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A loud crack sounded, like thunder, and I could feel my back singe as a wave of light rolled over me. I held perfectly still as it passed over us and dissipated.>“The ghoul?” Delilah asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but we’re not going to find out by standing here. Roz, stay with Iris and Maggie, while we go find out if we need to kick some butt.”
CHAPTER 11
I was tired of sneaking around. I didn’t care who it was; if they set off the alarms, they weren’t welcome here, and I’d whale on their backside.
“Come on, we’re not pussyfooting around this time.” I slammed open the kitchen door and, with Camille and Delilah following me, headed into the backyard. The Moon was still up, though she was on her way to setting for the night, and the yard was awash in her glow.
“Where should we look?” That’s one thing the wards couldn’t tell us—where the breach had occurred. Camille and Morio were working on a fix for that, but for now we’d have to hunt down our intruder.
“Wherever we sense trouble.” Camille clattered down the steps behind me. It had been a long night already, and I could tell both she and Delilah were feeling strained. “Let’s split up. I’ll head toward the gardens. Delilah, you take the path toward Birchwater Pond. Menolly, why don’t you head toward the southwest corner of the acreage?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, heading to the left of the house.
We hadn’t done much with the overgrown thicket that sat in the southwest corner of our lot. In fact, we’d made the decision to leave it wild for the nature spirits and animals to forage in. Now, scotch broom overran part of the area, and a giant blackberry bush was making inroads in its grasp for conquest, its vines budding thick with blossoms. The grass here was knee-high and lush. Twin oaks rose out of the thicket of broom, their trunks hidden by the brush. The rain made everything grow thick here, and Camille said the plant spirits were thriving.
As I gingerly pushed aside a nasty bramble vine that drooped across the faintly delineated trail, a spider dropped down from a branch overhead. Startled, I brushed her aside. The orb weavers here were large and striped, but they weren’t venomous. Not that poison would affect me.
Ever since our encounter with the werespiders, Delilah had become squeamish about arachnids. Camille wasn’t fond of them either, but she hadn’t developed an outright fear yet.
As for myself, I kind of liked the little creatures. They were tenacious, persistently reweaving their webs when they were struck down, patiently waiting for their catch. They drank blood—well, blood and body fluids—and I drank blood. They were feared among a large section of the population. So were vampires. We had quite a bit in common, this spider and I.
I made sure the Argiope found her way onto a nearby leaf and continued making inroads onto the thicket of scrub brush and overgrown ferns. The faint marks of the trail ended at the edge of a patch of broom. The plants were huge, towering seven feet high, with brilliant flowers that glimmered golden in the moonlight. The scotch broom made a crackling sound as seed pods exploded, scattering the next generation to the winds.
Ducking between two of the giant weeds, I pushed my way through the labyrinth of grayish green stalks. Not sure where I was headed, I tried to follow my instincts. And then, a few yards into the patch, I sensed something ahead. Or rather, I heard it. A heartbeat. And scent—the scent of delfalia flowers. And delfalia flowers were only found in Otherworld.
I crept forward, searching for the source of the sound. And then in the darkness of the shaded copse of broom I saw the outline of a heat source. Bipedal, could be human, could be Fae or elfin. I slid forward, silent as the night. What the hell was going on? Where had he come from? At that moment, I noticed that the twin oak trunks were glowing. Or rather, there was a glow between them. A portal. We had a freakin’ rogue portal on our land!
Holy shit, that’s probably how the bloatworgle had found its way onto our land a few weeks ago. And who the hell was here now? I squinted, trying to get a better look at our visitor. Whoever he was, he wasn’t friendly, or the wards wouldn’t have started to sound.
A few steps closer, and I stopped short. He was Fae, that much was clear, and he was dressed in blue and gold, the colors of Y’Elestrial. One of the old guard? Our deposed queen was still on the run with a handful of supporters, and reports of massacres and skirmishes filtered through on a regular basis, according to our father, who now had access to all the inside information. But what was the man doing here? Had he come to assassinate us? Lethesanar must really hate our family by now. Not only had our father and aunt been instrumental in her downfall, but my sisters and I’d switched sides.
Whoever he was, I couldn’t let him return through that portal without finding out why he was here. I bided my time till he looked away, then leapt, swiftly grabbing him around the neck.
“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing on our land?” I pressed my knee into the small of his back. “Answer me, because with one move, I could break your back with my knee. And I don’t think you’d want that, would you?”
He sputtered, struggling against me. I decided to take the most expedient route and brought my fist down on his head, promptly knocking him unconscious. Then I slung him—and the bag he was carrying—over my shoulder and headed back to the house.
Camille saw me as she emerged from the flower and vegetable gardens. “Who’s that?”
“I don’t know, but I found him near the twin oaks. By the way, the scotch broom is hiding a portal between the two trees. We’re going to have to ask Queen Tanaquar or Queen Asteria for someone to stand guard. We can’t have strangers hopping onto our land whenever they feel like it, especially since we don’t know where it leads.” I nodded to the house. “Get some rope and a gag. If he uses magic, we don’t want him casting voice-activated spells.”
Without a word, she ran ahead, dashing up the stairs to the porch. After a moment, she returned, Rozurial in tow, along with a loop of rope over her shoulder and a clean cotton dish towel.
“I figured Roz could watch the portal for us the rest of the night,” she said.
“Good. Help me tie him up, and then I’ll show Roz where it is.” While Rozurial and Camille held the man’s arms and legs together, I made sure he was secure, then twisted the towel into a thick rope and gagged him, making sure he wouldn’t choke.
After he was firmly bound, I carried him over to the shed we’d recently retrofitted into a studio for Roz, Vanzir, and our cousin Shamas. Better not to have questionable visitors in the main house. I unceremoniously dumped him on the sofa. When Camille gave me a queer look, I shrugged.
“Hey, he set off the wards, he’s probably dangerous, and I don’t feel like being nice to somebody who’s out to kill us.”
“Gotcha,” she said. “Go on. I can watch him. Show Roz where the portal is. Tomorrow we’ll figure out what to do about it.” She waved me out.
With a glance back at the shed, I led Roz toward the back end of the property. He stared at the thicket as we approached.
“Lovely. You ever hear of hedge clippers? A Weedwacker, perhaps? Even a goat would make a nice dent in the jungle you’ve got going here.” He shook his head. “Nature freaks. You’re all just a bunch of tree huggers.” The fact that he was smiling when he said it kept me from shoving him face-first into the undergrowth.
