Fell Beasts and Fair

by C. J. Brightley

  Nobody had an answer.

  “This is boring,” Eliza said at the forty-minute mark. “I’m tired.”

  “She’s right. This is worse than spinning straw into gold,” Thornspur said, tossing several receipts into the air.

  Mudlick snored from the bottom desk drawer.

  Featherpetal bit her lip in frustration. Her eyes swam from the dozens of pages she’d read through. “How many numbers does the ‘keypad’ need?”

  Eliza shrugged. “I dunno.”

  Featherpetal rolled her eyes. “Does he open the safe a lot?”

  “Not too much. He takes the guns out to shoot at the range or to clean ‘em. I think that’s all.”

  “Then he’d probably keep the numbers someplace easy to find.” Featherpetal pulled the top drawer open. It was difficult to open entirely due to notepads, loose papers and manila envelopes stuffed inside. Thornspur and Featherpetal crawled through the debris.

  “I found it!” Thornspur yelled with triumph.

  “So did I,” Featherpetal said, holding up another note with ‘Safe #’ scrawled across it. After going through the notes, over a dozen different numbers were found.

  “Which one is it?” Thornspur asked, flitting around in frustration. “Why is there more than one?”

  “I guess daddy changed the combination. He’s real careful.”

  “So which one is the last one?” Featherpetal rifled through the notes, trying to discern the latest.

  “I dunno. We can just try ‘em all, can’t we?”

  “I suppose.”

  After the third wrong number, a light next to the keypad glowed red and the LCD display said: Too many incorrect entries.

  “What’s that mean?” Thornspur asked.

  After trying to enter more combinations and discovering that the keypad was unresponsive, they gave up. Eliza looked around at the debris and started stuffing papers back into the drawers and boxes.

  “Will daddy notice that we messed things up?” Eliza asked.

  “Child, did we really mess things up more than they were already messed up?”

  Eliza giggled. She slipped back into her room without Sylvia even looking up from the computer’s monitor.

  “I can geas him,” Featherpetal said that night.

  “Geese?” Eliza frowned. “You’re gonna turn my daddy into a goose?”

  “No, no!” Featherpetal said. “I said geas.”

  Eliza blinked in incomprehension.

  “Enchantment.”

  “Huh?”

  Featherpetal thought carefully. “A magic charm.”

  Eliza’s face brightened. “Oh!”

  “He will believe that he needs to get his gun for some reason and will go and open the safe. Once he does, we’ll go in and get the Chronicle.”

  “That’s not bad,” Thornspur said. “When?”

  “Once he’s asleep. It’s easier to do when he’s asleep, especially if he has elf-sight.”

  Eliza lost interest when Mudlick started tickling her. The powerful spriggan was surprisingly gentle with the girl and his smile illuminated the room. It took several tries to get the attention of the two.

  “Do I need to do anything?” Eliza asked between laughs.

  “I don’t think so. Once the safe is open we should be able to safely retrieve the Chronicle as long as we don’t touch the iron.”

  “Okay,” Eliza said, losing interest. She went back to playing with Mudlick.

  “You stay here and keep an eye out,” Featherpetal said to Thornspur.

  “What? Why?”

  Featherpetal’s voice went down to a whisper. “There may be another Unseelie in the house. Someone has to guard her and I may need Mudlick’s strength to retrieve the book.”

  Thornspur puffed up with pride and fondled the hilt of his rapier. “I’ll keep her safe.”

  “I never had any doubt.”

  It was nearly midnight when Dale slipped into a troubled sleep. He’d spent all evening paying bills online and reviewing the state of his finances—after checking all the doors and windows again. Once his breathing steadied, Featherpetal began her haunting song of charm. Dale’s mind was wrapped in a potent geas that urged him into quasi-wakefulness. He stumbled into his den in a quest for his 9mm pistol. His sleepy fingers botched the combination once, but the second time the safe came open. He pulled out the pistol and staggered off in search of an imaginary burglar. Once he departed, Featherpetal flew Mudlick up to the safe.

  “Careful, Mudlick. Don’t touch the sides with bare skin.”

  “Yah,” Mudlick said, walking over the steel safe’s bottom wearing Eliza’s bunny slippers. He looked through the piles of paperwork contained within the small cubicle, tossing out folders of financial records. After a minute his face poked back out.

  “Well?”

  “Not here,” Mudlick said.

  “What?”

  “Nuffin’ here.”

  The two of them looked through the safe three times before giving up.

  “But… but where else would he keep it?”

  Mudlick shrugged. “Maybe he not have it.”

  “Somebody spoke the names. If it wasn’t him…” Featherpetal’s eyes widened.

  “What matter?”

  “Eliza! That boggart didn’t seek out her father, he sought her out! She must have spoken the names!” Featherpetal smacked her forehead. “Curse me for a Nixie! I should have realized it earlier! I’ll bet only a human with elf-sight can read the names properly! He was captured too easily by my geas to have it, so…”

  Gunshots and Eliza’s screams echoed through the house.

  When the dark shape emerged from the crack in the baseboard, Thornspur unsheathed his bronze rapier and flew over to confront it. Part of him wanted to call out to his two friends for help, but pride—combined with a realization that they probably wouldn’t hear him—stayed his tongue. He landed on the hardwood floor in an en garde position. Then he realized what kind of Unseelie he faced.

  A goblin.

  A trickle of fear penetrated his heart. It was the most fearsome of the lesser Unseelie. It was devilishly clever, strong and ruthless. He didn’t know if all three of them could beat such a foe, forget doing it alone.

  “Ahh… Pixie Knight,” the goblin said with a voice like a strangling infant. “Tiny Pixie Knight. You wish to fight me?” Its dark, warty form was twice Thornspur’s size, even hunchbacked as it was.

  Thornspur swallowed.

  The goblin laughed. “If you step aside and let me have the mortal morsel, I will let you live.”

  For an instant Thornspur considered the offer. The goblin was more powerful than he was, but Thornspur was quicker. If he wanted to escape, he could. He caught a glimpse of Eliza’s sleeping face illuminated in the moonlight. If he fled, the goblin would kill her and eat her heart. Even without considering how angry King Oberon would be to allow the death of a mortal at faerie hands, she was… nice. He steeled his courage and faced the goblin.

  “If you retreat now, I’ll let you live, goblin!”

  The goblin’s yellow-glowing eyes narrowed with anger.

  “I’m going to pull off those wings, Pixie.”

  The goblin attacked and Thornspur flew to meet him.

  Dale held the pistol in his hands as he staggered drunkenly through the darkened house. There was a burglar out there—that much he knew—but he was a bit fuzzy on the other details. In fact, everything was fuzzy and he’d run into the kitchen wall a few times before he realized it wouldn’t get out of his way. A distant part of him thought that he should be a bit more alarmed about an intruder, but couldn’t quite fathom why.

  After navigating the kitchen and the hall, he came to his daughter’s bedroom and fumbled with the doorknob.

  Thornspur’s duel with the goblin was silent except for the goblin’s laughs. Thornspur’s tactics were simple: he flew at the goblin, sliced its face or shoulders with his blade and then flew back before the goblin’s powerful claws
could rend him apart. With a slower Unseelie it would have been easy, but a goblin was only slightly slower than a Pixie. He’d already received several superficial scratches from the goblin’s claws. The wounds his blade made to the goblin didn’t slow it in the slightest. It licked at the dark blood seeping from the scratches as if it was nectar.

  It was a magnificent display of Seelie swordsmanship, but the end was never in doubt. The goblin’s claws tore into Thornspur’s side and wing, spinning him around and smashing him into the distant bookcase. His blade went flying and was lost underneath a small avalanche of books.

  The sound woke Eliza. When she caught sight of the goblin, she screamed. The goblin smiled and stalked towards her, slavering in anticipation. Thornspur struggled to escape the pile of books but was pinned by a weighty tome.

  “Face me, goblin!” Thornspur shouted in challenge.

  “Snack first.” The goblin smiled. “Girl heart. Nummy.”

  Eliza’s bedroom door opened and her father stood there with a pistol. In Dale’s groggy perceptions there was an intruder in the same room as his daughter—although he couldn’t see it exactly. The pistol rang out, putting several rounds into the goblin’s chest. What would have been fatal to a human intruder merely stung the goblin. The Unseelie whirled and lunged at Dale, who was too dazed to evade the attack. He would have died except a pair of small-but-powerful arms propelled him the length of the hall into the living room couch. He spiraled down into unconsciousness.

  “Eliza-daddy run!” Mudlick said as he threw Dale from the goblin’s path. Deprived of its primary target, it lashed out at the spriggan, sending Mudlick flying into the kitchen with droplets of faerie blood splashing the wall.

  “Mudlick!” Featherpetal screamed as she flew over the goblin’s head, interposing her winsome body between the goblin and Eliza. Thornspur had squirmed free from the books and recovered his rapier. His wings damaged, he climbed on top of Eliza’s bed for his last stand.

  “I’m scared, Thornspur,” Eliza said.

  “We won’t let him hurt you,” Thornspur said, trying to project confidence he didn’t feel.

  “Sprite and pixie. Pixie and sprite. In my belly for a midsummer delight. Hur!” the goblin said as it walked forward. It took its time, savoring the hunt.

  “Not only are you revolting, but so is your poetry,” Featherpetal said. Taking a deep breath, she sang. It wasn’t a quiet, relaxing melody. This was a single, powerful note that rattled teeth, set every dog barking within a square mile and cracked most of the glass in the house. It was directed at the goblin and he smacked his misshaped hands over his pointed ears. Grimacing, he moved forward against the force of the sonic assault. Step by step, he closed the distance.

  Mudlick pulled his body out of the side of the kitchen cabinet. Three deep claw wounds trailed down the side of his torso but the hardy spriggan didn’t notice.

  “Goblin bad,” Mudlick said. He looked around the darkened kitchen until his eyes fell onto the pegs where oven mitts hung. Then an object sitting on top of the stove caught his eye. A rare spark of inspiration shot through his under-utilized brain.

  Featherpetal watched her death approaching, but she wouldn’t yield. Thornspur urged Eliza towards the window, but her father had secured it too well. The single note wavered and started to fail. The goblin’s sadistic grin widened as it smashed Featherpetal to the ground, putting an abrupt end to her song. Thornspur leapt to the attack but was slapped aside with contempt. The goblin grabbed Featherpetal in a grip of steel and covered her mouth. Its fingers gripped one of her delicate wings.

  “Sprite wing,” the goblin said. “Like paper.”

  Featherpetal writhed in agony as the goblin pulled harder on her wing. His sadistic smile outshone his yellow eyes.

  “Pain taste good.”

  The goblin recoiled in agony as the iron frying pan came down on top of its head with all the force Mudlick could muster. He wore the clumsy, oversized oven mitts on his hands as he swung the pan.

  “Goblin bad!” Mudlick said as he swung again. Smoke poured from the goblin’s head at every blow. The goblin dropped Featherpetal and tried to escape the deadly assault. The iron pan rose and fell like an executioner’s axe. The goblin let out a hideous shriek as Mudlick drove it into the floorboards like a nail. Foul-smelling vapors poured out from underneath the pan after Mudlick’s final blow. A charred outline was all that remained of the goblin.

  Mudlick grinned, satisfied. “Goblin go poof!”

  “I can’t believe she had the Chronicle the whole time!” Thornspur said as Featherpetal examined his healing wounds. The yellowed Chronicle sat next to them, covered with crayon stains. It had been one of the books that had pinned him, covered with a different book jacket. “Why didn’t she tell us?”

  “She’s only a child, Thornspur,” Featherpetal said. Mudlick and Eliza played with dolls on the floor. Eliza dressed Mudlick in one of her doll’s dresses and they were having tea together. Mudlick was oblivious to how ridiculous he looked. “She thought it was a story book and our true names sounded like gibberish to her.”

  “Well she nearly got us killed—and she slept through my epic duel!” He folded his arms and jutted his chin out. “She thinks Mudlick’s a great hero but… aww, never mind.”

  Featherpetal grasped Thornspur by his chin and looked into his eyes.

  “I know what you did, Pixie Knight Thornspur. You saved her life by facing a goblin in single combat. You’re the bravest Pixie I’ve ever known.” She kissed him on the lips.

  Thornspur’s cheeks turned cherry-red as he swelled with pride. For once he was at a loss for words.

  “There’s no more presence of the Unseelie here. The crack into the Unseelie Courts has closed.” She pointed at the corner where the baseboard was now whole. “I’ve sung new memories into her father’s mind. He’ll forget all of this in a day. There’s no reason for us to stay. Now comes the hard part.”

  “Hard part?”

  “Parting those two.” Featherpetal pointed at Mudlick and Eliza.

  “But I want you to stay!” Eliza said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “Mudlick want to stay!” Mudlick cried in time to Eliza’s sobs.

  “To stay in the mortal world would violate the Changeling Accord! Do you want to risk the wrath of King Oberon?” Featherpetal said.

  “Don’t care!” Mudlick hugged Eliza’s leg. “Wanna stay with Eliza!”

  Eliza hugged him back. “Stay!”

  “Oh, by the Weird Sisters! You can’t!”

  “Why?” Eliza and Mudlick asked.

  “I just told you…!”

  Thornspur took her by the shoulder and shook his head, smiling.

  “You can’t out-stubborn a spriggan, Petal,” he said.

  Featherpetal opened her mouth to disagree but the sight of Eliza and Mudlick hugging melted her resolve.

  “All right, but you’ve got to maintain a glamour whenever you’re around other humans.”

  Mudlick nodded vigorously. “What Mudlick look like?”

  “Kitty!” Eliza said.

  “I’m telling you, Anna, that cat is weird,” Dale said to his cell phone as he sat on the porch watching Eliza play along the sidewalk. The plump, black-and-white cat she’d named Mudlick—he had no idea where that name came from—followed wherever Eliza went. The two of them chased lightning bugs in the deepening evening.

  “Weird how?” Anna asked over the phone.

  Dale squirmed. “Well, for one thing I don’t know where the devil it came from. It looks pretty healthy for a stray.”

  “But you got it shots and everything, right?”

  “Oh yeah. The vet said it was—and I quote—‘the healthiest cat I ever saw.’”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “It… looks at me like it understands what I’m saying.”

  There was a moment of silence on the line.

  “Yeah, I know what that sounds like, Anna.”

  “I’m
glad.”

  Dale was momentarily distracted when a local dog moved in Eliza’s direction. Their neighbors did a poor job of controlling the huge German Shepherd, and Dale constantly worried about the aggressive beast harming his daughter. Repeated requests had little impact on the neighbors. He relaxed when it moved away.

  “And… have you ever seen a cat smile before, Anna?”

  “That’s just a snarl.”

  “No, I mean smile. Like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.”

  Another pause. “Have you been drinking, Dale?”

  Dale sighed. “I knew it was a mistake saying anything.”

  “I’m sorry, Dale, but how did you expect me to react?”

  “I was hoping…” Dale trailed off when the German Shepherd reappeared and ran towards Eliza. He dropped the cellphone and bolted towards his daughter. That’s when he saw the German Shepherd retreating at high speed. He froze in the middle of the lawn and his eye twitched a little. He walked to the back yard and picked up the cellphone.

  “Dale? Dale? Are you all right?”

  “I… I haven’t been drinking. But I intend to start as soon as I hang up.”

  “What?”

  “Anna, I think I just saw…”

  “Yes?”

  “I could swear—swear—I just saw our daughter’s cat chasing away the neighbor’s dog with a baseball bat in its paws…”

  About the Author

  Charles D. Shell is a native of southwestern Virginia. His story “Boneyard Prophet” was recently published in Threads: A NeoVerse Anthology.

  Love and Room for Monsters

  Amanda Nargi

  James Custer Rook was one of the most valuable chess pieces on a board that had been set nearly a millennium before he was born, inside the tightly woven web of conflict that had always existed between mortal kind and the Gifted. He had cased thousands of undercover operations during his active work as one of Mab's Black Cats. He was familiar with the tradecraft of nearly every human intelligence agency in the world, knew when to use it, when to exploit it. He likewise knew the snakes’ secrets of the few intelligence organizations that operated solely out of Shadowood. To his knowledge he was the only Faen to ever successfully plant a double agent inside The Order. And he had done it twice. But nothing he had ever accomplished or failed at in his many years in service to Mab and the security and freedom of his people had prepared him for this.