I got in the passenger seat of the car, and Oberis handed me an envelope. It crinkled familiarly, and I opened it to be absolutely sure.
“Why?” I asked, eyeballing a sum of cash that was easily two months of my courier salary.
“I make a point of rewarding those of my Court who make my life easier,” Oberis said dryly as he started the car. “The Clans are the dominant force in this city after the Wizard, and you just wiped out a year or more of slowly growing irritation with us in a single moment of selfless bravery. Tarvers is as deadly serious about the Boon as any of us would be—but this is your reward for your service to the Court, not to the Clan.”
I’d learned a long time before not to argue with generous fae—and to count the money very carefully when they’d moved on. I bowed my head in acquiescence. After all, this was money I’d earned, and that meant I didn’t need to borrow from my boss to pay for the apartment.
Apparently, stupid chivalry was rewarded well in this city. If you survived the vampires, that was.
5
I talked to Bill after work the following Monday. He seemed somewhat disconcerted by my suddenly having money, which I explained to him as “a relative passed on and left me a little money, not much but more than I was expecting.”
He and Rhonda still managed to take me by surprise by the speed with which they handled the transaction. He had me back at the apartment complex that night, signing the lease and trading Rhonda my damage deposit and first month’s rent for the keys to the basement apartment.
The next step was picking up my—paltry few—belongings from the motel and checking out. By the end of the night, I was moved into my new place. And very aware I needed to go shopping, as all I had was the single mattress and base Rhonda had provided for free.
The next evening was spent opening a bank account—my first in several years—using my Wizard-provided fake identifications. It turned out I had a credit history. Wizards scared me.
Once I had the bank account and had deposited my funds into it, I went furniture-shopping. I didn’t need much, but the apartment still looked much more like home with a table, a desk and a proper bedframe in it. A computer was bought on Monday, and a quick stop into Eric’s acquired a modem that would link me to both the Internet and Fae-Net—the closed distributed network the fae used to keep in touch.
It was less than five minutes after I’d set up my connection to Fae-Net that I heard movement in my apartment. I turned to find myself facing a statuesque woman with raven-black hair that hung to her waist over a neat blue business suit who should not have been there.
I didn’t have a chance to ask what she was doing before she grabbed my hands and stepped.
My apartment was replaced with an inky black nothingness, lit by a slight glow coming off my kidnapper’s skin.
“Sorry,” she said quickly, her voice hitting buttons in the back of my head as I blinked at her. “My presence in Calgary must be kept secret.”
“Um,” I gaped. The woman was familiar, and heart-stoppingly beautiful enough to distract me from the void around us. “Where are we?” Regaining some of my composure, I demanded, “And who are you?”
“We are Between,” she said simply. “The space between worlds. You survive here by my power, or the void would take all life and warmth and breath from you, leaving you a lifeless corpse.
“As for who I am, I am disappointed,” she told me sternly, and all my breath rushed from me in one horrifying instant of recognition. “I am Mabona. Do you not recognize your Queen?”
Mabona.
Mabona. Queen of the fae.
Mabona, Mistress of Seelie and Unseelie alike. Lady of the High Court and all others. Queen in Ireland before men ever walked there. Mother and Queen to all of my kind.
I don’t remember consciously sinking to my knees, but I knelt before her. The Queen of the fae was like unto the Wizards—a true Power made flesh in the world.
“I am sorry, my Queen,” I answered her. “I was surprised, and I did not expect to ever lay eyes upon you in person.” The Queen was never seen by most fae—even among the noble fae like Oberis, they usually only saw her once, if at all. She acted through her Vassals—entire bloodlines of fae, almost always noble, bound to her service.
“I have need of your service,” she told me, and I cringed. I was hoping it wouldn’t be that. I could refuse her; it just wasn’t wise. “I need eyes and hands in this city, but the Covenants between the Powers forbid me to walk in a Wizard’s marked domain.”
“Isn’t Lord Oberis your...” She didn’t let me finish the sentence.
“Oberis serves his Court,” she snapped. “He serves the Court that answers to him, and then he serves the Seelie Lords and Ladies, and only then, at a distant third, does he serve me. I have need of a Vassal in this matter.”
There was no doubt in my mind on one thing—Queen of all fae or no, I was not signing on for that. Agreeing to Vassalhood bound me and all my descendants to her service.
“Lady, with all respect,” I said carefully, “there are many others in this city worthier of such an honor.”
“Who said anything about honor?” she answered with a cold smile, and my heart stopped at the quiet power in her voice. “By your father’s blood, Jason Kilkenny, you are mine.”
That voice ran along my nervous system like fire, yanking me to my feet to face her as she willed. Her words rang in my very veins and I knew, in my bones and my blood, that she spoke only truth.
Shit. Somehow, some way, I was a Vassal of the Queen. Shit.
“Lady,” I said slowly, trying to let the fire of her words fade out of my body. “I did not know. I would not have thought one of my weak blood would be such.” I hid behind the formality of the words. It wouldn’t do to show gut-wrenching fear in front of the Queen. Not that I thought I fooled her.
“You have not yet come to your full birthright,” she told me, “but you will serve me regardless. You have encountered the vampires in this city.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice at the moment.
“They are part of a greater plan—a full cabal has moved here, and done so without the Wizard knowing.” The Queen looked at me, and I tried and failed to avoid her gaze. She locked eyes with me and held me in her burning, inhuman, gaze. “There is a plot afoot to destroy the Magus MacDonald. You will find this plot. You will locate its perpetrators. And you will, by your hand, or Oberis’s, or MacDonald’s, whatever is necessary, see them destroyed.”
I swallowed. The void around me pressed in, cold and unforgiving and warning of the fate of those who defied the Queen.
“I am yours to command,” I said slowly, unwillingly accepting the burden she laid upon me. “If I may ask one question?”
“You may, but many answers are worth more than you can pay,” she told me bluntly.
“If my father was your Vassal, who was he?”
“He was mine, as are you,” she replied. “More it is not yet time for you to know. Go.”
She pushed, and I fell out of the Between, back into my apartment. I breathed quickly, trying not to hyperventilate.
The Queen of all fae had Marked me as her Vassal, one of the ancient bloodlines that served her. It made no sense. Those bloodlines were noble fae, or near enough for power. I was...nothing. I’d presumed my father was minor fae of some kind—a will-of-the-wisp or something similar.
And as her Vassal, I had a mission to prevent the murder of a Wizard—a demigod made flesh, a Power that walked the world.
I needed a drink.
6
I went to the Manor, Eric’s. It’s a tradition of our kind that the Keeper is like the theoretical old Catholic priest—completely neutral and bound not to tell others what you told him. In a city with two Courts, it was the Keeper who was the intermediary. In Calgary, I was just hoping that I could talk to him without the story spreading.
I was shivering with the cold when I came in—new warm coat and gloves or not, the “chinook” had
fled again and it was way too cold in this city.
“Hi, Tarva, can you get me a beer and let Eric know I need to talk to him?” I told the nymph waitress with a smile as I slid onto a barstool. She nodded and slipped away into the back.
It was a Wednesday night, and the bar was half-full. Not all of the patrons had the feel of fae or other inhumans, so I had to be careful what I said in public. Shortly after Tarva vanished into the back, I saw the door swing open and Eric glanced out, making the same assessment as me. He wasn’t as noticeable as some inhumans, but he was still better off not wandering around in full view of the mortal public.
When he looked at me, though, his eyes widened at something, and he immediately gestured for me to come back into the kitchen. I grabbed my beer, got up and followed him.
“Come quickly,” Eric ordered, moving faster than I thought the little man had any right to. He led me to a door off the side of the kitchen, and then down a spiral staircase into the storeroom under the kitchen. We dodged around boxes and bottles to another door, which led into a well-lit, gorgeously furnished basement apartment.
“Have a seat and drink your beer,” he told me, gesturing to an overstuffed dark purple couch. It looked like the apartment was walled and floored in bare concrete, but it was hard to tell. Voluminous drapes covered the walls, and thick rugs had been laid in an attractive interlocking pattern. A tiny kitchen was tucked against one wall, and a solid oak door presumably led to Eric’s bedroom.
The Keeper returned to the lounge with a snifter of brandy and sat in a chair in matching purple to the couch I was in.
“I told Barry I wouldn’t be back up tonight,” he told me quietly. “As soon as I saw you, I knew something was up. I think I know what, I’ve seen this before, but tell me in your own words.”
I took a long drink of my beer and marshaled my thoughts. “Long story short, Queen Mabona came to visit me, informed me that I was of one of Her Vassal bloodlines and belonged to Her, and gave me a mission,” I told him succinctly.
Eric emptied the brandy snifter in one swallow. He picked up the bottle, refilled his snifter, and offered it to me. I shook my head no.
“I thought I recognized the sign on you,” he said quietly. “Mabona. The Queen of all fae.”
“How fucked am I, Eric?” I asked bluntly.
“Um...both a lot and just a little?” he answered. “You are Marked as Her Vassal. Any Keeper in any Manor in the world can see that, and we owe our fealty to the Queen as well.”
“Wait, the Keepers owe fealty to the Queen?” I interjected. I always thought the Keepers didn’t owe loyalty to anyone except the fae race.
“And through Her to all fae,” he answered. “Like you now. We Keepers are charged to aid Her Vassals in any way we can; we share the joint mission of preserving the fae race rather than any specific Court or faction.”
“That doesn’t answer how fucked I am,” I observed.
“You are pretty fucked, so far as getting out of it goes,” Eric said bluntly. “She’s in your blood, in your powers. She has Marked you as Her own, and you are Hers. However, it’s not all bad.
“You now serve only Her and the High Court, for example,” he continued. “You stand outside the normal systems of Court and Fealty. While I wouldn’t recommend testing the theory, you technically don’t answer to Oberis anymore. You are protected, as Her Marked Vassal, from interference by the other Powers. She rewards and protects those who serve Her well.”
“And is utterly merciless to those who betray Her,” I suggested aloud.
“Yes, but Her Vassals don’t really have that option,” Eric reminded me. “When I said She was in your blood, it wasn’t a metaphor. Even if you tried to avoid completing whatever task She gave you, you’d find yourself doing it as you went about your business, only realizing what you’d done afterwards. It’s a dangerous way to go, though; I disrecommend it.”
I could see many ways that trying to investigate a plot against the Wizard without realizing what I was doing could prove dramatically fatal.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me,” I told the Keeper. “I always understood that Her Vassal bloodlines were all noble or near-noble fae. But I’m one of the weakest-blooded changelings I know of. Am I misjudging Her bloodlines, or am I a late bloomer or something?”
“I know of late-blooming changelings,” Eric said slowly. “One gentleman I knew didn’t come into his mother’s gifts until he was almost forty. There’s only one problem—how long ago did you first manifest?”
“Three years, give or take,” I replied.
Eric nodded, taking a slow sip of his brandy. “Ever changeling I’ve ever known of has manifested their powers over a year and a day,” he told me. “You have every power you will manifest from your blood.”
“I assumed my father was a weak will of the wisp or something,” I admitted. “I don’t see how he could possibly have been of Mabona’s Vassal bloodlines.”
“Wait,” Eric said, holding up the hand not holding his snifter, and suddenly examining my face with a new energy. “That rings a bell. A Kilkenny and a will o’ the wisp... What was your mother’s name again?” he asked.
“Melissa,” I replied, now very confused as he continued to examine my face.
“Melissa,” he repeated slowly, getting up and begin to pace back and forth on the rug, his brandy forgotten in his hand. “Little Melly Kilkenny—redheaded woman, Irish and a historian, right?”
“Yes,” I agreed slowly, watching the gnome pace, wondering if he’d seen the same file MacDonald had. “How do you know my mother?”
“I worked with Melly on a dig in the early eighties. We were investigating one of the old tomb sites in Ireland for the High Court,” he answered.
The High Court was the joint Seelie-Unseelie court that ran Ireland’s fae and, in theory, that all Courts answered to. Made up of nine Powers, the High Court was led by Queen Mabona and rarely, if ever dealt with mortals.
“They hired a mortal historian?”
“No,” Eric said quietly, stopping and locking his gaze with mine. “They hired a changeling historian—Melly Kilkenny, daughter of Soria, one of the strongest will o’ the wisps I ever met. Your mother was a changeling.”
“That’s impossible,” I disagreed. “She would have said something.”
“I don’t know why, Jason,” the Keeper told me, “but she fled Ireland under a cloud of political discontent and foreswore all things fae. You have the gifts of a wisp’s child through her.”
“But a wisp’s gifts are all I have,” I told him.
“You have not yet come to your full birthright,” he answered me, echoing the Queen’s words earlier that night. “Every gift and power you have shown so far is from your mother’s blood, not your father’s. We have no idea what gifts you may still command.”
“Great,” I said quietly. “So, I have the downside of a Vassal bloodline—service to Mabona—and not one drop of the power or strength I should have to complete Her mission.”
The Keeper nodded and finished the second glass of brandy.
“What was your mission?” he asked finally. “I am bound to help you in any way I can.”
“She said there was a plot to kill the Wizard,” I told him. “I am tasked to find it and stop it.”
“I take it back,” Eric said dryly. “You are fucked.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” the Keeper promised. “If you find anything, let me know, and I’ll see if I can track down more on any leads you find.”
“Thanks,” I replied, somewhat more sincerely this time. Now that I thought about it, the shifters might know something, and Mary had programmed her number into my phone.
“So, um, Eric,” I said slowly, hoping the subject change would work, “what is the policy on fae dating outside the Court here?”
He laughed. “I heard about you and the shifters over the weekend,” he told me. “Well done, by the way.
; “But yes, that’s okay. It’s not like we have to worry about half-and-half babies, after all,” he continued. “For whatever reason, most of the inhumans are cross-fertile with humans, but none of us are with each other. So, go ahead, call the girl.
“Her Clan may have some idea about the Queen’s warning,” he added, echoing my own thought.
My work the next day was a chaotic blur. One of the other drivers called in sick, so those of us who were left were running around twice as much, moving our own packages and taking care of his. I was over an hour late back to my apartment.
I threw a microwave meal into the appropriate appliance and reflected that after half-living on the streets for a few years, even bachelor living and a six AM to four PM job seemed like a huge step up. That thought and dinner gave me the energy to grind up some coffee and fill a coffee press. The local organic coffee roaster that I’d been introduced to in the Wizard’s Tower was growing on me. The one I was drinking was named after some resort or mountain or some such nearby—it had a picture of three mountains on it.
With half a hot cup of coffee in me, I booted up my computer and began to skim the Internet and Fae-Net to see if there were any obvious clues about a threat to the Wizard. Just like humans, we have our message boards and conspiracy sites.
A half hour’s trawl came up with nothing definite in the slightest. Not on a threat to the Wizard, anyway, though from the hints I saw, there was definitely a vampire cabal in town, which worried me.
Nobody liked feeders. Vampires weren’t the only group of them—wendigo, banshees, and a few others fell into the category—but they all ate people. Blood or flesh or souls, they devoured people one way or another and left corpses in their tracks.
I didn’t like that they killed people—by and large, I liked humans. I also understood that most inhuman authorities hated risks of exposure. All of us, including the humans, were happier with the current deal. I had the suspicion that it was only collusion with mortal authorities who agreed with us that allowed us to keep the secret.
Changeling's Fealty (Changeling Blood Book 1) Page 4
