Firebrand (3 page)
Authors: P. K. Eden
“Incredible,” Marcus said in a voice shaded in awe. As he reached toward the apparition, it burst into a thousand points of light.
“The Rowan is very wise and has told us often about the coming of the Killer of Everwood.” In reaction to the look on Marcus’ face, Tolhram spread his arms wide. “This place, any place where fairy folk dwell is Everwood, and you are the hunter who seeks to destroy it.”
Marcus shook his head. “No, I am only a surveyor. This place is beautiful, and I admit, what is planned for here would change everything.” He looked around. “But I only see trees, moss, tall grass and fireflies and winged things.”
“Is that all you see?” Tolhram asked.
Marcus looked again and nodded.
“Take my hand and step inside the ring.”
“Ring?”
“Look closer, Human. And when you step, be careful to keep one foot firmly outside.”
Marcus looked down and could make out the sweep of a mushroom circle, cleared in the center but with mosses, grasses and tiny white flowers inside it. Carefully he took the hand that was offered and stepped forward.
The moment his heel touched the ground, light exploded before him and he closed his eyes against it. Soon he could hear music and laughter and the sound of dancing. He cracked open his eyes and found himself among gaily-dressed people of doll-like size skipping and dancing, all spotlighted by flickering light. On a low bank near the revelers sat a group of men blowing on mouth organs, beating cymbals and tambourines, playing horns of flower bells and whistles made of reeds. Some of the merrymakers wore green coats or dresses with red caps, others clothes of moss or fallen leaves. All were small, but well-proportioned with a fair complexion and luxuriant hair falling over their shoulders.
Beyond Marcus could see hills ablaze with a myriad of sparkling lights from homes made of bark, mushroom caps, and clay. The hills themselves seemed lit by thousands of jewels twinkling from every blade of grass. Flowers grew in abundance and there was fruit on the trees. Happiness, harmony and plenty seemed to reign.
The tune of the fairy musicians was beautiful; plaintive, yet wild. Marcus became drawn into a melancholic forgetfulness, as the enchanting strains seemed to wrap around him. Sprites joined hands and circled him, spinning in a dizzying frenzy. He felt compelled to join and reached toward then when suddenly the music began to die away as he felt a strong tug on his outstretched hand. He blinked hard. When he was again able to focus, he saw that both feet were once again outside the ring.
“Only those who open their hearts and mind and souls to the realm may see what you have seen,” Tolhram said. “Humans have slowly been taking the rings with their expansions. Now, after seeing, do you still desire to destroy Everwood?”
Marcus could not speak. Yes, it was true. In some aspects, he did kill the woods. He didn’t drive the bulldozers or backhoe’s that flattened the lush foliage into match sticks, but he was equally to blame. The full force of his role in development hit him as though he had jumped from the cliffs behind him.
“I never realized that the lore could be true and the woods could house more than trees.” Proof stood before him in the form of the fragile creature holding her baby. “But rest assured that I will do what I can.”
Tolhram leaned forward slightly then moved back again. “I believe you Drakeman.”
Marcus’ eyes shifted to those of the fairy woman. “Will she be safe if I do?”
Tolhram shook his head. “The babe is a Halfling, an aberration among us.”
“But your daughter is her mother, the baby your grandchild. Surely you can do something to help them.”
“I am a Mage, a leader of my people, and the edict of a code older than even myself does not exempt me from the laws of our land.”
At that moment the Mage and his daughter both looked up. Marcus did also, but saw nothing.
“He is near.” Tolhram said.
“Who?”
“The Dullahan.”
Again Marcus looked skyward. “I don’t see anything.”
“Tis something that you should never wish to see. I have placed us in Vall.”
“Vall?”
“A covering so that we cannot be seen. But it will not last.”
Alara’s voice broke the silence. “
Vo smzy yrno si uvnze yk Erin.”
Marcus whirled to face her. He might not understand what she’d said, but he clearly had heard his wife’s name. “Erin. That’s my wife. What did she say about Erin?”
The Mage passed his hand in front of his daughter’s face and nodded to her.
“Please father, I’ve seen his mate. Her will is almost at an end. Her heart is but a shadow of what it once was.”
Marcus turned his attention to Alara. “You know about Erin.”
Alara nodded. “We have chosen her.” She extended her precious bundle to Marcus. “She must care for this child.”
The Mage put a hand on his daughter’s arm. “You know what that means? Do you not?”
She looked at her child. “I do.”
An eerie sound passed overhead. Alara pulled the baby back into her arms and crouched down in a protective stance when it began to cry. Marcus could now hear huge wings pounding the air, splitting the night sky like thunder.
“We do not have much time father. If the Dullahan finds the child, he will take her to Gorash.” Alara’s large almond shaped eyes darkened again with fear.
Tolhram gazed down at the baby. “I have cultivated a great fondness for my granddaughter in secret even though it is forbidden by precept to do so.” A look of relief passed over Alara’s face. “But the child must leave us as much for her sake as for ours.” With great sorrow in his movements, Tolhram took the baby from Alara’s arms. He touched her head, her chest and her eyes as in a blessing before whispering into the babe’s tiny ear. Then he handed the child back to Alara and lowered his eyes.
She walked to Marcus. His arms, seemingly of their own accord, reached out and took the baby from her. He cradled it close. Although he saw Alara smile, he knew grief when he saw it. He’d lived with it these many years as he watched his wife slip deeper into the quiet darkness of her anguish.
He looked down at the child as Alara spoke. “She is yours to care for now. Yours and Erin’s.” Her voice broke with controlled pain as she turned and walked back to her father.
The shadow passed again, this time slivers of darkness slicing through the magical covering that Tolhram had placed over them as it did. “You must go. Quickly,” he said.
“But there are so many questions.”
“They will be answered in time, but you must leave this place now. To stay longer means death.” Tolhram took his daughter’s hand and together they lifted away from the ground and began to move away.
But before they vanished, Alara looked back at Marcus with sorrow that would be branded in his heart forever.
Marcus sat in the first class cabin of the 747 and held his breath as the plane rose from the runway. Next to him Erin lovingly watched the baby suckle from a small bottle. He hadn’t seen her this happy in a long time. Color had returned to her cheeks and the light was back in her eyes.
She smiled when she saw him watching her. “Amber Lily,” she said. “Like her hair. Golden with glints of auburn like a tiger lily. That will be her name.”
Marcus nodded and patted the papers folded into the shirt pocket next to his heart. Sean had arranged everything. They were taking their daughter home.
Present Day, New York City
When Amber Drake touched the doorknob on her townhouse it rippled like heat waves rising from the desert floor. Electric-like shocks began at her shoulder blades and shot down her spine ending at the dimples in the small of her back. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply and slowly until the sensations passed. She knew they would. This was not the first time. She stepped back and pulled her cell phone from her purse. The one-touch dialing connected her quickly.
“David,’ she said, fighting to keep composed. “It happened again.” She listened to the voice on the other end, closing her eyes as his soothing tone spread calm though her. “I’ll wait for you. Please hurry.” She flipped her cell phone closed and held it to her chest as though it still connected her to him.
David Mack had come into her life a year ago. He was her rock, her haven at a time when everything she knew seemed to be falling apart. Since she’d met him, she felt safe, almost as though he had been sent to her for just that reason. It didn’t surprise her in the least when she fell in love with him. Even when she told him about the hallucinations, he listened and didn’t judge her.
The phenomenon began when she was about thirteen. Her mother had died about a year earlier and left a terrible hole in her life. Her father, Marcus, tried his best to fill it and had for a while. But Amber’s body was changing, she was becoming a woman. Her father tried to help her understand but she needed a woman’s touch.
She’d taken a walk to the large oak tree near the lake behind her family home in Pennsylvania, where she often went to think about her mother. The now familiar pulling sensation inside her seemed particularly intense, so she kept walking to relieve the ache.
She soon found herself at the edge of a meadow at the foot of the only hill around for miles. It appeared to have been thrust out of the earth and raised as a gift to some ancient god.
The sides of the hill shot straight up but Amber felt compelled to climb them. When she reached the top, the sun was directly overhead and when she looked down from the peak, she saw a perfectly circular pond set below. Looking down into the clear water, she felt an overwhelming urge to step off the mountain and float down onto the still water below.
Not knowing why, she inched closer to the edge of the cliff, a feeling of invincibility inside her growing steadily. She felt she could do this. She felt she could fly. But that was crazy, people couldn’t fly not without airplanes at least. But even though she knew better she spread her arms and closed her eyes, a pain shot up her back and settled between her shoulder blades. A feeling like building energy began on each side of her spine and rose in a crescendo until she feared the skin on her back would rip apart. When it finally stopped, her entire back felt as though she had been hit with a thousand tiny electric shocks.
Shaken, she climbed down the hill and dropped to the ground near the pond. She looked across the perfectly still water and the sunlight sparkling on the surface drew her to the edge. She leaned forward and for a brief moment, reflected in the water, she could see two curtains of luminous light behind her. She watched in fascination as they vanished a second later like two small eddies of energy running out of power. She turned quickly but saw nothing.
When she looked back into the pool she saw a vision of her friend, Serina, talking to what at first glance appeared to be a small animal. But on closer look, it did not look like anything she’d ever seen before.
It was a small creature, only about two feet high with a pair of undersized eyes and a lipless mouth set beneath a round nose. Its ears were long, ending in points much like the antennas of a butterfly. Its feet were webbed like a frog’s, its skin a light blue. Clearly not remotely human, it was not an animal either. Amber could hear Serina talking in a language unfamiliar to the thing while the wind blew the petals of flowers around the creature’s head.
Suddenly, as though drawn by a tap on the shoulder, Serina looked straight back at her. Their eyes locked and Serina shook her head slowly, almost sadly. Then a cloud moved across the sun and the vision vanished.
Amber never said anything about that day, not to her father, not to Serina. But soon the episodes began to coincide with her menstrual cycle and she was able to sense their onset much in the same way a child senses she is home and awakens just before the parents pull the car into the driveway after a long trip. Then there were the incidents. She could see things, sense things, a car about to hit a child, the intense smell of a storm. Sometimes when she was with David, it was as though she could look inside his steel blue eyes and see the blood flowing in his veins.
But what scared her the most was that now each new episode brought with it what seemed to be a psychic warning, a soft whisper telling her to prepare.
Shaking off the feeling of presage that wound itself around her, she touched the doorknob again. This time nothing happened. She had told David she would wait for him but she felt a power urging her inside. By small degrees she turned the knob, her senses prickling. Then, after opening the door completely, she reached for the light switch on the wall.
“Bring not the light,” a croaky voice said.
Amber lowered her hand, her heart pounding hard in her chest.
An indistinct figure stepped out from the deep shadows inside the room and into the lighter ones near the doorway. “I did not come here to hurt you, that is, unless I am forced to.”
“A friend of mine will be here any minute. You’d better leave while you can,” Amber warned.
The intruder continued to move around the room. “If I am forced to hurt whoever comes, I will.
He passed in front of the window and for a moment, Amber could see him in the moonlight that filtered in through the opaque curtains. About three feet tall, he was stocky with markedly large hands and feet. His knotted hair touched his shoulders, shrouding his features in shaded darkness.
“Who are you? What do you want?” Amber said as he moved back into obscurity.
“For now, only talk.”
More curious than afraid, she walked into the living room relying on memory for navigation. She found the sofa and perched on the edge. As she slowly reached for the lamp on the end table, she felt something fall on her arm before a sharp pain ran up her hand
“No light! I have warned you once,” the intruder shouted.
A bright blue spark preceded another burst of pain in her arm. She cradled her wrist and squinted through the darkness. “Okay, I get the message,” She said rubbing her sore arm.
“I want the object,” the man-creature said in a low, gravelly voice.
“What object?”
“I’ve been searching for it for about twenty-five years and there is a connection to you.”
Amber could hear him shuffling around the room picking up and replacing things on the tables and bookcases. She became annoyed. This was her home. She heard papers being moved around. “Stop touching my stuff,” she yelled.
A sharp pain shot up her side followed by another more intense before she realized he was poking her with something. Timing the jabs, she stood and caught the end of what felt like a rough wooden staff with both hands. With a quick jerk, she ripped it from him. In response, a solid shove from behind propelled her forward across the coffee table and onto the floor.
“You will tell me where it is,” the intruder shouted, pinching her leg and tugging on her hair before she could even react.
Dragging herself upright, Amber squinted into the darkness trying to find him. “My friend will be here any minute and if you’re still you’ll be real sorry.”
He responded by poking a finger in her side so hard that it brought tears to her eyes. She slapped at the air. “Quit it. That hurts.”
“Hurt all night you will, unless I find the object.”
Angry now, she punched out her right fist and somehow caught him on the chin. She heard him stumble. “And so will you,” she countered. Air rushed past her as she sidestepped when he lunged at her again.
“The object. I must have it,” his voice hissed.
“Tell me what it is,” she challenged, turning in a circle, waiting.
“The key. I need the key,” he insisted.
The sound of glass hitting the floor made Amber’s stomach knot. She was sure he had a weapon. “What kind of key?”
“A wondrous key. A remarkable key. But not a key at all. And I must have it,” he shouted as something heavy hit the wall behind her.
“Look, whoever you are if you keep talking in riddles, we’ll never figure this out.”
The air filled with the sound of his heavy breathing. “Then you’ll give this to me?”
“Maybe,” she baited. She heard him knock over the table to her right and turned toward the sound. When she did, she felt a shard of glass cut her arm and a small trickle of warmth run across her skin. “You cut me,” she gasped with astonishment.
“More I will if you do not tell me where it is!”
She clasped her hand over the cut and held her arm to her chest. When she did a pain began like a knife trying to split her breastbone assailed her. She dropped her arm and pressed her hand against her chest. Beneath her palm, she could feel the pendant she always wore begin to pulsate. She looked down and saw a dim glow between her fingers.
Instinctively she grabbed the amulet through the thin material of her blouse and wrapped her hand around it. In what seemed to be only a fraction of a second, heat grew on her skin until she felt as though she held molten lava in her palm. The urge to rip the pendant from her neck was dwarfed by a premonition that she must protect it at all costs. She tightened her grip around it.
“Show yourself,” she demanded, as the sound of objects hitting the floor intensified. Almost as soon as she uttered the words, a flickering Day-Glo green outline began to form in front of her, growing more solid as she stared. “I can see you,” she said, her voice an unsteady whisper.
Suddenly the room filled with yellow light as she heard the lamp near the door click on. “What the hell?”
“David, look out!” Amber shouted right before she saw David pitch backward into the window, breaking the glass. “Stop him before he gets away!” she called out, almost knocking David over again when she scrambled after the disappearing figure. When she got to the street, she saw the small, dark shape hurriedly turning the corner. “Damn!” She walked back to the house and into David’s arms.
His blue-eyed gaze narrowed as he looked around her living room. “What happened?” His voice dropped to a gentle soothing pitch. “Are you all right?”
“I’m not sure,” Amber, replied, her voice suddenly shaky. She met his eyes and tried a wavering smile. “About either question.”
He kicked the door closed and led her to the sofa. “Sit down, honey.” He sat next to her and pulled her to him in a protective hug. She settled softly against him. “Tell me what happened.”
“I walked in on someone going through my things.” She didn’t dare tell David that she wasn’t sure the thing she’d glimpsed was a person at all.
He smoothed a lock of auburn-gold hair behind her ear and away from her face. “A robbery? We’d better call the police.”
Amber upright. “No. I’m a little short on details, and besides I’m not sure he was trying to rob me exactly.” She pulled back from his arms and angled to face him. “He said I had something he’d been looking for” She slid her forefinger under the gold chain around her neck and lifted the pendant from inside her blouse. “I can’t be sure but I think this is what he wanted.”
David slipped his hand under the tri-colored disk. “Are you sure? Anyone can get something like this from a street vendor on Canal Street.”
“No. Look. It’s glowing.” She looked from the pendant to David and, for a split second, thought she saw an uneasiness in his eyes that alarmed her.
“It’s just a reflection,” he said quickly bringing the discomfort on his face under control.
“No, it’s not. I don’t know how exactly but I think it helped me see him in the dark.” She let the chain fall back onto her chest.
“Amber, you’re upset.” He took her hand in his. “When you called me, you said that you had another episode. Are you sure he wasn’t just a street punk and the rest is just your imagination?”
She pulled away. “I didn’t imagine anything.” Suddenly drained and tired of the effort to be strong, she rested her head on the back of the sofa. “He said he’d been searching for twenty-five years and I’ll be twenty-five in a few weeks. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.” David rose and began to pace. She could see both warmth and concern on his face. Despite her best intentions, the sparkle of building tears lay bare in her eyes. “I’m not like everyone else and I think he knows why.”
He was back at her side in an instant, pulling her up from the sofa and back into his arms. “Honey, you’re in shock, that’s all.”
She pulled free. “No! Something’s happening. I can feel it.”
His arms went tight around her again and he murmured soothing little sounds. He scooped her up into his arms. She rested her head on his chest as he sat on the sofa and settled her on his lap.
“It’s okay,” he said softly, kissing her hair and then her cheek, “just try to tell me what happened.”
She glanced at the curve of his lips and then back into his eyes. While she waited for the words to come, her fingers cupped his cheeks cradling his face, a new growth of dark beard scraping against her skin. She ran her thumb over his lips, comparing their softness to the rough feel of his cheek.
“I have to kiss you first,” she whispered as she moved her mouth closer to his. “So I can feel safe,” she said against his lips.
Kisses that first caressed soon began to burn with building passion. The arousal was swift, urgent and undeniable. With each kiss it grew until their breaths came in quick, shallow gasps. She began to unbutton his shirt when he gently lightened his kisses and slid her from his lap. They stood, foreheads touching until their breathing slowed.
His fingertip gently traced her kiss-swollen mouth. “What are we doing, Amber?” he whispered hoarsely.
