The Iron King

Hesitantly, I probed my memories, wondering which one the oracle took. After a moment, I realized how absurd that was.



“It is done,” the oracle murmured. She lay her hands, palms up, on the table between us. “And now I will uphold my end of the bargain. Place your hands in mine, child, and ask.”



Swallowing my revulsion, I put my palms gently over hers, shivering as those long nails curled around my fingers. The hag closed her pitted eyes. “Three questions,” she rasped, her voice seeming to come from a great distance away. “That is the standard bargain. Three questions will I answer, and I am done. Choose wisely.”



I took a deep breath, glanced at Puck and Ash, and whispered: “Where can I find my brother?”



Silence for a moment. The hag’s eyes opened, and I jumped. They were no longer hollow, but burned with flame, as black and depthless as the void. Her mouth opened, stretching impossibly wide, as she breathed:



Within the iron mountain



a stolen child waits.



A king no longer on his throne



shall guide you past the gates.



“Oh, fabulous,” Puck muttered, sitting back in his chair and rolling his eyes. “I love riddles. And they rhyme so nicely. Ask her where we can find the Iron King.”



I nodded. “Where is Machina, the Iron King?”



The oracle sighed, voices erupting from her throat to whisper:



In Blight’s heart



a tower sings



upon whose thrones



sit Iron Kings.



“Blight.” Puck nodded, arching his eyebrows. “And singing towers. Well, this gets better and better. I’m sure glad we decided to come here. Prince, can you think of anything you want to ask our most obliging oracle?”



Ash, deep in thought with his chin in his hands, raised his head. His eyes narrowed. “Ask her how we can kill him,” he demanded.



I squirmed, uncomfortable with the thought of having to kill. I only wanted to rescue Ethan. I didn’t know how this turned into a holy war. “Ash—”



“Just do it.”



I swallowed and turned back to the oracle. “How do we kill the Iron King?” I whispered reluctantly. The oracle’s mouth opened.



The King of Iron cannot be slain



by mortal man or fey.



Seek out the Keepers of the trees.



Their hearts will show the way.



No sooner were the last words out of her mouth than the oracle collapsed on the table. For a moment she lay there, a desiccated old woman, and then she just…disintegrated. Dust flew everywhere, stinging my eyes and throat. I turned away, coughing and hacking, and when I could breathe again, the oracle was gone. Only a few floating dust motes showed she had been there at all.



“I believe,” Grimalkin said, peering over the table rim, “that our audience is over.”



“SO WHERE TO NOW?” I asked as we left the Voodoo Museum, stepping into the dimly lit streets of the French Quarter. “The oracle didn’t give us much to go on.”



“On the contrary,” Grimalkin said, looking back at me, “she gave us a great deal. One, we know your brother is with Machina. That was a given, but confirmation is always beneficial. Two, we know Machina is supposedly invincible, and his lair is in the middle of a blighted land. And, most important, three, we know there is someone who knows how to kill him.”



“Yeah, but who?” I rubbed a hand over my eyes. I was so tired—tired of searching, tired of running in circles with no answers to anything. I wanted it all to end.



“Really, human, were you not listening?” Grimalkin sighed, exasperated again, but I didn’t care. “It was not even much of a riddle, really. What about you two?” he asked, looking to the boys. “Did our mighty protectors glean any bits of knowledge, or was I the only one paying attention?”



Ash didn’t reply, too busy staring down the street, eyes narrowed. Puck shrugged. “Seek out the Keepers of the trees,” he muttered. “That’s easy enough. I assume we should go back to the park.”



“Very good, Goodfellow.”



“I try.”



“I’m so lost,” I groaned, sitting down on the curb. “Why are we going back to the park? We just came from there. There are other trees in New Orleans.”



“Because, princess—”



“Explain later.” Ash appeared beside me. His voice was low and harsh. “We need to go. Now.”



“Why?” I asked, just as the streetlamps—and every artificial light on the block—sputtered and went out.



Faery lights glowed overhead as both Ash and Puck called them into existence. Footsteps echoed in the shadows, getting closer, coming from all directions. Grimalkin muttered something and disappeared. Puck and Ash stepped back to flank me, their eyes scanning the darkness.



Beyond the ring of light, dark shapes shuffled toward us. As they came into the light, the faery fire washed over the faces of humans—normal men and women—their features blank as they lurched forward. Most of them carried weapons: iron pipes and metal baseball bats and knives. Every zombie movie I’d ever seen sprang to mind, and I pressed close to Ash, feeling the muscles coil under his skin.



“Humans,” Ash muttered, his hand dropping to his sword. “What are they doing? They shouldn’t be able to see us.”



A dark chuckle rose from the ranks shambling toward us, and the mob abruptly stopped. They moved aside as a woman floated between them, hands on her slender hips. She wore a business suit of poison green, three-inch heels, and green lipstick that glowed with radioactive brightness. Her hair appeared to be made of wires, thin network cables of various color: greens, blacks, and reds.



“Here you are at last.” Her voice buzzed, like millions of bees given speech. “I’m shocked that Ironhorse had such a problem with you, but then again, he’s so old. Past his usefulness, I’d say. You will not have such an easy time with me.”



“Who are you?” growled Ash. Puck moved beside him, and together they formed a living shield in front of me. The lady giggled, like a mosquito humming in your ear, and held out a green-nailed hand.



“I am Virus, second of King Machina’s lieutenants.” She blew me a kiss that made my skin crawl. “Pleased to meet you, Meghan Chase.”



“What have you done to these people?” I demanded.



“Oh, don’t worry about them.” Virus twirled in place, smiling. “They’ve just caught a little bug. These little bugs, to be exact.” She held up her hand, and a tiny insect swarm flew out of her sleeve to hover over her palm, like sparkling silver dust. “Cute little things, aren’t they? Quite harmless, but they allow me to get inside a brain and rewrite its programming. Allow me to demonstrate.” She gestured to the nearest human, and the man dropped to all fours and started to bark. Virus tittered, clapping her hands. “See? Now he thinks he’s a dog.”



“Brilliant,” Puck said. “Can you make him crow like a rooster, too?”



Ash and I glared at him. He blinked. “What?”



I started, a memory dropping into place, and spun back on Virus. “You…you’re the one who set the chimera loose on Elysium!”



“Why, yes, that was my work.” Virus looked pleased, though her face fell a moment later. “Although, as an experiment, it didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped. The normal fey don’t react well to my bugs. That whole aversion-to-iron thing, you know. It drove the stupid beast mad, and probably would have killed it, if it hadn’t been sliced to pieces. Mortals, though!” She pirouetted in the air, flinging out her arms, as if to embrace the crowd. “They make wonderful drones. So devoted to their computers and technology, they were slaves to it long before I came along.”



“Let them go,” I told her.



Virus regarded me with glittering green eyes. “I don’t think so, dearie.” She snapped her fingers, and the mob shambled forward again, arms reaching. “Bring me the girl,” she ordered as the circle tightened around us. “Kill the rest.”



Ash drew his sword.



“No!” I cried, grabbing his arm. “Don’t hurt them. They’re just ordinary humans. They don’t know what they’re doing.”



Ash shot me a wild glare over his shoulder. “Then what do you want me to do?”



“I suggest we run,” Puck offered, taking something from his pocket. He tossed it at the crowd, and it exploded into a log, pinning two startled zombie men to the ground, creating a hole in the ring surrounding us.



“Let’s go!” Puck yelled, and we didn’t need encouraging. We leaped over the thrashing bodies, dodging the pipes they swung at us, and tore down the street.



CHAPTER NINETEEN



The Dryad of City Park



Pounding footsteps told us we were being followed. A twirling pipe flew over my shoulder, smashing the window of a shop. I yelped and almost fell, but Ash grabbed my hand and hauled me upright.



“This is ridiculous,” I heard him growl, pulling me along. “Running from a mob, a human mob. I could take them out with one sweep of my hand.”



“Perhaps you didn’t see the copious amounts of iron they’re carrying,” Puck said, wincing as a knife hurled past him, skidding into the street. “Of course, if you want to make a suicide stand, I certainly won’t stop you. Though, I’d be disappointed you wouldn’t be there for our last duel.”



“Scared, Goodfellow?”



“In your dreams, princeling.”



I couldn’t believe they were bantering while we were running for our lives. I wanted to tell them to knock it off, when a pipe hurled through the air, striking Puck in the shoulder. He gasped and staggered, barely catching himself in time, and I cried out in fear.



Buzzing laughter echoed behind us. I turned my head to see Virus floating above the crowd, her bugs swirling around her like a diamond blizzard. “You can run, little faery boys, but you can’t hide,” she called. “There are humans everywhere, and all can be my puppets. If you stop now and hand over the girl, I’ll even let you choose how you want to die.”



Ash snarled. Pushing me on, he spun and hurled a spray of ice shards at the woman overhead. She gasped, and a zombie leaped into the air to block the attack, the shards tearing through his chest. He collapsed, twitching, and Virus hissed like a furious wasp.



“Oh, nice going, prince,” Puck called as the zombies lurched forward with angry cries. “Way to piss her off.”



“You killed him!” I stared at Ash, horrified. “You just killed a person, and it wasn’t even his fault!”



“There are casualties in every war,” Ash replied coldly, pulling me around a corner. “He would have killed us if he could. One less soldier to worry about.”



“This isn’t a war!” I screamed at him. “And it’s different when the humans don’t even know what’s happening. They’re only after us because some crazy faery is screwing with their heads!”



“Either way, we’d still be dead.”



“No more killing,” I snarled, wishing we could stop so I could look at him straight. “Do you hear me, Ash? Find another way to stop them. You don’t have to kill.”



He glared at me out of the corner of his eye, then sighed with irritation. “As you wish, princess. Though you might regret it before the night is out.”



We burst into a brightly lit square with a marble fountain in the center. People wandered down the sidewalks, and I relaxed a bit. Surely, Virus wouldn’t attack us here, in front of all these eyewitnesses. Faeries could blend in or go invisible, but humans, especially mobs of humans, had no such power.



Ash slowed, catching my hand and drawing me beside him. “Walk,” he murmured, tugging my arm to slow me down. “Don’t run, it’ll attract their attention.”



The crowd chasing us broke apart at the edge of the street, wandering around as if they had always meant to do so. My heart pounded, but I forced myself to walk, holding on to Ash’s hand as if we were out for a stroll.



Virus floated into the square, her bugs swarming out in all directions, and my nervousness increased. I spotted a policeman leaning beside his squad car and broke away from Ash, sprinting up to him.



Virus’s laughter cut through the night. “I see you,” she called, just as I reached the officer.



“Excuse me, sir!” I gasped as the policeman turned to me. “Could you help me? There’s a gang chasing—”



I stumbled back in horror. The officer regarded me blankly, his jaw hanging slack, his eyes empty of reason. He lunged and grabbed my arm, and I yelped, kicking him in the shin. It didn’t faze him, and he grabbed my other wrist.



The pedestrians in the square lurched toward us with renewed vigor. I snarled a curse and lashed out at the policeman, driving my knee into his groin. He winced and struck me across the face, making my head spin. The mob closed in, clawing at my hair and clothes.



And Ash was there, smashing his hilt into the policeman’s jaw, knocking him back. Puck grabbed me and leaped over the police car, dragging me over the hood. We broke free of the mob and ran, Virus’s laughter following us into the street.



“There!” Grimalkin appeared beside us, his tail fluffed out and his eyes wild. “Dead ahead! A carriage. Use it, quickly.”



I looked across the street and saw an unattended horse and open-top buggy, waiting on the curb to pick up passengers. It wasn’t a getaway car, but it was better than nothing. We crossed the street and ran toward the carriage.



A gunshot rang out behind us.



Puck jerked weirdly and fell, collapsing to the pavement with a howl of agony. I screamed, and Ash immediately hauled him upright, forcing him to move. They staggered across the street, Ash dragging Puck with him, as another shot shattered the night. The horse whinnied and half reared at the noise, rolling its eyes. I grabbed its bridle before the beast fled in terror. Behind me, walking toward us with that zombielike shuffle, I saw the police officer, one arm extended, pointing his revolver at us.