Faerie Blood: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Changeling Chronicles Book 1) (24 page)

“This is where we sensed the disturbance in the spirit world,” said the necromancer.

Ordinarily I might have made a joke about disturbances in the Force, but worry for Isabel made my temper fray even thinner than usual.

He stopped just inside the cemetery. “This is where our spirit sight would normally be at its peak. But something’s blocking it. I intend to find out what—and who is responsible.”

Entirely too late, I saw the rows of black-robed figures standing between the graves. It looked like I’d wandered into a secret cult meeting, and I very nearly turned on my heel and hightailed it out of there. Even Vance didn’t look nearly as intimidating as usual, though his hands twitched at his sides like he wanted to grab a weapon.

“So you think there’s a traitor,” he said to the necromancer. “We saw the undead right here.”

Presumably he hadn’t brought up the trespassing, then. I scanned the graves, seeing nobody but the necromancers. The image of that half-faerie laughing at me made my hands clench into fists. I wasn’t scared of ghosts. Not even the faerie variety.

“And what exactly were you doing here?” The necromancer’s eyes narrowed. “Spying on us?”

“You promised us an audience.”

“After our summit,” he said.

“And do you sense anything weird here?” I asked, unable to help myself. After all, being able to sense the spirit world was the very definition of a necromancer.

“No. As I said: our vision is clouded.”

Several necromancers brought candles out to place at intervals on a blank stretch of grass in front of the graves.

“Looks more like a séance than a summit,” I muttered to Vance, who grunted. His eyes were fixed on the growing circle of candles, his hands clenching and unclenching. My skin crawled as the candles lit simultaneously of their own accord, the necromancers standing at a distance. All of them had their hoods up. It was like a Death Eater conference. I bit down on the wild giggle rising in my throat.

Only the lead necromancer kept his hood up, his greying hair straggling to shoulder length. With his hunched, unimpressive countenance, he made this scenario considerably less creepy.

The candle flames turned blue then white, and he stepped into the circle. Immediately, he vanished. I blinked, and white flames sprang up, masking the circle.
Okay…

“Hope that was meant to happen,” I said.

White light flared around the circle. The necromancer flickered in and out of view, like he was a ghost himself.

“There are spirits stuck in limbo. Two of them.”

Huh?
The half-faerie, maybe? I readied my hand on my weapon, not that it’d do any good against a ghost.

The flames within the circle went see-through but still flickered, like a tinted window. And rather than the necromancer, two smaller faces appeared in the circle.

Two. Not faerie. Human. Oddly familiar.

Vance hissed between his teeth. I stole a glance at him and saw his pupils enlarged, and his clenched hands blackened around the edges. Like he was shifting.

Like he knew who the people—children—in the circle were.

And then the familiarity slid into me as surely as the keen edge of a knife.

That was Swanson’s son. And the other must be the necromancers’ missing daughter.

Oh, my god.

“She said they weren’t in this realm,” I croaked. “The Lady of the Tree… she knew. She never meant they were in Faerie at all.”

No. They hadn’t been kidnapped. They were over the veil—in Death.

I couldn’t do any more than stare in horror. In
Death.

The necromancer spoke from the circle. “They aren’t dead. Someone has taken them.”

I sucked in a breath.
They can’t be dead.
Taking someone over the veil wasn’t the same as killing them. Not if they were part necromancer and could take their physical bodies over to the other side in a way no other humans could. But new necromancers usually went through intensive training before they were allowed to cross over. Based on what I’d observed, tearing your physical body loose from the mortal plane was more damaging than crossing into Faerie.

And someone had done it to those kids.

“They wanted children for a reason,” I whispered.

“Only a necromancer could have,” said Vance. “That explains why we couldn’t find them in this realm.” He looked directly at the necromancer’s flickering form. “Find the culprits. They’ll be amongst your own people.”

Yes. They would. But why—and
how?
I’d thought the faeries’ master plan was to open a gateway from their realm into our world. Not
Death.
Faeries couldn’t die.

The Lady of the Tree’s harsh voice echoed in my ears:
My life is limited in this mortal plane.

The necromancer reappeared, dimly. “The fools. Whoever did this could have permanently upset the balance of the realms. There’s a reason we don’t let just anyone cross over the veil. Especially here.”

“Because magic’s stronger here,” I said slowly. “The veil’s thinner. It opened before…”

In the invasion. The veil opened along with the doorway to Faerie.

Could that be the link?
How?
Faerie was a whole other plane than the afterlife. But opening the door to either realm required a tremendous amount of energy concentrated in one place. I’d never found out how they opened a way through the first time. Nor how I’d got back. Those memories were a blur—even now I wished I remembered.

The afterlife, mortal and faerie realms overlapped. I knew that. Death and Faerie seemed polar opposites. Faeries couldn’t die. But they
could
be exiled to a place beyond Faerie, beyond life itself. Beyond Death? Maybe.

Maybe I was on the wrong track. Coming up with wild theories nobody would believe. But…
could
necromancers cross into
that
place, as well as Death? It was the one link I could see, aside from the appearance of the half-faerie ghost.

Angry swearing sounded from the circle. The necromancer reappeared, and his expression showed alarm and anger twisted together before a grey light streamed out from the circle.

Three undead walked out from behind the nearest grave, surrounded by faint blue smoke. Immediately, several necromancers ran, breaking the circle, but more undead appeared, blocking their paths. Like they’d been hiding here the whole time.

Faerie glamour.

I cursed, running at the nearest and swinging my blade at one of them. Its wrists flew wide, severed, but the bastard kept stumbling at me until I severed the top of its skull. Very luckily, what was left of the brain had long gone, but the stench made me gag.

Vance sent pieces of the other two undead flying with a single, deadly swipe of his sword. I’d have called him a show off, but another attacked me. So many necromancers were here, the undead were more than outnumbered.
It’s a distraction.
And the necromancers had fallen for the ruse, running around like frightened kittens. Their absolute lack of control surprised me. With their leader struggling within the circle, nobody seemed to know what to do. Salt flew everywhere, but even that wasn’t enough to put down all the undead at once.

I made for the circle. The head necromancer was still somewhere inside—

Vance appeared in front of me, his hands blackened with newly forming scales. He struck an undead so hard he sent it flying halfway across the cemetery, splayed across the top of a grave. His lips twisted in a snarl as he turned to me. His eyes were glazed, like he looked at something far away.

“Real scary,” I said, heart thumping. Actually, yeah, he was pretty fucking scary. Black scales continued to spread up his arms, but his hands remained at his sides, his eyes wide and staring.

“Vance?” I asked uncertainly.

I gasped as a grey film covered my vision. Suddenly, the cemetery around me became muted, covered in what looked like a filter. Shapes moved underneath, too pale and indistinct to properly make out. Spirits? Even Vance disappeared, as did the graves. Like I wasn’t in this world any longer.

No. Not again.

Like a dam had burst, like the sight of grey flooding the world flipped a switch, the memories came back.

The sky was dark as tar, marked with angry clouds. The roads were equally grey, slapping against my heels as I ran, ran like hell itself pursued me.

Hell caught up at the street’s corner, smoke wrapping around my ankles, tripping me. My knees struck concrete and I screamed, fighting against the bonds that held me.

“Don’t cry, little girl,” whispered a low, melodic voice. “It’ll all be over soon.”

Then the most beautiful man I’d ever seen stepped out of the shadows and smiled at me.

No. I’m not here. This isn’t happening.

Something hard and sharp dug into my arm. I blinked, and the smoky scene faded out, replaced by graves, and a clawed hand wrapped around my arm.

“Hey—what?” I gawped at Vance. He’d actually drawn blood when he’d grabbed me, but his wide eyes still didn’t seem to see me. His face was pale, his pupils still dilated. “Vance, quit that.” I tugged at his hand, which slowly loosened as he appeared to become aware of his surroundings. Had he seen into the past, too?

“Ivy.” He looked down at his hand, horror flashing across his face. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Er.
Yes.
But a shout from behind made us both spin around.

The head necromancer stood over two prone bodies in the circle, while other necromancers surrounded them. Hoods fell back, revealing frightened faces. Maybe Vance and I weren’t the only ones the spirit world had tricked.

“Who are they?” Vance’s authoritative voice returned as he strode forward. “The traitors?”

“Cowards,” spat the head necromancer, indicating the two apparently unconscious men at his feet. “They always feared death.”

Necromancers afraid of dying? How the hell did that make sense? Then again, I supposed you didn’t choose whether you were born with the spirit sight or not. Didn’t mean I felt sorry for them. I was still reeling from what I’d seen.

“Leave them to me,” said Vance.

“They’re my people,” said the necromancer. Smoke swirled around him and for a second, I thought he might actually attack the Mage Lord.

Then he collapsed.

Other necromancers swept forward. “He’s exhausted his powers,” someone shouted. “Can we have help over here?”

“Not from us,” I muttered. “Vance—”

The Mage Lord shoved two necromancers aside to drag the body of one of the fallen traitors out of the circle. “I’ll deal with these two.”

His overly calm tone made shivers run down my back. No trace remained of the fear in his eyes as he’d relived god-knew-what the veil had shown him.

What had he seen? Something worse than I had? Whatever scared Vance Colton was an adversary I didn’t want to meet.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Vance must have had backup waiting around a corner, because he had only to bark an order into his phone and a black car pulled up. He threw the prisoners bodily into the back and climbed in after them, leaving me to ride shotgun.

Unfortunately, the driver was none other than Ralph, Vance’s faerie guard. He gave me a glare as he started the car. “You’re still here?”

I was far from in the mood for arguing. “Yes.”

He grunted. “Thought the Mage Lord would have kicked you out by now.” He spoke in a low voice. In the mirror, Vance appeared to be watching both prisoners. His eyes were narrowed to slits, and a hint of black remained on his hands.

“It’s my case we’re solving.”

“Thought you were looking for missing kids, not necromancers.”

“It’s none of your business, faerie.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Don’t call me that.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” My anger began to simmer again. “Your people are trying to do something dangerous. They’re working with necromancers.”

“They aren’t
my
people,” he said. “Besides, that’s total bollocks. All the half-faeries hate the necromancers. They’re the reason nobody can get back to Faerie.”

I stared, my rage fading slightly. “Because the necromancers closed the way back.” Just like they had the veil…

The faerie and mortal worlds overlapped with the veil right here. On the Ley Line.

“Everyone knows that. Which planet have you been on, hedge witch?”

“That’s enough.” Vance’s voice was low, dangerous. “It might have escaped your attention that there are two dangerous criminals here.”

“She accused me of working with the faeries.”

“I’m not interested,” said Vance. “Save your squabbling for later.”

“We’re not children.”