Cruel Fate

by Kelley Armstrong

  All roads in Cainsville ended within Cainsville—except Main, which became the regional highway leading out. It was an odd construction quirk that you didn’t notice until you stopped to think about it. After all, if you wanted to leave town, you’d use Main. No reason to go another way. Except you literally could not go another way. Each street ended in a polite Dead End sign, most stopping at the last house, but a few, like Peach, extending beyond the residential area to branch off in fields and forests for hikes and jogs and dog-walks. You had Cainsville, the town, and then you had nothing for a mile or so in each direction before more roads and farms started.

  Gabriel pulled in at the end of Peach, right in front of the Dead End sign.

  “There’s no house here,” I said. “It’s a stalling tactic. While we stand around, waiting, Patrick will find Ricky. Then we’ll get a call—Oh, did I say Peach? I meant Pansy. By the way, Ricky’s turned up, and he’s just fine.”

  I paced as I seethed. While I ranted, I kept up an internal loop of “Ricky’s fine. He’s just fine.” It was Cainsville. No fae could swoop in and take him. Why would they? It’d cause too much trouble. A fae had grabbed him by mistake or maybe because, hell, maybe because he was cute, and she was lonely.

  I still worried. I paced, and I snarled, and I snapped, and I worried. Gabriel prowled about, looking for a drive or a path.

  “There’s nothing here,” I said. “It’s a dead end. I’ve been here many times, Gabriel. We both have. There’s nothing—”

  He disappeared. One second he was there, and then he stepped into the forest and disappeared altogether, as if the shadows had swallowed him whole.

  “Gabriel?”

  When he didn’t reply, I hurried into the forest after him, and he stepped from behind a tree, like it had hidden him from view. It hadn’t—it was barely more than a sapling. An optical illusion of sorts, and if I hadn’t been paying attention, I might indeed have thought I simply lost sight of him as he passed behind trees.

  His brows arched as I jogged over.

  “You didn’t hear me?” I asked.

  His expression told me he hadn’t.

  “Could you see me?” I said.

  Another arch of his brows. I explained, and he admitted he hadn’t looked my way. I experimented, proving that there was fae magic here, a barrier of sorts. Which might mean Patrick wasn’t actually lying…

  It only took a few more steps to see that he wasn’t. A few steps to reach an overgrown driveway leading to an old farmhouse. From the road, both the house and the drive were invisible. Yet if you happened, for some inexplicable reason, to tramp through that strip of forest—rather than take one of the welcoming, groomed trails farther down—you’d come across this house, and it would seem as if it had only been hidden behind the trees. This was how most fae magic worked. Humans weren’t even aware they were seeing anything magical. Their minds filled in the question marks with plausible explanations.

  We circled the house, staying in the trees. It looked abandoned, which to me screamed “fae.” They loved abandoned places, with a delicious glee. Human expansion drove fae to the New World, and its continued expansion there meant the fae had fewer and fewer wild refuges, the elements increasingly tainted by pollution. When a place was abandoned, nature reclaimed it, and the fae returned, delighting in these small triumphs of Mother Nature over human civilization.

  The house was a perfect example of that. It’d nearly been swallowed by greenery, paint and windows long gone, leaving weathered and mossy wood. Stonework crumbled. Iron railings rusted and fell away. A gorgeous ruin, and my fae blood quickened at the sight.

  Gabriel chose a window in the back where the forest had crept almost to the building itself. An easy and discreet entry point.

  “Patrick said we should wait for him,” I whispered.

  For the third time, I got that wordless arch of his brows.

  “I’m not saying we should,” I said. “I’m just pointing it out. Covering my ass.”

  He snorted a soft laugh and shed his jacket and tie, hanging them on a broken branch as if it were a convenient coat hook. Then he eyed the window.

  “I’ll go first,” I said. “And I won’t watch you struggle to get through.”

  “I was simply—”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  I climbed onto the window frame. The glass had been gone so long there weren’t even stray shards to worry about, the wood as smooth and soft as driftwood. I hopped down and, as promised, kept my back turned while Gabriel came through. No amount of exercise was going to let a guy his size gracefully vault through a window frame.

  By the time he got in, I was already across the empty room. It was still early evening outside, but in here, I might need a flashlight. I stepped through a doorway, considering the lighting, when out of the corner of my eye, a figure loomed. I spun, gun rising to see…

  A gargoyle.

  It was a big one, nearly as tall as me, and it was indeed looming, clawed hands outstretched to grab unwary guests.

  Interesting choice of hallway decoration.

  I touched the stone. Cold. I don’t know what else I was expecting. Still, as I continued into the next room, I couldn’t help keeping an eye on the statue, as if it might glide after me. I also couldn’t help watching for Gabriel’s reaction as he stepped into the hall. I could warn him, but that’d be no fun at all.

  And, as I should have expected, “no fun at all” was exactly what I got. Gabriel walked into the hall, glanced at the gargoyle and gave it a cursory once-over without even a blink of surprise.

  I continued into the next room and found more gargoyles. At least a half dozen. The ones in town were classic gargoyles and grotesques and chimeras. These looked more fae. Twisted and wizened fae.

  “An early batch?” I whispered to Gabriel.

  He knelt to examine one. The stonework did indeed look older than the ones in town. Cracked and dusty and discolored and moss-freckled. Like the statues in my back garden before I began restoring them.

  It would make sense if these did represent early efforts. The Tylwyth Teg may have initially modeled their stone guardians after fae, and later decided they’d be less noticeable if they resembled standard gargoyles.

  A floorboard creaked overhead. I looked across the room to see stairs through the doorway. I went up, gun in hand. From the top, I could see open doors and more gargoyles through them. I headed for the room overtop the one downstairs where we’d heard the noise. Through the open doorway, I could see there was no one inside. Just more gargoyles. Three of them in what had once been a bedroom, now empty except for those statues.

  I walked to one that looked more like the style in town, a true gargoyle, dog sized and crouched, with fangs and a snout, batwings wrapped around itself. As I touched those wings, I remembered what my father had said.

  Something had grabbed Ricky and flown off with him.

  A noise again, still overhead.

  The attic.

  When I slipped into the hall, Gabriel was already opening the only closed door. Beyond it lay more stairs. He motioned for me to take the lead if I wanted. I crept over and then ascended, trying not to sneeze as each step sent up a flurry of dust. Light shone through the broken windows, and an eddy of wind set more dust flying.

  As soon as I reached the top, I saw Ricky. He lay on the floor, unconscious, his chest rising with steady breaths. In front of him crouched a gargoyle. It was the size of a child, gray stone carved into a forbidding face. I’d seen it before in town. It came and went more often than the others with no discernible pattern.

  As I took a step, the stone figure shimmered. Another step. The gargoyle seemed to pulse and expand. Another, and then it wasn’t a gargoyle at all, but an old woman. No, an old fae, one who looked the age the elders pretended to be, which made her the oldest I’d ever seen. Even the senior fae in Grace’s apartment building looked only middle-aged to me. This one had long iron-gray hair and a deeply creased face.

 
; She stayed crouched, her gaze fixed on Ricky. I took yet another step.

  “Mallt-y-Dydd,” she said, her voice a whispery creak. Then bright green eyes lasered me. “Or is it Mallt-y-Nos?”

  “It’s both,” I said.

  She rose, and even with a slight stoop in her shoulders, she towered over me. Her gaze shot to Gabriel, acknowledging him. Then she looked again at me.

  “It cannot be both,” she said. “You must choose.”

  “Yeah, I decided not to,” I said. “It’s this or nothing. If you have a problem with that—”

  “I have a problem with him.” She waved at Ricky. “Arawn misled you. They all did—all the Cwˆn Annwn.”

  “No.” I walked over and knelt beside Ricky, and she didn’t try to stop me, just narrowed those bright green eyes. “The Huntsmen have been honest and fair in all their dealings—”

  “Child,” she spat. “Such a child. You see a pretty and charming boy, and you fall for his lies. I heard him with your father. Wooing him away from you. Securing him for the Cwˆn Annwn.”

  I sighed. “Whatever you heard—”

  “The boy offered your father a place to live,” she said. “He suggested your father move out of your home and into his.”

  I blinked.

  “Oh, that comes as a surprise, child?” she mocked. “I thought you trusted him. Honest and fair. He’s been wooing your father for the Cwˆn Annwn. One more way to tie you to them.”

  Behind me, Gabriel cleared his throat. “She’s right, Olivia. Well, the part about offering Todd another place to stay. You know Ricky has been out of sorts in his new house. This morning he mentioned he might see whether Todd wanted to be, as he put it, ‘roomies’ for a while. He was going to ask Todd before speaking to you, which I agreed was correct because…” Another clearing of his throat. “It is Todd’s decision.”

  Not yours. That’s what he meant. Hurt and outrage soared in me, and I opened my mouth in protest. Then I shut it. Because Gabriel was correct. Telling me first would have only given me the chance to veto the offer, and I had no right to do that.

  I turned to the fae. “Ricky—Arawn—isn’t wooing my father. He’s trying to help him. To protect him.”

  She stiffened. “That is my job. Veronica assigned it to me. Not to a human boy. Certainly not a Cwˆn Annwn boy. I had to rescue your father from this traitor. They argued in the hardware store, and Arawn manhandled him out the back door. Your father tried to escape.”

  “No, Ricky was getting him away from an actual threat. He was following my father to safety, not chasing him.” I sighed. “This is all a misunderstanding. Ask Veronica—”

  “Speaking of children,” the fae said with a sniff.

  “You consider Veronica a child?” I paused. “How old are you?”

  “Very, very old,” said a voice behind me. I turned as Patrick mounted the steps. “Couldn’t wait, could you?” He turned to the fae. “Hello, Arianell.”

  She sniffed again, louder this time, her expression dripping contempt. “Bòcan.”

  “Yes, it’s me, your personal favorite.” Patrick glanced at us. “Meet Arianell. As for how old she is, let’s just say she was old when they settled Cainsville. She’s been a guardian since before your parents were born.”

  “Guardian?” I said. It hit me then. “The gargoyles. That wasn’t just a glamour. She really is a—”

  “Gwarcheidwad,” Arianell snapped, saying “guardian” in Welsh.

  I looked at Patrick. “So, when you swore I knew the secret of the gargoyles…”

  “I swore nothing of the sort. That was Grace. And I’m sure she didn’t swear you knew the whole truth. When you accepted a condensed version, she skipped the full one.”

  “So the gargoyles—the gwarcheidwad—are fae?”

  “What did you think they were, Mallt-y-Dydd?” Arianell snapped. “Decorative statuary?”

  “They’re old fae, aren’t they?” I said. “Very, very old fae. Older than the ones in Grace’s building.”

  “It’s a way to make them feel useful in their final years,” Patrick said. “For some, those final years last a very long time.”

  Arianell let loose a torrent of Welsh I couldn’t follow.

  Patrick waved her down. “Yes, yes, Arianell, we all appreciate your dedication to the town.”

  “My town,” she said.

  “Your town, as one of the founders. You will always have a place here.” His eye roll said he wished it to be otherwise. He looked at me. “Wake Ricky up, and get him out of here. Veronica will handle”—he looked at Arianell—“this.”

  Twenty-four

  Olivia

  Ricky was fine. Pissed off, but fine. I didn’t tell him that I knew about the housing offer. I didn’t trust myself to be reasonable about it just yet. I settled him onto the sofa with Gabriel, who’d explain the situation with the Kirkmans. Then I went onto the back porch, where Todd crouched beside the deck, examining it.

  “The construction of that is driving you nuts, isn’t it?” I said.

  He smiled and rose.

  I handed him a beer. “Miller Genuine Draft.”

  “Where’d you get it?” he said as he took it. “I read online that it’s hard to find.”

  “I have my ways.” I sat on the top step. “So, you’re moving in with Ricky.”

  He winced. He uncapped the beer and took a hit of it. Then he set it down.

  “They wouldn’t let me see you in prison,” he said. “After I was arrested.”

  I glanced up at him, his expression unreadable as the falling sun backlit his face.

  “That day I was arrested,” he said, “was the last time I saw you. With your mother also in prison…” He shrugged. “No one would bring you to us. I didn’t want you seeing me there, but I wanted…” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I wanted something. Some closure. All I could think about was the last time you saw us. Dragged away, with no chance to explain it to you. No chance to say we hadn’t left you—that we’d never leave you. I was so afraid you’d get angry and forget us.” He moved his foot onto the bottom step beside mine. “Which you did.”

  “I wasn’t angry. I was young. I—”

  “You were angry and hurt and confused. I’m sure the fae worked magic to help you forget, but part of you wanted to, and I don’t blame you. We abandoned you. That’s all you knew.” He went quiet for a moment and then said, his voice softer, “I will never abandon you again, sweetheart.”

  I nodded. “If you want to move in with Ricky…”

  “I think I should. You and Gabriel might have been together for a year, but it’s still a new relationship. I’m in the way.” He continued over my protests. “While Gabriel would never even suggest it, we both know this isn’t his ideal living situation. The only person he’s truly comfortable with is you, and he needs a place where he can close the door and let his guard down.”

  “We—”

  “I’m not offering out of pure altruism, Liv. I need to get back on my feet. I can do that better where I don’t have my very competent daughter fretting over my safety. I can take care of myself. You saw that today, I hope.” He lowered himself beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. “If you need me to stay a little longer, I will.”

  Yes, I did need that. I needed to be sure he was okay. But this wasn’t about what I needed. In bringing him here, I’d reversed positions from their natural order. He’d become the child, and I was the parent, frantically clearing every obstacle in his path before he tripped and hurt himself. He wasn’t going to trip. Well, yes, he might—he almost certainly would—but that was part of adulthood, too.

  “Ricky could use a housemate,” I said.

  Todd laughed. “He could. Neither of us is very good with being alone. It’s the perfect solution, Liv. He has the space. He’s close by. I’ll get a little distance, but not too much. And I’ll be here working so much you’ll get sick of me anyway.”

  “Working?” I said.

  He r
ose and gestured at the deck. “Ripping this thing down and building that addition for you. I’m more a carpenter than a construction guy, but I learned a few things in prison.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  He cut me off with a kiss on my forehead. “I want to. It’ll give me an excuse to hang around and get to know my daughter better, if that’s what she wants.”

  I looked up at him and smiled. “It is.”

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