Fort Morgan Read Free Page B

take
her. I’ve always been able to protect her from this kind of thing.
With me at court, she’s vulnerable. I bet Celeste had those child
porn freaks shoot me to get me out of the picture. Then it’s easy
—Yvonne comes to Arizona and these jerks turn her over to the
serpents.”
    “ Why would Celeste do
that?” Tanesha asked. Her tone indicated how farfetched it all
sounded.
    “ She thinks that will give
her the fairydom and. . .”
    “ Fin,” Tanesha said. “So
Celeste is behind the child pornography ring and the
rapes?”
    “ No, of course not,” Abi
said. “That guy holding your mom captiveis behind it all. It’s an
investment to him. When one site blows up, he goes to the next. He
doesn’t care about what’s on the videos or who gets hurt. He’s in
it for the profit. As you can imagine, there’s a ton of money to be
made from this filth, especially those homemade rape videos. Human
beings can be so disgusting.”
    “ And Celeste?”
    “ Just an opportunity,” Abi
said. “She’s been waiting a long time to get her hooks into Prince
Finegal. Now that Queen Fand and Manannán have been restored, the
queendom is going through a kind of spring — lots of marriages,
babies . . .”
    Abi nodded. Tanesha thought through Abi’s
effusive words.
    “ Celeste has been waiting
for the right moment and contacted the serpents,” Tanesha
said.
    “ Who are already your
enemies,” Abi said.
    “ The serpents control the
Sea of Amber,” Tanesha said.
    “ Exactly right,” Abi
said.
    “ No Delphie to give the
warning,” Tanesha said.
    “ No Jacob or Keenan to
figure out how to get out of the whole thing,” Abi said.
    “ And my dad?” Tanesha
asked.
    “ That’s a good question,”
Abi said. “They must think he has some special
capacity.”
    “ A direct connection to my
mom,” Tanesha said.
    “ Well, there’s that,” Abi
said. “Rodney is uniquely immune to the despair that is the Sea of
Amber.”
    Tanesha opened her mouth to ask why when Abi
spoke again.
    “ Did you really kill a
mating pair and their offspring?”
    Tanesha nodded.
    “ That’s a story I want to
hear,” Abi said. “Ready to go?”
    Abi took off out of the office they’d been
hiding in. For the second time, Tanesha watched her back. This time
she noticed a flow of tiny sparks following Abi. The fairy corps
was here. Tanesha raced to catch up. Abi stopped at the end of a
hallway. She smiled at Tanesha and then shrank to tiny size. There
was a flash, and suddenly Tanesha felt as light as a feather. The
world was very, very big.
    “ What
the . . .” Tanesha started. She noticed Abi was
ordering a group of blue-taffeta-wearing fairies to protect
Tanesha. “You’re the boss of the fairy corps?”
    “ General Abigail, at your
service.” Abi did a curtsy in the air. “You’re going to love
it!”
    Tanesha glanced at the horizon, and Jeraine
came into view. He was lying on the floor next to Jabari’s little
bed. Jabari was talking about nothing, and Jeraine was listening.
They were so adorable that Tanesha smiled, and then she remembered
her mother.
    A room came into her view. Her mother had
some white haired guy draped over her. Dionne was talking to a guy
who looked like a mobster. One of those guys who hung around Alex
Hargreaves’s house was standing in the doorway looking like a
bodyguard. The mobster said something to the bodyguard, and they
laughed. Dionne shifted uncomfortably. At least, they were alive
and not in too much immediate danger.
    “ Ready?” Abi
asked.
    “ What are we doing?”
Tanesha asked.
    “ Just follow us,” Abi
said. “And remember, we think the serpents are going to swoop in to
capture Yvonne.”
    “ Fin said I have to save
Mom,” Tanesha said.
    “ Of course,” Abi said.
“First we have to get there.”
    Abi took off flying, and at least a hundred
fairies followed her. The fairies around Tanesha waited for
her.
    “ Shouldn’t we follow
them?” Tanesha asked.
    “ After