by H. D. Gordon
I worried over Brian Brewbaker; where he must be, how he must be feeling. I wondered where the Blue Beast was when it wasn’t terrorizing the city, what the person controlling it was waiting for. I thought about all those young Halflings in that vanishing lab, and about Rose’s betrayal, about how she’d given me up so easily, about the way it had made an ache form inside of me to think about how I almost wished I’d let her drown, even though I knew that was wrong.
I thought about Andrea Ramos and Coach Sanders, and all the other women out there who get sexually assaulted or blackmailed into doing things they don’t want to do, and how most of them were not lucky enough to have supernaturals listening around the corner to jump in and put a stop to it all.
I thought about my mother and the circumstances of her death, which I had been keeping from my mind successfully in the past few months. I wondered if there was a place beyond this one where she waited for me, looking down and watching as I tried my best to get along in this crazy thing called life.
I wondered if she would be proud of me. I wondered if I was proud of me.
Sadness was what I thought about. Sadness and its place in the world. It amazed me sometimes how all of us, supernatural and non, could suffer so together, while feeling completely alone. I gripped the edge of the building and stared out at the city I’d once thought I could save, despite the fact that I still didn’t know what I’d been trying to save it from.
Or maybe it was myself I’d been trying to save. Maybe it was me I was really scared for.
I felt the slightest shift in the air behind me and dropped with a swiftness that made Bruce Lee look slow. One of my legs shot out and I swung around, sweeping the intruder’s legs out from under him and rising as he was knocked off his feet, an oomph! escaping him as he did so.
My heart was thudding in my ears so loudly, my mind racing with sudden adrenaline, that it took me longer than it should have to realize that it was Thomas whom I’d literally just swept off his feet.
He made no move to stand, only laid on his back on the black surface of our building’s rooftop, his hazel eyes staring up at the darkening sky overhead.
I looked down at him, feeling bad for taking him down but also annoyed with the world at the moment.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to sneak up on me?” I said, placing a hand on my hip. I waved the other one down at him. “You do this to yourself.”
Golden yellow touched his aura. He still made no move to get up, only stared at the stars blinking to life above. “Rough day?”
I sighed, deflating like an old balloon. “There’s an understatement,” I mumbled. “You just gonna lay there?”
He brought his hands up and laced them behind his head. “I was thinking about it.”
I checked my watch, seeing that I still had time before I had to go to the meeting Raven had relayed to me and hopefully get back Brian Brewbaker. Biting my lip, I hesitated. “You have food?”
Thomas lifted his head a fraction, smiled, and rested back again. Shifting, he showed me a paper sack. “I think you crushed it.”
“Pfft,” I said. “You crushed it.”
More gold in his aura. He patted the spot beside him without taking his eyes from the stars. I swallowed once and folded myself down next to him. When he extended his arm so that I could rest my head upon it, for some very stupid reason, I thought I just might cry.
Get ahold of yourself, you little idiot, I chastised, and settled back on his arm, which was strong and warm beneath my head, joining him in gazing up at the heavens.
He handed me the bag. Without opening it, I inhaled deeply. “Mmm,” I said. “Tacos?”
Thomas let out a small chuckle that made his wide chest shake just barely. “Well, it was, but now it might be taco salad.”
I shrugged. “I can always just tip the bag up and pour it in my mouth.”
Now he actually laughed, and my chest swelled in a funny way. “There’s always that, little Halfling,” he said.
We lay like that for a while, me chewing on crushed tacos and him staring silently at the stars. While he watched the heavens, I watched his aura, which was a usual practice of mine that I wouldn’t admit to him should my left leg depend on it.
It was in this way Thomas Reid relieved my suffering, if only by doing the same by my side.
***
“You have to go,” he said. It was not a question.
I answered anyway by pulling my mask out of my pocket and slipping it over my eyes. Then I shrugged on my jacket and pulled up the hood. Next, I fastened on my cape.
“That’s new,” he said, a certain sparkle in his hazel eyes.
“Don’t make fun of me, Thomas Reid. I will take your ass down again.”
He held his hands up, a slight smile tugging up his lips. “I don’t doubt it… Do I get to know where you’re off to?”
I shook my head. We were standing over by the building’s edge now, on the little brick wall that separated us from open air. I pulled the necklace he’d given me this past Christmas out of my shirtfront. It was a Reid family heirloom, and Thomas had used it to track me to the tunnels where the Scarecrow had held me captive. Since that day, it hadn’t left its spot on my chest.
“I guess you’ll always be able to find me if you have to,” I said, tucking the necklace back in as he caught sight of it and smiled.
“And do you think you’ll be getting in any trouble this evening, little Halfling?” he asked.
I climbed up onto the ledge, the whole of the city spread out before me. Before leaping into the open air, I tipped him a wink. “What do you think, Thomas?”
Then I was speeding through the night, heading toward the meeting place designated on the piece of paper Raven had given me. From what I knew of the area the address was located in, the building I would be entering would likely be abandoned and near the southeast shipyards. I had no idea what I would be walking into. No idea if this whole thing was just a suicide mission.
But Brian Brewbaker needed me to show up, and so that was what I was going to do. Actually, the Masked Maiden was going to show up for me. And despite the apprehension that bordered on fear blooming inside me, I had to admit, I was glad to have her back.
***
Part of me expected to be ambushed immediately, to walk into a hail of gunfire, or have an iron net fall from the ceiling and trap me to the ground while mutant scorpions scuttled toward me in the darkness. Or maybe sharks with heat-seeking missiles attached to their heads. Or for the door to lock shut behind me and trap me in a room with a bunch of wild monkeys and one food bowl that we’d all have to fight over.
Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t what I got. I’d scoped out the warehouse I was supposed to go into—sure enough, it looked abandoned and was in the center of the southeast shipyards—and couldn’t find any entry point save for the front door. This was no doubt one of the reasons the place had been chosen. One way in, one way out.
As I approached, I felt like every hair on my body was standing on end, and I was once again thankful for the training I’d received with the Peace Brokers that allowed me to maintain a steady heartbeat and cool head. I listened intently, but the walls of the one-story building were thick, and even with my sensitive hearing I couldn’t discern anything inside. With a deep breath, I pulled my hood down lower over my head and opened the heavy steel door that led inside.
And… nothing happened.
Well, I mean, there were no mutant scorpions, sharks, or monkeys. Instead, in the middle of the empty room there was a single light bulb, and beneath that light bulb, tied with rope to a chair and with a black bag covering his head, was Brian Brewbaker. I confirmed his identity by his aura, and rushed over to him, pulling the bag off his head and working at the thick ropes that were holding him in place.
“You’re alright,” I told him as he blinked up at me. There were tear tracks, both old and new, streaming down his face, and mucous smearing his nose and upper lip, which was tre
mbling. “You’re going to be okay, Brian,” I said.
Brian only made a few whimpering noises, his eyes darting around as if he thought the air might bite him. A fresh anger over the injustice of it all filled me thinking about how this was going to likely affect him for the rest of his life.
“You came,” said a voice I’d heard only twice before, and the man who’d almost killed Rose the night prior stepped out of the shadows as if he’d been born of them.
I finished untying Brian and moved so that he was behind me, in between him and the finely dressed bastard standing before me.
His mouth lifted at this, his white teeth peeking out behind his thin lips. “You can let the boy leave,” he said. “He won’t be harmed. You have my word.”
“Is your word supposed to mean something?” I asked, my tone practically dripping acid.
The man’s tone matched it in a more chilling, colder way. “Yes, it is.”
Deciding it was better to have Brian on the outside of this building than inside, I turned to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Brian shied away from my touch as if I’d burned him, but I kept my hold and put some of my Fae Halfling persuasion skills to use.
“Brian,” I said. “You’re okay. You’re safe now. I want you to go outside, walk four blocks west, and four more south. That will take you to Donnelly Street. There’s a McDonalds there. Ask the manager to call your mother. She’ll take you home.”
Brian stared at me, his aura calming with my influence, his eyes a bit glassy, as I’d known they would be. “Four blocks west, four more south. McDonalds. Call my mommy,” Brian repeated.
“That’s right, Brian,” I said. “Go on now. Everything is okay. Everything is just fine.”
I watched as Brian moved stiffly toward the door, pulled it open, and walked out. The way the steel door slammed shut behind him sounded oddly like the closing of a coffin lid.
The click of his shiny black shoes had me turning to follow the man’s movement, and I watched with wary, narrowed eyes as he took a seat on the chair Brian had vacated, kicking the discarded ropes aside as he did so.
“I’m glad to finally make your acquaintance, Miss Fae,” said the man, tugging his suit jacket once to make it straight. “Please, have a seat.”
“Fu—”
That was as much as I got out before my mouth snapped shut without my permission. I struggled to open it, my mind reeling, but could not make it do so. It was as if some alternate power had seized my tongue, had pinched it between fingers that I could neither see nor feel.
“I said,” the man repeated, “have a seat.”
With these words my legs folded beneath me, my knees buckling as I bent to the ground and sat on my bottom. I saw that the man was smiling a serpent’s smile as my legs crossed and my back went rigid at attention.
“There,” he said. “Now isn’t that better? Of course it is.” He leaned back in the chair, crossed one leg over the other. “I’ll let you speak again if you promise to behave like a lady. You’re much too pretty to have such a foul mouth.”
A string of curse words long enough to wrap around the earth twice flitted through my head, and I tried in vain to make my mouth work, to produce some sort of sound with my vocals. Eventually, I just clenched my teeth and nodded.
“Good,” he said, and there was an immediate release over me, the control of my body coming back as though it had never left.
“What did you do to me?” I gasped, realizing that I had been growing shorter and shorter on air. “What are you?”
The man clucked his tongue, which wouldn’t have surprised me were it forked. “Come now, Miss Fae. You were a Peace Broker, were you not? Surely you can scan through all that knowledge they gave you and form some sort of conclusion… or maybe read my aura? Your kind is good at that sort of thing, no?”
I tried to calm the mounting panic in me that had been incited by the completely involuntary submission of my physical free will so that I could study his aura and run through my database.
“You’re a Halfing,” I said.
“Very good. What else?”
I shook my head, trying hard to see whatever I was missing. Then, it hit me, but I didn’t think I could be right. “No… you’re half human but a quarter Searcher and a quarter… ”
“Yes?”
“Skinwalker?”
He smiled again. I wished he would stop. It made a terrible shiver run down my spine, chased by beads of sweat.
“Your file was right. You’re a smart little fairy, Miss Fae.”
My hands clenched into fists, but I kept my voice even. “How is that possible? I’ve never heard of such a mixture.”
The man laughed, and it was an even uglier thing to witness than his smile. Almost like a cough and a snarl combined. “No, you wouldn’t have, would you? They teach you a lot in the Brokers, but only the things they want you to know... As for how, I had two Halfling parents, of course. Believe it or not, you’re not the first Halfling to abandon the Brokers and seek your own life. I commend you for that, by the way.”
I tried to get up from my position on the floor, but he raised a hand and I was held in place like a father holds a petulant child. “I’d rather allow you to control yourself,” he warned. “But seeing as how I don’t trust you on your feet, I’m afraid I’d like you to stay seated.”
My bottom hit the floor again, my jaw gritted hard enough to ache. “What do you want?” I asked. “You kidnapped Brian to get me here, and here I am, so just tell me what you want.”
He folded his hands in his lap, the jeweled watch on his wrist glittering under the light of the single bulb above our heads. “I wanted to introduce myself,” he began. “My name is Shiva, and what I want is for you to choose, Miss Fae. Hopefully, you’ll choose well.”
“Choose what, you psycho?” I asked.
The words had barely left my mouth before something smacked me hard enough across the face to make my head snap back. A flash of pain shot through my jaw and a burst of white exploded behind my eyes, making the room we were in blink out of focus before slowly returning. I ran my tongue out over my lips and tasted blood. When I could see again, I fixed my gaze on him and glared… but kept my mouth shut.
He pulled a red satin handkerchief from his suit breast pocket and wiped his fingers, which were shape shifting back into regular digits, his arm returning back to normal after having formed itself into a tentacle.
He sighed. “You really must learn to hold that tongue of yours, Miss Fae,” he said in the chastising tone of a parent, which simply added insult to injury. “It’s not becoming of a young lady to go spouting off to their superiors.” He clicked his tongue again. “You’d think with your training you would know better… but you’re a little rebel, right? Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.”
I said nothing, because all the things I could think of to say would likely get me slapped again. Or worse.
He smiled, laughed, made my skin crawl. “There, now! She’s a fast learner! Wonderful.”
Again, I said nothing.
He refolded the handkerchief and replaced it neatly in his pocket, sitting back once more and looking down at me. “Now that you’ve learned your place, I’ll explain it to you, but you should understand that this is generous of me and that I’m a busy man. As such, my time is much more valuable than that of most others. Nod your head if you understand, Miss Fae.”
In all my life, I’d never found it so painful to my pride to simply raise and lower my chin, but somehow, I managed.
“Wonderful,” he continued. “Furthermore, I want you to know that if you weren’t so skilled, so potentially useful, I would’ve had you killed a while ago, back when you began causing all the trouble you’ve been causing me with this little crusade of yours.” He grinned in a mocking manner. “You even came in costume. The fearless Masked Maiden of Grant City I’ve been hearing so much about.”
“You know about me,” I said carefully, “but I’ve he
ard next to nothing about you.”
He spread his manicured hands. “And thus, why you sit there, on the floor, under my control, and I sit here, under the control of no one.”
I bit back the urge to tell him to get on with it already with enormous effort. I hated to admit it, but I was afraid of the man. I had no doubt he meant every word. His aura practically leaked danger.
“So you can imagine my surprise when I found out who you were,” he continued. “That the Masked Maiden was a Halfling, and a Peace Broker deserter, no less.”
“I didn’t desert,” I said. “I was kicked out.”
He nodded as if he’d known I’d say this, and really, he probably did. “That’s right. You were kicked out. Not even out of childhood yet and they kicked you out into the human world to fend for yourself. No money. No friends. No family. Nothing but a fake name and number to identify yourself with. And look what you’ve done! You’ve survived. You’ve built a life for yourself. You’ve even found a cause and devoted yourself to it. All admirable, Miss Fae. All admirable, indeed.”
I only blinked back at him. Somehow his praise only served to make me feel worse about myself.
Leaning down, he brought up his hand and stroked the back of his cold fingers down the side of my cheek. I tried to move away from his touch, but found I was unable. My stomach twisted. He smelled like something floral that was just beginning to die.
“I could use you, Aria Fae,” he told me in an intimate whisper. “But first you’ll have to choose. You fight for those who can’t defend themselves, forever straddling the line between the world of humans and the others. Not fitting here, not fitting there. It’s a lonely existence, is it not?”
My eyes were starting to burn. I wanted to run or strike out, but could do neither. He’d seized control again without even breaking a sweat.
“In my experience,” I told him, keeping my voice level with monumental effort, “most existences are lonely. It’s a condition of life.”
“Maybe,” he agreed, sitting back in the chair once more. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe we form our own side of the line, and fight for those on it, destroy those who are not, as they’ve tried to do with us.”
