0449474001339292671 4 fighting faer (19 page)
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Authors: Unknown
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She scoffed at him instead. “What? Didn’t you take care of them, too, before you dragged me up here?
Some criminal mastermind you are.”
He ignored her taunt, holding the glowing green thing in his hand—which she could now see looked like some kind of stone—aloft and pointing it in different directions like a compass. When he faced the hill in front of them, even Corinne could see the stone glowing brighter.
“We’re close,” Fergus muttered, “but we have to get up higher. Come on.” He grabbed Corinne by her arms and hauled her to her feet, shoving her along in front of him as he marched up the hill. She clenched her bound hands into fists and every few feet moved her middle finger to allow a white, buffered aspirin tablet to fall unnoticed to the ground. Hey, Hansel and Gretel had breadcrumbs, she had aspirin. Kids didn’t get her kind of headaches.
They hiked over the rough terrain, which was harder than it sounded, especially given the fading light and the fact that one of them had her hands bound in front of her, but Fergus just kept his eye on the stone in his hand and pressed forward.
Corinne kept her eyes open for any chance to escape, but still bound, still walking in front of him and still wanting to get a chance to stop him for opening the door, the chance didn’t come. If she was lucky, the cavalry would come to the rescue and she wouldn’t end up having to run for her life. She liked that scenario.
Since the plan had been to meet up at Rafe’s place at three, and judging by the advancing state of dusk it was likely closer to eight, she knew Rafe, Dmitri, Graham and her friends would already know something had gone wrong. If they bothered to check her apartment, they’d probably find Luc—and they’d damned well better take good care of him—and then they’d be after her. And if any one of them used their supernatural mojo for a good cause this time, they’d have been on her trail by seven at the latest. They couldn’t be very far behind Corinne and Fergus, so she just crossed her fingers, kept dropping her aspirin trail and hoped they’d hurry the hell up.
Luc didn’t just wake up swinging; he awoke swinging, swearing and strangling an unsuspecting Graham.
That didn’t last long, since Missy immediately shouted something nasty and leapt forward to plant her foot on his arm. Graham used the opportunity to wrench himself out of the enraged Fae’s grip.
“Calm down before we decide to leave you to bleed to death,” Rafe said, speaking calmly over the sound of Missy’s furious chatter and Dmitri’s low chuckle. “Save the righteous rage for the one who tried to gut you.”
“Where’s Corinne?”
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“Gone.” Graham rubbed his hand over his bruised neck. “Presumably with the one who tried to gut you.
But there’s no blood or evidence she’s been hurt.”
“Fergus.” Luc spat the name like a bitter taste from his mouth. He relaxed a little though, because now that he took the time to breathe, he could feel that she was still alive. He would know if his heartmate had been taken from him.
Rafe nodded. “I could smell him here, but I don’t claim to understand what happened.”
“I’ve got my theories.” Luc growled as he pushed himself to his feet.
“Hey,” Reggie scolded, rushing to pressed a thick gauze pad to a sullenly bleeding wound in his side.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re wounded, here!” He tried to brush her away, but she clung like a barnacle, and with Dmitri watching closely, he couldn’t exactly put his back into it. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. We need to go find Corinne.”
“Fat lot of good you’ll do her. What are you going to do to rescue her from Fergus? Bleed all over him?”
He started to protest, but by then Missy had assured herself of Graham’s safety and climbed on board with Reggie. “You’ve got to take care of these wounds before you go anywhere, or you’re not going to be much good to Rinnie or anybody else,” she scolded. “These stab wounds look awful” Luc scowled. “They’d look worse if he’d been smart enough to use iron, but these are from silver.
They’ll heal fast enough. But we need to go
now
before he tries to hurt Corinne.”
“He’s already hurt you.” Reggie pushed hard enough against his wound to make the damned thing throb uncomfortably. “And I, for one, don’t want to be the one to explain to Corinne that we let you run off untended and bled to death before we could catch up with her. She’s mean when she gets angry.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
“Then do us a favor and sit down and shut up long enough for us to bandage you up, and
then
you can go after Corinne, okay?” Missy didn’t wait for his reply but headed back toward the bathroom.
“Bring lots of adhesive tape!” Reggie shouted after her before turning back to Luc. “Right. Now that shirt has to go. Strip.”
Luc’s eyes widened and shot to Dmitri’s face. The vampire looked both amused and jealous all at once.
“Why don’t you tell us about these theories you have regarding Fergus, my friend,” Dmitri suggested, crossing his arms over his chest and keeping an eagle eye on his tiny wife as she and Missy began mopping up Fae blood. “It will distract me so I do not give in to the urge to give you a few new wounds myself for having my wife’s hands on you.”
Luc could sympathize. He spread his arms wide to give the women access to his wounds. “I’m kicking myself that I never suspected,” he said, “but now I realize Fergus was the problem all along, not Seoc.
Oh, the Queen’s nephew is irresponsible and annoying, and I don’t doubt he was the Fae all those witnesses reported seeing, but it was never him trying to open the doors. That was Fergus.”
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“But why would he do that?” Graham asked. “Doesn’t he have as much to lose as any of the Fae if the doors open? At least with Seoc, I could see it as a revenge against his controlling aunt thing.”
“I haven’t decided on a why yet,” Luc said, “But I think I’ve nailed the how. Fergus was the Guard on duty the night Seoc slipped into Ithir, and I think that not only did Fergus know about it, he helped, knowing that Seoc would provide the perfect distraction while Fergus went looking for the door. It wouldn’t be hard for a Guard to slip through fairly regularly on his shifts without anyone suspecting. He had access, and no one would question the loyalty of the Queen’s Guardsmen.”
“The perfect cover.” Dmitri scowled, and Luc just hoped it was at the idea of Fergus’s betrayal, and not the fact that Reggie was currently pressed up against his chest while she passed the roll of adhesive tape behind his back.
“Exactly,” he continued, figuring the distraction couldn’t hurt. “It probably wasn’t even all that tough. All he had to do was nose around while Seoc provided a red herring, and he could even use his place on the Guard to keep up-to-date on how close we were to finding Seoc. And yesterday, we gave him everything he needed to find the door.” His mouth twisted in disgust. “We practically handed the location to him.”
Missy ripped off the last bit of tape and pressed it against his skin before stepping back and handing him a clean T-shirt. “True, but he doesn’t know any more than we do. We’ll get to him before anything happens.”
Graham nodded and handed Luc the duffle bag he’d left at Vircolac. They must have brought it with them when they came looking for him. “She’s right. We know just where he went, and we know what he’s planning. He’s an idiot if he thinks we won’t find him and stop him.”
“True,” Luc growled. “He is an idiot, but he’s the idiot who has my heartmate.”
* * * * *
She never doubted for a minute that he was coming for her. She just hoped he managed to get to her before Fergus succeeded in opening the Faerie door. She was still struggling to get accustomed to the fact that she was sleeping with a Fae; she definitely didn’t want to see what would come traipsing through into Ithir if Fergus got his way.
“You know, I don’t want to make you play out the villain cliché,” she said as she scrambled over a fallen tree trunk, “‘cause mainly I just want you to drop dead, but I’m having trouble with the why of this whole scenario. Why the hell would you want to open the door? You’ve got as much to lose as any Fae if humans start pouring into Faerie, right?”
“Humans are so simple minded,” he scoffed. “I couldn’t care less if Faerie teems with your detestable little species, so long as that bitch is dethroned and I rise in her place.”
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Corinne paused to look back at him. “Oh, shit,” she breathed. “You’re not just an asshole, you’re a megalomaniacal lunatic, too. Oh, man, this so sucks.” He drew back his hand and hit her so casually, she never saw it coming. One minute he was looking at her with his characteristic sneer, the next she was picking herself up out of the dirt, and wiping the trickle of blood away from her mouth. “Watch what you say, human. I still have the option of killing you slowly if you piss me off.”
“Is there really any way I can
not
piss you off?” He paused for a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”
She wiped her bloody fingers on her shorts and watched him consult his glow-rock. “How much further?”
He ignored her.
“I can change that to, ‘are we there yet?’ but I was trying to be nice.”
“We’re nearly on top of it.” He didn’t even bother to look at her. “Now shut up and keep moving.” She moved, but she also plotted. They were making too much noise for her to hear if anyone was following them yet. Well, to be honest, she was making too much noise. Fergus seemed to move silently, though how anyone could walk over dead leaves and twigs and loose rocks without making a sound was beyond her, even if he wasn’t human. Since she couldn’t tell if Luc had caught up to them, she tried to slow him down.
“Okay, fine,” she huffed, “I get the power goal. That’s understandable, but if you’re the one who’s been causing all this trouble, where has Seoc really gone? Was he the one who sent Hibbish and that bartender to limbo, or was that you?”
He laughed coldly. “The only one in limbo is Seoc himself. The humans are dead. I didn’t want them telling the story of two Fae wandering through their city. Having spotted Seoc was a convenient cover, but spotting me was too much to let go.”
Corinne felt her stomach turn at the callous way he related the news, as if their deaths meant nothing to him. Clearly they did mean nothing. “You little prick,” she growled.
“They were human and, therefore, expendable.”
He shoved her forward, ignoring her pained hiss. When she stumbled yet again, he hauled her to her feet and pushed her faster. He had her nearly running up to the crest of the hill, struggling frantically to keep her balance. Her breath came in shallow pants by the time he dragged her to a halt and shoved her down against the base of a tree trunk.
“Stay there.”
He wasn’t stupid enough to turn his back on her—sadly enough—but he had clearly tuned her out before she even hit the ground. Corinne propped herself up against the tree and eyed him warily. His glow-rock had turned a bright, blue-green color, the same shade as all the advertisements of the waters
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of the Caribbean. That seemed to be the cue he was looking for, because he pocketed it and began to examine the rock formations and almost-caves that covered the rocky hilltop.
He was muttering something under his breath, and she really hoped it wasn’t the spell that would open the door. “Now would be a really good time for the cavalry,” she mumbled.
“Shut up!” he snarled. “Keep quiet, or I’ll knock you out again.” She didn’t doubt it, and since she really needed to be conscious, she fell silent and watched him search.
She thought about trying to distract him by talking or running, but since she needed to be conscious in case the cavalry didn’t arrive, she refrained. Better to gather her energy and wait for an opportunity to tackle him to keep him from magic-ing the door open. If he carried through on his threats to render her unconscious, she’d never get the chance.
She watched as Fergus began to run his hands along a crevice in the rock and stiffened when he crowed in triumph.
“Finally!” He stepped back and turned his head to send Corinne a particularly nasty smile. “Just a few more minutes, and then I can take care of you as well.” He faced the rock, spread his arms and began to chant in the same language she’d heard Luc swear in after she’d pissed him off particularly badly. She swore herself. This was it. There was no sign of Luc or the others, yet, and their time had just run out. Even as she struggled to her feet, she saw something begin to happen.
The crevice Fergus had explored began to glow, the same sort of turquoise color as the rock the Fae had used to lead them there. It began as a fine line of light and began slowly expanding until it was as tall as the Fae and nearly and inch wide. Corinne knew that in a moment it would be big enough for someone or something to pass through.
“Oh, well,” she muttered to herself, gathering herself for a leap. “If you want something done right…” She pushed off, but she never landed. At least, not on Fergus.
She heard a growl and almost simultaneously saw a blurry figure launch itself from the trees and shoulder her roughly to the side before slamming full length into Fergus. Both figures toppled to the earth and rolled around for several seconds before a hoarse shout dragged their attention to the woods. Luc and Dmitri emerged, running full tilt toward Fergus, with Reggie and Missy hurrying along behind, held in check only by Rafe’s hands on each of their shoulders. In one hand, Luc carried an enormous sword that gleamed dully in the dim light that bled into the park from the city below.
