Rogue’s Possession

by Jeffe Kennedy

He held himself with stout dignity. “Nevertheless. I failed to serve you properly. We have many villages along the way to the Glass Mountains. I will see to your comfort and protection.”

  “All right then.”

  “I’ll arrange for horses immediately.” He hesitated.

  “Spit it out, Larch.”

  “It might be best if you ride instead of taking the coach. It won’t do well once you reach the mountains.”

  “Makes sense to me. Blackbird—why don’t you take the coach to the Port of Blue Mermaids?”

  She sighed. “Fine. But I don’t like this.”

  “I’ll take care of Starling—I won’t risk her.”

  “I’ll take care of myself, thank you! I’m not a doddering idiot.”

  “No.” Blackbird smiled sadly and brushed Starling’s hair out of her eyes. “I can’t help but worry for you. I can’t lose you—” her voice caught, “—also.”

  Starling’s brown eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t think of that. I’m sorry. I’ll go with you.”

  Blackbird shook her head briskly and wiped away a tear of her own. “That’s not what I meant you to feel. You’re right. Your place is with Gwynn. Just...be careful, would you?”

  With a little hiccup, Starling flung herself into Blackbird’s embrace, her golden hair a contrast to her mother’s gleaming brunette, and her frame more humanly proportioned than Blackbird’s longer limbs. Otherwise, they looked much the same, clearly sprung from the same seed. Athena toyed with the hilt of her dagger and caught me watching her. She gave me a little grimace for her fascination and busied herself lacing on her boots.

  We decided to start walking while Blackbird waited for Larch to return with horses. He promised to catch up with us that evening. Or, barring that, the next day. She promised she’d be fine with her rapier and, besides, who would bother with her?

  The four of us—including Darling Hercules—set off down the road Larch indicated. Athena promised that she knew the way also, with that enviable dragonfly girl hive-mind knowledge. I did feel keenly for Starling, that her mixed blood cut her out of that loop. I was foreign through and through, while she was cut out of a world that should have been hers.

  As promised, Larch caught up with us by evening, bringing horses—including Felicity, who nickered at the sight of me—and a sack of tribute to trade. He wanted to trust Athena with that, as she would know the appropriate value of the things, but Starling thought Athena shouldn’t have both the staff and the tribute items while Athena astutely pointed out that Starling had custody of the grimoire. Eventually they decided to trade the staff back and forth.

  The one thing they agreed on was that I shouldn’t touch it more than necessary.

  I overruled them from time to time, however, ostensibly to practice with the staff. I grew my hair out permanently, just to prove I could, set the color and then left it alone. I stabilized a few other small spells. The staff didn’t have the reach or resonance of the cave itself, but it amplified very nicely.

  Taking a bite out of me every time. Little bleeding wounds I took care to hide from the others. Though Darling seemed to know, watching me with his inscrutable cat’s eyes, thoughts quiet.

  When I had enough energy, I checked the globe for Rogue’s activities. Which were more of the same. Dancing, feasting, lolling about, fawning over Titania. Though I hadn’t seen it directly—thank all the stars in the heavens—he seemed to be her lover. And utterly delighted with her.

  Every night, I dreamed. Sometimes of the tender, ardent Rogue who visited me in bed and begged me not to look for him, even as he touched me like a starving man. Other times the bad dreams took over—me climbing up the glittering shards of the peaks, slicing my hands open.

  I would have taken the lily earrings off, if I could have, just to stop the dreams. If I’d had the dragon’s egg still, I would have. Several times I toyed with the vial of dragon’s blood always in my pocket, considering if just a dab would do the trick. Always, though, I reconsidered. One doesn’t squander a secret weapon on the way to the great confrontation.

  The dreams—the good ones—were also the only source of anything remotely sexually interesting in my life. We rode all day, shoveled food into our mouths at night and fell into our beds, when we had them, dead to the world. If we slept outside, though we had blankets supplied by nearby Brownie villages, I invoked the force field. The Wild Hunt grew louder every night, so much so that I sometimes feared the pounding hooves would crash through the roof of whatever house we slept in. Though the others didn’t seem to notice it as much, I didn’t care to take any risks that the hunt might carry one of us away.

  Otherwise, I grew parsimonious with my magic use. With every day that passed, I became aware that my reserves dwindled a bit more. Without Rogue’s teasing and titillating presence, there was nothing to replenish me. Not even a convenient Officer Liam to charge my girly batteries. He was apparently trying to catch up with us, but wouldn’t for some time, limited to nonmagical travel.

  Not an ideal way to confront one’s greatest enemy.

  Finally, when Larch next made contact, I asked him to arrange for us to stay in a human village for the night. He gave me a dubiously blue look.

  “Surely you can’t be worried I intend to betray Rogue,” I snapped at him, irritable. “Look what I’m already going through for his sake. This is something I need to do. Just trust me in this.”

  He slid his gaze off mine and on to Athena. “You’ll have to play dumb,” he told her. “The humans will expect it.”

  She widened her lilac eyes and rounded her little pink bow of a mouth, then giggled. Starling snorted and Larch just shook his head.

  “Just set it up, Larch, please? We can handle ourselves.”

  We came upon the human village—a fair deviation from the road into the Glass Mountains—by early evening. As much as I’d longed to find a settlement of my kind when I first arrived here, now the miasma of purely human thoughts condensed into one place threw me off-kilter. More than I was already.

  We rode down the simple main street, nowhere nearly as neatly kept as the Brownie towns. Many of the houses seemed ready to tumble in a heap of timber, and the people who looked out of unglassed windows, or emptied basins into the common sewer running down the center of the road, eyed us with suspicion.

  This, then, was the third world of Faerie. And it belonged to my own kind.

  The inn Larch had arranged looked similarly decrepit but at least glowed with the warmth of firelight—very welcome to me as the first fingers of the night wind slithered down my neck and the hoots of The Hunt drew near. An older man greeted us civilly enough, handing our horses over to a stable lad. He, too, cast a wary eye to the sky.

  “Good night to be indoors, lady,” he grunted. “Not fittin’ for humans to be out, with that lot preying through the skies. My niece took ill with childbirth night before last and the Hunt took her. Left a wee bairn behind that Odin will likely take too, before the week is out.” He looked Starling over and, seeing the high arch of her cheekbones and large eyes, dismissed her as one of us. Athena made a concerted effort to skip into the inn with an appropriately vacant expression and he looked right past her, instead focusing on Darling Hercules. “That one a good mouser?”

  Darling Hercules stopped in his tracks, tail on high alert.

  “An excellent one,” I agreed, relieved by the change of subject. “And he’d love to.”

  “I got a corn bin infested with the critters. I’ll give you all free lodging and board if we can borrow him overnight.”

  Darling Hercules pictured a heap of fat corn-fed mice in happy anticipation. The journey had been boring for him, riding along on his pillow, and I sent him off with good wishes. Up in our rooms, Starling set about getting a bath ordered for me while Athena sprawled on the bed, cleaning her nails with the dagger.

  “Remind me why we’re doing this?” Starling grumbled, pulling a hopelessly wrinkled party dress out of my bags. It had likely been
in there since we left Falcon’s camp. “And can’t you use just a little magic to fix this up?”

  “I’m saving up for my special friend in the Ice Palace. Maybe there’s something less wrinkled? Or I can mess with it when I get out of the tub.”

  “Oh here,” Athena snatched it from Starling’s hand, “I can do this. Titania knows I was good for little else most of my life so far.” She put a kettle on the fire to start steaming.

  “Thanks—it’s probably the sexiest one, so that’s a big help.”

  “Which brings me back to my original question. Why are we being sexy tonight?”

  “We are not doing anything. You can have dinner up here and crash if you like. I’ll be fine on my own.”

  “Doing what?” Starling wrinkled her nose in suspicion.

  Athena heaved a sigh and glared at her. “Don’t you get it?”

  “What? What don’t I get?”

  “She has to go get her flirt on to pump up the magic. Hanging out with a bunch of girls and Brownies isn’t doing it for her. She needs all the juice she can get and she’s not getting it from us.”

  Starling came over to shampoo my hair for me, chagrin graying her thoughts. “Sorry, Gwynn. I didn’t realize.”

  Actually, it surprised me that Athena had. “No reason why you would. It’s not something I’m really comfortable discussing. I feel like a damn succubus or some such.”

  “Oh no.” Starling shuddered. “You’re nothing like those harpies.”

  An interesting mental image drifted through her mind and I wanted to pursue it. But it also felt so nice to relax in the hot water with her deft fingers massaging my scalp. I must have dozed off, because I awoke to them whispering.

  “Should she be this tired?” Athena’s voice.

  “Well, I am tired too!” Starling snapped back. “It’s not easy going all day, sleeping in terrible beds. Not all of us are magic-fueled—some of us are human.”

  Athena made a derogatory sound. “Some more than others.”

  “Hey! That’s just rude, you snotty little—”

  “Girls, do I have to put you in separate rooms?” I dunked my head under the water to rinse out the soap and silence any petulant answers.

  Starling stood ready to dry me off when I emerged. “Sorry,” she muttered. She had dark circles under her eyes and I winced, remembering my promise to look after her.

  I patted her arm. “Stay in the rooms. Rest.”

  “You shouldn’t be down there alone.”

  “I can go with her. Magically fueled and all.” Athena had the grace to look apologetic.

  Starling wavered, clearly torn, but finally agreed. She had flopped on the bed and fallen fast asleep before we even left the room.

  “I shouldn’t be making us go so far every day.”

  Athena shrugged her slim shoulders. “You’re worried for Lord Rogue. Every day he’s with Titania, the tighter she binds him to her.”

  I stopped and stared at her. “Do you believe that?”

  She considered. “Yeah. That’s how these things work.”

  “What ‘things’?”

  “Possessions.” When I frowned at her, she clarified. “Taking possession of another person. Deepens with time and proximity. Starling knows that too, even though she’s not convinced that’s what happened.”

  “What does she think happened?”

  “That you’re crazed with grief over your lost true love.”

  I sighed.

  “That and she’s worried about Walter.”

  “Yeah, me too. She has good reason to worry.”

  Athena seemed about to say something, then turned and headed down the stairs instead. “C’mon,” she called over her shoulder. “Let’s get you fed. Can’t have our favorite succubus going hungry.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  The tavern rang with the gratifying sound of men’s voices. I paused on entering the room, letting them take a good look at me. I’d never been the kind of woman who commanded much male attention—certainly not an entire roomful. But I’d gone to some effort, knowing something from what Liam liked.

  My dress fell low across my bosom, revealing a fair amount of skin. My hair drifted long and loose down my back, something I knew would be unusual since, as I’d suspected, all the human women I could see had their hair tightly braided. My cocktail length hem showed off the better part of my legs, including the stiletto heels. I’d squandered a tiny bit of magic on “doing my makeup,” adding shadows and colors to enhance what charms I possessed.

  The women frowned at me and the men grinned in approval, salacious thoughts drifting my way like the scent of hot gravy. Oh yeah. I drank it in.

  “Is this seat taken?” I asked as coyly as I could manage. The all-male table rearranged themselves, happy to accommodate me. Fortunately my meager flirting skills weren’t called upon. The men competed with each other for my attention, all the while feeding me with fantasies of what they wanted to do to me. I only hoped I wouldn’t have to draw on my newly replenished supplies to fend any of them off.

  Athena, with an empty-headed giggle and bounce, brought me my meal and then plopped herself at my feet. I chatted with the men, answering their questions and embellishing freely—and without remorse—on the story of who I might be and where I was headed. I might have dropped Fafnir’s name a few times and strongly implied Sugar Daddy status for him. A little misdirection never hurts.

  All in all, I considered it a successful evening and, when I woke in the morning, the dredging exhaustion had at least eased. It had been a good dream night too, with Rogue dancing with me, spinning me around an empty ballroom, ardor in his dark blue eyes. Starling looked a bit better for the rest too, and we all counted ourselves lucky that no one had bothered us.

  Of course, finding Larch sleeping on the floor outside our door tipped me off on part of the reason for that.

  “Get what you came for, my lady sorceress?” He scrunched up one eye, surveying me.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “No more human villages twixt here and the path into the Glass Mountains. You’ll have to do without from now on.”

  “I’ll have to.”

  We packed up and headed down for breakfast, where a lone redheaded man sat drinking a mug of beer.

  Starling stopped on a gasp. “Daddy?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Further Up and Further In

  Over and over it occurs to me that the Black Dog moves outside of the rules. I think this is important.

  ~Big Book of Fairyland, “The Black Dog”

  I looked from the grizzled man to Starling’s wide brown eyes. Back to him. “Fergus?”

  “In the flesh.” He toasted me with his tankard, then winked at Starling. “No hug for your old da, Little Bit?”

  She threw herself at him and he enveloped her in a bear hug, laughing when she squealed at the rough stubble on his face.

  Athena and I sat gingerly on the other side of the table. Then she popped up again. “What am I thinking? I’ll fetch breakfast.”

  I nabbed her sleeve to stop her. “Let the inn help do it. Who cares what they think now? I’d rather you stuck close.”

  Starling and Fergus finished their reunion just as the scowling maids brought out our food. Hopefully none of them had spit in mine. I certainly hadn’t won any friends among the female population with my performance last night. I used a judicious wish to cleanse any germs or toxins.

  “How are you here, Daddy?” Starling asked. Belatedly, I thought. Then the next thought occurred to her. “And oh no! You missed Mother. She went in the other direction, looking for you across the Endless Sea.”

  The guilt on his face told it all.

  “Yes. How is it that you serendipitously just happened to turn up right this moment?” I inquired in a sweet voice. Starling gave me a sharp look and I hoped she’d be circumspect.

  “I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance, lady. Or your companion there.”

  “My fau
lt.” Starling jumped in. “Daddy, this is Lady Sorceress Gwynn, my liege lady. We’re on a quest!”

  So much for circumspect.

  “A quest! Seems like my luck is with me, as I’m on a quest too. What is yours, Lady Gwynn. I tell you mine if you tell me yours.” His Irish brogue rolled out thick and charming—and didn’t take me in for one moment.

  “I suspect you know exactly what our quest is, Fergus. Tell me this. How long have you been in the habit of lying to your wife?”

  He scratched his bristly chin, white hairs peppering the red. I wondered how old he truly was. “Well now, a man sometimes tells his wife a pretty story or two to keep her satisfied. It hurts none. I didn’t imagine she’d take it in her head to come looking for me, after all these years. Your turn—who’s your little blue-haired servant girl there?”

  “This is Athena. She’s, um, a friend, not a servant.”

  Starling looked flustered, especially when Athena raised her eyebrows in feigned shock.

  “Athena, eh? Companion of heroes. Seems apt.” Fergus winked at me.

  Wow. Put like that it sounded really...egomaniacal. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “I like it,” Athena countered firmly and Fergus nodded.

  “See? The lass knows it’s right. What with you on your own odyssey.”

  “You’re remarkably well-read for a poor Irish farmer.”

  “Yes, that. You can’t farm at night and those right bastards close the pubs at two—have to pass the time somehow.”

  “Sleep?”

  He shook his head. “Never was much good at that.”

  “What are you good at, Fergus?”

  “Rescuing pretty maids and not a hell of a lot else, as it turns out.” His tone turned bitter and he turned a canny eye on me that belied his drunken Irishman guise. “You came through with magic, it seems.”

  I nodded, not willing to confide much else.

  He drank deeply, set down the empty tankard. “I came through a hero. Obstacles crumble before me. Castles fall. Princesses throw themselves at my feet.” He seemed to recall Starling’s presence and patted her knee in apology. It seemed the drunken Irishman bit might be entirely too real and not a counterfeit at all.