The Wood Queen (20 page)

When Donna came to, she was lying on the cold ground looking straight up at the starless night sky.
Starless?
She sat up quickly, feeling sick and spent, trying to remember what she was doing here. And where “here” actually was.

She shook her head and rubbed her face, realizing that her hands were bare. Shivering, she looked around the shadowed ground but couldn’t see her gloves anywhere.

And then she remembered: Ironwood Forest. The Wood Queen. The door to Faerie. The gateway that she
had succeeded in opening—at least, she
thought
she had succeeded. At least partially. She remembered the golden light before her eyes, but then the thread of power—the sliver of first matter,
prima materia
, inside her soul—had seemed to catch on something and everything had stopped.

Scrambling to her feet, ignoring the screaming resistance in every muscle, she was faced with nothing but the empty clearing and a radiant space between trees that held the shape of a huge rectangular blur. A door?

The
door?

She had done it! And was still doing it, in fact—Donna could feel the thread tighten again, between herself and the gateway that was slowly opening.

A tall humanoid form stood in the glowing doorway, behind a bright veil, looking around as if surveying a strange new world. It seemed as if the silhouetted figure was watching her. Long hands touched the wall of light, pressing against it like they could push their way through, but the pulsing radiance remained intact. Donna thought it looked sort of creepy, and so unreal—it was almost like watching one of those puppet shows through a sheet.

Whoever—or whatever—was standing there, it couldn’t get out. Not yet, anyway.

The power tugged at her stomach, as it had before, but this time was different; this time she had more control over it. Perhaps
consciously
using her new ability, and for its true purpose, had given her more understanding and control. Donna didn’t think she’d be opening any more ephemeral
doors anytime soon, but she at least felt more confident that she wouldn’t accidently transport herself again.

She was feeling increasingly nervous. This was taking longer than she’d thought it would, and she was horribly aware of the fact that Navin knew about her bargain with Aliette. Would he tell Maker? She had left them under such … unusual circumstances … that there really wasn’t any doubt that the Order would be in hot pursuit.

She tried to push those fearful thoughts away; her mental grip on the door that was slowly but surely opening was so tight, she was afraid to break the intense concentration. The Wood Queen had disappeared, but Donna had no doubt she was somewhere close by, ensuring that her Iron Witch followed through completely on the terms of their bargain. Perhaps Aliette was gathering her people so that they could return home as soon as possible.

Donna focused
inward
, trying to pinpoint the bright spot of power within her chest. If she had to describe what she was doing, the closest she could come was that it felt like molding clay on a potter’s wheel—taking a shard of first matter and somehow shaping it into something new.

Sudden movement, all around, brought her back to the cold darkness of the clearing. Her grip on the glowing thread faltered, and—just like that—her tattoos stopped moving. She fell to her knees on a pile of dirt and rotten leaves. The door was still there, pulsing with power.

She tried to catch her breath, but her whole body felt frozen and her chest hurt. She recognized Aunt Paige’s voice and her heart sank.

This wasn’t good; it really couldn’t get any worse. If the alchemists arrived now, things could fall apart. Perhaps the door would close if she hadn’t gotten it fully open before being interrupted … she didn’t understand how these powers of hers worked yet.

Aunt Paige had gotten here way sooner than she’d expected. It should have taken longer for Maker to rally the troops.

Just then, Aliette and two more of her dark elves—accompanying her like twisted, vine-covered bodyguards—appeared on a pathway on the far side of the clearing. The alchemists were filing into the clearing as well, staying close to the furthest edge, their faces eerily lit by the glow of the open door to Faerie.

Maker was there, and Donna was surprised that he could possibly have managed the journey without his chair. He was walking, carrying his stick and leaning heavily on the arm of a tall, skinny young man at his side.

Donna felt strangely glad to see Robert, although she wondered why he was still helping the Order of the Dragon, especially after how he’d tried to warn her about it. Maybe Miranda had told him to stay close? When they’d talked on Ironbridge Common, Robert had made it sound almost like the Order of the Crow was monitoring its American counterparts.

She didn’t know what it meant, but his face was serious when their eyes met.

Quentin, Simon, and her aunt completed the group. They were all carrying flashlights, and Donna desperately searched the trees for any sign of Navin.

He wasn’t there, and for that she was intensely glad. The tension in her stomach eased back a couple of notches—her best friend was safe. Maker would have insisted that he stay behind, and there was no way Simon would have permitted a “commoner” to join them, anyway.

Donna couldn’t help a slight smile. Nav would have argued up a storm, but he wouldn’t have stood a chance against the Order of the Dragon. For once, she was glad of the control they felt entitled to exert over everybody around them—whether human, alchemist, or fey.

Before anybody could break the eerie silence, the steady light in the door between the trees flashed bright red—blood red—and the clearing was filled with the sound of an otherworldly screeching that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The noise was different from the cry of the Skriker, though it still made all the hairs on the back of Donna’s neck stand up.

Aunt Paige’s bloodless lips pulled back in a wordless snarl. There was a spot of lipstick on one of her teeth, savage and crimson like blood.

“What have you done, you stupid girl?”

Donna pushed herself to her feet, wondering if she had the strength to stand. She felt wrung out like an old cloth. Her throat was parched and her legs trembled. “I’m just sending them home—I saved Mom!”

“And damned the rest of us,” her aunt retorted.

“What are you talking about?” Donna’s voice seemed too loud as the nerve-shattering noise stopped. “Maker, tell her!”

But Maker wouldn’t meet her eyes.

The Wood Queen stood to one side of the door, watching the scene unfold with a strange expression on her face. She showed no sign of fear, despite being effectively surrounded by her enemies.

Simon was crouched beside Quentin, who seemed to have fallen to the ground when the screeching started. The Magus was solicitous as usual, but his face was a mask of horror—an expression that Donna wasn’t used to seeing on the odious man’s face.

She stepped toward the Archmaster. “Quentin, what happened?”

Simon blocked her path. “Don’t touch him,” he hissed.

Donna felt her heart go cold. She knew there’d been every chance that Aliette would trick her in some way, yet she’d still gone ahead with their bargain. She didn’t understand what was so terrible, but she knew everybody else believed it was pretty bad.

“What?!” Donna glared around at the gathered alchemists. She searched out Robert, looking for some kind of reassurance. “All I did was open the door to Faerie—they can go home now. No more wood elves.”

She tried to push down the rising wave of panic that clawed at her throat. “It’s a good thing—right?”

Aunt Paige’s eyes were pinched with barely repressed fury, but at least she seemed to have regained some
measure of control. “Faerie can only be opened one way, you little fool. From the
inside
.”

“I … I don’t understand …” But Donna was beginning to. Her feelings of anxiety and uncertainty were slowly morphing into black-winged horror.

Robert was nodding. “I’m sorry, Donna. Faerie really can only be opened one way—and it’s not from
our
side of reality.”

“Then …” She stumbled over a fallen branch as she backed up a step, not looking where she was going. “What have I opened?”

Aliette’s face split into a wicked expression of triumph, her lipless mouth slashing her cheeks almost in half.

But before Donna could direct her questions at the manically grinning queen, the figure in the doorway moved. She had to scrunch up her eyes against the bright glare that burst out of the door, bathing the entire clearing with an unforgiving white heat.

A tall figure stepped out of the radiance and into the clearing.

He was … beautiful. Stunning, in an inhuman way that went beyond anything she ever could have imagined. Xan was handsome, sure, but this was something else entirely. There was an intoxicating quality to this being’s presence, something that went beyond the mere beauty of his physical perfection. Whoever this newcomer was, his aura was filled with a power so charismatic that he had his audience reeled in before he even opened his mouth.

He was tall and slim, with silver hair that brushed the shoulders of his perfectly cut black jacket. His face looked as though it had been chiselled out of the finest marble, and his eyes looked like two pieces of gleaming onyx.

And he was looking right at her.

“Greetings, human.” His voice was low-pitched, almost melodious in its lilting rhythms. “You may call me Demian. The Otherworld is grateful to you for the gift of freedom.”

Donna’s legs gave way, and she fell to her knees once more on the carpet of dead leaves. Whether it was the shock of his words and the creeping sense of horror taking its toll, or whether it was physical exhaustion from opening the door, she couldn’t say. Maybe it was even the painful weight of Demian’s
presence
. Whatever it was that had caused her sudden weakness, she hated herself for it, even as she tried to drag herself back to her feet.

“Let me help you,” the stranger said, courteous in the manner of someone who belonged to another time and place. He reached toward her, and she found herself allowing him to grasp her bare hand in a cool grip that spoke of hidden strength.

Pulling her upright with no effort at all, the man called Demian spoke again. “Donna Underwood, you have fulfilled a task we did not expect of one such as you. We thank you, truly. We are in your debt.”

He kept hold of her hand, seemingly fascinated with the spiralling patterns across her skin.

“We?” Donna found her voice and took comfort in the fact that it didn’t shake. She tugged her hand free, pleased that her strength clearly surprised this newcomer. “Who are you talking about?”

She already knew, in that dark place of terror she was trying to stuff down in order to stop from screaming.

What have I done?
The words echoed around her head, as though in an empty chamber. She tried to meet this stranger’s eyes as she waited for the response that would seal her fate—and seal the fate of too many people to count. If she really had made such a terrible mistake, she should, at the very least, suffer the consequences. The pain in her heart whispered of the price she might truly pay later on, but for now, she simply attempted to remain upright in the face of the most beautiful evil she had ever seen.

Demian’s face broke into a smile that broke her heart with its perfection. His black eyes glittered with the weight of centuries.

“It is the demons who offer you their gratitude. We are free after almost two centuries of imprisonment at the hands of the alchemists—and it is all thanks to you.”

Donna remembered to breathe just as all Hell—quite literally—broke loose.

Simon was trying to drag Quentin from the clearing, while Robert guided Maker to another gap in the trees. Aunt Paige seemed frozen, watching the demon speaking to her niece by the glowing doorway.

A door that was, even now, beginning to fill with more silhouettes.

Demons.

How many of them there might be, Donna couldn’t say, but the portal to the Otherworld was at least partially open, and she only knew that they had to get out of here—all of them. Even her aunt. Much as Donna wanted to hate her, she couldn’t let Aunt Paige just
stand
there.

Demian turned his attention to the wall of light holding his people back, and Donna took what could be her one opportunity.

She ran the other way. “Aunt Paige,
run
!” When the woman didn’t move, Donna grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “I said, get out of here—now!”

Giving her a shove toward the path that Simon had just taken, she headed back for Maker and Robert.

“Donna,” the young alchemist said, “it seems you really know how to get the party started.”

She gasped with shocked laughter, knowing she was close to a breakdown. “Yeah, I’m a party girl. You got that right.” She reached for Maker’s arm. “Let’s get him out of here.”

Robert nodded, and they half-carried the old man from the clearing.

As they made it onto the main part of the pathway, Donna realized that she hadn’t seen the Wood Queen leave.

Closing her eyes briefly, she swallowed down a wave of bitterness. Maybe Aliette considered them “even” now. Was this all about
revenge
, for destroying the elixir and double-crossing her the last time? Would the queen really bring about Hell on earth as payback? There had to be more to this—freeing the demons must somehow benefit the wood
elves. The puzzle wasn’t complete, but Donna hardly had time to worry about filling in the missing pieces now.

When Aunt Paige met them on the branch-scattered path and took Maker from them, putting her arm around the alchemist’s shoulders and guiding him over the rough terrain, Donna really began to think they might be okay. At least, the others could escape—that’s what counted.

She turned to Robert and smiled, looking for a sign of encouragement from him as they watched her aunt lead Maker to safety.

His face was serious again, but at least he was still standing beside her.

Donna touched his arm. “Is Navin safe?”

A half-smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “They had to more or less lock him up in Maker’s workshop to get him to stay put.”

Relief flooded her, but then adrenalin immediately returned. She glanced nervously back at the clearing that held a doorway to Hell. “Listen, we don’t have much time. I need to go back there.”

“I’m sorry, I must have misheard you, what with the bloody apocalypse almost upon us. Did you just say you have to go
back
?”

Donna pressed her lips together and simply nodded.

“Are you quite mad?” Robert asked. “You can’t possibly—”

“I’m sick of being told what I can and can’t do. Robert, I opened that door, so I figure I’m the only one who has any chance of closing it.”

He was shaking his head, a determined expression stamped across his face. “It’s too late for that. We should get out while we still can.”

“You’re not listening to me!” Donna hadn’t meant to shout, but well … there it was. She was furious. Not with Robert, and not even with the Wood Queen. Not really. She was disgusted with
herself
. “I have to make this right.”

The sky above them flashed to life, as though some ancient god had switched on a long-forgotten light switch. Bolts of pure energy snaked through the inky blackness, jagged and bright against the cold night. Donna ducked, instinct taking over, even though the impossible lightning was miles away.

Robert grabbed her wrists, holding the tattoos as though they were nothing. “Donna, trust me when I tell you this: you won’t be able to close that door again. The legends say it took a dozen alchemists to secure it, two hundred years ago. Breaking a lock, even a magical one, is far easier than fixing it—do you understand?”

She did. She understood what he was telling her, but she had to try.
Dammit
, she was responsible for releasing a species potentially far more powerful than the wood elves.

The ground shuddered beneath their feet, bucking and rippling so hard that Donna would have stumbled if Robert hadn’t had a tight hold on her. A sound like thunder smashed through her whole being, and for a moment she let herself consider just getting out of this place.

But only for a moment.

She twisted her arms from the young alchemist’s grasp, not even bothering to apologize when he cried out in pain.

“Bloody hell, woman! What did you have to do that for? I think you broke my fingers.”

Ignoring him, she turned and ran back toward the clearing—to the door that would unleash an army of demons at any moment. She heard Robert crashing through the undergrowth in pursuit.

Which was when two shadows slipped from between the trees and blocked the path ahead of them.

“Move!” Robert yelled, pushing her into a large patch of prickly bushes.

“Hey, watch where you’re—”

But Donna didn’t get to finish whatever she was going to shout at him. Her eyes widened in shock as she saw the two shadowy figures move toward Robert with inhuman speed. From her position half-collapsed in the undergrowth, she watched in growing horror as the figures made a grab for him. They were moving so fast it was difficult to see what they truly looked like, especially in the near darkness, but she was beginning to realize that they were under some kind of glamour. Only it wasn’t a glamour she’d ever seen before—not like an elfskin, used by the dark elves, and not even like the shimmer of disguise she’d detected on Ivy when they’d first met.

As one of the shadows easily wrestled Robert to the ground, the other turned its impassive attention on her.

Donna didn’t intend to be prey. Not tonight. She clambered out of the brambles, her coat catching on thorns
that seemed to be trying to drag her back down again. Angrily, she ripped off the coat, throwing the shredded pieces behind her and squeezing her hands into silver fists.

Whatever these creatures were, they obviously belonged in the Otherworld.

The shadow man’s eyes were cold blank spaces, and its whole presence made her shiver. It glided toward her the moment she set foot back on the scattered dirt and stones of the path. In the sudden brightness of an otherworldly lightning bolt, she could see the skid marks her sneakers had made when Robert pushed her out of harm’s way.

The creature was nothing more than a silhouette. Quite literally—it was like a man’s tall, thin shadow had stepped off a wall at noon and decided to attack two passersby. Only Donna knew this was no chance encounter.

It slid closer and raised an arm.

She threw herself to the side, rolling on the ground and gasping with pain when her shoulder made contact with something sharp. For a moment she thought she’d cut herself—again—but soon realized that the burning pain in her shoulder was getting worse. The shadow man had hold of her, and was dragging her to her feet. Her feet scrabbled impotently against the earth, desperately trying to get away from this silent monster, but it was stronger than anything she’d ever come up against before.

Even the Skriker.

With the image of the fey hellhound flashing through her screaming mind, Donna gritted her teeth and put both her hands around her attacker’s wrist. She squeezed as hard
as she could, trying not to think about the human-shaped arm and how real it felt, but instead imagining she was cracking a very large nut.

It released her, although it didn’t make a sound. Donna could only hope she’d hurt it as she tumbled to the ground and rolled immediately back to her feet.

Without letting herself stop to think—to be afraid—she swung at it with her right fist, gasping with shock as her hand went right through it and her momentum carried her forward—

—and right
through
her attacker. For a moment she was encased in cold and dark, her bones grinding and aching as she passed through the blackness and fell out the other side, skidding to a halt and whirling back to face the creature. Nausea reared its ugly head in her belly, but she clamped her teeth together and held up her fists again, vowing that if they got out of this, she was going to learn how to fight correctly.

Robert had somehow gotten himself free of the other monster and was running in her direction. “Donna, we need to get the shadows into a circle!”

“A circle?”

She felt young and inexperienced, hating it but knowing she didn’t have the tools to deal with whatever these things were. “Shadows,” Robert had called them, and she wondered if that was their true name or whether it was just something he’d come up with there and then. Her hand had just gone straight through the creature that grabbed her—which didn’t even make sense. How could something
be solid enough to take hold of her arm, but then be like a ghost when she punched it with her other hand? If they could change their density at will, her enhanced strength was effectively useless—perhaps she’d gotten lucky when she’d managed to free herself before. It was as if the shadow had adapted to her abilities and could use her strength against her.

“What are they?” she managed to gasp, even as she kicked out at her assailant and stumbled when her leg sliced through its shadowy body.

Robert was there beside her, digging in one of the many pockets of his jacket. He drew out what looked like a small black pouch, but before she could say for sure, she was lifted high above the ground by seemingly invisible hands and thrown across the pathway.

Donna hit a tree trunk on the way back down, and she bit back a cry of pain. She would
not
give that thing the satisfaction. If it even felt emotions like satisfaction. She was having a hard time thinking of the creatures as anything other than thoroughly inhuman—almost alien. And it had just grabbed her again, which meant it had turned solid enough to do that. Perhaps that meant she could get in a good strike of her own before it went all … shadowy again.

She groaned from her current position, lying flat out beneath a skeletal tree. Maybe getting up was going to be a lot harder than she’d anticipated. Her ribs ached and she felt sick.

The shadow man stood over her, just … watching.

Robert dodged around it and reached down to scoop her, one-handed, off the ground. “Get behind me, Donna.”

Oh, God … those words.
Get behind me, Donna!
She felt sick as a dark and twisted memory of her father almost overwhelmed her.

Wanting to argue with Robert, but knowing she was way out of her league—at least until she knew more about the shadows—Donna did as she was told. Whatever he was doing, she didn’t want to get in the way of that. He was so serious and in control; there was a lot more to Robert than she had initially given him credit for.

But then again, he was a fully trained alchemical adept, even if he
was
from the Order of the Crow; she’d been brought up to believe that it was only the Order of the Dragon who still actively practiced any form of magic.

Robert tossed a handful of what looked like salt at the advancing creature.

This sort of looked like magic to her.

He spared her a glance. “They’re demon shadows. Not true demons, but close enough, in terms of anything we have experience with. Sort of like a first wave of attack, I suppose.”

Demons … Donna swallowed against a feeling of sheer terror as the full weight of what was happening came crashing down on her. A vivid image of the bronze statue in Simon’s lab flashed through her strained mind; Newton had claimed to be a trapped demon.

And now here, the very next night, she was coming face-to-face with more demons. Or demon shadows, as Robert called them.

“How do you know this?” She grabbed Robert’s arm and pulled him toward her as the second creature—the one that had tackled him to the ground earlier—recovered from whatever he’d done to it. Maybe he’d used the salt on it; it seemed to make them shrink back temporarily. Like slugs, she thought with disgust.

Both shadows stood perfectly still, watching and waiting for them to make a move. It was creepy, as though the creatures had begun to mirror their actions, tracking them like the prey she so desperately
didn’t
want to be.

Robert pulled out another pouch.

“How much stuff are you carrying, anyway?” she asked, pushing down her fear and trying to focus on getting out of this in one piece. “Who the hell do you think you are, Batman?”

Robert actually flashed a grin. “Close. Try James Bond, darling.”

She choked on a strained laugh. “Yeah, because you’re
totally
like James Bond.”

“I’m more 007 than caped crusader, I’ll have you know.” He sounded genuinely offended. “Suave, well-dressed, skilled in the arts of multiple types of combat, and highly attractive to both men
and
women …”

The demon shadows moved in tandem, as if controlled by the same mind. Closing the short distance between
themselves and their targets, they reached out with misshapen, inkblot fingers.

Robert grabbed Donna’s hand and ran, pulling her behind him so fast that her feet dragged along the ground.

“Wait, stop!” She slammed on the brakes and used her strength to resist him. She didn’t want to hurt him again—no matter how annoying he’d been in the past—but she still needed to get back to the clearing. Robert was taking her away from the doorway.

She tugged hard on his arm, feeling him trying to drag her toward a group of trees on the far side of the pathway. Feeling only vaguely guilty, she squeezed his hand tightly in hers until he cried out in pain.

“Stop
doing
that! Whose side are you on?” He shook his hand free and rubbed his fingers gingerly, giving her a murderous look.