Dan nodded but the feeling in the pit of his stomach didn't go away.
"What's in the pipe? Just regular tobacco or something weird?"
"Um, I don't actually know," Civig told him. "Something that's supposed to be really smoky, though, and maybe not smell terrible? I know she couldn't stand the smell of some of the leaves that were supposed to work well so maybe put in some spices or something that were supposed to smell better but wouldn't interfere with the spell."
"Well, I guess that makes sense."
"Samireal wouldn't do anything to hurt you, Dan," the gnome said gently. "I know you don't remember your time in Fairy but hopefully you remember how much she cared."
Dan flushed, his time with Samireal in the forest recently fresh on his mind. "I believe you," he said. "And I trust her, I think."
With a deep breath, he put the pipe to his lips and raised the lighter. He was out of practice but his hands knew what to do. It took a few puffs to get his coordination working well enough to get the leaves to light and stay lit but the smell wasn't unpleasant once he did. There was tobacco and something else, something sweet, and he took another puff to make it stronger.
The smoke collected into a roiling ball instead of streaming off, growing darker with an oily sheen when he blew the smoke he pulled into it. Shapes formed then dissipated moment to moment until a gray mist crept through.
"Dan?" a voice called. "Dan, is that you?"
"Samireal?" Dan asked. It sounded like her, if a little distant. As though they were talking through a long tunnel.
"Oh, thank the stars," she said. "You found the pipe. Give me a moment, this is the first time we've used the spell across worlds."
The swirling mist resolved into the face of the woman he'd met in the forest. It was a face that haunted his dreams and, after their little interlude earlier, would star in most of his fantasies. Her features were mostly human looking, sharp where humans were rounded, with perfect proportions. When she was concentrating, she looked severe and almost alien.
Then she smiled at him and the mist cleared until it was like he was looking at her through a clear glass.
"There, that's better," she said happily. "I didn't expect to hear from you so soon. It's only been a few days."
"It's been hours for me," Dan told her. "Though it feels like days. I-"
His words cut off as his need for her throbbed through him. He'd hated letting go of her in the forest and he ached to be able to hold her. That he couldn't kiss her through the smoke while he spoke to her was one of the greatest injustices.
"I've missed you, too," she said, her features soft. "I ache to have you with me. Your absence breaks my heart, but I understand why you went back."
"You do?" he asked.
"Of course, darling," she said. "You're human and it's important for you to go home occasionally. You had very important work to do."
Dan stared at her face and he couldn't remember why it had been so important for him to come home. His family wasn't exactly close, his parents calling when they remembered on important holidays, often missing his birthday by several months. He'd only seen either of them a couple times since he'd returned and the visits had been awkward. His friends had mostly cut ties when he decided he didn't want to get high anymore.
His music was important, he knew, and the audience. He had fans and it wasn't the first time that he'd felt the gulf between creating something and what happened when he put it out in the world.
"I did," he said with a sigh. "And I'm doing it. But I miss you. I miss something we had."
She gave him a sad smile, a tear sliding down her cheek. "I miss you, too. I wish I could be there with you."
"Civig came through, why can't you?"
"Civig is a small power and you'll have to send him home soon so he doesn't diminish further. The magic that keeps our worlds separate won't let someone like me through without a great deal of power."
"You came through in the circle in the forest," Dan protested.
"It was a place of power, built through the melding of human and fairy magic, and used often over the ages for the kind of spell you used."
"But I didn't use a spell."
"My love," she said and he could feel the memory of her hand caress his cheek with the words. He put his hand up and was shocked he couldn't feel her skin. "You're a Bard, your very intentions become a spell in places like that."
"Then I should be able to find a way to bring you through."
She sighed and smiled at him. "I have no doubt you could but it's dangerous. Do what you need to, send Civig back and contact me when you can. It's what will have to work for now."
"It's not enough," Dan grumbled and the smoke began to swirl faster.
"Careful, my love," she warned. "This spell is delicate and your power is enough to disrupt it."
"I'm sorry. How long can you hold the spell?"
Her eyes were sad. "Our time is limited. I don't know how much yet but I can feel the power starting to wane."
"That's not enough either, then," Dan told her, his face going distant, a sure sign he was thinking about the problem.
"It has to be for now," she told him. "I'll continue to refine the spell and find ways to add more power to it."
"Don't put yourself in danger," he warned her. "If I have to be careful then so do you."
She laughed. "There is little that can harm me here but I will take your words to heart."
Civig nudged his elbow and Dan turned to look at him, a scowl on his face for being interrupted.
"You need to ask her," Civig told him. "About the tears, remember? Between our worlds."
It took Dan a moment to remember what the gnome was talking about. When he did, the solution to his desire seemed so obvious. He turned back to the ball of smoke in front of him to see the mist was almost over come with the oily black sheen.
"Samireal!" he called. "No, I'm not done!"
"Give the magic time to gather again," she said down the long, echoing hallway. "And remember your love for me."
The smoke dissipated, releasing a foul smell that made him gag. Civig made a face and looked at Dan unhappily.
"You wasted it," he told Dan.
"It wasn't wasted, she gave me the solution."
"You didn't even ask her!"
Dan looked confused for a moment then his face cleared. "I didn't have to. She told me everything."
Chapter 15
Kujo helped Winifred carry Nate to the couch then didn't blink when she slashed his arm to make him bleed. She held his arm over Nate's cap and was gratified to find he didn't heal as quickly as she seemed to.
Izzy watched, mesmerized by the flowing blood, and licked her lips. When she tried to get close enough to lick at the wound in her boyfriend's arm, a dark look from Winifred had her cowering behind the arm of the couch.
When Nate started to look better, she let go of Kujo's arm and handed him a towel to wrap it in. The bleeding slowed as soon as she let go and Izzy whined in the back of her throat when she got close to him to find the cuts largely healed.
"Come on, Izzy, we talked about this," Kujo told her. "I'm done bleeding for today. I think."
"But, why'd you stop? It looked like she was going to let you bleed out all over her boyfriend. And how come she gets to waste your yummy blood like that and I don't get a taste."
"It's not a waste," Winifred snapped. "And if you can keep yourself in check, you can have a taste but only a taste. If you bite him again, you're losing teeth."
Izzy hissed at her but leapt at her boyfriend and ran a rough tongue over the healing scratches. A couple began bleeding again and she licked happily at them until Kujo gently pulled her off his arm and held the towel against it again.
He sat down heavily and Izzy crawled into his lap, nuzzling his neck and purring happily.
"Now that I'm done bleeding for the cause, what happened?" he asked.
"I got wet," Nate grunted.
Kujo frowned and Winifre
d sighed. "He's a Red Cap," she explained. "We don't know how or why but I'm pretty sure we just confirmed it. And, I think, you're some form of ogre and Izzy's a pixie."
"Oh, that, nah, Izzy's always been a bit blood thirsty and bitey."
"And Nate's always been violent but it's gone beyond that now. He needs the blood to live and I suspect she does, too."
"Yeah, well, much as I'd like to help, I can't keep opening a vein so if that's the only reason you wanted to see us, we're going to go home now."
"No, that was incidental. Thank you, by the way. What I really wanted to know was when you started noticing something odd. Or, I guess, odder than your normal odd."
Kujo looked down at Izzy and smiled. "Most people get freaked out by the blood thing," he told her. "Doesn't do much for me but it doesn't turn me off like some of the others. And I'm big enough to pull her off if it gets too much."
"Okay, but the teeth? When did she get those?"
"Ah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "This morning, I think. Part of what caused the whole thing, really. An early morning nibble with the wrong teeth that went kinda sideways once she smelled the blood."
"Early?"
"Well, early for us, I guess."
"What do you do?" Winifred asked.
"Uh, I work security at Chubby's and Izzy's a dancer," he said, naming the closest strip club.
"A bouncer and a stripper? Same club? Don't they frown on that?" Winifred raised an eyebrow.
"Well, officially yeah, but we're not exactly working for the most reputable kind of company., if you know what I mean." Izzy started nuzzling his neck and he shifted slightly.
"How long has she been like that?" Winifred asked, nodding at his girlfriend.
"Um, pretty much always. Well, no, she'd get like this with some of the drugs, they helped her dance, ya know? Made it easier to move, she said. It wasn't until a few days ago that she started getting like that from blood."
Winifred shifted uncomfortably. This was so very far from what she was hoping to discover, she wasn't sure she wanted to know more. Everything about the couple made her uncomfortable but then she saw Nate lying on the couch, still in obvious pain, and she knew she needed to push through.
"Is it-" she started, then stopped, redirecting her thoughts. "Could she be picking up drugs from the blood?"
Kujo shook his head and Winifred's heart fell. "I looked into that. I didn't really take the amounts she'd need to get this high before and I haven't since. Are either of you users?"
Winifred shook her head and Nate shrugged. "Not for a few months and none of the shit that makes a girl do that for a few years."
"Yeah, she said you smelled good and she hasn't really been saying that about food since the blood started making her antsy."
Izzy bit his shoulder and he shivered then winced.
"Right," Winifred said, getting them back on track. "So, she's a pixie, Nate's a red cap, you're, well, I still think you're an ogre of some kind."
"What are you, Winnie?" Nate asked, sitting up to look at her.
She looked at her hands and curled her claws until they just pierced her flesh. A single drop of blood welled out of each hole before they closed over. Her hair had sprouted black feathers and her vision was getting sharper. It wasn't something she'd wanted to bring up with Nate yet but she could see the fine wrinkles and scars in his skin that most people would miss.
And the hole in his side from the knife, from the first time she'd watched him fight, watched him kill a man and walk away covered in blood. She'd healed it. The blood and the violence had left her wanting to climb Nate the way Izzy was climbing Kujo. And yet, the desire was different than sex. Similar, she thought, but it wasn't fully satisfied by it.
"I don't know," she said quietly. "Some kind of animal, I expect."
Chapter 16
When he woke alone in his bed, Christopher made the mistake of assuming the rest of his house was empty as well. His coffee machine was on a timer and he followed his nose to the kitchen most mornings.
The vision sitting at his kitchen table, watching the news on the television he rarely turned on, a cup of coffee in her hand stunned him.
"Good morning," she said brightly, her eyes twinkling at him over the rim of her coffee cup.
"Um," he said intelligently. "Good morning."
With a smile, she stood up and went to make him a cup of coffee, pouring cream and sugar like she'd been making it for him for years. When she handed it to him, he stared mutely at it, before reaching for the handle.
"It's your coffee," she told him. "Your cream, your sugar, everything from your own kitchen and purchased by you."
"How did you-"
She waved his question away. "Your people say to never take food or drink from the fae and they're right. It's why I took you out to eat last night rather than cooked for you. I wanted you to actually eat, not stare at your food and try and guess if I'd enchanted you with it."
He lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip. The hot liquid warmed him and tasted just the way he liked it. "No, you were an altogether different kind of enchanting last night."
She smiled at him and sat back down at the kitchen table. "Hopefully not an unwelcome sight in your kitchen this morning?"
Her smile was cheerful but he could hear the vulnerability in her voice. "A very welcome sight," he told her. "If a bit unexpected."
"I'm glad to know I can still surprise you," she said. "You had gotten so good at anticipating what I was going to do next, I wasn't sure we were going to be able to resolve our differences peacefully."
"You tried, on more than one occasion, to run me through with a sword," he said, sitting next to her. "Was that a peaceful sword?"
She waved his statement away. "I never actually managed. A testament to your training, that, by the way. I skewered your father more than once."
"Yes, I know," he said, wryly. "He told me about it."
"Did he?" she beamed. "I'm so glad. I try hard to be memorable and he seems to have learned a lesson from it."
Christopher was conflicted and it showed on his face. "Yes, you have been quite memorable over the years. And, well, I'm still not sure what you're doing at my kitchen table."
"Having breakfast," she said, raising her cup to him. "Well, having coffee, at least. And watching the news."
"You're wearing my shirt."
"Isn't that tradition? I'm sure I heard somewhere that it was the done thing. Should I have worn nothing instead? I suppose I could have worn my dress but it was a little too formal for coffee, I think."
"Far too formal for coffee," he agreed. If he was honest with himself, he liked her in his shirt. It was a white button down with a starched collar that she'd left open just past her breasts and long sleeves that she'd rolled up to her elbows. The bottom of the shirt hit her at about mid-thigh while she was sitting, giving him a glimpse of pale flesh and no idea about whether or not she was wearing underwear.
She gave him a naughty grin over the rim of her cup before she took a sip. "I rather thought so. And I like this tradition. It's casual, comfortable, and I can smell like your laundry for a while yet."
"Do you-" he cleared his throat. "I wouldn't think that would be something that appealed to you."
"Not always," she allowed. "And there hasn't been a lover in several centuries that I've wanted to lay this blatant a claim on."
"You were married several times over those centuries."
Her casual wave dismissed any feelings on the subject. "Political partnerships, mostly. Necessary and convenient for the time, though some of them were more enjoyable than others."
"I see. And what's this?"
"Fun," she said. "And a bit more important of a partnership, though that part isn't contingent on this part."
"You were serious about helping me?"
"Past tense? No, my dear boy, I am serious about helping you and expect to be so in the future."
"I'm not sure how comfortable I am with yo
u calling me 'boy'," Christopher told her.
She giggled and raised her cup to him. "Very well, darling. Whatever makes you happy."
The news cycled through the weather, sports and politics while they drank their coffee. On one of the commercial breaks, Christopher leaned back in his chair and looked at Listrial.
"You know, in the several hundred years of records I've read, I can't think of a single instance of you helping a member of my family."
"Hmm, well, I won't say it wasn't a rare occurrence, what with our opposing agendas most of the time, but they would hardly be likely to mention they got help from an enemy, would they?"
"They admitted to help from several very questionable sources," Christopher told her. "And a lot of these are private diaries."
"Private diaries they saved for posterity," she pointed out. "And that they expected their children and grandchildren to come to for advice. Admitting they couldn't control a wild fae enough to bring them down or that some untaught child had enough power to rip open a portal to a dark realm that they couldn't close and needed my help wouldn't give their advice the weight of the all knowing ancestor, now, would it."
"Sounds like you have someone specific in mind."
"Not anyone in your direct lineage," she told him. "An uncles bastard brother more than a few generations back."
Christopher raised an eyebrow at her. "We didn't tend to throw a lot of bastards," he told her. "I wouldn't be hard to figure out which of the knights this was."
"It's unimportant. And your family had more bastards than I think you want to admit to, though they acknowledged most of them."
"The mission was too important to let talent go untrained."
She smirked at him. "Less that than a habit of losing wives. Knock up enough mistresses and the third or fourth wife won't really have the time to count the children, will she? Even if she's paying enough attention to birth dates to know which are impossible."
"That's a rather cynical view of my family."
"You'll forgive me for not always thinking well of the men trying to kill me and my people."
"Trying to stop you from killing humans," Christopher objected.
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