Last Car to Annwn Station (19 page)
Read Last Car to Annwn Station Online
Authors: Michael Merriam
“Murlannor has no other heir?” Mae asked.
“Lady Elliefandi is the last member of the royal line not bound to Annwn,” Mirallyn explained. “I fear my friend may be dead now,” she said in a small, sad voice.
Mae set her cup of tea back on the coffee table and stood from the couch. “I can’t sit around, not while they have my sister. Not after they attacked Jill and me.” Mae glared at the others. “I won’t let them get away with kidnapping and murder.”
Mae knew her outburst had caught them all by surprise. She glanced around the room. Her mother’s face also held a stubborn set. Kravis frowned. Jill simply looked up at her, waiting to hear what Mae had to say.
Kravis and Mirallyn started talking at once.
“Mae, maybe you—”
“Daughter, I think—”
“Quiet!” Jill snapped. “Let her finish what she’s saying.”
Mae smiled down at Jill. “Thank you.”
Mae sat on the couch and picked up her messenger bag, which had lain forgotten after the events of early morning. She snapped it open. Giving the wreckage of her makeup case and a small bottle of lotion a rueful grimace, she withdrew the manila folder containing Chrysandra Arneson’s illegally copied file. She opened it and placed it on the table.
“This file is a person, a little girl. This little girl’s family is in on this, and now
she is dead.
This little girl is dead, and her body has been reanimated by Hodgins and these mages. I can’t help but think she might not be the only child this has happened to. Now you tell me they have
my sister,
and it doesn’t seem to me that any of you are in any position or hurry to do anything about it.”
Mirallyn’s voice was cool and controlled. “What makes you think
you
are in a position to do anything?”
“I never said I thought I was, but someone has to try. Who else is going to help Fay? The police? The courts?”
“You do not understand,” Mirallyn snapped. “We
have
tried. I sent my best weapon to retrieve her, and he was unable to secure Fay’s safety. If I were to attempt to rescue her, they would overwhelm me and destroy Llysllyn through me. They are too powerful.”
“You’re all thinking about this the wrong way,” Mae said. “You are all thinking about making some kind of direct assault on their home.”
“And what are you thinking, Mae?” Kravis asked, giving her a shrewd look.
“I’m thinking we break their connection to Annwn.”
Mirallyn frowned. “Their connection is through Gwynn ap Nudd. You would have to sever the connection.”
“I know,” Mae said. “I don’t suppose any of you know how they hold power over him?”
Mirallyn closed her eyes in thought. “They must have access to Annwn. A door of their own. If one could find the door and seal it, that might break the connection.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Kravis asked.
Mae looked to Jill as the black-haired woman cleared her throat.
“Then Gwynn ap Nudd must die,” Jill said.
Mae’s mother opened her eyes and looked at Jill. “I asked you once, Jill Hall, if you were a Champion, to walk into Annwn and rescue Mae, and you proved your worth in that cause. But what you propose—to slay the greatest Champion of the Tylwyth Teg—that is utter folly.”
Jill narrowed her eyes and leaned toward Mirallyn. “The greatest Champion of the Tylwyth Teg is sitting frozen on his throne. I’m pretty sure I could walk up to him and whack him with a heavy stick. I happen to have a heavy stick.”
“Let’s see if we can find a way to close that door before we go whacking demigods,” Mae said.
“I told you,” Mirallyn said. “I cannot enter their sphere of influence. If I cannot stand before the door, I cannot close it.”
“But the door will respond to your blood?” Mae asked. “Or even someone who carries your blood?”
“Yes. But you have no magic.”
“No, I don’t. I’m about as magical as a dead gopher.”
Mae let the statement hang in the air. After several moments Jill started to laugh, drawing a frown from Mirallyn. Kravis nodded his head, the barest smile on his broad face.
Mae grinned at Jill. “Figured it out?”
“Yeah. All we have to do is break into a mansion full of mages bent on killing both of us, rescue your sister, find the door to Annwn, then hold off the combined might of the hounds and mages while a preteen works a complicated bit of magic to cut off their power. Then we have to escape the mansion and avoid said angry mages.”
Mae shook her head, trying to contain the manic laughter threatening to bubble up from her chest. “When you lay it out like that, it does sound kind of stupid, doesn’t it?”
“It sounds like
all kinds
of stupid. When do we start?”
“I was thinking we’d continue hiding out here. It puts us closer to them, and gives us a chance to check out the Arneson home, see what shakes down.”
“You’re both mad,” Mirallyn said.
Mae grinned at her mother. “Think about it. You keep saying how they’ll have these magical protections to detect and stop you or someone like you, but Jill and I, we’re as mundane as mud.”
“How do you plan on entering the mansion? They will have normal, mortal means of defense as well,” Mirallyn said.
“Alarms and guards for sure,” Kravis said, “and the C
n Annwn can detect both of you. Neither of you are invisible to the Fair Realms anymore.”
Mae held up a hand to stop their protests. “I’m going to do this. It’s really just a matter of are you with me or not?”
Mae turned to Kravis with a questioning look. The nasty smile on the creature’s face was answer enough. He would follow Mae to the end.
“I am afraid for you. I am afraid that I shall lose both of my daughters.” Mirallyn sighed. “Yet I hoped you and your Champion would be willing to see this through.”
Jill nudged Mae with her shoulder. “I’m a Champion,” she whispered again, giggling.
Mae raised an eyebrow at her. “You do realize what typically happens to Champions in these kinds of tales?”
“They get the girl and live happily ever something?”
Mae took both of Jill’s hands in hers. “That’s what happens in cartoons for children. In the old tales, the Champions would complete their mission, making the world safer, or saving the day, or some other great deed, but they usually died in the process.”
“Well, then, we’ll have to make sure neither of us dies,” Jill said, turning serious. She gave Mae a thoughtful look. “Again, in your case.”
Mae nodded. “Yes, I’m in no hurry to die again.” She released Jill’s hands and sat back with a sigh. Mae looked around at the others and decided to change the subject. “Now, what about Jill’s eye?”
“Yes, what about Jill’s eye, because this patch is getting itchy,” Jill added.
“I think we should go carefully,” Lady Mirallyn said. “Perhaps even allow it to remain covered for another night. There is no way of knowing what changes her violent contact with the ice of Annwn might have caused.”
“Or I could just take the damned thing off,” Jill said, ripping the white padding off her face.
Mae bit her lower lip. The area around the eye was an angry red and the lid was bruised and still slightly swollen. Jill looked down at the floor and opened her eye carefully.
“No heat rays or death beams,” Jill said in a shaky voice.
“Let’s have a look then.” Mae touched Jill’s chin and directed Jill to look at her. Jill blinked a few times, trying to let her eye grow accustomed to the light. “Well, that’s not so bad,” Mae said, examining it carefully.
“Either tell me what you see or get me a mirror.”
“It’s—well, it’s—”
“Yes?” Jill asked. “It’s what? Deformed? Enlarged? Growing hair?”
Mae gave her a sympathetic smile. “It’s—”
“The iris, it is silver!” Mirallyn said, peering over Mae’s shoulder.
Mae tried not to laugh at Jill’s surprised expression.
“Shit!” Jill said, looking over her shoulder at Mirallyn.
Mae raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Jill swallowed and frowned. “How am I going to explain this to everyone, and why the hell is Mirallyn glowing blue and silver?”
“Oh,” Mae whispered. She looked over her shoulder to Mirallyn for an explanation.
Mirallyn glanced down at Mae, and then leaned forward, looking more closely at Jill’s silver eye. “That is the color of my magic when it manifests. Look to Kravis, and tell me what you see.”
Jill turned her eyes to the squat faerie creature. “Purple and red. He’s glowing purple and red.”
“That explains everything,” Mirallyn said.
“Well, please explain it to me,” Mae said.
“I told you that the injury might alter her somehow.”
Jill blew out a long breath. “Yeah, and how was I altered?”
Mirallyn gave both Mae and Jill an amused smile. “Congratulations are in order, Jill Hall, you have picked up a quite useful skill. You can see magic.”
Dear Wall,
I am sick. My stomach has felt wrong all day. When they took me down for dinner, I couldn’t even work up the energy to be defiant. I think that confused Mr. Hodgins and Elise. I think it made some of the others a little worried.
My stomach was cramping all through dinner. I threw up the pasta and bread almost immediately. “Mother” was very concerned, checking my head for a temperature, asking me questions about my stomach. She wanted to take me to something called urgent care, but “Grandfather” and Mr. Hodgins told her no. She got a little hysterical and all the plates on the table broke, then she went glassy-eyed and still, staring at me the whole time. Elise led her away.
“Mother” kept looking over her shoulder at me, worried, her tiny little pupils staring at me, like she was seeing something she couldn’t describe. I must have worried Mr. Hodgins and “Grandfather” as well. They called the whole group of mages together.
Ilona was there, in her black clothes and heavy makeup. She seemed amused by something after they were done chanting over me and waving their arms and doing all the ridiculous stuff they do. Mr. Hodgins seemed relieved and “Grandfather” looked—uncomfortable.
At bedtime, Elise brought me hot tea. She had Chrysandra in tow. They’ve freshened her up again. She looks almost like a real girl, except for some missing clumps of hair, black fingernails, and a little red-mottled discoloration on her nose and cheeks. She still smells pretty awful.
The hot liquid soothed the hurt.
Chrysandra asked me in her raspy, dry voice what was wrong with me. I told her what was happening with the cramps, stomach upset, bloated feeling and, since dinner, the blood. Chrysandra laughed. Then she explained what was happening. She promised to bring me the things I would need, told me not to worry—it had happened to her before she died and she would help me.
Do you know how very odd it is to talk about having your first menstruation with a corpse? It was strange and uncomfortable. Still, Chrys might smell funny, but she kept my hair out of my face while I got sick in the toilet. She’s become a good friend.
Jill dried the last of the dishes and replaced them in the cabinet. She dropped the dishrag across the sink divider and turned to the living room. Mae and her mother were sitting together on the couch, talking quietly. Kravis was perched on the fireplace hearth, the slow rasp of his whetstone along his curved sword eerie and unnerving.
They had spent the afternoon discussing different plans to gain entrance to the Arneson mansion, weighing various pros and cons of each idea while Mirallyn worked to heal Kravis’s injuries. The problem was, their most experienced breaking and entering artist was Kravis, and he had tried and failed to enter the mansion three times. By the time dinner rolled around, they were rehashing earlier ideas and everyone needed a break.
Kravis had not lied about being a chef. He and Jill had found several walleye fillets in the freezer. They added rice, opened up a can of corn and made biscuits from a boxed mix, the two working together in the little kitchen to produce a hot and hearty meal.
Jill sighed to herself. She would have to tell Mae about Robert, both his connection to the mages and the invitation to the Halloween party he had extended to Jill. Tonight, Jill decided. She would tell Mae in private.
“I’m thinking about heading to bed,” Jill said, joining the others in the living room.
Mirallyn nodded agreement. “I think an early night would do us all good.”
“Then we should decide where everyone is sleeping.” Mae stood.
Pausing to admire Mae as she stretched, Jill raised an eyebrow and smiled. “You’re with me.” She had enjoyed having Mae in her bed, even if all they had done was kissing and cuddling before falling asleep.
Mae grinned back at her. “I didn’t want to presume.”
“The bandages are off.” Jill raised her hands.
“Yes. Well,” Kravis said, resting his whetstone and sword on the hearth. “I shall sleep down here then. If someone tries to gain entry in the night, I shall hold them here until you three escape.”
“I doubt we’ll be attacked,” Jill said. “Mirallyn can take the second bedroom. It’s—”
“I saw where it is,” Mirallyn said, rising from the couch. “In the morning Kravis and I shall venture out. We need more information, and I want to know Elliefandi’s fate.”