A Broken Seelie Christmas

by Daniella Clark

  We are moving towards the sound of music I heard earlier. Now I can tell it’s singing, not just music. It’s getting louder and now the crowd is getting thinner as we move back towards the park.

  I see them up ahead and count five people standing in a line next to the sidewalk, swaying. I don’t recognize the song they’re singing but I do catch the word Christmas so I assume they are specifically there for the holiday. We move towards them and I start to hear another sound. The death rattle.

  None of the humans look even the least bit concerned as the sound gets louder and seems to be echoing in between the musical words. I guess Humans wouldn’t be tuned into magical sounds so they wouldn’t hear the goblins coming.

  “Ky,” I say as we walk up to the singers, “I hear them.”

  “I do too,” he says.

  I watch in horror as at least three of them snake up the sidewalk in the shadows of the singers and enter their bodies. One lady in the front looks at me, her eyes turning black. A huge grin spreads on her face larger than should fit on a human and she runs at me.

  The screams of others who see her nearby ring in my ears. Ky is fighting a particularly large man who has also been possessed by a goblin. The cat is hissing around in a circle. I punch the woman in the chest repeatedly and she continues making her death rattle bark at me.

  I search for some way to fight them magically. None of my powers are useful in battle. I can’t go invisible right now because I already used it. I try anyway, closing my eyes and concentrating.

  My opponent takes that moment to kick me as hard as she can in the legs, making them collapse beneath me. My knees hit the ground painfully and I illuminate one hand getting it hot enough to burn before touching the side of her face. The goblin screams, and temporarily leaves the human.

  This causes the human to scream as the pain from the burn hits her. The goblin has jumped from her body and slides right back inside, pushing me down.

  I can’t fight them. We need to get rid of them. The humans who were walking this way are running. A strange woman with a glowing hand will do that. The good thing is that means it’s just us and the goblins. I punch the lady again not seeing a skinny man coming up on me until it’s too late. He grabs me around the middle pinning my arms down.

  I bring both arms back behind me in his grasp and powerfully push them forward, breaking his grip and kicking behind me hitting him in the thigh. I was aiming for his balls. The woman comes at me again, and I kick high, hitting her in the chin and flipping her back.

  Ky pulls back a massive fist and hits the goblin he’s fighting so hard in the face the creature gets knocked out and rolls on the ground.

  “Run, dude,” Ky tells the big man, and he does, blood pouring the whole way.

  Ky comes over and is throwing the skinny man down on the ground when we are suddenly surrounded by blue lights.

  “What’s this?” I yell at Ky as I see the goblins draining out of the humans. “Is this the guard?”

  “Yes, and now we’re in trouble. Raise your hands, Highness.”

  “Let me see your hands.” A man gets out of the car and approaches me. The moonlight catches something shiny he has pointed on me. I don’t know that much about this world, but this I get. He has a weapon. I lift my hands as the woman crumbles to the ground.

  “She just kept hitting me,” she cries. “I don’t know what I did. Maybe she hates carolers.”

  The skinny man is unconscious.

  “Turn around now.” The police officer grabs my arms and pulls them behind me. Another officer is doing the same to Ky, and they put metal bracelets on my wrists. My vision tries to adjust as a set of bright lights try to blind me. That is when I realize there are more cars showing up.

  “You two have been causing quite the ruckus,” he says in my ear. “Let’s see, you tried to kidnap a baby, punched a Santa in the face, and now have assaulted a ton of carolers.”

  I try and think of some way I should make this work in my favor. I decide to try and glamour them, but when I look down, I see the goblin hurt me worse than I thought. There’s blood running from my stomach. The adrenaline had been pumping so hard through my body I didn’t even realize I was hurt.

  “I’m sorry, but she stabbed me,” I say pointing to the woman. “Look.”

  He looks at the blood gushing from my stomach, and then at the woman.

  “Patricia, what the hell?” The cop goes over to her, leaving me at the car, and pulls her up searching her for a knife. He pulls out a pocket knife with blood on it. I assume the guard knows her personally since he used her first name.

  “I wouldn’t have stabbed her. I carry that for personal use.”

  The goblin had actually stabbed me, but we needed a reason we were seeking to fight a defenseless human. I am thinking it might get us a lighter sentence. I can’t use my magic until I heal. Glamour is out of the question for now.

  “Where are you taking us?” I ask the officer as he gets a little box out of his car. He presses a button and shoots off some numbers until someone replies and repeats them.

  “To jail. You’re going to jail. You still assaulted that Santa, and he’s pressing charges.”

  More lights show up and three men in white clothing rush over to the unconscious man on the ground.

  “This one needs medical too,” the man behind me says. I watch as he goes to put the same bracelets on the woman who attacked me. I can’t help but smile at her. It isn’t her fault she got mixed into this but I am sure she deserved some sort of punishment if she is friends with this prick.

  One of the men in white has come over and is trying to pull up my dress. “Excuse me,” I say.

  “Sorry, we need to see the wound,” he says. “Hold on let me get you something to cover up with,” he says.

  He brings me a towel and asks me to pull my dress up and wrap the towel around my waist. I do and he pulls the towel down just enough to see the wound. The blood has stopped pouring from it, but it’s still flowing pretty good.

  He puts a cloth on it drawing a hiss from me. The guard took my hands out of the bracelets so he could work on me. I could heal it myself a lot faster, but there’s no reason to chance humans seeing me do that right now.

  He pulls the cloth off and sees it’s a pretty good stab, he whistles low and says, “Officer, I can stitch her up here and you can take her to jail, or we can take her to the hospital, make sure nothing internally is damaged.”

  “For now, stitch her. We’ll watch her for any medical problems.”

  Something tells me they should probably take me to the hospital if I’m a human. I’m not and I heal faster than them, so I’ll be fine. But I’ve decided I don’t like this guard. He doesn’t care about the well-being of others.

  Being stitched up with a needle isn’t fun, it hurts far worse than magically sealing a wound. I try to think about punching the Santa again to keep my mind off of it and find myself giggling. The man looks at me strangely but he just continues working.

  “Alright, you’re all good. They won’t let you have pain meds in the jail, but if you start hurting there’s a nurse there that will give you some.”

  I nod and stand up, angry that once again there is blood on my outfit.

  “Alright, let’s get jail over with.”

  Chapter Six

  Jail turns out to be just like the town of Red Wing, small and full of assholes. The only good thing about them only having one holding cell is I am in the same place as Ky. He can protect me from all the crazy human males we’re surrounded by. I’ve never been so uncomfortable. There’s only one other female in this cell and she appears to be asleep. At least, I hope she’s sleeping.

  “Why are you so dressed up?” an older man who smells like peppermint and despair asks Ky. He is far too close to us.

  “It’s a special night man,” Ky says. “Why aren’t you?”

  “I’ve been kicked out of my house and now I’m in jail. Thanks for bringing that up asshole,” the guy
says and walks away.

  Ky turns to me surprised. “I thought we were having a conversation.”

  “Don’t try to talk to these people. They are not worth it,” I say, looking around.

  He reaches over and takes my hand and I lean against his arm. It’s comforting despite the situation we’ve found ourselves in.

  “I’m so sorry my Queen,” he says. “I just wanted you to have fun and I thought the human realm would be a stress-free way to do that,” he says. “Instead we’re in jail and goblins are after us.”

  He looks down into my eyes and his are so full of sadness my heart melts a little. I reach up and touch his face. He’s starting to get a little stubble on his normally clean-cut face.

  “Look, I get it. It’s crazy just hanging out in the desert day in and day out. It’s just that it’s the safest place for me right now, especially considering what has happened since coming to Earth. I hate that you got dragged into this because of me.”

  “It’s fine in the desert as long as I’m with you,” he says squeezing my hand.

  I look up at him and suddenly there’s no doubt in my mind. I want to kiss him. I bring both my hands to the side of his face and lean in. When my face is close enough, I turn it sideways and press it firmly to his. He gasps as if he didn’t know it was coming and then his mouth opens. I push my tongue inside and bring my hands down to his shoulders. My body warms up and I feel elated as his tongue pushes back against mine. A low moan comes out of me and I scoot as close to him as I can on the hard bench we sit on.

  His arms go around my waist and I tune out all the whistles and swearing around me. It’s just me and my Guardian.

  “Break it up in there or I’m going to put you in the hole,” one of the officers yells from outside the cell. We pull apart but stare into each other’s eyes. I’ve always known I was attracted to Ky, but this is a whole new feeling. Maybe it has something to do with the dream, and the fact that we’re trapped in a human dungeon of sorts.

  We don’t have time to unpack what just happened because I hear the hacking bark of the goblins. I look around and don’t see the cat anywhere, maybe they don’t need it anymore. Pulling my shirt down I see the black lines pulsing. There aren’t that many places in here where shadows can hide, but I see one beneath a cot on the side of the cell. Yes, they have one cot despite having all these prisoners.

  It writhes and stretches towards a large man seated on top of it. He’s as big as Ky, with a shiny bald head and drawings up his neck on both sides. He goes from talking to a fellow inmate to standing up and staring at me. His eyes are completely black and that same horrifying grin is spread across his face. I shiver. If I never see another goblin-human hybrid in my life, I’ll be thrilled.

  “Ky, we’re in trouble,” I tell him as I back into the corner. He moves in front of me, and the goblin host advances. My heart is hammering and I have to make a decision. Do I use my power and shock the hell out of everyone in here, or do we just fistfight? If it comes down to it, I will have to risk the humans in here to save my life.

  Suddenly a flash of light blinds me, and I push my fingers into my eyes. The burning subsides after a minute and I feel Ky wrap one arm around my waist. When I’m able to see again everything is frozen. The goblin is fighting to get out of the man in front of us, but whatever froze everything caused him to get stuck. His strange transparent black head just pokes out the top of his human host. I can’t help it; I laugh.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Ky. All the inmates are frozen in place. One guy was readjusting himself and his hand is forever stuck to his package. The look on his face both satisfied and creepy. “Ew.”

  “We froze everyone,” a familiar voice says from the front of the cell.

  “Trick!” I run towards him and try to grab him through the bars. The result ends up being an awkward hug of sorts.

  “What did you do?” I ask him.

  “He didn’t do anything, honey,” a tall dark-skinned woman says. Her hair is flying around her head like it’s caught up in a storm. “This was all me.”

  I notice for the first time there are three others with Trick.

  “My Queen,” Trick says, “meet the league of halflings.” He sweeps an arm to the rest of the group.

  I look at the people with him as he introduces them to us. There is the tall gorgeous wind-swept freezer of inmates, Freeze. She wears a purple coat and tall black boots. A man to Trick’s left has spiked up red hair and wears a leather jacket. He says his name is Flame.

  “These are code names, right?” I ask because it feels like they all have nicknames that have to do with their powers.

  “They are our halfling names. When we discovered our human side, we left our identities behind and formed this league. We were living our lives as full Fae until we were banished. Living in the human world we tapped into that side of us, but we still live a lot longer than all those around us. Plus, it’s really cool to have nicknames. We’re basically superheroes,” Trick says.

  The last one they introduce is the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen both in Fae and here. Her skin glitters like it has sparkles beneath it, she has purple hair that cascades down to her waist in soft curls.

  “This is Glamour,” Trick says.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” she says. Her voice is high-pitched and flows out of her like a song. I look up to Ky who is appreciating her beauty. I elbow him in the stomach.

  “What?” He tries to look innocent. He totally knows what he was doing.

  “Freeze,” she says to her co-halfling, “Trick.”

  They both nod and Trick starts working his magic on the locks while Freeze snaps her fingers and everyone unfreezes.

  “Look at me,” Glamour commands to the room. In an instant I see every head turn towards her with an unwavering stare.

  The door to the cell pops open and Ky and I exit. There are only two officers in the building and one is the one who arrested me. They don’t seem so intimidating now that someone else is in charge of what’s happening.

  “We were never here,” Glamour says, the police and inmates are all focused on her. She nods at Trick who grabs my hand and pulls me from the room while Ky growls. He clearly doesn’t like other men touching me. Interesting.

  Freeze and Flame are with us. Glamour has stayed behind. These are members of my rebellion and I’m thrilled they have come to help us. The cell is the worst place we’ve been since we started this adventure.

  “Ky, this is my rebellion! I have followers.” I tell him as we rush from the jail.

  “This is a rebellion that wants you to be a part of it, Highness. In no way is this your rebellion. You didn’t start it,” Ky says.

  “Thank you for being a professional bubble popper,” I tell my guardian.

  “I’m just telling you the truth, which is pretty much my job,” he says. “You should never attach your name to something until you know all angles.”

  He has a point, the bubble popper.

  The group of us run for a while until we are far away from the jail and in the woods. I stop to catch my breath and look around at the rebellion. If they didn’t exist there really is no way to know if Ky and I would have ever gotten out of the human dungeon. I could have eventually glamoured someone to let me out, but I still haven’t had the time needed to heal myself. I don’t know what our next move should be.

  Everyone circles up once we get to the woods. I think our best plan of action is just to go back to the desert. I’m really tired of the human realm. All the halflings seem to be waiting for me to say something. Do they want me to tell them what to do?

  “Okay, let’s go through your portal and get out of here guys, I’m done with this realm. Everything smells weird and humans are the worst. No offense to your human side,” I say.

  “We thought you would take us through your portal,” Trick says. He widens his eyes as he looks around at everyone.

  “Our portal disappeared thanks to the goblins,” Ky says. “Sp
eaking of, where are they? Are they still frozen in those people back there?”

  “No,” Trick shakes his head. “They are gone for now. We’ll be able to help you feel when they approach since we’re tuned into our home’s magic.

  “You’ve been living here?” I ask the group surprised with as much magic as they have, they’ve been living in the human realm.

  Trick nods. “Since the cleansing. We’ve never had to use our magic since we’ve been on this side. Glamour can blink to the Fae realm, so she’s been keeping us abreast of the things going on over there. She told me there were rumors you were alive, and she was right!”

  “Why does that matter?” Ky says. “Halflings are still banished. It wouldn’t affect your lives at all.”

  “If Queen Sentina was willing to seek peace with the Unseelie then we assumed she would be willing to look at the rules banishing us,” Trick says. “Especially if we fight in your rebellion.”

  “He called it my rebellion,” I tell Ky, excited. He simply rolls his eyes at me.

  Suddenly the air around us feels colder, and a chill goes through me. The goblins are here.

  The death rattle is louder than ever as we are completely surrounded. “Oh man, I forgot to get rid of your mark,” Glamour says and she runs forward towards the sound. I don’t see any goblins around, but I can hear them.

  The red-haired Flame literally turns into a walking fireball. I see him singe a goblin making it visible as it burns away.

  I don’t understand how these halflings are so powerful, but I don’t want to question it while they are protecting me.

  Glamour is emitting a huge blue glowing orb that is covering her body. Freeze is blowing cold air from her mouth. Trick is darting around striking goblins I can’t even see with some type of weapon. Ky and I are just standing by watching them work.

  Before I know it, they’ve taken every goblin out, and have walked back over to us like nothing just happened.