The Fallen Stars (A Star Child Novel) (2 page)

“Kellen, repeat after me. I, Kellen, take you, Calienta,” Vicar Winslow said.

“I, Kellen, take you, Calienta…” Good, one line down. I could catch my breath
.
Inhaling, I looked at the ground for a moment.

Calienta’s simple ivory skirt lifted in the wind. Her ankle peeked out beneath, showing her pale skin in contrast to the stones on the gown that glistened in the sun. My gaze returned to my bride’s face. Calienta’s smile provided tacit encouragement.

“To be my wife…” The vicar prodded me along, bringing me back from my reverie.

Nodding, I repeated the phrase. “To be my wife.” Wow. I’m going to have a wife. Cool.

Having a wife would be an entirely new experience, though Calienta herself had been in my life since I was six years old. I’d first met Calienta when we’d come to Ireland to visit my Gran. She had shown up with her father at the cove where I hung out one night. We’d immediately formed a connection.

After that first meeting, I’d woken up alone on the beach, completely alone. I’d believed at the time that my meeting with Calienta had been a dream. When Gran told me that Calienta only existed as a local legend, a “Star Child,” I knew it had been a dream.

I tried to forget about her when I went back home. Yet the memory of Calienta haunted me. After that, I’d dreamt about her every night for eleven years, without fail. Even when I’d been sent to boarding school in England at age eight and college at age fourteen, my early identification as a prodigy advancing me in school well beyond the norm.

“To have and to hold from this day forward…” the vicar said, a bit of sternness in his voice.

Clearing my throat, I repeated, “To have and to hold from this day forward.”

Vicar Winslow glared at me. This guy seemed ticked off. Had anyone else noticed the short delays in my responses caused by my mental ramblings?
Sneaking a glance, my gaze roamed over the small party of wedding guests.

Brigid, Calienta’s mother, smiled. Lugh, Calienta’s father—who looked more like a California surfer than a god—gave me a thumbs-up. Gabe’s family, the Stewarts, sat apparently blissfully unaware of anything unusual about this gathering. Finally, I came to my grandfather, Alistair, who winked at me.

The vicar cleared his throat. “For better or for worse…”

Without hesitation, I brought my gaze back to Calienta. “For better or for worse.”

“For richer or for poorer…”

“For richer or for poorer.” How could I be any richer? I have the girl of my dreams, literally.
I stared down into Calienta’s eyes.

“In sickness and in health…”

“In sickness and in health.” Can she get sick? Has she ever been sick? So many questions I’d need to understand the answers to.

“Kellen?” I looked at the vicar, who’d spoken my name, and flushed. Caught daydreaming at my own wedding.

Clearing my throat, I said the words. “To love and to cherish…”

Calienta smiled. Our eyes connected and chills ran through me, as they always did, until a sudden crash of thunder forced me to raise my eyes to the sky. The air cooled instantly and in a matter of seconds I practically shook on the spot. The sky, which as recently as ten seconds ago had been uncharacteristically bright, now rapidly moved into pre-storm mode.

Dark clouds roiled. The sea sounded like a hungry monster. It slammed against the rocks below and inched its way up the cliffs, though it should have been low tide. In front of my face, my breath hovered in the air like smoke. Goosebumps raised on my flesh under my suit. Some of the others in the group looked up at the sky, but otherwise no one appeared too bothered by the abrupt change in the weather.

Dismissing the weather, I looked back to the vicar.

“From this—” the vicar began.

The next voice that spoke seemed out of place, menacing, but with a girlish whine. “Sorry to interrupt, but there is little point in continuing this wedding. You will all be dying today anyway.”

My eyes scanned the area until they fell upon a small woman who’d appeared behind the seating area. Hideous, she bore a single large eye in the center of her face. The intruder stood alone, wearing clothes which revealed way too much of her sickly green skin and unappealing wart-covered cleavage—kind of gross in a Yoda sort of way.

In the blink of an eye, Lugh had positioned himself between this stranger and Gabe, Calienta, the vicar, and me. The muscles in his back seemed to strain through his suit. “Leave the mortals alone. They have nothing to do with this,” Lugh spat.

His words jolted me and I looked at the other “mortals” in the group: Gabe’s family, Alistair, and Vicar Winslow all gave the appearance of being frozen in place, as if some sort of magick had locked them into a single moment in time and thrown away the key. Whether Lugh or this intruder had done this to them, I didn’t know.

Gabe, however, had not been frozen. Neither had I, apparently, which perplexed me. Why were
we
still able to move around? Were we supposed to do something to help?
Those questions faded into the background as a large army of faeries filled in behind Ms. Yoda.

Lugh stood to his full height. With the mortals at risk, he had no need to hide his true identity. Easily ten feet tall, he continued to apply himself as a blocker between the group of would-be attackers and the altar where we stood.

Looking around his legs, I searched the hostile faces, scrutinizing each one, looking for someone familiar. They were all members of the group known as the Children of Danu. The C.O.D., as I had taken to calling them, consisted of a family of gods and goddesses forced underground by their enemies and turned toward…well, I called it the Dark Side.

When the group of Trooping faeries caught my attention, I inwardly cringed.
We’re screwed.
After all, I’d just trashed Faerie in a bid to stop the Lord of Faerie, Arawn, from taking all of the light from Earth. I’d even torn the fabric of time, which caused a significant amount of turmoil in their land. Obviously, this group hadn’t come bearing wedding presents.

“Leave the mortals alone? Ha!” The woman laughed, a macabre laugh that hurt my ears and made me want to cringe. “You would like that, dear brother, but we have come to take the boy, Kellen St. James.” The one-eyed woman jerked her head in my direction.

So that was it; they’d come for revenge. They’d come for me. I didn’t even remember meeting this creature, and now she wanted to take me away.

Lugh inched forward. “Cana, whatever revenge you seek is with me. It is not with him. He has done nothing to you.”

“Even you cannot be so foolish as to think he has done nothing. Surely you know what he has in his possession? Or maybe not,” the woman called Cana said.

What I have in my possession?

Calienta sprang into action. In one moment, she stood between Gabe’s parents and the vicar; in the next, they were all gone. She’d said nothing beforehand, but I could only assume that she’d sent them somewhere safe.

My girl had serious powers.

Unfortunately, her actions triggered an attack from Cana and her gang. “The boy!” Cana said, jabbing a short green finger in my direction.

They began their advance, but didn’t use weapons. Instead, they used magick. Light shot out of their palms like a laser show on the Fourth of July.

Cana placed her palms right up in front of her and shot fire from her hands. The heat from the flames burned my face as I crouched behind Lugh, who blocked the attack. The pungent smoke made my eyes water and my lungs revolt. I used my sleeve to cover my mouth.

“K, come on,” Gabe said, grabbing my hand, his other hand on Alistair’s arm. Apparently, Alistair had been unfrozen as the battle began, because he sat with Gabe, looking distinctly annoyed.

Unarmed, I had enough common sense to realize when I needed to take cover. Staying hunched over, the three of us made our way to a series of boulders at the edge of the lawn and took shelter.

Gabe’s face held a look of confusion. Despite our situation, I couldn’t help feeling guilty. I’d never told him about Calienta’s identity, about Faerie, about…anything. Man, he was gonna be pissed. I didn’t even want to think about what Alistair was going to have to say about it.

“Man, what is up with these EMO freaks? And what the H is going on, K?” Gabe asked.

“Yes, Kellen, what…what he said,” Alistair demanded, actually appearing to turn maroon in color.

Peering over the rock, I crouched down again just as a portion of it exploded, missing my head by inches. “This really isn’t the best time,” I said, keeping as low as possible behind the rock while still sneaking peeks to try and find Calienta. Then I located her, fighting directly in the middle of the action.

She shot a wall of water at Cana and some of the other creatures, dousing the flames that resulted from their offense. The intense sound of a raging waterfall filled the vicinity as she fought back. Her defensive tactic appeared to be working at first, until Cana froze the water and it exploded into hundreds of jagged pieces—pieces that headed straight for Calienta.

Calienta knew how to protect herself. I understood that, but I refused to hide behind a rock any longer while she risked her life. Launching myself out from behind the boulder, I grabbed her hand and pulled her to safety just as the ice would have hurt her. Alistair and Gabe scrambled to make room. Calienta crouched down behind the rocks with me. Mud stained the bottom of her beautiful dress.

Calienta puffed a strand of hair out of her eyes and scowled at me. “You know, I had a plan, Kellen.” She sounded ticked, despite the lilt of Ireland in her voice.

Though she made no secret of how I’d pissed her off, we both knew that I’d already sensed her feelings. All I had to do was to be near her and I would be able to recognize her emotions as strongly as if they were my own. That’s how I’d recognized that her love for me carried the same weight as mine did for her.

“Maybe,” I said, “but I have plans too, and they all involve you. So let’s cut the Indiana Jones routine for the time being, if that’s okay.”

Her brow furrowed again and she peeked out from behind the rock before crouching back down and staring at me. “You speak in riddles sometimes.”

Choosing not to respond to that comment, I asked, “Why are Gabe and Alistair still here? Can you send them home? That’s what you did for the others, right?”

“No way, man.” Gabe scowled. “Whatever the heck this is, I’m not going anywhere.” He’d taken off his jacket and had rolled up his sleeves. Like that was going to help him in a Faerie attack.

“Me either,” Alistair said as he took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and tried ineffectually to wipe the mud that had splattered on his Savile Row suit.

“I’m sorry, Kellen,” Calienta said. “You’re right, I did send the others to safety, but it’s too late to get Alistair and Gabriel out. Cana and her clan have set up a barrier. No one can leave until it is broken. Look at the sky,” she said, gesturing with her hand. “See how it looks different? More opaque? They’ve prevented us from leaving.”

My eyes flashed to the sky, which did indeed have a fuzzy quality to it. It had taken on the appearance of a blurry photo or the air on a muggy day.
Great
. Unless there was some sort of miracle, we were outnumbered and unable to escape.

“What about my family?” Gabe’s voice wavered slightly.

Calienta and I both turned and looked at him. She took Gabe’s hand for a moment. “They’re safe at home, Gabriel. They think they’ve just gotten home from a wedding. They just can’t remember whose. I wanted to keep the lie as realistic as possible.”

“Thanks, C,” he said, appearing relieved.

He responded with affection to Calienta, but showed the opposite reaction to me. Gabe glared at me then, his eyes narrowing infinitesimally. “I don’t like lying, though. I’m going to get an explanation out of this,
right?
”

“When we aren’t being attacked, I’ll be happy to tell you all about it,” I said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

“That’ll be a first,” said Gabe.

We noticed then that the sounds of fighting had stopped. The four of us slowly raised our heads above the boulders to find Lugh and Brigid trapped, their arms bound with a golden cord that looked to have a life of its own. It squirmed along their bodies like snakes. Their efforts to escape only seemed to increase the tightness with which it bound them.

I squeezed Calienta’s hand. What did Cana plan to do with Lugh and Brigid? Would they be killed or would this be drawn out, cruelly?

Cana’s voice rang victorious. “So, dear brother, it seems as though we have won. I will take the St. James boy after all!”

I didn’t like the stuff about taking the St. James boy. Calienta’s hand clenched inside of mine.

“Leave the mortals alone,” Lugh repeated his earlier warning.

Cana’s smile gave me chills, sliding over her face like olive oil on a plate at one of those Italian restaurants back in New York. “You are in no position to threaten, brother. He—”

“Will not be harmed!” A new force burst into the clearing, one that gave my heart a lift. Calienta’s uncle, Dillion, had arrived. He’d been a member of the C.O.D. but the only one that I knew of that hadn’t turned into an evil, freaky mess. Dillion had been one of the few to help us in Faerie. His arrival now could only be equated to the cavalry rushing in.

Raising both hands in front of him, Dillion blasted the entire Faerie army off of their feet, barely jostling the red leather beret that sat askew on his snow-white hair. Turning to Lugh and Brigid, he freed them in an instant, his white beard barely quivering with the effort. He froze the group of party crashers with a wave of his hand, just as Lugh had done to the mortals earlier.

“Kellen, when are you going to tell us what’s going on, dude?” Gabe’s whispered question startled me, as did his use of my full name. He always referred to me as K.

My entire left arm had lost feeling. I looked down to see Gabe gripping it, something that I hadn’t noticed before.

“It’s a
really
long story. How about I catch you up when we’re not about to be killed?”