Through Time-Frankie (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

FRANKIE COLLAPSED ON the iron floor, her hand outstretched toward the ring on Crystal’s finger.

She took a moment to recoup and fight the agony the poison had created in her body. She couldn’t give in to the pain. 

She had to…
wait.

What was wrong with her?
She could get Crystal’s ring without touching it. She was a Daoine Fae and although she was weak, she could manage that much.

A moment later the ring was off Crystal’s finger and floating toward her. It dropped in her lap. Right. She still needed to get her wrist free. Could she use her fireball? Could she make it small enough to free each wrist?

With a thought, a flicker of vibrating energy seemed to stare back at her before she directed it to her wrist. She felt a sting as it burned off the magical chain that held her restrained.

One hand free, she then directed it to the other wrist and a moment later, she held the ring in her hands. She flipped open the lid and there it was, a silvery powder.

“Okay, Crystal, what now?”

Sprinkle it over each of us.
Crystal’s voice was in her head, but she couldn’t see any movement under the netting. The Dark King’s consort still looked unconscious.

Frankie did just that, and saw the netting dissolve around the King’s consort. She then ran to Jazz and undid the bondage holding her wrist above her head.

“Jazz?” she said and shook her but got no response. “Right, time for a sprinkle.” She dripped the silvery powder over Jazz’s head, hoping she was doing it right. She looked over at Crystal and frowned. Still no movement. The netting was gone, but she still lay in a fetal position. Why? Oh no, please don’t let her die, Frankie thought fitfully and turned back to shake Jazz. “Jazz…wake up…Jazz!”

Jazz opened her brilliant blue sparkling eyes and groaned, “Frankie.”

Frankie laughed with joy, “Aye then, we have to get out of here. There is no telling what has happened while we’ve been locked up behind this iron.”

Jazz sat more upright on the floor and brought her head down between her knees as she pulled on her healing powers. The poison was still doing its job.

“I’ve got to get ye out, both ye and Crystal and I’ve got to get to Graely. Something is wrong…very wrong with Graely.”

“Yes, Frankie, I think he went to Conglam to confront Pestale,” Jazz said her voice hoarse as she blinked away the grogginess.

Frankie went to Crystal, “Do ye hear me, Crystal? Can ye get through to yer King? Can ye?”

“
No fear it is too late for me…”
Crystal’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

“No, oh no…” Frankie said. She turned to Jazz, “We can carry her between us and get her out of this cell. It will help to get her away from the iron!”

Jazz immediately tried to get to her feet, but her knees gave way and she collapsed. She was however, determined as Frankie bent to her and she said, “Frankie, just help me get up. I need a moment; just a moment and then we’ll cradle her between us, and get her out.”

“Aye, but the Dark King…he has blotted out the sun and turned off all power all over Ireland.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

NO ELECTRICITY, NO working generators and no lights anywhere, everything had stopped. No sun, no moon, no stars.

People were frozen in place, horrified.

Some in their cars, just simply pulled over their vehicles, others stopped right where they were, and stood bumper to bumper unable to see the road, or the car in front of them.

The Dark King had obliterated all light.

No one knew what to do. No one understood. This was beyond their ability to handle. Some wondered if this was God’s wrath.

The hour quickly came close to its end, and his Crystal had not been returned. With a thought, the Dark King could wipe out half the world. With another, he would take out the rest.

He had given them a chance and told them this. He told them who he was and what he could do and what they must do to stop him.

Confusion reigned, but an official with a blow horn spoke toward the brilliant pulsating mass hovering over Dublin and told him they did not know who Crystal was and did not have her.

Frankie felt the Dark King’s anger as she and Jazz carried Crystal through the tunnels and with their last bit of strength shifted her out of the underground and bent with her in their arms on the debris strewn grass.

Darkness was all around, and Frankie looked up to see the Dark King’s massive energy pulsating brightly in the black sky.

Frankie was still in excruciating pain, and winced as she took the weight off one leg caught under her butt and tried to find a better position. She had never seen the Dark King. In fact, she didn’t know anyone other than Aaibhe and Queen Mab that ever had.

And then, he found her.

Crystal, Crystal, my own beloved
.

“Can ye call to him, Crystal? Can ye answer him—make him stop?” Frankie asked. He was about to destroy everything…

Frankie heard Crystal’s voice, weak, but still alive say, “Do not do this…I am here…”

In the flash of a moment, the darkness was gone, the sun was out in a blue sky, the hum of electric power returned and the Dark King was back in his glorious Fae form standing over them.

He reached for and easily scooped up his consort into his arms and held her to him tightly as he turned to Frankie, “I can smell it. They injected her with Zolem blood. In another hour she would have died.”

Frankie could see he was about to leave and she wanted him to know and hurriedly said, “It wasn’t the humans…it was Pestale.”

“I know, but I must attend to my beloved. Be at peace, Frankie of Sluagh, you and the Fios, Jazmine Decker will ever be welcome in our world.”

He was gone but Frankie called after him, “Dark King…aren’t ye forgetting something? Dark King? What about yer wicked sons?”

She turned to Jazz and said, “Will he, do ye think, get back to us?”

In spite of Jazz’s discomfort she burst out laughing and the two hugged one another fiercely.

“Here comes Trevor,”

Trevor grabbed them both and kissed Jazz’s face and said, “I came as soon as you called and I hunted all through the catacombs for you. I thought I would lose my mind, Jazmine Decker. I shan’t allow you to go off without me during times of unrest, ever again.”

“Trevor, you must not try to control…” she tried to tell him but his lips were on hers at that moment making it as hard to think as it was to speak and Frankie laughed.

“Right then, I’ll leave ye two to…right…” and she shifted.

She knew, only one thing would have kept Graely from coming to her—
iron
. He must be locked up in an iron prison, and she knew where that was.

She shifted directly to his cell, and found the door opened wide. He wasn’t there, but she not only picked up on his scent, but on another’s…a wolf.

She tracked it to the Shapeshifter’s forest and there found them huddled around Graely, trying to force herbs and such down his throat.

“He was dying…but we had a recipe that helped him, but only helped. He is still dying.” Darmon said.

Frankie saw Essie and almost tore into her, “Don’t ye go near him…”

“It is okay, Frankie. Essie knows she was wrong. She has been trying to help with her magic and it has helped.”

Frankie didn’t care at the moment. She had but one concern. She bent to her beloved and told him, “No, Graely, I can’t lose ye…don’t ye go…Graely…”

She had to heal him, but she was depleted. She had been drained herself by poison.

She needed help.

How could it end this way?

It couldn’t, it simply couldn’t. She would take him to the cottage.
Jazz would know
what to do.

Brushing away her fears, and tears, she held Graely’s shoulder and shifted him to the cottage in the highlands.

She managed to situate him on the couch and covered him with a green knit throw blanket. She got a rag and dipped it in lukewarm water and began wiping his head.

Her tears dropped on his cheek, “Graely, stay with me, Graely…don’t ye hear me, love?”

He opened his eyes and she held his face in her two hands, “Graely, don’t ye die, don’t ye
. I forbid it
.” She could feel his life ebbing away.

“Better this way,” he managed to say with a ragged breath.

“Don’t ye dare say such a thing! Better for who? Not for me.
Put me first
, Graely, put me first…and
live for me.”
She was sobbing on his chest now, sobbing beyond the ability to do much else.

Suddenly, a five year old with an angelic face and soft blonde hair appeared and touched her arm, “Frankie, I heard you crying—don’t cry, Frankie.  I’ll help you.”

“Bray?” Frankie swiped at the tears running down her cheek. “What are you doing here? Your parents will worry about you. Oh Bray.”

Bray was already at Graely’s side, running a hand over Graely’s naked torso, “He is sick. But I did this for Toppy my earth cat when he got sick after we brought him home with us. I can heal your friend.” He said and began running his little hands just inches over Graely’s blanket covered body. “Come on, Frankie, if we do it together, it might be better.”

All at once the atmosphere brought in a breeze full with vanilla and pine and Breslyn appeared as suddenly as his son had and his voice was firm as he regarded Bray from knit brows, “Bray. What are you doing?”

Bray turned that angelic face to his father, “You said if we know a friend is hurt, it is our duty to help. Frankie was crying, and she is my friend.”

Breslyn looked at him and his face contorted between irritation and pride, but his eyes had already taken in the situation. He sighed and touched his son’s head, “Good lad, move a bit and let Papa do this.”

Prince Breslyn knew about the Dark Prince Graely. He had gotten an ear full from his Ete just the other day about accepting the Dark Prince as Frankie’s chosen mate. He wasn’t sure just how that could be done. However, he was very fond of Frankie and at the moment, aware that she had just saved the human world by finding and bringing Crystal to the Dark King. They had all watched the scene unfold from Tir.”

He touched Frankie’s shoulder and said, “I’ll do what I can, Frankie. You know that I will, but taking the iron from him, will deplete me quickly and he still might not recover. Be ready for that.”

“No, I won’t be ready for it, Bres…you heal, you can, you know you can.”

He sighed heavily and moved over to Graely’s unconscious body and clucked his tongue, “He is too near death. I’ll need help and you are too weak…”

“Da!”
Frankie screamed out loud and in her head, “Da,
I need ye now
.” Her sobs filled the air, made the furniture rattle with the force of her anguish.

Her father appeared on the spot, and took in the situation. He stepped back in horror and said, “No…you ask too much, daughter.  He is Unseelie.”

“Da,” Frankie pleaded.

Breslyn looked up and said in as harsh a tone as Frankie had ever heard him use with her father, “Get over here now, Daoine Sluagh. This is your daughter’s mate. If you let him die, she will never forgive you. Is that what you want, eternity without her?”

Deimne took only one moment to consider this and gritting his teeth, he was at Breslyn’s side, laying hands, taking the poison into himself.

Trevor and Jazz arrived and Frankie didn’t have to ask. Trevor immediately marched over and laid hands on Graely.

Would they save him? Would her father’s blood heal him?

Was it too late?

Bray took her hand and looked up at her and said, “I saw something Frankie. I saw you cutting your hand…it was gross. You put blood on Graely’s mouth.”

Sudden dawning lit in Frankie’s eyes and she hurried to get a kitchen knife slice her hand open and rush to pour her blood down the Dark Prince’s throat.

Epilogue

FRANKIE HAD THOUGHT the Dark King had gone on his merry way and forgotten his sons in Conglam.  She was wrong.

He had no sooner begun the process of healing his beloved, when he turned and flicked an unforgiving finger towards Conglam.

He could see them clearly--his sons. His monsters, Hordly and Pestale on the wide screen his mind created.

They stood in Conglam’s lush vast landscape, with their arms folded, although Hordly appeared to be both crying and enraged as he screamed at his brother, “You said it was fool proof.”

“It was as it should have been…” Pestale was too stunned to be frightened at that moment.

The Dark King’s voice bellowed over the land for all of Conglam to hear, “You know nothing about love and devotion. You know nothing and have always belonged in the Dark Realm. It is time you returned there.”

It took no more than a blink. He looked at Pestale with deep sorrow and watched as his first creation beat on the walls of his old castle, and ran to the window to look out on the Dark Realm.

Outside that window was a land of mist and fog and death.  It was a land of slithering life and abominations. It was a life without…

And Pestale raised his hands and cried, “Noooooooooo.”

* * *

FRANKIE WOULD HAVE liked to have been able to wrap things up neatly and be certain of the ending.

That wasn’t to be. She, like Trevor and Chance before her, had wanted to kill Pestale with her own hands. That he and his brother Hordly were alive, meant that he would still try and find a way to come at them again.

Aaibhe reported that the Dark Princes were once again imprisoned within the Dark Realm and that the magic walls that held them within had been reinforced. Frankie did not find this adequate.

Prince Graely however, was more than adequate.

He had been healed by Breslyn, Deimne and Trevor, and that had created something of a bond between them.

Frankie’s blood was still inside of Graely, healing, working in a mysterious way. She had the blood of Daoine, Fios and human and his organs were renewing, in his system, as the blood she gave him revived and created.

Her da was still not pleased with her choice, but he had relented enough that Frankie no longer had to choose between her father and her mate.

Worley was another sore trial for Frankie.

Queen Mab had been unable to attach any concrete accusation against him. Very little could be proven. However, everyone knew what he had done, and he was being shunned in Daoine. Frankie supposed that would have to suffice for the time being.

Conglam was left in peace and Sventer and his men were being dealt with by their own. Blasfer saw that without Pestale, Sventer could no longer fulfill his dreams of conquering other worlds. Sventer and his clan went back to their place in the darkest part of the jungle to lick their wounds.

Darmon however, found his days filled with joy.

Essie was still heartsick over what she had done, but slowly, he was teaching her to forgive herself. He had always believed that some of what she had done was because Pestale had spelled her. She wasn’t so sure of that, but she knew she had been taken in by him, and had learned a great deal.

Darmon realized it was going to be a long haul, but he was willing to wait until she was ready.

It was a beautiful day in the Highlands and Frankie had been walking with Graely  enjoying the air and she turned a smile up to his adored face. He grinned at her and she laughed, jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. She looked him in the eye and said, “Hold on, Graely, hold on to me tightly now.”

He did, he squeezed her to him and laughing she spread her wings at her back and they were airborne.

He barked a laugh and said, “What are you doing, monkey?”

“Have ye heard of the mile high club, Graely m’prince?”

“No,” he said questioningly.

“Well then, let me show ye, let me show ye now…” Frankie said saucily.