by Sasha White
“Don’t treat me like a child, A’lona.”
Sighing, I reached across the table and squeezed his withered hand. “I’m not her, Da. I’m not A’lona. I’m your daughter, Nina, remember?”
At first, his eyes were clouded over when he looked at me, but after a turn, they seemed to clear and he smiled as if truly seeing me for the first time.
I returned his smile, overjoyed that he was lucid. He had days where he had no idea where he was. It wasn’t Alzheimer’s. We’d had all the tests. I knew what it was but he didn’t want to admit the truth. He didn’t want to accept that my mother had done this to him.
“I know who you are, my darling.” He squeezed my hand tight. “You just look so much like her, so much like your mother.”
I know he was paying me a compliment. My mother, A’lona, had been breathtakingly beautiful with lustrous dark hair, spring green eyes, and luminous pale flawless complexion. But because of my anger toward her, I hated being compared to her in any way. I hoped and I prayed that I wasn’t anything like her and would never be, no matter what life threw at me.
“Yeah, well, unfortunately I can’t seem to help that. Genetics and all.” I gave him a quick sardonic smile and sipped my tea.
“One day you’ll have to forgive her.”
“Why?”
Picking up his cup, he sat back in his chair and regarded me. “Because some day you may need her.”
“I can’t see that day ever coming, Da. Not when I have you.”
He sipped his drink then set it down on the table. “I won’t always be here, Nina. You know that. Your mother will be around a lot longer.”
“Yeah, well, that can’t be helped either.” Standing, I took my tea to the sink and dumped it. I was no longer in the mood for a nice cup of soothing tea. Talking about my mother had that affect. Anything that comforting or joyful faded when I thought about her.
She had abandoned me when I was ten and I had yet to forgive her. Nor did I see that ever happening. In the past seventeen years, I’d seen her only twice--both times on my birthday, once when I was turning sixteen and the other time when I was turning twenty-one. She’d arrived unexpectedly on the doorstep, bearing gifts for both Da and I. As if expensive presents could make up for her abandonment.
For my sweet sixteenth, she gave me a glass globe. Inside was a tiny village made out of porcelain nestled in a wooded glen beside a tall mountain. When you shook the globe, tiny glowing stars would dance around. Quite beautiful. She told me it was the realm of Nightfall where she had been born, the place she had left us for. Every time I shook it, she said, she would know that I was thinking of her.
Without thanking her for it, I had smashed it into a thousand pieces on the hard wood floor in our living room.
Da had yelled at me and told me how ungrateful I had been. All the while, I glared at A’lona, wishing her to vanish into mist. She had just returned my look, but there had been no anger in her gaze or malice. Just understanding. That had angered me the most. Because if she had truly understood, she wouldn’t have left me in the first place.
I remembered spending the rest of the day in the room, crying and tearing apart all my pretty things. Later, tired and hungry, I had snuck out of my room to the kitchen to snag a piece of my birthday cake. As I crept past my father’s room, I had heard them together. The realization had angered and disgusted me, and I had almost burst into the room to drag her out of the house by her hair. But I didn’t. I couldn’t do that to my father.
After only a day, A’lona had once again disappeared, and my father sunk into a depression, sobbing until his throat was hoarse. For days after, he’d refuse to eat or go to work. A week later, the depression broke and he was back to his normal happy self.
So on my twenty-first birthday when she showed up at the door again, bearing gifts, I had thought for sure that Da would tell her to go back to Nightfall and leave us be. But he didn’t. Once more, he had welcomed her in with open arms.
I understood then why it was that way. He’d been fae-struck and he’d always love her, no matter what and no matter how long she’d leave him for. Humans were cursed to love the fae forever. That was just one of the reasons I wasn’t in a serious relationship. It just wouldn’t be fair to the other person.
That time she had given me an exquisite bracelet made from amethyst and moonstone. Real moonstone, not the beads that pretend they are made from the lunar rock. I had thanked her, kissed her on the cheek, then that night when they had retired to my father’s room, I sneaked outside and buried it in the garden.
Moonflowers grew in that spot now, encircling a small pond where two toads have taken up residence. Every night their dark blue petals unfurled to soak up the moon’s rays--the exact spot where Da always saw the pixies playing. Pixies from Nightfall, the place where my mother was born and lived.
Movement stirred behind me. I hadn’t heard Da move up behind me. He set his empty cup on the counter and placed his quivering hand on my shoulder. I leaned into his touch.
“You have to stop hating her, Nina. It will only eat at you from the inside out.”
I shook my head. “Why should I? What has she done to deserve my forgiveness?”
“She can’t help what she is. Would you fault a wolf from hunting and killing its prey to feed itself?”
Thoughts of Severin instantly filled my mind.
“Its nature is to do what it must to survive.” He squeezed my shoulder again then let his hand fall. “So it is with your mother. She does what she does to survive.”
I didn’t look at him even when he pressed a quick kiss to my cheek and said, “Goodnight, darling. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Night.”
I waited until he’d left the kitchen before I rinsed and set our cups in the dishwasher, his words mulling around in my head. I didn’t want to consider that A’lona had valid motivations for what she did. To me, there couldn’t have been any reason to abandon a child at the tender age of ten. No reason to leave her without any explanation to be raised by her father. I could never have done that.
I stood at the sink and stared out the big window toward the backyard garden. The moonflowers were in full bloom. Dark petals fluttered in the light breeze as the stamens glowed like fireflies dancing in the moonlight. If I squinted, I knew I would see the buzzing of wings around the pond. Full dark was the perfect time for pixies to play.
Instead, yawning, I turned from the display, clicked off the light in the kitchen and took the stairs to my bedroom. I was too tired to deal with those from Nightfall. I had my own supernatural being to deal with in this realm.
Severin’s sexy rugged face and exquisite naked form planted firmly in my mind as I shed my clothes and slid under the covers. There went my good night’s sleep.
Chapter 4
Trying to hide another yawn behind my hand, I nodded to the elderly man telling me about the pains he’d been having in his bowels. Thankfully, I was halfway through my shift. I hadn’t slept well and was having a difficult time keeping my eyes open. Dreams of Severin kept me involved for most of the night.
I finished taking the patient’s blood pressure and marked down the numbers on his chart. “Okay, Mr. Goldman, the doctor will be in right away to see you.”
With the chart in hand, I pulled back the sunny yellow curtain and returned to the triage desk to enter information onto the huge whiteboard on the wall containing room numbers and patient names. As I was writing, Diana slid up in next to me.
“Feeling better?”
I nodded, and then yawned.
She looked me up and down. “Uh-uh. You didn’t get any sleep, did you?”
“I got some.”
“Yesterday get to you?” Without waiting for a reply, she said, “Yeah, that woman’s death got to me too.” She stroked her fingers over the stethoscope wrapped around her neck.
She did that when she had something on her mind.]
“Everyone’s still buzzing about it. Wo
ndering if there are going to be more werewolf attacks.”
“Do we really know that was one?” I asked stiffly as I turned and walked back to the triage desk to grab another patient file.
Diana followed. “Hey, what’s with you?”
I rolled my shoulders, feeling the tension cramping my muscles. “Nothing.”
“Hey, did you hear—” Kevin, one of the other nurses, leaned close to us “—about the body they found in East Hastings early this morning?’
I shook my head.
“Body’s all cut up, organs removed I heard. One of the cops I know said it looked like a ritual killing.”
“Really?” Diana said.
Kevin nodded eagerly, clearly thrilled to be in on the good gossip. “I guess they found some weird rocks with symbols painted on them all in circle around the body. Weird, huh?”
“What kind of symbols?” A sudden chill rushed down my spine. I wrapped my arms around my body in response, trying to rub it away.
“Don’t know.” He shrugged. “Hey, do you think the werewolves are behind it?” he asked, his eyes all lit up.
Before I could say anything, my cell phone vibrated in my pants pocket. I checked the number before I answered and recognized my home number. My father.
He never called me.
I walked away from the nurse’s station and answered it. “What’s wrong?”
“The pixies are after me.”
“Da,” I sighed. “What did I say about them?”
“They’re angry for some reason, Nina. One of them bit my ear.”
“Are you hurt? Did you fall or something in the garden? Do you want me to call Mrs. Duka next door and see if she can come over?” I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear, while I rubbed at my temple where a headache was brewed.
“Gah! Get away, you pest!”
His voice was shrill making my heart jump in my chest. “Da?”
“Damn it!”
I heard something break in the background. Something that sounded suspiciously like glass.
“No! Get back!”
Then nothing. I listened to a dead line.
As I redialed my home number, Diana watched me out of the corner of her eye. Concern furrowed her brow. “Everything okay?”
“I don’t know yet.” A busy signal buzzed in my ear. I pressed end, then redialed. Again, I got a busy signal.
Flipping my phone closed, I slid it into my pocket. My stomach clenched. I had a very bad feeling that something wasn’t right at my house. Had my father finally gone off the deep end? Or was it something worse? Something from Nightfall.
“I need to go, Diana.” I didn’t meet her gaze. I didn’t want her to see how frightened I was becoming.
“Your dad’s not doing well, is he?”
“He has his good days and his bad days.” I sighed. “Guess which one this is?”
“Maybe you should consider finding a facility for him.”
I looked at her then with a frown, irritation building inside. “I’m not putting my father in a home.”
“Nina, it might be the best thing for him.” She paused and rubbed at her stethoscope. “For you, too. Alzheimer’s can take its toll on a family. I know. My grandfather had it.”
“My father doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. He’s just…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. How could I possibly explain to Diana that my dad was fae-struck, and it had sucked the life out of him, both physically and mentally?
“Okay, go. I’ll make sure you’re covered here.”
For all her prickly qualities, she possessed a few good ones too that just happened to miraculously show up when I really needed them to. Like now. She knew I didn’t want to be pressed about my father.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded and then squeezed my shoulder in an uncharacteristic show of friendship. “I’ll see you when you get back.”
“Thanks.” I rushed to the staff room to grab my bag and my helmet. I ran down the four flights of stairs to the parking garage—parking indoors seemed smart from now on—mentally calculated how long it would take to get home. I desperately hoped that my dad was having an episode. Because I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around the alternative.
I made it home in twenty minutes. It would’ve been sooner but there was an accident on Hastings that forced me to take a different route. I did still speed though.
Hastily parking my bike on the driveway, I unlocked the front door and pushed it open, calling to my father, “Da?”
No answer.
Dropping my purse and keys onto the table at the front foray, I ventured further into the house, first going into the living room and kitchen. He was not there, but a chair was overturned, lying on its side on the kitchen floor. My heart slamming inside my chest, I picked it up and set it back.
I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time to my father’s bedroom. I pushed open the door to find the room empty. His bed was neatly made, everything looked in order. I quickly checked my room, although he’d have no reason to be in there. I also checked the bathroom. The room was as I left it this morning.
But something caught my eye as my gaze swept the small window. I rushed to it and looked down into the garden. My father lay on his side on the grass near the garden, unmoving.
I sprinted down the stairs and out the balcony doors in a panicky rush, praying under my breath that he was still alive. I would never forgive myself if he had died on his own, alone and without help.
As I neared him, I saw fresh angry red scratches on his hands, arms, and face. Fearing the worse, I crouched down and placed my fingers on his neck to feel for a pulse. “Da?”
He groaned and I let the breath I was holding go, mumbling a thank you to the benevolent spirit that had heard my prayer. His pulse was strong under my fingers.
I rolled him onto his back. That was when I saw the four-inch creature licking blood from a tiny cut on my father’s chin. In a flash, its tiny head came up and it hissed at me, its thin lips stained crimson.
However many stories tell about the playful and whimsical nature of pixies, I knew the truth. There was no whimsy in the creature’s slanted opaque eyes as it glared and spat like a wild cat. I could feel the malevolence wafting off it like steam from a scalding shower.
Games of fancy were not on its mind. Thoughts of blood and pain were definitely more like it by the look of venom on its tiny periwinkle face. Distending its long vicious claws, it leapt.
Luckily, I had quick reflexes and I managed to snag the little creature, arms pinned to its sides, in my fist before it could rip out my eye, which it had definitely been aiming for.
“Letz me go, wicked girl!” it shrieked.
Its voice was high pitched like a bell and inaudible to most people. But I had great hearing and discerned every single syllable it snarled. “Why are you here? How did you get here?”
The pixie struggled in my grip but I had no intention of letting go, not until I received some answers.
“Iz always here, stupidz.”
“I’d watch your little mouth, pest.” I increased the pressure of my grasp. “Why did you attack my father?”
It thrashed about again, trying to release its limbs so it could rip and tear into me. But I didn’t relinquish my hold. Fury lifted its blue lips into a cruel snarl, and I could plainly see two rows of tiny razor-like teeth. I had no time to respond to its intentions before it sunk those fangs into the meaty part of my thumb.
I yelped and nearly opened my hand, but I caught myself before I freed my prisoner. Cringing from the sharp pain singing up my arm, I gritted my teeth and asked my question again. “Why did you attack my father? Answer me or I will squeeze you like a tube of toothpaste.”
As the pixie unhooked its teeth from my flesh and glared, blood trickled down my wrist to drip onto my pants. Its hungry gaze eyed the red path with ruthless enthusiasm. Like a thin black worm, its tongue snaked out of its gaping mouth and lapped at the crimson feast.
A
ngry, I increased the pressure on its body. True to my word, I squeezed the little bugger like a tube of white goo.
“Stopz! Stopz!” It yelped and thrashed about. “Iz tell you want youz wantz.”
I released the pressure a little. “Go ahead.”
“Nightfallz tell me.”
“Who in Nightfall? What’s the person’s name?”
It shrugged its bony shoulders. “Iz no not.”
My father groaned again and I looked down at his slack face, marred by angry red marks. He was an old man, fragile and innocent. He didn’t deserve this fate. Rage blossomed inside me. I shook with it. Squeezing the pixie hard, I stared into its eyes and spoke low, my voice as cold as brittle ice, “Tell. Me. Who.”
It shook its head back and forth and moaned, “Iz no name. Just hearz a whisper on the windz.”
“What did it say? What were the words?”
I could see the hesitation on its face so I squeezed even harder. Its face darkened to a deep purple as the air left its tiny lungs. After one final struggle, it slumped in my fist and murmured on one of its final puffs of air, “Killz Jason Decker.”
Shock had me loosening my hand and the pixie slid limply to the ground, landing in a heap at my knees. I couldn’t believe it. Someone in Nightfall had ordered my father’s assassination.
Why? What purpose would his death demonstrate? He was not a threat to Nightfall. At least, I didn’t think he knew anything that could threaten their existence.
The pixie stirred on the ground. I glanced down at it, sympathy digging at me like a jagged tooth. It had only been a tool of someone else’s evil intent. No choice but to obey its fae masters.
It struggled to its feet, its breath coming in quick hard pants. One of pale blue gossamer wing lay crumpled against its side. A pang of compassion rang over me and I nearly reached down to help it up. But then I remembered what it had tried to do to my father. Most of my kindness drained away.
“Go back to Nightfall and tell your mistress or master that any more attempts on my father’s life will have disastrous results for them.”