“Quit being a jerkoff, Ethan,” Kenzie snapped, narrowing her eyes. “You’re not really like this, and you’re not as bad as you think you are. I’m only trying to help.”
“No one can help me.” Suddenly, I was tired. I was tired of fighting, tired of forcing myself to be someone I wasn’t. I didn’t want to hurt her, but if she continued down this path, she would only rush headlong into a world that would do its best to tear her apart. And I couldn’t let that happen. Not again.
“Look.” I sighed, slumping against the wall. “I can’t explain it. Just…leave me alone, okay? Please. You have no idea what you’re getting into.”
“Ethan—”
“Stop asking questions,” I whispered, drawing away. Her eyes followed me, confused and sad, and I hardened my voice. “Stop asking questions, and stay the hell away from me. Or you’re only going to get hurt.”
“Advice you should have followed yourself, Ethan Chase,” a voice hissed out of the darkness.
Chapter Nine
Token to the Nevernever
They were here.
The creepy, transparent fey, floating a few inches off the tile floors, drifting toward us down the hall. Only now there were a whole lot of them, filling the corridor, their bony fingers and shattered wings making soft clicking sounds as they eased closer.
“We told you,” one whispered, regarding me with shiny black eyes, “we told you to forget, to not ask questions, to not interfere. You were warned, and you chose to ignore us. Now, you and your friend will disappear. No one will endanger our lady’s return, not even the mortal kin of the Iron Queen.”
“Ethan?” Kenzie gave me a worried look, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the ghostly faeries, creeping toward us. She glanced back down the hall, then turned to stare at me again. “What are you looking at? You’re starting to freak me out.”
Backing away, I grabbed Kenzie’s wrist, ignoring her startled yelp, and fled back into the main room.
“Hey!” She tried to yank free as I bashed through the doors, nearly knocking down three students in white gis. “Ow! What the hell are you doing? Let go!”
We were starting to attract attention, despite the noise of battle and sparring, and several parents turned to give me the evil eye. I pulled Kenzie into the corner where I’d left my bag and released her, watching the door we’d just come through. She glared at me, rubbing her wrist. “Next time, a little warning would be nice.” When I didn’t answer, she frowned and dropped her wrist. “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to hurl. What’s going on?”
The creepy fey drifted through the door frame, rising over the crowd like skeletal wraiths, black eyes scanning the floor. No one saw them, of course. They flickered, fading from sight for just a second before, as one, their faceted black eyes locked onto me.
I whispered a curse. “Kenzie,” I muttered, as the fey started to float toward us. “We have to get out of here. Will you trust me, just this once, without asking any questions?” She opened her mouth to protest, and I whirled on her frantically. “Please!”
Her jaw snapped shut. Whether it was from the look on my face or something else, she nodded. “Lead the way.”
Shouldering my bag, I fled along the wall with Kenzie right behind me, weaving through students and watching parents, until we reached the back of the dojo. The fire door stood slightly ajar, propped open to let in the cool autumn air, and I lunged toward it.
Just as I hit the metal bar, pushing it open, something struck my arm, sending a flaring pain up my shoulder. I stifled a yell and staggered down the steps, dragging Kenzie with me, seeing the hatchet-face of the faery glaring at me from behind the door.
“Ethan,” Kenzie gasped as I pulled her across the back lot. It had rained again, and the pavement smelled like wet asphalt. Puddles glimmered under the streetlamps, pooling in cracks and potholes, and we splashed our way through the black, oily water.
“Ethan!” Kenzie called again. She sounded frantic, but all my thoughts were on getting to my truck around front. “Oh, my God! Wait a second. Look at your arm!”
I looked back, and my skin crawled. Where the faery had hit me, the entire sleeve of my shirt was soaked with red. I pushed back the sleeve, revealing three long, vivid slashes across my triceps. Blood was starting to trickle down my arm.
“What the hell?” Kenzie gasped, as the pain suddenly hit like a hot knife peeling back my skin. I gritted my teeth and clamped a hand over the wound. “Something tore the crap out of your arm. You need to go to the hospital. Here.” She reached for me, putting a gentle hand on my uninjured shoulder. “Give me your bag.”
“No,” I rasped, backing away. They were coming down the stairs now, pointed stick legs skipping over the puddles. One of them stared at me and raised a thin, bloody claw to his mouth slit, licking the blood with a pale, wormlike tongue.
The sound of movement rippled behind us, and I turned to see more of them floating around the corner of the building, spreading out and trapping us between them.
My stomach felt tight. Is this what had happened to Todd, surrounded on all sides by creepy transparent fey, torn apart with long needle fingers?
I shivered, trying to be calm. My rattan sticks were in my bag, feeble weapons against so many, but I had to do something.
For just a moment, I caught a reflection of myself in the puddle at my feet, grim-faced and hollow-eyed. There was a dark smear on my cheek, my own blood, from where I’d rubbed my face after touching the wound....
Wait. Blood. Standing water.
The fey drifted closer. I stuck my hand into my pocket, and my bloody fingers closed around the silver coin. Pulling it out, I faced Kenzie, who was giving me that worried, bewildered stare, still insisting we go to a doctor.
“Kenzie,” I said, taking her hand as the clicking around us grew very loud in my ears, “do you believe in faeries?”
“What?” She blinked at me, looking confused and almost angry that I’d brought up something so ridiculous. “Do I…no! Of course not, that’s crazy.”
I closed my eyes. “Then, I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t want to do this. But try not to freak out when we get there.”
“Get…where?”
The circle of fey hissed and flowed toward us, claws reaching out, mouths gaping. Praying this would work, I squeezed Kenzie’s hand in a death grip and flung the token into the puddle at my feet.
A flash of blinding white, a ripple of energy with no sound. I felt my stomach pulled inside out, the ground spinning under my feet, and held my breath. The mad hisses and clicking of the transparent fey cut out, and suddenly I was falling.
* * *
I hit the ground on my stomach, biting my lip as the gym bag landed on my shoulder and sent a flare of pain up my arm. Beside me, I heard Kenzie’s breathless yelp as she thumped to the dirt and lay there, gasping.
“What…what in the hell?” she panted, and I heard her struggle to get up. “What just happened? Where are we?”
“Well, well,” answered a cool, amused voice from somewhere above us. “And here you are again. Ethan Chase, your family does have a knack for getting into trouble.”
Part II
Chapter Ten
Cave of the Cait Sith
I jerked upright, pushing off the bag. The motion sent a blaze of agony across my back and shoulder. Clenching my jaw, I struggled to my feet and searched for the source of the elusive voice. We were in some sort of a cave with a sandy bottom and a small pool near the back. Along the walls, enormous spotted toadstools glowed with eerie luminance. Tiny glowing balls, like blue and green fireflies, drifted over the pool, throwing rippling splashes of light over the cavern, but I couldn’t see anyone besides Kenzie and myself.
“Who’s there?” Kenzie demanded, in a far more steady voice than I’d expect. “Where are you? Show yourself.”
“As usual, you mortals have not the slightest ability to see what is right in front of your faces,” continued the voice in a bored tone, and I thought I heard a yawn. “Very well, humans. Up here, if you would.”
There was a shimmer of movement along the far wall. I followed it up to a rocky shelf about fifteen feet off the ground. For a moment, the shelf appeared empty. Then, two glowing yellow eyes blinked into existence, and a second later a large gray cat sat there with its tail curled around itself, peering down on us haughtily.
“There.” It sighed, sounding exceptionally weary, as if it had held this entire conversation before. “See me now?”
A memory flickered to life—the image of a metal tower, crumbling all around us, and a furry gray cat leading us to safety. A name hovered at the edge of my mind, eluding me for the moment, but the image of the golden-eyed cat was clear. Of course, it hadn’t changed a bit.
Kenzie took two staggering steps backward, staring at the feline as if in a daze. “O-kay,” she breathed, shaking her head slightly. “A cat. A cat that talks. I’m going crazy.” She glanced at me. “Or you slipped something into my drink at the tournament. One or the other.”
“How predictable.” The cat sighed again and stuck its hind leg into the air to lick its toes. “I believe there is nothing wrong with your eyes or ears, human. My previous statement still stands.”
I glared at it. “Lay off, cat,” I said. “She’s never seen one of you before, let alone been here.” My arm throbbed, and I sank onto a nearby rock. “Dammit, I don’t know why I’m here. Why am I here? I was hoping I’d never see this place again.”
“Please,” the cat said in that annoyingly superior voice, eyeing me over its leg. “Why are you even surprised, human? Your last name is Chase, after all. I was expecting your arrival any day now.” It sniffed and glanced at Kenzie, who was still staring at it openmouthed. “Minus the girl, of course. But I am sure we can work around that. First things first, however.” The golden eyes shifted to me. “You are dripping blood everywhere, human. Perhaps you should try to put a stop to that. We would not want to attract anything nasty, would we?”
I exhaled, hard. Well, here I was, in the Nevernever. Nothing to be done now but try to get out as quickly as I could. Pulling my bag toward me, I tugged it open and rifled through it one-handed, biting my lip as pain continued to claw at my shoulder. Blood still oozed sluggishly down my arm, and the left side of my shirt was spattered with red.
“Here.” Kenzie suddenly knelt across from me, stopping my hand. “Don’t hurt yourself. Let me do it.” Taking off her camera, she started going through the bag. “You have gauze in here somewhere, right?”
“I can get it,” I said quickly, not wanting her to see my old clothes and smelly belongings. I reached forward, but she gave me such a fierce glare that I sat back with a grimace, leaving her to it. Setting her jaw, she rummaged around, pushing aside rattan sticks and old T-shirts, pulling out a rag and the roll of gauze I kept for sports-related injuries. Her lips were pressed in a thin line, her eyes hard and determined, as if she was going to take care of this little problem before she faced anything else. For a second, I felt a weird flicker of pride. She was taking things remarkably well.