Beyond the Gateway (Cranksepticeye)

Six

Out of this wood do not desire to go . . .
And I do love thee. . . .
Green eyes sparkled at him from the shadows beneath the branches of a nightmare forest. Laughter rang in his ears. The drumming of hoofbeats made it seem to him as if his heart would burst.
Love thee . . .
Long white hands reached out from the darkness, beckoning, and he wanted with all his soul to follow
Love . . .
Ethan startled awake as the tree branches, dropping venom, reached out for him.
He sat up in bed in the darkened room and clutched at the ache in the middle of his chest. His head pounded as he got u and threw open the heavy curtains of his bedroom window, wincing at the late-morning light. It was a beautiful day outside. Groaning, he pulled the curtains shut again, plunging the room back into blessed darkness.
A knock on the door startled him. Ethan sensed it was Maddox; he called, "Come in," and pulled on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt.
"Afternoon, Sunshine," Maddox greeted him as he stepped over the threshold, his usual easy grin brightening up the room. "Pretty gloomy in here. You just get up?"
"Yeah."
"I thought I'd hit the Ramble with you tonight," Maddox said. " any objections?"
"No. Company would be nice." Ethan ran his hands through his dark hair and fluffed it a little, trying to arrange it in an orderly manner.
"Good. The Gate around midpark was a bloody nose last night."
"Anything get through?" Ethan asked, trying to shake his nightmare and figure out how to tell Maddox about his own discovery.
"Nah, don't think so. A whole pack of pissed-off nyxxies have us a bit of fun for the first hour or so, but after that it was quiet as a grave."
Ethan frowned, thinking about his similar encounter with the piskie-fae. Anne the fact that the diversion had prevented him from being in time to catch whatever had come through at the Lake. He wondered if all the other Jade had been similarly occupied for that first hour. "Where was the Wolf?" He asked.
"Aw, Fennrys doesn't like crowds- you know that. He's claimed the upper fourth of the park like he owns it. Might as well have gone around and peed on all the bushes up there. He'll fight everything, even other Jade if th get in his way." Maddox looked at Ethan quizzically. " Been meaning to ask, how was your night?
"It was . . . interesting."
Maggie's eyes gleamed with curiosity. "Something nasty?"
Ethan went to a closet and grabbed a pair of boots and a jacket. "Maybe. Look, I'm starving. Let's get something to eat and I'll tell you about it."

Sitting in the booth at the back of a diner, the two Jade were far enough away from the other patrons that they didn't necessarily have to keep their voices down, but the subject matter dictated that they do so anyway. As Ethan had predicted, Maddox was deeply amused by the tale of his pinkie brawl.
"Don't take it so hard Eth," he said in between shoveling up mouthfuls of a western omelet the size of his head. " at least it wasn't hinkypunks!"
"The day I get my arse kicked by a hinkypunk is the day I hang up this," Ethan growled, tapping the iron medallion hanging from a braided leather cord around his neck, his Jade badge of office. "With my neck still in it."
"Especially since they only have one leg to kick with!" Maddox laughed, and, pushing back a plate that had been pillaged clean, sighed contentedly. "Now. Leaving aside they nyxxies and pixies and all that small change, why don't you tell me what it is that's really got your knickers in a twist, hey?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, old Eth, that something about last night has parked a thundercloud on your doorstep, and it wasn't a piskie drubbing that did it. You've got more of a sense of humor than that to let something like that bug you.
Ethan pocked up a coffee spoon and toyed with if for a moment. Then he sat back and told Maddox what had happened during the time he'd been fending off the piskie attack. Or at least, what he thought had happened- his theory was based on circumstantial evidence, after all.
Maddox remained silent throughout, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip. "A kelpie, huh?" he asked finally.
"I think so," Ethan said. "Horsehair and hoofprints would seem to indicate that."
"You know, I've never seen one?"
"I did once, from a great distance, when I accompanied Auberon on a visit to Queen Mabh's Borderlands. They mostly lurk in the swamps thereabouts. Vicious things." Back in the days when the Gates had all stood open, kelpie were known to appear near sources of water. They'd take on the guise of beautiful horses to lure unwary mortals. Once a person was mounted, the kelpie would plunge below the surface of the lake or river, dragging its hapless victim away to the Otherworld, or down to a watery death. Some kelpie even ate their victims.
"When I was a kid," Maddox said, "you know, before I was taken, I used to hear stories. The old village wives would screech something fierce if any of us kids went to close to the riverbanks. Said the kelpie'd come for us and take us away to drown."
"Well, this one was gone by the time I got there, and there wasn't a whole lot of forensic evidence left behind." 
"In other words, no blood or body parts strewn about."
"Right. None of that. Just trampled rushes and these." Ethan pulled the black stone beads out of his satchel and put them on the table. Strands of horsehair, dark as night, remained knotted on the beads.
Maddox reached for one and examined it minutely. "Hmm. Strange . . . What are they?"
"I don't know."
He handed the bead back to Ethan. "Of course,  no body parts strewn about does not necessarily preclude abduction . . . "
Ethan nodded mutely. He thought uneasily of the trampled script he'd found and the notion that something terrible might have happened to the guy he'd gotten used to thinking of as his Firecracker. After a moment he decided to solicit Maddox's help in a little detective work. "There was something else in the park yesterday too, Madd. Or, maybe, someone else."
Maddox settled back, crossing his arms over his chest, and waited.
Ethan pulled the tattered copy of the script out of his messenger bag and pushed it across the table. He told Maddox of the "anomaly" he'd sensed in the Shakespeare Garden- the boy -and about finding his script later on the lakeside. As Jade, neither of them was terribly prone to beveling in coincidence, and Maddox was intrigued.
"You did have a busy day yesterday," he said.
"Not bad for the new kid on the job, right? Listen, we've got plenty of time before sundown, d'you want to come do a bit of nosing around with me? See if we can't track down my little stray." 
"What, the kelpie? Or the boy?"
"The way I see it is this: Find the one . . . and we might just find the other."
"And how do you propose we do that?"
Ethan pointed to a note scrawled on the script: Rehearsals at Avalon Grade on 52nd. "We start by paying this place a visit" Ethan pointed again, at the letters indication it was Jack's Script, "and asking this guy some questions."