I had misgivings about this earlier when I was writing this, but then I considered that Pharaohs were technically gods, and that Atemu could command the gods, and well, gods definitely trumps faerie queens, so I thought, what the heck, might as well write it and see.

Plus, we had to explain the appearance of Celtic Warrior, Mystical Elf etc, right?

Chapter 11: Fairy King Truesdale

"You're going to bribe the local faeries to search for Yuugi." the blonde one, whose name was Marik Ishtar, stated once I elaborated my plan.

"Yeah," I replied, laying out on the surprisingly comfortable autopsy table. Most people would have scoffed at the ridiculousness of it all. Most of the supernatural world would not even consider asking the Little Folk, you know.

Marik Ishtar grimaced. "I don't think they will."

"Why?" I asked, trying to stretch my arms out. This is more difficult than it looks; I'm over six feet tall, with a really long reach. There was barely enough space for me to fully stretch out.

"Yuugi's...different." Marik replied, unsure. "I don't know if it's something to do with the Puzzle, but only stupid things and people come for it. I've barely ever seen any supernatural entities come after it. No faerie in their right mind would search for him."

"Worth a shot," I grimaced. "What could possibly go wrong?"

Famous last words...

"I need you to find a kid," I told the faerie I had whistled up with Butter's doughnut, standing in a nearby alleyway from the Forensic Institute with the secretive Marik. "But then we have someone who says that they don't think you would."

"Who is this child you seek, for such warning to come, 'Za Lord?" Toot-toot asked seriously. It was like his personality did a complete one-eighty.

"Let me give you a hint," Marik sweetly replied, pulling a pen and a paper out of his pocket and scribbling. He drew an eye on it.

"That's it?" Toot-toot asked doubtfully. "The Eye of Horus is allied to many, and not all are dangerous."

"Now to put it in context," Marik added, before drawing an upside-down triangle around the eye.

There was complete and utter silence as the dewdrop faerie looked at it.

"No," the faerie whispered in some horror. "It cannot be...All of Faerie, hear our words!" he screamed.

"Toot," I began. "What are you-"

Toot-toot screamed in a voice echoing of power, his tone both hot and cold, warm and terrifying at the same time, flying around in panic unseen:

"King of Nightmares, Nameless Pharaoh, Lord of the Shadows, Chaos's Lost Son, Child of Midnight! We speak not of him! We oppose him not, neither do we help him! Let no Fae oppose or ally this Lord of Two Lands, lest more of us are drawn into his snare and service! Let us never speak of him ever, lest we attract his attention! On the blood of the past, present and future, no Fae will approach the lauded lord of the dominion of games, master of that between light and darkness, one with both light and dark in his soul!"

"Toot, wha-" I didn't get to finish before the next words stopped me, both warm and cold and reeking of the combined might of Faerie:

"By the combined order of the Courts of Faerie, let no Fae ever seek with the one who plays games with fate ever again."

The words that had reeked of the combined powers of Summer and Winter's decrees had barely finished echoing before Toot-toot was flying around in blind panic. "The Lord of Shadows, here? The lords of Faerie must be told soon! Pizza Lord, I can do nothing. None of the Little Folk can. Only the stronger fae might be able to defy the order, but never us. Kith and kin has been lost to the shadows before; the Queens know enough not to oppose it. I can do nothing."

"But, why?" I spluttered. Toot and his medley band of the Little Folk called the 'Za Lord's Guard had never failed me yet, until now.

"A long time ago, the Fae decided to turn their hand to Khemet. Then … the Pharaoh played a game with the Mothers, She Who Was of both Courts. He emerged triumphant." Toot flew up, wings beating furiously. "I cannot say more, 'Za Lord, lest the Queens find out! No Fae would face his power, but none may seek his aid."

"What the hell is this guy?" I coughed from pixie dust (don't ask) as Toot-toot flew off, my skin shivering as a cold north wind blew through.

Cold. North. Wind.

Damn. I didn't know that the faerie messenger service was that fast.

My eyes on the ground reached the hem of a white dress and looked up to heart-stopping beauty and cold, wide eyes, feline and slitted like a cat's, the colour shifting in time to her jewellery- or, even, the jewels were shifting in time with her eyes. And those eyes, though beautiful beyond any lexicon's bind, were cold, inhuman, filled with intelligence and desire, but empty of anything resembling compassion or pity. Those eyes were directed in our direction, and the corners of her lips lifted into a smile empty of any amusement. She was one of the Aos Si, the rulers of Faerie, remnants of the legendary Tuatha de Danaan and their legacy, but I knew to be afraid.

In my pocket, I could feel Bob the Skull shivering from fear. I heard Marik gasp beside me.

"You," Grimalkin the Cat Sith snarled beside her. "Keeper of the Tomb. So you stir trouble within our land once more?"

"It's not your land, and I wasn't the Keeper you last met." Marik pointed out coolly. "And trouble found us this time. Besides, our duty is finished, or why else would we be so far from the legend of the Nameless Pharaoh?"

Her eyes narrowed. "No Fae would dare not remember the one who trapped the armies of Faerie in shadows. He has played a game with the Queens of Faerie, and we recognised him as a worthy adversary, if a mortal one. But, he is dead."

"No," Marik shook his head. "Only half. The other half of his soul remains in this world as his inheritor, Your Majesty, Queen of Air and Darkness, Mab of the Winter Court of the Sidhe. Half the soul of the Nameless Pharaoh of the Shadows lives on in a young boy, the Prince of Light who now stands in his place as Judge of Shadows."

She took a small step back. Mab took a step back. Wow. "No...he cannot." the Winter Queen whispered. "The Nameless Pharaoh died nameless. The gods cannot allow one who died unremembered live again."

"The boy is only about twenty-one," Marik continued, unheeding of her words. "He loves puzzles, games, and he is absolutely enraptured with his darkness, his other self. The Pharaoh sees him as a prince of everything good, the light to his own darkness. You may hold the title of Queen of Air and Darkness, but remember that the inheritor holds something that even you would kill to never see light."

"What?" she growled. Or at least, Grimalkin did. "What can scare the Queen of the Unseelie Fae, monarch of the Winter Sidhe?"

"The True Name of the one who not only imprisoned your armies in the Shadows once, but who took the Sidhe Maret, TruthsTale, Brianna and Tytannial from the Courts." Marik inclined his head. "The one who fought and led a mortal army to victory against the combined powers of Faerie. Those who were the Ladies before you or Queen Titania, Your Majesty. Those who were chosen over your majesties. And they were defeated by one mortal before all of Faerie, contracted into service in the shadows. He is coming, and I wouldn't presume to … do anything to injure his other half. He is so protective of the child who knows his true Name."

The cold Winter Queen who scared the beejezus out of me swallowed. "You would dare-"

"I wouldn't," Marik shrugged, eyes wide and mad and...red? "He is missing, and...well, you know how the young are like when faced with torture. I am merely pointing out that it is in your best interests to...ignore this."

Her eyes shifted to him. "You are not the Keeper."

"I am," he smirked, the cold dangerous dark smirk that was just plain twisted and evil and creepy. "I'm just a different, ah, aspect."

"As dangerous as an insane fool," Grimalkin murmured in Mab's stand. "Winter stands by the decision made long ago. Summer would as well. Theoretically speaking. The current Summer Lady tries to change the Courts, without realising that we are what we are."

"So we can expect no faeries to delay us?" Marik asked. "Time runs short, Your Majesty. If Pharaoh descends here, who knows how the shadows of this city will react."

"Sly as the desert fox," Mab shook her head slowly. "None of Winter will delay you, but none save I or my daughter will aid you either. I cannot speak for Summer; Titania has been known to do the opposite of my actions before, and the possible return of two of the Summer High Sidhe to her Court now that her power of the throne is secure might convince her to move against you in that faint hope."

"We might take our chances," Marik shrugged. "A truce until the little boy-king is found and secured?"

"I will agree to that, Tomb Keeper," Grimalkin hissed in Mab's proxy. "As long as you keep your end of the bargain."

"I might," Marik giggled disturbingly. "The Tomb Robber Bakura may not. I am hardly the only darkness within this city, Your Majesty."

"If you do not," Grimalkin calmly replied for the Queen. "I will find you."

Shadows reached out from under Marik's feet, my feet, and raised themselves towards the Queen, tendrils seeking out. "You may try," Marik sang. "Why, Your Majesty, you are the Queen of Darkness, are you scared of your own subjects, my Queen?"

Then his eyes abruptly widened before snapping back to a wide violet. "Oh, that- Queen Mab."

"Goodbye," Mab herself hissed towards us, the anger of Winter preparing to lash out at us. I raised my arms in a feeble parody of defence-

Shadows erupted and lashed out at ice-crusted gale, breaking Winter's magic and the Queen's hold. Marik had drawn out a dagger from his boot, no doubt steel, stepping through shadow remnants with dagger raised. "That...what'd you do that for?"

"How dare you, to have shadow-touched in the Queen's presence!" Grimalkin howled, high and screeching like a cat. Yep, definitely Grimalkin's rage.

"Goodbye, Queen Mab," Marik Ishtar whispered, deadly like the desert snakes.

And Mab vanished.

"Okay," I started, turning on the twenty-plus kid the Gatekeeper ordered me to follow and talked to like an equal. The blonde Egyptian turned lavender eyes on me, blinking. "Start by telling me what's going on, how this has got to do with card games, and why the hell can the Mab get so scared. I'm confused, and I want answers, and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Marik looked at me. "The Gatekeeper didn't tell you?"

"He told me in the prescient and frankly mysteriously annoying way of his that this was pre-Merlin magic. Dark magic. And that all this has got to do with a missing inheritor and shadows." I frowned. "And that's pretty much it."

His eyes narrowed. "I see. Elder Rashid has many answers to provide. Let's go to Ryou; I'm not the only one involved in this and I'd rather not try to explain alone to a straight wizard."

"Why?" I asked as we walked towards the Forensic Institute.

"The last wizard I had to explain to didn't take it kindly," Marik dully replied. "Tried to chop my head off before the Tomb Keepers could explain. And the Merlin excommunicated us until El Alamein, and even then he completely took all the credit for the battle. After that, only the Gatekeeper would look out for us, if only because we rubbed the Council the wrong damn way due to our charge."

"And that would be...?" I hazarded a guess. There was a lot of things that rubbed the Council raw, after all. I was one of them.

"The Tomb of the Nameless Pharaoh!" Marik dramatically pronounced. "Of course, you can't expect the stick-up-ass Wardens -no offence- to understand that we can't destroy the damn thing or abandon our charge. Warden Morgan still with them?"

"He died," I sombrely replied.

"Oh," Marik's expression softened. "I...see. Killed in service against dark magic?"

"Yes," I shrugged. Donald Morgan had died in disgrace as a traitor when the hero that he was took a bullet from the traitor Peabody. I suppose that counts.

"Figures," he grunted.

"I suppose you two met," I replied almost deceptively nonchalantly. Anyone who had met Morgan was either on the business end of a sword or at the other end. Enemy... or ally.

"I was ten." he dully replied. "The Council pulled me in on charges."

I paused. There was virtually no way that any warlock could have gotten off breaking the Laws of Magic scot-free, unless they were dead, or...

"You're under the Doom?"I stated conversationally.

"No, I got off under a technicality, several veiled threats and the use of a magic sceptre said to be able to control minds," Marik shrugged. "I was ten. Morgan looked into my eyes."

To a ten-year-old, confused and scared after the Wardens' arrival, to have to see the soul of a battered Warden...I swallowed nervously.

"He was an absolutely detestable man," Marik finalised. "But he did what he thought was right. We respect that."

Unusual. Who's we?

We arrived at the Forensic Institute as the sun was setting over the sky, to see the white-haired boy from earlier running at high speed towards us.

"Ryou-" Marik began.

"Run!" Ryou shouted, right before the thing chasing him was revealed. "Run! It's real zombies!"

For the record, real zombies are nothing like the shambling half-dead corpses commonly seen in movies that go for brains. The half-rotting corpse currently dashing after Ryou would have put Speedy Gonzalez to shame, and it's all but indestructible to boot, being dead and thus none of the limitations life would have imposed on it.

Marik just raised an eyebrow. "Then why didn't you-?"

Three more zombies appeared as a woman screamed nearby.

"Too many people," Marik concluded, latching on to my arm. "Let's dash."

I couldn't agree more. We ran.

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