Blood

Murder! Filthy, dirty murderer! The voice screams.

It’s not wrong.

I pump the empty shell out of the shotgun that someone supplied me with and follow a different faerie down the sight.

Everything slows and my headache disappears, just as it had before I killed my mother.

I suppose there are a couple advantages to faerie blood.

crack

I pump the second shell out of the chamber and aim again.

crack

Another shooter joins me and the Islanders begin to rush into the clearing, sending the fey into a frenzy. Some of them rush at the attackers, others back to their hills.

bwoof

crack

I pump a third empty shell. One more in the magazine. Four more in my pocket.

I finally see Lorna and drop the shotgun from my shoulder, leaving the safety off.

There’s the sound of death everywhere around me, and I know that something’s beyond wrong, but all I find myself caring about is Lorna.

I find a faerie standing in front of me, and it smiles, making a slashing movement, I jerk backwards and shove the still hot barrel of my shotgun into its face. It screams and falls back. My other hand has already freed the wrought-iron knife someone had provided me with and slashes the faerie’s throat.

I keep moving through the clearing, towards the fires and the confused fey. Towards Lorna.

The faerie with my face is there, picking her up to carry off into the hills with all the rest.

This should have been the fey at their most powerful, but without their queen they’re lost, allowing me to get to the faerie before he can take off beneath the world. I realised earlier, upon stepping into the Wood, that my blood allows me to take power from the same thing they do. Not to the same extent, of course, but enough to step up the healing on whatever injuries I took from the car crash.

I want to shoot the faerie with Lorna, but I don’t want to hurt her. Not anymore than she’s already been hurt, which looks like a lot. She’s covered in blood, swirled around her body in some form of spell I don’t understand.

The faerie sees me, then looks around, seeming to consider his options. He decides to drop Lorna and walk away. Walk.

It makes my blood boil, but Lorna’s what I’m worried about.

Another lesser faerie stumbles into my path, looking at me with eyes as black as pitch. Despite their dark, I can still see the fear. It alarms me how little remorse I feel as I slash it with the knife. I can’t afford to worry about that now, though.

“Lorna,” I say.

She’s curled up on the ground in front of me, her jeans torn to ribbons and drenched in blood. Too much blood for it to all be hers.

“Lorna.”

She turns her face towards me, and my heart stops.

Around her eyes are a series of lines, both straight and curved, that I’ve only seen in my dreams and within the well. Her face is stained with tears as well.

“You’re fucking late,” she sneers. She spits blood into my face before collapsing into a fit of crying.