Chapter 15

15

" H e won't go far." Warin charged forward to help me stand from where I'd splatted onto the cobblestones. My knees ached, but my whirling adrenaline helped dull the pain. "He's stalking the streets of Edinburgh for a reason."

"He'll want some energy." Saoirse stepped out of the shadows, joining the rest of us in a huddled circle at the end of the close. "It will be a long time since he has fed. He's hungry."

"Fed on fear you mean?" I asked.

She nodded. "Nightmare wraiths feed on fear, partially because they love the chaos it causes. But also because they need to feed to survive. Not feeding dulls his powers. He's going to want to refill himself before he does…whatever he plans on doing. Likely returning to Faerie to get the others."

"His powers didn't look so muted to me," I muttered .

"The shadow shifting?" Boudica asked. "Yeah, that was wild. Didn't you say that's what the Quentin wanker did when he got the spear?"

"Yeah." I frowned. That had been troubling me, too. Quentin hadn't just teleported. He'd shifted into shadows and disappeared. What were the odds that his power was the exact thing a nightmare wraith did? I'd learned a very long time ago that coincidences were never true coincidences, not in the supernatural world.

We all turned to Uisnech, who had been quietly twisting his hands together. "I did not realise that this was a nightmare wraith power. I thought only King Lugh could do such a thing, though I haven't seen him do it in decades. He said himself that it was a rare gift in fae."

"He meant teleporting was a rare gift in fae," Saoirse cut in. "He didn't see the shifting shadows himself or he would have made the connection. That's a nightmare wraith thing. Not a fae thing. When you teleport, you just pop in and out of places. Nightmare wraiths use shadows to move through the world."

My heart thumped. "But then that would mean Quentin is…"

"A nightmare wraith," Boudica finished, slamming her fist against the wall. "Dammit!"

I held up my hands. "Wait a minute. I met with Quentin. He seemed nothing like a nightmare wraith."

I'd always been able to identify supernaturals, by sight and by scent. Fae did not feel the same way that vampires felt. They certainly smelled nothing alike. Quentin had felt just like every other fae I'd come across. Besides, nightmare wraiths didn't just go around plotting coups. They charged through life causing chaos, feasting on terrified souls.

It didn't add up.

Saoirse's voice was hushed when she finally broke the silence. "I don't know what Quentin is, but he's more than what he seems. It makes me question his motives…his plans. We assumed he had the cauldron, and he was plotting to bring back Nemain. Perhaps we were wrong."

I frowned. "What do you mean? He was working with everyone else who was trying to bring back Nemain. What else would he want the spear for?"

"He wanted the same thing they did. Lugh's spear." She let a beat pass without speaking. "But I believe they may have wanted it for different reasons."

Suddenly, the realisation crashed over me. Quentin, for whatever reason, did not care one lick about Nemain. He'd wanted Lugh's spear because it held his soul, not because of the powerful magic contained within it. The spear had not been a sacrifice to bring another being back from the dead.

"He wanted the nightmare wraith king," I murmured, my heart tripping in my chest. "He wanted to get rid of Lugh's soul."

Uisnech's mouth was wide as he stared up at me. "Oh my. I understand the plot now, far better than I ever have. Our nemesis means for Lugh to call the wraiths out of Faerie. That is why he wanted the spear. He wants to bring on the apocalypse."

I t took a few minutes for that bombshell to sink in. On the one hand, whew! With everything going on, I hadn't allowed myself to ponder what it might mean with Nemain back in the land of the living. She had some serious firepower—she could predict what people were going to do next. It had made it next to impossible to take her down.

She'd start her crusades against the crown once again, desperate to rule over not only the entire supernatural world but the mortal one as well, transforming humans into indentured servants.

Luckily, it was becoming clear that we didn't need to worry about Nemain.

Not so luckily, the threat was far worse than she could ever be.

"Right." I ducked and grabbed my sword from the ground, shoving it back into the sheath strapped to my waist. "We obviously can't let this happen. Like Saoirse said, Lugh won't have gone far. He's still feeding. And we need to find him."

If we could manage to stop him from gathering his energy, we could stop him from heading straight to Faerie. The longer we distracted him from his goals, the more time we'd have to formulate a better plan than the one we'd originally had .

This time, we didn't split up. It would be the six of us against one nightmare wraith. Together, we broke out into a run and raced through the Edinburgh streets. Humans stopped and stared as we rushed past, but no one tried to slow us down. They knew about the fae who lived in the castle on the hill. They might not like us, but they also didn't want to get in our way. If we were rushing around like this, weapons clearly visible, shit must be going down.

My ears picked up another scream in the distance. Waving my arms in the direction of the sound, I led the crew down another close, this one more tightly-packed than the one before. Our footsteps slowed as we approached the darkening shadows ahead. Heart thumping once again, I drew my sword.

A tall figure curled over a ginger human who looked about eighteen. He had his arms flung over his eyes, his entire body squirming as the nightmare wraith drew the shadows from his skin. Strands of smoke drifted around the boy, twisting and turning like black ribbons of death.

"Lugh!" I shouted at the form. Suddenly, the smoky tendrils vanished into the night. The hunched figure stood, twisting toward our group. Wraith Lugh's dark eyes flashed with rage.

His lip curled as he sneered. "Your weapons are useless against me."

I twisted my palms around the hilt. "I thought you could remember all Lugh's memories. If that were the case, you'd know that underestimating me is one of the worst mistakes men can do."

"I am no man." He shook his head and laughed, a sound far stranger than the laugh I'd heard from him only moments before. The feeding was working. The nightmare wraith was coming to life with each and every poor innocent human he attacked. "No matter how many times you come for me, you will never win. For I can always do this."

Once again, he vanished into the pulsing shadows. The human leapt to his feet, cast us a terrified glance, and then raced out of the close and into the safety of the Royal Mile.

Saoirse let out a frustrated sigh and threw her hands in the air. "Lugh has a point. We're never going to trap him as long as he has those shadow shifting powers. Every time we find him, he'll just vanish again."

"Ah." Uisnech punched the air with his finger. "But the shadow shifting drains his power, his energy. As long as he uses it, he will need to feed more, trapping him here in Edinburgh until he's been able to have his fill."

I frowned. "That's great and everything—I mean, I guess we could spend the rest of the night chasing him around the city and forcing him to shadow shift—but the more he does it, the more he'll feed. The more humans he'll attack."

And the angrier he would get. Nightmare wraiths could feed without killing—just like vampires could. But also like vampires, they could easily lose control. Mortals could withstand a normal wraith attack, so long as the wraith wasn't intent on a kill. But if Lugh got frustrated and became far more brutal than he was now…the streets would be littered with bodies.

And it would be our fault.

I slid my sword back into the sheath. "This isn't going to work."

"We must stop him somehow," Uisnech argued. "My dear king gave me an order so very long ago. He insisted that I never allow him to return to Faerie if he ever lost his soul. I intend to keep that promise."

"Yes, but we need a different approach. Lugh's books," I said suddenly. "He's spent so much of his life combing through that library. Maybe he found something that can help us."

"If he had, don't you think he would have mentioned it to you?" Boudica asked with a frown.

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe he overlooked something."

There has to be some way to stop him. There has to be a way to get him back.

"Uisnech," I said, cocking my head toward the hobgoblin. "How long will it take Lugh to gather enough strength to satiate his hunger?"

Uisnech tapped a long, green finger against his chin. "He will need more than one night. If he wishes to control the nightmare wraiths as he once did, he will need to build up his power. They have for so long resided in the fae realm. They may have forgotten him."

"So he won't return to Faerie right away," I said slowly before glancing to the druid. "Saoirse?"

She frowned, gazing distantly. "I cannot say. It feels as though the wraith wishes to return, but I do not sense a hurry in him. To go left, we must go right. It makes sense that we would return to the castle."

"Okay, return to the castle it is," I said, speaking with the kind of authority I did not have. In Lugh's absence, I had somehow become the de facto leader, even though I wasn't even a member of the Court.

A temporary absence, I reminded myself. Things were totally out of control, but they wouldn't be for long. We would find a way to stop the wraith from returning to Faerie, and we'd bring back Lugh's soul, all while taking down Quentin to prevent him from trying anything again. Oh, and stop his army of supernaturals. And whoever else wanted to kill us this time.

Yep. Just another normal night as a fae.