Soul of Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Jan had the choice of going back upstairs to her room, where anyone could easily find her, or going back out into the yard. She chose the yard.

  There was a single super on the deck, its face turned up toward the sun, but it ignored her, and she returned the favor. The grassy area was cleared of any sign of bloodshed or even a battle at all, although she could see the remains of what looked like a campsite at the far end that hadn’t quite magically grown over.

  In a weird way, the space reminded her a little of the Center, where she’d been taken after her apartment was attacked. The wear marks on the grass there had faded magically, too. The Center felt utterly different, though; it was calm, steady, instead of the constant upset Jan felt here.

  Jan didn’t know where the Center actually was—the bansidhe had flown her there, wrapped in its wings, the first time, and Martin had blindfolded her when they’d left so she wouldn’t freak out at being dragged into a river, but she wanted to go back rather desperately.

  Things had almost made sense in the Center. The thought made her almost smile. She’d been centered in the Center.

  No chance of that here. Jan exhaled, trying to force the tension out of her shoulders, through her spine, and out of her body, and rested her hands on the deck railing.

  “I’m bored,” she said out loud, the first thing that came into her head. “How can I be bored?”

  “Because it’s boring here.”

  Jan almost jumped off the porch, then turned to see one of the brownies standing in the doorway, watching her. She couldn’t tell them apart, really, except by what clothing they were wearing, but this one seemed almost familiar. Not one of the ones in the kitchen...no, it had been part of the group that had been out here during the fight. Not one of the ones who had attacked, though.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Boring,” the brownie repeated, not seeming to be offended or angry. “This is a dinky little excuse for a town, with nothing to do except dance to her tune, and when she’s not playing a tune specifically for you...” The brownie shrugged, skinny shoulders rising and falling with a surprising eloquence. “Boring.”

  “I had thought...” She wasn’t sure what she was going to say.

  “What, that we live and die to serve her? That we don’t have a life beyond the kitchen and the laundry?”

  Jan blushed, feeling the heat in her cheeks, and the brownie laughed, only a little meanly. Cam, that was its name, she remembered now. It was the one that interacted directly with Nalith when needed, and she’d called it by name a few times.

  “Yeah, well,” the brownie went on, “we’re trying to expand our interests. As one does.” There seemed to be a joke in there, but Jan couldn’t find it. “At least you have the option to wander into town, as boring as it is, once she lengthens your leash a little. We’d raise too many eyebrows, even out here, so she’ll probably have you doing the grocery shopping soon enough.” The brownie—Cam—thought about it. “Yeah, only woman, she’ll send you. She’ll want to keep the songbird with her just in case. You won’t wander away without him.”

  They didn’t plan to be here long enough to restock the kitchen, Jan thought but didn’t say out loud. They didn’t have time. She couldn’t feel the ticking anymore, but if the change of pressure meant the deadline was here, if not today then tomorrow, or maybe it had already happened...

  Then the preters would be crossing over again, freed to steal more humans, their plan, whatever it was, back in motion. Probably it wouldn’t be an overnight thing, no sudden apocalypse, but Jan felt the ghost of that pressure in her chest again, replacing the fear of an asthma attack with something worse and less easy to predict or control. There was no medication, no inhaler that could stop this. Only them. Somehow.

  “Is there an internet café in town?” she asked. “We came here not really sure what was going to happen, and we didn’t leave a note because, well, what could we say, ‘Off to find the elven queen and offer our services’?”

  She had, actually, sent exactly that message. Or she hoped she had, anyway. She needed to talk to Martin, find out if the emails had gone through, and get her damn phone back. If the kelpie had lost or broken it, she was going to kill him.

  “Anyway,” she went on, trying to be as artless as possible, “the chance to email now would be great, ’cause I’d love to let my friends know I’m fine, that there’s no reason to worry about me, before they throw out an APB and the cops show up. Not getting the cops involved is always a better idea.”

  The brownie’s ears twitched once, front to back, and it studied her, as though trying to decide something. Then it smiled, as though it had come to some decision, and shook its head. “No, no cops. They like to poke and prod and cause all sorts of breakage and mess. Definitely do not want them around. They would irritate Her and that would be bad.” It shook its head once more, still smiling. “There is a computer in the basement. We use it for... We use it. But you can’t go down there.”

  Humans were not wanted, not allowed, no matter what. Not that it mattered, in this case; any computer in the heart of super territory—supers who had thrown their lot in with the preter queen—was not going to be a good place to get in touch with Glory or AJ.

  “I couldn’t even just to send email?” she asked anyway, projecting a slightly worried but not-yet-frantic tone into her voice.

  “There’s Wi-Fi signal over near the campgrounds,” the brownie said thoughtfully. “You could go there.”

  And hope that her cell phone picked up enough signal to work. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the only one she had.

  “But don’t go until you get permission,” the super added. “Herself doesn’t like it when her pets wander off.”

  “I’m not a pet,” Jan said, bristling almost automatically.

  “Sure you’re not,” the brownie said, cackling as if she’d just said something unbearably amusing. “You just try going off and see how fast she yanks your chain.”

  Jan glared at the shorter creature and then marched off the steps, heading away from both the house and the area where the gnomes had camped, the brownie’s mean-spirited cackle following her.

  The more supernaturals Jan met, the more she started to think that she really didn’t like them.

  She did not, however, go beyond the wooded property line that had been pointed out to them their first day. Just in case.

  “He’s right, you know.”

  “What?” Jan missed a step and almost tumbled face-first onto the grass when a voice spoke in her ear.

  “You can’t leave without permission. Or you could, but Herself’d be upset. And she’d either drag you back by the scruff of your neck or not let you back in. And she’d absolutely keep your boy toy, and you’d never see him again.”

  The speaker danced in front of Jan now, girlish and loose limbed, but the smile on that face was filled with sharp green teeth, and her eyes were pools of solid black that matched the inky hair flowing past her shoulders.

  “Jenny Greenteeth,” Jan said, more than a little worried as she identified this particular super. There wasn’t any water bordering the house or running through the trees that she’d noticed, walking up... No, wait, there was the creek that bordered the town that they’d driven over coming in. It was large enough to have at least one water-sprite, probably more, although Jan would have hoped for one with a...less evil reputation. Surely Martin would have said something? But they hadn’t been able to exchange even a word since he’d shown up, and—

  “Relax, human,” the river spirit said, still grinning, leaning in to sniff at Jan’s hair in a way that was deeply disturbing. “I’m no brownie-man, to begrudge you your place in the court. We all come here for our own reasons. She uses us as she will, and we take what she gives.”

  “And what is she giving you?” Jan asked. They’d known, back at t
he Farm, there were supers following the preter queen willingly, but not why, not beyond vague guesses and suspicions. The brownie had talked about expanding their interests, whatever that meant, but...

  “Entertainment,” Greenteeth said, her slim form still dancing around Jan, forcing her to turn in order to keep the super in sight at all times. “I am not of her court, not me, but I watch. It will not be dull while she is here. Allies and enemies, plots and plans, whispers and hisses.”

  “Your very own reality show?”

  “Yesssss...” Those black eyes sparked with something deep in the pupils, and Jan knew she should be disturbed, maybe even frightened, but suddenly Greenteeth seemed less frightening than, somehow, endearing.

  “Jenny. Are you englamouring me?” Jan tried to sound stern, but her voice cracked on the last word.

  “Heeeee. Human who smells of kelpie and witch-spell knows better. I don’t have to try. You’re already halfway there.” The greenteeth leaned closer and pressed her lips to Jan’s, a warm, wet tongue darting out to lick her once quickly, before the super had danced away again.

  “That’s sexual harassment!” Jan yelled after her, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, but she was laughing despite herself. The river sprite made her think of Martin again—terribly dangerous and yet charming, disarming.

  Like drowning, she thought. A terrible way to die, and yet she’d read somewhere that it was easy, too. All you had to do was let go.

  “Not an option,” she said and started walking again, keeping the tree line to her left. She could feel Jenny—or something—watching, but she refused to acknowledge it. She hadn’t had a chance to walk the borders of the property yet, and it might be something that would be useful later, knowing exactly where, when, and what might come out of those woods. And it kept her out of the house, until she could face the queen again with her besotted mask in place.

  * * *

  The human, Tyler, could sing. Not professionally, no, but he had a good voice, a clear tenor, and apparently an inexhaustible recall for songs, because he hadn’t repeated anything yet, and the preter had him singing all morning.

  Martin leaned against her chair enough that she was aware of him, but not so much that he was off balance or too far into her personal space in a way that might have appeared to be presumption. It was a constant recalculation and one he was not adept at, but so far she had not reacted badly. The main room was filled: half a dozen of the house-brownies clustered in a group and shooting him dirty looks even now; two fire-wisps that stayed near the fireplace, occasionally ducking in when they got too cool; and a handful of individual supers, most of whom he didn’t recognize without AJ there to coach him.

  And the humans, of course, the two artists and another he had not been introduced to, on opposite edges of the room as though they did not trust each other and trusted the supers even less.

  If so, that was the first wise thought they’d had since falling under the preter’s spell.

  Jan had slid out of the room much earlier; the queen did not seem to notice that she was gone, but Martin suspected that she had noted and simply did not care to make a fuss about the defection. The queen seemed to have no goal in this morning’s gathering, merely enforcing her will on them, reminding them that they were hers, here solely to dance attendance on her. Nalith was flighty, spoiled, bloodthirsty, and casually cruel; exactly what he had expected, after seeing the preter court she had left behind.

  And yet, she had left it behind. Not come as the vanguard of an invasion, not even as a conqueror might. She took all sorts into her court and seemed almost, oddly, content in this place, without any significant luxuries or adulation. As queen, she could have commanded an entire world. Here—much less, and she did not seem particularly eager to change that immediately. She had, in fact, run before discovery, rather than striking out in battle.

  He still was not fool enough to trust her or dismiss the threat she posed. All preters, in the end, wanted one thing: control.

  Supernaturals—and naturals—were not inclined to give that up without a struggle, even under glamour.

  “Kelpie.” Her hand had lifted gracefully to shoulder height while he was thinking; she was summoning him. Martin dragged his attention back to her, worried that he had missed something, something important. “The gnomes return.”

  The moment she said that, he could feel it, as though the air rippled against his skin, bringing the feel of thick, sticky fingers, like tree frogs clinging to everything. He scanned the room, catching Tyler’s eye and trying to send a warning, but the other man had no experience with turncoats, didn’t know what he would be facing. He hoped that wherever Jan was, she was out of their path, could avoid them entirely. They might have no connection to the ones who attacked her, but they couldn’t take that risk.

  “They have been my weapons, until now,” Nalith said. “But now I have you.”

  Martin didn’t pretend to be any sort of champion for morality, but he would rather beat every gnome in existence into the mud with his hooves than work with a single turncoat.

  “I am but one,” he said, trying to sound honored by her words, rather than nauseated. “And they are many. Together, we will best serve you.”

  Chapter 11

  Tyler had heard the queen’s conversation with Martin, the whispers that followed. His expectations of supernaturals at this point had faded into a wary and weary acceptance: unlike the preters, none of them had tried to hurt him, and some of them had seemed almost decent. Martin...

  Martin had helped bring him out of the Other Place. Martin and Jan were friends. Maybe something more than friends, which should have pissed him off, but who was Tyler to judge at this point? He had been dumb enough to go with Stjerne, thinking with his dick instead of either his brain or his heart.

  Martin kept Jan safe. That was more than he had been able to do, ever.

  The thing was, overall, he didn’t mind supernaturals, not back at the Farm and not here. So, while the whispers about the return of the gnomes made him cautious, he wasn’t prepared for what came in.

  They were not small, not like the brownies. He had thought they would be. Their skin was the greenish-yellow of moss, the kind that probably glowed under black lights, and it looked too slick, too damp, as though they were amphibious. Maybe they were. Their heads were bald, their arms too long, and Tyler thought that he was hallucinating before he realized that, no, their bodies were changing as they walked, expanding and contracting, seemingly unrelated pulses, fingers lengthening, bodies hunching, thighs expanding and then contracting down to sticks.

  There were four of them, he determined, walking in tight formation, a cadre that seemed to have only one awareness, allowing them to move together that way.

  “We are returned,” one of them said when they stopped in front of Nalith’s chair. Martin had taken a step back, away from the throne, and was watching them the way you might a dog you weren’t sure was rabid or not.

  “So you have,” Nalith said.

  “You promised us rewards,” the lead gnome said. It stepped in front of the other three and seemed to rise in height—not much, but enough that it could look her in the eye. Its face was more defined now, but that only meant that Tyler was aware of its mouth, oval shaped and filled with too many teeth. Like a suckerfish crossed with a shark, and that thought wasn’t at all relaxing. Nor was the next one, driven by way too many hours watching Animal Planet reruns. These things were not just meat eaters; they were carrion eaters. No wonder everyone had taken a step back. He suspected they didn’t much care what flesh they gnawed on.

  Then one of them slewed its head around and looked directly at him, its eye red-black and glittering, and Tyler amended that. They might not care but clearly thought human was the most tasty. He reached for the sachet the witch had given him, tucked into his pocket. It didn’t bri
ng him as much comfort as he’d hoped.

  “You were rewarded enough in your actions and the pleasure you took in them,” Nalith said, and while her face was still calm, Tyler heard the warning in her voice. So, too, apparently, did the gnomes, because they shifted their feet but did not say anything more.

  “Return to your campsite,” Nalith told them. “You are not suited for this room, and this room is not suited to you.”

  There was a pause as everyone tried to figure out who had been insulted the most, and then the cadre of gnomes turned and headed back for the door. The supers who had filled in the space behind, the better to watch the show, now scrambled to get out of their way, as though afraid one of the four might reach out to touch them.

  Tyler understood that fear. He had seen more terrifying things. He had been strapped into a chair of thorns and had his will torn from him. He had become nothing but a vessel for another’s will—and even he would not willingly suffer one of those creatures to touch him.

  There was evil, and it was a sometimes beautiful, bitter thing. But gnomes were not evil, nothing that pure. They were sheer selfish greed, of the sort that could be nothing but ooze and blister.

  “You should not let them back, my lady.” One of the supers spoke first into the silence after the gnomes left, after the slam of the door said they had gone outside.

  “I should not?” Nalith’s tone was gentle, almost amused, and Tyler’s knees trembled, remembering again the sweet bramble of Stjerne’s voice as she told him to give in, to relent, to be nothing but hers. Every nerve, every atom of his body screamed anger, screamed at him to run, to hide, to stay very still and pray that he wasn’t noticed. Every nerve and atom except the ones deep inside, in the darkest, coldest place of himself, that told him to give in, to accept what he was, what he would always be.