A Court For Fairies (Dark Heralds Book 1)

by Lynn S.

  Marissa disconnected, drowning the voice in her head while pretending to yawn.

  “Just a moment!” She crossed the room, throwing together jeans and t-shirt and grabbing a pair of sunglasses in the process. The shades were not as dark as she wanted, but the slight blue tint dissipated the odd appearance of her eyes. Protected behind glasses, her eyes no longer betrayed her as strange, and her face lost some of the severity it had suddenly acquired. The voice inside her raged, as the instinct hated to be submitted.

  “I’m sorry, Carla,” Marissa started as soon as she opened the door. “I had a rough night. I thought I’d be able to sleep better, but that was not the case.”

  “We all had a difficult night. I hardly slept either, but today, we must honor Esteban.”

  Carla kept trying to guess at her mood through the glasses. Her stare made Marissa feel uncomfortable, almost angry. For once she was concerned her eyes might burn red and uncontrollable. Carla must have felt it, as the woman became stiff and cold toward her.

  They went downstairs to the kitchen where Isabel waited. As the widow O’Reilly poured a cup of coffee, Marissa heard their words as in a distant echo. Her ears were perceptive to all and nothing at once. The sounds of nature, Isabel’s chatter, and the hum of the voice inside her head scrambled her brain to the point of a headache.

  “Marissa, are you sick?” Isabel touched her wrist. The young woman’s skin was unusually clammy. “I’m sorry, I should have gone with you yesterday, even against your better judgement. You stayed out quite a bit, and for those who are not used to it, that breeze lifting from the lake is a bit tricky. Add to that humidity and weak defenses. You have not eaten right; there is a chance you might be coming down with something.”

  “No. No. Don’t even think about it. You have been gracious hostesses, given the circumstances.” Marissa unlocked her wrist from Isabel’s grasp gently. “After all, we are not on a holiday. Within it all I’ve been comfortable. The circumstances, though, one cannot object they have been nerve wracking.”

  “We will be done by this evening. Nevertheless, we are still up for surprises.” Carla sipped her morning tea, reclined against the fridge. She kept glancing at Marissa, curious but guarded. “We received a phone call last night. There are two cousins who have recently arrived and would like to be with us as we commend Esteban’s ashes. They are on their way right now and I have agreed to meet them prior to their arrival.”

  Marissa nodded nervously at the idea of extending their stay for at least another night and risk meeting new people in her current…condition, but imposing would be beyond rude. She excused herself from the table, leaving her breakfast untouched, saying she needed to iron some clothes and pack the rest. Marissa knew the women were going straight to the chapel, to tend to replacing flowers and candles, but she found an excuse not to follow, and Carla and Isabel didn’t insist on her partaking of duties. It was a relief.

  The widow O’Reilly and her mother left the kitchen, crossed through the yard, sealed the heavy doors behind them. Once secured in the enclosure, the elder woman turned toward Isabel and attacked her, venting her frustration as she choked her. Carla’s hand grasped Isabel’s throat mercilessly, allowing her enough air to give half answers.

  “Did you know anything about this? Have you brought a danger into our house because of your selfishness and arrogance? I almost vomited having to suffer her presence. Her blood stinks. It is the same poison that killed our Evelyn. I can still recognize it almost thirty years later!” Carla never lost her pace, but her grip deformed into thin and elongated fingers, plated and scaly, closer to a bird’s foot than a human hand.

  “No…I…swear…” Isabel’s eyes reached that emerald green that reflected equal measures of terror and resentment. Her hand closed around Carla’s arm. Small but sharp, dark nails dug in, forcing her to let go.

  “It is a disaster…Esteban must have cloaked Marissa’s mother for the few instances we crossed paths. You know how much he loved to press buttons.” Carla finally gave in, slumping into a pew, trying to make sense of it all. “Marissa was human until yesterday, and now…this means her mother is a full-fledged vampyr and the daughter is but a risk to keep. She will come for her. You know Marissa’s blood soon will be poison to our kind. Give up, Isabel. The Heralds won’t take the offering. You will not get your son back. And let’s not talk about us; if we bring peril to their doorstep, we will be abandoned in this realm. No. It is too much of a risk. There is not enough Fae in Esteban’s blood for us to try to save him. He should have died the first time around. It is ridiculous to pretend to give him more than one chance at it.”

  Isabel could not allow Carla to falter, she was her only ally, her voice in the Herald’s Court.

  “We still have time, oh, Mother-Sister. Her change is not total and she obviously resists it. Besides, she is not aware of our nature. We need to lead her to the inter-world before the transition is completed. There is a reason why Francis Alexander asked for her. Something we don’t know perhaps. Would you risk his wrath not delivering?”

  ***

  Marissa sat on the edge of her bed. She had carefully gathered the amulet Malachi had given her, mindful not to touch it directly. She held it long enough to numb the voice in her head.

  Her mind turned to another charm, the one on the chain Esteban had given her. It was impossible for her not to think about her initial reaction to that gift, and how she hid it from her boyfriend so as not to make him aware of certain details—her reluctance to wear it, for one.

  Sure, she kissed him, even smiled, after gently declining on that invitation once more. The next thing Marissa did was pay a visit to her mother. The idea of a golden charm fused with concrete—as in native soil—stunk of Adriana’s terrible sense of humor.

  “This is your idea of a joke?” Marissa was calm, but her voice denoted a quiet fury. “You suggested he give me this. God knows if you even compelled him, it is so inconceivable. And on top of that he said, ‘I free you.’ I bet you had a grand old time with your vampyr jokes no one else understands!”

  “Ugh, Mariushka, you could never take a prank. Such a solemn child. Where did you get your bitter blood? Your father could take and dish a good joke and, well…you got me. But before we go on, for someone so keen on keeping secrets…do you plan to have a match out here or are you the kind who needs to be invited in?”

  Adriana did her best imitation of an evil laugh, possibly trying to further annoy her daughter. Marissa rushed in and Adriana would have taken another jab, had she not noticed her daughter had taken as much as she could.

  Marissa sat down on the sofa, eyes gleaming with tears, mouth stretched as if to contain a sob. Adriana hated to see her cry; there was something about her doe eyes that reminded her of Bastian’s final days.

  “Dragoste, love of my life, you are reading too much into a simple gesture. Okay, I must confess. Esteban told me you were having second thoughts about visiting the Sunshine State and I found it too funny to resist. But, Mariushka, don’t you worry a hair on your pretty little head.” Adriana’s hands caressed her daughter’s temple, combing her fingers through her hair. “You will never have to run; you will never have to hide. You won’t ever have to carry the soil of the place where you were turned on to the blood.”

  Adriana still remembered those terrible boxes of earth her father was forced to carry, and how he once grabbed her by the hair and shoved her face into the humid soil, forcing her to breathe in. He used to tell her, “You are a dhampyr, girl. My property. Where ever we go, you must take care that I rise from this earth every night or you surely will die.” Those boxes smelled of rot and all things unavoidable. She’d never willingly impose the burden her own father placed on her shoulders.

  Marissa felt a kiss on the crown of her head. Adriana’s lips were soft and warm, and her daughter knew than when needed, they could be loving. Mother and daughter held secrets meant to draw them apart with the passage of time. They were both conscious of it
. As of that moment, it was easy for Adriana to still be her mother. She had managed to keep an appearance of being in her early forties. However, Marissa knew that dhampyr didn’t age at the same rate as humans, and her mother, though mortal, had stunted old age by means of her condition. Adriana was almost three hundred years old. The leap in years, from her eternal twenty-five to a more mature age, had been a trick granted by giving birth to a daughter. That daughter, though, would soon catch up with her mother, and questions would start to rise…

  “Are we dealing with one of your selfish motives?” Back in Innisfree, Marissa tried to look for an explanation while having an argument with her absent mother.

  It might have been. The decision to finally give in to blood might have been rushed by Adriana’s pride, the fact that though at an unnerving slow pace, time escaped through her fingers. As much as she loved a good gamble, there was a chance Adriana was afraid of facing consequences. After all, the law of the Popescu clan required a vampyr and a dhampyr. Always. The first was to take upon the weight of the curse, the second was forever anchored to the first, more a servant than a child, and looked for a way to keep the monster’s thirst at bay—by whatever means necessary. By giving in to the blood, her mother would be frozen in time and place upon her the responsibility of care, forcing her to live in her shadow.

  Marissa tried to keep thinking of possibilities, but a deep sleep took her over. Her instinct, unable to speak directly, had subdued her body in order to connect. Gone were Adriana and her motives. Marissa simply dreamed.

  Marissa was no longer a woman but a flower, hanging forever off a vine between heaven and earth. Her skin, comprised of white, delicate petals, had roads of blue and red veins painted upon it. Blood and the salty water of tears showered the ground below as black feathered humming birds buzzed about. Inconsiderate of the source of their nectar, the small birds clawed and pecked, driving their long, thin bills until they found the flesh beneath the petals and drew blood.

  It was a shame that while trying to protect her from the life Adriana never wished upon her, the woman never told Marissa that the voice behind the instinct might be arrogant, cruel, even, always hungry to take control, but in given instances, it was a life saver.

  Chapter XII

  Strangers In The Night–Part I

  Queens, 1984

  Bastian and Neil had met for two months. The Irishman had gotten used to the Portuguese man in the manner in which opposites that inevitably came together found themselves aligning. Sometimes the dark-haired man tried his patience, but at least he felt at ease enough to let him know without reservation. They had a common goal, a shared project, something he had grown to understand. Still, whenever Bastian drifted off business and into casual conversation, especially when he’d crack a joke here and there, Neal’s blood curdled. His face became somber and his attitude stiff, thinking about how easy it was for Bastian to switch from the extraordinary to the trivial in a couple of words. It was hard, for example, for Neil to let go of Bastian’s incessant strife to conquest their waitress.

  Objection and all, Neil dragged himself to the restaurant on 30th Avenue. For days, Bastian had shown him every possible outcome, anything to steer O’Reilly away from the idea of drenching his hands in blood. He had decided to kill not only the creature, but maybe Isabel herself. He had grown a bit distant from his wife, but it was still hard for him to think about monsters as Bastian described when, as he came home, he’d found her more than once dancing around with little yellow and white outfits, amorously declaring she had been stocking the baby’s nursery with clothes and toys. If Isabel was but pretending to be human, damn it, she had been doing a great job.

  “It has been two months,” Neil reminded his partner. His eyes were fixed on the swirling golden bubbles in the black coffee in his mug, left untouched. He could do without the extra bitterness. “Isabel’s pregnancy is advancing and this whole business is making my stomach turn.”

  “Before you do this, there are things you must know, strength you have to develop. Though you have progressed from a few weeks back when you didn’t believe at all, it is hard to come to the level of resolve needed to act with a clean conscience.” Bastian exhaled hard, letting accumulated frustration and worry show for once. It was not as easy for him as Neil might have thought. His duties were not easy. He would happily spend the rest of his days as a glorified librarian and be satisfied.

  The waitress was back at their table. She was either going through the usual coffee round or running out of excuses to flirt with Bastian. Neil instinctively placed his hand on top of the cup, although it was obvious there was no need for refill. Bastian flashed one of his overconfident smiles and exchanged a couple of verbal jabs with beautiful Adriana. Neil listened to their mock banter and felt the sting of jealousy. Some months ago, they could have been Isabel and him, happy and carefree. His life had since become an exercise in sinuosity.

  Each word, each smile, had become part of a choreography, intended to make amends with Isabel and pretend to still be under her thrall. Free of the spell that possessed him, Neil had woken in the middle of the night to watch her sleep. He had learned to control the wild beating of his heart as, in half light, the patterns of ink underneath his wife’s skin looked to be breaking through, putting together the puzzle that was her true form. Still, he would not bring himself to confess that depending on the light—or, God forbid, his heart’s inclination—the woman could be either repugnant, intriguing, or simply beautiful beyond words.

  Neil longed for her against his better sense, and Bastian could see it. Where it was easy for Bastian to see a monster, for Neil it was complicated. He had been with her, heard the warmth of her words, tried to guess the moment she’d smile a bit crookedly, letting him know she had grown tired of words and needed a kiss. He missed those spontaneous moments of sheer joy and passion. So rolling his eyes, the man simply cut in on Bastian’s animated conversation.

  “Bastian, remember what we talked about flirting on your own time?”

  Though he was rude, Adriana giggled and left the table sporting a triumphant smile. The rhythm of her hips walking back to the kitchen made more than one patron forget their woes and worries.

  “I never stop working,” Salgado told him as soon as the blonde was out of sight. There was, after all, a reason for them to meet so far from Manhattan in a corner of blue-collar Queens. “In fact, Neil, I think it is time for you to go home. I promise all will be taken care of within the next few days.”

  Bastian watched his friend leave, then decided he’d nurse a glass of white wine until it was time for the waitress to finish her shift. He was not supposed to drink alcohol, but somehow his system, fueled by a cocktail of heavy prescriptions, had decided to grant him solace in that Sauvignon. He waited for her to leave and even raised his glass as she passed on her way out. Then Bastian went to the restroom to dislodge from his briefcase the weapon of his office for that night. He was quick, catching up with her bouncing hair as she walked about a block north of the restaurant. Adriana walked unhurriedly, and soon, without effort, he was a short distance from her, thinking about how easy it was to stalk when the city and its people served as accomplices.

  Being the last of the line, hundreds of people disgorged into the street from the N subway stop. They waited patiently at the bus stop in the corner or waved for cabs to take them home. None noticed the perky blonde cutting through an alleyway, or the young man who followed, wearing a gray business suit. Bastian kept a cool grasp on the handle of his briefcase, as it concealed a small but quite effective silver scythe.

  The first encounter between Bastian Salgado and Adriana Popescu was defined more by violence than surprise. The dhampyr had been aware of both of her unusual customers for a while. Her instinct had warned her and she had listened enough to allow for this little drama to unfold. She took the gamble, though, of believing Bastian to be a reasonable gentleman.

  In almost three hundred years, after leaving their native la
nd and adopting an existence marked by secrecy, hunters became a thing of the past. In a world in which ever increasing technology devoured both religion and magic, coming forth was as risky for monsters as it was for those self-righteous bastards. Just like vampires and their kind had been pushed further into shadows, the men who once persecuted them had all but disappeared in a world of books and neutral observation. And then, just a few weeks ago, her nest had been made to run and hide. She had never been happier. Hell, she might even give him a congratulatory smooch given the time. But there were never enough precautions for someone who was not a full-fledged immortal. Between one fantasy and another, Adriana zoned out and allowed the man with the briefcase to get the best of her.

  He spun her around in the alley, pushing her against the wall of a darkened building. Adriana felt her back hit the worn brick with force as her throat was painfully enclosed by a curved blade. It was pure silver, enough to permanently cripple her, as the vampyr blood in her system could not repair anything touched by the argentine metal. The threat was enough to make her instinct rage, but when in panic, the inner voice was no help at all. The instinct would force her to act upon an enemy as if she were a full-blooded vampyr, killing her in the process if it was determined to be a way to protect the many. So she breathed in and closed her fists, steadying her pulse and letting the instinct know that though she had made a slight mistake, Adriana was still in control. Her instinct receded, listening.

  Bastian pressed the weight of his body against her and was surprised not to feel the eerie cold of the touch granted to all vampires.