by J. L. Ray
“I know the theory,” Tony replied. When both of them looked at her, she said, “What? I don’t have time to cook! But Mom went through a fresh bread phase--breadmakers, baking stones, fresh yeast in the freezer, the whole nine yards. Why?”
“Your Mundane religious beliefs and superstitions are like the flour and sugar and fat. Add the sourdough starter, the fae talisman, and a voila! Vampire.”
“So that’s how they began in our world in the first place?” Tony got a nod. “And the person with the starter holds the power? Not the vampire?”
“Essentially,” Naamah told her.
“You also said that love would yield the answer,” Tony told her, ending the sentence in a rising inflection that indicated her hope of some explanation of that answer.
“Oh my,” Naamah laughed. “How very cryptic of me. I do hope you can forgive me! I have not control of what comes out when I am in that state.” She shook her head, “Another reason I moved back here to Fairie. Nattys aren’t fond of too much truth.”
“So you have no idea what that means?” Tony asked her.
“Sadly, no, “ Naamah replied. “Now, I’ll need to finish making my dinner before I can join you! But you two go ahead and eat. You need to get on to Sammeal before it gets too late.” She frowned, “He tends to drink his dinner.”
Tony, who had just taken a big bite from her sandwich, choked and Phil jumped up as if to help her. “Don’t come near me!” she muttered around a mouthful of roast beef and pointed at him. “Sit down.” He sat. Then she turned to Naamah, “Drink his dinner? What kind of drink?”
“Gods alone know. Mead, beer, wine, whatever he can get his hands on these days, “she said as she turned back to them and caught their wide-eyed stares. “What? Oh! No, no, Sammeal isn’t a vampire. He isn’t even that powerful these days! Everyone assumes that the Great Geas only affected those in Mundania, but there were ramifications for the Fairie Realm as well. It was like a kind of power earthquake. Foundations were shaken. Some mountains fell. Some mountains rose.”
“Your powers of Sight increased?” Tony guessed.
“Indeed,” Naamah turned around, a large wooden spoon in her hand. “And some fae who had been very powerful lost their virility, in all kinds of ways.” She let the large wooden spoon in her hand droop straight down and grinned. “Sammeal’s mountain fell, so to speak. Of course, he was a nasty piece of work in the old days, very Judeo-Christian Old Testament vicious. Quite a temper and quite a libido. The invocation of the Geas changed him for the better, as far as I am concerned. He’s been completely powerless and a complete sot ever since.” She shook her head. “He is of the light, but he always managed to interpret the rules to allow himself to do the most awful things. Then, when he...he hurt her, Lilith, you know. Well, he finally got what he deserved. Yes, the Great Curse did some good on this side as well.”
Tony wanted to never, ever have to ask this, but she knew this could be crucial to the investigation, so she pushed very gently. “Actually, we have heard that Sammeal hurt Lilith, but we don’t know, in fact, how. Can you tell us the whole story?”
“Oh dear,” Naamah, for the first time since they had been there, looked agitated. “I...oh dear.”
“Did he rape her?” Tony asked gently.
“Worse.” Naamah sighed and sat down. “He raped her. He deliberately impregnated her, even though he knew she was with someone else.” She paused for a moment. “And then, after she gave birth, he killed the child.”
“Why did I not know of this?” Phil hissed between his teeth.
Naamah looked at Phil and shook her head, “Azeem was the one who helped her move past that. She was with him then. But after she was physically better, she wanted to distance herself from all her former relationships.”
“But I--”
“It was none of yours and all of hers, Mephistopheles. You had long moved on, and she needed to be away from all of us. It took over 1,500 years for her to surface, and when she did, for a while she was looking for vengeance, not peace. That is why I tried to interfere with her plans in Mundania. She was warping an otherwise lovely religion with the idea of vengeance. Eventually, the Great Geas forced her to evaluate herself and try peace again. She was happy at the end. Let it go, child, let it go.”
Phil bowed his head and shook it, but Tony was already moving on to another question.
“Could Sammeal be the love that yields the answer?”
Naamah stood for a moment, nonplussed. “I don’t know. I suppose he could be.” She tapped her cheek with the wooden spoon, deep in thought. “It’s a question of power, you see. I don’t think he has the power to have located the necessary Fairie talisman, then gotten through the portal, then made the vampire. He isn’t the same creature he once was.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Tony commented. Hesitant, she asked, “Naamah?”
“Yes, little one?”
Tony grinned, since Naamah’s current form stood about five feet nothing while Tony was closer to six feet than not. “I had a premonition right before we came into Fairie, and then when we got nearer to you, I had another episode. It was a little different.”
Naamah nodded, “I felt that, indeed, I did. It was very strong!” She reached across the table with both hands and grabbed one of Tony’s again. “You are sure that you are purely a Natural?”
Tony shook her head, “Before the last episode, I’d have sworn to it. But now, I’m just not so sure. It felt so real, like I was there. And,” she looked over at Phil, “ when I looked in the mirror in that room in the, well, whatever the hell that was, vision or sight or whatever, I saw my own face. Only it wasn’t mine.”
“What do you mean, child?” Naamah asked.
“The hair was wrong. Blonde, spiky, short. My face looked like me, but there were scars that I don’t have.” She ran a finger down the right side of her face, “There was one here that was ragged, like my face had been slashed by a knife but hadn’t healed correctly.” Then she took her thumbnail and drew it across and down the middle of her chin. “There was a thin scar here, as if I had sliced my chin open, and it had been stitched back.” She shook her head, “But the weird part was that those scars weren’t the biggest reason it felt like Not-Me. I don’t think I have ever felt the kind of despair I saw in that mirror. Hopelessness. Helplessness. I can’t even describe it. I have never felt like that in my life,” she finished.
Naamah and Phil looked at her, concerned. Naamah looked over at Phil and then told them, “You experienced a Sight. It could be your future. It could be someone else’s and you projected your face on it in the vision. That is not at all typical, but it has happened.” She paused, then added, “It is unprecedented to have a Natural with the Sight, Miss Antonia. I suspect that you will need to speak to your parents when you return. It is not at all unlikely that they do not even know of the heritage themselves. Before the Geas, there were plenty of” she grinned, dispelling some of the solemnity that had built during Tony’s descriptions, “interactions, shall we say, of a carnal nature that led to bouncing baby half-breeds.” She nodded, “You may have fae blood so far back in your history that your parents are not even aware of it.”
Tony nodded, “That’s gotta be it. I can’t see either side of the family I know doing anything particularly out of the ordinary.” She picked up her sandwich, but before taking a bite added, “They are very nice people, intelligent, hardworking, all that. But adventurous? Not so much.”
Phil looked puzzled, “Then what about you? Your career at the Supernatural Crimes Investigation Bureau? Partnering with Calvin?”
Tony swallowed, “Oh, well, I went to high school with so many Supers, and I saw some really ugly reactions at times, even at a public school. I wanted to help in some way. And,” she grinned, “like I said, my sibs and I do tend to try things Mom and Dad might not like. They finally learned to quit expressing opinions! We’re guaranteed to go the opposite route, just to prove them wrong.”
N
aamah looked at Phil, “Were we ever that young?”
“I was,” he answered, then added, “about three thousand years ago. I think.”
“Well, I formed as an adult, so I had to learn all that from my children,” Naamah told them as she went back to stir the pot. “It is probably easier to have children if one has experienced a childhood. It is good that you have had one, Mephisto. It will help.”
Tony looked at him, “Help what? I thought you didn’t have any progeny?”
Before he could answer, Naamah snickered, “He doesn’t. Not yet.”
Tony noted that Phil’s olive complexion could, under the right impetus, turn an interesting shade of pale yellow.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After the two had eaten and Naamah helped Phil clean the Harley, they left for Sammeal’s. At this point, Phil had nine hours left, but the time spent with Naamah had not only given them important information, it had also given them a chance to relax. Naamah was no threat to Tony, other than to her peace of mind, and Phil had had a chance to calm down after his near loss of control with Tony. He wasn’t ready to explain to her, hoped, even, that she’d forgotten the fight they’d been having. He needed time to think about this attraction and its ramifications when he wasn’t with her. But with time ticking, they need to conduct this last interview and get back to see if Naamah was right and their killer had already taken another victim.
Luckily, Naamah had a good idea of where to find Sammeal, and since he spent most of his time in a dive, trying to forget his current status and telling stories of his former glory, the trip took very little time. Private territories might fight attempts to be found, but a public area, like a bar, couldn’t be as picky and keep its customers. Less than a hour later, Tony and Phil pulled up in front of Sammeal’s dive of choice, The Willow Tree. It actually was a willow tree, a really large one, and the sign by it, in neon colors that shifted through a rainbow spectrum, was so Mundane that Phil laughed.
“Mundane objects are kitschy here, but very popular, I hear.” He climbed off the bike and helped Tony off. “Robe in place? Ready to be a spectator again?”
“Sure.”
“If it is crowded, you may have to wait outside.” Tony frowned at him. “Even if you only brush against some creature here, it will know you are there, and the robe will no longer work.”
“I’ll do my best to keep my distance,” Tony told him, and then added, “I’m going in with you.”
“I know.” Phil sighed. “What if I promise not to start anything with the bastard?”
She stared at him.
“Okay, okay. We both go.”
“That’s better. Maybe he won’t be so bad. Maybe he feels bad about what he did.” Phil just gave her a look. “Okay, so maybe not. Let’s go.”
Tony had not expected to feel anything but anger when she met Sammeal. Everything she had heard about him led her to believe that it would be a coin toss between her and Phil over who won Most Likely to kick that fae right in the nuts. But The Willow Tree turned out to be a loser magnet bar. No one in the joint looked likely to have a life outside of a bottle. Sammeal was sitting at the bar, talking to the bartender. At first glance, he looked really animated and happy. However, as they got close enough to make out facial expressions in the dimly lit interior of the tree, which was larger than its exterior, a fact Tony tried hard to ignore, they saw that rather than animated, Sammeal seemed frenetic. And the conversation with the bartender turned out to be a lively discussion of just how much credit Sammeal had left to rack up a tab. Just as the tall, emaciated fae was about to bang one fist onto the bar, he caught sight of Phil.
“As I live and breathe! Mephistopheles, my old pal!” He staggered off the barstool and grabbed at Phil’s hand, missing it the first three times, but getting it on the unlucky fourth. “Good to see you, old friend!” He pulled Phil in for a hug, and Tony just managed to duck back out of the way. She got a full view of Phil’s face, scrunched up in horrified anticipation of that hug. Then she got a whiff of Sammeal and some of Phil’s horror transferred to her.
“Bartender,” Sammeal turned to the hamadryad who was pulling a beer for another customer, “a round for me and my friend.”
The hamadryad looked at Phil, who displayed a coin he taken from his jacket pocket. When it became clear that at least one of them could pay, he nodded at Phil and said, “What’ll it be?”
“Two pints,” Phil told him.
“Crap, Phil, you can’t actually drink anything!”
Phil dragged his left hand through his hair as if straightening it, but Tony got the message. He knew better. Then she remembered their earlier fight and quit trying to backseat drive. The less said about anything passing a Being’s lips in Fairie, the better.
The beers hit the bar in front of the two fae, and Sammeal downed his immediately, as thirsty as if the other empty glass in front of him wasn’t still sweating. Phil managed to tip some of his beer onto the already spattered floor, then he sat it down within reach of Sammeal. That strategy proved good when Sammeal automatically grabbed the almost full pint and chugged it as well.
Sammeal smacked his lips and opened his eyes. “There’s just nothin’ like it, is there? A good home brew. Old Willow here makes some of the best beer in Fairie North, y’know? I been comin’ here...Hey Willow, how long I been comin’ here?”
The bartender, a slim, pretty fellow who was probably much older than he seemed, simply looked at Sammeal without saying a word.
“Yeah,” Sammeal commented, as if the dryad had actually answered, “that’s right, about thirty years, give or take a decade. M’favorite drinking spot. Lovely tree, lovely ‘tender. Best brew in the North.”
“Phil, do you think you can get a word in edgewise? We have questions.”
Phil ran a hand through his hair again, giving her an affirmative.
“Ask him about Lilith.”
Phil shook his head.
“Too abrupt.” Phil nodded. “Ask him about Agrat? Been in touch?” Phil nodded.
“Sammeal, have you talked to Agrat Bat Mahlat lately?”
Sammeal slapped Phil on the back, “Now there’s a serious piece of tail, eh? I could fuck that all day long.” And suddenly the pity Tony had been feeling for the obviously down and out fae was gone, gone, gone.
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
Sammeal’s eyes got a bit shifty. “Oh well, it’s been more than a few centuries at least. Y’know how it is, Mephisto. Even a hot bitch like Agrat gets a little clingy after you fuck her one too many times. All, ‘why don’t we ever go out for an orgy?’ or ‘how come you don’t want to be seen with me if I’ve got clothes on?’ I mean, really, who has time for that relationship... ship... I mean...shit.” He giggled, a really, really disturbing sound from such a grotesquerie. “Had to dump the bitch, y’know? I mean, you do know. You dumped her yourself.”
This time it was Phil who looked a little squirrely. Tony watched him, expressionless, as he tried to look at her without actually looking at her. “I, uhm, I, well, I found her a bit possessive and I--” Luckily, before he could dig himself in too deep, Sammeal went back to his favorite subject. Sammeal.
“Yeah, possessive and bat shit crazy. She kept after me for months.” He grabbed his crotch, “Couldn’t let go of little Samm, if y’know what I mean?”
Tony gagged. “Move the conversation along, already! This is like walking through sewage!”
Phil rushed into the next attempt at information. “I wondered if you knew how to find her because I have to tell her some bad news.”
Sammeal sat for a moment, as if trying to process this completely different thought. “News, eh? Bad?”
“Yeah, about someone in Mundania.”
Sammeal nodded, “Mundania. Used to go there a lot, y’know? Used to be like a god there.” He paused. “No, not a god. A whatsis, an angel, that’s right! Blood and Bones, did that gig ever rack up the tail! I miss that.” He looked down into his empty glass
. “I miss it a lot.”
Phil signaled to the Willow to pull another round. When the full glasses appeared in front of Sammeal, he shifted from verging on maudlin to happy again.
“With that Geas in place, though, no more fun in Mundania! I sure am glad I was over here when that shit went down.”
“If he’s here, how come he uses so much bad turn of the century Mundane slang?” Tony wondered.
“You still addicted to Mundane TV shows?” Phil asked Sammeal as he skillfully shifted full and empty glasses to make sure the beer went to Sammeal.
“Oh, hell yeah, my brotha! That’s some dope shit, y’know what I mean? The ladies love it when I talk that Mundane shit with them,” and he tossed his hair back, not realizing that the lank, greasy blond locks were about as likely to attract a lady as the open, festering sore on the side of his mouth.
Tony sighed. “You’re going to have to bring up Lilith. We need to get the hell out of here before one of us dies, you from the Geas or me from listening to this shit.”
Phil cleared his throat quite pointedly. “So, Agrat, she and Naamah and Lilith and Eisheth Zenunim were all pretty tight in the old days,” Phil mentioned, proving he had his own repertoire of bad Mundane slang.
“Oh, they were tight all right,” Sammeal made a few hand gestures to show that he was thinking of a whole different definition.
“Okay, now I’m just thinking that killing him is the plan. What do you think? I bet Willow over there would agree,” Tony hissed between her teeth.
“They were good friends,” Phil amended quickly, trying to drag Sammeal back on track.
Sammeal looked grumpy. “Yeah, they ganged up on me, the hell hounds. Hounds. Bitches,” he giggled again and Phil nudged him back.
“They stayed in touch, even after Lil and Eisheth got stuck on the Mundane side, right?”
“I don’t know shit about that. I quit hanging out with them a couple thousand years ago.”
“Ask him why,” Tony demanded.