Her dad leaned in close enough that she could smell the whiskey on his breath. “Just be safe. You see a priest, you hightail it out of there. We’ll figure out some other plan.”
“Right…” It had only taken the Faerie Queen five hundred years to cook this one up. Before she could chicken out, Kim got out of the car and crossed the street to the cathedral. She’d read everything her parents could find about the place, knew all about its French Gothic style of architecture, had studied the floor plan until it was printed on the inside of her eyelids, but she had never set foot on the property before.
Once, when she was six, she’d run the five blocks from their house to the cathedral. Her mom caught her just before she got there. Kim had wanted to work the magic so she could get the Key out of the altar. She’d thought her reward would be to get wings like the fairies on TV. Mom had set her straight, explaining that there might be alarms set if any of Faerie blood approached. Since then, she’d always walked down the other side of the street rather than chance it.
Not tonight though. Tonight, she walked straight up the marble steps and pulled out the keys Dad had gotten hold of years ago. It would suck if they’d changed the locks. She put the keys in the lock, braced for something to scream or an alarm to go off.
The door wasn’t even locked. All Dad’s effort to get the keys and she didn’t even need them. Kim hauled open the heavy door and slipped into the nave. She had been to the church’s website dozens of times, but the photo galleries had not conveyed the arcing height of the ceiling. Despite the simple beauty of the oak carvings which adorned the plaster walls, her pulse ratcheted up to quad-espresso rate.
Her parents had refused to teach Kim any spells but those she needed to open the gate, because glamour would interfere with her ability to handle iron. Well, after tonight, baby, that restriction would be lifted and she’d be working it like any good Fae.
Kim sauntered down the middle of the church. Beyond a few guttering candles visible in the side chapel, the building was still and empty. At the altar, Kim put her hand on the cold marble.
All around her, wood splintered as the oak carvings forced their mouths open and shrieked.
Panicked, Kim lifted her hand off the altar, ready to run out of the church—but if she did, her chance to get the Key out of the altar was blown. Whoever had set the alarm already knew she was here.
She pressed her hand back on the altar, crooked her little finger into a fishhook and shouted the words she’d learned as a nursery rhyme:
“Stone, stone, earth’s bone,
Once hid, now shown!”
Under her hand, the center of the stone burst. Its halves tilted and thudded to the ground. In the exposed middle, was a small, ornate iron casket, no larger than a paperback. Above her, the carvings still screamed bloody murder.
A door on the side of the church slammed open and a priest, tousled white hair sticking out like a halo, ran into the sanctuary.
Kim grabbed the casket, leaped over the broken altar, and sprinted down the aisle with the reliquary tucked under her arm like a football.
She hauled open the church door. Yelling incoherently about thieves and sacrilege, the priest chased her. Kim vaulted down the front steps of the cathedral, momentum dropping her forward on her knees. The pavement tore through her striped stockings.
Before Kim could rise, the priest grabbed her. “What did you do?”
Kim tried to shrug free, but the priest had a grip like a bulldog. “Let me go!”
“Stealing is a sin and what you’ve done to the altar…” His other hand grabbed for the iron reliquary.
Kim kicked and twisted to keep him from taking the Key.
Out of nowhere, her father punched the priest in the nose. The priest staggered, blood streaming down his face.
Dad yelled, “Get in the car!”
Kim tore down the sidewalk. Hipsters and neighbors gawked in the street.
Dashing into the road, Kim headed for her parents’ car. When she stepped off church property, the carvings went silent. The cessation of noise rang like tinnitus.
Their Prius pulled away from the curb. Her mom leaned out the window. “Hurry!”
Kim opened the back door and scrambled into the seat. Dad half fell in after her. As people ran for the car, Mom peeled out, which Kim didn’t even think a hybrid could do.
Mom dodged the onlookers and drove down Alberta to the I-5 onramp. Kim stared out the rear window at the crowd milling around.
“Do you have it?” her mother asked.
Kim turned around to face the front. “Yeah. It’s what I was born to do.”
“Don’t get cocky.” On the seat beside her, Dad had his head down, trying to catch his breath.
Mom peered at her in the rearview mirror. Seeing only her eyes, it was easy to forget how old she looked right now. “We still have to get to Stonehenge to open the gate.”
Kim leaned forward. “I didn’t bring my passport with me.”
“No, no, dear. The replica at Maryhill. We should be able to use it as a mirror with the real one.”
“Oh.” That was a change from the original plan. Kim had been looking forward to going to England, but she’d practiced the ritual every summer at the replica.
“Dammit.” Dad leaned against the seat, still gasping for breath. His face was swollen and puffy.
“Dad?”
He tried to smile, but his breath wheezed in his throat. “Allergies. It’ll pass.”
It sounded like he could barely breathe. His left hand had swollen to water-balloon tightness. “Mom…?”
Dad put his hand on her knee. “Don’t, you’ll worry her for no reason.”
“What is it, dear?”
Kim bit the inside of her cheek. “How much farther is it?”
“Mmm… an hour and a half, I think. Why don’t you take a nap, hm? It’s been a long day for you and not over yet.”
As if napping were an option. “You should have seen me. It was ten types of awesome. The rhyme worked like you said and boom!” Kim leaned forward and rested her chin on the seat. “How did they make the carvings scream? I mean, this church was built way after the wall went up, right?”
Kim’s mother tapped the steering wheel. “Well… you know how, according to the rules, things may only cross between if there’s a one-to-one exchange. The carvings could be like that. They could be something someone prepared in Faerie and exchanged for the ones here. Or, I suppose there could be an Unseelie agent sent as a changeling. Or it might have been Catholic magic of some sort. We’ve never been able to really study the spells built into their rituals.”
Dad’s breath was more labored now. His face lolled against the window.
“Dad?” Kim whispered.
In the passing light from a truck, his skin had a distinct blue pallor. Kim put her hand on his shoulder. “Dad?”
Nothing.
“Mom?” Kim kept her hand on his shoulder, as if she could hold him here. “Something’s wrong with Dad.”
Mom didn’t answer, and Kim thought for a moment that her mother had not heard her, but the Prius slowed and pulled to the side of the interstate.
Still silent, her mother grabbed her purse and got out of the car. Kim could not swallow or breathe or do anything except keep her hand on her dad’s shoulder.
Mom pulled the back door open, her face impassive. As the door opened, Dad started to slump out. Kim tightened her hand on his sweater and hauled him back.
“Fool. Foolish, foolish man.” Mom’s hand trembled as she touched his face. Her breath hitched visibly.
Kim stared at Dad, whose face had all the wrinkles puffed out of it. She did not recognize this moon-faced man in her arms. “What is it? Is he under a spell or what?”
“No. His allergies…”
A hard laugh escaped Kim. “Allergies? I’ve seen your allergies before; he’s not sneezing, Mom. He can’t even breathe.”