by Lily Silver
Dan joined him in the hall. “Eavesdropping? That’s a little beneath you, isn’t it, Lord Dillon?”
Adrian felt his eyes narrow. “Do shut up. It’s my apartment. Why is that woman inside it, I should like to know.”
The dark look in Dan’s eyes almost gave him pause. Almost. Adrian stood his ground, a feat he learned early in life when he became the head of a large estate and a group of midnight rebels. Dan was the one to look away. Adrian restrained a smile and remained stoic.
“That woman, as you refer to her, has kindly agreed to become my wife.”
Oh, Good God! Adrian glared at the man, wondering if he’d spoken his thoughts aloud.
“Aren’t you going to congratulate me?” Blue eyes twinkled at him in amusement.
Apparently, he’d managed to keep his shock and outraged expletive to himself. Adrian looked away from Dan and released a long, anguished breath. This had been a hell of a day, as Dan would put it. And it wasn’t improving now. “Time for that later, Dan.” He touched the man’s arm in a rough pat. “The situation with the dark ones has become more serious. Tara and I were attacked by one lurking in Mr. Bellow’s apartment.”
The amusement left Dan’s face. It was quickly replaced with horror. “Whoa. Is Tara hurt? How did you get away … is she hurt?” He turned to their door, intending to stride inside and check for himself on Tara’s condition.
“No,” Adrian stopped him with a hand on his elbow. “No, just her pride. Mick and I killed it … . I … believe? We overcame it and left it gravely wounded before it could harm Tara or myself. Come, Mick’s waiting.”
Tara sat on the edge of the bed, her hands in her lap. She felt like a child now.
Weak and helpless.
This fear, it had to go. She couldn’t just stand back and let the men fight for her. Not if what Mick claimed was the truth. She had powers. They were just coming to the forefront.
She lifted her hands, and turned them so the palms were up. Blue energy came from her hands, once, when Mick attacked Dan. Lightning, Mick claimed. He said she could harness the energy of nature and use it as a weapon.
But I didn’t. I didn’t even try.
She bent double and held her head between her palms. Adrian could have been killed an hour ago. And she did nothing. Nothing but cower in the corner, trapped in fear because of what happened when she was a small child. She recalled dark wings and the shadow of a man moving over the sand, and then—boom—she was snatched from the earth, crying, screaming, pleading to be free.
Tara sat with her head in her hands as the shadows lengthened and the room grew dark. She replayed the scene at the apartment over and over in her head. What could she have done differently?
It was so unexpected. First the dark one cornering them, and then Mick flying through the window to save them.
No. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. It won’t solve anything. Enough with the tears. Time to get mad. Really fucking mad.
She stood up, and pulled the curtains over the window, instinct telling her it was safer with the curtains closed. Mick mentioned the other dark ones might search for their fallen comrade. Perhaps they would have heard his sharp shrieks when Adrian impaled him on the iron poker. They could be circling, searching for their foe. She knew it instinctively.
The ivory porcelain pitcher waited on the washstand. Tara moved to the tall stand and poured some water into the matching ivory basin that had rosebuds circling the edge. She splashed water on her face to chase away the remnants of tears, and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Water drops ran down her cheeks and into the basin. She looked just as she always had. A little more startled, perhaps, but she was a woman, a grown woman of about twenty five years, maybe a couple more. She couldn’t remember an exact human age she should be. Nine hundred years was what Mick said. Almost a millennia old.
“We should involve ourselves in war? The pair of us, Riley, and us with a wee fey toddler in tow?” Mick’s words infuriated her the other day.
After her encounter with their enemy, Tara now knew her brother was correct.
“I am not a child!” she had protested hotly.
“You are as a babe, barely aware of your true powers. A toddler, aye, or a young adolescent, at best. Had you been raised with us, you would have been much farther along in your abilities …”
So, she was an adult in human years, but a child by fey years?
How could that be.
Tara reached for the towel and patted her face dry. She gazed at her reflection. In times of war, children were often forced to grow up fast.
“Well, then, little fey, it’s time to grow up.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mick and Riley stood with arms crossed, both scowling slightly as Adrian and Dan entered the apartment. It set an ominous tone on their meeting.
“Why did you leave the building and go to this man’s lodgings?” Mick’s voice was aggressive with accusation. “And you,” his eyes moved to the giant next to Adrian, “why did you leave your friend unattended.”
“I went downstairs to check on another friend who needed my assistance.” Dan was not apologetic in the least.
“Here, now. Don’t be ordering us about,” Adrian put in, fearing the angry fey before him would attack Dan in his fury and toss him about the room as he had previously. That would never do. Tara would be furious. “Dan is not yours to command, nor am I.”
“I can fix that mighty quick,” Mick threatened, lifting his hand and extending his fingers into an arch. Did he mean to harm them, or simply enchant them into mindless drones?
“None of that, brother,” Riley’s fist folded over Mick’s and he gently curled his brother’s fingertips into a ball beneath his hand. “It will do little good and it will alienate us from our sister. Fair means, Mick, at least among family.”
Mick’s hand returned to rest on his arm as he once more assumed the mien of a very cross army major drilling his troops. “Why did you go there? Did you not realize it could be dangerous?”
“No, I didn’t.” Adrian met Mick’s harsh tone word for word. “We went to his flat to see if they left another bottle, as Bellows told Tara that once he finished a bottle of the potent drink, he would find another one delivered mysteriously outside his door.”
“Oh, bless them, whoever they are. Can I have this new bottle? I sore need a draught of that lovely green elixir.”
Everyone turned to the fragile man in the bed, surprised by the fact that he was awake. Mr. Bellows looked hopefully at them, silently pleading for a drink of his personally delivered poison.
Mick’s form appeared next to the bed so quickly Adrian could only blink. One second the man was in front of him with arms crossed, the next he was on the other side of the room bending over Mr. Bellows.
“No, you may not,” Mick snarled at the man, leaning so low over him he could nearly kiss the fellow on the lips. He continued to glare at the man, staring directly into poor Bellow’s eyes as if reprimanding a very stubborn child. “That drink is poison to your brain. Remember that. Never, ever drink it again. Absinthe is evil, a foul drink and you abhor it. Remember this. And off to sleep you go.” The subtle gesture of Mick’s hand—an unfurling of fingers between his face and Bellow’s as he hovered so close—made Adrian fear the man was going to grab the fellow’s skull and do some mischief.
Instead, Mick blew gently into his open palm, and something akin to a blur of dust flew from his hand and into Bellow’s face. The man closed his eyes, and was instantly asleep.
Adrian looked at Dan. Dan looked at him. They shared a moment of uncertainty at the fey warrior’s actions.
Mick stood upright and walked away from their patient, giving that one his back. “Did you bring it with you?” His question was directed at Adrian.
“Yes, it’s unopened. It was left outside his door.”
“Excellent.” Mick’s praise was unexpected, as he seemed to be in the most foul mood possible in all the years Adrian had known him. “We n
o longer have the advantage of stealth. They know we are in the area now, and so they will be watching for us.”
“We need to come up with a plan, and quickly,” Adrian agreed. “We need to find the still and destroy it.”
“Aye,” Riley said. “And more than that, we need to figure out how many of them are involved in this dark plot, and we have to vanquish them. Left alive, they can always obtain another still if we destroy the one they’re using.”
Mick stalked about the room as he considered their words. He rubbed his chin with his fingers, and seemed to just discover his jaw was lined with stubble.
Dan released a great, heavy sigh. He stepped away from Adrian and moved to the bed to peer down at his unconscious friend. He sat down on the edge of the bed and drew out a cigar and a packet of match sticks, going for his usual vice for comfort when he was agitated. “You might know it would come to this; I propose marriage to a girl—and the goddamned world is about to end.”
Adrian’s lips cracked up into a grin. Tara was right about this endearing man. He could always bring humor into a situation, no matter how dark. As Mick and Riley were silent, Adrian had one question, a serious question regarding his wife’s health and well being. “Does iron kill the fey?”
The brothers exchanged a look. Adrian expected his question to be ignored.
“Aye,” Riley answered. “Yet, the element of iron is not lethal to us. It’s the placement that matters, It must pierce the heart.” He tapped his chest with his fingers.
“By the way, a lead ball from a musket is not deadly,” Mick directed his words at Adrian.
“I saw the dark one’s skin burn under the touch of iron. What about Tara, and you? Do you get burned if iron or other precious metals touch your skin?” It was an important point. He wanted to protect Tara from harm, even an accidental encounter.
“Fey skin can be burnt from touching various pure elements from the earth.” Mick explained, taking an interest in Adrian’s question where before he seemed annoyed by it. His answers, however, were deliberately obscure. “You learned today that iron is the weakness for that particular clan of dark ones. The ancients discovered this in the Iron Age. Other human tribes of the earth discovered the seven elementary metals of alchemy held the power to harm fey clans and drive them out of their midst. It is why we took to hiding in the mountains, to avoid humans as they assumed all of the fey were like the dark ones.”
“Seven elements?” Adrian was surprised to learn this. “What are they?”
The gleam in Mick’s eye told him that he would not learn that powerful secret. No matter how close they might be, Adrian realized it would be foolish for the fey to answer him.
“Gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, tin and mercury,” Dan exhaled a cloud of smoke into the air as he spoke. “The seven metals of alchemy. Seven raw elements of the earth. Mercury is useless in this age. Unless I break a thermometer and shove it in some baddie’s chest.” He paused and looked down at his hands and then turned them palms up. “Hell, I don’t know if mercury thermometers have been invented yet. In the future, man will discover how to contain it more effectively. We could use needle injections to the heart, or guns that shoot liquid mercury like they do liquid silver in popular Sci-Fi movies like Underworld.”
“What the bloody hell is he going on about?” Mick asked Adrian.
Adrian made a face and shrugged. “Future inventions?”
The giant moaned and rubbed his brow with his hand. “Yeah, right. Future inventions, modern progress. Ain’t that why we’re in a huddle, to stop the bad fairies from taking over the world?”
“The element used must be pure, not combined with other materials, like iron mixed with carbon to create steel. A steel blade thrust in the heart would not kill a dark fey as it’s diluted, corrupted. And it must pierce the heart of the fey to be effective. Furthermore, the element must be in a substantial amount, such as three or more lead balls from a pistol. A pure silver dagger or a golden spear would do the deed,” Riley added, and was given a dark look from his brother.
“Aye, just give them the tools to destroy us,” Mick sneered and glared at them all.
Adrian studied his lifetime guardian and friend for a long moment. Mick’s wings had disappeared, and he looked perfectly human. The wings were a surprise today, but in the heat of battle, Adrian could not allow his astonishment to surface, as he was in a fight to protect his most precious possession, his wife.
“So …” Dan stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. “Let me get this straight. Silver bullets kill werewolves, wooden stakes kill vampires and iron or lead kills fairies?”
“No.” Mick whirled about so quickly to confront Dan, Adrian felt his breath catch.
“One of the seven metal elements of alchemy,” Dan continued, unruffled by Mick’s aggressive stance nearby. “Let me guess, different elements affect different kinds of fey?”
“Yes,” Riley answered Dan’s query. “It is said that the Far Eastern fey clans tend to be sensitive to tin, whilst those of European descent are—”
“Shut up.” Mick glared at his sibling. “You freely give information that can harm us to human men, are you daft or suicidal?”
“Neither.” Riley chose that moment to stalk up to his elder and confront him by standing toe to toe and eye to eye. “I am trying to help these two men figure out how to destroy our enemy. And since we know from your recent encounter that these dark ones are killed by iron, we can make use of that information to bring them down. We are making a battle plan with merely ourselves and two human men against an unknown number of Darkling Fey. Tara could help us, as well.”
“No. She must not fight. She is the last of our mound, a queen in our mother’s stead.” Mick was adamant. “We must come up with a plan that does not involve dragging our baby sister into a war with us.”
The door opened. Tara entered with the satchel in hand. She glanced at the bed, saw that Bellows was asleep, and then slowly looked about the room to each man before finally resting her gaze on Mick. “I brought the bottle so Riley can examine the contents. What’s the plan?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tara felt as if she’d entered a male only club. They all just looked at her, as if her presence was completely unexpected.
“Seriously? You’re planning on forging ahead without me?”
“That is correct.” The words came from an unexpected source. From Dan.
She set the satchel on the chair next to the table where Riley had laid out his science kit. She pulled the bottle out and set it on the table as she struggled to pull up her courage and face them after her cowardly behavior a few hours ago.
Yeah, they probably decided she was useless to them after she simply shrank into the corner like that. It wasn’t her best moment.
“Look, guys … Mick, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t shoot lightning from my hands to stop the gothic fey creep. I’ll practice, ok? I’ll try really hard to create blue energy bombs with my bare hands so next time I’m not a useless trinket to be kept on a high shelf.” She kept her head low, her eyes focused on Riley’s glass menagerie of antique chemist’s equipment.
Several voices rose at once in protest, creating an unintelligible noise that couldn’t be discerned into actual words. They were patronizing her, like one would a child talking about going off to fight the North Koreans after watching a newscast in the living room. It made her feel even lower.
Mick was suddenly beside her. He lifted her chin and forced her to look up at him. “What happened earlier is a good thing, sister.”
“How’s that?” Tara’s voice warbled as she looked up into his pale blue eyes and fought the tears of shame rising in her own. “How is cowering in the corner, doing nothing, a good thing?”
Mick’s lips curved into a smile. He stared down at her for a moment and then kissed her brow. “Because, sweet sister, they will not know of your powers until it’s too late. They won’t know what’s coming.”
The
men spent the next hour discussing the next action. They agreed on two things. First, someone unknown to the dark ones had to go to the Exposition booth to get a sample of the stuff they were handing out to patrons so Riley could compare it to the poisoned formula. And second, they had to determine where the still was so they could destroy it.
Last but not least, they had to take out the dark ones so they didn’t start over once the stills were destroyed. The hard part was trying to figure out how many they were up against.
Adrian mentioned having arrow tips made of iron. Dan pointed out that they wouldn’t fly very well due to their weight. The two men discussed the virtues of an iron tip arrow versus using good old fashioned stakes made of iron as a hand weapon. Adrian didn’t like that idea, as he cautioned that it would require getting to close to the creatures, and as human beings, they had little strength against the enchanted ones.
Tara listened to them for a few moments, and then moved to the table to listen to her brothers argue.
“We cannot trust her,” Mick countered when Riley suggested freeing Artemisia to add to their numbers. “She betrayed our kind by giving the magic elixir to man in the first place, and she betrayed man by playing the succubus and drinking in their adoration in exchange.”
“Yes, but she was betrayed herself by a man, by her own husband. He used magic to trap her in the garden. The dark ones came, hearing her plea for aid, and took the recipe from her in exchange for securing her freedom and then stranded her there. She’s held in by powerful human magic. If we free her she might—”
“Take out her fury on man, us, possibly both. She is treacherous, I say. She may be working with the dark ones,” Mick insisted. “We will free her when the danger is past, that way, we’ve no need to worry about her turning on us during the battle.”
“So, there are the three of us, Adrian and Dan.” Tara pointed out. “What weapons do we have against them?”
