The old Fae mound wasn’t under a shopping mall after all.
It was in the middle of a cemetery. Balthasar couldn’t believe it.
The church beside the cemetery had to be two hundred years old and was both tiny and a bit rundown. Several of the windows had been broken and were boarded over. It looked abandoned. The door was locked and also padlocked. He parked in front of the gate and turned off the engine.
Silence.
Balthasar had taken Hadrian’s Land Rover and just followed his whim, and ended up in this place, wherever it was. He wasn’t sure he was even on the map anymore. He hadn’t passed another car on the winding road for at least half an hour before reaching the churchyard. The road ended at this place and he had the definite sense that he’d arrived.
Balthasar got out of the truck and looked around. There were no houses in the vicinity. He hadn’t been anywhere so desolate in a long time and had a serious case of the jitters. The moon was full and high in the sky, so bright that it was like a searchlight. The iron gate to the cemetery hung askew and the trees were old and crooked. That had to be a hawthorne in the very center of the cluster of worn gravestones, so crooked and huge that it had to be older than the church.
A golden light shone from beneath its roots. That sight made his heart stop, then race.
As he moved closer, Balthasar saw that there was a gap between the roots, like the entry to a cave. And he heard the music, that infectious merry fiddle music that could set the most reluctant toes to tapping.
He’d found a portal to Fae and he was going to enter it.
The alarm on his watch buzzed. It was midnight. It was time.
Balthasar took a deep breath and walked toward the golden light, knowing what he had to do. Just before he reached the hawthorne, he heard the calls of birds above him. He stopped and looked up, wondering what kind of bird would be in flight so late at night. Maybe he was stalling, but he looked anyway.
Eight trumpeter swans descended out of the starry night in perfect unison. They landed in a circle around him in the deserted cemetery. One came toward him and inclined its head as if in greeting.
“Edred?” Balthasar guessed.
The swan gave a houp-houp sound.
They were Rania’s brothers. Balthasar smiled, glad that he wouldn’t be completely alone.
He gestured to the tunnel opening. “I think this is it.”
Edred stretched out his neck as if sniffing the air that emanated from beneath the hawthorne. Then he straightened and nodded, looking Balthasar right in the eye.
“After you?” Balthasar suggested and the swan quacked, like he was laughing.
Balthasar grinned and led the way. Rania’s brothers clustered behind him when he stepped into Fae, moving between realms beneath the roots of the ancient tree.
They gathered together on the heath, which stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. There were no stars overhead, even though the sky was clear. It was really dark but Balthasar could see both a mound with light emanating from a doorway and a cage silhouetted in the distance. The light from the mound was what he had seen shining beneath the roots. It was a beacon, and he hoped it wouldn’t lead them to disaster.
The brothers rustled their feathers in agitation as the cage was pulled toward the mound. There was something white inside, which fluttered.
“Let’s bust them free first,” he whispered. “We’ve got surprise on our side.” Edred nodded and Balthasar shifted shape. He flew toward the cage, his citrine and gold scales glinting, and eight swans flying right behind him in a vee.
The problem with battling the Fae was that they came in every shape and size.
Thorolf fried an ogre, then slapped six small Fae dead against his scales. The last group were riding beetles, their wings flying as fast as the beetles, and had descended upon the invaders like a swarm of locusts. The dead ones dripped from his hide like drops of pewter and gleamed on the heath before they disappeared. The ogre made a bigger puddle than that.
There were bogies and brownies, pixies and phoukas, spriggans and sprites. Some were winged and some had tails; some wore hats and some had spiked boots. Some had thorns and some had sharp teeth. Their variety was almost infinite, but they were all bent on destruction. They stabbed and they bit, they lanced and they sliced, they stung and they gnawed.
Thorolf felt as if he was being attacked on every side. He slapped and sliced and squished every being he could. He cracked heads like nuts and snapped weapons like twigs. He breathed fire when his allies were out of harm’s way, and he scooped up the wolf mates who stumbled. He’d never multi-tasked so effectively in his life, and once he got his rhythm, he had the time of his life.
Kicking butt and taking names was part of the joy of being a dragon shifter after all.
Bree was swinging her Valkyrie sword with gusto, slicing Fae to bits and sending that silver liquid flying in all directions. Kristofer had her back, breathing fire and slashing with his talons. When she was cornered, he snatched her up and flew her high above the throng. Lila jabbed with the trident of the selkies, switching off with Nyssa at intervals. Rhys defended both of them from behind, exhaling a masterful plume of dragonfire that fried a swatch across the heath that made Thorolf want to stand up and cheer.
Mel was riding Theo’s back as he flew over the battle repeatedly, breathing dragonfire on the Fae attackers on the ground, then chasing more of them through the air. Murray was flattening all comers with the hammer he’d brought, and looked to be knee-deep in silver liquid. There were eight wolves snarling and snapping on the heath below Thorolf, rounding up Fae, biting them and tearing into their flesh. The white Arctic wolf was Wynter, he knew, because he’d seen her shift, but Caleb and the others in his pack were fearsome grey timber wolves with cold eyes and impressive fangs. Thorolf wouldn’t have wanted to face down any one of them.
The crew from Bones fought in a loose ring around Murray: the medusa hostess was holding her own. Arach fought with them, alternating between his dragon form, and using the Fae sword in his human form. Bear-shifters tore at the Fae; djinns eluded them in smoke form, then reappeared to surprise them from behind; there was an entire company of demons with Rosanna from the circus, all glowing red as they spiked Fae with their pitchforks.
The hobgoblins came out of the heath and charged the attackers, scattering the wolf mates—which was probably what they’d intended. Thorolf roared and dove into the fray to gather them all back together again. Others joined him and the hobgoblins were soon reduced to shimmering puddles of silver.
A cheer rose from the invading company when the surviving Fae turned and fled.
Arach shouted and pointed the glowing Fae sword at the distant court. “Let’s take this battle to Maeve!” he roared.
The company shouted agreement. Thorolf swooped low and the wolf mates climbed on his tail and his back. Several even managed to reach the top of his wings. Thorolf picked up more in his claws, and the other Pyr did the same, carrying their forces to the new battlefield.
This was as good as it got, in Thorolf’s view.
Yasmina had the gem of the hoard and was hurrying toward the armory when she saw a Fae warrior heading in the same direction. There was purpose in his stride and she felt a premonition of dread. She tucked her prize amongst a cluster of rocks to hide it, then shifted to a wisp of smoke to follow him.