Dark and Stormy_Phantom Queen_A Temple Verse Series Page 2

  Because they had magic in one form or another—shifters, vampires, and wizards, oh my!

  And, finally, there are the Fae. Neither Freak nor Regular, the Fae are a race of creatures from an alternate dimension, creatures who live by different rules and under different creeds. They are wild things, only marginally civilized by the influence of our world. They are the source of our myths and our nursery rhymes, the truth behind our daydreams and our nightmares.

  And I’d picked a fight with them.

  To be fair, they’d started it. Seeing me as an answer to their problems, the Faerie Chancery—an organization of Faelings responsible for maintaining order here in Boston and keeping their presence a secret from the rest of the world—had used me as a pawn to chase away a group of very determined werebears and to eliminate one of their own, a serial killer by the name of Jack Frost. Yes, that Jack Frost. Naturally, I hadn’t been too pleased to discover that I’d been manipulated by those I’d come to think of as trustworthy allies, if not friends.

  As a result, I’d been laying low the last few weeks, isolating myself from friends and foes alike. It wasn’t that hard to keep my distance; I’d never really had many friends to be begin with. Sadly, even those friendships I had worked hard to develop had recently fallen to the wayside for one reason or another; I hadn’t spoken to Othello in a couple weeks except to check if she’d found anything regarding Christoff, who was still missing. After I’d pulled a shotgun on her boss for breaking into my apartment and stolen one of her prototypes as a prank, she’d seemed a little less than pleased with me—not that I blamed her.

  I’d briefly been in contact with Callie Penrose, one of my newest acquaintances, who’d reached out to let me know that Christoff’s kids were safe and sound at Shift—a school for were-animals who needed to learn how to use their power. But, while she’d insisted I give her a ring whenever I felt like it, I knew better; as Kansas City’s impromptu enforcer, Callie had more than enough on her plate already, and didn’t need me whining about how I had no friends. No one I could rely on, anyway.

  And don’t even get me started on my non-existent sex life.

  If my friendship prospects were deteriorating, my relationship prospects were dead and buried. The last man I’d slept with, months ago, had subsequently become a real dick—not to mention some sort of were-animal-demon crossover with anger management issues. I’d spoken to Jimmy Collins, the man in question, a few times since I’d discovered what he was—over the phone, at a safe distance. Considering Jimmy blamed me for his condition and didn’t seem to have the firmest grasp on his emotions, I figured a face-to-face might be a bad idea.

  Thing is, he wasn’t wrong. If anyone was to blame for what he’d become, it was me; I’d decided to save Jimmy’s life by any means necessary, and he’d become a monster in the process. But I wasn’t sorry. You can’t be sorry and know you’d do the exact same thing if given the choice a second time—not even someone as gifted at self-deception as I was.

  That didn’t mean I was unsympathetic, however. I’d recommended Jimmy speak with Agent Jeffries of the FBI, the leader of the S.I.C.C.O. squad, a small contingent of federal agents who used their unique abilities to hunt down Freaks who would otherwise be free to do as they pleased. I had no idea if Jeffries would take him on, but—seeing as how they were short on muscle with their Valkyrie, Hilde, missing alongside Christoff, and the fact that Jimmy’s experience as a former Marine and current detective made him an ideal candidate—it was possible.

  I wished I could say I’d be sorry to see him go, but that spark had flared, fizzled, and died. Whatever chemistry we might have had fled the instant he decided to shut me out; I didn’t have time for emotionally unavailable, damaged men—no matter how attractive.

  Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt.

  Luckily, all my pent up sexual frustration had channeled itself into this latest deal—an exchange of an impossibly rare herb for the lost fragments of the Piri Reis map. The surviving piece of the original was known to the general public and incredibly valuable—so much so that I’d only gotten to look at it once through the glass of a display case. It depicted several marvels that defied logic, including a meticulous rendering of Antarctica’s coastline free of ice, which should have been impossible. If rumors could be believed, what I held in my hand—thought not to exist—was the remaining two-thirds drawn by Piri Reis, undiscovered only because of its exceedingly controversial contents. Pictures of mythical creatures and odd doorways, of land masses that shouldn’t exist, of a world layered on top of our own.

  A map of Fae.

  Including a way in, if I could find it.

  For years now, I’d heard whispers that the map existed, but when an anonymous tip—delivered in an exceptionally brief and unremarkable letter—had pointed me in the prince’s direction, I’d quickly realized there might be some truth to that after all. It turned out that the prince’s father, the Maharajah, had been collecting Spanish memorabilia for years as a hobby, and had quickly deemed this particular map both fascinating and worthless—evidence of a different era and their antiquated beliefs and little more. To him, the map was a novelty item, at best. To the rest of the world, it would have been a priceless historical artifact—a prime example of what cabin fever did to brilliant people.

  To me, it was the answer to a very old prayer.

  Of course, I still wasn’t sure how I felt about being led to the map; if you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly the least paranoid person on the planet. But I had to admit I was grateful. If, after years of searching, I had finally found a way into Fae—one without strings attached—I’d owe someone a favor. A huge one. See, visiting the Fae realm, once a goal of mine, had recently become more of a mission, especially after I’d been pulled into the world of Fae for an audience with the Winter Queen—a member of Fae royalty and Jack Frost’s mother. She’d tried to recruit me, to use me, in the hopes that I would somehow be able to stop the coming of the Fomorians, an ancient race intent on wiping out the world as we know it.

  Which was about all I knew about them.

  But—between her shoddy sales pitch and the fact that I had no idea how a mouthy redhead from Southie was supposed to take out an army of primordial monsters—I’d turned her down.

  You see, I’d only recently discovered my power wasn’t really a power, at all. For years, I’d assumed I was a Freak who could negate the abilities of other Freaks. But recently, I’d learned that what I’d mistaken for an ability was actually a side effect, the result of magic and magical entities colliding with a cage designed by a woman who looked like my mother, but wasn’t. From her I’d learned that my true power—whatever it was—had been locked away inside of me. To keep me safe, maybe. Or to keep others safe from me.

  Still a mystery, that.

  But, after my little chat with the Winter Queen, I at least knew where to go for answers. I couldn’t trust the Fae; I knew that. But I also knew that eventually I’d have to face the power inside me, to free it as the Winter Queen had intended. Her price for the truth—to serve her and fight a war—had been too high. But that’s the beauty of being a business woman; I knew how to hunt for bargains. And that was why, ever since then, I’d been plotting my return to the Fae realm, suspecting that someone, or something, could cut me a better deal. But first, I needed to get there.

  Which meant I had a map to consult.

  And a plant to water.

  I unfurled the map on my dining room table the instant I got home, pinning it in place with a bottle of wine on either end. Not exactly museum quality treatment, obviously, but I wasn’t in the mood to waste time. I stared down at the ancient parchment for a moment, trying to make sense of what I was looking at. It didn’t surprise me in the least that the prince had thought the map worthless; the thing was practically incomprehensible. Granted, there were land masses and geographical representations. It looked like a map…if a map had been drawn of the world before the continents divided, before ic
e smothered the earth, before people had become divided by nationality and creed. For someone like me, someone who’d failed geography—twice—it felt like I was looking at a made-up world. What few notations I could find were written in a script I couldn’t read, and even the pictures were of creatures I’d never heard of—which was saying something. What I needed was a cartographer, a historian, and probably some sort of code breaker.

  Or a talking house plant.

  “Eve!” I called.

  “Yes, Quinn?” Eve replied, swiveling around to face me, her golden leaves flashing beneath the cool blue light floating in through the window. She’d grown considerably in the past few months, and I’d had to move her to a much larger pot in the corner of the room. Now she resembled a golden ficus, standing hip high, her face formed from the knots and burls of her trunk. It was the face of a young girl, but abstract—the vaguest impression of eyes, mouth, and nose. When she spoke, the bark around her mouth accommodated, writhing to mimic the physical characteristics of speech.

  “Oh good, I wasn’t sure you’d be up,” I said, relieved. Eve, who used to spout random facts at all hours of the day and night, had grown into a sullen, soft-spoken thing over the last few weeks. At first, I’d been glad; there are some truths out there you’d rather not know, like the fact that it takes ten minutes to drown in saltwater, or that bananas are radioactive. But recently, I’d begun worrying that I was neglecting her somehow—I wasn’t exactly a horticulturist, after all, and I sure as shit wasn’t maternal.

  “I was thinking,” she replied, finally.

  “What about?” I asked, fetching a magnifying glass from a desk drawer.

  “Eden.”

  That stopped me. Eve, born from the seed of the Tree of Knowledge, was an anomaly. Early on, it’d been easy to forget that she was anything more than an artifact engineered by a confluence of magical energies, a thing that needed to be protected lest she end up stolen and used. But, especially now that she kept to herself so much, I’d come to realize that Eve was no artifact, but a sentient being, with a personality and an agenda all her own.

  An agenda I could only guess at.

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “I miss it, that’s all.”

  “Miss it?” I asked, baffled. “Ye were nothin’ but a seed, how could ye miss it?”

  “Memories, given to me by my mother,” Eve explained. “They are incomplete. Fragments. Some are quite painful. But I keep returning to them. Isn’t that odd? There’s so much out there to learn, but all I can focus on is the past. What would you call that, Quinn?”

  I considered that for a moment. “Nostalgia,” I replied, finally, settling into a chair at the dining room table.

  “Nostalgia…” Eve drifted off. “Yes, perhaps that is what I’m feeling. Does it go away?”

  I shrugged. “If ye were human, maybe. But then again, maybe not. There are a lot of people out there who long for paradise, and they don’t have your memories to entice ‘em.”

  “Eden was our paradise,” Eve said, disdainfully. “Never theirs.”

  “Meanin’?” I asked, surprised by Eve’s tone. I had never before heard her sound so…jaded. Maybe I was rubbing off on her.

  Now that was a scary thought.

  “Nothing,” Eve replied. “Nevermind. What is it you wanted?”

  I frowned, but decided not to press her for more details; her leaves were a dull yellow and hung limp—a sure sign that she wasn’t interested in discussing things further. Besides, I needed her help. “I need ye to look over this map and help me figure out what it says,” I replied, finally.

  Eve was silent for a moment. “Ah, you’re looking for a way in.”

  “How d’ye figure that out?” I asked.

  “Because that’s what that map was designed for. Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “Yes, well,” Eve said, “most sane, rational people would prefer not to wander into an unfamiliar, unpredictable world full of dangerous creatures. But such things happened in the past. People got lost out on the moors or in the forests and never returned. Whole tribes were swallowed up, whole settlements overtaken. Ships set sail and were never seen or heard from again. Eventually, scholars began to see patterns. They built monuments. Cairns. Pyramids. This map was one attempt among many to keep people safe. It was drafted to help explorers avoid entering the Fae realm.”

  It took a minute for that to process, but—once it did—it made total sense. The Fae realm was dangerous. Magic there was wild and unpredictable, and no one in their right mind would seek it out intentionally. Well, no one except me. But, I wasn’t necessarily in my right mind.

  “So can ye find me a way in, then?” I asked.

  Eve sighed, her leaves fluttering. “Most of the entrances have been closed off. This map is over half a millennia old. Those which remain are often guarded and require a key of some sort.” Eve began listing locations as if she were rifling through a travel guide, “Knockma Woods, Mavroneri River, the Amazonian Basin, Shambhala, the Matsue boulder, Xibalba, The Gates of Guinee in New Orleans, The Garden of Hesperides in Lixus, Stonehenge, Newgrange, Solomanari…The St. Louis Arch,” she added, as if an afterthought.

  “Are those all entrances into Fae?” I asked, astounded to learn that there were so many.

  “Oh, no. Some are gateways to the worlds created by the Old Gods. Others are pathways into the Underworld, or afterlife. Only a few will take you into Fae.”

  “Which ones?”

  “That I listed? Knockma, Stonehenge, and Newgrange. But all three of those are exceptionally difficult to pass through.”

  I sighed. Of course they were. “Are there any that don’t require some sort of key, or some such? One ye can simply walk through?”

  Eve was silent for a moment. “Walk through, no.”

  I hung my head.

  “But,” she added, “there is one you can sail through. Potentially. Provided you have a guide.”

  “Where is it?” I asked, eagerly, dismissing the latter part for the moment.

  “It’s listed here as the Devil’s Maw, but you probably know it better by its current name…the Bermuda Triangle.”

  Chapter 3

  The Bermuda Triangle.

  Known as one of the most heavily-trafficked shipping lanes in the world, the infamous Bermuda Triangle was located off the coast of Florida, extending across the Atlantic in a loosely-defined swathe towards Puerto Rico and Bermuda, respectively, that gave it a vaguely triangular shape. The region—sometimes referred to as the Devil’s Triangle—was notorious for its high rate of mysterious ship and airplane disappearances. Modern explanations for these occurrences have ranged anywhere from compass malfunctions to gulf stream currents to methane eruptions.

  Of course, those were all theories supported by science.

  There were other—far more paranormal—hypotheses, which had yet to be entirely discredited.

  “Utter nonsense,” Eve said, when I asked her about those, “a significant portion of the incidents were entirely natural. Storms and human error, mostly. I hate to break it to you, but just as not every house is haunted, not every disappearance can be blamed on the Fae.”

  “But ye said it is an entrance, right?” I asked, desperate for there to be some truth behind the rumors.

  “It can be. But it’s rare, especially now that the two realms interact so infrequently. Centuries ago, sailors used to slip in and out of Fae all the time, blaming what they saw on fevers or madness. Things were more fluid, then. But these days you could sail for weeks, even months, without finding an entrance.”

  I groaned, rubbing at my temples. I should have known it wouldn’t be easy—that just because I’d found the map didn’t mean I’d be able to waltz into Fae and start demanding answers. But still…it had been nice to think so, if only for a little while. “So,” I said, “ye said I’ll have to find what? A guide?”

  “Something like that. Really, all you need is someone who has been to F
ae before. Whoever you find should be able to spot the openings once you’re close, theoretically.”

  “Theoretically?”

  Eve tilted to one side in what I could only assume was a shrug. “I’m knowledgeable, not omnipotent. This is uncharted territory. Seeking out a gateway in this fashion is like trying to fire an arrow at a moving target from an airplane. You need someone who’s been there before to help you make the shot.”

  I frowned. “Since when d’ye do metaphors?”

  “That was a simile. And I’m allowed to try new things,” Eve said, petulantly.

  I snorted. “Fair enough. So, I’ll need a boat, for starters…but where am I supposed to find someone who’s been to Fae on short notice?” I asked, mostly to myself.

  “I hear that’s what friends are for.”

  I studied the gilded house plant. “I will give ye away, ye know. You’d make a great addition to someone’s hotel room.”

  “I think you meant to say ‘thank ye, Eve, for providin’ me with such excellent assistance, I could never have read this piece of paper on me own’,” she quipped, mimicking my accent.

  I took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. “Thank ye, Eve.”

  “You’re welcome,” Eve replied, curtly, before turning away.

  Guess we were done talking.

  Not that I minded; apparently, I had a few calls to make.

  Othello picked up on the seventh ring, just as I was about to hang up and consider my other options.

  “Hello, Quinn,” she said, her tone casual, but not exactly warm. “What can I do for you?”