The Lost Child

by H. P. Mallory

  That past stretched back six hundred years of life, for most of which I was, not to put too fine a point on it; a killer. Of course I was killing for food, and I lived in violent times when humans were killing each other for far less necessary reasons, but the dreams still came and still troubled me. I had dreamed of England under Elizabeth I, when Protestants and Catholics killed each other, and I killed both. I had dreamed of Florence under the Medici, when glorious art was wrought and people feared to walk the streets at night. I dreamed of my travels about the world with various explorers seeking to expand their knowledge and the reach of the British Empire; as they introduced the natives to the power of gunpowder, I learned that vampires lived everywhere. My life was a trail of corpses, but that was my nature.

  And now I was going to be a father.

  Again my eyes turned to Bryn as she slept. People talk about a pregnancy being ‘difficult’. Bryn and I were not even supposed to be able to conceive a child (nature does not generally allow vampires to procreate in such a fashion); it had been a miracle.

  And then that miracle had been taken from us by a loathsome Fae called the Fir Darrig, an ancient and powerful prankster which had stolen our baby girl from within Bryn’s womb and replaced it with a Changeling. Now the Changeling too was gone and Bryn’s figure showed no sign that she was pregnant. Of course she was not pregnant any more. And yet in her mind she still was—the baby had never been born.

  Such was why we were here, in the realm known as Faery, the home of the Fae—the Fair Folk, as they are called by those who have never had to spend any time with them—searching for our lost child.

  Careful not to wake Bryn, I got out of bed and strolled to the French doors, passing through the silk drapes to gaze out. The full moon shone down on my naked body—it was always full moon in Faery and always a comfortable temperature, so sleeping in the raw was the more pleasant. I opened the doors and stepped out onto the veranda. It was possible that any Fae who were about at this time of night might see me, standing on that balcony, high

  in the castle walls, but I was not concerned. I am not embarrassed by my body—why should I be? It is generally considered to be a work of art and if anyone saw me, then I was happy to let them get a look at the good stuff. Sharing the wealth, as it were.

  The nocturnal landscape spilled out before me and I took it in with a grim expression.

  I did not like Faery. And it was not just because it was a Fae who took my child, there was something about the place that made me uneasy. When I had been in Gaia’s realm, that had been queasy and unnerving, always shifting and changing before my eyes, but that had not been a real place; it had been created by Gaia to test people like me—I do not think Gaia’s realm even existed unless someone was in it. Faery was real and yet fantastic. By day it was all bright colors and fluting music. The Fae danced and sang incessantly, but I saw little joy in it. Instead, I found it oddly sinister.

  We had been led into Faery by Odran, a Fae King, and he had explained to me that: ‘Whit ye take in tae Faery is whit ye get oot o’ it.’.

  By which he meant that Faery, like beauty, was in the eye of the beholder. Odran saw home, I saw a trap. Bryn saw something beautiful yet sad.

  The thought of my tempest, the woman who had finally stilled my wanderings and tamed me (after a fashion), brought my mind back to that discomfiting dream. It was not just a question of whether or not I deserved a woman like Bryn or the happiness of a family—

  there was no question that I did not deserve either—it was about whether I was even capable of keeping those things. I loved Bryn more completely than I had ever loved a woman. I loved her even more than I loved myself, and I am a man who has nothing but the deepest admiration for himself. There had been women before, of course… in six centuries there had been many women before… and while I strove always to be a gentleman, they had mostly been passing fancies, though I pride myself that none of them regretted our time together. In all that long time, there had too been a handful of women to whom I was more attached, about whom I might even have used the word ‘love’. And yet, what I felt for Bryn dwarfed and redefined what I had felt for those women. She was my everything and I could not envision life without her.

  Thinking about it, I was sure I could be a good husband. The question was; could I be a father?

  As a vampire, it was not a question I had never thought I would have to answer. Bryn’s pregnancy had been a wonderful surprise, but now that I had had time to think about it… What could a creature such as I teach a child? What business did I have in propagating my genes? The world did not need another man like the

  one who had slunk through the city of Chester, seeking people on whom to feed.

  If I were going to be a father, then I wanted to be a good one—

  Sinjin Sinclair, Master Vampire did not embark on anything without the intention of being best at it; an intention he invariably achieved. But I was not certain fatherhood was in me, and the dreams undermined the self-confidence on which I had always relied. Those dreams seemed to tell me who I really was.

  Yes, I had learned to be a good man, but beneath that veneer, was I not still the thing in the dark that people had feared for the last six hundred years?

  I was a monster, and monsters do not make good fathers.

  Leaving the balcony, I returned to the bedroom. Bryn had shifted in her sleep, one bare arm stretched out to the space on the bed I should have occupied. I went to sit in a well-cushioned chair by the wall. I was not sleepy—it was still a little unnatural for me to be asleep at night, but the daylight of Faery had no effect on vampires. Thus, I figured I might as well try to keep the same hours as my love.

  Along with myself, Bryn and Odran, the search party which had left Kinloch Kirk a space of days ago, included a vampire friend of mine named Klassje, and her boyfriend, Dureau Chevalier.

  Chevalier was a foppish French Fae who presumably felt right at home in this castle, draped with its silk and satin, and who had once had a thing for my Bryn. In fact, she had once been attracted to him too—in some extremely small measure. In fact, her affection for Chevalier had been so small, I should not have even mentioned it.

  True that had it not been for me, Bryn would likely have ended up with Chevalier, but when she had the option of me, the fop could hardly compete. I was by far the better man.

  But would I be the better father?

  I shook the thought from my head. That charming little love triangle had long since run its course, as Chevalier was now with Klassje, even if I could not understand her choice and occasionally worried Chevalier might still hold a candle for Bryn.

  The five of us had a near impossible task ahead of us; to find where the Fir Darrig, a wily and secretive creature, had hidden our baby. The Darrig had been exiled to the outskirts of the Faery realm years ago by the Seelie Court, which represented what passed for organized government in a realm defined by chaos. The Darrig’s crime had been to set up the Unseelie Court, a malign alliance of some of the oldest and most dangerous Fae who sought to create misery in the real world simply because tormenting humans amused them.

  Now the Darrig had my child and there were few who knew the fringes of Faery well enough to know where the blasted creature might have taken her.

  “So where do we start?” Bryn had asked desperately.

  “Wi’ the Seelie Court,” Odran had declared.

  We had brought Odran along because he knew Faery, but also because he acted as a sort of passport. Although the Seelie Court was nominally in charge, Faery was split into bickering factions and dominions, families and principalities, and getting through them would be next to impossible. Odran however was a King of Faery. Faery Kings are not like human ones, they do little actual ruling, they can makes laws but no one will follow them, and they command practically no one. But it is still a position of respect. The Fae folk knew Odran and knew his family. He would be able to pass through the realm without hindrance and without people trying to t
rick him or steal from him—the sort of game Fae love.

  They are really quite an odious race.

  “You think the Seelie Court can help us?” asked Chevalier.

  “Ah’d hardly have sooggested it if Ah dinnae think they could,”

  pointed out Odran, making me smile as I always liked to see the frog made a fool of. “‘Twas the Court who banished the Darrig back when mah Daddy ruled here. An’ Ah daresay they can help oos find him now.”

  “Will they?” asked Klassje, a more measured and intelligent question than that asked by her ridiculous partner, as one might expect from a vampire.

  “Ah dinnae know,” admitted Odran with an immense shrug from his immense shoulders. He quite resembled an enormous lion with his mane of blonde hair. An enormous, idiotic lion. “Boot with me to make yer case, mah hopes are high. When the Seelie Court hears the full story o’ whit one o’ our own people has done, then Ah cannae see how they can reasonably refuse.”

  “Then why aren’t you sure?” asked Bryn.

  And then Odran gave a shrug and said, “Because the Fae folk are nae always reasonable. We’re well known for it.”

  It was not a ringing endorsement, but it was enough to give myself and Bryn some hope that things might still work out for the best. So we travelled through Faery in the direction of the Seelie Court.

  Trying to describe what Faery is like to someone who has not been there is like trying to describe color to a blind person—they have no frame of reference and so cannot possibly understand.

  Faery was more than a place, it was sensory experience that you could also walk through. It would be too much to say that Bryn seemed at home there, but she fit in better than me. By its nature, Faery was a place you had to be part of, and Bryn was happy to embrace the color and noise, the madness and jollity.

  I was not. Clad in my uniform black, I remained resolutely apart, and so stuck out like a sore thumb.

  “You like music,” pointed out Bryn.

  “I like a chamber group after dinner, and I like Barry White when I am seducing you,” I replied as she smiled. “I do not appreciate the chorus of butterflies singing back up to the flowers they are visiting.”

  “You’re too rigid,” laughed Bryn.

  “You cannot tell me you actually like this place?”

  My Tempest shrugged. “Nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live here.”

  “That i s good,” I nodded. “Because if you did wish to live here, I fear we might have reached a rift in our relationship.”

  Bryn laughed again. Much as I disliked the place, Faery did seem to put her in a good humor, which was nice to see. There had been little enough to laugh about of late.

  Travelling through Faery was as hard to explain as the place itself. We walked —motor vehicles refuse to work in this realm and horses are sentient and strongly object to being ridden—and yet it was not by walking that we seemed to move. We ‘travelled’

  and I do not know any other way to put it than that. I wondered how my ability to move by dematerialization would work here, where nothing was as it seemed. It might be sensible not to find out.

  “There ye are!” Odran declared at the outset of our second day in Faery. “The Grand Castle o’ the Court o’ the Seelie.”

  Walt Disney would have blushed in embarrassment on seeing the Castle of the Seelie Court. It rose from the clouded mists, sparkling with dew and gleaming white, a proliferation of rising towers and turrets, craning skywards, some straight, some twisting about each other. It did not move and yet the way the light struck it, made it seem like a living thing, sinuous and vital, as if muscles and veins lurked beneath the white skin rather than prosaic bricks and mortar. Even I was captivated by it and felt a rising wonder in my chest.

  Odran caught sight of my expression and smiled. “Welcome to Faery, mah bloodsuoockin’ friend. Glad ye could finally join oos.”

  I was not certain how long it had been since Odran had last visited the Court, but thought it had to be years. Still, he was not given a welcome like that of a returning prodigal son—the Seelie Court were pleased to see him but not effusive. Fae worry little about the passing of time.

  We were welcomed too. We were given food to eat and lavishly decorated rooms to stay in.

  “I may have changed my mind,” said Bryn, flopping down onto the soft bed in our opulent apartment. “I could definitely get used to living here.”

  “Do not speak to soon,” I replied, opening the closet for her to see within. “Have you seen what they expect you to wear?”

  The closet was fully stocked with an array of brightly colored dresses, all long and flowing, all in silks and satins, lace and gauze, all exquisitely feminine. All a million miles from the yoga pants and sports bra that was Bryn’s preferred attire.

  “Maybe I’ll skip it.”

  “I, on the other hand,” I said, looking into the other half of the closet, “might be coming around on the subject.”

  My experience of Fae costume for men was limited to that of those I had met. Odran wore a kilt in his personal tartan, if we were lucky he might add a T-shirt, and if we were very lucky, he might deign to put on underwear. At the other end of the scale was Chevalier, overdressed like a regency dandy. But whoever had stocked my closet had considered my taste more than whoever had stocked Bryn’s. I had been provided with a symphony of midnight in well-cut black clothing for every occasion—even if there was a little more silk than I was used to wearing.

  “How come they outfitted you according to your tastes and I got the generic fairytale princess collection?” asked Bryn.

  “I think Fae males dress to suit their personality,” I replied, again thinking of Odran and Chevalier. “Females are supposed to conform to the type.”

  “Sexist,” muttered Bryn.

  “Perhaps you should try some of the gowns on, you might like them. And I should quite enjoy referring to you as my Cinderella or my Sleeping Beauty.”

  “Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty were both blond.”

  “Ah, and you are not. Then…” And I was quite at a loss.

  “How about Belle from Beauty and the Beast,” she supplied for me though I was not familiar with this princess. She sounded lovely enough though.

  “Very good.”

  Bryn quirked an eyebrow in my direction. “You’re sure?”

  “Why should I not be?”

  “Because if I’m Belle, that makes you the beast.”

  “Quite a good point, as I am most certainly not beastly. Such a title should be reserved for the weres.”

  Truth be told, I was quite happy with the way my Bryn dressed, it suited her. On the other hand, the thought of her in these clinging, revealing and deliberately provocative clothes was producing a definite reaction, which Bryn noticed as her gaze travelled to the front of my trousers.

  “I hope they cut the pants to allow enough room for that thing.”

  And she waved in its general direction.

  I sighed and shook my head like a man with a cross to bear. “They never do. Tailors always underestimate me.”

  Bryn grinned wickedly. “I mean, I guess I could put one of those dresses on… if you’re just going to tear it off me.”

  In the end we destroyed three Fae dresses in one afternoon.

  Afterwards we lay together, naked beneath the silk cheeks, wrapped in each other’s arms, still kissing, and I wondered if it was odd that we should be indulging like this, given the nature of our quest. Truthfully, there was something about Faery that infected everything around it. It made fun and pleasure seem like the only option. Though I distrusted it, I was also glad of it, since it allowed Bryn and me to be together without feelings of guilt.

  I must have fallen asleep in the chair while thinking about fatherhood and about our journey here because when I opened my eyes again, the bright Faery sunlight was illuminating the silk drapes. But it was not the light that had woken me. Looking down

  , I found Bryn, as naked as I
was, kneeling on the floor, her head nestled between my thighs. She looked up to smile at me.

  “Good morning,” she whispered.

  “Good? So far it has been exceptional.”

  “Odran addresses the Court today. One way or another, it is our last day here.”

  I leaned down to kiss her, gathering her up and into my arms to carry her to our bed. Perhaps it was just the effect of Faery, but such did not mean we should not enjoy it while it lasted.

  THREE

  BRYN

  I looped my arms around Sinjin’s neck as he laid me down on the bed, kissing me tenderly. Running my hands down the honed muscles of his torso, I drew him down on top of me, opening my body to him and feeling the sharp thrill of excitement that I always felt when I was with my vampire lover.

  On the evening of our first day in the Seelie Court, following an afternoon which Sinjin and I had spent in bed, throwing down like we were rampant teenagers, I caught up with Odran. There was something I wanted to ask him but wasn’t sure how to bring it up.

  Fortunately he seemed to sense the question.

  “Lass,” he greeted me with a broad, knowing grin, “ye have a healthy glow aboot ye. I take it yerself an’ the vampire are enjoyin’ the hospitality o’ Faery.”

  I blushed. Sinjin and I had showered together (under a large, water-producing flower that grew in the bathroom), and although that had, somewhat inevitably led to more sexual activity against the wall of the shower cubicle , I thought that might have been enough to disguise what we had spent the afternoon doing. But apparently not.

  “We’ve settled in well, thank you,” I answered demurely.