Portents

by Kelley Armstrong

  Patrick didn’t get home until late that night. His phone was ringing when he unlocked the door to his apartment. He considered ignoring it but, while he was indeed an expert at shirking responsibility, there was a difference between ducking it and merely postponing the inevitable.

  He barely had time to say hello before Tracey said, “It’s not going to work, you son of a bitch.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I will always remember you fondly.”

  “I mean the money. I just got a call notifying me that my post-divorce credit card debt has been paid off. If you think you can buy me back—”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe your ex finally stepped up. I’m happy to hear that, Trace, but it wasn’t me.”

  “Bullshit. You paid it in case you want to screw around with me again on your poor pregnant wife. The answer is no. If you want your money back, just tell me and I’ll take out a loan, because there is no way in hell you’re getting in my bed again. You wouldn’t have gotten there in the first place if I had any clue you were married.”

  “You have my word that I won’t bother you again. I’m glad someone paid that debt, and I wish you all the best—”

  Click. He looked down at the receiver and smiled. Good girl. You deserve better.

  She also deserved to get out from under that divorce debt. Which was not why he’d done it. Not at all. It was simply a matter of balancing the books. All fae understood the concept of give and take, but none more than the bòcan. Treat them well, and they’d return the favor. Treat them poorly, and expect trouble, which was only fair, after all. As for Tracey, he owed her for the pain of their parting, and a bòcan always paid his debts.

  After the phone call, Patrick went to bed. Like most modern fae, he’d adapted to human life centuries ago. While fae wouldn’t die without regular food and drink or go mad without sleep, sustenance did give them energy and rest kept them mentally sharp. They did not require as much as the boinne-fala, but they conformed to the social norms of meal and sleep schedules all the same.

  What Patrick did not share with humans was the phenomenon of dreams. His sleeping mind would occasionally tug out a forgotten memory in answer to some nagging question. But it did not mangle memory and anxiety and fantasy, as human dreams did. Which was why, when he found himself standing on the balcony of a fairy castle, it was, to say the least, disconcerting.

  There was no doubt this wasn’t a memory. Patrick hadn’t lived in the time of fairy kingdoms. Having spent centuries enduring his elders’ reminiscences on those past glory days, he was glad to have missed them. It was as bad as when humans over-imbibed and waxed nostalgic about high school. From what he knew of high school, if those were the best days of their lives, he didn’t begrudge them one drop of that alcohol. Likewise, when he heard the ancient fae prattle on about castles of gold and fairy kings, he could only roll his eyes and opine that while he liked a good feast as much as anyone, he rather preferred ones that came with cutlery, well-seasoned food, and easy access to indoor plumbing.

  In human folktales, fae lived in another dimension. As usual, the boinne-fala had no idea what they were talking about. Fae had always inhabited the same plane as humans. In the early days, the world had been big enough for both races, and the fae made their homes in the wild places where humans rarely ventured, and if they did, charms and compulsions could make them forget what they’d seen.

  Humans, though, bred like rabbits. At least compared to the long-lived fae. They were also an adventuresome and curious race. This was, perhaps, the aspect that made Patrick feel quite at home living among them. Between the questing and the breeding, human culture spread. Soon they’d encroached on the borders of the fae kingdoms, and the seers warned this was no temporary crisis. They’d foretold a day when humans would map every inch of the earth, when there would be no place to hide. So the fae, ironically, embraced the method that human populations often used when threatened by a dominant culture—they adapted and they interbred and they kept their own culture in hidden enclaves.

  That night, in the vision—because he’d not call it a dream—he stood on the balcony of a golden castle. A young fae man leaned over the railing, his hands gripping the edge as if to keep himself from vaulting over it.

  “Of course she chose him,” the man whispered in Welsh. “Did I truly expect anything else?”

  Patrick looked down from the balcony to see a woman running across the moor, toward the forest, where riders waited, men on black steeds that breathed fire.

  Cŵn Annwn. The Hounds of the Otherworld. The Wild Hunt.

  One of the huntsmen broke from the pack and rode toward the woman. And with that, Patrick knew exactly what he was seeing, who he was seeing.

  The story of Mallt-y-Nos. Matilda of the Night. It was one of the most important stories in Tylwyth Teg history, so pervasive that a warped version of it could even be found in human folklore.

  On the night of her wedding to the fae prince Gwynn ap Nudd, Matilda had wanted one last ride with their childhood friend, Arawn, prince of the Otherworld. One last hunt. What she didn’t realize was that the two young men had made a pact that if Matilda went to Arawn before her wedding day, she was his and the world of the fae would close to her forever. A preposterous agreement, exactly the sort of jealous romantic nonsense one would expect from two arrogant princes.

  “You’re an idiot, you know that?” Patrick said to Gwynn. “If you and Arawn were characters in one of my books, you’d both come to horribly tragic ends, in just punishment for your stupidity. And Matilda would live very happily ever after without you two clods.”

  Even as he said it, he couldn’t quite muster the proper level of disdain. He saw the anguish on Gwynn’s face, and remembered what it was like to be young and foolish and madly in love and thoroughly convinced you were not good enough to hold onto your beloved.

  Patrick knew what came next, and he didn’t care to witness it. Didn’t care to stand at Gwynn’s side and see him endure it, because as moronic as these boys had been, they did not deserve this next part. So Patrick turned to walk into the castle—and hit an invisible barrier.

  “No!” Gwynn whispered. Then louder, “No!” Then the young man did indeed vault over the railing, grabbing it with both hands and dropping to the ground below and somehow, in a blink, Patrick was right there with him as he ran across the palace grounds.

  “No!” Gwynn shouted. “I made a mistake. Forget the pact. She can go to him. If that’s what she wants, he can have her. Just don’t—”

  Patrick heard a distant scream, and he could make out Matilda, on the back of Arawn’s horse, scrambling off as she saw the kingdom of the fae disappearing behind her. Disappearing in fire.

  As Gwynn ran for Matilda, he shouted that he was coming, just stay there, please stay there. But she couldn’t hear him and Patrick doubted she would have stopped running even if she could. This was the worst, because this was the moment when Gwynn realized his mistake, that she hadn’t left him for Arawn, that he’d been too blinded by jealousy to see the obvious: that she’d gone to her old friend for one last hunt and nothing more.

  Patrick could hear Arawn shouting too, as he rode for Matilda, upon realizing his own mistake, that he’d never stood a chance, that she loved Gwynn and he’d been willing to condemn her to misery because he couldn’t face that.

  Patrick supposed Arawn’s situation was as much a tragedy as Gwynn’s, but he barely paid it more than a flicker of notice. His attention was fixed on Gwynn, and everything he felt was Gwynn’s, and when the fire between the kingdoms consumed Matilda, the pain he felt was Gwynn’s, an agony unlike anything he’d experienced, unlike anything he ever cared to experience, and he bolted up in bed, gulping air, his body trembling, sweat pouring off him.

  He hung there, between sleeping and waking, and then he ran his hands through his hair and took a slow look around the room. With a sharp shake, he pushed from bed, yanked on his clothes and headed out to find whatever mi
ght banish the vision.

  Patrick was unsettled. And it was really starting to piss him off.

  It’d been a week since the vision. A week of trying to get the damned thing out of his head. Day and night it was there, cropping up at the most inconvenient times. It was not the images that bothered him; it was the emotions.

  Patrick made his living exploiting human emotions. A teller of stories, a merchant of fantasies, but mostly, a dealer in the drug of secondhand emotions. Finding just the right twists of tragedy and heartache to keep readers turning the pages, sinking ever deeper into the characters’ despair until . . . victory. Redemption, love, joy. Happily ever after. Sigh. Close the book and smile, and when life sends you swirling into tragedy of your own, pick up the book again and relive that ride, knowing it will all work out in the end, as real life rarely does.

  The best stories—the ones he strove to tell—were the ones that lingered after that last page was turned. The ones that kept readers thinking and, more importantly, feeling.

  Which was all very fine for the humans on the other end of the process, the ones who filled his bank account and let him lead his devil-may-care life, unsaddled with such petty inconveniences as having to drink cheap wine in order to afford the rent. He’d been there; he never intended to return.

  What he did not appreciate was being on the receiving end of a story he could not banish from his brain. For him emotions were as inconvenient and annoying as forgoing good wine. Emotions were messy. He did not do messy. Not anymore.

  The situation had become dire. He was at a nightclub, charming two lovely young women, his biggest concern how he’d choose which one to take home . . . and then getting those subtle hints that suggested he wouldn’t need to choose at all. He’d been on the brink of closing the deal when he’d forgotten what he was saying. Not a momentary lapse, but a dead stop mid-sentence, all because he’d caught a glimpse of a man passing by and thought, “He looks like Gwynn.” Except the man didn’t, not beyond the most superficial way. It was proof of his distraction that his brain snagged on such a vague resemblance and then stayed there, spinning off into thoughts of the vision.

  “Patrick?” one of the girls said. He wasn’t even sure which, the blonde or the brunette, which wasn’t like him at all. Whatever else one might accuse him of, he was attentive in his seductions.

  “I . . .” he began.

  Focus, Patrick. You’ve got this. They’re hooked. Now reel them in and enjoy.

  He looked from one very attractive young woman to the other, practically smelling the pheromones pouring off them, and all he could think was . . .

  “There’s something I need to do,” he said, sliding from the barstool. “I’m sorry. I hope you have a lovely evening, ladies.”

  He couldn’t even come up with a more charming way to break off the seduction. His mind was racing down another track, and he could barely remember to give an apologetic nod before he was out the door.

  Enough of this. He needed answers. Even if the best place to get them was the last place he wanted to go.

  Cainsville.

  The thing Patrick loved most about Cainsville was the warm greeting he got after being away for months.

  “What are you doing here?” Ida asked when he came face to face with her and Walter on the Main Street sidewalk.

  “I live here,” Patrick said.

  She grumbled, as if she sorely wished she could change that. Which meant she must have been in a good mood, because normally she’d tell him how much she wished she could change that.

  Ida, her consort Walter, and the other elders had founded Cainsville about two hundred years before. Patrick hadn’t been there—founding a town, particularly when Chicago itself had been little more than an offal-filled shit hole, was not his idea of a pleasant way to enjoy the New World. He’d been in San Francisco, reveling in the chaos of the gold rush. But when he wandered east—for a reason he’d rather forget—he stumbled onto Cainsville at a time when they were in dire need of a fae with a few tricks up his sleeve. So he’d cut a deal with them. He would solve their problem and earn himself permanent residency. An iron-clad deal . . . the only kind he made.

  Patrick continued past Ida and Walter, which was easy enough, given that the other elders all followed the practice of using glamours to make them appear well beyond the age to start collecting Social Security. Which didn’t mean they were actually saddled with the physical disadvantages of senior citizenry. But the problem with looking old? You had to act your age, at least on Main Street in full view of the boinne-fala.

  Patrick zipped past them into the grocery store and made straight for the wine aisle. No trip to Cainsville could be endured without a stop here first. He took his selections to the register, where a solemn young woman rang through the customer ahead of him. When she turned his way, he got one look at her bright blue eyes, smiled, and said, “Rose.”

  She fixed him with a cool, assessing gaze. She didn’t remember him, of course. The last few times he’d been in town, she’d been off seeing the world and then, if rumors were correct, spending some time as a guest of the state penal system. The latter was to be expected for a Walsh. The family had been in Cainsville for generations, and there was more than a sprinkle of fairy dust in their veins. A family with the sort of special fae talents that did not encourage a life on the proper side of the law.

  Rose had one of the rarest gifts: the second sight. Which explained that careful stare as she looked him over. His face tweaked a buried memory that overcame the compulsion that made most humans forget Patrick when he left Cainsville.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said, still smiling.

  “It’s been a while,” she said, in a way that hunted for a hint to help her place him.

  “You were just out of high school the last time I was in town.”

  She nodded, as if that was good enough. As she rang through his wine, she said, “Glad to be back?”

  He chuckled. “I wouldn’t exactly say that. You?”

  She paused, as if this was a question she hadn’t considered. Then she nodded. “Yes, I am.”

  “Good.” Which it was. If Rose Walsh was happy here, this was the best place for her, where no one would judge her for her talents or her past.

  Outside, he found Ida and Walter waiting.

  “How long are you staying?” Walter asked, in a tone that prayed for a short visit.

  “Don’t worry, old chap,” Patrick said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m only popping in for a day or two.”

  Ida sniffed. “Just come and go as you please. Leave all the work of running this town to us.”

  “You do it so much better,” he said, and then bid them a fair day and left.

  And here was the root of their issue with him. Oh, they certainly didn’t like the fact that he refused to hide under the glamour of age. Or that he made his living in such a public way. Yet their real issue was this paradox. They did not want a bòcan around, particularly him, but if he did not stay, he could claim all the benefits of Cainsville’s sanctuary while taking on none of the responsibilities.

  The greater problem was that Ida had no interest in resolving the paradox. Patrick did alter his appearance, sometimes leaving as a forty-year-old and returning at twenty or reversing the process. If anyone thought he looked familiar, he’d say his father used to live here. Or his cousin or nephew. As for the writing career, he used pseudonyms and cultivated the personae of the reclusive author.

  He also made it clear that he would carry the weight of his responsibilities as an elder. Just not the boring ones, like sitting on the housing committee, deciding whether newcomers should be allowed in. The tedium would kill him. But there were many ways a bòcan could be an asset to a community. He was, despite what he’d told the korrigan, something of a scholar. He could play a trick or broker a bargain or answer a question, and would do so quite happily. But Ida and the others preferred to grumble. And that, he’d realized long ago, was a problem best
handled with a few glasses of fine Bordeaux.

  As he approached his house, he felt what might be called a tremor of pleasure. His house. His home. The one place that was truly his own, where he could retreat and close the door, and the world could not follow. That feeling didn’t last much past the porch. One step into that house—dark and silent and heavy with the stink of dust and disuse—and he confronted a problem of his own making. The house was his, but he refused to make it his own.

  His home was—for want of a more descriptive term—ugly. Not outside. He’d had it built exactly as he wanted it. But inside? There had been a time when he’d done that right too, selecting every furnishing with care, building a nest. A true refuge from the world. But then when he left Cainsville, he ached for home, and every other place he stayed made him feel like Goldilocks, endlessly seeking exactly the right bed, unable to sleep until he found it. Except in his case, he knew exactly where the right bed was: at home in Cainsville. He didn’t want to be in Cainsville. Hence the conundrum, which led to this new version of his home, where as furniture aged and rotted, he replaced it with whatever was cheap and available.

  He moved quickly through the front rooms, heading for the one that was still his, still exactly as he wanted it. Or exactly as he’d wanted it a hundred years ago. It might not quite match his tastes now, but it retained a familiar comfort.

  He stepped into his library and flicked on the light. However much it showed his age, he still felt a mild wonder each time he did that. To come home, after months away, hit a switch and have light? For one who’d lived most of his life with candles and lanterns it was a small miracle.

  The room looked like a library straight out of a Victorian novel. Or it would, if one ignored the word processor in the corner. The hulking beige box might ruin the ambiance, but to be able to type out a story and edit it as often as he liked? That was yet another miracle, at least for a writer.