Last Car to Annwn Station (27 page)
Read Last Car to Annwn Station Online
Authors: Michael Merriam
Mae’s gaze returned to her goal. She increased her pace again, running effortlessly across the snow and ice of Annwn. She felt a wild joy well up in her chest and gave it leave to lead her where it may. Around her, the pack bayed and howled as they crashed into the forest in search of their prey.
Mae found Hodgins in the only logical place for him to run to. She slowed her pace to a brisk walk as she entered the clearing. The white hounds spread out in a circle, surrounding the Great Oak of Annwn. Lara Campbell and the yellow streetcar were nowhere in sight.
The mage stood behind the wooden throne of Gwynn ap Nudd, his bloody right hand on the shoulder of the fallen Lord of Annwn and Champion of the Tylwyth Teg. In his left hand he held a curved knife, similar to the weapon Ilona had used to wound Mae. Its blade was covered in bright blood.
Gwynn ap Nudd, pale and thin, sat on his throne blinking in confusion. The antlered man gave Mae a bewildered look, his eyes asking a question Mae could not answer. His long gray hair was struck through with brown and lay lank and flat on his head. Bloody symbols adorned his face.
At the Son of Nudd’s feet lay Marie Arneson. Her chest was cut open, her internal organs strewn about in the snow. She turned her head to look at Mae with horror-filled eyes.
Mae scanned the area for some sign of Fay or even Chrysandra and found neither. “Where is my sister?” she demanded.
Hodgins stood with sweat pouring off his body and steaming in the cold air. “Fled into the snows with the aid of my rebellious child. But no matter, you’re too late, Mae. I’ve sacrificed Marie to bind the lord of this place to my will, and he shall do my bidding. Once you are dead it will be a simple matter for the hounds to find them. Then I shall sacrifice the master of the Hunt himself to save Chrysandra.” Hodgins looked at the Lord of the Tylwyth Teg and pointed at Mae. “Kill her,” he commanded in a raspy, labored voice.
Gwynn ap Nudd stood and lifted his long spear, holding it in thin, bony hands. His hunting leathers sagged on his frail frame like an overlarge sack. He took a shaky step toward Mae.
“Your daughter is dead,” Mae said, though whether to Hodgins or the master of the Wild Hunt she was unsure. It was a truth for both of them.
Marie Arneson screamed the name of her child to the uncaring sky above, screamed her pain and sorrow as her ruined body writhed helplessly in the crimson-stained snow.
The Lord of Annwn lowered his spear and lunged. The spear pierced Mae between her breasts and exited out her back. The antlered man’s ragged face filled with rage as he pulled the spear back through her body. He paused with the broad tip of the spear in Mae’s chest, and then twisted the shaft before withdrawing the rest of the tip. Mae swayed on her feet from the force of the blow and withdrawal of the brutal weapon.
Hodgins’s pale, sweaty face twisted up in malicious glee. “I told you to stay out of the affairs of your betters, Mae. I warned you, you silly little girl.”
Mae frowned, looking down at the place the spear had pierced her body. Gwynn ap Nudd had struck true, straight into her heart, exactly where she had been impaled on the Great Oak. She pulled the collar forward to look down her sweatshirt, checking herself for injury. There was a wound, but no blood. As she watched, the wound closed itself, leaving a thick new scar over the previously healed injury. Mae looked up at the tired and worn face of Gwynn ap Nudd.
Mae stepped forward and touched the Lord of Annwn on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said. Mae ran a gentle hand along his face.
For a moment his star-filled eyes cleared of their confusion. “Bebhinn?”
“No.”
Gwynn ap Nudd looked down at Mae. “Who are you?”
“My name is Maeve.”
He sighed. “Then at least I am undone by a warrior of my people, not by some mortal serpent.”
“Kill her!” Hodgins rasped out.
Mae looked up to find the man holding a small round crystal, his eyes wide in panic. He was gasping for breath, his free hand holding his chest. She turned her eyes back to Gwynn ap Nudd. He seemed disoriented again. For a moment he swayed on his feet, and then he drew his knife from his belt.
Mae reached out and gripped his wrist, holding the knife down at his side. She leaned up on her toes and kissed him on the brow. As her lips touched his forehead, Gwynn ap Nudd’s aspect changed, becoming that of an elderly stag. The creature’s once-brown fur had turned gray and silver, its antlers twisted and growing back on themselves.
Mae stepped away from the former Champion of the Tylwyth Teg. “Run, Son of Nudd. Die a free creature.”
For an instant the stag stared at her with soulful brown eyes, eyes that showed the stewardship of Annwn had truly passed from him to Mae. The stag dipped its massive antlers in a small bow. It turned to face the pack of hounds, which had gathered and were fairly vibrating in anticipation of the chase to come.
The stag snorted once, rose onto its hind legs for a moment, then crashed through the line of hounds and into the snow-covered forest, bounding away with surprising speed. The hounds looked to Mae for a moment. She gave them a nod of permission. The pack turned as a group and charged into the forest, seeking their prey.
Mae watched them disappear into the trees. She turned back to Hodgins and Marie. The woman had stopped struggling and screaming. Now she simply lay on her back and cried. Hodgins had fallen to his knees, clutching his chest. The crystal sphere lay on the ground.
Mae lifted the spear and approached them.
She stepped past Marie Arneson. The woman was already dead. There was nothing more for Mae to do to her except release her from her ravaged body. As cold as it seemed, Marie Arneson’s turn would have to wait. There was more dangerous prey to contend with.
William Hodgins’s breaths were labored, thin and reedy. His face was the cold pale color of the dead and covered in sweat. He looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. The last bit of color drained from his face as his gray eyes met Mae’s star-filled ones.
“What will you do now, Malveaux? Are you going to strike me down in cold blood?”
Mae felt the feral thing rise up in her chest. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to lift the spear and end his life. He deserved death—worse than death for all the pain and misery he had caused over the decades. Mae hefted the spear and struck down hard, putting all her strength and pent-up anger into the blow.
The spear point shattered the crystal sphere. It hissed and smoked in the snow. In the forest, the howling voices of the C
n Annwn rose up in a victory cry. Mae glared at her helpless opponent.
“No, Bill. I’m not going to kill you. I don’t want your spirit roaming around in Annwn. This place is going to be a paradise again. You don’t deserve to dwell here.”
“Truer words were never spoken.”
Mae turned to face Death. She gave him a friendly nod. She heard Hodgins make a strangled cry of fear behind her.
“Any suggestions?” Mae asked.
Her answer came with a ringing bell and the click-clack of wheels on rails. Mae looked up as the streetcar rolled into the clearing. She quietly chuckled at the streetcar’s placard of Annwn to Minneapolis via Llysllyn.
She turned to Death. “You know, I was just wondering if I would need a steed.”
The red door opened. Jill stepped out into the clearing, still wearing Death’s jacket over her shoulders. She was followed by an angry, shivering Fay and a confused Chrysandra, both girls still covered in gore and blood.
“Look what I found wandering around in the forest,” Jill said cheerfully.
Fay turned and looked up at her. Mae could see the resemblance to both her mother and herself in the young woman’s face.
“You
did
come for me,” Fay said.
Mae nodded. “Yes. We came for you.” Mae swallowed. There was no way to soften the blow. “Fay. Fay, I’m sorry—”
“I know,” Fay whispered. She narrowed her eyes and glared at Hodgins with an evil smile. She held out a hand. The man stood on shaky legs. “You made a mistake using my blood to heal yourself, Mr. Hodgins. Or should I call you William Jefferson Hodgins?”
Mae stepped up to her sister. “Don’t kill him.”
“Why? Why shouldn’t I? He killed my—our—mother!”
“Look around you. Look at what’s happening.”
Mae watched as Fay took in the sight of Annwn. The snow and ice were melting and vanishing into the soil. The Great Oak was beginning to bud, new leaves bursting into life after the long winter.
“We don’t want him here. We don’t want him in our world,” Mae said.
Fay looked into her eyes. Mae knew she was trying to come to a decision of some kind.
“Are you really my sister?” Fay asked in a whisper.
“Yes, I’m really your sister. I promise to explain everything once we’re done here.”
“He killed Mother,” Fay said. Her eyes were filling with tears. “She’s gone.”
Mae nodded, her own eyes blurry with moisture. “I know. I know.” Mae gathered her sister into a hug. “I know I can’t replace her. I know we’ve never been together. But I’m here now and I promise you’re not alone.” Mae squeezed Fay tightly. “I’ll take care of you, sister, and I need you to take care of me too.”
Fay pushed herself out of the hug and took a deep breath. She nodded at Mae. “Of course I’ll take care of you.”
Mae smiled at her. “Good.”
Fay turned to Hodgins and pointed at the streetcar. “Get on,” she commanded.
Mae stood and watched Hodgins climb aboard, the terror in his eyes plain. She understood Hodgins had no choice. He had their blood in his veins and he was Fay’s to command in this place.
The possible future implications of that fact worried Mae. She was not sure what would happen once he was back in the mortal world. She wondered if it was wrong to hope his heart would stop once he was out of her realm.
As she watched Hodgins vanish through the red doors of the streetcar, the full implication of her thought struck her.
Her realm.
She felt someone touch her shoulder. She looked up at Death. He was smiling.
“Yes, Maeve Kathleen Malveaux.
Your
realm. Keep it wisely. Guard it well.” He nodded to the rest of the party in the clearing and walked toward the waiting streetcar.
Mae turned to the conductor and motorman, who had exited the car and picked up Marie Arneson between them.
“Easy now,” Lowry said to the woman. “We’ve come to take you home.”
“Does she need a fare?” Mae asked in a soft voice.
Lowry gave her a gentle smile. “No, ma’am. Her passage is paid.” He nodded toward Death’s back as He climbed aboard the streetcar. “She’ll reach the other side safely.”
“And you?” Mae asked Chrysandra, who was walking next to her mother’s ruined body, holding Marie’s hand. Fay stood next to Chrysandra, her face worried, her eyes filling with tears.
The undead girl released her mother’s hand and looked up. “I don’t know. I—I… Once we cross back over I’ll finally… I’ve been dead for a long time, I guess.”
“I don’t want you to go,” Fay whispered, the threatened tears spilling down her cheeks.
“You could stay here,” Mae said. “I could release your soul in Annwn. You could wait here until…” Mae paused, unwilling to finish the sentence. She didn’t want to think about her or Fay’s deaths so soon after losing her mother.
Chrysandra shook her head. “Thank you, but I have to go with them. They—they’re my parents. Maybe we can be a real family in the next world.”
Mae nodded her understanding and moved away, allowing her sister to say her goodbyes to the dead girl in private. She watched as they spoke quietly and hugged. Jill came up and placed her arm around Mae, silently lending her support. Another hug between the two girls, and Chrysandra climbed aboard the streetcar. Mae heard Hodgins’s scream, high and frightened, and Marie’s manic laughter as the car rang its bell twice and rolled away. Fay sat on the ground and watched the car take her friend and her captives away, sniffling loudly in the cold, still air.
Mae turned back to Annwn. The landscape was thawing. Under Mae’s feet the last of the snow vanished, and the long-dormant grass began to turn green.
“What happened here?” Jill asked, poking at the torn front of Mae’s sweatshirt.
“Oh, I got run through with a spear.”
Jill gave an exaggerated sigh. “I let you out of my sight for five minutes and you ruin your clothes
again.
”
Mae laughed and grabbed Jill in a fierce hug.
Sunday, 17
th
of December
Dear Diary,
I’m starving.
Of course, I’m just being dramatic when I say that, but Mae promised to take me out to breakfast this morning, and if she and Jill don’t hurry up, it’s going to be lunch.
They’re just—incorrigible. And loud. It’s kind of sickening.
The one time I complained, Jill snorted and said they’d try to keep it down next time.
And then my sister said that someday I’d meet some nice girl, and then we’d see how I really felt about it, and Jill pointed out that I might meet a boy, you never knew.
I told them that my sex life, when I have one someday, was my business. Of course then Jill wanted to have The Talk. Mae cringed and said I wasn’t allowed to have a sex life until I’m thirty.
I had to point out to her that, technically, I’m thirty-six.
Mae spit her coffee and Jill laughed hysterically.
I love them both.
I’m adjusted to living a semi-human life relatively well. Mae says I’m pretty much like any other teen girl. Except for the whole magic and fae-blood thing.
I have my own room in the townhouse. Mae moved into the master bedroom with Jill. Closets were rearranged and bathrooms fought over, but it’s all temporary. Once the remodeling and redecorating is finished, we will be moving to the lake house permanently.
One of our biggest problems has been arranging for me to receive a mortal education. There
was
a birth certificate for me. Mae had found it during one of our frequent weekends staying in our mother’s home in Llysllyn. Unfortunately, it showed me to be the same age as Mae. Jill solved the problem by volunteering to teach me everything I need to function in the mortal world. Home schooling, they call it. Mae and Lady Elliefandi arranged tutors to help me learn the ways of the reality underneath the human one. Someday I’m going to have to go back to Llysllyn and take over mother’s position, so we live in the human realms that I might grow and mature faster. Lady Elliefandi needs me to return to her Court and be her
swynwraig,
her wizard.
That was a tense night, when we went to the Seelie Court to retrieve Elliefandi from Lady Rhyania.
Jill simply forced her way into Rhyania’s hall and demanded Lady Elliefandi’s release. When the warriors and nobles of the Court moved to apprehend her, Mae strode through the doors, the Cn Annwn at her heals and infinity in her eyes. I’ve become quite adept at commanding silver, so the warriors and guards found themselves unable to draw their weapons. Mae informed the nobles of the Llysllyn Court that, as their new Champion, she demanded they restore Lady Elliefandi to her rightful place as Lord of the Court and call off their hunt for her consort, Jill Hall.
Lady Rhyania had barely contained her laughter at the stunned look on her cousins’ faces.
Lady Elliefandi ferch Myfleria thanked Mae and Jill for saving her people, then gathered her cloak around her tired body and returned to Llysllyn. There was a short, vicious battle for control of the Llysllyn Court between Elliefandi and the council of nobles who had taken over when they banished Elliefandi. Sweet, kind Elliefandi exacted a gruesome revenge against those who had cast her out of her home, a revenge that involved hot silver swords and heads on poles. The Court bent to her will after that night. Most do not know that Lady Elliefandi has been negotiating to merge Llysllyn with Lady Rhyania’s Seelie Court. Rhyania’s mother was of the Tylwyth Teg, so it is a natural match.
The rest of the Tylwyth Teg think Mae’s a hero, and as the new Lord of Annwn, the nobles of the Llysllyn Court keep trying to ally themselves with her. The lords believe if they can become Mae’s consort, distasteful as it would be to join with a half-human, they’ll be able to take over the running of Annwn. After all, she’s not only half-human, but a woman too. It’s very political and funny, since they have the hardest time dealing with the fact that Mae likes girls instead of boys. They don’t understand that Mae and Annwn are one and the same. This has caused some—well—problems.
One of the minor nobles, an idiot named Baron Kandin ap Runelanor, got the bright idea to force Mae into taking him as a consort by getting her pregnant. However, since Mae would have nothing to do with him or any of those other over-stuffed idiots, he decided to try to use a sleep charm on Mae and impregnate her while she was unconscious. He caught her alone and by surprise on her way home from an audience with the Lady Elliefandi. Fortunately, the hounds warned me about his plot. I summoned Lady Elliefandi and Jill to her aid. When we got there, Mae was on the ground asleep. The moron was standing over her smiling at his own cleverness.
He was damned lucky Jill didn’t kill him.
In the end, after he suffered his beating at Jill’s hands, Ellie bound his magic and cast him out of Llysllyn. Mae’s would-be suitors cooled their ardor after that.
Now that Annwn is working as it should, the spirits of the Tylwyth Teg who had died in Annwn spend their days and nights engaged in eating, drinking, playing music, dancing and loving while waiting for their spirits to be reborn.
Sadly, other creatures did not fare as well during the thaw, especially the spirits of humans who were unfortunate enough to be banished to Annwn by the circle of Mages over the years. Mae managed to set aside a place for them to dwell, away from the Tylwyth Teg and other faerie creatures and is still working with Death and others of his kind to find a solution to their problem.
Taking over Annwn, though easy in the doing for Mae, was difficult in the beginning.
One of the very first things we had to do was go back to the ruins of the Arneson mansion so that I could make sure the portal there to Annwn was permanently closed. The place stirred terrible memories for all three of us, but Mae had to collect the spirits of our mother and Kravis ap Thimp and guide them to Annwn. I think, for me at least, knowing mother’s spirit is whole and happy in Annwn helps to—not erase—but ease the memories of her final moments. It was good to grieve. It
is
good to know she’s there waiting for us.
We also had to sneak around that night to avoid notice of the local law enforcement. The police had doubted Mae’s story. She told them about the personal investigation she had been doing concerning the welfare of Chrysandra Arneson. She told them about the county attorney’s involvement with what should have been a routine case. She talked about being forced to take a vacation from her job and being threatened with unspecified repercussions if she continued to stick her nose into this business. She told them after her apartment was broken into, she became afraid for her life and did not know who she could trust, including the police or any authorities.
The police might have laughed her story aside and locked her in jail, except for the evidence and aftermath of the fire in the Arneson mansion.
When they identified the skeleton found on the grounds as Chrysandra Arneson, the investigation took on a whole new track. The fact that Marie Arneson had been found ritually disemboweled with William Hodgins, dead from heart failure, lying next to her holding a bloody knife made the evidence for a black magic mass murder more solid. After the police identified all the dead bodies in the basement, it lent even more credence to Mae’s bizarre story.
The local newspapers had gone mad with sensational headlines about a group of rich and powerful Twin Citian’s seamy occult conspiracy and the violent slaughter that destroyed them all. Jill says it’s the stuff of cheap novels.
The police are still investigating, but so far no charges have been filed. A small revolver was traced back to Jill’s father, and Robert Hall III
had
died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head
Mae will probably need to keep a low profile for the rest of her life. I think eventually we will move someplace the human police can’t find us—maybe faerie or a spirit realm—but Mae says she’s not ready to give up on her human life yet. She’s even learned to make her eyes appear their normal brown when she walks in the human world. I’m sure it has more to do with being with Jill. But someday I will have to go home to Llysllyn. And someday Mae will need to move into Annwn for good, and take her place under the Great Oak. And someday Jill Hall’s mortal span will end.
But that is all in the future.
I can hear Mae and Jill coming down the stairs, laughing like little girls. Today there will be breakfast in a wondrous restaurant where the servers wear night clothes and the decorations include a buzzard and tiny devils. Tomorrow, well, tomorrow will take care of itself, and that is good enough.