Blood, Glass and Sugar

by Lyndsay E Gilbert

  Just meters from the door, Bran appeared again. As the house had changed so had his clothes. He wore a wide white shirt, and Renaissance style leggings. His hair was tied back to a ponytail at the nape of his neck.

  He stood in front of the doors, blocking her way. In one hand he held an ornate glass goblet, filled with thin amber wine from the table. He tipped his head back, draining the liquid and wiping his mouth on his baggy sleeve.

  “Bran, what’s going on?” Evie asked. Her voice was small, broken up in her dry throat. She felt cold sweat trickle between her shoulder blades.

  He walked toward the edge of the table, and Evie stepped back as he did, though he didn’t come to her. He merely reached out and lifted a small slice of cream cake off a platter and ate it. Then reached for another, and offered it to her.

  “Do join me. It is not often I am gifted with company, much the less beautiful company.”

  He threw the cake at her, and Evie caught it on reflex, but when she looked down, small silver and black worms struggled in the fresh cream. She dropped it in disgust and looked up to see him devour another of them.

  She held back a retch, and ran to the door. She was only half surprised when it disappeared and was replaced by a grey, dust-laden wall. Old tangled spider webs floated down and landed in her hair, she shook them off, not knowing if the tickle of tiny furry legs on her neck was real or imagined.

  The room was shrinking, the banquet table reverting back to the small pedestal that held the coffin. She saw Bran quickly filling his glass goblet with more wine before the food disappeared altogether. He tipped his head back and gulped it thirstily, but as he did the wine disappeared and the goblet too, until he was standing there dressed not in Renaissance attire, but the dull Victorian suit that he had worn in the coffin.

  He turned with aching slowness to face her, a cruel and deliberate smile on his face. Evie’s eyes darted about the room for the door. It had relocated, back to where it had been before.

  He moved at first as though he was wading through syrup, his eyelid’s drooping sleepily. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, he ran at her, lunging forward.

  Evie reached out for a cold, iron candleholder and swiped at him with all the force she could gather. The candleholder connected squarely with his head and he dropped to the floor. The force of the hit, and the way it reverberated through the metal made Evie drop the weapon. Bran collapsed face down on the floor.

  Evie jumped over his body to make it to the door. If the room had a chance to change, she did not know if Bran would remain unconscious.

  She wrenched the door open, and ran into the hall. She couldn’t see stairs at the end anymore, and more hallways had formed, shadows dancing out of them into main hall where she stood now, with no idea which turn to take.

  Her hesitation cost. The walls bled grey paint and dust, orchestral music struck up again, and the hall became majestic, brightly lit with large white candles along every wall. The grand staircase appeared before her, red carpet stretching down the hallway, padding the floor under her feet.

  “Leaving so soon?” His voice came from behind her. She spun to see him standing in the doorway of the banquet hall.

  He was holding his goblet again, but she noticed that his leggings were only half complete; on his left foot he wore the Victorian gentleman’s shoe, and from the knee down his leggings were replaced by black suit trousers.

  As she looked at it she saw the black trousers creep up his leg, trying to replace the leggings. He stamped his foot, as if trying to prevent it. Then he started to come towards her, the troublesome leg dragging along behind, so that he was reduced to a limp.

  Evie dashed to the stairs. Dirt appeared on the red carpet, and the air became dusty as she ran, the scent of decay returning. She leapt on to the top step, but as her foot touched it, the staircase disappeared from under her and she was falling through the air.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A scream tore up her throat, and she thought her heart escaped with it like red vomit.

  I’m going to die.

  The ground seemed miles away, and yet she felt she was travelling at the speed of light. She squeezed her eyes shut. Then she crashed into something warm and solid. Something that smelled of honey, and sweet spice, that had a heartbeat. Someone. Someone had caught her.

  She opened her eyes and looked up into the gold-tan face of her saviour. It was Auran. Her sense of relief flushed out of her like water from a gutter. She struggled, and he held her away from him.

  “By the Lady, don’t thank me too soon,” he said.

  “Let go!” Evie kicked him in the shins, and he threw her back, hissing in pain.

  “I just saved your life.” His eyes were wide, disbelieving.

  Evie twisted away from him, turning in a circle to view her surroundings. With a sinking feeling she took in the expansive banqueting hall, with its feast of infested food. The glass coffin was perched on the end of the table. Bran was nowhere to be seen.

  “How could I fall down the stairs and reappear where I fell from?” she asked.

  Auran was examining the hall himself. “I think there should be more pressing problems for you to worry about. Like your schizophrenic boyfriend, and where he has got to.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. I’m only here because of you.”

  “You came here before I could explain to you what the problem was.” Auran examined the food, and drew back from a cake crawling with maggots and spiders. “Gluttony, right?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The face you were here with. It was Gluttony. That’s what we call them, each one a deadly sin.”

  Evie thought about how he had devoured the cake, drank down the wine. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Auran lifted a bottle of the wine and sniffed it gingerly. “Vinegar,” he said, setting it back. “He’s cursed. It’s your job to break the spell. True love and all that.” He said it offhandedly, as if it was common knowledge that she was stupid not to know already.

  “True love?” She said, trying to laugh. It came out more of a feeble sob. “What are you talking about? I’ve got nothing to do with him, or this.” She paced up and down, shaking wildly. She wished she could shake right out of this nightmare. “I’m mortal, right? Plain old human. I didn’t ask to be dragged in to this nonsense. I didn’t ask to be insane.” A tear escaped, stinging as it trailed her face.

  “Don’t whine, girl. No mortal asks to be bothered by the Faerie Folk. No wise mortal at least-” he broke off, his eyes catching sight of the coffin. “It is made of glass,” he whispered.

  “Obviously,” Evie snapped, rubbing her eyes. The stranger things became, the more she found she was angry rather than frightened.

  Auran walked to the coffin, and peered inside it. “A glass goblet too.”

  Evie went to his side. “There were two of him. The first I saw sleeping in this coffin. He wanted me to sleep in it with him. When the Banquet hall came, he had a glass goblet. Before I fell down the stairs, he was like both of them wrapped in one.”

  Auran picked up the goblet and examined it in the candlelight. “Gluttony and Sloth are weak. That’s why they are both here together.”

  “What do they want?”

  “Just your company. But the others are different.”

  ‘What do you mean different?”

  Auran ignored her question. “This coffin is going to be hard to carry.”

  “Carry?” Evie was overwhelmed.

  “These things have to be gathered, it’s where the sins draw their power.”

  A memory was tugging at the back of Evie’s mind. Six objects made out of glass. A coffin. “The painting!”

  “The what?” Auran asked.

  “Downstairs, when I came here the first time, there was a painting in the cabinet. It was a girl in a glass coffin, you know, like Snow White. But she had other stuff, all around her.” She took the goblet from him, and turned it in her hand. “This was there,
and there were other things,” she strained to remember, “…a glass rose, and a sword as well I think, and-”

  “Quite a beautiful sword too. Is that what you were going to say?”

  Evie almost dropped the goblet. Bran stood at the other end of the table, dressed like a highwayman, wearing a loose cloth shirt and leather boots that came to his thighs. He was holding a sword out before him in one hand. It was made of glass, sharp as the tip of an icicle and the deep frosted-green of an old cola-bottle. The light from the candle burning on the table was caught inside, glowing as though it was the heart of the sword.

  Bran stalked the hall, crossing the space between them like a tiger after its prey: graceful, purposeful, and merciless. As he got closer Evie noticed a pocket-watch dangling from his pocket on a silver chain. It had belonged to the Victorian Bran, she was sure. It banged against his leg as he walked; staining the dark red trousers he was wearing black. Bran grabbed the watch and tore it from his pocket, casting it to the side.

  Auran stepped in front of Evie, warding her back with an outstretched arm. He drew his sword from under his cloak.

  It was elegant, the wavy blade more delicately worked than that of the crude glass sword. The tip was sharper and crueller looking. The hilt black, and studded with garnet gems, like the ones that decorated his boots.

  “Stay back, Evie,” he ordered. “I’m certain Wrath wishes neither to eat nor rest with you.”

  Bran, or Wrath, laughed, tipping his tricorne hat. “Very right you are, my prince. The sooner the little pest is dead, the better for all of us. By all of us, you understand I mean myself and my brothers of course.”

  Auran stepped forward to meet him, so that he could walk no further. The tips of their swords touched gently. Auran’s metal sliding against the glass. “The pest has got people willing to protect her this time.”

  “Six-hundred years, and now you come to help her? What took you so long?”

  Evie saw a blush alight on Auran’s cheeks, but his voice remained firm and unafraid when he spoke. “Time passes different in the realm. You know that. It’s been but two years to me.”

  They circled, blades still raised. “So, you are just a boy. An unpractised, inexperienced child. Where are your bodyguards? I see you haven’t brought them to do the dirty work this time.”

  Auran scowled. “I should have brought them. They could carry away the coffin while I slice you open.” He made the first attack, slicing down towards Wrath’s open chest. Wrath brought his own sword tearing up to form a vertical line, blocking the slash. “If you cut me open, you hurt the precious Bran. Do that, and you’ll never find all the objects.” He stepped forward on one foot and forced Auran back, straightening his blade for a thrust.

  Evie flinched, waiting for the green glass to slide into Auran’s stomach, but he parried just in time, their swords clashing.

  If Wrath won, Evie knew he would dice her up, cut her to pieces so that she couldn’t break the spell.

  Wrong girl, she thought, stepping further back as the sword fight moved down the hall. She didn’t know how to break spells, she didn’t know any magic. She wasn’t a part of this. All she’d done was drink a glass of stupid apple wine.

  As she thought it, her eyes passed over a bottle of wine on the table, just an arm's reach away. She didn’t know what she was going to do with it, but she grasped it anyway. The acrid smell of the liquid rose up to choke her; vinegar, just as Auran had said. The memory of Bran, Gluttony, gulping it down made her throat burn.

  The two men were still fighting; the table lurched as Auran lost his footing and crashed into it. Wrath didn’t miss the opportunity, but Auran rolled onto his side as the sword connected. It slid deep into his upper arm instead of his chest, where it had been aimed at.

  He groaned in pain, his hand releasing its grip on his own sword.

  Wrath spun towards Evie. The look in his brandy eyes was manic, relishing the thought of what he was going to do when he caught her. Her hand trembled, sweating so that the bottle almost slid from her grasp. Her only weapon.

  Wrath raised the sword with both hands, a wide smile twisting on his mouth, ready to cleave her in two. She didn’t know how she could defend herself with the bottle. She couldn’t turn her back to him, she stumbled back, her eyes seeking out Auran as he slid off the table and reached down with his good arm to pick up his sword. He wasn’t going to make it.

  “Say your prayers,” Wrath laughed, as her back banged against a wall. She was at a dead end. There was nowhere to turn. Auran was running toward them, his sword trailing behind him in a shower of sparks.

  Too late.

  Wrath brought his sword down. Evie couldn’t even close her eyes as it swung towards her. But then, like a miracle, it missed, splintering the table beside her, and crashing into the wall. Wrath’s smile was gone, instead there were tears trailing down his white cheeks.

  “Get out,” he gasped.

  His clothes were changing, the hat flickering on his head out of existence and back again and out. His doublet became a simple painted stained shirt. Bran’s shirt.

  Auran appeared in her view, sword raised for the attack. Evie acted first, lifting her arm and smashing the wine bottle over Bran’s head. He sank down to the ground at her feet, the vinegar soaking his hair like thin, dark blood.

  Auran skidded to a halt, breathing heavily. He prodded the unconscious body with a foot, nonchalant. “He must still care after all.”

  Evie stared down, not sure what to say. She couldn’t believe the sinking feeling in her chest. It was guilt. Ridiculous guilt.

  “I doubt he will be waking for a while. We better get a move on.” Auran walked to the coffin, pushing back his cloak and re-sheathing his sword. Evie tore her gaze away from Bran and followed him. “So we have to carry this all the way out of here? What about the sword?”

  She looked back, just in time to see the glass sword disappear, sinking into the ground like melting ice. She ran towards it, trying to grasp the hilt but it was gone too fast. “What the hell?”

  “Wrath is strong. He will be the last to go.” Auran pulled the coffin toward him. “Come, you must take the other end.”

  Evie obeyed him, and together they slid it off the table. It was lighter than Evie had expected. So light she was sure she’d have been able to carry it by herself if not for its awkward shape. “It’s like plastic,” she said.

  “Plastic?” Auran asked, as they moved to the door.

  “Never mind,” Evie said, not sure she knew how to explain.

  The food was gone from the banquet table, and as they went out into the hall she saw there were no more cobwebs or filthy carpets. The windows were back, and she could see it was after dawn outside. A red light spread through the sky, making the buildings in Camden glow prettily.

  They descended a few flights of stairs, and then passed the living room Evie had been in the night before. She remembered the apples in the kitchen instantly, and her mouth ached in response. It was hard not to drop the coffin and go in for them.

  Auran’s men were waiting in the shop. They cheered when Evie and their Prince climbed down the counter steps. “We wanted to come after you, Highness,” one man said, standing up and relieving Auran of the coffin.

  So much for chivalry, Evie thought, and immediately regretted it when the wolf man appeared at her side, his dog breath steaming on her neck. He took her place, and Evie shrank back, allowing the coffin to pass her by.

  They moved out into the street. Evie saw that they had broken down the door this time. “How come you didn’t break the glass?”

  Auran shrugged, “The foolish boy must have paid some witch to charm it. We couldn’t.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be the Prince of Unseelie. Couldn’t you afford your own wicked witch?”

  Auran’s gaze sharpened, almost as if she had said something hurtful. “Who told you what I was?”

  Evie’s feet were cold. She gazed down and saw that she was in her soc
ks, walking over winter-frozen cobblestones. She didn’t remember taking her shoes off the night before. “Well everyone calling you Highness sort of gave away your royal birth.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Bran told me you were Unseelie. One of the bad guys.”

  “Did he indeed?” His expression was deadpan now. They walked in silence out of the alley but as soon as they stepped into the street the coffin disappeared, and instead two large shards of mirror glass spun in the air and clattered to the pavement. They glittered dangerously, the light of the rising sun slithering along their sharp, jagged edges.

  Auran knelt down, his long braids falling forward like a golden curtain to shield his face as he carefully lifted the shards. Seeing his gracefully pointed ears exposed still shocked her.

  He twisted towards her on his heels and held the shards up to her. She took them reluctantly, not sure what they meant or why he was giving them to her. She fumbled a little, and sliced her finger. It was sudden and deep, she gasped, but still held on. If they fell again they might smash. Her blood dripped out, trailing down the mirror like a red tear.

  The pieces glowed, and she felt them pull towards each other like magnets. She didn’t resist. A cold wind blew through the street, gathering up her black curls and making them dance around her face. Auran and his men were utterly silent, watching as the shards melded together, her blood the cement fixing them in place.

  A cry broke through the air, shattering the silence. It came from the alley, the direction of Bran’s home.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Trix sat down on her bed and lifted the telephone onto her lap. She dialled Evie’s number for what seemed like the thousandth time but there was no answer. The phone rang on and on until finally the answering machine picked up.