“They won’t kill us,” said Vic.
Johnathan looked at him. “You’re serious.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here? They might need a pet.”
Johnathan clenched his jaw. “Don’t accept any food. Acquiesce to a dance, but don’t dance too long. Refuse further invitation through my own will.”
“You listened,” Vic said softly.
“Ridiculous as I find this whole exercise, it is never wise to ignore instruction.”
“I guess Society training has its merits.”
“Do shut up,” said Johnathan. He peered back through the trees, but the hint of antlers was gone. “It might have only been a deer.”
“Doubtful,” Vic muttered.
“Pastor Shaw will be put out by the destruction of his buttons,” remarked Johnathan. He frowned. “It’s the middle of the day.”
“Last time I looked.”
“Don’t fairies wait until the light of the blue moon or some other such nonsense before they reveal themselves to mortals?”
“Those are stories, John. This is the real thing, and they follow their own rules.” Vic inhaled deep for patience. “You’re from Boston, yes? Lots of Irishmen there. And you’ve obviously heard a tale or two.”
Johnathan thought of Dr. Evans. He was the son of an Irish immigrant, and sometimes, after too many drinks, he rambled off stories from his father’s homeland.
“What makes you think their legends aren’t as real as vampires?” Vic went on. “Every land has its lore, Johnathan, but understand that the inhabitants of such places aren’t bound by map lines. Just as fairies are accessible in the cairns of Ireland, they’re also accessible here, in a creepy woodland in Maine.”
Vic released his hold on the pastor’s much-abused coat and followed an unseen path, straight and true. Johnathan followed in his footsteps, wary and more than a little skeptical of the forest around them. Flashes of movement flicked through the corners of his vision, flights of brightly colored feathers, darting shapes with strange edges, but when he jerked his head around to look, nothing was there.
The first trickle of true unease slid through him. Johnathan’s steps quickened to catch up to Vic. “When you said you had a lead to track down the other day, was this who you were referring to?”
“They are difficult to find,” said Vic, “but you can if you know how to look.”
“Did you find them?” The woods filled with muted sounds, baseless words and whispers that blended with the wind rustling through the leaves.
There was a snort from the vampire beside him. “No. I know they are here, but they’re being difficult.”
The wind teased Johnathan’s senses, laden with sweet, fragrant scents—fresh blooming lilacs, honeysuckle, moss after rain—cut with the clean cold scent of new-fallen snow and something else, raw and sharp, that left a taste of metal on the tongue, both repellent and tantalizing. He lifted his face, trying to fill his lungs with the scent, turning to follow it.
“I fully intended to spend days out here…if necessary,” said Vic. “I will find them one way or another.”
The tension seeped out of Johnathan’s muscles, so relaxed, the pain in his shoulder faded to a dull ache. Was that singing?
“The problem is…” said Vic, his voice whisper soft.
Johnathan was only half listening. He’d turned away from Vic as he searched for that distant music. If he listened hard, he could make out the tune, a half-remembered lullaby from a mother whose face he couldn’t remember. His lids dropped, his body swaying to the long-forgotten song.
“They like to play hard to get. I’ll run them to ground eventually,” Vic continued. “If I were human, it would be a bit easier but—” The vampire sucked in a breath. “Johnathan, stop!”
Johnathan staggered. The song choked and died, replaced by a roar in his head. Irritation simmered at a low boil as he looked up at the vampire. “Did you use me as bait? Again?”
Vic took a step back, a bewildered look of alarm on his face. “No! I didn’t expect them to show up this fast.” He frowned. “Normally they would lead us in circles for hours yet.”
Johnathan’s brows lifted. “Does that make this a trap or an invitation?”
Vic made a face, clearly unsettled. “Neither option is good. They wouldn’t freely invite someone like me into their midst. I’d have to pry my way in.”
Johnathan’s brows drew together. “Because of what you are?”
Vic looked away, the faintest flush tinging his cheeks. “I told you. They don’t like my kind. I’m not vulnerable to their glamour, therefore I’m boring, but eventually they would come for me, make a game of it. For you, they’ve left the door open.” He gestured with a small flourish to Johnathan’s left.
Johnathan looked. The trees were crooked, bent into a semicircle that formed a small clearing. Sunlight streamed down on a ring of wild mushrooms. Toadstools, their broad flat heads still glistening with morning dew. Parents would warn their children in playful rhymes not to dance in a fairy ring lest the fairies steal them away. Nothing more than a bedtime story or a cautionary tale to keep their little ones from wandering too far into the woods, but as Johnathan stood there, a physical hum vibrated against his skin, making the fine hairs on his arms stand on end.
The song led him here.
“I found this,” he whispered.
“Yes. And now, you should go back,” said Vic. “I don’t like this. They’re too eager with you here.”
That warning again. He turned to tell Vic to knock it off and stopped. The vampire looked terrified. He hid it well, but Johnathan and fear were old friends. He saw that fear in the very lines of Vic’s body. He saw it where tension flared in blanched white spots over tightly curled knuckles and pressed lips. There was a dangerous vulnerability there that made Vic look even younger, the delicate angles of his face softer.
Johnathan looked away, disconcerted by the mix of emotions such a sight stirred within him.
“We go together,” he said. “Watch out for each other.” He looked up. Vic stared at him as if he’d never seen him before.
“John,” he said, a hesitant note thick in his voice. “What you see in here, they’re cruel, and they smell secrets. They’ll say things, about you, about me. I should tell you that my past—”
“You take too long,” a sibilant voice hissed. It shivered through the leaves in a wave of frost-kissed darkness. Johnathan didn’t see the hands that grabbed him, gasping as they wrapped around his waist and yanked him through the shimmering air. The portal immediately coalesced in his wake like a closing door. They meant to separate him from the vampire.
“Vic!” Johnathan cried out.
He extended both arms, reaching blind. Panic siphoned his pain. A wide-eyed Vic hurtled through the opening, and slammed into Johnathan, snarling at whatever creature had hold of him. A fearsome predatory reaction, but the unseen creature answered with a simpering high-pitched giggle that made the hair on the back of Johnathan’s neck rise.
The air solidified behind Vic, and realization sank deep. They were trapped, and now Johnathan could see the arms around him.
He made a sound in the back of his throat at the sight of slick, silvery scales, like fish skin covering thin arms. Rawboned fingers pressed into his belly tipped in long claws that came to fine black points. The arms pulled him flush against another body, cold, far colder than the vampire. One claw-tipped hand released his middle to stroke his cheek.
“What a wonderful toy you’ve brought us, little liar,” purred the creature, a hissing lisp that made the words skitter like dried leaves over frozen water. One claw dragged along Johnathan’s throat in a thin burning line that scented the air with his blood. “I wonder how he tastes.” A touch of ice flitted against the cut.
Vic’s hand shot out over Johnathan’s shoulder. “I didn’t bring him here to share,” he said through his teeth.
The thing chuckled, releasing Johnathan. He practically fell
on Vic, who caught him with grace and spun him around to see. He dearly wished Vic hadn’t bothered. Vaguely, he pondered the stories he’d heard of fairies being beautiful. Though he supposed there was a sort of terrible beauty to the fairy, the same way a river snake was beautiful as its serpentine body moved through the water. Once his vision adjusted to such a sight, he noticed the others standing around in a rough assembly, a waiting audience of nightmarish features and finery, fixated on their guests. The gathered assembly was all there was to this place, this pocket of another world, with no exit in sight.
Chapter Nineteen
Johnathan’s muscles went rigid.
“You must calm,” Vic whispered in his ear.
The fairies tittered at Vic’s words, sharp edges to their gleaming smiles. Johnathan looked away, trying to gain his bearings in their new surroundings. A mistake. Beyond the spit of lush green grass and a dancing floor of polished black and white stone, the world fell away, a stomach-turning mash of angles and color. Smears of what could almost be tree trunks lumped together with rock, shot through with glittering veins that pulsed a dozen colors in the seconds he watched, so fast the sight would break his equilibrium if he stared a moment longer. The realm of the fairies felt unfinished, as if they couldn’t be bothered to create the details of their realm beyond what they desired in the moment.
He tore his gaze away from the scenery, focusing on the beings that brought them to this incomplete place. The weight of the log hook was gone, these creatures being unlikely to allow any weapon that would hurt them into their realm. Its absence deepened his trepidation.
The closest creature, a being of brazen color like living fire, smiled at Johnathan. They all possessed that otherworldly quality about them, stalking around Johnathan and Vic in an elegant swish of skirts made from impossible material, cobweb trains, and jewel-toned flower petals sewn like sequins. Their limbs all held the same brittle quality of spun glass. A strong breeze could break them. Johnathan couldn’t think of a greater lie. Ethereal and airy, he saw flashes of massive dragonfly wings, like paper-thin stained glass, folded neatly along the backs of several creatures. Others bore scales, short fur, or stomach-churning combinations of both. They were a collection of glamorous nightmares, and Johnathan found his gaze riveted to each of them. A flash of feverish sweat beaded his brow as he shivered.
“Has the little liar returned?” This voice was discordant, echoing within itself. A new being stepped into view, the gathered fairies parting for her like an arriving debutante.
Johnathan’s breath left him in a rush. Her face was child-sweet, a deceptive facade to a body constructed of soft lush curves. She peered at them with liquid-dark eyes, like a curious doe, her head tilted while her weaving steps created a purposeful hypnotic dance. The dress that clung to her body was light lavender that seeped into deeper shades of red and violet, like a deep sweet bruise. A promise of violence flowed in liquid waves down her body and pooled on the ground at her feet. Her movements shimmered in Johnathan’s vision until she swam into focus in front of him, where she lifted a hand so her nails could trace the curve of his face.
“I like this one,” she said. Her quiet voice reverberated in the space around him until he imagined she spoke two different sentences at once.
Johnathan could almost understand the other voice if he listened harder.
He leaned in closer to her, brought up short by Vic’s arm around his chest. Johnathan frowned and tried to push forward. A smile curled her lips as she watched him struggle. It sent a spike of fear down his spine. He stiffened in Vic’s hold.
“Stop it,” he whispered to the strange female.
Vic hissed behind him.
The fairy threw back her head and laughed, the high and mocking call of a crow, her bow-shaped lips parted to reveal a mouth of sharp, black- stained teeth. The sight of those teeth wavered in his vision until the smile she gave him was white, pure as fresh snow. The hand she extended was fine boned, but normal.
Johnathan’s mind swam in the thick scent of lilacs and something else, something he couldn’t name but stung his senses and pricked behind his eyes.
“Come, dance with me,” she said, the echo of her voice melting into a humming song that pounded through his skull, carrying a beat too primal to ignore.
Vic released a long breath behind him and the arm around his chest went slack.
Johnathan took her hand. She led him through the cluster of watching faces and dazzling finery, the grass beneath their feet shifting seamlessly to polished stone. The rhythm throbbed in his bones.
He tugged the woman’s hand until she glanced back, puzzled. Johnathan spun her inward, his body flowing in a sinuous dance he’d learned from a childhood of bonfire nights, when bodies danced around an altar of flames that lapped at their shadows. She laughed in clear delight when Johnathan took the lead in a high energy dance of spins and dips. The music went on without end, the pulse of it demanding, and Johnathan might have heeded the call until he dropped from exhaustion. Pain pierced through the fog choking his mind. He stopped, panting; the surrounding fairies wavered out of focus. The fairy leaned back in his arms, laughing high and wild with her black-stained teeth, her hands clutching him.
She straightened, a cruel smile playing on her lips. “You smell of death and sweet nectar.” Her breath washed over him, trying to drown him in the thick, sickly floral scent, entwined with that pungent, eye-watering underlay. “Care for another dance, my sweet Johnny boy?”
In a vise of pain and anger, the illusion snapped, and Johnathan beheld a nightmare in his arms. Her flawless skin withered and sloughed away in seconds to unveil a creature of rot and ruin. Those liquid black eyes melted away to squirming pits of maggots, and the scent of decay punched through the floral perfume.
“Come,” said Death with a black rot smile. “Dance with me.”
Johnathan froze, his mind unable to process the vision. In a blink, the horror was gone, but the truth rang through his senses.
A fist squeezed his lungs. Vic’s warning clamored in his skull. He jolted back from her, unable to draw a breath. Clarity bloomed, the pain of his injuries breaking through the fairy’s influence on his mind.
“No, thank you,” said Johnathan. Pain was the answer, a secret weapon against their devious tactics. He took another step away from the fairy. The blind retreat might have led him into more waiting claws, but Vic appeared beside him, sliding his hand into Johnathan’s, braiding their fingers together. The pressure eased enough for Johnathan to breathe. The female pouted, and for a bare breath Johnathan glimpsed the shadow of that rotted visage once more.
He shivered and looked up into Vic’s silvered gaze. “What?”
Vic’s gaze darted, a question on his lips, but they were surrounded by too many keen ears. Instead, the vampire squared his shoulders and faced the fairies. “Will you answer our questions?”
The one who danced with Johnathan stepped forward, tapping a nail against her lips. “Will your answers be worth the price? Will your pretty companion give—”
“I ask the questions,” said Vic. The pressure of his hand drew Johnathan’s focus back to the vampire. Vic trembled where he stood, nostrils flaring. He licked his lips. “Are you murdering the girls of Cress Haven and Hampshire?”
Johnathan frowned. Why risk their wrath with a borderline accusation? But the fairy woman laughed, echoed by the ghastly gathered lot.
“Oh, little liar, what use would we have with such distasteful business?” She circled them, the dual tone of her voice a low lull. Her fingers danced along the back of Vic’s shoulders. “Now why would a fiend involve themselves in such matters?”
Vic’s smile was a baring of teeth. “You haven’t answered my question.”
The fairy woman’s smile twisted into a sneer. “How should we know the fate of every hapless mortal that wanders these woods? Humans are such fragile things.” Her gaze flickered to Johnathan, a predatory hunger in its black depths.
“T
hat’s still not an answer,” said Vic.
The fairy woman snarled. Her rotted visage flickered through as she snapped her teeth in Vic’s face. The vampire held completely still.
“Such a wicked little boy,” the fairy cooed.
Johnathan frowned. Her words made his ears buzz. His gaze slipped to the tight expression on Vic’s face, following the graceful curve of his jaw and admiring the smooth skin. Vic was a beautiful man, though Johnathan never allowed himself to look for too long, afraid he would never stop looking. He’d never really…not really…let his gaze linger, not when the prejudice he carried from boyhood colored their every interaction. Johnathan could see the faint lines of age around Vic’s eyes, faded like scars by the transition from human to vampire.
Why call him boy, though?
Beneath the hunger in their faces, the moment gained weight in a dreadful creep of awareness. Vic told him they demanded secrets, and it was clear now that Johnathan’s presence provided them with another significant entertainment factor.
It dawned on Johnathan that the fairy was not speaking of Vic at all. He glanced at the fairy from the corner of his eye, her ravenous gaze riveted to him even as she wove around Vic.
Dread burned the back of his neck. Johnathan quickly donned the same stone-faced facade he used as Sir Harry’s pawn.
Vic turned to face the fairy woman, jaw so tight the vampire spoke through clenched teeth. “I told you, I am the one asking the questions. If you attempt to exact payment from my companion, I shall invoke the old rites.”
Dark delight bloomed on the fairy woman’s face. “No, I did not kill the girls.”
Johnathan saw a muscle twitch in the vampire’s face, and he saw how the question went sideways. A very careful answer, a very specific answer, that told them absolutely nothing except that this one creature was not responsible.
The fairy woman danced her fingers down Vic’s chest, the only warning before the silken coat and cloth layers beneath turned brittle and began to peel away like dried onion skins. Vic hissed and wrenched free of Johnathan’s grip, trying and failing to catch the rotted cloth as it fell. Nearly exposed, the vampire held the remaining scraps in place.
A Bargain of Blood and Gold Page 15
