Armageddon Rules (34 page)

The entire place looked like a volcanic wasteland, except that instead of regular slag and lava flows, large blocks of quartz, enough diamonds to buy Neiman Marcus, and other gemstones jutted from the ground. On each side of the pyramid, a guard ascended toward us.

One glance at a face with more tattoos than Beth told me the guards were fae. It figured, since I once heard the fae were like children of the fairies. I always thought of it as a metaphysical “children” kind of thing, until I learned about the Black Queen.

Step after step, the guards approached, each holding their hand out, palm facing me. Each held a pulsing egg of brilliant white light nestled in their hand. When the fae went to war, they didn’t go clubbing people with sticks or swords. From those palms, each could summon a beam of white light that would rip your skin off, then smear your soul across the ground.

“Friendly?” I glanced over my shoulder. Somehow, Ari arrived on her feet, dainty as always.

“I’m guessing not, M. Stay close—I’ll protect you for as long as I can.” Ari clenched her firsts, and for the first time since the apple, she drew in magic. Before, it always felt like standing in a stream, with water running across me. This was more like a pressure washer on my skin, or like I was standing at the bottom of the ocean.

The guards finished their leisurely climb and ringed us on all sides.

“I’m here to fix the Fairy Godfather. Someone has—” My voice died in my throat as the lead guard raised his hand, and the bead of light in it began to glow brighter. Those eyes, cold, boring almost through my skin, told me what would happen. I was so much meat, soon to be spread across the ground like raw hamburger.

The world exploded.

At least, that’s what it looked like. The chalk on the ground blossomed into clouds, and the leader of the fae went flying into the darkness, head over heels. To my right, something dragged a guard down the stairs, his head bouncing on each step. I never saw what happened to the one on my left, but the one behind me, I get nightly visits from when I dream.

He hung in the air, arms and legs stretched out, twisted in ways that flesh never should. Then his body slammed into the ground with a sound like a wet rag.

In ten seconds, something had killed four fae guards. I glanced back to Ari, wondering if witch mojo was really this strong. She cowered behind me, her face pale as the dirt. “Marissa, what did you do to them?”

“I didn’t touch them.”

Ari backed away from me, almost falling down the pyramid steps. “What did you do to your blessings?” She frowned for a moment, then scooped up a handful of dirt. Cupping her hands, Ari blew into them. A cloud billowed out, past me, and when it settled, I understood.

On one side of me hulked a creature the size of a delivery truck, squat and wide. The dust only gave it general shape, but the sheer size made it clear why Ari feared them. On the other, a thin creature, whose bulbous head looked three times the size it should have, rocked on its heels.

“I think I know why I couldn’t see them in their cat bed,” said Ari.

“Blessing, curse, don’t hurt Ari. Take a break. Extra cat treats for everyone tonight.” The clouds on both sides shrank, then lurched toward me, disappearing. I glanced at Ari. “Gone?”

“Inside you.”

I’d gotten somewhat used to the idea of foot-long, tiny creatures anchored to my spirit. They used to go everywhere and cause no end of trouble for me. Now that I knew what they looked like, perhaps sleeping in and ordering out was better for everyone.

“Pacci.”
The word swept over me, lulling me like a full bottle of wine. Ari, on the other hand, brushed it off like someone had once again called her “bitch.” I tried to turn, but my arms quivered like jelly, and my body moved in slow motion.

About then, I realized that Ari was kneeling. When I finally completed my slow motion 180-degree turn, I knew who I’d see.

“My blessings were not meant for this.” The Fae Mother stood, two steps down on the pyramid, so tall that her head came even with mine. Dressed in a gown that looked like dandelion gossamer spun into fabric, she took another step upward. “You should not be here.”

“Please. I’m here to help Fairy Godfather. Someone has altered his power. He’s frozen. I came to fix it.” The spell she’d spoken slowly wore off, leaving me tired. I once thought the Fae Mother queen of the fae. Once I’d had time to do some research, it turned out I greatly underestimated her position. Separate from the courts and intrigue of the lesser fae, she possessed foreknowledge that rivaled Grimm’s own, if you could divine the meaning of her words.

“You are the second to invade this plane. The others paid a high price for their folly, but the damage to Fairy Godfather was done.” She rose to the final step, standing two feet taller than me, looking down.

Ari rose and stepped to my side. “Why didn’t you fix whatever they did?”

The Fae Mother tilted her head to one side for a moment, thinking. “Princess, I pay a price for knowing what will come. I cannot interfere.”

That was my cue. “Show me what they did. I don’t know anything about the future, and interfering is what I do best. Ari’s not bad at interfering either.” In this case, someone had interfered with Grimm, so I wasn’t sure that counter-interference actually counted. If it did, that was fine by me.

“The princess may accompany us to the focus point, but only you may accompany me when we enter it.” The Fae Mother fixed her eyes on me, then glanced back to Ari.

“That’s not fair.” Ari sounded like a grounded teenager.

“When you make partner, we’ll see about a field trip to some far-flung world, I promise.” I followed the Fae Mother’s outstretched hand and hopped down the pyramid, two steps at a time.

Seen from the ground, the landscape looked even more destroyed than I’d thought. Crystals rose in waves from the ground, breaking the barren landscape into a thousand pieces, like a shattered mirror. The Fae Mother glided past me, her feet not quite touching the ground, and we followed.

*   *   *

I THINK I know why the Fae Mother chose to glide. After several hours of walking, my feet hurt. We’d been following the same trail through the nowhere so long that the pyramid where we’d arrived looked like a dot in the distance. Finally, I called for a break, walking off to the side of the path to sit on an outcropping of sapphire. “Can you summon a magic carpet or something?”

Ari shook the dust from her shoes and massaged her feet. “There’s no carpet around here. I could probably conjure some thread, then a tiny loom, and then you could weave it into a napkin. That, I could make fly.”

“Any sign of my little friends?” I hadn’t felt my blessings move since the Fae Mother spoke.

“Nothing. And if that’s little, I’d hate to see them when they’re all grown up.”

For an hour, the only sound was the patter of our own feet and the quiet sigh of wind. When I stopped to dump the rocks from my shoes, something caught my attention. I stood up in the quiet and listened as a chill ran down my spine. “You hear that?”

Ari looked up, and around. “Mmm-hmmm.”

I closed my eyes and waited, listening, until I heard it again. A sound like the wind whistling over a pipe. “Hey, any idea what that is?”

The Fae Mother waited, eyes closed, on the path ahead. “Something lost.” She didn’t open her eyes.

Again the noise came, leaving every hair on my body standing up, in fear or awe, I couldn’t say. “Stay here. I’ll be back.” I wandered into the alien desert, led by my ears. The sound, when it came, reminded me of a child crying and a crystal wind chime at the same time.

The noise set my teeth on edge, drawing me toward it, until I’d circled an outcropping a couple of times. That’s when a spark of light drew my gaze to the crystal in the center. There, in the middle of a pillar of quartz, a creature of light danced.

Imagine if a rainbow had a child with a ballet dancer. Or a laser gave birth to a flock of butterflies. It moved in the pillar, bouncing endlessly from edge to edge, at times almost looking like a figure, at other times, a cloud of light, drizzling down the edge of the crystal. It saw me, and called, with that plaintive wail.

It nearly killed me each time. Not physically. Emotionally. The sheer sadness of its lonely cry made me angry and depressed at the same time. I reached out gently, brushing the side of the crystal, and it surged forward, a hairbreadth from my fingertips.

“M?” I turned to see Ari standing, her jaw open.

“You were supposed to stay back on the path. How am I going to find it?” I fought to keep my eyes on Ari as the creature called to me again. Ari too shuddered at the call, but the look on her face was near ecstasy.

“I asked the Fae Mother if it would be okay, and she said it was better that I see now. What is that?” Ari joined me, reaching out without fear to almost touch it.

“No idea. But it’s sad, and lonely. Blessing and curse don’t think it’s a threat.” Though my harakathin almost always slept after exerting themselves, I’d know if this thing meant to threaten me.

“Have you never seen a wish?” The Fae Mother’s voice sounded like she screamed in my ear, even from a dozen yards away. “Not even in the mirror?”

I shook my head. “Fairy Godfather stopped handing them out a while back. Said what most people needed were solutions, not wishes. I never realized a wish looked like this. That they were alive.”

“Your harakathin are alive. Curses are alive. Why would a wish be different?” She gestured with her hand as though it were obvious. “Princess. Look at it with all your sight.”

Ari flinched at the word
princess
. I’d have figured it would be the reference to her eyes. She squinted, staring, with her brow furrowed, then hunched shoulders, and glared in determination. A moment later, she opened her eyes, her mouth open like a tiny “o,” and gasped. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“What does it look like? Because it looks pretty good from here.” I pried my fingers out of her grip—she’d started to crush them.

“I don’t know how to describe it, M. It’s like all the possibility in the world, rolled together, and it’s
all
of those things at once.” She turned toward me, her face split by a smile that had to be painful. “M?”

“Yes?”

Ari reached out her fingers to brush my face, as though she’d seen me for the first time.

“Got something on my cheek?” Given the massacre that happened when we arrived, odds were I had fae blood everywhere.

“No. I don’t think I ever saw you before. Not like this.”

“Will you claim it?” The Fae Mother interrupted our almost sister bonding time, her head nodding toward the wish.

“It doesn’t belong to anyone?” Ari stopped staring at me, went back to staring at it.

“It is only a casting off. An accident, trapped here.” The Fae Mother set her hands together, and uttered a word, dark like the depths of the ocean. The crystal pillar hummed in response, cracking down the edges. Shards of crystal fell away, leaving the wish glimmering, hovering.

I reached out a hand to it, and it drifted away, like I’d pushed it. A full-on swipe, and it skittered to the side like greased butter.

“You may not claim it.” If she’d said that first, I wouldn’t have tried.

Ari held out her hand, and it transformed, wrapping and swirling around her like a living light show.

“How come she gets to hold it?”

Ari smiled. “When you make princess, we’ll talk about getting you a pet wish, I promise.” She looked to the Fae Mother. “What do I do?”

“Desire, and ask, princess. But do not set magic against magic.”

The Fae Mother never gave me that much warning, but she had a point. If Ari wished, for instance, to have her eyes back, she’d get them. In a bag. If she wished she wasn’t a witch, it might kill her.

I knew what Ari would say before she spoke. What she desired more than anything. “I wish Wyatt still loved me.”

The wish began to cry. To wail, and convulse, as strands of it flew outward, like a sweater unraveling. The noise went on for seconds, or an eternity, as the wish tore to pieces. And then it was gone, a fading glow left where once it existed.

“Well done.” The Fae Mother turned to go back toward our trail. “You have claimed its power and life for your own. May your wish bring you happiness.”

Ari gasped, her hand on her chest like she’d been punched. “I didn’t mean—” A sob choked her, and she stumbled forward. “She didn’t say that wishing would kill it.”

The death wail had done a number on me too. Like I’d run a marathon, followed by a triathlon, followed by getting beat up by an entire team of ogres. In the fairy tales, they never say what wishing does to the wish. You never hear about the thing that dies to give someone their happily ever after.

I took Ari by the hand and stood her up. She stared blankly ahead. I mean, I think she did—I couldn’t exactly tell without her eyes, but she took each step only as I pulled her, and she continued to shiver. We made our way back to the path, where the Fae Mother waited, and followed her onward.

*   *   *

FROM A DISTANCE, the focus point looked like a Hollywood opening. Those massive searchlights that beam up into the sky shone up into the darkness, each a slightly different color. When I got closer, I could make out lesser beams of light. Some shone so bright, it hurt to look. Some looked like pale flashlights, barely visible at all.

After a few more hours, the dots on the horizon below the searchlights became pyramids like the ones we arrived on, and with Kingdom only knows how many more steps, we approached a low wall. Only a couple of feet high, it curved into the distance, around the pyramids.

“Princess, you may not enter here. To come into contact with fairy power is death.” The Fae Mother drifted over the wall, then beckoned to me.

“I’ll be back for you.” I hugged Ari.

“I didn’t mean to kill it.” She sat at the edge, staring off into the distance.

Part of me burned with anger at her. Her words cost the poor wish its existence.

I followed the Fae Mother on. The first pyramids had only weak beams of light arcing into the sky. As we passed others, the light became stronger, brighter. These had channels carved into the ground. Light burst from crystals in the channel, then through prisms that reflected the beams to the top of the pyramid, where they joined into what looked like solid light.