Bitch. I ought to wreck this car when I was done with it.
I stuck the key in the ignition and imagined a heavy blanket covering the car, muffling the outside world. “Quiet, now,” I mumbled, and turned the key. Soft as a whisper, the engine came to life. With another quick glance at the house to make sure they hadn’t heard the car start, I pulled away from the curb.
This is ten different kinds of illegal.
I stuffed a muffin in my mouth to give me some courage.
Once I was away from the house, I flicked on the headlights and headed toward the school. Delia had left one of her own albums in the CD player, so I hit buttons and whirled knobs until I found a rock station. I needed the pounding bass and growling guitar to give me courage. Cramming another muffin in my mouth, I started to focus a little better; I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. What I needed to do was prioritize. If you took out the supernatural homicide bits, this was just a problem like any other I’d faced: a super-hard school project, a tune that refused to be tamed, a musical technique that twisted my fingers. I’d tackled all those before by breaking them down into little bits.
Okay. So I knew I had to confront the Queen. What did I know about her? Nothing—except that she was both like me and like a faerie from living among them for so long. So I could pretty much abandon any idea of appealing to her emotions. Maybe I could appeal to her human nature, if she had any left. Hell if I knew how to do that. I jammed another muffin into my mouth.
As I pulled into the short access road that led to the empty high school parking lot, I saw a fire twisting high and wild at the base of one of the streetlights. In the flickering orange light, a massive black animal bellowed and charged as tall, whip-like men with horns tormented it, tossing glowing hot embers at its sides and face with their bare hands. I could almost feel the thinness of the veil between my world and Faerie—in my head, I could imagine it crackling, paper-thin and fragile.
I slowed the car. The whole stupid thing was right in front of me; I was going to have to get out and do something about it in order to get to the high school. I addressed a silent prayer to the skies: I’m an idiot. Please don’t let me die for the sake of a black cow-thing.
I jumped. A glowing ember had smacked the windshield of my car, burning a black spot on the hood before sliding out of sight. I almost swore again, before remembering it was Delia’s car. Outside, the whip men laughed before turning back to their torture; they thought they were playing a prank on someone who couldn’t see them.
I grabbed the jar from the passenger seat, opened the door and got out to face them. I’m brave. I remembered an episode that happened when I was thirteen or so, when I found one of the neighborhood boys piling dirt on an injured bird and watching it struggle beneath the dust. I had just stood for a long moment, trying to think what to say to stop him, frustrated by my shyness and by the boy’s cruelty. Then James had appeared at my shoulder and said to the boy, “Do you think that’s the best way to be spending your admittedly miserable life?”
I took strength from the memory and adopted my Ice Queen posture. My voice oozed contempt. “Having a nice Solstice?”
The whip men’s heads turned to look at me. Their narrow bodies were black as tar and seemed to absorb the firelight instead of reflecting it. The giant bull, on the other hand, was pale dun beneath the ash that covered his coat, and I saw panic and rage in his liquid eyes.
“The cloverhand,” hissed one. The voice was the same I’d overhead talking to Luke; many voices all rolled into one. “She is the cloverhand.”
“That’s me,” I agreed, still standing next to the car. I was scared snotless, but I stood perfectly straight. “I’d think there’d be better things for you to do, on this night of all nights.”
One of the whip men turned to me, his mouth curving into a smile. With a jolt, I realized he had no eyes beneath his brow—just empty hollows, with smooth skin in the shadows. The others looked at him, also without eyes, as he spoke. “Truth, cloverhand. I can tell the truth when I hear it. Can we do you on this night of all nights?”
“Go to hell.”
After I said it, I thought it might be a bit redundant, since they looked like devils already. But the whip man said, his voice grating in a thousand whispers, “Hell is for those with souls.”
Another, equally tall and with too many joints in his spine, said, “Come to our fire, tell us what you want of us. Make us a trade: the tarbh uisge’s body”—he gestured to the massive dun bull—“for yours?”
I unscrewed the lid of the jar. “I have a better idea. How about, the bull goes free or all your fun stops for the night?”
The whip man who had suggested “doing” me approached; his walk was all wrong, and it sent a shiver through my body. “That does not sound like a truth to me, cloverhand.”
I scooped out a warm handful of the green muck in the jar, trying not to think about just how nasty it felt (exactly like picking up a handful of fresh dog crap), and hurled it onto the faerie.
For a moment there was nothing, and I thought Granna, you let me down. But then he began to sigh. His breath went out and out and out, and then he just fell to the parking lot, still breathing out, until he was empty.
I’d thought I might feel bad, but I just felt intense relief.
I held the jar out toward the others. “Not much left, but probably enough for each of you. Let it go.”
One of them hissed, “I don’t think you want to see the tarbh uisge freed. He will bear you down into the water and your salve will not help you there.”
I looked at the wide eye of the bull as its massive body trembled, lit both by the bonfire and the green-gray light of the streetlight overhead. It didn’t belong here; it was a remnant of another time and another place, and I saw its fear of the present weeping from every pore.
“I’m not afraid.” I took a step forward, forcing myself to step over the body of the one I’d killed, though part of me imagined it grabbing me as I did. “Leave this place.”
With angry buzzing, like distant bees, the whip men backed away, toward the fire, their posture deferential. They backed directly into the fire and their bodies incinerated instantly; I would have thought they’d died if I hadn’t still seen hints of their eyeless faces in the coals and wood of the bonfire.
The bull lowered its head and stamped a hoof at me, its eyes enormous and sentient. Something about it was so ancient and pure that I ached for an intangible past I had never known.
I gave a little bow. “You’re welcome.”
It blew its red-lined nostrils at me and plunged into the night.
My skin prickled. Faerie pressed in around me. I had to go back to the beginning before it was too late.
twenty
The high school doors were locked, but with the moon behind me I wasn’t worried. It only took a moment to mentally click the doors open, and then carefully lock them behind me. Inside, the halls were lit sickly blue-green by the fluorescent lights, and the windows to the classrooms were black squares in the doors lining the walls. The familiar smell of hundreds of students and books and cafeteria food turned my stomach with anxiety. It was as if I’d never left. It took me a long moment to gather my nerve and remind myself just how strong I could be now.
Still, I hesitated in the main hallway, uncertain of where to go. It ends at the beginning, the dancing faerie had said. But where was the beginning? The bathroom where Luke had found me throwing up? The picnic bench out back where we’d flirted?
No, of course not. It had all started when we played onstage and silenced an auditorium full of people. That was the beginning: the first time I’d ever used my powers, though I hadn’t known it then. It was painfully obvious—what James called a “major duh moment.”
My shoes squeaked as I walked down the hallway toward the auditorium. I felt painfully conspicuous. I listened for other footsteps, though I didn’t know if I’d even hear them over my stupid squeaky shoes. I glanced at every dark classroom window to make sure I wouldn’t be ambushed by some strange faerie creature.
But the high school seemed abandoned, chilling in its emptiness. In my head, Luke’s voice said, trust yourself.
The memory of his voice gave me courage, and I squared my shoulders. I’m strong. I pushed open the doors to the auditorium.
The bulk of the auditorium was in darkness. Rows of invisible folding chairs stretched out before me, but the stage was lit as if a production were in progress. Pieces of half-erected set lay in the corners of the stage, remnants or beginnings of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the middle of the clutter, there was a bare circle. And I saw a little dark pile in the middle of it, with a spotlight trained on it.
It could have been a pile of anything, but I knew exactly what it was. I wanted to bolt down the aisle and vault onto the stage, but logic told me it was a trap. Why else would They have put James under a spotlight, if not to encourage me to bolt up there?
So I made my way cautiously down the dark aisle, spinning, surveying every seat, listening for rustling and smelling for thyme. But it seemed empty like the rest of the school. I made it all the way to the stage stairs, up the stage stairs, onto the slick pale wood of the stage; and still I was alone.
Feeling exposed under the bright, hot lights, I crept over to the pile and recognized the color of James’ favorite Audioslave T-shirt. I couldn’t see his face, but after seeing the crash site, I knew I wasn’t going to like what I saw. I swallowed; I wasn’t ready for this. Please be alive.
I crouched, hovering a hand over his shoulder, hesitating. “Please be alive.”
The head turned toward me, and Freckle Freak grinned up at me. “I am.”
I scrambled backward, shoes slipping on the floor, and Aodhan stood up, wearing James’ bloodstained shirt, his torc glinting at the edge of the sleeve, his smile widening at my shock. His nostrils flared as if he were taking in my scent, and he ran his tongue across his lips.
“Where is he?” I snarled, putting more space between the two of us. As repugnant as the thought of Aodhan touching me was, for some reason I was stuck on the idea of him wearing James’ shirt. He’d taken it while James lay bleeding; I just couldn’t stop thinking of that. “What have you done with him?”
“Very little. The car really did most of the work.”
I had nowhere left to back up to; my next step would take me down the stairs, into the darkness. Breathtakingly fast, Aodhan was beside me, his herbal scent so strong it made my head spin. “Soon,” he whispered into my ear, thyme infecting every bit of me, “I’ll be able to touch you.” He spread his fingers out and pushed his palm toward my collarbone. It hovered, millimeters from my skin, so close that I could see every nick and stain on the leather bands around his wrist. Again I saw Luke’s memory of him tormenting the girl, saw the red-stained leather at his wrists.
Do something. Do something. Instinct kicked in. My knee jerked up, missing his family jewels but slamming him in the thigh. I struck at his face, thinking of how nice it would be to smash out a few of his grinning teeth. He took a step back, easily dodging me, and watched with an easy smile, his head cocked charmingly. For all the world, he looked like an extremely evil model who had escaped from the pages of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.
