by Mina Carter
Casting a quick glance about the room to make sure they had everything, he moved past the two women to the door. With control hard won over the years, and even more so now, he blocked out all other distractions and concentrated on the corridor.
It was empty, his keen senses picking up nothing. No breathing, no heartbeat, zilch. He’d heard of some people holding their breath to avoid detection, but he’d yet to meet anyone who could shield a heartbeat from a Kyn. Especially one that hadn’t yet fed.
“Ok, we’re all clear.” He pulled the door open and headed out into the hall.
Progress through the hotel corridors was quick, with Feral hurrying the two women along as fast as he could. He didn’t even have to remind them to keep quiet, which was a minor miracle considering how they’d been chattering away down in reception earlier. Even Spud was down with the deal, watching the proceedings wide-eyed and silent—the little one must have picked up on the sense of urgency shrouding the adults.
The corridors were deserted, the clock-watching insomniacs had finally succumbed to exhaustion and the early birds’ alarm clocks had yet to spring to life. Even so, dawn approached, the tell-tale heaviness settling into Feral’s limbs as Jane led them further into the depths of the hotel. Down through the kitchens and beyond, into the darkness of the basement.
Feral breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the comfort of the ground closing around him, shielding him from the worst effects of the approaching sunrise. Of all the facts humanity had picked up, or made up about vampires, their habit of seeking the earth was the most accurate. The human books and films each gave their own reasons, of course, but the reason was simple. The layers of dirt between him and the soon-to-be-rising sun lifted some of the heaviness trying to settle into his muscles, paralyzing and crushing him. But the earth stopped that, a bizarre form of sun block. He chuckled to himself, amusement filling him at the thought. Good old dirt—SPF factor, one billion.
“Well, here we are,” Jane announced, as the two women stood at the bottom of the stairs, Feral joining them a moment or so later. The barred door at the top of the stairs might not stall a determined Pixie for long—hell, by the looks of it, it might not stop a determined Chihuahua for long—but sometimes a person had to make do with what they had. At the moment, Feral was taking every half second he could lay his hands on.
The basement wasn’t what he expected, the musty odour of age and mildew combining to attack his sensitive nostrils. On the one hand, it was an average, clutter-filled basement with the random cast of paraphernalia of running a hotel, lining the walls. Like the dining room chair to his left, resplendent in all of its faded glory, the seat ripped to spill its fabric guts out onto the floor. Next to it sat a cot with three broken slats, filled with what looked to be ripped up old sheets…and so on. Half formed shapes in the shadows were cast by the single bare bulb overhead, all pretty standard basement-type stuff.
Except for that was, the freaking huge magic circle painted across the floor that continued in a sprawl across the wall. As though the painter had realised halfway through he’d run out of space and had just carried on, along the next available surface. Feral followed the design, half expecting it to continue over the clutter, and painted across more broken chairs and the like. But it didn’t. That area of the basement was completely clear to allow the circle to continue unbroken. In the middle, stood a door. Well, it looked like a door. If doors didn’t actually have doors and lead to raw dirt instead. Absently, he wondered how the dirt was being held up and why it hadn’t just fallen into the room.
“Err, silly question, but aren’t magic circles supposed to be drawn on the floor?” he ventured, noting that not only was the floor space the circle was drawn on clear of clutter, but that someone had swept it recently, as well. Apparently though, their housekeeping efforts only extended as far as the circle, leaving a ridge of dirt and dust around the clean area. Not randomly, as though the wielder of the brush couldn’t be bothered, but very precisely. Deliberately done. A circle within a circle, he realized with a start. Old, old magic. So old, most people didn’t realise it was actually magic.
“Well aren’t we Mister Picky? Do you see enough floor space in here to go for a proper circle?” Jane demanded. “No, we had to adapt things slightly. Use what we had.”
She handed the baby over to Tessa, who was beginning to resemble a packhorse. An amused quirk of her lips told Feral she was thinking exactly the same thing, an understood look passing between them.
A little startled by how in sync they appeared to be, how it almost seemed as though she could read his mind, Feral went back to studying the circle.
Painted with what looked to be a domestic decorating brush and leftover emulsion, the designs seemed crude at first. But then, his attention was drawn inward. Following the lines, he realised they really weren’t crude, after all. Yes, they’d been done with less than ideal equipment and that had thrown him at first. It was like giving a concert pianist a child’s keyboard. But something beautiful had been created despite it all. The lines had been drawn confidently, and with a flourish. A labour of skill and love he’d not seen in a long time.
“This was done by a Warden. A good one,” he breathed as he opened his hand and passed his palm over the nearest marks.
The Witching flared violet, the symbols etching themselves into the air itself, hanging there for a second before falling away like purple fairy dust, the colour of the Wardens’ magic. He frowned for a moment, he didn’t know of any Warden families that cast in purple. Not in the local area anyway. Jane must have shipped someone in.
Jane chuckled. “Someone give the boy a prize!” She cast a look at Tessa, then said, “You sure can pick the bright ones, can’t you sweetie?”
Feral coloured a little, unsure why he’d become the butt of jokes around here. He’d noticed that about women, before. Get one on her own and she was fine, but get them in packs of two or more and suddenly, everything a guy said, or did, was wrong.
He caught Spud’s eye, looking for some moral support from the only other male in the room. Spud just blinked back at him, a look that plainly said, “You’re on your own buddy. I’m cute and milking it for all it’s worth!”
Sighing, he turned back to the matter at hand, ignoring Jane’s comment. “Ok, what I don’t understand is why you got a Warden to recreate a Fairy gate? Why not just apply to them for a licensed one? I hear they relaxed the rules. Even nightclubs are getting them now…”
Jane arched an eyebrow, turning to look at him fully, her expression clearly telling him she didn’t think he was “all there.”
“Err, perhaps because I don’t want them to know it’s here? You know, like…keep it a secret?” she replied, scathingly. “Not exactly a secret anymore is it? If half the court admin know about it! And there’s no sense in expecting a Brownie to keep its mouth shut when there’s some gossip to share.”
He had to admit she had a point. Brownies had to be the worst gossips, often making things up if the real news wasn’t spicy enough. If something was said within earshot, guaranteed the rest would know by lunchtime.
He shuddered. Brownies had always given him the creeps. Because of his own paranormal blood, he could see through the weak glamour they cast to fool human minds. A glamour that made them appear to be small, neat men of indeterminable middle age. Underneath though, they were wizened, spindly creatures with bulbous eyes and overlong fingers. They reminded him of spiders, with their quick movements and thin limbs.
“I see your point,” he conceded, curious as to why an aunt of Tessa’s needed a secret back door into the Fae realm. He didn’t get to ask that question however, as the next moment, a heavy thud sounded against the door at the top of the stairs.
“I suggest you do whatever it is you’re planning,” Feral said quickly, moving over to the piles of broken furniture and other clutter, throwing all of it into the stairwell. That way, if they were to get through the door, they’d still have to fight to get down the s
tairs.
*
Jane nodded, flashing Tessa a brief, reassuring smile as she started to chant, moving around the circle as she did, triggering wards on its perimeter.
Tessa watched in amazement, Spud cuddled up tight in her arms. Her worry about the pursuers momentarily forgotten, as she watched the beautiful symbols flare brightly in the air for a few seconds before they faded to nothing again.
Her own magic wasn’t particularly strong, just enough for will-o’-wisps and personal glamour. In fact, the stunt she’d pulled in the nursery, getting will-o’-wisps to attack that Pixie, had been the most magic she’d pulled since her teens. Attempting to become more human and blend in, she’d just stopped using it.
But now, seeing Jane using her power, albeit by extension since she was using “pre-recorded magic” set up by the maker of the circle, Tessa wondered whether that had been the right choice. Whether she’d been right to turn away from that side of her heritage. Perhaps that was why she didn’t feel like she fit in her own skin sometimes?
Finally, Jane stopped moving, holding her hand motionless over one symbol. Expectation built in the room like pressure in an airplane cabin, as she carried on chanting. Her voice rose steadily until she reached the end of the incantation, saying the last words with a flourish of her fingers.
Something hit the air in the room, not a sound precisely, more like a sound wave or the ripples in a pond after a stone had been dropped into the water. She shivered as it hit her, reverberating through her body before it passed on, rippling outward.
As Tessa watched the dirt “door” change, a shimmer passed over it like quicksilver, filling the frame until it looked like the surface of a mirror. One that reflected nothing, only the pale swirl of opaque mist that curled and moved within its rectangular confines.
Behind her, the door cracked, startling a squeak from Tessa. She ducked instinctively, expecting hordes of Pixie warriors to pour down the stairs at any moment. She clutched Spud to her as Jane shoved her toward the strange door.
“You need to go, now!” She shoved a folded parchment into Tessa’s hands. “This’ll show you the way to go.”
Feral caught up with them, barely even breathing heavy at the exertion of hauling furniture about. “That door’s not going to hold them up much longer,” he announced, his voice sounding urgent. Even as he spoke, the heavy thud filtering down changed in quality. A different note, as though it wasn’t just a shoulder or a heavily applied boot, but something else. “Crap, someone got a brain and decided to use the fire extinguisher,” Feral muttered, grabbing Tessa’s arm.
“You’re not coming?” he asked, as Jane held back.
She shook her head, “This is your journey,” she replied cryptically. “And I have my orders. This is as much help as I can give you. Other than wish you good luck!”
Worry speared Tessa’s heart. If these Pixies were anything like the ones that had broken into her sister’s apartment, they could hurt her aunt. Despite the fact that Jane was hundreds of years old, definitely old enough to look after herself, Tessa still worried.
“You have to come with us,” she insisted, trying to grab her aunt’s hand. Feral stopped her, lacing his fingers with hers.
“Leave it be, love, if she says she can’t, then she can’t.” His gentle voice comforted her somewhat.
“Will you be okay?”
Jane pulled herself to her full height. “Young man, I’ll have you know I was Queen of England at one point,” she said imperiously, “I think I can handle some bloody Pixies. Now, you need to damn well go!”
* * *
The bloody fools were in the wilds. Talven shook his head, unsure whether to applaud the Kyn warrior’s audacity or call him insane for putting the woman and child in danger. Not that they’d be any better off if Talven and his men got a hold of them, but still…the Night Plains?
He looked into the darkness of the plains, studying the shadows. It wasn’t comfortable, but he made himself carry on, certain he was being watched in turn. The lights strung along the road kept the shadows at bay, for which he was grateful. There were things out there he sure as hell didn’t want to get all up close and personal with.
The Night Plains was the home territory of the Host. The Night Host, the Wild Hunt; they had many names but they all meant the same thing. Creatures even scarier than the Fae, they completely freaked Talven out. And those were only the ones the Host themselves considered fit to be seen by the rest of the Fae.
The massive Sidhe warhorse under him moved and Talven shifted in his saddle to settle the animal down, even as a shudder went through his lean frame. There were things out there the Host didn’t consider fit to be seen by anyone else, and nothing, no amount of money, nor threats of physical violence, would have persuaded Talven to set foot off the road and go in there.
But the Kyn warrior had done just that, deliberately taken an unlicensed gate right into the heart of darkness. Talven shook his head again, an expression of begrudging respect crossing his handsome features. That took some fucking guts, it really did.
Ilia, of course, would be incandescent with rage. For now, the Pixies had failed her a second time. Talven really didn’t want to think of the punishment that awaited them. Taking the bodies of the first three out of her chamber had been bad enough.
Talven’s eyes shadowed as he rested against the high pommel of his saddle. She was getting worse, and more dangerous. At first, it had just been the odd one or two, drifters no one would miss from the mortal world. He hadn’t liked, it but he’d helped her clean up, removing the bodies and dumping them where the creatures in the shadows would take them.
But that was before the Pixie deal had gone bad. Ilia had tasted paranormal flesh and it’d gone tits-up since then. Every night, he found one less Pixie and one more corpse to be dealt with. If the pitiful remains he found could even be called corpses. Stripped of their flesh…desecrated.
He shuddered and cleared his thoughts, deliberately closing off that portion of his mind. He didn’t need to think about it. She was his Lady and he was sworn to do her bidding, since he’d been strong enough to wield a sword. And, he would do so until the day he died.
“Right. You lot, partner up and let’s start this patrol,” he ordered as he wheeled his mount around. “They’ve got to come out of the darkness and onto a road at some point, if only to cross it. I want them grabbed as soon as they do.”
* * *
Tessa screwed her eyes up as Feral propelled the three of them bodily through the strange opening, the sharp crack of wood sounding as the door above them gave in. The sounds of triumph cut off instantly as the three of them hit the quicksilver barrier, a cold chill passing over Tessa’s skin and making her shiver.
It didn’t splash or stick to them as she’d expected, her hand over Spud’s face just in case. Instead, there was an odd sound, like the pop in her ears as they equalized on a plane. She stumbled forward a little, a fresh breeze hitting her face. The smell of the outdoors and rain hit her nostrils, and she instantly knew they were outside now. The question was, where?
Her eyes snapped open, looking around. They stood in a small clearing in what looked like a forest. Leaves and other debris were wet underfoot, the shine of the moon overhead glinting off the moist surfaces. Tessa wasn’t afraid of the dark particularly, or of being places at night, but there was an unsavoury feel about the shadows around them that had her shrinking closer to the large form of the vampire beside her.
Feral moved in front of her, his blades back in his hands. He stood still, every line of his body stiff as he checked their surroundings. She knew without asking that he was ready for anything this place might throw at them, the look in his eyes telling her he was ready to react violently and without mercy. Despite her worry at their situation, being chased into the Fae realm by homicidal Pixies, the sight of him still took Tessa’s breath away. Feral was quite literally the hero of her erotic fantasies.
She shivered, half imagining w
hat a future with him would be like. To have him around all the time. She already knew he could be sweet and gentle. His behaviour with Spud was evidence of that. Right now, though, he was channelling “badass,” with a vengeance. To have that “tame me if you can” bad boy attitude and that heavenly body, which was to die for, on tap…oh dear God, it would be like all her Christmases rolled into one!
Determined, she tried to concentrate, although her eyes kept sliding to check out his ass. It was a nice ass, hard and firm, and she just ached to grab a handful.
“Mind on the job, Tessa honey.” His voice barely reached her in the darkness. “I can’t concentrate if you do that.”
A flush filled her cheeks as he went back to his scan, standing so still she was sure he’d become a statue. She’d heard vampires could do that, but she’d never seen it herself. How had he known I was checking him out, though? He wasn’t even looking my way!
*
Finally, he moved, blinking and coming back to life again to smile at her.
“Okay, so how did you know I was checking you out?” she demanded. “If you’re reading my mind, fang-boy, I don’t care if you’re the god damn Vampire King himself…I’ll kick your ass into next week!” she promised, her eyes flashing fire.
Feral laughed and held his hands up in surrender. For such a small woman, she sure was feisty. Belligerence and attitude all wrapped up in a small package with that curvy body, which was driving him mad. “Well, it’s lucky I’m not…Marak’s too busy getting his own ass kicked by his new wife, Maria. She’s just as damn awkward as you are. I really feel for the guy.”
Tessa grinned broadly. “Good for her! Can’t let you men get away with anything. Give you an inch and you take a damn mile. So, are you going to answer the question, or what?”
