'Wait up,' he called, careful not to slip in the blood pooling upon the tile floor. 'I've got something special for you.'
Squire did not have far to run. The scout had only fled as far as the corridor that led out toward the foyer. It stood, its back against the wall, holding in its spidery hand the crystal knob from Conan Doyle's front door. The Corca Duibhne looked at him, and smiled an awful smile. Tendrils of crimson fog drifted into the corridor from the foyer. For the first time, Squire felt the draft, the breeze.
The door was open.
He could not see it from his vantage point, but it was clear these two scouts were not alone. Squire brandished his cleaver, ready to do combat with whatever else had invaded his employer's home. From the foyer came the sound of splintering wood, and then the heavy, plodding tread of many feet. There was a solid thump and a muttered, feral curse, and in his mind he could picture a cluster of Corca Duibhne carrying something massive and heavy.
Squire was not going to let this happen.
Cleaver clutched tightly in his grip he started down the corridor toward that single Corca Duibhne, who now tossed the crystal knob idly into the air and caught it as though it were a lucky coin. Squire wanted to tear its heart out. But a moment later he came within sight of the foyer.
'Son of a monkey's uncle,' he whispered.
Eight Corca Duibhne emerged from the red fog, grunting with exertion as they hauled what looked to be a large chunk of jagged rock between them. They looked like pallbearers carrying a coffin at a funeral. The failing light from outside glinted off the object's surface, and Squire saw that it wasn't rock at all, but a kind of amber, for he could see the shape of a man imprisoned within. At that moment, he knew how his enemies had gained access to the townhouse. It was all so frighteningly clear.
'Sweetblood,' he said aloud as the Night People let their load drop to the hardwood floor of the foyer.
A part of him wanted to stay, to defend the homestead from invaders, but another part of him, one far more intelligent than that stupid half, suggested that it might just be wiser to get the hell out of there. He began to search for an exit, a patch of shadow through which to make his escape.
'What, leaving us so soon?' came a voice as smooth as silk, speaking the tongue of the Fey.
Squire turned to see a statuesque female emerge from the scarlet fog. The Corca Duibhne cowered as she passed them, as if afraid she would slap them, or worse. The woman was dressed from head to toe in black leather, her hair covered in a stylish kerchief of red silk, as if to match the fog. Even though her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, Squire knew her at once.
'Morrigan,' he whispered.
'You're going nowhere,' she said, a cruel smile gracing her colorless features. 'The fun is just beginning.'
Fun like a heart attack, Squire thought as the Corca Duibhne rushed him, and he raised his cleaver in defense. Fun like a heart attack.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Finvarra's kingdom seemed deserted, yet Conan Doyle knew it was not. The scents of a bounty of ripened fruit reached him as he strode amongst the trees and past a burbling stream along which dryads swam. But there were copses of trees that had been burned black, their charred remains a scar upon the land. The Fey were not gone, however, nor were they hiding.
They were in mourning.
There was no music in Faerie this day, only the sighing of the wind in the trees and the flapping of war banners adorned with Finvarra's crest. From time to time as he followed Ceridwen on a winding walk through the forest, he could hear cries of bereavement. She carried in one hand a staff of oak, with finger-branches at the top that clutched within them a sphere that appeared to be crystal. Conan Doyle knew better. This was no crystal ball, but a ball of ice. At the center of that frozen orb there burned a flame, flickering as though atop a candle's wick. This was Ceridwen's elemental staff, a mark of her office and her skill.
Within Conan Doyle there were many emotions at war. He felt sharp regret and giddy excitement at seeing Ceridwen, and the urge to help the Fey was strong. And yet he was aware that he was needed at home even more than he was needed here. In Faerie, death had come and gone, taking many souls with it. But in Conan Doyle's world — the Blight — the reaper still walked.
Even simply being in Faerie brought conflicting emotions into play. This was the place he dreamed when he went to sleep, it was the paradise of his heart, and yet there had been much bitterness upon his departure so many years ago, and to return to it now when such grim events were at hand was dark irony.
Ceridwen paused at a door built of three massive standing stones, two upright and one laid across the top. There was no gate to bar it, but no one would pass through that gate without an invitation from a member of the royal family. He had lived beyond that gate, for a time. The memory made him hesitate.
'What is it, Arthur?' Ceridwen asked.
Conan Doyle gazed at her a moment, then glanced away. 'Only echoes, Lady. Please go on.'?When he looked up again she was still watching him. Ceridwen frowned deeply and turned to stride between the standing stones. Conan Doyle followed and as he walked through that door his breath caught in his chest just as it had done that first time he had trodden upon this ground.
The year had been Nineteen Hundred and Twenty. The London theosophist Edward Gardner had accompanied him to Cottingley, a tiny hamlet in Yorkshire, to visit the home of the Wright family. Polly Wright had approached Gardner at one of his lectures with the most extraordinary story. The woman claimed that her young daughter Elsie and the girl's cousin, Frances Griffiths, had befriended a community of fairies in a glen near their homes. Not merely befriended, but photographed the fairies.
The girls' claims, and more especially their photographs, had brewed a storm of controversy, but by the time it had begun, and the world was scrutinizing the two girls, Arthur Conan Doyle had already found his proof in the glen at Cottingley. For in the glen he had seen the fairies himself, firsthand. Gardner had accompanied the girls and their parents home and Conan Doyle — who had already been a student of magic and spiritualism for some time — cast a spell of revelation.
The fairies had been wondrous, gossamer things, like lithe, flimsy women with wings like butterflies. Wherever they flew they left a sparkle, streaking the air with all the hues of sunrise. Never in his life had he seen anything so delicate, so ephemeral, and so beautiful. They had made no sound at all but their motion was music.
Then one of them had hesitated, hovering a moment, and darted across the glen to beat its wings furiously just inches from his face. Its tiny, golden eyes had widened in shock as it realized that its suspicions were correct. He could see them. He had been watching them.
The vicious little thing had clawed his cheek, drawing blood. As Conan Doyle hissed and clapped one hand to his face, they had all darted toward across the glen to a large tree that lay on its side next to a brook, its roots torn from the ground and jutting like the antlers of a monstrous stag. The fairies had disappeared amongst those roots and Conan Doyle had taken a closer look, still pressing his fingers against the scratch on his cheek.
The spell of revelation had uncovered more than the presence of the fairies. The crown of jagged roots that circled the felled tree hid a secret. The tree was impossibly hollow.
Conan Doyle had dropped to his knees and bent low to look inside. Deep within that tree he had seen a glimmer of light. And he had crawled inside.
'Arthur!'
Fingers snapped in front of his face. He blinked several times and found himself gazing into Ceridwen's violet eyes. His breath caught in his throat again and he breathed in the aroma of lilacs, the scent that came off her so powerfully it weakened him. She looked as though she wanted to strike him down with her elemental staff. It took him several seconds before he could glance away.
'You are not the magician I thought you were if you cannot enter the House of the King without it beguiling your senses,' she chided him.
Yet wasn't there a hint of amusement, even affection in her gaze and her tone?
