Courting Darkness (11 page)

As I put on a warm black microfiber jacket and made sure my boots were tied securely, I wondered just what we were getting into. I cinched my jacket with a silver chain belt, then tied the bag with the handcuffs and iron flail to it. Delilah was waiting for me outside by my car. We were going together, and my Lexus had snow tires and handled the snow better than her Jeep.

As we silently belted ourselves in and I started the car, I breathed a short but sweet prayer for protection. I just hoped the Moon Mother was listening.

Aeval was standing in the snow, waiting for us. She did not look amused. I curtsied deeply, after elbowing Delilah in the side. She hastily gave a low bow.

“Enough. You are late. It will not happen again, Camille, especially when you join my Court. And now, you are sure you wish to cash in your marker? On a mere mortal?” Her gaze held mine. She was gossamer and silk, she was dark sparkling fire and the hazy mist of the winter night.

“My Lady, I will not disappoint you. And yes, I am sure.” I pressed my fingers to my forehead, in an ancient salute. “What do we need to do?”

Aeval, surrounded by a guard party of five, walked over to where the portal had been. “It is here—I can see the signature. Camille, come.”

Obediently, I stepped up to her. She placed her hands on my shoulders and stood behind me, then with a little gasp leaned close. “I feel iron in your presence. You are crafty. You will make a formidable acolyte. But for now, look with your soul, look with your magic. Look through the Moon Mother’s eyes.”

I unfocused my vision and let my mind drift, gazing at the spot through a hazy blur. And then, I caught it—there it was, a sparkling signature. The portal we’d seen the day before hadn’t disappeared at all. It was there, unseen to mortal eyes, unseen to the Fae not looking for it. The blue vortex crackled and snapped, and behind us, I heard Delilah gasp.

“I can see it,” she said.

“Your sister and I brought it to the forefront.” Aeval patted me on the back. “Good job. You have much power—though I can feel where some of the synapses are skewed. You can never fix them, you were born that way, but there are ways to work around the misfires. As time goes on, you will learn, my daughter. You will learn.”

Her voice was still cool and aloof, but beneath the icy exterior I heard the soft opening of a door. I turned to her, smiling, and for the first time she truly smiled back. Her eyes were dark, spinning orbs of power and glamour, and in their reflection, I saw myself. Half human, but also half-Fae. Even though my father had disowned me, I was his daughter, and there was no denying his heritage.

“Now what?”

Aeval motioned for me to join Delilah. “I will open the portal so you can venture inside. I will give Camille the charm to reopen it when you need to—when you’re ready to return. Hopefully you will find your friend. And with hope, you will survive what lies within. The powers there are deep and dark; they are ancient moss on still older trees. They are powers that can match the Black Beast. Be cautious, girls, for you do not know half what you think you do, and snares and traps are sown deep within the heart of the Elder Fae.”

As we stepped aside, she held out her hands toward the portal. The vortex shimmered and, like an iris door off some science fiction show, slowly swirled open. I could feel the warm scent of summer and peat bogs and once again, the feeling of red eyes gazing at me latched hold and I couldn’t shake it off.

I glanced at Delilah. “Should we do this alone?” But Aeval had bid us come alone, and we had a chance now. “I guess that’s a moot question.”

“Chase is in there. Let’s go. We can always come back for reinforcements if we can’t handle what’s in there.” She sucked in a deep breath. “We owe Chase a lot.”

“Yes, we do.” I turned to Aeval. “You said you’d teach me the charm?”

She nodded and for the first time looked hesitant. “I do not want to lose you, Camille. Be cautious. Be wary. Do not trust our kind—you grew up among the full-blooded Fae. You, yourself, are half-Fae. You know what we are capable of doing if we allow ourselves to.” Leaning close, she whispered in my ear. “The charm to return is
Akan v’la’the
. It will work on either side. When you incant the spell you must be within sight of the portal, and you must use your energy to twist the charm—you know how to do that.”

I did. There was a certain inner force that witches applied to the charms. Someone who wasn’t a witch, who hadn’t been trained, could sing all the charms and spells they wanted and nothing would happen. But with training, the words became weapons, became keys, became tangible power to be manipulated.

“Akan v’la’the,”
I whispered slowly, my tongue testing the pronunciation. A small shiver ran through me, and I realized I’d found the magical signature of the charm. I inhaled deeply and let my breath out in a slow stream. “I’m ready.”

“Then go and may the gods be with you.” Aeval nodded to us.

I turned to Delilah. “Let me take the front. I can suss out the energy better than you can.” And without a second thought, we stepped through the portal, into the deep. Into the dark. Into the wild.

 

The aperture closed behind us and we were alone amid a jungle of foliage. The temperature here was chill but not icy, humid and cool and filled with mist. The scent of tangy earth echoed up, along with sour peat and old rotting wood.

We paused to take stock of our surroundings. As I turned, I realized the portal appeared to have vanished, but when I closed my eyes and searched for its signature, there it was—right where it should be.

“I can find the portal now, no matter whether it’s visible or not.” I didn’t want Delilah panicking. “And I can open it, whether over Earthside or here. Wherever
here
is.”

She nodded. “Good. Speaking of which . . . what
is
this place? Did Aeval say?”

Slowly shaking my head, I gazed at the thick ferns that grew nearly at eye level. Old oaks towered over us, their limbs bare and wet. The ground was frosty and I realized that although there was no snow here, we were definitely in the midst of winter. The ferns were gray, their fronds drooping and dormant. The brambles that interspersed the undergrowth were leafless, their thorns showing through in thick, profuse abundance.

“I think . . . We’re in a subset—one of the Faerie dimensions. And from what Aeval says, the Elder Fae roam here. This is not Otherworld, but neither is it fully Earthside. I’ve never heard of this place before. Perhaps it was created by the Elder Fae, or the Elfin Lords . . . or perhaps by the Elemental Lords. Whatever, I doubt if many humans have ever come here.”

“Or if they have, they never escaped.”

“Yeah.”

Delilah muttered something under her breath.

“What did you say? I didn’t catch it.”

She turned to me. “I don’t like the energy here. It feels . . . hungry. Like it’s waiting for something to walk into a snare. Not like most predators, though. There’s a craftiness to it that unsettles me.”

I let out a shaky sigh. I’d been feeling the same thing. “I keep thinking about Aeval’s story about the Bog Eater. Here we have peat and we have dark hunger . . . and I can smell rats.” I pointed up to a nearby tree. On the boughs perched vultures. “Scavengers of the dead.”

Falling silent, I prayed they hadn’t been feasting on Chase’s remains. We had to find him, and the faster the better. There was no real path, but the grass seemed trampled in one direction.

I pointed. “There, we follow that trail.”

Delilah turned to me. “If I change into my panther self, I might be able to catch his scent and lead us.”

“Please, if it will help.” I hadn’t thought about that, but it made sense. And she knew Chase’s scent.

As I watched, my sister began to shimmer and shift. It looked terribly painful, but she always insisted it wasn’t, as long as she didn’t rush through the shifting. And then, as hands and feet and arms and legs lengthened into paws and furred legs, as her body stretched and transformed, and her beautiful face became heavy with dark fur, I could only marvel again at how different the three of us were. Well, four—if you counted Arial, Delilah’s twin who had died at birth.

Within a couple of minutes, a large black panther stood there, a jeweled collar around her neck. Those were her clothes, I knew, plus being the marker that claimed her as belonging to the Autumn Lord.

“Can you catch his scent?” I asked, petting her head. I loved cats, and whether she was tabby or panther, I always cuddled my sister when she was in cat form.

She let out a low rumbling purr as I scratched behind her ears, and, impulsively, I leaned over and kissed her head. She looked up, her glowing emerald eyes gazing into my face, and with a loud slurp she licked my cheek and gave a happy growl. I laughed, then let out a long sigh.

“Find Chase, Delilah.” It wasn’t always easy to keep her on track when she was in cat form, but I loved her anyway.

Delilah glanced from side to side, then raised her head to the air and inhaled deeply. She sniffed, her nose twitching, and then, with a low huff, she swung her head at me and set off at a light run. I ran along behind, and we headed into the mists that rumbled through the glen. Up ahead, I could make out two large rock faces, one on either side, that opened into a narrow channel. A ravine between two cliffs.

We loped along, she watching her speed so I could keep up, and I pacing myself. I had far more stamina than any FBH, but I couldn’t match her speed when she was in panther form, that was for certain.

As we entered the ravine, I glanced around nervously. Trees lined the top of the ravine on either side and I couldn’t pierce the veil of vegetation. And with the mist rolling along the ground, spiraling up in columns, I couldn’t even see the ground. Luckily the ravine was short, soon opening up ahead. It looked like it led into deep woods, and I slowed, calling to Delilah to return to my side. I paused, examining the energy.

We were entering the realm of a dark god. Not evil, but wild—some ancient forest entity. The masculine energy was overwhelming, and it rode me like a horse, rode me like a beckoning partner. Herne . . . the wild one. Herne, the lord of the forest. Herne, with his antlers rising to the sky. We were entering his realm, and here we would have to be cautious. The gods were not always pleasant, and we were two women in male territory.

“Is Chase in here? Did he come this way?”

Delilah huffed again, nodding. She sniffed the air, then motioned toward a side path. I followed her into the wood, onto the path, wondering what we were getting ourselves into.

The woodland here was dark and ancient. Older than Darkynwyrd, back in Otherworld. Older than Thistlewyd Deep. This was the ancient forest that had sprung up from the loins of the gods. This was primal forest, primal energy.

The silence was deafening, with only the steady sound of water dripping from bough to ground to mark our passing. The sky vanished—the overhanging trees thick with needles and cones, branches entwining across the path to blot out the sky. Everywhere I turned, I smelled moss and mushrooms, tree pitch, and the sweet tang of freshly turned earth.

And peat. Again, I smelled the bog.

The Bog Eater.
It had to be him; he had to be near.

Delilah paused, then moved away from my side. A shimmer surrounded her as she began to change, and I realized she was turning back into her two-footed shape. Something must have caught her attention that she needed to tell me about. Or perhaps she just felt more secure.

As she shifted back, I gave her a moment to catch her breath, then asked, “What is it? Did you sense something?”

She nodded, and in a low voice whispered, “We’re being followed. There’s something behind us.”

I slowly turned, cautious, my hand reaching for the unicorn horn. Behind us, I could only see the undergrowth through which we’d come, thick and unmoving. But when I let out a slow stream of breath and lowered myself into trance, I could sense someone out there. Someone old. Someone powerful. Someone not a god, but more powerful than we were.

I glanced at Delilah, trying to figure out what to do. Confront them? If they meant no harm, why weren’t they out in the open? Unless they were nervous about what we wanted. If they were going to attack us, would we be able to throw them off their guard by calling them out?

Delilah waited, ready to follow my lead. I readied a spell, calling on the energy of the Moon Mother to channel through my body. Her presence was heavy here, too, and I realized that anywhere the wild reigned, I would find her.

After the lightning filtered down into my body, I sucked in another deep breath and stepped forward. “Show yourself. We know you’re there.”

Delilah readied her iron knife, wrinkling her nose.

A moment later, the bushes parted and out stepped a thin boy. He was full Fae, that was obvious, and glorious in his beauty, but he was like no Fae I’d seen before. He might stand on two feet, with two arms and one head, but he was far from human looking. Antlers rose from his forehead—a small rack with three tines on each side. His eyes were slanted, with the faintest of lids, and wide set to the point of making his face look top heavy. His hair flowed to his butt, rich brown, and he wore what looked like torn jeans, cut off at the knees, and no shirt. His abs were defined and he was buff, but not heavily muscled.