Dark Glitter

by C. M. Stunich

  Like winged demon women.

  And …

  My heart thumped in my throat as I glanced over at the dead shadow.

  Thump, thump … freeze.

  I couldn't breathe anymore, one hand flying to my chest, my eyes widening as I thought I saw something that I couldn't possibly be seeing.

  The black shadows around the creature I'd killed with the spear disintegrated, drifting away in the cool breeze like mist, the silver moonlight catching in the supernatural fog and glimmering brightly. As the swirling darkness dissipated, I found myself looking at a familiar face …

  “Mom?” I whispered, the sight of her gently wrinkled face, disheveled brunette curls, and thin, wide mouth … It shook me deep inside. I could hardly remember who I was or where I was.

  Suddenly, I was just Ciarah O'Rourke, nineteen year old loser with nobody and nothing. I had a mom who beat me, who blamed me if her boyfriends tried to fuck me, a heroin addict and a drunk …

  She was an all-around horrible human being.

  But … had I just killed her?!

  Stumbling forward, I put my hands on the belly of the woman I'd just stabbed, my fingers curling around the handle of the spear, sweaty and shaking, my grip weak and trembling.

  “Mom?” I asked again, squinting up at her face, blood draining down from my scalp and into my eyes. Standing this close, my fingers tangled in a dirty white t-shirt with the name of the bar where I'd used to work—Sweet, Sweet Times. The low slung jeans, a pair of boots that I recognized as being my own, as being Ciarah's.

  Even the smell of her perfume was familiar: Kim Kardashians' Fleur Fatale. I'd always hated that smell. When she was fucked off on heroine, she didn't get dressed to go out, didn't even shower and she reeked of BO.

  I'd always thought that was the worst smell I'd ever breathe in my life.

  But then I got older and she started going out more, and when she went out she drank. When she drank, she brought home men that tried to touch me. That, or she hit me herself.

  So fuck that perfume.

  Yanking on the handle of the spear, I stumbled back and into Killian. He caught me in a flutter of black leather, the musky scent of male, and the sharp metallic reek of blood. I dropped the spear, knowing he would grab it, and lunged forward, grabbing my mother's body before it could hit the ground.

  I laid her out before me, the screeching and cackling of the harpies a distant echo behind me. I was too busy gazing at the woman I'd hated my whole life … a piece of my broken past chasing me into my new one. Reborn in a new body, I shouldn't have my fucking human memories. That was not the way rebirth worked. Centuries of shattered memories, of love and loss and pain, stacking on top of one another, life after life … that was not something many souls could endure without sinking into perpetual madness.

  But the previous Veil Keeper had had no choice. To lock her memories away, hide the knowledge of the Veil from me and thus from my captors, she had to give me a mind to keep, an identity.

  I'd been gifted Ciarah.

  So new body, new life … still Ciarah O'Rourke, native New Orleanian and human.

  Human, human, human.

  Weak.

  Putting my fingers on the side of my mother's neck, I felt for her purse. Killian was beside me, kneeling down, desperately trying to draw my attention.

  But I couldn't look at him right then. In my confused state, I almost forgot who he was.

  “Mon Dieu, Le Gardien,” he whispered, reaching out and trying to take my arm. I jerked away from him, this little voice in the back of my mind screaming for me to get up and go find Reece, find Arlo, make sure my Lords were alive.

  I couldn't.

  I couldn't move, couldn't think straight, couldn't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

  “Mom, I'm sorry,” I whispered, tears rolling down my cheeks as I reached out and covered her wound with both hands, smearing blood everywhere. Like, why am I in a cemetery? What was I doing with a fucking spear?! And my mom … she can't be dead. She just can't. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye, to tell her I hated her … to tell her I loved her, too.

  “We need you out there,” a voice growled from beside me, a man's hand curling around my bicep. My gut reaction was to jerk away from him violently, tearing my arm from his grip and simultaneously sending him flying with a surge of power I didn't understand, knocking him against the side of a crypt with a hard crack.

  The red-eyed, silver-haired man I just threw came at me again, but this time, as he did, he became a wolf, knocking me away from my mom's corpse and onto my back. I hit him, punched him, clawed at his face while I screamed.

  “Wake up Veil Keeper!” he roared, hot wolfy breath in my face.

  “Get off of her!” a man in a black trench coat screamed, shoving the wolf.

  “Look, dude, I don't want any trouble,” I said, grabbing the fucking ancient ass looking spear off the ground. Who the hell carries around a spear in this day and age? I wondered, eyes wide as I flicked my gaze around the St. Louis Cemetery. How the fuck did I get here? And how had I ended up stabbing Mom? “You come near me again and I'll kill you!”

  My attention flicked to the right and I found some big dude in a leather jacket getting ripped in half by two women with wings instead of arms?!

  WHAT THE FUCK?!

  Taking the spear with me, I turned and ran as strange ripping sensations tore through my soul. “Fae are dying!” something whispered in my ear and I screamed as a woman with long dark hair tackled me and knocked me on my back, the teal streak in her hair sliding forward and brushing over my face. She had huge, vibrant butterfly wings on her back and a face with wide green eyes.

  “Get the fuck off of me,” I growled, swinging the spear up to hit her. The weapon went right through the woman's body, making her image ripple like a reflection on the surface of a lake. “What the …?”

  “You need to collect yourself, Ciarah O'Rourke. Get up and fight for your Wild Hunt—you are their Queen!”

  “No, I'm nobody's queen,” I breathed, trying to push the woman off of me. But my hands went through her again.

  “Yes, you are. The Wild Hunt belongs to the spirit who inhabits this immortal vessel.”

  “Who are you?” I asked, but it was starting to come back to me …

  My own death.

  My rebirth

  Years of pain.

  An alleyway with zero memories to draw from.

  My Lords.

  The hallucination of … Gràinne? myself? the essence of the Veil Keeper? … disappeared. Panting, I shoved myself to my feet and ran straight into Killian and Rafe. I hit Kill's hard chest and bounced off, his arms steadying me as I held the spear out to one side.

  “Ciarah's mother is here,” I said, choking on the words. “She … I killed her.” Blinking at Killian and then flicking my eyes briefly to the silver wolf at his side, I managed to get out the question whose answer I was afraid to here. “It's not really her, right? A hallucination?”

  “Oh, cher,” Kill breathed and I knew. I knew without him having to say it.

  It really was my mother.

  “Those shadows are wraiths, Le Gardien. They only have a physical form if they attached themselves to a human's body. It's the only way they have any influence on people or objects in this realm.”

  I stared at him and wondered how it could possibly be a coincidence that Ciarah's mother would show up here.

  There was no chance.

  This was not a coincidence.

  A shock of agony rippled through me as another faerie met their match at the hands of the harpies … and the shadows, they were back.

  My Lords.

  Both Arlo and Reece were on the roof of the tallest crypt, their blood dripping down the sides of the cement structure.

  A woman was with them, a bemused smile on her face.

  “Hello Veil Keeper,” she said, her long red hair hanging down on either side of her face, pooling on the roof of the mausoleum beneath h
er feet. “Or should I call you Ciarah?”

  Jogging over to the base of the crypt, I swept my wings out and snapped them close, rising to the roof of the nearest building. The horde of harpies had fanned out behind the woman … and the shadows that'd retreated … they took up all the dark places around her, every nook and cranny, every bit of dark covered and protected from the silver moonlight.

  “You brought my mother here?” I asked, and she smiled.

  “She's no longer your mother. You understand that, don't you? You are no longer the human girl you once were, you're a fae woman now. A fae woman with awful memories and the poison of torture clogging your brain. You have responsibilities you never asked for, duties you never needed.”

  “Give me my lords,” I told her, my voice surprisingly calm. I was so focused on the woman standing on the nearby crypt that I didn't bother to look when the sound of nails crashing around the roof next to me echoed through the cemetery.

  Raphael was no ordinary wolf—he'd just leapt up to join me.

  Killian appeared on my other side, teeth gritted in frustration, blue eyes narrowed.

  “Who is this?” I asked him because I had the feeling the woman wasn't about to introduce herself.

  “Queen Medbh,” he whispered, pronouncing the name Mayv.

  “Honored you remembered, Lord of Frost,” she said, her voice soft, at odds with the hardness in her face. But she didn't look like a bad guy. No, she looked soft and sweet and strong—despite the fact that my men were bleeding on the ground in front of her. And she was looking at me like I was the one at fault here. “I'd thought perhaps my memory might be lost with time, but it seems like your parents have passed along the knowledge of me?”

  “Give me my lords,” I repeated, because I wasn't about to stand here and have a conversation with this woman while two of my men bled.

  Several of the harpies dropped down to the crypt roof, one of them turning Reece over with her massive bird's feet, black talons shimmering as she stood over his body, straddling him.

  My throat tightened and my fingers squeezed the spear so hard that if it hadn't been a magical artifact, I most certainly would've broken it.

  “If she touches him …” I warned because harpies had reputations for rape, torture, and disease. Even a sex god wouldn't hold up to the rancid diseases she could pass on.

  “You'll what, Ciarah?” the woman said, still staring at me like I was the filth of the earth. “You don't exactly seem to have a lot of options right now. If you want these men back, if you want to leave the cemetery with the rest of your hunt, you'll listen to my proposition. Give me the Spear of Lug, and we'll leave you and yours in the exact condition you are now.”

  She paused and her mouth got wide and tight.

  “Resist and we'll have to see how your man fares under the pussy of a harpy.”

  I stood there for all of a millisecond.

  And then I attacked her.

  The False Queen had barely finished her words before Ciarah was flying at her like a harpoon. Her wings beat one powerful push and she was hurtling into the red-haired fairy with the force of a damn freight train.

  The two of them disappeared from sight behind the crypt Ciarah had just propelled them off, but the sounds of their battle could be heard clearly.

  The Alpha wolf and I exchanged a worried look, then both scrambled off the crypt to help Ciarah. Stupid woman still didn't have her memories, so she had no idea what she was up against in Medbh.

  The one thing going for her, was that Medbh likely expected a magical attack and would have been totally caught off guard by Carah's brute force style.

  Huh, I guess there was something to be said for her lack of memories after all.

  “Ciarah!” I called out, reaching the place where I would have assumed they'd landed, but finding nothing there. “Chère?”

  “Cheap tricks,” Raphael LeRoux growled, shifting halfway back to human and raising his nose to the air to sniff. “The Pretender doesn't have her full power in this realm, so she's using her host's magic to hide. They're still here somewhere, I can smell them.”

  “How do we help?” I asked him, furious that I had no idea myself. Every fibre of my being cried out to help my Lady but how could I when I couldn't find her?

  “Check on your faery friends,” the wolf snarled back at me. “Keep them safe from those harpy whores. If anything happens to them … well we're all as good as dead because the Veil Keeper's grief will tear this world in two.”

  I nodded tightly, but still didn't leave. How could I leave? Mon amour needed my help, I could feel it.

  “Go!” The Alpha barked at me. “My wolves and I will assist the Keeper as best we can until Medbh's magic wears weak, which it will soon enough.”

  As he spoke, a half dozen more wolves skidded around the corner and trotted toward us and I nodded again. He was right, of course. Medbh's true form was still trapped in Faerie; she was only inhabiting the body of the witch she was in, and the amount of effort it would be requiring meant she couldn't maintain it forever …

  “When they reappear, yell for me,” I commanded. My voice was thick with frost magic as was expected when the Lord of Winter gave an order, and Raphael dipped his head in respectful acknowledgement even as his lip curled with a snarl.

  Not bothering to spare any more time discussing our best course of action, I raced back to where Arlo and Reece had been held by those disgusting bird women.

  Using my ice magic, which I'd felt grow stronger since Ciarah had accepted me as her Lord, I built a short staircase which allowed me to run straight up to the crypt roof where they lay bleeding and unconscious.

  Most of the harpies had taken off and were flapping around above us like the bunch of confused vultures they were. Without their Mistress guiding them, they were clueless fucking birdbrains. The only one still following their directive was the leader, the grotesque bird-woman who was straddling Reece's pale form while licking blood off the side of his face.

  Not wasting my breath on words, I threw myself forward and ploughed a fist into the side of her face. Fucking harpies were stupid bitches though, and she simply held on to Reece's body with her claws and took the punch like she were a sand bag.

  “Let him go,” I demanded, standing over Arlo's prone form even as I formed little daggers of ice in my palms and stabbed them into the harpy's torso.

  Those bitches were insanely hard to kill, they needed to be totally decapitated and I didn't want to risk hurting Reece when he wasn't able to get out of the way. Not to mention, I seriously doubted my ice would be sharp enough to sever a harpies head.

  Whatever Medbh had hit the guys with had to have been strong to keep them down this long, but I could only hope it sapped a good chunk of her borrowed magic and she wouldn't have much left to fight Ciarah.

  “Kill!” Fionn yelled from the ground below us. “Catch!”

  Glancing down to our club president, I held out my hand and snatched the heavy iron sword he tossed up to me.

  “Très bon, this will do nicely,” I nodded, and the harpy squawked something. Her eyes widened at the sharp blade in my hand, and I saw a moment of indecision cross her ugly fucking face.

  She was either going to use Reece's body as a shield or …

  “Yes,” I grinned as she took the other route, dropping Reece and frantically flapping her wings to try and get high enough that I couldn't reach her.

  Like I said, harpies were stupid bitches.

  Pushing off the roof of the crypt, I jumped and caught her by the scaly ankle, yanking her back down to the concrete surface with me. Her talons raked deep gouges down my arm, but I ignored them.

  Throwing the vile creature down on her back, I wasted no time on pleasantries before slamming Fionn's ancient blade down across her scrawny neck.

  Rancid fluid sprayed out across the roof. It was the harpy's version of blood, but instead of metallic scented redness, it was black and putrid, as thick as oil. The other harpies scream
ed their rage as both Reece and I were bathed in the foul-smelling liquid.

  As soon as this was all over, we'd both have to get some seriously powerful shots.

  Harpy blood was almost as pungent and diseased as harpy pussy.

  Their male counterparts … were even worse.

  Thankfully there were none here. Male harpies were weak as hell, but the diseases they carried were magical in nature and virtually impossible to get rid of.

  Reece muttered something in French that I couldn't hear as he struggled to his feet, bloody as hell and covered in enough wounds that I knew for a fact he was going to need about a dozen shots to get over the rush of harpy bacteria.

  “Beck moi tchew,” Reece snarled, his glamour cracked to pieces, gold skin glimmering under the moonlight—even with the blood and the harpy fluid. With a single wave of his hand, he sent sex magic coursing through the sea of harpies. The screams they let out … were sickening, like they were being ripped apart from the inside out.

  I had no idea what he was doing to them, but whatever it was, it kept them away from Arlo long enough for me to turn him over.

  He wasn't breathing.

  “Fuck,” I cursed as I felt that first flicker in the ripple of the Wild Hunt's magic that said he'd just stopped breathing, that he was dying. We'd already lost at least five members, maybe more. I wasn't the Veil Keeper so it was hard to say for sure, but I could feel those losses to our numbers like knives to the gut. “Arlo, you caca boudin,” I growled, calling him a shit sausage and praying like hell to the Veil-damned Keeper that he was going to wake up and start insulting me right back.

  He didn't move.

  In fact, he was so mutilated below the belt that I wasn't sure he could.

  It looked like the harpies had … torn his cock off. It was hard to tell with the mess of blood and rent flesh. Putting my hands on either side of his face, I closed my eyes.

  “Watch my back, Reece,” I growled and then I dropped into Arlo's body to heal him.