The Payment

by Michelle E Lowe

  A sandy beach glowing indigo as evening settled in. The soft, warm texture of sand under his bare feet. It compensated for the difficulty of stepping through it. He’d never gotten accustomed to walking over sand.

  He reached his home, where light showed through the windows and the open doorway. Inside, his family was singing. He stepped up to his porch, and his cockatoo, Marco Polo, squawked at him.

  The cell was bitterly cold, but the hut exuded warmth from the energy of his small tribe. There was no stone floor, only a hardwood one that vibrated beneath the feet of his children as they danced to Jasper’s violin. The stringed instrument blotted out the sound of the frigid droplets dripping from cracks in the prison ceiling. The sea air masked the smell of mold and stagnant water.

  Pierce looked at his children.

  Joaquin, are you still climbing trees? Galina, have you dug to China yet, darling? Lydia, my Angelfish, do you miss following your daddy around?

  His mum and Grandmother Fey sat next to each other, clapping their hands while singing along with the music. How lucky he had been to have such parents and a grandmother.

  Taisia, his love, his beautiful wife, looked right at him. Her eyes sparkled when she saw him. Her wide, loving smile made his heart swell with so much affection that, if pricked, it would surely burst.

  She mouthed the words I love you.

  “I love you, too,” he responded aloud inside his cell. Tears filled his eyes, washing away the glowing vision. “I’m so sorry, Tai.”

  Never again would he be with his family and live under the sun. Never again would he touch his wife’s face or hug his children. He wouldn’t be around to watch them grow or share any more quiet days on the porch with Taisia.

  He buried his face in his folded arms, resting on his knees, and cried.

  The lock clicked and the hinges squealed. He raised his chin as a visitor stepped in, carrying a lantern. The light hurt his eyes as if he’d been trapped in the dark for ages.

  The door was shut and the lantern placed on the cot.

  “And then there were two,” said a woman’s voice. “I do wish it didn’t have to be this way. I would much rather have left you alone.”

  “Freya,” Pierce growled. “What brings you by? Or are you here at all?”

  “I’m here. I wanted us to speak in person before your death.”

  “How? No one is allowed to visit me.”

  “I have my ways.”

  He sighed. “I see. Come to gloat?”

  “It was no easy task getting you here. It took some skillful planning. But I needed to get you into a bind that even you couldn’t weasel your way out of. I had hoped Volker would succeed in ending your life, but the savage wanted time to kill you, which of course gave you numerous opportunities to escape.”

  “So setting me up for attacking the Queen was what you came up with?”

  “High treason? Indeed. A charge difficult to beat.”

  “I’d say so,” he agreed.

  “I suppose I should offer my condolences.”

  “Aye,” he groaned while he stood. His whole body ached from the abuse he’d taken, but he wanted to face her eye to eye. “I reckon you had a hand in Robin’s death.”

  “I foresaw the vampire coming for you, and thus informed Lord Javan through dreams.”

  “Did the Trickster help with that nasty business?”

  “I may not be able to bend such foolish laws, but anyone who has stepped out of the Fates’ domain is fair play. Robin of Locksley forfeited his thread when he became immortal.”

  “He never chose to be a vampire.”

  “What does choice have anything to do with it? Rules are rules.”

  “Rules are rules, eh? Then how do you explain murdering Frederica?”

  “Like Joaquin, it was simply her time. Granted, I may have steered Volker to the theater in order to draw you out, but even without my hand in it, she would have died on that stage.”

  Pierce thought about that. He remembered the lamp that had dropped from the stage rafter. If Volker hadn’t shot her, would that have done her in?

  “Yes,” Freya answered, blatantly reading his thoughts.

  “Don’t do that,” he ordered. “After all the shite you’ve put me through, the least you can do is stay out of my bloody head.”

  “Fair enough. Still, you should thank me for what I did.”

  “Come again?” He approached her until the chain snapped tight. “I’m chained inside this dank cell and am about to be executed on false charges, and I ought to thank you for it?”

  “Such short sightedness you have,” she tsked. “You forget. If it weren’t for me, you’d never have met the late Mrs. Katz and conceived a wonderful son with her.”

  “If you needed a child with the blood of a mare, then why use me? Why not send Joaquin to Frederica instead of me, eh?”

  “Trust me, I wish I could have, but the Fates control both life and death, you see. You and your brother were actually meant to have your firstborn children at the time you actually did.”

  Pierce tilted his head. “What the bloody hell does that mean?”

  “It means no matter where you both were or who you were with, you and Joaquin would have conceived a child at the times you did, for it was when Clotho wanted those two lives to begin.”

  Pierce could truly have written his own damn book based on all the odd conversations he’d had with people.

  “So, if I hadn’t had Kolt with Frederica, I’d have had him with someone else?”

  “Exactly. Men carry the seeds of life. When it was time for Joaquin to lay with a woman for breeding, I summoned him to me, just as I steered you to Frederica when it was your turn.”

  “And the Trickster couldn’t manipulate the rules like he’s able to do with death?”

  “He could, but granting a human life that isn’t meant to be is far more difficult than taking it. And if we had attempted such a thing, it might have drawn others’ attention to my plan. I already had a close call once before with the mare.”

  Pierce considered that. “Fuckin’ hell. I would’ve gotten someone else pregnant? Who?”

  Freya shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps some Gypsy girl in your little clan had you not been parted from them.”

  “Ah, aye, let’s have a chat about that, eh? It was you that day in Abney Park with the constables. You bloody well got me and Joaquin separated from our folks, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. I needed you both far from the safety of your family and out there in the world to conduct my plans.”

  He realized now why he and his brother never found the troupe, even when they reached the common gathering spots. Freya was always meddling.

  “And my life thread? Is that why you had Joaquin attack me?”

  “Your brother was only supposed to scare you off. Were it not for Fey’s protection and your blasted luck, he may have slain you, and therefore, damaging your thread right then. However, that was a very slim possibility, seeing as how the Fates needed to be absent from their realm for it to happen. It mattered not, for I already had someone to do the task for me.”

  “Tarquin Norwich,” he grumbled. “You set that up, too, eh?”

  “I did, thanks to my demon servant. He told me he’d stolen a book containing a spell that could catch the Fates. I was able to gain possession of the scroll that contained a copy of the spell from inside the Royal Library of Alexandria. The god helped me sell the scroll and the masks to your beloved Peachtree in an Egyptian marketplace. And when the time came, I simply led Tarquin to Peachtree.”

  Pierce did recall Indigo mentioning some odd duck at the marketplace who had urged him to buy the scroll that he later translated.

  “Joaquin and Katz’s intended lifespans were much shorter than your own,” Freya went on. “I needed to weaken your thread, and the only way I could do that was by getting the Fates out of their domain long enough for you to either be gravely wounded or die altogether. They may have mended your thread to bri
ng you back—which I assumed they would, those bleeding-heart bitches—but your thread would no longer have any merit.”

  “You never answered my question, though. The one I’d asked at Robert’s place?”

  “Which one?” she sighed. “There were so many.”

  “Why can’t you do me in personally? Here I stand. What’s holding you back?”

  “That goes back to the laws of the Priest. It’s in our bloodlines. Our connection makes us part of each other, for we are cut from the same cloth, as is the djinn. Indeed, an elf can kill an elf or witch, or a nymph can murder a mare, and so on. Anyone—demon, witch, elf, nymph, Trickster, and nightmare mare—can harm one another, but to create a djinn, those involved are forbidden to kill each another.”

  “You mean blood relations?” he said.

  “Indeed. In the eyes of the djinn, we are related.”

  “I see. Someone outside of our family circle has to do the deed, eh?”

  Pierce remembered the words spoken by the Shawnee Indian, Shyheim. “If I, or anyone outside your relations, kills you, the entire world will be in danger. It is stated in the rules written by the Priest.”

  “Yes, but I’d be more than happy to end you myself. Make no mistake about it,” she added matter-of-factly.

  “No cross communications here, love,” he said just as bitterly. “You mentioned the mare that gives nightmares. I met a mare once. She said she would find a way to have me killed and ruin your plan.”

  “Ah, yes, Mara. A snag occurred when she found out what I was doing. The mare sent a relation of yours—a wild elf—to execute you in order to stop me. I needed to hide you for a brief time. Njáll assisted me in finding a place.”

  “Pardon? You needed to hide me?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was this?”

  “You were much younger then. No older than twenty-four. I’m sure you have little memory of it. Only flashes here and there.”

  That invoked yet more questions, but he would never be able to ask any of them.

  “I’m truly sorry, Landcross. I wish there was another way. Do take solace in knowing that once I become a djinn, I plan to cast a protection spell over your family for generations to come. No harm will ever befall them.”

  “Unless you need something from them,” he seethed.

  She laughed and touched his cheek. He shirked, but her hand found his face again.

  “My dear, sweet boy. After tomorrow morning, I shall never need anything that I cannot manifest on my own.”

  “What about Kolt? Where is he?”

  “Get some rest now.”

  What she was suggesting about rest felt like a joke until his body suddenly weighed heavy with exhaustion.

  “Where is my son?” he said.

  As Freya left, he backed up against the wall and slid down it. The last sound he heard as he slid sideways to the floor was the door closing.

  Chapter Twenty

  Last Morning

  A grey morning greeted London, bringing with it thick, ominous fog and bitter cold.

  In Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Gregor Hunt—stage name Silas Blaylock—could not believe his luck! He was actually going to be performing before a large crowd that was already gathering at the gallows to witness the legendary Pierce Landcross meeting his demise at the end of a rope.

  Silas and his small entourage of helpers were setting up the loudspeakers and the talky transmitter on the platform of the scaffold. To either side of the scaffold, they had wired voltage pile batteries into the speakers encased in shiny redwood, a pair of yellow trumpet-shaped amplifiers erected on both sides of the speaker boxes. Four amplifiers would be enough to service the crowd, Silas surmised. After hooking up all the wires, the showman went over to the talky transmitter set up at the center of the stage. It stood on a skinny wooden stand supported by a wide flat base, and a single output cord was attached to the round grille on the top. That same wire ran down to connect with all the speaker box wires.

  Silas put his lips close to the grille. “Testing the sound. Testing.”

  His voice echoed out of the amplifiers and swept over the growing crowd. Some of them jumped and stared at him in amazement, clearly never having seen an invention such as this in action before. In truth, Silas was fortunate to have gotten the speakers. All of his life, he had scraped by, performing shows wherever he could for whatever pay he was offered. All that could change today. After many years of entertaining small audiences and drunks who never even remembered his name, he finally had a real shot at notoriety. He needed to hurry and dress, for soon it would be his time to shine!

  * * *

  Opening his eyes proved challenging. Kolt felt as if he hadn’t opened them in days. Everything was a blur and it was hard to focus. The inside of his mouth tasted foul and dry. He smacked his lips and groaned. It felt like a fist was banging against his skull.

  “Would you care for some water?” offered a woman.

  “Clover?” Kolt mumbled weakly.

  “No, cousin,” she said, her image coming into focus. “I’m Vela Bates.”

  “Was, cousin? Worüber redest du?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t speak German,” Vela admitted, walking off. “Let me fetch you water.”

  Kolt was baffled. He remembered waiting at the docks for Clover to return from France when someone grabbed him. He had breathed in some kind of chemical that he could only assume was chloroform. It still reeked about him. Afterward, he could recollect little. There were dreams—many of them. Sometimes, he heard voices. Only when he felt movements, such as a bump or dip as though he was traveling a rough road, did he realize he was waking up. During those times, a cloth saturated with chloroform was pressed against his face, and he dropped back down into the pool of dreams.

  Now, he was awake and in a strange place. He tried sitting up but found his wrists and ankles bound by leather buckles bolted to the wooden slab he was lying on.

  “I wish I could offer you something to eat.” Vela had returned, carrying a full glass of water. “But we have to fast, you and I. Our bodies must remain empty of any solids that aren’t our organs. That includes bowel movements, which Ron helped you with last night while you were asleep. Magic can do all sorts of things.”

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded, withdrawing when she tried to give him water. “What is going on? Why have you done this?”

  “It isn’t me. This is my mother’s doing. She has been planning this for many years.”

  “Who is your mother?”

  “In a former life, she was a nymph. Now, she is Mother of Craft.”

  “Bates,” he said, recalling the girl’s last name. “Freya Bates is your mother?”

  “She is.”

  “Th-that doesn’t make any sense. Why does she want me? I believed she was after Pierce Landcross.”

  “Mother wants him dead, yes, seeing how he’s your father. There can be only one parent left alive, unfortunately.”

  “My father? Landcross isn’t my father. My father’s name was Oskar Brune.”

  “My mother tricked your mother and stepfather into thinking they had you together. In truth, you were born nine months prior.”

  Naturally, he refused to believe this. “No, that isn’t right. That would make me seventeen. I just turned sixteen.”

  “You are seventeen, Kolt.”

  “You’re lying! Let me go! Help!”

  “Cry out all you want!” she screamed. “Nobody will hear you!”

  Her outburst made her seem frustrated and anxious. She sighed deeply, her fearful, watery violet eyes closing while she held the glass of water. She didn’t seem to mind that it had splashed up onto her hand and arm when she had yelled.

  After she calmed down, she opened her unique eyes. “We were born for this, Kolt. My mother made sure we came into the world for this purpose.”

  “What purpose?”

  “To merge and become a djinn.”

  He cringed with disgust. “W
hat do you mean ‘merge?’”

  “Through the Life-bringing Ceremony. Our bloodlines will unite to form a single ultimate being.”

  Vela seemed touched in the head. Even so, Kolt did his best to see this through her perspective. Obviously, she had been raised to believe this. Anyone taught something growing up was likely to accept it as truth. For years, he believed in Krampus, a horrid creature that severely punished misbehaving children around the Christmas season.

  “You’re mistaken. I’m not Pierce Landcross’s son, and we’re not going to merge into anything. I think it is best that you release me before trouble finds you.”

  The back door opened and in walked a man with short hair and pale skin. He wore an olive-colored jacket with matching britches and black, shiny shoes.

  “Such commotion,” he tutted in a bland tone of voice. “Vela, I spoke to your mother moments ago. She says we can begin.”

  Vela moved aside for the man, whom Kolt surmised was Ron.

  Ron stepped over to him. “Hello, Kolt. I have been waiting for years to meet you.”

  “Let me go,” Kolt demanded. “My mother will be sending the authorities out to look for me.”

  “Frederica is dead, I’m afraid. Killed on the night you were taken,” the man bluntly informed him, straightening his spine. “If it’s any consolation, she died quickly.”

  Kolt stared at him unblinkingly for a long moment. He quickly became angry with these people, who obviously had a few loose gears in their heads.

  “I want out of here!” he shouted, trying to break free of his bonds. “Let me go!”

  Ron touched Kolt’s forehead and when he did, Kolt’s muscles seized up and stopped working. He could not budge, and his head fell upon the table. He was completely paralyzed. He even lost the ability to speak. The only thing he could do was shift his eyes about.

  Ron lifted his hand. “That’s better. It will be best if you’re not thrashing and screaming while I conduct the ceremony.”

  Kolt’s fear had chased off the anger. He couldn’t move an inch. Worse yet, this display of force made him wonder if everything they had been telling him might be true.