Some Enchanted Dream: A Time Travel Adventure (Seasons of Enchantment Book 2) (28 page)

"Possibly." Mick's tone was cautious. "What happened? Did he recognize you?"

"I think so." Tara's heart sank at the realization. Yes, she had stumbled into the lair of the dark ones, and at the time, had no idea of her mistake. She'd been confused and terrified. "When our eyes met, it was as if he almost wanted to hiss at me. It was creepy. He left the counter and went to the back of the room to converse with another man. Both of them watched me move to the table and sit down. When I looked back again, I saw the two of them watching me, and I just knew instinctively I had to get out of there. I ran."

"And this," Riley took the bottle from her, "this is the label you saw there?"

She rolled her lips, uncertain. "I believe so. I'm not positive. But if they're still there handing out samples, then we can just go back, can't we?"

Mick shook his head. "You felt uncomfortable in their lair. You must have crossed a boundary, like the ones we set up to keep them from our lodgings. The dark spell would evoke panic in a young, unsuspecting fey."

At Mick's words about the sigils he had drawn about the building, Tara glanced at Adrian. He remained solemn, thoughtful. He was listening, and taking it in.

"We can't go in there. They will recognize us as they did you," Riley explained.

"I could," Adrian said boldly. "And so could Dan. We could go and investigate the booth, get a sample and bring it back to you."

It made sense. Tara looked at Mick, as all eyes waited for his approval of the plan.

Mick didn't comment. "We must be cautious. We need to find out how many there are here in Paris. If they discover our whereabouts, they may try to launch an attack. We are but three of the Fey race."

"There must be others here," Tara suggested. "Couldn't we call upon them for aid?"

Mick sighed deeply. His arms were crossed akimbo over his chest. He had the stern look of a military commander now. He raised a finger to his lips, as if that helped his thinking process. "No, I don't believe there are others like us in Paris. If there were, why would Artemisia keep calling out to us for aid? She's trapped, locked in the estate garden by some kind of potent magic, likely dark magic. And if other fey were here then there would be no need for her to seek us out in our dreams for aid. She would have had others come to her assistance."

"What should we do? Should we try to free her?" Riley asked. "I can find out why she is bound to the estate, if that would help."

"Sure now," Mick grinned. "Off with you, go visit herself, the Green Lady, but mind me, tarry not long. You've a patient who needs your tender care. And mind you don't tell her what we are about. Play it dumb, brother, until we know what direction of the wind is filling her sails."

Adrian had risen from his seat. His face was grave with concern. He glanced at Tara, and her heart grew tight with pain. She went to his side instinctively. His arms wrapped about her, he pulled her to him with desperation.

She wrapped an arm about him and walked him toward the door. Once there, she opened it and led him across the hall to their apartment. He needed a moment to adjust, and so did she.

It was the end of the world. The world they both knew.

"Tara . . ."  His voice was tight, as if it were a struggle to speak, to form words. "I want you to know . . . regardless of what comes, regardless of what happens to either of us in this horrible mess, I love you. I will always love you."

"Even if I can't give you a child?"

It was an irreverent question, a trivial question given the news that mankind was being threatened by a dark force. But it was one she needed an answer to. "Even if it is to be only you and I for the rest of our days together?"

He looked at her carefully, a little shocked by her inquiry. His eyes moved about the room, and then he paused at the table where their dishes from breakfast remained clustered about. "It seems ages ago when we were told this disheartening news." He studied her face. He was silent for a moment and then his eyes seemed to flood with pain. "As long as I have you . . . as long as
we
are together, I will be content. I love you. Always and forever."

Tara hugged him fiercely. She wanted to shed tears for a hope that was now diminished, the hope of having his child. She couldn't cry just now. She felt hollow inside, a detached sensation of having slipped into a situation too frightening, too overwhelming to be real.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dan awakened with a raging headache. It felt as if someone nailed a spike through his head. He sat up, and nearly puked as the room spun about him.

"Easy, good fellow." Riley, the fey doctor, was at his bedside. "You've a slight concussion. I suggest bed rest for the day."

"Do you now?" Dan's voice sounded foreign in his ears. "I just might take you up on that." He gazed around at his room, surprised by the changes in it since last night. Someone had gone to the trouble to deck it out in style, Victorian style. Not a detail was overlooked in the effort.

The bed was new, larger than the single cot he'd been tossing on for over two weeks running in an imitation of sleep. This was a comfortable bed, with a thick mattress. A padded chair was to his left, a big, heavy chair that looked the perfect place to read the paper. And there was a marble topped table, with an elegant frosted glass globe oil lamp on it instead of the lone candlestick on an upended crate he'd become accustomed to.  Paintings adorned the walls. He stared up at a  hunting scene on the wall opposite his bed. Sleek horses and their well dressed riders were stomping through the woods in English fashion. Green velvet curtains hung over his bed. As no window graced the interior room, the paintings lightened the mood considerably.

"What gives, where did all this fancy stuff come from?" He looked up at the doctor.

"His lordship asked Mick to add some elegance to the place, for Tara's comfort, of course. So, Mick conjured some furnishings from the mists."

"For Tara's comfort, right then," Dan repeated. "Tell Old Mickey G. I'm grateful he saw fit to sprinkle some fairy dust in here, too, will you?"

Riley nodded, and made his exit. He left the door open. Dan sat up, groaned, and leaned left so he could get a better view of the main room, and the couple hugging and clinging to each other so desperately there.

"Hey, what's the matter," Dan yelled to them. "Did somebody die?  Did Arthur die?"

He was out of the bed in seconds. The ground shifted a little beneath his feet, but he managed to make it out into the living area, to the couple embracing as if they were on the Titanic and it was about to go down in the night.

"No, he's fine." Tara let go of Adrian as she turned to reassure him that his friend was holding his own.

"What's going on? Something terrible, by the look of you two."

*  *  *  * 

Riley left Dan. The big man would be alright. He was resilient. He wished he could say the same for his patient, Arthur. He went into their apartment and grabbed a bottle of milk from the cupboard where Mick left it. He took a knife and cut his hand, the soft fleshy part at the heel of his palm. Fisting his hand, he let several drops of blood fall into the milk, and then swirled it to mix the red into the white so it was not detectable.

"Are you going to see her?" Mick was watching him with curiosity. "Or shall I?"

"I'll do it . . . if you would watch our patient?"

Mick nodded.

"Try to make him drink this. A few sips, about half a cup, every hour. It will strengthen him."

"Aye," Mick took the bottle from him with a sneer, as if he'd just been asked to feed and burp a human infant.  "You do realize the responsibility you'll have for him for the next fifty years or so? Are you willing to make that sacrifice?"

"I am," Riley said.

In order to restore Arthur to full health so he could take his place in the world as a champion of mankind, they needed to feed him a small dose of fey blood. That would reverse the damage done both physically and mentally.

Once a human drank such a powerful elixir, he was bound to his fey benefactor, and the fey offering the blood was also bound to his protégé for the remainder of that one's life.

Mick gave Lord Dillon his blood when the man was just an infant to ensure his survival. They were bonded together in spirit as a result. Mick stayed close to Adrian all of his life to watch over him and protect him. He played with him as a child, assuming a childish appearance at times to blend in. Mick could leave Dillon for short periods if he wished, but he knew from past experience that the separation often caused anxiety and deep melancholy in the human, and  it was uncomfortable to the fey as well. They were bonded, for life.

"You'll be movin' to England's shores, dear brother. To be near your human."

"One day, perhaps. Not
today
." Riley left the apartment, secure in the knowledge that Mick would see to his patient in his absence. He went up the stairs to the patio on the roof, and once there, he sat down and closed his eyes, willing himself to go to Artemisia's court.

It was daytime. She would be alone. Once her admirers partook of her hypnotic communion during the Green Hour, her court would be packed with mortals seeking her aid.

His spirit moved through the city, past the busy boulevards to the rural area on the edge of Paris. He dropped down past the stone gates in the front drive of an estate that had been left vacant for many years, by the look of it. He swiftly moved along the brick wall of the house to the back yard, and the garden where Artemisia was waiting.

It was mid-afternoon. He had three hours until the famous Green Hour. Three hours to learn what he could regarding her involvement with the dark ones and how to stop them.

"Riley, you've returned to me," she exclaimed, clapping her hands with pleasure. Her ethereal voice floated on the breeze and caressed his spirit form.

"I need answers, my lady. My brother says we cannot help you unless you tell us everything you know of the dark ones."

*  *  *  * 

Tara left Dan and Adrian in the kitchen. She remembered the shattered remains of the bottle Riley had asked her to keep safe for him when they first arrived. At the time, she had no idea why he wished her to keep the item.  Now it made sense.

The wild eyed drunk they met when they arrived, the one ready to choke her to death over a bottle of Absinthe might be a clue. He had been deranged, made mad by drink and cared for nothing but his precious bottle--given to him, so he said, by the enchanted ones. Since Mick and Riley believed there were no fey in Paris, save the dark ones and Artemisia, it seemed logical that the bottle the old vagrant had been willing to kill her over might be a key to this mystery regarding the tainted spirits.

Tara rummaged through her dresser drawer in search of the jagged glass label wrapped in Riley's handkerchief.  It was safe, beneath her spare pantalets. She unwrapped it and studied the label. 
Lune Nuit Absinthe
. Black Moon Absinthe.

She sat on the bed, stunned by the events of the day. So much had happened since she awakened in Adrian's arms and they made love before leaving their cozy silk cocoon, as he had dubbed it. How she wished she could just lie here now in his arms and forget the horrors beyond their bedroom door.

Tara curled her fingers around the sharp edged label, and stared at her reflection in the long oval mirror across from the bed.

A child
, Mick claimed. He'd called her a toddler, and then amended his criticism to adolescent girl. The insult didn't bother her as much now, not when she considered Mick and Riley had been using their fey gifts for more than a millennium. Tara discovered her fey lineage mere months ago. She was like a baby to them, just learning to walk when they had been striding forward at a brisk run for centuries.

The most natural thing in the world would be to run.

To pack up Adrian and Dan, and escape to another time.

It would also be the coward's way out.

If mankind were threatened with enslavement by the dark fey, she really couldn't justify running away to save herself and her family. She might not be able to provide much aid in a fight, but she had to try to help vanquish their enemies.

The idea was horrifying. It was like something out of a science fiction movie, only instead of zombies or aliens taking over the world, it was the dark fey. The end of the world . . . well the end of man's freedom, at least. The world would go on, but it would be a different world, plagued by malicious and cruel beings. Ruled by evil.

The door opened. Adrian stood with his hand on the knob, studying her before he asked the question she knew would come. "Are you alright, my sweet?"

Her fist tightened around the jagged glass label. "No. Are you?"

He shook his head. "I just explained what we knew to Dan. I believe he thinks I'm mad."

"Can't blame him. We're all mad here," Tara sighed. Mad to think they could stop this wicked plot they stumbled into. She stood with purpose and exited the room.

Adrian followed her across the living room. "What is it you have in your hand?"

"Come, I'll show you." She crossed the hall to her brother's one room apartment. Adrian and Dan followed her.

Mick looked up from his task of pouring milk between Arthur's lips. He put the cup aside at their entry and stood up from the bed. "Tara? You have a look about you of one on a mission."

Tara smashed her lips together, and refrained from commenting. Instead, she waved him over to the table to the bottle Riley suspected contained the poisoned Absinthe. The men gathered around her as she unwrapped the label from its snowy white sheath. Beads of blood welled on her fingers from handling the jagged edges carelessly before. Still, she put the label down on the table in front of the bottle. The labels were exactly the same.

"That's the bottle from that queer old drunk in the woods," Dan noted.

"And Arthur's bottle is the same brand," Adrian stated the obvious.