by Jeff Hale
“Sure.” She got up and started to walk out.
We all walked out of the hospital together. Once out in the parking lot, I started the long walk towards the apartment. Kevin berated Celeste for hanging out with me while they got in the car. I could hear her shouting back at him. Good for her.
Once I got home I took a quick shower and got ready to head out and hunt Henry down. Apparently, however, things were in motion that I was completely unaware of. A knock on the apartment door interrupted my preparations. When I looked out the peephole I saw it was Lucien, and some fae with butterfly wings and antennae. I opened the door and just stared at them.
Lucien was wearing a black suit with a red shirt and white tie. He looked worried and slightly distracted. The fae was about an inch taller than me, had dark-brown hair that was in a military haircut, and steel-gray eyes. He was wearing a light-red vest and black pants. He had the wings of a monarch butterfly and I saw the insignia of the current Fae royal court on his vest. He had a completely blank look on his face.
“Aerick Kerensky, for crimes against the local shifter community, an Adjudicator Pack sent by the appointed governmental official has called you to face trial. The charges are murder in the first degree, intention to commit murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, intention to commit murder in the second degree, assault with deadly Aetheric powers, and assault with a deadly weapon. Lucien has volunteered to be your advocate in this matter. You will now come with us,” the new fae intoned.
What. The. Fuck.
THIRTEEN
I gave the butterfly-winged fae a closer look, then sighed in disbelief. He was a royal guard; not quite as strong as the royalty, but a helluva lot stronger than a noble. Fucking great. I had no choice but to comply because I had no illusions as to what would happen to me if I didn’t. This guy would turn me into a smear from one side of the city to the other. My gaze went to Lucien, who just shook his head slightly and gave me a look that suggested starting something would be a very bad idea.
No shit. What the fuck is going on?
I locked the door behind me as they escorted me to a plain black car. The license plate on the vehicle had four numbers followed by the vertical letters of ‘FGVT’. The guard opened the back door and indicated I should get in. Lucien slid in next to me and as the door closed I heard the distinctive click of a lock. The guard went around to the passenger side, got in the front, and told the driver we were good to go.
“What the hell is going on here?” I asked Lucien once we were on our way to wherever I was going to be incarcerated.
Lucien pulled a file and notepad from a pouch on the back of the front seat and glanced through the file. “Apparently you all but wiped out the local shifter pack. Their leader reported your actions to the shifter Council. They in turn sent an Adjudicator Pack to investigate and confirm the story. I guess they knew who you were by the description given.” He gave me a look of reassurance. “Don’t worry, the local fae will be the ultimate arbiters, and they won’t vote against you if you’re innocent. All you have to prove is that they attacked you first. They did attack you first, right?” Lucien was banking on the knowledge that the local fae barely tolerated shifters, viewing them as only slightly better than vampires and as savage animals to boot.
“They did start it. And they work for Baba Yaga!” I retorted.
“That’s good. You’ll be fine as long as we can prove that.”
“Prove it? How?!” I stared at Lucien in confusion.
“I’m not sure as of yet, but what I am sure of is that the answer will present itself during the trial.”
“Fuck me,” I growled.
“You must keep your temper in check,” Lucien admonished me.
“Look, I thought they had attacked Nina during our first confrontation. I didn’t realize that Nina was going to be one of them. Neither did Dave, who attacked their leader and in return was attacked with undue force since he was human. I responded in order to protect him. I let the leader live, letting them know that if they came after me I’d wipe them out. They came after me, threatened Celeste, and I killed them in defense of myself and others,” I grated out, wondering how it was that Henry and his twisted shifter buddies were not only getting away with this, but turning the whole thing against me. Fucking shifters. I was really learning to hate them.
“Okay, so that’s your side of the story, right?” Lucien asked, writing something down on the notepad.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. Hell, one of them may vouch for me, if we can contact her. She was there for the first confrontation.”
“Good, we may need to.”
“Where are we going anyway?”
“To the Velvet Flame, where you will be sequestered for the duration of the trial. Excepting when you are in court or when you are on business for the trial.”
“Well, at least I’ll be comfortable, I guess.”
“I will also need Celeste’s contact information. You said she witnessed the attack and that you saved her life. We’ll need her testimony and report on what happened. She may end up being a key witness for you. An innocent human’s word may well be taken over a shifter’s due to the fact that the human will have no agenda, whereas the shifters obviously do,” Lucien pointed out.
“I don’t want to drag her into this. Last thing we need is her making enemies of the shifters. Which is exactly what will happen. That’s what caused me to take action to begin with. To protect any retaliation against her.” I turned and stared out the window, unwilling to let that thread of conversation go any further.
“We’ll need her testimony, Aerick. That’s all there is to it. She’d be key in our defense.”
“Yeah, and the shifters will seek to kill her as a result. No. Besides, I told her to stay away from me. I don’t want anything to do with her. We don’t belong together anymore. She belongs with a normal guy.”
“I see. That’s too bad. Did you ask her what her feelings on that were?”
“I don’t care what they are.”
“Even if her feelings for you run deeper than either of you would expect, despite her not remembering who she is?”
“What do you know about it, Luce?” I asked, turning a suspicious gaze upon him.
“Just pure speculation, especially based on your reactions when I brought her up. She told you that for some reason she has feelings for you, possibly even told you that she loved you after you saved her life. You saw what you believed to be your worst nightmare realized with her threatened by an Aetheric, and you panicked, and told her that you didn’t want her around, to live a normal life. How am I doing so far?”
“Not even… ah, hell, that’s about it. Except she never said she loved me, not vocally anyway,” I admitted grudgingly.
“What did you do to insure she wouldn’t want anything to do with you? Knowing you, you would have sabotaged any possibility of a relationship.”
“I told her to go away, that she was worth nothing to me, and all she did was bring me pain because she reminded me of what I had lost, and that she could never be Serena.”
“That creates a problem. You may have burned a bridge that we desperately needed in your court defense. That’s too bad,” Lucien said, a hint of despair in his voice. That scared me.
“I thought you said the fae wouldn’t vote against me if I was innocent?” I reminded him.
He nodded. “They won’t. Due to their dislike of the shifters, they would much rather find you innocent than guilty, but they will be fair. They have to be.”
I shrugged a little. “Well, I did check up on Celeste. She slapped me and called us even. I was worried that maybe Baba Yaga had taken her and decided to go to ground with her as leverage.”
“Give me her contact info. I may at least be able to get a written statement if you don’t want to bring her in directly, though a physical witness is far more compelling.”
I complied, giving Lucien her address. The rest of the car ride went b
y quietly as Lucien did the paperwork necessary to get the defense in order. He made a few phone calls and by the time he was done with the last one, we were in the parking garage of the Velvet Flame. Lucien and the royal guard escorted me to the room that Lucien kept for me, the same one I had stayed in after the Barrier fell and that I had woken up in after the last fight with Henry. I sat on the bed as they left me there, knowing that I probably wouldn’t be able to open the door. It was comfortable and nice, with a few of my things, but it wasn’t my room anymore. Now it was just a prison.
If things proceeded the way they were supposed to, I would meet with my accusers next, probably within the first twenty four hours. I would hear the accusations against me directly from whoever they sent to do the job, probably the Adjudicator pack that Lucien had mentioned. Then Lucien and I would sit down and formulate our defense while my accusers gathered their evidence. After that would be the trial.
With nothing else to do, I decided to catch up on some sleep while I waited. I awoke to the sound of Theros, the Cyclops, leaving some clean clothes from my apartment on the dresser in the room. I nodded at him and went back to sleep. I awoke again later to find Lucien standing over me.
“Your accusers have arrived. Make yourself presentable so we can go meet them. I’ll be just outside,” he said quickly, then left the room.
At least I was feeling a lot better, physically anyway. I had slept a minimum of twelve hours and my system had probably needed it desperately. I was hungry, but that could wait until after I’d met with some group of strangers that would partially hold my fate in their hands. I took a quick shower and dressed in the clothes that were left for me; a pair of black Levi’s and a dark green button up shirt. Lucien was waiting on the other side of the door to my room when I opened it and he indicated I should follow him. He led me to the V.I.P. lounge, which had been converted into a board room complete with long meeting table and wheeled swivel chairs. I sat in a chair in the furthest corner, waiting for the shifter pack that had been sent to bring me to justice to enter.
I was expecting almost any pack to walk into the room, except the one that did. Darien was in the lead, and he gave me a scowl as he entered the room. He stepped to the side just far enough to allow the others inside.
If Darien thought he was going to intimidate me, then he didn’t remember our last confrontation. I looked away from him, completely ignoring his presence, as well as the Alpha dominance aura he was giving off. I glanced towards Lucien, who caught my gaze and rolled his eyes in annoyance.
Following Darien was Alex, who had an easy manner about him and seemed to be perpetually in a good mood. He always put me in mind of that puppy in the pound that just begged you to take him home. He looked a bit sad at the moment, his eyes apologetic as they swept over me.
The last individual to walk in still made my heart skip a beat every time I saw her. Katelyn had her hair up in a loose pony-tail, errant strands free about her face. She was wearing a pair of tight leather pants, a tight blue t-shirt and a leather biker jacket. She glared openly at me as she walked in and sat down.
Now I was nervous. Not because of Darien or Alex, but because of Kat. She had been my one hope since she had seen the beginning of all this.
Looks like she’s definitely not on my side for this. What the hell? I thought we were becoming friends again.
Here lately when I was nervous, I had begun to do strange things, what Raven revered to as ‘Aetheric fidgeting’. I found myself unconsciously doing it now; forming a tiny ball of flame, then extinguishing it with an equally tiny blast of ice. Repeatedly.
“Stop that,” Darien practically growled at me.
“Go fuck yourself,” I retorted as I continued what I was doing. But now I wasn’t doing it just because of nerves; now it was because I knew it would irritate him. Sure, not the most mature response, but I wasn’t feeling very mature at the moment. Lucien gave me a warning glance.
“How about you go and…” Darien started to say through clenched teeth as he leaned forward and bared them, that undercurrent of growl still in his voice.
Oooo. Scary.
“You are in my establishment, and you will conduct yourself in a civilized manner, wolf!” Lucien materialized in front of Darien suddenly. “Aerick is my guest, and if he feels the need to do the Aetheric equivalent of tapping his fingers, then he will be allowed the leeway to do so.”
“Fine,” Darien said, giving Lucien the respect he was due.
“What’s wrong, wittle puppy? The big bad bird scare the wittle doggie?” I really couldn’t help it. It just came out. Lucien shot me a dirty look as Darien leapt across the table, beginning to shift. I stood in one smooth motion into my fighting stance, blades conjured. “Come on, dog boy. Let’s see if you’re any better than that bastard that tried to kill Celeste!”
Before either of us could do anything I was against the wall, or rather in the wall. The fae royal guard was standing in front of me, hand outstretched, a wave of energy holding me in place. I saw Lucien holding Darien by the throat with one hand. It was an incongruous image, considering Darien looked to be at least twice Lucien’s size.
In a moment of reflexive desperation I raised my shield, disrupting the fae’s energy wave, then rushed forward abruptly. I heard Lucien protesting my actions from somewhere in the back of my mind. It didn’t register, though. The only thought in my mind was that maybe I could take this fae after all. I came at him with a double slash, the flame blade going for the throat, the ice for the abdomen. Both blades sliced into his flesh, which seemed to ripple, like it wasn’t really there.
The fae guard looked down at me as I finished my motions. I didn’t even have time to recover from my maneuver as his eyes glowed with pure Aetheric power. I felt the ground give way as I hit the ceiling. I saw his true form, almost like an elf with perfect features, dark purple skin, and the wings of a bat. This was a fae of the Twilight Court, not the Day Court of the local region. There was an interesting looking brooch holding his black silken cloak about his shoulders; a hooded and fanged skull. Baba Yaga’s crest. His visage was both terrible and beautiful to behold. Bright, chaotic, red light appeared to emanate from around him, and the raw power of the world seemed to answer as he caressed a line of energy with his Aetheric body.
That red light seemed to fuse with that line of energy for a moment, before it exploded outward and I felt my very existence being torn apart. I fought to keep my shield up, and managed to do so briefly enough to feel his hold give out again.
I landed roughly, but came right back up, forcing my blades into an Aetheric existence as well as a physical one. I brought both blades straight up in a vertical slash that caught him at the waist and came up through his body and out his shoulders. I was not letting some servant of the Hag’s get the better of me!
I felt something sever, and then I heard him scream as his body manifested the wounds which I had caused him in the Aetheric. A new realization hit me; with the Barrier down, fae, even the nobles, were more vulnerable if you just knew how to attack them.
I didn’t have time to savor my victory or my discovery as the guard grabbed onto that line of power, thrust it into me, and caused it to explode. Everything went bright, then black as I collapsed to the floor. The last thing I saw was the wounded imposter royal guard, and four faces looking at the display in complete awe. Thoughts raced through my head, as though trying to surface before I lost them.
The fae could be harmed. They weren’t gods like they’d have everyone believe. They were hiding that fact, to what ends I didn’t know, though I had a feeling that it was more than self-preservation. I knew then and there that the dark fae had an agenda. In that moment, I had a revelation into the fae and their secrets.
In that moment, I knew that Baba Yaga was way ahead of us.
_____________________________
I woke up to a sore body and a pounding migraine. I opened my eyes and immediately regretted it. I squeezed them shut against the painful l
ight that sought to burn them out of their sockets. I felt a hand on my shoulder as I tried to sit up.
“Take it easy. You’ve had a rough time of it,” I heard Lucien’s voice, and it caused my head to pound harder.
“Where am I?” I asked in a raspy voice. My throat felt like I had drank an entire glass of hydrochloric acid.
“In your room at the Velvet Flame.”
“What happened?”
“You got cocky,” he said, and made a ‘tsk’ing noise afterwards.
“That, I know. I’m never going to try and attack fae royalty ever again. I mean with the meeting,” I said. I could have told him right then, that the guard was one of Baba Yaga’s minions, but something told me to hold onto the information until I most needed it.
“I called a recess until you were well enough again to hear their charges against you.”
“Oh, just execute me and get it over with, Luce. I am guilty of chronic stupidity and we both know it.”
He chuckled. “Perhaps, but you know when you have made a mistake.”
“Yeah, and one of these times I won’t be alive to make that realization.”
“You are stronger than you know. How did you manage to hurt that guard?” His tone was full of suspicion
“I severed his connection with the Aether using my blades. I shifted them so that they were slightly out of tune with the real world and more in tune with the Aetheric.”
“Interesting. I was not aware that you were capable of that,” he said, and there was still a wary note to his voice.
“Neither was I, until it occurred to me just then.”
“That means you are a threat to the fae. You know their secret.”
“Yeah, what gives?”
“They plan on supplanting the world governments, which they will succeed at if the human population believes that they are godlike and benevolent. They will rule just as they did in your ancient history.”
“And they believe humans will just give up their power like that?”
