Faerie

by Jenna Grey

  It was getting late, and Lily thought it would be safe now to try and clean up her newly found treasure. She dragged the chain from under the bed, flapping back the tarpaulin and staring down at the vile mess with utter disgust. She had no idea how she could clean it, but she was not going to put that thing on the bed until she’d got rid of all of the vile substances that covered it. Shower, yes, the shower. Her first thought was to leave it until everyone was in bed, but if the house was that quiet, then she thought that someone might hear the shower running and wonder what she was doing taking a shower in the middle of the night. As it was, everyone seemed preoccupied and if she was quick, she thought she’d get away with it. Claire was away with the pixies watching something with a great deal of gunfire in it, so she wasn’t a threat – if she needed the loo, she’d use the downstairs one. She could hear Kieran in his bedroom, rapping along to whatever artist was playing on his iPod. She doubted she’d see him again until morning, but if he did come out and catch her, she would just say that she was doing some sort of science project and she’d bribe him to keep quiet with more downloads.

  The bathroom was down on the first floor, which meant bumping the damn thing back down the stairs and up again, but there was really no other way she could do it. She snuck down the stairs and looked both ways, making sure the coast was clear, and dragged the chain down, wincing at every bump and rattle.

  You are on a fool’s errand.

  A voice in her head, dark and chilling.

  She looked around, casting a frightened glance into the heavy shadows on the landing.

  “May Hecate bring down her wrath upon you,” she hissed over her shoulder, trying to keep the fear from her voice. It was a curse her mother had taught her and just about the worst curse any witch could lay on someone.

  She looked down the darkened hall to the heavy shadows at the furthest end, close by the bathroom door and would swear that she saw them moving.

  You cannot win this game.

  “Sod off!” she snapped, in a fierce whisper. Not exactly a witch’s curse, but very cathartic all the same. She felt a sudden wave of sickness wash over her. The image of chess pieces sprang bright to her mind and this time it was the white pieces that lay toppled, as the Black King towered over them. She forced back the dizziness, the feeling of overwhelming terror and kept moving towards the bathroom. That voice had come from so close by, a whisper in her ear, so close that she could almost feel the chill of its breath on her face.

  “You can’t stop me,” she whispered. “I won’t let you stop me.”

  She thought she heard a laugh.

  The darkness around her suddenly seemed so much darker, so much more intense, as if it was trying to swallow her up. She could see the light coming golden and comforting through the glass panel at the top of Kieran’s door; it threw a glowing square of butter yellow on the hall carpet, and Lily’s immediate urge was to run to it and let it wrap her in its bright warmth. She had to risk turning on the hall light; there was no way she was going willingly into that darkness. She flicked the switch and the bulb flashed its death throes, and plunged her back into darkness. Lily muttered a curse under her breath.

  “Fine, if that’s how you want to play it, just fine,” she murmured.

  She mumbled another thousand curses under her breath, and looked back along into the darkness. There was movement there, she was sure of it. At least that confirmed one thing – those creatures did not want her to have this new weapon. She decided that she had to risk it, hoping against hope that whatever was lying in that darkness could do her no real harm while she was protected by the very thing they were trying to keep from her. There was a certain irony in it.

  As she got nearer to the bathroom, she felt a great coldness brush over her, as if someone had opened a door close by into some Arctic waste. She shuddered, her arms coming up in goose bumps, her scalp prickling and her hair standing on end. She could feel something like an electrical current running through her entire body, tingling on her skin like a thousand tiny pin pricks, nipping at her.

  Something touched her, just a brush against her shoulder, a shadow hand reaching out of the darkness, and she jumped back, turning to glare at whatever it was. She thought she saw the vague shape of a hand reaching out of the darkness, but it was gone before she could register it properly.

  She finally reached the bathroom and dragged the chain inside, without putting on the light until she was safely inside and the door firmly closed. She could still hear Kieran in his room, rapping along with Eminem, totally oblivious to the supernatural battle that was going on just feet from his door.

  Lily dragged the chain into the shower, and turned it on to its hottest setting, but at a trickle, hoping that it didn’t make too much noise. She used the lavatory brush to scrub as much of the filth from it as she could, using up a whole bottle of disinfectant on it. The water ran red, and not all of it was corroded iron – that anyone could do something that terrible to an innocent animal out of spite or to further some sick plan, she still couldn’t understand. She watched the bloody filth sliding down the drain until the water rain clear, then wrapped the chain in an old towel to dry it off. All she had to do now was to get it back to her room without being seen.

  She realised, of course that she would have to switch off the bathroom light again before she opened the door, and that prospect really didn’t please her very much. She cursed herself for not thinking to bring a torch with her, but that would probably have blown as well. She flicked off the switch and was plunged into sudden darkness, and for a moment even her fey eyes couldn’t adjust to the lack of light. She blinked away the white flashes of the strip light that ghosted in her eyes, and bent down, dragging the towel covered chain towards the door – then she remembered the discarded tarpaulin. She turned to retrieve it.

  Beneath it, something moved.

  It was a strange undulating movement... a wriggle... no, not a wriggle, a smooth glide, as if somehow the fabric was alive. She stepped back, a gurgle of fear escaping from her throat. Something was alive in there. She moved forwards cautiously and lifted the edge of the tarpaulin with the lavatory brush, peering underneath. From beneath the folds of fabric came a black slithering shape, writhing across the floor towards her. She leapt back, clamping her hands over her mouth to hold in a shriek and stumbled backwards, jumping up onto the toilet seat, and trying to back away from it. It reared its huge black head, the size of a large man’s fist, and hissed at her, its bead-green eyes, bright and looking straight at her. A fork tongue flicked out, tasting the air.

  You are never going home.

  Lily lashed out with her foot and caught it a blow under the chin. It reared backwards, the head seeming to disappear completely for a few moments before it reformed. Lily tried not to panic, but she had nothing to use as a weapon against this creature.

  What was she thinking? Of course she had something to use against it. She drew in her breath and launched herself from the seat, over and past the creature, to the towel covered chain. She landed in an awkward heap, banging her shoulder hard against the door, and yelping. The snake turned its head and pulled back, poised to strike, but Lily seized the cold metal of the chain in her hands, ignoring the searing pain, and used it like a whiplash on the creature, slicing right through its neck. The creature vanished in a cloud of dusty smoke, just disappeared, and she was left alone.

  Lily dropped the chain, holding up her hands and staring down at her palms. They were blistered and raw, as if she’d burnt them. She went and run them under the cold tap, fighting back the pain, and it gradually subsided. She was shaking violently, her teeth chattering. She threw the tarpaulin over the chain, and with a strength she didn’t know she possessed, she lifted it and carried it like a baby in her arms, scurrying back to her room, terrified beyond rational thought. She dumped her burden on the bed, sinking to her knees and sobbing.

  Lily took long minutes, finding enough strength to move, to collect her thoughts, just to
fight her way out of that pit of terror she had suddenly found herself in. She was still shaking, her hands still excruciatingly painful, but she forced herself to ignore it and put the old tarpaulin into a dustbin bag, stowing it back under the bed.

  ‘You are never going home’, the voice had said. Was that what this was really all about? That these creatures needed to keep her away from Elphame? When she thought about it, it made sense. Someone had taken her and Connor away from Elphame and brought them here to this miserable world, and they must have done it for a reason. Now it seemed the Shadow People didn’t want her to go back there. Did that mean there was a way back and she was close to finding it? It opened up a whole new world of possibilities. If there was a way home, she would find it and she was not going to let those bloody creatures stop her. She had a feeling that Connor knew, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to tell her. She was quite certain that her mysterious visitor today knew a great deal more, but until she decided to make contact again, that was hardly going to do Lily any good.

  She sat for a little while, just perched on the edge of the bed, looking down at the coiled snake of chain that lay at her feet, and all she could see was that snake. The humanoid and the snake – they had to be one and the same creature, didn’t they? They felt far too much alike in essence. The djinn were shape-changers. Could this creature take any form it wanted? The thought was not a comforting one.

  Her hands were still hurting dreadfully. She had some ointment that she’d made a little while ago to put on Sarah’s burnt hand, and once she smothered her palms in it and wrapped them, it did feel a little better. Lily took a scarf from the drawer, and using it as a protection from the searing sting of the iron, she hoisted the chain up and draped it in a large lozenge shape in the centre of the bed. She could still feel a kind of bright heat from the metal, even through the fabric. She had created a kind of cocoon in the centre of the bed, a protective shell that she prayed with all of her heart would keep the shadows away. If the worst happened and she rolled against the metal in the night it would wake her up, cause her more pain, but not seriously hurt her. She tied a string of little jingle bells up over the top of the bed, with a string fixed to the mattress, so that if anyone climbed onto it, the bells would ring. Dark fey hated bells – but Seelie Shee used them all the time on their horses' harnesses and loved the sound of tinkling bells.

  This all done, she felt so much better, still afraid, still shaking a little, still seeing the terrible vision of that black snake striking at her, those dreadful green eyes burning bright in the darkness, but able to cope with it.

  Chapter Five.

  It was midnight before Lily finally settled down for the night to sleep. She cut off her plait close to her head, just above the clump of superglued hair, not even bothering to try and untangle it and shoved it into the dustbin bag with the bit of tarpaulin. She could sneak it into the rubbish tomorrow. She wore a long-sleeved cardigan over her floor length nightie, and long socks, so that if she accidentally touched the chain, it would stop it hurting to much. Just before she settled down, she wedged the straight-backed, wooden chair under the door handle to keep out unwanted human visitors. Claire wouldn’t let her put a bolt on the door, but she couldn’t really stop her using the chair.

  She settled down for the night in her nest of rusty chain, certain now that she would be safe.

  “I told you that I wouldn’t let you stop me,” she said to the air. “I’m not afraid of you any more. I’m never going to be afraid of you again.”

  Lily began to doze fitfully, too many thoughts tossing around in her head like flotsam on the sea. She finally fell asleep to these tumbling thoughts and she dreamt of Connor. She was flying high above the clouds with him, touching the stars, and he could speak to her, although she couldn’t make out what he was saying. She thought that if she practiced and tried hard enough, she might just be able to do it eventually. She knew, just knew that they were meant to be together – that somehow this was all being engineered by a higher power. The moment she had first laid eyes on him she had known that they were meant to be. It wasn’t love at first sight exactly, because she didn’t feel any kind of sexual attraction to him – it really felt more like filial love, the love of a sister for a brother, but whatever the flavour, it did feel remarkably like love. Was that even possible? Of course it was, because she was feeling such overwhelming sensations of belonging with him that it couldn’t be denied. And she knew that he felt the same. Whatever was binding them together was stronger than any romantic notion of love.

  The dream was wonderful – they were walking through the golden halls of Elphame, the Seelie Summer Court, bright with sunshine, even when there was no sun, the smell of ripe fruit and flowers heavy on the air, blossom and apples both on the tree together, bright foliage and the sound of birds bringing the place to life. They walked hand in hand, just feeling the other there, exchanging smiles and whispered words that she couldn’t quite hear or understand. This was the closest she’d got to happiness since Maggie had died.

  Then she felt the weight on the bed, and the nightmare began.

  It was always the same, the way it started – the feeling of pressure, the helplessness, total paralysis that was more terrifying than anyone could imagine. Her first thoughts were of disbelief, because this couldn’t be happening. The chain had defeated the shadow snake, it had driven it away, the creature couldn’t get past her magical barrier. And yet she could feel it coming closer, ever closer.

  She struggled, just as she always struggled, uselessly, to open her eyes. She heard the sound of chains moving and then the sound of them slithering over the side of the bed and onto the floor. This couldn’t be happening, just couldn’t. There were no tinkling bells, just the sound of someone, something, breathing in the dark: a terrible inhuman sound, that made her bladder tighten. She made a mewling noise, trying to scream, but her lips were clamped tight shut, and all she could do was make sounds in her throat that had no way of escaping. She prayed, prayed so hard, but the figure began moving up the bed, a slow relentless crawl towards her. And then he was between her pinned legs, ice hands on her thighs, caressing them, sliding over her sweat damp flesh. And her nightly struggle began in earnest. She fought with every fibre of her being, called on every reserve of strength and courage to free herself, but her unresponsive muscles taunted her, refusing to obey her.

  Fingers crept up between her legs, inching upwards, exploring the most intimate part of her. They pushed up into her, a brutal probing that brought sharp nips of pain as nails bit into her flesh. She began to weep, silent tears through closed eyelids, trying so hard to break free, but every time she moved those relentless fingernails tore into her, breaking skin. She was so exhausted from her struggles, that she couldn’t fight any more, just couldn’t. She felt hands over her breasts, the sharpness of claws, that caused her bright pain as they broke skin, and she felt the cool trickle of blood as it slid down her sides to pool beneath her. The pain should have woken her, but it didn’t; her fear should have woken her, but it didn’t.

  She felt the figure hovering over her and something other than fingers between her legs, a hardness that pushed against her opening, an iron rod pressing against her, demanding entry; she could feel the head resting just inside, just the tip, trapped inside her and she tried to spit it out, to get it away from her, but still she could feel it there, a battering ram ready to smash down her defences. With one savage thrust it forced up into her; there was a sudden burst of pain and she made a sound from deep in her throat, a noise that should have been a scream if it had found a way to escape. She pushed her head back into the pillow, trying to wriggle free, trying to break that iron grip on her, trying to open her eyes, as the invader between her legs moved against her, a rhythmic pounding, on and on, until the world swam around her and she drowned in the darkness.

  With one final, determined effort, she snapped open her eyes, and saw what was between her legs. The same dark creature that she had se
en before, black as obsidian, with yellow-green eyes that burnt out of that terrible face. He gave a malevolent grin, pointed canine teeth, flashing bright in the moonlight. With one final thrust he orgasmed, making a dreadful sound that was a cross between a screech and a groan, spilling dark seed into her, a pulsing, throbbing beat that seemed to go on forever. Then it was gone, just gone, in a streak of black smoke, through the open window.

  Lily lay on the bed, curled up in a foetus ball, sobbing.

  She had no idea how long she had lain there like that, just curled up in a ball, trembling and sobbing, but she finally staggered down to the bathroom, too numb to even consider the danger of walking back through that darkness, of passing through those shadows to get to the bright sanctuary of the bathroom. She just needed to get clean. What else could they do to her? She threw up in the loo, then scrubbed between her legs, trying to wash away that creature’s filth. Was there any? She had no idea what had just happened, not really, how much of that had been real? She went back to her room, turned on the light and pulled back the covers. There were two patches of blood on the bed, one fairly large puddle at the side where the creature’s nails had punctured her breast, and another smaller patch of blood further down – her lost virginity. That was real enough. She looked down at her breast, and there were deep puncture marks around the globe of her left breast, dried blood caked around the crescent moons.