My dusting had to be stronger than theirs.
I placed a hand on her shoulder, lightly enough to be a caress, firmly enough to be thrilling to a young girl who didn’t know the first thing about men but was old enough to be intrigued. Carefully, carefully. I relaxed the tight hold I normally kept on my instincts, leaned forward so that my face came into view in the mirror, close to her ear, and whispered again, “Susan.”
Susan’s gaze flicked up, instinctively, against her will, and met my gaze in the mirror. My narrow face seemed leaner, my cheekbones more prominent, my eyes more gold than brown, and the horns almost shimmered white in the silvered mirror.
There was no way I could have passed for human, not in any crowd.
Susan’s pink-painted mouth fell open a little, showing teeth that had been a gift from the orthodontist, and her gaze lifted and zeroed right in on my horns. Typical.
“You think that you know what’s fantastic in this world?” I asked her, still keeping my voice low, my touch gentle. “You think it’s down here, in these caves and stone and steel?”
She swallowed hard, but didn’t move, the eye pencil still in her hand.
“Up above, my sweet. Up above, in the green grass and the flowering trees. The sun warms our bones and we dance until we are exhausted and then we sprawl in the shade and feast until we sleep, and then we rise and do it again.”
Her breathing sped up, just a bit, and I moved my hand down from her shoulder to her upper arm. “We eat fresh fruit and cheese, and wash it down with wine, and shout into the winds… We are free. None of this enclosed space, this lack of fresh air or blue sky. Gnomes look down, they see only the dirt. Nothing grows here. Come with me, sweet Susan. Come see the world in all its glory. See the magic that surrounds us, every day.”
Everything I was telling her was true. Full-blooded fauns were hedonistic, careless, loving sorts. Useless in any practical manner, but a lot of fun to hang out with, and they simply adored every tingle of magic they could get their hooves on.
Pity they were also callous bastards.
“I am promised here…” she managed. Her eyes were very wide now, like she’d ingested a full dose of belladonna, and she hadn’t blinked once while I was talking, then her lids fluttered three, four, six times in a row, trying to recover.
“Promises are made to be broken,” I told her. “Otherwise there wouldn‘t be half as much art or music in the world.”
That went over her head a bit — ah, the teen years, when you think everything’s forever, and their hearts will never be broken.
I was about to educate her.
I knelt down and rested my chin lightly on her shoulder, still keeping my touch gentle. Spooking her now would be catastrophic. “You’ve only seen one side of fairyland,” I told her. My voice was brown sugar and warm breezes, soft grass and the smell of apple blossoms and honey. “Come see more of it. Griffins and dryads are in Central Park, my sweet, and dragons live in the hills of Pennsylvania. Piskies flitter in the Botanical Gardens, and kelpies swim off the Seaport‘s piers…
All true. Of course, the dryads didn’t mingle much, and the dragons didn’t mingle at all, kelpies were nasty-tempered, smelly beasts … and the less said about piskies the better.
“So much to see … so many creatures to dance with. How can you let yourself waste away here, living in this single room like a drudge when you should be a princess…”
Her eyes sparkled at that, and I almost had her. My hand rose up her arm again, stroking her hair. “Sunlight suits you, my sweet,” I said, leaning in for the kill. “Come with me, and I will show you the true wonders of the fairy world.”
I sounded like a B-grade Hollywood movie, but it was working. Her eyes started to glaze over, and her mouth curved up in a dreamy smile, even as I threaded my fingers in her hair, and tugged her head back just a little, as though to deliver a first kiss.
Her head lolled to the side, her body utterly relaxed as my dusting took effect, and I scooped her into my arms without hesitation.
It was a crap way to rescue a princess, but I wasn’t exactly prince charming.
By the time Miss Susan recovered from the hormonal overload enough to protest, she was back in her parents’ care, and I was on my way back to the office. They had been all sorts of overjoyed not only to see her, but to have assurances that she was unmolested. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that she wasn’t entirely untouched. All I did was remove her from the scene — and I’d dusted her myself to do it.
Yeah, I had good intentions and good results, but she had the taste now — sexual, the rush magic could bring, and odds were pretty damn good that she’d disappear again, chasing after another hit. They’d lost her already; they just didn’t know it yet.
All I could hope was that the images I’d used in my dusting would keep her above ground this time. There were other humans who associated with those breeds … they’d be able to keep an eye out for her, teach her the ropes. Keep her out of too much trouble. And maybe by then, she’d have grown up enough to handle it.
The fatae weren’t bad company, as it went. It was just better to accept what you were, before you went chasing something else.
That thought kept me company as I walked up the steps to my office, and let myself in the door, looking around the space with a sense of relief. Home. Wood furniture, plants, light … they were all a steady, solid reminder. I was human.
But my little stunt reminded me that I was also faun. My father’s son, the product of my magical genes. A real charming sonofabitch when it came to women.
I didn’t like it, I didn’t let it out very often … but it was me, as much as current — and art — was Lee. Me, who I am. What I am.
I sat down in my chair, and reached for the bottle in my desk. Not to forget; I never drank to forget. I drank to remember. I drank so that the pleasant warmth of the booze, the heady shot of inebriation, would remind me that I wasn’t entirely fatae. My human half was stronger. I wasn’t my father.
Some days, I needed the reminder.
Laura Anne Gilman is the author of the “Cosa Nostradamus” urban fantasy novels (most recently Hard Magic), as well as the mainstream fantasy Weight of Stone: Book 2 of The Vineart War. She lives in New York City, where she also runs d.y.m.k. productions, an editorial consulting company. Her website may be found at www.lauraannegilman.net
Danny Hendrickson is a former NYPD officer, currently working as a private investigator in New York City. He likes to keep his half-faun genetics under his hat, so to speak.
The Demon You Know… A Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Story
by Julie Kenner
Kate
My name is Kate Connor, and I’m a suburban mom with a husband, a teenager, and a toddler. I’m also a demon hunter. And no, I don’t mean that metaphorically. I really do hunt demons from Hell, although I thankfully don’t have to go to Hell to do that. Instead, the demons come to me, and more often than I’d like, actually.
Demons, you might know, walk among us all the time. The air is, literally, filled with demonic essence living in the ether, a little fact that, frankly, can creep you out if you think about it too long. What’s even creepier is that a demon’s essence can also inhabit the body of a human. Sometimes the demon possesses the human, in which case you have a whole spinning-head, Linda Blair thing going on. That’s not my area; for that, you call a priest.
More often (because what demon wants to walk around looking like the thing in The Exorcist?), a demon will move into a body at the moment of death, just as the human’s soul is leaving. You’ve heard of those situations where someone is thought to be dead — a fall, a drowning — but then the victim is “miraculously” brought back to life. Most of the time, that’s no miracle. It’s a demon. And one who brings with it strength beyond which the human had in life, and a body that’s pretty dang hard to kill. You want to off a demon, you have to stab it in the eye. Not as easy as it sounds, trust me on that, but pretty much any jab tha
t punctures the sclera and reaches the vitreous humor will do. I’ve used knives, ice picks, barrettes and even Happy Meal toys.
Manage to inflict that injury, and the demonic essence is sucked right back out into the ether.
Of course, demons can’t pop into any old body. The souls of the faithful fight, and the window of opportunity passes pretty quickly. So it’s not as if the world is overrun with demons walking around in human shells. But there are enough to keep me busy, and my fellow demon hunters, too. I work for Forza Scura, a super-secret arm of the Vatican, although I have to confess I haven’t kept the secret quite as hush-hush as I should. My husband knows. My fourteen-year-old daughter Allie knows. My best friend Laura knows.
And it’s quite possible my toddler knows, too, but he isn’t saying.
Not that I’m completely incapable of keeping a secret. I haven’t told the postman or the guy who runs the 7-11 on the corner. And although I know my martial arts instructor is curious about why a thirty-something mother of two can best him on the mat, so far I haven’t succumbed to a whim and told him. Why? Because I am, more or less, capable of controlling my whims. Because I don’t fly off the handle and do stupid things simply because my friends (or husband, or kids) want me to.
Responsibility.
Now there’s a buzzword. And ‘prudence’. And ‘common sense.’
All qualities that a demon hunter needs to possess. Especially prudence. And clear, level-headed thinking. The ability to act fast in a crisis and not jump into a situation without first doing at least a basic assessment. All those are tools in a Hunter’s toolbox, and as much as certain fourteen-year-olds might wish it were so, that particular skill set isn’t acquired overnight. Which is why my particular fourteen-year-old, despite making serious strides on the knife-throwing and ass-kicking side of the equation, isn’t yet going on regular patrols with her designated trainer. Namely, me.
A fact that has definitely raised the Teenage Sulk and Whine Meter in our house to Def Con One. And which, in a lovely bit of circular logic, completely justifies my refusal. Because if she was being clear-headed and prudent, she’d know that I was right — and there would be no whining, no angst, no moping about. Of course, when I tried that bit of logic on her, I was immediately assaulted with her standard reply of Mother, in a tone meant to express all sorts of unpleasant things, none of which it’s prudent to say outright to your mom.
So maybe she’s learned a little prudence after all…
I hoped so. Because right then she was in a situation that required the utmost common sense and prudence. And, possibly, a few ass-kicking skills, too.
Right then, my daughter Allie was on a date, or what I considered a date, although Allie swore it was nothing more than a group of friends going to the movies.
The entire lot had piled into my minivan earlier, and I’d driven them to the mall, the plan being to meet some other friends for dinner and a movie before the girls headed off to a sleepover, where another mom would get to deal with a gaggle of hormonally charged girls. The boys, presumably, would go home frustrated.
I remembered the way Jeremy’s fingers had grazed Allie’s back as they’d walked toward the mall entrance, the way Allie had smiled up at him, her lips soft and shiny from liberal applications of lip gloss (probably to make up for the fact that I’d refused to allow any other make-up).
She could call it a friendly movie outing all she wanted to, but I knew it was a date. My childhood might have been atypical, what with growing up in the Forza dorms and spending my Friday nights chasing preternatural vermin through the catacombs of Rome, but I was still a girl, and I’d been around the block more than once.
There are a lot of things that make moms nervous. The first time you leave your baby with a sitter. The first day of kindergarten. And, of course, the first time your daughter battles a demon right in her own backyard.
All those pale in comparison to an unchaperoned date, even one that technically isn’t a date.
I took a sip of coffee and sighed. For the first time in ages I had the house to myself. My daughter was on a date. My husband had taken our toddler to see his parents. But I couldn’t even enjoy the solitude.
Instead, all I could think as I sat in my kitchen, trying hard not to think at all, was that I hoped those talks about prudence and responsibility had gotten through my daughter’s thick skull.
Allie
“This is stupid,” I shouted, trying to be heard over the music that filled the room and the bass beat that shook the floor. I held tight to the punch that Jeremy had brought me before sliding back into the throng of Coronado High students that filled the huge mansion’s foyer. “We’re going to get into so much trouble!”
“It’s just a party, Al,” Mindy said, leaning close so she didn’t have to yell as loud. “It’s not like we’re doing anything bad.” She said “bad” in the kind of voice that suggested backseats and kissing and the kind of stuff I’d never done before. And, honestly, didn’t want to do yet, even though I could talk a good game in the girls’ locker room. It wasn’t like I was a prude or anything, but I wasn’t sure I wanted that kind of hormonal rush yet. Besides, I didn’t have the best of luck with boys. The first time I went out with a guy, he turned out to be a demon. The second time he was only a minion, but from my perspective, that was just as bad. Maybe worse. So pardon me if in my almost fifteen years of wisdom, I’m now thinking that maybe I should have my knife-fighting skills honed before I get in the backseat with a boy.
Not that I can explain any of that to Mindy. She doesn’t know my mom’s secret. And she sure doesn’t know that I’m training to be a demon hunter, too.
I took a sip of my punch and almost spit it out. Whatever it had been spiked with tasted nasty. Not that the taste was slowing Mindy down.
“My mom would ground me for a year if she knew I was here, and you know your mom would, too.”
She lifted a shoulder. “So?”
I love Mindy, don’t get me wrong, but she’s been kind of a pain lately. Her parents are getting divorced, so Mom says I’m supposed to be patient with her. But I wasn’t entirely sure that meant that I was supposed to let her drag me to forbidden parties.
“You’re not going to have fun if you don’t relax a little,” Mindy said. “Honestly, Allie. It’s not like we’re picking up guys on the beach or hitchhiking on the Coast Highway. It’s a party. And everybody we know is here.”
I took another sip of my drink, felt my head do a spinning thing, and saw Jeremy smiling at me from across the room. I wasn’t sure I entirely agreed with Mindy’s assessment, but I had to admit that at the moment the perks were pretty good. Party. Friends. A boy who liked me. And, yeah, I know I had the whole justification thing going about so not needing a boyfriend, and so not wanting to deal with the stress of kisses and bodies and all that hormonal stuff, but at the same time, it’s not like I could just flip a switch and not be fourteen anymore. I was a hormonal mess. I knew it, because not only did my mom spend half her life saying so, but also because I got the only A on our health quiz this semester. Trust me. All fourteen year olds are hormonal messes.
Jeremy made a beeline for me, his smile just shy enough to make my stomach do flip-flops. “Did you miss me?” he said. Like Mindy, he had to lean in close, and his breath tickled my ear. I caught Mindy’s eye as Carson drew her away toward the makeshift dance floor. She wasn’t saying anything, but was making embarrassing “go for it” expressions — embarrassing enough to make me think that already she’d hit the punch bowl once too often.
Right as I was thinking that I needed to cut my best friend off, she stumbled over her own feet, a sure sign she was trashed. Instinctively, I took a step forward, but stopped right away, because someone caught her — and he wasn’t Carson. Instead, he was an absolutely dreamy guy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. The kind of guy you see in magazines advertising deodorant soap, the idea being that if you don’t stink, you can land a guy like that.
<
br /> “Marlin Wheatley,” Jeremy said, leaning close.
I didn’t turn around. How could I, since that would mean I had to stop staring?
“No way is he in his twenties,” I whispered, remembering what I’d been told about our host. “He’s got to still be in high school.”
Jeremy moved slightly, and I imagined he was shrugging. “Dunno. Guess he’s just one of those guys.”
I guessed so. One of those gorgeous, model-perfect, Greek- God-on-a-mountaintop kind of guys with a fabulous mansion overlooking the ocean, who throws awesome parties with cutting-edge music and tables and tables topped with amazing food and mindblowing drinks. Yeah. One of those guys.
Now, that guy was holding Mindy tight while she regained her balance. But he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was looking right at me. There was something so familiar about his eyes. If I wanted to, I really thought I could float away in them.
Except part of me didn’t want to. Part of me thought that would be a very bad idea. There was something about him … something deep in his eyes…
“Allie!”
I started, the movement breaking eye contact. I’d been thinking something … worrying about something, and I glanced back at Mindy, but she was upright and holding hands with Carson and everything seemed hunky-dory.
I turned to Jeremy, confused.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“I…”
“You got this look. All worried and … I don’t know.” His brow furrowed. “You don’t want to leave, do you?”
That knocked me back to reality. “I thought about it,” I admitted. “My mom wouldn’t exactly approve.”
As far as Mom knew, the plan had been a movie followed by a sleepover at Parker’s house. (Parker is a girl, so that’s not as risqué as it sounds.) The boys, of course, were not invited to that part of the evening.
Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives Page 5