Page 37 of The Bloody Ruin Asylum & Taproom (Sam Quinn #7)

Thirty-One

Ringing Faerie

“Trying to break through this wall. Right here,” I gritted out. “Come help me.”

Clive grabbed me around the middle and pulled me down. “Let me.”

I hated to admit it, but there was no way I was getting through that wall. I’d barely scratched it. I pulled out my phone flashlight again.

Clive leapt up, one foot on the pipe, one on the wall, with his left hand holding himself steady. He pointed to where I’d been pushing. “Here?”

“Yes. That’s where Léna showed me.”

Nodding, Clive made a fist and punched the wall. A crack appeared. He shook the blood off his knuckles and punched it again. This time, I heard rock scraping against rock.

Vlad ran back in and scrambled up the wall so he was beside Clive. “Together, then. One. Two. Go.”

They both punched and the wall crumbled under a tidal wave of steaming water. It rushed in and slammed me against the back wall. Submerged, I panicked and kicked off the floor, surfacing a foot from the ceiling. Oh, jeez. Please don’t let me drown on my rescue mission.

As the water spread out through the basement, the level went down a foot or so. Woohoo, imminent death avoided once again. Stuffing the now useless phone in my back pocket, I swam against the rush of water, over the broken wall and into whatever lay beyond.

Blinking my stinging eyes, I searched for Cordelia in the pitch-black. I swam forward with my arms outstretched, wishing I still had a working flashlight. Russell and Godfrey must never learn that I’d trashed another phone. Assuming we made it out before the bombs started, that was.

“Over here,” Vlad said.

A light appeared over the surface of the water. Vlad had an actual flashlight in his hand. Where did he find that?

We appeared to be in some kind of submerged cave. Given what we could see, the rocky ceiling was about ten feet above the water at its highest point and perhaps a foot at its lowest.

I glanced back at the hole in the wall and remembered all the water that had just been displaced, meaning much of this ceiling had actually been underwater. Cordelia had only had a small pocket available to her above the water.

Clive was suddenly beside me, pulling my arms around his neck.

Are you all right? he asked me, mind-to-mind.

Yep. I’m fine. I hit the wall, but it was the other side of my head and—shit! I’m not in Cadmael’s head anymore. I’m not holding the prince.

We’ll deal with it, he said, swimming us over to Vlad, who was hovering beside a rocky outcropping.

When we got closer, I realized the sharp gray rock I’d thought I was looking at was an emaciated, dying mermaid. Oh, no. Poor Cordelia.

Lifting my pinky ring to my lips, I whispered, “We need your help. One of your mermaids has been horribly abused and starved for centuries. Please. She needs help. She’s dying.” It was Gloriana’s ring, but that didn’t guarantee she was listening.

Vlad was speaking to Cordelia in another language, but his eyes were on me as I spoke into the ring. Why did I trust him as I did? No idea. It all had to be done if we were going to help her, so I supposed I just had to hope my trust wasn’t misplaced.

Algar, Gloriana’s captain of the guard, appeared, crouching on the rocks beside Cordelia.

He scanned the water, saw me, and nodded.

Resting a hand on the mermaid’s head, he appeared to breathe life into her.

Skin less gray, scales richer in tone and now adhering to her body, she opened her eyes, gazing adoringly at Algar.

Both Clive and Vlad wore matching blank expressions, which made me want to laugh. Neither wanted to appear surprised by the fae warrior appearing out of thin air and resuscitating Cordelia.

“Algar is the queen’s captain of the guard,” I whispered.

Gloriana herself appeared, her kaleidoscopic eyes swirling in a very angry black and red. Algar picked up Cordelia and cradled her in his arms. Gloriana laid a hand over Cordelia’s heart and the mermaid’s skin returned to the gold hue I remembered in that long-ago memory.

Gloriana leaned over and kissed Cordelia’s forehead, and then Algar and Cordelia disappeared. The queen turned her furious countenance to me. “Who hurt my cherished one?”

“The prince. He’s a cruel man, who imprisoned her in this place centuries ago,” I said.

Vlad, treading water beside Clive and me, looked in the same direction I was pointed, clearly trying to understand who I was talking to. The queen was invisible to all but the fae. And me when she felt like it.

“I think he’s still in this building. I can—”

“I feel him,” she interrupted, looking up into the rock above her head and then she, too, disappeared, along with my headache.

I patted Clive’s chest. “Okay. We can go now. The queen’s on it.”

“Just so I’m clear,” Vlad said. “You spoke into a ring and the queen of Faerie and her guard just appeared?”

“It’d be best if you kept that to yourself,” Clive warned.

Vlad rolled his eyes at Clive and looked back at me. “If you have a direct line to the queen of the fae, why didn’t you call her in a long time ago?”

They swam out of the cave, over the wall into the basement.

“She rules another realm,” I said. “She’s not at my beck and call.

” I tried to figure out how to condense the story down.

“A little while ago, I had to visit Faerie to deliver a message. The queen liked the engagement ring Clive had given me. As the queen was deciding whether or not she was going to let me live at the time, I offered her the ring.”

“Bribery,” Vlad said approvingly.

“I guess,” I responded. “It didn’t feel that way at the time.

It was more like I had something she admired and so the polite thing to do was offer it to her.

Anyway, when I gave her my ring, she traded it for her own.

I really miss my engagement ring. It was gorgeous, but this one has proven to be invaluable. ”

“It seems so,” he said.

“Anyway, I’ve spoken to her through the ring a couple of times and only when it was an emergency that involved the safety and well-being of her people.”

Clive stood at the base of the stairs, the water to his neck. Vlad, shorter, was still treading.

“And that is why the queen listens when you contact her,” Clive said. “You fight your own battles, but when one of her people is in grave danger, you let her know.” He pulled me off his back and placed me on the second step, so my head remained above the surface.

I started up and then turned to Vlad. “Do you need to grab anything from your room?”

He shook his head. “When you said they were blowing up the building, I went to collect my weapons. They’re all I care about here.”

“Wait! My axe!” I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it.

“I have it,” Vlad said, lifting his gloved hand and my axe above the surface. “Go.”

I went through the door first, then held it for Clive and Vlad. As I closed the door to the flooded basement, Clive and Vlad dropped to the floor, writhing in agony.

Shocked, I went to Clive, holding his head so it didn’t bang on the floor. Only then did I notice the dark shoes coming to rest beside me. Cadmael. Shit!

“You again,” he growled, grabbing my braid and yanking me up.

“Ow! What the fuck, you asshole?” I slashed at his hand with my claws, slicing four of his fingers off.

Cadmael stared at his hand a moment, uncomprehending. The prince was back in charge. When he made another grab for me, I cut off his other hand entirely. Vampires could repair injuries like that, but not immediately.

“Release them or your head will end up on the ground beside your hand.” I squeezed his blip in my head, causing him to wince.

“I’m sick of your shit, old man. You’re supposed to be all-powerful, and you let some shitty fae punk who gets off on hurting women possess you?

Again? Grow a pair and shove him out,” I sneered, figuring one or the other would blow a gasket.

It’s easier to get the upper hand when your opponent isn’t thinking clearly.

Cadmael lunged, but I saw his muscles bunch and so dove forward, rolling by him, my claws out, tearing through his Achilles tendon with a pop. Because there were two people fighting for control of Cadmael’s body, he was slower than normal, his movements awkward.

When he spun to go after me again, his balance was off. I had my claws out and slashed at his other ankle, hearing the pop once again. Cadmael grunted in pain but still moved toward me.

Diving at him, my shoulder in his gut, I knocked him over. He tried to punch me in the head, which would have killed me, but he no longer had a fist and so the motion was off. Did it hurt? Hell yeah. Was I dead with a caved-in skull? Nope.

I had vampire blood smeared on my head, though, which was pretty gross.

That sort-of punch got my head pounding again.

Landing on his chest, I had my claws at his neck.

I didn’t want to kill him, but I also had no desire to die.

It all depended on whether or not the prince could be trusted to properly assess a threat.

Cadmael hissed, his fangs glistening. Springing up from the ground, he dislodged me.

My claws pierced his neck. I didn’t swipe them through, though.

I wasn’t sure why in the moment, but his eyes were their normal brown and his scent had changed.

The prince was gone. The queen must have found him hidden upstairs and finally killed the bastard.

Cadmael never broke eye contact with me. He wasn’t trying to mesmerize me, though. He was pleading with me. “Do it,” he whispered.

Clive pulled me away and I was again standing behind him and Vlad.

I tapped Clive’s shoulder. “Can you guys wait for us in reception? Cadmael and I need to have a chat.”

“No,” Vlad said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sam,” Clive said.

I tried to push them, but vamps don’t move if they don’t want to. “We’re fine. Trust me and go away.”

It took another moment, but finally the two of them walked down the hall away from us.