by Domino Finn
"Throok," chimed the satyr.
Us guys tugged at the knife, ignoring her, eyes locked in an impromptu staring contest. Sure he was seven feet tall and put my ample muscles to shame but, damn it, I would beat him if he just blinked.
"Throok," repeated the girl.
The minotaur spun around and the line of shadow wrapped across his back, as if he could use leverage to free it. Maybe he could. I strained against his power. Cutting and running back up the rabbit hole was starting to sound awfully good. You might think the DROP team was a headache, but you've never dealt with silvans before.
The satyr balled her hands into fists and stomped on the floor. "THROOK!" she screamed.
The minotaur and I finally turned to her.
"What the crap is a throok?" I prodded.
The minotaur grumbled, and the satyr composed herself and smiled. "Not a what, wizard. A who. Throok is my bodyguard."
My eyes wandered to the seven-foot-tall steroid machine. "You're Throok?"
I blinked. Damn.
"Put your kukri away, Throok," she said.
His muscles remained tense. "He's seen you. That information is valuable."
I knotted my brow. "To who? I wouldn't know who to ask or what to say."
Believe me, the last thing I wanted was to get involved in silvan politics. The various circles perpetuate endless feuds and plots against each other. Besides, silvans don't really have currency. They trade and barter. Sure, they might hoard the occasional treasure, but they usually deal in favors.
"We can use him," she said. "He's talented."
"He's dangerous," answered Throok.
"If he weren't he wouldn't be useful."
The minotaur grumbled. He did that a lot.
"Guys," I said, relaxing my stance, "would you quit talking about me like I wasn't here?"
The satyr girl smiled and rested delicate fingers on Throok's arm. "Sheathe your blade."
He frowned and turned to me. "Release my weapon."
"You won't attack me?"
"I swear it. Not until it is again unsheathed."
I was floored by his generous pledge. That bought me, what, three seconds of life? Still, looking into the satyr's large eyes, I thought I'd found my common ground. I opened my fist and the shadow dissolved.
Throok regained his balance and hooked the blade over his back. I stayed ready, expecting him to immediately unsheathe it, but his hand came away empty.
The satyr smiled and patted his arm. "That wasn't so bad," she consoled, hopping over to me. She put a dainty hand on my shoulder, leaned close, and winked. "You see?"
I tried not to flinch away from the silvan. She looked real cute (besides the half-horse thing) but that didn't mean she was innocent. The wild folk are famed tricksters but, again, I was relying on the age-old wisdom that satyrs were benevolent.
"My name's Ceela," she said. She did this cute thing where her nose wiggled when she said her name. Adorable.
The minotaur grunted.
Okay, Cisco, stay focused. I didn't want to be known as the famous outlaw who fell victim to a wink.
"What brings you here?" asked Ceela.
I shrugged. "Why? This your land?"
She giggled. "The Margins of the Nether are owned by no one, and there are plenty more wild lands still. No, our dominion is much deeper."
I nodded. Any portions of the Nether that connected to the Earthly Steppe were easily susceptible to outside invasion. Not the most stable place to set up a homestead, but it was all I'd ever seen of the realm.
"He's running," observed the minotaur. "Out of breath, soaking wet. He brings trouble."
Ceela's eyes widened in fascination. "Is this true?"
"Hardly," I said. "Cisco Suarez doesn't run. He merely avoids when convenient." She raised an eyebrow. Glad I was so amusing. "I don't want to hurt the police," I added.
Throok brought his head back. "An outlaw."
"In the technical sense, sure, but it's more of a flashy title. The important thing is the police officers aren't animists and they can't enter the Nether. They'll be gone in a jiffy."
Ceela hummed a singsong melody and strolled around me before coming full circle back to her bodyguard. "What do we care for the justice of Earthly authorities? You can stay in our hole."
"I thought you said it wasn't yours."
She hunched her slender shoulders and I thought her sash would fall off. She was so skinny I wondered what kept it on. I didn't see a tie in the back or anything. Of course, only real clothes needed such trappings. Silvans could shift their appearance slightly with magic. They couldn't exactly alter their features willy-nilly, but they could change their dress and appear more human at times. I wondered if her meager clothes were some kind of illusion.
No, if it was spellcraft that implied it could be dispelled. This was innate magic. A glamour. Probably as automatic to them as breathing.
"This place is not ours," amended Ceela. "I merely mean to say you can pass freely as you will."
I nodded. "Good to hear 'cause I was thinking I'd take off." I stepped toward the bright light of the rabbit hole.
"Wait," rushed the satyr. "Sit. Stay a while."
Throok cleared his throat. "We do not have time for this, Ceela."
She waved him off. "Don't you see? We can help each other."
"Whoa," I cut in. "Let's get something straight. I don't need your help. I only came down here by accident and it's already getting claustrophobic in here, but maybe that's on account of the seven-foot-tall bull-man."
Throok considered reaching for his knife. Ceela waved him off.
"You can slip away," she said. "I don't doubt that much after seeing your magic with my two eyes. But what happens the next time your authorities come knocking? They won't likely forget about you, will they? What's to stop them from knocking tomorrow night? Or the next?" She leaned into me again and did that nose-wiggle thing. Really playing up the cute angle. "I can make them forget your place forever."
I took a step back. Human interaction with silvans is the stuff of history, much of it clouded by legend, so it's hard to know definitively what they're capable of. The last thing I wanted to do was endanger the police officers, but if they could just... forget? Things would be safer for everyone.
"You won't hurt them?"
"We know better than to harm humans in their steppe."
"You've never been to their steppe," corrected the minotaur.
She rolled her eyes. "Maybe I keep secrets even from you, Throok."
He scoffed. "It's goes against the Table of Oak to mingle with humans before your seventeenth name day."
"Before your—" I dropped my jaw. "What are you, sixteen? You're not even old enough to..."
She winked at me.
"Drink," I finished. I turned to Throok. "What about you?"
He raised his head high. "I am a full adult. Seventeen."
I slapped my hand to my forehead. "Look, I really wasn't expecting to babysit..."
"Don't ridicule us," said Ceela. "Silvans mature early and quickly. Many of us have full charges at seventeen, and many are married before even that."
"But you're just kids. I can't ask you to go out there and risk yourself for me."
Throok chuckled, but Ceela answered. "We were on our way to your steppe anyway when you interrupted us," she said. "We will appear human to your kind, if we allow them to see us at all."
I sighed. The offer was tempting and I was out of objections, but I knew there was a catch. "What do you want in return?"
"Simple," she chimed. "Pretend you never saw us. We weren't here."
"That's it?"
Throok grumbled but she ignored him.
"That's it. Sit tight and give us time to bedazzle your law enforcement above. We'll move on and disappear into the Everglades. You'll likely never see us again."
If only. How could I turn that down? "Fine," I said, relenting. "Deal."
She smiled and tapped me on the shoulde
r again. This time I did flinch. "Where is your home?" she asked.
"It's a boathouse. Just go up the swamp, halfway to the road. The police will be there, though."
She nodded like I had just asked her to pick up a Big Mac. "Your authorities will be no problem. They'll pack up and not think on your haven again."
She put her lips to her palm and blew a kiss my way. Throok growled under his breath, but she grabbed his arm and led him away. They took two steps up the rabbit hole before the light consumed them. I wondered if they'd tumble on their asses on the other side like I had.
With the silvans gone, I was alone in the cavern. It seemed spacious now, with a ceiling higher than Throok could reach. I wondered which of the two passages they had come from, which dominions lay which way. I didn't know much about silvan circles, but I knew enough that I didn't want to go exploring.
I sat on my haunches and frowned. Maybe the lack of sunlight was making me grumpy. Maybe Throok used to be a jovial fellow. What there were no maybes about was that something was wrong.
I'd surprised the silvans. One wanted me dead, the other wanted me alive. Throok was worried that I'd seen them. He was shocked that Ceela might've violated the Oak Table and visited the Earthly Steppe before, yet that's what they were about to do anyway. That meant they were up to something. Desperate times, perhaps. I suddenly got the feeling that I wasn't the only one running.
Something scratched my butt. I figured I was sitting on an ant trail or something. When I checked beneath me, a black spider skittered away.
I jumped, and I mean JUMPED. I hate spiders. Really hate them. In my book, nothing with more than four legs deserves to live, but I can give some things a pass. Ladybugs, octopuses, grasshoppers—they don't bother me. Then again, none of those things lay eggs in your eyeball while you sleep.
I scrambled to my feet and wiped my jeans. My tank top. I upended my boots and checked my socks. I was good. I could share an underground cavern with a single spider, right?
Except there were two spiders. And three when I really looked. They weren't giant anansi trickster spiders or anything (believe me, I've dealt with those). They were tiny, normal spiders. Sometimes those are the worst kind.
I backed up to the wall, wondering if I'd stayed in the Nether long enough for the silvans to do their thing. I should've left, but I didn't. When I glanced at the passageway and saw a lanky woman wearing a long, white gown, I knew I'd lost my chance.
Chapter 6
The woman clutched the edge of the hallway as if to hide around it. It was a useless gesture. She was thin, but there was simply no place to go.
I was pressed against the wall myself. I manifested enough courage to unglue my ass and did my best to ignore the spiders on the floor. My pained face must've been obvious because the woman in the white dress giggled. I was a regular comedy act down here.
I cleared my throat. "It's nothing," I said, trying to sound tough. "Don't be afraid. They're just spiders."
She didn't move and I figured it was me she was afraid of.
"I'm Cisco Suarez. What's your name?"
She blinked at me. "Are you lost?"
"I guess I am," I answered in a jovial tone. "You can come out. I won't hurt you."
She smiled but her eyes were still tense. I beckoned with my hand. She glanced behind her before easing away from the wall.
Her nightgown was a lot more formal than I'd expected from the Nether. It covered the length of her legs, only revealing bare feet when she stepped ahead. Her waist was wrapped in a corset which left her shoulders bare. Her arms were skinny and undernourished, and her face was one that could've been pretty but circumstance had made plain. Her long black hair was straight but tattered, thin as a thread. I couldn't put my finger on it. Something about this woman was sad.
"I get lost too, sometimes," she said. Her skin and dress were smudged with dirt. I couldn't blame her, down here. Hell, I'd just gone for a dip in a swamp.
"What about now?" I asked.
She looked over her shoulder again but didn't answer.
One of the spiders on the floor got too close and I kicked it away.
"Don't do that!" she exclaimed. She hurried forward on her haunches. The woman cupped her hands around the black spider and then produced it in her palm. I grimaced. "It's a living thing, with its own job to do."
Yeah, like freak me out. She must've seen my discomfort because she set it down at the edge of the cavern. "It's special in its own way. All of us are. Each with our own story."
I couldn't tell if that was an invitation to ask about hers. Can I read women or what?
She watched my befuddled expression and gathered the confidence to approach. She was tall. I mean, not Throok tall, but she met me eye to eye. I wondered if she was human. Slim odds, down here.
"You don't talk much," she deduced.
"I keep up an inner monologue."
She smiled and wiped dirt from her cheek. There were lines of grime under her short fingernails. The woman had the mannerisms of a child but, even though I couldn't place her age, was much older than that. As I considered her, we heard panting sounds coming from the passage and she glanced behind her.
What now?
"Grettle," came a nasally voice. A man appeared in the opening she'd come through, but he was anything but. He was a faun. Half goat, half man. This was beginning to feel like a chapter of Alice in Wonderland.
Shorter than the satyr, more hunched over, the faun's winding ram horns made up for his loss in stature. He had shaggy, brown goat-legs with cloven hooves, a bare torso except for tufts of hair on his shoulders and forearms, and wore a leather skirt and belt. You see what I mean about clothes in the Nether?
Unlike the satyr, the faun's face was less human. Not completely goatlike, but animalistic, with a flattened nose, orange eyes with those freaky goat pupils, and exposed fangs. He flicked his pointed ears when he saw me and stroked his goat beard. His other hand held what looked like a cross between a hatchet and a boomerang, carved out of bone.
"You can't run off like that, Grettle," he chided. The faun approached us warily. He clamped a clawed hand around the woman's arm and pulled her away, never taking his eyes off me.
"Now wait just a minute," I said.
"For you?" he chortled. "Not a chance."
"Be nice, Orpheus," said Grettle.
Orpheus. Grettle. Ceela. Throok. Nether names.
Orpheus snorted, but it didn't carry the gravitas of the minotaur's. "You're a human, aren't you? What are you doing in the Margins?"
"I have my reasons."
He nodded absently, looking up the other passage and then considering the rabbit hole. "Where is she?"
I waited a beat. "Grettle?"
"Not her, human. The satyr. Where is the satyr?"
I scrunched my eyebrows. "Is this some kind of hypothetical riddle?"
"Never lie to a trickster, human. Fauns are the masters of lies. Are you alone down here?"
"Yes," I answered truthfully. "Just us and the spiders." Grettle smiled.
"Then we have you outnumbered," he taunted.
I didn't know if he meant the spiders or something else. I preferred the something else.
"Back away, Grettle," he said, shoving her toward the passage.
"But—"
"I said back away. I can handle the human."
I laughed. "You can what?"
The faun tapped his hatchet against his black hooves to shake dirt away. "This doesn't need to go bad for you, human."
"The name's Cisco."
He narrowed his eyes. "Just tell me where the satyr went and we'll leave you be."
"We," I repeated. "Is that word used differently in the Nether? Because topside it means more than one person."
Orpheus snorted again. "So be it." He threw the boomerang at me.
Chapter 7
The first thing I did was wonder: who uses boomerangs?
My second action was more pragmatic. I lunged to the side a
s the projectile spun past me. There was a heft to it, I could tell, because of the wind that buffeted me as it went by.
The faun leaned forward in anticipation. I hate to disappoint everyone, but I'm no amateur. I knew that boomerang was coming back around for me. I turned and flicked my hand at it, sending a twine of shadow to wrap it up.
The boomerang sliced right through my magic like butter. Maybe I'd be called the dairy witch from now on.
With only a second to spare, I phased into the darkness just as the projectile flew at me on its return trip. I was fast enough, but it still caught me. Instead of whiffing right through me, the boomerang rapped against my head, pulled me out of the shadow, and knocked me on my ass.
Orpheus caught the weapon with ease and chuckled. I pushed to my knees and faced him with a scowl. There were spiders all over the floor, but at least they were staying away from the big boys. A tickle in my hairline concerned me. I patted the dirt off my hands and rubbed my head just above the temple. It came away with blood.
"Had enough, human?" he taunted.
"You kidding? You don't win a fight with one lucky shot."
Orpheus relaxed his features. "This is what you call a fight topside?"
I did my best Throok impression and growled as I stood. I didn't have seven feet but I was a couple heads taller than this runt. When I came at him, though, he didn't look concerned.
Orpheus now held his weapon like a hatchet, swinging it in his hand. I feinted and stepped away, wary of diving back into the shadow. My guess was his weapon was enchanted. Strong enough magic could hit me when I hid in the darkness. In those situations, it was best not to hide.
I stepped into his next blow, raising my left arm as the hatchet crashed into it. Blue light flared, but the Norse protection tattoo along my forearm held stronger than full plate. I didn't feel a thing.
I had another tattoo on my palm that could manifest a shield of energy. That one was meant for small projectiles, like bullets. It wouldn't do jack against melee weapons, so I was stuck in hand-to-hand combat.
