The Scrolls of Gideon Page 16

  I shook my head and smiled. “You are,” I told her. “They were freed when the barrier went down, and you gave them a fast elevator to Heaven. Or wherever they’re going.”

  She shivered again, this time with wonder. “I hope it’s somewhere nice.”

  “I hear it’s not too bad,” I said. “Lots of stars.”

  We were almost at the top when a sudden, sharp pain went through me and the moonstone started to fade. I’d come very close to hitting my body’s physical limitations for channeling this much energy. “We’ll be out soon, right?” I said through gritted teeth, struggling to maintain the healing flow. “Pretty sure I’ve almost burned through the moonstone, and that’s only gonna leave me.”

  “Just another minute or two,” Junkyard called out. “Hang in there.”

  I nodded and tensed as the pain increased, spreading through my limbs and invading my torso. The light dimmed even more, and I could make out the shadows of circling mermaids outside the whirlpool, looking for an entrance.

  Then I saw a shadowy shape flash by that was a lot bigger than a mermaid. It had tentacles.

  My stomach gave a funny twist. “Um, did anybody else see that?”

  “See what?” Taeral said.

  I sighed. “Never mind,” I said, desperately hoping I was hallucinating because of the strain.

  But Grygg caught my eye and nodded gravely. “I saw it,” he said. “I’m afraid that when the barrier came down, we may have awakened something more dangerous than mermaids.”

  I decided not to ask what. Maybe we could outrun whatever it was.

  Finally, the ship lurched over the rim of the whirlpool and edged into flat water. Alex breathed a sigh of relief and slowed the rotation of the makeshift wand, unmaking the funnel gradually from the bottom. As water rushed in to fill the swirling gap, a mild swell pushed the Nostradamus into a quick dash that carried us about fifty feet before we slowed to a crawl.

  Alex lowered her arm, released her grip on the spike and sank down the mast toward the deck, moaning a little. “Can we never, ever do that again?” she said.

  I leaned on the mast to catch my breath. “Best plan ever.” I was still gripping the moonstone, but it had gone completely dark. I set it down on the deck, hoping it would recharge now that we were directly in moonlight. But the instant the stone touched the deckboards, it crumbled into dust.

  Damn. I guess I’d really used the shit out of that moonstone.

  “Perhaps we should remain vigilant,” Taeral said as he looked carefully over the rail into the suspiciously quiet ocean. “Those creatures may renew their attacks at any moment.”

  Just as I opened my mouth to agree, a long, fat tentacle snaked over the railing and blurred across the deck toward me. Then it wrapped around my ankle and yanked me into the air.

  CHAPTER 33

  With zero time to think, I pulled the moonstone pendant from my neck and closed my hand around the stone. “Calhaiom’nae solaas geahlí!” The spell activated the Sword of Moonlight, a glowing spectral sword that was contained in the stone. I gripped the sword with both hands and swung as hard as I could at the tentacle.

  The sword sliced through, spraying me with black blood as I fell hard on the deck and the severed tentacle slipped back into the water.

  “Sea monsters! Are you kidding me?” Alex shouted, scrambling to her feet as she ran toward me and pulled a gun. “You okay, Gideon?”

  “Fantastic,” I groaned. “Go shoot that thing for me, will you?”

  She nodded and hurried past me. As I pushed off the floor, still holding the sword, three shots fired in rapid succession, and then Alex cursed loudly. “Damn it, all that did was piss it off!” she said.

  “Hey, uh, Captain … that’s not actually a sea monster, right?” Junkyard called from the steering platform. “I mean, okay, mermaids. But this thing could just be an angry squid or something.”

  “Yeah, it’s definitely a squid,” I said, peeling the slimy section of tentacle lined with razor-sharp spikes off my ankle. “Squids eat people all the time.”

  Sadie started growling. I turned toward her and almost stepped on a mermaid that’d climbed over the rail and was trying to grab me. I drove the sword through its chest, kicked the dying carcass aside and kept moving. “I know what you’re thinking,” I said to Sadie as her canines lengthened and her nails formed claws. “Do not jump overboard and attack the monster.”

  “Why not?” she bubbled deep in her throat.

  Taeral blasted a mermaid off the side of the ship. “Because you are a terrible swimmer,” he said. “Especially in wolf form.”

  “I can fix that.” Alex approached at a fast stride, grabbing the broken oar she’d used as a wand on the way. “I mean, if you’ll let me.”

  Sadie flexed an arm that was rapidly covering in fur. “How?”

  “Water walking spell,” Alex said. “It’ll only last for about ten minutes, but—”

  “Plenty,” Sadie said through an elongating jaw, flashing a fanged grin. “Do it.”

  “Okay, then.” Alex pointed the makeshift wand at her and drew in the air. The movement left blue contrails behind, forming a complex symbol. When it was finished, she drew the wand back and flicked it toward Sadie. The symbol flung itself onto her chest and spread into a faint blue glow that surrounded her like an aura.

  Now in full wolf form, Sadie chuckled and loped away, gaining speed as she approached the back rail. She leaped over with a massive roar.

  Seconds later, something big started thrashing and shrieking in pain.

  Taeral made a frustrated sound. “I am going to make sure she does not drown herself,” he said as he ran toward the back of the ship.

  A few gunshots rang out from the steering platform. Alex and I both glanced up and saw Junkyard taking out a mermaid. “They’re not going to stop coming, are they?” I said.

  “No.” Alex frowned and tilted her head up. “We need to make some distance,” she said. “Help me get these sails up?”

  “Gideon,” Grygg said from somewhere to my right.

  I turned to find him fighting off two mermaids and went to help, but he waved me off. “There’s something else out there,” he said. “Whatever it is, it’s much bigger than the squid. And it’s hungry.”

  “Great,” I muttered. Something thumped behind me, and I wheeled toward another mermaid scuttling across the deck, blasting it with electricity. “Any idea what it is, or how to beat it?”

  Grygg shook his head. “I don’t think we can. We’ll have to outrun it.”

  “The sails,” Alex said, her eyes widening as she took in Grygg’s words. “Hurry.”

  I nodded, deactivated the sword and hung the moonstone back around my neck. I had no idea how to raise sails, but with Alex’s direction, I managed to pull on the right ropes and catch the right support bars in place. “There’s no wind out here,” I said as the last sail fell in line. “How are we going to move?”

  “I’ll handle the wind,” she said.

  Just then, there was a snarl and a thump as Sadie sailed back onto the deck, yelping as she tumbled and skidded a few feet. She gained her paws, sneezed once and glowed back into her human form. “I took that one out,” she panted. “But now there’s two more tentacle monsters and a shitload of mermaids.”

  “Oh, fuck me sideways!” Junkyard screamed from the helm. “What is that thing?”

  Alex and I ran for the platform with Taeral and Sadie right behind. It didn’t take long to notice what Junkyard was talking about.

  Out ahead of the ship, barely visible in the moonlight, two tentacles rose from the water. Each of them was thicker than a Redwood tree and lined with razor spikes the size of butcher knives.

  They were attached to a glistening, scaly creature with a fang-lined maw yawning above the water line. Its mouth was big enough to fly a plane into.

  Taeral let out a nasty Fae curse that made me cringe to hear. “Get this damned ship moving, and turn us around! Now!” he shouted. “
We’ll not defeat that creature. We must escape from here.”

  “Where the hell are we going to escape to?” Alex cried.

  Taeral looked at me. “Arcadia.”

  Shit. I knew exactly what he planned to do, but I wasn’t sure that was such a great idea. Still, I trusted him to make it work. “Come on,” I said, tugging Alex toward the stairs leading to the deck. “Do your wind thing. He can get us out of here.”

  For a second she looked like she’d refuse, but she followed me down.

  “Sadie, Grygg and I will keep playing whack-a-mermaid and make sure they don’t interrupt you,” I said, looking at the other two. They both nodded agreement. “Sound good?” I said to Alex.

  “Yeah, okay.” Her voice shook, but she picked up the improvised wand and headed for the center mast.

  I moved toward a side rail while Grygg took post on the other side, and Sadie headed for the back. The mermaid activity seemed to have died down, and I had a sinking suspicion that even they were afraid of the Kraken, or whatever that thing out there was.

  Soon I felt the beginnings of a stiff breeze wash across the deck. As I picked off a pair of marauding mermaids, the breeze became a strong, steady gust and the ship started to pick up speed, moving quickly into a hard turn. The sails snapped and billowed as the Nostradamus raced along, away from the giant sea monster.

  Then shimmering light burst into existence ahead of us, illuminating every detail on the ship. Taeral had opened a portal to Arcadia, and it was massive.

  It had to be if we were going to sail through it.

  I just hoped the portal didn’t drop us in mid-air, or the middle of the Unseelie Wood. Or the sprite swamps. I hated sprites just as much as I now, officially, hated mermaids.

  Alex blanched as the strange light of the portal washed over the deck, but she kept up the wind spell. I twisted to glance behind us, morbidly curious to find out how close the monster had gotten.

  That was when I realized why the mermaids had mostly left us alone. The Kraken was maybe a hundred feet back, but the creature was moving slowly as it snatched mermaids from the water and tossed them into its maw, devouring them with terrible wet crunching sounds.

  I shivered and turned away, just in time to watch the ship plunge into the portal.

  CHAPTER 34

  The Nostradamus kept moving for several feet, grinding through soil as the hull parted the sea of tall, waving blue grass we’d landed in. It groaned to a shuddering halt and somehow stayed upright in the furrow it’d plowed into the ground.

  I heaved a breath and closed my eyes for a moment, savoring the soothing energy of the eternal Arcadian moon. “Everybody’s alive, right?” I said.

  “Yeah, looks like.” Sadie was heading up from the back, and I heard two sets of footsteps descending the stairs to the deck. Grygg still stood at the rail on the other side, looking around slowly.

  I headed for Alex, who’d frozen by the center mast with her gaze riveted to the alien sky. “Where are we?” she rasped. “The moon, the stars … they’re all wrong.”

  “We’re in Arcadia,” I told her, throwing a worried glance at Taeral as he approached with Junkyard. This was probably going to upset her. Not only was it the place where she was told Daoin took her mother, but Daoin was actually in this realm somewhere. And by now, he probably knew we were here. “It’s … well, it’s the Fae realm.”

  She gasped and turned a glare on me. “You brought me to fairyland?”

  “We’d no choice,” Taeral said tersely. “Unless you count being consumed by an eldritch beast among the choices. But if you’d prefer to take your chances with that creature, I’ll gladly open a portal and send you back.”

  The anger eased slowly from her features, and she crossed her arms and shivered. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I like being here, though.”

  “So this is fairyland, huh?” Junkyard turned in a slow circle, staring almost listlessly at the field around us. I had a feeling he’d half-checked out of reality to protect himself after seeing that monstrosity in the ocean, so his reactions were a little dulled right now. “I thought there’d be more fairies.”

  I gestured at Taeral to stop the whole ‘We are Fae, stupid human’ tirade. “It’s a big place,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’re going to run into a few.” I just hoped the ones we ran into weren’t the kind who wanted to kill us and enslave our women. “Where are we, anyway?” I asked Taeral. “This seems familiar, but I haven’t been here enough to really recognize much.”

  “See for yourself,” Taeral said, nodding toward the helm.

  I shrugged and headed that way, climbed the stairs and walked to the railing. And right away, I knew where we were. The ship had stopped not far from the end of the tall grass field. Beyond that was a long stretch of manicured lawn that sloped up to the castle of the Summer Court. Home of Braelan, the Seelie King and Cobalt’s brother.

  In fact, Cobalt was probably there right now. This was right around the time he’d said him and Uriskel planned to visit. I started to grin, but the expression froze on my face.

  I’d just noticed the small army of Fae in hard light armor charging from the castle toward the big-ass mystery ship that had landed in the King’s back yard.

  “Uh, Taeral?” I called back across the platform. “I think we’ve pissed off the Seelie Guard. They’re kind of charging us.”

  “Perhaps you should worry about him first,” Grygg said, pointing past me and up.

  I followed the gesture and saw a figure in the sky, flying toward us at the approximate speed of kill first, ask questions later. I probably would’ve panicked if I didn’t know exactly one Fae with dark red hair who could fly and would be furious about unpleasant surprises that were possible threats to his brother.

  “Uriskel!” I shouted as loud as I could, waving both arms over my head to get his attention. “We come in peace! Don’t murder us yet, okay?”

  His flight path jerked a little and he slowed his approach. He sank lower and drifted over the front rail, landing in front of me with a shocked expression — which was a little weird in place of his usual threatening scowl. “Gideon?” He stared at me for a few seconds, then leaned aside to glance at the others on the deck. “This … is a ship,” he finally said. “What are you doing here on a ship?”

  “Escaping a sea monster,” I said with a grin. “You know, the usual.”

  “A sea monster,” he echoed, shaking his head. “You’ve not brought it here, have you?”

  “Nah. No monsters were transported with the ship,” I said. “Unless you count Taeral.”

  Uriskel laughed, grabbed my arm and clapped me on the back. “Well met, Gideon.”

  I returned the traditional greeting, glad that Taeral had taught me the right way to do it. “Hey, do you think you could maybe call off the guards?” I said, nodding at the oncoming charge. “I’d rather not end up in Braelan’s dungeon again before we get a chance to explain ourselves.” Taeral and I had run into a similar misunderstanding with the Seelie Guard the last time we’d cut through Arcadia, with the Duchenes. But I’d managed to convince Braelan to let us go after he found out I knew Cobalt and Uriskel.

  “I believe your brother’s taken that matter upon himself,” Uriskel said, pointing to something behind me. “I’d not worry about it, though. Your father is leading the charge. He’ll stand down soon enough once he recognizes Taeral.”

  “Oh, shit.” I glanced back and saw that someone had lowered the gangplank. Taeral and Sadie were already moving through the field toward the Seelie Guard. But Alex had followed them at a distance, a set and angry look on her face. “Er, I need to get to Daoin before the rest of them do,” I said. “Long story, tell you later. Any chance you could give me a lift?”

  Uriskel raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Must be a fascinating tale,” he said. “Very well, if you insist.”

  Before I could ask if there was anything I should do, he stepped around me, hooked his arm
s under mine, and lifted into the air.

  It was an uncomfortable minute or so until we landed maybe thirty feet in front of the guards. Uriskel moved between me and the advancing unit, and held a hand out toward Daoin. “They are no threat,” he called as Daoin and the rest of the soldiers slowed to a jog, and then a stroll. “It seems that your sons have decided to pay us a visit, along with some friends.”

  Daoin’s brow furrowed. “My sons have come to Arcadia on a ship?”

  “Aye, and I’ve still no idea how.” Uriskel chuckled and moved aside so Daoin could see me. “I believe I’ll inform my brothers what’s happened,” he said. “Shall we expect your company at the castle?”

  “Probably, as long as I can talk a certain member of our party into not killing Daoin,” I said.

  Uriskel laughed again. “A fascinating tale, indeed. I’ll look forward to hearing it.” With that, he took to the skies toward the castle.

  “Gideon, did you just say you’ve brought someone who wants to kill me?” Daoin said.

  “Er.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah, she might try,” I said. “She won’t be able to, but I thought I should warn you anyway.”

  He looked past me, to where Taeral and the rest were approaching. “The human?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Apparently she’s my sister. Well, half-sister.”

  Daoin’s eyes widened. “Alex,” he whispered.

  “So you knew about her, too.” I tucked away the flash of irritation for now. “I honestly have no idea what happened, but she grew up thinking you stole our mother and murdered her. I told her you didn’t kill her. As for the stealing part…” I trailed off and shrugged. “Like I said, no clue here.”

  “I did not—” Daoin shook his head and breathed out slowly. “I’d always meant to tell her,” he said. “But I’d not had the chance before I was captured, and the years after … did not grant me the opportunity.”

  I couldn’t blame him at all. He’d been driving insane during his captivity with Milus Dei, and not long after, the Unseelie Queen had him kidnapped and warped his mind even further. He still wasn’t completely restored, and he’d stayed in Arcadia to heal and to help Braelan fix some of the problems in his own realm.