Beyond the Gateway (Cranksepticeye)

Thirty-two

Timothy had gone as far as to tie a little red bow in Lucky's forelock. He looked like a Pekingese dog fresh from the groomer.
"I figured I might as well give him the full salon treatment." Tim snuffled a bit, and Ethan noticed his eyes were red-rimmed.
"Thank you this, Tim," he said. "I know you know how important it is."
"Yeah, well. You tell Mabh she'd better take care of him," -the Faerie sniffed fiercely- " or there'll be hell to pay! I have a few favors of my own that I can call in, should I find myself so inclined."
"I will," he said - and made a mental note to stay on Timothy's good side. "C'mon, Lucky. Let's get you home and end this."
When Ethan pulled a slim rope out of his satchel and tied it around Lucky's neck, he seemed to understand. The kelpie lifted his delicate hooves out of the tub, one by one, and stepped lightly out onto the bathroom floor. Ethan eyed the window skeptically. It seemed far too small for the kelpie to make his way through, but Lucky trooped obediently over to it and nudged the pane. Ethan edged past and lifted open the casement, and the faerie horse ducked his black-maned head and, impossibly, squeezed through, out onto the fire-escape landing.
Ethan followed, noting how the kelpie made his way with haste down the iron stairs. From the street, Ethan waved to thank Tim then, concentrating sharply for a moment, he drew upon his power and cast a concealing veil over Lucky, rendering the kelpie invisible st that he could lead him through the streets of Manhattan, toward Central Park. Where he would hand the creature off to Mabh's Storm Hags.
He glanced nervously at the skies as he walked. In another few moments the sun would be down and it would be officially Samhain night. Scattered groups of costumed children and the odd bunch of party-going adults passed him on the street; there were more than a few carved pumpkins grinning at him from windows and stoops.
Mabh was cutting this awfully close, Ethan thought. Probably just to make him twitchy and satisfy her own perverse sense of humor. But none of that mattered now. Jack was safe, soon Lucky would be back in the Borderlands, and he would be done with the threat of the Wild Hunt.

As he passed through the park, Ethan noted with dismay that there were a lot of humans in costumes wandering the pathways. He could see Belvedere Castle in the distance, lit up in garish shades of orange and purple. Some foolish millionaire had decided to throw a great big Halloween bash in the park that year.
Ethan followed his Jade senses to find the place in the park where Mabh's minions would be waiting. In truth, as he walked shadowy trails leading the placid, invisible kelpie, he felt a wash of guilt. The poor creature probably didn't even know the fate that awaited it. And if it did, it went to it with far more nobility than Ethan would habe thought possible from a beast. He reaffirmed himself his vow to Jack that he would demand protection for Lucky.
In his mind, Ethan could sense three Storm Hags hovering near. He came out into a little round clearing near Turtle Pond, dominated by an enormous statue of a historic Posh king mounted on a warhorse. High in the air he saw the Hags circling like whispy gray vultures. He lofted the veil from the kelpie, and Lucky shimmered into view by his side. Ethan opened his mouth to call down the Hags, but suddenly his Jade senses jangled an alarm. A rift was opening nearby. Very nearby. Right in front of him . . .
He took a step back and dropped into a fighting stance.
Wham!
It was not a small rift. The tearing sent out a shock wave that hammered Ethan to his knees. Beside him, Lucky whinnied in panic and half reared, pawing at the air with his front hooves. Ethan sensed that the entire Jade Guard had been alerted to the breach, and he knew that those who were able would come running.
The sky rippled. Looking up, Ethan saw the Queen of Air and Darkness herself, lounging on the statue high above the ground as if it were a throne. Mabh was silhouetted against the sky, framed by the the two massive swords held crossed in the air by the statue of the king. Just for fun, Mabh had conjured up a pair of glowing-eyed jack-o'-lanterns and jammed them onto the tips of the statue's swords. They flared like torches, illuminating Mabh's makeshift court with a lurid glow.
"I hope this meeting was convenient for you, Sir Guard," she said in a languorous voice. "I was concluding a bit of business with a lady of my court, and we went a little over time."
By the flaring light of the pumpkin torches, Ethan saw a ghastly sight. From the long, taloned fingers of Mabh's fist, Heather the Siren dangled like a limp rag doll, hanging by the knotted mass of her blonde hair. Blood seeped from her mouth and the scores of small wounds that marred her sleek limbs. She moaned senslessly in pain.
"My lady Mabh." Ethan struggled to keep his voice steady. "I was . . . unaware that you traveled the ways to the mortal world."
"Ooh, diplomacy," Mabh cooed. "How lovely. If you refer to the chains that Auberon and Titania bound about me to restrict me to my realm, they are still there." She swung her foot carelessly, and Ethan saw a snaking silver chain attached to a fiery manacle that circled her ankle. The chain disappeared back into the boiling rift in the sky behind the queen, and there were fresh, angry red welts scoring her pale skin  where the shackle bit into her flesh. "I'm still tethered, little Jade. But mark my words, not for long."
"My time is short, lady. I expected to meet only with your . . . emissaries."
"My Hags." She cast a glance at the sky, but the Storm Hags were nowhere to be seen. "Oh, they're about. Victimizing a partygoer or two, I imagine. Never mind. Have you completed the task appointed you?"
Ethan glanced back at lucky and said, "Obviously. First, the terms of your boon."
Mabh rolled her eyes.
"You will take care of it." Ethan ignored her disdain, his voice firm. "Once returned to you, it will not suffer at your hands."
Mabh's eyes narrowed. "You dare call my dark-haired beauty 'it'?"
"Insofar as your 'dark-haired beauty' has incredibly destructive latent capabilities, I'd rather not elevate its status with a proper pronoun." It was best not to let Mabh know that the kelpie had made himself actual friends - such knowledge could be used against them all. Ethan kept his inflections carefully neutral, although, under his breath, he murmured, "Sorry Lucky, no offense."
"What say you, Mabh?"
"You are disrespectful," Mabh said. She tut-tutted, a grin playing about her lips.
Ethan shrugged. "Give it to get it, lady."
The Darkling Queen laughed - a cheery, tinkling sound. "I like you! You're an angry little thing. And here I thought Auberon would raise you up soft. Well then. The boon is granted. Now fulfill your part of the bargain. Give me my precious boy."
Ethan slipped the rope from Lucky's neck and nudged him forward with a slap on the rump.
Mabh looked back and forth from the nervous kelpie to Ethan. Then she turned a furious glare on him. "Your jest lacks a necessary component, my little changeling friend. Humor. Now where is my son?"
"Your . . . "
Ethan's guts went cold. He replayed the scene with the Storm Hag in his apartment over again in his mind. "This realm hides something that belongs to Mabh. You know this?" The hag had said. "She wants it back. It should have never been sent here. It was a mistake. Find it. Return it. And the queen will grant you a boon."
He had made the most basic error in judgement that one could make when dealing with Faerie. He had jumped to conclusions. Ethan had assumed the Hag had referred to the wayward kelpie and had not bothered to clarify that point.
With sudden, crystalline clarity, Ethan realized that he had been wrong from the very beginning. It had not been Mabh who had sought to unleash the Wild Hunt after all.
Auberon.
For the sake of securing his own position on the Unseelie throne, Ethan thought, the Faerie king would sacrifice his own son.  His son . . . and Mabh's. And he would have had Ethan help him do it, and put the blame on Mabh for awakening the Wild Hunt at the same time. Sick misery filled Ethan, only to be replaced by cold fury.
Mabh's eyes narrowed, and she watched him with green, glittering eyes, filled with cruel malice.
Mabh leaned forward slightly. "My Hag did convey the bargain to you, did she not?"
"Cryptically," Ethan muttered , teeth and fists clenched. "And with exceedingly poor grammar-"
"But you agreed. Then and now."
"No."
"And instead of my son" the Darkling Queen smiled dangerously - "you brought me . . . a pony."
"I-"
"If you had any questions, Jade, the time to ask them is now long past." Her eyes flashed red for an instant.
"I assumed-"
"Ah, well. You know what they say about the dangers of assuming."
"My lady, the fault is mine. There must be something -"
"The bargain was for the boy."
"No."
"Where is he?" Mabh hissed. "The bargain is broken. You broke it. You must tell me."Th
"N-n . . . no . . . " Ethan fell to his knees and felt his head jerk backward as though someone had yanked on his hair. His eyes flew wide, as much as he tried to keep them squeezed shut.
"Oh," Mabh putted as she gazed into his mind from high on her perch. "Oh, this is marvelous. . . . All because of you, little Jade, my imprisonment is at an end! You know the rules. Your broken oath gives me the power to take what was not given to me as promised - and to do that, I'll need freedom." She grinned wickedly as the mancle and delicate chain around her ankle shimmered and dimmed to an insubstantial wisp of silvery flame and the passageway in the sky behind her closed. "Thanks to your charming ineptitude, I can once more come and go as I please. I can enter Herne's Tavern. All so that I may take what was not freely given to me. And I can wreak a little havoc while I'm there!"
She laughed merrily.
"This worked out better than I'd hoped. Thanks for your pains, fleshling. I will not forget." Mabh raised her hand, slicing through the sky to open another rift in front of her like a wound in the air.
In the moment before she stepped through, several of the Jade Guard came bursting out of the trees about ten yards behind Ethan.
"Heather!" Maddox shouted. "Mabh, you bitch! Let her go!"
Heather groaned, and the Darkling Queen suddenly seemed to remember that she held the Siren dangling by her hair - twenty feet above the earth.
She let her go.
Maddox was almost fast enough to catch her. Ethan winced as Heather's head bounced off the ground. As Maddox got an arm around her and lifted her, the Siren clutched at his sleeve, and Ethan heard her pained murmur: "I didn't want to tell him . . . but he threatened to take away my music."
"Tell who, Heather?" Maddox asked gently. "What?"
"Auberon. About the boy." The Siren's voice was reduced to a thready whisper. "Mabh was so angry when she found out that I told him. She thinks Auberon wants to do the boy harm . . . "
"Shh . . ."
"Tell Ethan . . . I'm sorry . . . " Heather's hand fell limply to the ground.
With a snarl, Ethan launched himself in the direction of the statue. Mabh wanted a fight? She was about to get one. He could feel the rest of the Guard surging foreword behind him. But Mabh stroked the horse statue beneath her and it suddenly snorted and reared, tossing its enormous bronze head. The ground heaved as though an earthquake struck, throwing the Jade Guard about like toys; there was a sound of shrieking metal. High above them, the figure of the long-dead king uncrossed its swords.  The horse's huge, heavy hooves tore free of the statue's base, and the Jade Guard picked themselves up to join in battle against the bronze, red-eyed effigy.
"Happy Halloween, children!" Mabh vanished from sight, her voice howling back at them. "I'm off to go collect my son and do some trick-or-treating!"
The rift spiraled and collapsed on itself, and a storm of flaming pumpkins rained down from the sky.