Dead Ground (Harbinger P.I. Book 4) Page 11

  “Tia,” she said. “The sorceress who was killed by Rekhmire. Was she buried with Amenhotep II?”

  “Are you talking about the legends?”

  “What do you mean? What legends?” She continued sifting through the photos in the box.

  “Well, the legends say that Rekhmire had Tia’s body mummified and then hid it. And, of course, Rekhmire’s own tomb has no burial chamber at all. It was built during his lifetime but he was never buried there. He fell out of favor with the royal court.

  “The legends say he raised an army of the dead and marched on Amenhotep but that’s obviously a more dramatic way of saying he built a regular army and tried to gain power. The ancient Egyptians were marvelous at inventing stories around mundane events and making them seem more dramatic.”

  Felicity replaced the photos in the box. If Rekhmire had taken Tia’s mummy away and hidden it, there would be no clues to its whereabouts here. She felt suddenly deflated. Her discovery was meaningless if Tia’s mummy was lost beneath the sands of time.

  Her father looked at her with kindness and concern. “What’s the matter? You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “I just thought I might find something that could help a friend of mine.”

  He grinned, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Would that friend happen to be the man you work for? Alec Harbinger?”

  “Yes, that’s right. But I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. He’s my boss, nothing more.”

  Her father nodded slowly. “All right, if that’s what you want to believe. But you should see the way your face lights up every time you speak about him. I may have a bad heart but there’s nothing wrong with my eyes and I can see what’s going on, you know.”

  Felicity felt her face heat up. “It really isn’t like that,” she protested weakly. She wasn’t sure why she thought the words would fool her father; even as she said them, she didn’t believe them herself.

  “All right, I won’t bring the subject up again. I can see it makes you uncomfortable. Just tell me this for my own peace of mind. Is he a good man, this Alec Harbinger?”

  “Yes,” she said, “he is.”

  “Then that’s good enough for me. Between you and me, I wasn’t all that keen on Jason. He seemed like the type of person who wouldn’t do anything for anybody unless there was something in it for him.”

  “Alec isn’t like that at all. Just the opposite, in fact. He’ll do anything to help people, even if it means putting himself in danger.”

  “Danger?” Her father’s eyes grew worried. “Felicity, please tell me you aren’t doing anything dangerous.”

  She thought of the changelings, demons, and frog-monsters she’d faced. She couldn’t bring herself to lie to her father, so she simply said, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m a grown woman.”

  He sighed in resignation. “You’ve always been strong-willed, so I know you’ll do what you want, no matter what I say. All I ask is that you please be careful.”

  She smiled. It was the same thing she said to Alec every time he was about to embark on a new case. Now she knew where she’d picked up the sentiment.

  “Always,” she told her father, giving him one of the stock answers Alec sometimes gave her. Putting the box back on the shelf, she said, “I’ve done enough research for one day. I’ll get back to it tomorrow.”

  He nodded. “No need to stress over it. Look at it with fresh eyes in the morning. Come and have something to eat, take your mind off those dusty old manuscripts for a while.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute. I just want to ring Alec first and make sure he’s all right.”

  When her father had left the room, she picked up her phone and called Alec. It went straight to voicemail. Felicity didn’t leave a message.

  She ended the call and stood quietly for a moment in the library, feeling an icy tendril of dread crawl up the back of her neck. She knew she shouldn’t be so concerned just because Alec hadn’t answered his phone. There were a million reasons why he might not be able to take her call. But, still, Felicity felt certain that something was wrong.

  Beyond the window, the afternoon light had darkened and twilight had fallen. Felicity felt as if that darkness were weighing down on her, smothering her.

  She was sure that Alec was in danger and she was also sure that he was far away, somewhere where she would never be able to reach him.

  Chapter 17

  The brightness faded and the world around me came into view. At first, I could only see the outlines of trees, then the clearing I was standing in, then the ring of hawthorn bushes around me. I looked around to see my friends standing with me.

  “What the hell just happened?” Girard asked, pointing his gun at the surrounding forest. “Where are the demons?”

  “We’re in Faerie,” I told him. “They can’t follow us here. For now, anyway.” I turned to Gloria. “Do you know exactly where we are?”

  She looked at the trees, at the bright sky, and shook her head. “Not exactly, no.”

  “But we’re in Faerie, right?”

  Gloria nodded. “Oh, yes, definitely. But Faerie is a big place, at least as large as your world, probably even larger. I don’t know every corner of it. I usually stay in my forest. And this…”—she gestured at the trees—“…is not my forest.”

  I turned to the others. “Listen to me carefully. Faerie is a dangerous place. Don’t eat or drink anything, don’t talk to the inhabitants, don’t even look at anything for too long in case you become entranced.”

  “Oh, Alec,” Gloria said, “you make it sound so dreadful. This is my home and the folk who live here aren’t monsters.”

  “Some of them are,” I told her. “Ogres, trolls, goblins…”

  “Yes, yes, all right. No place is perfect.”

  “And whatever you do,” I said to the others, “don’t make a bargain with anyone here, no matter how innocent it might seem. You’ve all heard fairy tales where humans get stuck in the faerie realm, right?”

  They nodded.

  “They’re true. Those stories were written as a warning and as a guide for dealing with faerie beings. Don’t underestimate this place, because if you do, you’ll never go home.”

  I looked around at them all in turn, trying to gauge if my words had sunk in. Jim had a look of grim determination on his face. He’d been here before and knew the risks. Leon looked similarly grim-faced. The last time we’d been here, he’d almost been entranced by two faeries in a pool so he knew to be on his guard. Detective Frasier looked worried as hell and I couldn’t blame her for that. I was worried myself. Girard was looking around with a sense of wonder in his eyes, his face slack-jawed.

  “Girard, pull it together,” I told him. “If you let this place enchant you, it will.”

  He looked at me with dull, confused eyes. “Yeah, okay. I’m…fine.”

  I turned to Gloria. “How do we get out of here as quickly as possible and get back to the human world? You said that’s where you hid your torc, so we’re wasting time here.”

  “Yes, we need to go to your world,” she said, “but it isn’t as easy as that. First we need to find the right portal.”

  I sighed in frustration. I didn’t want us spending any more time in Faerie than we had to, especially searching for another damned portal. Girard looked like he was losing it big time. He’d had a shock that had rocked his deepest beliefs. He wouldn’t just get over that in a few days; it would take months, if not years.

  “Gloria, the last time I was here, you opened up a portal with your magic. You didn’t need a ring of stones or bushes. You just did it. So do it now.”

  “I can’t. That was in my forest and those horrid vampires and demons hadn’t come to take it over yet. You don’t understand how much power I’ve lost simply by having my land taken away from me. That’s why I need my torc. Without it, I’m just a has-been.” She pouted and stomped her foot on the
ground in frustration.

  This was no time for drama. “Where’s the nearest portal back to the human realm?”

  She shot me a wide-eyed look. “I’m working on it, okay? Give me a minute.” Closing her eyes, she lifted her head slightly as if trying to sense something. Her eyes snapped open and she let out a frustrated groan. “I don’t know. I need time to work a proper spell. My power is too weak.”

  We couldn’t just stand there waiting for her mojo to come back. We were too exposed in the clearing. In the distance, a rocky bluff rose above the trees. If we made for it, at least we might be able to hide among the rocks and remain undetected by whatever creatures lived in this part of Faerie.

  “This way,” I said, setting off into the forest.

  Jim caught up with me. “I don’t like this, Alec. Nothing good ever came from humans visiting the faerie realm.”

  “I know. Let’s just hole up for a while and then get the hell out of Dodge when little miss sunshine decides she can find a portal.”

  He looked back at the rest of the group. “I’m worried about Frasier and Girard. Being chased by demons and ending up in Faerie isn’t a good introduction to the preternatural world.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Girard seems to be taking it the worst, but Frasier might just be better at hiding it. We need to get them both back home as soon as we can.”

  “Yeah,” Jim said. “This place might be pretty but it’s too dangerous for humans.”

  He was right; Faerie was pretty. The quality of the light made everything seem vivid and colorful. As we strode through the forest, sparkling orbs danced between the trees, sometimes circling us in bright arcs. A light floral fragrance hung in the air and it smelled so good, I wanted to breathe it deep into my lungs and let the fragrance permeate my being.

  But, as Jim had said, this beauty hid something dark and terrifying. There were cases throughout history of people being lost in the faerie realm, dragged here against their will, or tricked into becoming prisoners of the place’s beauty.

  Up ahead, the foot of the bluff came into view. The area was littered with huge boulders that looked as if they might have been thrown there by a giant.

  Jim pointed to a dark cleft in the rock wall. “A cave.”

  I didn’t much like the idea of entering a cave in this realm but the alternative was to stay out here in the open where we’d be seen by some passing denizen or other. If the cave wasn’t too deep, we’d at least have a good defensive position and we’d only have to watch for danger coming from one direction.

  When we arrived at the cave mouth, it was bigger than it had first looked, the crack reaching up at least thirty feet into the rock wall that formed the bluff above. The interior was gloomy for the first ten feet or so, and then was filled with impenetrable darkness.

  I took out my Maglite and turned it on, playing the beam into the dark fissure. The dark tunnel stretched away, past the limit of my flashlight.

  “What do you think?” Jim asked me.

  “I think it looks more dangerous than a pit of vipers but if we stay close to the entrance, at least we’ll be hidden from anyone or anything roaming the forest.”

  “Yeah, sounds good to me,” he said.

  We entered the cool, gloomy interior, followed by the others. “We’ll take a break here,” I told them, slipping my backpack off my shoulders and placing it on the ground. “We don’t have any particular place to go anyway, until Gloria finds a portal that’ll take us out of here.”

  Frasier and Girard sat down on the hard-packed dirt ground together and Gloria did likewise a few feet away from them, looking up at the high ceiling as if in thought.

  Leon joined Jim and me and we went a little farther into the cave. The Maglite illuminated more tunnel running deeper into the ground. A cold chill swept over me and I was sure it wasn’t only because the air was cooler back here. The hair on the back of my neck and my arms bristled

  “Don’t go back there,” Gloria called. “It isn’t safe.”

  I went over to her. “What do you mean? What do you know about this place?”

  She frowned at me for a second and then a look of understanding passed over her face. “Oh, you don’t know about the Shadow Land. Of course, how could you? That dreadful Society you’re a part of thinks it knows everything but it hasn’t even scratched the surface.”

  I sighed, already wishing we’d just kept walking through the forest. At least Gloria might have stayed quiet for a while. “What are you talking about?”

  “The faerie realm is connected to the Shadow Land,” she said. “You don’t think horrible creatures like trolls and goblins come from the same place as me, do you?” She flashed me a smile.

  “The Shadow Land,” I prompted.

  “The Shadow Land is the opposite of Faerie. Here, there is beauty, light, and eternal summer. The Shadow Land is a place of darkness, broken dreams and never-ending winter. Parts of it are actually formed from human nightmares. It’s ugly and full of the dark faerie beings: trolls, goblins, hobgoblins, things like that.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

  “What does that have to do with this cave?” Jim asked her.

  She looked fearfully at the shadows. “In places like this, the two realms meet. Dark places. Caves. Deep holes beneath the trees. The shadows beneath bridges. It’s in these places that the dark beings can cross into Faerie.”

  “And vice versa,” I said. “You could cross into the Shadow Land.”

  She wrinkled her nose again. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

  “I’m just trying to get an understanding,” I told her. “Like you said, the Society doesn’t know about this. As far as I know, anyway.”

  “Where the realms touch, you could cross over either way,” she said. “The Shadow Land touches your realm, as well. Places where bad things have happened in your realm are usually connected by a portal to the Shadow Land. The bad event creates the portal.

  “When you humans have nightmares, you sometimes travel through the Shadow Land in your minds. The nightmare takes you to the places you fear. Some humans are more sensitive to it than others. I believe you call those people insane.”

  I looked at the darkness in the depths of the cave. Maybe we could go through there and find a way home, but from Gloria’s description of the place, I’d rather find a portal in this realm. As much as I hated being in Faerie, it beat traveling through a land of nightmares.

  “As soon as you can find a portal, do it,” I told her.

  “Yes, yes, all right,” she said, turning away and folding her arms as if she were bored with me.

  I went over to Frasier and Girard and sat with them. “How are you guys doing?”

  “I think we’re okay,” Frasier said. The look of terror that had been in her eyes earlier was gone, replaced by a look of calm acceptance.

  “I was just telling Claire about the time I thought I saw a Sasquatch,” Girard said. “I was ten years old and me and my dad were fishing one of the lakes way out in the backcountry. He was a real old-fashioned type of guy, my dad, and was of the opinion that men should be men so he took me camping every year to teach me how to fish and hunt, and how to survive in the wilderness.

  “This one time, we’d been at the lake a couple of days and my dad told me to go and catch something for supper while he chopped firewood. So I went down to the lake with my fishing rod and cast a few lures but nothing was biting. There was a creek maybe a half mile away and I decided I might have better luck there so I gathered up my tackle and went walking through the woods, hoping I’d get a couple of fish at the creek because if not, my dad was going to be mad.

  “When I got near the creek, I heard some splashing and, thinking it might be fish jumping out of the water, I started running so I could see where they were feeding. But when I got to the water’s edge, I froze. On the opposite bank there was a big, hairy creature that at first I thought was a black bear. It had the same kind of fur and it was kind of hunched over, dipping it
s paw into the water.

  “But then it stood up and I could see it was no bear. It was like a person but taller than any person I’d ever seen. And it was covered in that black fur. It looked across the creek right at me and I was so scared, I peed myself. It looked at me for a couple of seconds and then it turned and disappeared into the trees. I turned tail and fled back to our campsite.”

  Girard took a deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing. “When I got back to the tent and told my dad what had happened, he told me I was stupid for making up a story like that and said I’d just been too lazy to catch our supper and was trying to get out of doing a bit of work. He laughed at me for wetting my pants. Then he went down to the lake and caught a fish for himself. But I wasn’t allowed to have any. He told me if I couldn’t be bothered to catch my own supper, then I could damned well go without. He said going hungry might teach me not to make up ridiculous stories.”

  He looked at me. “Do you think that was a real Sasquatch I saw? Over the years, I convinced myself that my eyes must have been playing tricks on me that day but now I’m not so sure.”

  “It sounds like you saw a Sasquatch,” I told him. “They’re shy creatures but there have been a few sightings.”

  Girard nodded slowly and looked down at the ground. He muttered to himself, “All my life, I thought my dad was right.”

  “Are we going to get out of here?” Frasier asked me.

  “We’re working on it,” I told her, looking over at Gloria. The faerie queen was sitting with her eyes closed, hopefully building up her energy.

  “I just keep thinking,” Frasier said, “that if anything happens to me here, my husband and my kids will never know what happened to me. I’ll have just disappeared from their lives. That isn’t fair to them.”

  I put a comforting hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. “Listen to me. We’re going to get out of here and you’ll be back with your family soon. You trust Jim, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, he and I have been doing this kind of thing for a long time and we’ve been in worse predicaments than this. Don’t worry, we’ll get out of here.”