Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows)

by C. V. Larkin

  The razor sharp points of her diamond teeth glittered against the glow from the dashboard. The pixie peeled open her lids and ran a finger through the blood spatter on her chest. She licked it off with a swipe of a long yellow tongue that matched her eyes.

  Other Demi-fae from the Haight Gate Tribe surrounded the vehicle. They slid onto the windshield, and sprawled out on the hood, glowing in faint rainbow hues and watching intently. Sio was rubbing her hip with the hand that wasn't clasped around his neck. Tian took a deep breath, willing a sense of Zen clarity to show up and take the place of the now standard discombobulation of attraction. It didn't. He was staring at her mouth and she was having trouble engaging her clutch, the corresponding flush that spread through her body sent her libido into overdrive. The pull was getting stronger.

  Belladonna broke into a fit of malicious crystalline laughter. Tian shook off the lethargy and palmed the dagger from her boot. She spun the blade in her hand, landing a blow that opened a gash in Belladonna's cheek. Lust was not complementary to her system. It was making her mean.

  "That was impolite, bitch."

  Tiny peels of laughter erupted from several points around the vehicle. Belladonna's canary yellow eyes bulged with malice in an unattractive amphibian manor as she bared that filed diamond grill and snarled. The bright pink tuft on the top of her dome burst the ragged bit of rubber band holding it together, fluffing out in all directions. Ridged scarlet thorns stuck out like the spines of a sea urchin glistening wetly with neurotoxin. The coke can corset struggled against the pixie's rapidly inflating torso and the remaining bits of metallic wrapper poked out the bottom like a demented post-apocalyptic tutu.

  "Who are you calling a bitch, bitch?" Belladonna's voice was shrill enough to sound like it belonged to a cartoon chipmunk. There was clapping from the peanut gallery.

  "When I used the term, sliced your face open, and stared at your puffy pink ass those were all fairly strong indicators as to whom I was referring. What part was it that had you confused?"

  Laughter broke out again, underscored by a masculine voice with a musical lilt and an unmistakable dry rasp that crackled like a shedding snake skin. "For a heartbroken second we'd thought you'd gone soft, halfling. I was taken aback by your use of such a hideous phrase. You know the one to which I refer....Impolite. It makes me cringe."

  Belladonna ignored the disembodied comment. She was beside herself with affront, shaking where she stood, feet splayed, Barbie sized shoulders hunched up around her ears as her furry gray wings snapped open and closed.

  Aiteas drifted down from the roof and landed on the passenger side mirror. He winked, stepped over, and plopped down on the edge of the window with his bare feet dangling into the cab. He flashed a glittering sly smile that any dentist would kill to take credit for. He was half naked and the rare bits of skin not covered in intricate henna design work were opalescent. Moss green hair was piled on top of his head, woven elegantly through the tab to a soda can like a geisha's.

  He rolled hard bare shoulders and eyed Sio with undisguised Machiavellian glee. Aiteas cocked his head as his scarlet gaze slid over Ceyla and back to Tian. She could practically hear the gears meshing in overtime.

  "Lucky for you my very favorite half-breed, I'm so inclined this fine evening not to take it personally."

  "Big of you," Tian said. Ceyla winced at the turn of phrase.

  Aiteas folded the striking orange and black wings that denoted his rank as the tribe's monarch behind him. He leaned forward and grabbed a handful of Belladonna's sparkling mane, yanking her back. She yelped and stumbled, landing against him with a crunch.

  "Besides," he said, sniffing disdainfully at the blood congealing on her chin. "Sometimes dear cousin, you really can be an insufferable and inconvenient bitch."

  "Must run in the family," Belladonna told him. She shot Aiteas a petulant glare before stamping her foot and folding her arms.

  "Impolite, Aiteas." Tian was pushing her luck, but she kept talking anyway. "As in taking that which wasn't offered from one who doesn't belong to her."

  "I don't see why the rules of etiquette should extend to them anyway," Belladonna said.

  "Fucker," Ceyla coughed.

  "Indeed." Aiteas smiled and looked at Sio. There was a predatory glint to the set of his features. "To whom do you belong?" he asked.

  A sharp spike of panic hit. Tian opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by a weighty scarlet glare. This was Aiteas at his finest. Aiteas when he wasn't cultivating the ditzy, frivolous perception he'd worked so hard to achieve over the years. The aura of power he drew glistened around his body, filling the window and spilling into the cab. It was just a glimpse, and it was buried under a foppish grin almost as quickly as it had surfaced. He looked back at Sio and took a long swipe at Belladonna's face with a scarlet tongue before repeating.

  "I asked to whom you belong. It would be rude not to answer."

  Sio looked Tian dead in the eyes. "I belong to the goddess."

  Whatever she'd been expecting it hadn't been that. The freaky Deity maelstrom it kicked up ground against her already tenuous grasp on consciousness.

  "I hate to be the bearer of bad news Gargantua, but our goddess turned centuries ago. She no longer lays claim." Aiteas was having trouble keeping the seriousness from sifting back into his tone. Tian realized that it was a first since she'd known him.

  "From you maybe," Sio said.

  His voice licked tremors up her spine. Steam seeped from her skin even as she scrambled to control it. Aiteas watched her reaction. Then a smile curled the corners of his mouth.

  "Well, well," he said. "I do love a curious turn of events."

  "Look mate, I think we've maxed out our quota on curious events for the night, so how's about unsticking the road so we can go home and come up with something to amuse you another time?"

  Belladonna hissed at Ceyla. The dried remains of Sio's blood flaked off her angry grimace and rained down in flecks onto the side console of the door. "Even the halflings are so entitled."

  Aiteas patted the top of her cotton candy plume. "Ceyla, do you know why your cell gets such welcoming passage and helpful tidbits of information while in our territories?"

  "Tian gives you her blood." There was a disapproving undercurrent to the statement that silenced the quiet murmurs from the Tribe and gained their rapt attention.

  "She respects the essence of Faerie in all its forms," Aiteas said.

  "Tian has no interest in her own well-being or existence. She does what's necessary to get the job done. She's the horror story the Pureblood's use to gain compliance. Doesn't give you the right to take advantage."

  "If you're so troubled by the sacrifice of your nearest and dearest, perhaps you would prefer to take her place?"

  "Since when have you earned that you lousy git?"

  "So it's enough to be appalled on her behalf, but not so important that you would spill of your own vein."

  "Piss off, you want a sodding liter, take it."

  "Ugh," Belladonna said wrinkling her small nose. "No one's interested in the poison of a demon whore."

  Ceyla lunged across the seat, but Tian got to the pixie first, slamming her dagger through the female's right wing.

  "Stop talking," Tian said through clenched teeth. She glanced back at Ceyla. "You good?"

  "If by 'good' you mean I'm level enough not to lose my temper and rain an apocalyptic plague of demons down on San Francisco then yeah, I'm fucking ace."

  Belladonna's bubblegum pink lips were white with pain, but she cocked her chin. "Eamon should have left you where he found you, mongrel." She threw a pointed sneer at Aiteas. "I never did understand why you chose to give the information that allowed her release, cousin. If I ever get the chance to return her to Angus Og, I will, just to make a point."

  Tian removed the dagger to avoid a psychotic episode that ended with pixie sushi. The threat was too tempting. She couldn't afford to put hers
elf any further out of Eamon's good graces without setting off a dangerous series of events.

  "I'll remember that."

  "My cousin forgets herself," Aiteas said. "Angus Og is a monster. He always has been. Any attempt to make good on such a threat would see you entertaining in his Brugh Belladonna. I'll gift wrap you myself."

  Belladonna looked chastened, as if she'd realized she'd gone too far and didn't know how to take it back. "They still haven't paid tribute for the extra passengers," the small female grumbled.

  "No one asked you, bint," Ceyla said, scorching the remaining bit of her cigarette, and taking an angry drag. The smoke sifted in tense tendrils from her open mouth.

  "Thanks to your earlier indiscretion, cousin mine, we are owed nothing," Aiteas answered.

  "And if you were?" Tian rallied against the lightheaded spins of exhaustion. "What is it that you want, Aiteas?"

  He considered her. The quiet whispers from the tribe were overwhelmed by the mass shushing that grew in response. "This car reeks of old magicks. It tastes of knowledge, visceral truth that runs soul deep and sifts away in the first light of dawn. I yearn to relearn that which has been forgotten. Let me taste you Tian, you smell more than yourself, or more yourself, than before."

  Tian licked her lips. It was a nervous gesture. "What point are you asking to take from?" Her voice sounded hollow.

  "No," Sio said.

  Aiteas hesitated, clearly a first for him, before he turned back to Tian. "Your mouth."

  "I said no."

  Aiteas stared at Sio with the rapid calculation of a politician before breaking into a haughty smile. The tension between the two built causing the rest of the vehicle's occupants to shift under the discomfort of it.

  "Would you prefer I ask to take from her breast?" Aiteas bated.

  A dark look slid under Sio's features that caused the lazy smile on Atieas' face to slip.

  "I already told you, the answer is no, but I bleed just fine. I'll donate in her place. You have my permission if you think you're man enough not to make a scene like your writhing cohort."

  Aiteas looked startled. "What makes you think that I would have any interest in your fluids, human?"

  Ceyla was quiet as she chain smoked beside them, blowing thick plumes of toxins out the driver side window.

  "Curiosity. Whatever else happens, Aiteas, you're not touching her and I won't offer again. What's your answer?" Sio said.

  "What's your name?"

  "Do you always answer one question with another?"

  "Not always. Your turn."

  "Sio. What's your answer?"

  "Bleed for me Sio."

  Chapter 17

  A Vigil

  His head felt stuffed with cotton and the murmur skirting the shadows in the back of his brain was new and wouldn't go away. Tian was watching him with a nebulous look that he found way too appealing. She was still sitting in his lap, even though she'd scooted as close to the dashboard as possible. Funny, before he'd met her he would have said that it was physically impossible to come from a kiss. He hadn't, but it had been too close for comfort. She hit him with an earnest stare that vibrated the molecules in his bone marrow.

  "You don't have to do this," she said. A slow flush reasserted itself under his gaze, spilling upward from her neckline, sliding under her skin like a storm cloud.

  "I know."

  Sio tore his eyes away. The last thing he needed was to get distracted by the things he wanted to do to her. He bit down on his lip, dragging it against his front teeth. The sharp copper tang that hit his tongue was gamey and unmistakable. He glared over at Aiteas to escape the nagging impulse to claim the female in his lap and attempted to gauge the other male's reaction to the anti-climactic glory of his blood-letting.

  Scarlet eyes regarded him with a disconcerting level of attentiveness. There was no discernible change to the set of the pixie's face, but for an unfathomable reason Sio got the impression the guy was nervous.

  "It's not getting any fresher."

  Aiteas raised a manicured brow and managed to look haughty under all of the design work sketched into his face. "I'd have thought you would have chosen a more innocuous site."

  Sio could feel his stubborn streak start to boil. "You're the one that picked it, tough guy. Not my problem if you're feeling shy, but it's your call. Take it or leave it."

  The space around the Navigator burst into an uproar of excited whispers and nervous giggles. Sio was shoved against the seat by a blanket of invisible force. He choked on a curse, worked to avoid tonguing the tear in his lower lip, and struggled under the pressure while Aiteas took his sweet time.

  Bright green sparks cascaded like a waterfall from the pixie's bizarre moss colored hair as the rapidly beating wings created enough current to collect them, spin them up, and fling them around the cab like a swarm of deranged fireflies. The Ooh's and Ahh's from their audience did nothing to mute the weirdness quotient of the moment. Sio was drowning in the sharp smells of eucalyptus and cut grass.

  "If you insist," Aiteas said. His tone was more intimate than necessary.

  The disconcerting weight of a bare foot touched down on Sio's collarbone, but the sensation was overshadowed by the invisible hands that cupped his face and tilted his head back. An unseen mouth descended on his own and only the slight tingling of the wound indicated Aiteas was physically involved.

  The Demi-fae kissed him with lips and teeth and tongue, laving the abrasion with a miniature scarlet mouth while the invisible pout went to work in a decidedly un-platonic manor. If he'd never met Tian he'd have been impressed by the bastard's skill. As it stood though, Sio found, for the first time in what felt like years, his physical response was reassuringly neutral.

  Knowing it was a mistake before he did it, he glanced at her. She glowed in the soft light from the dashboard, and was in full on avoidance mode, staring out the window. His pulse slammed through his body like a pinball machine. His second mistake was giving into the desire to touch her. He did it anyway, grabbing her wrist hard enough to get her attention. He hadn't expected the invisible pressure to let up enough to grant any range of motion let alone a touch.

  Masochistic motherfucker.

  He might as well have stuffed his finger into a light socket. Her head whipped around and her eyes went wide. The wild sense of unfurling was back, pouring through his skin and spilling up through his mouth like wine.

  The small feet on Sio's collarbone went molten. They burned through his ruined T-shirt and branded the shit out of his skin. Sio swore while Aiteas lost his footing, and tumbled down into Tian's lap. The pixie landed arching into a grand mal seizure, with his wings pinned beneath him. The sparks coming out of his hair made him a road flare. The green flames died as if he'd been doused and Aiteas collapsed into a boneless heap on Tian's thigh. They all leaned in.

  "Goddess," Ceyla said drawing out the word. "I feel like we should poke him with a stick or something. Find out if he's dead."

  Belladonna hissed in disapproval where she hovered on the side console of the door.

  "Give it a minute," Tian said, ignoring the cotton candy nightmare along with her own advice and prodding the body in the ribs with an index finger.

  The air around them churned with silent malice until Aiteas' scarlet eyes popped wide. He gasped, dragging in breath as if he'd spent the last twelve minutes drowning. The unmarked patches of his skin were flushed the bright crimson of a boiled lobster. A ridiculous smile plastered itself across his face as he reached down, grabbed his cock, flipped over and made his way to hands and knees. His head hung down below his shoulders. He shook, laughing hysterically between pants, until his whole body had doubled over.

  Tian slid a gentle finger under his chin and raised his face. The prick's eyes were radioactive. "Aiteas," she said. "Don't think I won't bill you for the dry-cleaning." He blinked those glowing orbs up at her, and burst into another round of exuberant laughter.

&n
bsp; "Not too human after all, mate. Look at him, he's faced," Ceyla said, grinning and elbowing Sio in the ribs.

  "Now that's what I'd call a little death," Aiteas said, wiping away tears. A manic burst of cheering and hysterical laughter from his Tribe enveloped the vehicle. "I think I had a heart attack," he shouted. The mini mental patients cheered louder.

  A horse-faced female with a wild shock of bright yellow hair and deep blue wings tumbled through the open sun roof with a squeak and hovered over Tian's lap, seeking permission to land. Tian shrugged and the cassette tape clad pixie touched down on bended knee next to her king.

  "My lord," she said. "You smell delectable."

  Aiteas gripped her chin and shifted her focus toward Sio with a sloppy grin. "What does that look like to you, Immarrie?"

  She appraised Sio with bright indigo eyes. "Sex," she answered, making a comical clawing gesture with her hands. Several members of the tribe, both male and female, swooned, screaming in agreement as if he were the Beatles. Aiteas paused and looked up at him.

  "He does actually, doesn't he?" the male said before dissolving into yet another fit of giggles. "But no! That my Gate of Haight, will be our most guarded secret in centuries."

  The resulting cacophony was deafening. Tian was leaning on the dash, looking like she was about to pass out any second. Sio opened his mouth to say something, but Ceyla beat him to it.

  "That's lovely, really." She pursed her lips before continuing. "So how's about ungluing the car then? Please."

  Aiteas leveraged himself to a standing position using the shoulder of the blonde next to him. He leveled a slender finger at Ceyla's nose, but couldn't keep a straight face. "It's been unstuck since I had my moment. Tits on a troll, I feel outstanding. Anyone else feel so peachy keen?"