CHAPTER 62

"Well, I mean... what's left of one." She had seen the pictures. It had been abandoned for centuries. "Might be worth looking into after we get Cecilia back."

"Oh man. I own a castle." He just shook his head, his eyes on the ground as he kept walking forward. "You realize it's probably the entrance to a dungeon or a tomb, right? Or maybe a dragon lives in it. How the hell would I even manage to take care of that?"

"You're putting the cart before the horse, aren't you?"

Mike was mumbling now, his voice barely legible. "I mean, what do we even feed a dragon? Does it like fish? Cattle? Virgins? Would it fight with the Jabberwock if we brought it home? I don't have the energy for that. Good god, if it eats, then it shits, right? What the hell do I do with dragon shit? Rent a dumpster and fill it with cat litter? Scoop the damn thing with a front... hey, found it!"

He lifted his phone, the circle of light moving forward on the forest floor to illuminate a circle of mushrooms.

"Okay, this is kind of cool." Beth paced the perimeter of the faerie ring. It was a perfect circle, nearly four feet across. The mushrooms were perfectly shaped and looked like dented bells, each one leaning slightly outward. "Just think, this is a portal to another world!"

He smiled at her. "I'm glad one of us is excited."

"And you're not?"

"I'm still recovering from the last world I found." He moved to stand next to her. "At least I know what I'm getting myself into."

"Hey, you've got the world's best damn estate attorney with you this time." Beth checked her messenger bag, then turned off her phone and tucked it away. "I'm ready when you are."

He took a deep breath, then released it, a wisp of fog leaving his lips. Once his own phone was off, he tucked it in his pocket, then reached out to take her hand. The world was dark, with only the faint glow of the stars up above to guide them. He stared intently at the ring, saying nothing.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Just nervous."

"Yeah, me too." It wasn't every day that she got to step into another world on purpose. "On three?"

"On three," he agreed.

She counted, and on the number three, they both stepped into the ring. According to Ratu and Sofia, one of a couple things could happen. They could fall an undetermined amount of feet and land unharmed. They could find themselves in the middle of a raging faerie party. They could even find themselves lost in a foreboding mist. No matter what happened, they needed to remain in contact with each other to avoid getting separated. The last thing they needed was to end up hundreds of miles apart.

Nothing happened.

"Am I missing something?" Mike looked over his shoulder, then forward again. The forest was unchanged. "We're in the same place."

"We shouldn't be, but..." Beth pulled his hand, leading him out of the circle. "This looks exactly the same as it did. I don't understand."

He kept his hand on hers while kneeling down. The faerie ring was gone, and his hand tightened on hers almost to the point of pain. "We need to get out of here," he whispered, scanning the forest.

"Which way?" she asked.

"Um..." He looked behind them at where they came in, so she did too. The silhouette of the abandoned home they had come from was still there, but it didn't look quite right to her. Logic dictated that they should probably go back through the portal and check in with the others, but the very thought of moving toward the crumbling structure made her nervous. Whatever Mike was sensing, she felt it too, and the feeling of being watched was worse in the direction of the rundown building.

He coughed into his hand, but tugged on Beth's arm in a direction opposite of the house. A trap had been set, she was sure of it, but where? Did he know?

"Ack. My throat feels so dry. Do you have any gum or something?" he asked.

She couldn't see his face in the darkness, her mind busy processing what he had said.

"I think I might," she answered, reaching into the messenger bag. "Requests?"

"Whatever you have on hand is fine," he said, then gave her arm another quick tug as a warning. When he broke into a run, she was right behind him, and the silent forest came alive with the sound of flapping wings and animal cries that sounded like screams that rushed toward them. Tree branches whipped across both of them, and Mike slapped them out of the way with his hand, then reached into his jacket pocket.

Always the boy scout, he had brought along an ultra-bright LED flashlight, and once it was in his hand, he turned it on. The cone of light lit the forest ahead of them and sent dozens of shadowy creatures fleeing on contact.

"Holy shit!" Beth cried. She had turned her own phone back on and was using the flashlight on it to see what pursued them. A boiling mass of darkness had scattered, flying through the trees around them and moved ahead to cut them off. Mike put the butt of the flashlight in his mouth and got out his phone and turned on the light and held it out.

The shadows looked like birds at a distance, but as they jogged and kept their lights turned on, it revealed them to be whisp-like shadows that shrieked in agony when the light hit them. They swept their arms around, chasing them away when they drew close, their shrieking voices tunneling into Beth's head like iron spikes. Their sharp fingers grabbed hold of her more than once, and she chased them away with the bright light of her phone.