The Changeling (41 page)

She wrestled with her husband’s weight but couldn’t move him. After a few tries, she began bawling and clutching her thin, dirty hair. Her face was red, swollen and covered in tears and snot.

“Good god…get your kids together. I’ll get him out of here.”

She nodded and wobbled down the stairs.

I blew a hole in the attic roof and lifted the man’s mass with my mind. She was already screaming at her kids to get packed when I moved him into the night air.

“Pack? Oh, hell no!” I said. “God, I’m wasting so much time.” I placed the moaning slob of a man in the bed of an old rusty Chevrolet pickup, the only car in the yard, and shot back inside the house.

“Ma’am, what’s your name?”

“Karen,” she said, quivering.

“Don’t pack another freaking thing. Get your kids, and get the hell out of here. When you get back into Fayetteville, call Danny and tell him one thing. Are you listening?”

“But this is all we got?”

“It’s crap, do you hear me? You want to die over crap?”

She thought about it for a second and grabbed her purse. “John, Samantha, get to the truck now, we gotta leave.”

“That’s better. Now listen to me,” I said more patiently.

“Okay,” she sniffled, still cowering away from me.

“Call Danny the minute you get into town. Tell him that Maggie said you need to disappear, that you need to relocate. Tell him I said witness protection, new identities.”

“Okay.”

“Repeat it,” I demanded. She did, and I hurried her and the kids to the truck. It disappeared down the driveway when I sensed a Fae approaching. Cassandra had arrived.

“Oh, my god…”

I made myself invisible again and ran back up to the attic, hiding Mitch with me. When he disappeared under the Clóca, Cassandra shot toward the house.

I grabbed Mitch and thought about running down the stairs and away from Cassandra, but my gut told me to use the open hole in the attic. My gut had been right so far. As I leapt, I felt Aunt May’s presence behind me, moving something near the bed. Cassandra focused on the movement and I landed on the ground as she blew the top of the house off. I froze, just out of the debris field, and waited to see what she’d do next.

Aunt May was trying to buy me some time. She threw something across the hall on the second floor. Cassandra laughed and I watched in horror as what was left of the house began to implode and whirl like splinters and shards of glass in a blender. Hugging Mitch even closer to my body, I began moving away from her as quietly as I could. Despite the roaring, crashing sounds of the house, I knew she would be listening.

I’d made it past the barn, nearly to the edge of the forest, when the commotion behind me stopped instantly. She suspended everything in the air, like she’d hit pause on a movie. Cassandra slowly turned her head. I watched her nostrils flare with each breath and a shiver ran down my spine. Mitch’s odor was overpowering. Another cruel smile formed on her wicked face as she turned in our direction. With the debris still suspended in the air behind her, I felt her next attack coming.

Starting at the edge of the barn she began cutting everything in a quick sweeping motion. The barn shredded into millions of pieces of fine dust in a ten foot gall swath just an inch off the ground. I leapt into the air with Mitch, catching us with an Air barrier, and flew into the woods beyond her attack. She felt me, shifting her eyes to the exact place I landed.

Laughing aloud, she spoke in a cooing voice. “Oh, little one, why put off the inevitable?”

She continued the same process of complete obliteration with the trees around me, but this time she formed a circle and was drawing it in tighter with Mitch and me were in the middle. My heart raced in my chest and I made a decision.
She has to die.

I changed my barrier to Quint and stood firm, hoping it was strong enough. My rapid heartbeat seemed to disappear as I focused on her. The moment I came into view, Cassandra began flinging jagged pieces of the farmhouse at me. They sizzled into nothing the moment they struck my shield.

Slowly and deliberately, with Mitch in my arms, I walked back toward her.

“Maggie darling, you almost saved him.” She channeled power. I could feel it. “When I’m done with you, I’m going to personally see to your parents. Just like I did the fat girl. Did you know she died calling your name? Pathetic. I wonder if the little queer will scream as much, or that skeleton-thin redhead. I can just imagine how loudly she’ll scream. Then, when I’ve slowly drained the life from them, I’ll take even longer with Doug. They’ll all be dead by morning.”

“Are you done with the dramatic speech?” I laughed. “You shouldn’t have come here alone.”

She was caught off-guard, surveying me, clearly confused by my confidence. “I’m not alone, not that it would matter if I was.”

“Oh, yes, you are. There isn’t another Fae within miles.”

Her brow furrowed, her anger building. “How would you know that, child?”

“I know that like I know you used to watch me from the other side of the lake.” I continued to walk confidently toward her, the same way she normally did.

She sliced at me with an attack. It minced the trees all around Mitch and me, but it didn’t pierce my shield. The expression on her face changed as she began to understand.

I sent a thin stream of Quint into the debris of the farmhouse she still held suspended in the air and it burst into flames. She twisted her head toward the inferno and gasped. I sensed her begin to change into her natural form, but I caught her ankle with another strand of glowing orange Quint and yanked her to the ground.

She screamed at me and tried to transform into a werewolf. I blocked her about halfway through the change by forcing Quint into chest. With a dog’s ears and spotted with patches of fur, she locked her eyes on mine.

“Werewolf? how appropriate. You give new meaning to vicious bitch.”

She glared, angrier than ever, and managed to shift back into her human shape. “You’ll die for that. Filthy, pestilent chimpanzee.”

“You could have left me alone,” I said as the fire raged around us. “You should have.”

“If you harm me, Ozara will destroy you!” She screamed desperately. “Let me go and you might live.”

“Ozara will never know.”

She laughed, standing up straight and proud. “We’ll see.” She flew at me in a blur, faster than my eyes could track her, but not faster than my senses. With her clawed hands just inches from my face, I caught her in a net of Quint. She screamed as it seared her physical flesh.

“This is for Tadewi!” I screeched at her through clenched teeth. Her hand severed and fell to the ground. Screaming and cursing in pain, she tried to fight back with another assault, but it was useless.

I lifted her body into the air and then slammed it down hard, then again until I felt her spine snap. She twisted her face in my direction, baring fangs.

“And this, this is for Rachel.” I wrapped Quint around her. She fought at the edges as it closed, her eyes growing wider and wider. “Let me go now or none of your filthy kind will survive! Do you hear me? You will all die!”

“I think you’re wrong. Either way, you won’t be around to find out!”

Filled with rage, I screamed at the top of my lungs as I closed the barrier around her in one quick motion. Just as Sherman had said, her form condensed into a small white light and then it flashed. The moment it happened, I sensed her energy, but not her essence. What had been Cassandra was now nothing more than a residual charge floating in the air. I channeled it into the blazing heap that had been the farmhouse and began crying.

Mitch moaned in my arms, which were shaking so violently I could barely hold him. I drew in a few deep breaths and turned away.

TWENTY-EIGHT

PAYDIRT

My legs were shaking and weak as I stumbled into the woods with Mitch in my arms. My mind wandered back out into the area around us as I searched for other Fae. Even though I didn’t sense Fae or human, each step I took made crackling sounds. My ears began playing tricks on me as I heard footsteps echoing mine in the pitch-dark woods. My nerves were on edge when the crack of a twig caused me to destroy a harmless hawthorn tree. Every time I took a step, I heard movement in the woods from every direction.

It’s just your nerves, stupid.
I tried to joke with myself to calm down, but none of my usual techniques seemed to work. I was afraid to close my eyes and picture myself on the beach for fear of what I’d see when I opened them. So I trudged forward. A quarter of the way back to the car, I stopped and scanned the area again. Still no Fae.

Mitch was growing heavy, and my arms were rubbery and shaking like I’d just finished lifting weights. I set him down to catch my breath.
I’ve got to get out of here
. Trying to fly out would be dangerous, because I’d never travelled more than a block and I’d never done it carrying anyone else. Really, I’d done nothing more than a controlled descent. Stretching like I did before a race, I finally managed to slow my heartbeat, even though my ears were still hearing things that weren’t there. Glancing down at my watch gave me a rush of adrenalin. I only had thirty minutes to meet Sherman at the hospital.

Scooping Mitch back into my arms I decided to risk it. “Just concentrate,” I said, moving underneath a small clearing in the canopy. Jumping as hard as I could, I caught our weight with my mind, lifted us over the treetops and focused on carrying our bodies to the road. I tried to ignore the raging fire a quarter mile in the distance, even though I knew it was bound to draw attention. The warm night air, thick with dozens of earthy scents, put up little resistance. At the treetops I began spinning, lurching, and moving forward erratically. Dizzied and disoriented, I clung to Mitch and focused on the road. We covered the distance in a minute, lurching and spinning the entire way. I saw the road but felt disoriented in the dark.
Where did I park?

A slight glint of the moon reflecting off the back glass caught my attention. Another rush of adrenalin strengthened my arms as I gently set us down in the middle of the road and collapsed on top of Mitch. Gathering my senses, I managed to stand. With little effort I blew the camouflage into the woods and unlocked the car. After putting Mitch in his seatbelt, I sprinted around to the driver’s seat. As I reached the door, I felt four Unseelie overhead, coming from the north. They were going to pass right over the top of us. Extending Clóca over the car as soon as I pulled the door shut, I held my breath when they drew close enough that I recognized who they were: Chalen and the three Unseelie I’d seen from my first visit.

Before I could figure out how to attack, they split and went in four different directions, spreading out in a line parallel to the blazing farm. Dersha, the Fae who had appeared as a woman, was just a few hundred yards in front of me and Chalen beyond her. She frightened me, because Chalen cowered to her as much as he did to Ozara. Though I contemplated it, I knew I couldn’t attack all four simultaneously, and if one got away, it was over.

Deep breaths
,
just take deep breaths
. Each of the Fae began moving in the direction of the burning farm. The two on the outside edge moved more quickly and out of my range. I assumed they were heading to the road in front of the farmhouse.
Thank god I didn’t park there
. At the very moment I felt them move beyond the normal range of a Fae, I cranked the engine. The snarling Mustang bellowed to life and I wasted no time. A little too aggressive with the gas, I let off the clutch but didn’t move. Instead, I made a rooster tail of dirt and grass.

Calm down, idiot. Be smarter.
I eased up, gently releasing the clutch, and the car lurched forward. The exhaust was loud, so I tried to drive like a reasonable person until I was out of their range. I cruised at thirty miles an hour until the instant I no longer sensed them. Then I nailed the gas, and instantly felt like I was riding on top of one of those crazy bucking horses at a rodeo. The tires wailed and smoked, but I managed to keep it out of the ditch. One hundred, one twenty, one thirty, one forty, the needle on the speedometer didn’t seem to slow down.

I dropped the Clóca barrier. Driving that fast was stupid, but doing it while invisible was suicidal. Stabbing the brakes for a sharp turn, my mind subconsciously caught the weight of the Mustang and kept it on the road. My hands were shaking on the steering wheel and gear shifter as the road straightened out on the other side. There were still no Fae in pursuit.

I maneuvered a few more turns, then skidded sideways onto Highway 16 and accelerated. Coming from the opposite direction, blue lights appeared above a set of headlights. I could tell by their quick downward movement that the officer was braking hard.
Oh come on! Now? Really? If I’d only learned to glamour.
“But I can do better!”

Without even a hint of guilt I reached out with my mind and ran a pulse of energy through the battery of his squad car, and all the lights went dead. Before I went by, I wrapped Clóca around the car again and flew past the cop, who just stared wide-eyed at the growling sound of the invisible Mustang. Out of his view, I dropped the shield and continued on to the hospital.

My heart beat at full speed when I reached the on ramp to I-540. “Just a few miles to go, Mitch.
”
Once on the interstate, I slowed down to the speed limit and blended into traffic. There were no Fae following me, but when I drove a little further, I sensed Danny, Sherman, and Victoria. I also sensed Sara and Billy. My hands were shaking even harder when I pulled into the hospital parking lot—so hard I could barely turn the steering wheel.