Briar Queen (26 page)

. . .
a girl in a red gown and cloak fled through a forest dripping with ice and gloom. She held a hatchet in one hand. There was blood on her face, her hands
.

She fell, screamed as a massive, spiky shadowy fell over her and a claw as razor-fine and long as a dagger sliced her open as if she were a caught rabbit—

He shook himself out of the vision and edged back to keep her from touching him again. “I know what he did to you. Tell me why you wanted us here.”

“You know about the trinity death for the Wolf.” Jill Scarlet rose and walked to the painting of a winter forest. She opened the painting as if it were a cabinet door and took a metal box from the alcove behind it. She returned to Jack and lifted the box's lid, revealing a black vial sealed with a tiny pewter dog. “I stole this from Seth Lot, long ago.”

Jack stared at the vial but didn't reach for it. “What is it?”

“I suspect it's what will kill him. Do you see the label?
Aconitum lycoctonum
.”

“Wolfsbane?” Jack was skeptical. “Wolfsbane is quite common.”

Sylph Dragonfly leaned forward, peering at the vial, not touching it. “Not this. It's not made from the plant. It's an alchemized poison, Jack. Created by a mortal sorcerer with a Fata queen lover.”

“They used it to poison her king, a creature of shadows and nightmares.” Jill Scarlet watched as Jack studied the label on the vial. When he saw the symbol beneath the label, he said softly, “A pentacle. Solomon?
King Solomon
was the mortal sorcerer?”

“He and the queen of Sheba made it—supposedly from the blood of Cerberus—to destroy the queen of Sheba's king, who was an ancient Fata, as was she. After they pinned her shadow king with holy wood, and poisoned him, they cut off his head.”

“The queen of Sheba was a Fata?” Christie leaned forward. “And that wolfsbane came from the three-headed dog in Greek mythology?”

“Probably not. There is no three-headed dog.” Jack took the metal box with the vial and slid it into his backpack. “Tell me, Madame Scarlet, why didn't
you
use the wolfsbane on Seth Lot?”

“How was I to get close to Lot? I've only ever been able, with my people, to fight his pack—wolves seduced by Lot's promise of becoming a true king, here, on the new continent.”

“That's why the Blackhearts played fetch for you. They don't want Lot lording it over them in their territory.”

“They don't want
any
old-world Fata reigning in their territory. The mortal boy may eat and drink, by the way—it's all human food, including the blackberry wine.” She turned the bottle, revealing a brand label. “From a friend. Leander Cyrus.”

Jack said, “You were the one in the Dead Kings with Cyrus, the night Finn learned what Leander was.”

As Christie reached for the Fig Newtons and Sylph poured the blackberry wine into two goblets, Jack continued with his questions, although the urge to go after Finn made him feel as if his skeleton wanted to burst out of his skin. “How did you get the information about the trinity death?”

She shrugged. “The Solomon story. Research. Things I've heard from others. And then we tested it. My people and I have used the wolfsbane against two murderous Fatas as old as the Wolf, Fatas that should only have died by divine fire. Those two Fatas are dead from the
Aconitum lycoctonum,
pinning, and decapitation. One of my best people was killed.”

Jack glanced at Christie and Sylph. “I need to speak to Madame Scarlet alone. There's a nice courtyard outside, Dragonfly. Why don't you and Christopher go look at it?”

WHEN THEY WERE ALONE,
Jack sat with Jill on the altar steps. “Who are the two big bad Fatas you and your people have ended? It might make my day to know their names.”

“The Gray Tinker and the Night Spindle.”

“Bloody ridiculous names for two awful things. I recognize their titles—one came from Scotland and the other from Prague. One slaughtered adolescents, correct? And the other terrorized children. Did you do this, like, to impress me?”

She smiled wryly. “No.”

“Who, exactly, is in your band of rebels?”

“Changelings and
aisling
s torn from their world and enslaved in this one. I've kept them safe, away from Fata kings and queens. And there are others—Fatas tainted by the true world, friends and lovers to mortals. Where is Serafina Sullivan?”

“On her way to the Mockingbirds. You've kept track of your descendants. You and the Black Scissors have communicated with Lily Rose Sullivan.”

“Only the Black Scissors could speak with Lily Rose—they used insects as messengers. I didn't know Serafina and Lily Rose Sullivan were my blood until the Black Scissors and Leander Cyrus came to me for help. The Black Scissors told me about the trinity death, and about the girls.”

Jack twisted the ring Finn had given him. “What was your name when you were a real girl?”

“Bronwyn Rose Govannon. I was wed to a man”—her voice cracked with grief—“named Jonathon Sullivan. Seth Lot made me a widow and my two children orphans.”

Jack was silent for a moment, acknowledging her grief. “Finn's coworker is named Micah Govannon—”

“My descendant. He works for me.”

“You sent him to watch over Finn. You're not the only immortal from their family tree. I knew a Jack named Ambrose Cassandro, their mother's ancestor. Finn came here to get her sister from the Wolf. I was trying to get to Finn before she reached the Mockingbirds.”

Jill Scarlet looked down at her boots. Her hands knotted together. “Will you reach her in time?”

“No. And, really, this delay . . . it wouldn't have made a difference. I knew I'd need to snake my way into the Mockingbirds' nest.”

“Let me come with—”

“No. I need to do this discreetly. Why do the Mockingbirds want Finn? And me?”

“The Mockingbirds are no friend to the Wolf. He once did away with an entire clan of them in South Carolina. They fear him.”

Jack smiled darkly. “Well, then . . . I think I know what they want.”

CHRISTIE WALKED WITH SYLPH DRAGONFLY
through Jill Scarlet's courtyard. Lights glittered in the citrus trees, and exotic plants cast soothing fragrances into the air. The Dragonfly's bare legs flashed beneath her black gown as it billowed in a honeyed breeze. She said, “What are you afraid of, Christie Hart?”

“I'm afraid that we won't get to Finn and Sylvie in time. I'm afraid we won't get home. I'm afraid that we'll all die here. And I'm so fucking
useless . . .
”

“Christie Hart.” She turned, her eyes shining like starlight on water.

Her hair and gown began to swirl. Her lips pulled back from teeth like thorns. Shocked, Christie reeled back and chanted words that came to him in a heartbeat: “
She is darkness, an elemental sprite. Her words mean nothing. I am
stone. My heart protects me from this wight. Against her power, I stand alone
.”

The dangerous mood fell from Sylph Dragonfly as if she'd discarded knives, and she became herself again. “Do you quote poetry often, Christie Hart? That's a symptom.”

Christie couldn't move. “
What the hell . . . ?
A symptom of
what
?”

“In the words of one of your people, ‘
Red blood out and black blood in, my Nannie says I'm a child of sin. How did I choose me my witchcraft kin?
'”

“That's Walter de la Mare. Or is it Nathaniel Hawthorne? What are you telling me in your spooky, roundabout way?” He felt as if his stomach had dropped into his boots.

“
Fear dorchadas
are very rare.” Sylph Dragonfly drew closer.

“What is a—”

“A male witch.”

His heart galloped. “I am not a witch. Sylvie is. Reiko Fata said so.”

“My original, Sylvie Whitethorn, is not a witch. I would sense it if she was. Your power must have lingered near her and Reiko mistook it for Sylvie's.”

“No. I don't want to be a—”

“Christie Hart, if you ignore this, it will
hurt
you. This world tried to take you once—the fox knight who led Serafina Sullivan away is your double. He was to replace you.”

“What?”

She reached out, her brows slanting. “Take my hands.”

Grudgingly, he did so, and clenched his teeth against a fierce desire as he remembered last night and what had happened after the kiss, how her bare skin had felt against his as they'd rolled around in the grass. He'd never done it outside before. He'd never been with a Fata girl.

She said, “I'm going to free you from this ridiculous fear. Close your eyes. Repeat my words: ‘
Light as a feather, my bones made of air. I free myself from all mortal care. Upon the air I gently rise, my breath my power, my soul to fly
.'”

As he reluctantly recited the words, he felt as if a hallucinogenic venom had spilled into his blood. Something dark and old, coiled in his brain, his heart, his spine, woke. Her hands tightened around his. “Open your eyes, Christie Hart.”

When he did, he sucked in a breath.

They spun in a slow circle—two feet above the grass. As his heart began its
march toward a stroke, the Fata witch laughed softly and twirled him like a child in the air. The waves of shock and dizziness passed. He dared to look down again at the grass far below his feet. The panic began to return—

“Talk to me, Christie. It'll calm you.”

He blurted, “The fox knight—who made him to replace me? Who made
you
to replace Sylvie?”

“I've no idea. My first memory is of being a child and playing with dolls made of flowers and bones.” When she kissed him, her lips were soft and sweet.

“Goddamn it.” The annoyed—and annoying—voice sent them plummeting to the grass. Sylph recovered with a neat twist, and Christie scrambled up to face Jill Scarlet and Jack, who continued, “I might have known you'd turn out to be the woman of darkness.”

“The term,” Christie said haughtily, “is
fear dorchadas, man
of darkness.”

“Man? More like
buachaill dorchadas
.”

“That's ‘boy of darkness,'” Sylph said helpfully.

“Yes. I guessed that. So, Jack, are we done here? Can we move on and stop Finn and Sylvie from getting to the Mockingbird monsters?”

“I'm going to take the Mockingbirds up on their earlier invitation to tea.” Jack's smile made Christie wonder if Sylph's Jack-illusion was becoming a reality. He guiltily hoped it was. Because there was no way they were going to survive the Ghostlands without badass Jack.

JACK'S FIRST WARNING
that they were in Mockingbird territory was the sight of a human skull on a pillar, with the skeleton of a bird arrowing out of one eye socket. Standing beside his reindeer motorcycle, Jack regarded the gruesome totem with narrowed eyes as Christie walked to his side and stared up at the skull.

“It's a terror tactic.” Sylph Dragonfly was disdainful as she wheeled her motorcycle through the ferns.

“It works.” Christie glanced at Jack, the whites showing around his irises. “They've got Finn and Sylvie, don't they? We're too late.”

“It's never too late.” Jack turned and gazed down the steep ravine, at the fin de siècle–style hotel in the mountain forest wreathed with mist. Even from this distance, he could feel the dark energy of the place buzzing at his eardrums.
It was the same
Go-away-don't-come-here-Bad-Things-will-happen-to-you
glamour Reiko had used to keep people away from Tirnagoth. “Neither of you can come with me.”

“I can help—”

“How?” Jack didn't even look at Christie. “Get hurt and distract them by bleeding all over the place?”

“Was that one of your plans?” Christie sounded tired. Sylph was silent beside them, her black hair and gown drifting in a wind that reeked of rust and rotting leaves. Christie continued, “
They're
my friends, Jack
. I'm going with you. And I did knife that siren that would have mummified you. And I'm a . . . witch.”

Jack studied the boy with the tangled curls and goatlike stubbornness. “I need to go in there alone. This isn't pretend, Christopher.”

Sylph's eyes caught the last of the light. “You need to convince the Mockingbirds that you've gone dark. So, Jack, what would make you go dark?”

“I'd rather not say.” At Jill Scarlet's, Jack had exchanged his clothes for a black suit and a dark coat lined with fur. His fingers were once again decorated with old rings.

Shadows uncurled from Sylph's black hair, her fingertips, enveloped her, and fell away.

Reiko Fata stood where Sylph Dragonfly had been, her hair writhing, her gown as red as wallpaper in hell. Jack felt as if someone had put an ax into his heart. He didn't move as she glided to him, cupped his face in her hands, and whispered, “Come back to me.”

He felt the darkness constrict around the illusion of his fossil heart—then Christie was shouting, “
Let the mask drop and the true spirit rise. Let the mists of deceit fade from our eyes . . .
”

Jack blinked and it was Sylph Dragonfly who stood before him. She cocked her head to one side and looked curious. “Well? Did it work?”

He slid the
kris
blade back into his sleeve. “That was a dangerous thing to do, Dragonfly.”

“You needed to remember what you once were.”

Jack asked Christie, “How did you know that spell, with those words?”

“I don't know.” Christie was staring at the Dragonfly.

Jack stepped back. “You both remember what you need to do?”

“Yes,” Sylph said. “Good luck. Is that what you people say at times like this?”

“That's right, Dragonfly.” As Jack moved past Christie, he murmured to the boy, “You'd be wise not to kiss the witch again.”