Shadow: Bloody Fairies Part 8

Hippy blinked. "I don't know! It's just the way things are!" She flinched when the water lapped up to her ribs.

"I think you're very brave to be facing your fear like this."

Hippy beamed. "Really?"

"Really. Any idea where your lunatic friend is taking us?"

"No."

"Wonderful."

They walked in silence for a few more minutes. Each trickle and drip of water echoed in the tunnel. Pierus forged ahead, bending lower and lower when the tunnel narrowed. "Here," he finally said, stepped out of the water and disappeared.

Hippy hurried to pull herself onto the rocks, where a set of crooked, dilapidated stone steps wound up into another pa.s.sage. She took them two at a time to put distance between herself and the water. Poppy followed close on her heels.

They came out in a huge cavern, where a still, gla.s.sy lake mirrored tiny glowing lights on the roof. The air was so cold Hippy was quite sure icicles were forming on her wet skin.

Poppy swept her torch over the lake. The beam found a stone bridge so old it looked like part of the cave arching over to the other side. Pierus was already halfway across it.

They hurried after him. Fine granules of stone skittered away under Hippy's bare feet. Behind her, Poppy's heavy, wet boots crunched with every step.

Hippy tried not to look at the water below. She focused instead on Pierus's back. There was a tear in his dark blue coat. When she caught up with him, he put his arm around her shoulders.

"Now is your time to shine, my dear."

"Good. I like shiny things."

Pierus stopped at the edge of the bridge. "Light please, young woman."

Poppy shone her torch ahead over a big, empty sandy floor.

Pierus made the tiniest sound, perhaps a sigh of relief. "Up a little."

The torchlight moved up and illuminated an enormous stone statue of Medusa. Hippy's eyes widened in awe. The stone was pitted with age. A chunk missing from her mouth made it look like she was snarling. Her blank stone eyes looked right through them all. Her hands were cupped in front of her. The snakes that curled from her head writhed in frozen fury.

Hippy smiled. She liked snakes.

Poppy said what sounded like a bad word.

Hippy repeated the word, intrigued. "What does that mean?"

"It means I find that thing incredibly disconcerting, dear."

"Hippy you must go up to the statue," Pierus said. "And bring me back what you find in those hands. Do not be afraid."

Hippy tentatively took a step off the bridge. Then another. The statue didn't move, so she gained confidence.

"Why her?" Poppy asked. "Why not you or me?"

"It has to be her," Pierus said. "n.o.body else can touch it."

Hippy walked barefoot to the statue. Water dripped from her tunic, making tiny craters in the cold, fine sand. The statue's hands were too high for her to reach, so she found all the tiny little niches n.o.body but a fairy could see and scrambled up the rock wall next to it. When she reached elbow height she hung onto the wall and leaned over to look in the cupped hands, but it was too dark to see anything. "I need light!"

The torchlight flooded over the stone hands, lighting up ancient fingers, stone palms, an empty bowl.

Hippy bit her lip. Pierus was going to be very cross. She gave a disconsolate sigh. "It's not here."

Pierus was very, very quiet. "What?"

"I said it's not here."

"Are you sure?"

"It's completely empty."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Pierus's voice could have chilled a bearfly in the hive. "Look again."

"There's nothing there," Hippy said.

"Look again!"

Hippy made a face at him and leaned across once again. It was very awkward to hang onto the rock with one hand and reach across a stone shoulder with the other, but she didn't feel it would be very respectful to climb on the statue itself. She reached into the cupped hands and felt around. Nope, still nothing. She checked all of the fingers, in case it was a very small treasure, with no success. Pierus was just going to have to accept it, the thing was gone.

Something sharp sc.r.a.ped the palm of her hand.

Hippy scrabbled for the object. She picked it up between two fingers and studied it in Poppy's light. She blinked. "Freakin Fairies!" she yelled, and promptly fell backwards off the wall. She heard Poppy shriek just before she flipped, rolled on her back and landed at Pierus's feet.

"What do you mean, Freakin Fairies?" Pierus's voice was positively icy.

Hippy stood up and opened her hand. Poppy shone her torch on the object in it.

"It's a snake tooth," Hippy said. "Like the ones the Freakin Fairies who live in Quicksilver Forest wear in their hair."

Pierus cursed black and blue, turned on his heel and stormed back over the bridge.

Hippy ran after him. "What does it mean? How do the Freakin Fairies even know about the treasure? What do we do now?"

"We find them," Pierus said.

Poppy followed close behind them. "Are you two saying fairies took Pandora's Box from a cave that's been sealed for three thousand years?"

"Who else?" Pierus demanded. "Three thousand years ago Pandora was the only one who could touch the Apple of Chaos. Now that gift lies with her descendants. I knew that traitorous creature was going to come back to haunt me."

"My G.o.d, you two really believe all this stuff," Poppy said.

Pierus whirled on her. "You! Did you have anything to do with this? Are you in cahoots with the Freakin Fairies?"

"Back off!" Poppy planted a hand on his chest and shoved him. "See this? This is my personal s.p.a.ce. I'm very particular about it. Don't get in it. I'll have you know I'm also very upset about coming all the way down here, at great personal risk, for nothing at all." She pushed her gla.s.ses up on her nose, shoved past Pierus and stalked ahead.

Hippy giggled. "I like her. She's just like a fairy."

Pierus put a hand on her shoulder and matched his pace to hers. "If I were you my dear, I wouldn't trust her."

"Why not?"

"Just take my word for it. I know humans, and this one is not what she says she is."

"Oh." Hippy's eyes widened, considering this. "Can we keep her anyway?"

Pierus chuckled. "She's not a pet."

"But she's fun. And she knows stuff."

"You have a point there. She does indeed appear to know things."

They descended the steps together. Hippy balked at the sight of the stream. "Isn't there another way out?"

Poppy, who had just lowered herself into the water, looked back. "Actually no," she said. "In fact the water may be our only way out, depending on whether your so-called vampire friends decided to cut my rope or not once we were gone."

Silence greeted this statement. Hippy shuddered. She'd forgotten, briefly, about the vamps.

Poppy waded downstream.

"Go on," Pierus said. "I'm right behind you."

Hippy wasn't quite sure if he was trying to be comforting or scary, but she splashed disconsolately into the water anyway and waded after Poppy. It was no easier going downstream than up, because now the water pushed her off balance the other way. She gritted her teeth and kept going.

When Poppy went right past the hole in the rock overhead, Hippy's nerves tightened like screws in a cooking pot. "You were serious about the rope being cut?" She eyed the roof, which sloped down to meet the surface of the water. The rock was dark and slick with slimy condensation. Something with a lot of legs crawled on the rough surface, oblivious to the current below.

"In my experience it's best never to leave a site the same way you went in," Poppy said. "Can you swim?"

"Swim? No!" Hippy's voice rose to a squeak.

"Probably a good time to learn, then." Poppy dived and disappeared.

"Oh for Shadow's sake." Pierus put one arm around her waist. "Just hold your breath."

Hippy had just enough time to grab Fluffy Ducky's pouch and hold it above the surface before Pierus dived, taking her under.

The water deafened and blinded her. She was wet. All wet. Panic flashed through her brain. Surely no b.l.o.o.d.y Fairy in history had ever, ever been this wet. The only thing that stopped her from complete terror was the fact her hand was dry, even if her knuckles did keep sc.r.a.ping rock, so Fluffy Ducky must be okay.

Bubbles escaped from her mouth. Pierus kicked his legs and propelled them through the water with his free arm. Stars burst in front of her eyes. Her lungs strained. Her brain threatened to explode out of her skull.

Then all at once they shot out into sunlit water and surfaced in open, empty countryside.

Hippy opened her mouth to scream because the experience had been so awful, but the sound only lasted a second before Poppy clapped a hand over her mouth and kept it there until she stopped.

"Not a good idea," Poppy said in a low voice. "Just relax. It's only water. Okay?"

Hippy nodded.

Poppy took her hand away. "Come on."

Hippy was only too glad to get out of the water, flop onto the gra.s.sy bank and do her best to wring out her sodden clothes while still wearing them. First though she took out Fluffy Ducky to check on him. He sat on her hand trembling. Droplets of water shone on his hairs. He blinked at her with all eight eyes.

Poppy crouched down next to her. "What do you have there?"

"Fluffy Ducky." Hippy held him up for her inspection.

"Cute. In a frightening sort of way." Poppy studied him closely. "Looks like some breed of tarantula. Does he bite?"

"Only vamps. Well, mostly only vamps. He doesn't like Pierus, which is weird. He's normally such a good judge of character."

Poppy snorted. "I'd say he's perfectly accurate. You know I saw spiders like that in the Central American jungles a couple of years ago. Woke up with one hanging in a brand new web right across my bed."

Hippy stared at her, impressed. "Did you bring him home for a friend?"

"`Fraid not, love. Thought he was better off in his natural environment."

Hippy put Fluffy Ducky in his pouch. The hot sun was already drying her clothes off. She unpinned her hair and squeezed the water out of it, which was quite an operation, considering she could barely reach portions of it.

A footstep crunched on the gra.s.s nearby. Hippy looked up to see Pierus, his hair and clothes clinging to his skin, watching her. He had a funny tilt to his mouth that unsettled her.

"What is it?" Hippy wrung the last of her hair out and pinned it back into place.

Pierus muttered something and stalked away.

"That sounded like `just like Pandora.'" Poppy sounded amused.

Hippy stared after him. "You two keep talking about her," she said. "Who is she?"

"Come on." Poppy helped her to her feet and they followed Pierus through the long gra.s.s and up a sloping hillside. "Pandora was said to be the first woman created by the Greek G.o.ds, long, long ago. Zeus, the king of the G.o.ds, gave her a box to keep and told her not to open it. But of course she did and all the bad things that ever wereyou know, greed, hate, envyall came flying out into the world. The only thing left in the box was hope."