Briar Queen (9 page)

“I went looking for him a few nights ago.” He handed her a pewter locket
shaped like a book. With unsteady fingers, she opened it and found a picture of a girl with dandelion hair and a freckled face.

“Mary Booke,” she whispered. “This was Nathan's.”

“There were other things near it.” Jack didn't look at her.

She gripped the locket so tightly, its edges bit into her skin. She felt the ache of grief in her throat. “You think Caliban . . . killed him?”

“Caliban,” he said in a low voice scarier than a snarl, “has a lot to answer for.”

They reached LeafStruck Mansion on its hill. Even winter-bared, the elder trees around it seemed to create a dark cavern. As they trudged up the steep stairway toward the house, Finn thought of the other mansions in Fair Hollow, abandoned, closed up, and utilized by the Fatas.

“Jack”—she looked at him as they stood before the front door—“do you need to have that knife in your hand?”

“It's a misericorde, beloved, and, yes, I need it. I'm feeling very vulnerable right now.” He pushed open the door and entered. She followed, breathing in the clotted, sepia warmth of the hall. A lamp of orange glass glowed on top of a black wardrobe. LeafStruck's interior reminded her of taxidermy and sinister grandmothers.

“Colleen?” Jack moved to the staircase that led to the second floor. “
Cailleach Oidche!
”

No one answered. He glanced back at Finn, who pulled from her backpack the silver dagger Eve Avaline had given her. He frowned at it. She said, “It's a knife, beloved.”

“Put that away before you fall on it.”

“I don't think so.”

As he led her up the stairs, she glanced at the portraits of yellow-eyed, elaborately costumed people on the walls. When they reached the upper hall with its velvet wallpaper and clunky furniture, they found it illuminated only by a beam of light from a door left ajar. The other doors were shut. Jack motioned for Finn to wait as he approached the open door cautiously. He stepped into the room. She heard him speak to someone before he opened the door all the way. “It's okay.”

She moved into the room, which looked the same as before, cluttered with ornamental eggs of wood, metal, glass, and clay. There was a bed in the alcove
now, an oversized thing draped with gossamer and covered with Pier 1 pillows.

The owl girl, veiled as usual, sat in a chair, her hands gloved in pale satin, her ivory cocktail dress a little more fashionable than the gauzy tea gown she'd worn the last time Finn had seen her.

Colleen Olive's voice was a husk: “Moth the lovely has gone down to make coffee and fetch the cakes.”

“We didn't see him. How are you?” Jack dropped onto a dusty love seat. Finn sat beside him and didn't take her attention from the figure the Fatas called the
Cailleach Oidche
. She'd read up on her Celtic mythology and knew what owl girls were capable of.

“I am well. And you, Jack? How are the pains and pleasures of being mortal?”

“It's because of Finn that I'm not one of the shadows any longer.”

The veiled head and its blurred face slowly turned toward Finn, who had to brace herself against the uneasiness that spidered up her backbone. “Serafina Sullivan. Braveheart. I cannot thank you enough for ridding us of the white snake.”

“You mean Reiko—”

The owl girl raised a hand. “Don't speak that name in my house. Moth has told me what he can remember. He has told me about your sister, the stolen-away. It was a vile thing done. The white serpent did a vile thing to me, once.” Colleen Olive's voice had grown stronger. Before Finn could avert her gaze, the Fata reached up and pulled the veil from her face.

It wasn't the ghoulish horror Finn had expected. Colleen Olive seemed as young as Finn. Tangled brown hair streaked with white fell around her face dissected by a scar that slashed between her golden eyes, down her nose and mouth. “I will tell you about the Wolf, Serafina. The
Madadh aillaid
feeds off the young of your people and corrupts the innocent of mine. He is cast out because he is a killer of Fatas and mortals. He is one of the oldest. And he was the white serpent's lover. I see Jack has told you these things, in a gentler way, perhaps. Has he described the place where the Wolf keeps your sister?”

Finn looked at Jack, who was watching Colleen Olive as if he'd wronged her in some way. He said, “I haven't told her much about the Ghostlands. I don't know what to tell her, because there's very little I remember.”

Colleen Olive's eyes were an elemental gold, not the ghost-light silver of most
Fata gazes. She said to Finn, “Jack cannot go alone to find her. You must accompany him, to claim her. It is the blood in you that will be your most powerful weapon. Mortal blood can influence things in the
Taibhse na Tir
.”

Someone was running up the stairs. They all turned their heads, expecting Moth. The doorway remained dark as an unearthly chill snaked through the room. Colleen Olive said, “That was not Moth.”

Jack moved to his feet and Finn rose with him. Colleen Olive also stood, the veil drifting from one hand. “
Something else is here
.”

Jack bent down, slid the Renaissance misericorde from one boot, and moved toward the door. As Finn followed, he said, “No.”

“I'm coming with you.”

“Why do you have to be so—never mind.” He stepped into the hall. The single lamp on a rolltop desk couldn't keep the shadows at bay. She whispered, “What is it—”

There was a thump from downstairs.

Jack motioned at her to remain where she was and began to glide down the stairs. She followed—and saw the front door wide open, snow drifting over the floor from the night beyond. She was halfway down the stairs when he called out, “Moth! If you're down here, answer—”

There was a shriek from the floor above, followed by banging and the sounds of things breaking.

Jack bolted past Finn, back up the stairs. She raced after.

In the upper hall, he halted and cursed. The door to the
Cailleach Oidche
's room was wide open and slashed.

“Are those claw marks?” Finn put her back against a wall.

Jack reached out and shoved the door all the way open. The ornamental eggs had been smashed, the furniture overturned. Feathers from the pillows were scattered everywhere. Finn gripped the hilt of her silver dagger and looked at the windows, all open, curtains fluttering.

Jack backed away. “Don't worry about Colleen.
We
need to get out.”

Finn turned, shouted, and clapped a hand over her mouth. Clawed into the wall was the stylized image of a wolf. She whispered, “You said it wasn't
him—
”

“It's not.” He grabbed her hand and they ran into the hall—

At the top of the stair stood a tall, spindly figure in a long black coat, all its face
but for one golden eye veiled by scarlet hair. It didn't move, its hands at its sides, its nails long and sharp and black.

Jack spoke with unnerving calm. “Don't look away from it.”

He needn't have said that—Finn couldn't take her gaze from the still, doll-like figure with its horrible sense of
awareness
. Animal fear almost paralyzed her.

“Don't even bat an eyelash until we're past it, understand?” He led her toward it. “When we're past, run like hell.”

She wanted to scream as they came within two feet of the doll. She could see the seams in its jointed fingers, the perfection of its alabaster face. It was an artificial man, but it was
alive
.

The toe of her sneaker bumped against one of the antiques strewn through the hall—as if someone had deliberately created an obstacle course. She staggered against Jack, who caught her, his gaze on her and hers on him—

—then two black-nailed hands were around her throat and the doll-thing was so close, she could see the details of its face through the red hair, the lips baring canine teeth, the goat eyes made of glass and their malevolent intelligence. Even as she struggled to breathe, she didn't drop her gaze from it—

Jack's arm slid, snake swift, over her shoulder, the misericorde glinting in one hand. She closed her eyes before she could see the blade pierce one of the creature's glass optics.

As the Grindylow released her, Jack hauled her up, urging her to run. They clattered down the stairs, turning their backs on the thing they weren't supposed to look away from.

Something leaped over them, dragging Jack into the dark below. Finn nearly fell down the rest of the stairs. At the bottom, she pulled herself up and found Jack kneeling in the hall below. The doll-thing had one hand in his hair and the other around his throat. An inky substance drooled from its shattered eye.

“Finn,” Jack spoke tautly, “it's a Grindylow. It will kill me if you look away from it. It will move and kill me. Don't look away from it.”

Clutching Eve's silver dagger in one shaking hand, she whispered, “What do I do?”

“I'm trying to get free—don't come at it with that knife—that'll set it off, a defense mechanism, and it'll move even with you watching it. Hold on.” He carefully pulled his hair from the Grindylow's frozen grasp, avoiding its claws at his throat. “When I tell you to, drop that knife and kick it toward me.”

“Okay.” Wide-eyed, her eyes burning, she waited. She wondered if the Grindylow understood what they were attempting.

“Now!”

She let the dagger fall, kicked it—

The Grindylow moved, hissing, as Jack twisted free and caught the dagger—

—the doll-man suddenly stood before Finn, its smile vicious, the hollow of its eye socket still oozing black ichor. It had one hand stretched toward her—its other hand, with its razor nails, had clawed across Jack's chest. As Jack looked down and slid to his knees, Finn's gaze, for a moment, dropped from the Grindylow—

She was flung away and hit the floor. She scrambled up, swayed on her feet. Jack was struggling to stand. The Grindylow was gone.

She winced, felt as if bones had broken. “
Where is it?
”

Something stood in the shadows behind Jack. Finn stumbled, glanced away for one second, and the Grindylow
moved—

Then Jack was lifting himself from the blood-smeared floor and
Moth
was gripping the Grindylow by the throat with both hands, his expression savage. His arms trembled, but his gaze never left the creature as he said, “Get a mirror!”

Finn twisted around, frantically searching. Down the shadowy hall that led to the kitchen, she saw something pale moving, like a ghost—

She ducked as a white barn owl sailed over her head, out the door.

There was a glint at the end of the hallway. She ran toward her own reflection, grabbed the mirror from the wall, and raced back to where Moth held the seemingly lifeless Grindylow and Jack didn't dare approach with the silver dagger.

Jack gave her back the dagger and took the mirror from her. He raised it behind Moth so the Grindylow could see its reflection. The monster in Moth's grasp made a sound. Its skin began to harden. The awareness within its one remaining eye began to dim as reality asserted itself.

Finn took a swaying step forward, forgetting about the dagger still in her hand.

That motion triggered the Grindylow's self-defense mechanism. Even with their gazes upon it, the Grindylow shrieked and came to life, knocking Moth aside and leaping at Finn. Jack let go of the mirror, which smashed to pieces as it hit the floor. He lunged, the misericorde back in his hand.

Finn froze with the dagger, as the Grindylow twisted toward the other armed and moving threat—Jack.

Jack slammed his misericorde into its throat. The Grindylow collapsed, its alabaster shell cracking, revealing a mass of writhing vegetation and a black snake curled in the rotting flowers of its skull. As Moth stomped the snake and smashed the Grindylow's skull beneath his boot heel, Finn reeled back with a hand over her mouth. She sank down and Jack squatted beside her. “You're fine.”

She studied him. “You're not.”

“Surface wounds.” He smiled, then winced. “I may need a booster shot.”

“I remember these things.” Moth pointed at the remains of the Grindylow. “That is an antique scourge, sent to hunt me. The
Madadh aillaid
knows I'm here.”

Jack looked at Finn and said, “We need to take him to Tirnagoth.”

Finn hadn't wanted this yet—take Moth to Phouka and Phouka would find out about Lily Rose. She didn't quite trust Phouka and didn't know if she ever would, because Phouka had once been Reiko Fata's lieutenant.

She caught the glimmer of something yellow and glassy in a corner, realized it was the Grindylow's second eye, and decided they might need Phouka after all. She stood up. “Let's go.”

She staggered. Jack caught her, gently smoothing her hair from her face.

“Perhaps,” he ventured as Moth returned to the kitchen and began rummaging in the drawers for defensive cutlery, “I should take you home.”

“No, you shouldn't. I'm getting used to this sort of thing.” She kept telling herself not to fall down.

Jack said, “That's what I'm afraid of.”

“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin as if they had never lived.”

                
—
A C
HRISTMAS
C
AROL
,
C
HARLES
D
ICKENS

T
he abandoned Tirnagoth Hotel had once been Reiko Fata's headquarters and, at night, its sinister elegance whispered of fine things decaying. The gates, tangled with withered vines, opened slowly as Jack's sedan approached.

In the circular drive, Jack, Finn, and Moth got out of the sedan. Finn still felt the unease-bordering-on-dread that the Fatas' proximity caused. Shaky and exhausted from fighting the Grindylow, she felt as if she'd just recovered from a brutal virus and desperately wanted to go home. “It's quiet.”

“Not really.” As Jack undid the metal gates, the music and voices of a revel blasted from the courtyard. Climbing the stairs after him, Finn gazed up at the words etched in stone above the impressive entry of medieval-looking doors.

“‘
The unseen is here and calleth to thee,
'” Jack explained.

Moth studied the hotel. Remembering how he'd fought the Grindylow, Finn wondered exactly what he'd done for Seth Lot as he whispered, “What is this place?”

Tirnagoth's doors swung open and a slim figure emerged, brilliant hair falling around a pretty face with the eyes of a devil. “The entrance to Fairyland.”

“Absalom,” Jack spoke wearily.

Absalom Askew, who appeared to be a teenager but who was probably as old as rocks, assessed their condition with one sweeping gaze. He blinked rapidly when he saw Moth, who stood with his hands in the pockets of the fur-lined coat he'd borrowed from Jack.

“Jack. Serafina. Who is this charming young man you've brought with you?”

“I'm Moth.” Moth frowned. “That's what I'm called.”

“What you're called.” Absalom stepped back, gesturing inward. He wore a dark suit with an orange silk tie and tiger eye cuff links. “Welcome to Tirnagoth.”

Jack, stepping in, looked Absalom over. “Nice suit.”

“Oh, this old thing.” Absalom straightened one cuff. “It's just for the celebration. To which you were invited. Did you forget?”

“Yes.” By his tone, Jack obviously hadn't.

Absalom led them into the lobby where bronze lamps shaped into ivy tendrils and a chandelier of pink glass splintered light across black velvet furniture, a chessboard floor, and white taxidermy animals.

“It seems different in here,” Finn said. As they passed a display with mice frozen in the act of pulling a miniature coach made from a pumpkin, Jack met Finn's gaze with a wide-eyed look.

“Phouka's into shabby chic with just a
smidge
of Dracula. I find it stimulating.” Absalom led them down a windowed hall. Beyond the windows was the inner courtyard, bright with lights and moving silhouettes. There was a pulse of drums, skirling fiddle music, shouts, and laughter.

“What's the celebration?” Finn ventured as Jack's fingers twined with hers.

“The queen's coronation.” Absalom flung open a set of glass doors stained with images of poisonous-looking flowers, and they entered an office with antique photographs on green walls and a giant fireplace of white marble containing blazing candles.

Phouka sat on a desk that had been constructed from birch trees, images of birds, leaves, and insects carved into the wood. Her auburn hair was coiled up with pearl stars. She wore a white suit with flared trousers and a bodice like chain mail. She was painting her toenails silver and didn't look up when they entered.

“My queen.” Absalom gestured to Finn, Jack, and Moth. “We've guests who've come from a battle.”

Phouka raised her head. She moved off the desk. “Absalom, fetch the first-aid basket from the kitchens—and I'm not a queen. I'm only regent.”

“Shall I fetch Lazuli—oops. Never mind.” As Absalom left, Finn glanced at Jack, who'd stiffened at the mention of the gentle, pale-haired Fata. She looked at Phouka. “What happened to Lazuli?”

“He was murdered on All Hallows.” Phouka didn't drop her gaze from Jack's.

“I didn't kill Lazuli.” His voice was low. “He told me what I wanted to know and I left him.”

“I didn't think slitting throats was your style. Who did that artwork on your chest?”

“A Grindylow. Sent after
him
.” Jack nodded to Moth.

Phouka's attention settled on Moth. “And you are . . . ?”

“I'm called Moth.” He was squinting at her. “I've seen you before.”

“I've no doubt.” She tilted her head and asked Jack the question with her eyes.

“He was Seth Lot's. He escaped. His memory's shot.” Facing off against Phouka's immaculate sophistication, Jack, bruised and bleeding, was very human.

Phouka walked slowly around Moth while he stood as if afraid to move. “He's not a
sluagh
. Not a Jack. I smell blood, but . . .” She frowned as she halted before Moth. “Changeling. But he's been one for a very long time.”

“He's from Elizabethan England.”

“Oh.” Phouka stepped back. “
Aisling
then.”

Absalom returned with a basket of first-aid supplies and a black bottle of wine. He handed the basket to Finn, who'd remained silent during the preemptive conversation, and said, “Jack's
your
knight. You may tend to his wounds.”

Jack removed his coat and stripped off the torn T-shirt, muscles moving beneath the velvety skin of arms and shoulders. The scars and the tattoo that had marked him as Reiko's had vanished with his resurrection. As he sat on Phouka's desk, Finn delicately swabbed the shallow scratches across his chest and didn't mind the blood—they had fought hard for
that
. He didn't even wince. When she placed one hand over his heart—
her
heart—just to feel its pulse, he said, smiling at her, “Finn, the natives are staring.”

Phouka, Absalom, and Moth were watching. Moth's gaze was enigmatic. Absalom,
drinking from the bottle of wine, winked at her. Phouka's eyes were pure silver.

Phouka graciously turned to Moth. “So, no memory? That's troubling, especially since you were in the house of the Wolf.”

Moth hunched miserably in his chair. “Why can't I recall? I don't have a reflection. Sometimes I bleed. Sometimes I don't.”

“What a quandary.” Absalom leaned forward. “Lot's last mortal queen was plucked from sixteenth-century Norway. That daffodil-haired boy he had as his assassin was from Renaissance Venice.”

Moth continued, “I remember bits and pieces of my life—but the memories of Lot's house are jumbled. You . . . do I know you?”

“I doubt it,
aisling
.” Absalom drank from the bottle again; he seemed to want to get wasted.

“Absalom,” Phouka warned, “you're wandering.”

“What”—Moth dragged his hands through his hair—“is an
aisling
?”

“A human stolen out of time and kept immortal,” Jack said. “The oldest Fatas have that power.” He pulled his coat back on, winced.

Finn looked at Phouka. “Seth Lot has my sister.”

“Your sister?” Phouka seemed startled. “Your
dead
sister?”

“She isn't dead,” Moth told her. “I spoke to her, often, in Lot's house. I don't remember how she came to be there, but she was the only good thing . . . the only good thing . . .”

“So you haven't asked us if Seth Lot's in town.” Absalom sounded as if he was merely talking about an eccentric relative. “He is.”

Finn gripped the edges of her seat and exchanged a quick look with Jack. He was stone-faced as Phouka rose and said, “I would like to speak to Finn alone, please.”

Absalom, still holding the wine bottle, sauntered toward the door. “Come along, gentlemen. We shall retire to the salon and smoke cigars and chat about the stock market and, possibly, our mistresses.”

Jack whispered, “Careful,” to Finn, before following Absalom from the room. Moth drifted after.

When the door had closed, Phouka settled into the chair opposite Finn and leaned forward. “Let me tell you why what you're planning is a
bad idea
. That boy Moth is not only unreliable, he's unstable. I don't know who sent him here, but if he was Seth Lot's, he's not to be trusted.”

Finn pulled back her coat sleeve to reveal Lily's bracelet of silver charms. “Moth had this. It was my sister's. It even has the octopus charm I broke when I borrowed it.” She hesitated. “My sister's boyfriend was named Leander Cyrus. I saw him here in Fair Hollow—and Jack recognized him as being one of Seth Lot's Jacks. All that time he was with my sister, Leander was a Jack.”

“Now I'm very unhappy.”

Finn continued, “My sister wrote things about a wolf-eyed man in San Francisco.”

Phouka watched her, the light reflecting uncannily from her eyes. “So. Lot plotted to get your sister, while Reiko plotted to get you. And what a mistake that was. It killed her.”

“It was an accident,” Finn said quietly.

“Finn. A sacrifice has to
mean
something to work. Something of value must be offered. Reiko should have sacrificed Jack, whom she loved, not plotted to end
you
. You never would have brought her Fatas one hundred years.”

“Why
did
it work? With her and David Ryder?”

“Because David Ryder offered himself when he saw things going south. And Reiko may have lunged for him to retrieve her heart, her power, but I believe she genuinely wanted to rescue him.”

“Will you do it when the time comes? Will you offer death a Teind?”

“I will sacrifice something I love if I need to.”

Finn wondered what she meant. She told Phouka: “The first day I met Jack, I was just a kid, and my mom had died, and I said something wrong to a girl in red—she tried to drown me that day.”

Sympathy seemed to flicker in Phouka's alien gaze as she said, “Reiko. You see why, Finn Sullivan, it's not so good to know us.”

“Jack says I need your permission to get my sister out of the Ghost—”

“Not only
my
permission. Has he told you what the Ghostlands are? A hidden world kept from the eyes of mortals, only seen by those who are blessed, or cursed. The Ghostlands are the Wild West, the realm where our kings and queens battle to learn who's strongest. It's where forgotten places and things end up. It's where Fata changelings are born and human changelings die. It won't drive you mad, but you'll never be the same if you survive. Tonight, you encountered a Grindylow—that's only a fragment of what waits for you in the Ghostlands.”

Terror clawed Finn's breath away as she considered what she would really have to do, where she would have to
go
.

The lights flickered out. For a moment, it became very cold, and Finn was reminded that what sat opposite her was a shadow creature wearing a young woman's form. Then the warmth and the lamplight stabilized as Fata reality returned and Finn said, steadily, “Do you think I'm the same now as I was before Jack? I can do this.”

Phouka glanced out the window, at the silhouettes of the revelers in the courtyard. Her voice was calm. “And Jack. Let's discuss the circumstances surrounding Jack's resurrection. None of us know how he survived the divine fire, how he became temporarily mortal—and, yes, I mean temporary, because he's already changing back—and that makes him dangerous to
us
.”

“Changing back?”
No,
Finn thought, but she had seen him lose his shadow, felt his heart and breath stop.

“If you go into the Ghostlands, you may lose him to what he once was. You might not find your sister, or succeed in rescuing her. You dislike me for saying these things, but I'm warning you—the
Madadh aillaid,
Seth Lot, was
held at bay
by Reiko and David Ryder. He's the thing in the dark, the beast in the forest. He is the Erl King.”

“And Caliban works for him. Caliban came to my house . . . I think. There were animal prints in the snow. And Moth . . . Moth was out there and fought him off.”

“Then Moth is more than he seems. Did you see this happen?”

“No.”

“And Leander Cyrus? Have you had contact with him?”

“A little.”

“I don't like any of this.” Phouka rose and began to pace. Finn, who had never seen the cool Fata girl nervous, found it alarming.

“Leander
bleeds
.” Finn stood to face her. “I think he still loves my sister. You know I'll find a way to get there.”