by Nina Smith
Hippy sat still for a whole two seconds. Her heart thudded uncomfortably fast. Her skin itched. She felt like she was going to burst. She really, really needed to keep moving. “Roof,” she said. “I feel weird.”
Pierus gestured at the door. “After you, my dear.”
Hippy didn’t look back. She left the room, found the stairs and ran up eight flights. The final door led to the roof of the hotel, a bare concrete expanse. Pierus hadn’t even caught up yet. She jogged to the edge of the roof and looked down. From up here she couldn’t even see the ground. Wow. She wondered if the Freakin Fairy was watching.
Hippy gulped some air and jumped. She rushed down, down, down through stinging, biting wind, past window after window, then a streetlight. The pavement jarred her ankles when she landed in a crouch. It was awfully tempting to run into the city again. She considered it.
Wait, no, that jump was fun.
Hippy went back into the hotel, ran up thirty flights of stairs and onto the roof.
Pierus sat on the ledge bordering the roof and raised an eyebrow at her. “You fairies never cease to amaze me.”
“Yeah? Well watch this.” Hippy stepped onto the ledge and dived.
She somersaulted in midair, plummeted again and landed neatly on her feet in front of a startled pedestrian. “Wow,” she said. “I’m getting better at this.”
She ran up the stairs and jumped again three more times.
By the fourth time she reached the roof her heartbeat had slowed and she was out of breath. It was a curious sensation. She flopped down next to Pierus.
“Better, my dear?” He uncapped the bottle of brandy. “Have some of this.”
Hippy took a swig of brandy. It burned her throat and made her cough and hack. When the burning subsided, she spoke. “Dream has weird drinks. But I’m starting to like it here.” She handed the bottle back.
Pierus took a swig, coughed and thumped a fist on the wall.
Hippy giggled. Everything was returning to normal, except she now felt a pleasant fuzzy sensation inside her skull. She slid down to sit on the floor with the wall at her back.
Pierus joined her and handed her the bottle again. “My dear girl, Dream’s intoxicants are no better or worse than some of the frightening concoctions you fairies come up with.”
Hippy took a swig and handed the bottle back. “Yeah.” She sighed. “I miss my mum’s cooking.”
Pierus curled his fingers around hers. “Dream food will make you forget your mother’s cooking.”
Hippy moved closer to him for warmth. “Pierus?”
He looked down into her face and seemed at a loss. “Yes?”
“Tell me about Pandora.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Pierus downed another mouthful of brandy. His voice mellowed so much he sounded almost relaxed. Hippy wondered if it was the drink, which seemed to be having a similar effect on her. Dream really did have some wonderful things. She honestly couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t drink brandy and coffee all the time.
“Pandora was the most beautiful woman in Thebes,” Pierus said. “Maybe in all of Greece.”
“How do you know?”
He chuckled. “Perhaps it was a matter of opinion, but I never saw a woman to rival her until I met you.”
“Me?”
“My dear girl, don’t be coy. You may not be terribly bright, but I suspect if you scrubbed away a layer or two of dirt and brushed your hair properly you could take Dream by storm. Humans valued beauty above all else three thousand years ago. Not much changes.”
Hippy scowled. “I don’t see as how it does me any good. It doesn’t help me fight vamps or be more like a proper fairy.”
Pierus pulled her closer and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I think the fairies are fools.” He tipped her face up with his free hand and gently smoothed the lines out of her forehead with one finger. “There. I like you better when you’re smiling and pretty.”
“Better than what?” Hippy pouted. “I wouldn’t be much help to you if all I did was smile and look pretty.”
Pierus shook his head. “And that’s where you and Pandora are so very different.”
“How?”
Pierus leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “She knew how beautiful she was,” he said. “She was vain and distractible, but when she wanted something, she got it. She wanted me.” A smile played around the corner of his mouth.
“What for?”
Pierus snorted. “What do you think? Or have the fairies kept you a complete innocent?”
Hippy blushed and looked away. “Oh. That.”
“When I first met her she was married to a man who cared nothing for her,” Pierus said. “He was the richest and almost the most powerful man in Thebes, but had little interest in women. She carried on an affair with me and he never even protested.” He was silent for a moment. “Twice I saved her life, for she was a foolish girl who used to put herself in danger.”
“And then what happened?” Hippy watched the stars, entranced. They were different in Dream. Even listening to stories felt different. It felt like she could step into it and be there.
“He died.”
“How?”
“I’d rather not talk about that.” Pierus lazily brushed a lock of hair from her face and took another swig of brandy. “Suffice it to say it was his own fault, and just the first of many unpleasant things.”
“Is this going to be a scary story?” She accepted the bottle. It didn’t burn quite so badly now she was used to it.
“Very.” Pierus took the bottle from her and set it on the ground. “After her husband died Pandora was left in the care of her brother, a man both evil and mad. She married me to escape him, and because we loved each other. But it was only then the devious creature showed me the Apple of Chaos.”
“Was it shiny?” Hippy asked.
He leaned closer and whispered into her ear. “Very shiny.”
She grinned. “I like shiny things.”
Pierus gave a low sigh. “They used to say Pandora was created by the Gods as a gift to mankind. I still don’t know whether that story was true, but she was most certainly the guardian of something extraordinary. She possessed a box, which she guarded jealously and would rarely be parted from. Nor would she open it, until she knew she was safe. With me. After we were married she allowed me to see what was inside.”
Hippy caught her breath. “You opened Pandora’s Box? You let the bad things out?”
Pierus shook his head. “Poppy told me that pile of rot. It’s a silly little myth and nothing like what really happened.”
“Then what really happened?”
“Inside the box was a glass sphere. It called to me almost as much as it called to her. She said it was a sacred apple tossed into a volcano by the Goddess of Chaos, and there turned to glass filled with the most potent magic known to man, chaos itself. As the guardian, all she had to do was place her hands on it, and things would happen.” Pierus paused. “I warned her it was dangerous, but she wouldn’t listen.”
Hippy couldn’t take her eyes off him. This was one of the best stories she’d ever heard. She hardly dared breathe, in case she missed what happened next.
“For a time I convinced her to put it away, but she was still under the sway of her brother. He knew about the Apple of Chaos too, and he made her use it to gain him power. He was insatiable. He wanted people to worship him, but when they did, he would drive them to madness with his evil ways.”
A poison entered his voice that made Hippy want to shift away, but she couldn’t. His arm was like a dead weight on her shoulders. “You stopped him, right?”
A thin smile curved his lips. “I tried, but it was too late for Pandora. Perhaps the madness took her long before I knew her. Perhaps it was the Apple of Chaos that tipped her over the edge. She began to have nightmares. Then her nightmares spilled over into her waking life, and at the end, they became real. And I, I who was the closest person to her,
was not immune either. My nightmares of pale men who drank blood and killed indiscriminately began to haunt my waking life. Our terrors laid siege to all of Thebes.” His head dropped forward and he squeezed his eyes shut. A shudder went through his wiry frame.
Hippy gave his arm an awkward pat. “Then what happened?”
“I took her to a sorcerer,” he said. “We asked him to help us find a way to mend what we had done. He told us it could be done, but the price would be a terrible one. We agreed, of course. We had no choice.”
“What did he do?”
“He took the Apple,” Pierus said. “He worked his magic on it and made it into a doorway. Beyond the doorway he made a new world, and into that world he banished every creature we had created. Finally, and last of all, he banished Pandora, myself, my sisters, her brother and all his followers, in fact most of Thebes, for nobody was untouched by chaos. I was the last to go. He made me hide the Apple of Chaos deep underground and then he cast spells so I could never remove it. The thing was so powerful he couldn’t simply render it useless, you see. But he made it so it could not be worked by anybody but a descendant of Pandora. Then he ensured Pandora was trapped in Shadow and made me Shadow’s guardian. Since the chaos inside the Apple had to go somewhere, he channelled its power through me and my sisters, which was how we became muses. We use the chaos to inspire writers and artists here in Dream.”
Hippy blinked. She was getting sleepy, but she wanted to stay awake for the end of the story.
“The sorcerers gave one final gift.” Pierus’s voice grew very, very quiet. “Or perhaps a curse. I’ve never been quite sure.”
“What was it?”
“That I should live as long as Shadow does. Or that Shadow should live as long as I. I am Shadow’s guardian. If I die, so does everything you and I have ever held dear or fought for.”
That woke her up. Hippy’s eyes were like saucers. “You mean, if you die-”
“Shadow ceases to exist.”
She dropped her head against his chest. Her brain was spinning like the clunky old waterwheel in the river near home.
“What happened to Pandora?”
Pierus stroked her hair. “My dear girl, she went quite mad. She left me and ran off with some creature she found living in a tree. Together they bred a race of silly little creatures who spread all over Shadow, split off into clans and spent all their time fighting each other.”
Hippy sat bolt upright. “The forest people?”
Pierus chuckled. “No. Fairies.”
“I’m descended from Pandora? She’s like my great, great, great grandmother?”
“Add another three thousand years’ worth of greats, and yes, she was.”
Hippy blinked, trying to understand exactly what this meant. “Were you sad when she left?”
Pierus’s mouth curved, but there was something rather cruel in his smile. “No.”
Hippy wriggled out of his grasp and jumped to her feet. She stood there a moment, swayed and put a hand to her head. “I feel really strange.”
Pierus got to his feet and put an arm around her waist. “You’re drunk. So am I, or I wouldn’t have told you all that. With any luck you won’t remember in the morning.”
Hippy blinked at him. Then she giggled. “I don’t know what drunk means, but you’re a lot nicer when you are.”
This time his grin was genuine. He grabbed her waist and pulled her close. “I know it’s wrong,” he said into her ear. “I know I’ll regret it, but you’re the most amusing creature I’ve encountered in a long time and I intend to keep you.”
“Keep me where? Now you’re just being silly.”
He tangled his hand in her hair, lifted her onto the wall so they were the same height and put his mouth on hers.
Hippy’s eyes widened. She’d kissed a boy fairy once and they’d both agreed it was a ridiculous kind of thing to do. But this was the muse king kissing her. Ishtar would be furious. The muse king had chosen her. A thousand nonsensical thoughts flitted through her head.
Pierus broke away, looked into her astonished eyes, scooped a hand under her knees and lifted her into his arms. “You, my dear, are drunk and need to get some sleep.”
“I like being drunk.” Hippy buried her face in his shoulder and closed her eyes while he crossed the roof and descended the stairs. By the time they reached Poppy’s rooms, she’d passed out.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hippy squeezed her eyes shut tight. She felt like a bearfly had crawled down her throat and died. Her head pounded. Something tickled her face and a very large form pressed her into the back of the couch she’d been sleeping on.
She opened her eyes to slits and discovered it was Pierus taking up all that room. He was fast asleep. She put her hand on her face and found Fluffy Ducky nestled there, eyeballing Pierus with all eight eyes. “Fluffy Ducky.” She tickled the spider’s back. “What are you doing?”
Two metallic clicks above her head made her open her eyes all the way. She looked straight into the barrel of Poppy’s gun, which was pointed at Pierus’s head. Behind it, Poppy glowered from under a chaotic mess of wild, knotted hair.
Hippy grabbed Fluffy Ducky and shielded him on her chest. “Don’t shoot my spider!”
“I wasn’t going to shoot your spider,” Poppy said. “I was going to find out what the hell’s going on here and then shoot the muse.”
“Oh.” Hippy tried to push him so she could move away, but he didn’t budge. “Why?”
Pierus stirred and opened his eyes. Then he sat bolt upright and put both his arms out to shield Hippy. “What in Shadow are you doing, human?”
Hippy squeaked in outrage, since she and Fluffy Ducky were now pinned to the back of the couch.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” Poppy’s scowl made her look doubly frightening under all that hair.
Pierus’s voice went very, very cold. “It’s none of your business.”
Poppy’s eyes flicked to Hippy. “I’m making it my business. Hippy, are you alright?”
“I can’t breathe!” Hippy wheezed.
“Get off the poor girl before she suffocates, would you?”
Hippy squirmed out from behind Pierus when he shifted to give her some space.
Poppy kept the gun firmly pointed at his head. “You need to keep your hands to yourself. She’s too young for you.”
“I’m twenty!” Hippy protested.
“And he’s three thousand. That is not okay.”
Hippy looked from one to the other, utterly mystified as to where all the tension had come from.
Pierus’s mouth tightened into a thin line. The air around him turned so cold it felt like there was a blizzard in the room. “Remove your gun from my face, woman.” He got slowly to his feet. “And do not presume to interfere with either me or my fairy.” He brushed over Poppy’s eyes with his long, thin fingers. The very room might have iced over.
Poppy had opened her mouth to reply, but she didn’t say anything. She blinked a couple of times.
“I expect you need some coffee,” Pierus said, his tone quite normal and friendly again. The cold eased.
Poppy lowered the gun and scowled at them both. “I need coffee.” She stomped off to the kitchen.
Hippy stared after her, utterly bewildered. “Can I have coffee too?”
“Absolutely not,” Pierus said. “You’d drive the humans mad, jumping off the hotel in broad daylight. And would you put away that awful spider?”
Hippy pouted and placed Fluffy Ducky in his pouch. Her head hurt too much to try and puzzle out what had just happened. “I feel horrible.” She rubbed her pounding forehead.
Pierus laid his hands on either side of her face and gently massaged her temples. “It’s called a hangover.”
Hippy closed her eyes and dropped her head forward. The pain drained away under his fingers. “Ishtar and I used to hang over the fortifications all the time and drop fairy dust bombs on vamps, but it never made me feel nasty like this.”<
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His reply was patient. “A hangover is what humans call the sick feeling they get the morning after drinking half a bottle of brandy.”
“A drink did this to me?’
“One must be very careful in Dream.”
“Why would they want to drink anything that makes them feel this bad?”
“Because humans are not all that concerned with the consequences of their actions. I should know, I used to be one.” His fingers stilled, but remained on her temples. “Hippy how much do you remember of last night?”
Hippy raised her eyes to his. She couldn’t quite fathom his expression. It lurked somewhere between fear and an odd, possessive, fascination. “Everything.”
“You don’t hate me?”
“Why would I hate you?” She tilted her head, puzzled. “It was a very nice kiss.”
Some tension left his frame. “I was thinking more of the story I told you. I hadn’t told it in a very long time. I’m not proud of my human life.”
Hippy shrugged. “It was a good story. It had shiny things in it.”
Pierus shook his head, but his lips twitched with amusement. “Bloody Fairies.” He leaned forward and kissed her affectionately on the forehead. “Do you feel better now?”
She nodded. “I’m hungry.”
Poppy chose that moment to storm back into the room. “So am I,” she said. She thrust a handful at money at Pierus. “I want you to go buy us some food.”
He looked at the money and then back at her. “Why me?”
“Because Hippy will get lost or distracted and because I’m not a morning person.”
Pierus glanced pointedly at the clock behind her. “It’s two in the afternoon.”
“Like I said, I’m not a morning person. There’s a cafe on the corner. Go, before I change my mind and shoot you after all.”
Pierus took the money. “To think I’m a king in my own land.” He slammed out of the room.
“Ass.” Poppy stomped into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
