The Aetherfae (9 page)

“
The Council knew,”
Faye said. “
We sensed it. Vilas told Ozara—he was one of the Seelie who died in Florida.”

I scribbled a reply in my head.
I remember him. If the Council knows, the mole knows, and that means the Second knows
.

“Very likely,”
Billy said.

Mom’s voice rang in my ears. “Maggie, I will not have you leaving us to go off playing hero. That is my final word. Do you understand?”

I wanted to argue with her, but I knew better. Everyone’s nerves were frayed and I knew arguing with my mother was a no-win situation. There was no way she would back down. I would leave them, in time, but it was foolish to argue about it now. “Okay, Mom, I heard you.”

“Do I have your promise?”

“What choice do I have?”

“I want you to promise me. Give me your word.”

“Elena, enough,” Grandpa whispered forcefully.

“What?” she snapped back, glaring at him.

“And you think you can talk to me that way in front of my grandchildren? You were raised better,” he said sternly. I’d never seen my grandfather angry and it upset me.

“She is my daughter,” Mom said in a guttural, pain-filled voice.

I wanted to turn the stereo on and give them some privacy, but everyone was quiet and looking out the windows, hanging on every word. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Mom was going through.

“And you are mine, mi preciosa.”

Mom’s face softened and he took her hand.

“Maggie is eighteen—the same age you were when you left home. I have listened to everything she says and I know in my heart that she does what she believes is right, just like you raised her. She can do these things, muchos milagros. I cannot understand these and neither can you. I trust her to do right. If she says she must go, I trust her.”

“I trust her, too, papa, but I’m not ready to let her go,” Mom said, her voice cracking with emotion.

“Ay, mi preciosa, letting go is always the hardest thing,” he chuckled. “But you have me and Mama and Mitch. We will take care of you and my new grandbaby.”

Mom dabbed at tears. “It’s a boy, by the way. You’re going to have another grandson.”

“Cool,” Mitch said from the back of the car.

Doug exited the road and drove toward the town of Manchester. “I need air,” he said. We drove past several large, wood frame homes on spacious tree-lined lots. The homes in Manchester—country colonials, saltboxes, and Cape Cods—were very different from the Victorian mansions and bungalows of Eureka, but Manchester had an unmistakable charm. With each passing house, I wished we could just stop, pick out a place with shutters on the windows, and live our lives like the people I saw. A big part of me wanted to blend into the masses and just enjoy being eighteen. That wasn’t going to happen. Mara was out there hunting me.

We drove through an intersection, past a small red church with a steeple, and a light gray three-story building with a mansard roof. Doug swung the big white Lincoln into a small gas station. He killed the ignition and bolted out the door, heading inside without looking back.

“Are we safe here?” Mom asked.

“I’m not sure—but Tse-xo-be is close…I’ll go talk to him.” Ronnie followed, offering to get everyone something to drink while shooting me a careful look.

Inside, Doug stood over a chip display. He didn’t appear to be looking at anything in particular, but I could see the pain in his expression. I walked up beside him and wrapped my arm around his.

“You okay?”

He nodded quickly. “Fine. Why would I be anything but fine?”

I let go of his arm as he turned to me. Under the pulsing vein at his hairline, his crystal blue eyes watered. He finally asked, “What does sacrifice mean, exactly?”

“In the past, two Maebowns destroyed two Aetherfae, but each Maebown died in the process. Nobody except Ozara knows the truth and, if you haven’t guessed, she hasn’t felt the need to share anything with me. I don’t plan to die, but I will do what I have to do to make sure my family and friends don’t.”

“Why isn’t Ozara helping you? I mean, why in the world has she put you into this situation? Dodging some half-crazed invisible vampire—it’s insane. Aren’t you supposed to save her, too?”

“I don’t know why.” It was an honest answer.

He took a deep breath and shook his head. “That would be the first question I’d try to answer, if I were you. Something is wrong about this. I feel it in my bones and I know you do, too.” He fixed his eyes on me.

“I know. I do feel it, too, but I don’t know what to do about it except to trust the Ohanzee.”

“Do you trust them?” He asked in a gentle whisper.

I turned and looked out the window. “I do. Gavin and Billy trust them and I trust Gavin and Billy with my life.”

Doug exhaled and snatched a bag of chips. “That’s good enough for me, I guess. I trust you with mine.”

An awkward chuckle escaped my throat—more from the release of tension than anything humorous. “We’d better get back outside.”

He nodded. “You going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I think so—if Mom chills out.”

“I know how she feels, Maggie.”

I smiled and looked back up at him. “You do?’

“Yes,” he said, looking intently into my eyes. “She wants nothing more than to protect you—she’d gladly take your place, die if necessary, to keep you out of harm’s way. But she’s dying inside because there is nothing she can do—nothing you’ll let her do. She’s powerless, helpless, and she can’t imagine living a day without you.”

A warm rush of emotion coursed through my chest. He cleared his throat, rubbing his right thumb at the corners of his eyes. “Congratulations on the little brother. I hope you get to meet him.” Before I could say anything, he walked past me to the clerk.

Ronnie slid up next to me, fumbling with an armful of water bottles. “He going to be all right?’

I nodded.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Uh huh.” He shot me a doubting look.

NINE

BRIAR PATCH

O
nce we were back on the road, I projected. My mind raced to a place just a few miles away, where I assumed Mara was watching us drive south towards Massachusetts. She knew by then that Wakinyan was watching us and probably suspected that he wasn’t alone. Even though the Ohanzee had remained hidden, I assumed she knew the rest were close by. We couldn’t disappear with her lingering about, and if the Ohanzee tried to alter us, she would witness it. I had to figure out a way to draw her into the open so Wakinyan could take her down, or shake her once and for all.

Every time I opened my eyes, either Doug or Mom asked if Mara was still following us. “Yes,” I said each time. The tension grew by the mile. In Connecticut, she tried to compel everyone in the car to think the road veered hard to the right. I blocked her but everyone else in the car saw the image. Doug steered toward an embankment and wouldn’t listen when I told him to go straight. I used Air to force his hands off the wheel, and steered straight until Wakinyan closed in on her. When she used her gift, Wakinyan could find her. She disappeared into the distance and everyone in the car stopped screaming as the road straightened out and the semi they all saw barreling toward us in the vision just disappeared. They were understandably freaked out.

After the close call with Wakinyan, Mara kept her distance and I’d begun maintaining an Air barrier around us. I had to drop it to track her—I hoped she didn’t know what I was doing. Through Massachusetts and Connecticut she drew no closer than a mile, but distanced herself no further than two.
Why doesn’t she go back to the Rogues and bring reinforcements?
My gut told me she had a personal vendetta to settle—Naji died trying to kill me, after all.
She doesn’t want help, does she?

Hours later, we drove to the southwest through Pennsylvania on Interstate 81. The sensation of driving into a trap gripped my consciousness. It wasn’t her compelling me, either. It was something else. I tried to take an innocuous deep breath to calm down, but Doug and Mom noticed, and then everyone did—they began to panic, and the voices in the car just grew louder and louder.

“Please, just calm down for a minute.” I said. I searched through the glove box and grew silent.

“What are you looking for?”

“A map.”

“Just use your phone.”

“I can’t, I don’t want them to track what I’m doing.”

“Can they do that?” Mom asked.

“Mom, last summer we walked into a hospital with Mitch, and one of them compelled everyone to in the lobby to forget they saw us. Another erased the video footage on the camera. They control energy with as much dexterity as you have with clay. Perhaps more. They can listen to cell phone conversations because they read the energy. They can…wait a minute…”

“What?” Doug asked.

“Something just came to me. Where are we?”

“We just crossed a river through some town. It was...um…um,” Doug stammered.

“Harrisburg,” Candace said. “It was Harrisburg.”

“That’s right, Harrisburg,” Doug said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just keep driving. This may not work because I have to hide our scent, but Billy told me that the truck was sealed--that’s why they couldn’t follow us out of Florida. I think I can do that, but she’ll sense my Air barrier—”

“The shield thing. How can you hide our scent?” Doug asked.

“I may not be able to, and we’ll find out soon enough, but if I use Clóca, that may hide the Air barrier…I don’t know, I’ve never tried to wrap a shield inside a shield.”

“You can do it, Maggie, I know you can,” Ronnie reassured me.

“Clóca?’ Doug asked.

“More stuff I can do. Did you see me disappear, or rather, not see me when I disappeared back at the farm?”

“Yeah, you popped in and out…that sucked, I thought you were—”

I cut him off. “I think I can mask us for a little while and make us disappear…maybe long enough to get away from her.”

“Maggie, will we not also lose the Ohanzee?” Candace asked.

I craned my neck to face her in the back row. “We might, but they know where we’re going. She doesn’t. It’s a risk.”

“Take it,” Mom said. She smiled, boosting my confidence.

“Everyone concentrate on the road, don’t think about anything else. I’m going to drop the barrier for a second.”

Just like Doug suggested, I turned my phone on and pulled up the navigation feature. Just ahead was the Pennsylvania Turnpike—it meandered westward across the state to Pittsburg. I clicked downtown Pittsburg as a destination and got directions. I studied the roads on our route and found what I was looking for. With a quick flick of my thumb, the phone powered down, and I knew where Mara would be within a few seconds—ahead of us a mile and a half. I would have preferred more distance, but that had to do. I flung the Air Barrier around us again, sealing the inside of the car like Tse-xo-be had done.
I hope we don’t run out of oxygen.

“Doug, take the exit for the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It’s up ahead, Highway 11.”

“And then?”

“And then we’ll play it by ear, but you will have to be careful. If this works, we’ll be invisible to her and everyone else on the road—you may need to drive on the shoulder when the time comes.” It would be very dangerous. There was so much traffic.

Doug wrung his hands on the steering wheel and exited onto Highway 11. Nervous tension filled the interior of the Lincoln.

“About a half mile ahead we’ll exit onto the turnpike,” I said. The traffic moved slowly and for a moment we were stopped at a traffic light. I think we all felt better when the SUV started moving again.

“Arby’s…” Mitch said, “I’m so hungry.”

“I’m sorry, Mitch, not yet.”

“I know, sis, I’m just saying, a stop would be nice.” He groaned when we drove past a McDonalds.

Doug exited right again and we merged into traffic. “What lane?”

There was a tollgate just ahead. I hadn’t seen it on the map, but I got another idea and modified my plan. “There isn’t a divider between us and the oncoming traffic on the other side…the express, no ticket lane. Slow down until you have a clear path, then punch it.”

“Punch it?”

“Yes, but after we go through, drive until I tell you and then make a quick U-turn.”

He shook his head and grinned. “Hold on.”

Doug floored the Navigator and it shot through the toll plaza. There was a commotion as soon as the big Lincoln lurched past the gate. He accelerated toward a sweeping curve to the left. As we approached the curve I channeled Clóca around the car. My Air barrier weakened, but held.

“Now, Doug, turn around.”

He slammed the brakes and lurched at the wheel. The big Lincoln leaned to the right as we crossed both lanes of oncoming traffic, and straightened out on the shoulder.

“Floor it,” I screamed, struggling to maintain both barriers.

Doug’s right leg flexed and the SUV lurched forward accelerating back to speed. We careened wildly past a silver minivan and then rocketed back toward the tollbooths. As we neared the toll way, Doug aimed for the express.

“No, get behind that semi—as close as you can get and follow it through,” I said through clenched teeth.

We switched lanes, narrowly missing a pale blue Toyota. Doug inched up behind the semi and waited for it to pull forward.

Candace’s voice caught my attention. “Oh, Maggie?”

A red semi slowly inched up behind us. The driver was slowing down, but not enough.

“He’s going to hit us,” Mitch said. “Hey slow down…stop!”

“Mitch, he can’t see or hear us.”

Doug inched up further until I felt my barrier make contact with the back of the trailer.

“Move, will you!” I screamed.

I spun back around to see nothing but a large chrome grill closing in on the back glass. I strengthened my shield and hoped it would be enough. The front bumper of the red Kenworth pushed against the Clóca barrier, and my concentration started to slip. I fought to keep it in place and closed my eyes, preparing for the inevitable impact. Incredible pressure bore down from the front and rear, and my connection to the elements felt tenuous. Like juggling a tall stack of plates teetering on one hand, I focused on nothing but the barriers. As the wailing sirens of a police car in pursuit of a phantom SUV finally disappeared in the distance, so did the screaming inside the passenger compartment.

Almost as quickly as it started, the pressure released—disappeared—and I waited for the impact. I knew we’d be crushed. I rocked back in the seat as the SUV slowly moved forward and then accelerated. We moved back and forth violently. The clattering sound of a diesel grew louder for a few seconds as we passed a large truck. The noise gradually grew more distant, drowned out by the Lincoln’s V8.

“You can open your eyes now. We made it,” Doug said.

“Maggie, absolutely never do that again,” Mom said in an agitated voice.

I wanted to take a deep breath, but that might shake my concentration. Gradually I opened my eyes, but let nothing interfere with the barriers. “Go right, back onto Eleven. Remember, they can’t see us.”

“Yeah, no shit…um, sorry, Mrs. O’Shea,” Doug said.

“Douglas, you only said what I was thinking. Where are we going?”

Still focused on the barrier, I said, “Away from here, as quick as you can.”

Doug yanked us onto the shoulder several times trying to avoid drivers who were unaware of us. Several cars missed us my inches, each time causing a collective gasp and exhale.

“You know, this invisibility thing, it isn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it would be,” Ronnie quipped.

It struck me funny and I fought to keep control. “Ronnie, don’t be funny right now, please, I’m trying to concentrate.”

Talking to himself, he said, “Psssh, that’s like telling Chris Evans not to be hot—she asks the impossible. Can’t put this genie back in the bottle.”

“Ronnie!” I giggled nervously, struggling with my connection. “Please!”

“Okay, girl, I’m done.”

Driving was slower going than normal. Cars crept up behind us, forcing Doug to move onto the shoulder, and sometimes off entirely, to let them pass.

“We need a less travelled road.”

“I agree. Less traffic sounds great.”

We made our way to a narrow, two-lane road called Gettysburg Pike and drove. Twenty minutes into our escape, to avoid a woman turning in front of us, Doug wheeled onto the shoulder of oncoming traffic and clipped a mailbox, sending splinters of wood flying over the windshield. My barrier kept it from doing any damage, but it scared everyone in the car.

Traffic got lighter the farther we drove, but the shoulders grew narrower, steeper, and the trees grew right up to the road. We passed old two-story red brick homes and wood-frame farmhouses. Crisscrossing from one road to the next, we slid through Dillsburg without a fender bender. We stuck to the smallest, least travelled two lane roads we could find. Passing half a dozen hamlets and countless farms, we travelled southward until the sun set and it became too dangerous to drive farther. Doug slowed and pulled off the road to the gate of a grassy field.

“What now?” Doug asked.

I took a deep breath. “We see if it worked.”

I kept the Air barrier in place and let the rest of the world come rushing back in when I dropped the Clóca. I sent my mind out in all directions and sensed nothing. No Fae around. Then I closed my eyes and projected. My mind raced down a road, an Interstate, heading toward the sunset. Mara had fallen for the ruse, and was searching for us on the turnpike miles away.
That won’t last long, but it’s some time, nonetheless.

“Hit the lights and drive.”

“Sis, I’m really hungry.”

“I know you are, Mitch, I’m sorry—we’ll look for a drive through in the next town.”

“What is the next town?”

“Mitch, you’re about to visit Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We’re about two miles away—I saw a sign a mile back,” Doug said, grinning at Mitch.

“Do they have a bathroom? I’m not complaining, but it’s been seven hours and we need to stop,” Ronnie said.

I didn’t like dropping the Air barrier and leaving a big cloud of scent, but we really didn’t have any choice. We drove around Gettysburg until we found a buffet named after a civil war general. It was full of people. Perfect.

In my head I wrote,
Billy, you here?

There was no answer.

After a quick meal, I closed my eyes at the table and projected. Like every other time, I couldn’t see Mara, but this time my mind raced back to the tollbooth, and then slowly began to spiral out.
Crap! She’s hunting for us.
I focused on Tse-xo-be. I felt his presence and the rest of the Ohanzee even closer.

I concentrated on one thought: “
We’re in Gettysburg
.”

Instantly, they flashed away. By the time we made it to the parking lot, I heard Gavin’s baritone voice in my head. “Brilliant move, Clóca and Air—it took us an hour to figure out what you did. At first we thought Mara found a way to hide you. She can’t be far behind.”