Taken (Ava Delaney #4) (21 page)

“Why would you
do that?”

“I thought she
was one of them.”

“Still. She
wouldn’t have found us without being shown the way. All you did was
convince her someone’s here, you fool. Well, you can be the one to
tell Folsom.”

“I
panicked!”

I opened my
eyes to only darkness and tried to speak, but whoever was there
fell silent.

Again, I
slept.

***

I couldn’t open
my eyes. I brought my fingers to my sockets and discovered my eyes
were already open. I just couldn’t see anything. It took a couple
of minutes of shaking, horrified fear that I had gone blind to
realise it was simply too dark to see.

Slowly, my eyes
focused, and a dark greenish light showed me that I was at the
bottom of the stairs in a space the size of a large wardrobe. My
head ached. I suddenly remembered that someone had pulled me down.
Someone was there. I wasn’t leaving until I found their hiding
place.

I explored the
area with my hands. The length was about five steps, width maybe
three. The wall next to the steps was covered with stacked crates.
None were dusty. On a whim, I pulled the corner of the stack out
slightly and pressed my palm against the wall behind the
crates.

My hand passed
through the wall slightly, springing back from the pressure. The
wall was definitely not solid. My curiosity overwhelmed my
thoughts, eating away at me when I should have just walked back up
the stairs. But I couldn’t leave, not until I knew who or what was
hiding down there.

I dragged all
of the crates out of the way and used my entire body, pushing
against the wall. At first it felt spongy, but something was
pushing back, some kind of barrier.

I used my other
sense, trying to get a feel for it, but my way was blocked. That
feeling was heaviest under the garage, the very edge of
something.

I concentrated
hard, feeling my way around, and right at the edge of my senses, I
found a chink in the armour. I was able to almost duck under it,
but a veil stopped me from reaching through to the other side. I
could probably enter if I pushed hard enough on that other
plane.

I pushed and
pushed. The veil finally drew aside, but when I moved through and
looked down, I was only an apparition, not me at all. I glanced
behind me in fright and watched my physical self step through the
wall. I stared myself in the eye before I was drawn back inside my
body.

“Okay, that was
freaky
.”

A cold gust of
wind blew around my ankles, and I smelled food and heard echoes of
conversations. I was in a different place. The otherness of it
clung to me. And I had no idea what was ahead.

Shivering, I
stepped down a stone corridor, hoping I wasn’t about to get lost
underground. Or wherever the hell I was. Something in the air was
off; I wasn’t sure if it was a smell or a sensation, but I knew it
was wrong somehow.

My boots
scuffed the stone floor noisily, and the voices grew louder. The
hallway ended in fire. A random fire blocked my way. I edged closer
and felt no heat. However, something in the fire called to me,
beckoned me. It almost felt like home, and I reached out to touch
it.

Flames
flickered against my fingertips, but I felt nothing, and that
somehow scared me all the more, as if the flames welcomed me.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped through the door of fire.

I found myself
surrounded by people. Folsom watched me warily. A blond man, no, an
angel
, peered at me with curiosity. A human woman stood next
to him, gripping his hand, but I kept turning, seeing more and more
faces.

I blinked in
astonishment. “Leah?”

The teenager
who had escaped from the Council’s cell sat cross-legged on a
blanket on the stone floor, appearing calmer than anyone else. I
took an automatic step toward her and ended up on the ground after
receiving a solid thump to my chest.

“What the…?” I
coughed, struggling to my feet.

A woman I
hadn’t noticed stood in front of me, her arms folded. I couldn’t
help staring at her. Her hair, skin, and even her eyes were the
colour of honey. Her long hair was plaited, and when she turned to
look back at Leah, the braid swayed to reveal bumps on the back of
her neck. That stirred a vague memory of Emmett’s drawings. The
bumps began at her widow’s peak, I realised as she turned back to
glare at me again. Tattoos swirled from her neck, past her cheeks,
up her temples, and into her hairline. Beautifully intricate,
feminine tattoos, but she wasn’t any inch of a delicate creature.
She was a warrior. She carried weaponry like jewellery.

“It’s okay,
Val,” Leah said. “That’s Ava.”

Val took a step
back, still glaring at me, and then moved next to Leah and sank to
the floor. Everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

I stared around
the room in amazement. The walls were all stone, and a couple of
fires were lit here and there, warming the large living area. A
number of hallways filled with closed doors branched off; those
coupled with the tall ceilings made the area appear huge. But the
place was so dreary, and the two dozen or so people I could see
appeared to be living there.

“Anyone wanna
tell me what all of this is?” I turned to Leah. “And how on earth
did you get out of the rabbit warren that is the Council’s
cells?”

“Val rescued
me,” Leah replied.

Of course she
did.

Folsom sidled
up to me. “We don’t want any trouble here. We’re not doing any
harm. I promise you that.”

“But what
are
you doing? Where are we? And who the hell knocked me
down the stairs?” I noted a small figure scurrying back into the
darkness.

“We’re hiding,”
Leah said.

“From who?”

“Everyone,
really.”

I scratched my
cheek, still trying to figure out what to do next.

“How did she
get through without an invitation?” Val asked. Everyone stared at
me with a weirdly collaborative type of horror in their eyes.

“I just walked
through the wall,” I said, feeling slightly ashamed for some
reason.

The angel got
to his feet and approached me. “What brought you down here?”

“I might ask
you the same thing, angel.”

His smile was
full of smarm, reminding me of Gabe. He was prettier than Gabe, but
there was something sly about his eyes that I didn’t like.

“We can’t allow
her to leave,” he said. “She’s seen too much already.”

“Oh, for the
love of—”

And then a
familiar voice called my name. I glanced around in surprise.

“She’s in the
first room,” Folsom said wearily. “Come.” He led me into a
perfectly ordinary-looking bedroom off the main stone hall. A woman
lay on the bed, obviously sickening from something. I would never
forget her face.

“Helena?” I
rushed to her side, my heart bursting.

“I’m so sorry,”
she said. “I’m so sorry about the trial.”

“Don’t worry
about it,” I said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Helena looked a
lot older than she had when she tried to bring Nancy and me
together in my younger years. Back then, she had been vibrant, and
even her scent had seemed magical to me. At the trial, she had been
older, but still nowhere near the kind of deterioration in front of
me.

“I’m dying,”
she said as if she knew what I had been thinking. “No need to look
so horrified. You always did show your heart in those eyes of
yours.” She laughed, and it turned into a horrendous cough. Folsom
held a cup to her lips, and she sipped once the hacking stopped.
“Trust me, Ava, this is a good thing. I’ve stolen far too many
years, seen too many things. I’m not able to keep up anymore.”

“How did you
get here? Where did you go all those years ago? What’s going
on?”

Folsom produced
a couple of chairs and bade me to sit next to him at Helena’s
bedside. “Talking tires her,” he said. “Maybe I’ll tell you her
story.”

Helena nodded.
Seeing her so weak ripped a hole in my chest.

“What’s really
going on?” I asked Folsom.

“This is a
safehouse,” he said, his faint Scottish accent thickening. “Those
who need to be hidden hide here. It’s not safe out there for many
of us. For many reasons. They all have their own story. Some came
to me and asked for help, and I gave it willingly. I built this
place for a reason, and when the time came, we stole a piece of
somewhere to hide in.”

“What do you
mean?”

“We built the
walls, but where the walls are hidden does not belong to us. Yet
the place protects us, from all kinds of things. We call it the
Féinics because it is a place of rebirth. Some create new
identities and leave, while others stay in peace, but everyone
changes here. The old ways die here. They must.”

“Are you the
Féinics?”

“No.” He
glanced at Helena with worry in his eyes. “This place is.”

I screwed up my
nose in confusion. “Are you rebels?”

“Only in the
sense that we hide from the vultures above. Ava, the old ways don’t
help the helpless, and some need sanctuary. If that makes us
rebels, then so be it, but my dearest wife refused to turn away a
soul, and I will keep doing what she wanted for as long as I can. I
suppose that makes me a rebel.”

I let out a
giggle of relief. “I’ve been looking for you lot for ages!”

He sighed.
“Aye, for the Council.”

“No. Well, not
really.” I pulled up my sleeves to display my brands. “I owe some
friends a favour. I promised them I’d get them out of England and
bring them to the Féinics. I made a deal, and I’m going to keep
burning until I do it.”

“So bring
them.”

“You don’t
understand. They’re in a place like this, a pocket that’s hidden
from everyone else. And there’s a war going on in England. Last I
heard, they were trapped in their place with Esther, a Guardian
friend of mine.”

“Well then, you
can’t help them. No Guardian can know about this place.”

“But—”

“No. They
aren’t welcome here. The Council will kill us all.”

“Esther would
never do anything to hurt you. She promised to sneak the twins out
of the country to help me.”

“Twins,” Helena
said weakly.

I turned to
her. “You know them, don’t you? The twins. They’re part-fae, kind
of psychic. The girl accidentally showed me a glimpse of you one
time.”

A tear rolled
down her cheek. “My babies… they’re alive?”

“They’re fine.
Or at least, they will be when we get them out of there.”

“Helena, I’m
sorry,” Folsom said. “Your twins… I—”

“What
happened?” I said, interrupting him. “How did they end up in the
slave market?”

Helena let out
a shuddering breath, and I imagined I could scent the death coming
from her. “When I was young, I fell in love with one of the fae. He
came from a powerful family. I dabbled in magic. I’m a Wiccan, and
I met him after I helped heal someone he cared for.”

“One of the
consultants is a witch,” I said.

She made a
scornful sound. “No Wiccan. She uses black magic, dark magic that
can’t be trusted. Keep away from her, Ava. Promise me.”

“I will. I’ll
be careful.”

“Good. Remember
that everything has a consequence, and the darker magics have the
most painful consequences of all. My love was drawn to my pure
magic. He wanted to know more about my coven, but we fell for each
other before long. I wasn’t of his blood, so our relationship was
forbidden. He left his people, and we had some great years. We had
a boy and a girl and a wonderful life for a time. But one day, he
didn’t come home, and I knew something was wrong. That night, they
came.”

“Who?”

“The fae. And a
monster who hid his true face. They took my children and beat me
when I tried to stop them. The fae woman wouldn’t let them kill me.
She said she had made a deal. But they took my babies, and I
couldn’t stop them. The fae woman told me they were going to be
sold, that they were going to be useful if they had to live. I woke
up in a hospital a week later, and nobody believed that I ever had
children. They told me I had never been a mother, nor a wife. My
husband never returned to me, but I couldn’t give up. I searched
for them, all of the time. I heard so many things.”

She shook her
head pitifully. “I heard of beings like you, Ava, beings who could
find their way into the place my children were taken. I thought
someone like you could help me. I’m sorry for that, too, for
intending to use you in that way.”

I shook my
head, swallowing the lump in my throat.

She looked
away, her voice lowering into a bitter tone. “But you didn’t come
along soon enough, and I had asked too many questions. I made it
too obvious who I was. They took me to the market, told me I had
given up my right to freedom by not sticking to the deal. I’ve
never learned what the deal was, but they took me away nonetheless.
I met Val there, and later, Leah. I took care of the children and
taught the ones who were stuck there to take care of the smaller
ones.”

“So you never
saw the twins? But they were there for a long time,” I said. “Maybe
thirty years.”

She wiped a
tear with a shaky hand. “They were never going to allow us to meet
again. I couldn’t take any more years, couldn’t keep myself young,
even though I knew they wouldn’t age as quickly as I did, and my
strength began to fail. But in the darkness, Leah came. She could
do things that would make her invaluable, so I taught her to hide
it. Val was a guard, but I persuaded her that Leah in the wrong
hands could destroy everything, and I helped them escape. I told
them to run. I went back into the dark until they ripped me out to
stand at your trial. When I escaped from there, Val found me and
brought me here.”