by Leigh Evans
The door opens. One of them walks in. Young. Strong. Enemy. His footsteps are confident.
Stupid.
He uses his boot to roll her over onto her back. Stuart Scawens stares down at us. His mouth opens to say something. I can’t read his lips, but it doesn’t matter, because he suddenly stops mid-breath. His eyes widen and he takes two stumbling steps for the door.
Too late. The crudely shaped spike catches him mid-chest.
An expression of horrible surprise flickers across his face. Stuart bends his head to gape at the silver sticking out from his breast, and then he wilts, sinking to the floor. Lou clenches her fingers, and turns her fist sharply to the right. Stuart’s face contorts as the spike rotates deep into his body. She smacks her fist down on her open palm. His legs jerk when she splays her fingers wide. The silver spike melts into his body. Pure agony twists his features. His eyes roll as he convulses on the floor.
Lou walks past his body to the door. Up the basement stairs, straight through to the kitchen. Pauses to lift the keys off the brass key rack that had four running wolves over four hooks. She pulls open the door and takes a moment to scan the backyard. Fir-dotted hills are in the background. The yard is outlined with a line of straggling pines. She gets in the truck, and turns the key. Then, my sick old aunt, who loathes driving, puts it in gear. Her hands are rigid on the steering wheel as the car begins to move.
“Where are you going, Lou?” I ask her. “Show me.”
The dream speeds up. I see a sign on the corner. Airport Road. The back of a truck. Signs overhead passing. Barrie. Highway 400 South. Cars speeding past hers. Highway 401. Then she’s in Toronto, driving down city streets. The pedestrians change from business people to students. She makes a left and a right, turns onto a short street, filled with Victorian houses mixed with small towers. Her gaze is constantly moving. Street. Pedestrians. Left. Right. Then she sees the sign: PUBLIC PARKING. We pass another sign, ROTMAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, before she noses the car down into the underground lot. She stops on level three, pulling the car into a slot in the middle of the empty parking level. Her hands are shaking as she turns off the ignition.
“Come,” I hear her say, loud in my brain. “I am waiting.”
* * *
“I know you’re awake,” he said. “I can hear the gears in your brain turning.”
“Go away, Trowbridge. I’m sleepy.” She’s waiting. “Come and get me,” she said.
“Get up, Tinker Bell, we’ve got to get going.”
“Where?”
“West, Tink.”
But Lou was northward. She’d run the same dream sequence in my head for the two hours I’d slept, until it felt like a new scar. I knew where to find her. She knows I can dream-walk or, at the very least, she knows that she can speak to me in her dreams. Can she use it against me? Keep me captive to her needs?
I’d never escape her. She waited for me on the outskirts of every dream, hovering over me in the daylight hours, ready to slip her dreams into my mind the second I had an unguarded moment, or an instant of unfocused thought. A fear had grown inside me that even death wouldn’t be able to stop her. An echo of her soul would stay in this realm to haunt me, until there was no peace in sleep, and no comfort found with daylight.
I’ll go mad if she doesn’t drag me back to Threall first.
If I abandoned her and stayed with Trowbridge, what would happen? Would his attraction fade as my own brain started to soften under the weight of Lou’s madness? Just how much of an aphrodisiac is it to watch your girlfriend babble about dreams? Could I ever tell him about the dangers of Threall? And even if Lou died, and left me free, there was the other problem. Could I hang on for that day he says, “You know what? I’ve changed my mind. I’m real keen on Faes. And by the way, I love you.”
I don’t have that type of stamina.
I rolled over stiffly. Fifteen minutes ago, Trowbridge had moved from sitting and staring at me from across the room, to standing over the bed and staring down at me. I had a leg cramp from not moving.
“Don’t you ever sleep?”
“Not until I’m sure that Merry’s not going to feed off you again. We’re going to have to come up with another plan because I can’t share a bed with her.” He sat on the edge of the mattress, cradling a glass between his hands, staring at her hanging from my neck. “Want some apple juice?” He frowned and touched my chin with the back of his knuckles. “Your skin’s all irritated.”
I put a smile on my face. “You’re going to have to choose, Trowbridge.”
He took a sip of his juice, his hooded eyes intent on mine. I felt the chill of it, and changed my question. “Me or the beard.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Cordelia’s coming,” he said. A few moments later, I heard the sound of heels along the outside corridor. A key turned in the lock. Cordelia went straight into the kitchen and dumped the bag of food in there before coming into the living room. I pulled the sheet up higher. She tossed two bags onto the end of the bed, and then turned to open the windows to the cold spring air. She stood stoic and proud, beholding the graveyard of her plants for a moment.
I felt a flush of deep shame. “I’m sorry.”
Her spine stiffened.
“I’ll go out today and get you new ones,” Trowbridge said.
She spared him a thin-lipped smile before she turned for the privacy of her bedroom and her record collection. Chet Baker started singing about his Funny Valentine again.
Trowbridge opened one bag, and said, “Oh shit.” He pulled out a pair of fitted black pants and a silver-gray dress shirt. A pair of black loafers were at the bottom of the bag. Then came a nice pair of sexy black briefs. A white T-shirt. A black belt with a silver buckle. There was even a leather tie for his hair.
“Hello, GQ,” he muttered under his breath, examining the tag inside the pants. He dumped the stuff back into the bag, and stood. “Don’t worry about the plants. I’ll get her a whole bunch of new ones, plus a tree. Okay, I’m for the shower.”
“You like the water too cold. I’ll join you in a couple of minutes.” He studied me for a moment, and then leaned over to kiss me. When our lips parted, he spoke, his breath moving into my mouth. “Don’t wait too long.”
I picked up my bag. It was lighter. A pair of cheap black leggings, some pink flats that were stamped “genuine imitation leather,” and a size twelve plaid shirt with a $4.99 price ticket hanging from its sleeve. No underwear.
“Trowbridge?” He was already halfway down the hall. He turned, his hair sliding over his shoulder. That was the picture I’d carry in my heart: his brows raised, his shoulder bare, the sun from the east window painting a rectangle of light on his naked foot—not the brooding, slightly soiled man at the strip club. No, it would be this image I’d remember. Standing tall. Pure. Beautiful to my eyes. “Finding a bar is not your gift, okay? It’s your curse.”
He frowned at me before turning away. One hand was pulling his hair back off his face as he walked down the corridor. He had beautiful arms and a fluid walk that spoke of grace and power. “Hey, Cordelia,” he called, as he passed her door. “You got any fresh razors?”
“Left-hand drawer. There’s an electric shaver in the one beneath it.”
I put my stuff into the backpack. The shoes were ruined, and Barry Manilow could stay, but the pants and underwear would dry.
Cordelia walked back into the living room as I finished pulling up the leggings. Her gaze flickered over my breasts and Merry while I did up the plaid shirt and rolled the sleeves so my hands were free. She handed me an elastic band for my hair, and watched with cold, old eyes as I wrapped it around the end of my braid. I picked up my glasses and put them on.
I could hear the sound of the shower running over the brr of the electric razor.
I am what I am. It is what it is.
I slipped on the pink flats. They fit perfectly. I tilted my head toward her in inquiry. She smiled. That smirk changed to a frown when I walked to the hall
closet and pulled out her leather jacket.
I will not be torn.
I slipped the jacket on and then stood staring at the door handle.
Four out of five people I love are Fae. Lexi, Lou, Merry, and me.
He’d probably hear the door close and then all my noble decisions would be for nothing. I could say I tried, that I opened the door and he stopped me. Not my fault. Would that be enough? Could I live with the lie that I knew what the right thing was, and was going to do it, but he stopped me? Would that satisfy Karma? Or would that vengeful Goddess know, and somehow up ahead I’d find myself revisiting the moment I’d stood by this door, knowing that he could save me from a hard decision.
I heard Cordelia shift, followed by the hollow tap of her acrylic nails on a button. She pressed down, and the blender churned into life with a high shriek.
Taking the cue, I opened the door. Closed it softly. Waited for the elevator. I rubbed my arm, checking to see if my Were-bitch’s anxious struggles were making my skin ripple too.
My forearm was smooth and pale. Hairless like all Faes’.
The doors opened, and I got on.
* * *
The stone steps were cold on my ass. I’d never given enough credit to the thermal qualities of nylon underwear before. Without it, the cold leached right through my skin to my bone. I waited for a bald-headed dog walker to pass. His bichon kept snapping her head back to check on me as she pranced after him. He turned around and glanced at me, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Just another student.
The hidden courtyard seemed to have periods of flow, like traffic lights. Quiet and then the doors would open and a stream of students would flood past us.
The sun was heating up the patch of grass in the middle of the square, casting shadows of green and dark where the ground was uneven. As courtyards go, it was pretty large. Twenty-seven tall trees, a lot of stonework, and a few shrubs. Peaceful. Secluded and hidden in the center of two joined buildings. The gray stone blocks some poor bastards had hewn a couple of hundred years ago had weathered nicely. The arches and columns had absorbed grace and stood strong, indifferent to the passage of time. The whole damn building was pretty in a fanciful, arrogant way with its carvings and curlicue embellishments. Someone should slap a knight’s standard on the top of its fairy-tale turret and be done with it.
It was the best I could come up with because I had something to do before retrieving Lou.
I thought about asking a student for the name of the building, but they were in a hurry, hats pulled low, heading past the courtyard without even a glance at the trees. They were my age, a thousand years better read and yet, somehow, a thousand years younger. They’d graduate with a diploma from the University of Toronto, and anyone who scrutinized it would know just how bright and learned they were.
What did they learn here? The trees were moving to the wind’s whim. With no fluttering foliage to hide what’s happening underneath, you could see how the early spring breeze flailed the thinnest branches. No pity there. Bend to the wind or break. I’d never make it a day in the classroom. I’d be looking outside the window, watching the trees, thinking the wind was cruel.
“I’m sorry but I really think your amulet friend is dead,” I told Merry quietly. I could feel her listening. She made a movement of denial, the points of her ivy leaves scratching Cordelia’s jacket. I’d placed her on the outside of it, turned toward the square, so that she could see what I saw. “I know you want him to be alive, but that’s a dream, isn’t it? He feels dead. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t change color or temperature. He doesn’t throw sparks up the chain. Can you prove differently? Because now’s the time.” We sat there, watching the bobbing backpacks pass by. The heavy oak door closed behind the slowest-moving student, and then we were alone with the squirrels and trees.
“Dreams won’t keep us alive.”
The stolen bolt cutters that I’d palmed in the hardware store were tucked into the waistband of my leggings, but they were heavy, even if they were only slightly larger than my pockets. I had to keep a hand pressed to them so that they didn’t fall.
“Your friend was in the hands of a Were for too long.” Her stone turned an ugly red. “I know you hate Trowbridge for that, but he didn’t know any better.” My throat was tight. I had to work my jaw to loosen it, before I continued. “He’s not a Fae. He didn’t know how to care for your friend. We won’t be seeing Trowbridge again. So you can let your resentments go. It would be better for both of us if we let the past go.
“I’m going to get Lou now. She’s waiting for us, just up the street.”
The wind was whipping the trees again, churning through the branches, impossible to please.
“She can’t know about your amulet friend. Ever. She’ll start believing she can open the gates again, and we’ll be back going from portal to portal, watching her sing herself hoarse as she tries to summon one. If there’s any shred of life left to your amulet, she’ll drain him dry. You don’t want that for him, do you?
“This is a nice place. It’s got a lot of trees, with deep roots. They take real good care of it. It will be pretty here in the summer with the ivy. We can bury him under that big oak. If I’m wrong, and he has some life deep down inside, then he can feed off the roots of these old trees and get stronger. Maybe we can come back and check in a couple of years. If he’s healed, I promise I’ll find a way to get him back to his own kind.”
I blinked, seeing the future. “If I can, I promise that one day I’ll try to get you back too. But right now, that’s all we can do—take a chance, and hope for the best.
“Give him up, Merry. If I let you keep hanging on to him, you’ll die too. There’s no honor in two deaths, just because you think that fantasies can come to life. They never do. In real life, there’s always someone following the Prince’s white horse with a bucket and a shovel.
“Besides. It just won’t do. If I let you keep hanging on to his body, you’ll keep on pumping your essence into him until you fade like Lou.”
I fingered her chain.
“I’ve been falling asleep on and off since you grabbed him. I don’t like sleeping because I’m afraid of the dreams. You know that. But here I am, falling asleep in the middle of stuff that should be turning my hair white. And I’m thinner. Mum’s belt is hanging on hip bones I didn’t even know I had.” I watched a black squirrel lying on a swaying bough, his tail twitching and whiskers bristling as he watched us. “You’ve been feeding off me for him. I don’t know what to say about that, except this: don’t ever do it again. I don’t want to look at you one day and hate you. I don’t want to have to leave you in a forest and walk away.”
I pulled out the cutters. “Here’s the deal. I’m going to make it easier for you. I’ll cut him away from you, and then you won’t have to worry that you didn’t do your best.” Her chain started to heat. “You can burn me, and I’ll heal, and I’ll try again. You can throw as many thunderbolts as you’ve got left, and I’ll wake up and try again. You can try to protect him, but you’re not big enough. There’s always some part of him left exposed.”
A student in a peacoat, her phone jammed to her ear, shouldered through the exit of the building behind us. I waited for her to cross the courtyard and reach the heavy, double wooden doors that led to the student lounge. A burst of noise, and then silence. “You have no choices, Merry.”
I let the pincers open wide. I’d have to start with the little parts of him first. The collar on Cordelia’s soft leather jacket started to smoke.
“It won’t hurt for long, Merry. I promise.”
Chapter Seventeen
My spoon snapped in half. I turned it around and started using the sharp end to gouge furrows into the hard-packed soil. The gravesite I’d chosen was under the canopy of an old tree, just on the edges of it, where the afternoon sun would have a chance to warm the soil. The tree of choice wasn’t the biggest one, nor the fullest, but it was the one that smelled the least of
dog pee. It had a white scar on its trunk that made it appear diseased, but when I put my hand to it, and felt for its essence, it felt strong. Scarred but healthy. It seemed a good choice.
I stopped, mid-rake, as sensation rolled over me.
Trowbridge was coming.
The prickle of awareness grew into a pull, as if he were north and I were the needle. My Were lifted her head from her paws and sat up. We could hear him, outside on the street, the distinctive click of his heels along the sidewalk, getting louder and faster as if he’d felt the pull too. I shouldn’t be able to hear him. Not through the stone walls, the classrooms, and the long oak-wainscoted halls. Certainly shouldn’t be able to distinguish his footsteps from all those treading feet. But I could. To my ears—Fae pointed and usually human deaf—his were the aha! of footsteps.
Look what happens when you accept your inner Were.
He paused at the exterior stone steps, and then ran up them lightly, as lightly as all those long-legged lean Weres do. I heard him manhandle the door, and then the first shock wave of his rage came rolling down the corridors and through the walls, past the oblivious students, to nudge and bite at me.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
I listened as he walked past other people down the marble corridors—their footsteps were just noise to me, forgettable—listened, air caught in my lungs, as he kept coming in a straight unhesitating line, closer and closer, until my heart, my blood, and my skin knew he was on the other side of those heavy glass doors.
Oh Goddess, I can feel him.
My Were was happy. Relieved. All would be well.
Stupid bitch.
Trowbridge pushed open the door. I watched him stalk toward me, the dark outline of him glowing against the contrast of the dark passageway. His halo wasn’t as bright, but I could still see it—a thin edge of golden, white light softening his outline. Someday another woman, a Were-born appropriate one, would see that and think it cause to claim him. I tested the thought and discovered I was almost numb.