by Callie Stone
“We need to get out of here,” Heather restated from across the doorway—much more quietly than the previous time, with an ineffably sad resignation.
“I’m William,” Heather’s fiancé stated, at last. I turned around to face him. “There are more captives in this dungeon. I saw them.”
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“We were traveling from Stuttgart to Zermatt, by the Matterhorn. There was a train transfer, somewhere after the Swiss border. There was a delay...”
“Where? Which city?”
William went silent, a shell-shocked stare crossing his eyes as he sank to the ground and settled with worrying haste into a knee-hugging, almost foetal pose upon the ancient, gnarled stone floor.
“They have seen too much,” asserted Troy, striding up behind me. “We can attend to them shortly, but we must unburden this place of these damned demons first.”
With a quick nod, I followed Troy back out into the main palace corridors to join Alexander, Kieran, and Michael towards yet another battle with the monstrous pests still hanging about the kingdom.
“There are more held in the dungeons,” I told my four teammates, stating the somewhat obvious while drawing their attention to the urgency of the captive situation. “Come on, we need to hurry so that we can get to them.”
With that, I took off sprinting down the left corridor. Immediately, a trio of broad-shouldered, heavily muscled, bestial creatures came loping around the corner to meet us.
“Satyrs,” snarled Alexander. “There really are only the dregs remaining.”
“Satyrs,” repeated Troy, readying himself to face the mangy beings as more of the loping, hairy, absolutely foul-smelling beasts converged upon the corridor. “They come to haunt ruins. These are not ruins, not by a long shot.”
With that, the fight was on.
The satyrs gathered in the narrow corridor, and the moment the battle began in earnest it was clear they would for tough opponents. They were quick and rough, kicking, punching, biting, and stabbing the air with the sharpened antlers atop their skulls as they sped towards us. Summoning a slice of his dormant lycanthrope rage, Kieran growled and caught one by the throat, flinging him into the stone wall and falling flailing to the ground. The creature collapsed to the ground before Troy leapt upon him in a sprightly blur, ensuring the thing would be down for the count indeed.
Sensing the heat and putrid aroma of one of the satyrs attempting to sneak up behind me, I furnished my sword and, before the creature could ram me with his horned skull, I dove aside and swept his feet out from under him. With a cry he fell, and I immediately whacked it with the broad side of my blade to be sure he could no longer be a bother.
“These creatures...they’re not very smart,” grunted Alexander, hoisting the carcass of one over his shoulder and flinging him at another.
“I’d think twice before calling any creature ‘not smart’,” I reminded him, kicking out the knee of a beast and sending him sprawling to the floor, where Michael, having shifted into the form especially diminutive and unassuming, gleefully descended upon it to guarantee its incapacitation. “They’re just following their nature.”
“Nature can go fuck itself if you ask me,” he grunted, slamming one of the satyrs into the ground with one hand and a second into the nearest wall with the other hand.
An eerie yet hauntingly wistful silence which soon followed, including the absence of the worst tormented voices which had peeled through the palace halls continuously until then. The departure of the awful din of sounds to the point where I could hear crickets chirping peacefully somewhere outside the palace walls, somehow sent a clear signal that the remains of the Kingdom of the Fae’s demonic occupiers were, at last, defeated.
It was time to free all the captives we could, fairy and human alike.
“Looks like it’s all over but the crying,” Michael stated, agreeing with my unstated assumption as he looked around him.
“Anyone see any more of them? I’ll check the cells,” I said, turning to go down the narrow passage towards the dungeons.
“I’ll come with you,” Troy said, following me.
We searched each cell and room of the dungeon area, finding most of them empty, but others... others were definitely occupied. And we found one that still contained a fairy, even though it was empty of people save for one. In an iron cage was a badly burned fairy, lying on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest and his face pressed between them as he rocked back and forth.
“Hello?” I called out softly, cautiously stepping towards the fairy.
As I stepped closer though, his head snapped up and he glared at me with a look that could kill.
“Get away from me, demon!” he hissed.
“I’m not a demon,” I protested.
“Yes, you are! That disgrace to our former glory over there is proof enough, I can sense what he is, but the stench of hell still clings to you. I can smell it.”
“I’ll have you know I showered just, well...yesterday morning, at least.”
I continued stepping towards the cage cautiously as the fairy glared at me.
“What happened here?” I asked softly, not wanting to upset him any further.
“Demons happened!” he spat. “One moment the palace was filled with music and laughter, the next it was filled with their vile demon cries as they began kidnapping my people to sacrifice to their infernal lord. I heard they also destroyed your palace, although you have already done so in many ways. Your kind are so weak to let such a thing happen.” It was then I realized that the fairy captive was no longer addressing me, but was rather speaking directly to Troy, who responded by simply hanging his head slightly in what I could swear was a sort of shame.
“I am only here to help,” he muttered. “I chose not any of this.”
“How could you help by being the enemy? By existing as an affront to the kingdom?” Whatever in the world the fairy was talking about, Troy ignored it as he silently helped him stand upright, which the fairy did while still ranting. “There were some who have told me to forgive, to forget. I do not forget, they are forgotten.” Now the fairy was speaking to himself, likely delirious for any number of good reasons, rather than Troy. Although it seemed he still expected a response. Ignoring his continued blather, I did my best to heal the fairy’s burns with the threads of my angelic blanket as my team went to work freeing the other captives they could find.
“You’re so young,” he coughed, now speaking normally again. “But you carry an old soul. You have seen many things, unlike the rest of your kind.”
Great, I’m being psychoanalyzed by a pixie, I thought.
“What’s your name?”
“Natasha.”
“A good name. A strong name. But it is not your real name, is it?”
I chose not to answer. It had become clear, if it were not already, that the fairy had no idea of what he was saying. “I was not always as you see me now. I... I used to be different. Just like you.” He was beginning to cough, but he continued to speak regardless of his pain. “So much pain. So much chaos everywhere. The world... it’s unravelling. It needs to be put out of its misery.”
He groaned and breathed heavily. Even though he was physically weak and incapable of any malice I could not help but be on my guard.
“Oh? You think that do you?”
“Yes. I know what you’re capable of. I’ve seen it before your kind came here.”
“Care to explain?”
He simply smiled and closed his eyes, a bitter expression on his face as if the world itself disgusted him.
“I’m tired of running. Let them do what they’re going to do.”
My eyes narrowed and I felt a sudden burst of rage, one that even surprised myself. Yet, with an unsteady deep breath, I pushed down any brewing outbursts as the dungeon was quickly emptying of former prisoners.
Grinding my jaw a few times, I let what I thought was the last of my outrage dissipate as I followe
d my team up to the front hall of the palace where the freed fairy-folk and humans had gathered themselves.
“I’ll need to wipe their memories,” Alexander said of the humans who had gathered to one side of the hall. I recognized Heather and William, and other unmistakably human folks. Their exhausted, hollow eyes shone with gratitude as they regarded my teammates and me.
The fairies, however, were not so kind.
“Look what that bastard is doing now!” shouted a wizened voice from the crowd as Troy was summoning his might and fairy magic to create a portal back to Paris right outside the palace entrance.
Bastard, I thought, doing my best to keep my growing outrage to myself. Really? What a name to call someone who just helped save all your arses. As the other side of the portal came into view, it looked like the corridor outside of our flat, probably for safer passage of the freed humans.
“I have to wipe their memories now,” said Alexander again, in an almost apologetic tone. “It is for the best. Ring Hask as soon as you get back to arrange for assets in Paris to help them immediately. How long will this portal stay open, Troy?”
Michael and Kieran had already made their way through, and Troy was just about to follow their lead. “A few minutes, the whole process takes quite a bit of concentration, and I won’t be able to create a new portal until...”
“Just get these people back where they belong,” I snarled, immediately ashamed of the way my anger was manifesting as the humans finally began to move towards the exit.
“I should have known,” cried that wizened voice from the fairies, still watching the whole scene. Instead of defending himself, Troy just regarded his own people silently and sadly. “I told you how dangerous humans were! But no, you wouldn’t listen to me!”
“Right. Well. At least we can live out the rest of our lives in peace,” said another fairy. “Without a threat of human invasion for the first time in centuries.”
Another voice exclaimed angrily: “Can you believe it? They’re taking the humans!”
“Now, see here!” I began, stepping forward, feeling my cheeks flush with rage. “We’re just taking the humans to the world they know. And if you think this was a human invasion...”
“Come on, Natasha,” Troy interrupted, that oddly regal version of his voice slightly resurfacing—albeit with an overtone of downcast resignation that was subtle yet strangely heart-rending.
Especially in light of the cruelty his own people seemed determined to keep throwing his way.
“But...” I spun around to see Troy’s hand outstretched towards mine, the portal starting to shrink in size. As angry as I was, I would need to let it out some other way.
“Troy, please, just one moment.”
“Natasha, it’s done,” he declared.
I could see the flicker of azure from his eyes, but could not discern much from the meagre few candles lighting the palace hall.
“It is of no consequence, my dear,” he said with a sad smile as he looked down at me.
“But—” I started to say. He held up a finger to silence me. “Don’t worry yourself with the past.”
“Worry myself...” I started. None of this had to do with me, after all, and I found Troy’s phrasing to frustrate me further until I realised he was speaking not to me but, really, to himself. As I took a step closer I could see the oceanic hue of Troy’s eyes, subtly muted by that same sadness I had seen crossing his face several times that day.
After a brief pause, I turned back to the fairies and gave them a curt nod of my head. “Troy,” I said under my breath. The denizens of the kingdom watched us, bemused. As we stepped through the shimmering portal, I tried to ignore the curious stares of the fae as we left their world behind.
I was the last to step back through to the narrow hallway just outside of the team’s flat. By the time I caught the surreal sight of the crowd of freed humans starting to make their way to the stairwell, the portal Troy had created had already shut entirely.
Somewhere in the strange blink of a second between the fairy realm and the doorway to our flat in Paris, I had lost my grip on Troy’s hand. However, I could tell that he was there, not far from me, because I could hear the sizzling of olive oil from the kitchen and I could smell the magnificent aromas of his cooking, sending my long-empty stomach into an intensely needy, greedy growl. And I knew that Kieran was there because he was already speaking with the director through the speaker phone.
“So these portals are just one-way?” I heard Kieran ask.
“Not necessarily,” Emilio explained as Kieran scribbled notes down in an open composition book amongst the papers and printouts of the increasingly makeshift office.
“Did we do the right thing taking the humans back that way?”
“Yes,” Emilio answered. “Because the fairy circle portals are volatile, depending greatly on the rituals involved with their creation and maintenance. But in your case we needed you all back in time to get some rest for tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?” I asked, joining in on the phone conversation just as Troy walked in with my breakfast fry-up, for which I had been waiting all day.
“Tomorrow,” Emilio began, taking his time to continue telling me as I heard papers shuffling on his end of the phone line. Alexander and Michael also chose that moment to enter the flat.
“The humans now remember nothing,” Alexander said in a rare bit of breathlessness. “And we have handed them off to the crisis team.”
“Good,” responded Emilio through the phone’s speaker. “Something told me we’d need those assets in Paris.”
“But, what is happening tomorrow?” I asked immediately before stuffing a forkful of fried eggs and sausage into my mouth.
“Tomorrow,” the director started again. “Tomorrow evening I’ve gotten you all train tickets from Gare de Lyon station to Zurich.” While I was busy closing my eyes in ecstasy from the flavours of Troy’s cooking, the word ‘Zurich’ had them opening wide again. That must have been that point on the map over Switzerland.
“Should I brush up on my Swiss German or Swiss French?” Michael asked, a bit too jokingly for the moment.
“Swiss German,” grumbled an annoyed Kieran before Hask answered more appropriately.
“Neither. Apparently, this was the last train there all week due to some sort of police activity. We do not currently have anyone there to find out more, that’ll be your job.”
“So, no idea what’s happening?” I asked, dabbing the corner of my mouth with the napkin Troy had provided me.
“Nothing even on the news yet,” Hask sighed. “But I can tell you this much; Whatever it is, it will only get worse.”
With that, Emilio hung up the phone.
7
The Night Deepens over France
Troy
What if it had all gone differently?
Even after a hefty night and morning of sleep, the thought still had not faded.
As the baguettes had almost finished baking, as I sliced the bell peppers into julienne strips, the simple act of breakfast making seemed only to make my rumination stronger.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Natasha said, smelling of fresh lavender and bergamot as she stepped into the kitchen.
What if I had never been forced out of the kingdom?
“This is the first time we’ve seen each other all day,” I answered with a light smile while pulling the bread from the oven.
Natasha had no direct response to that yet, and continued to watch as I opened the refrigerator.
I looked up from the fridge, where I had been pondering what kind of jelly to put on the breakfast toast: apricot, grape or blackcurrant. I knew now what I had to do, and for the first time in my life, I was actually excited about it.
“I really want bell peppers on my sandwich now.”
Natasha frowned, a bit confused.
“I thought you liked just Irish butter on them?” she mused. As small a detail as it was, I was impressed that she had
remembered.
Also impressive that she had picked up that I was making sandwiches for the team’s train journey concurrently with my breakfast preparations.
“Yes, I do,” I responded quickly.
“Then why the change in mind? Are you on a diet?” she asked.
“Nope, but I am getting old,” I half-joked.
The truth was that I was getting old, even if aging did not happen in any traditional sense for me. We had both seen, just the previous evening, how certain lives could start to take their toll on even the fae kind. It had served as a reminder that holding onto youth in my mind, the spark of excitement and enjoyment of living, was key to holding onto the outward youth of my physical form.
“You’ve got your life ahead of you,” Natasha replied sarcastically.
I had a feeling she was rolling her eyes at me as I started getting out the rest of the ingredients to make our sandwiches.
I think it was at this point that I started chuckling to myself.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, annoyed.
“You,” I responded. “Thought you were going to leave me to my thoughts for a bit longer?”
“You looked like you were deep in thought. I know how much you like to do that,” she retorted.
I wasn’t going to argue the point with her.
The sound of Alexander shuffling around in the living room, even with the blackout curtains blocking that space from natural light, served as a reminder that the day was already starting to wane and we would all be departing for Switzerland, and whatever lay in wait for us there, before very long.
We had all gotten up at different times, but all of us in plenty of time in order to prepare for our journey, but it had been nearly an hour since we had printed the train tickets Hask had emailed us, and Alexander had barely made an appearance, little less said a word to any of us. This was very out of character for him and I wondered if this was some tell that he was especially apprehensive about what would be on the other end of the journey in Zurich.
It probably did not help that there was a sizable storm seemingly brewing outside.
