A Court For Fairies (Dark Heralds Book 1)

by Lynn S.

  ***

  It was a holiday weekend and the house service staff was quite happy to be given three and a half days off starting Friday at noon. Neil knew that getting rid of the staff was easier than finding an excuse to send Carla away. She was not at all happy with the idea of being alone in the apartment. The woman seemed to trust the kitchen staff more than her son-in-law. Isabel granted her husband might have wanted a quiet weekend alone, but was adamant about her mother staying close by. Neil expected it. His wife wouldn’t go anywhere alone or out of her mother’s shadow. She pleaded and he accepted.

  Neil had started to be aware of everything around him. He wanted to remember, to be fully conscious of what he was about to do that lazy Friday afternoon when sunlight fragmented golden and pink against the thick glass of the greenhouse, separating the madness of a city in motion from his own.

  Isabel rested in a wicker armchair, dressed in a flowing pink palazzo pant set that made her bump quite noticeable. Her mother stood by the chair, both hands on her daughter’s shoulders, smiling at the semblance of life that stirred within her, kicking with enough force to be noticeable. Neil approached them, and though he carefully avoided the invitation to touch Isabel’s belly, he did caress the side of her face. Even Carla got a smile.

  “You know what,” he said rubbing his hands together, “I’ll think I’ll make myself useful around here. What about some tea?” He looked at his mother-in-law. “Don’t you fret, Carla, I still remember how to make a mean cuppa. What about that cherry blossom weirdness you both are fond of? I’ll be right back.”

  Neil waited while the tea steeped. He remembered his early childhood in the Dublin house where his mother did the same and gave him a disapproving look as he dropped more than two cubes of sugar in his cup once it was poured. Swirling, swirling until they became syrupy traces. He also thought about the lengthy conversations with his father, who made a point of visiting once a month while at Oxford, just to encourage a young man and keep in touch with his plans and academic advances. He even made an effort to hold on to his sister’s smile, the one he knew well and loved, just before time, distance, and disappointment made them fall apart. At last, he looked at his own hands, grown prematurely old. He thought of emerald green eyes he had seen flashing in the dark, forever haunting his nightmares, and found his resolve. With a steady pulse, he emptied half a vial in each of the cups. The red of the blood was soon lost in the garnet of the infusion.

  O’Reilly followed the women into the living room, careful to close the doors to the greenhouse. Carla stayed a couple of paces behind, but finally accepted the tea. She had grown suspicious of Neil, seeing traces of his true character come through in one instance or another. Isabel, however, assured her that at an intimate level nothing had changed. Carla’s insistence bothered her and the elder knew it, so she gave in to avoid a breach between them.

  The beautiful dark-haired woman took the cup from her husband’s hand, bringing the porcelain to her lips, delighting in the soothing taste of cherries and cinnamon. Carla held the cup as well, but unlike Isabel, who partook right away, her nose flared and her face became panicked. It took her about five seconds to throw the cup aside and scream her daughter’s name, but Isabel had already swallowed her first sip.

  And a sip was enough. Isabel felt a violent stab in her womb. A guttural scream broke through the path of burning flesh and gushing blood in her throat. Carla ran to her daughter’s side, interposing her body between Isabel and Neil.

  O’Reilly saw it clearly—Carla’s skin was covered by a maze of thin, black, pulsing lines that started at her wrist and sped like lightning through her whole body. Carla’s real face was revealed in a rush of blue, black, and emerald. Her eyes met Isabel’s, green as they had always been, but one of those glances boiled with anger while the other lost its spark in agony.

  “Neil! Neil!” Isabel kept screaming and it was heartbreaking. Carla covered most of her body, but his wife’s hand still reached toward him, shaking in spasmodic moves, clammy and pale.

  Carla moved about at break neck speed and before Neil could react she was sustaining the weight of Isabel’s body upon her own, serving as a cushion. A dark, scaly hand covered in hard keratin curved until small but razor sharp talons grew out of her fingertips. Isabel started calling out in a tongue he had never heard before, her pleas cut short by pain.

  Neil was muted, terrorized, and planted in his spot. That thing that struggled to keep Carla’s semblance had cut through Isabel’s clothes, exposing her belly. In a swift motion, while one hand held on to Isabel’s throat, making her swallow the words, another cut deeply through tissue in the lower abdomen, trying to reach the creature inside her.

  O’Reilly keeled over, falling to his knees. Bastian assured him it would be something with no consequence, an abortive with a supernatural tint that would consume anything non-human within her womb and neutralize her powers for a while. But the truth illustrated a grotesque spectacle that made him lose control and wretch upon the floor.

  Red, green, and clear viscous fluid started to stain the carpet, while a whirring mass, desperate to hold on to life, willingly dragged itself out of Isabel’s torn lower abdomen. Using her own hand, she pushed the twisted and trembling creature, still protected by an amniotic sac, out onto the floor. It was a nightmare spawn, something blackened and bundled that protected not one, but two lives as it was brought into the world.

  The creature that had been Carla popped that sack open, separating the fibrous membrane that kept both creatures together. One, the most affected, looked more birdlike than human, covered in rows of thin black feathers that struggled to hide underneath the skin to form those protective patterns that characterized the Heralds. That first creature flapped and screamed, a terrible cry emerging from its triangular-shaped lips. It rotted away with each gut-wrenching call. Its brother, pink, small, and defenseless, simply lay there, gasping for air; a lesser birth discarded. Isabel pleaded again, this time her voice was loud and clear.

  “Iron! Use iron for God’s sake!”

  Neil reacted; the pain in Isabel’s voice made him think that maybe both of them had been victims. Taking one of the few iron implements left in the house, an ornamental poker for the fireplace, he hit Carla square between the shoulder blades. The creature shrieked and disappeared in a cloud of thin smoke, along with the dead Halfling. It had taken that terrible feathered demon with it and now there was only Neil, Isabel, who had started mending herself from the trauma, and a human boy who struggled between life and death.

  Neil picked up the baby, cleaning his body from the bloody membrane that held him to a nightmare sister. After what seemed a lifetime, and once he had coughed out the last mucous remains of that parasitic bond, Esteban O’Reilly announced his arrival in the world with a kitten-like cry.

  He looked at Isabel, who had started to move. She was weakened by blood loss, but her body didn’t show signs beyond those of a natural birth. She tried to get closer, almost dragging herself.

  “It was her.” Isabel’s lips were cracked open by dehydration, but her words were rushing out, clear and supplicating. “It was always her, my love. You must believe me. My damn mother.” Her eyes were once again the ones he had fallen in love with. “If you knew enough to try to kill us, then you know what I am. But I loathe what I am. I abhor my existence. You were the only good thing I ever had and she forced my hand. She wanted me to destroy you twice. Once in the flesh and once through our son.”

  Tears started streaming profusely down her cheeks and her voice became raw once more from the effort, but she had to continue. Eyes fixed on the whining baby, Isabel asked, “Is he alive? Make sure that he lives, please. Tell me I was able to rescue some of you, some of us. You can do as you please with me, but he is as innocent as you are.”

  Neil held the baby, trying to keep him warm. He was tiny and rickety, as he had been a source of sustenance for the Dark Herald with whom he shared the womb. The baby was fighting, trying to raise
his body temperature in a father’s embrace. Half blinded, his eyes tried to capture light and motion. They were hazel, a perfect blend of Neil’s fair and Isabel’s dark eyes. The baby breathed with slight difficulty and barely had the strength to move or cry, but he was alive. Frail and painstakingly human.

  O’Reilly’s heart couldn’t take it. Of all possible scenarios he had studied when meeting with Bastian, it never crossed his mind they could have a new beginning. He kneeled closer to Isabel, still holding the child with great care. As her fingers brushed the baby, the little one answered with a soft wail, as if needing her. It became the most natural thing, the correct course. All those months of craziness and impossibilities now dissipated. He could talk to her about what he knew, he could reach her, ask her if there was ever another way, other than to act on his fears. They could forgive one another and wake up from a nightmare. He trusted her with the baby as she was eager to hold him, to feed and calm him. Neil embraced them, kissing the side of Isabel’s head and lingering for a moment before asking, “Where is she now?”

  Isabel ran her tongue over her lips. Nervous and afraid, at last she found the courage to say, “In hell, where she belongs, where she has taken that awful creature that almost destroyed everything we hold dear.” Her eyes turned toward the spot where Carla once stood and it was then that Neil noticed a residue of gray dust on the carpet.

  “Everything will be all right,” Isabel assured. “I can weave one last illusion before leaving it all behind. Place a call now.”

  The paramedics arrived at the scene after a report of premature labor. Both mother and child were admitted into observation at the hospital and the little one spent the required time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit until he was cleared. Closing in on seven months’ gestation, Esteban O’Reilly was a miracle child, quickly overcoming the developmental gaps expected for children born at that early stage.

  ***

  Neil O’Reilly and Sebastian Salgado saw each other again but once more. The words, time, and place were carefully chosen by the Irishman.

  Sebastian knew about what happened that day, or at least about what the social pages reported: a picture of Neal and Isabel, smiling, all differences blended in the graying shades of a black-and-white picture. It announced the birth of a son. There was no picture of the infant but it was mentioned that though Esteban was born prematurely, he was healthy and stable.

  O’Reilly extended a thick, sealed envelope to Bastian. There were copies of medical records belonging to Esteban. Extensive tests and recordings of progress and development, vital signs and pediatrician evaluations.

  “He is outside of any influence. There’s no doubt about it. He has been in the hospital for almost three months, first in critical, now in neo-natal. Every single test out there has been performed. My son is human. You said it yourself, the human twin feeds the Fae one, and that…other thing is dead.”

  Bastian smiled. He was honestly happy about the news, but the smile was not as broad as it should have been. It was cut short by a nod, as he knew the very next question would create a gap between them.

  “And what about the mother?”

  “Isabel is in perfect condition.” O’Reilly stressed each syllable, steeping the name in humanity. “The proof is in the fact that I am as well.”

  It was true, Neil was back to looking like the poster child for health. He had even gained muscle mass and his skin was as healthy as it had ever been. But still, Bastian had doubts.

  “I’ll be very direct with you, even though I know this will not sit well, my friend. This is too much on the happy ending side for our experience.” His words sounded cynical and he was soon repentant, if not about the message, then the way he chose to deliver it, but there was not much else do at that point. “The Dark Heralds of Fae are imprinted with loyalty to their clan. The bond between generations is profound, especially among females—mother and child, siblings, even. The death of one is meant to impact profoundly, even kill the other. That was not the case between Isabel and that unborn creature because it didn’t live to imprint through magic and develop as a natural child.”

  Bastian couldn’t help but think about Adriana, in the way she rejoiced when she felt free of her father. It was one of the big differences between vampyr and Sidhe. The so-called night breeds saw themselves as free, while the Dark Heralds, though solitary fairies, depended on one another. He tried to make Neil understand.

  “If Isabel and Carla were as close as you said, even if one hated the other, there must have been repercussions that I am not reading. I need to see your wife, make sure everything is—”

  “No,” O’Reilly interrupted.

  Neil’s decisive look let him know that the Irishman was willing to see only as far as he decided to, even using Bastian’s own words against him.

  “You told me on the day we met that you only interfere if a call is made, if a person makes it clear that they need you. Well, I don’t need you any longer, Bastian. And as much as I’d like to salvage this friendship, you know that there are elements that will grant it irreconcilable.”

  “Then,” Bastian stood from his desk, “this is our last meeting, Mr. O’Reilly. I am certain I will not see you again, and let’s hope you won’t need any of us in the future.”

  A shake of hands finished their friendship and both men kept to themselves, burdened with the things they had to do and the promises they were meant to keep.

  ***

  The following winter, Neil bought several acres of land attached to a gorgeous house upstate. He fell in love with the place instantly and found in it an excuse to leave behind the bitter memories of all his family had lived through in the city. Innisfree was meant to be their starting point, where everything was to be forgiven and forgotten. Just the three of them, Neil, Isabel, and little Esteban, who, in time, grew to be a healthy and curious child. For five years, it was their home.

  In the summer of his fifth birthday, Esteban was upstate with his mother and father, as was their custom. The child had been playing in the gardens and showed up with a handful of quartz he’d dug up from around the yard. Father and son rinsed the stones and polished them, bringing out their almost sparkling quality. Under Neil’s watch, the boy cheered and ran about, looking for a place to safeguard his treasure. Esteban finally settled at the foot of a tree, where after tracing several concentric circles with his fingers, the little boy placed the stones marking north, south, east, and west.

  “After all we have done, you are planning to bury those stones again?” his father asked while the little boy kept pushing the quartz into the humid soil.

  “No.” The boy kept working, asking his father to join in. “Here, Daddy, this one goes here, like this. You push the rock in good and leave it there. It can’t fall. These are seats for the fairies and the little black humming birds with shiny green eyes.” He kept motioning for Neil to join, a toothy grin and a twinkle of hazel in his eye.

  His father didn’t join in his little venture, but made him stand up, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him until he let go of the stones in his hand. Esteban was startled and soon enough started crying.

  “Did your mother tell you to do this? Isabel put you up to this, boy?”

  The child was frightened and reacted accordingly. He kicked blindly, connecting with his father’s shin, and ran to his mother, crying out her name as loudly as he could. Isabel O’Reilly ran to rescue her son, lifting the boy into her arms. She was livid, checking if Esteban had any sign of violence.

  “Are you out of your mind?” She wanted to throw a fit, but kept silent when Esteban whimpered. The mother just brushed her lips against her son’s crown to calm him further. Her eyes followed Neil to the small stone circle, her lips sealed in a thin line. “You are clearly upset, Neil,” she told her husband. “This is something we’ll need to talk about when nerves are settled.”

  That evening, father and son reconciled over a book. Neil read and Esteban listened. Fascinated with the story, h
e had soon forgotten the scares of that morning. Once again he felt loved and safe, no more threatened than when his father shouted at him for getting too close to the far side of the dock where the wood was a little loose, or that time he played with matches. Daddy said he was sorry, that he had been as scared as he was, and he believed him. Neil kissed him and put him to bed knowing all was settled between them.

  Isabel waited for her husband in the garden between the house and the dock. She was dressed in that lilac sundress Neil loved. She could feel him walking toward her and didn’t even turn to look at him. It was time to let him know all she had felt until that point.

  “I have carried a terrible sense of loss for years, Neil. I’ve learned to live with it, to bear it. But what happened this morning with Esteban showed me it is time we go our separate ways. I…we must be free to embrace our true selves.”

  Was she talking about divorce? It was ridiculous. Through almost eight years together they had forgiven each other a lot. And now she wanted to break up because he lost his temper for a brief moment.

  “I recognize it was all my fault.” Neil tried to make amends. “I have seen that Esteban is all right and in time I will make it up to him as well. When he is old enough, he’ll understand my sudden doubts, my shock. But, Isabel, we can work this out. For us, for the sake of our child.”

  He reached out to place his hand on her shoulder, to turn her around, but his hand found her skin, though sun kissed, was cold and hard to the touch. She turned on her own, hitting him with scorn in her glowing green eyes and twisting her lips in a half smile that reminded him of the edge of a knife.