Trueheart (Portland After Dark Book 1)

by Mel Sterling

  The railing looked like birch trees, slender and lithe, and new branches were budding out along its length. As she watched, something poked through the drywall, a spiky greenness that she suddenly realized was a fir bough. At first there was only one, but a second later puffs of gypsum sifted down to dust the moss that crept up the stairs, and a dozen branches protruded from the wallboard. The house gave another groan. The sight was hypnotic, and Tess stood staring as her carpet converted from Berber to forest floor.

  Her house—the entire thing—was becoming part of the fairy mound.

  She is my birch girl, and I am her dark elf. Tess could almost hear Stephen's voice. What would he have said about this? Would he have rejoiced? Or would he have hurried her away from the danger, the way Thomas was trying to do? Would there have been enough of Stephen left inside him to recognize what was happening?

  This, even more than seeing Thomas's edges blurring back and forth between human and trow, kicked Tess into overdrive. She sat on the bed to yank on her boots, then followed Thomas down the rapidly changing staircase.

  The downstairs was utterly transformed. Where there had been carpet, there was soil and bluebells, mosses and mushrooms. Anything vertical—except for the metal—was becoming trees. Wherever a stud was behind the drywall, a fir bough poked through, leaving a mess of gypsum and paint on the ground. And everywhere, along with the bluebells, was a tangle of ivy, the ivy that covered Forest Park. The scent of green, growing things was oppressive, heavy in the air. The perfume of the bluebells and the sharp, spicy tang of the ivy combined to make her feel sick, as if the air were no longer breathable by humans. So many bluebells in one place had even left a drift of strange pollen in the air and on every surface, like an accumulation of dust from long years. Now, too, she saw strange little patches of luminous slime, alive and writhing.

  Glow worms? Or more of the fae magic, suddenly visible with her human eyes?

  She clutched at her chest, where the seeing stone should have been, and realized she had left it on the nightstand. With a cry she raced back up the stairs, with Thomas shouting after her.

  "Dammit, Tess! We have to go before this place crashes around us! It's happening fast."

  "I'm coming!" She grabbed the stone and was slinging it around her neck as she got to the bottom of the stairs again, with fir boughs snagging her sweater and her hair. Thomas saw what she had gone back for and nodded.

  "Put it out of sight."

  She did as he suggested, and grabbed for her jacket and her shoulder bag, its leather greening with algae where it stood on what looked like a stump instead of the hall table.

  At the front door, they took one last look around, then Thomas gave himself a shake like a large dog after a bath, and became fully trow.

  "I want to be ready," he growled. "Stay behind me."

  "Wait. One more thing." She ran for the kitchen and the mossy green grocery tote bag, which was now sporting the rough hide of an oak tree and some bracket fungi. The knotted root handles still held it closed, but Tess wondered if it would soon burst from whatever magical pressure must be inside. She set it down on the floor to dig in her purse for her keys. Where she put it down, bluebells began to grow, opening their blossoms and releasing a fragrance so potent she nearly swooned.

  "What do you think you're going to do with that?"

  "Take it with us."

  "No. No way, Tess. Where those trinkets go, the Queen will follow."

  "I know. But...these things, they're people. People I know. People I've never met, too, but people she's damaged. Maybe I can find them, fix them."

  "They're just things. Magical things. Not people."

  "You know I'm right, and I'm not leaving without them. You go, if you need to. I'll take care of these. I'm going to find Aaron, and I'm going to put him back the way he was before your Queen got hold of him."

  "Tess..." Thomas raked his big hands over his nearly bald head in frustration. "No. She has him, and she will not let him go. I've been there. I know how it is. All he knows, and all he wants to know, is that she's his Queen and she needs him, wants him. Nothing else matters to him."

  The duplex gave a terrible groan, and over the fearsome and strange noise of things growing at a tremendous rate, Tess could hear her next-door neighbors shouting. Was their half of the duplex converting, as well? She slung her bag over her shoulder and grabbed the grocery tote before Thomas could stop her, then ran out the front door.

  Outside, the moon was enormous in the clear sky, and with merciless clarity, it lit the hillside where she lived. Forest Park was on the move, swelling like a monstrous boil just behind her house. She ran across the shared driveway, fishing in her shoulder bag for her car keys, which she tossed at Thomas. He caught them and immediately dropped them, and she remembered the metal content was probably at least partially iron. He bent, pinching them up with the cuff of his coat.

  "Go for the Jeep. I've got to warn my neighbors!"

  "Tess, come on! We have to go, and we have to go now."

  She ignored him, reaching the neighbors' front door and hammering there with her fist. She couldn't very well scream "The fairies are coming! Run!" so she shouted the first thing that came to mind. "Landslide! The hillside is coming down!"

  The front door opened and she nearly fell into the foyer. The two neighbors stood there, fully dressed, and the odor of bluebells rushed out.

  "What the hell is going on next door, Tess? Are you having a party? Because it sounds like the house is about to explode," one of them grumbled.

  "Landslide," repeated Tess. "Get out. Drive, and drive, and drive. Far away. Do it now."

  "Jesus," the other one said. "You're too old for Halloween pranks. Lay off the booze next year, whaddya say?"

  Then they closed the door. Tess screamed at the unresponsive wood, and suddenly Thomas was there, grabbing her around the waist, hauling her to the Jeep.

  "We're leaving. Forget them. You have to drive, I can't. Tess, if I'm taken, you keep driving. Leave the city."

  "Stop talking like that!" She could not keep the shrillness from her voice, even while she was half-dragged by Thomas. "We're going, and we're going together. Nobody's going to...to take you. I'm just...I'm sorry I delayed us. I didn't understand, it all feels so much like a bad dream."

  The two of them dragged the quilt off the Jeep and piled into the cab, Thomas trying to wedge his big form inside. Tess put the grocery tote behind the seat, where she couldn't see it, and the idea that it would be back there, festering, maybe doing to the Jeep what it had done to her house, terrified her. Yet she knew she couldn't leave it behind and consign all those people the Queen had damaged to a certain awful fate. There was a chance she could help, and she had to try.

  Behind the duplex, Forest Park loomed like a malignant thunderhead in the moonlight. Tess jammed the key in the ignition, fearing for a moment the Jeep wouldn't start.

  But it did, and as branches burst out of the wooden uprights of the porch railing and a sea of fungus washed over the driveway, the Jeep skidded out onto the street, crushed mushrooms slicking the way. As she shifted from reverse to first gear, the pumpkin on the porch grew storklike black legs with far too many joints, and scurried across the lawn. Tess felt a scream rising in her throat, swallowed the hard lump of it back again, jammed her foot on the accelerator, and jolted the Jeep down the street.

  She couldn't resist staring in the rearview as the duplex vanished, swallowed in the slow roil of Forest Park, a cold tongue of earth and trees and the thin gray shadows made by the full moon. The Jeep nearly rear-ended a parked car while she was distracted.

  Her house was part of fairyland now, only the idea wasn't as pleasant as it might have been, once upon a time. The ambulatory pumpkin squatted in the middle of the road, and in the gloom it might have been laughing, toadlike, at the Jeep's erratic passage through the neighborhood.

  Tess jerked the wheel, determinedly heading south away from the spur of new land. Frightened tears ooze
d unheeded over her cheeks as Thomas tried his best to keep his large body out of her way. She wrestled the stick shift and took corners far too fast, dodging away from whatever horrible things might be following them at unknown speeds.

  A gasping sob of relief burst from her, and she scrubbed her sleeve hard over her eyes. They had escaped, but what about her neighbors? And what about that sack of gewgaws behind the seat, mysteriously broadcasting their whereabouts to whatever freakish things cared to come looking?

  Where to go next? She had no idea. When Burnside loomed, she headed resolutely west, putting the bridge to their backs. Thomas turned, looking east up the street as if he could see the bridge from where they were rapidly climbing into the hills again. She wondered if he thought of his home as longingly as she thought of hers, and accelerated.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THOMAS TRIED TO HOLD ON as the Jeep wound steadily uphill from Portland. The metal in the Jeep's panels, even covered by paint, stung his already iron-raw hands. The moon rode high in the sky, nearing midnight and the time when the Unseelie Court would be at its most frenetic, energized, and powerful. He could feel the surge rising in his body, the pull of the mound so close by, like an itch or an unspeakable craving that could be satisfied by only one thing.

  Tess's breathing was rapid and uneven, hitching like a sobbing child's. He looked away from the moonsilver of the road and saw tears on her cheeks.

  Of course. The fae had destroyed her house and probably obliterated her two neighbors as well. She was understandably upset, not being steeped in years of fae morality to recalibrate her notions of what was right or just.

  "Tess." The surge pulled stronger, which meant they were turning north, not heading away from Forest Park.

  "Just...let me drive." She swiped at her cheeks and gave a large sniffle.

  "We can't go this way. It's the wrong way."

  "It's away from Underbridge, that's all that matters." She shifted gears as if she were angry, pushing the Jeep harder. "God, listen to me. You've changed how I think about my city. Changed its geography, for Christ's sake."

  "No, Tess. We're going closer to the mound. Uphill and north—that will put us closer to them. To her."

  "I'd like to meet her. So I can bitch-slap her. Where does she get off, taking over houses and—and—"

  She slammed on the brakes with a suddenness that nearly sent Thomas into the windshield. He heard a noise like the whine of a kicked dog coming from her throat and looked to see where she was staring.

  Facing them on the road was the Hunt, white as lightning in the glare of the moon, with too-dark shadows pooling around the churning group of bogles and kelpies and redcaps. Red-eyed Hunter, astride his slavering beast, nodded his vast, antlered head at the Jeep as if he knew exactly what—and who—it held.

  "It's that fucking SUV again," she whispered, grabbing for gears and executing a hair-raising turn in the middle of the road, racing back downhill into Portland at a speed that made his stomach threaten to return all the milk he had drunk.

  "Again? SUV? What are you talking about?"

  "Yes. I didn't tell you, but—"

  "You've seen them before?" He turned in the seat, his big body unintentionally crowding her. Behind them the Hunt came on like the seventh wave, rushing, frothing, spilling one over the other. He could hear their eager yelping and knew that he was done for at last.

  "Today. I got away from them by coming over the bridge, and my God, Thomas! We'll go back to Chinatown! The fu dogs stopped them before, they'll stop them again!"

  Thomas could hardly sort out her words. "You were in Chinatown? And the demons didn't kill you, with this load of the Queen's things in the car?"

  Tess yanked the Jeep into another tight turn and accelerated, checking her mirror obsessively, killing the lights on the Jeep and driving dark. "I dunno, Thomas, the dogs just came off their pedestals and ripped the shit out of that front SUV. They didn't touch me."

  "Then you were the first thing to alert them, and Hunter was unlucky enough to be behind you. Tess, we can't go there. It's Allantide, the Chinese demons will be awake and watching for the fae."

  "All I know is they stopped the freaks chasing me. Surely they'll do it again."

  "Oh, they would. As soon as they killed me first."

  She shot him horrified glances, splitting her attention among the road, the rearview mirror, and his face.

  "There's a reason I didn't want to eat Chinese food when you suggested it, and it's not because of the taste. It's because the Chinatown dogs and demons have territory of their own to protect. And it's because I'm fae. Never forget that, Tess. Forget it, even for a second, and it could mean your life. Maybe mine as well."

  She returned her attention to the dark road, dragging in a long shaky breath. "Then we'll just have to try something else. Involve the cops, maybe. I know where there's a police station. We'll just drive there, and go inside. The fae won't want to be seen, right, and they'll leave us alone!"

  "What you should do is pull over and let me out. With the Queen's things. It's me they want, not you. Then you could keep driving. Once dawn comes, you'll be safe. They can't hunt past dawn, even on Allantide. And they stop once they have their quarry."

  "No."

  It was stated in so flat a tone, that Thomas knew she would brook no argument, would not even discuss it. Part of him rejoiced to hear her say it. He meant something to her. Or maybe the potential she saw in the Queen's trinkets meant more to her than he himself did. The need in her to fix things was perhaps deeper than the affection she felt for him.

  But the rest of him knew she would pay for that need.

  Everyone who ever loved the fae paid. Some more than others, but they all paid. He was living proof, with the Queen's ownership tight around his arm. He had no idea why she was leaving him alone tonight, but he was grateful for the respite, however short. She must already know her poisoned wine had failed.

  "Come on, Tess. Think straight. You can't fight them using human means."

  "Human means are all I've got," Tess snarled. "They'll have to be enough." She gritted her teeth and headed east again, toward the river, but now choosing streets south of Burnside. "Right. Iron and water it is, then. It worked on some of them, at least for a little while."

  "You can't run forever, Tess. But they can. Especially tonight."

  "We're doing just fine so far. Look, they're not behind us."

  "Stop, and let me out."

  "No. And don't try to escape, either. I'll run you over myself and drag you back into the car."

  Her words were bold, but Thomas wasn't entirely sure she didn't mean them. Foolhardy, brave, incredible woman. He wanted nothing more than to close a door behind them, somewhere the fae could not go, and wrap her in his arms forever. Instead, he had to start thinking, and it had to be fast. They could not hope to outrun the Hunt. It was many hours until dawn, here in the thin part of the year, and with the moon not yet at her apex, the fae's power had yet to peak.

  "Right. I won't fling myself from a moving vehicle."

  Tess checked the rearview again, and he could tell by the release of tension in her shoulders the Hunt was still invisible behind them. He wanted to turn and look, but it wouldn't make a difference, and there was no point in frightening her further. Hunter could glamour himself into almost anything where humans were concerned, and just because the Hunt didn't look like a mob of street racers at the moment didn't mean they weren't still following. Or flanking them one street over. Or traveling dark, the way Tess was doing. Hunter had his prey—Thomas—in his sights, and that was all he needed. Given Tess's tale of her wild afternoon and the slaughtered pixies in her kitchen, the fae knew all they needed about her and could use the Queen's magic to track them.

  Thomas rummaged in the inner pockets of his coat and fished out one of the big iron nails he carried. It stung his hand, but he tucked it into the right-hand pocket of Tess's jacket.

  "What's that?"

  "Iro
n. Use it if you have to. Stab with it, just like a knife. Don't hesitate, because they won't."

  "But I thought you said they wanted you, not me."

  "Well..." Thomas pondered the Laws of the Unseelie Court and the rules that seemed to govern Hunter. "You might be right—I'm the one Hunter wants, he said as much earlier today. But they'll use you to get to me."

  "Okay, then." A grim smile curved her mouth. "I'll stick any of 'em that try to take you from me. We've only got to last till dawn, right?"

  "Or cockcrow."

  "I don't know where we'd find a rooster in Portland. If we can get out to the countryside, maybe, but—"

  "Hunter and his hounds would catch us long before that. So—what's your human plan, then?"

  "We're going to the Hawthorne Bridge. Just hang on."

  "Not through Chinatown!"

  "I heard you the first six times." Tess fiddled with the gearshift, and the Jeep made a quiet growl, seeming to understand their need for secrecy. Her head was turning from left to right and back again as they emerged from the residential neighborhood into the more commercial part of town, where the streetfolk roamed at night. Thomas knew they kept moving to stay warm and minimize their chances of being mugged, but tonight they were turning their heads away as Thomas and Tess passed in the Jeep. Block after block, the wanderers, some of them costumed, most of them not, turned to the alleys and walls and doorways.

  If he'd had any doubt about being Hunter's prey this night, it was erased now.

  Thomas grew cold with sick dread, feeling his glamour stutter as if a hard shiver had taken him. Much like the night before, where Hunter's magic cleared the streets wherever he cast his snares, on this night of all nights the humans turned away, giving the fae their rightful place in the white night of Allantide. He had heard the old tales, how no human could look upon the Wild Hunt and live. What that meant for Tess he was unsure, but each time she had run afoul of Hunter and his hounds, she'd had the Queen's trinkets with her.

  Maybe she'd been right to insist upon bringing them along. Hell, what did he know anymore? He had been supplanted in the Queen's favor by a callow youth. She'd tried to poison him, and now he was Hunter's target on the most powerfully magical night in years. Everything had changed, except for him.