Wayward Moon: Dark Fae Hollow 6: (Dark Fae Hollows)

by Aileen Harkwood

  The farther we walked, however, the dirtier and uglier the streets became. Houses had holes in them or were missing entire walls. Bridges ended halfway across canals, their railings broken or twisted and falling into the water. Men stared at us as we walked by, but the girl, who hadn’t told me her name, glared back, one side of her lip lifting in a snarl.

  “Well, look what we have here,” said a girl the same age as my chaperone, who stepped out of a doorway.

  “Tanza,” my new friend greeted her.

  “Lyla,” Tanza said back.

  Like the girl who’d brought me here, Tanza’s arms were furred, only her fur was blue. Matching blue threads snaked through her lips in a pattern that reminded me of the Venetian Rose Point lace the nuns made. She didn’t have scales on her eyelids, but her eyes were also blue, the color in them stitched over whatever was underneath, using fine threads of light. I stepped back from her in fear, just like Sister Ignacio had backed into the hallway away from me.

  Suddenly girls stepped out of doorways and trotted down staircases from all directions. Lyla, the girl who’d brought me here, stood to the side, arms crossed, and watched Tanza pace slowly around me, examining me from the front, back, and sides.

  “What a sweet little morsel,” Tanza said. “Wherever did you find her?”

  “Down by that old convent place. I think they threw her out,” Lyla said.

  “Couldn’t have been that long ago,” a third girl said. Her furred arms were black, too. “Her dress doesn’t have a spot on it.”

  “Long enough,” Lyla said. “I caught her trying to drink from the canal.”

  Their shrill laughter startled me.

  “Then no one is going to come looking for her,” Tanza said.

  Emerald lips peeled back in a toothy smile. “Not likely,” Lyla said.

  “Perfect.”

  Tanza reached for me. I backed up. Her sewn-on blue eyes scared me. I didn’t want her touching me. I wanted to run away.

  Lyla’s hands clamped firmly around my upper arms from behind and kept me from going anywhere. “How much do you think we can get for her from the body merchant on Oasi?”

  Tanza reached out again.

  A bundle of silver fur flew past my face and dropped at my feet. Until it moved and hissed at Tanza, I didn’t know it was alive. An animal! I’d never seen anything like it. We had mice in the dormitory, and once a rat in the kitchens, but nothing like this. It had four legs and paws, and a long tail that flicked back and forth like an angry snake with a mind of its own. It had landed in a crouch and now rose to its full height, its shoulders coming to my thighs. It hissed again at Tanza, followed by a long, throaty growl that ended in high-pitched fury.

  The girl shrieked and leaped back.

  “Is that—” Lyla dropped her hold on my arms.

  They ran. Not simply back to the doorways they’d been leaning in, either, or the stairs on which they’d sat wasting away the afternoon. They sprinted down the calli and over bridges and around corners, scattering in terrified twos and threes, running too hard to scream or say anything at all. Every bit of energy they had went into getting away.

  I stood alone with the creature on the deserted street. It slinked around my legs, circling me like Tanza had, only it rubbed its body against my bare skin and butted the top of its velvety soft head against my knees. Then it sat down in front of me, curled its tail around its body, looked up with sunny aqua eyes, and blinked.

  “Why did you do that?” I said.

  It ignored me, rolled back on its butt, lifted a back leg, and started to lick its fur, long strokes of its tongue with the toes of its paw all pushed out and apart.

  “She was going to give me something to drink,” I said.

  I started crying.

  “And to eat.”

  I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat down and cried, whimpering. The animal finished doing whatever it was doing and climbed partially into my lap. Its paws were as big as my hands and pressed heavily on my legs, sharp claws digging into my skin as it lifted one paw and set it down, lifted the other paw and set it down, clawing me with each step in place.

  “Ow. Stop that. What are you doing?”

  Having gotten my attention, the animal backed out of my lap and walked away. A meter or two up the street, it paused and looked back at me as if to say, well, aren’t you coming?

  I did. What else was there for me to do? I followed it behind some houses and then down a narrow alley and another until it jumped and I climbed over a broken wall into a courtyard smaller than my dormitory room back at the orphanage. At the far end, water dribbled from a stone face on the side of a house. The face was surrounded by leaves, the mouth open in an “O.” Water leaked from its mouth, down its chin and into a shallow pool built into the side of the house.

  Hopping up onto the rim of the pool, the animal lapped up water with its pink tongue. I rushed forward and drank handful after handful. It was cool and sweet, and I didn’t throw up this time.

  Jumping down to the pavement again, the animal led me along a space between two houses only big enough for it and someone my size. When we came out at the other end, I could smell food cooking. My new friend stalked cautiously toward a big metal bin next to an open door. Keeping an eye on the door at all times, the animal leaped up to the edge of the bin and dug for something down inside using a paw. I walked up, raised up on my toes and peered over the edge, immediately spotting a loaf of bread. The animal flipped a half-eaten fish over the rim, jumped out of the trash, balanced on the rim, and then pounced on the fish where it had fallen to the ground. My hand shot out for the loaf of bread. The loaf was hard and half of it was dirty, but it was food.

  Taking off with the fish in its mouth, the creature bounded away into the shadows.

  “Hey!” A man leaned out of the door and shouted. “Get out of there!”

  Clasping my prize to my chest, I sprinted after my guide.

  I spent the rest of the day with her—I eventually figured out she was a she—resting in a deserted, partially destroyed house. The walls stank of mold that crept up the plaster on the inside the way ivy did on the outside. No one bothered us, there, however, and I slept until late that night. When the moon shining through a broken window woke me, I found my friend curled into my body making a comforting rumbling sound deep in her throat.

  I stretched, and she woke, too.

  “What are you?” I asked her.

  She opened her mouth and tried to make noise, but very little came out. It sounded almost like a voice with words, but the words mashed themselves together and were so faint I couldn’t understand them.

  “Do you have a name?” I said.

  Again, her jaws parted, and she struggled to make noise. I was surprised she couldn’t talk, especially after that howling cry that had chased the furred girls away. I laid my hand on her back and stroked the striped silver fur. It was like petting velvet, long-haired velvet, but soft and fine that way.

  “I’m going to call you Whisper,” I said.

  7

  I woke on the island under my dinghy minutes before sunrise. My vision swam with tears.

  Whisper.

  How sadistic for my dreams to make me relive the day we’d met. I’d been too young to know it, but Whisper had saved my life. If not for her, the Lost Girls who’d found me would have sold me within hours. They only recruited older girls into their tribes. Young kids too little to be anything other than a burden, they sold to others with specific appetites. The buyers were always dark fae. They were never paid in cash, but in the magic to which all Lost Girls were addicted. How had Whisper known that?

  Rolling over in the sleeping bag, I swiped the wetness from my cheeks and looked straight into the most gorgeous pair of eyes I’d ever seen. They were inky blue, so dark an indigo as to be almost black.

  My dark fae hunter had found me.

  New Moon

  (luna nuova)

  8

 
; “Morning,” he said.

  My first instinct was fear. I froze like prey.

  Because that’s what you are.

  I’d seen dark fae before at public ceremonies, even watched one once, a woman, hunting from a distance, but I’d never been this close. My mind scrambled to come up with something to do to save myself. What was the right thing to do? I still had the flick blade on me, but would stabbing him even work? That old wives’ tale about iron hurting the fate, or fairies, had been proven false long ago, and besides, weren’t they supposed to be immortal?

  He leaned against a tree, one ankle crossed casually over the over, the bastard, those heart-stopping indigo eyes observing me, but without much urgency. He knew he could get me at any time.

  I couldn’t stand it. I wasn’t going to wait for him to come to me laying under a dinghy. I would not die laying down. Instead, I blundered out from under the boat, legs hobbled by the sleeping bag. My heart throbbed against my chest like I was a wild dove trapped in a stranger’s hands without enough brain power to predict what came next. My hand fumbled with the bag’s zipper, and it took me too long to get free of it, but finally, breath racing, every muscle in my body poised for fight or flight, I faced him.

  At any moment during that embarrassing display of lapsed coordination, he could have simply strode over, placed his hand on me, and taken everything away for himself.

  I balanced on the balls of my feet. My flick blade was open and ready in my left hand. My breath fogged the winter air. It was loud, over-amped, and that’s all I heard. Me breathing in fear. Not the waves lapping at the beach to my left, nor the nesting brood of squawking terns I could see beyond him, or God forbid, the fae because naturally, he wouldn’t make any noise.

  Just me and my mortifyingly weak human body pumped full of adrenaline and about to pass out from hyperventilation.

  His expression didn’t change. He didn’t move toward me. In fact, he looked away from me out at the lagoon. Mild interest reached his eyes. I didn’t dare let myself get distracted and look to see what he saw. I had to be alert, focus on him until this was over.

  He was moderately tall, but not much more so than other fae or the average human male. Maybe a hundred and eighty-one or -two centimeters. Where the difference between the two species showed was his body. It didn’t matter how dark the fae went, how many they’d killed, thus polluting their souls; their bodies were always breathtaking.

  Something about the way this particular fae was sculpted as a person reminded me of the Trevi Fountain in Rome. Not of Oceanus or the Tritons or any of the other divine beings, but instead, the hippocampi, the winged horses with back ends like sea serpents that charged from the waves in quiet fury. I’d never seen Bracci’s fountain in person, of course; it was in Rome, long lost to us in Venice, but I saw that same dramatic curl of those horses’ manes in the way this fae’s hair fell about his shoulders, the hippocampi’s flair of nostril, the deep set, shadowed brows, the permanent anger in dark-lashed eyes that were no less disarming in their disdain.

  Like the sea horses driven from the depths of the sea to pull Oceanus’s chariot, this fae looked, well…pissed, to be standing where he obviously didn’t belong. He wasn’t so much a fish out of water, for lack of a better pun, as he was someone banished to somewhere he didn’t want to be. Where he truly wanted to be, I couldn’t begin to guess. I only had this gut feeling he didn’t like here.

  It had to be a fae thing. I’d always guessed that prior to the merge, they’d lived in a place that would rival heaven. I had no idea how old he was. Physically, he looked twenty-six-ish. But I’d bet he’d lived long enough to remember what that other place was like.

  Unlike the bright fae, he was also imperfect, which I found to be a major relief, though I couldn’t say why. His skin was more human than bright, flawed like we were. His ingrown rage would have made his lips rather ugly if it wasn’t for the fact they quirked up in a conceited smile.

  “You’re laughing at me,” I said.

  “Did you hear me make a sound?” he said. “Other than to wish you morning?”

  “People can laugh inside.”

  He nodded, considering what I’d said. “You’re right, of course.”

  “That people can laugh inside, or that you were laughing at me just now?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he uncrossed his ankles and pushed off from the tree, taking a couple of steps toward the beach. He was toying with me. I knew it. He knew it. I didn’t have a prayer.

  “Look, if you’re going to do it, just do it. Stop wasting both our time,” I said.

  He was dressed as a human, rather than in the loose clothing both bright and dark fae traditionally favored. He shoved his hands into jeans pockets but otherwise didn’t move. What was he waiting for?

  The sad thing was, if he were human he could still probably take me. He outweighed me by at least thirty kilos, and under his jacket, his T-shirt, patterned to mimic Botticino crema marble, hugged a chest and abs that might as well have been carved from the stuff.

  His attention was on the water, not me, though I had no doubt he tracked every millimeter move I might make.

  Shaking his head while staring at the beach, he sighed. “Humans. They never learn. Does it take so long to birth them they all end up minor idiots from the lack of oxygen?”

  Where had that non-sequitur come from?

  “If you’re going to trash my species, you could at least have the decency to wait until after you’re done with me.”

  Looking away from the lagoon, he gave me a slow study. Our gazes met. Was that puzzlement I saw in the lift of an eyebrow? Did I confuse him? I couldn’t tell.

  My fear finally backed off enough for me to hear other things again, including the wailing of terror from the beach.

  What?

  Another boat, larger than mine, bobbed a few yards off the island. Two men, in water up to their knees and hauling a third captive between them, waded to shore.

  Letting the skiff potentially float away was the first strange thing. No anchor line held it in place. Why not run it up on the sand? If they lost the boat, there went their ride back to civilization. Clearly, they weren’t planning on spending much time here.

  Second was their captive’s freakish behavior. He twitched and shied this way and that in reaction to something he believed attacked him. It was like watching a mime pretend he was being struck by flying piranha. Weird, I know, but whatever he saw, it was incredibly real to him. His sobbing was so loud it showed just how much of my attention had been trained on the dark fae and nothing else.

  I was careful not to show it, but watching a man blubber like that, in utter fear for his life, made me want to scream. Torture always upset me way more than it affected others. Back in Venice, torture was common on the street, often committed in full public view by gangs that swept through the streets doing what I did, scavenging, only with a twist of violence. Leftovers from before the merge were the only things of value owned by people in the forgotten districts, like the one where I had lived. The historic stuff was still there, even to this day, if you knew where and how to hunt for it. Instead of doing the work and searching through the ruins themselves, the gangs scavenged by force.

  The man being dragged on shore made those same helpless, desperate noises. I wanted to cover my ears and shrivel up inside myself to get away from it, but his crying was inescapable.

  To add to the freakish factor, the two men holding him also acted strangely. Heads down, mouths grim slashes, they pushed through the water to the sand, but every few seconds one or both of them dodged their heads just slightly away from something I couldn’t see.

  “I don’t get it.”

  I’d said it low, to myself, but the dark fae heard me, of course.

  “It’s the thirgaithe.”

  “The what?”

  “In Italian, you would say wind snakes.”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  He gave me a side glance. Again, if I
wasn’t mistaken, I read puzzlement in his expression.

  “Why would you?” he said.

  “Oh, right. Because they’re made of wind.” I still didn’t understand. What were these snakes, and why were they attacking the three men? But I didn’t want to look stupid so I just said, “I get it. You can’t see wind.”

  “They’re not invisible.”

  “They’re not?”

  “They’re pretty fearsome, actually,” he said. “This small archipelago of islands are fae. They came with us during the merge. The law is quite clear. Humans aren’t to come here. The thirgaithe are extremely territorial and protective.”

  For the first time, I noticed he wasn’t a native Italian speaker. Or rather, not a native Italian fae speaker. His Italian was impeccable, but tainted with a foreign accent I couldn’t place. The way he phrased things was different, too. Wished you morning, instead of good morning. Law is quite clear. I’d heard speech similar to this before, but I couldn’t remember where.

  What was he saying? That I couldn’t see the thirgaithe because I wasn’t meant to? Perhaps they only showed themselves to the people they attacked. But why hadn’t they attacked me when I’d come to the island last night? Were they only active during the day?

  His glance shifted back to the beach. Having reached land, the two men in charge dumped the third man onto his knees in the sand. He hunched and covered his head with his hands. Both of the men standing over him pulled weapons from their clothing. The man behind him brandished a knife, though the man standing in front of him had a—

  “Gun,” I said.