by Carrow Brown
I looked to David. “Are you hungry?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I could go for a drink, as well.”
Looking back to Goodfellow, I said, “All right, we’ll fuel up while you get your friends and meet you here. Sound good?”
The Fae nodded, a wide grin on his face. “Oh, mine own cousin, what joy thee bringeth me.”
I smiled in return. “I shall seeth thee in a few hours’ time?”
“But of course.” He leaned in and placed another kiss to my cheek. “What excit’ment we shall has’t.” He took his leave, humming a merry tune as he exited the park.
“I had a troop like him,” David said.
“Your troop was probably a puck,” Ratatoskr said. “They are all like that. Though Goodfellow is more flamboyant than most.”
I found myself grinning. “Well, he’s a celebrity. He likes to take liberties when he can.”
I led David away from the park and toward the high street once more. We found a burger place that served drinks and settled in for a wait.
I looked around the establishment as we settled in, enjoying the feel of the building and those within it. Not being hungry allowed me to pay attention to details outside of the food that surrounded me. Groups of people sat together, some at tables and others at the bar. They spoke and laughed, a few in the midst of some absurd retelling of a situation and other fixing the world’s problems.
David ordered himself a Breakfast Burger, and I got the large salad for Ratatoskr. And a few pints, naturally. The waitress was enthralled with Ratatoskr, who pretended to be a regular squirrel. He even let her take a few selfies with him on her shoulder before she went to put our orders in.
“That was nice of you,” I told him, rubbing his back along the spine.
“I like being fussed over as much as the next person,” the squirrel said, turning to climb up my arm and bury himself in my hair. “This is nice. Even if I am the third wheel on your date.”
I sputtered and pulled the squirrel out from my hair to glare at him. “This isn’t a date, Ratatoskr.”
It’s not? Silence also asked. I would’ve thought food followed by violence was your thing.
My eyes shifted between David and Ratatoskr before sighing. “I didn’t think it was a date since we are just buying time before Goodfellow is ready. Besides”—I rested my gaze onto Ratatoskr—“you know I’m not allowed those kinds of things.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” David pointed a finger at me. “You’re not allowed to date? Is that the hang up? Is your creator some over-protective father?”
Ratatoskr let out rapid chips and squeaks I figured to be his version of laughter. “Odin is not a protective father.”
“No,” I agreed. “He’s an asshole.”
“Odin is your maker? Like the Odin?”
“I don’t know any other Odins. If I did, I’d go hang out with them instead.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I frowned, trying to figure out the best response when Ratatoskr spoke for me. “She would be unable to.”
The waitress returned with drinks and assured us that our food would be out shortly. She left only after she was able to scratch Ratatoskr’s belly.
Once she left, the squirrel looked to David. “The markings you see on Ghost’s arms are not for decoration. They’re bindings.”
I rolled up my sleeves to display the tattoos for David to see.
Ratatoskr moved over my arms, resting his little paws on the patterns above and below the runes. “Fire. Air. Water. Earth. These are the elemental bonds that shackle Ghost to the will of her maker.” He placed a paw on one of the runes. “These are commands. You asked if she wanted to speak about her maker? This one commands her silence. Others limit her abilities.” His paw shifted to the rune mark on the inside of my forearm. “She wouldn’t physically be able to tell you anything that Odin wouldn’t wish to be shared.”
“I don’t understand,” David said. “Why create someone like Ghost and handicap her?” He pointed a finger at me. “And there’s no mention of you in the Poetic Edda. I looked it up after I left, hoping I’d see you mentioned somewhere.”
I set my glass down on the table, eyes locked on the amber liquid. “I was in the Edda, but the pages with me in them were ripped out.”
David frowned. “Because of what you are?”
I opened my mouth to explain, but the words wouldn’t come. In the second attempt, my throat closed up and eyes watered. A quick check showed one of the runes on my left arm illuminated through the fabric of my shirt. Snarling, I slammed a fist on the table.
“She cannot speak of it, but I can. The saga with Ghost is unpleasant,” Ratatoskr said. “It covered the tale of a time Loki thought it would be fun to unleash a beast onto a village that scorned the Norse gods. The beast did as Loki hoped, but by the time it massacred the village, it had become human, as well.”
“That’s a tame retelling.” I lifted my glass and drained it, setting it back on the table.
David set his drink down. “So, is that way you and that thing…”
I am not a thing. I am a beautiful, glorious Edge.
“…can work together?” He lowered the hand. “Because you were made for the same purpose?”
“No, I was made to slaughter people who wrong my pantheon. Silence was created to slaughter people because the day ends in ‘y.’”
So much death to do, so little time to do it.
David nodded and took a drink from his pint before asking, “So, why aren’t we calling this a date, then? We’re here, eating, drinking, enjoying each other’s company—seems like date material.”
Because dates suck, that’s why!
I rolled my eyes. “You’re really stuck on this. Why?”
David rubbed his mouth. “Because I like you?” He leaned back with hands spread. “I know you said you wanted to think a bit more about it. It’s hard because I made up my mind when I saw you down in that cellar helping the fairy out of the cage.”
I picked up my glass and drained it. With a breath, I continued speaking. “I’m not an easy person to court, David. There are obligations I have that always trump my personal life. Also, the murderous version of Jiminy Cricket has to be with me, or he goes on a killing spree.” I stared at my cider. “And there are consequences to being near me.”
“Like what?”
You may as well tell him.
I turned my glass around. “I used to be married back in the 1400s. Originally, it was part of a treaty thing, but we did come to really care for each other. It was one of the happier times of my life.”
My eyes closed against the wave of memories of a better time. A cool hand grasping my own, whispered words of endearment, the warm blood of my prey sliding along my cheeks.
I let out a long sigh. “And then it ended because not everyone has the fortitude to be around me for long periods of times without side effects.”
“What kind of side effects?”
“Like going insane and butchering an entire village because of boredom. My husband lost his sanity, and I had to be the one to bring him down.”
He remained silent as I toyed with my glass. I felt pathetic. A force of nature, as Nicholas called me, and I couldn’t even maintain the semblance of a normal life.
“Is that why you keep a distance? For the sake of others?”
With a sigh, I loosened my hand and looked to David. “Partly. It’s just easier this way if I keep my interactions on a surface level.” I eyed my empty pint glass, trying to will it to refill itself.
A warm hand rested over mine and I lifted my eyes to meet David’s hazel ones. “I get it, and I don’t blame you. I haven’t wanted a relationship for a long time, either.”
“Yeah? What’s your damage?”
David snorted. “I thought I would surprise my wife by coming home early from deployment. She surprised me by boinking the repair guy in our bed.” He shook his head. “She kept saying it was a mistake, but mistake
s are what happens when you forget to carry a number in a math problem. Affairs are something else.”
I patted my free hand to his. “She sounds like a cunt.”
He shook his head with a grin. “A total cunt. It’s funny, because adultery is common in the military. I never thought it would happen to me, though. Anyway, I know that doesn’t relate to your own struggles with… whatever this thing is between us.”
I lowered my gaze to our hands still resting atop one another. It felt so right to see them like that.
David’s hand squeezed mine. “I had a simple idea. How about a test then?”
I looked up with an arched brow. “A test?”
He rested his chin against the palm of his hand. “A compatibility test. If it goes well, we can shelve the possible dating talk for when we aren’t busy.”
My nose wrinkled, but I considered it. If he passed his trials and became the avatar for Badb, he’d be under her protection as much as at her beck and call. Sebastian hadn’t had that when we’d been together. Whether it would help him or not when Odin found out, I didn’t know. He was a grown man and knew the risks at this point.
“Fine,” I said. “What’s your test?”
He leaned over, grabbed my stool and pulled me closer. “It’s pretty simple. You just have to turn toward me.”
It took me a moment to figure out what he was up to. “That’s your test? You can’t be serious.”
He flashed a grin at me. “Hey, there are studies that prove it’s a valid method for gauging compatibility and chemistry. But if that’s too scary for you, I won’t judge you for chickening out.”
Poke me when you two are done. I hate this shit, Silence said before I felt him fade away.
I narrowed my eyes at David. “I’m not a chicken.”
His hand cupped the back of my head. “I didn’t think you were,” he murmured.
I’d been kissed before. The polite peck for formality, a passionate claiming kiss, and a few drunken mashings of lips. Even the awkward ones that left me more confused than certain about my feelings. David’s kiss was none of those.
My eyes closed as we leaned into each other. When our lips brushed, I felt a shiver run up and down my spine. David’s hand along the back of my neck held me close as his tongue teased the corner of my mouth, and I responded by parting my lips for him. Our tongues met and danced and one—perhaps both—of us moaned. He pulled away only to kiss me a second and third time. I felt drunker on David’s kisses than the two pints I’d finished.
I bit on his bottom lip, which was all the invitation he needed. He adjusted the hold on my neck, his mouth hot and lips punishing against mine as he held me close. His tongue raked my lips, fanning the heat in my belly.
I wanted him beyond the physical desire he created. Perhaps it was because of the bond we shared or something more, but my heart longed for him as flowers did the sun. I found myself wanting more than what would happen between the sheets. I wanted more days chatting in pubs or exploring places. In the heat of battle, I wanted to know he was there at my back and fighting by my side. Things I told myself to stop asking for since monsters didn’t get nice things. And David was more than a nice thing.
My hands gripped his shirt, pulling him to me. My lips pushed against his, teeth nipping on his tongue. I trapped it and suckled on it, earning a groan from him. Thoughts of ripping off his clothes and pushing him down onto the floor danced through my mind when a voice cleared next to us.
We broke away to see our waitress, her face flushed, watching the two of us. “Sorry,” she said in a small voice. “I’m guessing you want the bill?”
“I’d like another pint,” I said, holding my empty glass.
“Same,” David added.
I watched her go before realizing my hands were still balled up in David’s shirt. Relaxing them, I leaned back into my stool. A moment later, we had fresh pints in front of us. I wasted no time in nearly draining mine, saving a small amount for Ratatoskr to sip from.
“Well,” David said, “I thought that was a pass.”
I toyed with my glass. “It was okay.”
David asked me incredulously, “It was okay? That was the most amazing thing for me, and it was ‘okay’ for you?”
“You’re young,” I said with a wicked grin. My phone beeped and I pulled it out to see a text message from Goodfellow.
David leaned over to see my screen. “Game time?”
“Yeah.” I felt my lips pull back in a wide grin. “Let’s go piss off some magi.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Spoil-Sport
It was dark when we left the restaurant and went down to Abbey Park. A few people walked here and there, but the streets were desolate otherwise. Once at the park, I wandered about the area with David watching.
David spoke as I did my third pass of the area, “You don’t know where it is?”
“It’s been awhile, and the trees are covering up my old markers for it.” A jolt of energy ran up my foot as it connected. I looked down at the ground, extending my arms and turning in a slow circle. “Here it is.” From my backpack, I pulled out a matted black stone sphere that fit in the palm of my hand.
Biting the corner of my thumb, I smeared blood over the stone. The sphere absorbed my blood, and I set it down on the ground. The stone lit up, its light reflecting on the ground and giving shape to a magical circle with ever-shifting runes. The soil rippled and sank into itself with a groan, revealing spiral stairs leading downwards.
“What was Merlin’s reason for allowing you a way in like this?” Ratatoskr asked as I plucked up the sphere.
“He said he wanted someone he trusted to be able to come here when needed,” I said.
David asked, “Merlin? The Merlin?” I turned to see his baffled expression. “King Arthur and the Round Table Merlin?”
Placing a hand to my chest, I feigned a shocked expression. “Have you heard about him?”
Don’t switch into proud-mom mode, Silence said. Our only saving grace is you don’t have baby pictures. Then we’d all be screwed.
Grinning, I looked behind us and—as if on cue—Goodfellow appeared, but in his true form. Folk tales always spun pucks as miniature satyrs with a knack for causing trouble, but they were far from that. Goodfellow stood no taller than a child as he ran up to us. Fair skin, big eyes, and wheat-blond hair in a ponytail made it easy to mistake him for a child at first glance. But the pointy ears reaching up and away from his head along with the serious eyes made it clear he wasn’t a kiddo.
He stopped short of the entrance, looking up at me with those big blue eyes. When he spoke, his voice held a misleading innocence in his sing-song words. “I brought friends,” he said with a grin. “If that’s okay.”
My eyes narrowed. “Just remember the deal,” I said, moving out of the way.
“Right, right,” he waved a hand, “no fire, no harm, no theft.” Under his breath, I heard him grumble, “Spoil-sport.”
I agree, you are a spoil-sport, Silence said, his voice dripping with indignation. We could be murdering Hunters right now, but no. We’re here playing cat burglar instead.
“Perfect. Thank you, Goodfellow,” I said, stepping to the side and gesturing for him to go ahead of us.
Goodfellow let out a child-like cackle and ran down the stairs. Once he’d passed the threshold, hundreds of small lights exploded from the trees around us and dove in after him with a harmonized whistle. Their passing ruffled my hair and clothes and the scent of flowers filled my nose. And I was fairly confident one felt up my ass, but it was hard to tell when they all flew by.
“What was that?” David asked, once all the lights were gone.
“Fairies. Kind of like the Fae, but lower ranking. Distant cousins or something. I’m not a hundred percent sure on how they structure themselves. You can ask them later once the trials are over. The Fae Courts and the Tuatha Dé Danann have a working relationship.” I motioned him to follow. “C’mon.”
I
took the lead down the stairs into the darkness, my eyes adjusting to the lack of light. David’s footsteps sounded behind, but when we were deep enough that the hole over our heads faded away, he placed a hand on my shoulder to keep from tripping.
I stopped at the foot of the stairs to search for the groove in the wall and placed the sphere in it. It clunked into place and after several seconds glowed with enough light to see several feet ahead of us. It rolled alongside us as we continued our descent.
“But why would Merlin give you a key?” Ratatoskr asked, his head poking out from under my hair, continuing the conversation from outside. “You would think he would want magi secrets to stay with the magi.”
I snorted. “You’re assuming Merlin thought and had the same values as a human. Vainya and I raised him. When this place was built, he knew certain items brought here would be too dangerous for humans to keep.” The stairs ended, and I pointed it out to David. “Rather than cause a disturbance each time, he made me my own entrance. It takes years for the magi to realize something is missing and they blame each other for it, or at least they did. I suspect their record keeping has—”
Silence’s voice boomed in my mind. Ghost, stop.
I froze dead in my tracks, making David collide into me. It wasn’t Silence’s words, but his tone that put my every sense on alert. “What is it?”
Listen.
Frowning, I tilted my head as I listened to the sounds I’d been ignoring. Their voices sounded closer with a clarity to the words I hadn’t been able to make out before.
One stood out more than the rest. As I focused on it, its words became a rumble in my mind and bones. One more mark... give yourself... need more blood...
Blood was easy enough to come across. Magical blood was always better than mundane. A perfectly good source of blood was behind me. All I needed to do—
Pain erupted from my ear, and I let out a “motherfucker” as I swatted at the source of the pain. Ratatoskr avoided my hand with ease, letting it slap at my bleeding ear, adding a sting to the building thudding pain.