The King's Leash (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 7) (6 page)

A hundred hands and mouths held me still.

Focus.

I dove into the magical wells deep within me where these awful mouths and hands couldn’t reach. I grabbed the nearest magic, some purplish melancholia. I pulled frantically at it, forming it up into a thick strand. Just that, perhaps, let loose and unformed. It might—

The magic fell away as a mouth clamped onto my side and bit down, hard.

There was no part of me not in agony and if this went on… it couldn’t go on.

I tried to fight it, again.

I failed.

I tried again, and didn’t even come close to grasping my magic.

So I stopped trying. I went limp, and I was always here and always going to be here until my body gave out. Every inch of my body was probed and pinched, bitten and licked.

There was nothing and no place besides here and this and now. It would never change.

And though I sought to accept that, every moment, every minute after long minute was an unbearable agony.

Until something roared.

The sound pierced the layers of gauze wrapped around me.

The hands upon me tensed. The mouths bit down.

Something roared louder.

A second after the roar, something bashed into my side. I went flying and hit the ground, buffered by the amorphous blankets wrapped around me.

The hands and mouths loosened and turned toward whatever had hit me. I shivered, desperately happy for this reprieve, for this moment when they weren’t grinding into me.

As quickly as my stuttering mind could manage, I drew magic up from within me. I didn't do anything except tie ugly knots to keep it together and then flung it out, letting it loose. Unbridled magic created its own chaotic mayhem. While it might be the death of me it was better, anything was better, than being trapped within the Gray. I dumped more and more of it out, still blinded and cocooned. I felt the bright sparks of my magic, fizzing and buzzing like wicked firecrackers, exploding all around me.

I got hit again, battered on my left side. I didn’t mind, for the hands and mouths were still distracted. I went skidding across… I couldn't tell what. Some hard surface.

Roaring sound-waves pummeled into the Gray, thinning it.

I heard a far-off voice yell. “Fie! Fie! You will not pass!”

The mouths suckered harder onto my hands, my arms, my legs and belly. Fingers frantically tried to tear apart my face. The entire thing tightened like a constricting snake.Fingers pinched shut my nose and reached deep into my throat. I couldn’t breathe.

I tried to break away. To bite down. To do anything.

I failed.

The darkness, a welcome break from the horror, swallowed me up.

Chapter 7

The Best Dog

I awoke some unknown amount of time later, heaving and retching up the meager contents of my belly onto the grassy ground. Green grass, not gray. There was sunshine overhead. And sweet air. I was not being assaulted on all and every side of me.

I blinked. Those moist mouths.

I vomited more, spitting up phlegmy strands of yellow and green bile when there was nothing left in my stomach.

Those mothy fingers.

I choked and gasped, trying not to think about it, trying not to remember and in so doing, remembering it vividly.

“Morgan,” Merlin said.

I looked wildly around for him.

He sat not far away, rocking and wide eyed, pale and wet. Red marks pocked his face and hands.

I dry heaved and cast my gaze around, trying to track where the Gray might be. Where it had gone. Had Merlin destroyed the thing? Or should I run?

I looked behind me and all I saw was a boggy stain upon the green faerie grass. Merlin had somehow gotten us away. But not far enough. Somewhere, down there, it waited. I tried to get up. To stand on shaky legs and flee up the hill toward the pond. The leaf boat. Safety. But my extremities shook. My muscles could not hold my weight. I fell and began crawling.

“Morgan,” Merlin said again with a hoarse voice.

I glanced at him. I kept crawling but fell artlessly to my belly. My knees and arms did not wish to support me.

Merlin scooted toward me. He trembled and moved in slow inches.

“W-w-what was that?” I whispered.

He reached toward me with a hand covered in bite marks.

I flinched away.

Merlin took in a great shuddering breath. “We are safe for now,” he whispered. “I was lost in that thing. Unable to fight it.”

“We are safe?” I studied his haunted eyes.

He nodded. My wizard would not say those words lightly.

I let myself fall to the ground and roll onto my side. “I was lost too,” I said and swallowed down another wave of retching. “I tried anything to escape. I….”

“As did I.”

We sat in silence. It had been a long, long time since I had been unnerved and bested. So long, perhaps, that I had thought such a thing could not happen to me, nor my wizard.

He rubbed his trembling fingers across his cheek where an angry red circle of teeth had left their mark.

I did not glance down at my own body to track the bruises and bites upon my person. “We were lost. And then what happened?”

“I am the gatekeeper to Hell. The one who holds the monsters in. I weakened, and the door opened. Cerberus attacked the thing and made it release us. Then he carried us far enough away that we would be safe.”

“Good dog,” I said. “I assume he took a more ferocious form than when we met him?” The dog had appeared as a tail-wagging three-headed mutt to us.

“His body as wide as the moon, as dark as the night. He came howling and thrashing with three great heads full of the sharpest teeth.”

“The best dog,” I said and felt the shaking of my body lessen. “He didn’t destroy the Gray though, did he?”

“Cerberus tried to drag it to Hell, but it would not go,” Merlin said.

I breathed in an underlying stink on the air and nodded. I luxuriated in the pleasure of breathing without fingers and tongues probing my nose and mouth.

“We should not attack it again,” Merlin said.

I nodded quickly. “We need research. And back-up.” I pushed myself up to sitting, and then slowly stood, unsteady but not falling down. “Come then, the sooner we understand what it is, the sooner we can slay it.”

Merlin’s brow creased. Again, I saw that he knew something.

Merlin was having trouble standing, but rather than help him up, I put my hands on my hips. “It almost killed me. Tell me what you know.”

“I… don’t know anything with any certainty. I don’t.” He did not look at me. He could not.

I took a lilting step up the hill, and Merlin did the same. We walked like either the very old or the very young, close to falling down with every step. We hurried as best we could. I did not dare to turn around to see if the thing was watching us.

When we reached the top of the hill, we saw the mouse faerie and the wood nymph sitting in the boat, waiting for us.

“Leaving like cowards?” the nymph asked in a high and clear voice.

“Didn’t even injure it, did you?” the mouse added.

“It would do no good for both of us to be swaddled and helpless for the rest of our days. We will return with greater powers,” I said. With Lila, I thought, hoping she could destroy the thing with her greater magic.

I stepped into the boat and Merlin came right behind me. We huddled together while all around us the world looked tranquil and pristine.

On the far side of the pond, we waded into the shallow waters and cleaned off the drying spit and malingering scents of the attack. We scrubbed ourselves, over and over again, as though this was Lethe water and could clean our memories as well.

We dragged our sopping selves out of the pond only to be surrounded by hundreds of faeries again. They sat in trees strewn with flashing lights and in vines full of glitter and party streamers.

Merlin and I had already promised the Queen and King of this hill that we would be back. There was nothing more to say, and I did not offer false platitudes as we walked through them. They had been living with this terrible thing for who knew how long. We’ll be back, I silently thought. We’ll come back and destroy that thing.

Merlin turned as we came to the door that led out of the hill. “Keep a watch on the spreading rot, and flee from your hill, if needed,” he said, loud enough for all to hear.

“As though we could go topside and walk through your land unaccosted?” one flower faerie asked tartly and licked her protruding saber fangs. “As if out there would be any safer?”

Neither of us had an answer to that.

We opened the door and stepped outside. The sky spattered rain. The air was full with the smells of gasoline, dust, and pollution. All of it was honey to me. The world had never looked so beautiful. I glanced back at the faerie door, and was not proud of the pulse of fear that thrummed through me. I had the disquieting thought that I could walk away and never have to see that gray monster again.

“And now, Wizard?” I asked, as flecks of rain hit my cheeks.

“You must go to Lila and fill her in on all that has happened. Have her, and Adam if he’s at your shop, do their Google-thing to seek information on that monster.”

I nodded. “And where will you be?”

He swallowed. “At Morgan’s Ephemera, soon enough. I need a bit of time to do my own research. To think,” he said vaguely. He shifted from side to side.

“Excellent,” I said, and watched the telltale signs of his body whenever he lied. I had, long ago, learned to hide such things from him. Though, in truth, the skill had only brought me strife and sadness. “But be quick about it. We don’t want to leave that thing,” I gestured behind me, “running amok.”

We walked together down to the street, where I held up a hand and gestured for a cab. It pulled over. I opened the back door and got in.

Merlin leaned in and gave me a peck on my cheek. “I won't be long, Morgan. We will not leave the fae folk to face that thing on their own.”

“Agreed,” I said.

The cab idled as I watched Merlin walk swiftly away.

“Where to?” the cab driver asked with a thick, Russian accent.

I waited a long moment. “Nowhere,” I said and thrust a twenty-dollar bill into his hand.

I got out of the cab and closed the door quietly behind me.

Half a block ahead of me, Merlin reached into his bag without slowing. I knew not what spell he used, but it was some sort of motion accelerator. He activated it and a moment later, with every step forward, he blurred and moved a dozen steps. Within a couple of strides he was at the end of the block. He would soon be out of my sight.

“
Dilyn
,” I said touching the three rubies that rested on my collarbone, strung through with a silver chain.

The three red stones rose up and snapped free of the necklace with sharp tugs.

They flew toward Merlin's back. One followed ten feet behind him, the other twenty, and the third stayed close to me. The spell would let me track him through the city, no matter how quickly he moved. That would probably be good enough, but I decided to be doubly cautious.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a vial of cream. I spread some over my face. It shrank and enlarged my features so that I looked like a different woman. I rubbed some into my dress as well, and uttered, “
cuddio
.” My clothing turned from black to pink. It would draw the eye, but my love would look past it, never imagining that I could tolerate such a bright color. With that done, I jogged forward, racing after Merlin and whatever secrets he was trying to keep from me.

Chapter 8

The Far Shore

As I ran, following my ruby spell, I caught glimpses of Merlin. He moved, shifting and swift among the bobbing forms that filled the streets of downtown. He must have set an ignoring spell as well, for none of the people took note of his incredible speed. Before long, he was too far in front of me to catch up, but on I ran, enjoying the steady rhythm of movement. Of freedom from the Gray.

There was something about that attack that nagged and tickled the back of my mind. The look of the thing reminded me of something, but the memory remained out of my grasp.

And what did Merlin know? What did he suspect? Was whatever was under that hill somehow connected to the secrets of Adam and his role of sheriff? Was that why he was lying to me? Or was my wizard making a habit of keeping many secrets from me? I sighed and scolded myself for the ramblings of my mind. There was no knowing any of those answers, no ferreting it out until I knew more. Even and still, I nibbled away at the edges of the problem as I ran.

As I ran, I was surprised to find that Merlin headed in the same direction as my store.

I had a brief moment of wondering if I had read him wrong, and he was simply walking to my store while he thought about things.

But then, as I followed his trail, I saw my rubies lead to The Crumpet Shop. An interesting location, for I had never set foot within it, and I never would. If there was one place Merlin might go and never encounter me, it was there. Well done, wizard, I thought as I jaywalked across First Avenue to the sound of blaring car horns.

The Crumpet Shop sat on the upper end of Pike Place Market and it served the kind of yeasted crumpets that haughty Victorians had first created. The kind that never tasted right in my mouth. Worse than that, the place valorized all things English with a flag and a picture of the Queen inside. Notably absent were pictures of the state-sanctioned torture and barbarism from when England had reigned across the world. No, drink some tea, eat crumpets, and toast the Queen, never mind the true history.

I peered through the plate glass window into the store. Merlin hid somewhere within.

I pulled the door open and strode in. I scanned the tables and booth, spotting Merlin sitting far back from the window. He was already sipping a cup of steaming Pim's.