by A L Hart
Wait—she didn’t mean me, did she?
My mouth dropped, but she ignored my incredulous glare, instead looking up—not to the guards—but the camera wedged in the corner of the ceiling, as black as the drapes it was posted before.
Seconds later, one of the men put his hand up to his earpiece, listened, then stepped aside. Just like before, we were granted entry.
Unlike before, one of the guards moved in silently to escort us.
Jera followed without protest, her hold of me never slackening, as though she thought at any moment my life could be threatened. I didn’t know if I should have been endeared by it or incredulous.
Away from the main club’s section, behind the drapes, we were met by yet another hall, this one stretching into a small infinity, the thrum of music reduced to a dull pound. Beneath our feet, the carpet was a fiery red, mellowed out by the maroon walls risen on either side of us and the golden chandeliers dripped down in an arc of crystaled ambivalence. Though, that wasn’t what drew my eyes or made me walk just a fraction faster.
It was the paintings hung upon the walls.
Framed in what could be nothing more than pure gold, floral bas-relief depicted a series of portraits both magnificent and strange. We passed one of a farmer’s field, where tall wheats swayed lazily. On this field stood a man with his arms risen, his gaze cast skyward—he had no hands. And above him loomed a colossal beast legions tall, tusks of ivory protruding from a chiseled, tree-like snout as it inspected the smaller man.
Beside it was one of a woman’s silhouette, huddled over into an abstract blackness, cradling her stomach as shadowed blood poured forth. There was something about the vacant canvas space that fed the portrait a certain degree of haunting.
But it was the last one that caught my attention, as it was utterly . . . incomplete. It was a small girl, kneeling at what appeared to be a cliffside as she clutched her head and cried potent tears over its ledge, out into the ocean. Behind her stood giants whose anatomy were entirely human, that of man and woman, but where their faces should have been was nothing but smudges of beige skin tone. It was as if the artist had run out of paint, smeared place-holding colors over the visage and swore to return to the image, only to forget its existence.
“Some might consider it artistic,” Jera said, her opinion masked with a monotone.
“Some might consider it creepy,” I proposed.
At the end of the hall, we made a left and arrived at a closed door. Luckily no paintings lined this wall, only vases of therapeutic swirls and lively roses spilling from their rim.
The man listened a moment to his earpiece, then gave a quiet, “Yes, ma’am,” and with that, he opened the door and nodded us in.
Inside was a significant downgrade compared to the rest of the club. The white walls, the simple desk at the far back wall, the hideous dark green carpet and metal folding chairs in front of the desk. But I supposed that didn’t matter when, the second someone stepped inside, the first thing their eyes were attracted to was the massive painting behind the desk of a woman of stark red and silver hair and striking green eyes, as she clutched both elbows, her gaze slacked off to the side as if looking at someone who wasn’t there.
The portrait was of the woman sitting at the desk.
Or faery, rather.
Which could have easily been argued, seeing as she appeared to be nothing more than a bored boss, slacked forward over the desk, chin resting on her fist as she lazily watched us. A dazed, almost hypnotic smile naturally curled her lips.
Jera didn’t step any closer to the desk, but stopped in the middle of the room, staring the faery down.
And the two of them were content to maintain a staring constant as minutes ticked by.
Until eventually I realized something. Jera was sizing the woman up and prepared to mutilate her the second a threat arose from the faery.
But the faery was intoxicated. On the same emotion cocktail those in the main club had been, that strange, purple tint seen in her irises only. Which explained why we were allowed entry so easily. Inebriation made people careless.
A succubus and a strange human embarking on her? What did she care?
Was everyone in the club under the influence of something—save the vigilant bouncers? We we supposed to seek help from a creature that so openly got high?
I cleared my throat.
Nothing.
I coughed. Then, “Excuse me.”
Nothing.
Coming to the same realization, Jera walked over to the woman—and knocked her hand from beneath her chin.
The faery’s head smacked down hard against the desk.
“Jera!”
She ignored me, placing both hands atop the desk, eyes boring down at the now disoriented faery.
Those leafy eyes ran over Jera’s face through a fog, dark—nearly black cut lips no longer smiling but frowning in confusion as she said in quite possibly the most musical and lovely voice I’d ever heard, “You’re not her.”
“While I’m not sure who you mean, heathen, I agree, I’m not her. I’m Jera and this is Peter, and we’ve come here to request your aid.” Jera regarded the woman coldly. “All drunken ounces of it.”
“Aid?” The woman rolled the word on her tongue, green pastels squinted as though presented with a complicated equation.
“Yes,” Jera hissed out, patience hitting sub zero in the blink of an eye. It was the impatience I’d been searching for ever since HB had taken Ophelia.
The faery eyed Jera a moment longer before that leafy gaze slipped my way, accessed, and flicked behind us.
“You granted them entry,” the guard explained.
“Did I?” she said. “How peculiar, given this one here is human.” After a ruminating moment, where I could all but see her contemplating smiting us, she shrugged and slumped back in her chair, concern fleeing her gaze. “Ah well, what ails you?”
Jera had yet to lose the tension from her shoulder and eyes, her voice tight as she relayed, “We were told you could help with a recovery mission.”
“Possibly.”
“From HB,” she elaborated harshly.
This got the faery’s attention, as the woman sat up straight so fast, I thought I saw an afterimage of her before she snapped back into one being. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“Save the lies for the dumber species. I know what your kind are capable of. You could have her out of there by nightfall.” Surely it must have been killing Jera’s pride to admit someone else was better suited for saving her sister than she was.
The faery seemed entirely pleased by the fact, too. “As much as I revel in such groveling, demon, I’m afraid the problem descends deeper than that. You see, I have an agreement with the bureaucracy. I leave their compound be and in return, they never hunt the immortals on Wichita’s soil.”
A vein appeared at Jera’s temple.
It was ironic. HB’s compound was located here in Wichita, the very place they weren’t allowed to hunt. Was there more to the agreement that kept all immortals of Wichita from attacking the compound?
“But do tell me about your pet here,” Niv said, leaning forward. When she smiled, gone were her human dentures, pointed serrates crammed inside of her skull instead.
I took an unwitting step back, only to feel Jera’s arm snake around mine, snagging me close.
“My pet is of no consequence to you, seeing as you’re useless to the both of us,” she said.
“Harsh words,” the woman chided.
“We’re leaving.” Jera turned on her heels just as the woman came to her feet.
I gaped.
Jera froze. Turned slowly. Her temperature then spiked as she took in the faery before us.
Easily seven feet tall, an emerald robe falling down the length of her body, painting her something immaculate and timeless. I could feel the power dripping off of her. Not dark energy, but something with far more flare and jubilant wiles. Was this magic?
; If so, I could sense the hostility a mile away.
I’d never seen magic in action, only Jera, and should the two women have it out, I could say with certainty this club didn’t stand a chance. It would be up in flames by the morning. Along with the creatures inside of it.
“Wait.” I nudged myself in front of Jera, but looked to the faery straight on. Which was harder than I would have thought, not only because I had to crane my head up, but her eyes did the same thing Jera and Ophelia’s did whenever they toed the line of disguised humanity and immortality: shifting. Mirrors exposing worlds within their orbs. Except Niv’s eyes sparked green with a vibrant energy that left a humming in my blood.
“Peter, leave this between us,” Jera said with surprising calm. “I could use the relief.”
“You’ll burn down the building,” I snapped.
She scoffed incredulously, and it took me a moment to realize it was because I’d just given away the element of surprise.
No, there was no element of surprise, regardless, I had to tell myself. Because there would be no fighting. That wasn’t what we’d come here for.
“We only came for your help,” I told the faery. “And we’re willing to obtain it by any means. Just name your price.”
“Price?” she laughed, and suddenly that voice of saccharine delight echoed up from a depthless chasm. Deep, imposing. “What price could you name that is worth the safety of my species?” A squirming look of disgust was shot towards Jera. “Our species, demon. What price could you name that might lead me to betray their lives like so?”
I understood the predicament, even if I wasn’t considered one of their species. In a way—a somewhat twisted and skewed way—Niv was no different from HB. Both were out to protect their own. But just then, my and Jera’s own was nothing beyond Ophelia.
It was selfish.
I was okay with that.
Which was why I pulled away from Jera then, swallowed all of my resignation, and for once, I beckoned them out. Flexed my back muscles, concentrated on that orb Jera had mysteriously caged inside of me, and like a shepherd’s call, the wings answered.
They tore through the new suit in sleek, thin blades at first, snapping towards the dingy room’s high ceiling, before flaring, expanding. Consuming the space around us and throwing wont shadows. Shadows which spilled across the faery’s mesmerized face, the backdrop of light limning through the pale features casting iridescent shimmers along the cut of her jaw.
“Those . . .” The massive creature stepped from behind her desk, drawn closer to the wings by invisible strings. “Those are the Maker’s wings,” she marveled, hostility forgotten, enthrallment taking over.
“I told you not to do or say anything,” Jera scorned me.
“You were planning to sell me to her anyway.”
“It’s called lies, Peter.” She shook her head, stepping boldly in front of me.
“And this is why communication is important,” I countered.
“Says the man who kept secret an entire plot to break into a hunter agency’s compound. I suppose that’s the epitome of communication to you, hm?”
“Communication is dealt in spades with those trustworthy.”
“Trustworthy? I saved your life, Peter!”
“After I saved yours! And sheltered you and your sister!”
“Human. Folly. Not my fault.” She sneered at me.
I returned it.
“I will assist you.”
We both turned to the faery, having forgotten her presence. She was looking over Jera, at me. Or my wings, rather. That curl of her mouth and hunger in her eyes, I pretended not to see it. Not to feel it moving beneath my skin as though I were nothing but a blood bank of emotions for her.
Which I would be. I wasn’t sure how it worked, concocting emotion cocktails. If I would be required to stay here, hooked to a needle for the rest of my life or if we would broker some sort of quota I had to fill in a set time frame.
I didn’t care what the price was. Rectifying my idiocy was all that mattered.
Jera stepped back closer to me, and I could feel her promising wrath in the ribbons of her dark energy. “If you so much as inhale this male’s scent, I will end you, faery.”
At this, even Niv had the good sense to take up pause in the presence of the diabolic, whispered menace dripping from Jera’s words. But then her face broke out into a smile of before, mouth full of death and taunting. “I see. This Maker’s child is your lover.”
“We are leaving,” she said again, hushed cadence whispering death between us.
“Jera,” I said calmly, not liking how my skin heated beneath her emitting waves. “We have to. I don’t mind.” To Niv, I said hurriedly, “However much blood you want, you can have. But you can’t kill me; the two of us are bonded. Surely you see the dilemma.”
Niv shook her head of mesmerizing silk slowly, green eyes peering deep into me. “It’s not your blood I’m interested in, Maker’s child.”
Jera’s temperature cooled the slightest in mutual confusion, just as I dared ask, “Then what do you want?”
The faery’s gaze snapped toward the wings, envy and starvation dilating her pupils. “I want your memories.”
Ch. 31
“His memories?”
The faery had moved to take up her former seat behind the desk, elbow on the arm of the chair, chin propped on fist, intrigue moving restlessly through her gaze. “Dark energy carries traces of memories far more ancient than that of time itself. I’ve no doubt your pet’s dark energy carries tinges of the Maker’s secrets and simple mundane memories.”
Did that mean the dark energy inside of me had once upon a time resided in the Maker? What was worse, was there a chance I really was a descendent of him? Jera and Ophelia had been convinced I was a spitting image of the mysterious creature.
I frowned but kept my eyes from Jera when another thought stunted me. If this faery was interested in some of the Maker’s secrets, Jera and Ophelia were acquainted with the male firsthand. There was more to gather from them than whatever she thought she could extract from these things.
However, something she said bothered me.
Dark energy carried memories. It explained the many different times I’d come in contact with Ophelia’s, the images and sounds I’d heard. But it didn’t explain why, when I’d come into contact with Jera’s back in the office, there’d been nothing but hunger to consume hers.
Not that it was relevant now.
I shifted on my feet, unsure what all the extraction of memories entailed. “How exactly does that work? You only want the memories pertaining to the Maker or—”
“I want all of them,” she murmured darkly.
I could all but feel Jera’s heart rate spike. “It’s not happening, faery,” she said surely.
“They’re yours,” I told Niv. “You can have them all.”
Jera whipped her head around to me, eyes narrowed to gray slits, but she didn’t speak for a moment, simply searched my face for something.
When my eyes met hers, I willed her to see that this was the only way. Ophelia was running out of time. If the faery wanted my memories, what did it matter to her?
“I have memories of the Maker,” she said abruptly, turning back to the faery.
“Ah, yes, as intriguing as that may be, just how it is you came about memories of such a magnificent creature, it is not merely the Maker’s memories I want.” Those leafy greens peered into me, the faery reclining back in her chair. “This male . . . this human-immortal creature, why, there is tragedy in his past, but what more, there is . . . There is . . .” Her head tilted to the side, her gaze becoming that of wanderlust and confusion. Tiny silver lights began to dance in the forest of her eyes.
And then she blinked, scratched her head. “There is family there?”
I was just as confused as she looked. How did she—and everyone else for that matter—so easily know about my past? Was I one of those cliches that wore their insides outside
? Maybe that was what came with the absence of apathy. Transparency.
I remained silent, not knowing if her question was rhetorical or if she wanted to know the history with my family. If the latter, why?
My eyes went back to the portrait above her head. So similar was the expression, that glazed far away look. Almost as if lost. Gazing off to the side as though there should have been someone there.
I straightened, the spindled bones in my wings unfurling in tandem.
I remembered the portrait out in the hall. The girl fallen to her knees, clutching her head. The looming, faceless giants behind her. What if they weren’t faceless because the artist had run out of paint or was uninspired? What if the artist had forgotten them?
Tentatively, nonchalance lacing the tone, I asked, “Did you paint that?”
Sucked from her reverie, the faery cast her eyes up to the portrait behind herself and smiled. “I painted them all.”
“Very conceited,” Jera said boredly.
Niv shrugged. “Out of my control. Naturally we tend to dwell on beauty, lest it be forgotten.”
I had my answer.
What I didn’t have was time. “Will you help us, then? If I give you whatever memories of mine you want, will you help save Ophelia?”
The curve of the faery’s lips was one to be feared by those wiser, those who didn’t have everything to lose. “Meet me at this time tomorrow.”
*****
“Why would you do that?” Jera barked the moment we were back in the SUV.
The dash read 3:31 AM, the traffic having died down as well as the pedestrian traffic. The relative emptiness and building structures decorated by city lights, well, it would have been nice to drive through it, maybe turn the radio on and pretend life wasn’t about to become infinitely more deplorable.
“Ignore me and I’ll ruin you myself,” she growled low.
I looked to her out of the corner of my eyes. “Is that what I’m doing, ruining myself?”
“You are giving that creature one of the most precious treasures one can have.”