Relics and Runes Anthology

by Heather Marie Adkins

  “Unseelie swine. They should be groveling at our feet for this gift we’ve bestowed upon them,” Mortimer responded.

  “Most do, Mortimer. Or is it this last defiant one who inflames your wrath so?” Famke asked in a defensive tone. Chloe could almost feel the evil glare the lavender-blonde and Mortimer must have given her.

  “Careful, Famke! Or I’ll have you kneeling before me,” Mortimer hissed.

  “Am I to be a consolation token for your victory then?” Famke said, sarcastically. “Unlikely.”

  “Know your place, or it will be your pretty little neck under my boot in their stead,” Mortimer spat.

  “I know my place, Mortimer. Do you?” Famke chided.

  Chloe could have sworn she heard the air swoosh, as if the lavender-blonde grabbed Mortimer’s hand before he could strike Famke. “Tsk, tsk, all things in due time,” the lavender-blonde purred, seeming to dismiss Famke’s display of disobedience. “Your frustrations are misplaced on our pet, brother. You’ll have what you truly desire soon enough.”

  “Promises, promises, dear sister. Enough teasing, let us finish this. I grow bored,” Mortimer’s husky voice answered back. The sound of their voices began to recede as they made their way out of Bram’s apartment.

  “Have you tired of my game and all its intricacies so soon, my love? No, I think not. Come; there’s more fun to be had.”

  “As I recall, you didn’t come to my chambers last night. If that’s the fun to be had, I’m all yours, my sweet. Let us celebrate this victory properly.”

  Yuck! Chloe felt like vomiting. She knew that most Fae were very indiscriminate sexual beings, but to hear it reciprocated by brother and sister was just gross! As she tried to get the disturbing visual out of her head, she strained to hear their footsteps in the hallway. Chloe heard lyrical chanting in a language she didn’t recognize. The sound was beautiful. Chloe thought that must be what a siren’s song would sound like.

  The voice belonged to Famke. She sang quietly, barely above a whisper. She remained inside the apartment while the others walked down the hallway. She ended her enchanting melody with English words that shocked Chloe. “May the Gods keep you safe.”

  From the stairwell, a voice cut through the unexpected prayer. “Famke, come!”

  Chloe bit her lip as she waited for the Dark Fae’s lingering footsteps to leave the apartment. She couldn’t help the tears that ran down her face as she finally heard the last footsteps fade down the hallway. It was all just a game to them. An entire planet and billions of people’s lives, were all just pawns in a twisted game of tug of war between the Light and the Dark.

  Too afraid to leave the protection of the small dark cubby to see if any of the guards had stayed behind with a tracker, Chloe crawled into Bram’s lap, hugged his chest, and quietly cried. His slow deep breathing helped to calm her nerves. Exhaustion took her and she finally fell asleep.

  Chloe woke with a kink in her neck and aches in muscles she didn’t even know she had.

  “Good morning?” Bram asked from beneath her.

  “Oh, shit!” she whispered checking the cubby door in the dark to ensure it was locked.

  “It’s okay. Whoever it was, they’re gone. Nice touch, concealing us with the silver. And I assume I’m reading you as a royal member of the Dark Court because...you have a certain ruby and gold pendant on?”

  “Mhm.” Her voice was quiet and reserved. She wasn’t sure about staying with Bram and the beast he could be hiding, but she didn’t like her chances without him either.

  Bram’s hand went to her forehead without the slightest hint of bumbling in the dark. It was as though he could see perfectly fine in complete darkness. “Are you alright?” He touched her gently near the bandaged gash.

  She shrugged. How well could she be with everything that was going on? Chloe felt lost and didn’t know what to do next. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “Figured you needed the sleep.” His torso began rapidly vibrating as he chuckled quietly. “How did you get me in here, anyway?”

  “It’s pitch black. Can you actually see in here?”

  “You first.”

  “Well, it wasn’t easy. Sorry for any bruises.” She started to untangle herself from his lap, but he stopped her.

  “Yes, I can see in here. Just outlines of shapes mostly.” Chloe could feel him shrug. “A sparkle in the back of your eyes,” he teased.

  Chloe rolled her eyes, wondering if Bram really could see in the dark.

  Bram reached into the darkness and found her hands with ease. “Thank you, Chloe.”

  His hands were warm, and she could feel her own pulse under his touch. “I…” she didn’t know what to say in response to his tender gesture of gratitude, but her first real Fae encounter had left her shaken, and Bram was still one of them.

  “Bram, they knew my name.” She shuddered. Until they had mentioned her scent, Chloe only had the suspicion she was being watched. Only before, she thought the eyes belonged to government officials trying to cover up the truth or merely the Dark Fae working alone. “Why are they after you, err...us?”

  “Scabs wouldn’t be. And they definitely wouldn’t know your name.” His body tensed. “Son of a bitch. Let me guess...Avery, Mortimer, and Famke?” he asked, confident in his assumption, but there was anger in his voice.

  Chloe nodded, forgetting they were still sitting in the dark. “Yes. Mortimer and Famke, but I never got their leader’s name.”

  “Ha! Avery only wishes she was their leader. Vile bitch!” Bram tensed again. “Well, shit! I knew they’d find this place sooner or later, but I was counting on much much later.”

  “You knew this might happen and we came here anyway? This wasn’t just scabs, Bram. This was the leaders of the Fae Courts!”

  He let out what seemed to be an annoyed sigh. “Not many options on foot during the apocalypse when everything wants to eat the human you’re lugging around like a sack of potatoes. Wouldn’t you agree? My apartment was close and stocked with weapons and food, and I don’t think you…”

  “I drank all your milk,” Chloe blurted out, trying to relieve the tension that had built up between them, while calming herself down as well.

  “What?” Bram was caught off guard.

  “It was in the freezer. The power’s out and I figured you left it in there for after the… Well, I don’t even know why or when you were going to wake up so...”

  Bram chuckled. “Come on,” he said unlocking the iron door. “I think it’s time we compared notes, Ms. I-know-everything.”

  Chloe remembered something as she returned the tiny silver shavings to their vial. “Professor Hadley’s journal!”

  “What about it?” Bram asked in a dismissive tone from behind the research she had pulled from her backpack.

  “We need it.” She closed the cap on the vial and put it near her backpack. She thought it important to keep it with them. Something as simple as tiny shavings of silver had probably just saved their lives. All the curious details of fae lore she’d learned, separating facts from fiction, had her hungry for more knowledge.

  “I’m not sure what good it would do now. I thought we’d have more time before they –what did you call it? –scorched the sky.”

  Chloe nodded.

  “Hadley thought we could stop them before it happened, but now…”

  “But now, what?”

  “But now, it’s too late. The professor is dead, and his research for stopping the scorch died with him.”

  Chloe went into theorizing mode. “Well, we can’t stop the scorch since it already occurred; that’s obvious. But what if we could end it? Is that something that’s even possible?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” Bram shrugged. He didn’t seem eager to explore options that might bring the fight to his door.

  “Well, do you have something better to do?”

  “Lay low. Survive. Don’t get dead.”

  Chloe shook her head and furrowed her brow. “That’s n
ot enough for me. They’ve destroyed everything I know. I can’t just sit here with all this information and not do something.”

  “I suppose you have something better in mind?” Bram looked at Chloe then.

  She gave him a sinister smile and placed the vial of filings and the silver dagger in her backpack. “The last thing Professor Hadley was working on was a worst-case-scenario option and possible solution. A Hail Mary he called it, just in case all else failed.”

  “He didn’t tell me that.” Bram seemed surprised Professor Hadley had kept it from him.

  “I think he knew the events were progressing at a faster rate than he first predicted and that there wasn’t a way to stop them. He sent me out to do some field reconnaissance. Just some final minor calculations he said he needed. The last time I talked to him, he told me he had just finished logging in his journal and was on his way to meet me to get my final data once I was finished. He said he had found the key to it all. That’s when...well, you know the rest.” Chloe paused for a minute. It seemed surreal to say it all out loud, but she only had to listen to the howls of the scabs outside to know it was all true. “He never carried the journal on him. He was afraid it wasn’t safe. I guess he was right.” Chloe looked at her data in Bram’s hands. “You’re holding the last piece of data the professor said he needed in your hands right now. Possibly part of the key to ending the scorch that Hadley deciphered and wrote in his journal just before they killed him for it.”

  Bram looked up at her then with renewed interest.

  “And I know where it is.”

  Chloe walked out of the bathroom in just her bra, black pants, and a black trench coat as Bram had instructed. She didn’t know exactly what he had planned, but she had a pretty good idea. “There’s no way I can pass for a higher-caste fae, let alone a royal.”

  “Would you relax?” Bram had changed into a black leather blazer, that in the flicker of the candlelight, flashed undertones of a deep red. For some reason it suited him, and he wore it as though it were a second skin.

  “Oh,” Chloe blurted out, finally taking a good look at him. He was clean-shaven for the first time since she’d known him. Bram had always been handsome, but until Chloe saw his entire hairless face, she’d never known how angelic he looked, how Fae he looked. His overgrown wavy black hair was now transformed into a very short military cut with a blood-red tint to it. It suited him somehow, like he wasn’t hiding behind an unkempt bush anymore. But what had startled Chloe the most were Bram’s pointed ears.

  “What?” He frowned.

  “You look like one of them. I mean; you could pass for one of the royals.”

  “You think so, huh?”

  Chloe couldn’t help it; she reached out to touch the tip of one of his ears.

  “At least buy me a drink first.”

  “Oh, uh sorry,” Chloe stuttered. “Are they real?”

  “What do you think?” Bram said, evading her question. He put knightly armor tips on his ears similar to the ones worn on Famke’s jeweled ears.

  “Let me guess...some type of weapon. Am I right?” Chloe asked, pointing at the tips.

  “It’s like you know me or something,” he teased.

  “I’m starting to.”

  Bram smiled at that. He slipped the ruby pendant she had worn earlier in the cubby over Chloe’s head. She thought it would have chilled her skin, but it didn’t. It was warm. Bram raised one hand over her head, and in a slow motion, started to trace the air around her, stopping to ask, “Ready?”

  Chloe nodded her consent. “You aren’t going to pass out on me again are you?”

  “From this? No.” He smiled again. “This is like breathing.”

  “Will it hurt?” She started to get nervous.

  “You won’t feel a thing,” he reassured her. “And speaking of ouchies, might as well start with this gash on your noggin. Most higher-caste fae don’t bleed so easily.”

  Chloe teased, “Could you conjure up some coffee while you’re at it, then, for this poor little ol’ mortal? A girl needs her caffeine.”

  “I could, but I won’t.”

  Chloe gave him a playful frown and sighed. “But my ouchie?”

  Bram couldn’t help but chuckle. “There’s ground coffee, creamer, and a French press in the cabinet. Didn’t you find them?”

  She let out a defeated, “No!”

  “Pity. Cold-brewed coffee is the best.” He tormented her as he continued tracing his hands in the air in front of her, as if he were caressing her aura.

  “Aren’t we afraid the scabs outside will be drawn to your use of magic?”

  “From this, it’s unlikely.” He smiled again. “But I put temporary wards up while you were changing. Just in case.”

  “Oh.” She started to feel a little self-conscious of the way his hands were mimicking the curves of her body.

  “There,” he said as he finished. “Have a look.” Bram’s voice had changed slightly, and he seemed to be avoiding looking at her.

  Chloe went to his bedroom mirror and gasped. “I look like...”

  “Famke,” he agreed, finishing her sentence with a sadness to his voice Chloe hadn’t expected.

  Chloe was fascinated by the reflection looking back at her. She moved her skin around her cheeks to the left and right. She didn’t feel any different, but her skin’s texture was visually different, nearly poreless. Her hand travelled to where her head gash had been. “Ouch. Nope, still there.” She felt like a flawless golden doll, but one with a gothic, sinister attitude.

  She turned her head to the side and admired her pointed ears, already adorned by metal tips of her own. “My gosh, they feel so real. This is a glamour, right? Will it wear off?” She pulled her now-raven-black hair from its messy bun and let it flow down her back. Its blue highlights shimmered in the candlelight. Even from what little Chloe had seen of Famke, she knew Bram had copied her image perfectly. From the slight lift at the tip of her nose to the arch in her brows, Chloe had become Famke of the Dark Fae. She wondered how Bram had gotten the glamour so perfect. Did all glamours work that way?

  “Gods, you look just like her.”

  Chloe looked at Bram just then. The sorrow on his face was heartbreaking. “You know her.” She fought for breath.

  His long pause hung in the air, thick and sorrowful. “A long time ago, maybe.”

  Bram started sorting through weapons, possibly, in the hopes of avoiding talking about his past. “People change, Chloe. Even fae.” Bram handed her the polished silver stake, now sheathed in a black-leather holster. “This is a trench spike. Well, a Fae version anyway. You’ll want to carry it and everything else you need in different strategic locations –not all in one place like in your backpack. Someone takes that, and then what? You’re left defenseless. This way, you’ll always have a weapon on you.” He showed her how to tie the spike into the trench coat sash at her bellybutton and demonstrated how to grab it quickly and stab all in one motion.

  Chloe mirrored his moves, slipping her fingers into the brass knuckles of the spike, releasing it from its holster, and aiming the tip at Bram’s heart.

  He reached down to take her other hand, and had her grip the top of the pommel. This put extra force against his chest, turning the weapon from a pointed tool into a jackhammer.

  “In a pinch, any sharp object may do the job if you’re strong enough. But this one’s special, elegant in its sleek beauty and simplicity of design.” Bram talked about his favored weapon like some men talked about cars. Chloe wondered how many times he had used it. “The iron core weakens your target while the silver makes it easier to cut through their skin and bone. One fluid move with all your might. The scabs have a thick chest plate of bone protecting their heart. It’s one of only two vulnerabilities they have. You’ll hear the bone crack. That’s how you’ll know you made it through. Keep pushing all the way to their heart. You reach that, and they’re dead.” He pushed the stake harder against his flesh, testing her response as it threate
ned to pierce his skin.

  She gasped and looked into his eyes. Her gut instinct was telling her to let go. She didn’t want to hurt Bram. But she didn’t let go. She held her ground. Their survival depended on her being able to defend herself. And for all she knew, Bram was immortal and couldn’t be killed.

  “Don’t hesitate. Got it?” He seemed worried about their quest.

  “Got it.” She looked up at him and tried to sound confident. “And will it work on the royals?”

  Bram looked her straight in the eyes, and for the briefest moment, he gave her a cold hard stare she imagined rivaled any glare from Zeus or Ares who had dared been questioned by a lowly mortal. “No.”

  Chloe decided to let her burning questions about Famke and the others go and gave Bram a reprieve, for the moment. The brief glimpse into whatever type of fae Bram was had proved quite intimidating. She didn’t want to wake the beast lurking just below Bram’s outer shell. “So, this glamour, will it hold?”

  Bram shrugged, almost happy that the subject of Famke and the royals was being dropped. The way he switched from Godlike back to normal was eerie. “I’ve never really created a glamour for a human before, not like this. I have no idea if it will hold.” He held up several long, delicate chains made of metal. “Hence the reason for all the weapons. These are faerie whips,” he said, wrapping one loosely around her wrist.

  “They’re so delicate. What can they do?”

  “Strike at your target, just like it’s a leather whip. Let the iron connect with the scab’s flesh, and then pull. Who knows? You may get lucky and even decapitate one of them. That’s their second vulnerability.”

  “Aw, just the bling every girl needs in the apocalypse. You shouldn’t have.” Chloe had to joke or she’d probably vomit. She was a research student, not a warrior princess. She was fairly certain Professor Hadley hadn’t shared his theory about what he predicted was coming and the Fae’s involvement with many students. So, if she didn’t try to save the world, who would? “Hand me another?” She asked, holding out her hand.

  Bram smiled. During his silence after her quip, he had, most likely, been giving her time to mentally wrangle with the severity of what they were about to take on. “This was your idea.”