Evil within Yourselves Page 5

  “Should we bring Eva?” asked Gordy, rubbing his reddened knuckles. For a moment I froze.

  Why did references to Tal’s ex still bother me? I couldn’t really say. Maybe it was that I had been in Eva’s shadow for so long while Tal had eyes only for her. That time seemed like a half-forgotten dream now. Tal and I shared a bond more real than anything he had ever had with Eva. Still, the past sometimes refuses to stay in the past; as someone whose past-life persona had once controlled me and still remained a part of me, I knew that better than anyone.

  “No more than we should bring the band members or Natalie,” I said, hoping no one had noticed my momentary hesitation. “They know about us, but Tal still wants them treated as civilians and not involved any more than necessary.” He had never actually said that in so many words, but I was sure he it was what he wanted. And if not, well, it was definitely what I wanted, and he would understand.

  “I’m more concerned about the guy with the broken nose, Gordy. What were you thinking?” I asked as we returned to where Robin was standing.

  “Like everybody else, I wasn’t,” said Gordy, his tone a cross between apologetic and defensive.

  By now we had reached Robin, moping in the corner. “Well, we need to fix this mess before we can let any of them wake up, but Nurse Florence would be better at healing the nose, and Tal would be better at rearranging memories. I could try, but with this many people—”

  “There is no time anyway!” burst in Robin angrily. “We need to rejoin Taliesin and my queen immediately.”

  “Which we could have done already, I’ll point out, if you hadn’t decided tonight would be a good night for a Roman orgy!” I said in a scolding tone. I would really have liked to hate Robin at this point, but despite his centuries of life, he managed to remind me of a child—a very obnoxious one, perhaps, but still a child.

  “Roman? It would have been a perfectly Celtic party, in honor of Saint Valentine!” Robin snapped defensively.

  “If Saint Valentine had actually ever met you, he would have denounced you as an imp of Satan and had you burned at the stake!” I snapped back. “No more arguments! Draw your swords, everyone, and be ready to attack at will. I’m just about to open a portal.” Robin pulled out a small silver blade, clearly of faerie manufacture. Gordy’s fear-evoking sword glistened as if eager for battle. Carlos’s drowning sword sparkled with muted blueness. Jimmie’s Black Hilt, the dark twin of Tal’s sword, shimmered with cold. Shar’s Zom blazed with emerald waves of antimagic. As soon as I conjured up the portal, I would draw Artemis’s bow, and we would be ready. I would have liked to retrieve the dragon armor for the guys, but Tal had stored it in his attic behind wards only he could get past. I now realized that plan might not always be the best idea, but I couldn’t do anything about it until Tal got back. I focused my thoughts, summoned a portal…and then cringed as someone on the other end crushed it. Could this night get any more frustrating?

  “What’s wrong?” asked Carlos as the last traces of the portal flickered out of existence.

  “I think Tal is blocking me,” I replied, rubbing my temples.

  “Why would he do that?” asked Jimmie. “He wants us to meet him.”

  “Because he knows her,” growled Robin.

  “It’s hard to tell who is on the other end of a portal until it actually opens, Jimmie,” I replied, ignoring Robin, who, whatever else he might be, was clearly not a good fellow. “I have to assume Tal has been fending off someone else’s efforts to reach Alcina’s island.”

  “From a strategic standpoint, isn’t it also possible that someone else is on that beach by now?” asked Shar, frowning.

  Gordy rolled his eyes. “Yes, oh great Alexander, what orders have you for us?”

  “What’s your problem?” replied Shar irritably.

  “Gordy, he’s right,” I said quickly. The last thing we needed right now was a battle of male egos. “The beach we normally use as a rendezvous point may not be safe. There’s really no easy or fast way to tell from a different world. I’ll take us to Alcina’s castle instead, and then we can figure out what we are up against.”

  I had another portal open as fast as I could, partly because Tal and the others could be in danger, but partly because it was the best way to forestall discussion. In moments we had left the gym and stepped into the great hall in the castle of my past self.

  Chapter 4: Faerie Fracas (Tal)

  “Tal, what’s wrong?” asked Nurse Florence.

  “I think I might have just blocked Carla’s portal by accident,” I said ruefully. “I can’t be sure, but that last one felt different.”

  “How could Nicneven come here?” asked Stan, still trying to figure out how magic operated. “She’s never been here, has she?”

  “She could have been when Alcina was in charge, for all I know,” I said. “But Nicneven might be able to use her connection with Alisa to open a portal here.”

  “I can put a stop to that,” said Titania, who began weaving some kind of softly glowing containment spell around Alisa. I turned my attention to locating Carla, but I wasn’t that used to trying to probe one world from another one, and at first I felt nothing. I was just making a mental note to research bonding myself to Carla in such a way that we, too, could have a connection that persisted across worlds, but then I felt her nearby.

  “She’s come through somewhere else on the island,” I said happily, relieved that everyone would be together and safe—at least for a while. “She’s moving,” I continued after a short pause, “and the guys and Robin are with her. They’ll reach us in five minutes or so.”

  Sure enough, Carla, moving as fast as she could in her party dress, showed up five minutes later, almost to the second. She must have scanned ahead, and, probably because she could sense Alisa, she had Artemis’s bow drawn, and the guys had kept their swords out.

  “Stand down, guys!” I shouted as they came into sight. They hesitated, perhaps fearing I was an illusion or a shape-shifter, until Carla nodded, at which point they sheathed their swords. I ran over to them, apologizing for having blocked them, and then I took a few minutes to brief Carla and the others.

  By the time I was finished, everyone else had walked over. Titania did not look happy.

  “Taliesin, I could not break the bond between the witch and Nicneven. It is already too old and too strong. The best I could do is make it…dormant, I think you would say. At least Nicneven can’t use her as a way to open a portal here.”

  “Thank you, Majesty. Now, the question is, what are we going to do with her?”

  “Vanora could keep her prisoner in Awen,” suggested Nurse Florence.

  “For how long?” I asked skeptically. “I know that dungeon underneath the building is designed for magical prisoners, but do we really want to get into the business of running a prison?” My life was already a three-ring circus as it was; I had no desire to open a fourth ring.

  “Robin and I will take her back with us,” said Titania firmly. “We have better ways to secure prisoners, and since we know Nicneven is really after you—”

  “When did this happen?” said Carla, clearly alarmed. I told her what we had learned from Alisa’s mind, and she looked even more alarmed.

  “Nicneven has never been anywhere close to Santa Barbara, Carla, so she isn’t an immediate threat. Without Alisa, she can’t reach us by magical means. Somehow, I can’t see her flying commercial to get here.” I smiled, but Carla pointedly did not smile back.

  “What is commercial?” asked Titania. “Remember, Taliesin, Nicneven is a faerie. It would take many hours, but she could fly from Scotland…you know, as the faeries do.” Well, that demolished any chance I had of getting Carla not to worry herself sick.

  “Majesty, I know faeries can fly; I’ve just never heard of one making a transatlantic crossing that way.”

  “Truly, it is not the most practical way,” the faerie queen conceded. “Poor Robin exhausted himself completely when he flew to your town to give himself the ability to open a portal there, and Nicneven would be far more conspicuous than he were she to try the same thing. However, Caithness is visited by many…tourists, as you would call them. All Nicneven need do is find a tourist from California, link to that person and use his connections to places he has been to open a portal somewhere near you.”

  Well, Titania had now given everyone nightmare material for days.

  “The portal method makes it easier for her to bring her troops through. The faeries could fly across the sea with her, but the witches would use too much power that way—”

  “Witches?” interrupted Carla, obviously shocked by the plural. Perhaps because Titania was depending on me for help, she did not betray any annoyance at being interrupted yet again by a mortal.

  “Nicneven has often denied her connection with witches, but she is every bit as much the queen of the Scottish witches as she is of the Scottish faeries,” Titania explained patiently to Carla. “If she thinks she can get away with it, she will bring as many of both as she can manage.”

  The day just kept getting better and better.

  “If the witches are drawing power from her, doesn’t that mean they weaken her?” asked Shar.

  Titania’s answering laugh had not even the slightest touch of good humor. “I wish it were so simple. When such a bond is first made, yes, but the bond takes on a life of its own eventually, almost as if it creates power rather than just channeling it. Up to a point, one of Nicneven’s witches can summon magical energy without immediately affecting Nicneven’s own supply.”

  Ceridwen had been only one witch, though a very powerful one, and Morgan le Fay was only a half faerie, yet each one of them had come close to besting me in magical combat. True, I continually practiced to improve my sk
ills—but now we were talking about armies of witches and faeries, not even counting Nicneven. I did not like these odds one little bit.

  “Do not fear, Taliesin,” said Titania, picking up on my mood. “You have agreed to help me; do not think that I will abandon you in your hour of need. Robin and I will take Alisa back to Annwn with us, as I have said. Once I have arrived there, I will communicate the nature of Nicneven’s trespasses to my fellow rulers. I do not doubt they will realize the danger and forbid Nicneven to intrude into the mortal realm. They may not all be willing to fight her directly, but my army by itself should be sufficient to hold her at bay. Worry not,” she continued, responding to my skeptical expression. “My troops would not support an attempt to rescue Oberon, but they will certainly obey me in a struggle with Nicneven. She will never reach your hemisphere, much less your town.”

  I bowed and offered my thanks, but in my heart I doubted much of what she said. Oh, her words were sincere, but I was not about to trust my life and the lives of my friends to faerie politics. We would need to have a plan B—and a damn good one, by the look of things.

  “Before you depart, there is one other matter I beg leave to bring to your attention,” said Carla. Like me, she tended to borrow words and style from her past self when dealing with supernatural dignitaries.

  “You may speak,” said Titania with a nod.

  “Robin Goodfellow has caused…tremendous harm in our world.”

  “She lies!” the faerie screeched indignantly. “I did but do what I had promised. It was she who ruined everything…and assaulted me besides!”

  “Majesty, a simple sleep spell would have enabled us to join you. Instead, Robin cast some kind of spell to…sexually arouse everyone present.”

  I could see that Titania was not really seeing the problem. We had already had some trouble with faeries not quite getting our different sense of sexual morality.

  “Majesty, in our world most of the people involved are not…permitted to engage in…sexual conduct—and certainly not at a school function.”

  “That did not seem to keep them from enjoying it,” muttered Robin grumpily.

  Titania nodded. “Gwynn has told me something of this difference in our cultures.”

  “I knew nothing of these peculiar customs!” protested Robin. “And my spell would have permitted Taliesin’s men to steal away unobserved.”

  “I told you!” replied Carla angrily. “You wouldn’t stop.” She turned quickly to me. “Tal, we have a big mess to clean up at school. Carlos and several other people are probably facing suspension, and Gordy may be in even a worse spot for breaking someone’s nose.”

  “And Jimmie got very, very badly embarrassed,” she thought to me. “I don’t know exactly what happened, though. Dan’s going to need to do something to make Jimmie feel better about the situation.”

  I nodded to Carla, then took a second to wonder how Gordy’s sexual passion could have gotten someone’s nose broken, but I quickly decided I really didn’t want to know.

  “Robin!” snapped Titania, now as angry as Carla. “What have I told you about playing tricks on mortals?” Robin hung his head and said nothing.

  “I command you to apologize to all of them at once. I further command you in future to do no harm to any of them, or to anyone they know.”

  “Yes, Majesty,” Robin mumbled, still not meeting her eyes.

  “Robin is bound by the most solemn oath to obey me in all things, Taliesin. Will my commands to him suffice?” I had been about to insist on some kind of tynged, a binding agreement among the faeries, to keep Robin out of our hair in the future, but I didn’t want to suggest his obedience to Titania was insufficient security. Nonetheless, I hesitated for a moment. I could tell from Carla’s expression that she wanted to smear Robin with honey and tie him to an anthill—and after I saw the mess at school, I might perhaps agree with her.

  Titania moved closer and whispered to me, “Robin is…impulsive, and I will personally guarantee that his pranks will never trouble you again. He is, however, almost literally the only subject I can trust completely at this point. If I have to place him under a tynged, it will be an affront to him, and it will make me look weak, for it is not the practice these days for faerie rulers to doubt the obedience of their own followers in such a way.”

  I nodded. “Your Majesty, I would not dream of creating any new problems for you at such a troubled time. Your guarantee is more than enough for me.”

  Truth be told, tynghedau had not served me that well anyway. I always missed some potential loophole that bit me in the butt eventually.

  Titania nodded in acknowledgment of my courtesy, then motioned to the shamefaced Robin to help her with the still limp Alisa. Once they were ready, Titania bid us farewell and opened a portal. Robin continued in sullen silence and made a great show of not even looking in our direction. I could not help but breathe a sigh of relief once they were gone.

  “We’d better get back ourselves,” suggested Nurse Florence. “The dance should be ending just about now, and it won’t take some parents long to start missing their sons and daughters.”

  Nurse Florence took charge of opening a portal, being careful to have it connect to the space right behind the gym, just in case someone who had not been at the dance, like one of the custodians, happened to be around. Fortunately, that part of the campus seemed completely empty, except for the sleeping multitude in the gym.

  When we entered I winced a little despite myself. For an instant all the bodies strewn around gave me the feeling I had stumbled upon some massacre. However, I could feel the life all around me, catch snatches of dreams, and see the gentle breathing of the sleepers.

  The gym clock told us that it was just past eleven, exactly when the dance was supposed to end. That gave us only minutes to figure out what to do.

  Carefully, I probed a few students to see how much they remembered. The short answer: too much.

  “I don’t think we can just erase the memories of the…almost-orgy,” I told the others grimly. “What happened created such an emotional charge that some residue will remain; people will have the feeling of something missing, and a few may keep picking at that particular mental scab until they unearth part of the original memory. It would be better to embed some rational explanation in their heads. The problem is I don’t have a clue how to explain what happened.”

  At first my statement was greeted by eerie silence. Clearly, nobody else had a plausible mundane explanation, either. Fortunately, our group had a lot of collective brain power. Together we came up with a reasonable cover story.

  In our revised reality, a stranger had gotten into the gym near the end of the dance. Principal Simmons had spotted him and asked him to leave, but apparently not before he had managed to spike the punch with some kind of mixture derived from prescription sleep aids—a bad mixture that greatly increased the probability of hallucinations and other side effects. Mostly, it just put everybody to sleep, but it caused some students and staff members to experience fairly vivid dreams.

  “Some people might be inclined to share their ‘dream’ experiences,” I said, “but probably not too many, given their…awkward nature. Anyway, it’ll be easier to give them a dreamlike fuzziness than it would be to erase them. People will have a hard time holding on to the details, and that should be enough bury the whole thing eventually.”

  “Isn’t the idea of some intruder coming in and drugging the whole student population going to start some kind of panic?” asked Carlos.

  “At first, perhaps,” admitted Nurse Florence, “but that can’t be helped. Any story we create to explain this set of facts is likely to have a scary element of some kind, but nobody is going to have any long-term damage, and that should take the edge off the fear pretty quickly.”