Trueheart (Portland After Dark Book 1)

by Mel Sterling

  "It's called a trow."

  "A troll?"

  "Not a troll. Those are bigger, uglier. Like rocks."

  She took the stone away from her eye. It was easier to talk with him when she wasn't looking at a creature from God knew where. The laugh that broke from her was confused and shrill. "Uglier!"

  He looked away, and Tess saw she had hurt him with her startled exclamation. The idea that something so strange and disconcerting in its appearance had vanity... "I mean...I don't know what I mean. I can't think. This is insane. I'm insane, or you are, or maybe both of us—" Her babbling ceased as Thomas gripped her by the wrist. She flinched in terror, but he would not let her go.

  "Neither of us is insane. Just...listen, can't you? Put the rock in your pocket. You'll want it later."

  Tess shoved it on the log. "I won't want it."

  "You will. Now listen. It's not a long story, but you need to hear it for your own safety."

  Now he was using keywords that triggered alarm bells in someone trained to deal with addicts and other dysfunctional personalities. This is what stalkers say to their girlfriends. This is what abusive spouses say: it was for your own good, the safety of the family, you need to learn...

  "Let me go, Thomas. You're scaring me."

  Instantly he released her, scooting backward, hands up, palms open. "Please hear me out."

  "You've got two minutes, and then I'm leaving. Sooner if you do something stupid."

  "Two minutes is all I need." He took a deep breath. "Back when Portland first became a stop on the river routes to the sea, the Unseelie Court moved from somewhere in England to here."

  "Unseelie what?"

  "They're not Seelie." Thomas dragged his fingers over his scalp. "It's hard to explain. The Unseelie belong to the court of the dark fae—the dark faeries. English people and farms crowded out the fae and ruined the forests. So the fae fled, and they came here."

  "Fairies. In Oregon." Tess snorted.

  "You promised me two minutes." His gaze pinned her where she stood, and at last she nodded. "Right. So the Unseelie Court has a Queen. She likes to take human lovers, and she picked me. For some reason, she decided not to kill me when she was through with me, but she bound me to her and gave me the trow-form. It's been almost two hundred years since she did that, and every year it's harder to stay human. But I'll do it. I won't be like this forever. I'll get my own life back."

  Tess stood very still. If she hadn't just seen something completely outside her reality through that stone, she would have thought Thomas's story was by far the most unique delusion she'd ever heard.

  Thomas continued. "Some of the fae think you're involved in something at the goblin market, and I was afraid for you. That's why we came here today, so I could find you one of these stones that will let you see the fae as they are." He spread his hands wide. "As I am."

  "Me, involved with fairies. And what goblin market are you talking about?"

  "Under the Burnside Bridge."

  "That's the weekend artists' market—"

  "Sure it is, at the weekend. But other times, it's the goblin market. Humans shouldn't go there. The fae aren't above taking advantage of the ones who do."

  "This is nonsense."

  "You've met some of the fae yourself. The fortuneteller, for one."

  "You've been spying on me! Are you stalking me?"

  Thomas's smile was grim as he looked up at her. "No. The Unseelie Queen has told me to watch the market. There are thieves, and she wants them caught. You just happened to be there last week, more than once. In fact, I've seen you there for months. But this time you caught my eye."

  "And you think I'm in danger now."

  "Yes, I do. Because other fae have noticed you, not just me."

  "What other fae? The fortuneteller?"

  "Her, yes...she's a banshee, not exactly a fortuneteller—she can only tell you when you'll die—that's if you give her your truename. And the three men at the barrel...they are redcaps. If you hadn't let on you knew the Queen's latest lover, they would probably have dyed their caps in your blood just for speaking to them. And the young man you spoke to—he's a murderous kelpie. You need to stay away from the goblin market."

  The Queen's latest lover...the lady, she ride him...not drugs, but enchantment? What are redcaps, what's a kelpie? Stephen's singsong rang in her ears. Birch girl, birch girl...

  Tess backed away, shaking her head at her own inflamed imagination. If Thomas could be believed, Aaron was the Unseelie Queen's paramour, and she had cast a spell on him. "No. This is crazy. I have to go now, Thomas, and I'm really, really sorry, but I don't think I can take you back to Portland with me. This is...I have to go."

  She hurried back up the beach the way they had come. Thomas followed, but at a distance that respected her boundaries. She had to give him that.

  She waited at the top of the stairs to the parking lot, arms crossed over her body, car keys in her hand.

  "I'm sorry," she said again. "I hope you'll be all right. Do you need some money to get home?"

  "Don't worry about me." Thomas reached out slowly and she saw he had the perforated stone in his hand once more. "Please. You need it to keep you safe."

  Maybe if she took it, he would leave her alone. She took it from his hand, stretching to reach it, and very careful not to touch his skin. She shoved the stone into the pouch of her hoodie and repressed the urge to wipe her palm on her jeans.

  "If anything at all seems odd, look through it. Know when you're dealing with the fae. I won't ask another thing of you. Please."

  She stood, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot. "I need to think about this, Thomas. If that's your name."

  "It is. My truename. Like I said, I was human once. I give it into your keeping. If you were fae, it would give you power over me. Likewise, you should guard your own name where the fae are concerned." He nodded toward the road. "I'll find my own way home. I've done it before. It'll be a nice change from the city."

  "I could...I don't know, maybe call a ride for you?" Guilt began to nag at her.

  "Who? How? You want to go to the market, maybe, tell them you left a trow at the coast? For them to send a kelpie down the Columbia for me?" He shrugged, and all Tess could think of were those burly, bestial shoulders under the oilskin. It was better if they simply ended this now.

  Tess drove away, leaving him standing in the little parking lot. She watched him in the rearview until the curve of the road hid him from sight.

  The stone weighed heavy and cold in the pouch pocket. She pulled it out and tossed it into the passenger seat. Never in her life had she left someone standing by the side of the road, but her sanity wouldn't let her turn the Jeep around.

  It might mean she believed him, and she couldn't have that.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THOMAS WATCHED TESS'S JEEP UNTIL it was out of sight. He sighed, shuddered into his trow-form, pulled up his hood and jammed his hands into his coat pockets. He strode due east, disregarding roadways and hopping over fences. Somewhere nearby there would be a fae-door underground, or a ley line to follow, and he'd use it to shorten his return to Forest Park and Underbridge.

  He had frightened Tess with the view through the hole in the stone. His stomach was heavy with regret. No doubt he'd seen the last of her. Ordinary humans didn't take well to being shown the raw flesh beneath the glamoured skin of the fae. Trows were hardly beautiful creatures. They weren't thugs like trolls, but their bulk lacked in grace what it gained in strength and speed.

  The forest smelled richly of moss and fern, the spice of balsam and the musk of lichen. The odors made him hungry, and he wished for some of Sharpwit's winter stew. No chance now for the chowder he and Tess had planned on as part of their day at the coast. Thomas closed his eyes to concentrate on testing the air for a fae link of some sort and drifted northeast, following the urging of his senses. A mile or so further on, he found it, a ley line that started at a hillside spring and aimed straight for Portland. />
  When he stepped onto the ley, a chill tingle rose up his legs, as if he had stepped in cold water or a flood of winter air tight against the earth. Each stride moved him many yards along the pathway. Firs, spruce and hemlocks slid past; rocks bulged beneath him and were behind him just as quickly. He had gone several miles in only a few minutes when the line gave a tremendous snap like a whip, flinging him from the track. He landed upside-down against a big hemlock half a dozen feet from the ley.

  Thomas staggered to his feet, dizzy and shaken. He clutched his iron-edged knife in his palm, where it bit and stung, but not so much that he couldn't hold it. Not many fae had the power to clear a ley like that; most would have met a fae traveling in the opposite direction and negotiated who would step off and have to wait for the other to be a mile beyond before returning to the ley and continuing on their way. But Thomas had been ejected. He readied himself.

  "Hail fellow, well met!" Hunter and his fae hounds—gaunt redcaps, bogles, a kelpie or two, others of the lesser, more bloodthirsty fae—paused in front of him. The hounds milled restlessly, eager to be gone.

  Cold dread sank into Thomas's gut. He'd never met Hunter outside of Forest Park, where the Queen's wishes and will held Hunter in check. He was deep in the Coast Range now, far from the Queen's senses and spies. Hunter never made a secret of his dislike of Thomas. The Queen had soiled the Unseelie Court with her human pet, instead of discarding Thomas when her interest waned, the way she did with her other lovers.

  Hunter's expression was as unreadable as always. Nothing showed behind that antlered mask.

  "Hail," Thomas replied, sidling to the east along the track. "I yield the ley to you, Hunter."

  "Naturally." Hunter angled his long wooden staff in front of Thomas to block his path.

  "As I said, I yield the ley."

  "Tell me, Half-made...what brings you so far from home? I thought you never left the market except to do our Queen's bidding."

  "I don't have to explain myself to you."

  Hunter's hounds shifted and gibbered at Thomas's audacity, dancing close to Hunter's mount and risking a skull-shattering kick when the horse's eyes rolled, lit with a feral green light. A hound showed its fangs to Thomas.

  "Ah, but there's where you're wrong. Any foolish human cluttering my Queen's court will answer to me."

  "I answer to my Queen and no one else."

  Hunter shook his head. "You need a friend at court, Thomas. You are being replaced, you know. Two human centuries is long enough for the Queen to tire of your novelty. She seeks fresher flesh than yours." The staff moved, prodding at Thomas's shoulder in the oiled duster. "Change is coming. I could be that friend—save you from the worse that's to come."

  "What change?" Thomas took hold of the end of the staff, keeping his knife hand low at his side. Hunter was no fool. He'd be ready for any weapon Thomas could wield, but his hounds might not.

  "The Queen is ready to make her move. You'll only be in the way, and you know what happens to toys that have outlived their usefulness."

  Thomas did know. He'd been astonished to last this long, frankly, and had wondered what appeal he still held for the Queen. He pushed the staff away from himself and retreated even farther from the ley. "Speak plain, Hunter. What is it you want from me, and perhaps—I said perhaps—we can strike a bargain."

  "You have had her ear long years and long. Bed talk reveals much. You hear things at the market. Simply come to me with your knowledge, and I will speak for you when the time comes to shed your blood for her own purposes."

  Thomas laughed.

  Then he laughed some more.

  The red eyes behind the deer skull flared.

  "If you are indeed her trusted counselor, Hunter, why would you need a spy? And a human one at that?"

  "I but seek to serve my Queen."

  "As do I." Thomas began to walk east again. "The ley track is yours, as I said. But we will make no bargain here today."

  Hunter growled out a command, and one of the bogles showed its teeth, walking backward on the ley to flank Thomas like a panther stalking dinner. The bogle's skeletal hands twitched and clenched in anticipation.

  "Oh no you don't." Thomas put his hand into the front of his duster, where the breast pocket concealed the half-dozen iron nails he'd carried for decades. "I'm not the prey you hunt today. I know the rules—the Hunt cannot take that which is not its quarry."

  "The Queen's rules." If a deer skull could sneer, Thomas would have sworn it was doing so.

  Thomas's head tilted. Was Hunter making a bid to rule the Unseelie? Why did he think Thomas was an important player in the Queen's court and seek him as an ally, however hostile? This required more thought, but right now it was time to rid himself of the immediate problem.

  "Our Queen's rules." Thomas grasped one of the nails, stifling a gasp at its raw, rasping burn in his palm. The cloth pocket was enough to insulate him from the metal's effect, but naked skin was another matter, especially when the rust bloomed. He blessed the little part of him that remained human and made touching iron possible, if painful.

  "Take him." Hunter tried to turn his mount, but the directional force of the ley was too much even for that brutal beast. The bogle hurried backward even faster, leaping, trying to overcome the forward pull of the ley and overtake Thomas, who was running next to the ley.

  A half-dozen more strides saw Thomas safely beyond the bogle's reach. He leapt onto the ley track itself, knelt, and stabbed the thick iron nail into the earth between himself and the bogle, then let go and flung himself backward away from the spike.

  Too late he realized he should have jumped from the ley, instead of falling upon it.

  There was a flash—not of light, but of energy that burned and flared—and then the ley reacted like a snake that had been cut in half, or a rope under tension. The energy frayed at the point where the cold iron intersected it, then snapped apart, jerking Hunter and his pack to the west, and Thomas to the east. The interrupted ley reeled them away from each other at tremendous speed, the broken ends retracting to their respective anchor points east and west.

  Thomas heard Hunter cursing over the frightened, frustrated howls of his hounds. He shot backward through the firs on the flailing sizzle of magic. The eventual crash at the ley's next anchor point was going to hurt like a son of a bitch.

  Like an eel thrashing in a net, he struggled to turn and face his direction of travel. Thomas had just made himself a target. He'd bested the Queen's Hunter, however briefly. The thought was bitter, especially when he saw the next anchor point zooming closer and closer: a massive, round rock, balanced on a creekside crag. He wrapped his head in his arms and waited for the world to explode.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MONDAY WAS MORE OF A Monday than it had ever been. Preoccupied with the strange events of Saturday, Tess worked doubly hard to restore her life to normal by focusing on paperwork and administrative tasks. Her files had never been so organized, her desk so clean, her calendar and email so up to date. She tried for the fifth time to reach the Morris family at home, but like all the other times, no one answered. She left the same voicemail as always, asking them to return her call as soon as possible. With each call, it was more difficult to keep the pleading urgency from her voice and remain professional. Perhaps the family simply wanted to put what had happened to Rory far behind them, but Tess needed to know.

  As she completed each task and the end of the day drew closer, the more certain she became that she had to try and find Thomas. She had to see if he'd made it safely home after she'd abandoned him.

  He had revealed himself a monster, and yet she was concerned about him.

  All she needed to do was make sure he had returned, and then she could get back to her life without the cloud of dread and guilt hanging over her. It wouldn't necessarily mean she cared, or that she believed his wild tales of wicked fairies alive and well in Portland, or shared his drugged-out delusions.

  Except...

  E
xcept...

  It all fit so neatly, Thomas's tale of the Unseelie Queen and her destructive, dangerous taste for young men. When added to the fact that Aaron's blood tests had never showed any unexpected or illegal substances, enchantment began to sound like a plausible explanation.

  And of course there was what she'd seen when she looked through the hole in the stone. The beast with Thomas's eyes.

  It was dark when Tess left her office for the night. During the walk to her Jeep, she tried to convince herself she didn't mean to go to Old Town to look for Thomas, but by the time she fitted the key in the car door, she was already thinking about the route she would take. She'd stay in her car as much as possible; look for a glimpse of him on the streets surrounding Underbridge. Damn it, now she was using his word for the market neighborhood. She shook her head hard, and locked the car door as she climbed into the driver's seat.

  Naturally, it began to rain, which would only make her task more difficult. She turned the windshield wipers on low as she pulled out of her parking spot. Nervous twitches cramped her stomach, half-belief fighting with rational thought and guilty conscience. It was the most awful emotional stew she'd ever experienced.

  Street after street revealed no Thomas. In the steady drizzle, people walked quickly, hoods up, or heads down. No one bothered with umbrellas—those were for tourists. Twice she drove past the Skidmore Fountain and parked for a few minutes, watching people come and go in the area of Saturday Market. No Thomas, though she saw the languid young man who Thomas had all but called a rapist.

  There was nothing for it but to get out and check the market on foot. She found on-street parking only a block away and slung her bag across her body, putting her car keys in the pocket of her trousers.

  The shops were already shut or closing. In this part of town, even the eateries rarely stayed open much after seven in the evening. There simply wasn't a dinner rush once the commuters left work for the night. The solitude seemed even more pronounced, especially now that she was watching every step. She tried to tell herself she was foolish to be so frightened, but the hairs lifting on the back of her neck told her something atavistic and instinctual instead. The languid young man leaned against a pillar supporting the market's archway and lifted his chin in greeting. His arms were folded over his chest. The sight of him sent a jolt of adrenaline through her. Thomas's warnings had done that much for her awareness, but her imagination was doing the rest.