He would sleep and wait for this Jack. Kris closed his eyes.
“Hello, Kris,” a somewhat familiar voice said a short time later. Gentle hands pressed over the deep cut in his side. Kris searched his fractured brain and finally came up with a name to match the voice. He opened his eyes.
“Jack? I was waiting for you.” His voice was weak, not like his voice at all.
“Yes. I came as fast as I could,” the young man who looked so much like him answered with a smile. His face was very close in the narrow tunnel where Kris had hidden himself. “We thought you were forever lost. I had almost given up hope of finding you again.”
“Lost . . . ? Yes.” That sounded right. “I’ve been lost. I was . . . I’ve been here a long time. What happened to me, Jack?” he asked, weak and baffled.
“You . . . you were given a drug that affected your memory. Bad people drugged you and left you here. But that doesn’t matter. I’ve found you now and I have some medicine that will make you better. The voices won’t trouble you anymore, unless you want to hear them.”
“Good, that’s good. I’m so weak . . . Jack, how do I know you?” Kris asked finally. “Are you family? We look alike, I think—and I know your voice from a long time ago.”
“I’m your nephew. My father, Phaneos, was your younger brother. Everyone says that he and I sound alike. Probably it is his voice that you remember.”
“Phaneos.” An image of a white-haired child rose up like a ghost from his memory. It made Kris happy, though he had no memory beyond the small face. “My little brother. Is he here, too?”
“No, Kris. I’m sorry. Phaneos is dead. A lot has happened while you were away. Many of the fey have gone.” Gentle hands helped him sit up. They also helped him accept the sad tidings. “I was thinking that maybe you would like to come and live with me for a while. I’m married now and have a son. My family would like to meet you. You have other friends there too.”
Feeling stronger than he had felt since . . . well, since he could remember, Kris forced himself to his feet. Dizziness tried to claim him, but he pushed it back.
“Jack, your father was a death fey, wasn’t he? Are you one, too?”
Thou shall not kill.
“A death fey? Yes.” The man named Jack went still, seemingly waiting for Kris’s next words.
“And I am like you?” Kris asked. The idea disturbed him a little and he shivered. “Am I a bringer of death?”
“No, Kris. You were never like me.” Jack’s sudden smile was dazzling. Kris sensed the shadows inside the younger man but also felt the genuine love that this fey nephew, this son of Phaneos, had for him. “You were never like anyone else. It’s why we loved you—why we need you.”
He was loved. That made Kris feel even better. That was his purpose, wasn’t it? To bring love? The babbling voices in his brain receded further as the fire of self-awareness grew.
“I would like to meet your wife and son. I’d like to have family again,” Kris said. He added wistfully, “I would like to remember everything. My brain has been so broken that I only have pieces. How could I forget little Phaneos? Or you?”
“You will remember in time. Most of it.” Jack wrapped a cloak around him and then offered his hand. It was warm. “Come on. Some old friends are waiting for you outside. We’ll help you remember everything you need to know.”
“There’s a monster,” Kris said, hesitating. “Perhaps I should go first.”
“The monster is gone,” Jack assured him.
“That’s good. I don’t think it was a real bear.” Kris shuddered.
“No, it wasn’t,” Jack agreed. “But don’t worry about that. My good friend Abrial is . . . talking with the monster now. We’ll find out who made him, and things will be taken care of.”
“I must not kill,” Kris murmured.
“That’s right.” Jack nodded. “You must not ever kill. But I can—and I promise that whoever did this to you will pay, if they have not yet slipped beyond earthly vengeance.”
“I don’t want you to kill for me,” Kris said sternly. He wasn’t certain why, just that it was a fact. He could not kill, and others should not either. “That would be wrong—to kill for me.”
“I kill for all of us. I must sometimes if we are to survive.” Jack’s eyes were suddenly bleak. “Let’s pray that a day will come soon when I no longer have to.”
During their childhood, when Men left the age of their innocence and first turned from Gaia, there came into the world a great shaman called Niklas, who was not of Mankind, but of the Sidhe. Men feared the Sidhe, but such was this shaman’s kindnessx and love, he was able to live amongst them and to show the erring Sons of Man how to return by other paths to the Divinity that created all Life. Thus did order reign for a millennium. In return for this gift, every seven years a special sacrifice was made by the Sons of Man. The one most loved by Divinity was given back to Gaia in the Solstice fire. Many feared at these times of sacrifice, when the shaman returned to the Sidhe, but Niklas always returned at the dark of the Sun to again walk the Earth. And for a time there was peace and prosperity for both races.
—Bioball Na Sidhe, the Book of Niklas,
Chapter Two, Verse Four
CHAPTER TWO
Kris closed the book of illuminated fey scriptures and tried to focus on what he had learned. Little by little, his memory was getting better. It was difficult to get a complete picture, because all his past experiences had been laminated together, rendering them a monolithic, impenetrable block, and he was forced to rely on the perceptions of others to explain many things. Still, little by little, the edges of frozen memory were melting away so that he could examine them.
Jack had helped fill in the missing bits with family legends. And others were making astounding efforts, too. Access to the human Internet was a tremendous aid in learning modern culture, especially now that Kris had learned from Thomas how to control his body so that the varying magnetic waves didn’t burn out the computer.
Of course, other than Abrial, there was no one old enough to recall Kris’s past firsthand, no one who’d known him in his past incarnations. To everyone, he’d been this ridiculous fat creature, Santa Claus. Even Abrial could only recall back to when he still walked the Earth as Saint Nicholas. No one remembered him from the time of the fey scriptures, back when he was Niklas and one with Gaia. When he had understood his mission.
Kris could feel the death magic waiting to fill him up. It was always there, sometimes pressing close, sometimes hiding slyly, but always waiting for a chance to rush back into his mind. He recalled displacing it with a desire to promote peace. That had been why he’d decided sex was too dangerous to indulge in. No fey were left, and no human woman was the great love who would complete him—and to risk taking a life for anything less was cruel and immoral.
Now it was even worse, when his mind was not his own.
Kris sighed. More time was needed for him to recover, but that was not a luxury he had. The lutins drove his schedule. In light of the ever-increasing danger, plans had been made, and they had to move forward. He could only pray that he spiritually reconnected before things progressed too far. It was not enough to know Gaia in the abstract. He needed to again be one with Divinity if he was to carry on his work. How could he possibly convince the world of something as crucial as the need for World Peace and Brotherly Love if he no longer experienced such love himself?
“How is he today, Alphons? Manic or depressive?” Adora Navarra quietly asked the guardian of order whose job it was to repel chaos—unless chaos was a member of the Matthews Club, of course. She had met the diminutive attendant on only three occasions, but she had a facility for recalling names that produced wonderful results, especially among service people, whom it seemed liked nothing better than to be assured that they were not mere furniture. That would make it easier for her to get in and see her agent, Ben Hunter.
Alphons beamed and shifted onto his tiptoes, even as he delivered the bad n
ews in a hushed voice. He always spoke softly to her, as if he knew that her sense of hearing was acute.
“Welcome back, Miss Navarra. To use a sporting metaphor, I’m afraid that it’s the bottom of the ninth, miss. Two men are out and three are on—and it’s starting to rain. He’s yelled at everyone—even The Lord Almighty. Thank heavens his cell-phone battery died. Luther finally brought him an appetizer and some wine so he would quit taking God’s—and the president’s—name in vain.” The stool Alphons bestrode behind the podium rocked, and he was forced to balance himself. Adora pretended not to notice.
Ben had been drinking before noon on a weekday? Terrific. Had he been doing this for long? Maybe she was here on a fool’s errand after all.
“How many bottles?” she asked, shifting out of the sunbeam that shone through the transom over the club’s French doors. She found direct sunlight hard to tolerate these days.
“Just two.”
Two was at least one too many. Ben Hunter was not a drunk, exactly, but he was rarely completely sober after four o’clock. In the time she had known him, he had gone from recreational drinking on weekends to almost perpetual though wellmanaged inebriation. Divorce took some people that way, but he had seemed to level off at a manageable degree of alcohol abuse. Adora felt for him, because she had danced a few rounds of the drugaddiction tango not so long ago, but was dismayed at this sign. For many, there was no proper prescription for nihilism and despair. And it was a short step from wine to Demerol and Valium, and from there to lifelong drug dependence.
Not that this growing love of alcohol could affect Ben’s ability to precisely pronounce obscenities in three languages, or move his attention from the bottom line. Ben was always all business. But on those occasions when he crossed the line from buzzed to actually drunk, he could get unpleasant and stubborn. More than stubborn. And his hard drunks could and often did last for days.
Still, this couldn’t wait. A job had been offered— one that paid well—and Adora had to find some excuse to take it, because she was losing her mind as well as her house. But that meant extracting a few more details from Ben—ones that contradicted the incredible message he had left on her machine.
Squaring her shoulders, Adora said, “Thanks, Alphons. Shall I be informal and just show myself in?”
The attendant glanced at the table where Ben was brooding, sitting in an island of shadows, all of the club’s other patrons having retreated to the edge of the room. Though an excellent employee and professional to the core, Alphons shuddered, and his smile slipped a notch. Adora didn’t blame him. Ben had a thin mouth and an insulting conversational style with those he considered his inferiors. And while Ben never called him “the midget” to his face, his discomfort with Alphons’s dwarfism was plain.
“Just as you like, miss. I’ll send Luther over with your iced tea. You take it with lemon, yes?”
“Yes.” Adora smiled. Apparently Alphons recalled people and their foibles too. She was touched. “It’s kind of you to remember.”
“Not at all. It’s always a pleasure to see you.”
She was glad that someone thought so.
Adora squared her shoulders and marched toward Fate.
“Hello, Ben. Please tell me that you’re joking about this assignment. It’s really mean to tease me about money,” she said to her agent a moment later. She kept her sentences short because her breaths were necessarily shallow. She hated the odor that habitually clung to Ben even when he left his office: a mix of strong aftershave, cigarettes and burnt coffee laced with scotch, and now overlaid with a patina of wine. Many people would not have noticed, but Adora had developed a keen sense of smell since her illness. A single smoldering cigarette butt was enough to make her eyes water, and this more intense odor set her stomach to churning.
“Adora, my dear, you know that I never joke— especially not about money.” This was sadly true. Ben had no discernible sense of humor these days. Perhaps that was what made him a good agent. It definitely wasn’t his winning personality or clean living that got good contracts for what few writers he had left. “Sit down—I’ve been waiting forever. And stop frowning, this offer is on the level. This guy, this Mr. Bishop S. Nicholas, is a wealthy philanthropist, and he’s willing to pay you a hundred grand to write his biography. Frankly, I don’t see what your problem is. You said that you were better now, and that you’re ready to get back in the game.”
Adora pulled out a chair and sat down. Since Ben wasn’t kidding about the job, the conversation might take a while. An unobtrusive Luther slipped a glass of tea in front of her, and she smiled in thanks while her agent glared and shook a nearly empty bottle of wine. She hoped that Ben tipped well. Perhaps bad manners were easier to take if one left thirty percent.
“So, are you ready or not?” Ben demanded.
“You don’t tell jokes. I don’t hurry my decisions,” she answered. “This sounds very weird, and I have some questions.”
“Hmph! So ask.”
Right. But where to begin when it was all so weird?
Ben drummed his fingers on the table while he watched her, making Adora want to swat them. She also wanted to tear off his tie pin, which was probably very fashionable but was made of some bright plastic and looked like a tub toy. Ben chased fashion trends, and his tie was a reminder that he had never quite matured into an adult—meaning compassionate and responsible—human being. Instead of giving in to impulse, she sat calmly, saying nothing while he sulked and she thought the matter through.
There were many things to consider, but what interested her most was why she had been approached for this job. It probably wasn’t because her prospective employer had actually read her work. After all, almost no one had. She supposed it might be a case of having tried everyone else and failed. Or maybe they had approached Ben and asked—discreetly—if he had any writers desperate enough to take this project on. Ben would have heard the word “desperation” and naturally thought of her. After all, she badly needed money. And she wasn’t married—wasn’t even currently involved with anyone—had no pets or other dependents to object if she took the job. Also, she didn’t share normal people’s interests. To her, ancient scandals were more interesting than current ones. She often found dead guys of more interest than live ones. To her, a deceased, crazed poet was more attractive than a live movie star, so perhaps Ben had a valid reason to believe that this project was one that would appeal to her.
On the other hand—Santa Claus? How big a kook did he think she was?
Even before she’d heard the outline of this job, Adora had had reservations about working for another supposed philanthropist. She hadn’t known many people who worked full-time doing nothing but good deeds—only two, in fact—but two was plenty. “Old money” was peculiar—reserved, even hostile. She had always suspected that, had she made her request for their family historical documents—which might as well be called Scandalous Family Secrets I’d Rather Die than Reveal—in some lonesome library instead of a well-lit office with lots of witnesses, those so-called philanthropists would have ordered their loyal family retainers to bludgeon her to death with their sterling silver candlesticks, or to flatten her body with their Rolls-Royce limos.
They always questioned why she would want to hear the sordid details of past scandals. All she could think was, were they kidding? Any man on the street could tell them that the sordid details of past scandals were the mortar that held the dry bricks of a person’s life together. And it was their foibles and flaws that made mythical beings back into humans, made them appealing to Joe Everyman.
Still, not everyone wanted to be descended from mere mortals, and many of the rich would do anything to see that their ancestors’ legends remained just that. It was a free country, though, and so all they could do was refuse access to their archives— which they usually did. Not that such actions stopped Adora from getting at the truth—once focused, she was like a hungry wolf after its lunch. But it certainly slowed her down and caused
her a lot of headaches.
Of course, not everyone was publicity shy. A couple of times she had been courted by the rich and famous who were finally feeling death’s icy breath on their necks and were anxious to fix their place in the history books before their relatives did—even if it meant some liberal fact-stretching. One had been a corrupt two-time governor, the other an empire builder doing his level best to rid his state of trees and clean water. She had declined both jobs.
She could afford to back then. Now? Well, she might just have to hold her nose and ignore what smelled. This client didn’t simply want to be the son of immortals, he wanted to be immortal himself. That alone suggested an arrogance passing into true mania.
She was also worried because she liked to keep a low profile. Her privacy was like a religion. It wasn’t that she had anything specific to hide—she wasn’t wanted by the IRS, the FBI, or a sadistic exhusband—she simply liked her solitude, and the thought of the possible celebrity to come with this project made her uneasy. She didn’t mind writing about high-profile people, but becoming one was another matter.
And yet . . . the poverty thing loomed large. She had discovered that she really hated being poor— for all the usual reasons and then one more: boredom. Boredom was terrible enough on its own, but when she was idle too long, her brain—always hungry for information or new projects—began taking self-inventory, and it never liked what it found. This time it said that she was a weakling who couldn’t stand being alone. And that was a little too close to the truth for any degree of comfort.
Adora knew from experience that, short of putting her inner voice in a chemical straitjacket, the only way to stop its carping catalogue of defects was to demonstrate to her inner critic that she was emotionally and materially self-sufficient.
But . . . Santa Claus?
“What’s the problem?” she finally responded. “Well, gee, Ben, this guy thinks he’s the real Santa Claus! Even you have to admit that that’s crazy. And no one can write a biography about Santa—a living Santa at that—and not get laughed out of the field,” she added reasonably. She always tried to be reasonable, she really did. It was just that some days it came harder than others. Especially when she felt like she was being teased for a paycheck.
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