Ashes of Raging Water

by Michael J Allen

  “That is not our purpose.”

  Dylan raised pleading eyes. “Isn’t that what you were made for?”

  “No,” Terrance said. “While we do destroy those the faeries corrupt when needed, our true purpose is to protect you from faerie, not each other.”

  “Why not?! You could save I don’t even know how many lives.”

  “Free will.”

  “So, if we discovered the faerie, you’d just leave us in the dark clutches of Tinkerbelle.”

  Terrance sighed. “Dyssnie was a particularly crafty Summer Prince. In convincing generations of mortals that his Court was benign and the Unseelie villainous, he not only made our job that much harder, but staged a possible reality where your kind flocked to his Court with your wishes.”

  “Maleficent was an Unseelie? Jafar too? And Cruella?”

  “No. Jafar wasn’t his actual name, and he was Fae Kissed not Sidhe. Dyssnie’s vilification of Maleficent was merely that of a spurned lover. Writers do enjoy particularly creative vengeances within their pages when it suits them. Nonetheless, my point stands.”

  “But Quayla said the Seelie were Summer. Wouldn’t that mean there are good faeries, you know, summer—warmth and goodness?”

  “She may have named them the Summer Court, but I seriously doubt she told you they represented warmth and goodness. Think, Dylan. You are a smart mortal. Is winter any more malevolent a season than summer? Is fire any less dangerous than ice?”

  Dylan looked away, folding his arms. “I still don’t see how a couple of pictures could harm us. It isn’t like you could remove the copies from the internet.”

  Terrance arched a brow.

  “No,” Dylan said.

  Terrance shrugged.

  Dylan leapt to his feet. “If that’s true, you destroyed all the pictures we have left.”

  “You have your memories,” Terrance said.

  “Well, and the ones at my—you wouldn’t,” Dylan said.

  “I am afraid yours were removed as well.”

  “This is ridiculous. They’re not yours to take.”

  “What little sister possesses is the property of the Shield.”

  “Including Quayla herself.”

  “Yes.”

  Dylan’s fists tightened until his knuckles turned white. “Maybe you have a claim on Quayla’s things, but you don’t have any right to what’s mine.”

  “Like Aquaylae?”

  “You’re damn right. I’m not surrendering her or our pictures to a bunch of paranoid illegal aliens—”

  “Technically, your kind are the aliens here.”

  Dylan blinked.

  Three knocks sounded against the door.

  Dylan cursed. “What else can go wrong today?!”

  “Are you aware that many mythologies represent Fate as a particularly vindictive female spirit which delights in irony?” Terrance smiled. “Tempting her is ill advised, something you should remember if you escape her twisted sense of humor this day.”

  The next three knocks delivered more force against the old wood.

  “You should also answer the door,” Terrance said.

  Dylan crossed to the door and opened it.

  Detective Foxner glared through its frame.

  Terrance chuckled.

  No escape today.

  “Can I help you?” Dylan asked.

  Foxner spun a grainy video printout into Dylan’s face without warning. “Do you know this woman?”

  Her eyes hardened at whatever expression they saw cross Dylan’s face.

  “I-I’m sorry, who are you?” Dylan asked.

  “Detective Foxner, Atlanta PD. I’m here to do a follow up interview with Quayla Buckler, but from your reaction I think I might like a word or two with you, Mister...”

  “Snyder.”

  “Do you know this woman, Mister Snyder? A relation of Ms. Buckler perhaps?”

  Terrance stepped into the conversation. “Perhaps I can assist.”

  Foxner’s face swept upward to meet Terrance’s calm expression.

  Terrance snatched the paper from her hand too fast for her to react. “This image is poor quality and partially obstructed by a mask. I can see why you might wrongfully think there is a similarity. As for relations, I’ve known Aq—”

  Detective Foxner’s scrutiny intensified.

  Terrance cleared his throat. “I’ve known Quayla for many years. She’s an orphan, so while unknown relations are possible, I’m unaware of any living relation bearing this face.”

  “My.” Foxner scrutinized Terrance’s face, Dylan all but forgotten. “You are certainly a very helpful and informative person, Mister...”

  Terrance returned the detective’s scrutiny.

  This mortal is quite perceptive and apparently good at her job. She has a scent here. Avoiding her queries will intensify the taint in her nostrils.

  “Wall. Terrance Wall.”

  Foxner’s brows rose. “Are you a spy, Mister Wall?”

  “If so, it seems unlikely I would admit to such,” Terrance said.

  “Do you live here? You or Mister Snyder?” Foxner asked.

  “I’ve got my own place, but I stay here a lot of the time,” Dylan said.

  “I’m merely tending poor Quayla. She was attacked this night near her front stoop,” Terrance said.

  “By who?” Foxner said.

  Terrance smirked. “A hooligan, if you’ll excuse me borrowing the term from Quayla’s kindly landlady.”

  “Did she file a police report?” Foxner asked.

  “She’s been mostly unconscious since the attack,” Dylan said.

  “Miss Buckler or the landlady?” Foxner asked.

  “Dylan, why don’t you invite the good detective inside so she can take her ease while she inquires further? Do you have any medical experience, detective?”

  “Some.” Foxner stepped through the doorway at Dylan’s gesture. Her eyes swept the place, falling last on Aquaylae’s pale form. Swift steps took her to Aquaylae’s side. “This woman should be in a hospital.”

  “She will survive her injuries,” Terrance said.

  “We can’t take her to a hospital,” Dylan said. “She’s, uh, scientologist.”

  Foxner’s brows rose in near unison with Terrance’s own.

  “Scientologist? Are you suggesting that belief system based on science would refuse medical care?” Foxner asked.

  “Young Dylan means Quayla’s of the Christian Sciences faith.” Terrance chuckled. “An understandable confusion.”

  Foxner studied him. “Young Dylan? You’re what, five years older than him?”

  Terrance shrugged. “I have an old soul.”

  “Quayla’s not really in any shape to answer questions, Detective,” Dylan said. “And we—”

  “We arrived late in the altercation,” Terrance said. “Dylan was too consumed by Quayla’s state to get a good look at the villain.”

  “What about you?” Foxner asked.

  “Tall. Muscular. Quite filthy.”

  Foxner jotted on a small notepad. “Anything else?”

  “I’m afraid I do not recall anything further.”

  “Did you engage the attacker in any way?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Cox’s baking dish is likely what drove him away.”

  “May I see your knuckles?”

  Terrance shrugged and showed her his unblemished hands.

  Foxner’s jaw tightened. “Do you mind if I look around?”

  Dylan shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  “Actually.” Terrance raised a finger. “As Quayla is the only renter of contract, neither of us can grant you permission to examine her dwelling.”

  “You have a very odd mode of speech to you, Mister Wall.”

  “Old soul. If there is nothing else, Detective, I bid you good day.”

  Dylan let Detective Foxner out while Terrance checked Aquaylae once more. Shock could do many things, and while her current body hadn’t actually suffered the shock of death, h
er soul had. He took the pitcher into Aquaylae’s bedroom and scooped what little essence he could from the bottom of her nest.

  Remiss, little sister, do you truly want to spend a century cooped up?

  “She’s gone,” Dylan said.

  “For now.”

  “Terrance?” Anima asked.

  “Good morning, Anima. How may I serve?”

  “Vitae wants you and Quayla at headquarters. We have a situation.”

  “Quayla’s too weak to move,” Dylan said.

  “Who speaks?” Anima asked.

  “Little sister’s paramour,” Terrance said.

  “I haven’t looked up paramour yet, but I don’t think I like being called one,” Dylan said.

  “Is her condition such that she cannot be moved?” Anima asked.

  “It is.”

  “I will inform Vitae. Stay with her on my authority until instructions change,” Anima said.

  17: Fantastic Nightmares

  Quayla

  My head slid up out of frigid water. A vast wasteland of ice and snow stretched out as far as I could see. I reached for the shore. Sight of my hand brought me up short.

  My skin shimmered blue—the magical blue of my essence rather than that of cold. A hand stretched down into view. Fine, warm fingers wrapped around my own, not passing through the water but finding a firm grip.

  “Up you get, Quayla.”

  I followed the hand, up a parka-covered arm to the hooded smile of a human-sized Grynnberry. I frowned at our surroundings. “But, I thought you’re part of the Summer Court.”

  Grynnberry heaved me out of the water and held open a soft, white fur coat. I stepped into the offered warmth, sliding my arms inside with a sigh of pleasure. He closed the coat without even attempting to grope and handed me a pair of matching boots.

  “This locale is of your choice, not mine,” Grynnberry said. “Trust me, I’d rather we were on a nude beach in the Caribbean.”

  I bent to draw on the boots, erect nipples rubbing against the coat’s interior. “Why would I choose someplace like this?”

  “Asking a nymph to analyze your dreams isn’t going to garner you answers about cigars sometimes being cigars. My kind knows what a phallus is for.”

  I slipped the second boot onto my foot, watery toes wriggling in the warmth. A frown dragged down the corners of my lips. “You can’t be Grynn.”

  “Is that so?” Grynnberry asked.

  “Yes. You haven’t tried to grope me. You made no lewd comments about how the cold affected my nipples or even a sly innuendo about rolling around with me inside this fur.”

  Grynnberry shrugged.

  “Wait, you said this was some sort of dream?”

  “Not directly, but I suppose you could call it that.”

  I looked out over the vast arctic landscape.

  Why would I dream up some place like this? And why would I include Grynnberry?

  Grynnberry’s voice entered my thoughts.

  “What am I wrestling with then?”

  Grynnberry scanned our surroundings. “Loneliness? Isolation? A sense of dread?”

  Tears burned down my cold cheeks. As a water phoenix, I needn’t have shed them, and yet I needed to let them fall.

  “What if Dylan’s right?” Grynnberry asked. “What if there were a way for you to walk away from the Shield and just be with him?”

  I wrapped my arms tighter, stepping away from him with a shaking head. “There isn’t. There won’t be.”

  My footfall disturbed the snow, sending it up in a plume of ash. I bent. At my touch, the snow felt cold, but the texture wasn’t iced flakes but gritty ash.

  Grynnberry drew me up, interrupting my thoughts. “Are you sure there’s no escape? Have you checked?”

  “No.”

  “What about...no, you don’t love Dylan enough.”

  Heat flashed through me. “If you’re my Id, a part of me, then you know exactly how much I love Dylan.”

  “True, but I’m not sure it is really enough for you to do the one thing that would guarantee you could live out your lives together.”

  “And what exactly would that be?” I demanded.

  “Reveal Faery.”

  I gaped at him. I couldn’t believe any part of me would suggest such a thing. Revealing the existence of the faerie folk to humanity would upend the world as everyone knew it.

  Any number of horrifying consequences could occur.

  I looked out at the cold wasteland, a dingy grey falling over the snow as if plunged under cloud cover.

  “True, Creation would change, but there’d be no need for Shields anymore,” Grynnberry said. “You’d be free.”

  “Assuming the whole of us weren’t just wiped out wholesale.”

  “God is love. He granted His new host a soul, didn’t He? Why would He wipe out His Creation?”

  If wafers knew about the faeries, we wouldn’t need to protect the secret anymore. At worst, we’d end up policing the deals to be sure the faeries kept their end, but really, at that point, free will would come into play.

  “If humanity knew, a single wish could let you and Dylan grow old together. You could be your own woman—no longer Shield Aquaylae, but perhaps Dylan’s Angelica.”

  I turned my back on Grynnberry, looking over the cold sea.

  “I’d be free.” My hand came up grey with ash. “But at what cost?”

  “Is any cost really too dear to realize true love?”

  Detective Foxner

  Sabrina Foxner scowled at the closed door.

  Something here reeks to high heaven. These people are bending stretched truths almost to their breaking point.

  She finished adding notes to her notebook as she descended to the first level. She knocked on a door labeled both ‘1A’ and ‘Manager.’ A tiny old woman answered the door in flour-dusted apron and oven mitts. “Hello? Oh, police. Are you here about last night’s hooligan?”

  Sabrina smiled. “That is something I’m investigating.”

  “Come inside, Officer. I have fresh muffins. Would you care for some milk?”

  “I didn’t get your name.” Sabrina entered behind the old lady to a thick aroma produced by sweet baked goods. A small island in the kitchen displayed numerous cupcake tins stacked atop each other. Empty thread spools separated each level. On the nearest end, dark berries mounded atop bowls besides plant sprigs—green leaves and reddish stems each wrapped in jingle-bell-capped silver ribbon with seven berries left on their branches.

  “Mrs. Hadley Sage Cox, widowed not divorced.”

  “Mrs. Cox, what can you tell me about the assault last night?” Sabrina asked.

  The little old woman shoved a plate of muffins and a tall glass of milk into Sabrina’s hands. Juggling the food without spilling forced her to set her notebook aside onto a doily covered end table.

  “They’re still warm, elderberry of course, perfect for these dark times.”

  “Dark times?” Sabrina asked.

  Mrs. Cox whispered conspiratorially. “Have you seen the likes they let into the White House? Something hoodwinked the voters, that’s all I can say.”

  “Something?” Sabrina asked.

  “Of course, something, certainly not someone. No one person could bamboozle so many people.”

  “Like what?”

  Mrs. Cox shrugged. “The telebox? Music these days? Mushroom rings? That interwebs thing? Who’s to say? Wouldn’t have happened in my day, oh, no, we trusted in salt, sprig and silver to prevent things like this happening.”

  Sabrina scanned her surroundings. Nothing in the apartment screamed dementia. The carefully prepared bundles hung in every window and over every lintel. Bookshelves lined the room, piled with books, pictures and knickknacks but not a speck of dust.

  “Eat, they’re best when warm,” Mrs. Cox insisted.

  Warm, sweet perfection filled Sabrina’s mouth. She’d skipped breakfast, sufficing
with only precinct coffee, in her rush to come out here. She inhaled a third muffin before she’s realized the first was done. So much bread should have filled her, but her eyes sought the stacked muffins in the kitchen when she realized her plate was empty.

  Mrs. Cox swept the plate from her. “Drink your milk, dear, plenty more where those came from. Elderberries are best harvested around the fall equinox when they’re at their most potent.”

  A chill sent gooseflesh across Sabrina’s skin. “Potent?”

  Mrs. Cox turned, beaming. “Their best flavor, dear. What did you think I meant? Old woman living alone doesn’t equal witch, young lady. We did away with that kind of math in old Salem or so I hope.”

  Sabrina rose, forcing a small laugh. “No, I wasn’t suggesting anything of the sort. After all, you don’t have any cats.”

  “Filthy beasts, always give me hives and the sneezes.”

  “You prefer dogs?” Sabrina perused the bookcases.

  “Birds really, but they’re too noisy. Disturb my tenants.”

  A bureau covered in pictures drew Sabrina around the room. Toward the back, silver framed the man upstairs and a woman who strongly resembled the person who’d broken into the Humane Society. She snapped it up, knocking other frames in the process.

  Mrs. Cox’s voice floated out of the kitchen. “Careful now.”

  “Sorry.” Sabrina compared the printout to the woman. Her temper blew together like a winter thunderhead. She hurriedly stood up the frames she’d knocked down and brought the picture to the old woman. “Who’s this?”

  Mrs. Cox smiled. “That’s my Quayla and her Dylan. They really should get married. I don’t abide unmarried couples as tenants, but there’s nothing I can do to stop him sleeping over.”

  “Quayla Buckler? 3B?” Sabrina asked.

  “You run into the name Quayla often?” Mrs. Cox tried to trade the picture for another plate of muffins.

  Sabrina didn’t let her.

  They lied to me.

  “I need to borrow this picture, Mrs. Cox. I also need to see Quayla’s lease.”

  Mrs. Cox frowned. “What for?”

  Sabrina produced the printout. “This is a picture from a robbery two mornings ago. The woman caught on camera broke into a Humane Society. She stole and murdered animals.”