Bloodthorn Read online

  “Terminus, where is the undiscovered land?”

  “My people do not travel there, but there is an entrance to it not far from my home.”

  “What sort of entrance? A portal?”

  “No. The entrance to the undiscovered land is accessed through a cave atop Dragon Spine Mountain.”

  Dragon Spine. No wonder my stepfather didn’t know about the entrance. He refused to travel to the place, although I still wasn’t sure why. Was it possible there was an unknown world beneath Faythander? If so, why didn’t anyone know more about it?

  “So, you say there is an entrance to the undiscovered land atop Dragon Spine, and it’s not far from where you live. It is most likely that the bloodthorn escaped from the unnamed land in order to steal the stone.”

  “Yes. It is most likely.”

  “But we still don’t know what he wants or how to find him… or why he came here to Earth, of all places. Or what he means to do with the stone.”

  “Yes, there are still many questions that must be answered. But we must act quickly. Fairies will not survive long without the stone. We must return it to my world as soon as possible, or I fear the consequences will be worse than we envision.”

  He glanced back at the tent. “I must return to my sister. Will you join me?”

  I followed his line of sight. If the Wults were coming, I didn’t plan to spend any time with them. I would help Terminus as best as I could, but I refused to work with the Wults. Doc Hill had laid out very good reasons why I should forget the Skullsplitter, and for once, I intended to take his advice.

  “No, I need to get back to my camper.”

  “Very well.” He bowed before turning away and leaving me alone.

  The sound of an owl resonated through the forest as I made my way back to my trailer. I replayed my conversation with Terminus, trying to understand why we didn’t know more about the undiscovered land. If it was accessed through tunnels in Dragon Spine Mountain, why didn’t we see more dark creatures roaming around Faythander?

  Unless there was some sort of spell in place that prevented it.

  Which meant the bloodthorn would have needed to overpower the spell in order to escape—which also meant there was a land full of nasty, dark creatures probably begging to be set free and waiting for an opportunity to be set loose.

  Is that why the bloodthorn had appeared? Was that the reason for taking the stone? Did he intend to set his companions free?

  It made sense. He would need crazy amounts of power in order to break through the spell, and the starstone would be one of the only ways to hold that much power. If that were the case, then how was he able to set himself free in the first place?

  I didn’t have any answers, and if I wanted to find them, I would have to dig.

  When I got back to my camper, I entered and locked the door behind me before lugging out my suitcase of books. Luckily, I’d brought them. I’d almost left them at my apartment, but with my social anorexia, I knew I’d need something to keep me occupied. And what do you know, I’d been right.

  I cracked open a text called Superstition and Myth in the Realm of Faerie and started reading.

  This was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning I woke with a headache. I’d gone to bed sometime after three, and when I’d finally fallen asleep, I found my dreams plagued with visions of the undiscovered land.

  However, last night’s reading had given me a wealth of knowledge. The only problem was, no one actually believed the dark creatures were real except the fairies. I’d read some fascinating stories about the bloodthorn and how it had the head of a horse or ram, the body of a man, and wore a coat of coarse hair and magical chains, which it used to ensnare victims. Also, interestingly, it was said to have glowing green eyes, reminding me of the creature I’d spotted in the forest.

  The only problem was, no one had actually seen the bloodthorn, making me think the creature was nothing more than fairy superstition—the fairies’ version of Bigfoot.

  Whatever the case, the fact remained that the fairies’ gemstone was missing, and they needed me to help them find it.

  Han Solo lay atop my pile of knit scarves, and he gave me a glare as I pushed him away to search for a scarf to match the plum-colored corset I was wearing over my silk shirt. I did my best to dress up in period-appropriate attire, adding my brown cloak and leather pants to the ensemble. But after being assaulted by Mr. Duncan, I had to force myself to be festive and dress up. If I had more clients like him today, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be open for business.

  When I left my trailer, the morning fog obscured the field outside, making it hard for me to see the tent that sat on the edge of the tree line. A chill in the air made me quicken my steps toward the festival gates.

  It was still a few minutes before dawn, and the sun had yet to chase away the lingering night. Crickets chirped with a musical cadence. I pulled my cloak tight, giving another sidelong glance back at the tent.

  Staring at the tent through the fog made it look ethereal, making me wish I’d dreamed it all up. Were fairies really in danger of being destroyed? Did they really need me?

  Were the Wults really on their way?

  That last thought made my stomach sicken, so I put it out of my mind and headed for the gates.

  This early, the festival had yet to open, so I entered through a small door near the closed portcullis. As I stepped onto the festival grounds, I was surprised to find fog still trailing along the ground, obscuring the cobbled path that snaked through the quiet buildings. The mist muffled my footsteps, and I hurried to my booth, wishing I could shake the feeling that I was being followed. I glanced casually over my shoulder but saw no one.

  My rented space was up ahead, but I paused before entering. The stone-and-stucco building rose overhead, somehow menacing in the dim morning light.

  I’d never felt this way here before. What had me so spooked? Perhaps it was because someone had snuck into my booth and cleaned and organized my mirror case last night. I still had no explanation for that.

  Shaking off my unease, I found my keys and unlocked the latch, the metal cold in my hand as I opened the gate halfway and ducked under to make it inside the booth. Walking inside, I blindly searched for the light switch when the unusual odor of fresh-cut greenery caught my attention. Where had that come from?

  I found the switch and flipped it on, but the bulb in the faux-lantern popped—a brief glow of white—and then it burned out, creating darkness again.

  Muttering under my breath, I could barely see as I crossed the room toward the lamp. My foot caught on something, and I tripped, catching myself before I fell. I managed to make it the rest of the distance to the lamp and quickly switched it on. As the room came into view, my breath caught in my throat.

  Mr. Duncan lay dead in the center of the floor.

  Breathe. One. Two. Three.

  “Mr. Duncan,” I said, although I knew he was dead.

  His cowboy hat was propped over his face, and only his blue lips were visible. Thorn-studded vines wrapped his body, and dried blood had soaked into his clothing where the vines had pierced through his skin. I knelt beside him, my heart pounding as I moved the hat away from his face.

  I almost lost it right there.

  His eyes had been cut out, and purple flowers covered each eye socket. I wanted to scream, but my voice wasn’t working. My thoughts turned frantic.

  What should I do?

  Voices came from outside my booth, and a knock came at the half-opened door. I couldn’t find my voice to answer, but it didn’t matter—the person outside ducked under the door and walked in without being invited. Officer Gardener, the security guard from last night, stood in the entryway. Another guard, dressed in medieval attire, stood with him. His face paled as he looked from me to the corpse on the floor. My thoughts became a blur as I stumbled away from the body.

  “This isn’t—I don’t know…” I couldn’t conc
entrate long enough to make my mouth work.

  Slow down. Breathe.

  “I don’t know how he got here,” I finally said.

  Officer Gardener spoke into a walkie-talkie as his cloaked friend made his way toward me.

  “Did you touch anything?” he asked.

  “Only the hat.”

  He gave an exasperated sigh, then moved cautiously toward me. “I need you to leave the room. Do not touch anything else. Do not take anything with you. Leave it exactly as you found it.”

  “Can I grab my mirror box?”

  “No.”

  I glanced at the box. It still sat on the table, arranged the same way it had been last night. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about it—the thing had almost killed me when I’d touched it last. But what would I do without my box?

  The uniformed guard led me outside as the other man followed. They said something to one another about procedures. Calling the police. Protocol.

  I couldn’t focus on anything. The sight of Mr. Duncan’s eye sockets kept playing through my head—the severed tendons, the blood, the purple flowers. They’d looked odd, with the topmost petal longer than the others and folded over the top like a hood. Who would have been so depraved as to cut someone’s eyes from their sockets?

  I found myself sitting in Mr. K’s pub, the smell of spiced meat in the air, and someone handed me a hot cocoa. There were voices around me, some of them frantic. Then, the sound of police sirens.

  The Styrofoam cup warmed my hands.

  Empty eye sockets. His eyes had been cut out. Who would do that?

  Hours must have passed.

  “Ma’am?”

  I looked up to find the Renaissance-clad security officer standing over me. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, with pockmarked skin and a thin, crooked nose that reminded me of a bird’s beak. He gave me a polite smile, sat across from me, and passed me another hot cocoa. Apparently, I’d finished the first one, so I took the filled cup from him.

  “My name is Officer Stephen Rakestraw. May I ask you a few questions?” he asked.

  “Sure. Yes, of course.”

  Mr. Duncan had been arguing with the pub owner about the meat.

  Officer Rakestraw asked the usual stuff first, my name and address, and then he paused. “You work at the booth, correct? What is it you sell, exactly?”

  “Therapy,” I answered.

  He raised an eyebrow, but continued. “Is there any way you could tell me what happened this morning?” he asked.

  “I walked inside my booth. I tried to turn on a lamp but the bulb burned out, so I turned on another lamp instead—and that’s when I found him… deceased.”

  How had he died? Besides having his eyes cut out, I hadn’t seen any other wounds except from the vines, but they’d only punctured the skin. The thorns… the blood… Could it be the bloodthorn?

  Officer Rakestraw continued drilling me, asking me every conceivable question under the sun. Did I know Mr. Duncan? How long had I known him? How long had his wife been my patient? Did the two of them get along? Did I have any recent dealings with him? On and on. My mind was a million miles away.

  Perhaps the bloodthorn wore a human disguise.

  My mind was buzzing with theories as to who had killed Mr. Duncan. The way he’d been killed with the vines wrapped around him suggested there was some sort of magic involved. I’d seen the way Prince Terminus had manipulated plants to fill the fairy tent. If he had done that, it didn’t take an extraordinary leap to think another being similar to Terminus could do the same thing.

  Could it be the bloodthorn? I’d thought the creature was a myth, but most legends were based on truth. I needed to look into this myth a little more closely.

  If it were some sort of fairy creature, then who was it? There were plenty of disguised people wandering the fairgrounds—the grim reaper, the black fairy, all kinds of nasty-looking characters. It could have been any one of them. But it was also possible that the murderer was a shape-shifter, and discovering a shape-shifter’s true identity was almost impossible. They took on their host’s form down to every last cell. Killing them would reveal their true nature, but other than that, the only way to find out who they truly were was if the shifter itself admitted it.

  “Miss Kennedy,” Officer Rakestraw said, interrupting my thoughts, “I need your attention, please. The detective will be here soon, and he’ll have more questions. When did you last see Mr. Duncan?”

  I tried to focus on the question. “Last night.”

  “You’re sure that was the last time?”

  “Yes. Positive.”

  He gave me a hard stare. “Miss Kennedy, I need you to be very sure. As I said earlier, the detective is coming, and I want you to be certain that you’re not forgetting anything. You never came back last night—not for any reason?”

  I didn’t like his tone, almost as if he were accusing me. “No. I never came back. Not for any reason.”

  His glare deepened. He opened his mouth to speak when his walkie-talkie beeped. Through the static, a voice announced that the detective had arrived and was waiting at the front.

  After radioing back that we would be there shortly, he turned to me. “Are you ready to meet with the detective?”

  Whether I was or not, I wasn’t sure he cared. “Yes. Let’s get this over with.”

  “Good,” he said.

  As Officer Rakestraw stood, Officer Gardener walked inside the pub and made his way toward us. I stood when he reached the table.

  “If you’ll follow us,” Officer Gardener said, and I detected a hint of a Southern drawl in his words that I’d not noticed before.

  I followed the two officers through the festival grounds. I wasn’t in handcuffs, but it didn’t take a genius to realize I was most likely a suspect in the murder investigation. I’d been with the body when they’d found me. Mr. Duncan had been at my booth yesterday. We’d had a verbal confrontation, which had ended in assault with an “incendiary device.” The odds were not in my favor. With my luck, this detective would be a hard-nosed drill sergeant with a vendetta toward the opposite gender.

  The officers led me toward the main gate. The wall rose above us, casting a glare as the noonday sun reflected off the large, white limestones. Booths and carts selling wooden swords and leather goods surrounded the wall, but we dodged the commotion and entered a small door at the bottom of a large tower. Inside, the room was empty except for a desk that was stacked with maps of the fairgrounds.

  A man with dark hair stood at the back wall. He looked like a typical detective, wearing a long, tan trench coat, his hands clasped pensively behind his back. He faced a woven image on the wall that I recognized. It was a reproduction tapestry from the middle ages depicting a goat-like unicorn surrounded by a fence. With its goat-like body and horse’s head, it made me recall the description I’d read of the bloodthorn in the fairy tome.

  Officer Gardener led me to the detective, although the man didn’t seem to notice us as he studied the picture. Officer Gardener cleared his throat, and the detective turned around.

  I stood face to face with Brent Sanchez, my ex.

  My mouth gaped open. I almost didn’t recognize him. He’d gotten a tan. I’d never thought he’d inherited much of his Latino heritage, but now it was easy to see in his dark skin and eyes. He’d let his hair grow a little, too, and it curled slightly at the ends.

  But there was more. He had a hardened edge to the set of his jaw, and his eyes had taken on a steely determination. He no longer looked like the guy next door—he looked like the guy who would beat up the guy next door—and it shocked me a bit.

  Brent’s eyes narrowed as he looked me over. “Why am I not surprised to find you here?” he said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You always excelled at finding trouble.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Honestly, I’m amazed our paths didn’t cross sooner. You always did have a knack for creating chaos.”


  “Are you allowed to talk to witnesses this way?”

  “Witness?” he said. “What makes you think you’re a witness?” He turned to Officers Gardener and Rakestraw. “Thank you. I’ll handle it from here.”

  Both men nodded and left the room, leaving me alone with Wonder-Ex.

  Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse.

  “So, you’re a detective now?” I asked. “How is that even possible? Aren’t you an architect?”

  He motioned for me to sit with him at the table. I didn’t, so he took a seat instead. He settled himself in the chair and crossed his arms as he eyed me. I couldn’t believe I was alone in a room with this guy. What had I done to deserve this?

  “If you remember, I’d started night classes last December. I got promoted pretty quickly after I got a gig with the Houston PD. They’re desperate for help. Guess I got lucky because three detectives retired right after I was promoted to lieutenant. They liked my resume, even if I didn’t have as much experience as the other guys. Really, it was a bit of a fluke that I was able to make detective so fast. Anyway, that’s my story. And you—” he eyed my cloak and boots, “—look like nothing has changed. You know, I never could figure out what it was you did, exactly.”

  “I know.” That was just one of the reasons we’d split up. When we’d been dating, he didn’t have a clue about the truth behind Faythander’s existence, and whenever I’d try to explain it, he’d never listen. At least he admitted to it now.

  “Would you like to talk about what happened this morning?” he asked.

  “To you? No thanks.”

  “So you don’t want to cooperate?”

  “That’s not what I said. I’d love to cooperate, just not with you.”

  He stared at the ceiling, as if asking God to please strike me down before he had to deal with me a moment longer. When he finally made eye contact with me again, I didn’t like the hard edge in his eyes.