by S A Archer
Kieran stood out among his companions. Tall and lean. The body of an archer, broad shoulders and toned musculature. Probably into boxing, given the stances he took as he horsed around with the other lads. Close shorn hair didn’t disguise his ears, which had the rounded appearance of a human’s. So this earthborn at least knew enough Glamour to manage that simple disguise.
With Donovan’s practiced eye, this initial assessment only required a minute at most. If instinct served, a further evaluation of Kieran’s abilities would roll up in just a few more moments. The street lights had already come on with the approach of dusk. During the daylight hours, perhaps Kieran hadn’t the sense to fear anything. Come night, though… in a town this size…
Ah… Yes… There they were…
The long black Town Car prowled up the street like a panther. The occupants likely knew of the Sidhe in their territory.
And then there… One of Kieran’s fellows bumped the Sidhe in the shoulder. So his friends knew Kieran had the unnatural attention of a predator. Perhaps they even suspected the nature of the threat, depending on how frequently this played out. Kieran stepped back from the curb, clearly knowing immediately what danger stalked him.
Donovan left cash and his untouched drink on the table. In no particular rush, he left the pub. By the time his pace carried him near the corner, the black-clad vampires had already flowed from the Town Car, scattering the youths who tried, and failed, to stand up to them. Kieran bolted from the scuffle, his friends buying him time, seconds at most.
Vampires moved far faster than any fey could on foot. Herding Kieran into the alley by cutting off all other routes of escape hardly taxed their skill set. Donovan did not need to see this to know where they’d gone. Following the vibration of footfalls against the earth served as a sixth sense. Without even breaking into a run, Donovan strode into the alleyway as two vampires toyed with Kieran. Every time he moved to try and bolt past them, they blocked. They’d played this game with the boy before. They enjoyed it. Kieran knew he was as good as drained. Probably got drained on a regular basis. The vampires would never kill him, their addiction to the Sidhe blood too strong to risk losing such an easy source.
“This is what my people are coming to? The noble elves of legend and fact... pinnacle of magic to ever take form… the Sidhe who were once worshiped by the Celts as deities… Reduced to little more than livestock for bloodsuckers?”
Donovan had not raised his voice. His commanding presence rarely required him to shout to garner attention. His glare alone, one that had seen far more enemies laid to waste before him than these vampires could begin to imagine, backed them away. Novice vampires at most, the both of them barely older than Kieran. Sensing their peril, the night creatures scrambled up the alley walls to escape the mere threat of Donovan’s presence. Little more than black blurs in their haste, they fled like shadows from the light.
Only Donovan hardly thought of himself as a light. No Unseelie, and member of the Dark Court, would ever think such a thing of themselves.
With the vampires gone, Donovan leveled his penetrating focus on Kieran. The youth had sense enough to tremble beneath the threat of it. He shouted at Donovan, “What do you want?”
Donovan reached out a hand, open and unarmed. “I want the Sidhe to thrive.”
“The Sidhe?” Kieran whispered it. Probably warned since he was a small lad to never speak of what he was. As if he should be ashamed of his glorious heritage rather than ennobled by it. The wonderment and surprise in Kieran’s expression said it all, an abandoned orphan waking to a dream of home. “You are Sidhe?”
“And I have come for you, Kieran.” As the youth drew up beside him, Donovan clapped a hand on his shoulder. When they vanished it was with the promise that Kieran would never be alone again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
From the ferry London watched the Isle of Man come into view. The city of Douglas spread along the narrow patch between the sea and the low hills beyond. In the evening light the promenade glittered like Christmas. Thousands of lights strung along light poles illuminated the waterfront in a festive glow. London wished she could just take it all in with the same excitement as the tourists that crowded against the ferry railing.
This island in the Celtic Sea was the halfway point between England and Ireland. Self-governing, but British dependency, the Isle of Man made a perfect neutral ground for any clandestine meeting between wizards and fey. It hadn’t taken much snooping around to get the scoop. The fey drove the wizards out of Ireland at the end of the Middle Ages, give or take. The power of the wizards in England remained strong, and few fey risked venturing onto that soil. The ones who survived there were extremely good at hiding themselves from notice. The ones who were not good had long since been taken by the wizards. What exactly “taken by the wizards” meant hadn’t been defined even with coaxing. That information had cost her two bottles of wine, a caramel Bundt cake, and the time it took for the Brownie to consume it all.
Before two days ago London hadn’t spent much time with any fey. They were not her usual clientele. They had their own way of handling their affairs and generally didn’t cross swords with the parahumans London did take on as clients.
This crash course on them now only highlighted her vast ignorance. Knowledge was power, and with the urgency of the curse looming, London could no longer afford the bliss of ignorance. If the curse wasn’t proof enough, the bandage on her neck should be.
Consulting her text message from a contact in England, she knew the name of the yachts owned by various prominent wizards. A few bucks to a contact in the transportation authority and she knew which one was currently moored in Douglas and at which pier. Basic investigation work.
Staking out the pier was more in her line of work than figuring out the random psychology of the fey. Others might have found huddling on stinky old tarps and wadded up fishing nets boring, but the spot wedged between some busted-up crates was ideal for people watching without getting undue notice.
It’d been about forty-eight hours since Rico “hired” her. As the magic wore off, a crawling sensation crept over her skin, causing her to twitch restlessly. Long about 3:30 in the morning, the activity finally kicked up. Deacon, along with a man and a woman she didn’t recognize, pushed a handcart down the pier. They all had the fine features of the fey about them. The cart was in the style of a street vender, brightly painted and with wooden wheels. The tarp had been unrolled from the roof down each of the four sides, enclosing the space of the cart. If it were perfectly empty inside, it would be a space of about four-by-two feet, and four feet high.
London used her phone to take a picture of the scene, then zoomed in and got a close-up of each of them. The pier was cluttered with boxes and barrels. Using the cover she moved closer to get a better look.
A couple of men, pretty clearly human and likely wizards based on the off-style clothing, debarked from the boat. They had not been the ones who had initially hired her to find Deacon, but the wizards functioned sort of like a corporation from what she gathered. The ones who communicated with her before had the smell of lower-level errand boys. These two guys before her now had an aura of power. Deacon and the other fey dropped to their knees before the wizards. London leaned out far enough to snap another shot of the scene and then catch close-ups on the wizards.
While they were distracted with each other, London slipped in behind the cart, listening to the words they spoke. The tarp flap on her side of the cart was not tied down. Cool--she’d get a chance to snap a picture of whatever cargo they were exchanging.
“Any Sidhe?” the older man asked Deacon.
“They are scarce, my lord, with the Mounds collapsed. The new generation Unseelie are scattered and hidden. Donovan has begun to gather them to him and his protection is formidable.”
London lifted the tarp, her
phone at the ready for a few quick shots before she got herself back to a safer distance.
A huddle of glowing eyes peered back at her. London glanced from the screen of her smart phone into the dark cage within and back at the phone. There were a few shy of a dozen fey crammed within: fairies, pixies, Brownies, a couple elves. She took the photo and then hit send, forwarding the images back to her email account. If something happened to her phone, or to her, she wanted a record someplace where it could be found. She tucked the phone back inside her blazer.
The wizard chided, “You must not let that deter you.”
“Yes, lord.”
London peeked around at them. The younger wizard pulled three containers from his satchel the size of large perfume bottles and distributed one to each of the fey kneeling before him. “If the Mounds have indeed collapsed, this may be the opportune time.”
The elder wizard agreed. “You and I will scout out the situation for ourselves, and report back our finding. The fey of Ireland may finally be ripe for harvest.”
She had a feeling she didn’t have much time. Turning her attention back to the fey locked beneath the tarp, she whispered, “Can’t you teleport away?” She examined the cage for a way to open it.
One of the elves held up his wrist. A single cuff, like a handcuff but without the chain and second cuff attached. The skin beneath it was raw and blistered. “Silver.” He saw her not understanding and he added, “Can’t do magic when silver touches our flesh.”
London patted her jacket pockets and found what she was looking for. She passed the handcuff key through the bars to the elf. “Free yourselves and get away. I’ll distract them.”
Even as she was speaking the elf freed a fairy and she blinked away. London reached through the bars and hooked a finger on the cuff left behind and extracted it from the cage. Tucking the tarp back down in place, London curled her hand around the cuff.
She crept away, staying behind cover until she was a good thirty feet away. With a steadying breath she drew her gun. The wizards headed toward the cart. She doubted the fey within had all escaped yet, so she stood up and snapped off a warning shot.
The wizard gave a shout and a rush of wind slammed into her, flinging London yards through the air before she came down. As she scrambled to her feet, she saw Deacon and his fey friends racing toward her. One flung himself forward and shifted in midair into a wolf. Not Glamour, not an illusion. He shifted. Changeling, like Deacon. London got to her feet and bolted for the more populated promenade.
The female Changeling blinked into existence less than a foot in front of her, but London didn’t slow down. She rugby-blocked her right off the pier and into the water.
The wolf caught up with her and slammed behind her knees, sending London down in a tumble with it. She snapped the silver cuff around a convenient leg and the Changeling reformed back into his humanlike appearance, with prominently pointed ears. He rolled away, hissing and tearing uselessly at his ankle, where the cuff happened to catch him.
Certain that Deacon would be on her before she could run, London brought up her gun, ready to fire.
What happened next occurred almost too quickly for her to process it. The knife Deacon flung at her was already released, already heading for her. She had no chance to dodge. At that exact moment someone flicked into the space behind her. An arm circled her waist, embracing her back against a solid chest. And then they were gone.
Black closed in around them and then almost as quickly it fled away again.
Chapter Thirty-Three
With a slight tilt of his head, Lugh seemed as though he might have intended a kiss, but instead his nose caressed against the side of hers, lips dangerously close, but each time she lifted to close the gap, he retreated in a tease. “Shall we depart, then? To inspect the clothing you generously offer?”
She smiled, clearly believing she was luring a Sidhe to grace her bedchamber. The covetous glint in her eyes Lugh had seen in the eyes of many before Ariel. Many lesser fey viewed claiming a Sidhe for a lover, however briefly, a treasure. Truly the honor was rarely bestowed to non-Sidhe. Better a lesser fey than some creature with no fey blood whatsoever. Humans, werewolves, vampires, demons, and the other beings that dwelled on the earth plane craved the Sidhe as mightily as any other, but the consequences of such an ill-advised coupling usually resulted in damage to the non-fey partner both deep and permanent. Not that such warnings dissuaded the lusts of most.
With his arm casually slung about Ariel’s shoulder, Lugh strolled with her back to the house he’d been contemplating entering all morning. Only peripherally aware of the woman beside him, Lugh pondered the means to discover the artifact in the least obtrusive way. Distracted by his thoughts, Lugh ascended the four steps to the threshold and then halted abruptly. Forced away by a magical barrier, he dropped back a step.
“You have a ward?” Lugh slid his palm against the wet glassy surface of the invisible magic.
Ariel passed through the barrier without difficulty and as she turned her hand covered the charm on her necklace still hidden beneath her blouse. She reached through the ward and claimed a fistful of Lugh’s vest. With a suggestive tug she drew him across the space. The warding magic tingled over his flesh, but he passed into it. Once inside the magic, the oppression of it covered him like a blanket of humidity, palpable but not suffocatingly so.
“Just a little magical protection. England is not safe for fey, you know.” Her coy smile held no hint of any fear, only the promise of sweet feminine attentions.
Of all the fey households of the past few thousand years that entertained Lugh as a guest, welcome or otherwise, never had he encountered any that encased their dwelling with such a ward. Indeed the Champion of the Sidhe knew of the precarious situation in England for the fey. Few fey risked dwelling in the homeland of the wizard kind; perhaps the hardy minority such as Ariel found extreme measures the best precaution. Without some means to dissect the magicraft, Lugh could only guess at the full effects of the ward based on its effect upon him, which were stifling enough to be more than a mere nuisance. Perhaps to a fey of mixed blood, the effects felt less sinister.
Ariel unlocked the front door and guided the way inside. The atmosphere within weighed with a sickly familiar dread. As Lugh crossed into the entryway, nothing overtly proved the misgivings that tightened within his chest. Instinct and experience neither backed off their alarming presence, unconvinced by the cleanliness of the abode or the domestic touches of family pictures and fresh flowers. Not even the perfumed candle wax could disguise the underlying hint of rancid meat. Ariel closed the door behind them, the latch caught and locked automatically with the metallic clink of the tumblers. Her wide smile appeared quite feline in hunger and her eyes practically sparkled with undisguised eagerness.
None of this drove him to retreat from his purpose, as the artifact he sought lay somewhere within this dwelling. His sharp ears pricked, catching whispers of sounds from deeper within the home.
“Gregory,” Ariel called down the hallway, “I brought home a visitor. Bring refreshments to the parlor, won’t you?” Her fingers hooked in the fabric of his sleeve. Whether she meant it to seem flirtatious did not matter; to Lugh it felt like the claws of a sluagh just before the muscles bunched and turned into an iron grip.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The lights along the promenade gleamed as bright as a spotlight after the darkness on the pier. London struggled to orient herself. Even at this hour, the late-night weekend crowd still milled about. The volume of conversation and music sounded loud to her unaccustomed ears. Arms still embraced her securely, holding her steady. A solid and warm body pressed against her back. The voice was seductively low, “We are safe. Be easy.”
London glanced back at the elf that held her. She would not have guessed from having seen him cramped in that small c
age with the others that he was this tall or toned. Gently, she disengaged his arms from around her waist. “Okay, you’ve copped enough of a feel for one rescue.” The elf laughed at that, but they both knew he’d been getting a bit more touchy feely than the situation called for. Anybody who knew anything about the fey knew they were a casually sexual bunch. A lot like vampires on that score, only without the feeding part. Well, usually without the feeding part, but not always. “What about the others?”
“They escaped.” He placed the handcuff key into her palm. “Rico sent you?”
London closed her fist around the key. “I guess you could say that.”
“I never thought he’d turn to a human for help.”
“Yeah, well. He didn’t exactly ask.” Tucking away the key, London scanned the area. No sign of the Changelings or the wizards. “What’s your name?”
“Kev.”
“Can you teleport us back to Ireland, Kev?”
The elf laughed. “If only I could. ’Tis a bit far of a leap for me.”
