by Lily Silver
Tara hugged him fiercely. She wanted to shed tears for a hope that was now diminished, the hope of having his child. She couldn’t cry just now. She felt hollow inside, a detached sensation of having slipped into a situation too frightening, too overwhelming to be real.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dan awakened with a raging headache. It felt as if someone nailed a spike through his head. He sat up, and nearly puked as the room spun about him.
“Easy, good fellow.” Riley, the fey doctor, was at his bedside. “You’ve a slight concussion. I suggest bed rest for the day.”
“Do you now?” Dan’s voice sounded foreign in his ears. “I just might take you up on that.” He gazed around at his room, surprised by the changes in it since last night. Someone had gone to the trouble to deck it out in style, Victorian style. Not a detail was overlooked in the effort.
The bed was new, larger than the single cot he’d been tossing on for over two weeks running in an imitation of sleep. This was a comfortable bed, with a thick mattress. A padded chair was to his left, a big, heavy chair that looked the perfect place to read the paper. And there was a marble topped table, with an elegant frosted glass globe oil lamp on it instead of the lone candlestick on an upended crate he’d become accustomed to. Paintings adorned the walls. He stared up at a hunting scene on the wall opposite his bed. Sleek horses and their well dressed riders were stomping through the woods in English fashion. Green velvet curtains hung over his bed. As no window graced the interior room, the paintings lightened the mood considerably.
“What gives, where did all this fancy stuff come from?” He looked up at the doctor.
“His lordship asked Mick to add some elegance to the place, for Tara’s comfort, of course. So, Mick conjured some furnishings from the mists.”
“For Tara’s comfort, right then,” Dan repeated. “Tell Old Mickey G. I’m grateful he saw fit to sprinkle some fairy dust in here, too, will you?”
Riley nodded, and made his exit. He left the door open. Dan sat up, groaned, and leaned left so he could get a better view of the main room, and the couple hugging and clinging to each other so desperately there.
“Hey, what’s the matter,” Dan yelled to them. “Did somebody die? Did Arthur die?”
He was out of the bed in seconds. The ground shifted a little beneath his feet, but he managed to make it out into the living area, to the couple embracing as if they were on the Titanic and it was about to go down in the night.
“No, he’s fine.” Tara let go of Adrian as she turned to reassure him that his friend was holding his own.
“What’s going on? Something terrible, by the look of you two.”
Riley left Dan. The big man would be alright. He was resilient. He wished he could say the same for his patient, Arthur. He went into their apartment and grabbed a bottle of milk from the cupboard where Mick left it. He took a knife and cut his hand, the soft fleshy part at the heel of his palm. Fisting his hand, he let several drops of blood fall into the milk, and then swirled it to mix the red into the white so it was not detectable.
“Are you going to see her?” Mick was watching him with curiosity. “Or shall I?”
“I’ll do it … if you would watch our patient?”
Mick nodded.
“Try to make him drink this. A few sips, about half a cup, every hour. It will strengthen him.”
“Aye,” Mick took the bottle from him with a sneer, as if he’d just been asked to feed and burp a human infant. “You do realize the responsibility you’ll have for him for the next fifty years or so? Are you willing to make that sacrifice?”
“I am,” Riley said.
In order to restore Arthur to full health so he could take his place in the world as a champion of mankind, they needed to feed him a small dose of fey blood. That would reverse the damage done both physically and mentally.
Once a human drank such a powerful elixir, he was bound to his fey benefactor, and the fey offering the blood was also bound to his protégé for the remainder of that one’s life.
Mick gave Lord Dillon his blood when the man was just an infant to ensure his survival. They were bonded together in spirit as a result. Mick stayed close to Adrian all of his life to watch over him and protect him. He played with him as a child, assuming a childish appearance at times to blend in. Mick could leave Dillon for short periods if he wished, but he knew from past experience that the separation often caused anxiety and deep melancholy in the human, and it was uncomfortable to the fey as well. They were bonded, for life.
“You’ll be movin’ to England’s shores, dear brother. To be near your human.”
“One day, perhaps. Not today.” Riley left the apartment, secure in the knowledge that Mick would see to his patient in his absence. He went up the stairs to the patio on the roof, and once there, he sat down and closed his eyes, willing himself to go to Artemisia’s court.
It was daytime. She would be alone. Once her admirers partook of her hypnotic communion during the Green Hour, her court would be packed with mortals seeking her aid.
His spirit moved through the city, past the busy boulevards to the rural area on the edge of Paris. He dropped down past the stone gates in the front drive of an estate that had been left vacant for many years, by the look of it. He swiftly moved along the brick wall of the house to the back yard, and the garden where Artemisia was waiting.
It was mid-afternoon. He had three hours until the famous Green Hour. Three hours to learn what he could regarding her involvement with the dark ones and how to stop them.
“Riley, you’ve returned to me,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands with pleasure. Her ethereal voice floated on the breeze and caressed his spirit form.
“I need answers, my lady. My brother says we cannot help you unless you tell us everything you know of the dark ones.”
Tara left Dan and Adrian in the kitchen. She remembered the shattered remains of the bottle Riley had asked her to keep safe for him when they first arrived. At the time, she had no idea why he wished her to keep the item. Now it made sense.
The wild eyed drunk they met when they arrived, the one ready to choke her to death over a bottle of Absinthe might be a clue. He had been deranged, made mad by drink and cared for nothing but his precious bottle—given to him, so he said, by the enchanted ones. Since Mick and Riley believed there were no fey in Paris, save the dark ones and Artemisia, it seemed logical that the bottle the old vagrant had been willing to kill her over might be a key to this mystery regarding the tainted spirits.
Tara rummaged through her dresser drawer in search of the jagged glass label wrapped in Riley’s handkerchief. It was safe, beneath her spare pantalets. She unwrapped it and studied the label. Lune Nuit Absinthe. Black Moon Absinthe.
She sat on the bed, stunned by the events of the day. So much had happened since she awakened in Adrian’s arms and they made love before leaving their cozy silk cocoon, as he had dubbed it. How she wished she could just lie here now in his arms and forget the horrors beyond their bedroom door.
Tara curled her fingers around the sharp edged label, and stared at her reflection in the long oval mirror across from the bed.
A child, Mick claimed. He’d called her a toddler, and then amended his criticism to adolescent girl. The insult didn’t bother her as much now, not when she considered Mick and Riley had been using their fey gifts for more than a millennium. Tara discovered her fey lineage mere months ago. She was like a baby to them, just learning to walk when they had been striding forward at a brisk run for centuries.
The most natural thing in the world would be to run.
To pack up Adrian and Dan, and escape to another time.
It would also be the coward’s way out.
If mankind were threatened with enslavement by the dark fey, she really couldn’t justify running away to save herself and her family. She might not be able to provide much aid in a fight, but she had to try to help vanquish their enemies.
The idea was horrif
ying. It was like something out of a science fiction movie, only instead of zombies or aliens taking over the world, it was the dark fey. The end of the world … well the end of man’s freedom, at least. The world would go on, but it would be a different world, plagued by malicious and cruel beings. Ruled by evil.
The door opened. Adrian stood with his hand on the knob, studying her before he asked the question she knew would come. “Are you alright, my sweet?”
Her fist tightened around the jagged glass label. “No. Are you?”
He shook his head. “I just explained what we knew to Dan. I believe he thinks I’m mad.”
“Can’t blame him. We’re all mad here,” Tara sighed. Mad to think they could stop this wicked plot they stumbled into. She stood with purpose and exited the room.
Adrian followed her across the living room. “What is it you have in your hand?”
“Come, I’ll show you.” She crossed the hall to her brother’s one room apartment. Adrian and Dan followed her.
Mick looked up from his task of pouring milk between Arthur’s lips. He put the cup aside at their entry and stood up from the bed. “Tara? You have a look about you of one on a mission.”
Tara smashed her lips together, and refrained from commenting. Instead, she waved him over to the table to the bottle Riley suspected contained the poisoned Absinthe. The men gathered around her as she unwrapped the label from its snowy white sheath. Beads of blood welled on her fingers from handling the jagged edges carelessly before. Still, she put the label down on the table in front of the bottle. The labels were exactly the same.
“That’s the bottle from that queer old drunk in the woods,” Dan noted.
“And Arthur’s bottle is the same brand,” Adrian stated the obvious.
“How did Artie get it?” Dan wondered aloud. “The stuff at the exposition, if it’s the same brand, is seeking a patent at present, and will be available in stores and for shipment to other countries in a few months. The stuff must not be out in stores as yet. It’s just being given out as samples at the exposition and to a few special souls as a gift.”
“Aye, a gift from the enchanted ones, the stinking old man in the woods claimed.” Mick turned and stepped quickly to the bed. He lifted Arthur’s pale head in one hand, by the back of his skull, and slapped him lightly on the cheeks. “Arthur, awaken.”
“Hey, knock it off.” Dan was quick to interfere with Mick’s rough handling of his friend. He moved to grab Mick’s hand and stop him from slapping Arthur’s cheeks to help bring him around.
With a quick flick of his wrist, Mick sent Dan hurling across the room as if he were made of paper. Poor Dan landed against the wall with a crash, muttering a curse as his hand went to cradle the back of his head.
Fury seized Tara. She lifted her hand in the air and wound back, similar to tossing a softball. Lightening came from her fingertips. She hit Mick in the side with an arcing stream of blue white energy.
“How dare you.” Mick was on his feet instantly, his face infused with rage and his voice unnaturally deep and guttural.
“No, how dare you! Nobody hurts my Dan. You get that?” Tara had no idea where the anger was coming from, or the lightening that flew from her fingers.
Mick approached on quick feet.
Tara braced her hands on her hips, daring him to try to hurt her or those she loved.
Adrian stepped in front of her, as if he meant to shield her from the ancient fey who had just tossed a very large man across the room with only a flick of his wrist. “Stop, Mick.”
Mick stood eye to eye with Adrian. Both men were seething with rage.
Adrian’s hands were fists. Tara moved to come around him and face Mick herself, as it would not end well if her husband challenged the seventeen hundred year old fey warrior. Adrian held out an arm, barring her attempt to slip around him and put herself between him and Mick.
“Aye, but the lass needs practice.” Mick’s voice was natural again, and the fury drained from his face. “See now, didn’t I tell you?” His head arched around Adrian’s shoulder so he could peer at Tara. A teasing grin slowly spread across her brother’s face. “Dinna I just tell you the other day you could hurl lightning bolts when angry?”
“Yes. Now help Dan up, and don’t hurt or threaten either of my humans again.”
“That’s the stuff, girl!” Mick nodded, seeming to have taken an abrupt change in attitude in the past seconds. “You needed an incentive to use your gift. Anger is the catalyst.” He raised his right arm up and touched his side with light fingers. His shirt was split open several inches. The white fabric was scorched around the opening. His exposed skin was red, as if he’d been burned by hot liquid. “I see I’ll need a new shirt. Now, lass, if we can channel that energy, that fury, at the right target, we just might have a chance.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The afternoon sun was glaring as Riley sat on a marble bench in the court of Artemisia. The flowers were washed out under the brilliant sun, drooping as if they were sleeping. He knew from earlier visitations that the court was best viewed in the night, as the flowers, the gazing pool and even the exotic fish swimming in the pool had a magical glow about them.
Night was her time, just as it was the time when her courtiers, the humans, were most prolific in their various arts. She was a goddess to the growing community of artists, poets, musicians and writers who flocked to Paris in the past fifty years to practice their craft.
Artemisia was beautiful. Riley understood why mortal men would find inspiration just in gazing at her. She had pale, iridescent skin and golden hair that hung about her in vibrant waves. She appeared innocent, alluring and vulnerable.
And yet, he knew she was quite the trickster.
Little did the men who flocked to her court know, but Artemisia’s gift of heightened creativity provided an important benefit to her; she fed off their worship.
She was one of those vain creatures who absorbed praise and worship from mortals as if it were a delicacy, a food with which to sustain them. She was a huntress, for all her beauty and grace, all her genteel mannerisms and pleas of needing assistance. She was as treacherous as a Venus Fly trap, a thing of beauty that attracted the unwary so she could feast on their dreams and gain sustenance from their adulation.
There were others like her, sirens of old who enchanted men and lured men into their lairs and did not let them go back to the land of the living. The old legends claimed sirens killed the mortal men they beguiled. In truth, they kept the men as pets, as willing consorts, as they, too, were intoxicated with the worship of mortals. The men were drugged, as the sirens were keepers of herbs, and used their knowledge of the plant world to further enslave their victims.
Yes, she had much in common with the sirens of old. And other creatures who intruded upon the realm of mortals seeking the heady rush of adoration. This failing in many of the fey was why a division grew between the light and the dark fey. Those of the light clans wished to aid humans and befriend them. They treated mankind with respect. At best, a fairy clan in one region might ignore the humans unless provoked into revealing themselves.
The dark fey were like the sirens of old, who wanted to toy with humanity for their own amusement. History was rife with examples of the dark ones influencing mankind, influencing a culture so strongly that men would make a spectacle of killing other humans to please them. The gladiator games in Rome were a result of an elite ruling force of humans bowing down to the dark ones, giving them the blood games and human sacrifice they craved in return for riches and power. Humans could be just as treacherous, selling out their own kind for personal profit.
Artemisia had the appearance of a pale Scandinavian woman, as she was born in the Swiss Alps and her family was aligned with the humans of the area. She was born in a Starling Fey Mound, but, her need for adulation made her dangerous. She could easily defect to the dark ones, an may have done so already.
And that was why Riley and Mick decided that she was
just too cunning a creature to be playing in the mind of their baby sister. Tara knew nothing of Artemisia’s history or that of fey beings that strayed from the light to embrace the cruel decadence of the Darkling clans.
“Why don’t you tell me again why it is you cannot leave this garden? Was it a spell woven by the dark ones, or a trap created by humans?” Riley plied her again with questions she had danced around and sidestepped without truly answering on previous visits. Knowing what magic held her here would reveal who she had to be consorting with, and that might be why she was reluctant to reveal the source of the power keeping her here.
“Riley, my fair one, you wound me with your distrust.” Her voice held that tinkling, bell-like quality that seduced men and placed them into a trance state. “I am trapped here by magic.”
“And you forget, lovely one, I am not mortal. I will not be brought under your spell. If you wish for my brother and I to help you, truth is required in the bargain, absolute truth.”
Her sweet face became hard and cold as she realized she could not beguile him as she had her many worshippers from the human world. “It is dark magic.”
“Yes, we’ve covered that. From where did it emerge? Who trapped you here, in this enchanted garden? And for what purpose? If you are in league with the dark ones, we cannot help you. If you wish our aid, you must help us first, help us find a way to defeat them.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. She turned away from him. He could see her wiping at her eyes to brush the tears away. Aye, female tears could be likened to poison. They were disturbing to males, both human and fey, and could be used to manipulate them.
Riley waited, ignoring the deep tugging of his heart, as he did favor her a wee bit. If circumstances were different he might have courted her in the fey manner. But, as Mick was wont to point out in that superior tone of an elder brother, they did not yet know if she were an ally of the Starling Clans, or an enemy.