Soul Marked: After the Fire Book 1

by C. Gockel

  He lets out a breath, and sucks in another fast as the wall behind him starts to groan. Spinning, Lionel finds it rising, beams of light bursting from beneath. Backing up, he blinks into the blinding bright eyes of one of the possibly sentient human chariots. He’s invisible, but he can still be flattened. Lionel darts to the left, out of its line of vision, but the thing turns in his direction with a honk. It either has sensitive hearing, or smell, or both. Spinning again, Lionel runs. Looking back, he sees the thing speeding up. He sprints through a narrow open gate and slams it behind him. The chariot honks again, but passes by, and Lionel sighs in relief.

  He looks around and finds himself in a small yard with a hulking brick building at the far end. From the door of the building comes a bark and a scratching noise. An instant later, the door opens, and a dog erupts from inside, growling and lunging directly at him. Lionel scampers over the gate, just in time for the dog’s body to impact against it. Someone shouts in the native tongue. With magic, Lionel feels the meaning of the words. “Buster! What are you doing? Chasing ghosts, you crazy dog?”

  Humans can’t see Lionel, but dogs can smell him. A rat across the alley pauses, stands up on its haunches, twitches its whiskers, and then goes about its business. Rats can also smell him; they just apparently don’t care.

  The gate behind Lionel thumps again, and he hears the human shout, “Get out of the rain, dog!”

  Lionel feels a flare of magic on the side of his face, in the direction of the World Gate. There are shouts in Elvish and Lionel peers down the narrow roadway and his eyes go wide. The elves arriving aren’t wearing the livery of the queen. Their garments are mismatched and dark. He can tell even at this distance that some have scared faces and the silvery hair of mortal beings. He swallows. Dark Elves … but if they came through the gate, it must mean that the Light Elves at the other side were overwhelmed. Lionel counts four, five, six pairs emerging through the Veil … and more keep coming.

  “Buster” goes ballistic. Other dogs begin to howl on either side of the roadway. Doors open; somewhere a siren wails. The Dark Elves start down the alleyway at a jog in Lionel’s direction.

  Checking to see he’s still invisible, Lionel breaks into a run, not bothering to hide the sound of his footsteps, just trying to not slip on the rain-slicked cobbles. At the end of the roadway, a man and woman in blue appear. Feeling the warmth of magic on his face, Lionel gasps … they are his companions! Behind him, he hears shouts in Elvish and the crack of fireworks. He feels a sharp pain in the back of his leg, and goes sprawling. He rolls out of the way just in time to miss being trampled by a seeming army of Dark Elves sprinting past. Warm wetness soaks his trousers and his invisibility slips away in a frisson of electricity along his skin. Grasping the key tight, he uses its magic to reach inside himself. He is able to close a nick to his femoral artery just in time.

  Somewhere far away he hears, “Damn gangs … can’t even take out your garbage without their nonsense.”

  Something slick, bulky, lumpy, and odorous crashes on top of him and everything goes black.

  Tara’s still shaking when she pulls into the alley that cuts between the Greystones on either side of her block. From a few houses away, she sees that the auto-timer has turned on the lights of her duplex down. By their lights, she sees that the just-out-of-law-school couple who bought the place upstairs is already home.

  All her cousins, aunts, and uncles have moved off with their degrees to Oak Park and Evanston—they’re always trying to convince her to move. “It’s still diverse but safer, Tara, and you have more than enough money!” they say. But her Greystone is such a welcome sight. The last building her father and she had remodeled before his death, it glitters in the rainy night, and looks as beautiful and stately as anything on the Gold Coast.

  She releases a long breath, willing her madly beating heart to be still, and notices her next-door neighbor has thrown his garbage bags over the fence again. Somehow it always winds up in front of her garage. It’s still raining, and her hair will be ruined. She shivers and realizes for the first time she’s already drenched, and her hair is hanging in long damp clumps, soaking her shoulders. Her hood had fallen back when she’d seen … well, whatever it was she really saw.

  Shaking her head, Tara gets out of the car and lifts the first enormous bag. She carries it over to the bin, turns around, and screams. There’s a skinny white guy lying on the ground where the garbage bag had been. His eyes are closed, and he has long, nearly white-blonde hair.

  She takes a deep breath. Probably a junkie passed out or something. She gulps, remembering the probably-maybe-elves being chased and bludgeoned by the maybe-probably-FBI-or-possibly-cops. She approaches the man slowly, and finds herself whispering, “Please be a junkie, please be a junkie.”

  Leaning over him, she gulps. The guy is dressed in dark, Renaissance faire clothing. A black tunic goes all the way to his thighs. It’s belted at the waist with a black cord. He’s wearing pants that match the shirt and black boots. Over his shoulders, he’s wearing a short black shruggy thing. He’s clutching a yellow silk rope with a key ring and a single key in a death grip. His ears are pointed.

  Rain drops slide down her neck. Tara pushes her hair, now a sodden mess, over one shoulder. She should call the police … the FBI … She bites her lip. Dark Elves were supposedly behind Chicago’s recent destruction, but the elves she’d seen running across the street hadn’t looked like warriors, they looked like kids. She thinks of the little boy and the blood pooling on the pavement and feels like she will be sick. This guy doesn’t have any weapons … Does he deserve that same treatment?

  A few minutes later, Tara’s dragging Elf Guy by the arms through her garage. It’s the shortest path to her back door. “This looks easier in the movies,” she mutters, dropping him with a huff. He’s heavy, and she’s never getting him up the back stoop, not without causing him even more injury. She sighs. “You’re going to have to sleep here.”

  There isn’t a response.

  Now that she’s inside and has better lighting, she can see there is a wound on his thigh, but not a lot of blood. The femoral artery is in that region, but if it had hit that, he’d be dead. Still, maybe she should take him to a hospital? She exhales, thinking of the experiments they might do to him, and the rumors of Dark Elves being taken to Guantanamo Bay. She tilts her head. For a Dark Elf, he’s very white. He looks like … she doesn’t know, young Eminem with long hair, maybe? Except his features are smoother, more finely chiseled, and then there are the ears. She reaches out and touches the point of one, hoping they’re fake, then she’d be able to call 911. But the tip is warm, the skin is delicate and soft, and for a moment, she is mesmerized. Snapping from her fascination, she pulls her hand away and weighs her options. Is he more likely to live if she turns him in?

  The garage fills with the sound of her mother’s ring tone. Tara scrambles to pick it up. “Mom!” she cries, desperately wanting to confess, I found an Elf Guy, and Mom, I don’t know what to do! Up until she had an unconscious man in her garage she thought she was an adult, but now she’s not so sure.

  “Tara, Steve Rogers is on the television! Oh, he is so handsome. You know he’s single, right?”

  Tara has a moment of disconnect. This is a frequent conversation between her mother and her. Director Steve Rogers of the FBI is the Savior of Chicago. He stood up to bureaucrats and to Loki, the Norse God, when he nearly blew the whole place down. Everyone says he’s going to be mayor, even though he’s black and Chicago, well, Chicago hasn’t had a lot of black mayors. Her mother thinks Tara should marry him because she needs a “smart man.”

  Normally, Tara’s response is “Mom, he’s almost ten years older than me and divorced!” Also, there’s rumors that he’s a Republican. To which her mother usually tells her she is too picky, and how can she ever find her soulmate if she isn’t going to just put herself out there?

  The banality of the familiar script catches Tara off guard. There is an elf
in her garage, possibly dying, but they’re talking about her love life, or lack thereof. She really needs her mom’s advice, or at least to tell someone. But then she thinks of how her mom, a legal first-generation Mexican American, didn’t tell her that her grandparents were illegal because, “The less you know, the safer it is for everyone.”

  Her eyes slip to the elf. Maybe she shouldn’t drag her mother into this. “Um, yeah, Mom, he is a handsome man.”

  “I met his mother today! She came into Costco when I was …”

  From behind Tara comes a soft, “Lllew wellan leee …”

  Tara looks down and finds light blue eyes meeting her own. The tips of his ears are trembling.

  “Hello?” he says in a lovely voice that is deeper than she would have suspected for a man so slight.

  Her mother’s voice is loud in her ear. “Is that a man? Where are you? Are you still at work?”

  “No, Mom, I’m home,” Tara whispers. She’s only seen elves from afar. Even as drawn as his face is, and after lying on the ground under garbage bags in her alley, he’s luminous. She notices a bit of dirt on his cheek and has the urge to wipe it away.

  “You have a man over, and you’re commenting on Steve Rogers? Tara!” There is an exasperated sigh, and then her mother says, “Try to be nice,” and hangs up.

  And then it’s just Tara and the elf staring at each other in silence.

  Away in a Manger

  Lionel’s mouth is dry as bone and his vision is dark around the edges, but he’s able to see that it is a human woman hovering over him. She has golden brown skin and black hair, but her features are indistinct and blurry. He knows he should be afraid, but when he tightens his fingers on his key, he doesn’t feel danger … only hope. But did she understand him? Magic wants them to understand each other, he reminds himself.

  Key tight in his fist, he lets magic guide his words. “I won’t hurt you.”

  He has the impression of her lips pursing. “Yeah, I know that. But I might be hurting you …” Her words are soft, slow, measured, and that reassures him. She is not afraid. Something he learned as a farm boy on the edge of the Golden Road, wild creatures that are fearful are as dangerous as ones that are hungry.

  She continues, “I think you may need to go to a hospital. You’ve been shot, and it’s bad.”

  “Hospital?” he whispers. Magic can only translate words between languages when there is a corresponding word between them. This is apparently a thing that elves don’t have.

  “A place with lots of doctors,” she whispers.

  His heart seizes at that, remembering stories from Einherjar recruits who talked about human “healers” sawing off injured limbs. He grabs her arm. “No, please. I … magic … there will be no infection, not even … lockjaw.”

  He blinks. Surprised they have a name for the disease that is the bane of elves cut by iron implements. If they also suffer from the disease, why use iron?

  His vision clears enough to see her bite her lip. “Do you need anything?”

  “Water,” he croaks, feeling a wave of dizziness. Grasping the magic key in his hand, he closes his eyes and retreats into himself to survey his injuries. The muscle and fascia in his leg is torn, and he’s had to shut down the nerves around the wound, but he’s sealed up the vessels, and entry and exit points on his leg have scabbed over. There’s no sign of the deadly bacterium that causes lockjaw.

  “Here,” she whispers.

  He opens his eyes, unsure if she was only gone for a short while, or if he’d lost consciousness. She offers him a strange sort of clear canteen. He lifts his head. She puts a hand behind his back and presses it to his lips.

  The water is cool, and although it has a strange aftertaste, it is very palatable. He feels his lucidity returning with every gulp. When he finishes the canteen, he lays back down. The abode’s light is dim, but enough to reveal his benefactor’s appearance. Not all humans are beautiful. Their environment and lack of magic means they often suffer from malnutrition and infection, but the old elves say that beautiful humans are more beautiful than elves can ever be. Their features are not as regular, their forms more varied even in health. Lionel has met five wild humans in his lifetime. The first three, Hannah, Abraham, and their newborn, Benjamin had been malnourished, frightened, and in pain when they’d met. The other two had been companions of Loki. The elder had been charming for her gnome-like appearance. The younger woman had unremarkable facial features and odd proportions.

  This human is healthy and her features are striking. She has an aquiline nose that he’s seen in Odin’s Einherjar from Midgard’s Western Central continent, her eyes have a slight tilt to them, her lips are full. Black hair, the texture he’s seen most commonly on Einherjar from the African continent frames her face and sparkles … he blinks. The sparkles come from water droplets. For the first time, he notices the sound of raindrops on the roof. She dragged him out of the rain, and is now soaked through … just like him. He shivers, looks past her, and his eyes widen. Behind her is one of their metal chariot beasts. He scoots backward and pain lances from his wound and seemingly everywhere else.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  He hisses angrily at himself for being an idiot—obviously she and the machine have some sort of understanding—but also, “They make you sleep with the machine-animals?” Last time he was in the human realm it was before this region’s civil war. He’s heard since then that the institution of slavery has ended, but an Einherjar of African and American heritage recruited during the second world war had told him, “There is no more slavery in the United States in this day and age, but we’re still segregated and unequal.” It’s exactly like that Einherjar had said.

  Her lips purse, perhaps never having considered the inequity before. “Machine-animal?”

  His eyes go to the chariot.

  Her eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah, um … do you think you can walk if I help you? I can take you inside. It’s going to get cold tonight and I don’t like putting a space heater out here.”

  The words seem mostly gibberish, as they are already inside, but he needs to be accommodating. He nods.

  “Okay,” she says. Putting his arm over her shoulder, she helps him to his feet. Upon standing, he’s hit with a wave of pain and again, it’s everywhere. It makes his vision foggy and dark, but he’s dimly aware that she’s taller than him, and her shoulders are broad enough to be a recruit for the Valkyries. They reach a door at the corner of the room, and she says, “Oops! I forgot.” She reaches backward with her spare arm in a strange sort of wave, and says, “Good night.”

  The machine-beast gives a cheery beep and flashes its lantern-eyes.

  Summoning all his persuasive magic, Lionel reassures it, “I mean your mistress no harm.”

  The woman gives him a funny look, and the chariot doesn’t give him a cheery beep.

  They hobble out into the night, through a tiny garden, and up a few cement steps. She does some odd things with her free hand to the “security system,” and opens a door. He is bathed in warm yellow light and hit by a gust of comfortably warm air. She guides him down the hallway to a room painted with a scene of cheerful animals on a savanna. The short journey has left him exhausted, and he practically dives out of her arms into the bed. It is more comfortable than he would have thought. He thought humans slept on straw.

  “Do you need to get undressed?” she asks.

  The world is getting dark, and Lionel shakes his head. The chamber is warm, even though he is in in damp clothes. A moment later, a large blanket encompasses him and he’s warmer still.

  The woman steps away, and he is struck by her silhouette—she has been as gentle as one of the queen’s healing maidens—but with her grace, strength, and wild beauty, she could be a Valkyrie. But a Valkyrie would never be as kind to a “short, scrawny elf.” He tightens his fingers on the keychain, and as magic races through him, he feels the same sensation of hope he had before. “Thank you …” he hears someone whisper.
“… for saving my life.” She flicks a finger and the lights go out. The open doorway behind her glows even brighter in the gloom. The magic of the silken cord that marks his office thrums through him. He goes to sleep, the memory of hope warring with something else deep within his consciousness.

  Tara stares at herself in the bathroom mirror. The memory of the elf passed out among her younger cousin’s stuffed animals in the spare room is in stark contrast to her own reflection. He’d looked ethereal and young even in obvious pain. Magical. She is a mess. Her makeup is smudged, her mascara is running down her face, and after looking at the elf’s skin, she feels like her pores are as large as the craters of the moon. She looks old. Also, some girls can really rock the natural fro, but Tara isn’t one of them. Her hair type is what they call 4B: dense, tight curls that when not wet defy gravity, and never manage to look smooth and polished. Once a high school teacher had said her natural hair looked like a Brillo pad. Now it is a soggy, poofy mess. Sighing, she picks up a towel and begins drying it out. Tomorrow she’ll be wearing braids or a headscarf.

  Tomorrow …

  There is an elf in her spare bedroom being chased by people who are dangerous and violent. What is she going to do with him tomorrow?

  Dark Matter

  A car going by honks loudly, and Tara jumps back onto the sidewalk.

  “Dr. Eisenberg, I don’t think you should—”

  Tara’s interrupted by another honk. Dr. Eisenberg is off in what her work mate Chris calls his “mind palace.” He’s crisscrossing the street with a Geiger counter-like instrument in his hand, mumbling to himself. Despite the cold, he’s wearing a blue, short-sleeved dress shirt. On his bottom half, he’s wearing dress slacks, and as a fashion statement—or comfort statement—bright red sneakers.