Vowed

by Liz de Jager

  ‘I would like to say that the Infernal have been playing by the rules, Kit, but I can’t truthfully say.’

  ‘What? Why not? Aren’t you the boss of them?’

  An arched brow quirks. ‘You are very amusing, Kit.’ His chuckle is dry and winsome, making me want to smile. But I think he’s actually laughing at me, and I don’t appreciate that at all. ‘No, I am not the boss of them. I’m what you’d call middle management.’

  ‘So there’s someone else I should be talking to?’

  He considers this for a very brief second before shaking his head. ‘No, I’m the one you need to talk to about this.’

  ‘Can you help me, then? Do you know of any of your demons stealing human children?’

  ‘I will have to ask, but to be quite honest, Kit, I have a feeling that this is not Infernal related.’

  ‘Would you even tell me if it was?’

  ‘I would. Of course.’

  As I said, he is a bad liar.

  ‘Oh, Miron. I’m serious.’

  ‘As am I. Look, traditionally speaking, some bad people would sacrifice something precious to them, like a child, in order to bring a demon to this world. The demon would then do his or her summoner a favour, or complete a task. The demon in turn would then be released to go about his or her merry way, as before.’

  ‘You make it sound so simple. Surely people wouldn’t have sacrificed their children?’

  ‘Humans have been doing far worse for as long as they’ve been on this earth.’

  It’s not my imagination at all. I can hear an inflection of distaste in his voice.

  ‘So what’s changed now?’ I ask him. ‘What’s changed since the glory days when demons would be summoned by infant blood?’

  ‘Why, we’re right here, Kit. Waiting, watching. All the time. We no longer have to be summoned from the pits of Hell. If you know where to look, all you have to do is ask the right guy for the right favour.’

  The way he says it, strangely content, a bit matter of fact, with a bit of underlying menace, makes me feel very young and not at all up to the task of questioning him further.

  ‘How about you just ask around, then? Someone might know something.’

  For the longest time he watches me, his gaze inscrutable, but then he nods slowly. ‘I will ask.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I stand up and catch my breath as my body protests and starts aching all over again.

  ‘Be careful, Kit,’ Miron says as he comes away from behind his desk. ‘You are stirring up things that you know very little about.’

  I pull open the door as I turn to look at him. Our eyes are level but even so, Miron towers over me, bringing his otherness to bear. He allows me to see him for one brief gloriously shining second and I want to open my mouth and scream and never stop. Then his hand cups my elbow, steadying me, and once more he’s sweet faced and concerned.

  ‘Make sure you get some rest, girl. You look very tired.’

  I nod numbly and walk away, back down the long passage with its dark carpet and many closed doors. I turn deaf walking past those doors, not hearing the deals being made, the soft murmurs of prayers and incantations, and I practically run down the stairs into the nightclub proper. I’m only halfway down them when the lights go out unexpectedly.

  I have been in some dark places in the past but here, in Milton’s, there is no outside light, no stars to light my way, no secret half-moon to give a hazy glow. A hand in the darkness steadies me, preventing me from stepping forward and falling down the rest of the stairs.

  Everyone in the club’s gone quiet, the hush anticipatory. An expectant shiver crawls down my spine and I wonder what’s going on. A part of me knows that this could be an Unseelie attack, that any second now a starving sluagh could come through the walls or drop from the ceiling above me, tearing everyone in this place apart, but I don’t feel fear, just a breathless excitement.

  ‘Watch.’ I recognize the voice of one of the twin security guards in my ear and somehow I’m turned so I can see the small stage where the DJ has his kit set up. The single figure is lit by a spotlight’s soft glow. He’s dressed in black, wearing a black top hat, a black T-shirt and over that a black dinner jacket. The light only illuminates him from the waist up, creating interesting shadows on his face, which is bowed forward as if in contemplation.

  He moves, brings a silver flute to his lips and blows a soft breathy note. The note seems to echo for ever through Milton’s, now transformed into a cavern in the darkness. A slight breeze from the air-con stirs my fringe and I breathe it in, super aware of the loudness of my heart.

  Someone in the audience lets out a low whistle. The DJ raises a hand from the flute and everything stills. He blows another note, and this one stretches out for longer still. It’s even more luxurious, inviting listeners forward, beckoning them closer.

  The song is something sad, a little bit lonely and intricate. The sound lifts high into the air of the nightclub and, although the strange medieval tone of the flute should feel weird in this modern building more used to techno and dubstep, it doesn’t feel out of place. The song he plays meanders gently, its tone pure and silvery. Unbidden, a memory comes, of me sitting with my feet in the little stream behind the Manor. I was chatting to my cousins in the late summer, shortly after I joined them, enjoying a picnic. The sun was hot and the forest seemed so peaceful and still all around us. Everything felt green and vibrant that day. It was one of the few perfect days of my life.

  Standing in the darkness, I become aware of another sound. Large drums – forming a heavy ominous counter to the DJ’s swift pure notes. Out of the darkness behind him two drummers walk out onto the stage. They are dressed far more colourfully and each carries an instrument I recognize as a bhangra drum. The tone shifts, the flute falls away and the new musicians’ compulsive beats elicit a cry from several club-goers. I can actually feel the wave of the crowd’s energy pushing back against the drummers as they pound out a sound that reverberates in our very bones. The DJ melts back to his decks and soon the music’s back, the bhangra drums giving the rhythm a harder and more percussive presence.

  ‘What was that?’ I call into the guard’s ear as I step down onto the ground level. ‘I love it!’

  ‘That’s Torsten. He does that thing with the flute now and again,’ he says. ‘The crowd seems to like it.’

  Everyone is bouncing, moving to the music, carried away by the rhythm. I push my way into the crowd, my tiredness and aches completely and utterly forgotten. I love feeling this elated. I’ll stay for an hour before heading home, I decide. For an hour I can just be a girl dancing the night away, be someone with no worries and responsibilities. I throw myself into the crowd, my fist pumping the air in time with the music and lose myself in the anonymity.

  Otherwhere, the Tower at the End of the World

  Being allowed a rare free afternoon away from the tower, to walk the hunting hounds, felt like a larger reprieve than it should have done.

  Thorn tried not to think about his lessons but he felt wrung out and tense. Odalis had become insistent that he share his foreknowledge with her. She also made him study magical theory harder than Istvan ever had. Combining this with the time spent in the crystal room, where he used his magic to keep watch over the realm, he had little concept of how long he’d been at the tower. Day and night flowed into one, as did days and weeks. He was starting to resemble some damsel from a fairy tale, kept prisoner by a jealous aunt.

  He laughed at the image, and one of the hounds peered up at him quizzically, before moving off to sniff an interesting grouping of fungi growing on the trunk of an ancient oak.

  There’d been no word from the Citadel since he’d left. No messengers had come bearing missives from his mother or his brothers. Even if he saw them seemingly well in visions as he patrolled the Otherwhere, he could sense the distance growing between them.

  The loneliness sank into him at the thought of being all alone in this godforsaken place at the end of the wo
rlds. It filled him with a melancholy he’d never known before.

  His dreams were dark and unpleasant. He dreamed of worlds destroyed in the wake of the Elder Gods as he looked helplessly on, bound by manacles of iron. He watched his family perish under the boots of giant warriors in steel armour. He felt his powers weaken as the Fae succumbed to a wasting illness. The forests of the Otherwhere withered and died, and with them went the animals.

  He also saw the human world of the Frontier tear itself apart, attempting to prevent the disease destroying the Fae take hold in their own realm.

  The dreams were so terrifying and real that, during his time in the chamber, he searched endlessly to find the cause of this destruction. He was tireless in hunting for the discordant note he knew should be there. But he couldn’t sense it. The event was either too far in the future, or as yet mere possibility among several potential realities.

  Amidst all of this, he was aware of a darker danger still, something stalking the young girl who’d risked her life so many times to save him. He raged then, unable to protect her, because of his inability to find the root of the trouble.

  On the nights he found sleep, he dreamed about the dark-haired human girl with the flashing eyes, quick smile and faster blade. When he woke in the morning, he wasn’t sure which hurt more – knowing she was in danger from enemies he could barely sense or that he was powerless to help her until her enemies made their first move.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  There is not enough caffeine in the world. I slump forward in my chair and wonder about pushing my face into my large mug of cooling coffee and if osmosis works with humans. I don’t even look up when Dante scrapes a chair back so that he can sit opposite me.

  I eventually straighten up, but barely manage to keep my head from bobbing. Or my eyes from drifting shut.

  Dante’s face is a mask of disapproval. His gaze rakes my face, resting too long on the dark circles beneath my eyes, on the downturned line of my mouth and on how tightly my hands hold on to the mug.

  ‘Are you wearing the same clothes you did last night, Kit?’ he asks me.

  ‘Yes,’ I answer dully.

  ‘Have you been home? Have you slept at all?’

  I open my mouth to tell him I’ll sleep when I’m dead when I realize the flippant comeback may just lead to a fight and I really just can’t manage to summon any kind of energy for an argument right now.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where have you been all night?’

  ‘Milton’s.’ I sip from my mug. Why is it so heavy? ‘I went to speak to Miron.’

  ‘The demon?’ Dante leans forward so suddenly I jerk back in fright, but he holds up a hand to calm me. ‘Why did you go there, alone?’

  ‘I had to ask him something. I’m okay, really, I just need a few hours’ sleep, that’s all.’

  ‘Did he do anything to you? Kit?’ Dante grabs hold of both my wrists in an attempt to get me to look him in the eye. ‘Listen to me. You look really bad. Are you okay?’

  I really don’t like being touched by people. Even well-meaning people. ‘Let go of me. Or you will regret grabbing me.’

  I stare at him, letting my magic surface to just below my skin. He should be able to feel the heat building under his hands. He holds on for a few more seconds to make his point while my skin becomes hotter with each moment. Eventually he lets go with a disgusted sigh.

  ‘What can I get you?’ The waitress directs her gaze at me and I see sympathy and concern there. She must think I’m having a fight with my boyfriend, because something in her attitude is solicitous towards me and she’s cold towards Dante. It makes me feel a tiny bit bad but he’s a big boy so I’m sure he’ll get over it.

  ‘Can I have the sourdough toast and scrambled eggs, please? Also, really crispy bacon?’ I twiddle the plastic-covered menu. ‘And more coffee. And orange juice.’

  ‘Tea for me and some scrambled eggs and toast, please.’ Dante smiles his chocolate-box smile and for a second she wavers but then smiles back at him.

  ‘What did you have to go and ask Miron that was so urgent?’ he hisses at me as she saunters off to place our order.

  ‘I went to ask him if any of his friends have a taste for human children,’ I shoot back, annoyed. ‘He said no, of course, but he’ll check and get back to us.’

  ‘And you believe him?’

  I make an impatient noise in my throat. ‘As far as I can, yes. What you must understand is that there are a great many laws that govern the supernatural beings that live on earth. Most of these laws are in place to protect humans. Miron knows that if one of his lot oversteps the line, they will be sent back to the Pit. They know that they walk a fine line and if he suspects any of his Infernal are part of this, he will let me know.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘We take care of it.’

  ‘Why did you go there alone?’

  ‘I can’t figure this out, Dante. Are you annoyed with me because: a) I went there and spoke to Miron or b) I went there alone or c) I’m an independent person and not answerable to you?’

  A tiny muscle jumps in Dante’s smoothly shaven jaw. ‘You are a brat, Kit Blackhart. Here’s why I’m pissed off with you: a) you went there alone when I’m your partner on this and b) you look like shit this morning and will be no good to me for the rest of the day until you’ve had some rest.’

  I open my mouth to argue but I’m interrupted by the waitress as she puts our mugs down along with my glass of orange juice, removing my old cup.

  ‘There you go, loves. Your breakfast will be with you in a jiffy.’ She gives me a meaningful look and slants her glance at the bathroom by the counter. I get it: if I want alone time, the bathroom is right there. I give a bleak smile of thanks before reaching for my coffee.

  ‘I get the impression she thinks I’m the bad guy,’ Dante says as he adds milk and sugar to his tea.

  ‘You are. You’re shouting at me and I’m just feeling a bit delicate.’

  ‘I’m not shouting at you. If anything, I’m speaking a bit softer than usual.’

  ‘Your eyes are shouting,’ I tell him and gesture to the offending items in his face.

  ‘And you burned me with your magic, you freak.’ The corner of his mouth twitches, as if he’s trying not to laugh. ‘My eyes are shouting? How is that even possible?’

  I shrug. ‘I don’t know; they just are.’ I’m surprised that I’m not even angry that he’s calling me a freak. Maybe it’s because he’s now laughing in that cute way he has. Oh my God, what am I thinking? I should punch him in the head and run, right now. No way can I be finding this guy cute. I’m not even over Thorn and whatever we had and now I’m faced with Dante-freaking-Alexander and his boss-level cuteness. There is just no time for it and I have no energy. The thought of Thorn brings back that familiar pang of hurt and uncertainty that I’m not sure how to handle.

  Fortunately our breakfasts arrive after a few minutes more and I shovel bacon, egg and toast into my face and sigh contentedly.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in school?’ Dante asks me after a few mouthfuls. ‘Even for someone being privately home schooled I’ve yet to hear you say anything about cracking open a book.’

  ‘It’s not really that kind of schooling,’ I tell him. ‘It’s more like, what incantation will stop a brownie from stealing honey from your bee hives. Or how to protect your livestock from malignant faeries who you may have upset by not leaving buttered milk out for them.’

  ‘But what about regular school? Maths and history and geography? Stuff like that?’

  ‘We have that too, but less focus is placed on that than you might think. For instance, did you know that in the Battle of Trafalgar, a school of selkies came to Nelson’s assistance during a massive storm? They saved a great many British soldiers and sailors from drowning.’

  ‘I did not know that.’ He sits back and narrows his dark eyes at me. ‘That’s rather important, don’t you think? That the Fae interfered in a naval battle
as big as that and possibly helped turn the tide of the war?’

  ‘Exactly!’ I point my buttery knife at him. ‘Humans like you know so little about the symbiotic relationship between humans and Fae. Yes, the Blackharts really do the crappy job of sending the bad guys packing, but really, there’s far more to it than that. At any given time, there are at least a thousand Fae walking around London. Some work here and live here, others are here for business. And it’s the same all over the UK and the rest of the world. We live side by side with them and it’s been like that since forever.’

  ‘How is it possible that we don’t even know half of it?’

  I shrug. ‘Humans like not knowing. We’re still scared of what the shadows hold, of things that crawl around in the dark. Can you imagine the chaos out there if we woke up one morning and a faerie raid was riding past? The Fae all tall and noble in their silvery and golden finery, with their horses, their armed guards? Followed by their baying hounds, flying creatures and things that shimmer from shadow to shadow? We don’t even understand our own world, Dante. How do you expect the world to understand a hidden race of people that use magic?’

  He looks a bit disgruntled but nods thoughtfully. ‘I’ll say it again. You explain things well.’

  I chink my mug against his and take a celebratory sip. ‘Does this mean you’ll stop shouting with your eyes? Because if not, I don’t think I can take it and I’ll have to go home.’

  ‘I’ll tone down the shouting, I promise.’

  ‘Phew.’ I wipe my brow dramatically and he laughs. ‘Can I ask you something, though? It’s personal.’

  ‘Uh oh.’ His smile falters but he nods. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me your little sister was taken when you were younger?’

  ‘I hardly know you and I didn’t know if I could trust you.’ His gaze meets mine and he looks a little annoyed. ‘But I see you managed to do your own research on me anyway. I’m impressed. Your uncle in New York sent you the details?’