by John Conroe
“What the fuck!” I demanded, mad and embarrassed in equal parts.
“It was not my intention to alarm you. You were lost in thought and I might have some blame for that,” he said. “I thought to talk some more.”
My heart was jumping damn near into my throat, adrenaline racing through me, but I managed to get a grip on myself and avoid getting smacked by the heavy bag as it swung back at me.
After a moment he pointed at the bag and commented again.
“You move well for a human. Heavy on your feet, but with power. T’oorcs fight like that, although they are fast,” he supplied, moving around the bag as I moved opposite him, keeping the bag centered between us.
“My people are built lighter than yours, by and large. Our fighting techniques favor speed, agility and flexibility,” he lectured. “Many of my people would tell you it’s a superior method of fighting, but the better fighters know that there is no best way. My partner, who is without a doubt the best fighter of our generation, feels that warriors need to train in a way that maximizes their strengths and strengthens their weaknesses.
“Partner?” I asked.
“Guardians generally work in pairs, each pair assigned to a portal. Summer’s Hunters work in triads,” he explained.
“So there is a portal nearby?” I asked.
He nodded, pointing up and behind the house.
“On top of Bear Mountain?” I guessed.
“It is a smaller node, off the path of the larger, more established portals. Which was why my partner questioned our placement here,” he explained.
“So you are saying there’s a backwater portal atop the hill behind my house? And you and your partner feel slighted?” I asked trying to grasp the situation.
“Slighted? Maybe not slighted. Puzzled might be a better term. Neeve and I are considered the first team among Guardians. We are usually sent to the biggest, most important nodes,” he said. “We wondered what was different about this one.”
“You said ‘wondered? Like you’ve now figured it out,” I said, raising my eyebrows.
He nodded. “Hunters seek children of Talent. These children are interspersed between the two courts and bred back into the blood lines. Guardians protect the portals, but mostly we seek to maintain the balance between the courts. Occasionally a child is found who is gifted to such an extent that it would throw off the balance between the courts. As Summer’s hunters invariably find these children, Summer would most likely benefit.”
I held up my hand to stop the flow of words.
“What are these Talents you refer to? Just so I’m clear,”
“Millennia ago, your species hunted to survive and were in turn, hunted. As an animal, you were handicapped by using two feet instead of four. Your natural weaponry was pathetic, and your senses weak. Yet you thrived. Why?” he asked.
“Our brains?” I answered.
He nodded. “Your intelligence allowed you to modify your environment to better your odds. My people did the same. However, while we chose to modify the living forms of our environment, you chose the nonliving avenue, fashioning weapons and tools from wood, stone and hide. You still faced the problem of senses, one that we overcame by improving our night vision, olfactory and auditory abilities through our ability to manipulate the code of life. But your people didn’t. Yet they were able to detect and avoid predators, find or lure game, coordinate hunts to take down large prey. How?”
I shrugged, figuring he would answer quicker if I kept quiet.
“Your ancestors developed and used abilities that have gone latent in most of your population.”
“Like what? Psychic powers? ESP? Telepathy?”
“I think you refer to powers of the mind that are beyond the normal senses?” he asked. I nodded and he continued. “These mental abilities gave your people the edge they needed to outwit predators and find prey.”
“And you and your partner think there is such a child here? In Groton Falls?”
“There is,” he said with a grimace.
“And?” I asked, waiting for the other shoe to fall.
“She is your daughter,” he said.
Shoe? More like a giant’s boot.
“What?
“I don’t know what her abilities are, but even I can recognize the signs of raw talent. Plus there is the mystery of the pucks.”
“Pucks? What the fuck is a puck?”
“You may have noticed them, small very fast fliers with big teeth. They are part of the White Court, just as the Green Court has what you might call ‘pixies’ or maybe ‘bug’,” he said with a slight smile.
“You know the word bug?” I asked.
He looked puzzled. “Yes it is an old word from your ancestors’ lands.”
“My ancestors? You mean the Irish and the Scots?”
“’tis a Gaelic word. But the point is they are also fliers, but smaller and green with lighter legs,” he said.
“Oh, the big hornets?” I asked. He nodded. “Okay, so what about the pucks? I have noticed something is eating animals around here,” I added.
“The pucks serve my Court, yet the ones here on your farm refuse my orders to leave. They tell me they must guard, but they are very….limited. They can’t or won’t tell me what they guard. Now I have figured it out….they guard your daughter.”
“Guard Ashley? From what?”
“Anything that would threaten her,” he said.
I froze, almost completely baffled by his words. He stared at me silently, giving me time to process my thoughts.
“You’re telling me that Ashley has some gift or another – something that makes her valuable to Fey?”
He nodded.
“And a pack of killer fairies with huge teeth are here to protect her?”
“Both Courts have allies or….soldiers. The White Court has Pucks and dieg t’oorcs…er..that would translate as ice goblins. The Green Court has the shiavrih and drut’oorcs, which are the small poisonous horn- nets…, and the green goblins,” he replied. “White Court creatures all obey the orders of Guardians, just as Summer’s foot soldiers obey Hunters.”
“Sooo, you’re saying the piranha thingies should do what you say? But they don’t ‘cause they’ve decided to…what…defect to Ashley?” I asked, part of me wondering if I would wake up in the mental ward at any moment.
“Defect? That’s pretty close to the right idea, although I doubt they would disobey the Queen if she were here or even Neeve for that matter,” he mused.
“Neeve is your partner?” I asked.
He looked up and nodded, a strange emotion flickering across his face. Something about what he had just said had made him uncomfortable, like he had said too much.
“So I need to get out of here? Is that what you’re saying? Pack up Ashley and head to Florida or California or something?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Running won’t help. Portals to your world open all across this land. In fact, if my grasp of the layout of your country is correct, there are major portals in the two locations you named. Haven’t been there myself you understand, but scouts from both courts have gone through over the last fifty years or so.”
That triggered another question. “How does this veil thing work? How does it thin? Why?” I asked.
He paused for a moment, visibly gathering his thoughts.
“I don’t fully grasp it, not like a Watcher does. But there are more levels of existence than what we see and hear, feel and touch. This world occupies a place in the Great Web of the One. But that web has more….layers? levels?” he shook his head in frustration. I tried to help out.
“Dimensions? Are you trying to say there are multiple dimensions or universes or something?” I supplied. I had a feeling the Great Web was the universe or cosmos.
He face brightened into a big smile and he nodded vigorously. “Yes, those are the words I lack. Our worlds are separate in distance, but close in dimensions. The layer that separates us gets lighter from time to tim
e, as the stars age. But this time, the Watchers say it was your own people who thinned the Veil. Some vast machine of your scholars,” he said.
The news story from the night before flashed into my head.
“The Collider? You’re talking about the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland!” I said, excited that some piece of the puzzle might actually fit.
He nodded again. “I guess that is the one. It has thinned the Veil all at once, rather than just in places. That has allowed us to come through every portal. My people are ready to Gather as we have never done before.”
“And they are all looking for Ashley?” I said, flattened by the weight of what he was telling me.
He shook his head. “Not yet. The Hunters are drawn to children of Talent, as are their minions – the green goblins and small flyers. That’s why your Father’s father was plagued by the poisonous ones. They would have scented the Talent in him and perhaps you as well. The goblins I fought were drawn to your daughter. But no Hunters have scented her….yet!”
“Wait, I’m not Talented and neither was my grandfather, or even Ashley for that matter. We don’t read minds or predict the future or whatever,” I said.
He smiled at my disclaimer. “Talents vary much more than those. Yours, I would guess, are tied into your affinity for crafting metal, as was your GrandFather’s. I’m sure it caused the minions of Summer no end of difficulty in dealing with a Crafter of death metal.”
“So iron and steel are poisonous to your kind?” I asked.
“Extremely, as you no doubt saw with the goblins we fought,” he said. “It is a modification that my people choose to make eons ago, one that aided our survival, allowing us to better sense and meld with our world. But iron disrupts all that, causing our bodies to break down. Of course, we had no idea your race would learn to mine and use iron,” he said, a look of chagrin flashing over his dark features.
“So wait, back to the question…what Talent does Ashley have?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I have no idea. It may not have manifested yet. Some abilities appear when children are young, but the most powerful tend to come to females and arrive about the time a girl becomes a woman.”
I figured that one out quick. Ashley had had her first period just about six months ago. God had granted me the boon of having it arrive when she was with Lindsey and her mother, saving me and Ashley both.
“If you don’t know what her Talent is, how do you know she has one at all?”
“It is a feeling we get, kind of a pull toward those that have it. Your daughter’s friend has a touch too, but Ashley is like a powerful lodestone, drawing every denizen of my world in her direction. I can’t tell you what she’ll be able to do, but it’ll be big when she does it!”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe you. I don’t think I believe any of this!”
“You fought the goblins and you still doubt?” he asked. I didn’t say anything, trying to come up with a theory to explain the squatty monsters. Maybe some government black ops lab created them.
He watched me for a moment then tilted his head to one side and took a breath. His mouth pursed into a whistle shape, but when he blew out there was no sound. He paused and listened, then repeated the strange action. Suddenly, a loud whirring filled the air and a dark blur flew through the air, making me duck in reflex. The blur flew past his outstretched hand and alighted on the edge of the half wall that separated the two stalls.
A six inch tall figure with flickering wings stood looking at the two of us. Long prehensile toes with talons clung to the wood with a solid grip. The body was humanoid, but covered in silky, dark brown fur that looked soft and warm. A pair of muscled arms folded across a broad chest designed to pump the still moving wings at speeds too fast to be seen. The head was round, like a little brown gourd, with big round eyes, bat-like ears and when the mouth split open – teeth that would make a shark jealous. The eyes were green and sparkled with intelligence as it looked back and forth between us.
Greer snorted softly to himself and lowered the hand he had raised for the creature to land on.
“This, Ian, is a puck. He came to my call, but as you can see, he wants nothing to do with me,” Greer said. Then he spoke in a twittering, high-pitched voice that I couldn’t follow and the puck listened, its wings never ceasing their motion. When he finished, the tiny creature trilled back at him, like it was actually speaking to him.
“This is the Prime of the clan, the leader if you will. He says he and his clan were early scouts sent ahead by the Watchers of the Veil when the barrier first thinned. They didn’t travel far from the portal as they found a nest of shiavrih had taken up residence around the old one who lived here. The Summer flyers were also scouts and as I said earlier, were drawn to your grandfather. When you and Ashley moved in the shiavrih grew very aggressive and triggered his clan’s interest in Ashley. Now, he offers me honor as a Guardian of Winter, but he must protect the solan.”
I was struck speechless, unable to form words in the face of this madness. But as the small face turned in my direction, studying me, I was able to get out a question.
“What is the soul on?”
“Solan is our word for light. He is using it to name Ashley,” Greer explained. He sighed, rubbed his head, then shook his head, a quick look of resignation crossing his face. “They’ve chosen your daughter.”
“What does that mean…’chosen’?” I asked, hand back on my gun.
“It means they will protect her from Summer’s Hunters, just as I will, although they don’t have a dettis onus. They’ve just been drawn to her….potential.”
“So what do I do?” I asked, pretty sure I shouldn’t be seeking advice from an alien who admitted his people wanted to abduct my child.
“For now nothing, just stay put, although you might want to feed the pucks. They thrive in cold, but need meat to live. As far as your daughter…Summer hasn’t found her yet. He tells me that his clan has slaughtered the nest of shiavrih that were drawn here, and between you and I, we killed off the goblins. I’ve been called back to report, but I’ll be back in less than a day. My partner will remain on site, but you won’t likely see her. At least I hope not,” he said.
“Why don’t I want to see your partner?”
“Because she is usually only seen just before she kills. She doesn’t share my life debt to you, and she is the Queen’s top Guardian, so we don’t want to call any attention to you and especially not Ashley,” he concluded.
“How would I know her, if I did see her?” I asked.
“Oh you would know her…she bears a close resemblance to me,” he responded.
“Related?” I asked.
He paused for a moment then nodded. “She is my sister.”
“So you are part of an alien invasion force, here to abduct our children, only you owe me some debt of honor or something. My daughter is the top pick for both nations of your world, you’re headed home, your sister is the best killer of your nation and I need to avoid her while keeping Ashley away from the hunter people, while a group of piranha looking pixies protect us from poisonous bugs? That about it?” I asked.
He stared at me for a moment, perplexed, then slowly nodded, grudgingly. “Maybe not as I would describe it, but essentially true. One thing to remember is that Summer’s people may approach you directly, as I have, trusting that you will not realize or believe them to be other than people of your own world. Many Hunters are Gifted at illusion, able to mask features such as these,” he said, pulling his hair away from one pointed ear. “I must go, Ian Moore, but I will be back in less than twenty-four of your hours. I doubt Summer will make an appearance in that time, especially as the pucks,” he waved at the strange, toothy little man perched on the stall, “have destroyed their scouts. Nonetheless, stay alert and take no chances.”
No sooner had he finished his sentence and he was moving, so smoothly that the speed of his departure wasn’t obvious for the second it took him to disappear out th
e doorway.
Chapter 7
I stared at the little creature gripping the stall wall and he stared back, his little head tilted to one side. I was seeing him, but also trying to process the past few moment’s conversation.
The little flyer yawned, his impressive teeth sparkling white in the bluish light of the compact florescent bulbs that lit the barn. That sight reminded me that Greer had mentioned I should feed the pucks. I’ve always agreed with the notion that it’s a bad idea to feed wildlife, but this creature seemed too smart, too people-like to categorize as an animal. And I didn’t want his flock or clan (?) eating every animal in sight as that might include Charm or even me. Shuddering while thinking about what twenty of those things could do to a person, I moved deeper into the barn to the old chest freezer.
Some old timers can venison, grandpa always preferred to freeze it. The freezer was so old its white coloring had yellowed to almost tan, but it still worked well. I can’t begin to tell you how many packets of butcher-paper wrapped venison had seen the inside of this box, it was a lot. I hadn’t hunted this past season, but Bob, Jr. had and his deer was wrapped and frozen in professionally wrapped cuts. Even the ribs were packed and frozen, as we sometimes barbequed them in the summer months. I grabbed the six big packs of ribs, which included two years worth, and pulled them free from the frosty chest, noticing the zip lock bag with the crow carcass as I did.
Turning around, I jumped at the sight of the puck hovering two feet in front of me, his glittering eyes fastened on the white packets of meat. Moving carefully, I dropped to one knee and pulled my knife to cut the wrapper. He hissed at the sight of the steel blade, his hovering form swooping back two feet in a split second, but then he calmed as I sliced all six packets open, leaving them open on the straw covered concrete floor. The ribs were meaty and, even frozen, the smell of venison filled the barn, causing the toothy fairy to chitter and squeak with excitement. When I backed away from the frozen meat offering and sheathed my knife, he looked me over for a couple of seconds, then put his head back and screamed a silent scream…silent to me, that is. Instantly I could hear Charm barking furiously inside the house, the pitch of the puck’s call obviously within his audible range.