Wicked Hungry (25 page)

“I need to find Carolina. And I must open the gate,” he says. “And go home.”

“I too wish to open the gate,” Nye says. “I can’t leave my knights stranded in your world.”

“Do you live in our world, Connor?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “But I serve Clan Whelan.”

We come to a small landing with an enormous door against the far wall. We assemble in front of the door, which is inscribed with runes I can’t figure out.

“Home,” says Rewsin, turning to us. To me, I realize. “Stanley, if you ever need me, say my name three times backwards, then bite your lip and spit blood on the floor. I will come and fulfill my debt.”

Then before we can react, he turns and wrenches the door open, revealing pure red fire. He leaps through the doorway with a cry of joy. His body collapses there in the doorway, shrinking until it’s just a dead dog.

The doorway shuts behind him.

“What happened?” I ask.

“He went home,” Nye says, “but he left his host here on the stairs.”

I look at what was once Frumberg’s dog. “It deserves a burial, at least.” But the body melts, dissolving, leaving behind a nasty stench. The process continues until there’s nothing but a dark stain on the gray stone, then nothing at all.

“We must keep moving,” Nye says then. “Time is passing here, I think.”

I climb again, the others following me. My legs are heavy and weak, and I’m filled with questions. How long will we climb, and at midnight, no less? When was the last time I ate? Will the next door lead me to Meredith?

My fist still squeezes the tiny tag, but it feels funny in my hand — solid, metallic and cold — and I bring it up to my eyes as I walk. In the faint light emanating from the walls around us, I see a tiny golden key in my palm.

Without thinking about it, I stick the key in my jeans pocket.

We come to another landing, and here the door is normal-sized. My size. On it, written in script, I can read: “Meredith and Carolina.”

Underneath, more is written.

“The Seelie queen’s chambers.”

“Are we just going to burst into her room?” Karen asks. “That seems foolish.”

“Or we could just waste the rest of our days on this stairwell,” I say.

“The boy has a point,” Nye says, pulling out a blade.

“Would you draw your blade against a queen?” Connor asks.

Nye shrugs. “Who knows what we’ll meet there? It’s best to be cautious. Perhaps the queen needs protection from her own people.”

Before anyone else can say anything, I push the door. It opens into darkness. My feet propel me forward, the others following me.

The air is warm and humid, and the stink hits me before I’m halfway through the door. Fruit. Ripe, tropical fruit. It grows from the ground on short, stunted trees that sit in golden bowls, like some kind of strange bonsai. Mango. Passion fruit. Star fruit. Pineapple. Cantaloupe. The trees and plants stand arranged in gold inlaid bowls on dark wood tables, their fruit so ripe it must be fermenting, calling out to be picked. We have nothing like this in New England, not in my mother’s food co-op, not even at Whole Foods. My mother would be in ecstasy, but I just want to know: where’s the meat? My God, what would I give for a steak right now. Or a rabbit... I am so hungry.

“Where are they?” Karen asks from behind me.

I tear my eyes away from the plants, from my dreams of food. This isn’t a garden, but sleeping chambers, and they’re here somewhere. There, past a pair of pineapple bushes, Carolina and Meredith lie on two cots.

Where are the guards?

Where is the queen herself? But then I see a larger bed, up above us on a raised platform, surrounded by passion fruit and prickly cactus trees. The woman lying there has a head full of thin white hair, but paradoxically seems young, and her skin glows faintly in the near darkness.

Then, from outside, I hear voices.

“I’ve done as you asked. I hooked half the middle school and high school on those stupid pills. I built you a zombie army, and now I want my reward.”

Zach. What’s he doing here?

“You are too impatient, son.”

“That’s not my fault,” Zach says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You sent me to live among them. Made me a changeling. Forced me to live with those impure humans
.
Among the meat eaters
.
”

“Nowhere else but in a human family could you have developed such fine talents
.
Such rage and such desire for purity
.”

“But it’s not fair, and besides, you never let me use them. I want to help with the sacrifice. Help with the cleansing. I want to help destroy all their factories, their cars, their meat-packing plants.”

“You’ve done your part, Zach. You know it is not for us to destroy. We of the Summer Court make things grow. We create. But we can’t clean the slate.”

“It’s not enough
.
I’m tired of growing fruit and vegetables. I want to take part in the cleansing and feel their suffering.”

“You will, when we call the Old Ones.”

“My Lord Gilroy?” says another. “Should we not lower our voices? Will we not wake Queen Eleanor?”

“You know full well, Nevin, that my mother will not wake unless I wish her to wake,” says Gilroy.

“But the servants,” asks Nevin. “And the guards—”

“Have all had too much mulled wine to drink, those who weren’t drugged.”

“Let me start the sacrifices, then,” Zach says. “I’m ready. Let me call the Old Ones now.”

The voices grow nearer. I drop beneath Carolina’s cot and hope the others are hiding, as well. And that whoever was last out remembered to shut the door.

A dim light enters the room. A candle, maybe, carried at waist-height. Before the three of them can enter, there’s just time to glance over behind me, and I see the door still open, showing the rock staircase behind it.

It’s too late to do anything but wiggle farther underneath Carolina’s cot. Above me she breathes deeply and slowly, rhythmically, in and out.

“They’re asleep,” says Zach.

“I told you as much,” says Gilroy. “Better safe than sorry, Mother always said.”

“And look at her now,” says Nevin.

“I would have liked to know my grandmother,” says Zach.

Gilroy laughs, and his laugh chills me. “She would not have appreciated your mixed blood. We had to hide you; she would not have approved.”

“But she’s my grandmother,” Zach says.

“She would have disowned you,” Gilroy says.

“He’s right, you know,” says Nevin. “She can barely stand her own son.”

“She can’t stand me, actually,” Gilroy says, with a laugh. “But she doesn’t have to, now, does she?”

“Let me wake her up,” Zach says. “So I can at least meet her. She doesn’t have to see the sacrifices.”

“Out of the question,” Gilroy says.

“Father, please,” Zach says.

Gilroy reaches out to caress his son’s cheek. “I’m sorry.”

“Then I’ll wake up the children and sacrifice them. It’s the only thing I’m good for here.”

He reaches out to Meredith, who is sleeping on the couch, and cold sweat forms on my forehead.

“Wait just a little while and have a pineapple. Or a mango,” Gilroy says, reaching out and stopping Zach’s hand. “Patience is definitely something you lack, my son.”

“No,” Zach says. “I’ve eaten more fruit today than all of last year.”

“It will cleanse your body of all that human food. Have some more.”

“I will soon enough. There’s nothing else to eat here, anyway.”

“I thought,” says Gilroy, “that you were sick of the human world. That you couldn’t wait to join us and live like us.”

“Sure,” Zach says. “But I can’t just forget what I left behind, can I? You promised. There’s so much misery out there. It’s time to end it.”

Peeking out from behind Carolina’s cot, I see him reach out with something long, sharp, and strangely familiar.

It’s my
athame.
Blessed by the moon goddess, ceremonial, pure. But what has he done to it? It’s dark and shiny. Like he’s blackened it in a fire. And it’s sharp. And that’s not all. There’s a strange smell on the blade. Blood, but that’s not all. Something chemical, nasty.

He reaches out and grabs Meredith’s arm. He puts the
athame
to her, presses the sharpened tip against her skin. He’s going to cut her.

Not if I have anything to do with it.

I jump up with a howl, and my friends rise around me. Gilroy jumps back three feet, but I only have eyes for Zach. He’s grabbed Meredith and holds her tightly, looking me straight in the eyes. In his hand, dark wood glints.

“Back off, Stanley.”

“You hypocrite!” I growl, taking a step forward. “And you called me a murderer.”

“You don’t understand,” Zach says, stepping backward, still holding Meredith tightly. “Big problems need radical solutions.”

“No,” I say. “You’re wrong. Nothing’s worth this.”

“When the Old Ones come, the world will be cleansed. And all the impure meat eaters will be washed away.”

“Spare me the prophecy, Zach,” I say. “And let her go.”

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Stanley. It’s too late for that. The process has already begun.”

The room goes dark, and I hear Zach intoning words as he slices the
athame
through the air. “
Ankaris
,
Tunilus
,
Canikos
—”

Before I can jump at Zach and Meredith, there’s a wall of sulfurous flame around him. In fact, the whole room is filled with fire and smoke. And still it grows hotter.

“Who calls us?” booms out a voice from far, far away.

The fire is everywhere.

“Who prepared the sacrifice?” booms the voice again.

“I,” Zach intones. “I call you, Old Ones.”

“No!” I shout. “No, go away!”

“Do you banish us already?” booms the voice.

“Come forth!” Zach shouts. “Ignore the human!”

“We come!”

The room grows hotter, and I choke on the sulfurous smoke.

“You fool!” shouts Gilroy. “You can’t bring them
here!”

But it’s too late. We are all going to burn to death.

A
bove the ring of fire, I see something coming. Something huge, made out of fire and smoke.

“We’re all doomed!” Gilroy shouts. “You idiot boy!”

“Father!” Zach calls out. “Help!”

I feel Karen’s hand on my arm. “Do something, Stanley. Quick, now!”

I shake my head. Do what? I bite my lip in frustration, taste my own blood.

That’s it: blood in my mouth. I turn toward the demons forming in the fire. And spit not onto the floor, but into the flames.

I can barely breathe. Holding my shirt up to my mouth, I take a breath of hot smoky air and shout out three words: “
Niswer, Niswer, Niswer
!”

“Who speaks my name?”

I never thought I’d be so happy to hear that voice.

And he’s beautiful now. A column of pure energy, hot and bright, up above us.

“What are you doing, you idiot?” he asks, looking down.

Zach just stares.

“Can you send them back?” I ask him.

“No one can send us back!” the Old Ones roar in unison.

“Right,” Rewsin says. “A challenge! I may need to call a friend or two.”

What happens next is hard to describe. Rewsin circles around the room, a spinning column of light and energy, joined in a moment by two others, looping around the sulfurous fire.

The last thing I feel is Karen pulling me back.

T
he next thing I know, they’re gone. Zach is standing there, stunned, covered in soot. In my ears, a voice echoes. “My debt is fulfilled. Farewell, Stanley!”

Zach focuses on me, then holds out my
athame
and reaches out and grabs Meredith. I feel the beast in me surge, and he takes a step back.

“Let. Her. Go,” I growl.

My pants split, my shirt stretches, buttons pop. My blood burns hot as my face stretches, my teeth sharpen and lengthen, my nose forms a snout, and my hands turn to claws.

Zach’s in trouble. His blade isn’t silver. Even if he stabs me in the heart, I’ll still rip his head off.

Gilroy and Nevin have run off screaming for help, but there’s no need. Surely everyone can hear me howl.

From just a few feet away I leap at Zach. At the last moment he pulls the knife away from Meredith and slashes at me, but I smash into him with all my weight. He goes down, his head smacking into the floor with a dull
thud
. For a moment I just lie on top of him. He offers no struggle, no resistance. Can it really be this easy?

Karen crouches behind me. I can feel her cold breath. I want to talk to her but the beast can’t speak with words. Just with actions. With violence. My jaws are at his throat. I can feel the pulse within. Hear his shallow breathing. He lives. But not for long. His carotid artery pulses with hot blood. Just one quick snap and I can set it all free, yet I hesitate.

“Kill him, Stanley,” Karen whispers in my ear. “Think of what he was doing to Meredith.”

Just one quick snap. Nothing more. The beast is willing, but my humanity resists.

Is Zach right? Is that what I am, a murderer? Are we going to sacrifice Zach instead?

No.

My resistance grows, painfully, as my face retracts, my arms and legs twist and transform, everything retracting, shrinking, reforming. Before I can take a breath to scream, I’m just a freshman boy again, crouched half-naked in front of Zach.

“Move out of the way, then,” she hisses. “Let me do it.”

I let her push me out of the way. God, she’s strong. She reaches down. I’m not sure what she’s planning. To choke him? Twist his neck?

It’s amazing he’s still alive. That fall to the ground would have killed almost anyone. Almost anyone human, that is. Oh crap. He’s not human. What did Rewsin say about faeries?

As Karen reaches down, his eyes open.

“Bitch,” he whispers. “I can’t believe I ever went out with you.”

But his actions speak louder than his words. His hand flashes out, my
athame
, black and defiled, slicing into her arm, spraying blood onto the floor. He jumps to his feet. She’s out of reach before he can strike again, but the damage is done.