Knight

by Karen Lynch

  I’d seen pictures of nixies, but none of them came close to capturing the beauty of the delicate, nine-inch tall faerie with golden hair and shimmering wings. It was like looking at a real live Tinkerbell, which was one of the reasons they fetched a high price on the black market. The other reason was their angelic singing voice. Mom had told me once that she had saved a pair of nixies from a dealer, and they’d sung to her. It was so beautiful it had literally made her weep with joy.

  It felt cruel to put the nixie back in a cage after all she’d endured, but I didn’t have any other way to transport her safely. I brought her down to the first floor and took a small plastic animal carrier from my duffle bag. I made a soft bed in it with my scarf and placed her gently inside. It wasn’t much, but I eased my conscience with the knowledge she would be back home and free in a few days.

  There was no way I could transport the verries I’d caught, so I called Levi to make arrangements for someone to handle it. I expected to get his voice mail because it was after eleven, so I was surprised when he answered my call. His mood hadn’t improved, but he was pleased when I told him I’d finished the job. He told me to take the nixie home with me tonight and bring her to the Plaza tomorrow. I quickly agreed, glad not to have to drive all the way to Queens tonight.

  Only Ross and two other agents remained in the house when I let myself out. There was one van left in the driveway and no sign of Kim or the other bounty hunters. They must have gotten tired of waiting and left. I didn’t blame them.

  Coatless and gasping from the cold, I hurried to the Jeep as fast as I could, carrying the duffle bag and the nixie’s carrier. I tossed my bag in the back and placed the carrier on the passenger seat before I donned my coat and gloves.

  I was about to climb into the Jeep when I got that prickling sensation at the back of my neck, the kind you get when you feel like someone is watching you. My first thought was of Conlan, but there was no sign of him. He hadn’t hidden from me when he’d watched me at the flea market, and it didn’t seem like something he would do.

  Spooked, I jumped into the Jeep and locked the doors before I started the engine. I didn’t wait for it to warm up before I drove away.

  “You’re being paranoid,” I told myself as I took a left onto the next street. Not that anyone could blame me after –

  I screamed when something crashed into the windshield and skidded across the hood. I hit the brakes so hard the nixie’s carrier would have slammed into the dash if I hadn’t grabbed it in time. Heart pounding, I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my fingers hurt.

  I leaned toward the passenger side, trying to peer out that window, but whatever that thing was, I couldn’t see it from this angle.

  The scared witless part of me said I should drive away and not look back. But my conscience disagreed. What if an animal was lying injured in the street?

  The street was well-lit, but I grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment anyway. Opening my door, I got out and cautiously walked around the front of the Jeep with the flashlight held before me like a weapon.

  A hissing sound stopped me in my tracks as I was about to reach the far side of the Jeep. I wasn’t much of a bird-watcher, but one thing I knew about them was that they did not hiss.

  The hiss was followed by what sounded like a faint growl. What the hell did I hit?

  Gathering my courage, I moved forward and pointed the flashlight toward the sound.

  It took me a moment to make sense of the crumpled shape on the ground. When the light played across red and gold scales, my free hand flew up to cover my mouth.

  “Oh, no!”

  I crouched a few feet from the drakkan that lay partially on one side with its opposite wing extended. It lifted its horned head to hiss at me, and a tendril of smoke curled from its snout. The effort appeared to be too much for it, and it dropped its head back to the pavement, panting.

  I set the flashlight down and pulled off my coat. Keeping my hands away from the drakkan’s teeth, I carefully folded his wing, which, thankfully, didn’t appear to be broken, and then I wrapped my coat around him. He struggled at first until I had him swaddled like an infant. Then the fight went out of him, and he lay still.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get you fixed up,” I crooned as I carried him to the Jeep and laid him on the passenger seat beside the nixie carrier. He made a sound that was somewhere between a whimper and a growl. Poor little thing.

  I got behind the wheel again and prayed for an incident-free drive home. I’d had more than my share of excitement tonight.

  When I finally let myself into the apartment, Finch was sitting on the back of the couch waiting for me. Ever since Mom and Dad went missing, he’d been waiting up for me whenever I went out. He hadn’t stopped even after they were found.

  What’s that? he signed when I set the carrier on the table.

  “This is a nixie who is going to stay with us tonight.” I unlatched the carrier door and left it open for her. I’d rather spend the time looking for her tomorrow than leave her in that thing all night.

  Finch ran over and climbed up on the table. Why won’t she come out?

  “She’s scared. Give her time, and she’ll come out when she’s ready.”

  Leaving him staring at the carrier, I went to the computer with the drakkan still in my arms, and did an internet search on treating injured drakkans. I wasn’t surprised when I found nothing because drakkans were not a common sight in our world. I had to make do with a video on how to set the wing of an injured bat. I wrapped him with a rolled bandage to secure his sprained wing to his body, not an easy task with him snapping his teeth at me and lashing at me with his tail. I managed to come out of it with only minor scratches.

  He quieted as soon as I was done, and I took a minute to study him. I’d seen a few pictures of drakkans, but this was the first time I’d seen one in person. It was impossible to trap one in Faerie, and the only way to get one was to steal an egg and hatch it. That meant, this little guy had been born here in captivity.

  Like all drakkans, he was no bigger than a large house cat, with four legs, leathery wings, and a long, spiked tail. Drakkans came in many different colors, and this one was red with gold tipped scales that looked like flames when he moved. He stared back at me with slit eyes that resembled pools of molten lava, and he seemed to be as curious about me as I was about him.

  “Aren’t you a handsome thing?” I told him. I knew he was a male because he had two little horns on his head whereas females had only one. Or so I’d read.

  He flicked his tail and strutted in a circle as if he understood me.

  I gave him a tired smile. “You’re looking much better. Now let’s see if I have anything for you to eat.”

  Getting up off the office floor, I went to the kitchen, letting the drakkan trail after me. Finch was still sitting on the table beside the carrier, and his eyes went as wide as saucers when he spotted our other guest.

  I realized then that I had no idea what happened when you put a sprite and a drakkan together. Drakkans were carnivores, and they lived off insects and small animals such as rodents. Did they eat small faeries as well?

  “Keep your distance from him until I know it’s safe,” I said as I walked to the refrigerator.

  A soft whistle behind me had me spinning to see Finch standing beside the drakkan. Before I could protest, my brother laid his hand on the drakkan’s snout, and his purple magic filled the air around them. The drakkan reacted by rubbing his body against Finch, almost knocking the sprite over. I’d seen Finch do this before with a lamal, and it amazed me as much now as it had the first time.

  I pulled a package of raw chicken breasts from the refrigerator and cut a piece off one, which I put on a small plate and set on the floor. The drakkan sniffed at the meat before he snatched it up and swallowed it without chewing.

  Pleased, I cut up the rest of the breast and put it before him. I’d barely taken my hand away when he tore into the meat like a starving beast.
God only knew when he’d last eaten, or if the dealer had fed him regularly.

  I cut up the second breast, which was supposed to have been my dinner before I’d gotten sent on the job tonight. I sighed. It was just as well that I’d missed dinner because this little guy seemed to need it more.

  I cleaned up and put a dish of water down for the drakkan, and then I checked on the nixie. She was still in the carrier, but she’d moved to the front and was peeking out through the opening. I laid a few berries on the table for her, in case she got hungry, and went to shower.

  It was almost one in the morning when I finally crawled, exhausted, into my bed. I planned to sleep in tomorrow, and then I’d take the nixie and the drakkan to the Plaza and settle up with Levi before I went to visit Mom and Dad at the new facility. I might even have time to knock out one of the jobs Levi had given me. I burrowed happily under my covers. Things were finally starting to look up.

  * * *

  Flying. I was flying, and it was the best feeling in the world. I held my arms out and looked down at the thick, green forest I was passing over. The treetops were so close I could almost touch them. I wanted to dive down beneath the canopy of branches and fly among the trees.

  The forest ended, and I was over a wide field of grain swaying gently in the breeze. The sun cast my shadow below, and my breath caught when I saw a massive winged shape instead of my own. I looked up and stared in wonder at the underbelly of the dragon holding me with one of its feet.

  I turned my gaze back to the passing landscape. We flew over villages and farms where the occupants went about their business as if there wasn’t a dragon over their heads. When we reached a wide river, the dragon turned and followed it toward a wall of black cliffs so tall they appeared to touch the sky. The closer we got to the cliffs, the faster he flew until I was sure we would crash into them.

  At the last second, he changed direction so fast that my scream died on my lips. He flew straight up the cliff face and shot over the top, and I stared at what had to be thousands of dragons of every color perched along miles of cliffs. As long as I lived, I knew I’d never see anything else that could compare to the magnificence before me.

  My dragon dipped. I looked up and gasped when I saw it had shrunk to half its size. It grew smaller still and faltered as it struggled to stay in flight.

  Suddenly, it dropped me, and I was falling, falling, falling…

  I shot up in bed, looking around wildly at the walls of my bedroom and at the early morning sky outside my window. Over the pounding of my heart, I heard a weird rasping sound, and I scanned the room for the source.

  “Argh!” I scrambled out of bed when I spotted the dark shape on my pillow. My legs got tangled in the covers, and I landed in a heap on my floor.

  I was trying to free myself when something appeared at the edge of the bed. All the air went out of my lungs when I looked up into the startled red eyes of the drakkan.

  I fell back on the floor with a hand over my heart. “You scared the bejesus out of me.”

  He yawned and flopped down on his belly.

  “Nice.” I stood and looked down at the creature curled up in a ball with his long tail wrapped around him. He still wore the bandage I’d put on him last night. I must have been out cold not to have felt him climb onto the bed. “What are you doing on my bed?”

  He opened one eye to peer at me, and then he went back to sleep as if he owned the place.

  “Don’t get too comfortable, buddy. You won’t be staying long.”

  Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I went to check on our other guest. Unsurprisingly, the carrier on the table was empty, and the nixie was nowhere in sight. I wasn’t worried because she couldn’t have gotten out of the apartment. After I had my coffee, I’d get Finch to help me find her.

  One of the few luxuries I allowed myself was my morning coffee. Ever since a drought had wiped out most of the coffee bean crops and sent the cost of coffee soaring, I’d had to make do with one coffee a week, unless Violet had treated me to one. But I had decided weeks ago that if I was going to be my family’s provider, I deserved this one thing. The rest of my earnings went either into my college savings or toward the household expenses.

  I was debating whether or not this was a two-cup morning when the doorbell rang, startling me. It was barely seven. Who on earth was visiting at this hour?

  Setting down my coffee, I quietly went to the door and peered through the peephole. My stomach plummeted, and I took a step back as fear slithered down my spine. The last time I’d seen the faerie on the other side of the door, he had looked ready to murder me with his bare hands.

  I jumped when Faolin rapped sharply on the door.

  “I know you’re there, Jesse. I need to talk to you.”

  “Go away. We have nothing to say to each other.” I hated the tremble in my voice. I was keenly aware that Tennin hadn’t redone my wards yet, so Faolin could walk in if he chose to. The question was, did Faolin know that, and what would he do about it?

  “I’m here on behalf of my brother. He wishes to see you.” Faolin sounded like he’d rather drink liquid iron than ask me for anything.

  I crossed my arms. “I already told Conlan no. I haven’t changed my mind.”

  He didn’t speak for a long moment. “Faris is not doing well.”

  “Conlan said he was recovering.” Was this some kind of trick to lure me in?

  “Physically, yes, but his spirit is low, and it’s impeding the healing process. The only thing he asks for is to see you.”

  “Why? We barely know each other.”

  There was another heavy pause. “My brother said he was prepared to die in that cage, and the goddess told him his salvation was near. He believes she sent you to save him.”

  I laughed bitterly. “Some savior I turned out to be.”

  “You cared for him and made him want to fight to live.”

  I closed my eyes. Faris thought I’d saved his life, and he was burdened by the need to repay the debt. “Tell him he doesn’t owe me anything. I’m happy knowing he’s getting better.”

  “That is not enough. He won’t be able to let it go until he has seen you for himself.”

  I raked my hands through my tangle of curls. I knew these guys, and they were going to keep coming back until they got what they wanted. The only way I was going to get them out of my life was to give in and pay Faris a visit. And I really did want Faris to get better. If seeing me would help him, how could I refuse his request?

  “Fine. I’ll go see him.”

  “Good,” Faolin said, and I could have sworn I detected a note of relief in his voice. “I will wait for you downstairs.”

  “No.” I would visit Faris, but there was no way I was getting into a vehicle with his brother. “I know where you live. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  “As you wish.”

  I rested my head against the door and listened to the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. Knowing he was gone should have made me relieved, but all I felt was apprehension and the growing certainty that I was going to regret this.

  Chapter 6

  I SHUT OFF the engine and stared at the building I hadn’t planned on ever seeing again. All the way here, I’d told myself I could do this, but now I wasn’t sure I could. Why had I agreed to come here? I could have called Faris and saved myself all the stress. My stomach had been in knots ever since Faolin had shown up at the apartment, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out I had an ulcer.

  I wasn’t sure how long I sat there before I realized I was getting cold. I reached for the ignition, intending to take the coward’s way out, but something Faolin had said to me stayed my hand.

  “He won’t be able to let it go until he has seen you for himself.”

  “Damn it.” I hit the steering wheel. My conscience wasn’t going to let me leave until I had done what I’d come here to do, no matter how uncomfortable it made me.

  Grabbing my phone and keys, I opened the door and got out. I
walked to the door, unsure of what to do when I got there. There was no doorbell, and I had no idea if anyone would hear if I knocked. The times I’d been here in the past, I’d always arrived with someone who lived here.

  The door swung open when I was a few feet away from it, and a stoic Faolin waved me into the foyer. His manner was the same brusque one he seemed to reserve for me, which oddly put me a little at ease. If he was nice, I’d be suspicious, and I’d probably turn tail and run.

  The inner door was open, but I didn’t move toward it until he told me to go in. Steeling myself, I walked into the large living area. Everything looked as it had the last time I’d been here, but it felt cold and unwelcoming.

  Faolin walked past me. “Follow me.”

  He led me down the hallway to the library and stopped outside the closed door. “He tires easily, so don’t be alarmed if he falls asleep during your visit. Leave the door open, and call for me if you need anything. I will be in the living room.”

  “Okay.”

  He opened the door for me, and I entered the room. Where the large desk had been, a bed and night table sat, and thick rugs covered the floor. Instead of books, flowering faerie plants decorated the bookcases, and they filled the air with a pleasant, exotic perfume.

  “You came.”

  I followed the soft male voice to a blond faerie sitting in a large armchair beside the fire. His legs rested on an ottoman, and he was covered in a thick blanket, despite the warmth of the room.

  If not for his eyes and the resemblance to Faolin, I wouldn’t have guessed this was the same person I’d met in Rogin’s basement. The dull, matted hair was gone, he was less gaunt, and his face had lost its deathly pallor. The only thing that hadn’t changed was his eyes. They held the haunted look of someone who has known great suffering.

  Faris extended a hand, and I walked over to take it. His skin was cool to the touch, and I noticed a tremble in his grip as he lifted my hand to his lips. Up close, I could see dark circles under his eyes, and his skin was paler than it should be. He might be recovering, but he was by no means healthy.