Tempestuous

by Lesley Livingston

  She didn’t. Tyff had been the one Sonny had asked to help disenchant Lucky the kelpie before he turned into the Roan Horse of the Wild Hunt. She’d agreed, but had missed three of the charms tied into Lucky’s forelock because they had been hidden under a sophisticated glamour. It hadn’t been Tyff’s fault. She had been duped—they all had. And it had almost cost them everything.

  “That wasn’t your fault,” Kelley said.

  “Yes, it was.” Tyff’s voice turned harsh. “And the time before that, and the time before that. Any time I try to help people, Kelley, I leave a swath of catastrophe in my wake. Why do you think I was exiled to this crummy realm in the first place?”

  “I just thought—”

  “I’m a screw-up, little roomie.” Tyff threw her hands in the air. “I’m a blindingly beautiful screw-up, true, but I’m still a screw-up.”

  “Tyff . . .” Kelley grabbed for one of Tyff’s flailing wrists and held on to it. “You’re not a screw-up. You’re my best friend.”

  “Don’t.” Tyff’s eyes glittered with the sheen of unshed tears.

  “I have faith in you. And I need you.”

  “Kelley . . .”

  “Fenn says he can’t do this alone,” Kelley said quietly. “And I can’t help him without you.”

  Tyff sighed and went silent for a long moment. Then she blinked rapidly and said, “I’m not wearing your clothes.”

  Chapter XIII

  Sonny ran swiftly upward, following the twisting path of the tunnel as it angled sharply toward the surface. Carys had told him that it came out somewhere inside the confines of Herne’s Tavern on the Green, where Herne entertained the Lost Fae, who delighted in the sumptuous, Otherworldly atmosphere of his halls and gardens—as close as most of them would ever get to going back home.

  At the end of the tunnel, bathed in a growing luminescence from somewhere up ahead, the hewn rock floor turned to smooth, polished steps of gleaming marble that spiraled upward. Strains of haunting Faerie melodies trickled toward him.

  The Tavern was usually a nonstop party, but Sonny noticed the dance floor was almost empty. The High Fae, it seemed, were avoiding the Samhain Gate while lesser fae—the nastier denizens of the Otherworld—roamed free.

  Sonny stepped into the chandeliered hall and wound his way among the few Faerie revelers. When he spotted a green-coated satyr in a top hat—Herne’s doorman and seneschal—hurrying past on woolly, backward-bending legs, he grabbed him by the elbow.

  “Master Flannery!” The creature nodded his little curving horns in Sonny’s direction, without actually stopping—forcing Sonny to walk beside him. “Welcome back. I thought we would not see you again until after the last of the Wild Hunters had been dealt with.”

  “There have been other pressing matters of late, Master Seneschal,” Sonny said, lengthening his stride so that he could keep pace with the swiftly trotting satyr.

  “Might I inquire, Sir Janus,” the doorman asked politely, “how it is that you come to be here by way of the back door, for want of a better term?”

  “The lady Carys granted me safe passage to and from the sanctuaries,” Sonny said. “And I have urgent business with Herne the Hunter.”

  The doorman grunted, pawing one delicate hoof on the marble floor. “As do I. Let us find him together.”

  Sonny followed in the creature’s loping wake out to the central courtyard, where Herne was engaged in conversation with what appeared to be an enormous animated shrub. In fact, it was a manifestation of the ancient soul of the natural world, the Greenman. Herne had created the simulacrum in honor of his murdered friend, when the Greenman had bequeathed all of his awesome power to the once human Hunter.

  When Herne noticed his doorman hurrying over, accompanied by the unexpected presence of a Janus Guard, he rose and met them halfway.

  “Sonny!” His warm, full tones filled the space between them. The Hunter’s gladness at seeing Sonny was genuine and generous, surprising Sonny a little. Not that he didn’t consider the Hunter a friend—he did. He admired Herne greatly and thought of him as an ally but, at the same time, Sonny really didn’t know if the man-god knew him well enough to consider him a friend.

  Herne seemed to think otherwise. He took Sonny’s hand in a fervent, bone-crushing grip. “I am so pleased to see you hale after hearing of that bad business with the princess and her theater.”

  Sonny felt a momentary, familiar pain in his heart. “Thank you, lord,” he said. “Forgive my intrusion, but there is trouble brewing in the tunnels below your house.”

  “And trouble already well-fermented at the front door,” said the doorman at Sonny’s side, his black, inhuman eyes sparking coldly.

  Herne looked back and forth between them, his brow furrowing under the garland of oak leaves he wore that night instead of his usual shining horned helmet. After a moment’s thought, he gestured the satyr to lead them to the main entrance of the Tavern. “Both of you—tell me of these troubles. You first, Sonny.”

  Sonny told him of the Janus who were on the hunt for the reservoir and felt the heat of shame creeping up his cheeks as he described what his brethren were about. Herne’s brown eyes darkened, but his expression remained impassive. He nodded curtly as Sonny finished his brief report. Herne stopped at the entrance to a mirrored corridor before a tall Faerie wearing a long, silvery shirt of chain mail, who stood in a relaxed but guarded pose. The Hunter spoke in low tones to the Fae, but Sonny was close enough to hear him order all but a handful of the Tavern Fae down into the tunnels to help those in the reservoir defend the sanctuary. Without a word, the Faerie guard turned on his heel and disappeared back the way they had come, already drawing a slender-bladed sword from the sheath at his belt. Then Herne gestured for his seneschal to lead them on, saying, “Speak. What trouble else?”

  They had navigated the corridors of the Tavern with speed, and the main doors were in sight. The satyr just nodded toward the entrance with a sour glare. He spat one word: “That.”

  The sight of a familiar figure who stood fidgeting nervously in the vestibule of the Tavern brought Sonny up short.

  Clothed in a flowing green gown, face half hidden by her pale hair, Jenii Greenteeth stood just outside on the curved stone steps, framed by the graceful arch of the Tavern’s open doors.

  Sonny felt his fists clench involuntarily at his sides.

  “Glaistig bitch,” he snarled. “What is she doing here?”

  The seneschal tugged a wrinkle out of his green velvet topcoat, smoothing the fabric down over his woolly legs, and said in tones of rich sarcasm aimed in the glaistig’s direction, “She is Fair Folk, honored Janus. All of whom are welcome here.” Then his voice went flinty. “So be they keep the peace of this place. And I decide to let them pass, in the name of the lord of the Tavern.”

  In the air before Jenii there was a faint, crackling shimmer—like a curtain of tiny sparks—a magickal barrier preventing her entry into the Tavern proper. Without looking, Sonny could sense that Herne had gone very still.

  Sonny reined in his anger and ducked his head in a polite nod. It would be unwise of him to offend Herne’s own second-in-command. “Forgive my rudeness, Master Doorkeeper. Your judgment is, doubtless, without flaw.”

  “I take no offense. You know something of guarding doorways yourself, Master Janus. I took your query in the manner in which, I am certain, it was intended—simply an inquiry into matters of professional interest.”

  “How long has that creature been here?” Herne asked his seneschal, his voice tinged with the rumble of low, far-off thunder.

  “She only just arrived, lord. Craves admittance and sanctuary. Actual sanctuary. Says she’s being hunted.”

  Herne grunted. “And so she comes to the Hunter.”

  “So she says.”

  “Hunted by whom, I wonder?” Herne murmured to Sonny, turning away from the door so that the glaistig could not hear him. “Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is a party of several heavily armed Janus
down in the aqueduct tunnels seeking for the entrance to Lost Fae safe havens, Sonny Flannery.”

  Sonny considered that. “I cannot say that I would find it entirely surprising if we were to learn that she is part of the reason.” Regarding the creature with distaste, he raised his voice enough so that she could hear him. “As dark Fae go, she is darker than most.”

  “You’re only saying that because I ate your predecessor,” Jenii said, with an expression that was almost a pout.

  Sonny stared at her flatly, careful to keep a tight rein on his emotions. “You,” he said. “It was you who ripped out his throat.”

  “He was sweet. . . .” The glaistig hissed wetly, lips peeled back in a grotesque parody of a smile as she licked the points of her bright green teeth. “Like nectar.”

  “Do not let her provoke you, Sonny.” Herne’s voice rumbled through the air and he put a cautionary hand on Sonny’s chest, even though the young Janus had not twitched so much as a muscle. “You know the rules of this place,” he said, making sure the glaistig heard him clearly, too. “Kill her, and my seneschal will be forced to kill you just on principle, for having violated the accords of the Tavern.”

  The satyr looked up at Sonny and shrugged apologetically.

  “You could try, Master Seneschal,” Sonny said politely.

  “And if he failed, that would then put me in a very awkward position,” Herne continued. “In all the years this Tavern has stood, Mabh is the only one who has caused blood to be spilled on these floors. I will not suffer such a thing to happen again, no matter who instigates and what the point of contention. This is my house.”

  Jenii cackled delightedly at the look of frustration that must have flashed across Sonny’s face.

  “Have a care, weed,” Herne said as he turned a frown on the glaistig. “I might not let the Janus kill you, but I also won’t let you disrupt the peace of this sanctuary. As it is, I tolerate your presence at my door only for the sake of your father’s memory.”

  “You mean that mockery of him that lives on in your house now?” the glaistig scoffed. “How could you suffer that insult to exist?”

  “It is all that I have to remember my friend by,” Herne answered stiffly. “I honor him.”

  “My brothers would have killed you for the insult of that ‘honor’ if they could have gotten past your infernal wards.”

  “A shame they will not ever have the chance now, insomuch as they are both dead,” Herne said flatly.

  Sonny held very still so as not to show his surprise on his face. Both dead? Both leprechaun brothers had been at the theater. Sonny remembered fighting them. Sweet goddess—he remembered one of them attacking Kelley and . . .

  “One of my brothers is dead, true,” she sneered. “The other yet lives.”

  Beside him, Sonny felt the air around Herne crackle with silent tension. Sonny had the distinct feeling that Herne would have stepped protectively in front of him in another moment.

  The glaistig tilted her head on her long neck and regarded Herne. “This disturbs you, noble lord?” she said, her voice a mocking simper. “I wouldn’t worry just yet. He was sorely wounded in the fight at the upstart princess’s playhouse. He clings to life but by a thread.”

  “While you, who were also there,” Sonny observed dryly, “appear remarkably healthy.”

  “I was smart enough to quit the fray when the other Janus arrived on the scene. I do not like even odds.”

  “What a well-developed sense of self-preservation you must have,” Herne said.

  “Pity my poor sisters who did not share that trait,” Jenii answered bitterly. “For my part, I’d rather like to maintain my appearance of remarkable health.”

  “Good luck with that,” the Hunter said, and turned to go without lifting the barrier.

  “Wait!” Jenii called after him, a sudden note of desperation creeping into her voice. “They will kill me if you do not let me in. I have always heard that the Horned One did not judge. That he was fair and kind and welcoming to all—especially those in need. I am being hunted. Truly.”

  “By whom?” Herne asked.

  “By those who seek to tap me like a sugar maple and use the sap in my veins to feed another’s blooming. I speak the truth—my brother lies close to death. Only Green Magick will restore him. And that, I’m sure you know, is in gravely short supply these days. They would take it from me, to give it to my brother.”

  She shook the hair out of her eyes and, for an instant, all Sonny could see was what looked like a terrified young girl standing out in the cold needing help. He knew that she was anything but, yet in that moment it was a powerful impression.

  “It will be my death,” she said in a whisper.

  “Why sacrifice your life for his?” Herne wondered. “Who would do such a thing?”

  Jenii swallowed nervously, the muscles of her throat constricting, and her eyes flitted back and forth from Sonny to the seneschal to Herne. “Just before my brother fell insensible, he claimed he’d found where the lost Greenman’s power had been hidden away. I rather think that’s valuable information to quite a few people. I can see why there are those who would seek to revive him, no matter the cost.”

  Sonny watched as the Hunter’s posture went stiff, rigid with tension. Then the Hunter turned to him and beckoned him away from the door, out of earshot of Jenii Greenteeth.

  “You say she was also at Kelley’s theater?”

  “Aye. Part of the attack party, in the moments before it burned. I thought she and her kin might have all been disposed of in the battle but . . . I cannot be sure.”

  “Sonny,” Herne murmured ruefully. “One of the harsher rules of warfare is to never leave your enemy alive on the field at the end of an engagement. How could you not be certain?”

  Sonny frowned. How, indeed? “I don’t exactly remember what happened, Herne,” he admitted. “I think I must have hit my head. The end of things is a blank to me. I remember flashes—light and . . . blinding color. Heat like the hottest sunshine . . . burning in my brain . . . and then nothing. Like I said, I must have hit my head.”

  Herne gazed deeply into Sonny’s eyes for a long, searching moment.

  “Excuse me. . . .” Jenii’s sibilant tones drifted toward them. “I really don’t mean to interrupt but, if you could make a decision on whether or not to extend me sanctuary with some haste, I would appreciate it. Otherwise, I’d best hightail it somewhere else.”

  The Hunter turned to his doorman and gave him a single terse nod. “Let her in. See that she is given refreshment and kept safe.”

  The little satyr bowed to his lord and stepped up before the barrier that shimmered between him and the glaistig. As he began to mutter his way through a complex incantation, wiry fingers twitching, Herne beckoned Sonny to follow him back into the tavern.

  They had gone only a few steps down the hall when there was a sharp snapping sound, like someone breaking kindling over their knee. Herne and Sonny turned and saw the body of the seneschal slump to the ground in front of the Green Maiden, his head hanging limply at an odd angle. In one swift motion Jenii bent over him and, when she raised her face a moment later, her sharp green teeth were stained with blood. “Thank you, lord Hunter,” she said. “That was refreshing.”

  The glaistig spun on her heel, turning back to the doors the seneschal hadn’t had the chance to lock. She raised her arms above her head and, with a sweeping gesture, brought them down around in a circle. The ancient oak doors of the Tavern blew off their hinges, and cold, city-gray light flooded into the Faerie sanctuary. Sonny threw up an arm, shielding his face from the storm of three-inch splinters that flew through the air.

  Beside him, Herne swore viciously and bellowed a call to arms.

  There were few to answer it. Most of the Folk who were capable of fighting had already gone, on Herne’s orders, in the direction of the reservoir tunnels. Surely though, Sonny thought, they were enough of a match for a lone Green Maiden.

  She wasn’t
alone.

  Sonny flinched and dived as half a dozen arrows flew out of the darkness beyond the tavern doors.

  Sonny went for his crossbow, but Herne shouldered him aside, shoving Sonny back toward the hallway whence he’d come.

  “Go!” shouted the forest lord. “That way!”

  He gave Sonny another shove, which almost sent him sprawling, and Sonny had no choice but to head in that direction. He raced down the twisting marble corridor, the Hunter close behind him. But once they had gotten well away from the front doors of the Tavern, Sonny screeched to a halt and turned on Herne. “Why are we running?” he demanded.

  Herne paused briefly. “Because we cannot afford to fight.”

  “Herne—”

  “The Tavern’s wards are breached. I cannot ensure your safety here.”

  “My—? I can take care of myself!” Sonny protested.

  Herne glanced back at the empty corridor behind them. In the distance, they heard a cry of defiance—and then one of pain. Herne spun back around, grasping Sonny by the shoulders, and stared deep into his eyes. The Hunter’s features shifted through a litany of expressions before coming to rest on something that was halfway between fear and regret.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening, Herne,” Sonny said quietly. There was something in the man-god’s behavior that struck a chord deep inside Sonny. “I need to know what’s going on here.”

  “No,” the forest lord said. “You don’t. Not now, Sonny. You just have to trust me.”

  Sonny felt his own heart rate increasing as he saw the rapid pulse beating in the vein on the Hunter’s neck. Herne was genuinely afraid. That was truly worrying.

  “Just go, Sonny,” he urged. “Please. Find Carys—tell her what has happened here—and then get away. Get to safety.”

  Sonny shook his head. “I’m not leaving you to fight on your own, Herne. That is madness—”

  “It is my wish!” Herne’s words came out in a frustrated snarl. “And if you have any respect at all for me and my house, you will do as I ask, Sonny Flannery.”