The Trouble with Fate

by Leigh Evans

  “My father made this collar,” said Mannus. “He told my brother and me if we ever saw a Fae, we were to trap it and collar it. I should have put it on you the moment we had you in the chair. How does it feel?”

  I took in a careful, shallow breath.

  “When I talk to you,” said my torturer. “I expect an answer, even if it’s just a nod.”

  I opened my eyes and found Mannus’s face was inches from mine.

  “Do you know what the worst type of Alpha is?” he said. “A nice man. I am not a nice man. I can’t afford to be.”

  “She’s a Fae!” Trowbridge’s voice was rough, almost shaky with desperation. “No one will believe her. You don’t have to kill her.”

  Mannus’s full lips hardened. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? The walls have ears. Even if I ordered Biggs to be silent, I can’t be sure that someone else didn’t hear her. They’re always listening, waiting, and judging. Besides, it will make what happens next easier for them to understand. Once they know that I’ve already been to Merenwyn once, and nothing happened the last time I broke the Treaty—”

  “They came over and executed my mother,” I shouted. “Because of what Lou did. What you both did. You’re both traitors to your kind.”

  Mannus straightened and wiped his fingers on the soft corduroy of his trousers. “I’m not a traitor. None of you know what I’ve given up for this pack or what I’ve had to do.” He went to the fireplace, and lifted the framed picture from the thick slab of pine that served as a mantel. Examining the photo he said, “My brother got to be a nice man. He loved his family and cared for the pack, in his own way. But he couldn’t see past the old ways into the future. Humans were coming for our land. I warned him of the danger but he wouldn’t listen.”

  He wiped the mantel clean, and replaced the picture.

  “It has always been my destiny to guide the pack through this threat. I understood that and knew what had to be done.” He moved closer to Trowbridge—close enough that he could have touched his matted curls. “I executed my brother for the good of the pack. Then I killed his wife and his second son. I even killed your Candy. She didn’t even fight. She just closed her eyes.”

  “You bastard!” Bridge roared. He planted both feet on the floor and tried to stand. The chair creaked, and lifted an inch, but the nails held, and shone like gray teeth in the gap between chair and floor.

  “Do you think their deaths didn’t hurt me?” Mannus roared. “He was my brother.”

  “He was my father!” It was howl of grief and fury.

  Mannus turned to Biggs. “You know in your heart that I’m right. Developers and cottage people keep chewing up our territory with their earthmovers and chain saws. It won’t be long before one of them uses a cell phone to film a moon run, and the video will go … what’s the word again, Stuart?”

  “Viral.”

  Mannus sat down heavily. “I can’t buy all the land we need to keep us safe from the humans and their cameras. I’ve tried, but with every purchase, I drive up the land values. I can’t force fealty on the hundreds of humans who want to Jet Ski on our lakes. They just keep squeezing us north.” His voice turned petulant. “It’s not right. We belong here with the land. We are pure—”

  “Weres,” I said. “Just men that turn furry at the moon. Big deal. You share the world with two-legged mortals, and a couple of beat-up Fae. What makes you think you have any more rights than anyone else?” My split lip burned. “Trowbridge, show them,” I pleaded. “Show them who the real Alpha is. Flare.”

  “Yeah, show us your flare.” Scawens pulled Bridge’s head back, so that his profile was exposed to the white glare of the halogen light. “He’s the big Alpha, right? Well, I don’t see any flare.” He moved his fingers to either side of Bridge’s face and then crooned, “Come on, buddy. I think you need to show your lady your flare.” And with that, he put everything into his punishing grip and forced Bridge’s head to turn my way.

  I gasped.

  My mate’s blue eyes were covered by a thick grayish-white film.

  He was blind, my Trowbridge.

  And he was going to die. The blue vein high up on his cheekbone had turned silver-gray.

  “Do you need another demonstration in Were endurance?” Mannus said to me.

  “Lou, please,” I whispered. “Take the silver from him.”

  “It is in his lungs,” she said, as if that were enough.

  “Lou…”

  “You have always been too sentimental. It is your greatest flaw,” she said. “A trait that would not have served you well as a mystwalker.”

  I started to cry. Not even Fae Tears. Just hot, wet, salty ones that tasted human.

  “Most people have ten fingers, you can take your time, give people a little time to think between amputations.” Mannus settled deeper into his easy chair. “But as you see, my nephew doesn’t have much in the way of fingers left. Perhaps it makes the ones he has left all the more precious.”

  Stuart ran his tongue across his upper teeth.

  “Last chance,” said Mannus. “Why not tell me?”

  Crying is for people who still have some fight, some sense of injustice, some faint hope that their tears will change the thing that they dread. When you know it won’t, you weep.

  Mannus snapped his fingers at Stuart.

  I wept as Dawn dragged a table over to Trowbridge’s chair. Helpless tears dribbled down my cheeks as Trowbridge fought to keep his arms free and lost. I watched as Stuart kept them flat on the table while Dawn wound a thick chain over them and under the table, and then did another circuit, just to make sure. She tested its tightness then crouched to hook a padlock through the links. I heard the snick of it closing, and felt another wave of dread.

  “You son of a bitch, I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll—” Trowbridge didn’t get the rest out, because Dawn took a knife and deftly sliced open the wrist on his bad hand. Blood welled. Stuart handed Dawn his gloves and a small box. Impassive as a surgeon, she slipped the leather over her hands, opened the lid and pulled out another silver chain, which she wound around his bleeding wrist, pulling it tight, so it sank deep into the channel of her cut. The table’s wooden legs knocked against the floor, like a shutter rattling in a storm, as he struggled against the effect of the silver slipping into his bloodstream, but eventually the room turned … quiet, except for my tears, and the sound of Trowbridge breathing hard through his teeth. When Trowbridge’s hand was limp on the table, Dawn spread his fingers out negligently, as if she were inspecting worms for the hook.

  Then she stepped back for Stuart.

  Bridge turned blindly in my direction with his milky silver-poisoned eyes, and gave me one last order. “Stay strong. You hear me, Hedi? It doesn’t matter what they do to me.” And there it was. Just under the bravado of his words. He’d kept it in check by resisting and feeding his rage, by swearing and promising them murder, but as Stuart dragged the sharp point of the knife teasingly over the back of his mutilated hand, I felt the bitter bite of my mate’s fear. Inside me. Right in my core. Right where my Fae ball used to roll.

  “Not so brave, now, are you?” Stuart taunted.

  Robson Trowbridge didn’t beg for mercy, not even when the Alpha’s second slowly sawed through the skin and tendons of his finger. Whatever illusions I had about humanity died in the moment Scawens leaned into the knife to cut through the gristle and sinew of the joint. While Trowbridge bowed his head, fighting hard to keep his agony in his chest, I cried out. Lower and louder than I’d ever done before, more animal than my mate.

  I trembled on the edge of capitulation, told myself not to, and did it anyhow. The words spilled out. “Please, stop, just stop.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Bridge said between his teeth. He sucked in a shuddering breath. “Don’t you do it, Hedi.”

  My chest shook with sobs. “I can’t watch this … I can’t do this.”

  “He’ll start a war if he goes to the other side. One we can’t hide or wi
n. Weres must never go to the other realm. Not ever.”

  Mannus sat on his haunches to inspect me. “You can stop this.” He waited until my sobs were broken hiccups, and then he said in his deep, fatherly voice, “All you have to do is tell us where the Royal Amulet is. You know where it is, don’t you?”

  Stuart used the tip of the knife to push Bridge’s finger off the table.

  I wept, shaking my head “no,” snot running down to salt my lips, until Mannus put a hand on my knee and said, “It’s time to tell me.”

  Stuart looked up, and waited. The faithful collie waiting for the Frisbee to be sent in the air again.

  Mannus watched my face and said, “Stuart, go ahead.”

  That’s when I gave up Merry.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Mannus called someone on his cell. He kept prodding me for more details. What was the name of the building? When I couldn’t answer straight, Biggs carefully closed my shirt, and buttoned it up to my neck. The back of his hand brushed against the underside of my chin as he centered the iron pendant gently on top of the plaid shirt, creating a barrier between the metal and my skin. His gaze ricocheted off from the condemnation he found in mine.

  Five minutes later, again the questions. Which building? What side of the commons was the grave? I answered as best I could, and eventually, the Were on the other end of the phone was dispatched to unearth Merry.

  “Come, mate,” Mannus said to Lou.

  She stood, without needing any help, and straightened herself stiffly as he put his hand on the small of her back. I watched her walk away, back held regally straight. Our gazes caught, but didn’t hold, as her eyes slid from mine. He guided her out of the room, and I heard his heavy tread follow hers up the stairs.

  * * *

  Before he’d collapsed into himself Trowbridge had moaned, “You shouldn’t have done it.” I’d said, “I’ve saved you.” But he shook his head and said, “No.” It sounds like a small word. Two letters. The easiest thing to learn, that word, “no.” Mum said it was my first word.

  But the way he’d said it.

  No.

  His eyes were half open, but he still hadn’t rolled his head my way. His finger had stopped dripping. The sound of it had near driven me mad. Toronto to Creemore is eighty miles. How fast could Mannus’s minion find Merry on the campus? How fast could he drive back to Creemore? How much time did we have?

  Open your eyes, Trowbridge. Open your eyes.

  * * *

  Stuart and Dawn had been left to guard us, not that we represented much in the way of a threat. I was duct-taped to a chair, Bridge was chained to his. Stuart collapsed on the couch while Dawn inspected my stuff. First, she picked up my glasses and entertained herself by examining her hand, the newspaper, and finally, me, through the finger-smeared lenses. Next, she sat down with the bride belt. She ran a nail over the metal embellishment on the leather pouch.

  Biggs snapped on the overhead lights. “Would the Alpha let her touch that?”

  Stuart rolled his head and said lazily, “Did anyone ask for your opinion, Biggs? If she wants to play with the mutt’s stuff, she can.” He stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “What do you want?”

  “Paul has to leave.” A flush crawled over Biggs’s face. “He wants to know what he should do about the other prisoner.”

  Stuart stuck his finger in his ear, and dug out some ear wax. He examined it, and then flicked it off his fingernail. “We should just put it out of its misery.”

  “Was that a direct order from the Alpha?” asked Biggs stiffly.

  “Tell Paul that you’ll watch over it.”

  “I can’t,” Biggs said. “The Alpha’s given me another job.”

  For a moment, Stuart did nothing. Then he tilted his head to the side so that Biggs could watch Stuart’s outer cheek pulse as he thrust his tongue inside it in a crude mimicry of fellatio.

  The flush on Biggs’s cheeks grew fiery.

  “It must really piss you off,” Stuart goaded. “As long as he rules, you’ve just got to bend over.”

  Biggs’s gaze slid over the things in the room, and then clung to the shotgun mounted over the hearth.

  “Go ahead. Take it down,” Stuart said. He smiled slowly. “Aw, that was mean, wasn’t it? You’d need a stepladder to get it down from there. You know what? It’s still loaded with silver.” He made a gun with his fingers and aimed it at Biggs. “Bang. Bang.”

  Woodenly, Biggs asked, “The other prisoner?”

  “Bring it here.”

  Stuart waited until Biggs had backed out of the room, before he gave a curt nod to Dawn. “Leave that stuff alone, babe. Let’s not screw with the Alpha right now.” Dawn made a moue with her mouth, but she put the pouch back on the table.

  For another beat or so of my heart, we all stared at each other. I wished my heart weren’t beating so fast. I wished Trowbridge’s were beating stronger.

  Stuart smoothed a hand over Dawn’s shoulder. She giggled and popped her shoulder free from her shirt. He bent his head. I averted my eyes and let them rove over my surroundings. The overhead light made it easier to see the details.

  The room was large, built with the standards and space of the last century. It had high ceilings, and honey-colored, oak-framed windows and doorways. It felt like a frat house now, but once this house had been a home. The outdated couch had big flowers on it, and exaggerated overstuffed armrests. Mannus’s easy chair had chintz fabric, a sunken seat cushion, and dark stains on the armrests. The ashtrays were full.

  There were bloody footprints circling Trowbridge’s chair.

  Stuart stopped worrying Dawn’s shoulder, and went to open the window. Night air seeped into the Were-hot room. It brought other scents with it. Essences of ponds, and hills. Fir trees and pine mulch. Aromas I hadn’t caught in such a nostalgic bouquet in eleven long years.

  Creemore.

  I looked around me again. The long windows with their faded blue curtains. The birch tree outside. The music books on the shelves. They hadn’t brought us to any house in Creemore, they’d brought us back to the Trowbridge manse.

  Oh, Trowbridge.

  The picture that had fascinated Mannus was back on the mantel, a little off center. Bridge’s family was caught frozen in time, smiles wide, wearing their best duds, all lined up beside a wedding cake. Four months later, they’d all be dead, except of course, Mannus, and the supposed traitor in the middle of the photo; the groom with an easy smile, and tense eyes, who was marrying his Candy.

  A visual reminder of loyalty and treachery, I guess.

  Biggs returned, huffing as he dragged Cordelia into the room. He propped her in the corner near the television. I would have taken Cordelia for dead, what with her head tilted to one side, her mouth open, and a silver knife jammed in her gut, if not for the slow rise of her chest. A big wide red oval stain circled the impaled blade, forever ruining her Ann Taylor shirt.

  I strained to listen to her heart. It was there, weak and sluggish, but there.

  Her hands lay open palmed on the dusty wood floor.

  Another broken soul.

  The iron was making me sleepy. I kept jerking my eyes open, and each time they blearily refocused, they landed on the Trowbridge family photo.

  * * *

  Somewhere in the house, a cell phone rang. Mannus returned holding his cell a few minutes later.

  “Got it.” The Alpha snapped his phone closed. “They’re on their way.”

  Mannus walked to the window, absently kneading his lower back with one hand while he inspected the sinking sun. “Your kind made my life hell. I thought I got rid of the lot of you.” He grimaced. “Do you know the pack still talks about your family? They think you haunt the pond, because they never found your body. Every so often someone thinks they caught a glimpse of a little blond girl in a white nightgown playing by the water with her brother.”

  Mannus’s lip curled in a sneer. “A few years ago a bunch of kids got brave and brought t
heir sleeping bags to the fairy pond. They came running home with their tails between their legs, claiming they saw purple fog and lights over the water. I went there the next night, but I never saw any fairy lights. Stuart, how many days did I make you patrol the fairy pond?”

  “Thirty, Alpha.”

  “And you never saw any lights or fog. How about you, Dawn?”

  “No, sir.” She picked at her fingernail.

  “The young ones still talk about it, though, behind my back. Little bastards.” He focused his gaze broodingly at Stuart. “Society is going to hell. We’ve got to start over.” He let out a deep sigh and collapsed into his chair. “I’ve passed through that portal. Felt the taste of its mist on my tongue.” His fingers drummed the armrests. “Someone is trying to open it. I thought it was Louise, but now I know that she’s been here ever since they closed the gates.” He formed a steeple with his fingers then studied the half-assed church made by them. “Tell me, Helen, where is your brother?”

  I had my teeth clamped so tight, my jaw hurt.

  “Do you really want me to hurt your mate again?” Mannus sighed. “Someone rouse Robson.”

  “Lexi’s safe in Merenwyn,” I said.

  “Then he’s the one trying to open the gates.”

  I felt my lips tremble and tightened them into a thin line.

  “See, Stuart? I told you the Fae were coming. We’re only just in time.” Mannus chewed the inside of his cheek. “It’s beautiful over there. Fields and forests as far as the eye can see. I’d never felt stronger or more alive. It was … I don’t know how to describe it.” He rubbed one of his swollen knuckles. “Their Pool of Life does something to you. It takes the magic you were born with and I don’t know … magnifies it somehow. I changed into my wolf, right there under their sun. I didn’t have much of a flare before, but after that—I was Superman.” The memory made him smile. “I felt like I had two beams of light coming from my eyeballs. I was twice as strong and doubly as handsome.”

  Mannus was lost in reverie and totally oblivious to the way Stuart had suddenly stiffened after he’d dropped the “flare” bomb. “Once we have the Royal Amulet,” he continued, “my mate and I are going to swim in that pond again. And then, we’re going to hold the doors to Merenwyn open and let my people come.”