Chapter Five

There was an obscene amount of blood. Bailey couldn’t focus on anything else. It was pooled in the floor, someone had smeared it on the countertop near the kitchen sink, and there were streaks across the front of the large stainless steel fridge. Her grandfather had not been moved, still laying facedown in the floor like a discarded doll. He was smaller than she remembered. Shrunken, aged, different. Jonas Fee had been larger than life. Proud, loud, and equal parts beloved and hated. He was a driven taskmaster, a military genius, and the kindest man Bailey had ever known.

This shrunken corpse decorating her floor was not Jonas Fee, for all that it might wear his face. The ethereal bit that had inhabited this fleshy mound had long gone.

“How long?” Her question was aimed at Silas. She wasn’t asking about the length of time he’d been lying on the unforgiving floor, pouring out his life essence. She wanted to know how long the only man who had ever loved her in any true sense of the word had been gone.

“It started a year ago.” Silas whispered. “It was just tremors at first, then the age settled on him. We couldn’t figure it out. We had experts from the four clans working on him round the clock for months. Finally, he just refused treatment.” Silas’s voice caught. “Then the stroke. He’d been unresponsive. Nothing roused him.”

Bailey’s fingers found the ropey scar on her shoulder, stroking it. She had been so angry. So hurt. A frightened, spiteful child that ran away at the first signs of true responsibility. She had developed a distaste for the consistent violence in her life. She bemoaned her destiny. She couldn’t blame her mother, and couldn’t rage at the lackluster suicidal father.

Jonas had been ready to retire. Spend his golden era as advisor to the new Inherent. Watch her grow and learn, and live. A born leader, he’d called her. His true legacy. They were both stubborn, pigheaded, and occasionally cruel.

The fight was the same as every one leading up to her departure. Except that time in the heat of her anger, she had flung out those hateful words. ‘If I had been your son, I’d have killed myself long before I got some whore knocked up! Your dad probably leapt in front of the Redcap just so he didn’t have to be near you!’

He’d just returned from a particularly nasty round up. He had been offloading his weapons. She regretted the words the moment she’d spoken them.

Before she could flounce off for effect, something hot and fiery had sliced through the skin near her shoulder, the edge connecting with bone. Jonas had thrown one of the cold iron knives at her, his eyes flashing. He hadn’t said a word after that, just stepped over and jerked the blade back out of her body.

Cold iron was deadly to full blooded Fae, but merely an inconvenience to the Inherents. A cold iron wound healed slower. It also left scars, no matter the level of healing magick thrown at it. It was a warning that there were some lines even Bailey couldn’t cross.

She had ran away, let her hurt fester into hatred. Now she stared at the lifeless husk of her grandfather, and her anger gathered about her like a brewing storm.

“You rotten son of a bitch!” She screamed, crossing to the body in a single stride, her foot pulled back viciously, aiming a kick at him. Silas pulled her back before she connected, but not before her bare foot squished in the congealing blood. “Let go of me!”

Silas pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her as she fought uselessly against him. “B, it’s an active crime scene. You can’t do this.”

He picked her up and forcibly removed her from the room. He carried her down the short hall to Jonas’ study, shutting and locking the door behind him. The smell of leather and paper assaulted her. The scent of home.

She could feel her magick gathering. The anger rose in her body, her muscles vibrating with the force of emotion. Her anguish was all-consuming, tempered by the fear she might unleash her full magick.

She stood in the middle of her grandfather’s study, hair whipping around her body from some invisible internal maelstrom. “He wasn’t supposed to actually die. He was supposed to live forever so I could hate him. He was supposed to still be here. He was just playing at being sick, Silas, to get me to come back. That’s why I didn’t-" She bit back a sob. "That’s what I convinced myself of. Then he goes and gets himself fucking murdered.”

She laughed, a mirthless sound that rippled around the room. There was a knife slicing through her soul, a deep-seated fury taking root. “By the Gods, Silas, I make an oath right now, and you’re here to witness. I will take this transition tonight, and then I will find the sick bastard that did this. If I don’t, I will burn this mother to the fucking ground.”

“B--don’t! Don’t say that…” Silas was pale, shaking, his personal anguish heightened by her own. “You’ll be forced to keep your word, you know that.”

“I am deadly serious. I will raze these lands until there is nothing but ash if I don’t lay hands on my grandfather’s murderer.”

A transition of power was usually a celebration. The end of one era, and the start of a new one. The Clan house was quiet, too dark. There was no laughter and light here. The ritual would need to begin as soon as possible. With the Portal Inherent dead, the wild fae magick holding the portal together would become unstable, and possibly implode. Time was decidedly not in Bailey’s favor.

Silas oversaw the removal of Jonas’ body, and after thorough examination and investigation of the scene of the crime, set a team on making sure the mess was cleaned up. Bailey was grateful for her steadfast cousin. He would have made an excellent Portal Inherent, if he weren’t a second cousin, once removed.

Everyone else would be in the courtyard by now, waiting for her arrival. She stood at the door of the clan house and took a deep breath. Only Silas and Gemma would be accompanying her. Ritual dictates that the Portal Inherent have their two most trusted people by their side, as the transition can be painful and overwhelming. It helps if they are strong in their own innate abilities, and both Silas and Gemma were the strongest people she personally knew.

A night breeze picked up the hem of the long white gown, tugging at it playfully. For a moment, a smile pulled at her lips, before it fell away. She had been frightened of this moment, but now that it’s come on the heels of her grandfather’s death, she felt calm, serene.

The path to the portal flickered with soft light. A simple illumination spell captured in hundreds of tiny lanterns, no bigger than her thumb-tip. She was barely conscious of her walk, her companions silent and pensive behind her.

Her steps were strong and sure as she entered the courtyard to the portal. There would be no doubting her confidence now. She ignored the large audience, eyes trained on the altar stationed in front of the portal. A relic of some bygone pagan era, fashioned from a solid piece of rose quartz.

She ascended the dais, and stood before the altar, turning to face her enraptured audience. No one spoke, all eyes on her. Silas and Gemma stood at the edge of the dais, their backs to the crowd, pain and worry on both their faces. She graced them with a small nod, before turning her attention back to the crowd.

“I come of my own free will.” Her words were loud in the reverent silence. “I enter into this ritual being aware of all who have sacrificed--” the word caught in her throat, threatening to choke her. She swallowed hard, and continued. “Sacrificed their time, their bodies, and some with their lives, so that I may be here.”

She stepped backward until she touched the altar. She could feel the very air becoming heavy. Harder to breathe. She lifted a hand in the air, the other gripping the edge of the altar. “I give myself freely, to the Earth, to the Fae. With the blood that flows through my body, I call forth the portal.”

The cool night air whipped around her as her own magick sprang forth. Her back was to the actual portal, but there was a collective gasp in front of her. She stiffened against the wind that buffeted her.

“I accept my birthright!” She screamed into the burgeoning storm. Thunder rolled ominously in the distance, as lightning danced in the sky above her. “I accept my charge! I give of myself freely expecting nothing in return. I am Inherent, Heir of the Portal, and I lay claim to my inheritance.”

Lightning struck nearby, all the hair on her body standing on end as the harsh scent of ozone threatened to overwhelm her. Led by an instinct older than even the shifting, rocking earth under her feet, Bailey scrambled atop the altar.

Someone screamed in the crowd as lightning struck over and over around the courtyard. Her entire body thrummed, she could feel the portal behind her reaching out for her body.

“Bear witness, Clan Fee, and hear me!” Her words echoed by the wind around her. “There is no corner to hide for the one with blood on his hands!”

Silas screamed her name, but it was lost to the wind. She was beyond hearing, beyond seeing. The words poured forth through her, not from her. Not that Silas could know. The portal behind her shimmered and glowed. There was an anger there; ancient and deadly. Visible tendrils of wild fae magick snared Bailey, jerking her into the air and holding her aloft.

The portals were sentient! How had Jonas never told her?! They spoke, whispered of all her desires, all the desires of who had ever crossed through. The magick cradled her tenderly, looping more tendrils around her.

She could hear her own twisted screams, but she felt no pain. She was not part of that body any more. She was more. She was other. She was the portal incarnate. And she was pissed.

Someone had taken something dear from her. More than a grandfather from his grandchild. Transitions were meant to be a peaceful passing of the mantle. Everything died eventually, even preternaturally long-lived species. It was the way of the world. Murder was not.

Another hoarse scream, not hers. Magick burst away from the portal, striking among the crowd. One…two…three times in succession. Three bodies left behind, souls snatched away.

‘Mine!’ The magick around the portal hissed at her, ‘The price of three souls for one. Each with blood on their hands. There is more, little one. More we cannot reach. Seek them, for they seek to unmake us. Follow them into Faerie…’ The portal twisted through her mortal body. ‘Do not be fooled, there is betrayal here. Find it!’

Bailey screamed as she was slammed back into her own body, toppling through the air like a toddler’s discarded plaything. She tumbled into the ground to the right of the dais, the breath rushing from her lungs. Someone touched her, pulled her close, and then they were running. She choked on the acrid stench of smoke. “The bodies, collect the bodies!”

“Already on it. Jeez B, do you have to be so dramatic with everything?” Silas’ laugh was shaky, and welcome to her ears, even as she slipped away from consciousness.