What Dawn Demands: The Frost Arcana, #4

Part I

The Day

Chapter One

Three Weeks after the Zombie Invasion

Emhain Abhlach was a scenic island. It lay off the coast of the Seelie Court, so the sky was always a perfect blue, a bright sun beaming overhead. Crystal-clear water lapped at the sandy shores, the waves gentle and rolling, no storms on the horizon. The temperature was warm but mild, and a constant breeze caressed your skin, coaxing you to take a relaxing stroll along the beach or to nap in the fields of soft grasses that bordered the shallow dunes. Apple trees dotted these grassy hills, boughs hanging heavy with ripe fruit, an invitation to pick a delicious midday snack.

All in all, the island would’ve made for a lovely vacation destination—had I not been here to confront a traitorous god.

My portal spit me out at the end of a weathered dock, the only place a portal could deposit you, because the rest of the island was surrounded by a powerful magic barrier. Manannán mac Lir didn’t necessarily mind if you dropped by for a chat, but he wasn’t foolish enough to allow anyone to traipse around his island without a thorough screening first. As I shook off the disorientation of tumbling through the void between worlds, an array of wards embedded in the boards beneath my feet activated, and a heavy pressure encapsulated my body for roughly ten seconds, sharp pricks of magic poking and prodding me to determine if I was a threat.

The wards decided I was not a threat to the likes of the mighty sea god.

In some ways, they were correct. But not in the ways that mattered today.

Once the wards released me from the binding pressure, I took tentative steps toward the beach, unsure what sort of defenses the barrier spells might employ if I made any movements that could be interpreted as hostile. Three boards from the end of the dock, hard static crackled across my skin. The hair on my arms and neck stood straight. The nerves in my extremities shot confusing signals to my brain, a mixture of pain and indeterminate temperature. The muscles of my face twitched wildly, eyelids beating like a drum.

But despite the discomfort, I came to no harm. I easily slipped through the charged wall of the barrier and emerged onto the fine white beach of the sea god’s home. That was either a sign Manannán wasn’t planning to kill me, or that he was planning to kill me in person. And while I preferred option one, as any fragile mortal would, both possibilities allowed me the opportunity to get a word in edgewise before the spells started flying. An opportunity I planned to use to the fullest extent.

A winding stone path led from the beach up a steep hill, until it terminated at the front gate of an ancient castle. Said castle was five stories high, made of rounded, wind-worn stone, and covered in creeping mosses that painted a subtle mosaic of blues and greens across the gray stone backdrop. The structure didn’t appear to be guarded by any people, or creatures, but the ward array etched into the exterior walls was so far beyond anything I could hope to breach that I chuckled at the mere idea of trying as I started up the path.

My laughter lasted only a moment, however, and was carried off in the wind, which seemed to grow stronger for each step I climbed farther from the beach. Almost as if the air itself was urging me to leave, to abort this reckless mission.

I ignored the warning.

As I neared the end of the path, the metal gate rose before me with a high-pitched screech, and several wards around it deactivated with a subtle flicker. Manannán was inviting me into his home. Which was mildly concerning, since he knew this wasn’t a friendly visit. But I didn’t hesitate or slow my pace, even though my brain was screaming, It’s a trap! Because if I wanted to pull off my own ploy, I had to appear confident.

I strode through the gate. It didn’t close behind me.

Across an overgrown courtyard, leaning against the ornate frame that belonged to a set of ten-foot-tall wooden doors, was Manannán. His posture was casual, but there was a tension to his muscles that spoke of resignation. He idly scratched at his thick beard as I approached, his lips drawn into a pensive line, his dark-green eyes churning like a stormy sea.

When we were close enough to speak to each other without shouting over the wind, he said, I was wondering how long it would be before you showed up.

Did you over- or underestimate? I stuffed my hands into my pockets and took on the same fake casual air.

Over, actually. I thought you’d take more time to recover from your ordeal in Hel.

And by that, you mean you didn’t think I’d show up at all. Because you figured I’d be dead.

He didn’t confirm or deny the accusation. He merely stepped into the front hall of his castle and motioned for me to follow him inside. I trailed after him into a corridor straight out of medieval Ireland, with hand-fashioned metal sconces nailed to the walls, rich but well-trodden carpets covering roughhewn stone floors, and colorful tapestries hanging from the rafters that depicted the great feats of figures whose names had been lost to time. The soft but interrupted glow from the sconces filled the grand hall with a thousand shadows, and if Manannán was practically anyone else in Tír na nÓg, I’d be worried about hired assassins lurking in the darkness.

Manannán stopped about halfway down the corridor, where it was bisected by a narrow secondary hall. He turned to face me and said, "I’ve been betting with myself about your next move, Whelan, based on what I know about your personality. And I figure you’ve been weighing three options for the past few weeks:

You can attack me in retaliation for my misdeeds, which would be foolish but not beyond the scope of the things you’ve done before in relation to Abarta’s plots. You can threaten to report me to the Unseelie queen for assisting Abarta’s efforts to wrench information out of the man who drank from the Well of Knowledge, and use that threat to wheedle concessions out of me. Or, for the sake of vengeance, you can skip the threat part and go straight to tattling on me, then sit back and watch the show.

Which option did you put your money on? I ground my heel into the carpet, fraying the old fibers.

"It was a fifty-fifty split between options two and three. But after learning how much damage your city suffered under the neamh-mairbh onslaught, I leaned toward option three."

I shook my head. You’ve got it all wrong.

His thick eyebrows arched. Really? You’re not going to report me?

Don’t have to. M-A-B already knows what you did. She knew the moment you did it because her minion, Tom Tildrum, has been watching me twenty-four seven. She will punish you as she sees fit, when she sees fit, for your treachery against the courts, regardless of how I choose to personally retaliate against you for the harm that came to me and my friends as a result of your deception. I tugged my left hand from my pocket and tossed its contents at Manannán. Catch.

Manannán plucked the Christmas ornament from the air. A direct attack against a god, Whelan? Really?

Of course not. I’m faerie born. This is a trick. I spoke the activation word.

Suddenly, the entire hall dimmed. To my sight. But to Manannán’s, it went pitch black.

You can thank Rian McGrath for the helpful illusion spell, I added.

As Manannán cursed in annoyance, I darted to the left. While we’d been bantering, I’d used my peripheral vision to observe both adjacent corridors and locate a set of stone stairs curving toward the basement level. I hit the stairs running and practically flew down, guiding myself with small bursts of air so I didn’t crash into the tight walls or tumble forward and crack my skull open.

I landed at the bottom with a few stumbling steps before regaining my balance, then quickly scoured the hall laid out before me. It was cramped at this end but widened as it went on, ending with an imposing metal door that Manannán had helpfully left open when he’d returned an item to the room that lay beyond just a few minutes before I arrived on Emhain Abhlach.

What was the room that lay beyond the door?

Manannán mac Lir’s vault of treasures.

Chapter Two

One Week after the Zombie Invasion

So if I give you this, you’re going to lead me to your boss, right? I said to the orange tabby standing on the sidewalk in front of me. I’d spent the last two days trying to summon Tom Tildrum. First by merely saying aloud to dead air that I wanted to meet with him. Next by attempting an actual magic summoning that backfired so badly my hair still smelled like smoke. And finally, by following around every stray cat I could find until they either flopped down for a nap or started rummaging around in the garbage. My frustration level had been so high by the time I found the orange tabby standing on the street corner, waiting for me, that I was amazed I hadn’t suffered a stroke.

Of course, there was a chance I still would have a stroke, if the cat refused to lead me to Tildrum.

It hadn’t budged the first three times I’d asked politely, instead staring with bright brown eyes at the can of tuna fish in my hand I’d been using as a bribe for the other cats. When it didn’t respond in any way to my latest question, I sighed in resignation, then used a pinch of magic to peel back the lid of the can.

I set the can on the sidewalk in front of the cat, who sniffed at the fish a couple times before digging in like it was some kind of gourmet kitty meal you used to see in those silly commercials. Figuring the cat wasn’t going to do me any favors until its belly was stuffed, I plopped down onto the sidewalk beside it and leaned back against a bent streetlamp.

Hayworth Street, which had taken a beating during the vampire-sponsored zombie invasion, was practically deserted. At least half the structures in the area, most of them apartment buildings or small office complexes, had been ravaged by the raging fires that swept through vast swaths of the city when unprepared practitioners panicked at the sight of the vicious zombie horde and started flinging fire spells with abandon.

By this point, those on Hayworth Street who survived the zombie onslaught had long come back to pick through the ashes and recover what little of their lives survived the flames. Most of them were probably camping out in the temporary tent cities Connolly and his buddies at City Hall had erected to house the homeless thousands until the residential reconstruction efforts began in earnest next week.

Right now, emergency personnel and countless volunteers were still picking through the charred rubble for corpses. The last living survivor of the zombie invasion had been found on Monday, trapped inside the basement of a partially collapsed duplex, surviving on emergency rations he’d smartly stowed away in anticipation of another apocalyptic event.

That man would be just fine. But the city at large? That was another matter. The extent of the damage to Kinsale during the attack far exceeded anything the city suffered during the collapse. The cost to rebuild would be astronomical, as Connolly kept reminding me at the daily emergency task meetings a couple dullahan dragged me to every morning. So high, in fact, that it would make more sense to abandon the city altogether and disperse the population to other nearby cities. And that was exactly what the fae leadership would be doing right now…if it wasn’t for the vampires now lurking in Kinsale’s shadows.

If the faeries surrendered Kinsale’s protected status in the wake of the Pettigrew coven’s incursion, it would prove to all the other vampire covens lurking out in the stretches that the fae leadership was unstable, and the protected cities vulnerable. They would take it as a sign the other cities were ripe for the pillaging, and when vampires attacked in force, the body counts, the human body counts, were always unacceptably high. Thousands could die. Maybe even millions, depending on how emboldened the vampires became, how far and wide the cancer of vampire ambition spread across the continent.

The only chance of preventing that metastasis lay in restoring Kinsale and defeating the Pettigrew coven. And that was a very high bar to climb over, not only because fixing the sheer amount of damage done to the city would take an estimated five to seven years, but also because the vampire elder Vianu was leading the coven’s new fledglings from inside Kinsale. I’d been hoping and praying that Vianu hadn’t been the one who slipped past the city’s barrier during the zombie attack. But of course, my hopes had been dashed.

I’d woken up four days ago to find a dead bird nailed to my front door. In the bird’s twisted talons had been a blood-spattered note written in elegant cursive that promised my slow, horrible, and painful demise would come at a time when I least expected it. The note was signed Vianu, and I had no doubt it was genuine. I’d only met the vampire lord briefly, but in the time he’d held me in the air by the throat and threatened to violently kill me if I attempted to escape from him or his dull-witted assistant, Leonard, I’d gotten the gist of Vianu’s personality: bold, self-assured, and decidedly theatrical. The menacing note was exactly his style.

So now, in addition to all my other problems, I had the weight of a fight with an elder vampire hanging around my neck. A fight I had practically no chance of winning. At least not yet.

A vague plan had been percolating in the back of my head during the countless hours I’d spent helping with the post-invasion cleanup. Hours of backbreaking manual labor to clear heavy debris. Hours of delivering supplies to thousands of people who’d lost everything they’d worked so hard to regain after the collapse. Hours of sad discoveries of bodies of all ages, broken and burned and beyond recognition. Hours of mindless repetition and intentionally numbed emotions that invited creative thinking to keep your mind off the staggering horror of a disaster situation.

A plan to defeat Abarta, once and for all, and everyone in his growing circle of loose allies. Agatha Bismarck and her mob network. The dark elves and the redcaps. The Pettigrew vampire coven. And even Manannán mac Lir, who’d coldly led me into a trap that almost cost Saoirse her life and forced me into a battle that damaged the illusion of humanity I’d desperately clung to for decades.

I had a bone to pick with every one of the players in this convoluted game of blood-soaked ambitions, but I didn’t currently possess the clout to challenge any of them in a meaningful way.

I needed to obtain that clout. And I had an idea of where I could get it. That idea was why I’d ended up here, sitting on the sidewalk next to a cat.

Can you hurry it up? I muttered as the cat paused to lick its chops.

The cat gave me a flat look before returning to the can for another course of smelly fish.

Of course not. Why did I even bother to ask? I knew…

Two workmen in dirty overalls strolled around the corner a block down from me. One of them carried a shovel, the other a metal toolbox that jangled with each step he took. They chatted casually with each other—until they spotted me sitting against the streetlamp, at which point their words died out like a fading breeze.

Their gazes latched onto my face, at the silvery marks beneath my eyes that followed the curves of my cheekbones. Only the sídhe and their half-blood scions bore such marks, and during the fae coup that had ended the war and halted the collapse of human society nearly eight years ago, those marks had become a warning beacon to human beings: Danger. Stay far, far away.

Not for the first time, I had a powerful urge to restore my fourth glamour. I crushed it. The stripping of my fifth glamour, my mind glamour, during the struggle in Hel had led me to reveal my true identity as a half-sídhe to hundreds of humans in Kinsale when I returned to deal with the zombie invasion. Because many people already knew me, or knew of me, as Vincent Whelan the stretch scavenger, the revelation of my heritage had spread even faster than the fires that burned half the city to the ground. Even if I hid my fae features, I would still be tailed by hushed whispers and fearful glances wherever I went.

There was no point in denying reality, and attempting to do so despite the futility would unnecessarily limit my power during a time when I really, really needed every scrap of power within my reach.

I gave the frozen workmen a friendly wave.

One of them hesitantly returned the wave, and the other gave me a nervous smile, but they both crossed the street and hurried past on the sidewalk opposite me so they didn’t come close enough to warrant any sort of conversation. That hurt, seeing the people of my city treat me like a bomb that could go off at the slightest touch, and a deep sense of longing for the good old days, where I was an unassuming finder of lost things, nearly made me choke.

But then I reminded myself that despite my sídhe heritage, I still had human friends. Good friends, like Saoirse and Christie. New friends, like Mallory and Granger. Even friends who’d kick my ass at the drop of a hat, like the one and only Odette Chao.

I also reminded myself that whenever I fell into a rut of self-pity, I could simply amble down to Flannigan’s and mope to O’Shea over a couple good beers. O’Shea, after all, was perfectly willing to verbally smack me until I stopped feeling sorry for myself and refocused on the big picture, protecting the people of Kinsale and saving the—

A paw nudged my leg.

I pulled myself out of my reverie and looked down at the orange cat, which had finally finished off the tuna. Are you ready now?

The cat blinked at me slowly, then spun around and trotted off down the sidewalk. I slid up the streetlamp and pushed off into a light jog, following a few paces behind the tabby.

It led me through a twisting series of narrow streets still clogged with debris from the attack. Shattered glass from a hundred broken windows glittered in the overcast light. Stubborn bloodstains browned on the pavement, refusing to allow the intermittent rains to wash them away. Piles of ash choked the gutters, black wisps curling into the air as a brisk wind blew through the neighborhood. Empty homes with broken doors, marred by fire damage, gaped at me on either side.

The dark atmosphere would’ve unnerved me if I hadn’t lived through the purge.

The tabby took a shortcut through a hazy alley that smelled like a smoker’s haven and crossed a service street behind a gutted office building to reach the open rolling door of a mostly intact storage facility. Just inside the shadow of the door lay a dozen more cats of various sizes and colors, all of them positioned in the exact same way, all of their sharp eyes trained on me as I neared the doorway. None of them hissed at me or took a swipe with a claw, but two of them looked particularly annoyed as they were forced to get up and toddle off to allow me and the tabby to enter the building. As soon as I passed them, they returned to their spots and flopped back down onto the floor. Lazy sentries.

Though the cramped facility held five rows of storage units, any one of which would make a great hiding place, the tabby bypassed them all and instead squeezed through a door propped open by, of all things, a ceramic garden gnome. I pushed the door open to reveal that the storage facility backed onto a scrapyard, and a sizable hole had been cut into the chain-link fence that separated the two businesses.

More cats were splayed out across the gravel parking lot behind the storage facility. They all watched with mild interest while I hurried to catch up to the tabby as it hopped through the fence and headed into the maze of rusting metal mounds.

The trip across the scrapyard was short but perilous. Sharp pieces of metal jutted out of the scrap piles at all heights, threatening to snag my clothes and pierce my skin. Several times, I sensed iron lurking inside the heaps, and the idea of stumbling into a piece face-first made my stomach churn. I quickened my pace to keep up with the tabby as it expertly navigated the piles and occasionally squeezed through a hole too small for me to fit, forcing me to take a detour.

As I came around a particularly large heap that was leaning too far to one side for comfort, the path before me abruptly cleared. In the middle of this clearing sat an antique sports car propped up on cinderblocks, and on the hood of this priceless antique sat Tom Tildrum, King of the Cats.

Three dozen of his furry henchmen surrounded him, some of them dozing, some of them snacking on the bodies of vermin, some of them batting around pieces of metal like toys. Tildrum himself was reading a hardcover book someone had pilfered from a library, the identification sticker still taped to the spine.

At the sound of my oncoming footsteps, Tildrum’s ears twitched, and his acid-green eyes peeked over the top of the book to observe me. Vincent Whelan, he said with a voice like a knife drawn across steel, to what do I owe the inconvenience of your decision to incessantly seek me out? You do realize I am not at your beck and call, do you not?

You labeled yourself as my handler last time we spoke. I stepped over a fat black cat and drew close to the front of the car. Handlers are supposed to handle their assets. That includes in-person meetings when appropriate.

‘When appropriate’ being the operative words. He snapped the book shut and set it on the hood beside him. It was a copy of War and Peace. Why did you feel the sudden need to meet with me? I would’ve thought you’d be apprehensive to find yourself in my presence so soon after your failure to recover Fragarach from the Tuatha rogue.

If you wanted me to recover Fragarach that badly, I said with a hint of anger, you should’ve told me where Abarta was actually keeping it instead of allowing Manannán to lead me into a trap.

Tildrum’s lips curled into a grin too wide for his face. I would have, had it been Queen Mab’s imperative.

Why wasn’t it her imperative?

He tilted his head sharply to the side. What is your educated guess on the matter?

I’d been dwelling on that question for the better part of a week, and there was only one answer that made sense. Because if you’d foiled Manannán’s attempt to deceive me, Abarta would’ve had doubts about Manannán’s veracity as an ally. And Mab needs Abarta to believe Manannán’s assistance is genuine because she’s relying on Manannán to pass the Unseelie vital information about Abarta’s plans. He’s a double agent. Willingly or unwillingly, I haven’t yet figured out.

Unwillingly, Tildrum stated matter-of-factly, due to a long-standing favor owed to Queen Mab he has been unsuccessfully attempting to nullify for several centuries.

I nodded along with his explanation. So Mab was willing to sacrifice me in order to put her shiny new pawn into place.

Tildrum gestured in my general direction. From where I’m sitting, you appear to be alive and well. You cannot claim status as a sacrifice if you were not actually killed.

You know what I mean.

I do know what you mean, and I know too that you are wrong. He held up a finger to preempt my retort. One day, you will learn why you are wrong, but I will not hand the answer to you on a silver platter. Some things in life you must work for, Vincent Whelan, and when you hold the blood of the sídhe in your veins, information is one of those things. He pointed that same finger at me, and I caught a glimpse of a sharp claw as his glamour flickered. I distinctly remembered one of those claws raking the skin of my throat the last time I had the misfortune to converse with Tildrum.

I suppressed a shudder. Fine. Whatever you say.

Tildrum rolled his eyes at my indignation. Just to warn you, I strongly dislike asking questions more than once. So I implore you to answer as I ask yet again: why have you sought me out on this dreary day in this sad little city you call home?

I rolled my shoulders back, a pitiful attempt at displaying confidence. Because I can’t follow your orders regarding Abarta anymore.

Tildrum’s pupils narrowed to paper-thin slits. What, exactly, do you mean?

"I mean, I can no longer ‘continue to act as I have’ regarding Abarta’s plots. I can’t keep sitting on my hands and waiting for Abarta to put his schemes into motion before I muster a response. I can’t keep pulling together ragtag teams of poorly prepared people and jaunting off to the Otherworld on short notice with barely more than a general idea of what I’m facing on the other side. I can’t keep leaving Kinsale vulnerable to Abarta’s machinations, or those of his allies, while I battle his infinite minions in other realms. I can’t be this subtle saboteur you want me to be, waiting in the wings and doing nothing of value until Abarta makes the first move. I need to be an active opponent. I need to be a true rival. I need to be a legitimate threat."

Tildrum regarded me curiously, like he hadn’t expected that response. And what if I say you cannot? What if I say that is out of the bounds of Queen Mab’s role for you?

Then I say go ahead and kill me right now. I forced the words to pass my lips without so much as a stutter. Because whether you approve of my decision or not, I won’t act as your janitor anymore, cleaning up messes that could have and should have been prevented in the first place. I won’t be a passive participant in a war—I gestured to the city at large, a scarred and broken thing filled with haunted people—and this is very much a war.

You were passive in the last war fought on human soil, Tildrum pointed out.

I bit back a stream of venom. That was my mistake. I won’t make it again.

So it seems. He leaned toward me, as if hunting for a sign of deceit on my face, as if my exposed sídhe marks were somehow obscuring a more human element. Finding no lies in my statements, he reapplied his eerie smile and said, Very well. I do in fact possess permission from Queen Mab to modify the terms of your assignment. So long as those changes do not risk alerting the courts’ newfound foe to the significance of Abarta as an enemy of the fae. What is it that you have in mind for thwarting Abarta and his circle from here on out?

Trying very hard not to smile at the bloom of pride in my chest—I’d stood up to the King of the Cats and actually kept my head on my shoulders—I replied, To begin with, I need to know more about Manannán’s role in the overarching plan…

Chapter Three

Three Weeks after the Zombie Invasion

On the castle’s ground floor, Manannán broke the illusion, the energy fizzling out in my senses. He stormed toward the stairwell, following the traces of magic I’d left behind. Using another blast of air, I shot myself all the way down the hall and slid to a stop in the middle of the vault. Rising with the amount of trepidation a vault full of ancient power objects