Remnants of Ash (Reign of Fae Book 1) Page 10

  “It’s so beautiful,” she said in breathless awe, drying the tear running down her cheek, partly called forth by the salt and wind. She was overcome with the simple joy of the experience. “They’re so beautiful; I mean.”

  Bram smiled at her. “Water sprites, as you might have guessed. And over there…” He pointed at a rock jutting out of the water closer to shore. “That’s a selkie. Best not get too close to the edge near that one, though.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful not to shed any tears into the water and call to him.”

  “You do know your fae lore.” Bram seemed impressed. “He’s probably been drawn closer to the surface, along with the water sprites and mermaids, curious about the scorch.”

  In the sky’s dim amber glow, Chloe could barely make out the details of the elusive creature, but she still had to try. She’d undoubtedly never see one again. The selkie’s long brown hair was braided, adorned by tiny shells and pearls. She wondered if he had decorated his hair himself and just how many selkies there were in the world. The seal-like fae must have been startled by the magically-propelled ferry. He dove underneath the water without even a splash, his slick brown fin disappearing into the depths.

  “Mmm,” Chloe agreed. “He was quite handsome, though,” she teased.

  “Was he now?”

  “Are they all Dark?” she wondered out loud. “Sorry, that was stupid.”

  “Still on that, are you? Light and Dark have coexisted in peace in the faerie realm for millennia. It’s the Seelie and Unseelie royals that cause most of the conflict and chaos.”

  “I think all the faerie tales and folklore from my childhood still have me thinking that the fae are either one or the other, good or evil, light-versus-dark kind of thing. I need to stop doing that, huh?”

  Bram chuckled. “A little bit, yeah. Sometimes, evil lurks in the light, like Avery blinding victims with her brilliance.”

  Chloe shuddered suddenly and sucked in her breath. The water sprites vanished as the ship rounded the last bend and the sky turned into a bright-orange inferno of smoke and flames low on the horizon. “Bram?”

  “I see it.” Bram sounded both angry and worried. He waved up to Laszlo, who was already slowing the engines.

  “What is it?”

  “The military base.” He looked at Chloe, then. “How far is Hadley’s from the Naval Base Kitsap and the dock?”

  “Pretty far. Hadley’s is northeast of them.”

  “Good. That’s good” Bram looked like he was doing mental calculations. “The base was strategically targeted. Probably, one of the first things they hit and are more than likely going to keep hitting. They’ll make sure everything from the Base all the way to the shipyard is destroyed.”

  “Why?” Chloe asked.

  “It’s one of the largest naval bases in the US, the navy’s largest fuel depot, one of two strategic nuclear weapons facilities, and an operational base for nuclear subs and surface ships. Cripple your opponent’s strongholds and weapon caches while you hold the element of surprise.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “It’s what I would’ve done.”

  Chloe felt sick to her stomach, disgusted by it all. The destruction of the naval base was proof of the magnitude and just how far-reaching the royals’ devastating blow had been. Several bodies in military fatigues floated past, along with debris and wreckage from the ships in the fleet. She pictured the scene as it might have happened during the initial attack; dozens of ships sinking, floating bodies everywhere, and scabs dragging said bodies ashore to feast.

  “Why are they doing this?”

  “Because they can.” His answer was chilling.

  “What did humans do to them to deserve all of this? To deserve extinction?!” She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping the scene playing in her mind would stop.

  “Nothing, Chloe. You didn’t do anything. They’ve always believed humans are beneath them, something to step on.” Bram looked at her “And, there’s never been anyone to stop them.”

  Chloe looked up at him, the flames from the fire reflected in her defiant eyes demanding to be acknowledged. “Well, they haven’t met me yet.”

  Laszlo docked the Kaleetan and watched as Bram tied off the moor lines down below. With a little tap for luck, he lifted the coin off the helm, and the ferry died instantly. He headed down to the vehicle platform to say goodbye.

  Laszlo tossed the golden coin to Bram, and Chloe gave the old bosun a worried look. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” she asked.

  Laszlo pointed to a row of condos along the coastline they had passed. Those buildings, farther from the naval shipyard and ferry terminal, remained unscathed. There was even faint candlelight coming from dozens of the windows in the buildings. “My wife,” he said with tears in his eyes.

  “Concrete and iron and built along the coast. That’s good.” Bram got on the motorcycle and placed the coin on the gas tank. He started the engine, and Chloe got on the back.

  “We’ll come find you if things get any worse,” she promised.

  “Thank you, Chloe, but you don’t need an old man slowing you down. I feel like I’ve been given a second chance to be with my wife. And if things get worse, come to an end, I’m likely to soon follow.” Laszlo nodded towards his home. “She’s my world, and if it’s about to end, I’d rather spend my last moments with her.”

  “Stay on the shore until you get there. And away from the base.” Bram nodded his reassurance. “You’ll make it.”

  Chloe looked worried sick, poking Bram in the ribs in response to his nonchalant attitude concerning the treacherous hike Laszlo was about to set out on.

  Laszlo nodded back as Bram revved the motorcycle’s engine.

  “Take care of yourself, Laszlo,” Chloe said. She and Laszlo waved goodbye to each other, each wondering what the future held for the other.

  As Bram drove off the ship’s ramp, the fragile little thing Chloe looked back one last time.

  “You too, love,” Laszlo whispered. “You too.” He watched for a long time until their silhouettes disappeared into the darkness.

  Once he could no longer see them and the gruff exhaust roar faded, Laszlo swirled his fingers near his ear. Tiny wisps of luminous green smoke appeared. With a flick of his wrist, they traveled back towards Seattle. He looked at his home before buckling over in a coughing fit. Blood-red light and smoke radiated up and out of his back. The eerie glow surrounded him, suffocating him even more. A translucent human form pulled itself out of him and staggered backwards, almost as if his soul had just separated from his body. But the form was female with long red hair, and she was starting to become solid.

  Mary Bradbury straightened and caught her breath. Human possession always made her feel like she was being stuffed into a child’s coffin. Leaving their bodies was even worse. She lost a little piece of her life every time she did so. Chloe had seen the side effects caused by her years of misuse when the girl had looked back at her through the silver veil at the Spree.

  “Was that it?” Laszlo coughed.

  Mary nodded, still weak and winded from the possession. “Go; be with your wife, and do as Bram said.”

  “Stay to the shoreline. I remember.”

  Mary looked up in the sky and managed to raise her hands above her head. She conjured a small rain cloud and let it grow before willing it towards Laszlo’s building. “The rain will give you cover.”

  “I would have died out there.” He pointed out towards the middle of Puget Sound where Mary had found him and the ferry adrift. “How can I ever repay you?”

  She waved off his praise and promise of a debt he felt he owed. “You’ve done your part.” He had been a convenient means to an end.

  As Laszlo sprinted away from the marina hugging the shoreline, a vortex of wind and white light began to appear in the air next to Mary. She prepared herself for a battle of wills.

  Hilgrid stepped through the vortex of wind and light, followed
by Mary’s raven, whose long wingspan cut through the portal’s edges just as it began to close. Mary’s familiar flew over and perched on the railing of the ship. They both seemed displeased by her actions.

  Hilgrid sniffed the air. “A human possession? Are you mad, using dark magic so recklessly? You’re going to end up killing yourself. And for what? Him?” The witch paced back and forth across the platform as Mary struggled to remain standing. “And you were a fool to hand over the sword. If the Witch’s Council finds out that we...”

  “There wouldn’t even be a Witch’s Council if it wasn’t for that man, Hilgrid!” Mary interrupted her coven sister’s rant.

  “Man?” Hilgrid harrumphed. “That is too soft a word for what he truly is!”

  “Oh, Hilgrid, when will you learn? You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Besides, there was no way for them to cross without my help. I owed him at least that much. We owe him!”

  “Still… Now that he has the sword, do you trust him not to turn?”

  Mary looked to her familiar. “Tenebris, be a dear and keep an eye on them, hmm?”

  The raven bowed his majestic head and expanded his wings in compliance. Mary hobbled over to him and waved her hand over his feathers. Bright white translucent smoke hovered between Mary’s hand and her familiar. Tenebris’ form started to disappear in the magic’s wake. Before the raven became completely invisible, he gave out a loud caw and took off, straight up into the air, tracking the motorcycle.

  Mary rapped her knuckles on the rail for luck and turned to Hilgrid. “We shall see.”

  9

  Accidental Revelation

  Bram raced down the street, dodging abandoned cars and debris as Chloe gave directions from the back of the bike. He told her to get them close to Hadley’s cottage, but not too close. They’d hide the bike and finish the trip on foot as to avoid drawing attention to their true destination.

  Bremerton seemed to be void of the devastating swarms of scabs that had blanketed Seattle. Still, there were a few of the vile creatures. Chloe watched as they slithered into the darkest shadows and crevices as she and Bram sped by. What was more disturbing were the human faces watching through barricaded windows as they rode along. The despair on their faces made Chloe feel like she’d been shot with a barbed arrow deep into her chest; its jagged edges snagging her still-beating heart and ripping it out.

  Chloe tapped Bram on the shoulder and pointed to a mausoleum in the cemetery they were coming upon. Tombs lined both sides of the marble building, and a covered walkway stood between them. The cemetery was close to Hadley’s, and the mausoleum was the perfect place to stow the motorcycle in case they needed it later. Bram nodded and gunned the bike into the cemetery.

  As soon as they reached the mausoleum, Bram killed the engine. Chloe got off the back, and they pushed the motorcycle into its hiding place.

  “I take it that’s Hadley’s?” he asked, nodding at a light-blue two-story cottage visible through the mausoleum breezeway.

  Chloe squinted her eyes. “Is it warded? I can’t tell anymore.” Since Bram had taken away her glamour, she hadn’t been able to see any runes or secret doorways anymore.

  “Yeah, but I’m still going to fortify them.” Bram looked out the other end of the mausoleum, making sure there were no lurking scabs before they headed to the professor’s hideaway.

  “It’s clear,” he said, waving her forward.

  Chloe thought it was creepy Hadley had lived so close to a cemetery. Now that it was nighttime, and she knew monsters existed, the thought was even creepier. In the darkness, Chloe could see just how massive the fire that had engulfed the naval base was. “Is that why there aren’t as many scabs here as there are in Seattle? They’re all concentrated at the base?” she asked.

  “Mhmm. Most of them.” Bram scanned the darkness and gleaned something that disturbed him. “But unless we want a repeat of Seattle, we need to get inside, now!”

  Good God what I wouldn’t give for a translation app! Chloe scratched her head, as if she could will the knowledge to come back to her. This Latin is killing me.

  As soon as she and Bram broke into Hadley’s, they had raced upstairs to where Chloe knew the journal would be. It was there, still in its hiding place, almost as if it had been waiting for them. Chloe had reached blindly into the chimney flue and yanked the journal free. As soon as Bram saw the dozens of scrap pieces of paper hand written in Hadley’s illegible shorthand fall out, he had decided to ward the perimeter of the house instead of scouring through the maddening notes. Chloe didn’t mind, though. She always did her best research and thinking alone, with only a room full of dusty books to keep her company. She had pretty much shooed him out the door and started organizing the bulk of the notes in her own kind of controlled chaos, stopping only to sleep when she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. That had been three days ago. Bram had stayed out of her way, only popping in to make her eat and reassure himself that she was still okay.

  Chloe rearranged a couple of Hadley’s barely-legible notes for the hundredth time. His lackadaisical use of the words cor, corda, and cordibus, interchanging them from note to note, was driving her crazy. All his scraps of paper and open books she’d been researching were strewn all over the floor, the room illuminated by candles she had scattered around Hadley’s office. She had stripped down to her trench coat, wearing it like a comfortable bath robe, and dove into the madness spread out before her. She’d have to sleep again soon, though. Her brain was getting fuzzy. But she pushed on for the moment, knowing it was also when she had her best moments of clarity, when everything else faded away.

  Apocalypsis Equitum. Chloe read the words to herself again, first deciphering them from Hadley’s ill-written shorthand, and then trying to translate them into English. She cursed her brain for forgetting her four years of Latin. Okay, brain, come on. Apocalypse is Latin. I don’t need to translate that, but equitum? That’s, ah, Equitibus? Bus? I don’t think they had public Metro Transit way back when. Equi…equipment? Wait, no. Think of the Olympics. Equestrian. That’s it, rider!

  Chloe froze. She read Hadley’s note with the names of the known royals, Avery, Mortimer, Famke, and Primus. Hadley had written Bram’s name next to the last and circled it with a question mark. Chloe quickly scanned one of the open books, searching for the particular set of ancient descriptions which seemed so familiar to her. Ashen, pale-green in appearance. Mortimer, she deducted. Purest white and the darkest black. Like the down of a bird and a serpent's tongue. Avery and Famke. Her eyes widened as she reluctantly read the last description. Deepest of reds, like the fiery breath of a dragon… Primus, she thought. Bram makes four!

  Chloe couldn’t swallow. Oh god! Her heart started beating so loud and fast; she thought for sure Bram would hear it from downstairs. She wondered how she could have been so blind. All the clues were in front of her, and they were virtually screaming their meaning at her. Avery, Mortimer, Famke, Primus! Equitum translated from Latin meant rider. Yes, she knew that to be true. But it had another meaning, a darker more devastating meaning Chloe couldn’t bring herself to say out loud. Horseman!

  “Primus,” Chloe said in a hushed voice from the foot of the stairs. She tried to catch Bram off guard by speaking his true name to see what his honest reaction would be. He either didn’t hear her or was ignoring her goading. He was fae with ungodly strength. She knew he had heard her, and that only made her angrier.

  “War!” she yelled at the back of Bram’s head.

  Bram tugged the book he was reading closed. He slumped his head, seeming to tense at the impending fight. “Shit.”

  “You’re one of the Four Horsemen of the Fucking Apocalypse?” Chloe clenched the journal in her hand. “You liar!”

  Bram got up and faced her. “You know I can’t lie. I just didn’t...volunteer the extra...information.”

  “Extra information?” She berated. “Being a horseman of the apocalypse is more than just fucking ‘extra information!’ you li
ar!” She threw the journal at Bram, Primus, War –whatever the hell his name really was. The journal was useless. As far as Chloe could gather, the professor had sent her on a wild goose chase. Their journey together all for nothing.

  Bram caught the journal and placed it on the table. “Would you calm down?!” he yelled back, seeming to be arguing with her as much as he was fighting his inner beast from breaking free.

  “No, I won’t calm down! I can’t trust you!” His betrayal had broken her heart. Preparing to strike again, she picked up the professor’s favorite tale of hobbits and rings from beside his bulky leather reading chair. She was as mad at Professor Hadley as she was with Bram. You died for nothing! There’s nothing we can do! Nothing! Chloe had seen too much in the last few days; too much death, too much brutality…and she couldn’t take any more. Especially something like that. Blurred images of body parts being laid at their feet and corpses floating in the calm waters of Puget Sound flashed in her mind. “Those scabs weren’t paying tribute to Famke because of this.” She grabbed the pendant, wanting to rip it off.

  Bram’s eye grew wide. “Leave that on!”

  “How could I be so stupid? There weren’t scabs hovering around the real Famke waiting to pay her tribute when I saw her at your apartment. It’s because of this!” Chloe tugged at the pendant, but it wouldn’t break. “Fucking magic!” She began pulling it over her head.

  “That pendant is shielding you. You can be as mad at me as you want, but I’m begging you, please, leave it on!”

  Staring at him with venom, she said, “They were dropping those body parts at your feet, not because I looked like Famke, but because they knew you were War! Tell the truth!”

  “It’s all true. Everything,” he admitted.