Hunted by Fae Preview

CHAPTER 1

25 years ago

The white-hot flame of raw power seared through every vein and nerve in her body, but nothing could be hot enough to purify her soul of the horror she was committing. Tears of pain and regret evaporated from her cheeks in wisps of steam. If they had only heeded her warnings. Seen the threat. They could have battled the forces of destruction together, preserved this precious Green World, and they wouldn’t be dying at her feet. 

Badb Catha looked down at her sisters’ faces twisted in silent screams. Anand and Macha lay side by side, backs arched in torture. Once the siblings had been so close, referred to by a single name, the Morrigna, the Great Queens. For thousands of years, the Morrigna fought to protect this new world against forces of evil and destruction. Whether they battled against men, or the evil Fomorians whose power rivaled their own; they kept the balance. Now she was draining them of their magical essence. For the world to be preserved, her family had to die. 

Part of her wished it wasn’t so, but the power she required had to be like her own. Another’s magic wouldn’t bend to her will as easily. Another Tuatha’s chaotic sea magic, for instance, would spread and squirm, rather than lance through obstruction. 

A choked gurgle percolated through the grimace her youngest sister, Macha, wore. Macha, whose only mistake had been her inability to pick a side between her warring siblings.

Mother Danu, what have I done? She prayed to the creator of her people, the Tuatha. The torment written in her sister’s sad blue eyes, the blood caking her strawberry hair, painted Badb Catha as a monster. For a fleeting second, Badb allowed her hands to dip, the torrent of magical power surging into them slowing to a trickle. 

Flashbacks of the prophecy she’d spoken at the end of the second Great War thousands of years ago replayed visions of rivers aflame, leagues of forests reduced to stubble, and skies choked with poison. That instant at Moytura, on that ancient Plain of Towers, her life had changed. The night she left her people forever, she’d made a sacred pledge to be the blade for the voiceless. She gritted her teeth and the bright filaments of magic she was draining from her kin flared. They made me betray them. Only I speak for this world now. 

“I’m sorry, my sisters. It’s the only way.” The words came out as a ragged gasp. “We’re all lost if I fail.” Her last word ended in a scream. One body, even that of a Tuatha, could only contain so much elemental power. This was akin to swallowing lightning. The strength drained from her legs. Her knees crashed to the earth, and her shoulders slumped.

Macha and Anand shrieked and writhed. Crackling white energy snapped and hissed along their bodies, on its way to their red-haired sister’s outstretched arms. 

Anand’s hand, contorted into a claw, clutched the hem of Badb’s black cloak. In her prime, Anand had led armies and mentored the greatest heroes of Inisfáil, now called Ireland. Cuchulain, Arthur, and many more owed their skill in battle to her. Rattling sounds tore from her chest, brown eyes rolled back, and she fell still. The Phantom Queen was dead.

A sob, wretched and thick with self-loathing, shook Badb. Unbidden memories flowed once more. This time, the two of them flapped over battlefields in the guise of great ravens, war frenzy coursing through their veins while their enemies fled before them. No army prevailed against the Morrigna. The last of Anand’s life force jabbed into Badb’s muscles like a million hot needles. She howled.

Macha flailed and smacked her palms against the ground. Badb turned her face away. She couldn’t bear to look at her. Macha was the gentlest of the three of them, and the most level-headed. She played war like a chess match. Analytical and cold but no less deadly. 

It would seem Macha had one last surprise in her. She swept her leg and knocked Badb the rest of the way flat on the earth, facing her. Her hands spasmed involuntarily, clutching handfuls of dirt. She dragged herself along on her stomach closer to Badb and seized her shoulder. 

“Look. At. Me.” Macha rasped, every word squeezed through her clenched jaw. “Face what you have done.”

Badb wrenched her head up. Blood poured from Macha’s nose and mouth, her strawberry head trembling with the effort of skewering Badb with her glare. Pangs of sadness wrapped Badb’s heart in an iron grip, squeezing a single sob that sent a wave along her entire body. It’ll all be worth it. It has to be.

“Sister, I—” No words could explain or offer comfort.

Macha only pulled her lips from her teeth and released a long groan. When it ended, the irises disappeared from Macha’s eyes while an invisible hand plucked her into the air. Arms and legs dangled beneath her cloak like a rag doll. Strawberry hair and dark blue cloth whipped around Macha as though blown by a vortex. 

Badb Catha was no stranger to the force seizing her dying sibling. A similar experience had set her on the path that led to this moment. An oracle gripped her sister. Soon, the Great Mother Danu would speak through Macha’s voice, portending what would come to pass. Would it foretell the success of Badb’s attempt to rescue the world from its oppressors, or would she be condemned? She dreaded the prophecy, yet it pumped more magical energy into her sister.  More power to drain from Macha now increased her chances for success.

Macha’s limbs jerked and stiffened, empty eyes fixated on Badb, and her full ruby lips drew into a slow smile. Despite her waning life, Macha’s voice carried through the entire Underworld and across the seas to the Undying Lands. 

“The prophecies of the Morrigna stand incomplete, sister. But two of the three were spoken at the close of the Second Battle of Moytura. One by Anand. One by you. The final echoes from my own lips today.” Macha paused and searched the skies. “Hear my words, Nuada my husband, wherever you are. Carry my oracle in your heart and stop this madness.” 

* * *

“The line of the High Kings of Innisfail,

 An unbroken chain.

The blood of Niall runs true.

A great shield in the West. 

Between a ring of fire and a grey sea, 

Where rivers meet stands a new Plain of Towers.

There, the last heir rises.

Sleeping giants wake.

When ancient enemies unite

 against the gathering storm,

Worlds split asunder,

The hooded crow defeated.”

* * *

 The irises flickered back to Macha’s eyes and her voice was now her own, soft and ragged. “And now I claim my right to lay a geis upon you. Badb Catha, Betrayer of the Tuatha, if this gateway opens, you will be blind to the line of kings. Even if the heir stands before you, you will not see them. With my last breath, I deny you the rest of my power and I send it to the heir of Niall. May you fall in battle.”

Badb felt the flow of magical energy from her sister cease like a door slammed shut. The air around Macha fell calm, and she plummeted to the earth with a dull thud. 

Dead. 

Badb’s face contorted in rage. She threw her head back and howled. Balled fists pummeled a nearby tree. Sharp pain lanced up her wrists and hot, sticky blood flowed from her knuckles. She let gravity carry her sliding down the trunk. How dare she! Spite had never been a quality of her youngest sister. Her little power play might ruin everything. 

Badb staggered back to her feet. Time was growing short. If she didn’t work the sorcery her sisters had paid for with their lives, she would have to choose between allowing the magic of all three Morrigna to burn away her life, or release it back to their inert forms. Her body spasmed, struggling to contain nearly the power of three in one vessel. Her anger felt as wild as the magic boiling beneath her skin. If she couldn’t stop this heir to Niall, murdering her sisters would count for nothing. Worse than that, both the Underworld and the Green World would die.

Badb bent forward, stamping the ground with her booted feet, pounding her fists against her thighs. With the outcome now uncertain, she could end this now. Pick up the bodies of Anand and Macha and take them to the Undying Lands. As long as Badb didn’t use their magical life force, they could be lowered into the Cauldron of Rebirth and wake with the new dawn. Her sisters would live again, and she could return to her exile.

Badb braced herself against a tree and scanned the Underworld landscape. This forest she stood in was once lush and bursting with color. Filled with chattering pixies and capering satyrs. Now the trees grew too far apart, twisted and leafless in a landscape painted in greyscale. Nothing more than the listless vegetation lived here anymore, yet nothing here died either. Everything just wound down and rotted without its connection to the Green World, and it was too damaged to sustain the connection that kept both vital. Two worlds depended on her.

Macha’s geis might slow Badb down. Now her attention would have to be divided between bringing the Fae to their new home and putting an end to this heir. She promised herself that hope remained. She would merely need more allies to hunt down and kill every last descendant of Niall in this new Plain of Towers, since she, herself, would be unable to discover them. 

The Fomorians ruled the human world now, pulling the levers of power in secrecy. The sour taste of disgust painted the back of her throat. In the past, she’d worked with one in particular, and he owed her. And there were other, even less savory allies she could draw upon. Some dark Fae, some even worse. Once she discovered where this new Plain of Towers lay, she’d summon them to purge it of every descendant of Niall. 

Her plan had to move forward and fast. Her body was failing under the strain of her forbidden sorcery. I must make the gateway, she told herself, geis be damned. 

Badb reached a shaking hand into the deep inner pocket of her black cloak and drew out a gleaming golden branch with metallic silver leaves. How she obtained it, perhaps an even bigger crime than murdering her family, for there was but a single Alheimurinn tree in all existence, and she held the last vestige of it. The magical tree had grown in the Dragon’s Spine mountain range in the Underworld but formed connections to all times and places, the only thing powerful enough for reestablishing travel between the worlds.

She levered herself to the earth on one knee, worked the little branch into the dry, cracked soil, and poured her stolen magic into it. All that energy draining from her felt like deflating a waterskin, the flames and pressure raging through her body calming as the branch soaked it up, growing to a towering height in seconds.

The tree pulsed with light, bark rippling. The trunk rocketed skyward, its flailing branches whistled. When the tree could stretch no more, it coiled itself into a circle. 

She sent her mind slithering down the roots of the tree. The jagged tips of roots wormed through stony soil. Deeper and deeper they grew and then whacked into a barrier. 

Badb felt the wall between worlds thickened, like the stone of a castle. Long ago, there were places in the Veil so thin even humans with no magical blood could pass through. Their folklore brimmed with stories of such travelers. But the Green World was too damaged for that now. The barrier had thickened like a callous everywhere. Not even one of the Tuatha had the strength to cut through it. But in this moment, Badb Catha was not one of the Tuatha. She was three.

She propelled all her powers, stolen and her own, along the roots against the barrier. Her teeth clenched with the effort. Sweat poured down her face. The harder she pushed, the more unyielding the wall became. She dug down, scraped up as much magic as she could, and hurled it full force down the roots like a battering ram. She staggered forward when the barrier broke. Too exhausted to catch herself, she tumbled to the ground and lifted her green eyes to drink in the beauty.

A surface appeared in the center of the tree, shimmering like a lake in the sun. Beyond it, tall pine trees and the full moon visible even through drizzle. The smile on her lips felt foreign. It had been long since she had experienced such joy. A blast of energy blew in from the Green World side, a cool breeze on a stifling day. All around her prone form, tiny blue flowers sprouted. The first new thing that had grown in the Underworld in decades. 

She lay for a moment, feeling life seep into the Underworld once more. She clambered into a crouch. Her knees shook and her head felt like it would split apart, but she had to step through, see the other side. It had been too long. 

Badb rested a pale hand on the warm golden bark. Its living energy pulsed as though a heart beat within it. With a deep breath, she lifted her black boot and emerged on the other side to a warm summer night. The beach of an island glistened in the moonlight where two great rivers flowed on either side. 

Badb laughed. Fortune had smiled on her, for she already stood in the place Macha’s prophecy foretold. A new Plain of Towers nestled in the shadow of a long-dormant volcano. Ring of fire. She’d bet a sea lapped a sandy shore to the west.

The twinkling orange lights in the distance would be beautiful if they didn’t signify a human city. She thought of the forest that gave its life in order for that place to exist. Razed to the ground. Nothing left. But this island had escaped that fate. It looked pristine. If humans lived here, they were far enough away they wouldn’t find her until it was too late. The perfect place to carve out a new home for her people.

With the last of her magic, she inhaled. Cool air flooded her lungs until she could draw no more and she released it. Breath poured out as a thick mist. It crawled and spread along the ground, thickening as it went. Thousands of years ago, the Tuatha had arrived at Innisfail in a mist with the goal to shape the world for the coming humans. Now Badb created a mist to form a new homeland for the Fae. A base from where they would annihilate humanity and reclaim what was theirs.

Badb looked back through the portal at a winged form flapping toward her. She held up her arm, and the crow flew through the portal to land. She ruffled the bird’s feathers. He croaked and ran his beak along her arm. His red eyes glittered.

“Fiach, my pet, our war begins.”

 

CHAPTER 2

 

Harper O’Neill chewed absently on the fleshy pink eraser at the end of her pencil and smoothed a stray brown lock back into the end of her braid. Lukewarm air wafted from the vent above her desk, never hot enough to take the chill from an autumn day nor cool enough to wring the swelter from the swampy air in summer. For the fifth time in the same hour she checked the clock. Forty-five minutes and the tedium of her receptionist job would end and the guessing game she’d played every day for nearly ten years would begin. Which mother would greet her when she walked through the door at home. Would Eileen O’Neill be drunk and hopeless, drunk and obsessed, or drunk and frenetic?

Sandwiched between the mind-numbing boredom of office work and the gut-wrenching misery of her home life was Emilio. The cramped, smelly bus ride home every day marked a liminal state where she could lose herself in his bubbly optimism and life would feel a little less pointless. It had been the same way since they’d met in middle school. 

She rubbed a weary hand across her round face and balanced on tiptoes to check the waiting room for new patients to check in. This time of day, the office normally brimmed with the miserable and the indigent uncomfortably shifting around on the beige waiting room chairs that she swore only existed to motivate people never to be early for their appointments. Her brows edged closer to each other over her hazel eyes as she plopped back down to her seat. The past few weeks’ attendance in the mental health clinic had slowed to a trickle, something that hadn’t happened in the four years she’d worked here.

The rat-tat-tat of steady rain assaulted windows tiny enough to belong to a prison. Her thin lips pressed to an even thinner line. Nice work, Harper, left your umbrella again. How long have you lived in Portland? She resigned herself to a soaked mad dash to the bus stop. Her head dropped back against the back of her chair and she spun in a lazy circle. Dull white ceiling tiles wheeled over her head.

Halfway around her second circle, Harper spotted Candace behind her rifling through the filing cabinet while returning a client record, her pink lips silently mouthing letters of the alphabet while matching pink acrylic nails scrambled across rows of manila folders. Harper whipped the chair back around and organized the highlighters and papers on her desk. The click-clack of stilettos on tile announced the therapist’s arrival at the reception desk.

“That’s the third no-show today. Guess everything’s more important than taking care of your mental health,” Candace mused as she arrived at Harper’s desk. Her perfume cloyed. Like spicy cotton candy and Candace Brown marinated in it. “Before you go, can you call these three patients for me and reschedule them?”

“Sure thing.” Harper pulled the paper over next to the phone and a familiar name leapt out at her. Dull as it may be, her job had reunited her with her childhood friend, Abraham, and for that, she was thankful. He was due for therapy every Friday; she’d hoped she just missed him while downstairs filing. Her hand drifted to the jacket pocket where she kept the protein bars she had brought for him today. “It’s not like Abraham to miss.”

“I bet it’s Dust. One of Tim’s clients got hooked on that junk. It took him out fast.”

“Took him out? Like he’s dead?”

“No one knows. He was living in the tent city over off Burnside. Tim said he came in one day raving about weird black-haired teenagers. He left his jacket in the waiting room. There was a vial of Dust in his pocket. No one’s seen him since.”

“And you think Abraham’s on drugs.” Harper’s voice was flat. She couldn’t imagine her friend using drugs, much less a new and dangerous one. 

“Dunno. Either way it means a tiny paycheck for me.” Candace shrugged and minced back to her office. 

Right. Like your paycheck is the most important thing when people might be missing. 

Harper pulled the end of her nut-brown braid across her shoulder and twined the end around her fingers. The homeless may not have homes, but most of them had cell phones. She dialed Abraham’s first. No answer. None of the patients picked up and her concern grew. What were the odds of all five people missing her calls? 

The clock announced the end of her shift, and she forced the niggling worries back down. They had plenty of company in there. She tucked the bars meant for Abraham into her olive drab backpack, slung it over her shoulders, and stepped out of the building. Grey sidewalk matched the grey sky. The rain paused, but in its wake, the air hung around the city like a wet blanket. Leaves in shades of orange and brown slicked the sidewalk, and a steady stream of cars marked the start of rush hour.  

Throngs of pedestrians glued to the comforting glow of their phones herded by, oblivious to the cluster of homeless huddled under an awning. That was the problem with the city. No one saw or cared about the suffering around them. Most people bumbled mindlessly through the day-to-day blissfully unaware of how close most probably were from sleeping in an alley themselves. Perhaps selective blindness brought a sense of safety. But Harper knew full well how fragile stability was.  

After Harper’s father was murdered and her mom went on an involuntary trip to the psychiatric hospital, her mother had lost their house and they’d landed on the cold streets. Six months they slept on a concrete bed that seeped every ounce of warmth from Harper’s body while hunger coiled in her stomach like a wild beast. 

That was when she first met Abraham. Abraham had protected them, showed them the ropes, taught them the rules of the street. Like a high school basketball coach, he stayed near, correcting their behavior play by play so they wouldn’t be victimized. 

He’d say things to Harper like ‘Keep your head down, don’t get noticed, and never, ever stick your nose in stuff that ain’t your business. But if trouble comes your way, be ready to fight like hell.’ Wisdom she lived by with rare exception.

Child protective services put an end to their life on the streets and gave Harper an opportunity to put every one of Abraham’s lessons into action. After being passed around from foster home to foster home for thirteen months, she applied the ‘fight like hell’ part when her mother stabilized just enough for a trial run at reuniting. From that moment on, Harper managed her mother. She dumped the alcohol in the house before home visits, did well in school, kept the home clean herself, and CPS backed out of their lives. 

Still today, she applied the ‘keep your head down and not be noticed’ part. Harper was already quite average in many ways. Average height. Average build. Average looks. She was easy not to notice, and she strove to never make waves. Waves, good or bad, brought the system, and Harper had had enough of the system. On the streets with her unlikely mentor, Harper grew up early. She owed him, but more than that, she cared for him.

Abraham was a good man. Fought a war no one wanted to fight but, despite his service, life had thrown him to the gutter. The horrors of war in that distant jungle left him shattered. He could have become bitter or numb, but he hadn’t. Instead, Sergeant Wilkes defended a new country: the ranks of the down and out. Even though almost no one in this city noticed him, he was a hero to Harper. 

She drifted to a group of people she recognized as patients of the office, each of them wearing the same bone-weary sag to their eyes. They smiled gap-toothed grins at her approach. With a shimmy, the backpack slid from her shoulders. Harper scrabbled around the front pocket for the protein bars and sandwich she’d not eaten at lunch. 

“Here, guys. Stay safe out here tonight.”

A small Hispanic woman bobbed her head and smiled, passing some bars to each of her friends. “Thank you, sweetheart, and god bless.”

Harper grinned. God hadn’t seen fit to bless any of these people for a very long time. Grubby fingers tore open wrappers while Harper loped toward Burnside Avenue to catch the bus home.

A familiar shape leaned against the bus shelter, flipping through his smartphone. Emilio’s black slacks and tailored wool jacket clashed horribly with the blue streaks in his black hair. His usual electric blue mesh shirt and purple Dr. Martens boots better matched both his sweeping hair and his flamboyant personality. Even a paid internship at Erimus Pharmaceutical couldn’t tame him completely. In addition to his colorful hair, he sported a shiny bright purple tie no serious businessman would wear.

She raised her hand and waved to her best—well, only—friend. Emilio slipped his phone into his pocket and beamed so wide Harper couldn’t help but smile back despite the anxiety souring her stomach. While she had to hide under the cloak of being average in as many ways as she could, Emilio was a live wire. She lived vicariously through his harmless misadventures. 

“How’s working for the man?” Harper asked. 

“You’ll never believe what I scored from the marketing department!” Emilio’s eyes bugged above his grin and the words tumbled out of him, accompanied with exaggerated sweeps of his hands.

“Free samples?” 

“Oh. Ha. Ha.” Emilio waggled his head. Undeterred by her dry response, he pulled two brightly colored strips of fabric from his pocket. Smiling ear to ear, he handed the strips to her. 

Harper turned the pair of nylon admission bracelets in her hand and read aloud. “Mystic Island Admission. What’s this?”   

“Only the hottest ticket in town. Been sold out since they released tickets. Turns out Erimus is the main event sponsor. Marketing gave them to all the new interns! I bought us some matching accessories at lunch.” He jammed his hand into the messenger bag at his side. His massive collection of pins and buttons clacked together, another stubborn vestige of a less corporate life. He dug a crinkly purple bag out of the front pocket and ripped the contents free of tissue paper.

Harper wrung her hands and studied the constellation of ancient chewing gum dotting the sidewalk. She bit her bottom lip while her friend shoved the wrapping into a trash can.

“Check these out.” Emilio held up two intricate headbands, one black, one red. Each sported a single horn protruding from the middle flanked by soft velvety ears. Gems and flowers wove around the ears and horn and sparkled even in the overcast Pacific Northwest light. 

He thrust the red horn into Harper’s hand. The bauble dangled limply by her side while she watched Emilio slide the black headband over his blue-streaked hair. His fingers fumbled around by his left ear, eventually flipping a tiny switch along the edge. The horn sprang to life with pulsating multicolored lights. 

“These are so freaking cool. Watch,” he said as he gyrated and whirled around on the sidewalk to a beat only he could hear. He wheeled his arms and spun around like a wild man. The horn’s rainbow of lights blinked and swirled in time to his movements. 

“It changes the pattern as you move. Put yours on. Imagine, the entire island covered in gnomes, fairies, and vampires. But we will be fabulous unicorns.” Emilio swept his hand across himself like Vanna White revealing the solution to a word puzzle. The horn’s lights pulsated a slow blue like a heartbeat.

Harper glanced down at the glitzy contraption in her hands and sighed. Emilio’s dancing wound down like a mechanical toy and the joy melted from his face. 

“This is where you bail on me.”

“I don’t know, Emilio. It’s not really a good time. Mom’s a train wreck right now.” The bus announced its arrival with a squeal of brakes and flung its doors wide. 

Emilio swept the headband from his head and let his hand flop to his side. “Eileen’s always a train wreck. One night. She can take care of herself for one night.” His head hung as he stepped onto the bus and dropped into a seat. Harper slid in next to him. The usual mix of students, commuters, and the unfortunate packed the bus. All wore the same hunched back and tired droop to their features.

“It’s easy for you to just bop off to a party with a day’s notice. I’ve got responsibilities at home, you know that.” Harper’s words carried an edge. “You know how we both get this time of year.” Roughly a week would mark the tenth anniversary of her father’s murder. It had happened right in their old home. Her eyes focused on her scuffed black loafers, unable to bear the look of disappointment Emilio no doubt wore. She felt the pull of protecting her mother dragging her in one direction and the force of not disappointing Emilio jerking her in the other.    

“When do you get to live your own life?”

“I know, but she needs me.” Harper placed a hand on Emilio’s shoulder and finally meet his deep brown eyes. She managed a weak smile she hoped was reassuring. His lips were slightly down-turned, and he focused on the back of the seat in front of them. 

“I love your mom, too. But she’s smothering you.”

Harper hated the look on her friend’s face. “Let me see how she’s doing tonight and I’ll FaceTime you after dinner. I really do want to go.”

And she did. It had been months since she’d been able to just turn off her mind and cut loose, something she rarely allowed herself the freedom to do.

The change in Emilio was immediate. He clapped his hands and lifted his spine straight. “Awesome!” he said in a sing-song voice. “We can plan our outfits. I’ll help you with yours. This is the event of the season. You can’t just wear any old thing.” He waved his hand up and down, mock assessing her rather bland government job outfit, but his face tilted toward an unruly passenger.

A man in filthy, torn canvas pants staggered backward, almost running into Harper’s shoulder. 

“Hey! Watch—” Harper’s rebuke died on her lips. His mouth hung in an expression of blissful surprise matching the low bubbling laugh percolating from his chest while he pointed at an invisible something near the ceiling of the bus. A string of drool threatened to fall on Harper’s shoulder, so she nudged him with her foot across the aisle toward the rear steps. 

Other riders muttered to themselves and shifted in their seats to avoid eye contact. As the man clapped his hands in glee, Harper noticed a pale lavender powder around his nose.

Next to her, Emilio let out a hiss. “Dust head. Everyone knows if you do too much you go completely loopy.” He spiraled his hand around his ear and rolled his eyes.

“You do Dust? Don’t be stupid.” She knew Emilio dabbled in various substances, but Dust was raging through this city. No one knew what it did long term.

“You’re just hypersensitive because your mom’s a drunk,” he shot back with a dramatic shrug.

Harper’s eyes flashed. A hundred scathing retorts ran a race to her tongue. No one knew what they’d endured, not even her best friend. Not everyone came through adversity whole. Before she could respond, Emilio spread his hands. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

A lump formed in Harper’s throat. “I shouldn’t have called you stupid.” She rested a hand on his knee just as the bus jerked to a stop where he usually exited. “Please, just stay away from Dust. I think it might kill people. A lot of clients at my job are missing.”

Emilio nodded and slid past her. “I promise I won’t become a hopeless drug addict. Talk to you after dinner.” With that, he bounded off the bus. 

Harper’s phone chimed. A text from her mom. The screen full of manic ramblings told her it would be a rough night. Harper clicked her phone off without reading it and focused her gaze where the intoxicated man had been. He must have got off the bus with Emilio. Seeing his bizarre behavior made her worry even more about Abraham. If he was on this stuff too, there was no telling what trouble he might stagger into.

The tent city where he lived most of the time was near the next stop. She decided to check on him. At least it would give her another hour before she had to go home. If she waited a little longer, her mother’s mania and the alcohol might make her pass out. Then there’d be no chance of any fireworks.

 

CHAPTER 3

 

Nuada pulled his long black coat tight around him. The damp chill went straight for his bones, especially where the silver arm attached to his shoulder. He wondered why the cauldron revived him with it rather than the arm of flesh and blood the brilliant healer Miach had grown for him before their war with the Fomorians. Probably a sign he would not be High King for a third time, for no one blemished could sit on the throne. 

He feared at this point no one would take that throne ever again, Tuatha or human. Gazing out at the throngs of people bustling about the city hypnotized by tiny screens they clutched in their hands offered little hope of a savior. He found it impossible to imagine the heir of Niall he sought could be among them. They all acted like automata wound by an unseen hand, repeating the same motions over and over each day with no real thought behind their actions. All of them were shadows of the humanity he knew in Inisfáil, or as it was known now, Ireland.

Macha had always told him he judged them too harshly. She had loved to call him a curmudgeon, pointing out the artists and visionaries among them. A familiar ache pulled his heart low. He missed her. With no throne and the Tuatha scattered through the three worlds, hope grew slim. Her entreaty to him, carried on the wings of a magical prophetic storm, was the sole reason he clung to this world. Protect the heir of Niall, and he dragged himself from lead to lead making good on his promise to grant her dying wish, but it got harder every year because, without Macha, life felt meaningless.  

Over a quarter-century had passed since her prophecy echoed in his mind on the night she died. Oracle or not, she’d want him to battle tyranny no matter who perpetrated it. Long ago he wouldn’t have needed her urging for that battle, but tens of thousands of years of the same repeating fight wore him thin. Perhaps he, too, was an automaton now.

Deeper than honoring his lost wife, the simmering desire for vengeance kept him dragging one foot in front of the next, plodding on this path searching for Badb Catha. And when he found her, she would pay for murdering his wife. Her own sister. He would relish every delicious moment of her death. Perhaps the silver arm wasn’t the only sign he was no longer fit for High Kingship.

He kept his head down against the putrid air of the city and walked swiftly up the street labeled ‘Burnside.’ The sun had slipped behind the clusters of square towers the humans jammed together and called a city. Years walking the earth in these times never took the shock out of seeing modern cities. They were like an unforgiving desert of flat stone. And they reeked of poison and rot.

Over a decade of false starts made him think the lead that brought him to this street would be just another dead end to add to his growing collection. That the information came from a phooka heightened the probability of a wild goose chase. Still, he had worked with this particular phooka before. The Fae had more or less delivered, and he’d mentioned seeing an all too familiar red-eyed crow in the tent city for three consecutive nights. Phooka are Fae. Fae cannot lie. In the tens of thousands of years Nuada walked the Green World, he had known only two red-eyed corvids. Both of them Badb’s pets. 

As if on cue, the squawk and din of a flock of crows swarmed overhead. Nuada craned his neck to peer into the sky. His long silver hair slipped from beneath his black coat and carpeted his back. There must have been hundreds of dark birds. Great clouds of them wheeled across the skies, banking and turning as though of a singular mind. Most were too small to be crows. Curiouser and curiouser. Crows, even Badb’s flock, didn’t play nice with other birds, and these, he decided, looked a little off.

A furry black shape bouncing toward him interrupted Nuada’s observations. A jet-black dog, roughly shaped like a German Shepherd, sauntered up the sidewalk. Quick intelligence emanated from the canine’s striking yellow eyes. The Phooka.

Nuada nodded toward him and they both meandered into the alley. Once out of sight of the pedestrians, the Phooka padded close to Nuada.

“You see the birds?” The Phooka swiveled his head side to side, likely in surveillance of the alley. A talking dog would definitely raise a few eyebrows in the human world.

“They were quite obvious.”

“They’re worse than birds. Sluagh. And they arrive first every night. After that, others come.”

Nuada narrowed his eyes at the Phooka. “Fae trapped here when the Veil between the worlds thickened and closed do visit human cities from time to time. Present company included. What’s so unusual about this?”

“Look, Silver Hand, I’m doing you a favor. There’s something happening here that shouldn’t be. You wanted to be alerted to strange goings on, consider yourself alerted.”

Nuada rested the flat of his boot against the grimy brick wall and leaned backward against it. Almost all phooka were aligned with the Unseelie Courts. While the Bright Court had no love of humanity, the Night Court loathed them. If anyone was in league with Badb, it would be the Unseelie. They’d helped her in the past. Yet here was the Phooka blowing the proverbial whistle. That is, if his intel panned out. 

“Strange goings on, as you so eloquently put it, are hardly evidence it involves Badb Catha. Yet you seem certain it’s her. Just how do you know that, I wonder?”

“You got pants under that dress?”

“It’s a coat,” Nuada said. “Meant to conceal this.” He pulled the hem aside to reveal an intricately carved scabbard with the radiant grip of a magical sword peeking out the top.

“Is that—”

“Ready to cut the malarkey?”

“You got any?”

“Any what?”

“Malarkey.” The Phooka licked his lips.

Nuada’s hand hovered over the sword and he leveled his gaze at the Phooka. 

The Fae reared up on his haunches and held his paws in front of him. “Great former king, I am but a lowly Fae unused to the highfalutin’ ways of the Tuatha. I’m merely here to humbly report my concerns. I leave any assessment of who is behind these nefarious goings on to your superior kingly awesomeness and lofty intellect.” The Phooka dropped back down, placed one paw in front of the next, and bowed his head to the ground, pointy ears brushing the concrete. His jaws pulled into a sideways dog smile while his yellow eyes narrowed to slits.

Classic Fae non-answer. They may not be able to lie, but they were still slippery. Phooka in particular. Nuada lacked the patience for Fae nonsense; he was here, he’d just have to keep one eye on the Phooka and the other on whatever came to this place tonight.

“Just what are we expecting to see in this den of human misery?” Nuada asked.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise. You’ll be on the edge of your seat.” Black paws hovered at face level, framing the scene of tents at the end of the brick-lined alley. His voice dropped deep and garrulous. “In a world where the downtrodden languish in forgotten alleys. Where the earth has turned to stone and the air to poison. Where no one believes in monsters anymore. Something wakes. Shadows stir. A creature rare and dark from another world waits to strike. A shapeshifter and his sidekick are the only hope for—”

“After all these years—”

“All right, all right. You can have top billing.” The Phooka dropped his voice low again. “A musty has-been demigod needs the help of his wondrous, swashbuckling sidekick to remove the stick from his—”

Nuada sighed and rolled his eyes. “Just lead the way.”

“You’re right. We should grab front row seats and see for ourselves how this gripping horror show plays out.” A grey satchel appeared at the dog’s side. He reached a paw in and pulled out a bag of popcorn.

Nuada pushed off from the wall and swept a hand up the alleyway, inclining his head toward the tent city. The Phooka gripped the popcorn bag in his jaws and sauntered up the alley, bushy black tail bobbing merrily from side to side. Nuada had the sinking feeling he would regret granting this trickster an audience.

 

CHAPTER 4

 

Harper’s black loafers clomped along the sidewalk toward the homeless encampment, splashing grimy water onto the hems of her plain navy slacks. The clammy autumn mist draped over her skin like a mask, pasting the wispy escapees of her braid to her cheeks. Rush-hour traffic filled the street with a cacophony of bleating horns and revving engines. People stuck in metal boxes going nowhere fast. 

Despite the clammy air, Harper loved fall. The trees lit the world on fire with a final passionate display before pulling on a snowy blanket where life paused and dreamed fertile spring fantasies. 

It was a time of year Harper’s own aspirations surfaced. Distant hopes of traveling the world away from the only city she’d called home beckoned. But Portland closed in around her like a cage. This was where her life crumbled beneath her feet and where year after year she barely hung on. The romantic idea of fleeing to a sunny beach in Cancun, spending a month in an ashram in Mumbai, or hitchhiking across Europe made her wonder who she would be in those wondrous places. Certainly not the exhausted, boring woman she was now. 

Reality dashed plans of adventure and discovery fast. Who would look after her mom while she chased dreams never meant for people like her?

Her shoulders ached from the weight of the backpack. She made a little hop and hoisted it into a higher position, feeling instant relief. Emilio always poked fun at her for the sheer amount of stuff she kept in there. He’d dramatically mime weightlifting moves whenever he handed her the bag. For added effect he’d belt out his best weightlifter grunt. She always laughed him off. Better to be prepared than up a creek without a paddle.

On their own, Harper’s feet slowed their rhythmic march toward her indigent friend’s home. A quick check of the seventeen more texts her mother had sent gave time for her mind to catch up with the growing sense of wrongness permeating the area. 

The shadowy maw of the back alley straddled two neatly defined worlds. Behind her a glimmering city of artsy prosperity. Ahead lay its shadow: a pocket of desperation where the forgotten languished in squalor. All the world had to offer them was a walking death. 

She peered down the alleyway. She’d visited this camp plenty of times. Her office managed several outreach services to the homeless, and Harper always volunteered her time to attend. This time, though, the encampment felt off in a way she couldn’t quite verbalize, but her heart shifted up a gear in response to the nebulous sense of discord. 

The stench of hot garbage assaulted her nose with its acrid mix of sour and rancid. Harper picked her way around some discarded chairs with her sleeve pulled over her mouth and nose. Nearly a hundred lost souls bivouacked among these buildings under tents, boxes, and tarps. That many people always made a fair amount of noise at dusk, bustling about, conversing, and cooking food over metal fire barrels.

The rasp of dry brick scraped under her hand resting on the corner of a red building. She turned her ear toward the camp. The only sounds she could discern came from the river of rush-hour traffic in the street behind. The tent city was as quiet as a graveyard. Not only that, but almost no one milled around the rows of improvised quarters. A thousand spiders raced up her spine. This was wrong. Very wrong. 

Harper stepped to the edge of the alleyway, keeping her shoulder pressed tight to the building. An exit back the way she’d come, one to the left to another alleyway, and plenty of cover to her right with rows of hulking dumpsters hugging the walls promised options should her expedition go sideways.

The blood rushing in her ears sounded like it was actually whispering ‘run, run, run’ with every thump of her heart. Right now, listening to her heart seemed like the wisest plan, but she had to find out if Abraham needed help. 

I’ll just do a quick walk-through and see if he’s here. Get out before it’s dark. She reached her arm around to the front pouch of her backpack. Short fingers scrabbled over the edges, seeking the zipper. Tooth by tooth, she dragged the zipper open, attempting to muffle the sound while she sought a weapon. 

In the wake of her family tragedy, self-defense became a warm blanket; she always carried something with her to fend off an attacker if escape failed. All part of the ‘fight like hell’ piece of Abraham’s sage advice all those years ago.

She chose a short black collapsible baton from the compartment stuffed with an assortment of small-scale weapons. Something she picked up after one of her self-defense classes that had quickly become a favorite. Easier to sneak into venues than a knife and less likely to backfire on you than pepper spray. Her fingers gripped the handle until her knuckles turned white.

A torrent of black wings and furious squawking erupted from a dumpster. She staggered back, yelping. The baton extended with a flick. The reflex that came from training coiled her in a defensive crouch, ready to strike out in any direction. Flapping wings fluttered at the corner of her eye. Crows. And something smaller, but just as inky black. They scattered upward to the tops of the building, their sharp squawks cursing her for the intrusion. 

Just a bunch of birds. You interrupted their fine dining at Chez Dumpster. Holy hell, Harper, you gotta chill. Or not. It’s too quiet. Wait, doesn’t the crap always hit the fan when someone says that in movies? 

A single black bird refused to join its cackling brethren. It perched on the dumpster rim, muttering and clacking its beak. Then the bird took two bounding hops around the rusty lip, twisting and cocking its head from side to side. She felt studied under scarlet eyes. 

Crows don’t have red eyes, do they?     

An icy wave washed over her. She whacked the side of the container with the baton. The clank made the bird take flight. “Go on. Get the hell out of here.” The crow ascended to the top of the building to join its brothers, oddly silent.

Harper tore her eyes from the murder of crows and stepped around the corner. A colorful group of tents and tarps fluttered in the breeze. The garish colors would have looked festive if the place wasn’t the last stop of the ones society had cast off.

Plastic shopping bags blew like tumbleweeds across this societal desert. A handful stuck to the shopping carts full of junk parked by some tents. Barrels usually simmering with cooking fires stood cold under scrubby trees. Only one cooked tonight. A single metal cylinder crackled and popped with flame. 

“That you making all that racket?” a deep and raspy voice said.

Harper started, pivoting toward the speaker. A tall, thin black man emerged from the tent next to the lit barrel. 

“Yeah, it was me. The crows scared the crap out of me. Sorry.” She gave a nervous laugh.

The man scanned her up and down. His hand swept over her sky-blue wool sweater and pressed slacks. “What you doing here, young miss?”

“Looking for a friend.” Harper sidled over to stand across the barrel from the man. He looked to be in his fifties with short, tightly curled grey hair. He wore a filthy orange sweatshirt, tattered jeans, and sneakers that appeared composed of duct tape.

“You don’t look like you got friends from ’round here.” 

“Do you know a guy named Abraham, a little taller than me, grey hair and a beard?” Harper’s hand hovered a couple inches over her head.

“Yeah, young miss, I know Abraham.”

“Is he here? Is he OK? I’m Harper, by the way.” She stuck out her hand.

“Dante.” He gripped her hand. “I seen him earlier today. Might still be in his tent. The green one on the far right along the back row. As for him bein’ OK, no, Harper, I don’t think he is.”

Harper’s stomach plummeted to her knees. “What happened to him?”

“Best you just turn ’round and take yourself outta here. It’s not safe in these parts.”

“Please. He’s my friend. Just tell me.”

Dante drew his head back like he needed that extra inch of distance to size her up. “Easier to show you. Follow me.”

He motioned her forward with a finger pressed to his lips. Harper fell into step behind him. The pair wove between a row of empty tents. The gravel crunched underfoot, too loud for the peculiar quiet. In moments, a grassy patch opened out between scrubby trees that clawed their way toward what little light fell between the buildings. 

Harper stifled a yelp at the scene before her. The handful of people in the clearing were each behaving very strangely. 

A young woman with red hair and unfocused eyes stroked the side of a small tree. Her mouth hung open, head tilting to the side. She bent forward from the waist and kissed the rough bark. Across from her, an old man slumped on the ground, rocking back and forth and laughing. He stuffed his face with handfuls of grass he yanked from the ground and smiled as though it were a lavish banquet. A group of younger people stood in a circle, admiring something that wasn’t there. Looks of complete awe made their grubby faces radiant. Harper and Dante hovered at the threshold of a magical world. Only they couldn’t behold the miracles. 

“What the hell are they doing?” Harper stepped back and something crunched beneath her feet. She lifted her shoe and peered at the ground beneath. Shards of glass from a small vial sparkled in the light. A purple residue with an opalescent sheen clung to the broken bits. Harper bent down to inspect and saw several empty vials scattered around the edges of the path.

“Dust,” Dante said and pointed at the pieces. “You breathe that junk in and go on a hell of a trip.” He jerked his thumb toward the clearing. “Been spreadin’ like wildfire ’round here.”

“How long do they stay like that?” 

“First few times, two hours, maybe three. Each time gets longer and longer until one day they go wandering off. Never come back.”

“Wandering off? Where?”

“Dunno. All I know is they use that junk long enough, when the Dark Boys come, they follow ’em. We don’t see ’em again.”

Harper swallowed hard. “Dark Boys?” A tremor in her voice.

“You don’t wanna know, Harper. This ain’t your fight.”

“But it is. I lived near here when I was homeless. Abraham helped me, and I have to help him now if he’s in trouble. Just tell me about the Dark Boys.” 

Dante pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders. “Bunch of teen boys. They ain’t right. All of ’em got jet-black hair, look like brothers. They bring the Dust. About time for them now. Always show up as the sun’s goin’ down. Never speak, just smile and hand out vials. Then some of ’em follow the music.” Dante pointed at a cluster of hallucinating people.

Music. Drugs. Odd boys. Questions chased each other around and around. “If they end up disappearing, why does anyone take this stuff?” Harper asked. 

Dante chuckled. “Look around.” His hand swept over the camp. “For a few hours they bliss out and the world is beautiful. They forget they live here. For just a bit they ain’t worried about being too cold. Or wet. Or hungry. Don’t notice the rock that jabs into their back when they sleep. And the Dark Boys never ask for anything in return. For just a while, it’s a way out of this hell.”

They walked back toward Dante’s shelter. Looked like her arrival had interrupted his packing. He had a shopping cart filled with his possessions parked to the side of the burning barrel. 

“I’m gettin’ out of here tonight. I don’t want no part of them Dark Boys.” He tossed a pair of boots into the cart. 

Harper unslung her backpack and reached into the front pocket. She pulled out the last couple of protein bars and all the cash she had. She held it out to Dante. “It’s not much,” she said, “but it should get you out of the city.”

“I may be poor, but I don’t need no charity, Harper.”

“It’s not charity. You’ve been a wonderful tour guide.”

Dante smiled and accepted the gift. “This ain’t no place for you. You should leave before them Dark Boys come.”

Harper smiled at him and nodded. “I’ll be leaving soon. I need to find my friend. Be safe, Dante, this is no place for you either.”

With that, Dante pushed his cart up the alleyway. Harper watched him go for a moment and waved at him when he neared the mouth of the alley. He waved back and disappeared from sight behind the dumpster. 

Hues of deep orange and yellow seeped into the horizon. They always show up as the sun’s going down. If she could find Abraham before she ran into danger, she’d need to hurry. She held the baton in front of her like a shield and sidled toward her friend’s green tent. 

A tall man with long, straight silver hair leaned against the next building. He looked like he belonged here even less than she did. Long black coat hung all the way to the middle of his black motorcycle boots. Too new to mark him as a resident. A voluminous hood occluded most of his face. 

At his feet sat a jet-black dog. Not in itself unusual, but most dogs didn’t have bright yellow eyes. And most dogs didn’t drill into you with their eyes unless you had food, and she was fresh out. A crow fluttered overhead and she reflexively tracked it for a half second. When her eyes returned to the black dog, those unblinking golden eyes were still laser-focused on her. The hairs on the back of Harper’s neck prickled to attention. 

I don’t like the look of that guy or his creepy mutt. He might be the boss of the Dark Boys; he certainly dressed goth enough, and drug dealers often had vicious dogs as protection. Back the way you came. You don’t want to tangle with that creepy dog or his master.

Harper slunk back the way she came to circle around to Abraham’s tent the long way. She shot one more glance toward the man and his dog. It hadn’t moved. Still it sat. Golden eyes almost glowing in the twilight. She shuddered and slipped between a row of tents. 

There was Abraham. He stumbled around and around the base of a tree with his arms outstretched. Filthy overalls hung unbuckled around his waist. His long white beard hung crusted with Dust and vomit.

“Abraham!” Harper called to him. He laughed like a delighted child and continued his doddering revolution around the tree. She slid her baton into her front pocket and ran to him.

“Abraham. It’s me, Harper.” She stepped in front of him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and turned him toward her. “Abraham, remember me?” He looked right through her and kept reaching for the base of the tree. She gently shook his shoulders and looked into his brown eyes. “Abraham. Abraham. Snap out of it.” But it was useless. Abraham’s body was there, but his mind was in Neverland. 

Harper gripped his sleeve and pulled him toward the exit. To her surprise, he shuffled along beside her, all the while reaching back for the base of the tree. If she could just get him to the street, she could call for help. That plan evaporated as soon as it formed.

Abraham jerked violently from her grip while a low moan oozed from his slack jaw. She caught his hand again. He wrenched it away and uttered another wavering moan. Abraham staggered away from Harper but not back to the tree that contained his invisible friend; instead, toward the back of the camp. The entire area sprang to a shambling kind of life. Streams of shuffling feet from every direction flowed in the same direction like a river of moaning bodies. Harper pursued, hoping to catch Abraham again.

As she emerged from between two of the tents at the outer edge of the camp, her blood ran cold. She stopped in her tracks, grabbed her baton, and darted behind a red tent. 

Several pale forms with stringy black hair melted out of the opposite end of the alley. They didn’t walk so much as glide like they were on an invisible conveyor belt. 

The Dark Boys. She clapped her other hand over her mouth to stifle a terrified scream. Her breath came in shallow, shuddering gasps between her fingers. The strength drained from her legs, and she slid to the ground.

 

Book 3 in the Last Battle of Moytura series launches with special illustrated edition hardbacks (ebooks and paperbacks available) on Kickstarter 1/28/25.  

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