Up close, it was clear the Eldridge had fought a major battle. Hours or even days had passed for the ship in those few moments it had been away. Solid steel bulkheads had split like paper, compartments were crushed, and the crew . . . Torn and broken, crushed, ripped apart, the pieces scattered over the blood-soaked deck. And yes, some caught up in the misfiring energies of teleportation: merged horribly with steel walls and doors, trapped in bulkheads, rematerialised inside metal, flesh fading seamlessly into steel. Screaming for help that would never come. This crew had fought one hell of a battle, and only some of them had come home to tell of it.
I shut down my Sight, put away my armour, and looked at the others. “Bad news, people. I’m pretty sure I know what happened to the Eldridge back in 1943, and it has nothing at all to do with Project Rainbow or any other of the myths and stories of the Philadelphia Experiment. I don’t know what all that technology they put on board was supposed to do, but something about it interfered with a soft spot, a weak place in reality, and opened up a long-dormant portal to another place. Somewhere . . . outside our reality. And something in that other place reached out and dragged the Eldridge through the gateway.
“Something bad happened in that other place, and the Eldridge had to fight her way out. She got home again, but her crew paid a terrible price. Hundreds dead, and worse than dead. No wonder the navy hushed all this up. No wonder they never experimented with that equipment again. They couldn’t risk opening the portal again. Something might come through, from the other side.”
The others looked at me for a long moment. They all wanted to ask questions, but something in my face and in my voice stopped them. In the end, it was the old soldier Walker who nerved himself to ask the obvious question.
“Do you know where the Eldridge went?” he said. “Do you know who took them?”
“Yes,” I said. “They went to the Land Beneath the Hill. To the Sundered Lands. The Faerie Kingdoms. To the place the elves went, when they walked sideways from the sun and left this world behind them. The elves did this.”
Honey pursed her mouth as though she wanted to spit. “I’m supposed to tell my superiors at Langley that the Eldridge was abducted by fairies?”
“I’ve never known what the big deal was with elves,” said Peter. “Elves aren’t scary. Pointy-eared losers in period costumes, playing stupid jokes on mere mortals . . . Elves aren’t hard. Wouldn’t be even if they wore black leather and drank cider. I mean, look at the Blue Fairy.”
“Blue was only half-elf,” I said. “And he could still have taken you with one hand on the best day you ever had.”
“Oh, come on . . .”
I glared at him till he stopped talking. “The only ones you ever see in this world are the broken-spirited ones. The ones who stayed behind or got left behind because they weren’t good enough. The beachcombers of Faerie, wasting their remaining energies in screwing over humans, because that’s all they’ve got. The real thing . . . is so much more. Monsters . . . Inhuman, soulless, immortal, or at least so long-lived it makes no difference. They breathe magic and sweat sorcery. They can bend the rules of reality just by thinking about it.
“We stole this world from them. Not by defeating them or bettering them but by outbreeding them. Do you wonder they still hate us, after all this time? In the Faerie Kingdoms, they are powerful and potent. They can do things we can’t even dream of, with magics and technologies beyond our comprehension. They were here first, and they still dream of returning and delivering a terrible revenge upon us. And we’re going to have to go there, to the Elven Lands, to the Unseeli Court, to get the truth about what happened to the Eldridge and her crew.”
“I don’t think I want to know that badly,” said Walker. “I’ve had . . . experience with elves, in the Nightside. The real thing. They’re always bad news.”
“Is it true they don’t have souls?” said Honey. “And that’s why they’re immortal?”
“Not . . . as such,” I said. “Not souls, as we understand the term. The elves are an ancient breed, far older than humanity, born of a time when the very nature of this world was different. Our rules and restraints don’t apply to them, but then they don’t have our certainties, either. Like Life and Death, Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell.”
“Still don’t see why we have to go there,” Peter said with a glower. “You say you Saw them take the Eldridge; what more do we need?”
“You really think your grandfather will settle for my word?” I said. “I wouldn’t. He’ll want facts, details, evidence. No one will win the prize unless they can tell the whole story. Besides . . . the Eldridge’s technology opened a door between Philadelphia and the Land Beneath the Hill, and I think it’s still there. A soft spot in the world, a potential door just waiting to be pushed open by one side or the other. A vulnerable back door through which the Fae might one day invade. We have to check it out.”
“What do you mean we, paleface?” Peter said immediately.
“Are you sure it was the Fae, Eddie?” said Honey, ignoring Peter. “You have to be sure about this before we risk disturbing them.”
“The Eldridge disappeared into a green fog,” I said steadily. “Nothing at all to do with electromagnetic radiation or radar invisibility. The green mists are one of the traditional ways the Fae use to disguise an opening between their world and ours. That fog was thick with magic, and I know elven magic when I See it.”
“The Land Beneath the Hill,” muttered Peter. “The Elven Lands. The Faerie Kingdoms. How many names does this place have, anyway?”
“As many as it needs,” said Walker. “In old magic, to know the true naming of a thing was to have power over it, so the Fae like to confuse things. It appeals to their . . . mercurial nature. They’re not fixed and certain, like us. They’re many things all at once. More than us, and less. Greater than us, but still childlike in many ways. The only human qualities they have are the ones they’ve copied from us, because it amuses them.”
He turned and looked at me. “Even if we can close this door, there are others. Other ways of accessing the Faerie Kingdoms. The Street of Gods in the Nightside. A doorway in Shadows Fall. A deep tunnel beneath a small town in the southwest of England. There are openings and soft places all over the world, fortunately forgotten or overlooked by most people.”
“But if this is an unknown, unsuspected entrance, we have to shut it down,” I said steadily. “Or persuade the Fae to close it from their side, at least long enough for us to set up the usual defences and observers.”
“I still don’t see what the Fae would want with a U.S. Navy ship anyway,” said Honey.
“We’ll just have to ask them,” I said. “When we get there. This is a mystery that needs solving; not just for us, but for the sake of all humanity. We can’t have the elves thinking they can just reach out and grab us whenever they feel like it. I think I shall have to speak quite sternly to them about that. Are you with me?”
“Not if you’re going to be rude to elves,” Honey said immediately. “They don’t like it. And I like my organs on the inside, where they belong.”
“I shall be polite and diplomatic at all times,” I said. “Right up to the point where I decide not to be and administer a good slapping. Don’t worry; I’ll give you plenty of warning, so you can duck. Walker?”
“We have to go,” said Walker. “Duty is a harsh mistress, but she never asks more of us than is necessary.”
“Always knew you were kinky, Walker,” said Honey. “Langley’s gone very quiet. I’ve brought them up to date and asked for instructions, and they’re passing the buck back and forth so fast they’re wearing it out. So let’s get going before someone tells me not to. No one takes a U.S. ship and its crew and gets away with it on my watch.”