Racing around the building, Will was just fast enough to see a bike disappearing into the gloom.
The Pontiac seemed ungodly loud as it gunned away from the curb, but within minutes it was clear that Max was gone. Will dropped his head against the steering wheel. Defeat crushed him, but in his mind an angel princess laughed as she touched a drooping petal and danced down a winding path. The river sighed. The maples whispered, and . . .
He snapped his head upright. If Max wanted to save the glen, he needed the public to believe he had found her there. What better way than to film her in that habitat?
In an instant, Will was roaring through red lights and careening onto I-5. A bumpy exit brought him to an abused blacktop just south of the glen, but he dared drive no farther and risk being heard.
Rattling down a ditch into a blueberry field, he killed the engine and stepped out of the car. Furtive night sounds fluttered around him, and in a moment he was running, scrambling through the tenacious foliage toward the woods. Beneath the towering branches, his breathing sounded hoarse and heavy, but he kept climbing until he came to an opening in the trees. Below him, Sunshadow lay quiet and dark. No moon illuminated the little valley to night. Nothing disturbed its waiting tranquility. All was dark. He scanned the hollowed area until his eyes burned. Hope dwindled and sputtered, leaving a bitter taste, a terrible agony.
And then, just to the east! A flicker of light! So faint it seemed an illusion, but Elder was already gone, scrambling downhill, toward hope, toward redemption.
“Braumberg!” a voice hissed from the darkness.
Max’s heart was beating like a hammer against his ribs. He was hunkered down in the shadow of a towering alder, breath held, hands unsteady. The faerie was hidden beneath a mound of old leaves three hundred strides due south at the base of a rare widespread maple. She was still in her jar, tucked into an earth-toned drawstring bag. Emerald, he called her, because of the color of her wings. He hoped to God she was all right. He’d given her a tiny piece of organic fruit every day, but she hadn’t eaten. Neither had she spoken, though he was certain she could. So certain, in fact, that he had talked to her for endless hours. Apologies, explanations, stories. He’d told her of his failed attempts to protect the glen, of the burning addictions that kept him sleepless and jittery, of Lucy and Jay, the only reasons he could think of to fight those addictions day after day. But the tiny creature had made no response. Sometimes she had watched him with morning-bright eyes. But in the past few days she rarely moved. Once the world knew, though, once they believed, Sun-shadow Glen would be safe and she could go free.
“Who’s there?” he asked, and rose unsteadily to his feet only yards from the newcomer.
“Christ!” rasped the other, and started. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Max tried to see through the darkness, but the moon had abandoned him. “You Jackson? From television?”
“Of course I’m Jackson. Who else would come all this way on a damned bike in the middle of—Hey!” He shielded his eyes from the beam of light Max shone in his face. “Christ, are you nuts?”
He didn’t answer. It was a definite possibility. “You come alone?”
Jackson snorted. “Nobody took me up on my offer to exercise this time of night.”
Max turned off the torch and shifted from foot to foot. He was tired and he was scared. Meier was no one to fool with and Max was no hero, but he’d told Jay he’d find a way to save the glen. He’d given his word. Sometimes that was all a man had. “You think this is a joke?” he asked. His voice sounded wheezy in the still darkness, not at all like he’d hoped.
The other was silent for a moment, then: “You tell me what it is, Braumberg,” His tone had lost a little of its TV pomposity. “Why’d I have to come all the way out here in the middle of the night?”
“ ’Cuz folks gotta see the magic of the real thing. Where I found her, where she lived. Then maybe they’ll understand,” Max breathed.
“Her?” Jackson asked. Maybe he was trying to sound jaded and worldly, but there was an airlessness to his tone.
“Swear you came alone,” Max demanded, jumpy and afraid and so hopeful it made his heart quiver in his chest. “Swear it.”
“I came alone.”
“Swear you’ll tell this story just like it happened. You’ll take the pictures and tell the story.”
“Why do you think I came here?”
“Swear to God,” he ordered.
“Okay, I swear it.”
Max fisted his hands to stop the quiver, then nodded. “Wait here.”
A splinter of lightning crackled in the ebony sky.
“Where you going?” Jackson asked. His tone sounded spooked, and Max smiled. Urbanite. He didn’t know the glory of a moonless night, didn’t understand the awe and grandeur of life, but maybe he would. Maybe this would help. Maybe, for the first time in his life, Max Braumberg would make a difference.
Once he turned on his flashlight, he found the bag easily. It was right where he had left it. Rapidly switching off the torch, he extracted the jar and stared through the glass at Emerald. She was up, standing erect, her palms flat against the glass. She knew she was home. He was sure of it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d like to let you go. You know I would. But I can’t. The glen. It’s where I met my Luce. Where—”
“Turn around, nut job,” a voice hissed from the darkness.
Max froze, breath held, and then he turned. A shape stepped out from behind a tree. Lightning split the sky. It illuminated the world for just an instant, but Max had seen enough movies to recognize the metallic gleam of gunmetal.
“What do you want?” he asked, and found he was too frightened to move, nearly too frightened to speak.
“Hand it over.”
“What?” He eased the jar behind him, hands already slick with panic. “What are you talking about?”
The shadow took a step toward him. “Meier said you were an idiot. Give me the damn thing.”
“I swear I—,” he began. His garbled mind was trying to figure a way out of this, some clever means of extracting himself and saving the day, but blinding fear numbed his brain. Panic filled him like a toxin, and suddenly he bolted, lurching through the foliage brush like a drunken deer.
Behind him, the goon cursed, but in a second he was thundering after.
“Run, Braumberg!” shouted a voice.
Max slammed his gaze to the left. A figure was racing toward them from the trees. Lightning flared, illuminating Timber’s face for an instant.
Hope screamed through Max. He surged forward on a burst of adrenaline. From behind came an oof of pain as bodies tumbled to the ground. But he didn’t quit running. Emerald was safe. The jar was still in his hand. He cradled it against his body as he careened through brambles and berries, but suddenly there was a rush of footsteps. Something struck him from the side, bowling him over. He crashed to his hip, holding the jar aloft, praying and cursing.
“Fucking tree huggers,” growled his attacker, and, lurching to his feet, kicked Max in the ribs. Pain exploded like fireworks. He doubled up, holding the fairy close for protection. “Give it here,” ordered the other.
Max’s ribs were broken. He was sure of it, felt it in the nauseous pit of his stomach. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice was guttural, unrecognizable.
“Hand it over,” growled the thug, and kicked again.
Darkness slammed toward Max, but he squeezed it back, holding on.
From the left, he could hear heavy footsteps running toward them. Hope soared for a moment, but the voice from the darkness swamped it.
“You get him, Hank?”
“Yeah. Fucking asshole,” wheezed the thug, and aimed another kick at Max. The blow caught him in the thigh.
“Let’s finish this up. I lost my damn gun, and that other prick might wake up any minute.”
Max held the jar as steady as he could and forced himself into a half-sitting position. His ribs
burned like fire and his stomach roiled.
“The press,” he gasped. “The press is here.”
“What?” Hank’s tone was a frightening meld of panic and anger. “You said this would be an easy job, Beef.”
“That musta been the bastard I already took out.”
“There better not be any goddamned press.”
There was a rustle in the brush, then: “Put your gun down.”
Max jerked his attention to the right, heart barely daring to beat. Timber was back. He was almost invisible in the darkness, but his voice was steady.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I found your gun,” Timber said.
“What the hell . . . ,” Hank hissed.
“Shut your mouth,” warned Beef.
Max glanced from one to the other, breath held, mind tumbling.
“Put down your weapon or I’ll shoot you where you stand,” Timber said.
“Okay. Okay,” Hank said, but suddenly he jerked his hand up. Fire spat from his fingertips.
Timber staggered and fell, his face momentarily lit from a flash of lightning. Max scrambled to his feet, but he was yanked back down and slammed onto his stomach.
“We wasn’t supposed to kill anyone!” rasped the man on Max’s back.
“Just get the damned jar.”
Max’s captor was breathing like a Labrador, breath hot and hard against his neck.
“Hand it over or you’ll be as dead as he is,” Hank said.
“Please,” Max pleaded, and raised his hands as best he could. Inside the jar, the fairy stood, arms stretched wide, violet eyes catching his.
The world slowed to a grind.
Courage. Courage now or never, Max thought, and, reaching over, twisted off the lid.
“Godspeed,” he whispered.
There was a buzz of wings and a flash of light, and suddenly she whisked out of the jar, glowing like a candle in the air.
“Get it!” Beef ordered, and jolting off Max’s back, made a swipe at her.
She zipped to the right.
Hank lunged toward her, pawing with a ham-sized palm.
“Go!” Max yelled, but she hummed in the air, glowing, hovering, just out of reach.
The thugs lurched toward her. She dipped and swirled, and suddenly they were chasing her, scrambling through the tangled foliage, the noise of their retreat diminishing steadily.
Max cradled his ribs, rose to his knees.
Behind him, there came a rusty rasp. He turned, remembering Timber. Scrambling to his feet, he staggered over and dropped back down.
Even in the darkness, he could see the dark stain seeping into the other’s shirt. But his eyes were open, his teeth clenched.
“Shit, man. . . .” Max’s hands were shaking. “Are you—”
“Is she safe?” Timber gritted.
“You’ve been shot. I gotta get you to—”
But the other reached up, grasped his collar, pulled him close. “Avalina!” His voice was raspy. “Is she safe?”
“I hope so, but I don’t know. She—”
“Then go find her.” Timber pushed at Max’s chest. The movement was weak.
“Listen, I think you’re hurt pretty bad. I—”
But suddenly a light winked in the air nearby. Max gasped. Timber dragged his gaze sideways. There was the hum of tiny wings, a faint popping, and like a scene from a third-rate fantasy, a woman appeared, squatting beside them, golden-haired, naked, so beautiful it hurt his soul.
“Ava,” Timber rasped.
“Elder.” She touched his face. She glowed gently, lighting the area with a golden flush. “You are wounded?”
“No.” He gritted his teeth. “I’m fine. You have to get out of here. Go back to . . .” He paused, battling for breath. “Go back to where you came from.”
She was silent for a second, then spoke again, voice like a song in the quiet meadow. “I find now that I have no wish to leave you.”
“Go.” His tone was grating, desperate. “Before they come back.”
“They are busy with fireflies,” she said.
“Fireflies . . .” His voice was weakening.
“By the swamp. Near the illbane,” Max rasped.
“Pinquil Fern,” she corrected, but didn’t glance up.
“You found it,” Timber murmured, and, chuckling, raised his hand to her face.
“It is precious,” she said, and lifted her right hand. A small, humble sprig was clasped between her magical fingers. “The healer of faeries.”
“Clever girl,” he said. “Clever pixie.”
“I am Fern Fey,” she said, and one corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile.
“I would stay with you,” she said, and for a moment his eyes lit with an illuminating hope. But a spasm shook him.
“No. I’m marrying Emily. You know that. Go! Before it’s too late. Before—,” he began, but his words staggered to a halt. His hand fell from her face.
“Elder. Elder! What is amiss?”
Max inched closer. “He’s been shot.”
“Shot?” She turned toward Max and for a moment he was speechless, struck dumb by the enormity of her presence.
Timber’s breath rattled in his throat.
“I think he’s dying,” Max rasped. “I think—,” he began, but just then a shot sounded, pinging into the dirt two yards from where they huddled in the grass.
Max jerked around. Shadows raced toward them.
“Emerald,” he gasped, “you gotta go.”
“Please,” Timber moaned, voice feverish, hands rustling in effectively. “Please go.”
“Our time,” she said, voice soft in the darkness. “It was special.”
The ghost of a smile lifted the dying man’s lips. “The best of my life. I would give anything . . .” He paused to breathe. “Everything to be with you.”
Another shot ricocheted off a nearby tree.
Max covered his head, but the girl only leaned down, staring into her lover’s eyes. Their gazes met and locked.
“Rantinn,” she murmured. “The mate of my soul.”
“Yes,” he said.
She smiled, and then, reaching out slowly, she cupped his face with her hands and closed her eyes.
There was a moment of utter stillness, as if the world held its breath, and then, like a wayward whisper of thought, they were gone.
Max dropped back onto his rump, stunned, gasping. A moment later two lights flickered in the sky.
Hank and Beef stumbled to a halt beside him, wheezing, winded.
“Where the hell did they go?”
Max could only shake his head.
They turned on him, shoulders bunched.
“Tell me where—”
But suddenly a beam of light bobbled over the glen. Voices shouted from the distance.
The thugs cursed in unison, delayed one uncertain second, then fled, plowing through the lousewort.
Max watched them go. Listened to the shouts of the pursuing police. Watched the flashlight beams dance and twist toward him and away.
“You okay?” David Jackson’s voice was breathy as he rose from his hiding spot behind a fallen conifer.
Max turned toward him in a daze. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough,” said the other, and, raising his camera, snapped off a shot.
The flash lit the meadow, and Max gaped. “I thought that was lightning.”
“Lucky for me, so did they,” said Jackson, and while Max laughed, two tiny lights blinked and disappeared.
Epilogue
It was a strange ceremony. The bride was barefoot and laughing. The best man was a six-year-old who couldn’t stop grinning, and the ring bearer was a scraggly bunny with a tattered ear and a collar of daisies that it would nibble at indiscriminately.
Evening stole gently over Sunshadow Glen. A white-breasted horned lark sang as it soared overhead. Hopeful chorus frogs chirped for their mates.
It had been more than a yea
r since the faerie photographs had been published in the Seattle Times. Shortly thereafter the story had exploded across a startled planet. For the first few months, the world was abuzz with the news. Police had been called in to quarantine the glen, but folks still snuck in to comb the woods for faeries. Finally, though, it was the damp Pacific cold that drove them back, that made them lethargic, that caused them to return to the comfort of their homes.
But not everyone forgot. Not the publisher from Intelligence Press who offered a sizable fortune for the story. Enough of a fortune, in fact, to allow Max to buy Sun-shadow Glen from Meier, who needed cash for litigation. Jackson’s photographs had not been stellar, but they were good enough to identify Hank and Beef. Good enough to get them indicted. Good enough to make them turn with mind-boggling speed on their boss.
“We did it,” Max said, and smiled into Lucy’s laughing eyes. Tiny wooly daisies circled her head, looking like a delicate halo against her dark, short-cropped hair.
“You did it,” she corrected.
Fireflies blinked to life, echoing their joy, and in the branches of a red cedar far above, Elder kissed Avalina with a passion that would never dim.
Dust Me, Baby,
One More Time
BY MICHELE HAUF
Chapter
1
Reverie, MR (Mortal Realm)
Sidney Tooth snuggled her head between the Spider-Man flannel sheet and the heavy weight of a goosedown pillow. Wriggling, she squirmed her body into the tight squeeze until only her ankles felt the humid breeze of a summertime snore.
Shuffling about with her hands, she mined for the prize—a lateral incisor. A tooth. And, pray, a brushed one, at that.
This was the last stop for the night. She couldn’t wait to get home and watch TiVo’d Sex and the City. Sidney wasn’t into fashion or girlfriend chats. But the sex? She didn’t have a lot of options here in the Mortal Realm, so for now, Mr. Big was it. Too bad he belonged to Carrie.
Who did a faery have to do to get her own sheet-twisting orgasm?
Faeries Gone Wild Page 13