Night of the Fae (Ana Martin series)

by Lyneal Jenkins

  He sighed and emitted a low snore that caused warmth to spread through my chest. The thought of not having him in my life formed a lump in the back of my throat and I frowned while biting my lip, trying to ignore the small thread of dismay that wormed its way through my stomach. I was far too committed already and I suspected it would only get more intense as time went on.

  His lashes flickered several times, before his bright blue eyes met my gaze and he smiled. He reached up and gently tucked a long strand of black treacle hair behind my ear, before stroking his fingertips across my cheek.

  ‘I didn’t expect this,’ he murmured. ‘I thought that when you had had time to digest everything, you may have gone running in the other direction from me.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure what direction you had gone to run from.’

  He gave me a sour look and I smiled my sweetest smile. I’d never said I was any good at being funny.

  He sat himself up, revealing his bare chest, filled with muscles that quivered as he moved. ‘You must have questions.’

  My mouth opened and closed several times before I could find a response. ‘Not for the minute, my brain is already at capacity. How about we schedule a Q and A for next month?’

  He laughed loudly. ‘I will pencil it in. Is there anything you wish to ask about us?’

  ‘What? Your people?’

  ‘I was thinking more about our relationship.’

  There was so much, but now that I knew he wasn’t a lizard in disguise, most of it boiled down to why he wanted to be with me. As that would come across too needy, I shook my head to indicate no. Any further discussion was halted by the alarm going off, filling the room with low music.

  ‘I believe that is the sign to get up,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s not.’ I snuggled against his chest, not willing for the day to start. My head fit perfectly in the crook of his shoulder and I relished the sound of his heart beating.

  He laughed lightly and lifted my chin so as to brush my lips with his. ‘I wish we could, however, I have work, and you have University.’

  ‘Fine,’ I pouted. ‘Though I have no idea how I will concentrate.’

  I rolled onto my side and stretched, trying to infuse some life into my muscles. Gabriel stroked along the four inch scar on my back, which after two years, was still an ugly red and occasionally itched.

  ‘How did you get this?’ he asked.

  I stiffened, unable to prevent the flash of memory that forced its way from the depths of my mind. Bradley Carmichael, thirty five year old accountant, born and bred in Durham. He married his wife at eighteen and by all accounts was a good husband and father. Even after two years, the image still haunted me. His eyes wide with surprise as he collapsed down onto the floor, blood gushing from the hole in his chest.

  He had left his house that morning as he had every other day, maybe after kissing his wife and wishing his two sons a good day at school. He probably began the short walk to the bus stop enjoying the early summer heat, relishing the sun on his face and the sound of the birds. Maybe he had already been thinking about returning to his family at the end of the day, or maybe he enjoyed his job and was happily preparing for the day ahead. So many times I have wondered about the last thoughts of a man I had smiled at once in the street. The same man who came running when he heard my scream.

  ‘Ana?’ Gabriel’s voice startled me and I quickly lifted my dressing gown off the back of the door to try and hide my reaction.

  ‘Just another one of my clumsy moments,’ I said with forced passiveness as I tied the cord. I bent down to brush his lips. ‘Now, how about some bacon?’

  Chapter 3

  It was the beginning of spring and the daffodils were only just pushing their way through the ground, yet the sun was scorching without a single cloud to soften the heat. The tarmac shimmered, making the road appear as if it was a moving like the gentle waves of the sea, and the bees buzzed lazily up and down, as if the sun was a weight forcing them to the ground. The car would most likely be stifling and I dreaded the thought of touching the steering wheel, anticipating how the plastic would burn the palms of my hands.

  There was still a couple of hours until I needed to meet Lexi for our weekly cup of tea, something we always made the time for as the quiet intervals at work were rarely enough to catch up on our weekly gossip.

  After looking in the fridge, which contained little more than a few jars, I concluded that I needed to go shopping first. It was unusual to see my fridge so low, but in the couple of weeks since Gabriel had declared his love, my head had been unable to focus on little more than him. It didn’t take long to compose a list of everything needed before setting off into town, making sure to pack a cool box for the perishables.

  The supermarket was empty, leaving me half an hour to kill before Lexi finished work. I dumped the shopping into the boot of the car and decided I would rather spend that time in the large park, which had a small playground and lots of open space, instead of waiting in the place I already gave sixteen hours a week to.

  Observing people being one of my favourite past times, I watched as three distant figures gradually progressed along the path, heading in my direction. The man walking in the centre was unremarkable in looks. With a bland face and suit, he appeared as the usual office types that strolled through the park regularly, though he stomped instead of walked, and shouted incoherently into a mobile phone pressed to his ear.

  It was the two figures around him that caught my attention. They gracefully surrounded him, crouched low to the ground with their arms raised up towards his face. Their movement’s fluid, like a well-rehearsed dance, they frequently leaned towards him, their bodies rising as if inhaling his scent before returning to their elegant circling.

  The man appeared oblivious to their presence.

  As they drew closer my back stiffened. I could only hear a scatter of the words barked by the suited man, but his posture was all wrong. He stopped and shouted even louder into the phone as he clenched his fist, never once looking at the two figures gyrating around him, before continuing on his way.

  They were small in stature, only a few inches taller than my eight year old niece, and wearing similar clothes to the full body leotards I had worn to dance class as a child. Although the difference was barely discernible, I could tell the closer of the two was female and to my amazement a dark purple haze was coming out of their backs, as if they were pulling wisps of a laden thunder cloud behind them.

  Without warning the female moved towards me with a flair and speed that was startling, her childlike face stopping only inches from mine. As she studied me, her breath sickly sweet upon my skin, my eyes flickered around in hope of finding a friendly face, knowing I was in trouble as malice oozed from her quivering muscles.

  The angry man had passed without a glance in my direction, and there was no one else in sight except for the partner of this frightening entity, who stood a few meters away, lazily taking in the surrounding area with drooping eyes and relaxed shoulders, as if he was bored.

  The power of her stare compelled me to look back into her eyes. The look of a demon full of hate and violence, set within the face of a child.

  Her voice raspy and filled with venom she spoke, ‘Who are you?’ My throat swelled and all moisture left my mouth, making it impossible to do anything but stare at her. ‘How can you see us?’

  Even if I ignored the sense of malice coming from her, I couldn’t ignore the teeth. Every single one of them were sharpened into points. They glistened with saliva, which dripped off the ends, and her tongue, although human in appearance, darted out across her lips as quick as a serpent readily anticipating its next meal.

  She inhaled deeply taking in my scent and abruptly moved back a step. ‘Siis?’ She dragged the word out so it sounded like ‘see-ass’, hissing like a snake when threatened. She turned to her companion with excitement. ‘She smells as a Siis.’ She bent forward and her nose wrinkled as she took in another breath. ‘But not quite,�
� she said, her face creased with confusion.

  The male pranced elegantly towards me with anticipation. ‘Let me see.’ His voice although still harsh, had a more song like flow to it. My back creaked as I cringed as far back into the bench as possible. With my heart racing so fast my head span, I could only stay motionless in the hope that they would realise I wasn’t a Siis, whatever that was.

  The male gripped my face, pushing it up in order to breath in the odour of my neck. ‘She is human,’ he disagreed.

  I silently thanked God, and dared to hope that they would let me go, as surely they wouldn’t harm me in a public place in broad daylight. I allowed myself to breath, though had to concentrate to force the air in and out of my lungs.

  Although consisting of much heavier tones, I could detect the similarities between Gabriel’s mist and theirs. Was he a Siis?

  The male stepped back, the bored look returning to his face. ‘We will miss the finale if we don’t leave soon.’

  Hope started to blossom, but the female didn’t move.

  ‘How do you smell of the Siis?’ She drew closer again, her clogging breath causing my stomach to roll.

  ‘I don’t know what a Siis is,’ I whispered shakily. She continued to glower at me, and as the seconds passed I could feel myself wanting to tell her everything I knew, if only she would stop looking at me in that way. I managed to bite back the compulsion. ‘Please…I just want to go home.’

  ‘Come on,’ the male interrupted the wordless interrogation. ‘We must go.’

  With one last look of intense curiosity, she flounced off, leaving me to breathe jaggedly as shivers racked through my body.

  As I regained control of myself, I became aware of the scene around me. There were children playing and people walking their dogs in the distance, though it was as if I was viewing it from another world. Even though the sun still beat down on me, there was iciness within my core. When I looked at my watch, I was astounded to realise only fifteen minutes had passed since I had first sat down. Although it had felt as if I had been trapped under her malevolent gaze for hours, it had only realistically been a few minutes at most.

  After pushing the feeling of quiet dread to the back of my mind, I set off to meet Lexi, spending the time preparing a happy relaxed expression so as not to alarm her.

  When I arrived at work, I found her in the cloakroom retrieving her bag. I plastered a smile onto my face, the task being much more difficult than I would have liked.

  ‘Are you ready to go?’ I asked as brightly as I could muster.

  ‘I was just about to call you.’ Lexi shifted from foot to foot and somehow managed to give me a wide eyed frown, which made her nose crease up. ‘Would you mind terribly if we postponed until tomorrow…that’s if you’re free then?’

  Her face was open and her eyes innocent with no hint of guardedness, provoking the usual urge to protect her. I had no idea what I would have done if she had been with me in the park and thanked God that I hadn’t had to find out.

  Upon the right breast of her yellow tunic, she supported a colourful fairy pin, something that continually irked our boss Carl and caused many a disagreement, though she refused to back down and remove it. There had been many times that she had talked of a secret world of fairies and unicorns, and with her flaming red hair and a pixie like face, she had the looks of one who escaped from a land that held such creatures. If only she knew that there was a hidden world, just not how she imagined it.

  It was hard to contain my sigh of relief. ‘Is everything alright?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, it’s just mum’s in town for one night before heading off to Hawaii for two weeks.’

  ‘It’s alright for some. Wish I was going.’

  Lexi laughed. ‘You and me both. She only just got back from the Maldives and she is planning to go to New York in a couple of months. I can’t keep track of her since the divorce. That’s why I want to catch her while I can.’

  ‘Tomorrow is fine,’ I reassured her. ‘I have stuff I could be doing anyway.’

  I lasted until I was back in the car before I started to shake. I rubbed my hands down my face and touched my forehead to the steering wheel.

  ‘Are you freakin’ kidding me?’

  Shudders wracked through my body as I remembered the touch of the male’s fingers on my neck, cool and strong, as if they were the fingers of a grown man instead of a child. Then there were the eyes of the female, which had drilled into my brain, filled with a gleaming desire to harm. Even now, the memory of them caused everything else to fade into the background as if only they existed, drawing me into the depth of their malevolence.

  After a while my breathing and mind cleared. I started the car and headed towards the exit, knocking the indicator to turn left. I paused at the junction.

  What had happened to my life? It was too much of a coincidence that I should meet two impossible beings in such a short space of time.

  After a couple of minutes of sitting with the engine running, I turned right. As much as I wanted to be home in the same confines of my house, I needed answers first. Gabriel didn’t own a mobile and it wasn’t a conversation I could have over his work phone.

  When I arrived at the construction site, I sat gripping the steering wheel for a moment. I spent a few minutes peering through the dust filled air at the men as they built walls and joked loudly with each other over the intrusive vibration of the tools. I took a deep breath to steady the left over tremors and got out.

  ‘Hey there,’ one of the men shouted, turning off his drill. ‘What have we got here?’

  I dipped my head and tried to continue passed them.

  ‘Hold up love,’ another man said. He repositioned his hard hat and pulled on his baggy jeans, thankfully covering the top of his backside, but leaving his extensive stomach bulging over the top. ‘Are you goin’ to get your tits out for us?’

  ‘I think she is,’ the first man said. He took off the yellow hard hat, revealing a red rim across his forehead and slicked back his greasy hair. ‘Come on now,’ he shouted. ‘What about a kiss instead?’

  I gave them a scathing look and continued towards the portable cabin at the other side of the site. It seemed that if you put a couple of men together and added a woman, they lost all sense of humanity, reverting instead to wild dogs drooling over the scent of a potential mate.

  I had to knock twice before someone called for me to enter. After blinking several times to adjust to the shadows, I took in the stocky man before me, whom I was sure was Gabriel’s boss.

  ‘You’re Ana aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Gabriel’s misses?’

  ‘Would it be possible to see him?’ I asked, shifting uncomfortably under his direct gaze.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘It’s comin’ up to break anyways.’

  I gave him my thanks as he came around the desk.

  ‘You ‘ad better stay in here,’ he said. ‘Can’t ‘av you wandering ‘round the site.’ He indicated to one of the chairs facing his desk. ‘Park ya self there.’

  Before he had a chance to leave, Gabriel entered, frowning at me with concern. They talked amongst themselves for a few seconds, before his boss left us alone.

  ‘Are you a Siis?’ I blurted as soon as the door closed.

  Gabriel stopped with his arms out, ready to take me in his embrace. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  As I told him about the incident in the park, his face became still and then ashen as I explained the interest the female had in me. His stared at me intently, before scanning the cabin, pausing to scrutinise the door and windows. My heart skipped a beat in response to his reaction. I had been terrified, but I hadn’t expected him to feel anywhere near the same. What were these creatures that could scare even him?

  ‘Fae,’ he replied when I asked.

  ‘Fae?’ I snorted. ‘Doesn’t that mean fairy?’

  ‘That is the more modern translation.’ His face tight, he clenched his fists and scanned the area once more.

  ‘But
I thought fairies were nice.’ My muscles tensed, until they were wound up into tight balls.

  ‘No.’ He laughed humourlessly, only adding to the chill in the air. ‘They are truly disturbed creatures who feed off the aggressive and hate filled emotions of others.’

  The door opened and three laughing men fell in. As soon as they saw me, they nodded their heads in greeting and quickly retrieved their bags off a shelf near the door. Once we were alone again, I turned back to Gabriel.

  ‘Why did she call me a Siis? Is that what you are?’ I asked, trying to unclench my fists.

  ‘Yes.’ The tension oozed out of him. It affected every cell in my body, causing me to stand and look around for something to defend myself.

  I couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘Why are you so frightened?’ The trembling tone of my own voice dismayed me, as did the violent shaking that racked through my body.

  ‘How did you get away?’

  He stared intently at me, waiting for my reply. I told him about how the male had talked about the ‘grand finale’. Once I finished his body relaxed, though his eyes remained tight.

  ‘You were lucky,’ he stated with obvious relief.

  ‘What does that mean? What is the grand finale?’ My muscles began to relax as the tension drained out of me, causing me to wonder if the fear had ever been mine, or if I had been imitating his reaction.

  ‘The Fae are hunters, not of meat, but of the heavy energy produced by negative emotions,’ he said. ‘They have the ability to affect people’s emotions as I do, but choose to use it for different purposes. If they find someone who is angry or depressed, they encourage it, pushing them to commit an act such as murder or suicide.’

  I hugged myself at the thought of the man shouting into his phone. Would I see him in the paper having killed his boss, wife or maybe even his children? I leant back against the flimsy wall. What if there had been something I could have done to stop it? I could already see the nameless faces of his children being murdered, while the Fae stood by cruelly laughing.