Chapter 37

Ch. 37: Julian

As I creep through the tall ferns, I'm more conscious than ever of the eerie stillness beneath the trees. The snap of a twig sounds like a gunshot, and it feels as if the tiniest sound will bring some predator down on me.

I couldn't smell it before, but now the sweet, coppery tang of blood tinges the air, and my heart beats faster with anxiety at the thought of what I might be about to discover.

Pushing through the thick fronds, I approach a slight rise in the ground and lower myself to my hands and knees as I draw even with its edge. Beyond the rim, I see the wide, stony bed of a shallow creek. A few meters upstream, I spot the source of the smell: a body, lying face-down in a pool of reddened water.

From the denim jacket, petite frame, and shock of black hair, I recognize Danni Spelling — or the skin-changer that had taken their shape, hopefully. Unless the skin-changer is doing a great impression of a corpse, she, they, or he is definitely dead.

Fearful that whatever did this might still be nearby, I freeze, hardly daring to breathe; but beyond the sound of my heart thudding in my ears, all is quiet.

Deciding to retreat and tell the others what I'd found, I back up and bump into something soft. I turn, expecting to see Freya or Dane, and instead stare up into a pair of familiar amethyst eyes.

I make a sound, as much of relief as of surprise, but strangely, my grandmother doesn't seem happy to see me. Instead, Rhiannon's face twists with anguish and grief. She holds a short, silver blade in each hand and blood stains her sleeves.

I realized two things: first, I found what killed Danni's doppelgänger, and second, Rhiannon thinks the skin-changers got me, too.

Before I can disabuse her of this idea, she kicks me in the chest, sending me flying into the creek bed, where I land on my back in the shallow water. She's on me in a flash, silver knives at my throat and a look of pure rage twisting her face.

"Rhiannon, wait!" I gasp, lifting my hands in surrender. "It's me! Please—I'm not one of them! Dane and Freya are here, too!"

She shakes her head, and a pair of tears slip down her cheeks. She doesn't believe me, but she hasn't killed me yet, either, so I keep babbling.

"We came through the caverns," I gasp, keeping my eyes locked with hers. "That's what you were trying to tell us, isn't it? That Darragh and the others weren't going to faerie—they came here, instead. The skin-changers had something to do with what happened to you, and further back, with my ancestor, Julius. That's what the rune meant, isn't it? Julius Hart. We figured it out and—"

Lifting one blade from my throat, Rhiannon keeps the other in place while clapping her hand over my mouth to shut me up. I haven't been whispering, and her alarm makes me wonder what other dangers might lurk beneath the trees.

Fortunately for me, those dangers include Freya and Dane.

Rhiannon's head whips around to look over her shoulder as they emerge from the trees, drawn by the sound of my distress, with a breathless and red-faced Erickson in tow.

"Julian? What the—"

Dane halts, frozen by the sight of my imminent peril, but Rhiannon relaxes almost immediately, lifting her hand from my mouth and dropping her knife.

She leans over me, concern creasing her brow, and lays her hands on either side of my face.

"It's okay," I whisper breathlessly, as much for Dane's reassurance as for hers. "You didn't hurt me. I'm okay."

Convinced, she releases me and rocks back on her heels, still straddling my waist.

"You know, I always wanted a grandma," I croak as she climbs off me, "but to be honest, I imagined more cookie baking and less murder."

She tilts her head to the side, perplexed, as Dane helps me to my feet.

"You sure you're okay?" he asks, keeping a steadying hand on my arm.

"Yeah. Just a few new bruises and a mild heart-attack. I'm fine."

Dane continues to fuss over me while Freya examines the body.

"Damn. Looks like our chase hit a dead end," she says dryly.

I look to where Rhiannon has retreated to the edge of the ferns, ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.

"Or maybe not."

Pulling away from Dane, I keep my movements slow and my voice soft as I approach, as if she's a skittish animal.

"Rhiannon, we're looking for Ingrid and Danni," I say, nodding at the body in the creek. "The real Danni. And Erickson's niece, and whoever else the skin-changers have taken. Do you know where they are?"

Slowly, she nods.

"Will you take us to them?"

Disappointingly, she shakes her head and shrinks further into the shadows beneath the trees, her purple eyes wide and frightened.

"You're scared of the skin-changers?" I ask.

Graceful, rapid gestures flash from her hands.

I shake my head. "I'm sorry. I still don't understand."

Huffing a breath of frustration, she drops to a crouch and clears a small patch of dirt, smoothing it out before inscribing a symbol in the dust.

Cautiously, I approach and peer down at it.

"That's the rune from Lagrange's shop," I say, recognizing it. "The one that means Ha'Larán. You're afraid of Rian?"

Shaking her head, she points insistently at the rune.

Finally, something clicks into place. If Darragh is Halloran's half brother, he's Rhiannon's half brother, too.

"Darragh," I say. "He's the one that scares you."

Chewing her bottom lip, she nods.

"Is he the one that cursed you?"

She nods again, tears slipping down her cheeks, and I sigh.

"That's why we were looking for Danni. I was hoping they could help you," I say, looking down at the rune in the dirt. "But they've been taken—just like Ingrid and Rian." I glance over my shoulder. "Erickson's niece, too."

At my back, Erickson approaches slowly, hands outstretched and fingers spread wide.

"Her name is Savannah," he says. "She's only seven years old. Please—if you can help us find her, I..."

He trails off, clearly at a loss for what he might offer a fae woman in return for her help.

"We'll be grateful," I say, turning back to my grandmother. "And we'll do everything in our power to help you break the curse and reveal the truth. Please, help us rescue our families and friends."

She stares back at me, eyes wide and frightened. I don't understand how a woman who can take down and an entire pack of werewolves could be scared of anything, but something about Darragh has her terrified. I didn't like the idea of using her trauma to our advantage before, and I still don't, but desperate times call for cheap tricks, so I play my last card.

"Please. For David," I say, "and for James. Don't let what happened to you happen to me. That's what they want me for, isn't it? Because I'm a leanan sidhe, like you. Darragh wants to open some kind of permanent doorway, and the skin-changers have something to do with it. They tried once before, didn't they? A long time ago. And my human ancestor stopped them. We can stop them, too, and make sure this never happens again."

Conflicted emotions make Rhiannon's expression flicker like a guttering flame.

For a moment, I'm not sure what she'll do—whether she'll agree, or bolt for the shadows and disappear once more. Finally, resolution hardens her features, and she nods.

Approaching slowly, I hold out my hand to her.

"You'll show us the way? You'll help us?"

With a fierce glow in her bright purple eyes, she nods again, and with a few quick gestures, tells us what to do. This time, however, I understand: a finger to her lips for 'stay close,' and a downward palm for 'keep low.'

Then, with a last glance between the lot of us, she leads us deeper into the Shadowlands.

***

Stephanie's memories hadn't done the place justice. It's even creepier than I'd thought.

It doesn't look or sound like any forest I know, and without the familiar calls of birds or the buzz and whine of insects, I'd mistakenly thought the place was silent and still; upon closer acquaintance, I learn it is neither. Strange clicks, creaks and knocking sounds echo through the gloom beneath the columnar trees—near and distant, low and high, slow and rapid.

They could be the sounds of branches rubbing together, or of the colossal trees swaying in an unfelt breeze, but I can just as easily imagine they're the sounds of monsters.

As we pass deeper into the forest, I notice strangling vines embrace the trunks of the great trees, ensnaring them like the tangled webbing of massive nets. Firefly lights flicker in the misty canopy above, sickly greenish-yellow twinkles in the gloom, and now and then, I glimpse a flash of movement in the corner of my eye.

Rhiannon leads us on a meandering path, keeping to the deepest shadows, and frequently reminds us to be quiet, but in the increasingly ominous atmosphere, not even Erickson complains.

I quickly lose track of time. The constant and unvarying gloom beneath the gigantic trees makes it impossible to tell whether it's morning, midday, or late afternoon, and the only way to judge how long we've been walking is by how tired and hungry we are.

"Don't suppose they got McDonald's in this place, do ya? I'm fuckin' famished," Freya grumbles when we stop to rest at the base of a particularly massive tree, so enormous we look like insects by comparison. The tangled, moss-covered roots that splay from its base like tentacles serve as convenient seats, and the ground is relatively free of undergrowth. "Hey, Erickson, you got a granola bar in one a' those pockets? Or some trail mix, or somethin'? Hell, I'll take a stick a' gum."

"Sorry, nah." Erickson shakes his head. "I'd have eaten it already, if I had."

He's been uncharacteristically quiet and cooperative since landing in the Shadowlands, and I suspect he's in some kind of mental shock. I can't blame him, but I'm also not sure how long the improved attitude will last.

After a shorter rest than I'd like, Rhiannon rises from her makeshift bench and gestures for us to follow her once more. Wearily, we obey.

"How much farther is this place?" Erickson grumbles, confirming my suspicion that the attitude change isn't permanent. "This bitch better not be leading us in circles."

"Shut up, Erickson," I snap. "If you want to turn back, no one's stopping you."

"I'm not going anywhere without my niece," he mutters. "Besides, you're all thinkin' it. I'm just sayin' it."

I glare at him over my shoulder, but the truth is, he's not wrong. The impressions I got from Stephanie were like short clips or snapshots, not a seamless record. I knew she'd run some distance through the Shadowlands to reach the pool, but I didn't know if 'some distance' was one mile or ten.

Ahead of me, Rhiannon pauses and gestures once more for us to be quiet. This time, she points up at the unseen canopy high above, hidden by a layer of mist.

At last, she pauses before another gargantuan tree.

"Are we close?" I ask in a whisper.

She nods and gestures for us to follow her as she picks her way through the tangle of roots and massive vines at the tree's base. She ducks beneath one and disappears, and when I move to follow her, I find myself staring into the black maw of a burrow-like opening.

I shrink back instinctively and bump into Erickson, who swears.

"You have got to be shitting me," he mutters. "I am not going down there."

"I don't want to, either," I say, "but what choice do we have?"

"I'm serious," Erickson insists, backing away. "I got claustrophobia somethin' bad. I barely made it through the last fuckin' cave. Call me a coward—I don't care. I'll wait for y'all here. Keep lookout, or whatever."

"What if we don't come back?"

"I'll take my chances," he says, stubbornly plopping down to sit on a root.

I open my mouth to point out that there might be worse things out here than in the cave, but the sheen of sweat dampening his brow, the greenish tinge to his face, and the shake in his hands tell me he's not lying. He's on the verge of nervous collapse, and the last thing we need is him fainting or screaming and giving us away.

"You know you'll have to go through the caves again to get out of here," I point out.

"If it's to get out of here, I'll do anything," he grumbles.

"Fine. Wait here. If we don't come out again, try to find your way back to the pool. Just remember you might not come out under the shops. You might come out under the reservoir."

Looking decidedly ill at the idea, Erickson nods.

Rhiannon reappears from the darkness, beckoning insistently for us to follow her.

"All right," I sigh, "time to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes."

With a last glance at Erickson, I follow her into the dark opening beneath the tree. Dane and Freya follow close at my back.

I have to stoop and brush aside a hanging fringe of moss, but the burrow-like entrance widens to a passageway almost immediately. At first, pitch darkness meets my eyes, but I quickly perceive that the darkness is not so deep and that a soft, bluish light illuminates the ceiling and walls. The passageway appears natural, made of rough, ragged stone, and cutting left and right too often for conscious design. There's a decidedly downward slope to the floor, and the farther we penetrate, the brighter the eerie glow becomes. Soon, I identify the source as a kind of slimy fungal growth clinging to the walls.

"Bioluminescence," Freya murmurs, poking at it with her fingernail.

"Don't touch it," Dane snaps. "That's how horror movies start."

Freya rolls her eyes at him but wipes her finger on her sleeve.

Meanwhile, Rhiannon doesn't have to tell us to stay quiet down here. Every sound seems amplified, and part of me is glad Erickson chickened out; he's a bit of a mouth breather, honestly.

Just as I've thought this, someone behind me gasps loudly, the echoes ricocheting around the passageway like a swarm of bats, and I spin to see Freya staring at the wall as if she's seen a ghost.

"Freya?" Dane moves to see what she's looking at, peering over her shoulder. Then he swears. "Oh, fuck."

"What is it?" I ask, retracing my steps.

"Julian, don't look," Dane warns, but I've already seen.

Behind a wedding veil of glowing fungi, the eyeless sockets of a skull stare back at me. Retreating a step, I see the rest of the skeleton. It looks as if someone got tired and sat down to rest against the wall and never got up again. Something tells me that isn't what happened, though.

With swiftly dawning horror, I see that the poor soul who expired in this lonely, gods-forsaken place is far from alone. All along the passageway, similar fungi-shrouded shapes line the walls.

"What in hell is this place?" Freya breathes.

"I think these are the skin-changer's victims," I say, swallowing the tang of nausea as it stings the back of my throat.

Dane nods in agreement as he uses the muzzle of Erickson's firearm to move aside the strands of fungi for a closer look. "I'd say these bones are at least a hundred years old. Maybe twice that. At the very least, I'd guess they date from the time of the first incursion."

"Looks like they get fresher farther in," Freya whispers. "This one's still got clothes on."

We move along the corridor to where she stands.

"Style looks like fifty, sixty years ago," Dane says.

"Like from around my grandfather's time," I say.

"The bodies end here," Freya says. "But look." She points to two bare spots on the wall, where the fungal growth appears to have been disturbed. "This must be where they were keeping Stephanie and Lagrange."

"No sign of Danni or any children," I say. "I'm no forensics expert, but these skeletons all look like adults."

"Maybe they're further in," Freya says. "Speaking of, where'd granny go?"

I turn and see that Rhiannon has vanished.

"Shit. Come on."

We proceed down the narrow, sloping corridor. The passageway narrows and zigzags through several sharp turns, and around the last of these abruptly opens into a much larger chamber.

Seven stone pillars, too smooth and regular to have been formed naturally, support a domed roof and surround a yawning chasm in the center. A small figure is bound to each of the pillars with the same fibrous webbing as the bodies in the passageway, and more of the eerily glowing growth covers the walls and ceiling in wispy cobwebs. On the opposite side of the chamber, cocoon-like masses of the stuff anchor three larger bodies and one small one to the wall, which I take to be Ingrid, Danni, Halloran, and Erickson's niece. Rhiannon kneels in front of one, cutting through the webbing with her knives.

Quickly skirting the edge of the chasm, we pause briefly to examine the small figures bound to the pillars. Beneath the cobweb veils enveloping them, I glimpse the faces of young children. They look like they're sleeping, and most of them wear clothing so old and tattered it looks to be made more of dust than fabric.

"Are they alive?" I ask anxiously as Dane and Freya pull some of the glowing strands away from the children's faces.

After a moment, Freya nods. "Yeah, they're alive. It's like they're in some kind of stasis, though."

Dane grunts. "Where did they come from? No one's missing any kids, that I'm aware."

"Unless they've all been replaced by skinchangers, like Savannah," Freya says.

"I don't think so," I say. "Look at their clothes. I think... I think these are the kids that went missing when Julius Hart blocked the caverns off."

"That's impossible," Dane says. "That would mean they've been here for almost 150 years."

"Earth time," I point out. "We don't know if it's the same here."

"And, if they're in some kind of suspended animation, it might not matter," Freya agrees.

"If that's the case, a few more minutes won't hurt them," Dane says, and continues on across the chamber to where Rhiannon has freed Halloran and pulled him away from the wall. While Dane and Freya pick up her discarded knives and set to work on Danni and Ingrid, I join her at Halloran's side.

Reaching into a fold of her strange garment, she pulls out a little pouch, from which she withdraws a pinch of dried herbs. As she crushes them between her fingers beneath Halloran's nose, a nauseatingly pungent smell hits me. I cover my mouth to stifle a gag; fortunately, the stuff has an effect on Halloran, too.

His eyes snap open and he gasps, then collapses to the side, wracked by a fit of dry heaves. Thankfully, Rhiannon puts the pouch away and the smell quickly dissipates; if it were a bottled fragrance, 'rude awakening' would be an apt name.

When he recovers sufficiently, he raises himself and blinks blearily at his sister.

"Rhiannon... You came... You... You know it wasn't me?"

She nods, tears sparkling in her eyes as she gently strokes the side of his face.

Looking past her, the sapphire blue of his eyes catches the eerie glow of the fungus as they fix on me. I offer him a smile, but he doesn't look happy to see me.

In fact, he looks terrified.

"What have you done?" he whispers, his eyes flicking to Rhiannon accusingly. "Why have you brought him here?"

She shrinks away, and he grabs my hand.

"Julian, you need to get out of here now."

Wondering if whatever's in the fungus is making him confused, I shake my head. "We're here to help," I say. "We're all getting out of here just as soon as we wake up Ingrid and Danni, and these kids."

Although how we're going to get seven kids through an underwater tunnel is beyond me. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.

Halloran shakes his head, his grip on my hand tightening painfully. "No. No, you don't understand. You shouldn't be here, Julian!"

"Why not?" I ask, the beginnings of alarm tingling in my gut.

"Because," he breathes, his eyes wide as he stares at something at my back. "It's exactly where he wanted you."

My heart drops like a stone, and I turn at the sound of faint echoes in the passageway.

"Julian, hide!"

Halloran's hiss makes me jump, and I leap to my feet, but the chamber offers no concealment, and the only way in or out is the way we came.

Instinctively, I will myself Unseen just as Darragh emerges from the tunnel, followed by a group of armed fae.