I shook my head, trying to dislodge the meaningless musing over trivia before it gave me a headache. At the edge of the town, or outpost, or whatever it was, Albigard came to a halt and called up a portal.
I didn’t dare ask where we were going or what was likely to happen once we got there—not while I was playing the cowed prisoner. Though perhaps calling what I was doing an act was something of a polite fiction at this point. I was a prisoner, and I was pretty fucking cowed right now.
Albigard hauled me through the portal and closed it behind us. The military outpost had given the impression of being a small settlement in a rural area, but now we were in an honest-to-god city. Weirdly, it was still choked with plant life in a way Earth cities weren’t—at least, not unless they’d been abandoned and left to rot for years.
Yet for all the aggressive, jungle-like fauna, there was no sense of decay. No smell of rotting leaves or mold; no buildup of dead plants piling up on the ground. Everything was just… alive.
We had arrived in what appeared to be some sort of courtyard behind an impressive structure. The building was surrounded by many other impressive structures, making me wonder if this was some sort of government district where the so-called Recorder’s office could be found. Except for the rampant wildlife, it reminded me of the older parts of St. Louis with their ornate churches and two-hundred-year-old courthouses.
There were more Fae here, bustling about in the way of people everywhere who had places to be and important things to do. Albigard marched me into the building, and I was a bit shocked that the riot of plant life even existed inside the grand old structure. Vines choked the banisters of staircases and dripped from the ceiling in sprays of flowers. Their heavy perfume filled the air.
It was beautiful… and it made me want to run away in the same way that the Fae themselves made me want to run away. But I couldn’t run away. Where would I run? For all I knew, we could be miles away from the gate where we had come in. The gate that was guarded by dozens of magic-wielding warriors who could kill me with a single blow.
I had made my decision, and now there would be no turning back.
We approached an alcove full of shelves, getting surprised and wary looks from those we passed. What I had briefly taken to be carpet under my feet turned out to be moss in a much bluer shade of green than anything I’d ever seen growing on Earth.
An immensely old Fae poked his head out from between two sets of shelves. Rather than books, they held scrolls. Albigard strode up to the elderly man, ignoring the disconcerted mutters in our wake. I tried to look meek and non-threatening while still sneaking occasional peeks at my surroundings.
Christ. Even this white-haired, stoop-shouldered old guy set off my creepy-crawliness. Did all demons react this way to all Fae? If so, no wonder they’d ended up at war. It was clear that this ancient dude was some kind of paper-pusher—no threat to anyone. It made me worry about how I’d react when the ones who really were a threat showed up. I wondered when that would be.
I didn’t want my last acts to consist of screaming and thrashing and begging for mercy, but I guess in the end, the details of my final moments didn’t matter to anyone but me. The most important part was making it to Dad before the truly bad stuff started happening. It would be Albigard who arranged for his release, if all went well—and please, god, let me not have made a mistake in trusting him on that—but I desperately wanted to see my father one last time.
I wanted to see with my own eyes that he was a prisoner and not a collaborator. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry for making him so miserable, for putting him in danger, and that I loved him. I wanted to say goodbye.
“Recorder,” Albigard was saying, “I need information on the whereabouts of a human prisoner brought into Dhuinne two days ago.”
The old man scowled, first at Albigard and then at me. “And you are…?”
Albigard waved the fingers of his free hand and a sigil crackled in the air before him. It was made of the same fiery whatever as the portals he created, but it was much smaller and shot through with a complex pattern that reminded me of the tattoos at the base of his throat.
“Oh.” The Recorder’s scowl faded, but his expression still looked sour. “You’re that one.”
“The prisoner?” Albigard prompted, sounding like he didn’t want to be having this conversation any more than Old Guy apparently did.
“An unusual case,” Old Guy said grudgingly, eyeing me with clear distaste. “He was registered as a prisoner, true—but he had previously been recorded as a cull.”
He might as well have been speaking Greek for all I was able to glean from that statement, but Albigard’s eyebrows shot up.
“Is that so?” he asked mildly, and the old man shrugged.
“He was taken to the former owner’s dwelling,” the Recorder said in a tone that made it obvious he didn’t approve.
“And the address?” Albigard pressed.
The Recorder’s rheumy eyes narrowed. “Why do you need it?”
“Because this prisoner is to be delivered to the same place.”
I held my breath. The Recorder continued to stare Albigard down for long moments, but then a canny look crossed his wrinkled face.
“As you like, Commander. I’ll retrieve it for you now. I assume you’ll be going straight there?”
Albigard merely continued to look at him, expressionless. A smile twitched on the old man’s face, and he excused himself to the stacks, returning a few moments later with a page that looked like real parchment. Albigard glanced at it, and turned away without another word to the Recorder.
“Come,” he said, tugging me after him.
I let myself be hurried along, back down the vine-choked stairwell, through the perfumed atrium dripping with blossoms, and outside.
“Did you get the address?” I asked.
“Quiet,” he said. Then, in a lower voice, “The residence is some distance from here, and the Recorder will almost certainly inform the city guard to meet us there.”
“Can’t you magic us to wherever this place is?” I muttered, ignoring his command for silence.
“I have never been there before, so—no.”
“You’d never been to the house where I was staying in Chicago, either!” I hissed.
“I used your presence there as my anchor,” he replied in a tone that made it clear I should shut up now. “Move your feet, demonkin, unless you want to find the guards waiting for us when we arrive.”
I gritted my teeth and half-jogged to keep up with his long strides. This place would have been fascinating under any other circumstances. The surroundings were just similar enough to my own world that most things were identifiable, yet everything was slightly off, like the blue-green moss carpet. Like the too-perfect glamoured appearance the Fae used on Earth.
There were people around, but it wasn’t crowded in the way downtown St. Louis or Chicago were crowded during the daylight hours. Statuesque men and lovely, elfin-featured women gave us looks that ranged from disdainful to worried as Albigard dragged me along at speed.
Gradually, the tenor of our surroundings changed from this-is-where-people-work to this-is-where-people-live. The roads grew narrower, or at least the usable portion that hadn’t been taken over by plant life grew narrower. The buildings grew smaller, the layout of streets less regular.
Albigard glanced up at each intersection, and I noticed signs, covered in symbols I couldn’t decipher. Which, now that I thought about it, raised a rather obvious question.
“We’re almost there,” Albigard said, turning right onto an even narrower street.
“How can I understand the language here?” I blurted. “I certainly can’t read the writing.”
He shot me a dark, sidelong glance. “How many times do I have to remind you that you drank my mead? I’m translating for you, obviously. You’re welcome, by the way.”
And, okay—I wasn’t going to examine that response too closely. If Albigard was creepy-cra
wling around inside my head somehow, I was happier not knowing the details. Even so, I shivered involuntarily.
“Er, yeah. Thanks,” I managed.
Our pace hadn’t slackened during the exchange, and now Albigard gestured to a cute little cottage that looked pretty much like all the other cute little cottages on this stretch of road.
“Here,” he said as we turned onto the stone-lined walkway leading to the front door. “It appears the guards haven’t arrived yet.”
He knocked briskly on the weathered wood. For a long moment, nothing happened, but then I heard the click of a lock disengaging and the door creaked inward. No one was standing inside to greet us, though I thought I caught sight of something small and dark darting out of the front room. An animal, maybe?
Albigard’s brow furrowed. He gave the interior a slow look, as though searching out possible traps.
“Is this it?” I asked nervously. “Is he here?”
“Allegedly,” he said, which wasn’t nearly as reassuring a response as it might have been.
He let go of my arm, and I shook it out as the blood flow returned. I pushed past him into the house, figuring that at this point, there wasn’t much worse that could happen to me than what was already going to happen. Time wasn’t exactly on my side, so caution could go take a flying leap.
“Hello?” I called.
Nobody answered.
The place was small, so I headed deeper into the cottage, aware of Albigard trailing after me. Again, I noted the sort of sideways familiarity of the structure. I was able to identify the kitchen, though I would have struggled to use it to prepare food. The table and chairs in the dining area were recognizable enough, as was the collection of comfortable seating arranged around a fireplace in what was clearly the living area.
Something seemed off, though, and it took me longer than it should have to realize that it was the relative lack of invading plant life inside the place. Aside from a few herbs trying to overflow their pots on various windowsills, there were no choking vines or heavy-scented flowers here. No moss growing on the floor—just neatly swept hardwood planks covered in places by homey woven rugs.
Movement caught my eye—a dark tail flicking as whatever it was attached to ducked through the doorway on the far side of the living area. I followed it, glancing back to find Albigard settling himself next to a front-facing window and twitching the curtain back.
Keeping watch, I realized.
I didn’t have long. The door through which the dark tail had disappeared was half open.
“Hello?” I asked, more tentatively this time.
Still no answer, but I thought I heard a faint rustling noise coming from within. The hinges creaked as I opened the door further. Inside was a bedroom, and I had a vague sense of light fabrics and airy, pleasant surroundings before my eyes lit on a figure seated on a rocking chair in one corner, facing half away from me.
My hand slipped from the knob, dropping limply to my side.
“Dad?” I asked in a small voice, my heart leaping into my throat and trying to choke me.
My father didn’t move or acknowledge my presence in any way, and a chill slid across my skin despite the pleasant warmth of the air.
On the bed, a huge black cat with slanted green eyes that seemed too large for its face regarded me. An odd rumble of sound emerged from its throat, and then it lifted one front paw to its muzzle, tongue swiping out to groom itself as though my presence here was of no further interest to it one way or the other.
Swallowing hard, I forced my feet to carry me into the room until I was standing directly in front of my father’s chair. He didn’t move, the chair resting motionless on its curved wooden rockers. His eyes were focused on nothing, staring right through me. I shivered.
Please, please, please let me not have come all this way only to find that Darryl Bright was gone, only the empty shell of a body left behind, I thought. Please let me not be too late.
Albigard entered, throwing the cat a disgusted look when it growled low in its chest at him. “Guards are approaching. They will be here momentarily, at which point you will once again be my prisoner.”
“What’s wrong with him?” I begged.
The Fae ran careless eyes over the man in the chair. “He’s broken, apparently. It happens sometimes, with humans.” He paused for the barest instant before adding, “I am sorry, demonkin.”
I made a small noise in my throat and dropped to my knees, my hands gripping Dad’s where they rested on the chair’s arms. “Dad, please…”
My father’s eyes focused slowly, returning from that distant, unseen place. I caught my breath.
“Dad?”
He blinked, looking at me properly for the first time, and his brow furrowed. “Zorah? Why are you here? I don’t want you here. Go away.”
His voice was perfectly flat, and I had to swallow a moan of denial. Before I could respond, the front door crashed open. The cat hissed again, leaping from its perch on the bed as several Fae appeared at the bedroom’s entrance. Albigard dragged me to my feet and swung us around, cool and collected as though armed guards swarmed the room where he was standing every day of the week.
“Hold, Sergeant,” he said, sounding arrogant and bored. Disdain dripped from his voice. “I have an important prisoner for the Court to examine.”
The guard looked at me like one might look at a wounded mouse caught in a mousetrap.
“Commander,” he said grudgingly. “This is the part-bred demon? If it’s your prisoner, why bring it here?”
I might have appreciated the jaundiced look Albigard gave the guard if my heart weren’t trying to thud its way straight out of my chest.
“That one is her sire,” he said, jerking his chin toward the rocking chair. “Where else would I deliver her? You and your men are here now, are you not? So take her off my hands and be done with it.”
The guard wavered. “Very well,” he said eventually. “But I will give a full accounting of all this to the Recorder.”
Albigard cocked a slanted brow. “As you like, Sergeant. Though, as the Recorder was the one who directed me here, it seems rather a waste of time and effort.”
With that, he handed me over to the wiry Sergeant, who regarded me with distaste. When the Fae guard’s hand closed around my arm, I felt my future narrow to a single point of darkness.
“I love you, Dad,” I croaked… but my father had already returned to whatever distant place he now inhabited. A place I could no longer reach. He didn’t even look at me as I was pulled from the room.
“Come, part-breed,” the sergeant grumbled, tugging me away from my only tie to Earth… to my home.
ELEVEN
I THREW A FINAL glance over my shoulder at Albigard, trying to convey the threat of dire consequences if he failed to do all he could for whatever was left of my father. He gazed back with every indication of complete disinterest, his green eyes without expression.
I had played the only card available to me, bet everything on this gamble. And there was every possibility that doing so had gained me precisely nothing. Nothing except a faster death than I might’ve had before, assuming the Fae decided to take the easy way out and have done with me.
At least Rans is safe, I tried to tell myself. With me gone, they would have no reason to go after him.
Yeah, sure, said the little internal voice that whispered bad things to me in the dark. Just like no one had a reason to blast a hole through his chest with a shotgun. He hadn’t even met you yet when that happened.
My throat tightened, denial burning like acid at the backs of my eyes. Jesus, I was such an idiot.
That’s the real reason he’s better off without you, the voice whispered. Your own dad doesn’t even want you. Nobody wants you. Hell, you can probably count the number of people who’ll even notice that you’re gone on the fingers of one hand.
I wrenched my attention outward, consigning that little voice to the darkness where it belonged.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked my captors, the words emerging unsteady.
The guards—half a dozen or so—formed a loose ring around us as the sergeant frog-marched me out of the little cottage. No one answered or even acknowledged that I’d spoken. The one at the front paused and muttered, throwing a new portal into existence. It seemed less stable than the ones I’d seen Albigard make—the outline hazy and wavering—but the others didn’t hesitate to step through.
A moment of sickening disorientation, and I was once more in the overgrown, downtowny looking area that Albigard and I had departed from earlier. Indeed, we were outside the very same building, I was fairly sure, though this time the sergeant hauled me around to a back entrance rather than walking in the front door.
The same white-haired Recorder guy met us, satisfaction visible on his wrinkled features. “So, you found the malcontent waiting there as I thought you would. Very good.”
“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant. “Shall I take this creature to the incarceration area now?”
“Do so,” said the Recorder. “I will make the necessary entry into the records. And I believe there is at least one operative on Earth who will appreciate being notified of its capture.”
That would probably sound ominous, if anything that happened to me now could be said to be more ominous than anything else. I was dragged back outside—making me wonder if it was considered impolite to open a portal inside a building or something. Maybe there were official portal zones that you had to use?
Whatever the case, Shaky Portal-Making Guy threw a new one up in the courtyard behind the Recorder’s building. A moment later, he and my captor took me through it. When we stepped out, I staggered a bit, looking around in surprise. Silly me, I’d assumed the incarceration area would be some variant on Albigard’s creepy basement cells.
Wow, had I been wrong.
We were in… something that looked an awful lot like the inside of a giant redwood tree that had been hollowed out, as crazy as that sounded. The area was more or less circular, maybe seven or eight feet in diameter, and surrounded by rough walls. Only they weren’t really walls, as such. It was simply a hollow tree trunk made of unfinished, unaltered, living wood with no doors, windows, or other openings. The floor was packed dirt with twisted tree roots poking up through the surface here and there. There was a small hole dug near the edge, and the hole stank so badly of stale urine and feces that I nearly gagged.
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