He stood from his crouch and paced around the room. She took in the other faces of the Fae in the room, and found that they all varied in expression, some looked bored with Lorcan’s explanation, some were looking at her like she was Elvis Presley in their local Starbucks. But their bodies were all held at high alert.
“However, when Daeg, the son of Dagda, found his refuge in the Seelie Court, the result was, uh what is it you modern people say, that some of the shine wore off? Being in the presence of a god for so many centuries, the Seelie Court soon came to see him as just another Fae, one that was flawed at that. He sympathized with the plights of the Djinn and the Weres, crusading for their release from slavery, which was a view that was unheard of amongst the Fae. Soon they stopped worshiping the gods, believing that they were no better than the Fae, who ruled and governed all the other supernatural creatures of Europe.
“When Daeg was slain in a skirmish between the Seelie and Unseelie armies over some disagreement lost to the winds of time, they began to believe that perhaps their gods possessed feet of clay. Perhaps they weren't all powerful, but were as petty and jealous as the Fae themselves. So quietly, they began to sow the seeds of dissent. For the first time in millennium, most in the Seelie and Unseelie Courts were of a single mind. The Tuatha Dé Danann were the shackles that weighed down the Fae, that must be eradicated so that the Fae could rise up in their place as New Gods. According to their plan, the Courts would rule not only the Seelie and Unseelie creatures, but the Djinn and the Weres and eventually the human race. They would be gods that would walk amongst us, or so they believed." His eyes grew hard and his face was a mask of disdain. It was a disturbing expression on a face that would have made Botticelli weep.
"So they began to pick off the Tuatha Dé Danann, silently in the darkness of the night, while the Tuatha slept, like the cowards they are. At first they disguised the kills as accidents, or the work of humans. Eventually, as they'd picked off the strongest that still resided in Europe, they became more blatant in their genocide, until they were killing off the descendants of the Tuatha, like you. They have killed nearly every Tuatha Dé Danann in Europe and the Middle East, every man, woman and child who possessed even a drop of Tuatha blood. When the earth was almost drowning in Tuatha blood, they found that we are no longer tethered to the soil of Europe, that we’re now free to walk anywhere on Earth.”
He suddenly sprang up and grabbed Azar's hand, clutching it almost painfully. The wind roared to life as well, the scent of the desert sands on the air as it whirled between Azar and Lorcan. Apparently, Bast didn't like the idea of anyone manhandling his girlfriend.
Lorcan looked up at the roof, small debris scraping his ageless face. "Please, my elemental friend, I mean your lover no harm. I still adhere to the old ways. I believe that the Tuatha Dé Danann are necessary to the survival of all the inhabitants of Earth. That each one holds together the world in a small way, to help it continue turning. Your lover is a goddess, I would harm myself before I would harm her." The wind died down a little and Bast harrumphed in her head, still on edge.
"Jack is one of the last original children of Danu left. It is incredibly important that he survive. I do not know what would happen if he died, but I predict that the Earth will die with him. Already since the death of so many of Danu's children; natural disasters, famines, wars amongst the humans and Fae sects alike, have increased tenfold. The demise of the Green Man would be our final act of hubris." He looked her square in the eye. “But you are just as important. The small amount of power that the descendants possess is still integral in maintaining our world." He knelt in front of her, his head bowed in subservience. "This is why I must ask a great favor of you, if you will accept?"
Azar felt a bit shell-shocked really. It had been quite a tale, and a hell of a lot to absorb. She shook her head. "I will try, but I make no promises."
Lorcan nodded eagerly and motioned again for the guard, who disappeared out of the hut.
"It is of great importance, or I would not ask this of you." The guard returned, and his hand was on the shoulder of a boy who looked about ten. Lorcan stood and motioned the boy to his side. "This is Prince Neyvn, heir to the Golden Crown, the Seelie throne. He is also the last of Dagda's line."
"Not quite the last," Azar murmured. "I guess that makes us cousins,” she said to the boy, who appraised her with intelligent eyes in a cherubic face.
The boy bowed his head. “Greetings, Sister." His voice was clear, but it had the depth that promised he would have quite a deep voice when he grew into maturity. Azar bowed her head and returned the greeting, glad she was sitting down.
The last three days had been the weirdest of her life, and after the events of the last six months, that was really saying something. Lorcan motioned the boy away, and he went to swing on the hammock, like the child he was.
"I need you to take him, protect him. Living with a battalion of soldiers is no place for a child or someone who is to be revered in all things. He does not need to see the blood and the death any more. I rescued him from the Seelie Fae, but I was too late for his family." He let the statement hang there, and Azar knew what it meant. They had been killed during the Fae genocide.
Azar felt an overwhelming sadness for the little boy with the intelligent eyes. There would be no soothing lies to help him forget the bloodshed he'd seen. In that moment, Azar knew the answer would be yes. The irony that she'd been in this situation twice in a month didn't pass her by.
Maybe we should put out an advert. Foster care for supernatural entities on the run from assassins. No recompense needed. Bast’s words were light, but she knew that he too would be sickened by the murder of children.
We could take him to the Sterling Forest Pack, they would protect him.
We would owe them big time. You used up your favor with Freya. They aren’t supe equivalent of an unwanted baby drop bin at the fire station you know. You can't treat them as such. But he didn't disapprove of the plan.
She looked at Neyvn, swinging gently on the hammock, like a babe in a cradle, and she melted. She was getting soft, but she knew she would do what she could to protect him. He was safer with her than he was with his own kind. She looked at Lorcan and then at the boy. Maybe her hormones were on the fritz or something.
"We will care for him." The boy was returning her gaze intently. "After all, what is family for?"
Chapter 21
“You know, when most tourists come to Amazonia, they leave with mosquito bites and sometimes dengue fever, but I’ve never seen anyone come out with a pasty white kid before,” the boat driver yelled in heavily accented English above the roar of the boat’s engine.
Azar waved her hand in a non-committal gesture but her silence didn't slow the man down. He prattled on about his wife, boasted proudly that his son had gotten a scholarship to a college, much to his relief. His dog had puppies to that no good mutt who lived down the road. Azar had eventually tuned him out. Neyvn was pressed rigidly to her side in the small confines of the boat. The man’s chatter was relaxing in its inaneness, completely oblivious to the rumblings of change in the paranormal world. To him, genies, fairies, and werewolves were children’s tales, not potential overlords.
Neyvn shifted uncomfortably on the bench seat next to her and she resisted putting her arm around his shoulder. The kid had the cool royal etiquette down. He'd barely said two words to Azar since Lorcan left that morning, off to track down Jack and the rest of her party. He also promised to make sure there were no other Fae lurking on their tail. Before he left, he told her the only way Bast could regain his physical form was to get a poultice from a Fae healer. If the healer was strong enough in power, the poultice would break the spell that was embedded in Bast's body by the dagger. The real grind of the whole situation was that there were few healers left with that kind of power, and none that were opposed to the current Fae campaign of Djinn subjugation and Tuatha annihilation that Lorcan was aware of. Plus, there was a small chance that the nec
rosis had eaten away too much of Bast's body and he would never be able to regain his human body without dying almost instantly. Bast had been very quiet after that conversation.
They'd been on the boat for hours now, and the sun beat down on them unrelentingly. The glare off the water was starting to sting her eyes. At some point the boat driver had even fallen silent. She knew she should be trying to build a rapport with the kid, but she didn't know what to say to a child who had seen his whole family slaughtered, that had been amongst a small army for months, and had now been dumped with a complete stranger who had no idea about his culture or people. She thought her childhood had been rough. Her mind scrambled to think of what little boys were even interested in, let alone Fae children.
"Do the Fae have pets?" She said in a normal level over the wind. The boatman wouldn’t hear from the back of the boat, plus he would probably write it off as a mishearing. Humans were very good at seeing and hearing what they wanted. Neyvn's head whipped around, and he looked at her like she'd lost her mind. She guessed it may have been a rather random first conversation to have with someone, but hey, she was working under duress here.
"Yes, most Fae have an affinity for animals, and the royal families have Weres as companions and servants." Azar grimaced. That wasn't going to go over well with the Pack. She made a mental note to have a long conversation about the expectations of the paranormals outside of Europe when they got back to the States.
"Did you have a pet?" she asked, keeping her tone light.
"I had a companion since birth, a Werefalcon named Tino. He was killed." He looked out over the water, so he missed her horrified expression. This was the conversational equivalent of the Titanic.
"I'm really sorry to hear that. And about your family. And the fact that the two Courts turned out to be such dicks."
Neyvn cocked his head to the side and stared at her, like a child would look at a crazy person on the street. Completely non-judgmental curiosity. Azar tried to keep the conversational ball rolling. After all, she'd come this far. "When I was a street rat in Madrid, I shared my box with a mangy dog. He stunk, but he was warm. Every night at dusk he'd come and lay with me in the box, and every morning he was gone when I woke up. He saved me from some bad situations more than once. Sometimes, we'd share food, if we found enough that day. One night, he didn't come back, or the next night, or the one after that. I moved on after that. It just didn't feel as safe to be in that alley without him." She cleared the lump in her throat. She hadn't thought about the mutt in decades. "That's probably the closest I’ve ever come to having a pet."
Neyvn stared at her with his round child eyes. "Where was your family?"
Ah, this isn't how she wanted to bond with the kid, over mutually horrific childhood stories, but she answered anyway. "My mother died when I was five and I lived in an orphanage until I was too old and they kicked me out. But I survived, and eventually I got to a place where I was happy. I only met my father this year, by accident really. Now, I have family coming out my ears." She gave the boy a smile, and he returned it halfheartedly. She patted his knee. "So tell me, what is your favorite thing to do? I like to fly now. When I switch forms, I have fiery wings." And as she knew he would be, the boy was impressed.
He had a million questions about flying, about changing forms, and she in turn asked him questions about hunting, which apparently a lot of Fae children did, about his magic and the rituals of the Fae. Turned out, it was Neyvn who sensed her essence in the Faery circle, a gift from his Tuatha heritage. He asked her what her gift was, but as far as she knew, the Tuatha blood in her veins was far more watered down than Neyvn's. She didn't have any talents other than those of the Djinn, she told him ruefully. The boy shrugged it off, like only kids can do, and continued to chatter. Now that she'd brought him out of his shell, she enjoyed his conversation long into the afternoon, before the boy yawned, and his head nodded to his chest, his eyes closed.
Azar gently pulled him onto her shoulder so he wouldn’t crick his neck, and sent out her thoughts to Bast, who was floating around in the atmosphere ahead of them, searching the jungle for any more unwelcome surprises.
Any more of this babysitting business, and you'll want one of your own, he joked, although there was a hard edge to his words.
Not likely, I'll be too old once the servitude is up. Plus, I thought there were rules about interracial procreation. She unconsciously rubbed the spot where the Anadari Bracelets should have been. It wouldn't happen if the love of her life was unable to become corporeal either, but she kept that to herself.
Bast didn't reply, and she felt him leave her mind. The loss of his physical form was hard on him. The sooner they got everything sorted and bribed a Fae healer to unspell his wound, the better. The physical weight of his sadness was crushing them.
She knew they were coming back into civilization, as the bank of the river exposed more tiny pontoon docks, and simple huts. She reached into the side pocket of her pack and pulled out her cellphone. They'd finally be coming into some service soon, and she wanted to call the compound as soon as she could. There was a sense of urgency riding her, and she knew better than to argue with her gut.
The boatman, who's name she'd discovered hours back was Luiz, guided them into the dock next to his hut. It was on the outskirts of Lábrea, on the poor side of town. Their Jeep was still parked next to the dock, and Azar felt her muscles cramp as she stood up in the boat. She checked her phone, but this far out of town there was still no service.
Neyvn stood up and shifted Bast's pack onto his back, and it all but dwarfed him. If it wasn't for his preternatural strength, she was fairly sure the kid would have tipped backwards and landed in the river.
She'd bargained for a lift to town with Luiz for another handful of US dollars, which he was happy to accept. She also gave him a couple of hundred more to keep making the trek down the river every couple of days.
Luiz had merely laughed. “If you come back with a white kid, I can’t wait to see what souvenirs the others came back with.” The guy was being paid well, in US dollars at that, and Azar knew that he would happily make the trip up and down the river for the rest of his life, if the money kept rolling in.
Azar knew when she'd reached cell service, because her phone notifications went nuts, pinging every second. Most were missed calls and voicemails from Oliver, a couple from Donovan and several from the Sterling Forest Pack. Her stomach knotted with dread, but first she had to call into the compound, report the attack, and relay Danu's premonitions.
She called Killian's number, but it rang out. Then she called Mira's cell, and got a recorded message that the number was unavailable. A cold sweat broke out on her skin as she called back Oliver.
"Thank fucking God! I've been so worried," Oliver’s strained voice came over the line, relief pouring out in waves. Azar felt relief too. A little bit of her anxiety ebbed away at the sound of his voice.
"What’s up? I've been away on a mission, remember? I have to come back early but I can't get a hold of anyone. Bast needs help," she choked out.
There was an eerie silence at the end of the line. "I have to tell you something, Az.” He drew in a deep breath. “The New York Adel compound was attacked yesterday. The whole place was set on fire, and collapsed. The Weres have rallied trying to find any survivors, but so far we've only been able to drag out remains. The Fae somehow sealed the doors and windows with magic. No one could get out, they’re just there, crushed against the glass," his voice broke a little. "I knew you were on a mission, but I thought you might have been in there. You didn't say how long you were going to be gone, and then I couldn't get you on the phone…" he trailed off, his voice gravelly with emotion.
The premonition from Danu surged into her mind. People trapped behind glass doors. They were the Djinn. Her friends and her enemies. Her family. Bile rose in her throat as she thought about the other piece of Danu's predictions. Dead wolves in the forest. Fuck!
"Oliver, listen to me. Yo
u have to get the wolves to leave the forest. I don't have time to explain, but please, get them to find a safe place to lie low or they'll all die." She shot a look at Luiz in the driver’s seat, who was listening in intently. "The others broke their word, they are coming for them before the week of grace is up. Try and get the word out to the other clans. Please Oliver, I can't lose you too." Not like she'd lost Bast, a small part of her mind filled in the gap. She clenched her jaw and pushed the thought down. She hadn't lost Bast yet, and she wouldn’t. She refused to give up on him without a fight.
She reached out for Bast with her mind. Did you hear all that? She pushed down the rising panic, her training, both from being a firefighter, and with Killian, kicking in. There was time to panic later.
Yes. We must get back to the States as quickly as possible. Apparently, a lack of body didn't make you less of a commanding presence. She had her orders.
"A menina, you are awfully pretty to be a spy." Luiz gave her a hard look from the driver’s seat.
Azar shook her head weakly, still trying to take in everything Oliver had told her. "I'm not a spy."
"What are you then? Black Ops? Os militares?"
Azar gave a hard laugh, imagining Luiz's face if she told him exactly what she was, better yet, showed him what she was. Instead she gave the old man her most innocent smile.
The Azar Omnibus: The Complete Azar Trilogy (The Azar Trilogy Book 0) Page 43
