by Scott Duff
Kieran had switched to Spanish so fluently I didn’t notice when.
“My condolences. He was a delightful man and both my parents spoke highly of him,” Kieran said.
“From Robert McClure that is high praise,” he said. “I was unaware that they had even met before. I’ll have to ask my brothers and sisters if they remember Robert and Olivia.”
“Olivia is not my mother, just Seth’s,” Kieran corrected him. “My mother was killed three years after that visit.”
“Ah, perhaps that is the root of St. Croix’s confusion of Robert’s offspring. Seth is Olivia’s only child, but not Robert’s,” said Florian.
“Perhaps. It could also be in his manner of thinking. The ways of the voudoun are not exactly geared toward a long life naturally,” Kieran said.
“And perhaps he doesn’t know men for the rutting dogs they really are,” said Della, her first words in the conversation. Her curling smile, her aura said she meant it as an off-color joke, and in Spanish, it didn’t seem quite as crude, for some reason. I didn’t know how to react to it, though. Until Peter muttered, “Woof, woof,” under his breath. Then I burst out laughing again.
Señora Florian smiled down at us as we collected ourselves again. She seemed like a down-to-earth type of person. Even her magic was geared in that direction in that it was less line oriented and more towards nourishing what was already there. It was … motherly. No, feminine was a better adjective. In ways that the Queens were not, even with the show of raw sexuality they’d performed earlier. Señor Florian was smirking. It was the flip side of his wife’s, the rutting-dog side.
“The elves will be arriving shortly,” said Florian, “so we should be returning to our party. Perhaps you can join us to watch the competition sometime this week? We would enjoy talking with you all.”
“I’m sure we can arrange that at some point. I’ll inquire as to how to get around the Arena. Our apartment opens directly into it and we’ve not yet seen any designations on anything,” said Kieran.
“Perhaps we should join you instead,” said Florian, awed. “We have to walk for half of an hour to get to our box. You have powerful allies, Ehran McClure.”
“I’m certain that trade is still in my father’s name and not mine,” said Kieran, feigning modesty. MacNamara hadn’t said who the peace-bond was broken on, so I guess Kieran was following the same tact.
“Tomorrow, then,” Florian said. “Good evening.” He held out his arm, Señora Florian placed hers on top, curling her hand into his, and they glided away, looking very much like flamenco dancers on the way to a stage somewhere. I wondered if this was homage or dotage to the stereotype, but considering the venue it was hard to tell.
“What is a Loa?” Ethan asked. Finally, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know something.
“A spirit rider,” answered Kieran in a low voice. “They exist slightly outside of our worlds. Generally, they’re nasty business, sucking on the souls of their mounts until there’s nothing left. Drives the person mad in the process. Sometimes they can be beneficial; a symbiotic relationship can be formed between a specific Loa and a family line. Rare, though. When it does happen, the area they’re in will flourish. It never lasts for more than a few generations.”
“So this thing is trying to latch onto me?” I asked, mortified. “That’s disgusting.”
“If it exists outside, why can’t I sense it?” asked Ethan, puzzled.
“You didn’t see it at all?” I asked him.
“Only a wrongness about him,” he said. “I attributed it to his obnoxious behavior.”
“The Loa don’t exist as you, anchored here but existing physically elsewhere,” Kieran said. “They are more similar to the Fae in that they almost phase in and phase out of our reality when they need to interact in any way. That is part of why they are hard to detect and kill. They are also rarely an issue with us because they’re not as powerful, for the most part.”
“Peter, did you see it?” I asked.
“He … flickered a little. I didn’t know what it was, though,” Peter answered. “It was weird to watch, but it was very faint. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if you guys weren’t looking at him so weirdly.”
“That seems to imply that they can wander around with impunity,” I said. “And what about when they can use façades and veils? Speaking of which, why is no one using one now?”
Something tickled my ear. “Because dear boy,” said a high melodic voice, “everyone would be boring holes through them all night, so you’re going to have to look your best anyway.” I turned to the left as the woman came around the couch, startled by her sudden appearance. I thought I was aware of everyone within twenty feet of us. And her voice was hotly familiar.
“Hello, Simone,” said Kieran coldly.
The Summer Princess lit a stunning presence into our circle, taking the chair across from Peter. Thankfully, she left her heat elsewhere. Her dress was almost as bright and shiny as her aura, full of red, yellow, and orange. Her fiery hair blending into blond highlights made her look like the afternoon sun incarnate.
“Lady, you are gonna give me a complex against hot women,” I said. I know I had to be wide-eyed and pushing against Kieran. And he knew her! “Is there anybody you don’t know?” I turned to ask him.
“Her,” he said, pointing at the Summer Princess.
“You just called her ‘Simone’,” I retorted.
“And you’ve changed since then, Ehran McClure,” said the Princess in her singsong voice. “Pleasantly so.”
“’Simone’ was a character the Seelie Princess played once a very long time ago,” said Kieran, not taking his eyes off her. I didn’t blame him for that. I was afraid to look at her for the same reason. “She hurt someone I cared for. Toyed with him and in the Summer fashion burned him so badly he didn’t recover. So we are acquainted with one another. That she even knows my name is probably more to do with earlier this week than all those years ago. Am I right, Princess of Summer?”
She arched an eyebrow high over her two-toned eye and trilled a laugh. “Mother was definitely not pleased with my sudden arrival in Court,” she said mildly. “Don’t expect such a trick to work twice, McClure.”
“I’m rather surprised it worked once,” said Kieran.
“Well, now our little prize sits barely a yard away,” she said, licking her lips, causing a shimmer of heat to rise up her dress, accentuating the motion. I have no idea why that effect followed that cause, but I swear it did. This was the first time I felt conspicuous in the loose fitting silk pants as I crossed my right leg over my left for a not so inconspicuous reason.
“And he, too, has learned a new trick. How are you doing it, Ehran, hmm? Staying so invisible in a room with so many people who break invisibility spells as a hobby?” she asked, coyly leaning forward so that her hair flowed around to her bosom, barely covering her breasts as her dress fell away. I had to find another place to look, but she was so… simmeringly, hypnotically hot!
“Happy coincidence,” Kieran answered. “Tragic accident. Take your pick.”
A flare of aggravation ran through her. She quickly tamped it down, but it broke through whatever she was weaving on me. Made me look directly at her, at her eyes. They looked like an eclipse of the sun, the first color of the corona blazing around the pupil’s black. Then her aura popped into existence around her, horrifyingly bright and fiery. The field of her emotions was deeply rutted in some areas, fallow in others, pale and completely unused in still more. Admittedly, I had no experience in a great deal of the emotional areas I was looking at in her, but she had a great deal more life experience than I did. It was saddening that she was so… stunted.
I guess it showed in my face.
“How. Dare. You.” The Summer Princess stood up suddenly and slapped me hard, staring at me angrily. She was heating up the area now and her dress was pulsing upwards in bands of red and yellow. She balled up her fists and stormed away from us as the pulsing
of her dress sped on.
Kieran slapped his hand against my cheek where the Summer Princess had hit me and pushed cool blue healing energy into the skin and down into my bones to my spine. Bones were broken. My spinal cord was snapped. She’d killed me, but my body hadn’t recognized it yet. Kieran straightened my head gently as the blue pulled on cells, knitting and repairing them, recapturing the goo from broken cell walls to refill the structures. Almost as quickly as it happened, my spinal cord was intact and my brain was in contact with the rest of my body. The vertebrae in my neck healed and discs settled back in between nicely, separating and cushioning.
The pain hit then. I was burned and I felt it. And I screamed. Kieran pushed more energy in, healing me as fast and as hard as he could, but burns are hard to heal. I’ve heard that all my life and now I was experiencing it firsthand. It hurt in ways I didn’t have words to describe. Till Peter touched my shoulder and sparked a bright green light into me. Then my consciousness fled into my cavern and I curled up, fetal and shaking in front of the Pact and the weapons.
“Thank you, Peter,” I heard Kieran say, distantly. “This won’t take long, Seth.”
I don’t know how long it actually took before the shaking stopped. I could still hear the room outside, barely, but there was no real frame of reference in here. I stretched out slowly in the darkness, accepting Kieran’s ministrations on my face until the feeling returned and the energy receded. I stood and pushed back into myself.
And blinked at the brightness of the room. Kieran helped me sit up. Peter was looking at me oddly. He held a shiny red spiked spell between the fingers of his left hand ready to push into my shoulder where he touched me before.
“Guess you don’t need this, then,” he said, chuckling, and push the spiked spell into the floor.
“Why? What was it?” I asked, a bit groggily.
“That was the ‘wake-up’ part of the stasis spell I put you under,” he said. “To stop the pain.”
“It worked. Thank you,” I said, meekly.
“What did you do to her that pissed her off so bad?” asked Peter.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled, shaking my head. That was a mistake, I realized, as the world shook far longer than I did.
“He felt sorry for her,” Ethan answered.
“Oh,” said Kieran, knowing. “Yeah, that would upset her.”
“What’s to feel sorry for?” asked Peter. “They’ve got everything they could ever want.”
“No,” I whispered, glancing around the room to find the Princess again. I wanted to stay away—well away—from her for the rest of my life.
We were once again the epicenter of attention in the room. Small wonder. The room itself had grown in size. The back wall was somehow moved back when the elves arrived and almost doubled the space. Chairs, sofas, and tables to accommodate the height of the elves were moved into that side of the room and most of the elves stayed in that area. I suspect that wasn’t the only reason, but who was I to judge? I spied a cluster of Summer elves in the far corner of the room, in back, around the Princess, calming her anger and sluicing away the liquid heat that was pouring off of her now like a waterfall.
Conversation started up again and the looks started to become more furtive as people realized the show was over. Ethan stood and grabbed the chair the Summer Princess had been sitting in. The seat was scorched. He took it away.
I was aware she approached this time. I felt her coming and stiffened. The polar opposite of the Summer Princess arrived just as Ethan set a new chair in place of the old and sat delicately down on the seat.
Like the elf before her, she was beautiful. Her raven black hair falling lushly down along her pale exquisite features. Her porcelain white skin gave her silver lips an awesome offset in color, matching the gradient color in her eyelids. Her dress was black, silver, and gray, shimmering as if by moonlight. While it covered more of her body than Summer’s dress, it defined her with the promise of seduction, not the heat of passion. It hinted at what lay beneath in the sultriest ways, glimmering in silver as if it might show something delicious, only to slip away into the darkness of the night.
The Winter Princess had arrived.
“Whatever did you say to get such a marvelous reaction from her, dear boy?” she asked me directly. Ethan shrugged to us and sat down on the couch opposite us again, but with a more ready-to-move stance. He didn’t want a replay and I didn’t either.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Apparently, she didn’t like my face.”
The Princess giggled softly, high yet still sultry. I didn’t understand how that was possible, but there you had it. I steeled myself with vivid images of her mother and looked at her, hoping my face didn’t crack like it did with the Summer princess. I wasn’t surprised by what I saw. Many of the same issues saddened me for her as it had with her counterpart. They were almost exact mirror images of one another.
“How is it, Seth McClure, that you can sit before me so calmly yet the Challenge in your name is unbroken?” she asked, crossing her legs at the knees. Her dress split to accommodate, revealing long, curvaceous legs down to bare feet. It didn’t take much to imagine them wrapped around me, but apparently the memory of Summer’s slap kept my hormones in check for a while.
“I don’t know,” I replied quietly, “but I’m afraid I must decline the offer. I would offer little entertainment value against any champion you would set against me. I have only just apprenticed myself and my master has said no.”
“A master now, Ehran McClure?” she shifted her attention to Kieran, who simply smiled and nodded. “We were not even aware that you had survived your fall from grace until recently. Do you have them? Tucked away somewhere special that we can’t see?”
“Have what, your Highness?” Kieran asked.
“What is ours,” her tone changed on that. It was hard and cold and brittle.
“As Seth told Master Cahill earlier this evening,” Kieran said, sharply, “outside of our clothing, we have nothing of elven make in our possession.”
“Do not get snippy with me, human,” the Winter Princess said coolly, the threat implicit in her delivery.
“Then don’t get snippy with me, elf,” responded Kieran with equal precision.
The pause between them stretched and stretched until I thought time would snap before the tension did.
“The resemblance to your father is uncanny. Your other brothers were not as similar, by far,” she said, relaxing into the chair and pulling her dress over her knee to distract herself.
“Were?” Kieran asked, dully.
“Yes, were,” she said, “You two are the last in your line. Perhaps that is why Mother wants Seth so badly: to remove the thorn that has been in our side for millennia.”
Ethan and I had the same thought at the same time. We both stood up, arms crossed in front of us looking down imperiously at the elf bitch and in unison said, “It’s time for you to leave.” Seriously perfect harmony, too.
Her head fell lazily back against the chair as she looked up at us.
“Don’t even dream about ordering me about, little boys,” she said, softly, her eyes half closed as she looked up at us.
The Stone hummed lightly in my mind and I reached down, unspooling energy from my battery and forming it into the spell the Stone gave me. I didn’t look at it; I knew what it was before I pushed it out onto the energy plane. A very thin plane of power formed under the Winter Princess, insinuating itself under the chair’s legs and raising it a micron at a time until it was strong enough to hold her.
I leaned in close to her and said, “I am a McClure and my father’s son. Go away.” Then I sent the sheet of power that held the chair flying backward ten feet, turning at a right angle, buffeting her hard, and shot it again back another fifteen. I kept her moving backward and turning at right angles until she and the chair were both in the back corner of the room before dissolving the thin sheet of power. A solid wall of ice cordoned off the corner for a brief moment
, only to be shattered by a high pitched scream of anger. The roar of the cracking and falling ice was almost deafening.
I turned to Kieran to see MacNamara standing behind Peter’s chair with his pale suited shadows on either side of him. He was smiling in his multicolored silks, totally at ease.
“Making friends…” said the right elf.
“I see,” said the left. We were back to that routine. Maybe if I ignored it…
I shrugged. “She was being a bitch.”
“Oh, they… do that well,” MacNamara said, chuckling. Okay, ignoring the left and right could work.
“Are you all right?” I asked Kieran, softly, sitting down beside him. I wished I could empathize more with him, but I didn’t have any relationship at all to them. Just words. That’s all they were to me, not like Kieran. Or Ethan or Peter. That would hurt. “Do you want to go?”
“We can’t. Not yet,” he whispered. His aura was a wreck. He was taking the loss hard, grief weighing heavy along with guilt and frustration. He wasn’t crying but it was close and I wished he would to release that tension.
I knelt down in front of him and looked up into his green eyes and said, “We can if you need to, brother. A few hours won’t hurt us.”
A bell rang throughout the room.
“Ah, Dinner… is served,” said MacNamara through his proxies. “I will… rearrange the table… so that you… are more safely situated.”
Kieran hugged me briefly and strongly. “Thank you, Seth, but I’ll be fine. If we don’t follow this through, we may miss something important and then our family may have died for no reason. This is becoming more important than just Father and Olivia.”
He stood and we joined the flow of people moving toward the back of the room. Our path was supremely easy as we were directly behind MacNamara and everyone cleared in front of him. The banquet room was as enormous as the previous room with a table in a u-form with MacNamara at the head of the table. Each party was greeted by name by an elf at the door and escorted to a specific position at the table. Without pause, the seating went quickly and evenly as people arrived at the door, elf and human alike. We were escorted to the inside of the table to the head, directly opposite MacNamara. And we were the only people on the inside of the table.