“Matthew Magus,” he said, casting a green-gray eye that seemed to gather light across Edie, Kit, and Lily. His harness did not creak as he shifted his weight, but the bells tinkled faintly—rain against a glass wind-chime. “And companions.”
“I do not know you,” Matthew said. “How are you styled?”
“I am a lord of the Unseelie Court, and I would not extend my calling to one so ill-met.”
Matthew sighed. “Must we be ill-met?”
“Aye,” said the anonymous lord, “if you would keep a thief from me.”
Now police cars were filling the intersection and both ends of the block. Edie looked nervously one way and another, waiting for men and women with guns to start piling out of the vehicles and charging forward, but for now they seemed content to wait.
New York’s Finest knew better than to get between a magician and an elf-lord.
“A thief?” Matthew asked, with an elaborate glance over his shoulder. Edie could still hear the heaving breaths of the horse, smell the sweat and fear of the girl. “I see someone who has sought sanctuary in my city. And as you owe fealty to King Ian, you are bound by my treaty with him. What is she accused of stealing … Sir Knight?”
“What’s there before your eyes,” the Fairy answered, as his companions of the hunt—men and women both—ranged themselves around him. “That common brat has stolen the great mare Embarr from my stables, and I will have her back. And the thief punished.”
The mare snorted behind them, her harness jangling fiercely as she shook out her mane. “He lies!”
At first, Edie thought the child had spoken, and admired her spunk. But when she turned, she realized that the high, clear voice had come from the horse, who pricked her ears and continued speaking. “If anything, t’was I stole the child Alicia. And my reasons I had, mortal Magus.”
“The mare,” said the elf-lord, “is mine.”
Matthew did not lower his hands. “Be that as it may,” he said. “I cannot have you tearing my city apart—and it is my city, and in it I decree that no one can own another. The girl and the horse are under my protection, and if you wish to have King Ian seek their extradition, he is welcome to do so through official channels. Which do not—” Matthew waved his hands wide “—include a hunt through Greenwich Village.”
The Fairy Lord sniffed. “I have come here, where iron abounds, and where your mortal poisons burn inside my breast with every breath, to reclaim what is rightfully mine. By what authority do you deny me?”
He stood up in his stirrups. His gelding took a prancing, curveting step or two, crowding the horses and hounds on his right. They danced out of the way, but not before Edie had time to wrinkle her nose in the human answer to a snarl. “This is going to come to a fight,” she whispered, too low for anyone but Lily and Matthew to hear. The whisk of metal on leather told her that Kit had drawn his sword.
“Why doesn’t the girl speak for herself?” Matthew asked.
“Because,” the mare answered, “His Grace had her caned and stole her voice from her when one of his mares miscarried. But it wasn’t the girl’s fault. And I’ll not see my stablehands mistreated.”
Lily squeezed Edie’s hand and leaned close to whisper. “Edith? Shift to wolf form.”
Edie shook her head. “I told you, it’s been—”
“Do it,” she said, and gave her a little push forward from the elbow.
Edie toed out of those boots and stood in stocking-feet on the icy pavement. She ripped her blouse off over her head and kicked down the stockings and the sequined skirt.
Everyone was staring, most especially the Fairy lord. Lily, though, stepped forward to help Edie with her corselet and gaff. She handled the confining underclothes with the professionalism of a seasoned performer, folding them over her arm before stepping back. Edie stood there for a moment, naked skin prickling out everywhere, and raised her eyes to the Fairy lord.
“Well, I’ll be a codfish,” he said callously. He looked not at Edie, but at Matthew. “The bitch has a prick. Is that meant to upset me?”
“The bitch has teeth, too,” Edie said, and let the transformation take her.
She’d thought it would be hard. So many years, so many years of enduring the pain, of resisting, of petulant self-denial. Of telling herself that if she wasn’t good enough for the Pack to see her as a wolf, then she didn’t want to be one.
Once she managed to release her death-grip on the self-denial, though, her human form just fell away, sheeting from the purity of the wolf like filth from ice. Edie’s hands dropped toward the pavement and were hard, furred paws before they touched. Her muzzle lengthened; what had been freezing cold became cool comfort as the warmth of her pelt enfolded her. The migraine fell away as if somebody had removed a clamp from her temples, and the rich smells of the city—and the horse manure and dog piss of the hunt—flooded her sinuses.
She snarled, stalking forward, and saw the Fairy hounds whine and mill and cringe back among the legs of the horses. She knew the light rippled in her coat, red as rust and tipped smoke-black, and she knew the light glared in her yellow eyes. She knew from the look the Fairy lord shot her—fear masked with scorn—that the threat was working.
“So you have a wolf,” the Fairy lord said, though his horse lowered his head to protect his neck and backed several steps.
“And your high king is a wolf,” Matthew said. “You know how the pack sticks together.”
This time, the gelding backed and circled because the Fairy lord reined him around. When he faced Edie and the others again, he was ten feet further back, and his pack had fallen back with him.
“I don’t understand why the horse didn’t kill you,” he called to the girl, over Matthew’s head. “They don’t let slaves ride.”
He yanked his horse’s mouth so Edie could smell the blood that sprang up, wheeling away.
“Oh,” said the mare, “is that why you never dared get up on me?”
As the lord rode off, spine stiff, the rest of the hunt fell in behind him. Edie was warm and at ease, and with the slow ebb of adrenaline, swept up in a rush of fellow-feeling for those with whom she had just withstood a threat.
A veil opened in the night as before, shimmering across the pavement before the phalanx of squad cars. Edie and her new allies stood waiting warily until the Fairy lord and his entourage vanished back behind it. The mare eyed Matthew quite cunningly. She planned this, the wolf thought. But the mare said nothing, and Edie would have had to come back to human form to say it—and what good would it do at this point, anyway?
“Well, I guess that’s that,” Matthew said, when they were gone.
He made a hand-dusting gesture and turned away, leaving Kit to handle the girl and the mare who had stolen each other while he walked, whistling, up the road to speak with the assembled police. Edie went and sat beside Lily, tail thumping the road. Lily reached down and scruffled her ruff and ears with gloved fingers.
“Good wolf,” she cooed. “Good girl.”
In New York City’s storied Greenwich Village, on the island of Manhattan, there is a tavern called the Slaughtered Lamb. A wolf howls on its signboard. In one corner lurks a framed photo of Lon Chaney as the Wolf Man. The tavern is cramped and dark and the mailbox-sized bathroom—beside the grilled-off stair with a sign proclaiming the route to The Dungeon closed for daily tortures—is not particularly clean.
The Slaughtered Lamb (of course) is the favored hangout of Lower Manhattan’s more ironic werewolves. Edie hadn’t been there even once since she came to New York City. She’d been an outcast even then.
Now she strode west on 4th Street from Washington Square, her high-heeled boots clicking on the preternaturally level sidewalks of Manhattan. Her feet still hurt across the pads, but the worst was healed. She wore trousers to hide her unshaven legs. A cold wind curled the edges of damp leaves, not strong enough to lift them from the pavement.
4th was wider and less tree-shaded than most of the streets in the famo
usly labyrinthine Village, but still quiet—by Manhattan standards—as she made her way past the sex shops, crossing Jones in a hurry. An FDL Express truck waited impatiently behind the stop sign, rolling gently forward as if stretching an invisible barrier when the driver feathered the clutch.
She hopped lightly up one of the better curb cuts in the Village and crossed the sidewalk to the Slaughtered Lamb’s black-and-white faux-Tudor exterior. Horns blared as she let herself inside. A reflexive glance at her watch showed 4:59.
Rush hour.
“And so it begins,” she muttered to no one in particular, and let the heavy brown nine-panel door fall between her and the noise.
There was noise inside, too, but it was of a more welcoming quality. Speakers mounted over the door blared Chumbawumba; two silent televisions shimmered with the sports highlights of the day. A gas fire roared in the unscreened hearth behind the only open table. Edie picked her way through the darkness to claim it quickly, sighing in relief. It might roast her on one side, but at least it would be a place to sit.
She slung her damp leather coat over the high back of a bar stool and jumped up. She was barely settled, a cider before her, when the door opened again, revealing Matthew Magus and a tall, slender young man with pale skin and black hair that touched his collar in easy curls.
They sat down across from Edie. She shifted a little further away from the fire. “Edith Moorcock,” Matthew said, “His Majesty Ian MacNeill, Sire of the Pack and High King of Fairy.”
“Charmed,” Edie said, offering the King a glove. To her surprise, he took it.
“Edie is a New World wolf,” Matthew said. “Apparently, your grandfather did not find her … acceptable … to the Pack.”
“Oh, yes,” Ian said tiredly. “It’s about time the Pack got itself out of the twelfth century.” He steepled his fingers as the server came over, and both he and Matthew ordered what Edie had. “I can’t imagine what you would want with us at this point, though—”
Edie’s heart fluttered with nervousness. “An end to exile?”
“Consider it done. Do you plan to remain in New York?”
Edie nodded.
“Good. The Mage here needs somebody to look after him. Somebody with some teeth.” Ian paused as his cider arrived, then sipped it thoughtfully. Matthew coughed into the cupped palm of his glove. “The better to eat you with, my dear,” he muttered.
The king regarded him, eyebrows rising as he tilted his head. “I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing, your Majesty.”
Ian smiled, showing teeth. If Edie’s were anything to go by, he had very good ears. He drank another swallow of cider, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and said, “Now, about that changeling girl and the horse that stole her—”
CORRUPTED
Jim C. Hines
If I was going to save this city, I needed three things: one empty detergent bottle, one magazine clipping of Zoe Saldana as Uhura from Star Trek, and one stolen child.
The idea of taking the kid bothered me. I hated playing into fairy stereotypes. My partner Larry would give me crap about it for years.
After he got over the fact that I had kidnapped a four-year-old, I mean.
I was working on the detergent bottle when I heard keys rattling in the lock. I set the bottle aside and slid the silver shears into a leather sheath inside my suit jacket, swapping them for a modified Beretta Tomcat pistol. Five inches long, made of brass with a hand-carved oak grip, the gun looked like a toy next to Larry’s Glock. But it worked for me, as evidenced by the dead troll in the alley behind the apartment building.
I thought he had been alone, but thanks to the bullet hole in my leg, I had been reluctant to stick around and find out for certain. I gripped the gun in both hands, sighting at a point chest high, about a foot in front of the door. Seven rounds in the magazine and an eighth in the pipe should be plenty for whatever monster had followed me here.
The door opened, and I heard voices arguing. “Why didn’t you go before we left?”
“I didn’t have to go then!”
The gun vanished into my jacket as Isabel Famosa stepped into her kitchen and tossed her keys onto the counter. Her son Kareem tore through the living room and vanished into the bathroom, not even noticing me sitting in the armchair.
Isabel was more observant. She froze halfway through the process of removing a green windbreaker. “Who are you?”
“Do you have any electrical tape?” I asked.
She backed into the small kitchen. Going for either a phone or a knife. By the time she returned, I had my badge ready.
“My name’s Jessica.” A lie, but I wasn’t about to tell her or the bureau my true name. “I’m with the FBI. Do you know where your husband is, Mrs. Famosa?”
“The FBI? But you’re … you’re not—”
“Human?” She had gone for a boning knife. Nice choice. I hopped down from the chair, clenching my teeth as the movement sent new pain tearing through my leg. Blood oozed through the blue silk tie I had used as a makeshift bandage. Damn troll. I shoved my blonde hair back and hobbled closer, giving her a good look at the narrow pointed ears, the oversaturated blue of my eyes, the deceptively fragile build. “No, I’m not.”
I tucked my badge away, keeping my hand close to my gun. Her knuckles were white on the knife. She wouldn’t be the first human to lose her shit when confronted by a fairy. I gave a silent command. With a flutter of wings, a miniature Shia LaBeouf swooped down and swatted her wrist. The knife dropped onto the carpet, and Shia returned to his perch in the spider plant over the window.
“They won’t hurt you,” I said.
“They?” She stepped back.
I pointed to the curtains on the opposite wall, where a Playboy centerfold with gray wings crouched, watching her. “They’re pixies. Magically created simulacra. I mostly use them for intelligence and surveillance, but today they’re going to help me save your husband’s life.”
Her son hurried from the bathroom. “Who are you talking to, Momma?” His eyes widened when he spotted me. “Hi! Do you want to play Ben Ten with me?”
“Sorry, kid. I know how I look, but I’m a little old for that stuff.” By more than a century. I kept my attention on Isabel, letting Shia watch the boy for me. “Electrical tape?”
“Under the sink in the kitchen.” Shock and confusion numbed her words. “What’s happened. Where’s T.J.?”
“I wish I knew.” Crouching to open the cabinet doors beneath the sink almost made me pass out. I locked my jaw and dug through various cleaners, a crusty sponge, and assorted tools, eventually finding a roll of black tape. I limped back into the living room. I wrapped the tape around one end of a straightened industrial staple, one of the big copper ones they use for oversized shipping boxes. I had snatched it from the parking lot beside the dumpsters on my way into the apartment building. “But I know who has him.”
I finished cutting the last of four blue ovals from the detergent bottle, then taped them to the back of the cutout of Saldana. I used a ballpoint pen to draw a quick circle on her palm, taped the staple into her other hand, and began the spell.
The scent of fresh woodchips filled the apartment. Kareem laughed. His mother grabbed him by the arm, pulling him close, and then—
You know the pain you get when you rip off a Band-Aid? Intense, sharp, but over so quick it’s more the memory of the pain that gets to you? Imagine a Band-Aid that covers your entire body, inside and out.
Damn right I screamed.
Fortunately, the pain faded quickly. I sat up, testing my new body. I was stuck wearing the silly red miniskirt and black boots, but I could move without pain. I looked up at my true body, now sitting motionless in the armchair.
I looked tired. Old. We weren’t supposed to age, but this job took its toll. Working in the cities, surrounded by steel and iron and rust, facing the worst of humanity and fairy both. My lips were swollen and bloody, and I had a cut on one cheek. I hadn’t even felt that o
ne. Shadows circled my eyes, and wrinkles creased my brow, as if worry survived even after the life had been transferred from the flesh.
Kareem was clapping and asking if he could keep me.
I glanced over one shoulder. The plastic ovals had transformed into twin sets of wings, like a dragonfly’s. They looked like a cross between stained glass and cobalt blue cellophane. My muscles buzzed as if an electrical current ran through them, and I lifted into the air. “Much better.”
“Who has my husband?” Isabel demanded.
The same magic that had animated this body had changed the staple as well, creating a serviceable copper sword. I preferred my gun, but it was as heavy as my current body, and my magic wasn’t up for making a working miniature. “Your husband met some people today. People like me. I don’t know what they offered him, but they can be very persuasive. I tried to follow, but they spotted me.”
“People like you. You mean … fairies.”
“As humanity grows, we’ve been forced into smaller and smaller pockets of this world, but not everyone tries to flee. Some fought, immersing themselves in your cities and your iron and your machines. It … warped them. Like drugs in the water supply. It’s a darkness you can’t imagine, and they hate you for it. They’d kill you all if they could.”
“Like terrorists,” she said, her face pale.
“Terrorists with magic and centuries of experience.” She was about an inch from panicking, and she didn’t know anything useful. “I need your son’s help.”
Her mouth opened, but I didn’t have time to argue. Spellcasting was harder in a foreign body, but I managed. Isabel Famosa collapsed in a heap and began to snore.
I flew over to grab a white marble from an open board game. To the boy, I said, “How would you like to go for a ride?”
I was right. Larry Conroy was pissed when he found out what I had done. He was as close to shouting as I had ever heard, his voice buzzing through the miniature fairy ring inked on my palm. “You kidnapped a four-year-old boy?”
The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity Page 25
