Footsteps echoed in the tunnel in front of us, and a ball of light slowly formed and expanded near the ceiling. I managed to get Ethan to his feet, but most of his weight was leaning on me, and he was barely conscious, too hurt even to use his healing magic. We weren’t going to get far like this, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.
I got us turned around and took a couple of steps, but I was bracing myself for the sound of another gunshot—because what else could that coughing sound have been?—and for the pain of a bullet slamming into my back. It didn’t happen, but something worse did. The light spell reached its full intensity, illuminating the tunnel for yards in both directions.
Standing in the middle of the tunnel, blocking my retreat and holding a gun big enough to qualify as a cannon, stood my aunt Grace.
Chapter twenty-three
When I’d first met Aunt Grace, she’d reinforced every stereotype I’d ever had of the Fae. Way too beautiful to be human, reserved to the point of coldness, and arrogant as all hell. She was still all of those things, but with a heaping dose of crazy to top it off. Her smile was bright and triumphant as she pointed that damn cannon at my head. The scraggly, half-Fae guy who’d posed as Lachlan stood by her side. I guessed she’d bailed him out, or he’d still have been in jail. He, too, had a gun.
I glanced over my shoulder, even though I knew there was another armed enemy back there. Sure enough, an extremely large, nasty-looking human man was blocking the way. He was built like a football player—one of those fat but powerful lineman types—and made all the more intimidating by his buzz-cut hair and the jagged scar that slashed across his face. His gun was a lot smaller than Grace’s, but its barrel was extended by a silencer.
We were trapped.
Heart beating in my throat, I carefully lowered Ethan to the floor. His breathing was ragged, his face squinched with pain, but at least he was conscious. And the bleeding seemed to have slowed, so maybe if I could miraculously get us out of this, he wasn’t going to die. But he wasn’t going to be much help, either.
I stood up slowly, putting my back against the tunnel wall so I could keep an eye on Grace and her super-sized henchman.
“And so we meet again, my dear niece,” Grace said with a toothy, sharklike smile.
“Oh, joy,” I responded, though I knew I should keep my mouth shut. From the first time I’d laid eyes on her, Grace had inspired me to take whatever verbal digs I could get in, and it seemed she still had that effect on me.
Her smile thinned, and her eyes pierced me, sending a shiver down my spine. “Still haven’t learned to respect your betters, I see.”
I raised my chin and met her stare, trying to project confidence as my mind cast about for any possibility of escape. “That one’s just too easy,” I said. Maybe if I could make her completely lose her temper, she’d give me some kind of opening I could take advantage of. Yeah, that was a pathetically thin hope, but I wasn’t coming up with anything better.
“I’ll have you singing a very different tune by the time I’m through with you,” she said, her good humor restored by whatever she had in mind. “If I’d had any idea what you would do to my life, I’d have killed you when I first met you. It would have been so easy.” She shook her head at herself.
Arawn had told me that she didn’t want to use me against Titania anymore, that she was likely out to kill me. The fact that I was still alive now suggested either that Arawn was wrong, or that she had something worse than a quick death in mind. Dread pooled in my gut, because I didn’t think Arawn was wrong.
“Why?” I asked her, stalling for time. “I’ve never done anything to you. Why are you so hot to kill me? I’m just a kid. Your brother’s kid.” Not that Grace had shown any sign she was attached to my father, although I thought he’d been at least somewhat attached to her.
Grace laughed. “Before you came to Avalon, I was one of the leading candidates for Consul. I was wealthy, and respected, and powerful. Now I am exiled from my home, I have a price on my head throughout Faerie, and the Wild Hunt is on my trail. All. Because. Of. You.”
Yep. She was certifiable. And obviously determined to blame me for all the stupid crap she’d done. “No one forced you to kidnap me in the first place. If you’d just kept on living your life like normal, none of this would have happened.” Of course, I knew I wasn’t going to talk Grace out of her vendetta. In the battle between logic and crazy, crazy always wins. And however sweet Grace may have thought her life was before I came to Avalon, she hadn’t gone from perfectly well-adjusted useful member of society to psycho killer bitch overnight. Whatever was wrong with her, it had been festering a long time. My arrival was just the trigger that set her off.
Aunt Grace couldn’t refute my accusation, so she ignored it instead. “I’d have been shocked if you’d have lived out this year, even if I weren’t after you myself. Seamus was a fool to bring a stupid mortal child here when he knew what trouble you would bring with you.”
I fought back my urge to argue that I wasn’t stupid, seeing as she had me trapped here. If only I’d been willing to tell Ethan about the Erlking’s brooch, I’d be perfectly safe right now, and Ethan wouldn’t have gotten shot.
Trying to look completely casual, I slipped my hand into the pocket of my jeans. The brooch was right there, and it was very likely that if I pricked my finger, neither Aunt Grace nor her henchmen would be able to see me, even though they knew I was here. It was tempting, but I wasn’t sure how Aunt Grace would react if I suddenly disappeared.