A Fairy Tale (30 page)

Tanaka nodded slowly, and Michael tried not to hold his breath while waiting to see if he bought it. “Emily’s disappearance must have your brain going back to Jen,” he said at last.

“I guess so. I can’t believe people take those drugs for fun.”

“There are also people who watch home remodeling shows, and they give me nightmares, so it takes all kinds.” Just when Michael was starting to relax, Tanaka asked, “Now, where are you off to?”

Michael fumbled for an answer that wouldn’t be a lie. “I thought some fresh air would be good for me. I still can’t be up long, but getting up and around every so often is good for preventing pneumonia.” That was true, in a broad sense, though not about this specific moment. He hoped that was good enough not to trigger the “lie” buzzer in Tanaka’s brain.

Tanaka studied him again for a beat too long. “Are you sure you’re okay? Is there something you want to talk about, off the record? I’m not your training supervisor anymore, but I’m still your friend. I know this has to be rough for you.”

“I appreciate that, Tank, I do. I won’t say I’m fine, but I’m okay.” And he was going to lose Sophie entirely if he didn’t get away from here. With any luck, those two old ladies would be able to stop her.

Tanaka patted him on his good shoulder. “Okay, then, you hang in there, kid. Call if you need me—but only if you need me, not if you have a dream about needing me.”

Michael gave a rueful grin and waved good-bye as Tanaka got into his double-parked car and drove off. As soon as he was gone, Michael headed for the park, aiming straight for the place where he’d lost Sophie before, but she wasn’t there—either not there yet or long gone. He was startled when he heard her voice behind him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He turned around slowly. “I could ask you the same thing,” he said. “I thought the plan was for us to do this together.”

She glared at him. “I don’t need you here.”

“You need backup.”

“You’re too sick to be at work. You’ve got one good arm. You’re in obvious pain. And I don’t even know if I can get you into the Realm.”

“Plus, you’re planning to turn yourself over to Maeve.”

It was the first time he’d seen her look truly shocked. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Sophie Drake was at a loss for words. She shook her head. “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that,” she eventually stammered.

He pulled the sheet of lyrics out of his pocket. “It looks like blood is required, and you’re afraid she’ll use Emily’s.”

She seemed to sag inwardly. With a helpless shrug, she said, “She’s my sister. What would you do?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I see your point. But you’re willing to let Maeve win?”

A bit of her usual spark came back. “Have you met me? There’s still a lot about this I don’t know, and I think Maeve does or she wouldn’t have recognized that the song fits. What’s the best way to find out what she knows?”

“Once you’re in her custody, you’ll have her where you want her?”

“Something like that.” Her smile was wicked, but it didn’t last long. She paused for a moment, worrying her lower lip with her teeth, then stepped forward and held out Beau’s leash. “Take care of Beau. Now that I think about it, I don’t think he’ll be that helpful in this situation.”

“Is he ever helpful?” He took the leash, but said, “I should go with you.”

“You’d just be in danger.” She spun away from him and took off.

“Sophie!” he called out, hurrying to catch up with her, but before he reached her, she vanished into thin air. Beau gave a single harsh bark. “Yeah, me, too,” Michael muttered as he caught his breath. He tucked the end of Beau’s leash into his belt, then fumbled for his cell phone and called the sisters again to let them know where he was and what had happened.

They arrived so soon after his call that they had to have been very close by when Sophie disappeared. Just a few seconds, he thought, a few seconds sooner and maybe they could have stopped her. “Now what do we do?” he demanded as soon as they were in earshot.

“We can’t get into the Realm,” Amelia said. “There’s nothing we can do. I’m sorry.”

“It’s up to Sophie,” Athena said.

“She has a plan. She’s not just giving up,” Michael said, as much to boost his own spirits as to reassure them.

Athena nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised. I would just feel better if she weren’t alone.”

He saw a glimpse of white out of the corner of his eye and turned to see a little white cat, like the one he’d freed the night before and seen again that morning. It ran up to him, hissed when Beau barked at it, then twined itself around his ankles. He knelt to scratch it behind the ears. “Hey there,” he said softly.

“What is that?” Athena asked, leaning over.

“Last night when I was following Sophie to the market, I found this cat tangled up in some wire. I helped it out.”

The women exchanged a look. “He
is
a third brother,” Athena said with a smile.

The cat stepped away, heading toward the rocky embankment beneath the park’s walls. It paused to glance back at them and flicked its tail.

“Is it my imagination, or does it look like it wants us to follow it?” Michael asked.

“It’s worth a try,” Amelia said. “It’s an animal that was helped by a third brother. Let’s see where it takes us.”

With Beau leading the way, they followed the little cat, who waited for them to catch up before continuing. “Okay, it definitely wants us to follow it,” Michael said. The cat led them to a gap between two large stones.

“This could be a passage,” Amelia said. “There are physical passages into the Realm, but you have to be careful with those because the Borderlands between our world and theirs are dangerous. Take the wrong passage, and you might never actually make it into the Realm. We’ve never dared enter the Realm that way because we lack the crucial information.” She addressed the cat. “Is it safe?”

The cat meowed and ran between the rocks. “She seems to think it’s safe enough,” Michael remarked. “I’d better go in first, though.”

“Which of us has magical powers and two good arms?” Athena replied with a wryly raised eyebrow. “I’m not even sure you’ll fit.”

“You’re not leaving me behind.”

A meow echoed from the passage, and Beau headed between the rocks. “Here goes nothing,” Athena said, taking Beau’s leash from Michael and crawling in after the dog. Amelia followed her. Michael hesitated, realizing that Athena had a point. It was going to be a tight squeeze, and crawling on one arm wouldn’t be easy.

It turned out that the gap between the rocks was the hard part. Once he was all the way through, he was in a larger tunnel—too large to be hidden in Central Park. A light flared, and he blinked to see that Athena had a flashlight. “Come on,” she called to him.

The flashlight barely made a dent in the darkness. He hardly noticed when they left the tunnel because it was too dark to tell that the walls were no longer an arm’s length away. He could only tell that their footsteps made a different sound.

All he could see was a shining woman in white who waited near the end of the tunnel—the woman he’d seen in the park that morning and, now that he thought about it, who had tried to get him to dance the night before. “Come,” she said. “I will guide you safely through the Borderlands.”

“Lead on,” Amelia said with a regal wave to the woman, who darted ahead into the darkness. To Michael, she added softly, “Don’t thank her directly. Direct thanks and direct payment are avoided here. She’s obligated to help you to release the debt she owes you. They don’t like owing anything. But if you thank them, that makes you obliged, and that’s not a position you want to be in. Now, keep your eyes and ears open. It could get dicey around here.”

They were walking through what seemed to be a very dense forest full of thick, twisted tree trunks. Then he realized that the trunks were actually the roots of trees above. “Are we
under
the park?” he asked.

“In a sense,” Athena answered. “We’re between worlds.”

“I’m assuming you know how to get out of here.”

“We retrace our steps,” Athena said with a too-casual shrug. “But that’s a worst-case scenario. With any luck, we’ll have Sophie to help us out.”

The woman came to a stop and said, “I must leave you here. I can go no farther into the Realm. Follow the light.” She raised her hand, and a small spark floated upward and hung in front of them.

“Th—” Michael began before remembering Amelia’s lecture. “You’ve been a big help.”

“As were you.” She ran one small, white hand up his arm before running back the way they’d come.

“Now what?” Michael asked the sisters.

“We follow the light,” Amelia said. The spark moved forward through the dense root forest. Michael was sorely tempted to chant about lions, tigers, and bears, but he suspected the women wouldn’t be amused. They moved confidently forward, following the pinpoint of light and neatly stepping over any roots on the ground. Michael wasn’t as sure of his footing, and since his feet were bigger than theirs, he couldn’t step between roots as easily as they did. Once he stumbled so badly he nearly fell. Amelia caught him by his good arm and held him upright. “Are you sure you’re up to this?” she asked.

“To be honest, no. But I have to do it.”

“Very well, then. Watch your step. We can’t carry you.”

“Is there anything else I need to know while we’re here?” he asked, mostly because the dead silence was getting on his nerves, but also because he had a feeling that the slightest mistake could be dangerous in this place.

“Don’t drink or eat anything a fairy offers you,” Athena said. “Eating the food here can trap you. Don’t assume they’re all enemies, but don’t assume that the friendly ones are your friends. Their idea of morality is different from ours, and a ‘good’ fairy is generally one whose goals coincide with yours at that moment. Don’t harm any trees or bushes or pick flowers. Be careful about gifts. They often comes with strings attached or with strict rules.”

They moved onward. Something rustled in the darkness nearby, and he stifled a gasp. “What was that?” he whispered.

“I’m not sure,” Athena whispered back. Beau barked at the sound, which soon stopped. “Good boy,” Athena said to the dog.

It might have been Michael’s imagination, but it seemed to be growing lighter. There were real trees growing out of the ground mixed in with the root trees. “Looks like we’re almost there,” he said.

“Be on the lookout,” Amelia warned.

“For what?” He’d barely completed the question when something jumped on his back, on his left shoulder where he couldn’t reach it with his right arm in a sling.

The Realm

Meanwhile

Sophie steeled herself as she entered the Realm, expecting to find Maeve’s people lying in wait for her. No one was there, but she suspected Maeve’s ever-present spies would know the moment she arrived. Sophie supposed she should act as though she was going somewhere. They might get suspicious if she just sat there, waiting for them to catch her.

It was even colder than it had been the last time she was in the Realm, and the grass around her was dry and brown. Snowflakes fluttered to the ground, dusting it with a fine coating of white. Winter had come to the summer country, and that couldn’t be good. She thought she heard a faint chorus of voices saying, “My lady,” but she didn’t see anyone nearby, just a never-ending expanse of dead grass. With the feeling she wasn’t getting the whole picture, she lowered herself into a crouch to get a closer look, and then she couldn’t hold back a gasp of surprise.

There was a whole world down there, populated with its own breed of fae creatures. These were tiny, no larger than her index finger. They wore bell-like flowers as clothing, but these creatures were nothing like the little flower fairies from a preschool ballet recital. They were ugly, more stick insects or praying mantis than human. Still, they had a glow about them so that from a distance they looked like fireflies flitting from place to place, and that gave them their own kind of beauty.

“My lady,” they said, speaking as one, but not quite in unison. “We would offer our aid to you.” Sophie wondered how they could possibly help her take down Maeve and free her captives. Maeve could grind them to dust with one stomp of her foot.

The grass around Sophie rippled subtly, then began to glow softly as more and more of the tiny creatures gathered around her. It might have been the effect of the glow, but the grass seemed to have come back to life. “Thanks, I’ve got things under control,” she said.

A bluebell-clad creature that looked like a wizened stick insect flew up to her and perched on the hand she held out to it. “We are many. We may help,” it said in a reedy voice.

Feeling like she was trapped in some twisted version of a Disney cartoon, she addressed the creature perched on her finger. “If I need you, I’ll let you know.”

“Call upon us whenever you wish,” the creature said. The creature fluttered back to the ground, and Sophie stood and brushed the dirt and grass from her skirt. She’d be in dire straits, indeed, if she needed to be rescued by creatures such as that. Now, where were Maeve’s goons? Did she have to wait around all night? Honestly, how did Maeve expect to rule the entire Realm when she couldn’t manage to capture someone who was
trying
to turn herself in?

It looked like she’d have to meet Maeve halfway. Even in the Realm, she had to take care of the important things for herself. Now very conscious of how she placed her feet, she began walking, heading in no direction in particular but hoping that moving around would bring her within sight of one of Maeve’s spies.

Finally, when she was ready to look for a place to sit down and rest, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. One of Maeve’s Rat Pack goons lurked behind some nearby trees. Sophie’s instinct was to prepare to defend herself or to go on the attack, but she squelched it.

Another goon showed up in a cluster of trees on her other side, and she was fairly certain there was yet another ahead of her, while she felt the itch between her shoulder blades that told her someone was watching her from behind. So far, though, they were all keeping their distance. She was tempted to play damsel in distress and say loudly, “Oh my, here I am, all helpless and alone,” but after her previous encounters with Maeve’s people, she had a feeling they’d think it was a trap. And it was, just not in the way they thought.