Evil within Yourselves Page 4

  “Imprison me? That you will not,” said the woman harshly, after which she flew straight up in the air. Well, I knew she had power, so I really shouldn’t have been surprised.

  She might have expected Titania to fly after her, but she seemed genuinely shocked when I also took off and headed right for her. Unfortunately, she didn’t freeze but continued to fly at high speed away from us.

  Despite obviously being a follower of Nicneven, the woman didn’t seem to realize how foolish it was to try to fly away from a faerie. As humans, the woman and I both had to expend magic to move through the air, and both high speed and long distances burned lots of magical energy. Titania, on the other hand, had the innate ability to fly—and she was much faster than a human. She caught up with Nicneven’s fleeing minion and wrestled with her until I caught up. The woman might have been a physical match for Titania, as humans are normally stronger than faeries, but she was no match for me. Though I had an instinctive aversion to hitting women, dealing with the likes of Ceridwen and Morgan had more or less cured me of that, so I didn’t have too much trouble stunning this stranger with a punch. Once she wasn’t able to cause any more trouble, Titania and I easily carried her back to ground level.

  “Now, ladies,” I said to Nurse Florence and Titania, “if you would be so kind as to bind her with a powerful sleep spell, we can get back to Santa Brígida and see what’s up.” I hardly dared to voice my fear that Nicneven was already there committing mayhem, or if not, that Robin Goodfellow’s plan to get the guys out of the dance unseen had gone hideously wrong.

  “Might I suggest that you probe her mind first, Taliesin?” suggested Titania. “She is clearly in the service of Nicneven and might have valuable information.”

  I hated to spend the time, but I didn’t want to refuse Titania’s request, either; perhaps this woman knew something that could make the difference between life and death for the faerie queen.

  I entered the stranger’s mind with surprisingly little effort, aided by her unconscious condition. However, she still resisted instinctively once I was in, and it took a few precious minutes for me to extract anything useful.

  I got her name almost immediately: Alisa MacDougall. Knowing who she was might be useful later if we needed to interrogate her, but right now it made little difference.

  One of the first real tidbits I extracted from her was a memory of a meeting with Ceridwen during the time Ceridwen had been using the Carrie Winn identity. That explained why I had recognized Alisa; I had been at Awen as Carrie Winn’s intern when Alisa met with her. Apparently, Ceridwen had been trying to form an alliance of some kind with Nicneven. So Ceridwen’s agenda had been even more complex than we thought—not exactly useful intel now that Ceridwen was dead, though. Digging deeper, I pulled out the memory of Alisa standing next to Nicneven just minutes ago, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “We don’t have to worry about Nicneven right away,” I told Titania and my friends. “She was using Alisa here to open the portal to Santa Brígida.” I should have remembered that even someone as powerful as Nicneven couldn’t open a portal to a place she had never been.

  “As far as Alisa knows, she’s the only one who has been anywhere near Santa Barbara, so at least Nicneven can’t make any further attempts to reach our area for the time being.”

  “That’s good news,” said Nurse Florence, “but why haven’t the guys and Robin joined us, then?”

  “Robin must be having trouble finding a discreet way to extract everyone else from the dance,” I said with a confidence I didn’t entirely feel. “Let me see if Alisa knows anything else, and then we’d better head back.”

  I dug around for a while but found nothing we could not have guessed. I was about to withdraw when I brushed against something that made me shudder: a connection between Alisa’s mind and someone else’s. The someone else was trying to be subtle, but the tie between them throbbed with power. Nicneven!

  “Titania, Nicneven is joined to Alisa right now.” Titania motioned for us all to be quiet and cast a quick spell to render Alisa temporarily blind and deaf.

  “It wouldn’t do to have Nicneven hear the rest of our conversation,” explained Titania. “I have no doubt she can hear through Alisa even if Alisa is unconscious. As it is, she knows we have people back in your world that we are worried about, even if she can’t get at them this minute.”

  “You mean—” I began.

  “Yes, I am afraid so,” cut in Titania. “Alisa is a witch, and Titania is her power source.”

  “Pardon the interruption, Your Majesty,” began Stan nervously, “but I don’t understand the connection between a witch and her power source.”

  Despite the seriousness of our situation, I had to chuckle to myself. Stan always wanted to gather data in an effort to understand the principles that governed magic, much as he already understood the principles of physics. Well, if anyone could succeed in making science out of magic, it would be Stan.

  Although Titania was obviously tense, she smiled at Stan. If I recalled correctly, she actually enjoyed interacting with mortals and probably hadn’t had the opportunity in years, maybe even centuries.

  “Power always comes from somewhere,” began Titania. “Even in your world this is so, yes?” Stan nodded.

  “So it is in Annwn, or Elphame, or any of the other magical realms. We faeries create within us the energy that fuels our spells. In much the same way, the Olympians draw the power for their special abilities from within.

  “Most mortals have to approach magic differently, though. Humans, like all thinking creatures, can produce some magical energy, but only a small number of them create enough energy for significant spell casting. The rest must find another way if they would follow the path of magic. Druids, for instance, have mastered the ability to become one with nature and draw strength from it. Others find their power in the increasingly rare magic objects that still exist in your world.

  “‘Witch’ means different things in different human societies, but faeries use the term for those humans who swear allegiance to some magical being in exchange for power.”

  “You mean…like Satan?” asked Stan. I could just imagine David squirming inside him.

  “There are witches dedicated to Satan or a high-level demon, but it is wrong to think that Satan is the only source. Any entity with enough power could serve as the source. I have known witches whose power sources were good beings, though faeries tend to frown on witchcraft anyway. There aren’t all that many humans who can resist the temptations of that much power.”

  “Faeries are not entirely immune to those temptations, either,” I mentioned gently.

  Titania laughed in a surprisingly light-hearted way. “Well spoken, Taliesin. It is the rare being, mortal or immortal, who can wield great power and remain unchanged by it.”

  “If Nicneven could listen in on us through Alisa, then the bond between witch and source must be strong enough to work even across worlds,” said Stan.

  “Very good, my young scholar!” replied Titania. “Yes, once the bond has had time to take root in the witch’s very being, it can function across such boundaries. ’Tis too bad in a way; if infernal witches had to stay in Hell to have any power, there wouldn’t be so many of them!”

  “What about beings like the Olympians, who are more or less trapped on their own planes? Could Hecate, for example, still serve as a source the way she did in ancient Greece?” asked Stan. He had evidently read up on Hecate after our return from Olympus.

  Titania suddenly became grim. “Why would you ask about her?”

  “During our stay with the Olympians, we had to fight Hecate,” I explained, wondering why the mere reference to her name would have cast such a shadow over Titania.

  The faerie queen, who had been showing great courage at the thought of falling into Nicneven’s clutches, actually started trembling a little. “I…I did not realize you had ever faced Hecate.”

  “Not to worry,” said Dan. “We defeat
ed her. She’s probably in Tartarus by now for trying to overthrow Hades and seize the Underworld for herself.”

  “You do not understand. It is not Hecate herself I fear, confined as she is to the Olympian realm. But the young scholar is right: Hecate can be a power source, even from Tartarus. No new witch could pledge herself to the Triple One, but established bonds would continue to function. There have been rumors for years that Nicneven has combined her inborn faerie magic with powers of witchcraft…derived from Hecate.”

  Now Nurse Florence looked just as alarmed as Titania. “As a sworn servant of Hecate, she will want revenge then.”

  Titania nodded reluctantly. “In his eagerness to keep me safe, Robin completely misunderstood the situation.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked shakily, knowing perfectly well what she meant.

  “Nicneven wasn’t coming for me, at least not this time. She was coming for you.”

  As if to punctuate her words, a portal shimmered to life right next to the fallen Alisa.

  Chapter 3: Faerie Fiasco (Carla)

  I wished about ten times a day that Tal could get over the idea that I needed to be protected, and this was one of those times. After all, I had all the power of my past self, the sorceress Alcina. If some Scottish faerie queen was attacking, I could take care of myself just as well as he could—but here I was, ready to babysit Robin Goodfellow while Tal threw himself into deadly danger. No, I wasn’t fooled by the excuse that I would need to make sure Robin didn’t botch everything up. Tal wouldn’t admit this, maybe even to himself, but he was being overprotective. Again.

  Damn chivalry!

  I spared a few seconds to wonder if I should have stayed on Olympus with Artemis. Then I got the band to take a break by pretending to feel faint.

  And that’s another thing: the band members had also been with us on Samhain when we fought Ceridwen. They knew perfectly well that I wasn’t some frail flower who had to be protected, even though they had been unconscious during the most dramatic parts. I could have told them what was really going on, for that matter, but I didn’t want to risk being overheard. I didn’t blame them because I had to lie to them. I blamed them because they believed that particular lie so easily.

  Not having to perform, I was able to devote my full attention to watching for Robin Goodfellow. He was invisible, but, like Tal, I could generally see invisible beings if I knew one was around and concentrated hard enough.

  Sure enough, I could make out someone moving surreptitiously but very fast near the back of the gym. He was wearing a tunic of such bright green it was practically a neon light, and he looked almost completely frazzled.

  “Robin! Over here!” I thought as loudly as I could. Tal was better at projecting his thoughts, but I did it well enough to get Robin sprinting to the stage.

  “My lady,” he whispered with a quick bow, “we must join Taliesin and my queen at once. Can you call Taliesin’s men over here?”

  I broadcast as well as I could to Shar, Gordy, Carlos, and Jimmie. It took a couple of minutes for them to extricate themselves from their dates, but they had caught the urgency in my call, and except for Jimmie, they were pretty used to this kind of emergency.

  Once they had reached me, I motioned for them to be quiet and whispered to the still invisible Robin, “You need to cover our exit so no one will follow or miss us. Perhaps a sleep spell—”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” whispered Robin. He winked at me and said, “Tell Taliesin’s men to stand right next to you.” I got us together quickly, and Robin used his wand to draw a magic circle around us. I could see it glowing faintly, though of course the guys could not.

  “What do you mean, ‘where’s the fun in that?’” I whispered worriedly.

  “Shush!” replied Robin, putting a finger to his lips. “I must concentrate.” At that moment I noticed he carried a willow flute as well as a wand. He stuck the wand in his belt, put the flute, pulsing with magic of its own, to his lips, and began playing for all he was worth.

  I had seen Tal channel magic through his music before, but Robin, perhaps motivated by the urgency of the situation, played almost hysterically, energy pulsing wildly in every note. Everyone outside the circle seemed momentarily stunned, and I thought for a second that Robin had just been teasing me and was going to put them to sleep after all. The frenetic quality of the music should have told me differently. Robin clearly had other things one might do in bed on his mind.

  I couldn’t read people’s thoughts the way Tal could, but the emotional feedback from hundreds of teenagers suddenly overwhelmed by sexual passion would have been hard to miss even if I had not had any magic at all. Suddenly, as if on cue, dozens of couples locked together in steamy embraces. I had to do something while all the clothes were still on. Oops, well, most of the clothes anyway.

  “Stop it!” I hissed at Robin. He winked again and played on, even more energetically. I could feel the power of his music swelling to unbelievably high levels. I had only felt such power once before, from the lyre of Orpheus. How Robin had endowed his flute with that much mojo I had no idea—and no time to worry about his methods. I needed to find a way to stop him, though, and quickly.

  I could hear Gordy chuckling behind me…until he saw his date in someone else’s arms. Then he had to be restrained from jumping out of the magic circle. I could hear the guys tussling a little but had to focus on Robin. I tried knocking the flute out of his hands, but he dodged away from me. The band members, just as entranced as everyone else by the music, had climbed off the stage and were looking for single girls. I didn’t have much time before someone did something that couldn’t be undone—even by magic!

  Unfortunately, in trying to restrain Gordy, the guys had scuffed the magic circle enough to break it. I knew because I was staring in Robin’s direction, and suddenly he was looking fine. He was looking hot. No, more like volcanically hot.

  Think about Tal, I told myself. If Tal had been able to resist Aphrodite herself, surely I could resist this little…adorable…sexy…

  The guys, including Jimmie, had gone racing toward their dates. Thinking about Jimmie helped me reinforce my feeble grasp on sanity. I felt more protective of him than anyone else in the room. Physically, he was the same age as Tal. The problem was he’d been dead from age nine to age sixteen, and handling instant puberty was hard enough without being overstimulated by some…really, really gorgeous faerie.

  Maybe if I closed my eyes and pretended he was Tal…

  I threw myself at Robin. For a split second I think he imagined he was about to get lucky.

  I had to depend on the fact that faerie anatomy and human anatomy were basically the same.

  Yeah, apparently they were. At least similar enough for a kick in the crotch to put Robin out of action. He dropped his flute and fell to the floor, clutching himself. Again I congratulated myself on having taken those self-defense classes.

  Fortunately, his spell was apparently not completely woven. People snapped out of their hormonal frenzy almost immediately. Also fortunately, at least as far as I could tell from where I stood, no frontiers had been crossed.

  Unfortunately, we had lost any chance of making a quick, unseen exit. Oh, we could still get out, but I’d have to use some very hasty magic and take the chance it wouldn’t be completely effective.

  “Young man, put your shirt back on!” I heard Principal Simmons order someone across the room. I gave her some credit for gathering her wits so quickly, though it seemed to me she should have spent a minute or so being ashamed of the way she had been rubbing up against Coach Miller just a few seconds ago. At least he had managed to resist. Still, I didn’t think that was a story I’d be sharing with Nurse Florence any time soon.

  “Get the hell over here…now!” I barked at the guys, but they weren’t all situated in such a way that they could come back right away. Gordy had paused in his search for sex long enough to punch the guy who was all over Gordy’s girlfriend. Looking more closely, I c
ould see the guy clutching his nose. There was blood, and the guy was mumbling something about his nose being broken.

  None of Alcina’s specialties—generating overwhelming love, commanding sea creatures, and changing people into other forms—would be much use now. I could make myself or any of the guys invisible, but most of them were in very public situations, and I couldn’t just make them disappear right in front of everybody—particularly not Gordy, who was in the grip of two teachers, and poor Carlos, who was being yelled at by Principal Simmons and seemed unable to find his pants. Apparently he had moved faster than most other guys. Well, if it had to happen to one of them, at least Carlos was a swimmer and used to appearing publicly in his Speedos. All things considered, he probably looked better in boxers than most of the guys in the room would have anyway.

  Robin had gotten up and was eying me as if deciding which faerie curse to cast on me.

  “Sleep spell now!” I forgot to whisper. In fact, I came pretty close to shouting. Luckily, the room was in such chaos that no one seemed to notice. Any teacher looking my way would have seen a fully clad girl yelling nonsense at thin air and figured I was the least of the problems right now.

  “Mortals anger faeries at their peril!” said Robin in what I imagined was his best effort to seem ominous. Needless to say, my patience with macho nonsense was pretty much exhausted by this point.

  “Yeah, well, faeries anger me at their peril! Now, do what I tell you, or I’ll cut off your manhood and throw it to the nearest dog!” I was drawing on things Alcina might have said in the same situation and had no intention of doing anything of the kind, but Robin didn’t know much about me except that I was a formidable sorceress and clearly had a temper. He muttered something about the good old days when women knew their place, but he did pick up his flute and start to play, a soothing tune this time. In about two minutes almost everyone was asleep. I had warded myself enough to be unaffected, and Shar must have had the presence of mind to touch the hilt of Zom, his sword that protected its wielder against magic. He and I awakened Carlos, Gordy, and Jimmie while a sullen Robin Goodfellow eyed us with mischief—or murder—in his heart. We had to help Carlos find his pants, which slowed us down a little, and I made a mental note to speak to the crimson-cheeked Jimmie, who looked thoroughly mortified, later. No, actually, I should have one of the guys do it, but right now there was barely time to think, much less play mother to the poor boy who lived under the same roof with his parents but couldn’t tell them who he was. Later I promised myself to take care of him, though.