I find a little mini-laboratory amid the stacks, covered with petri-like-dishes and stoppered bottles and jars. “Christian!” I call again as I study the contents visible through thick wavy glass.
I get a reply this time but it’s so far away I can’t make it out.
“Dude, unless you’re finding something, this is a total waste of time! I’d rather be back in Dublin, investigating.”
“Hang on, lass,” comes his far-away reply. “I think I’m onto something.”
One of the stoppered bottles has a dab of crimson at the bottom. I pick it up and turn it in my hand, watching the crimson liquid ripple. Rainbow colors skitter across the surface in kaleidoscopic designs. It’s so beautiful I almost can’t take my eyes off it. I turn the bottle upside down and study the label on the bottom. No clue what the glyphlike symbols mean. As I turn the bottle back upright, I must have nudged the stopper a little because I get a whiff of the scent of its contents and it’s like sticking your nose right up into heaven. It’s night jasmine and fresh-baked bread, homemade fish and chips and salt air, it’s the smell of my mom’s neck, fresh-washed pjs, and sunshine on Dancer’s skin. It’s the scent of all my favorite things rolled up into one. I swear my hair lifts on the breeze of it. I groan and pull out a candy bar, abruptly ravenous.
There’s curiosity and there’s cats.
You’d think I’d learn.
I unplug the bottle while I chew.
THIRTY
In the court of the crimson king hag
“What the hell is that smell?” Christian says.
“Fecking awesome, isn’t it?” I say dreamily. Crimson smoke swirls in the glass bottle, poking tentative tendrils at the rim. The amazing aroma fills the library, making me giddy. I want to stretch out, fold my arms behind my head, be lazy and bask in the fragrance. I want to share it with Dancer. I’ve never smelled anything so scrumptious.
“Bloody fucking noxious,” he says from much nearer than he’s been in a while.
“How can you say that?”
“Because it is.”
Crimson strands puff from the bottle and swirl above it. After a moment they begin to dart toward each other, circle around and dart back, slender red strands knitting themselves into a smoky shape.
“Dude, it smells like heaven! There’s something wrong with your nose. Maybe you only like Unseelie smells now.” I can’t wait to see what awesome thing comes out of this!
“It smells,” he says from directly above me, “like rotting intestines. What did you open? A book?” He drops down beside me, carrying a stack of books beneath his arm. I’m glad to see he found something. “A bottle? Christ, lass, you can’t be randomly unplugging bottles in this place! Give me that. Let’s see what you’ve done.”
The hint of a face is forming in the crimson smoke; delicate, pointy chin, enormous eyes slanted up at the corners. I try to turn my head to look at Christian but my head isn’t taking orders. It’s stuck, still staring at the materializing face. I can’t force myself to look away no matter how hard I try. It’s got me mesmerized. I’ve never seen a face so beautiful, smelled a smell so good. I want to stand in the middle of it and breathe it deep into my lungs.
When he plucks the bottle from my hand, the spell is broken. When he turns it on its side to read the label on the bottom, a cloud of crimson smoke gushes out, obscuring the passageway between the shelves. Tendrils lick at me, rough as tiny cat tongues.
Suddenly, everything changes.
Now that I’m no longer holding the bottle, I can smell what he smelled. Saliva floods my mouth, my stomach heaves, and I just about puke the candy bars I just ate. The face in the smoke isn’t so beautiful anymore. It’s morphing into something monstrous before my eyes. Long fangs slide from thin lips, bloody hair writhes like snakes. “Dude, what the feck did I open?” I say, aghast.
The bottle clatters to the floor.
My blood goes cold when Christian utters a single word.
“RUN.”
There are a few absolute no-brainer rules in my world. Real close to the top of this list is: if an Unseelie prince runs from it, I’m going to run from it, too. I’m not even going to ask any questions. I’m just going to vamoose with all my might.
Still … I can’t help but try to steal a peek over my shoulder. I’m the one that let it out. I have to know what it is so I can hunt it down and kill it.
“DON’T LOOK BACK!” Christian roars.
I cradle my head with my arms, trying to hold my skull together until the instant headache subsides. “Stop yelling at me and sift us, dude!” I’m freeze-framing, trying to keep up with him, but I don’t know these halls. They’re a maze that isn’t on any of my maps. I have to keep dropping down, lock my grid into place and kick back up again. The stench of rotting meat behind me is getting stronger. The skin on the back of my neck is crawling. I keep waiting for whatever is chasing us to close icy talons on my nape, rip my head off my shoulders, and kill me. All those scary movies I watched with Dancer aren’t making me laugh now. They’re filling my head with a million gruesome deaths, each more horrible than the last. It’d help if I knew what was chasing us. The unknown is always scarier than the known. I got a Mega-sized imagination, and it can do a real number on me.
“Sifting doesn’t work inside the White Mansion. Take my hand. I know these halls.”
I grab his hand, ignoring the groaning sound he makes. He laces his fingers with mine and I’m blasted by a wave of horniness. “Mute it, Christian. This ain’t the time to go death-by-sex Fae on me.”
“Sorry, lass. It’s just that it’s your hand and there’s danger, and danger always—”
“Off it now!”
I can breathe again. Not that I want to. The stench is suffocating and closing in on us fast.
“What’s chasing us?”
“Loosely translated, the Crimson Hag.”
“How does it kill?”
“Hope you never find out.”
“Could it kill even you, an Unseelie prince?”
“She prefers us alive. She once held two princes captive for nearly a hundred thousand years before the king stopped her. Among other foul things, she tried to breed with us. I had no idea he’d stored her in his library. Everybody figured he’d destroyed the bitch.”