Firewyrm

by Erik Schubach

  Then I shook my head at the woman who was smothering her smile with her delicate hand, with graceful fingers tipped with perfectly manicured nails of ice. “I'm just frustrated. Sorry, of course, there's at least one Greater Fae I really enjoy the company of.”

  She giggled and leaned in, our lips almost brushing. “Good. I'm fond of a particular human too.” She pulled back, leaving me panting in want as she tapped my lips. “One who still tilts at windmills I see.”

  I squeaked out, “Not that I'm complaining... at all... but why are you in my bed, Rory?”

  She gave me a quick peck on the lips then bounced off the bed and said, “I want pancakes. You were out hard when I arrived so I thought I'd sit and wait for you to wake.”

  “Again, not that I'm complaining, but weren't we having lunch, not breakfast? And how did you get past the door security? Wait, don't answer that, I really don't want to know.”

  She pouted, looking deceivingly innocent. “Our noble Sprite friend, Graz let me in, and do I need an ulterior motive to see you earlier than our lunch date? And if you'd rather me not sit in your bed...”

  I sighed and grinned. “If you were anything but Fae, I'd say that no with a smile about ulterior motives. But seeing as how you are your mother's daughter then I'd have to reluctantly say yes. And is it a date? I've been trying to pin down what we are doing... I'm rather fond of, well, being around you.”

  “But not in bed?”

  I sputtered out, “No, yes, I mean... oh just space me naked. I mean, I just want to define our relationship.”

  Someone, I think it was Graz or one of her significant others in their trinary coupling, called out, “Really smooth there, Knith.”

  My face was burning and I wanted to just smother myself with a pillow, then Mother chimed in helpfully, “I'm with the flying rat on... this... one...” Her voice becoming more emotionless and mechanical as she trailed off.

  Rory cocked an eyebrow and looked at the closest camera in the room. “Come now Mother. This isn't the first time you slipped around me and emoted. Aren't we past this now? I'll not be disclosing your secret to anyone. I'm just amazed that it was Knith you chose to, come out to as it were. Though she does have that effect on people.”

  Mother responded in her tinny emotionless tone, “Please restate your query, original request not understood.”

  Rory looked at me and narrowed an eye. “Why did that sound like she was, what do you call it... when you extend your middle finger as you do frequently?”

  Graz buzzed out of the hole in the nightstand and up in front of her, then landed on the extended finger the Greater Fae offered helpfully. “Flippin' the bird, flipping you off, the ol' one-finger salute, the universal...”

  Rory chuckled at her as I sighed out, “She gets it, Graz. She was just baiting. It's what her people do. You of all people should know that.”

  The princess in my room said, “Fine, keep playing your games, Mother.” Then she turned to me. “As for your questions, that isn't the way our game works, and you know it... I answered one question, now it is your turn. You can choose from, why do you wear the Summer Lady's mark? Why has the Summer Court cut off all communications with the Unseelie? Or, may I have another kiss?”

  She smirked and I leaned in to kiss her, our lips barely brushing, then she grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me into her, a sizzling sound accompanied by steam from Titania's mark boiling off the frost on her lips.

  She released me and I felt light-headed, a goofy smile on my lips. Then she pointed at me when she realized what I did, answering the one question that gave her no information. I shrugged without apology. “My turn. As much as I'd like to think you were here just for an intimate encounter, why are you in my quarters so early?”

  Her head tilted back and she laughed the silvery laugh that set off a tuning fork in my nether regions in the most pleasant of ways. “If I hadn't designed your genes myself, I'd swear you were Fae. You play this game well.”

  Then she sighed and said, “After news of a fire in the Alpha-Stack spread through the world, I tried to contact you, but Mother informed me you were among the first responders, but wouldn't supply any additional information. Naughty AI. Then shortly after, the two courts stopped communications, and the Winter Lady has gone missing.”

  Shrugging she admitted, “I was worried when I didn't hear from you. And also curious if you could help shed some light on what is happening? In the absence of the Winter Lady, the Unseelie are looking to me for answers. I have none.”

  Before I could say anything she got a playfully mischievous look on her face as she said, “And I will volunteer another answer for free. I'd like to think of us as courting, even though it gives mother apoplexy that I've taken an interest in a human, of all suitors at hand.”

  Ok, my blush was threatening to be my end now as I felt bashful satisfaction that I hadn't been imagining that what we had together felt like dating, even though she had never admitted it before this.

  I nodded and squeaked out, “Mother? Ship's time?”

  “It is zero six-thirty. You have thirteen messages from Commander Reise, three from President Yang, and one from Queen Titania's representative to the FABLE office. Shall I play them?”

  “No... thanks though. I'm not looking to adding to my headache until after I'm fully awake.”

  I looked at the imp I wished to ravish just then, then sighed and said, “Pancakes it is. Daniel and I start our investigation into this clusterfuck at eight. I'll have him meet me at Stacks down-ring in C. Until then, I'm all yours.”

  She chuckled and said, “There are places to eat here in the A-Ring you know, Knith.”

  I nodded but said, “Yeah, there are, but Stacks is our place.”

  Aurora's toothy smile was almost predatorily seductive. “We have a place? That pleases me.”

  I said to her and Graz, “Now shoo, let me get ready.”

  Rory chuckled as she carried our Sprite friend from my sleeping chamber. “Boooo.”

  Graz explained, “She's got a weird hangup about people seeing her naked. It's not like you don't have all the same stuff she does, and I've got two-thirds of it. I'll never understand humans.” Then she whistled, and her family streaked out of the drawer like a drunken line of sparkling lights. I sometimes forget that the pollinator of a tri-sex species is the one in charge of their family since they are so rare.

  I said as I slipped out of bed and took a quick sonic shower and shrugged into my armor as I called out the door, “Just a heads up, Rory. Every Enforcer of the Brigade is looking to arrest your mother.”

  That was met with silence for a few awkward seconds before she muttered, “Of course she's involved.”

  I stepped out into the room and Graz buzzed over to stand on my shoulder inside my helmet, hanging on to my ear to steady herself. She wasn't as graceful in the gravity of these upper rings, which made me wonder why she chooses to live with me up here.

  Then I asked as I glared at the two royal guards standing by my entry door, “You ever ride on the back of a Tac-Bike?”

  Her guards looked alarmed. “Highness...”

  She held up a halting hand and just said, “Follow.” Then to me, she added, “Sounds exciting.”

  I nodded and removed my helmet to hand to her. “You have no idea.”

  She was squealing in glee a minute later as we were blasting down the spoke toward the C-Ring and Irontown, my hometown here on the world. To the diner I first ate with Rory at, Stacks. I'm still not sure if the eatery is named that for the stacks of the ship, or for the stacks of pancakes that were the specialty there.

  The wind in my hair was exhilarating, but Graz burrowing in my armor was uncomfortable. I'd have to get Aurora a helmet of her own if we're dating... or courting now. Mother fairy humper, I was dating the Winter Maiden. My smile was threatening to split my face as we emerged into morning traffic in the C-Ring.

  Before long, we pulled up to St
acks, with Rory's security detail right behind us in her gleaming white manta ray shaped luxury sport skiff. She narrowed her eyes at them as she handed me my helmet back when we got off the bike and I mag-locked it. Her guards looked put out and just stood by her skiff, looking all kinds of conspicuous as they took aggressive guard stances. Yeah, way to blend in.

  I guess I was one to talk, stepping into the diner with a literal princess on my arm. The hostess saw us coming and was already shooing a family from the booth we have used in the past, ushering them to another table.

  She clopped up to us on her dainty hooves. “Princess Aurora, Lieutenant Shade, your booth is available. Please have a seat, I'll have your usual, two Stack Plates out post-haste.”

  Like many of us down-ringers, she was completely enamored with the Greater Fae. They almost never ventured lower than the B-Ring. And all we knew about them were from the documentaries on the waves, what we were taught in school, and the glorified fairy tales we were told as children.

  Graz called out as she popped up in my collar, “And a strawberry! The biggest you got.”

  I tapped her head with a finger, causing itchy dust to sift onto my skin as I contradicted her, “Just a strawberry quarter. I don't want to be depositing her at the drunk tank for disorderly behavior again this week.”

  “Hey! That was just the one time, and I...”

  “Graz?”

  “Fine, you overbearing big.”

  Rory offered helpfully as we slid into our booth, both on the same side much to my pleasure, “You may partake of some of my syrup if you wish, noble Sprite.” She gave me a defiant nose scrunch.

  I whined, “You're not the one who'll have to put up with her hyperactive little ass all day... she...”

  I trailed off as something on the wave screen above the stools at the counter. I tuned out Graz's complaint of, “Did you just call me little? And there's your obsession with my perfectly shaped butt again.”

  “Turn that up please?” I asked.

  The hostess nudged her chin to the goblin busboy behind the counter, and he tapped the control and the volume on the news wave turned up. It was En’lein... Eileen Brightleaf, the gorgeous full-blood Wood Elf reporter for the news station LNN.

  She was standing close to the fire-ravaged and melted bulkheads where Ember had been burrowing. The repair crews and Mother's automated repair drones were busy reinforcing sections and cutting the debris into more manageable sections to haul away before permanent repairs could begin.

  Alpha-Stack Brigade Enforcers were standing at the barricades and crime scene tape that kept the lookie-loos from messing up any evidence or getting themselves hurt. Crime scene techs were scouring the area. I'd have to access all their findings as soon as I started the investigation with Keller.

  Eileen was reporting that “It is still not known what started the raging inferno that could burn through ceramic and melt alloys that can withstand fractional C debris strikes. But rumors are circulating that the Winter Court is suspected, and the Enforcers tasked to the FABLE office are looking to detain Queen Mab herself for questioning by order of President Yang. Could this be the beginning of another great Fae War? We will keep you up to date as information is made available to us. This is Eileen Brightleaf, reporting for Leviathan Network News.”

  I was shocked that they were aware of the meeting with the President, for only a moment, before I saw Eileen smiling toward Commander J'mayaght who was behind the barricades overseeing his men.

  Swell, the commander was butt hurt that he wasn't included in the meeting with Queen Titania and President Yang and that I and a commander from a different stack were. He was going to make my investigation as difficult as possible by leaking information to the press like this, wasn't he?

  I just rubbed my temples, feeling my headache coming on again. At least he wasn't boneheaded enough to let slip that there was a Firewyrm on the world... that would cause a shipwide panic.

  Rory asked, “Is everything ok, Knith? So they really are looking to detain mother.”

  I sighed and said, “Let's just have a peaceful breakfast before we have to get into all that unpleasantness, please?”

  She nodded, studying me, then belying my own words, as I just stared at my first fork full of the sinfully light and fluffy pancakes and said with a raspy dry mouth, “Lord Sindri is alive and on the world.”

  She dropped her own fork in shock. Her half brother had been her rival and then he tried to kill me... I had stopped him, and my testimony and the evidence I had gathered in my investigation before he captured me was what had had him condemned. She never shared with me her feelings about that. I was just some random enforcer and he was her blood.

  We never discussed it because, to tell you the truth, I still haven't fully recovered emotionally from it. As I said before, he made me a victim, and I'm nobody's victim. That incongruity had me second-guessing my every decision ever since then... I'm broken and I don't know how to fix myself, but Rory makes things better. She doesn't seem to look at me any differently, even though I do.

  I stood and held a hand out to stop her from getting up. Graz looked up from where she sat on the table, a full quarter of a strawberry on her lap. “I just need some fresh air... I'll be right back.” I pointed out front as another Tac-Bike pulled up. “There's Keller. He's early. Order him up a plate?”

  Then I headed to the back hall, the restrooms, and the back door as I fought off the memory of what I had gone through with Sindri. Was this some sort of PTSD? As I stepped outside to breathe in the fresh air, an impossibly strong hand grabbed me and yanked me beside the door in the alley.

  It barely registered to me that it was the Winter Lady in her 'Mable' human disguise before she was kissing me. She took great delight in my aggravation when she renewed her mark on me every few days this way, before the considerable power she puts into it, wears off because of my partial immunity to magic. She could simply just cast, likely from anywhere on the world, but she insists it be sealed with a kiss each time. I'm sure it was just that she enjoyed my consternation.

  Again it felt like I was burning from the inside out, being destroyed and reborn as her magics seared my body and mind. She was putting more into me this time. I finally was able to push her off of me.

  I gasped and pushed down the inappropriate tinge of arousal that always accompanied these random ambushes of hers. Why couldn't we just schedule a consistent time and place? “Mab! I mean, your highness. Are you aware that the Brigade is looking to detain you for questioning?” Then I took a chance, “Ember got out and Titania says you did it.”

  She smiled sadly and said, “That's why I had to do this, Lieutenant. It isn't personal, I just need time to find out what really happened.”

  I sighed, knowing I couldn't take her in myself, my partner would have to since I had an inadvertent binding Fae contract with her that I would not arrest her. It was never meant to be for perpetuity, but since it wasn't specifically worded that way, she uses the loophole like the Fae she is.

  “What do you mean, why you had to do this? And that's my job to find out what happened.”

  She shrugged and stepped back, shimmering and I almost lost track of her, but I could sense her don't look here spells. And the alley door slammed open, Keller and two other Enforcers filed out with him. Their visors were down, scatter armor active, and Magic Mitigating Guns or MMGs drawn.

  Keller said, “Queen Mab of the Unseelie Court, consider yourself bound by law. We need to bring you in for questioning for suspected arson in the Alpha-Stack B-Ring.”

  I turned to look at where Mab had walked off to under her spells. Could they see her still? That's when I felt the mag band being slapped on my wrist. I turned to look up at Keller, intending to say, “What the hell man?”

  Instead, I saw Mab's reflection in the visor of his helmet as I hissed out in her voice, “Unhand me! How dare you lay hands on the Winter Lady!”

  What the actual fairy
humping fuck? I just stared at my reflection until he and a female Goblin took my arms and started leading me out of the alley to a waiting prisoner transport. Wait a minute, how did they know Mab was here? I closed my eyes in realization. Of course, the deceitful Winter Lady had likely called in an anonymous tip. And it wouldn't have been a lie to say the Queen of the Unseelie was in the alley behind Stacks since she technically had been.

  I looked through the windows of the diner, seeing my reflection, looking every inch the arrogant yet unnervingly beautiful Queen of the Fae. Rory stood and watched as I was escorted into the transport, confusion and worry on her face. At least I knew she hadn't been in on her mother's plan.

  When read my rights as we headed toward Beta-Stack Brigade Headquarters, I found myself answering as Mab would, complete with threats to turn them all into ice sculptures for the halls of Ha'real.

  What did Mab have to gain by this? And she had to know whatever glamours and spells she had laid on me would wear off in a couple of days. Then I remembered what she said. This gained her time to figure out what was happening. Which had the unfortunate side effect of me believing that whatever Titania said about Mab being the only other person with access to Ember, may have been in error. But that's what my investigation would uncover, and I can't exactly investigate anything while I'm being detained.

  I asked in frustration to the air, “Mother? A little help here?”

  She responded in a tinny tone, “I'm sorry, but protocol dictates I am not to communicate with any citizen who is currently bound by law.”

  Well, fuck me sideways. I sighed, “Fine, then can you at least play me some music until this whole mess can be straightened out.”

  She didn't respond, but a tune from the archaeological archives started playing in the back of the armored vehicle.

  I rolled my eyes and groaned when Stray Cat Strut by the Stray Cats started to play.

  I laid my head back on the wall and muttered, “Smartass,” as we navigated through the rush hour traffic of Irontown.

  Chapter 5 – She's Got the Look