by Mina Carter
“Err, silly question but aren’t magic circles supposed to be drawn on the floor?” he ventured, noting that not only was the floor space the circle was drawn onto clear of clutter but that someone had swept it recently as well. Apparently though, their housekeeping efforts only extended as far as the circle, leaving a ridge of dirt and dust around the clean area. Not randomly, as though the brush wielder couldn’t be bothered, but very precisely. Deliberately done. A circle within a circle he realised with a start. Old, old magic. So old most people didn’t realise it was actually magic.
“Well aren’t we mister picky? Do you see enough floor space in here to go for a proper circle?” Jane demanded, “No, we had to adapt things slightly, use what we had,” She handed the baby over to Tessa, who was beginning to resemble a pack horse by now. An amused quirk of her lips told Feral she was thinking exactly the same thing, a look passing between the two.
A little startled by how in sync they appeared to be, how it almost seemed as though she could read his mind, Feral went back to studying the circle.
Painted with what appeared to be a domestic decorating brush and leftover emulsion the designs seemed crude at first. But then his attention was drawn inwards, following the lines and he realised they really weren’t crude after all. Yes, they’d been done with crude equipment and that had thrown him at first. It was like giving a concert pianist a child’s keyboard. But something beautiful had been created despite it all. The lines drawn confidently and with a flourish. A labour of skill and love he’d not seen for a long time.
“This was done by a Warden. A good one,” he breathed as he opened his hand and passed his palm over the nearest marks.
The witching flared violet, the symbols etching themselves into the air itself, hanging there shimmering for a second before falling away like purple fairy dust. The colour of the Warden’s magic who had cast them. He frowned for a moment, he didn’t know of any Warden families that cast in the purples. Not in the local area anyway. Jane must have shipped someone in.
Jane chuckled, “Someone give the boy a prize!” She cast a look at Tessa, “You sure can pick the bright ones, can’t you, hun?”
Feral coloured a little, unsure why he’d become the butt of the jokes around here. He noticed that about women before. Get one on her own and she was fine but get them in packs of two or more and suddenly everything a guy said or did was wrong!
He caught Spud’s eye, looking for some moral support from the only other male in the room. Spud just blinked back at him, a look that plainly said, ‘you’re on your own buddy. I’m cute and milking it for all it’s worth!’
Sighing he turned back to the matter at hand, ignoring Jane’s comment. “Ok, what I don’t understand is why you got a Warden to recreate a Fairy gate? Why not just apply to them for a licensed one? I hear they relaxed the rules, even Nightclubs are getting them now…”
Jane arched an eyebrow, turned to look at him fully, her expression clearly saying she didn’t think he was all there.
“Err, perhaps because I don’t want them to know it’s here?? You know, like … keep it a secret?” she replied scathingly. “Not exactly a secret anymore is it? If half the court admin know about it! And there's no sense in expecting a Brownie to keep its mouth shut when there's some gossip to share!”
He had to admit she had a point. Brownies had to be the worst gossips out, often making things up if the real news wasn't spicy enough. And you could guarantee, you said something in earshot of one, the rest would know by lunchtime.
He shuddered. Brownies had always given him the creeps. Because of his own paranormal blood he could see through the weak glamour they cast to fool human minds. A glamour that made them appear to be small, neat men of interminable middle age.
Underneath though they were wizened, spindly creatures with bulbous eyes and over long fingers. They reminded him of spiders, with their quick movements and thin limbs.
“I see your point,” he conceded, curious as to why an aunt of Tessa's needed a secret back door into the Fae realm. He didn't get to ask that question however as at the next moment a heavy thud sounded against the door at the top of the stairs.
“I suggest you do whatever it is you're planning,” Feral said quickly, moving over to the piles of broken furniture and other clutter and starting to throw it into the stairwell. That way, if they got through the door, they'd still have a fight to get down the stairs.
Jane nodded, flashed Tessa a brief reassuring smile as she started to chant, moving around the circle as she did and triggering wards on its perimeter.
Tessa watching in amazement, Spud cuddled up tight in her arms. Her worry at the pursuers momentarily forgotten as she watched the beautiful symbols flare brightly in the air for a few seconds before they started to fade to nothing again.
Her own magic wasn't particularly strong, just enough for will-o-wisps and personal glamour. In fact, the stunt she pulled in the nursery, getting will-o-wisps to attack that Pixie had been the most magic she pulled since her teens. Attempting to become more human and blend in, she just stopped using it.
But now, seeing Jane using it, albeit by extension as she was using 'pre-recorded magic' set up by the maker of the circle, Tessa wondered whether that had been the right choice. Whether she'd been right to turn away from that side of her heritage. Perhaps that was why she didn't feel like she fit in her own skin sometimes?
Finally Jane stopped moving, she held her hand motionless over one symbol.
Expectation built up in the room like pressure in an airplane cabin as she carried on chanting.
Her voice rose steadily until she reached the end of the incantation, saying the last words with a flourish of her fingers.
Something hit the air in the room, not a sound precisely, more like a sound wave or the ripples in a pond after a stone had been dropped into the water. She shivered as it hit her, reverberating through her body before it passed on, rippling outwards.
As Tessa watched, the dirt 'door' changed, a shimmer passing over it like quicksilver, filling the frame until it looked like the surface of a mirror. One that reflected nothing, only the pale swirl of opaque mist that curled and moved within its rectangular confines.
Behind her the door cracked, startling a squeak from Tessa. She ducked instinctively, expecting hordes of Pixie Warriors to pour down the stairs at any moment. She clutched Spud tighter to her as Jane shoved her bodily towards the strange door.
“You need to go, now!” She shoved a folded parchment into Tessa's hands. “This'll show you which way to go.”
Feral caught up with them, barely even breathing heavy at the exertion of hauling furniture about. “That door's not going to hold them up much longer,” he announced, his voice urgent. Even as he spoke, the heavy thud filtering down changed in quality. A different note as though it wasn't just a shoulder or a heavily applied boot hitting the door anymore but something else. “Crap, someone got a brain and decided to use the fire extinguisher,” Feral muttered, grabbing Tessa's arm.
“You're not coming?” He asked, as Jane held back.
She shook her head, “This is your journey,” she replied cryptically. “And I have my orders. This is as much help as I can give you. Other than that, I wish you good luck!”
Worry speared Tessa's heart. If these Pixies were anything like the ones that had broken into her sister's apartment then they could hurt her aunt. Despite the fact that Jane was hundreds of years old, definitely old enough to look after herself, Tessa still worried.
“You have to come with us,” she insisted, trying to grab her aunt's hand. Feral stopped her, lacing his fingers with hers.
“Leave it be love, if she says she can't then she can't,” His voice was gentle. He recognised the look in Jane's eyes. It was the same as the one Vixen's mate Kalen had had an encounter with a Goddess.
“Will you be okay?”
Jane pulled herself up to her full height. “Young man, I'll have you know I was Queen of England at one poin
t,” she said imperiously, “I think I can handle some bloody Pixies.
Now will you two damn well go!!”
The bloody fools were in the wilds. Talven shook his head unsure whether to applaud the Kyn Warriors audacity or call him insane for putting the woman and child in danger like that. Not that they’d be any better off if Talven and his men got hold of them but still… the Night Plains?
He looked out into the darkness of the plains, studying the shadows. It wasn’t a comfortable study but he made himself carry on, certain that he was being watched in turn.
The lights strung along the road kept the shadows at bay, which he was grateful for. There were things out there he sure as hell didn’t want to get all up close and personal with.
The Night Plains were the home territory of the Host. The Night Host, the Wild Hunt, they had many names but they all meant the same thing. Creatures more nightmare than Fae, they completely freaked Talven out, and those were the ones the Host themselves considered fit to be seen by the rest of the Fae.
The massive Sidhe warhorse under him moved, Talven shifted in his saddle to settle the horse even as a shudder went through his own lean frame. There were things out there the Host didn’t consider fit to be seen by anyone else and nothing, no amount of money nor threats of physical violence, would have persuaded Talven to set foot off this road and go in there.
But the Kyn had done just that, deliberately taken an unlicensed gate right into the heart of the darkness. Talven shook his head again, an expression of begrudging respect crossing his handsome features. That took some fucking guts, it really did.
Ilia, of course, was incandescent with rage. Talven really didn’t want to think of what the Pixies who had failed the second time were going through now. Taking the bodies of the first three out of her chambers had been bad enough. His eyes shadowed as he rested against the high pommel of his saddle.
She was getting worse, and more dangerous. At first it had just been the odd one or two, drifters no one would miss from the mortal world. He hadn’t liked it but he helped clean up, removed the bodies and dumped them out here where the shadows could take them.
But that was before the Pixie deal had gone bad. Ilia had tasted paranormal flesh and it had basically gone tits up since then. Every night he was finding one less Pixie and one more corpse to be dealt with, if you could call the pitiful remains he found corpses. Stripped of their flesh… desecrated.
He shuddered and cleared his thoughts, deliberately closing off that portion of his mind. He didn’t need to think about it. She was his Lady, he was sworn to do her bidding since he’d been strong enough to wield a sword and he would do so until the day he died.
“Right you lot, partner up and let’s start this patrol,” he ordered as he wheeled his mount around. “They’ve got to come out of the darkness onto a road at some point, if only to cross it. I want them grabbed as soon as they do.”
Tessa screwed her eyes up as Feral propelled the three of them bodily through the strange door, the sharp crack of wood sounding as the door above them gave in. The sounds of triumph cut off instantly as they hit the quicksilver barrier, a cold chill passed over Tessa’s skin and made her shiver.
It didn’t splash or stick to them as she expected, her hand over Spud’s face just in case. Instead there was an odd sound, like the pop in your ears as they equalised in a plane.
She stumbled forward a little, a fresh breeze hitting her face. The smell of the outdoors and rain hit her nostrils and she instantly knew they were outdoors now. The question was, where?
Her eyes snapped open, looking around. They stood in a small clearing in what looked like a wood. Leaves and other debris wet underfoot, the shine of the moon overhead glinting off the moist surfaces. Tessa wasn’t afraid of the dark particularly, or of being places at night but there was an unsavoury feel about the shadows around them that had her shrinking closer to the large form of the Vampire next to her.
Feral moved in front of her, his face purposeful and his blades back on his hands. He stood still, every line of his body alert for danger as he checked their surroundings. She knew without asking that he was ready for anything this place might throw at them, the look in his eyes told her he was ready to react violently and without mercy. Despite her worry at the situation they were in, chased into the Fae realm by homicidal Pixies, the sight still took Tessa’s breath away; like that he was quite literally the stuff of her erotic fantasies.
She shivered, half imagining a future with him. What it would be like to have him around all the time. She already knew he could be sweet and gentle; his behaviour with Spud was evidence of that. Right now though, he was channelling ‘Bad Ass’ with a vengeance. To have that ‘tame me if you can’ bad boy attitude and that body, which was to die for, on tap?
Oh God, it would be like all her Christmases rolled into one!
Determined, she tried to concentrate, although her eyes kept sliding to check out his ass as he stood in front of her. It was a nice ass, hard and firm, and she just ached to grab a handful.
“Mind on the job, Tessa honey,” His voice barely reached her in the darkness. “I can’t concentrate if you do that,”
A flush covered her cheeks as he went back to his scan, standing so still she was sure he’d become a living statue. She heard Vampires could do that but she had never seen it herself. How had he known she was checking him out though? He wasn’t even looking her way!
Finally he moved, blinking and coming back to life again to smile at her.
“Okay, so how did you know I was checking you out?” she demanded. She had to know, it was going to drive her mad otherwise! “If you’re reading my mind fang-boy, I don’t care if you’re the god-damn Vampire king himself… I’ll kick your ass into next week!” she promised, her eyes flashing fire.
Feral laughed and held his hands up in surrender. For such a small women she sure was feisty. Belligerence and attitude all wrapped up in a small package with that curvy body which was driving him mad. “Well, it’s lucky I’m not… Marak’s too busy getting his own ass kicked by his new wife Maria. She’s just as damn awkward as you are. I really feel for the guy!”
Tessa grinned broadly. “Good on her! Can’t let you men get away with anything. Give you an inch and you take a damn mile. So are you going to answer the question or what?”
Feral slid her a sideways glance, moving past her to get a look at the door they’d come through. His deep chocolate eyes were warm and teasing. “Maybe, or maybe I should go for the ‘or what’…”
“I’ll give you or what…”
Feral hid his grin as he turned to study the doorway. An honest to goodness ordinary doorframe just stood there in the middle of the clearing. Unlike the complicated wards and markings around the one on the other side in the basement of the hotel, this side was completely unadorned.
“One way gate,” he murmured, half to himself. “Smart. Don’t want anything from this side getting through.” He smoothed his hand over the wood, the prickle of active wards warning him of heavy duty protection spells buried in the flimsy wood. “Some fancy Warden work here I’d say, your aunt must have paid a pretty penny for this lot.”
Tessa shrugged and shivered as she cuddled the baby closer, breathing in his familiar scent as she looked around. All babies smelled the same, like warm baby powder and well…
pure baby. If anyone could bottle the stuff, they’d make a fortune! It was the ultimate
‘comfort smell’.
Feral’s comment about not wanting anything from this side to get through had caused a chill to run down her spine. That didn’t sound good, not good at all! Her teasing mood, which had been clinging on despite the odds, disappeared as a new thought occurred to her. A very unwelcome thought.
“We’re on the Night Plains, aren’t we?” Her voice was quiet, wary. She’d heard of the place. Who hadn’t? It featured in every scary story told to any child with Fae blood. But she never thought her aunt meant this when she talked
about travelling to the Fae Court!
“I’m afraid so,” Feral pushed away from the door and held his hand out to take a couple of the bags. Without a death squad of Pixies breathing down their necks he didn’t need to be on such a constant alert. His finely honed senses would him if anything even thought about getting within spitting distance and if they kept on the move… they should make it through this.
“Come on, we need to get going.”
Chapter Seven
Feral shifted position, a grimace on his face as he tried to ease some life into his leg.
Not an easy task considering Tessa was half lying across it, Spud in her arms. Both were fast asleep. They'd walked for a couple of hours through the endless night, following the parchment map Tessa had been given. Eager to get through the Plains, Feral would have pushed on, but Tessa had begun to stumble, her weariness showing in the droop of her shoulders and the heaviness of her steps.
He called a stop, knowing they weren't going any further when she'd run into his back for the third time. Half mortal she didn't have the reserves he did. So now they were settled into a clearing off the crude path, a fire blazing in front of them. Feral had taken watch, since he didn't actually need to sleep and Tessa was all but dead on her feet, his back against a broad tree trunk and his senses on high alert.
So far though, nothing. The combination of the fire and the scent of Vampire was enough to keep most of the local wildlife away so Feral let his attention wander a little. His hearing was acute enough to pick up and track anything with a heartbeat, which left him free to study the woman in his arms.
What was it about her he found so fascinating? He'd seen plenty of human/paranormal half breeds but none had affected him the way she did. And she was a damn Pixie to boot!
He didn't like Pixies. It was a long standing dislike, one that had intensified last year.
A bunch of Pixies had kidnapped his patrol partner, Vixen, one of them had damn near killed her and he'd gotten a right good pasting to boot. These days it was a sorry Pixie that crossed Feral's path!