The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity

by Joshua Palmatier

  Behind him, Wes groaned, “Dr. Kellas, is that you?”

  “Finally,” she said. “Seize him, thrall.”

  “What did you call me?”

  “Thrall, slave—what does it matter? Do it!”

  “Slave?” The question ended an octave higher than it began.

  “Wes, she hit her head,” Rika said. “She’s not herself.”

  “Stop talking, you two. Get help. She’s dangerous!”

  The fae laughed, and even with skinned palms on a cold steel pole, silver bells rang inside Jack’s head, tearing through his brain until it was leaking, warm and wet, out his ears. Eyes slitted against the pain, he jabbed her with the wheels. She arched her back, daring him to hurt her. He didn’t want to hurt anybody. He just wanted to get out of there, but he didn’t know how. He couldn’t explain the real danger to Rika and Wes, so he stood there like a dork while the fae rubbed her shoulders against the wall. Static lifted a fan of fine black hairs from her gown. A few strands brushed the pole’s axles. To Jack’s shock, they caught fire, red gobbling the black as if he held the ends to a candle. No wonder pureblood sidhe never cut their hair—not with steel scissors at any rate.

  With an irritated sniff, Dr. Kellas smothered the cinders between her fingers. “What’s wrong with you proles? Get this filthy mutt off me!”

  “Who are you calling a mutt?” Wes boomed.

  “She’s sick,” Rika said.

  “Where are your eyes? Look at him!” She pointed at Jack. Disgust twisted her features into a black-furred muzzle. “He’s brown, like some dirty underground gnome. He’s not even human!”

  “That’s it,” Wes snapped. “Not another word. I’m calling 911, and you’re gonna sit your crazy ass down and behave until the EMTs get here, or I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

  The fae’s lips curled back from her fangs. Her throat corded and her gown lifted as she filled her lungs with air. Jack shoved the stand hard into her chest. Steel met hair with an electric snap and flames spurted from the wheelbase, igniting a fiery halo around her face but leaving her clothes untouched.

  She bellowed, flinging the pole back. Jack went with it, skidding on the plastic, and landed between the counter and the table half under a rolling metal basket. He pushed it aside. It rammed back into him with the partially shifted fae on top. She was as big as a cougar, roaring, tearing at him with smoking claws. Gagging on the stench of burning hair, he grabbed her arms and flung himself to the side. Her back struck the base of the table and her hind claws yanked the basket from between them. She threw her weight against him. He shoved back with all his might, desperate to keep her smoldering claws pinned against her shoulders.

  Foam erupted out of nowhere. One minute fire wreathed her lion’s face; the next, she was covered in weird-smelling chemical goo. She squawked and batted it with her oversized paws, but the foam continued to hiss over her.

  Jack lurched to his feet and grabbed a stool, ready to bring it down on her head. A whoosh of icy water from the other direction cut him off. Rika aimed the high pressure nozzle of the scrub sink down the length of Dr. Kellas’s body. The fae squalled like a cat at bath time. She shot from under the table and exploded out the doors to a chorus of barking dogs, shrieking birds and a host of animal sounds Jack couldn’t begin to identify.

  The fire extinguisher in Wes’s hands coughed a final puff of foam. “Rika, honey, could you turn off that water? I’m getting soaked.”

  The cavalry arrived a minute later. The doors flew inward with another syncopated crash, framing a no-nonsense blonde in a shelter-branded hoodie like a gunfighter at the entrance of an Old West saloon. A tiny old woman with a red leash draped around her neck and another super-sized vet tech propped the panels open behind her.

  “What the hell is going on here?” the blonde demanded.

  Wes opened his mouth. Closed it. Rika chewed her lip. Jack lowered the stool, straightened his shoulders and stuck out his hand.

  “Hi, I’m Jack Tibbert, from Rika’s homeroom. She’s told me so much about the shelter, I had to check it out.” Jack didn’t have any problem with lying.

  Neither, apparently, did Rika. “Jack!” She picked her way through the jumble of equipment and carefully laced her fingers in his. “Flo, it was awful. Wes and Dr. Kellas were taking care of the cat I brought in, and something happened. Wes got shot full of anesthetic, and then Dr. Kellas hit her head. She went crazy. Somebody needs to find her. She could hurt herself.”

  The old lady sniffed, “I told you that cat was a menace!”

  “Yes, Mrs. Saar, you did.” Flo’s gaze dropped to the fire extinguisher. “Good God, that foam-covered freak in the parking lot was Dr. Kellas?”

  “I don’t know who else it could be. Speaking of which”—Wes pursed his lips and took a deep breath before continuing—“we need to talk. That woman’s crossed the line for the last time.”

  “Can it wait ’til Monday?” Wes looked at her. Flo rubbed her face. “Fine. You can tell me about it while we put this place back together. Bobby Ray, get Mrs. Saar and Bitsy settled, then call the other vets. See if anybody can cover emergencies for the rest of the weekend. I’ll reschedule the clinic.” She turned to Jack. “I don’t know what to say, kid. This isn’t our normal.” She examined him more closely. “You okay?”

  He managed to shrug without wincing. “Mostly.”

  “I can take care of him in the break room,” Rika said brightly. “I got my Red Cross certificate this summer.”

  He was doomed. Even though she wasn’t pressing his sores, he’d break his paw if he tried to shift with her fingers threaded in his. She didn’t let go until they were locked inside the break room. Leaning against the door handle, she studied him from under her bangs. Hell. After all that talk about magic and Bach-E-Neckids, he should’ve realized she was one of them.

  “I guess you want to know if what you saw was real.”

  “No, I want to know how long you’ve been living in the park.”

  He stiffened. “Who says I have?”

  She crossed her arms under her breasts. He gulped.

  “Up here. Indoor cats have hair between their pads. You don’t.”

  He started to say that didn’t mean anything, but her scowl told him she knew better, and the prickly little pheromones scenting the air between them said he’d used up all his freebies staring at her boobs.

  “Three months.”

  “Why?”

  “Why else? No money.”

  “But your parents …”

  “Mom died in August. Dad’s been gone so long I don’t remember what he looks like, and before you ask, everybody I’ve ever met from his side of the family takes after Psycho Sidhe.”

  “You can’t stay there.”

  “No kidding. It’s the first place she’ll look.”

  She flicked her fingers as if it didn’t matter. “No, I meant it’s no way to live. You should be in college.”

  “College?” he yelped. “I haven’t even graduated high school.”

  Big mistake. Her eyes and mouth turned hard.

  “Forget it. Social services stuck me with a pair of holy rollers who thought Harry Potter was the Herald of the Apocalypse. I’m not going back. It’s only for a couple months.” Well, less than a year. “I can always get a G.E.D.”

  “On the run from Dr. Kellas and everybody else? Like that’s a plan with a future.” She cocked her head to the left, where a sagging curtain divided the break area from a half wall of cardboard boxes. “You need dry clothes. The shelter keeps extra sweats and flip-flops here for emergencies. I think this qualifies.”

  Only one way to deal with her. Deploying his eyelashes for maximum effect, Jack slowly lifted his raw hands. Being dragged to the kitchenette sink wasn’t the reaction he’d expected, but her mews of distress were encouraging, and the liquid bandage she sprayed over the cleaned scrapes did dial down the sting a few notches.

  “Give it a minute to set, and you’ll be good to g
o until we get home.”

  “Home?” He jerked his hands from her grasp. “With you? Your parents won’t even let you have a cat.”

  “This is different. Trust me, we’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

  He groaned, “Please, don’t use that word.”

  An impish grin lifted the corners of her mouth. “Yeah, that could be a real buzzkill. But it doesn’t change the facts. People like us need to stick together. We can help each other.”

  “To an early grave. Look, Rika, I appreciate everything you did, but I gotta split, and you gotta let me. That vet wasn’t the forgiving type before she hit her head, and now—shit, I don’t know what’ll happen now.” He leaned in close enough to kiss. He learned early to always leave them with a thrill. “Keep something iron or steel with you all the time. Will you do that for me?”

  She giggled. He would’ve been insulted if he hadn’t been so scared. Didn’t she know what a full-blooded cat sidhe could do to her and her family? He whined in frustration. Chick was crazier than Dr. Kellas.

  “You’re so cute when you’re clueless,” she cooed. Her face shimmered and morphed into a pointed black nose and white furry chin. Red fur rolled down the rest of her features as pointed ears poked through her hair. She was a fox. For real.

  “What? You think cats are the only people around here with tails?”

  A PEOPLE WHO ALWAYS KNOW

  Shannon Page & Jay Lake

  Hestia ai Morning Glory ten’Amber, High Lady of the Goldhelm Family of the Westernmost Fae and formerly queen of their realm, peered into a begrimed window of the 30 Stockton bus as it pulled up to the stop on the corner of Columbus and Union. She wasn’t actually looking for anyone—her magical senses had told her before it had even pulled up that there were only humans aboard—but she had been searching for so long, and finding so little, it was hard to lose the habit.

  The changeling situation was entirely out of control.

  With a sigh of hydraulics, the bus closed its doors and pulled out into the stream of traffic on Union. Hestia took an involuntary step back and wrinkled her perfect nose against the diesel fumes. Horrid! That the humans could stand to live amid such ugliness.

  She noticed that a few people were glancing in her direction. Had she let her glamour slip? Hestia took a quick inventory of her person. No, she was still clad as an ordinary matron: pale linen shirtdress, buttoned down the front; matching pumps, sensibly low at the heel for daytime; a smartly contrasting handbag that snapped at the top. As she looked more closely at other women, though, she realized that they were all dressed in a far more slovenly fashion. And not accessorized in the least. Was that a cloth sack that young woman carried?

  Oh, by the Tree. Had styles changed yet again? It had only been a few score years since she’d been over on the human side. People never would settle on anything, would they?

  Lifting her chin and meeting the boldest of the humans’ gazes with a strong, haughty expression of her own, Hestia began to walk down the sidewalk towards Stockton. This would take her farther from the Hill and the doorway back to Faerie … but she wasn’t ready to return just yet.

  Not until she had found the little miscreants who were making such a mess of the situation, anyway.

  Iannon, untitled youngling of the Ferrishyn Family of the Westernmost Fae, laughed aloud as he ran down another vertiginously steep San Francisco street. Rex, Lucas, and Gardenia trailed behind him, not quite daring to lose control as Iannon did. Magic worked sporadically at best here in the human realm; it was all they could do to hold their appearances steady to something resembling human. This was easier for Iannon than for the others, with his delicate ears and blue eyes. Gardenia might as well dress up as a clown and be done with it.

  “Can’t catch me! I win!” Iannon sang as he darted into a cross-street, jumping over cars as they swerved to avoid him. He made the opposite sidewalk and stopped abruptly, turning to face his pursuers.

  They were on him in a moment, Rex grabbing high as Lucas aimed low. The two fairies tumbled Iannon to the ground, where they were leapt upon by Gardenia. All four fairies rolled and shrieked and scrabbled and grabbed at one another, until the whole pile of them barreled into the side of a building and came to a stop.

  By now everyone was laughing just as hard as Iannon. He picked himself up out of the fray and flicked a spot of dirt off his trousers. “Well! That was invigorating.”

  Lucas was the next to rise. He’d received a splash of mud across his pale face; Iannon reached over and wiped it clean. “You shouldn’t do that,” Lucas said, trying for a serious tone but not quite achieving it.

  “You were a mess. It was unsightly.”

  “Not that.” Lucas rolled his bright eyes. “The roughhousing.”

  “Why not? They can’t see us.”

  “Then why is that car on the sidewalk?” Rex, now standing, pointed to a small red convertible across the street.

  Iannon looked over at it, then cocked his head and looked from a different angle. Yes, he would have to admit, that didn’t look entirely intentional. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Carelessness?”

  “You aren’t trying hard enough with the misdirection,” Lucas said. “You know what the Lady says …”

  Iannon snorted. “The Lady loves me. She doesn’t mind. Besides, what do we care? They’re only human.”

  Lucas gave him a most annoyingly grown-up look.

  “Oh, all right,” Iannon said, before his friends could nag at him further. “I just wanted a bit of exercise before we get started. I’m ready now.”

  “Good. Shall we start with the girl?”

  Loretta Sinnette left the office late. Again.

  When she’d taken the job, she’d been promised occasional overtime. “Once a week at the most,” Mr. Clarkson had said. “Unlike most investment houses, we want our young staff to have personal lives.”

  It was a nice thought. Would have been even nicer if it had been true.

  At least most of her overtime was paid, if she chose to report it on her time sheets. But what was she supposed to do with all the money? She was too exhausted and too busy to spend it. Pile it up in the bank, she supposed. Her children could spend it when she was dead.

  Assuming she ever had time to have children. Which would mean having time to find a husband. And that got back to that whole quaint concept of a “personal life.”

  “Ha,” she muttered as she let herself out of the building, into the foggy San Francisco night. “Personally falling asleep in front of the TV again.”

  The Financial District was quiet at this hour. She’d have to walk up to Market Street at least to get a cab, maybe even up closer to the Civic Center. At least she could afford a cab—the Muni at this hour would be depressing indeed.

  Gathering her coat more tightly around her, Loretta strode toward the lights of Market Street.

  Suddenly there were dark shapes to either side of her. Someone grabbed her right arm as a young man appeared before her. He had dark curls, bright blue eyes, and a mad, feral look. Loretta needed only an instant to take all this in, before she could even gather breath to scream.

  The young man put a gentle hand over her mouth, moving almost too quickly for her to perceive. “No, no, none of that,” he whispered.

  Her terror fell away, though she could not have said why. Something in his voice … it was gentle and bewitching. She let her breath out through her nose, as his hand still covered her mouth, and relaxed into the grip of whoever held her arm.

  Dark, it was so dark! Why could she not see who held her?

  The man before her dropped his hand. “There, you see? Nothing to be frightened of. Walk with us.” He gave her a dazzling smile. Loretta smiled back at him, still not understanding. Wondering where her fear had gone.

  There were two people behind her as well; she could sense that even though she could not see them. And though they were on Sansome Street, in the heart of the Financial District, there was not another soul abo
ut.

  The dark-haired man took her left arm and turned her around, walking back in the direction of her office. “Here we go,” he murmured in her ear.

  Loretta walked numbly. She felt encased in a bubble, a safe and mysterious cocoon. As they approached a streetlight, she glanced over at the one to her right. He was another young man, also peculiar looking: bright blond hair and very pale skin. Almost luminescent, though that had to be a trick of the light.

  She looked away, back towards the one who had spoken. “Where …” she started, but stumbled over her own words. The whole thing felt like a dream.

  “Hush for now, you’re safe with us,” he murmured. They walked on, to the sound of light footsteps behind her.

  Hestia walked aimlessly until she got to Telegraph Hill, then decided to climb to Coit Tower. Many fae, when they came topside, avoided heights with the reflexive discomfort of creatures who spent their lives underground, but Hestia had always been unique. Unafraid. She welcomed the giddy freedom of the open air and the brilliance of the stars above.

  Though not many stars could be seen, here in the middle of the city, with all its polluting, glaring lights. How different the world had become! Every time she came over, it seemed to have become more crowded, more complex. Brighter, faster, noisier.

  Hestia made her way to the top. At least it was a bit darker and quieter up here, though she still had to avoid humans—in pairs, in groups, and a few solo night wanderers. She stood in the shadows behind a couple who were holding hands as they gazed at the view of downtown in the middle distance. The woman leaned her head on the man’s shoulder. After a minute, he kissed her.

  Very sweet, Hestia thought dispassionately. She felt distracted and out of sorts. Should she go back under the hill and try again later?

  The younglings had gotten such a head start. And they had covered their tracks well once they came across. Both of these things had taken Hestia by surprise; she would not underestimate them again. Somehow, they had gained access to the records of all the recent changelings, and then set out on their reckless task before anyone realized something was amiss.