Lost in Mist and Shadow: A Between the Worlds Novel (23 page)

“We must keep it that way,” the leader said, reaching out to clutch the woman’s shoulder, her expression deadly. “I’ll give you one more chance, but if anything else happens, if they make even a tiny bit of progress then we’re going to have to be more direct.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but the leader was already pushing past, calling the meeting to order. For an instant her lips compressed into a hard line and then she smoothed her expression out into the eager expectation of every other person in the room. She wasn’t stupid enough to let anyone know she wasn’t happy with the situation.

Her partner came to stand next to her, his arm sliding around her waist and she forced herself to relax against him, ignoring the smell of his aftershave. She hated it but he refused to use a different one, so it had to be tolerated, just like living in Ashwood meant tolerating being constantly surrounded by amoral, repulsive Fairy creatures.
But not for much longer
she thought
not much longer. The ritual will be done and the worlds will be forced apart and it will all be good again
.

Allie was sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee, even though the sky outside was dark. Something seemed strange about that, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, so she sat and sipped her drink, contemplating the sky.

Motion and a slight noise to her left made her turn her head and without thinking she blurted out, “Oh, this is a dream.”

“No shit Sherlock,” Syndra said calmly, sitting down and taking a long drink from her own cup, which Allie would have sworn wasn’t there a moment before. She was wearing her workout clothes this time, shorts and a spandex shirt, both black. Her short blonde hair was pulled up in a thick ponytail. “Damn this is good. It’s the little stuff you miss, you know?”

“Not really but I can imagine,” Allie said. “Why is the sky so dark?”

“There’s no moon tonight. There’s no moon any night here. It’s always dark.”

“Ooooookay,” Allie said slowly. “Wouldn’t you rather have a beer?”

“Oh fuck that’s brilliant! I hadn’t even thought of that. Yeah I totally want a beer,” Syndra got up and practically ran to the fridge. Allie didn’t bother asking why the coffee cup had just appeared when Syndra wanted it, but she had to get up and go retrieve the beer herself.

“I haven’t saged the store again, but I still don’t see you around.”

“Oh I’m around, as much as I can be. I don’t know why you don’t see me,” Syndra shrugged, sitting back down with the beer and taking a long drink. “Maybe its some sort of half-elven pigheaded obnoxious thing.”

“Gee thanks,” Allie said making a face.

“Well then you tell me Al, why don’t you see me anywhere but here?”

“You know you seemed way less annoying when you were alive,” Allie said smiling at her friend.

“Ah, I see you’re channeling your inner bitch again – good keep it up. You need more of that. Or have we just moved past the painful grief stage to the I’ve-accepted-my-friend’s-lack-of-body stage? Can we safely make jokes about my shitty afterlife?” Syndra took an impossibly long swig from her beer, which Allie was starting to suspect was bottomless.

“Is it that bad? Being dead?” Allie asked softly, looking intently at her friend’s face.

“Well, spending most of my time stuck in the woods sucks some serious ass. But being a ghost has its moments. Being here with you now isn’t so bad,” she said reaching out to touch the table top thoughtfully. Then she looked up smirking. “And watching you get it on with your gorgeous boyfriend is pay-per-view worthy. I totally see why you couldn’t say no to
that
.”

“Oh my Gods Syndra! You didn’t!” Allie was so mortified she covered her face with her hands.

“Of course I did,” Syndra replied, matter-of-factly. “Why do you care? I’m dead it’s not like I was recording anything to sell as a sex tape Fairy cops edition, or kinky book store owner edition or whatever. I was worried about you and trying to keep an eye on you, as much as I could. It’s not my fault you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

Allie groaned, “Oh. My.
Gods
.”

“Stop being a prude,” Syndra said, still smirking.

“Stop being a pervert,” Allie shot back.

“Not much chance of that,” she replied cheerfully. “I’m dead Al, I’m not a different person.”

“Clearly,” Allie shook her head slightly, still embarrassed.

“Fine, exhibitionism isn’t your thing, moving on,” Syndra said. “Why haven’t you gone out to see why I can’t go to the place I died? As much fun as it isn’t being stuck in Ashwood with nothing to do but sit in the woods and watch squirrels shagging or hang around here watching you get laid, I’d like to figure out what needs to happen for me to move on already.”

“I can’t Syn. I’m sorry, I just can’t deal with all of that again,” Allie felt like a coward saying it.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You can’t? Put on your fucking big girl pants and do it. Someone has to get to the bottom of what’s going on out there – and trust me something is going on – and no one else is even paying attention!” Syndra leaned forward, holding Allie’s gaze intently. “Suck it up, Al. That’s what you do, you suck it the fuck up and do what needs to be done.”

“That’s what you do Syn, because you’re a cop,” Allie said, pleading with her friend to understand. “I’m not. I’m not cut out for this stuff. I don’t like being in pain and the thought of getting hurt again scares me. Really scares me. Like nightmares and panic attacks scares me. I don’t want everything to start back up again.”

Syndra was silent for a little while, drinking her endless beer. When she finally spoke again her voice was softer than Allie was used to hearing it, almost gentle. “Yeah, you know what I do get that Al. Really I do. If I were alive I wouldn’t ever want to go through what I went through, before I died, again. That was…” her eyes unfocused and she looked away. “But don’t you see Allie? If something is still going on, whatever it is. If people are still getting hurt, then someone has to do something. Because that means that what happened to me – what happened to you – is still happening out there to someone else. Can you really turn a blind eye to that?”

Allie looked down swallowing hard. “Do you honestly believe it’s still going on, even with Walters dead?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on, but something is. Something is still happening there, I can feel it, and if it’s not the police and it’s not the elves doing something to try to fix things…well that doesn’t leave any good options does it?”

“I’m already helping the Guard looking for a missing girl. Actually maybe more than one,” Allie said, as if that made it okay for her to put off what Syndra wanted her to do.

“Hmmmmm,” Syndra said slowly, sipping more beer. “And you don’t see any connection there? Nothing familiar about girls going missing?”

“He’s dead Syn. Dead. He can’t still be killing people,” Allie shifted uncomfortably, not liking where this was going.

“I know he’s dead. But something’s happening Allie. Something at the ritual site, girls disappearing, you can’t sit there and tell me that’s all coincidence,” Syndra gestured with the beer can. “Maybe I’m wrong, but the only way to know is to go see for yourself.”

“Crap,” Allie muttered even as the dream started to fade around her…..

She sat up in bed abruptly, shifting from sleeping to waking so quickly it was jarring. She took a deep breath, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. She tried to be grateful that she remembered the dream this time, but it was hard not to feel depressed about Syndra pushing her to go to the ritual site.

Sighing deeply Allie stood up and stretched, noticing that her ankle felt better this morning than it had in weeks.
Good
she thought, grabbing a pair of jeans and old Henley from the pile of clean clothes on her dresser,
its past time I get out to visit Ciaran. I can deal with the hike out a lot better when my foot doesn’t feel like it’s about to fall off
.

Scooping up the wrapped bundle that held the horse sculpture Allie headed out, moving quietly through the house. It was early and everyone else was still asleep, but she knew that Ciaran would be up; she was hoping to catch him as he returned to the pond he called his home after a night out. Doing what exactly, she preferred not to think too much about.

She crossed the backyard just as the sun was rising, the dew from the grass wetting the hem of her jeans. She shivered in the chill air and regretted not grabbing a jacket on her way out, but decided it was better to walk quickly to warm up than to head back and add to the distance she had to go. She climbed carefully over the stonewall at the back of the yard, tucking the package under her arm, going slowly to be sure each step was solid. She felt the customary tingle of energy as she passed from the warded to unwarded side, the forest behind the house opening up in front of her.

There was no path back here, only a wall of trees, scrub brush, and ferns. Allie wove between them with the ease of long practice, following the slight sensation of magic, like a glimmer of light, which twinkled ahead. Within a few hundred more yards the ground was noticeably softer and then the trees thinned, opening up at the edge of the pond. The water was a flat black in the shadows of the trees, the early sunlight still too low to reach down here.

Allie was just getting ready to extend her own magic in the equivalent of a knock on Ciaran’s door, when the leaves behind her rustled. She turned, tensing only to relax immediately as a large black dog emerged from the underbrush behind her. She smiled widely, truly happy to see him again. “Good morning Ciaran.”

For a moment the dog’s flat black eyes stayed focused on her, his nose inhaling deeply, and then in a ripple of magic the dog was gone and Ciaran stood before her in his humanoid form. The eyes were much the same though, and the dog’s black fur was now Ciaran’s shoulder length black hair. He returned her smile, “Good morning Allie. I hope all is well with you.”

She winced slightly, not sure if he was asking because he was concerned that it wasn’t or merely trying to be polite. “Better than it could be, I suppose, and worse than it might be. And are you well?”

Ciaran considered the question for a moment, as Allie looked at him and shivered feeling colder at the sight. How he could be unbothered by any weather or temperature without any clothes when she was fully dressed and wishing for a jacket baffled her. Finally the kelpie spoke, “I have missed you Allie.”

She felt her expression softening, even as she shifted her weight off of her bad leg, “I miss you too Ciaran. I wish I was able to get out here more often.”

“Is it business that keeps you away? Or is your time taken up with other things?”

She looked at him in real surprise, “No, nothing like that. It’s hard for me now to make the walk.”

He tilted his head to the side and she winced slightly, but elaborated, “It’s because of my ankle Ciar. It makes it hard to walk through the woods, where the ground is so uneven. When I have come out to visit, well, by the time I get back to the house again it’s pretty bad.”

“Does your ankle still pain you so much then?” he said uncertainly. “I had thought the elves healed it for you; their skill is well known.”

“An elven healer did what he could for it, but the injury was beyond his skill to fully heal. Now, well it is as good as it will ever be.”

Ciaran frowned and then moved quickly to Allie’s side, falling to his knees and grabbing her ankle. She flinched but kept from stepping away as he ran his fingers deftly over the injured area. When he looked up at her his face was as calm as always, but this close she could feel the intensity of his anger. “He was greatly skilled to heal it as well as he did. A lesser healer would have left you crippled – in purely human hands you may have lost the foot.”

“Yes, ummmm. Well it was a bad injury. But that’s why I don’t come out to see you more often – I would if I could though. I miss playing chess with you and learning new ways to lose,” she forced a smile when she said it, feeling awkward with him still kneeling in front of her.

He hesitated, looking down and then up. He got to his feet slowly, watching her face as if he were worried about how she would react to what he was about to say, “Perhaps we could meet in the middle? I know you do not want me near the house or in the yard, and I would not break my word to you about that, but I could come just to the edge and meet you there?”

Allie blinked, remembering that part of why she always came out to his pond was that she had long ago made him promise not to go near the house, to ensure the safety of her roommates from the kelpie’s mercurial and sometimes blood-thirsty nature. She bit her lip thinking. “Ciaran, I know it’s asking a lot of you, but would you consider promising me not to intentionally harm anyone who lives in the house or is an invited guest, unless you are defending yourself?”

She knew it was a risk, and that it left a clever creature like the kelpie lots of room to find ways around his promise, but after all their years of friendship it seemed unfair to bar him from ever setting foot near or in her home.

He looked taken aback at her words. He stared off into the forest, thinking about her question for so long that she was sure he was trying to find a polite way to explain to her why he wouldn’t make such a promise. Instead he said, “I swear to you by the shadow and the wave and by the first tree that was before all else that I will not knowingly bring harm to anyone who lives in your home or is an invited guest there, unless it be in defense of myself.”

Allie struggled to pick her jaw up off the forest floor. After composing herself, she said, “I accept your promise, and I release you from the oath you made me not to set foot in the yard of my home, or in my home itself.”

She saw her own shock mirrored in Ciaran’s black eyes. “Allie you…are you certain?”

She wondered what he thought she’d been asking for the new promise for, but pushed the thought away for now. “I am certain Ciar. I want you to be able to visit me, if I cannot come here as often I’d like to visit you.”

She felt a flurry of emotions from the normally hard to read creature, things flitting by too quickly for her to really process. "Thank you.”

“And now we can play chess in my nice warm kitchen instead of perched on an uncomfortable stone wall,” she said.

He laughed loudly, an oddly heavy sound coming from such an apparently slight form. “Does the cold bother you so much then?”