“What the hell has any of this got to do with me?” She addressed the question to the sleeping beauty next to her. Cal didn’t stir.
Grudgingly, she had accepted his explanation about the credit card. “I have no idea what’s going to happen with Moncoya so we need to be prepared for any eventuality. I have a number of cards all in different names. It’s not exactly legal in the mortal realm, but it’s a necessity in the face of what our faerie friend might throw at us.”
She hadn’t asked the most obvious question about what Moncoya might throw at them. She had a feeling she might find that out the hard way. Instead, she’d gone for another, equally important, question. “Is Cal your real name?”
A heartbeat, nothing more, before he had answered her. “Yes.”
She had shown no further qualms about using the credit card again when, having left the car in the airport parking lot, they had checked in at a desk thronged with weary-looking tourists. “Our flight leaves at two a.m. Come on.” Cal had grabbed her wrist. “We’ve got time to get you some new clothes.” The nonexistent Emrys Jones had paid hefty airport terminal prices for skinny black jeans, sneakers and a light blue sweater. Hoodie, tacky plastic shoes, shorts and tank top had all been dumped in a restroom bin. It was a reminder that everything she owned was back at La Casa Oscura.
Now Stella was crammed into the narrow seats of the economy flight, with Cal’s broad shoulders overlapping her personal space and his long legs bent at an awkward angle so that his knees pressed against hers. They were about half an hour from landing in England and he’d been asleep since takeoff. She prodded him sharply in the ribs and he opened one eye.
“Nice to see you remain alert and watchful at all times, Mr. Protector.”
He yawned and stretched. “It’s an act.” Stella raised a skeptical eyebrow and he grinned. “Well, I fooled you, didn’t I?”
Stella cast a sidelong glance at the youth who sat on her other side. He had on headphones and was engrossed in his handheld game throughout the flight. “Tell me about Moncoya.”
“Moncoya has ruled the faeries for several centuries. He was not in the direct line of succession, nor was there ever any expectation that he would inherit the title. His claim was tenuous at best. In fact his only qualification, at that time, was his ruthlessness. Moncoya and his sidhes infiltrated the residence of the former king during a celebration. In the middle of the night, when everyone was sleeping, they rose up and slaughtered any who did not support them, including the king. Until that time, violence was not the faerie way. The faeries were thrown into total disarray, and Moncoya took advantage of the ensuing chaos to impose his will on them. He has ruled by fear ever since.”
Stella made a winding motion with one finger. “Go back a bit. What is a sidhe?”
“If you picture the faeries as a nation, a bit like Britain, then there are many nationalities within it. The sidhes make up the majority of the population. They are the ‘little people’ of Celtic legend.” Stella thought of Moncoya, who was just above her own height. “They are endowed with incredible physical beauty and are able to coexist with humans. Traditionally faeries have had the ability to shape-shift, but Moncoya frowns on it as it doesn’t fit with his modernizing ideals. Although Moncoya was elevated to the faerie gentry when he took the throne, he is a sidhe and he surrounds himself with loyal fellow sidhes.”
“So the party people at La Casa Oscura...?” Stella supposed she already knew the answer.
“Sidhes. They are Moncoya’s bodyguards.”
“I don’t understand how he can be the Ezra Moncoya he is in this world and also be the faerie king. You don’t get to build up one of the greatest games empires in the world without putting the hours in. If he has to keep dashing off to rule his faerie empire in Otherworld, I just can’t see how he manages it.”
Cal grinned. “It’s called magic. And Moncoya has such an iron grip on the faeries, he has no real opposition to his rule. He also has a very powerful weapon at his disposal...his two consorts.”
“Isn’t a consort like a queen? Does that mean he has two wives?”
“No. In Moncoya’s case his consorts are his daughters. He has trained his twin daughters, Tanzi and Vashti, to be his most powerful weapons.”
“What I don’t understand is why, if he has all this power over the faeries, he would want a presence here. Why bother with the pretense of being mortal at all, let alone this sexy, high-profile celebrity persona Moncoya has deliberately cultivated?”
Cal turned his head and gazed out the window for a moment. The plane was beginning its descent and, looking past his profile, Stella could see the lights of the towns and villages below them. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and curiously regretful. “That’s where you come in, Stella.”
“Finally.”
Cal turned back to look at her. “When I spoke of the beings who exist just beyond mortal sight, and who reside in the realm of Otherworld, there is one I did not mention. This one does not always choose to dwell in Otherworld. He, or she, will be born mortal and may, therefore, walk this mortal realm unnoticed. This, the most powerful of them all, is a rare and usually solitary being, with the ability to weave the most intricate of spells. Creating light within darkness, animating the bodies of the dead and exerting absolute control over the spirit realm. This being has no need of legions or battles, not when, with a single incantation, every undead entity within Otherworld and beyond will bow before this being in abject submission.”
Something about the solemnity of his expression made Stella’s heart flutter alarmingly. She tried to hide her nervousness by keeping her tone light. “Who is this being?”
“I’m speaking of the sorcerer known as a necromancer.” When she evinced no surprise, a slight frown creased his brow. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Sure have. Level Eight skills set. Very difficult to achieve. A couple of the guys in my halls at university managed it, but they were real stay-up-all-night-gaming geeks.” She laughed at his expression. “And you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
The frown vanished and he smiled in a slightly bemused, and utterly adorable, manner. “I really don’t.”
“‘Crypt Wars,’” Stella explained. When Cal still looked uncomprehending, she elaborated further. “It’s a computer game. Pretty basic stuff. You progress through the levels in turn and take on different forms as you do. The higher the level, the more powerful the being. Necromancer was Level Eight, just above fire-breathing dragons and just below carnivorous skeletons.”
“I’m not going to go into just how flawed that hierarchy is right now, but let me assure you that necromancers do exist outside the world of computer games. And necromancy is a spectrum, ranging from low-level skills such as conversing with the deceased to complete control over the undead, as I have described.”
“They do? How cool is that?” Stella fastened her seat belt. All around them the businesslike bustle of the plane preparing to land continued regardless of their strange conversation.
“Quite cool, until you realize the lengths to which each of these leaders would go in order to get a necromancer on their side.”
Stella thought carefully about it. “Oh, I see. If the vampire prince you mentioned, for instance, had a necromancer on his side, he could have a spell cast that would render Moncoya powerless to harm him. Powerless to do anything much at all, in fact.”
Cal shook his head. “Not quite. Moncoya is not undead, having never actually been alive in the mortal sense of the word. So, although a necromancer could have some control over him, it would not be absolute. The spell would work the other way around, however. If