The Fallen Stars (A Star Child Novel) (3 page)

A scowl centered on Gabe’s face. Clearly, he didn’t agree.

Dillion looked up then and came over to where we had taken cover. He looked me in the eye, which was easy for him to do as I was on my knees and he stood only about three feet tall. “Kellen, you must get out of here at once,” he said.

His voice grated with an unfamiliar raspiness, not the high-pitched voice that I had gotten used to. Further inspection of his features told me that he looked older than he had when we’d first met in Faerie. Much older.

Looking over the boulder, I watched Lugh and Brigid standing, their backs to one another, guarding the C.O.D., twin birds of prey. I sat back and looked at Dillion again. “What do they want with me? Revenge? They said that I had something in my possession. What?”

Dillion ignored my questions, sounding fierce as he enunciated every word. “You need to get out of here
now
.”

Shaking my head, I stared at him. “We can’t just leave. We’re getting married today…” I trailed off, recognizing my own stupidity in mid-sentence. Clearly, the wedding was off.

Dillion looked to Calienta, seeming to dismiss me after my lack of action. “Calienta, take them out of here now. Cana and her clan are restrained, and I have destroyed the barrier. You are free to go.”

Searching the sky, I could tell that the barrier had been removed. We could leave and could go anywhere that Calienta chose to take us. My attention turned back to Calienta in time to see her give a single nod.

Before I could react, we were sitting in a taxicab, driving through the Piccadilly Circus section of London.

CHAPTER TWO

KELLEN—
ESCAPE

Cars zoomed around us in every direction. A symphony of horns reverberated against the pavement and penetrated the inside of the cab in which we sat.
Bizarre.
We’d just been instantaneously transported from Western Ireland to London, England without feeling a thing. In one moment, I’d been
there
and then in the next moment
here
. I could still smell the salt-infused air.
Freaky.

“Piccadilly Circus?” I said, looking to Calienta.

“Hey! How’d you lot get in ‘ere?” the cab driver yelled. He’d just seemed to notice us and appeared to be trying to turn around in the seat while at the same time keeping his eyes on the road.

“Don’t you remember? You just picked us up,” Calienta said. Her sugarcoated tone complemented her heart-breaking smile, which the cabbie had to have caught in the rearview mirror.

The cabbie scratched his head, looking at the clock and then back at us. “Sorry about that. My mistake. What’s your destination?”

Calienta looked at me for a moment, her forehead wrinkled.

“Just drive for now,” I said.

“It’s your money.” The cabbie smiled, clearly thrilled at the prospect of a large fare to round out the afternoon.

“Dude, you beamed us some place. This is just like Star Trek,” said Gabe, staring at Calienta as though she were a circus escapee. Again, although he’d been kind to Calienta, he turned cold on me. “It would have been nice to know I could expect this at your wedding, K,” he said, frowning, before he turned away to stare out the window.

Yep, I saw this coming.
“Can we talk about it later?” I said.

Gabe continued to stare out the window.

Alistair, who’d been doing the same, looked at me. “London?” His voice was questioning. Like I was responsible for the teleportation. Really.

Turning to Alistair, I touched his arm. “I know, Alistair. We have a lot of explaining to do.”

Alistair’s eyebrows rose, as if to say “that isn’t the half of it”. He looked older, more tired than usual. A small string of worries made their way into my mind. After losing my Gran only eight months ago, I didn’t want to think about losing him. Would this kill him? Was he well, really?

Alistair shifted in his seat to fully face me, drawing me back into our earlier exchange. “Cut the crap, Kellen, as you Americans say. Tell me what’s going on here.”

“No, Kellen, not here,” Calienta warned.

As if on cue, the car started shaking. A glance up front confirmed my worst fears. The cab driver practically stood on the brake pedal, which couldn’t have been easy given the enclosed space. “I can’t steer the car!” he shouted as he tried to grab onto the wheel, which turned on its own. The shifter shifted itself from second to third gear as I looked on. “What’s happening?” he cried. “What’s happened to my car?”

Calienta frowned, a look she often gave me when things weren’t going her way. “They’ve found us already. I thought we’d have more time.”

“Can you do anything to stop them, or at least slow them down?” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, but we were in serious weekend traffic. People were everywhere and cars were bumper to bumper. Pedestrians poured into the streets from the direction of the London Underground. If something went wrong, there were more lives than our own at stake.

She shook her head. “It’s too risky with so many mortals.”

The car jostled roughly, jerking forward at about twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. It steered us right into the path of a double-decker bus. Given our sudden appearance in the cab, no one wore seatbelts, though they were available. Gabe and Alistair scrambled to put theirs on now, as we’d all been sliding into one another on the crisp black leather seats whenever the car jerked.

Beside me, Calienta closed her eyes. Reaching over, I buckled a seatbelt across her thin frame before fastening mine. Calienta never said a word. “Calienta,” I said into her ear, gulping. “There’s a bus. We need to do something.”

No response. The bus ahead beeped its horn. Long blaring beeps.

I tried again, this time shaking her arm and speaking with greater urgency. “Calienta!”

Her emotions swarmed around me, portraying calmness, the polar opposite of the anxiety that had quickly risen within me. Yet she still didn’t respond.

The bus seemed only inches away. Beep! Beep!
Beeeeeeep!
Passersbys cried out in warning, stopping on the sidewalk. “Calienta!” This time Gabe cried out. Alistair’s eyes widened. All three of us were leaning toward Calienta with our hands outstretched, powerless.

Without speaking, Calienta opened her eyes and extended her palms out in front of her. What resembled fog shot out from her hands, surrounding the car and each of us. The sounds from the street dulled. It sounded like we were hearing things from the inside of a building instead of the inside of a vehicle. The white mist swirled through the car and out the one open window in the back, enveloping us entirely.

“What’s happening?” The cab driver freaked out even more as he furiously slammed on the breaks repeatedly, to no avail. His hands gripped the steering wheel, his white knuckles prominent against the black leather.

Calienta turned to the cab driver. “You’ll be going home to your wife now, Mark. It’s your anniversary. Buy her flowers. You’ll forget all of this,” Calienta instructed in placid tones.

Mark tilted his head. “What was tha—”

But before he could finish his question, Mark the cab driver disappeared. The car continued to drive itself, but now we appeared to be more in control of it.

Turning, I stared at her. My bride continued to amaze me. “Calienta—”

She kept her eyes forward. “It’s a trick to fool them. It won’t last for long, but it will get us somewhere safe until we can think of a plan.”

“Why do we need a plan? What exactly are you, young lady?” Alistair leaned forward in his seating, matching Gabe’s posture. “Are you a witch?” His eyebrows rose to meet his receding gray hairline and failed.

Calienta smiled at Alistair. “All you need to know is that I love your grandson. That will have to be enough for now.”

“If an explanation is coming, I’ll wait.” Though Alistair spoke in a way that indicated he didn’t like to be kept waiting. “My house—”

Shaking my head, I spoke up at once. “—Is too dangerous. You can’t mess with these people, trust me.”

Calienta agreed. “Kellen’s right. We need someplace safe. Some place they won’t—”

An idea sprang into my head. “Leeds Castle. We need to go there now.”

“Leeds Castle? In Kent? Whatever for?” Alistair just stared at me.

“Because it’s the only place that I can think of that has a moat. Leeds has one of the finest moats in all of England,” I said.

Calienta kissed me firmly on the mouth. “You’re a genius, Kellen.”

Technically she was right, but I preferred to think of myself as an average guy. “You’re not so bad yourself,” I said, trying to push the attention off of myself.

Alistair had clearly had enough. “Why in blue blazes would it matter if they have a moat?”

Tearing my gaze away from Calienta, I said, “Faeries can’t bear to cross running water. Though the Leeds moat is still water, it’s completely surrounded and fed from an external water source. The River Len, I think. We need someplace where we can safely regroup.”

Alistair just stared at me. “How do you know this?”

“I took an advanced geography class last summer,” I said. And I had a photographic memory. Alistair already knew that, though he usually forgot until I recalled some fact that no one had ever heard of. “We just need to get somewhere safe so we can sort out our next moves. Leeds may be that place,” I said, taking Calienta’s hand in my own.

“They’re closed on Saturday evenings. Most historic locations are, anyway,” Alistair said in a flat-sounding voice.

Sitting up straighter, I adjusted my collar and shrugged my shoulders. “Then we’ll just have to break in.”

“All the better. There won’t be any mortals to endanger if the army shows up. Leave it to me.” Calienta closed her eyes again. That crease in her brow, the one that I’d loved since the moment we met, returned.

The car windows caught my eye. They were still cloudy; any efforts to see outside of them were futile. In the seat opposite me, Gabe sat quietly, probably still angry with me. Who knew what ideas he’d taken to kicking around in his head?

“We’re here.” Calienta opened her eyes and the fog dissipated slowly. When it cleared, we were still in the taxicab, landing in the middle of the Leeds Castle courtyard.

“Great,” I said. “Now let’s all cross our fingers and hope that no one else is.”

CHAPTER THREE

KELLEN—
LUGH

The car came to an abrupt, shuddering halt, driverless in the barren courtyard at Leeds. Placing my hand on the worn door handle, I pushed down, opened the door, and stepped outside. I kept my head low and my eyes open as I looked out over the perimeter.

The castle gave the appearance of being deserted in the early evening, but looks could be deceiving. The dark encroached rapidly on whatever light remained.

The October chill seeped through my clothes. The suit that I’d chosen for my wedding hadn’t been made to withstand being on the run. The silence suffocated me. No sounds pierced the night, not even wildlife. Surely there would have been birds, crickets, something….The quiet gave the already dramatic setting an even more eerie quality.

Moving aside, I offered my hand to Calienta, helping her out of the car. “Are there guards? What about a security system?”

Calienta took two steps ahead of me. “No one can see us. For the time being we are safe, but we can’t stay here.”

“Man, this is just like Mission Impossible!” Gabe hopped out of the car and bounced up and down in place, like a fighter before a match. His face portrayed excitement as he turned to lend a hand to Alistair, helping my grandfather from the vehicle.

Glancing at him, I added, “Except we’re not in bodysuits and suspended by a cable fifty feet in the air.”

“True.” Gabe’s forehead creased in a way that made me think I’d taken all of the fun out of it for him. Then, seeming to remember that he was angry with me, he looked away.

“We should get inside,” Calienta said.

“What about the car?” I asked.

Calienta turned and waved a hand at the car. It vanished before my eyes. Probably returned to Mark’s driveway, wherever that was.

“What’s over here?” Gabe walked toward a nearly darkened area of the courtyard and gestured to a door that I hadn’t noticed before.

“Let’s try and access this part of the building,” Gabe said. “The door probably isn’t very secure. It would make sense…the outside is already fortified heavily. Why bother securing the interior buildings?” Gabe turned to look at us.

We all stared at Gabe. Alistair looked around him, as if checking to see if someone else had spoken. Though he so often sounded like a stoner, Gabe had been hailed as a legal mastermind by his Yale profs. He’d just enrolled at Harvard Law that fall.

I walked forward. “Good idea,” I said, patting him on the back. I reached for the knife that I always carried, planning to pick the lock.

“I’ll get it,” Calienta offered.

Before I could tell her that I had it, the door swung open before us and we began to make our way into the building. Our collective tentative steps led us to a dark room; then Gabe halted and I narrowly avoided running into him.

Surprise stopped me in my tracks, much like it probably had Gabe. Lugh stood at the head of a dining table, a grim smile on his face.

“Why are we stop—” Calienta began as she filed in behind me. “Father!” Calienta ran into the room, pushing past me gently, and threw herself into his arms. Lugh caught her, holding her close.

Giving them a moment, I let my eyes drift over the room. On the table lay a variety of complex place settings, incorporating fine china inlaid with a pattern that I couldn’t make out in the absence of good lighting, as well as several crystal goblets.