconds they both yanked their hands away.

"Oh god…my ears popped," Sam muttered. When I opened my eyes she had her fingers stuck in her ears. If I looked harder at her I could see something twinkling around her and around Mike. I knew on some instinctual level that energy came from me and as long as the spell held, I would find them and keep them close. I wasn't about to tell them they sparkled.

"All right, we need to go in, grab the dust and get out." I looked at each of them. "My gut tells me I did some damage before."

Sam finally stopped messing with her ears. "Mike, how many rounds you got?"

"Two magazines in my pocket. And I have two knives. They're both steel."

"And the bullets?"

"Steel."

"Good. That'll hurt anything that comes at us, Fae or otherwise."

I glanced at Mike then Sam. "Steel? I thought fairies couldn't stand iron?"

"What do you think steel's made of?" Sam gave me an odd look as she bent down and pulled a really long knife out of the side of her knee high boot. "Steel's an alloy of iron and carbon."

I would have known that if I hadn't had my eggs scrambled watching her bend over like that. Was it wrong of me to see that as an extremely seductive gesture?

"It won't kill 'em the way straight up iron will." Mike came up beside me and showed me his magazine of bullets. "But it'll hurt them and it makes a really big hole that burns."

Oookay
.

Mike slipped the magazine back in his pocket and Sam secured her knife to her belt. "I've got a few bottles in my little pouch." She patted the fanny-pack I'd noticed before. "And we know you've got the flaming sword of doom. I just wish you were better at calling that thing up on cue."

I agreed. But I had a better understanding of how magic worked with the
Grimoire.
"I need to try more than just fire and stop."

"Dead would be good." Mike said in a flat tone. "Though I don't mind the whole Johnny Storm routine."

"I don't think we're prepared to do this right now." Sam started toward the grate. "In fact I don't think we're even close to ready. But I have the feeling Thomas made sure the Cairn entrance was visible for a limited time and if we don't use it now, then we might not get another chance to get the dust."

If she had that feeling, so did I. The fact I hadn't seen it after Thomas helped me out of it and now it was visible again confirmed it for me. Going in there needed planning, strategy, and a bit of luck. We hadn't planned on a walk through a Faerie Cairn, the only strategy we had was grab the dust and get out if we're lucky. And with recent events, I was pretty sure luck hated me.

We stood in front of the grate and faced it. I did not want to go in there.

"How are we going to carry the dust out?" Mike said. "If we touch it…doesn't that mean we'll get stuck in there? Or worse we'll end up as obedient zombies to Maab?"

I turned and looked back at Grey. She hadn't moved from her spot, except to watch us. I didn't ask her a question, not in my head or aloud. I assumed she had an answer.

Use your strengths, Darren.

That's it?

Does there really need to be anything else?

I gave her a seriously irritated look and faced the grate. "We improvise."

"Figures," Mike said as he stepped forward, grabbed two thick bars of the grate, and pushed the entire door inward. It made the worst god-awful grinding noise I'd ever heard.

The scent of decay and the acrid hint of something burnt greeted us on a soft breeze.