Burning Bright (Ivy Granger) (12 page)

His sinister laughter was cut short by the doors slamming
shut on our heels, just as the tunnel lights were extinguished.

Yeah, that wasn’t creepy or anything.  Damn vamps.

S
uddenly
grateful for the night vision gifted to me by my wisp blood, I followed the
guard up the steady slope of the tunnel.  I ignored the burning in my calves as
I walked, chewing on the new pieces of information I’d learned.  I knew better
than to think the vampire master of the city had let anything slip
unintentionally, but I had to wonder what his motivations had been for bringing
up the coming war.

Had he been trying to warn me about a potential threat to
Harborsmouth, or was he just trying to emphasize how busy he was in an effort
to downplay my role in ridding the city of the fire imp menace?  Either way, I
now knew that a war truly was brewing and I’d been the last to know.

“We are going to have words later,” I muttered out of the
corner of my mouth at Ceff.

He gave the barest nod, acknowledging that he’d heard me,
and continued on.  An annoying part of my subconscious pushed an image to the
forefront of my brain and I shook my head.  Ceff had kept the truth from me in
an attempt to keep me safe.  How different was that from me keeping the truth
of Jinx and Forneus’ kiss from my best friend?  Yes, I was a hypocrite.  Point
taken, but I still didn’t trust Forneus.

Maybe if the demon contacted me soon with a lead on how to
solve our incubus problem, I might start to trust him.  I checked my phone for
missed calls, but there was no signal this far underground.  I sighed and
shoved the phone back in my pocket and trudged up the tunnel.

“So, um, Yue Fei,” I said.  “You new in town?”

I’d been distracted over the past few months sure, but I
figured I’d have noticed a vamp dressed as a samurai warrior.  Even in a dark
tunnel lined with suits of armor from all over the world, the man tended to
stick out.

“Yes,” he said.

Right, man of little words that Yue Fei.

“You don’t happen to know a kitsune named Inari, do you?” I
asked.

Inari was a Japanese faerie who, according to Torn, was queen
of the kitsune.  But no matter how much I badgered Torn, he wouldn’t tell me
anything else about the kitsune woman, even though she was one of the few leads
I had on my father.  I was pretty sure that Yue Fei was Chinese, not Japanese
like Inari, but it couldn’t hurt to ask, right?

“The red fox lady, patron of swordsmiths, is known to me,”
he said.

We’d reached the outer door and Yue Fei stood to the side,
gesturing for us to leave.  I opened my mouth to ask what he might know about
the woman, but Ceff took a step forward, facing me, and shook his head.

I growled in frustration and stormed out into the night.

“W
hat the hell
was that about?” I asked.

I kicked the door behind me, slamming it shut, and threw my
hands up into the air.  To say that I was pissed was an understatement.

“Not here,” he said.

I flashed Ceff a glare as I stomped toward Sacred Heart
Church.  If we were already this far up The Hill, might as well check in with
Father Michael.  The ex-Vatican scholar had a thing for demon lore.  Maybe the
priest could give me some pointers on how to deal with fire imps.  Hell, he
might even know where I could find Kaye.

I spun on Ceff as we turned onto an empty side street.  If
we were going to have an argument, this was as good a place as any.

“What. The. Hell?” I asked, biting off the words.  “That guy
might have known something about my dad!”

With the help of my
cat sidhe
allies, I’d been
searching for my father, but the trail ran cold a few years ago in Fukishima,
Japan.  The fact that the one name my mom had managed to give me, before a
magical geis nearly killed her, was that of Inari a Japanese faerie queen,
couldn’t be a coincidence.  With Torn being frustratingly close-lipped about
his former relationship with Inari, I was low on options.  For a moment, I’d
hung my hopes on Yue Fei, only to have Ceff step in and act like a jealous
boyfriend.  He better have a damn good reason for interfering, and I wanted to
hear it, now.

“The walls of vampire headquarters have ears,” Ceff said,
keeping his voice low.

Shit, he was right.  I remembered the creepy suits of armor
filling every dark alcove along the tunnel.  Yeah, I’d suspected those suits of
armor weren’t empty, but I wasn’t sure why a bunch of vamps would care about my
search for my father.

“So?” I asked.  “What could Gaius possibly do with
information about Inari?”

“Have you considered why your father does not wish to be
found?” he asked.

Ceff’s soft voice was like a lonely stream burbling over
smooth pebbles, but his words hit me like a slap in the face.  That and the
look he gave me when I turned on him was one of utter sadness.  He knew how
much finding my father meant to me, and how badly I needed to find a way to
control my wisp powers.  He hadn’t overstepped in my dealings with Yue Fei in
some macho attempt to flex his muscles and take control of the little lady.  He
was trying to help, and he’d obviously given this a lot of thought.

I’d hear him out, though I suspected that I wouldn’t like
what he had to say.

“He left to protect me and my mom,” I said.  “I’m guessing
he still thinks he’s protecting us by staying away, by remaining hidden.”

“And why does he need to protect you from his very
presence?” he asked.  “Why would your father believe that he could not be a
part of your lives?”

I grew up thinking that I’d been abandoned by my real
father, but that wasn’t entirely true.  My father, who turned out to be not
only fae but king of the wisps, had left me and my mother after being tricked
by a demon.  I still didn’t know all the details, but the end result was that
my father was cursed to carry an unholy lantern, taking on the title
Jack-o’-Lantern.

“Because he’s cursed to carry the demon lantern,” I said.

“A lantern that carries an ember from the deepest pits of
Hell,” he said.  He paused, letting the words sink in.  “…a lantern that brings
chaos, destruction, and tragedy in its wake.”

I thought of the plagues and natural disasters attributed to
the lantern.  The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami which caused the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear disaster was one of the more recent disasters, but there’d been
many more over the years.  The history of the lantern went back centuries,
maybe longer.  The lantern was a conduit to Hell, bringing pain and suffering
wherever it was carried.

It was the reason why my father kept running, kept hiding
from us.

To make matters worse, the one cursed to carry the lantern
could not be rid of it, not without someone else being tricked or convinced
into willingly taking it up.  My father may have been suckered into a deal with
a demon, but he was an otherwise honorable man.  There was no way he’d trick
another poor soul into carrying his burden.

“I fear that they would use him as a weapon,” he said. 
“Whoever gains control over Will-o’-the-Wisp would wield a powerful weapon in
the coming war.”

Oberon’s eyes on a stick, I was a fool.  I’d been so focused
on finding my father and somehow making things right, that I’d never considered
what others may attempt if they found him first.

“I do not wish to see your father mistreated this way, and
such a weapon in the hands of the undead could bring doom to us all,” he said.

Shit, I could see it now, the dust bags dragging my dad into
some warzone so that the lantern could wreak havoc on its fae or human
inhabitants.  Thousands could be killed and injured, but what did the vamps
care?  They could send in their ghouls to clean up the piles of corpses.  Ghouls
would feast on the dead while the vamps themselves rounded up those who lived. 
Humans and fae would become like cattle and the world would be ruled over by a
bunch of night loving bloodsuckers.

And that was just the undead.  Who was to say what the Seelie
or Unseelie faerie courts would do if they got their scheming hands on my
father.

“The vamps aren’t the only ones, are they?” I asked.  “If
war really is coming, every side will want the ultimate weapon.”

“It is a very real possibility,” he said.

I let out a shaky sigh and wrapped my arms around my
middle.  It wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear, but it was the truth.  Ceff may
have tried to protect me from his suspicions, but now that the
cat sidhe
was out of the bag, he’d give it to me straight.  All I had to do was ask.

“If that’s true, then who can I trust?” I asked.

“You can begin with trusting me,” he said.

Yeah, he was right.  It was a good place to start.

W
e continued
walking to Sacred Heart Church.  I was hoping that Father Michael’s obsession
with demon lore would come in handy with the fire imp problem, and as a friend
of Kaye’s he may know where I could find her.  I might be able to kill two
pixies with one visit, so to speak.

During the short walk to the top of The Hill, Ceff and I discussed
the search for my father and the need for allies.  Aside from Japan, my only
lead was a box that my father had left me containing a key to Faerie.  That key
would open a gateway through the Otherworld and into the wisp court.  I was
sure that I’d find answers there, but the roads to Faerie had been sealed when
Mab, Oberon, and Titania disappeared centuries ago.

The only way for me to gain entry to the wisp court was to
follow a hidden pathway that only became accessible on the summer solstice.  Unfortunately
for me, that pathway led through Tech Duinn, the house of Donn—the Celtic god
of the dead.

The door you seek is one that hides.  You must await
midsummer tides.  Upon the summer solstice when the moon doth wane, the wisp
princess shall sit upon her throne again.  Muster your allies and gather your
power.  You must reach Tech Duinn’s steps by the witching hour.  Brandish the
key and do not lose heart.  On solstice night the ocean shall part.  Go to
Martin’s Point at final light of day, and the stones of Donner Isle will lead
the way.  Not by sea, but by land.  You all will take your stand.  To the house
of Donn you must carry, king Will-o’-the-Wisp’s key to Faerie.  Inside Donn’s
hearth bend your knee, close your eyes and turn the key.

If Béchuille was any indication, the Tuatha Dé Danann were
more cryptic than demon attorneys.  Or maybe it was the fact that she was a
druid.  Either way, I’d puzzled out the meaning behind her words and knew what
I had to do.  It just wouldn’t be easy, hence the need for allies.

As we walked, Ceff and I hashed out a list of associates who
we figured we could trust with information about my father.  Sadly, the list
was pretty damn short.

In fact, there was one person on the list who we both
decided wouldn’t have been made a confidant under different circumstances. 
Neither one of us fully trusted Sir Torn, but the
cat sidhe
lord was
already in this up to his whiskers.

Torn had manipulated me into revealing that the key was in
my possession when he brought me to Mag Mell to see the druid Béchuille.  Yes,
being tricked by the
cat sidhe
lord was one reason why I didn’t trust
him.  But since he already knew about the search for my father and the key in
my possession, there was nothing to do now except hope Torn honored our
alliance, and watch our backs.

“There is less than two months until the summer solstice,”
Ceff said.

I sighed at the reminder.  How did I end up with these
solstice the-end-is-nigh deadlines?  Oh, right, because I was knee deep in
faerie drama.

“I’m sick of being on a solstice deadline,” I said, thinking
back to my troubles with Leanansídhe on the winter solstice.  “Been there, done
that, got the t-shirt to prove it.”

He raised his eyebrow, mouthing “t-shirt,” and gave me a
questioning look, but I just shook my head.  Poor Ceff, sometimes I forget he’s
an immortal faerie king who, unlike Jinx, only has a stunted arsenal of pop
culture references with which to make sense of my snarky comments.

“I’m just tired,” I said, forcing a grin.  “With Jenna gone,
Jinx’s situation, and my possibly being on the outs with Kaye with the whole
needing to kill her thing, I’m down to me, my boyfriend, a grumpy brownie, a
teenage bridge troll, and a pain in the ass
cat sidh
who neither of us
trust.  Oh, and the entire paranormal community is itching for a fight and may
try to use my father as a weapon in their war.  It’s a lot to take in.”

I yawned and dragged myself up the stone steps.  My hand
shook as I reached for the door, not a good sign.  Ceff said that the longer I
delayed in fulfilling The Green Lady’s bargain, the worse I’d feel.  My human
blood might give me a little extra time, but apparently, it wasn’t enough to
completely block the energy drain.

I steadied my hand and said a silent prayer that Father
Michael knew where I could find Kaye.  I needed to find the witch, sooner rather
than later.  Otherwise Jinx wouldn’t be the only one doing a Sleeping Beauty
impersonation, and then who’d save the city when the vamps and fae turned
Harborsmouth into their very own sandbox?

The Hunters’ Guild claims to be the protectors of humans
against rogue paranormals, but what will the Hunters do if the entire
paranormal community goes rogue?  Would the Hunters’ Guild stick around and
fight if the vampires and fae went savage?  I swallowed hard, thinking about
the family and friends who called Harborsmouth their home.