Daughter of the Red Dawn (The Lost Kingdom of Fallada) (7 page)

Two old men stood in the middle of the living room, gazing about them curiously before their eyes landed on Selena. She looked down at the wolf’s motionless body, laid out across the carpet on its side.
Other than the rapid heaving of its chest, it
…
he?
...
was
completely still. She glanced back up at the two men and her eyes widened at the gleaming silver gun still smoking in the hand of one of them.

They were the strangest men she’d ever seen, dressed
from
head to toe in shades of brown and off-white: buttoned shirts, suspenders, vests, trousers
,
and boots. Each of them wore a pair of
strange goggles
, and one of them—the one not carrying a gun—wore a floppy brown hat. The one with the gun had scraggly white hair down to his shoulders. Both had bushy gray eyebrows and the hatless man had the rough stubble of
a
five
o’clock shadow
gleaming silver across his jaw.

“What the heck did you just do?” Selena screeched.

“Put a hole in our roof, for one,”
Rose
said with a scowl in the strangers’ direction
as both men lifted their goggles from their eyes
. Selena followed the direction of
Rose
’s gaze and gasped, not at the hole
in the roof, but at what hovered just above it.
Several feet above their house was what appeared to be a floating
ship.
It cast a shadow over the little home and darkened the living room considerably. It appeared incredibly bulky, yet hovered over them as if it weighed no more than a cloud.

“Hope you guys have ship insurance,” Zoe said, yet there was not an ounce of humor in her voice. She was eyeing the ship, Titus, the two old men, each one at a time and over and over again as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“It’s her,” said the man holding the gun
, pointing at Zoe with his free hand
. “It must be.”

He was walking toward Zoe while shoving his gun down into a brown leather holster at his right side. Zoe took a step back as he approached, inhaling swiftly.

“Selena, what’s going on?” she whispered as the old man approached, eyeing her closely.

“I don’t know,” Selena
said,
her eyes still on Titus’ lifeless form.
Worry filled her and frustration gnawed on her insides
. Why did she
care if he was dead or hurt? He ha
d just tried to kill them for God’s sake! She should be thanking these two strangers, yet couldn’t find the words. Especially
since
the one
wearing a hat
was starin
g at her
intently
as he removed round, wire-rimmed glasses from his vest pocket and slipped them on.

“She’s not the one
,
Wil,” he said, still watching Selena.

“Of course she
is!” the one named Wil blustered
in a voiced tinted by a German accent
. “Look at he
r height and the regal features, Jake.”

Jake adjusted his spectacles and sighed, rolling his eyes as if used to putting up with the other man’s posturing.

“Fine then,” he said with a shrug
, his accent just as thick as Wil’s
. “Why don’t we just check her for the birthmark? That will prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt.”

Wil snapped his fingers as if he’d just had an epiphany and smiled. “I know! We’ll check her for the birthmark. Honestly
,
Jake, you’re supp
osed to be the smart one.
”

“God help me,” Jake groaned as
Wil took another step toward Zoe.

“All right then
,
girl, let’s have it.”

Zoe pursed her lips. “Have what?”

“Your birthmark, princess!
Come, come, we haven’t all day and that beast will only be out for so long and
then
we’ll all be in trouble.”

“What the hell is everybody talking about?
Princess?
I’m not a freaking princess!”

Suddenly everyone was talking at once, a cacophony of voices that grated on Selena’s nerves. Wil kept insisting that Zoe had to be the one they were looking for.
Rose
wanted to know who these men were
and why they were here,
and Zoe kept asking about the birthmark
and whether being a Princess came with a castle
and
a pool
. Jake merely shook his head and pulled his hat down lower over his ears. Selena had finally had enough.

“Shut up!” she
bellowed
, holding her hands up
,
annoyance
edging her tone. “Everybody just be quiet for a minute, please! There is too
much going on and I think I can help fill in some of the gaps if you give me a minute.”

“Definitely sounds like a princess,” Jake muttered from beneath his hat.

Selena shot him a dirty look before continuing.

“
This guy,” she pointed at Titus, “appeared in my life the other day out of nowhere. Next thing I know he’s telling me that I’m different and I’m not from this world. He says I should be afraid of him because of what he is. Then he morphs into a wolf and chases me here. My grandmother tells me that she found me in a basket years ago and raised me as her own. So I think it’s safe to say that I’m the one you’re looking for, although Titus didn’t say anything about any princess.”

“What’s your name, girl?” Jake a
ske
d softly once Selena had finished.

“Selena,” she answered. “Selena McKinley.”

Jake shook his head, moving forward to stand beside Wil. “
If I haven’t missed my guess, then your true name is Eladria.
Princess Eladria of Damu.
Have you a birthmark on your ribs? It would be on your right side, a brown smudge visible when you lift your arm.
”

Selena’s heart beat in double time and the call of the familiar echoed within her chest, resounding throughout her mind.
She’d always wondered about the chocolate brown patch of skin shaped like California a few inches beneath her armpit.
Eladria
.
She wasn’t ready to admit it out loud, but she knew deep within her heart that old Jake had called her by her true name.

“Princess,”
Rose
whispered, staring off into space as if in deep thought. “The dress you were wearing that night was so beautiful and the ma
terial so rich. And that jewel—”

“Jewel?”
Wil snapped to attention. “You have the stone in your possession?
The Ruby of Damu?”

Selena reached into her shirt and pulled the
golden
chain and robin’s egg-sized stone from its confines.
“What, this?”

Wil gasped and snatched the stone from her hand, yanking Selena along with it as the chain was still around her neck. Oblivious to her discomfort, Wil studied the ruby with a smile.

“It is The Ruby of Damu! Then you must be Princess Eladria!”

“There is only one way to know for sure,” Jake responded,
his eyes as wide as Wil’s
and filled with excitement.

“Told you,” Zoe muttered. “Rich parents.”

Selena was so busy shooting Zoe a glare that she didn’t see the dagger that appeared in Wil’s hand. A sharp pain stabbed her index finger and
traveled
up through her hand and arm.

“Ouch!” Selena yelped as Wil grasped her bleeding finger and squeezed mercilessly. “What are
you
doing?”

Muttering to
himself
about obtaining irrefutable proof, Wil held the stone beneath her bleeding finger and watched in fascination as one drop of crimson liquid fell onto it. He released Selena’s finger and she quickly pressed it to her lips to lessen the sting. In an instant, the stone began to glow brightly, casting its scarlet rays over the faces of everyone in the room.

Zoe and
Rose
gasped
,
but Selena just stared, transfixed at the glowing gem.

“What does that mean?” Selena asked breathlessly, mesmerized by the ruby’s shimmer.

Wil glanced up at her with joy dancing in the depths of his blue eyes. “It means that you must come with us immediately.”

“Wait just one minute,”
Rose
interjected, snatching the ruby from Wil’s thick fingers and shoving her body between him and Selena. “No one is going anywhere until we get some more answers. We do not know who you are, where you come from, or what you
r
business is with my granddaughter.”

“
Our names are Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, if you must know, and t
here is no time for explanations!” Wil said with a sigh. “If you come with us, we will tell you everything you need to
know
once you’re
on board our ship.”

“Can I come?” Zoe quipped.

“No one is
going
 
…
”
Rose
trail off, her eyes rolling back into her head before she sank to the floor in a crumpled heap.

“Gram!”
Selena cried as she sank to her knees beside
Rose
’s limp form. “What’s happened to her?”

Jake knelt beside her and pointed to the leg of her
blue jeans
. Selena hadn’t noticed until now that they were stained with blood and ripped.
Sometime
between Titus’ crashing through the door and
Wil and Jake ripping the roof off, the wolf must have sunk his teeth in her leg. Selena felt tears stinging her eyes as she took in
Rose’s
pale complexion.

“T
he bite of a
Werewolf
is fatal
,” Jake
said,
his eyes serious behind his glasses. “You have no choice
except
to come with us now if you want to save her.”

“She’s not going to turn into one is she?”

“Zoe, for the love of God shut up!”

Selena pressed a hand to
Rose
’s cool forehead and sighed. “She’s so cold. Did the bite make her sick?”

Jake nodded. “A bite this deep could kill her within days. She is going to become very ill and it’s not going to get better. We need to take her to Goldun.”

Selena’s head spun with the intake of all the new information.
Werewolves
, flying ships, lost princesses, her blood making a ruby glow like a firecracker, and fairytale kingdoms named Damu and Goldun
…
none of it made any sense, but then, it didn’t have to. If she could get her grandmother the help she needed, then there would be time for questions later.

“How long
is
the trip, and what are we supposed to do about the hole in the roof and the knocked-out
Werewolf
?” Selena asked calmly.

“We will use
Fae
magic to shield the house from human eyes,” Wil said. “All who pass here will
see the house as it was before.
Repairs can be made later.
As for the
wolf
, we will have to take him with us.”

“Um, maybe forget what I said about coming along,” Zoe said with a nervous chuckle. “I’d rather not have to share ship space with
him
.”

“He will not be able to harm you,” Jake said. “It’ll be perfectly safe.”

Selena grabbed Zoe by the arm. “My life as I know it is over,” she said, stabbing her best friend with a look that said she wouldn’t tolerate any opposition. “My identity, my past, everything is changing and it all feels like some kind of dream. I need something around to remind me that this is real. I need you, Zoe.”

Zoe smiled and pulled Sel
ena into a tight hug. “Well dang
girl, you don’t have to get all mushy on me. I’ll go, okay?”

“What are you going to do about your parents?” Selena asked.

“
I don’t know yet.” She turned to
Wil. “How long will this flying ship trip take, anyway?”

Wil shrugged before bending to lift
Rose
into his arms. “Time does not move the same in Fallada as it does
her
. One day there is only a few minutes here.”

Zoe nodded. “Right, so I just need a weekend alibi?”

Selena sighed. “Don’t look at me, I have no idea how any of this works.”

“Weekend sleepover it is,” Zoe said, whipping out her cell phone. Selena turned back to Wil, who was carrying
Rose
to the rope ladder dangling from the side of the hovering ship.