by Ren Curylo
“Is that right? Well, apparently he’s been disappointed since he was a free man up until recently.”
“Oh that’s right,” Vedran said. “I don’t know what held them apart. I know that Moriko wouldn’t agree to live here full time. I doubt that’s all there is to it, though. Ársa isn’t exactly forthcoming with his feelings for Moriko and she’s even less so about hers. However, many people know that they’ve had a ‘thing’ for each other for a long time.”
“I see, well I guess it’s not something I should worry about,” she said. “Since he did, after all, marry me.”
“Oh I suppose not,” Vedran said, but his tone lacked conviction.
“Do you know anything about the Lilitu?” she asked. “I am not well versed in other races. We Elves tend to hold ourselves separate from all the other races.”
“The Lilitu?” he asked, frowning. “No, I can’t say I am familiar with them. I’ve heard of them, but I don’t know anything about them.” He paused in thought then snapped his fingers. “Oh, wait, unless they’re among those dastardly little Fae creatures Ársa pitched such a fit about bringing with us from the old world. That could be the case.”
“A Fae?” Chéile said with disdain. “Is there anything worse than a Fae?”
Vedran laughed. “I don’t think so,” he said. “But I don’t know anything about any of them in particular. I heard he had several meetings with a Fae named Erish. I think maybe she’s a Lilitu.”
“Well thank you for helping me get acquainted with things around here, Vedran,” she said. Chéile decided to find out all she could about this Erish, but she hoped, whoever she was, that a rock—a big, gigantic rock crushed her immediately. She intended to find the bitch and see what color her blood was.
“Oh, don’t mention it, Chéile,” Vedran said. “It’s my job as Social Coordinator to help people get oriented with new tasks. And it’s the part of my job that I relish.”
The sound of a baby crying, coming down the hall, growing louder by the second interrupted their conversation.
“Oh, dear,” Vedran said. “That’s dreadful.”
“It must be that nasty little pug, Fearg,” Chéile said.
“Or that aptly named Misery,” Vedran said with a laugh.
“I can’t imagine a more accurately named creature,” Chéile said.
“Nor can I,” Vedran agreed. “Perhaps we should look for a place to hide together?” His eyes fastened on her ample cleavage showing above the V-neck of her top.
Chéile looked at him watching her and smiled. “I don’t think you could stand the fallout from Ársa were we to do what you’re thinking, Vedran. Better value your skin more than that,” she said. “You are welcome to hide from these bitter little pills wherever you’d like, but it won’t be with me. I am going to the fifth floor to check out the library and gym you’ve directed me to. I’ll see you soon, I’m sure.” She squeezed his cheeks in her long slender hand before she patted him twice. She walked away, leaving him looking longingly after the sway of her slim hips.
2 weeks later
Nonae 8, 762
Blackpool, Catormad, Corath
Erish An hour earlier, Erish had paced the floor of her private chamber in the Lilitu Grove in Mirus Province, grinding her teeth with each step. Her breath heaved in her chest, another sleepless night while her daughter was missing—stolen from her secure bonds in her bedroom.
She felt certain Ársa had been behind the kidnapping of her daughter. No one else would have had the wherewithal to do it—nor would they have had the audacity to surreptitiously enter a Fae queen’s home and take her child. Erish ignored the fact that she herself had kidnapped her own daughter and planned to murder her grandson carried within Adamen’s womb. Her inability to lash out at Ársa, The Creator, the God of the Gods, as humans now called him, only heightened her frustration. The breath in her lungs tightened as she threw herself across her un-slept-in bed.
She punched the pillow, pounding it savagely with her fist before picking it up, smashing it to her face, and screaming into its feathers. Her frustrated thoughts turned to the Selkie she had forced to bring Adamen home. That little bitch. She needs to learn a lesson about attacking a Fae queen. But, that is one I can do something about. Her throat raw from belting her rage into her pillow, she jumped out of bed and dressed quickly. She left of her room before she changed her mind.
After her night of sleepless pacing, she stood in the pre-dawn hours, outside a rundown shack on the outskirts of Blackpool, a poor, downtrodden fishing village in Catormad, Corath, the neighboring province from her home in Mirus. Whereas numerous bands, races, and species of Fae inhabited Mirus, Catormad was solely populated with humans. It created a stench Erish could almost smell from home.
She blocked out the roiling of her stomach as she stood on a ridge at the dune’s edge facing Yann’s house. Erish hadn’t been here since she ran the man’s own knife between his ribs the day she absconded with his Selkie wife, Muirgan. She wasn’t even sure if he was still alive. Did I kill him? Now that he’s useful, let’s hope not. She moved forward, maintaining her invisibility. She didn’t want any humans to see her.
She walked up to the dilapidated shack and peeked in the open window. The sea breeze blew the curtains aside, giving her a full view of the room. Empty bottles were scattered about, and an empty crib lay, overturned, with a broken leg, on the floor beside the bed where Yann snored with his arms flung wide, one hanging off the bed, dangling in midair.
Erish spotted a darkened spot on the rough floor, where Yann had fallen and bled after she stabbed him. She looked back at the man clad only in a pair of filthy, tattered trousers sagging low on his hips, exposing his hairy, naked belly.
She shook her head, curling her lip in revulsion, muttering, “Disgusting glunterpeck.” She stared, repulsed yet unable to look away for a few more seconds before making herself small enough to move through the window. She landed in a relatively clear spot on the floor, enlarging herself to full size. She was mindful of where she put her slippered feet among the filth and debris. The stench is repugnant. She looked around the room and spotted one of the main culprits: a full chamber pot.
I can’t stay in here long enough to accomplish my business with that in the room. She leaned her head out the window, took a deep breath, and pulled the collar of her dress up over the lower half of her face. Holding her breath to keep from vomiting at the stench, she turned toward the offensive slop jar and prepared to rid the dwelling of its nasty presence. Grateful for her Fae abilities, she levitated the pot from the floor, taking great care not to jostle it and slosh its vile contents out into the room. She magically moved it, hovering it in the air from its corner, making a slightly wobbling path to the window, where she forcefully hurled it as far as her Lilitu powers could heave it.
That’s better. She smiled with satisfaction as she watched the pot sailing through the air. Its dark, liquidy contents—and even darker chunks—made a stark contrast against the red sun only now cresting the horizon. It landed with a soft, tinny thud in the deep sand of the reedy dunes outside the hovel.
She brushed her hand past her gown, changing its appearance from an ethereal, see-through, gossamer garment into a thick, opaque, substantial fabric. She had no desire for a human to see her in her Faerie raiment. She was selective about who saw her body and folks outside the Fae realm were not among those on her list.
Erish, satisfied that her body was demurely covered, snapped her fingers, making a loud, thunderous crack reverberate in the small room. Yann sat up in fright, looking around himself wildly.
“What the Ifreann…” he muttered in confusion. He sat up quickly and instantly yelped in pain and grappled at the puckered, angry red scar on his lower back. Erish thought, from the looks of it, that it had gotten badly infected before it healed. It appeared as though a drunk or a child had sewn it up, which had helped create the raised, ugly sight it now was.
“Yann,” Erish said softly, making
her visage shimmer as if she were a dream spectre.
“Yes?” he said, looking for the voice he heard in the dim room.
She moved forward, no more than a single step out of the shadows. “I am here to help you,” she said softly.
“Help me?” he muttered. His face bore a deep confusion as his eyes focused blearily on her. “Who are you?”
“I am here to help you,” she repeated.
“Do I need help?”
“I know what happened to your wife, Muirgan,” she said.
“Muirgan?” he asked dumbly. “She’s gone, she stole her ski…she stole something valuable from me, stabbed me and run off. The bitch.” His tone changed to anger tinged with disappointment.
“I can tell you where she went, Yann, and I know how you can get your revenge.”
“What makes you think I want revenge?” he asked, but his blue eyes glittered with interest.
“Who wouldn’t want revenge in your place, Yann?” Erish asked.
Yann frowned in confusion. “What are you?” he whispered, fear creeping into his voice. “You’re not human.”
“I’m your friend, Yann,” she said, smiling. “I can tell you what happened to your wife. You must be angry after she stabbed you and ran off, not to mention that she abandoned your child. Her own child, Yann. What kind of heartless creature does that?”
Yann’s face hardened. His mouth thinned into a hard line. He pushed a clot of limp blonde hair from his face. “That bitch,” he snarled. “Where did she go?”
“You are aware that she wasn’t human, right, Yann?” Erish asked. She sidled around to the end of his bed where he sat with his hands on his knees.
He nodded and his voice was pensive when he spoke. “I thought I was so lucky when I found her sunning on the beach. She was so beautiful she hurt my eyes. I didn’t even know the pelt she used for a pillow was important until I pulled it away and she got so upset to get it back.”
“I understand, Yann,” Erish said sympathetically. “You didn’t mean her any harm. You didn’t deserve to what she did to you. Neither did your child.”
“I didn’t know she hated me so much, she always obeyed me and did what I told her. She said she wanted to go home, but I thought in time she’d learn to love me and she’d accept being here and forget about her past life.”
Erish looked at him with pity she did not feel. Idiot, love isn’t something you learn. You deserve far worse than you’ve gotten. Fate has been kind to you. “Yann, she took her skin and returned to the sea, a Selkie once more.”
He looked crestfallen. His lower lip trembled slightly before he gained control of it. “Then, she’s never coming back,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“No, Yann, she’s never coming back. But, I believe you deserve to know that she went straight into the arms of a Selkie male. She is living with her herd—her bob, where her mate lives. They’ve been together since she left you. You should have seen them cavorting in the waves. They are clearly lovers.”
A strangled cry escaped his lips. He shook his head as if it would change the facts.
“There’s an island out a score of miles or more from here, slightly to the southwest, Yann,” she said. “Do you know it?”
“Aye, I do,” he said with a nod.
“Muirgan and her lover sun there nearly every afternoon,” she said. “They make love on the rocks there, in human form, and they laugh at what she did to you. They think you’re dead, Yann. They think Muirgan murdered you and they think it’s funny.”
“No, my Muirgan wouldn’t be so cruel,” he argued.
Erish laughed softly and shook her head. “Poor Yann,” she said, “she was never yours. She’s nothing more than a wild animal. She’s a magical animal, to be sure, but wild nonetheless.” Erish was only slightly surprised at not feeling any remorse for betraying another Fae creature to a human being.
Yann’s breathing quickened. His mouth opened and closed. His cheeks flushed.
“If you want to have your revenge, Yann, next time you’re sailing in that area, look for them. See if I’m right. If I am, you can have your revenge on them both. You can use your knife, the one Muirgan used on you, and you can cut their miserable throats.”
“They’d see me coming,” he said. “There’s no way to get on the island from my boat where they wouldn’t see me approach.”
Erish laughed. “I can help you with that,” she said. She stepped forward, closer to the bed. She held up her hand. “Don’t move, Yann,” she said sternly.
Yann eyed her warily.
She reached into a pocket and pulled out a tiny wishbone. She placed it in her palm and held it out for him to see. “This is how you’ll do it,” she said. Her eyes flashed with excitement as her luscious pink lips turned up in a smile. “Take this on the boat with you,” she said. “But, be cautious, Yann, you’ll have to go alone. If you take anyone with you, the magic will fail and the sea may swallow you. Tell no one what you’re doing.”
“What does it do?” he asked suspiciously.
“It will render your boat invisible if you lay this on the deck. Be careful not to lose it. It’s delicate and tiny. If you use this, they won’t see or hear you coming.”
He stared at the tiny charm with his mouth agape. “What about when I leave the boat?”
“You pick it up and put it in your pocket,” she said. “Once you leave the boat, you can sneak up on them and kill them.”
“Won’t they be able to see the boat after I’ve left it?”
Erish let her breath out in an exasperated woof. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Yann, are you really that stupid? Perhaps you don’t deserve revenge. Perhaps you never deserved to have a Selkie for a wife.”
“I don’t know anything about magic,” he said defensively. “It doesn’t make me stupid. Where’s your skin? Are you a Selkie, too? Perhaps I should keep you here with me.”
Erish laughed. “Don’t even think about it,” she said. “I’d slit your throat before you could count to one.”
“One,” he said mockingly, rising from the bed to advance toward her.
With his first step toward her, Erish put up a hand and he froze, unable to move. “Do you want this or not? Or should I just kill you now?” She stepped up to stand near him and raked a sharp fingernail across this neck as if simulating cutting his throat.
Her point found its mark and Yann’s face blanched out pale white and stayed still for a moment before he struggled against the invisible bonds she held him in. “Are you sure it will keep me invisible?” he asked.
Erish didn’t answer him and didn’t release him until his struggling ceased. “Now, do you think you can behave?” she asked.
He nodded.
“If I feel you’re a threat to me, Yann, I’ll not help you.”
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. He eyed the golden charm gleaming in the palm of her hand.
“I’m sure it will keep you invisible,” she said. “Once it’s activated, lay it in the bottom of the boat while you row. Then, put it in your pocket when leaving your boat. Sneak up behind them and kill them both. The charm will hold.” She didn’t tell him the charm would only hold until he attacked them. If he were unsuccessful, he’d have to contend with them both. If he managed to kill one of them, the other would still be hale and hearty and able to attack him. “I would suggest that you kill Aindréas first.”
“Who is Aindréas?”
Erish laughed. “He’s her Selkie husband, of course.” You dolt. Either way, if he managed to kill Aindréas and not Muirgan, her revenge would be complete. The little bitch would be without her lover. “If you cannot kill Muirgan, perhaps you can recapture her and bring her back home, Yann.”
“What do you want for that charm?” he asked. “I haven’t any money.”
“I don’t expect any payment, Yann. I am only interested in seeing justice done. I would like to see your attempted murder avenged.”
“All right,” he sa
id, licking his lips greedily as he stared at the golden wishbone.
“As you can see, it is worth quite a bit of money,” Erish said as if she read his mind. She picked it up between her long slender fingers and held it before her face. She rubbed it on her cheek, closing her eyes in ecstasy. She breathed a bit harder and rubbed the charm against her lips as if it were a lover’s kiss. “However, I would suggest you use it before you attempt to sell it. This is a powerful charm and in the wrong hands, it could do a lot of damage. Don’t let anyone know you have it until you’ve destroyed your targets.”
“I understand,” he said with a nod. He reached his hand out toward her, palm up, waiting for her to give him the charm.
She smiled. It was cool and calculating and didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Place this charm in the boat with you when you set sail. Say ‘prátaí’ to activate its magic. It will continue to shield you until you’re done. Take care not to activate it too soon.” She placed the charm in his hand. No need to tell you that it will disappear when the first of them is dead and the charm is broken. You idiot. The moment the charm left her fingers, she shrunk herself small enough so that he could no longer see her and she sailed through the open window and far down the beach. When she was safely away, she returned to her normal size and returned home, satisfied that her mission would garner the desired results.
2 weeks later
Nonae 28, 762
Blackpool, Catormad, Corath
Yann For two weeks, Yann rode out to sea on his brother’s dogger. Using the scope, he checked the island as they circled it to see if Muirgan and her lover were there. Each day, he was disappointed that no one was in sight. He rubbed at the knife on his belt as he scanned the island. He sharpened his blade every night in anticipation.
Today, with the sun glinting off the water, as they neared the island Erish had spoken of, Yann raised the scope to his eyes and slowly scanned the island. This was the twentieth day and he was growing despondent. Had they moved on to another trysting place? How long would that Fae’s charm last?
