The Inner Circle (Return of the Ancients Book 3)

The Glass Wall – Book Three:

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To Ajax: You're the best Doberman in all dimensions...
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Table of Contents

Sydney’s Note to Reader

Chapter One – What Am I?

Chapter Two – The Secret of Fluoride

Chapter Three – The Man in the Black Top Hat

Chapter Four – Microwave Mind-Control

Chapter Five – A Secret Weapon

Chapter Six – “Leave Me Alone”

Chapter Seven – The Mutant Tulpa

Chapter Eight – Bloodlines

Chapter Nine – A Farewell

Chapter Ten – Faraday Caps

Chapter Eleven – Caught

Chapter Twelve – The Hall of Judgment

Chapter Thirteen – The Choice

Chapter Fourteen – A New Ally

Chapter Fifteen – The Gates of Hell

About the Author and Other Books

My name is Sydney, and I’m just an average high school senior. My life had always bordered on the dull side until I found myself living with a new foster family in Mercer Island, Washington.

The whole story would make much more sense if you just read the first two books, but you can cheat by just understanding that my neighbor with the killer looks named Rafael and the rock star Jareth turned out to be Fae. Fairies.

But not your childhood ‘Tinkerbell’ type of fairy.

They were futuristic high-tech Navy SEAL type of fairies who tracked fate across the dimensions and protected Earth from the Brotherhood of the Snake, a race of beings who fed off of human emotions in the second dimension—the dimension humans access through dreams and thought.

Rafael informed me that I was a Blue Thread, someone fated to make a decision that would either be the most disastrous or the most beneficial for all. And then my dubious luck apparently rubbed off on them both, because they both turned Blue-Threaded shortly after arriving on Earth and meeting me.

My own foolish curiosity led me to steal a mysterious orange tube from the back of Rafael’s car, and when I opened it, a horrible mutant tulpa (the manifestation in the second dimension of pure fear) escaped and tried to turn me into itself: the pure emotion of fear.

Rafael saved me and took me to Avalon where we found out that the Brotherhood had been deliberately torturing humanity so that we’d create the emotions of fear and anger for them to eat. And we discovered that they’d created that mutant tulpa by terrorizing humans through the centuries and somehow combining all that fear. But we didn’t know what they’d planned on doing with it, or how it had actually shown up on Earth.

Rafael got into big trouble for helping me, and to prove his innocence we had to find the mutant tulpa, but by the time we’d broken the Glass Wall and returned to Earth, there was no sign of it.

But to make matters worse, the Brotherhood was looking for it, too.

They’d somehow managed to get control of a few genetically engineered animal bodies about the size of a cat, bodies that allowed the Brotherhood to control them from the second dimension. Mesmers.

You wouldn’t think that something the size of a cat could be dangerous, but when it has the ability to mesmerize you with its eyes and by the sound of its voice, and then do whatever it pleases with you, you quickly change your mind.

And the fact that Mesmers were roaming the Earth meant that someone on Earth had been helping the Brotherhood. They’d clearly created bodies for the Brotherhood to use.

We ended up back in Avalon and we went to the Hall of Mirrors for answers. But the mirrors reacted strangely to me, and we found more questions than anything else.

We discovered that the Brotherhood had actually been behind the creation of the Glass Wall from the beginning and had used it as a shield for centuries to torture humans under the Faes’ very noses.

And then the mirrors decided to show us scenes from the past of an abnormally tall man with a black top hat banishing the Brotherhood from Earth. We watched the lizard people jump into the second dimension, one by one, until the pictures shifted to show what looked like the future. We saw images of Rafael joining the secret Fae society of the Inner Circle and Jareth with scales on his skin just like a lizard. In one scene, I was trapped in a giant-sized Coke Bottle.

During all of this, my feelings for Rafael exploded.

But of course, it wasn’t meant to be.

He told me that he couldn’t reciprocate. He swore that if he were to love a human, he would set in motion events that would destroy the Tree of Life, the tree that anchored the three dimensions together: The Brotherhood, The Fae, and Earth. Apparently, to merely look at this tree would be to destroy it. And that would be the end of all of us.

But feelings are hard to control.

I fell for him anyway and he fell for me a bit too, I think. He even kissed me. Sort of.

But then, it turned out that Rafael wasn’t good after all.

I came home from work to see the man with the black top hat on the porch. And after I ran into the house screaming, I found Betty on the couch in a catatonic state, mesmerized by the Brotherhood.

Blondie, a particularly nasty Mesmer, was there, along with Melody (Rafael’s mentor), and his lizard-controlled father, Marquis. They were all dressed in white and revealed that they belonged to the secret society of the Inner Circle, a society that apparently had its own evil agenda.

Blondie threatened me with Betty’s life, saying that if I didn’t give him the mutant tulpa that he’d snip her life force so it would be as if she’d never existed. Actually, he was going to force me to do it.

And then Jareth arrived and we found the mutant tulpa in the garage. I didn’t even know it was there. My foster father, Al had trapped it in his alien detection kit and had been apparently observing it this whole time.

I picked it up, and Jareth screamed at me to give the mutant tulpa to him. But Jareth had always been on the obnoxious side, so I gave it to Rafael instead.

I didn’t know he was part of the Inner Circle at that point. I trusted him. I thought he was a good guy.

I chose Rafael, but it was a big mistake.

No sooner had I given him the mutant tulpa than he put on a white mask and told us that he’d always belonged to the Inner Circle.

I didn’t know what to think.

I just couldn’t believe it.

If Rafael was bad … did that make
Jareth
the good guy?

Rafael stood before us tall, intimidating, and looking more dangerous than ever before. Every muscular inch of him seemed carved out of steel. Slowly, he held up the white-feathered mask of the Inner Circle and slipped it over his blond hair.

I could see his gray eyeliner-rimmed eyes peering down at us.

They were cold.

He gave a deep, mocking laugh and then after a pregnant pause, he said the fateful words, “No, Jareth, I could never join the Inner Circle. How could I
join
… when I never left?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. This had to be some kind of nightmare.

At my side, Jareth was stunned speechless. I just sat there, huddled in his protective embrace as we both crouched on the garage floor.

“It was amusing to watch you this past year,” Rafael continued, locking eyes with Jareth as he slowly advanced. “You tried so hard to break into the Inner Circle. So hard. I only let Marquis accept you as an Initiate out of pure entertainment.”

“Impossible!” Jareth finally gasped.

“Not at all. I’ve been the head of the Inner Circle for quite some time now,” Rafael informed him coolly. “As one of the few remaining Purebloods in Avalon, it is my rightful place.
And
even more so as the last male descendant of Cor, the mightiest of the Fae Royalty to have ever lived.”

I couldn’t believe the arrogance in his tone. Rafael had always been so kind and caring. And I’d fallen in love with him. My heart wanted to scream that this was all an act of some kind.

His father, Marquis, clutched the mutant tulpa trapped inside Al’s alien detection kit. I could see the tulpa’s orange luminous tentacles swirling in the glass dome as if seeking a way to escape.

I shuddered, sensing that it was looking for me. It wanted me. It wanted to finish the job of converting me into itself, the emotion of pure fear.

Apparently, Marquis had been watching me.

A smirk twisted his delicate pale lips under the umbrella of his wispy mustache. I’d never liked him. He’d always made my flesh crawl even before I’d found out that he was possessed by the Brotherhood of the Snake.

“The Brotherhood is forever in your debt, Sydney,” he said with a grin. “You’ve helped us more than you’ll ever know. Or maybe you
will
know soon.”

At that Blondie angled his head and hissed. He was terrifying, a hairless shriveled Mesmer that looked half like a rat and half like a cat, with long claws and a row of spikes along his spine and tail.

Chastised, Marquis fell silent.

The Mesmer turned my way.

I shuddered again.

Blondie’s shrunken mouth shifted into a smile upon his distinctly gargoyle-like face. It was an evil smile. His eyes locked over my shoulder as he said, “Welcome, Betty.”

I whirled to see my foster mother Betty standing in the doorway, hunched sideways. Her brown eyes were vacant.

“Betty!” I choked. I jumped to my feet and rushed to her side.

“Shall we let Betty die?” Blondie asked as he drew his lips back in a condescending sneer. “She is still under my control. Should I leave and let her waste away?”

I swallowed. Would he really do that? But I already knew the answer to that. He was evil. He would actually relish leaving her there to slowly waste away. And Rafael just might let him do it.

“How will you live with this guilt?” Blondie continued, obviously pleased with my response. “How I shall look forward to feasting from your years of guilt, Sydney.”

“No,” I whispered. I didn’t want to be the cause of Betty’s death. Already, a knot of unbearable pain formed in the pit of my stomach, a pain I didn’t think I could carry the rest of my life. And against my will, fear gripped me.

“So easy!” Blondie leered, making a slurping sound with his mouth.

I knew he was implying that he was eating my fear from the second dimension. I shivered. That thought only made it all worse.

Behind me, the Mesmer cackled. His voice altered, turning deeper as it reverberated through my bones. It was the kind of voice that you wanted to listen to forever.

“Betty,” he rumbled. “Shall we show Sydney what we can do?”

I couldn’t move. I was helpless as Betty’s hands rose to clench my throat.

But as her fingers tightened, Rafael’s cold voice shattered the spell.

“Now is not the time to play, Blondie.” His voice was harsh. “We have weightier matters that concern us.”

As Betty’s hands fell to her side, I stepped away, shaken and shocked that I had so easily again fallen victim to the power of Blondie’s voice.

Somehow, Jareth was there, standing in front of me as if to shield me with his body.

“You may not control her,” he challenged Blondie. “I’ll not let that happen again.”

He held out his hands, and I could see that they were beginning to glow. A shiny black stone appeared in his fingers. Briefly pressing his hands together, he held the stone out to me.

It was a Fae protection rune, emblazoned with his symbol.

I’d not trusted him before, but I certainly did now. Grabbing it, I clutched it so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

Blondie drew back, hissing.

“Sydney is under my protection,” Jareth said, putting his arm around me. “You will not harm her.”

Blondie lips parted, revealing long fangs as Marquis’ eyes widened.

In a flash, Blondie leapt at Jareth, landing on his shoulder to slither down his arm. “I would know more of you, Jareth,” his rasping voice snaked through the air.

“No, you may not!” Jareth shouted, flinging Blondie’s body from his arm.