She's No Faerie Princess

by Christine Warren

  Tess was the one who put a stop to the debate. Pushing firmly against her husband's side, she managed to duck beneath his arm to stand just in front of him.

  "Sheesh. You're the one who asked me to come out here and evaluate the thing, but you've got to let me get a look at him before I can tell you what I think," she grumbled, turning her surprisingly shrewd blue eyes on the crowd at the doorstep.

  She looked first at Walker and Fiona, her gaze scanning carefully over them, lingering on their weary expressions. She blinked when she saw the imp peering out of Fiona's shoulder bag but said nothing. Then Tess's gaze turned to Rule and lingered for a moment on his stern face and deep black eyes.

  "All right," she said, turning to reenter the club. "They're cool."

  Rafe's hand shot out to stop her. "That's it?" he demanded. "That's all you're going to do? What about a spell? This isn't a decision to be made lightly."

  "I'm not making it lightly, but what did you think I was going to do? Give each of them a polygraph? I don't need to. They're fine."

  "I never mentioned a polygraph, but there must be some kind of spell you have to use to tell if everything's all right."

  Tess sighed, sounding put-upon. "I don't need a spell to tell me that. They're fine. No one is under any kind of compulsion to follow the demon's orders, and Rule himself has no ill intentions toward anyone in this building. It's written all over them. Now can we go in? I'm not wearing a jacket."

  Rafe looked ready to launch another protest, but Tess shoved hard against his belly and pushed him back into the entry hall. "Come on in," she called over her shoulder. "I'll get Mr. Grumpypants a saucer of milk and see if that sweetens his disposition."

  Somehow, Fiona doubted it.

  She led the way up the stairs and into the front hall of Vircolac as if she'd been doing it forever. True, it had only been a week, but she already felt almost as comfortable here as she did in Walker's apartment. Maybe it was because she'd spent so much time here, but maybe it had more to do with the fact that the people here were Walker's pack, his family. And now his family was hers.

  "Graham and Missy are in the library," Tess said, leading the way. "I think he said something about wanting to be close to the liquor for this."

  "He's a smart man," Walker grumbled, and followed them down the hall.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 26

  The library offered plenty of comfortable seating, but that didn't stop Walker from claiming a position on one end of the wide sofa and hauling Fiona directly onto his lap. After enduring yet another threat to her life—at least the third in the past week, which was exactly as long as he'd known her—he seemed to want to keep her as close as possible whenever possible. Within arm's reach at the farthest, closer when he could manage it. He managed it now.

  She didn't protest, just gave him a curious look, then settled back against his chest. "I think we have a list of questions we'd like to ask Rule," she said, turning her attention to the rest of the room, "but maybe it's better if he tells us his side of the story first."

  Leaning up against the fireplace mantel, Rule quirked his mouth. "That story is not a brief one, nor is it simple, but I vow to do my best."

  Fiona doubted the demon had missed the way Rafe and Graham had taken up positions between him and their mates, still unconvinced of his apparent amiability. He certainly hadn't missed their insistence that he leave his sword in its sheath with the doorman, but Rule didn't give any indication that it bothered him.

  He looked casual and comfortable in the warm atmosphere of the library. Somehow the relaxed setting didn't serve to make him look any less like a warrior than he had when he'd been striding through the forest wielding a sword. He looked no softer, but Fiona sensed the concentrated power of his determination had eased back a bit. Not vanished, just been banked like a fire that would be stirred back to life whenever it was needed.

  "I will assume that none of you is any more expert in those who live Below than is the Fae, so perhaps it would serve to clarify if I gave you all a brief introduction to demons," he began. "I would think that, given most of you have lived all of your lives in the mortal world, you have adopted something of the mortal view of my kind."

  "You mean that you're bloodthirsty killers who tear mortal bodies into chunks and feed on their living hearts?" Graham glowered. "We may have heard a rumor or two, but I think it was seeing it happen that swayed us."

  "Exactly," Rule said. "The mortal view." He sighed. "Our history goes back many thousands of years, as long as that of the Fae, so to tell you the whole of it is beyond the scope of this conversation. Suffice it to say that the creature you have just described is only a small part of the portrait of my kin."

  He glanced at Fiona and nearly smiled. "It is the nature of historians to describe wars from the point of view of the victors. Whether they are mortal or Fae, that is simply the way of it, and the histories of the Wars between your people and mine were so described to you."

  She nodded. "It's still talked about. There are poems and stories about the great battles that all the young ones hear from their earliest days. In my case, my aunt keeps the library, so I've heard a little more than some others."

  Rule nodded. "And what did you hear?"

  "About the Wars?" Fiona frowned. "The usual, I suppose. That the demons resented the Fae for stepping in to defend the mortals from their attacks and declared war against us. It was long and bloody, but in the end we won and the treaties said that the demons would have to retreat to Below and could only pass out of that realm by a direct invitation. Which happened, because mortals aren't always so smart, and after a few centuries they forgot what the demons had been like and decided it would be fun to see them again."

  "That is what I thought you had been taught." He looked at the others. "Can I assume you all share the same understanding?"

  Tess shrugged. "That's what I'd heard, but my friend Cassidy mentioned there was another version of the story. Her mate is… I guess you'd call it the historian of his pack. They ran into a demon a while ago, and Quinn told her that the demons actually used to be some kind of messengers, carrying information between all the different worlds. He said something about the Wars not starting over an urge to defend the mortals but over some rules the Fae set up to keep the demons out of Faerie."

  Rule's eyebrows lifted. "I am impressed. That story comes a bit closer to the truth, though it still fails to offer the whole picture."

  "And you think your version does?" Fiona asked. She didn't like the idea that suddenly her people were about to be painted as the villains in this story. Even if he had saved her mate, he had no call to insult her ancestors. "Wouldn't any story that's been passed down through your people be almost as biased in your favor as you seem to think the stories my people tell are in ours?"

  "Certainly," he agreed with a faint smile. "But I propose that if I tell my version of the story, we might be able to see that the truth lies somewhere between the two."

  "Tell your story then," Rafe said, his tone wary, "and we'll see what we make of it."

  "The condensed version begins a bit like this. A very long time ago, when humans had only begun to understand that the world around them consisted of more than the gnawing of hunger in their bellies and the bite of cold on their skin, all beings lived together here Above." He eased into the tale with the familiarity of a well-practiced storyteller, his voice deep and riveting. "The Fae ruled their glittering kingdoms in the greenest places they could find. Shifters hunted in the woods and the fields. Humans, with their small numbers, scraped their living from what they could hunt and gather. Even my kind, those you now call demons, traveled freely, bearing news from one end of the Earth to the other. And among it all, magic flowed through everything, as thick and deep as a river current.

  "This was no paradise, of course," he said wryly. "We all squabbled together, as any mix of cultures living side by side is wont to do, but there was no talk of war. That came later.

  "
It didn't take long for the humans to do what humans do best—multiply. From the small minority of their early years they began to spread, grown stronger with the knowledge of growing food and raising livestock. They began to move into places where before humans had never ventured, and some of us started to get nervous."

  Fiona listened from her perch on Walker's lap, her brow slightly furrowed. But she made no move to interrupt.

  "The Fae were the first to leave. Some of the tales say that the humans had originally believed them to be gods because of their facility with magic. But as the humans' wits grew, they began to have doubts. Those tales point to this as the time when the Fae decided to make themselves a new home in another world.

  "They offered a place to the shifters at first, but those who change skins had too great a tie to the land and the moon, and they refused to leave. They could blend in with the humans, they said, and knew how to defend themselves against any attacks. The demons, though, were not invited to the new land called Faerie."

  His mouth quirked, though Fiona thought it had less to do with humor and more to do with an appreciation for the folly of their mutual ancestors.

  "Our tales say that the Fae believed my kind, demons, were the ones who originally helped the humans to see them as something less than godlike. In any event, whatever their reasons were, the Fae not only didn't invite the demons to their new world; they decreed that demons would be forbidden to pass its borders. This didn't sit well with my people. Can you imagine that it would for those whose place in the world had been to function as messengers? How could we serve our purpose if we were not given leave to move freely across all borders?"

  Fiona didn't offer an answer, but Rule didn't seem to expect one.

  "We are the side who declared war," he continued. "That much is true, but it wasn't because the Fae tried to keep us from feasting on the humans. It was a political war over our right to move unrestricted in the service of our cause."

  Apparently Fiona wasn't the only person in the room left with a few doubts.

  "That's a pretty story," Graham said, "but it doesn't explain the fact that demons have killed and fed on both humans and shifters down through the centuries. Or were those just big misunderstandings?"

  "They actually were," Rule said, looking bemused, "but not for the reason you think. They qualify as misunderstandings because the killers weren't demons."

  The alpha growled something rude and the demon held up his hand.

  "Hear me out," he said. "The problem stems from a basic misunderstanding of the nature of my people, one that began with the disinformation campaign begun by the Fae during the Wars, and perpetuated by religious humans looking to understand the nature of things beyond their comprehension. In earlier times, the human word for my people was 'daemon,' which means 'spirit.' It was a term used to describe a race of beings who were not human, but yet were not gods. They were something in between. That is what we were, and what those like myself continue to be."

  "But you admitted the other kind are kin to you," Fiona pointed out. "The ones you call fiends. Aren't they another kind of demon?"

  "They are, in the same way that the pixie who died at the gate in the park is another kind of Fae. There are things that bind us together, but we are not the same." He paused, frowning. "You have to understand that we have our good kind and our bad, just as all races do. The difference is that to live Below, as we have for the last thousands of years, is very different from living Above. There are forces beneath that change those who encounter them—isolation, despair, pain, bitterness. Forces that have molded the weaker and worse among us into forms the rest of us can barely recognize. Those are the ones who come Above when summoned and feed on the life force of others. We call them fiends, because they are no longer just demons, just spirits. They have been twisted into the evil creatures of human nightmares."

  Graham continued to look skeptical. "But you claim that you aren't a fiend?"

  Rule shook his head. "Many of us have withstood the forces that warped our kinsmen. In fact, the fiends are a minority among us, one we work hard to keep under control."

  "It looks like you could use a little more practice at that." Rafe's dry tone had his mate snorting.

  "You think?" Tess asked.

  Rule didn't look as if he'd taken offense to the observation. He just shrugged. "They may be few in number, but they have a primitive kind of cleverness, like an animal might. And it doesn't help our cause when those from Above perform summonings and offer them entry into this plane. We have enough challenges without having to chase them into other worlds."

  Walker spoke up. "You mentioned earlier, in the park, that you had a mission to find the fiends here in the city and deal with them. Can I take it that you all spend time now doing something other than just carrying messages?"

  The demon smiled. "What messages do you suppose we have to carry? After we were banished Below, no one trusted us with their news anymore. The lack of a purpose made the transformation from demon to fiend go even faster for some. In a way they were like madmen, and the stress of being cut off from the world Above caused their minds to snap. Once the mind had turned ugly, the body soon followed. Those of us who stayed as we were set about building a society of our own. Now we have politicians and healers, merchants and bankers, the same as any other culture."

  "You don't look like a banker to me," Walker said.

  "I'm not," Rule agreed. "We also have what you might call policemen. Guards who keep order according to our laws. Some of us do our work Below, and some of us go wherever the fiends do. Perhaps the correct word for me might be 'hunter.' I came here to find Morgagch and the others who were summoned, and to either bring them back Below to face justice, or destroy them if need be."

  "I vote for destruction," Graham snapped. Beside him, Missy looked like she couldn't bring herself to disagree.

  "If it is necessary, it will be done."

  "I don't see the alternative," Rafe said. "The… fiends have proven to be a significant threat to both human and Other in our city, but the fact that whoever summoned them wants the humans to think the kills were the work of Others makes them especially dangerous."

  Rule frowned, his expression saying Rafe had just lost him. "I don't understand. What exactly do you believe the summoner has done?"

  The others in the room exchanged glances.

  "That's a bit of a tale in and of itself," Rafe finally said. Concisely he explained to Rule about the fiend's previous victims and about the current state of the negotiations with the humans. "We're at a critical juncture in the talks. It's been six months. We've nearly reached agreement over the acknowledgment of the entitlement of our kind to basic rights. Almost all of the human heads of state are ready to agree and begin outlining what those rights will be. If any of them found out about the victims and believed the surface evidence, the summit would fall apart. They'd never agree to a peace with something that had just slaughtered several defenseless humans."

  "I see your point. That's a sticky situation you have."

  "You don't know the half of it," Walker interrupted. "The risk to the negotiations is bad enough, but we've all been a little more concerned over the escalation in the fiends' attacks."

  "Escalation?"

  "It started off with the humans," Fiona explained. "At least two of them, although I wouldn't be surprised to learn there are more that we just didn't catch. But the other night, the fiend decided that humans weren't satisfying its appetite. It killed a Lupine."

  Graham snarled. "A member of my pack."

  "We think it's looking for a bigger energy source." Her expression troubled, Fiona looked into Rule's dark eyes. "I sent Squick and Babbage to investigate. Squick found out a few things that led us to believe the fiends are trying to break free of the magic binding them to their summoner. After finding Babbage, I'm convinced that's the case."

  Her voice cracked a little and Walker tightened his arms around her. "It makes sense," he said. "First human
s, then a shifter, then a Fae. They're looking for a stronger life force with every kill."

  Rule swore. "If you're right, that's extremely bad news. The fiends are hard enough to track through this world as it is. If they had free rein to feed, they'd probably be easier to find, but only because the trail of victims would be so much larger."

  "Comforting thought." Walker shifted to look at Fiona, and a slight frown creased his forehead. "You know, I'm wondering if Rule could tell us anything more about the sigils you found on the bodies. Or about that amulet Squick mentioned."

  The imp had been sitting on the arm of the sofa beside Fiona and Walker, playing with the fringe on a decorative throw pillow. Now he looked up and scowled. "I finds out lots. Lots and lots. If the princess need to knows anything else, she can asks me, furry mortal guy."

  "Princess?" Rule's brows rose at Fiona's nod.

  "Mab is my aunt."

  "And Dionnu are her uncle," Squick supplied helpfully.

  "Now that's an interesting family tree," Rule said.

  Fiona dismissed it with a wave. "It's not terribly important right now. What we need to know is whether we're right about the fiends trying to break the hold of their summoner. And what we can do to prevent that."

  "Show me the symbols you saw."

  Producing a pen and paper, Fiona sketched out the symbols she remembered and handed the page to Rule. "The first three sets were carved on the bodies of the victims. The last set was written at the gate. In Babbage's blood."

  Walker stroked a comforting hand down her back.

  "Babbage?" Rule asked.

  "A pixie. He was a friend of mine."

  "That is the Fae you mentioned was killed?"

  She nodded. She had been trying not to think about it. If she focused on what needed to be done instead of what had already happened, she thought she might be able to keep functioning.