Ignite the Fire: Incendiary by Karen Chance

Chapter Twenty-Six

 

 

The forest was dark and strange calls echoed through the treetops. I couldn’t see a damned thing, even with moonlight shining from above, because only a few spears of light managed to penetrate the heavy tree cover. Just enough to silver some of the big leaves hitting me in the face—right after they’d already done so. The leaves contained some kind of sap that burned like a bitch, even though I wasn’t really here, so that should have been impossible.

But tell that to my skin, I thought, trying to rub off a face full of sticky, itchy stuff.

“Auggghhhh!”

I jumped as a human cry echoed through the trees. It was close and loud and startled a bunch of what I really hoped were birds out of the canopy, sending them flapping and screeching into the night. I clapped a hand over my mouth, to keep my own cry behind my teeth, only to have something come crashing at me through the underbrush and knock it away.

I hit the forest floor, stunned, and not just because of the blow. But because I’d landed on a hard as steel tree root, which as luck would have it, had made a direct impact on my spine. The blow shuddered through me like a hit to my funny bone, only this was a whole-body experience, leaving me gasping and agonized—

And then pissed, when the same damned root tried to wrap around my arm.

I skipped anger and went straight to fury, because I’d been here before. Back when I was a wet behind the ears Pythia, I’d ended up in Faerie with a war mage who had died to protect me. Because every. Goddamned. Thing. In this horrible world wanted to kill me!

Only not this time, I thought, jerking the bastard root out of the soil and beating it with vampire strength. Tearing, ripping, and shredding the hard old bark and the sinewy tissue below it, I kept it up until the stupid thing was little more than a wad of pulp. And then ripped it off and threw it into the trees, hearing it tear through the dense underbrush and then keep on going, because a master vampire can throw a damned long way!

“You want some more?” I asked the rest of the roots scrawling over the dirt at my feet. “Do you?”

They did not want any more, retreating into the soil like the grasping hands they mimicked. I stomped on a few of the slower ones anyway, just because. And it felt so good that I did it again.

Goddamn, I hated Faerie!

I finally stopped, breathing hard, and then began trying to extricate myself from some brambles. They were not animated, but they’d caught me anyway. Because I was wearing a white lace torture device that caught on every damned—

There was a woman lying on the dirt, staring up at me with huge, frightened eyes.

It took me second to recognize her, because her skin blended in well with the night, giving her a natural camouflage that I really envied right now. But a finger of moonlight gleamed in her eyes and on the expensive brooch she wore. It was the telepath, I realized, still in her stylish houndstooth.

I suddenly wondered if she’d like a change of clothing, too. Then I wondered if that was even possible. I decided to find out.

“Can you do jeans?”

She stared at me some more.

Okay, fair enough. Jeans did exist in her era, but tended to be found more on miners and farm hands, and less in fashionable circles around London. I decided to try again.

“You know, trousers? And maybe a long-sleeved shirt? These brambles are tearing me to—”

I stopped talking, because she wasn’t responding. In fact, she looked almost catatonic. I bent down, intending to wave a hand in front of her face, only to have her scream again and scramble away on hands and knees.

Great.

Just great.

I hiked up my skirts and went after her.

It wasn’t hard to catch up, because part fey or not, she didn’t seem overly familiar with her surroundings. She was weaving wildly, crashing through bushes and bumping into trees, like a human ping pong ball. I felt a little bad, because that was partly my fault. I should have exited one bit of weirdness before getting into another, but all I’d been thinking about was finding Pritkin and maybe getting a few answers for once, assuming that Mircea could jog his memory.

But because I’d gone straight here instead of taking the scenic route through Gertie’s parlor, the telepath had ended up tagging along. It was the Iris situation all over again, only this hitchhiker didn’t seem nearly so enthusiastic. Or, you know, sane.

I finally grabbed her near a massive old oak, mainly because it had grabbed her first. I snapped the spindly branches it was using to drag her toward the churning dirt at the base of its roots, like hungry hands stuffing food into a gaping mouth. And then beat the tree with them until it reared back, like a startled cat getting hit with a newspaper.

Damn, but I loved vampire strength! I was really going to miss it after we broke the spell for good. Assuming that I lived long enough, I thought, because the telepath was screaming again.

“Shut up!” I told her, glancing at the forest. I didn’t think I could be hurt in this form, but then, I shouldn’t have been able to beat up a tree, either. So, I didn’t know.

“Augghhh! Augghhh! Augghhh!”

“Shut up or I’ll slap you!”

That did not improve things, and frankly, I didn’t know what would. I suddenly, fervently, wished I had Rhea here, with her gentle ways and sweet words, to soothe the crazy out of this one before every nasty thing in the forest found us. But I just had me, and I wasn’t even that good at soothing myself, much less—

“Lady?”

The screaming abruptly stopped. “What is she doing here?” the telepath panted, staring behind me.

Well, shit.

“Do you have a name?” I asked her tiredly.

“What?”

“A name. Something I can call you other than ‘the telepath.’ It’s getting old.”

She stared at me some more. She seemed to like doing that. I nudged her gently with my shoe.

“Lady?” Rhea’s soft, if rather worried, tones came from behind me again. I sighed.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I don’t know what I’m doing and I screwed up, okay? I didn’t mean to drag you into this—”

“What is this?” she asked, sounding concerned.

And then the telepath started screaming again. I scowled and crouched down beside her, only to hear my damned skirt rip at the waist. Son of a—

“Why are you screaming?” Rhea asked the woman, looking a bit freaked out, while I examined the damage.

The telepath stopped long enough to glare at her. “I don’t know! I don’t know anything! Leave me alone, the both of you!”

“Then stop making those sounds,” I told her.

“Or what?”

“Or something may come along and try to eat you.”

“It already did!” She looked back at the hungry tree, which was just standing there, looking all innocent and tree-like at the moment. “My God—”

“I thought you were part fey,” I said. “Haven’t you ever been to Faerie before?”

She transferred her stare from the tree to me. “Is—is that where we are?”

How many Earth trees have ever tried to turn you into mulch? I didn’t say, because I didn’t want her to start screaming again. “Yes—”

“Why?”

“Because I need to see a guy and that’s where he is right now,” I said crabbily. “Although he’s not supposed to be.”

I didn’t know why Pritkin and Mircea were hanging around the feys’ merry murder land. Most people who tripped through a fey portal tried to trip back out of one as soon as they possibly could. But it had been half a day since I’d seen them, and since they’d escaped whatever the hell had been going on in those tunnels.

So, why weren’t they home yet?

And why were they hiding? I looked around again, but there was no sign of either of them. Mircea had been right there before, when he’d pulled me into his last escapade, so where was he now?

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I told Rhea.

“You do?” The telepath seemed to have recovered, and was struggling to her feet. “You hijacked my brain!”

“Yes, well, not intentionally.”

“And dragged me into Faerie, of all places!”

“I didn’t drag you, and my God. They say I’m a whiner!”

I got back to my feet, too. Half of my dress stayed behind, sagging from a badly torn waistband. And that was just great. What was I supposed to do now? Flash all of Faerie?

Wouldn’t be the first time, I thought, and then told myself to shut up.

“I am not a whiner,” the telepath said stiffly. She had the gall to look offended.

“Okay, prove it.”

Now she looked confused. “How?”

“Three things: do you have a name?”

“I—of course, I have a name!”

“Can I have it?”

She suddenly looked afraid. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to keep calling you ‘the telepath’? I thought I already said that.”

She swallowed. “You—you’re not going to . . . do . . . anything with it?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know!” She threw out her arms. “I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t trust you!”

“Her name is Guinevere Lacey,” Rhea reminded me quietly. Because I guessed someone had been paying attention to Agnes’ introduction.

I looked at the telepath. “Guinevere? Seriously?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, it’s just . . . kind of medieval. I guess you go by Guinn?”

“No!” And then her eyes started darting around. “It’s not my real name,” she added, loudly. “It’s made up!”

“I don’t care,” I told her. “Number two, can you fix my dress?”

Her eyes came back to mine, and indignation was now mixed with the fear and confusion. “I’m not a seamstress!”

I thought about banging my head against a tree.

I thought hard.

Rhea put a hand on my arm. “I have a pin.”

She held out a bobby pin, probably from her hair.

“Thanks, but I don’t think that’s going to work,” I said, right before a hand grasped my arm and started shaking me.

It did not belong to Rhea.

“Why are you worried about a dress?” Guinn whispered. “We’re in Faerie.”

“Now she whispers,” I said to Rhea.

The shaking intensified.

“Stop that!” I shook off her grip. “And no, you’re not in Faerie. None of us is in Faerie. We’re in front of the fireplace at Gertie’s and perfectly safe. We just took a little mental detour, that’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes, that’s all. Now, can you put me in jeans or not? I don’t know how long we’re going to have to thrash our way through this jungle, and this dress isn’t working.”

“Put yourself in them. What am I, your servant?”

I glared at her. “Fine. You know what? Just go back. I’ll deal with this myself.”

“Fine!”

She stood there. I waited. She crossed her arms.

“Are you leaving?” I finally asked.

“Are you searching for a way to stop Aeslinn?” she shot back.

I spread my arms. “Well, what do you think I’m doing here?”

She scowled some more. But after a moment, the scowl concentrated, focusing on my dress. I waited hopefully.

Nothing changed, except for some sweat trickling down my back, because this part of Faerie was steamy.

I waited a while longer, then wondered if it would help if I pictured a pair of jeans in my mind. “Do you want me to—”

“No! Just stand there!”

I stood there, alongside Rhea, who was looking hopeful, too. Probably because she didn’t want to tromp through a wood in full Edwardian regalia any more than I did. But we were both disappointed.

“I can’t,” Guinn finally said, panting slightly. And resting a hand on a nearby tree until she remembered where we were, and abruptly snatched it back.

“Why not? If we’re just some kind of mental projection—”

“I don’t know why not! I’ve never done this before! And thanks to whatever you did, I can’t even tell whether you’re in my mind, or I’m in yours. But try as I might, nothing changes.”

Great. I was stuck in mental hell, in an outfit that was sure to trip me up every five feet. Not to mention being lined and damned hot, despite the fact that I hadn’t bothered with a petticoat. I hiked up my skirt and felt around underneath.

“What are you doing?” Guinn demanded.

“Checking for a crotch slit.”

“What?”

Oh, thank God. Edwardian ladies didn’t always stitch up the seam on their underwear, because going to the bathroom in a corset and half a dozen petticoats was hard enough. This led to the infamous crotch slit, which was exactly what it sounded like, and was often so wide that it made me wonder why they bothered with underwear at all.

But this pair of bloomers had actually been sewn up. I tore the sagging dress off at the waist, leaving me in a lace top and a cute set of wide legged cotton shorts, voluminous enough to look like a skirt and modest enough to preserve my dignity—whatever I had left. It wasn’t a perfect solution, since I still had the high-necked, long sleeved, lace shirt to contend with, but it would have to do.

“We’re all going to die, aren’t we?” Guinn asked, apropos of nothing.

“Stop whining,” I told her. “And come on.”

 

~~~

 

 

“Stop,” Guinn said, what felt like hours later, and I gladly followed orders. I flopped down on the ground, panting heavily. The forest was a nightmare, tall and close and dark, with roots that tried to trip you up when they weren’t doing even worse.

There were also leaves crunching underfoot, if that was even the right term, since we’d had to wade through waist-deep piles in places, and they were washed up against some of the larger trees in drifts twice as high as my head. They cut off a lot of what little light there was, and would have made an already difficult situation basically impossible, only I was here with two witches.

As a result, we had two light sources, although they were mostly illuminating leaf piles at the moment. Rhea had magicked up an orb of the kind that the dark mages had used in the tunnels, and Guinn had festooned a dead tree branch with strange, blue flame. We hadn’t wanted to risk using either of them, in case there were fey about, but there hadn’t been a choice.

Now, contrasting colors of electric blue and gold danced over the scene, highlighting two tired faces, predatory trees, and yet more leaves. Who knew that Faerie could be so boring, I thought, flopping back and looking up. And then catching my breath in wonder.

I’d been so busy watching my footsteps, that I hadn’t paid much attention to what was above me. Although it wouldn’t have mattered for much of our hike, which had taken place under heavy tree cover. But we’d reached, not a clearing, but a gap in the branches overhead, showing off a sight that you’d never see on Earth, unless visiting the famous Sequoias.

Although I didn’t know whether even they were this big. I was staring up at trees as thick around as apartment buildings, with leafy tops that speared so far into the starlit sky that I could barely see them. It looked like we’d stumbled into a massive cathedral of wood rather than stone, with the trunks like columns and the branches like buttresses.

It was almost like being in two forests at once. The sequoia-like trees looked like they touched the stars, while the tops of the shorter varieties, many of which were still pretty big, formed a second canopy far below. No wonder it was so dark! Through a gap, I could see crisscrossing beams of moonlight bouncing off the huge trunks far above us, but only an occasional ray reached the forest floor. And by the time it did, it had disintegrated into practically nothing.

“Douse the lights,” Guinn said suddenly, a second before hers went out.

“Why?” I asked, as Rhea followed suit.

Guinn didn’t answer. I couldn’t see her at all now, except as a silhouette against the night, framed by rapidly fading after images. But unlike me and Rhea, she was on her feet, with her head turning this way and that. She almost looked like she was sniffing the air, and maybe she was. Faerie was so damned weird that nothing would have surprised me.

Scare the living crap out of me yes; surprise me no.

“Guinn?” I prompted, when she didn’t answer after a moment. “Guinevere?”

“There’s something wrong.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know yet; stop talking!”

I stopped talking. But it was considerably less enchanting to sit here in the dark, with sweat dripping down my back and strange insects buzzing in my ears. There were some with natural bioluminescence, like fireflies only larger—the size of beetles. They gave off a soft blue light that wasn’t enough to illuminate much, but it added to the weird.

I’d seen a few of them before, but our light sources had mostly drowned them out. But now, as my vision adjusted, I could see them everywhere. They were flitting through the air, trundling over the ground, and lighting up piles of leaves, providing a dim, ambient sort of illumination that would have been strangely pretty, if I wasn’t tense as all hell.

I wanted to prompt Guinn again, but she was prickly, which . . . yeah. Didn’t really blame her. This was way more than she’d signed up for.

Join the club, I thought, glancing around. And hoping against hope that whatever she was sensing was Mircea or Pritkin, heading for us through the trees. Because they should be, right?

Mircea had been right there when he’d pulled me in before; I’d literally appeared beside him. Of course, I’d pulled myself in this time, but still. I would have expected to have found him by now, or at least to be able to hear him in my head.

But I couldn’t, which was why we’d been stumbling around, trying to zero in on his location. He was here; I could feel him, like a warm glow in the back of my mind. But I couldn’t contact him and that worried me—a lot.

He’d been able to communicate even stoned half out of his mind yesterday. And by now, whatever the dark mages had put in that potion bomb should have worn off. Yet I couldn’t even tell if I was getting warmer or not. For all I knew, we were walking around in circles, lost forever in a leafy maze . . .

Until we were eaten by hungry roots, I thought, as another one inched towards me.

“Cut it out!” I said, and slammed a knife down through the bastard thing, pinning it to the forest floor.

Before stopping and staring, because I hadn’t brought a knife.

“Take cover!” Rhea yelled, as more knives clattered against a shield that I guessed she’d thrown up, because I sure hadn’t. And I didn’t think that Guinn had, either, since she’d just hit the dirt beside me.

“In the tree,” she panted.

“What tree?” I said, looking around wildly. We were in a forest; there were a thousand trees!

“That one!” she pointed. “Over there.”

I followed her finger, but I couldn’t see anything. But then something moved, and I caught a glimpse of silver hair, flashing in a ray of moonlight as a Svarestri warrior leapt from one branch to another. And then caught fire when Rhea sent a fireball blistering at him through the air.

A very undignified yelp drifted down to us, and the fey took off. But no one else followed, because despite the barrage we’d just suffered, there appeared to be only one. And that was the best news I’d heard all day.

“Where are you going?” Guinn demanded, as I jumped to my feet.

“After him!”

“What? But he’s leaving—”

“I know.”

“So, let him go!”

“Not a chance—”

“Why?”

“I need answers!” I said, before running full out—into the side of the shield that Rhea had thrown back up. “Drop it!” I told her, staggering back, and she, at least, didn’t argue.

She dropped it, and I took off after the fleeing fey.