Last Car to Annwn Station (15 page)

“Mae!” she gasped, fearful that her friend had suffered a similar fate.

Jill dove into the forest, panic giving her strength. She followed the tracks deeper in, past an ever-increasing number of faerie creatures frozen in grotesque poses on the ground or hung from the trees.

Jill stopped, drawing ragged breaths. Her side hurt, and her legs were numb below the knees. Her toes and feet did not seem to exist anymore. She heard baying and sharp howls behind her.

The C
n Annwn were coming.

She lifted the sword and turned back to the tracks, determined to reach Mae before the red-eared fiends pulled her down.

She entered a small clearing. In front of her she saw a frozen man sitting on a throne growing from a giant tree. Behind her the sounds of barking and baying increased. Jill turned and lifted the sword, prepared to meet the threat.

The first of the white hounds burst into the clearing and pulled up short, seemingly surprised to encounter a living creature.

Jill screamed and charged. The lead hound rushed her, growling. She attacked, slashing down with the sword. Her arms and shoulders registered the shock of the blade digging into her opponent and striking the bones. There was a sickening thunk, and black blood flew through the air, covering Jill and the other hounds.

Jerking the blade loose, she stumbled, going to one knee in the snow as two of the hounds recovered from their surprise and attacked. The first one impaled himself on her blade, wrenching the weapon from her hand. The second struck at her face with its yellow teeth.

Jill jammed her arm into its mouth. She felt its teeth punch through her coat, reopening the blade wound from the battle in the faerie Court. Jill fumbled in her coat for her baton as the hound’s momentum knocked her onto her back. She rolled the hound over and drove her knee into its soft belly. The creature howled in pain, letting go of her arm. Jill sprang backward, stumbling to her feet, her baton drawn and extended. She shook the hair out of her eyes and turned quickly, looking for more opponents.

Two of the C
n Annwn lay dead in the snow. A third hound was crawling away, giving a low whine. The others were nowhere to be seen.

Collapsing her baton and placing it in her back pocket, she stepped to the hound she had stabbed. Placing a booted foot on the corpse, she jerked the sword free. Jill turned back toward the trail of what she hoped were Mae’s footsteps. The tracks stopped suddenly near the back of the frozen throne, at the beginning of what appeared to be a path deeper into the forest.

Jill shivered. The cold was working through her coat, while post-battle cool down and blood loss were sapping her body heat. She turned in a circle, seeking some sign of Mae or any living creature.

In the crook of the limbs of a dormant birch tree, neatly folded and stacked, lay a complete set of clothes. Jill reached up and pulled the stack of clothing down to examine it. Blue jeans, wool socks, a blue sweater, bra, panties, a heavy coat and boots. Jill recognized the sweater and coat Mae had worn when she had visited Jill’s office.

Panic settled on Jill, driving all concerns of death, all the pain from her injuries, all the worries about how to escape Annwn, from her mind. She spun in a frantic circle.

Jill almost missed the sight of Mae, camouflaged by the snow and ice.

“No. Oh please, no,” Jill whispered, horrified. Her whisper turned to a raw scream. “No!”

Mae’s limp, naked body hung from the giant oak tree that was the frozen man’s throne. She was impaled through the chest by one of the tree’s sharp, icy branches. There was a dark, ugly puncture wound in her stomach and a long gash along one of her pale arms. There was no bleeding, though Mae’s torso and injured arm were covered in dry, dark blood.

Jill collapsed, falling to her knees in the snow. She hung her head and let the tears fall. It was over. She had failed. Mae was dead. Soon she would be dead as well, frozen in the wastes of Annwn.

Jill rubbed the tears away and looked up at Mae. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Jill turned away from the sight of Mae’s body and placed her head in her hands. She took two deep breaths as her shoulders began to shake. A third deep breath. She looked up at the sunless sky and screamed, a raw, primal explosion of fury and grief. Jill shouted out her anger and pain to the uncaring world around her. She screamed until her throat failed and her cries became nothing more than a series of hoarse gasps. Snow started to fall, and the wind began to increase, strong freezing gusts driving heavy, wet flakes at Jill.

“No,” she rasped out. “It doesn’t end like this. I said I’d bring Mae home, and you are not going to stop me. You can’t have her. You’re not keeping her.”

Her body was numb from grief and cold. Jill walked up to the tree from which Mae’s naked body was suspended. Jill could only reach to Mae’s knees, could not get enough leverage to pull Mae off the limb holding her. Jill lifted the sword.

She was not going to leave Mae hanging from a tree like some rotting piece of meat in an abandoned butcher shop. Jill swung the sword over-handed. It hit the branch, and chips of ice flew. Jill swung again, more frozen shards scattering. With a snarl of rage, Jill began chopping at the wood as fast as she could swing the weapon, ignoring the burning in her arms, the exhaustion in her shoulders. She hacked at the tree limb mercilessly, oblivious to the ice chips cutting into her face, neck, and hands with every stroke. The skin on her palms and fingers began to blister and tear under the unfamiliar strain.

Jill squeezed the blood-slick hilt and continued her attack. A shard of ice struck her left eye. Jill cried out in pain and defiance and swung again, the blade biting into the frozen wood of the tree.

“Give her back to me!” Jill screamed, hitting the tree again and again. “Give her back to me, damn you!”

She heard the crack of wood and stopped her work. Another crack. Jill saw the limb start to bend downward, breaking under the strain of Jill’s furious chopping and Mae’s limp weight. She dropped the sword and reached for Mae, grabbing her around the waist as the limb snapped. The point of the limb jabbed Jill in the back as Mae’s body slumped over Jill’s shoulder.

Jill struggled, if not to keep her feet, then to at least not collapse completely. She let Mae’s weight drive her down to her knees. Jill settled and shifted Mae off of her shoulder, moving Mae’s still form into her lap.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” Jill said, pushing Mae’s thin blond hair from her face and leaving a red streak along Mae’s cold cheek. “I’ve got you. We’re going home.”

Jill reached down, her hand sticky with her own blood, and gripped the limb protruding from Mae’s chest. She pulled. It slipped from Mae with little resistance. Jill threw it to the side and hugged Mae’s limp body close, rocking Mae back and forth, rubbing her ruined, bloody left hand and arm across the open wound on Mae’s exposed back.

“We’re going home. I’ll carry you back. I just need to rest for a moment.”

“Cold,” a tiny voice said against her breast.

Jill looked down, looked directly into Mae’s dark brown eyes. “Mae?”

“Cold.”

Jill watched, amazed and confused, as Mae’s wounds closed, leaving her pale skin whole, though scarred and smeared with blood.

“You came for me,” Mae said, shivering.

“Damn straight I came for you.” Jill smiled through her tears as Mae sat up and looked around at her surroundings. “I’ve got your clothes.” Jill nodded toward the pile of clothing sticking out of the snow.

They both crawled to the pile, where Jill helped Mae dress. Once she was clothed and no longer shivering as violently, Jill saw Mae give her a serious head-to-toe once over.

Mae frowned at her. “Jesus, Jill, you’re bleeding all over the place.”

“Yeah, I know.” Hearing Mae speak the words made it real for Jill. She tipped over, blood loss and exhaustion finally taking their toll now that her adrenaline was no longer pumping. Being prone felt good. She thought she might just curl up and nap, only for a moment. She could rest now, Mae was alive.

Someone shook her. She looked at Mae out of her right eye. Her left one was swollen shut and not working right for some reason.

“Come on. Sit up,” Mae said to her. “Let’s get your coat on.”

Jill tried to rise to a sitting position, but decided it was too much work. “I’m good right here,” she rasped out.

She felt Mae yank her arm, dragging her to a sitting position. “No, you’re not. Come on, Jill. You can’t die now, not here, not in this place.”

Jill shook her head as she felt Mae work the sleeves of her coat over her arms and button it up. “Tired. Cold.”

“I know. I am too, but you’ve got to stay with me. I need you to stay awake.”

“Too hard,” Jill whispered. She felt someone tug at her arms, trying to make her stand.

“Come on, Jill. We’re not home yet. I need you to show me where you came in.”

She climbed wearily to her feet. She had said she would bring Mae home. They were not home yet. She had to keep moving. She leaned gently on Mae’s shoulder, trying to minimize the amount of weight she was putting on the smaller woman. She peered through one blurry eye at the woods around her. “This way.”

Jill led Mae past the dead C
n Annwn and out of the forest. She walked in what she hoped was the direction she had come from, swaying and weaving despite Mae’s help. They reached the beginning of Jill’s track.

“I came in here. There was a door.” She slid off Mae’s shoulder and collapsed to the ground. Jill tried to remain sitting up as Mae looked around at the arctic expanse. It was a losing battle. She closed her eye and fell with a dull thump into the snow.

“Jill! Jill, get up!”

“Can’t.”

She felt her head being lifted. It settled on something soft.

“Jill, you can’t die. You have to sit up. Come on, stay with me.”

“Can’t. Too tired.” Jill tried to snuggle closer to the soft thing she was lying on. She thought she heard a bell in the distance.

The voice above her turned fierce. “Don’t you dare die on me, Jill Hall! Not now, not after you’ve come this far. You can’t just walk into the Underworld, rescue me and then die. That won’t do, it won’t do at all, do you understand me?”

The sound of the bell was getting closer. Jill cracked open her good eye. Mae’s face was inches from her own. A tear rolled down Mae’s nose. Jill felt it land on her cheek.

“Mae—”

Mae gazed down at her. “I can’t very well take you for a lover if you die on me, now can I?”

“Mae, listen to me—”

“You’re not dying! I need you, you silly thing.”

Jill smiled. “Need you too. Now be quiet and listen. I think our ride’s coming. There’s change in the left-hand pocket of my jeans.”

Mae’s face looked confused for a minute, and then she must have heard the bell as well. Jill turned her head in time to see the big yellow streetcar roll up and open its bright red door. The sign on the front read: “Malveaux Express. Eastbound.”

Jill felt Mae reach into her pocket. She closed her eyes as her smile widened.
I finally convinced Mae to get into my pants,
a tired part of her brain thought.

Jill felt herself being lifted up. She opened her eye and tried to laugh. She had done it. She had charged into the wastes of Annwn. She had found Mae and brought her out alive. They were going home.
I did it!