SEDUCER FEY
CULLYN ROYSON
Booktrope Editions
Seattle WA 2013
Copyright 2013 Cullyn Royson
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Cover Design by Greg Simanson
Edited by Dawn Pearson
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.
PRINT ISBN 978-1-62015-141-9
EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015-237-9
For further information regarding permissions, please contact [email protected].
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013946827
To Kris Locke
Table of Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DEDICATION
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
SPYING, FLIRTING, PURCHASING
CHAPTER 2
OF STRANGERS IN
NOVA SCOTIA
CHAPTER 3
WELCOME, TUATHA
DE DANANN
CHAPTER 4
WHEN WINNERS
WRITE HISTORY
CHAPTER 5
PREPARING TO DINE
WITH FAIRIES
CHAPTER 6
OF RITUALS & PERFORMANCES
PART TWO
CHAPTER 7
IN WHITE MARBLE HELL
CHAPTER 8
OF TATTOOS & TABOOS
CHAPTER 9
WHEN WATER IS BURNED
CHAPTER 10
HOW GUARDIANS DISAPPEAR
PART THREE
CHAPTER 11
RISK TAKER
CHAPTER 12
FISHING FOR INFORMATION
CHAPTER 13
WHEN SOMEONE WANTS
YOUR ARTIFACT
CHAPTER 14
A SEA SEDUCER’S PREY
CHAPTER 15
HAPPINESS EVER ELUSIVE
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 16
EXPECTING SOMEONE TALLER
CHAPTER 17
PAIN
CHAPTER 18
BREAKING AND ENTERING
IN SCOTLAND
CHAPTER 19
SWEET TENTACLES
CHAPTER 20
BLOODY MOONLIGHT
CHAPTER 21
GO WEST, SHEARED ADONIS
CHAPTER 22
THE MOON PRINCESS
WAS WISER
CHAPTER 23
OF CRESCENT V-RODS
CHAPTER 24
HE’LL BE WITH THE
ONE HE LOVES
EPILOGUE
A GF BY ANY OTHER NAME
GLOSSARY OF SEXUALITY
& GENDER TERMS
FURTHER READING
BONUS STORIES
CASSIDY & DANNY’S
SUMMER CAMP ADVENTURE
THE TOLYMIE’S
WINTER HOLIDAY
AUTHOR WEBSITE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MORE GREAT READS FROM BOOKTROPE
PART ONE
PRESENT: IN WHICH THERE
IS A GENETIC FEY
If you encounter a beast with a mane of kelp stepping out of the sea foam never confuse it with the goddess of love. Its allure will be your demise. Refrain from partaking in the food of the feys. If you dine, you will serve them forever.
–CASSIDY ADISA
CHAPTER 1
SPYING, FLIRTING, PURCHASING
WHEN TABAN STUMBLED to the kitchen breakfast table at nine in the morning on May Day he did not expect to hear: “Would you go to the other side of the continent, make friends with a particular person for me, and be back by dinner tomorrow?” from his housemate and best friend, Eadowen.
“Why?” Taban replied as he poured milk on the rim of his cereal bowl splashing it over the table.
“Well, we’re having vegan black pudding.” Eadowen set a tall mug of coffee in front of Taban. “And I want you to try it.”
“No, the other thing, Ea,” Taban replied addressing Eadowen by his nickname. “Who is this person I need to befriend?” He stared at his reflection in the mug. Even in the black coffee his azure eyes shone back at him. He suspected that when he was a young child, his father had paid a small fortune to have the color of his eyes genetically enhanced to appear more striking in contrast to his dark skin. It was one of the few procedures his father had done to him that he found acceptable.
“Edana Reyes is my third cousin once-removed. I’ve done some research on her, it appears she prefers to be called Danny and uses female pronouns,” Eadowen explained. “It seems Danny will be coming here to Nova Scotia to visit our university during her Spring Break. This is a problem because you know what might happen if they get a hold of her genome.”
“So, you think she’s like you? Gonna live forever and all?”
“Forever is an exaggeration.” Eadowen laughed and poured a cup of tea from a silver teapot. “She might not be like me, but I’m not going to take any chances.”
“You want me to make sure she trusts us enough to believe us when we tell her about her heritage?”
“Affirmative.”
“You seem to know more about her. Why don’t you go?”
“Her parents would not be happy if they knew I was associating with her,” Eadowen explained with a small smile.
“Oh, gotcha.” Taban raised his mug and tapped it to his friend’s tea cup with a wink as the ceramic clinked together. “Let’s see, I have to book a round trip flight, get to the airport, and figure out how to get close to her in under thirty-six hours?” He shrugged. “Sure. I wanted to skip class today anyway.”
***
Taban arrived to unusually hot spring weather in Victoria, British Columbia. This was unfortunate because he had worn an excessive number of layers and a hood to avoid being recognized by Danny while he spied on her. He’d completed the disguise with brown contacts and by tucking his blond bangs under a baseball cap. Prepared for a long wait, he reclined on a city bench across from the apartment Danny Reyes shared with her father. He slid a pink visor over his eyes, both to protect them from the sun and to review the images of Danny and her father. As he swept his finger along the edge of the visor to change images, he noticed a man who resembled Danny’s father’s pictures, walking down the sidewalk. Taban checked the time, which also matched when Mr. Reyes would arrive home from work at a local design studio.
Shoving the visor into his pocket, Taban jumped to his feet. “Hi, you must be Mr. Reyes.” Taban waved with an intentionally goofy smile on his face. “I go to school with your daughter, Danny.”
The petite, dark-haired man altered his course to join Taban by the bench. “Nice to meet you,” he said extending his hand in greeting. With his hands in his pockets, Taban pretended to hesitate by looking around bashfully before returning a bright-eyed gaze to Mr. Reyes. After all, he’d decided to play the part of a love struck boy who had just met the father of his crush.
“I … I …” Taban made himself stammer as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I was wondering if she might want to hang out this Spring Break?”
“I’m sorry she’s he
aded to Nova Scotia to visit her mother and some universities with her friend.”
As Taban let his face fall at this piece of information, he fiddled with his hoodie zipper. Mr. Reyes’ brow furrowed as he regarded Taban with sympathetic brown eyes.
“What’s her friend’s name? I might know her too,” Taban said quietly.
“Cassidy, and she’s from Washington State, not my daughter’s school.”
“I was really hoping to see her. When does she leave?” He let a strain into his voice. “Maybe I can catch her before then.”
“She leaves in the early morning.”
“So when could I get a hold of her?”
“Don’t you have her contact?”
“No and that’s the problem,” Taban replied, wringing his hands to emphasize his feigned pain. “Look if I don’t ask her out now. Someone else will. I’ve liked her for a really long time, but I’ve always been so shy. I’m kind of a … well I read a lot of books and don’t play sports. Why would she go out with me?”
When Mr. Reyes placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, Taban had to slouch to conceal his toned neck and arms from Mr. Reyes’ touch. Luckily the thick fabric of his hoodie helped to hide his true frame. “My daughter could really use some friends. Especially some who could help her get better grades. Don’t tell her I said that part about the grades.”
Barely able to hide his smirk, from the satisfaction that Mr. Reyes had bought his corny love story Taban continued his facade. “I’d absolutely tutor her!” he said, his voice dripping with earnest.
“Her flight leaves at 8 a.m. so she’ll be leaving here a few hours before then. So, you’d have to be here in the pretty early morning.”
“I’ll do my best, but don’t let her miss her flight because of me.”
“If you like my daughter, then you should get up the courage to tell her,” Mr. Reyes said patting Taban on the back.
Once Danny’s father was out of sight, Taban flopped down on the bench. He decided to remain close by until she got home because identifying her on the plane would be easier if he knew what she looked like in person. A message alert beeped in his borrowed headphones. He preferred the thin audio strip attached to his mandible to the heavy old-style noise reduction headphones, but anything he could do to conceal his identity the better. He slipped his visor on and read the message from Eadowen on the lens: How’s everything going? Through the pink-tinted visor, Taban saw several teenagers walk by cuing him in to the fact that school had just let out. Danny could walk by any minute. He switched messages from Eadowen to auto-audio read, so he could keep a look out for her.
Hey Ea, it’s fine, Taban tapped a response on his Ogham, a rectangular electronic device strapped to the inside of his right forearm. The actual device was only as big as the palm of his hand and paper thin despite opening up to two screens to provide a larger surface or three-dimensional viewing. A slim, rectangular box on the top side of his forearm was attached to the same strap as his Ogham. The compartment had replaced the wallets he’d seen in old movies; however, it was made obsolete because most financial exchanges and identifications were done digitally. Taban crammed his compartment full of salt packets, which he added to almost everything he ate. His contemporaries wore utility belts to hold bigger personal items, while older adults clipped their Oghams to their belts and continued to carry purses.
Do you have the same flight as her? Though Eadowen had not explicitly asked how Taban had managed to get the same flight as Danny, he knew his friend would quiz him if he didn’t provide some explanation.
Yes, Taban confirmed. I accidentally bumped into her father on his way from work and started a conversation. Taban took care to be vague when communicating electronically. Message protection was not secure, because privacy had been sacrified years ago in favor of accessing text messages under the ruse of identifying criminal misconduct. Unlike most people he could afford some privacy and high account security, but that didn’t make his online profile unhackable.
A petite teenager dashed by him, her long dark hair flying behind her in a loose ponytail. Her large T-shirt and baggy pants, both black, looked like a single piece of billowing fabric. She was too far away for him to make out her facial features, but her broad shouldered silhouette matched the photographs he’d found. Slumping so that his hood fell farther over his head, he took a video by nonchalantly tilting his visor on his head. He paused the video, lowered his visor over his eyes, and zoomed in on her face. Narrow brown eyes, sharp features, and freckles dusting a dark complexion—yes, she was definitely Danny Reyes. He didn’t need to use his facial recognition software to confirm. She bounced up and down in front of the door of the apartment until a taller girl, wearing red bucket-topped boots and a matching blouse, joined her.
I suppose I could bump into Danny now, he considered. But that would seem contrived. Running into her on the plane gives me a great excuse for having the same general destination.
There weren’t many empty seats. Taban typed to Eadowen. I bought an extra seat in business class, so that I can convince whoever is sitting next to them to switch places with me during the flight.
Them?
Oh, apparently, a friend of hers is going with her.
Taban zoomed in on a frame he’d caught of Cassidy. The crimped waves of her cropped hair just covered the tops of her ears. Though he didn’t find either of the young women particularly appealing, he admired the mahogany shade of Cassidy’s face. Despite acne blemishes, her skin tone complemented her honey-colored eyes agreeably.
I’ll be home tomorrow. Late, he tapped out.
I’ll leave dinner in the fridge for you. What would you like? Eadowen replied.
You know what I like.
Salt?
Ha. Ha. Thanks, Taban replied, not appreciating Eadowen’s commentary on his culinary habits.
Are you sure you’ll be able to make a good impression without the usual repercussions?
I’ll just channel you and everything will be fine, Taban replied.
Thank you.
Anytime, Taban tapped, but erased before he clicked send.
Running his hand through his bleached hair, Taban purchased his tickets and packed his tablet. He hated that the bleach made his hair feel like straw and that the swimming pool often altered the color. He desperately wished he could stop dying it, unfortunately that was not his choice. At least bleaching took less maintenance than nano-dye and more efficiently reversed than gene therapy.
The sunlight caught the red in his stone ring. He moved his hand allowing the shine to jump along the red flecks scattered on the dark green surface. Absentmindedly he slid the ring to his knuckle, revealing a band of lighter skin around his ring finger. Fondling the rough edge of the stone, he pushed the ring against his knuckle knowing it would not come off. It was a place holder, one that he never wanted to replace. Sweating in his grey hooded jacket, he rolled up his sleeves to cool himself. He glanced at his bare arms, saw the teal ink on the inside of his right forearm, and quickly pulled that sleeve down to cover the hideous mark on his dark flesh. When he wasn’t wearing long sleeves, he wore his Ogham on his dominant arm to cover the tattoo. To his dismay, it was never completely hidden by the strap.
A solar-powered public shuttle slowed, he flagged it, and got inside. As he swept his Ogham across the scanner for payment, he caught the eye of the scowling shuttle attendant.
“Where are you headed?” the middle-aged attendant grumbled, her face aged by her sour expression.
Taban leaned over the scanner toward her. “Next stop.” The lines around her face softened and her cheeks colored as she coquettishly patted her hair. He didn’t know where the shuttle was headed and he didn’t care—he had the rest of the day to kill.
CHAPTER 2
OF STRANGERS IN
NOVA SCOTIA
CASSIDY WATCHED THE MORNING LIGHT glint orange off the city’s windows as the soft patchwork of the land fell away beneath the plane. She shifted uncomfort
ably in one of the tiny plane seats. To distract herself from Danny’s snoring from the seat beside her, Cassidy decided to play some music. She commanded her Ogham by the label she had given it: “Sunset: playlist six.” The energetic beat of her favorite Knots of Avernus song, “The Lady’s Jester,” reverberated from the skin-toned audio strip on her jaw.
The plane ascended into a dense cloud and breached over a sea of ivory. Ripples with crests of magenta extended toward the horizon broken only by a towering cumulus. To Cassidy, the clouds seemed like castles on the sea with pearl-white architecture. She stroked the audio strip to repeat the song and took a small journal out of her trench coat pocket. The violet cover, highlighted by shiny gold spirals, had caught her eye in one of the airport shops. She unlocked the journal with the key hung around her neck.
Name: Cassidy Isaac Adisa, she wrote. Date: May 2nd
I’ve never written in a journal before, but Anna-Mom recommended it, since I’ve been so anxious about school lately. My other parent, Rona-Mom, also encouraged me to do this. I haven’t written by hand since elementary school so my handwriting is atrocious, but I do like the feeling of the physical page beneath my pen. It’s very different from the voice recording I usually use.
I came to Victoria from my home in Port Townsend, Washington State, to visit my friend Danny. We met at a martial arts summer camp when we were both fourteen. A few months ago, I mentioned to Danny that I really wanted to check out universities in Eastern Canada and the East Coast of the United States. Conveniently, her mother lives in Nova Scotia and offered to take us on a trip over Spring Break.
I’m seventeen, so in many places I would be in my third year of high school, but I am taking classes at the local junior college. I will apply to specific programs of study at universities this fall.
Shaking out her hand, Cassidy looked at her friend, Danny. The woman, who had sat in the aisle seat next to them during takeoff, had gone to the restroom, returning only to get her luggage. Cassidy assumed the woman had found a better seating arrangement. Taking advantage of the extra space, Danny had sprawled across both seats.
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