Familiar Stranger

by Michele Hauf

“So long, Jack boy, hello Miss Mersey Bane,” the demon announced. It retracted its tongue from Jack’s body, an icy blade withdrawn with a bite. In its wake, flames burst upon Jack’s chest. His brain told his hand to slap at the fire, but his arm wouldn’t cooperate. The motion of Beryth whisking off the bed extinguished the flame to a smoldering, stinging ache.

  Great exhaustion melted Jack’s muscles and limbs. He tried to reach for Mersey, but she wasn’t on the bed. He could barely lift his head; his skull felt like a boulder rolling upon the pillow. Released from the demon’s control. That knowledge overwhelmed like fog creeping across his heart. For behind the fog formed acute clarity. And now Beryth was after something more powerful.

  “Mersey,” he managed to say. “Watch out!”

  “I’m fine, Jack,” he heard her shout.

  But she wasn’t. The ring had broken. She wore no protection. And if he couldn’t move to help her—

  The demon lifted Mersey above the bed. Out lashed its tongue. A full-blood familiar, who wasn’t tapped and who could get the demon into anything within the Cadre was the biggest prize. Mersey did not hold the crystal. Jack pulled himself to the edge of the bed, the journey like a dying man dragging himself across the desert. The quartz pyramid sat on the floor.

  Beryth growled. The creature changed to its natural state, horned, red and angry. One taloned claw held Mersey by the neck, dangling. Jack spread his arms and lunged forward. He clasped Mersey’s legs, but in that instant, she slipped from him. Completely vanished from the room.

  And in the next moment, Jack found himself sitting in a thatch of stinging nettle. Outside. Full sun beamed upon his naked flesh. Two grinning stone gargoyles peered down upon him.

  “I loved your mother.”

  “Demons cannot own that emotion,” Mersey spat. Though she knew better. While a demon was focused to its directive—in Beryth’s case, dread—the only other emotions it felt were lust and anger. The cutting sting of Beryth’s hand across Mersey’s cheek sent her reeling. She groped for the leg of the stainless-steel lab table for support.

  “We do know love. It’s just so…random.” It flicked a hand, gesturing dismissively. So human an action. “It strikes without warning. And it struck me hard.”

  “Love is not lust. You felt lust toward my mother. And when my father crystallized you, the Cadre should have kept you stored forever.”

  “The decade I spent in that icy prison was unwarranted. I would have never harmed Mirabelle.”

  “Then what did?”

  “She called a war demon, quite by accident. Your mother wasn’t prepared for the intensity of its rage.”

  “If you know that, then why didn’t you stop it from murdering her?”

  “I was in a damned crystal!” Beryth shivered and closed its redlidded eyes. The demon clasped its black-taloned fingers near its chest. “And it was love. Mirabelle, she was…sublime.”

  “Don’t speak of her. Please.”

  “No, of course not. She is my prize. The memory that got me through my hell. Now, you will help me to take revenge against the Cadre for imprisoning me in one of those officious crystals. Do you know what that experience is? You, who captures my kind as a profession! I deal dread, and yet, nothing can match imprisonment in an icy hell such as the one Caractacus consigned me to.”

  “You’ll be back inside that hell soon enough. Jack will save me.”

  “Do you mean your hero? Perhaps he’ll kill me, eh? Blast me to Kingdom Come? Do you think he’ll consider the fallout before he pulls the trigger?”

  Mersey wilted upon the stone floor. Would Jack think about the fallout? She was now tapped by Beryth. If Jack killed the demon, he would kill her, too.

  Chapter 27

  A dragonfly buzzed his nose—a dragonfly the size of a swan. Jack ducked and batted at the insect. Then he stood and looked around. The gated cottage sat before him. The gargoyle pair growled silently, though Jack felt their acute observance.

  Somehow he’d been booted out of the manor.

  “Because I’m not with her,” he whispered, dread seeping into his pores.

  “I’ve done it again. Led the demon to another woman I love.”

  A surreptitious glance up and to the left spied one of the gargoyles. Cracked all over, but in one piece. That one had tasted his wrath; perhaps it would be leery.

  “Mersey,” he muttered, pleading for his lost lover. Even more than knowing Beryth had her was the horrid moment he’d felt her final protective ring fall away. “I’ve got to get back to her.”

  Leaping, he gripped the iron crossbar that topped the gate, and pulled himself up and over. Jack landed and turned to look into the soft cornflower eyes of a woman who could have been his mother’s age.

  “Out for a stroll in the woods, are you now?” she asked. There was no question the woman was not mortal. Her voice iced over him, raising the hairs on his arms. “Oh, but you’ll take a nasty burn to your bits like that, you will.”

  Jack cupped his privates with both hands. “No time for small talk, Granny, I’ve been booted out of the Cadre’s headquarters and I need to get back. You know what I’m talking about, I’m sure you do.”

  “Watch your tone with me, faery,” she admonished sharply. Right. The glamour. So he still looked like that Raskin bloke?

  “Now,” she resumed the sweet voice, “you look lost. I can point your way to the faery round, if you’ll—”

  “No!” Not caring if he was naked, Jack sideswiped her and made for the cottage, and the narrow oval door, surrounded by climbing red roses.

  “There is a woman inside the manor who needs my help. Her name is Mersey Bane, and she’s been kidnapped by the demon Beryth. You understand me, lady?”

  He reached for the lion’s head doorknob, yet drew back with a yelp. Thorns as long as his fingers and brandishing a saber edge flashed in the sunlight.

  “What the bloody—?”

  He swung about to find the woman standing with a silver tea tray in hand. Behind her sat three white wicker chairs. A tablecloth laid over a small tea table fluttered in the afternoon breeze.

  “Fancy a bit of tea?” she asked.

  “Tea?”

  On the verge of shaking the woman silly, out of the corner of his eye Jack sighted another figure. Toward the back of the cottage, exiting a garden, meandered a hunched old man, using a cane and wobbling at the speed of stop.

  “I’ve no time for your brass, old lady,” Jack said, controlling his anger.

  “I’m naked!”

  “Tea tastes fine no matter one’s clothing choice. But I’d caution you against spilling, I would.”

  He needed to remain calm. The wood was enchanted. Which meant this cottage was enchanted, and likely the old couple, as well. They must be some kind of threshold guardians, providing entrance to the castle—yes, he’d read about this while researching the Cadre. He had to play this right.

  “Name’s Jack Harris,” he said. He didn’t offer to shake her hand because he needed both of them to cover his privates.

  “Pleased to meet you, Jack.” She swept a slow gaze up his length. “All of you.” The woman sat on a chair and patted the one next to her. Jack sat. Behind him, the old man had got no farther than five feet from the garden.

  “I’ve not heard of you, Jack Harris,” she said. “New to the forest?”

  “You could say that. Listen, I’m not what I seem.”

  She lifted a stern brow. “I sense that.” Her eyes strayed to his crotch. A cheery red-and-white checked tablecloth covered the tea table. Jack pulled a magician’s move and succeeded in nabbing the cloth without upsetting the tea service. Laying it over his lap, he received an approving nod from his hostess.

  “But I’ve been remiss with introductions. My name is Ophelia.”

  The very same Ophelia that Mersey had mentioned to have a keen bite?

  “How’s the tea? It’s hawthorn.”

  He sipped the tea. It was…“Refreshing.”

  �
�It’ll show the truth of you.”

  Jack tilted the cup to peer at his lap. Couldn’t she already see enough of him?

  “You know Mersey Bane?”

  “I have had the pleasure of that name.” Coy, she sipped again, her littlest finger pointing to the perfect white clouds overhead. Daylight here. Again. “She your girl?”

  “Yes.”

  And yes! She was his girl, and Jack wasn’t about to allow one more innocent’s death because he couldn’t be there to protect her. Though he knew Mersey was strong, she was no match to Beryth. And the rings!

  She had no protection now.

  “She’s in danger, Ophelia. Ophelia. That’s a lovely name, by the way.”

  The woman lowered her eyes. Rosy blush filled her apple cheeks. “Have more tea, will you dear?”

  “I’m not thirsty. Will you help me, Ophelia? I must get back inside the manor to rescue Mersey.”

  “Drink the tea.”

  Startled by the commanding tone, Jack lifted the cup and swallowed back the whole thing. He felt a strange sweat suddenly rise, gulped deeply, and then the air about him grew dense, as if his pores had expelled the dust.

  “As I suspected,” Ophelia said. “Wearing a glamour, were you?”

  He patted his chest, seeing only himself, but suspecting the glamour had just been defeated. “Mersey got it for me. I wasn’t trying to fool you.”

  “Bad form, Jack.”

  Now where had he heard that before? Could he not please any woman?

  “From where do you hail, Jack Harris?”

  “Hail? Me?” Truth, Jack. It was the only way. “London. I—I work for PCell.”

  “Makes sense.” Soft blue eyes slashed over him with an admonishing cut.

  “You seem like a hunter.”

  “I protect innocent civilians. There are demons that only do harm—you must know that. Beryth is one of them.”

  “Miss Bane has been trained. She’ll fare well enough.”

  “Well enough?” Jack crushed his hand into a fist. Porcelain cracked. He opened his fingers to let the shards of teacup spill to the ground. “I’m not sorry for that. In fact, your neck is next, old lady. Mersey is under Beryth’s influence. The protection spell her mother gave her is completely gone. She cannot help herself.”

  “And you propose to do so?”

  “Hell, yes!”

  “It means sure death for one or the both of you.”

  “If you’re talking me and Beryth, then bring it on. I don’t care if I don’t survive. All that matters is that Mersey is safe.”

  Jack huffed out an exhale. Yes, he meant it. He would sacrifice his life for Mersey’s. Life was worth very little if it did not include Mersey Bane.

  The woman stared at the teacup shards as if it were a child, broken in a fall.

  “Ophelia!”

  Jack jumped out of the chair, crouching to defend. Behind him the old man wavered, cane shaking, bushy white hair listing in the breeze.

  “What in blue blazes are you doing with this naked man?” the geriatric demanded.

  The woman nodded, attention still fixed to the teacup. “Not so much as I should dream to.”

  Jack pulled the tablecloth around his hips, sensing her leering scrutiny.

  “Not right.” The man wobbled forward. “Not right…at all!”

  What was once old and frail transformed fluidly into a towering, musclewrapped white wraith. Jack could see through the figment to the apple trees dotted with red fruit in the backyard. But the hot breath flaming over his face made it very real.

  “Apologize,” the beast commanded.

  “Right.” Clutching the cloth like an apron, Jack stepped out of the chair, eyes to the creature. He didn’t have a weapon. And how to punch through a figment? “S-sorry, Miss Ophelia. I-it’s just…Mersey is…”

  To give voice to an emotion that welled inside him and made him warm and right? She lifted him out of the darkness and made him realize it was okay to mourn his past, but that he shouldn’t dwell there. Jack rubbed the hematite ring on his pinky finger along his hip. Mersey wanted to protect him. And she had—at the unexpected sacrifice of her freedom.

  He didn’t deserve her. But he did admire her. And Mersey must have the freedom she craved.

  “I love her.”

  The wraith morphed back to an ailing geriatric. Cane abandoned on the ground, the old man put his attention to collecting it, one creaking bend of his spine at a time.

  “You love her?”

  Jack turned to find Ophelia stood next to him. Her eyes wandered downward, where her fingers toyed with the hem of the tablecloth that threatened to splay open his makeshift kilt. What was with these creepy sorts?

  “I do love her. Honestly. I don’t ever say things like that. But I mean it.”

  “Have you never said it before?” the woman interrogated sternly.

  “What do you mean? Like, to another woman? No.” He scratched his head.

  “What about your Monica Price? You held love for her in your heart.”

  “And I still do. A different kind of love,” he defended quickly. “I realize that now. Monica was comfortable, like family, and yes, I did desire her. But Mersey, she’s everything.” The words came easily and felt like air on his tongue. Light, encompassing, and necessary. “I’ve never felt this way about another woman. I don’t want to live without her.”

  Ophelia lifted his hand and inspected the hematite ring wrapping his little finger. “She gave you this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not her mother?”

  “What? I…no. Mersey put this on my finger hours ago.” And if he was gaining headway with this couple, then please hurry it up! But he had to restrain himself from pushing. “For protection,” he said. “I was given one very similar to this as a child.”

  “By a black cat?” Ophelia asked.

  “Yes. You…know the cat?” It wasn’t a ridiculous question. Not after all Jack had learned in the past few days. “Mersey’s mother?”

  Ophelia exchanged gazes with the old man.

  “Please, Miss Ophelia. I love her. I’m just one man. I can’t protect everyone. But I believe Mersey’s mother chose me. And if that is so, then I accept the challenge. I’d give my all for Mersey.”

  “You will!” The old man rallied, thrusting his cane to the sky. Ophelia smiled and bowed her head. She gestured toward the front door of the cottage. Entrance granted.

  But Jack couldn’t go in yet. He thought of the Range Rover parked on the road, and the thing he’d brought along, not knowing why, but that there would be a reason.

  A reason crystal clear to him now.

  “I must get to my car first. There’s something inside it I need.”

  “A weapon?”

  “Yes!”

  The woman’s lips tightened, but in the next instant, Jack found himself standing next to his car. He would not bother to question the weird goings-on. Instead, he leaned inside and fit his palm about the glass ball. Direct sunlight beamed into the clear globe, casting a rainbow across Jack’s wrist. It felt lighter than usual, and yet heavy with possibility.

  “Right then,” Jack said, and when next he looked, he was back before the cottage.

  When Jack made to walk toward it—tablecloth wrapped round his hips—

  Ophelia thrust out her hand, catching him across the chest.

  “What’s that?”

  He tilted the hunk of glass. “Truth? It’s a ball of guilt. I’m going to kill it all today. And if there’s a demon in my path, then mores the better.”

  She nodded approvingly. “That weapon is well and fine. A true warrior you are, my son. But what will you offer for entry, Jack Harris, Demon Frightener?”

  Jack thought for a few seconds. The tangible would not be considered. Not as if he had anything on him to offer anyway.

  Offering the glass ball was out of the question.

  Whatever he put forth, it had to be something true and worthy of Mersey’s rescu
e. There was but one thing Jack owned that he could offer. “I’d give my life to look into Mersey’s eyes one more time.”

  “So you offer your life?”

  “Yes,” he said, never more sure of anything. “Take it. Only get me in there now. Er…with clothes, if you can manage that.”

  Ophelia smiled and nodded. “Enter freely.”

  And this time, the thorns did not bite.

  He wore clothes. Or rather, armor. Mesh chainmail that linked to below his hips and topped off suede trousers. Sturdy suede boots laced to below his knees. In a leather sack tied at his waist, the glass ball hung ominously. And he carried a broadsword so heavy he had to use both hands to lift it.

  “You’ve got to be bloody kidding me,” Jack muttered, but he didn’t think on his anachronistic clothing overlong. He was inside the Cadre. He had to find Mersey.

  Jack focused his thoughts toward Mersey. The essence of her lived in the ring on his smallest finger. That part of her that had embedded itself inside of him. He should be able to sense her….

  “My heart will find you,” he muttered.

  The mail was heavy and loud. Jack plodded forward, down the hallway that he recognized leading to Mersey’s bedroom. The door was open. A man stood inside.

  Chapter 28

  J ack rushed the room, sword held at the ready in both fists. He’d never used a broadsword before, yet he’d trained with an épée in the army. He figured the gist of the motions quickly. Swing, thrust and jab. Someone stood by the window, curtain pulled aside. Jack thrust the blade toward the intruder.

  “I surrender!” the man shrieked, backing his shoulders to the wall and putting up his hands.

  “Name, rank and ID number, pronto.”

  “Uh, Squire Callahan, storage manager, and—sodding hell, I can’t remember my ID number.”

  “You work here?”

  The blond man nodded effusively. He didn’t appear threatening, more frightened than anything.

  Jack looked down the blade of the sword. “What are you doing in Mersey’s room?”

  “I was l-looking for her.”

  “You always come in her room when she’s not around?”

  Squire shrugged. “Wh-who are you? You’re not an initiate. I…think I need to call for—”