Burke couldn’t speak, just lie there gasping like a fish on a pier.I knelt beside him and pressed two fingers to his neck.“Mama, his heart’s going like a hundred miles a minute.I think he’s going into shock!”I don’t know what going into shock means, but they say it a lot onThe Pitt, so it must be bad.
“Step back, Robbie,” Mama said.Her voice was cold as the ice on Burke’s leg, so I did as I was told.I’d seen my mother pissed off before.How could I not?I’d been the one to make her look pissed off more often than not.But I’d never seen the kind of anger in her eyes that I saw now.
She stood over Burke and glared down at him.“What is your mission?”
Burke just guppied at her again, so she waved her hand toward his leg, and I saw the ice tourniquet shrink around his tactical pants.The mercenary captain leg out a shriek of pain, and mama waved her hand again, lessening the pressure.
“I asked you a question,” she said.“Are you ready to answer?”
Burke nodded frantically, head bobbing like a dashboard hula dancer on a dirt road.“We were sent to eradicate an existential threat to America from a group of terrorists plotting an attack on U.S.soil.”
Mama waved her hand, tightening the ring of ice until Burke’s voice turned into a high wheeze.“Do not lie to me, Captain.What.Is.Your.Mission?”
“Kill all the faeries,” he gasped.Mama waved her hand, and the band around his leg loosened enough to let some color come back into his face.
“You have a biological weapon designed to destroy the fae?”Amy asked, kneeling beside his head.
Burke nodded.“Management sent us with coins.Like this one.”He fished a gold coin out of his pocket, and Mama and I drew back.Amy didn’t touch it, either, but gave it a good glance.“It’s some kind of spell that activates whenever a faerie touches it, or whenever a human that has touched one touches the coin.I don’t know how it works, just that it doesn’t hurt humans, has a gestation period of forty-eight hours, and kills within seven days.The tech nerd that gave it to us said they built it off some spell used to attack humans, something that came from the faeries.It’s only fair.They tried to wipe us out, so now we’re going to wipe them out instead.”
“How’d you get here?”I asked.“How did you move troops into faerie in the first place?”
Burke looked at me like I was stupid, and I kinda wished I could tweak his tourniquet.“We have wizards, you moron.Good, old-fashioned,humanwizards, not freaks or half-breeds like you.”He tried to spit at me, but his mouth was pretty dry from the screaming about being shot.
“Where’s the antidote?”I asked.
“What antidote?”Burke asked, then laughed.“There’s no antidote, you moron.Why would we create an antidote?You don’t spray cockroaches with Raid and then give them a cure, do you?These monsters need to be wiped out so they aren’t a threat to humanity.Then once they are, we’ll annex this little ‘paradise’ of theirs and use its resources to make America the greatest nation in the world again!With the magical weapons they’ve got hoarded over here, we can grind our enemies to dust under our heel and bring our nation back to the prominence we deserve!”Blood flecked his lips as he fell into a coughing fit.That’s when I noticed his back bowing up, half a second before spikes of crystal-clear ice, now stained red with blood, erupted from his chest, neck, and stomach.Burke coughed once more, a thick, wet sound that sprayed blood into the air, then his head lolled back as he died.
I whirled on Mama.“What the hell did you do?”
Her eyes were like chips of blue ice.“I killed him, Robbie.Now let’s go find my mother and see if we can reverse the damage through magic, since these monsters planned an entire genocide with no way to stop it.”That hit home.They never evenmadean antidote.Didn’t even consider needing one.To them, all fae were evil, and most be destroyed.
This whole shitshow was another domino in a long string going back to Oberon’s attack on Atlanta, which was retaliation for DEMON trying to wipe out all paranormal and supernatural life on Earth.Which was probably payback for something else stupid someone in Fairyland had done.This revenge play didn’t need to dig two graves; it needed a whole army of backhoes digging graves.Maybe if we could find Mab, she’d be able to put a stop to this insanity once and for all.If she could stop the spread of the disease before it destroyed all of Faerie.
I didn’t hold out much hope, though.Turns out genies don’t like going back into their bottles once they’ve been unleashed to wreak havoc.
17
We shucked off our heavy coats and dropped our rifles as we hurried up the stairs to the front doors, barreling through them like we just expected them to be unguarded.Safe bet, since we hadn’t seen a single person other than Burke since we entered the courtyard.The massive oaken doors banged into the walls as we flung them open, breaking into a dead sprint down the marble halls.
Amy still had her pistol out, and she swept it around each corner as we ran, but we didn’t see another soul.Mama took the lead, moving unerringly down the corridors, turning right and left seemingly at random until she took us up a short flight of stairs to a landing with a single guard standing there, halberd in hand.He leaned against a wall as if he could barely hold himself upright and stammered out a weak “H-h-halt” as we approached.
Mama stepped up to him, put a hand on his forehead, and murmured “rest.”His eyes fluttered shut, and I shouldered past her to catch the armored faerie as he clattered to the floor.I felt around for a pulse, but Mama and Amy pushed past me and flung the door open.I let the sleeping faerie lie and followed them into the room.
Mab’s bedchamber was huge, dominated by an enormous, canopied bed ringed with heavy tapestries on thick rails.All the drapes were pulled back, and my grandmother looked like a child floating in a sea of pillows and blankets, her form withered and shrunken by the wasting sickness, and she barely managed to lift her head from the pillows as we stormed into her room.
“Mother.”Mama’s voice came out a whisper as she stopped at the dais holding the massive bed.
“Welcome home, Ygraine,” Queen Mab said, her voice thready but firm.“And my grandson has come back for a visit.How…nice.”
“Good to see you, too, Granny,” I said.It was hard to reconcile this shrunken, doll-like figure with the powerful woman who tried to have me killed the last time I saw her.This old woman didn’t look like she was strong enough to order a milkshake, much less rule a kingdom.But her eyes were the same chips of blue ice that I remembered, unyielding and cold.
Mama climbed the steps of the dais and sat on the bed, taking her mother’s hand.“Mother, we have stopped the invaders and halted the spread of the disease, but we do not know how to reverse its course.Can you help us?”
Mab nodded, as if speaking was too much effort, then stretched out a skeletal finger toward her bedside table.Mama reached over and picked up a small hand mirror, holding it in front of Mab’s face.
The Winter Queen shoved herself up into a sitting position and took the mirror, then shook her head and handed it back.“You hold it.”
Mama took the mirror again and angled it so that it pointed directly at Mab’s face.I thought it was an odd time to care about her makeup, but I don’t claim to understand human women, much less faerie queens, so I kept my mouth shut for once.Mab closed her eyes, and a few seconds later, I saw a light emanate from the mirror.I scooted around to the side of the bed so I could see what was going on, motioning for Amy to cover the door.
