Darklands (Deadtown #4)

“They’re white. White means you don’t belong here.” It must have been my turn to look confused. “Your clothes are made of magic. Magic is everywhere here. You can even smell it. When I first arrived, I couldn’t get that sharp scent out of my nostrils, but I’m used to it now. In the Ordinary, what you call the human plane, only a little magic seeps through, and it’s all in the form of energy. Here, magic has substance. It gives a shade like me the appearance of a solid body, and it clothes everyone according to their status. White is for, well, trespassers in the realm. Outsiders.”

There it was again. Outsider pinched my heart. “I’d rather blend in,” I said, shoving the feeling aside. “Do you have a spare suit of clothes in black?”

“No!” Eyes wide, he shook his head vehemently. “Even if I did, it wouldn’t do any good. Magic decides your status. If I gave you other clothes, they’d turn white as soon as you put them on. You could roll around in the mud, trying to stain them brown, and they’d be white again by the time you stood up.”

“Can I take them back to the Ordinary with me? I’d save a fortune in dry-cleaning bills.”

Dad threw back his head and laughed. It was an open, easy, full-throated sound. A sound I hadn’t heard in ten years. A pang hit me like a slap, and tears sprang to my eyes.

“Dad, I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too, Vic.” The warmth in his voice erased any chance that I’d ever be an outsider in his world.

DAD PULLED A KNAPSACK FROM A CUPBOARD. HE TOOK down a rolled-up piece of parchment from the top of the bookcase. “A map,” he said. “I know the way, but just in case.” He packed the map and began filling the knapsack with food. “How’s your mother?” he asked.

“She’s fine. Looks great.” I was glad I’d seen her recently. “She’s visiting Gwen’s family at the moment.”

“Visiting? From where?”

Oh, right. Dad wouldn’t know that Mom had moved. Sitting here with him like this, it was hard to remember how long he’d been gone. “Mom lives in Florida now. She bought a condo in a retirement community.”

“Retirement?” Dad stopped rummaging in a cupboard and turned to me, frowning. “She’s too young for that.”

“She’s sixty, Dad.” A lump leapt into my throat. “You’ve been gone for ten years.”

“Have I? Then it’s no wonder…” He gazed at the floor, rubbing his beard, and didn’t finish the thought. He looked up at me. “Time passes differently here.”

That was what the old stories claimed. I could believe it. Dad hadn’t aged a day. “Slower?”

“Sometimes slower, sometimes faster. It’s just…different.” He went back to packing. “So does Ann have a boyfriend?” His too-casual tone betrayed his intense interest.

“Mom? I don’t think so. She never mentioned anyone.” Except those old goats she had to fight off, but I didn’t think Dad wanted to hear about that.

“How about you, Vic? You’re not dating anyone, are you?” I knew why he phrased the question the way he did—Dad never wanted me to follow Gwen, giving up shapeshifting to take the domestic route of home and family. Although he’d never try to stop me if that’s what I wanted, all his hopes and ambitions for me were as a Cerddorion demon fighter.

A pang hit me as I thought how I’d pushed Kane away. I wondered what he was doing right now, and whether Simone was with him. I knew it was right—for both of us—for me to step aside if he was looking for a mate. That didn’t make stepping aside easy. Or hurt any less. What was right wasn’t necessarily what I wanted, but I couldn’t figure it all out now.

“Not at the moment,” I said.

Dad nodded. I didn’t think he noticed the crack in my voice.

I brought him up to date on the rest of the family. Gwen was much the same as he remembered her, happy and busy in the full-time suburban mom role she’d chosen. He’d lived to see the birth of Maria, but not his two grandsons. When I mentioned that Maria seemed on her way to becoming a shapeshifter, his chest puffed with pride.

“I knew she would!” he exclaimed. “Right at the hospital, the very first time I held that baby in my arms, I knew she’d be Cerddorion!”

“Gwen’s not quite as happy about it as you are,” I said. “She’s worried. Things have changed, Dad. Paranormals of all kinds are out in the open now. And the norms try to regulate us.” I filled him in on the zombie plague that had forced the world to acknowledge the existence of the nonhuman among them.

“So that’s what that was,” he said. “I’d wondered. On this side, there was a huge, sudden influx of spirits into the Black. I received word that a couple of my work colleagues were there. But almost as soon as they got here, they were gone again. They didn’t pass through, as most of them do. They didn’t wander into the Wood. They just disappeared.”

“They went back to their physical bodies. In Boston, they were dead for three days, and then they woke up as zombies. None that I talked to remembered anything about being here. They said coming back was like waking up from a dreamless sleep.”

“Well, does that surprise you? You were in the Black. If you’d simply woken up again in your physical body after that, what would you remember?”

“Good point.”

Dad rubbed his beard. “The world has changed. What about Mab? Surely I can rely on her to stay the same.”

I laughed. “You know Mab. If anything, she gets younger.” I didn’t want to think about what Mab would say if she knew where I was right now.

“Speaking of your illustrious aunt, if she could see us, she’d be scolding me because you’ve been here all of half an hour and I haven’t yet given you a weapon. What do you need?”

“What do you have?”

“Anything you wish. Let’s start with a dagger. Sit back, and be amazed.”

Dad rubbed his hands together. He spread them apart a little way, and a glowing ball appeared between them. Again he rubbed his hands together and spread them apart, wider this time. The ball grew. When it was a little bigger than a golf ball, he began to shape it, almost like he was working with clay. He pulled it, stretching it out like taffy, into a bar maybe a foot long. He spun the bar, smoothing one end with his hands into a grip. Then he flattened out the rest of the bar into a blade, pinching the edges and running his fingers from one end to the other. A glowing object the size and shape of a dagger hovered in the air.

“Hocus pocus!” Dad said, and snapped his fingers. The dagger clattered onto the floor. At the same time, Dad plopped down heavily on the bed. He bent forward, breathing hard, like a runner who’d just crossed a marathon finish line.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded. “Leaves me a bit winded,” he said. “Go on, take a look.”

I picked up the dagger. It was solid, warm to the touch, made of metal with a leather grip.

“How did you do that?”

“Magic.” He looked up and grinned, reminding me of the time I was five and he pulled a quarter from behind my ear. “I admit the ‘hocus-pocus’ part was for show.”

“I’ve never seen magic do anything like that.”

“Not bad, huh? Although you should see what the royal wizards can do.”

“Where does the Darklands magic come from?”

“Some say it comes from Lord Arawn. Some say it flows like water under the land, bubbling up in wondrous springs of pure magic—although no one’s ever actually seen a spring like that. Truth is, no one knows. It’s like asking where air comes from in the Ordinary.”

I tested the dagger’s blade; it was as sharp as any in my weapons cupboard at home. A thought struck me, and I smiled. “Hey, can you make me a magic arrow while you’re at it? I’ll need one to get out of here.”

“What do you mean?” The grin vanished from my father’s face. I’d been joking, but his dead-serious expression made me nervous. “Vic, how did you enter the Darklands?”

“Mallt-y-Nos. I shifted into one of her hellhounds, and she drove me across the border.”

Dad stared at me, his mouth open.

“It wasn’t that bad,” I lied. It was the worst shift I’d ever experienced. So much pain. The memory made me cringe. “It got me in.”

“But to get out,” Dad spoke slowly, like he was reluctant to ask, “what did you promise her?”

“I’ve got to pick up a few things for her while I’m here. I figure the Darklands must have a Walmart, right? They’re everywhere now.”

No hint of a smile. “What things?”

“Well, a magic arrow, like I said. The one she wants belongs to someone named…” I searched my memory for the name. “Someone named Rudy? No, that’s not right. Rhudda.”

“Rhudda Gawr. The Red Giant. He owns an arrow that never misses its target. It’s his second most prized possession.”

“What’s the first?” At least the Night Hag wasn’t expecting me to sneak off with that, whatever it was.

Dad ignored my question. “What else does she want?”

“A white falcon. Have you heard of a place called Hellsmoor?”

Dad stood, pounding a fist into his hand. “Damn that hag! She might as well have demanded that you pluck a hair from the beard of Lord Arawn himself—and steal his hunting horn while you’re at it.” I bit my lip. “Oh, no. She didn’t. Vic, you didn’t agree to—”

“Let’s put it this way: Lord Arawn’s beard is safe from me.”

Dad sank back down on the bed. His shoulders slumped. He looked tired. And old—older than I remembered my grandfather. He put his head in his hands.

“What is it, Dad?” He didn’t answer. I thought again of how we’d snuck through the woods to get here. “Is there some reason you’re keeping a low profile? Because you can stay here and be safe. Just point me toward Tywyll and—”