Remnants of Magic (6 page)

All up until a high-pitched whistle sliced over the racket from the game.

It was one of those annoying sounds that echoed in the brain and not just the ears. Malcolm winced, trying to ignore it as he mashed the buttons at a rapid-fire rate. “What is that? Car alarm?”

“What’s what?” Bryce twisted his controller as if that could make his guy dodge for cover faster. “Got me in the leg, you creep!”

“You don’t hear that? For real?” Malcolm paused the game. Even hunching his shoulders against the constant peal couldn’t stop the sound from jangling his nerves. “That whistle?”

Bryce listened and then shook his head. “I don’t hear anything. It’s probably nothing. Come on.” He unpaused the game. A fresh explosion of noise covered most of the magic, but not the whistle.

Malcolm hardly noticed when he dropped the controller. The first sparks of panic prickled all though him as he jumped up and yanked the power cord out of the wall, shutting up the telly. “Is that Kieran? Where is he?”

“Hey! I was winning!” Bryce scowled.

Malcolm turned in a circle, tilting his head this way and that, studying the magic around him. Through the walls and floor Malcolm saw glowing silhouettes, like seeing heat signatures, only his senses were geared to magic. Like the flames that flickered around Bryce constantly, though no one else saw that. Or the healing sparkles that twinkled around Dawn in the flat across from them. On the floors below them, the fey mingled in a sea of rainbow hues. Trip’s darkness floated around her like scarves on the wind as she danced in the club with a group of elves. “He’s not in the club.” Malcolm twisted around. “Where’s that sound coming from?” He blinked as the sudden silence startled him. “It just stopped. Only…” The whistle had been wrong. Desperate, like panic. “Where’s Donovan? He’s not in the club either. Is Kieran with him?”

“Who cares?” Bryce reached to plug the telly back in, but Malcolm stepped on the cord. “Will you move your bloody foot?” He swatted at Malcolm’s leg.

“No! Just wait.” Malcolm listened harder, but couldn’t hear anything of Kieran over the clatter filtering up from the fey in the Glamour Club. Even scrunching his eyes closed tight and gripping the sides of his head, Malcolm couldn’t sift through the racket. Sometimes it was all too much; never-ending chaos that blared and flashed and buffeted against him. A minute ago, he’d been able to ignore it. Now it was everywhere around him and inside him and pick-pick-picking at him. And right now, reaching for the itty, bittiest thread through all the masses of magic crowding and pounding into his mind made him want to scream.

Instead, he ran from it. Malcolm raced from Bryce’s flat and up the flight of steps to the roof. A little further from the magic roiling up from the fey in the club. Bryce chased him though, with his ever-present crackle of flame and campfire scent. Malcolm spun in a full circle, actively listening, but hearing nothing of Kieran’s sound magic. Which was wicked bad. Kieran was one noisy chap, constantly buzzing or humming or whirring or something else loud and usually obnoxious. Only now…

Nothing.

Heart pounding, panic mounting, Malcolm shook his head. “Kie’s in trouble. I know it. Where’s Donovan?”

“How would I know?” Exasperated and impatient and totally not getting it. “Malcolm, forget it. You’re freaking out over nothing.”

Everybody always thought it was nothing. Like Malcolm was some kind of nutter. “It’s not nothing!” Malcolm snatched Bryce by the front of his shirt and jerked him close. “Call Donovan!”

Chapter Two

“Must have been a werewolf, don’t you think, to do this much damage to a body?” The wood elf crouched by the remains of his brethren, poking at the almost indistinguishable carrion with the end of a stick. Even without using Glamour he could have passed easily enough for a human with the tweed driving cap and untrimmed hair covering his ears. He and his companions dressed in worn denim and thin flannel shirts to blend in with the rural human community surrounding their tribe’s territory. “Or wizards, maybe?”

Donovan glanced at the ground around the corpse, noting the lack of disturbance in the field. “The wolf-kin wouldn’t have left any remains. Nor would a wizard.” Both were greedy for fey, too greedy to leave anything behind. He crouched down and placed his hand upon the earth, his element. “How many went missing?”

“Two others this week.” The wood elf crossed his arms over his stomach, with a stoic set to his features. “We’re grateful for you. Coming out to check on this. We didn’t know who else to notify. I know so many others have come to you in the Glamour Club.”

“We’re handling the requests, one disaster at a time.” By which he meant that
he
was handling them. The training with the earthborns was progressing, but they hadn’t proved themselves ready for missions yet. So the protection of the fey, the long-established role of the Sidhe, fell to him alone.

The very fact that the wood elves, traditionally Seelie in their allegiance, had come to him at all only proved what he’d already suspected. Very few Sidhe of the light court survived the Collapse. That, or they were taking great pains to conceal themselves. He knew of at least one survivor who had yet to make his presence generally known, and the Seelie never did anything without purpose.

Donovan’s awareness passed through the layers of sediment, reaching out in an ever-widening circle. Focused as he was, he ignored the soft chime from the device in his pocket. He felt the tackiness of the blood saturating the ground beneath the corpse. Patiently, his consciousness reached until it found another blood pool seeping into the earth. “In the bushes along the stone wall.”

They left the first body to the wood elf’s companions. Beneath the bushes, where Donovan felt the blood mingling with the soil, they found enough body parts to account for the two other missing elves. Enough to know that they were both most certainly dead.

“Now what?” The elf’s worried eyes searched about, ready for whatever beast made short work of his friends to swoop down and rend them next.

“You tend to your dead. I’ll take care of the problem.” Donovan had his suspicions. As an Elite, tracking came as second nature to him. No fey, or any other creature for that matter, eluded the Elite for long. The missions usually ended with a swift and silent assassination. But if the Unseelie Queen wanted to make a gruesome example of someone, she sent in the Wild Hunt with their dreaded sluagh. The remnants they left behind provided only enough clues to identify the victim.

Rather similar to the ravaged remains of the elves.

Covering ground quickly with his long strides, Donovan crested the hill overlooking the village of Cahir. The humans had extended their settlement since the last time Donovan cast his eyes upon this hamlet, but the church still dominated the lower buildings around it, a likely perch for lurking nightmares.

Donovan hiked the rest of the distance. No point in risking notice by teleporting. Within minutes he reached the walkway just outside the churchyard. Through the ironwork gate, Donovan scanned the building, particularly the steeple. Deep grooves marred the stonework, much like the territorial markings of felines, who clawed trees to warn others of their claim, only these markings gouged far deeper than even the largest of felines could have created.

Now that he knew where they were nesting, he’d not disturb them until he had a plan for dealing with them. Only the darkest of magic could tame the sluagh, and thus far, no Sidhe of the Wild Hunt appeared to have survived the Collapse.

The device in his pocket chimed again. Donovan finally checked it. Both text messages were from Bryce. The first informed him, “Malcolm’s going bonkers again!” The second one said, “He’s bloody mental!”

Donovan pocketed the cell phone. Of the earthborn Sidhe he’d gathered thus far, Malcolm was by and large the most volatile. Part of that stemmed from his nature as a bloodhound and would always present a certain challenge to control. The rest arose from sixteen years of neglect at the hands of his parents, followed by a year of torture, courtesy of a Changeling and his goblin thugs.

Donovan spared only a moment to duck out of view before teleporting back to the club, arriving to the side of the door cleared for teleportation. In contrast to the quiet of the wind and birds in the countryside, the sensations of the Glamour Club pummeled Donovan the moment he appeared just inside the entrance. Even with the benefit of modern ventilation and temperature regulation, the pack of fey brimming in the club’s wide expanse filled the space with the not-unpleasant scents of warm bodies and greenery. The fairy lights pulsed with the rhythm of the rock music coming from the live band. The percussion thundered like dwarven war drums, rallying their stout hearts into battle, though in these changed times on the surface such pounding drove the younger generation to dance as wildly and with as much exertion as any battling army. Although it was loud, and hot, and wholly different from the Mounds and the Unseelie Court, these sensations were becoming the hallmarks of ‘home’ for Donovan and the other fey taking refuge in this surrogate for their lost realm.

Already the club had become more than a haven for the Sidhe, nearly outgrowing the space he once imagined to be ample. An entire community had sprung up around them. He’d acquired the adjacent buildings, which now teemed with housing and business concerns of the lesser fey that flocked to dwell near the remnants of the Sidhe. Although the night club portion of the Glamour Club operated at all hours, rarely was the place less than three quarters of full capacity. Even still, the bloodhound knew the moment Donovan arrived. Malcolm rushed to meet him in the middle of the busy club, looking all the more frantic with his ripped jeans and uncombed hair. At least he’d not drawn his ever-present long knife on anyone this time. That was a start. Keeping his voice level, Donovan asked him, “What’s the problem?”

Breathlessly, Malcolm demanded, “Is Kieran with you?”

That wasn’t a question he’d anticipated. “No.”

“I knew it! Oh crap! Crap! I can’t hear him. I can always hear him, but I can’t hear him. Then there was this sound, this alarm. It had to be him, right? It had to be. I think it was Kie. I mean, who else could it have been, right? Only I can’t hear it now. He’s in trouble. I know it. I know it. They got him and I can’t hear him because they put silver on him and now they’re doing hateful things to him and I can’t even find him on accounta I can’t hear him. Crap! He made that alarm to get my attention and now it’s gone and I’ve got nothing. Nothing! He’s gone, Donovan! We have to find him! Oh, crap! They got him! I know they got him! I knew it, you know! I knew they’d come back! I knew they’d come after us! Now they got Kie! Crap! Crap!” The panic was taking him over. Malcolm couldn’t hold still, pacing and gesturing with so much adrenaline pumping through him that he trembled.

Donovan caught Malcolm by the shoulders, turned him around, and forced the lad to face him. “Calm down. We’ll find him. What exactly did you hear?”

His hands jittered beside his ears. “Like a really high-pitched whistle. Like panic. All kinds of panic. High-pitched. Loud. Not close, though. Far. Not too far. But not close, you know?”

Teasing out information from the Malcolm-speak, Donovan gathered the meat of what he struggled to convey. “You can’t hear him at all now?”

Running his fingers compulsively through his hair over his slightly-pointed Sidhe ears, Malcolm’s head shook side to side with vehemence. “No. Nothing. Not here, anyway. Too loud. Maybe not here, though, you know? Maybe if we got away from the club. Out a ways. Where I can hear. Too much noise here.” The harder the boy fought to keep himself still, the more violently he shook. It wasn’t hard to imagine why, if he thought the ones who’d enslaved him had returned and abducted his friend. The manic flood of words was actually progress. Sometimes he couldn’t speak at all.

Donovan squeezed his shoulders harder. “Malcolm, look at me.”

Those dark eyes of his, pupils wide and unfocused with his anxiety, lifted to meet Donovan’s. With conviction, Donovan assured him, “We’ll find Kieran. Breathe.”

Blinking, Malcolm’s eyes focused in on Donovan’s. His body slowed its tremble. The boy drew in a deep breath and blew it out.

“Has anyone tried to call Kieran?” Donovan glanced to Bryce, who hung back a few steps, listening.

“He’s not picking up.”

Even as Bryce spoke, Donovan saw a change wash over Malcolm. The lad stilled utterly. Only his lips parted with a soft intake of breath. Shock, or maybe surprise.

He wasn’t looking at Donovan any more, but past him. The lad’s pupils dilated again. The serenity of shock morphed into a snarl of fury. In the next second, Malcolm jerked the knife from his thigh sheath and launched himself with deadly purpose.

Just like that, the fury overtook Malcolm. No warning. No hesitation.

Malcolm barely lunged a foot before Donovan’s hand snapped out and slammed into his sternum. He caught the lad from mid-air and brought him back down to his feet. The flat of Donovan’s hand barricaded Malcolm from attacking. Something must have set him off. The older Sidhe cast a glance over his shoulder toward the door.

Kieran had teleported into the club, shirtless, and bleeding from puncture wounds on his chest. But it hadn’t been his friend that ignited Malcolm’s rage. A woman peered around Kieran, half hidden behind him.