Briar Queen (5 page)

Ijio smiled ruefully. “Pretty much.”

“Huh. The whole ‘My parents sold my soul to ancient devils to get rich' thing would really bother me.”

Hester attempted to change the subject. “Where's Aubrey?”

“Did I hear my name?” Aubrey slid from the crowd. There was snow in his hair. He shook it out as he dropped into the booth beside Christie, shedding his jacket. “What are we talking about?”

The silence was awkward.

The trembling, sorrowing sound of a violin twined through the air and vanquished the canned music. Jack stepped from the shadows of the small stage, the violin cradled between his chin and shoulder, the bow a silvery twist as he drew several more mournful notes from the strings. The music, the beginning of “Greensleeves,” went through Finn like a solar flare.

He winked at her before slashing into a mad rendition of a Pogues reel. The lights on the stage brightened as a drummer, a guitarist, and a bald and tattooed girl playing a fiddle appeared. Finn recognized them—they were Jack's Fata friends, the vagabonds. The crowd was soon shouting and stomping their feet.

“You were talking about Halloween, weren't you?” Aubrey looked at Finn. “There's a lot we didn't know. Not just the Teind. Phouka told me about how the Jacks and Jills were made, that they were”—he shuddered—“damn Frankensteins. I mean . . . what Reiko
did to Jack . . .”

Christie suddenly stood. “Hester. Do you Riverdance?”

“A little.” She rose and followed him. Sylvie, a bracelet of silver owls and acorns glinting on one wrist, grabbed Aubrey's hand and pulled him with her. She glanced back at Finn, her eyes dark.

As they left, Ijio tilted his head and blinked lazily at Finn. He said, “I don't dance. Wanna make out?”

“I don't think so. I'm going to get up now and watch Jack play. Don't come with me.” She pushed up and moved through the crowd now enchanted by the quicksilver madness of Jack's music.

“Finn Sullivan?”

Turning, she met the summer-blue gaze of Kevin Gilchriste. He said, “I didn't recognize you with your hair up.”

“Kevin.” She smiled. Despite the movie star status, he was very nice and ordinary. “Hey.”

They were practically yelling to be heard over the music, so he leaned close and said, in her ear, “He'll destroy you. It's what they do.”

Then he was gone, leaving her stunned in the middle of the dancing crowd.

As the Fata musicians took over, Jack stepped down and took Finn's hand. On the stage, the bald Fata girl with the tattoos—Darling Ivy—was singing something pretty. Finn couldn't even smile as she and Jack spun.

He'll destroy you. It's what they do
.

Kevin Gilchriste knew. Somehow, Kevin Gilchriste knew what Jack had been, what the Fatas were. And, despite his fortune and film career, Kevin wasn't one of the blessed. Which meant he was something else.

“Finn,” Jack murmured into her ear after she told him about Kevin's remark, “there's no reason for anyone to come after us. And Caliban isn't an idiot. He's broken laws. If he returns to Fair Hollow, he'll be put down. As for Lot . . . he would have made his presence known long before this. And how does Kevin Gilchriste know?”

“You
ask him.” Finn didn't want to tell Jack she believed Kevin had been referring to
Jack
with that remark, not Caliban or Seth Lot.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened for the rest of the night. It was nice.

As Finn decided to let Jack know about the Rooks, Christie edged up to them. “It's ten o'clock. We need to get out of here.
Now
.”

“Why?” Finn said. “What happens at ten—”

Electronic dub music suddenly pulsed through the air, accompanied by a spinning rainbow of lights and someone dramatically introducing a DJ with a ridiculous name.

“House music!” Christie shouted, unnecessarily, as Sylvie began jumping up and down. He continued, “I'll get Sylvie.
Save yourselves
.”

Laughing, Finn went with Jack toward the exit.

AS JACK'S SEDAN SWERVED
around the parking lot of a grocery store that had closed for the evening, Finn gripped the steering wheel and heard
Jack, in the passenger seat, swear. As she braked, the tires screeched. She parked, turned off the ignition. “Did you just shudder and close your eyes?”

“I'm beginning to remember what it's like to be mortal. No more lessons. Give me the keys.”

“Well, it's
winter
. It's slippery, and I never had to learn in San Francisco.” She grudgingly switched seats with him, stealing a kiss as she climbed over him. Settling into the passenger seat, she finally told him, “I went sledding today and ran into the Rooks.”

“With the sled?” He pushed the key into the ignition.

“
No
. The sun went down and they were there. They'd built a little altar to their snake queen and David Ryder. They're not on the same page as Phouka and your Fata friends.”

“Then I think I should have a talk with them.”

“Don't bother. They don't scare me.” She lied a little, with that last statement. “But I think they're expecting someone to come after us, too. They said he's been waiting, Jack, and watching. Is it Seth Lot?”

Jack was quiet as he drove.

He swore and slammed a foot on the brake, and Finn clutched the dashboard as the car jerked. He skidded to the side of a road made mysterious by snow and night and trees on either side. In a low voice, he said, “I thought I saw something run across the road.”

“What?”

He opened the car door and stepped out.

“Jack, don't do that—”

As he bent down to look at her, the streetlight sharply defined his face, making him seem savagely feline. “Stay in the car.”

Finn defiantly got out. Over the car's roof, he gave her an exasperated look, but she ignored it, peering down the road. It was a two-lane road, the forest cavernous and dark on either side. Jack whispered, “I thought I saw . . .
will
you get back in the car?”

“Was it a hyena? Caliban? Was it—” She didn't want to say
the Wolf
. She pressed her spine against the sedan and warily scanned the shadows.

Jack began walking farther up the road. As he crouched to examine a snowbank
on one side, apprehension crept through Finn. She looked deep into the woods and felt as if something was staring back at her. Beneath the faint howling of the wind, she heard a rumbling growl. Not taking her gaze from the forest, she said, “Jack, I think we should get in the—”

Deep in the woods, a massive shadow moved.

Jack was suddenly standing before her, his eyes reflecting silver. “
Get in the car
.”

She slid in. He ducked behind the wheel and started the engine. She slammed down her lock and stared at that blotch of inky darkness in the trees. She blinked. It wasn't moving. She was just imagining . . .

In that mass of darkness, an elongated and misshapen head turned. She almost screamed.

The sedan roared to life and sped down the road. It was a moment before she could speak. “Were there animal prints in the snow?”

He didn't answer. She said, “Jack.”

“There were prints.” He kept his gaze on the road. “I don't know what kind they were.”

He was lying, she realized, but she couldn't accuse him of that, and she didn't want her own terrifying theory to be confirmed. She took a deep breath. “I think I saw a grizzly bear in the woods. That's probably what it was.”

“Probably not.” He didn't look at her.

She got out her phone. “I'm calling Sylvie and telling her she and Christie had better take another way home.”

FINN HAD JUST SETTLED
into the warmth and light of her room, where giant forest beasts and the
crom cu
seemed like imaginary dilemmas, when her cell phone buzzed. She looked at the text:

Do u believe in ghosts? I'm outside.

She strode to the glass doors and saw Christie seated forlornly on one of the swings. He waved to her.

She opened the door and moved down the terrace stairs, crunching across the snow to the swing. “Ghosts?”

“Mr. Redhawk
did
have a ghost. I saw it. Tonight, as I was getting out of my car . . . a face, looking right out the attic window.”

She peered through the trees at the silhouette of his dead neighbor's house against the gray sky. She thought of Nathan, still missing, and whispered, “What if it's Nathan?”

“We are
not
going into that house—”

“Why else are you here?”

He stood, too proud to back down from her challenge. “Remember what happened the last few times you wandered into ‘empty' houses?”

“This is different. Mr. Redhawk's isn't a Fata house and we're prepared. And we're right near
your
place. Instead of running to your car and huddling in fear, we can run to your house and huddle
there
in fear.”

“Sure. My mom can rescue us with knitting needles, my dad can use a hammer, and my brothers—”

“
Christie
.” Finn, her nerves crackling with adrenaline, thought about the Rooks and the thing she'd seen on the mountain road. Nathan Clare might be hiding in that house, injured or scared. How could she sleep, thinking about him? “We'll just look in the windows first.”

He grimaced. “Let's go.”

They walked through the small wood that separated Finn's backyard from Christie's street. Mr. Redhawk's house was a Tudor, with elms clustered around it and patches of brown lawn revealed through the snow. It looked as if its owner had only gone for a vacation.

“What if it's Caliban?” Christie whispered.

“It's not Caliban. He'd have come after us by—” She halted because, as they stood on Redhawk's lawn, a pale face appeared in the attic window and withdrew.

Christie said, solemn, “I told you.”

“That's not a Fata, Christie. Or a ghost. That's a
person
.”

“Let me get flashlights. Mr. Redhawk gave me the key to the back door, just in case he ever needed somebody to get in. Come on.”

They walked the short distance to Christie's. Fidgety with nervous energy, Finn paced in the hall until he returned with the flashlights and the keys. She knew they should wait until morning, but the face in the window . . . she hadn't
felt terror of it, or unease, and there'd been no buzzing in the air that usually signaled a bad Fata at work. Whoever was in Redhawk's house—that person was hiding, hurt, and scared. She
felt
it.

Christie led her to his neighbor's backyard, a cavern of tangled pines wreathed with mist and nettle bushes. The lawn was scattered with pale toadstools in a swamp of icy water like a pool of silvery star-melt. Finn whispered, “Weird.”

“Did you hear that?”

“I don't hear anything.” They had reached the back porch, where their flashlights lit up old crates and dead plants in pots. She trudged up the steps and Christie followed.

“Just a follow-up reminder—you
do
remember what happened the last time we went into a haunted house?”

“Nothing happened to us in Tirnagoth, Christie. They were just trying to scare us. Look at those toadstools . . . some are as big as my hand.”

“Let's call the prince of darkness.” He had his cell phone out.

“Don't bother Jack.” She could imagine what Jack would have to say about this venture. “Just use the key, Christie, and stop being a chicken. I don't feel anything
evil . . .”

“Okay. For Nathan.” He unlocked the back door. As it creaked open, releasing the musty air of neglect, Finn said, “Are you wearing silver or iron?”

“Never without it. Do you have that fancy knife?”

“I have it.”

He stepped past her and she slipped in after him. Their lights brushed old furniture, landscape paintings, and a moose head above the fireplace. Christie murmured, “I liked Mr. Redhawk. I remember this house all sunlit and smelling like bacon and coffee. He was kind of like a grandfather.”

“I'm sorry.” Finn glanced at him.

A furtive rustling came from behind a wooden door. Christie pointed his flashlight beam at it. “That's the study.”

“I thought the ghost—person—was in the attic?”

“Maybe he wanted some reading material?” Christie nudged the door open with his foot. As they swept their flashlight beams over the cluttered office, he said, “Don't tell me
that's
natural.”

The pale toadstools from the yard had gotten in and grown over bookshelves,
the desk cluttered with papers, through cracks in the floorboards. The air was thick with a dust that scintillated in their light beams. Finn, reaching out, studied the shimmering stuff that fell over her hand. It wasn't dust—it was like pollen, or spores. It would have been almost magical if it wasn't so uncanny. “Christie—”

Something moved in the shadows behind the big desk, and Finn and Christie swerved their flashlight beams at the darkness there. When an eye blinked, Christie shouted and dropped his flashlight. Finn kept hers aimed at what huddled behind the desk—a naked figure smudged with dirt, arms over its head. For a luminous moment, she hoped . . . “Nathan?”

The figure's arms fell away and it raised its head into the light, revealing a tangled mane of pewter-pale hair and the stark, fine-boned face of a young man, a stranger. The pollen shimmered over him as he parted his lips. His eyes were green, the vivid color of summer leaves and dragonfly wings.

“Is he . . . ?” Christie picked up his flashlight.

“He's not a Fata.” Finn twisted around, snatched a plaid blanket from an easy chair, and cautiously approached the young man, holding it out. “Here. We're not going to hurt you.”