The Master

by Melanie Jackson

  “But you’re not on the inside. And, yes, it could tell. Probably by smell. It wasn’t just a goblin, you see. It was a troll goblin cross-breed. Cross-breeds are trackers used by the New Orleans goblins mostly, sort of like bloodhounds. Quede, the former king of that hive, was into genetic experimentation and hybridization. These troll crosses are his little gift to posterity.”

  Nick shook his head. “Swell. Are there many of them around? Am I likely to bump into one every time I visit a convenience store?”

  “Let’s hope not. We already have plenty on our plate, and lots to think about without this added complication. . . . And how about you, Nick?” Jack asked abruptly. “How do you feel about being part fey? Being descended from pixies is recent news for you, isn’t it?”

  “Very recent.” Nick smiled a little. He repeated his earlier reply: “I feel one thing but think another. Intellectually, I’m having trouble with the concept. How the hell can I be ‘part pixie’? I’m a doctor, a man of science . . . and human. Pixies are . . . well, cartoon characters that wear green and twinkle. And they’re usually girls.”

  Jack smiled back. “Believe it or not, many of us had trouble with the notion of being magical, at least at first. I wasn’t thrilled being called faerie as a teen, you know. And Cyra, who’s also a doctor and who was raised human, certainly had a rough time. Imagine finding out that you’re a shape-shifting selkie and conjurer elf when you’re thirty. She hadn’t a clue until the goblins started doing psychological experiments on her. She doesn’t look fey, either. Just like you.”

  Nick nodded. The women here, except for Io, did look more human.

  “What kind of fey are you—besides faerie?” Nick asked, hoping this wasn’t a rude question. “I mean, most humans have heard of Jack Frost, but you don’t seem anything like the song or the drawings I saw as a kid.”

  “That was my father, actually—a colorful guy who had a gift for conjuring cold weather. I’m what they call a death fey—just like Dad—only stronger than he was. It’s all in the practice, I suspect,” Jack answered. He stopped smiling.

  “Talk about having trouble with the concept. I was still a child when I found out that my magical gift was to be a bringer of death, to help people cross over. My first casualty was my pet cat. She’d been hit by a car. I didn’t want to let her go, and I inadvertently prolonged her suffering because I didn’t want to lose her. Finally, my dad made me see that I had to let her go. But it was hard stopping her heart and watching her soul leave her body. Frankly, it hasn’t gotten any easier. If I had been able, I might have walked away from my destiny.”

  “I can’t even imagine what it would be like having that sort of power as a child,” Nick said. He felt intense sympathy for the boy Jack had been but didn’t know what to say to the cool adult before him; never had anyone looked in less need of sympathy.

  “Do you have any siblings?” Jack asked, changing the subject.

  “A sister—Lydia,” Nick answered. “But she isn’t . . . If anything, she’s more ordinary than I am.”

  “No psychic twinkles?” Again, Jack smiled.

  “No twinkles at all. At least, not yet. But I was a bit of a late bloomer, myself, so I suppose it’s possible she will be, too.” Nick’s brow furrowed. “Or her kids.”

  “Give her some time. Though, you should be prepared for her never to show any signs of magic at all. Some kinds of magic favor certain genders. She may not have any latent powers, or she may simply be a carrier for future generations.”

  “Carrier. This sounds like a disease,” Nick said uncomfortably. “I’m not sure I want to think of it that way. It’s bad enough being a different sub-species.”

  Thomas Marrowbone spoke up, for the first time in ages. He had been busy fiddling with a portable PC, his brow knitted in concentration. “Maybe that’s what magic is—very special germs.”

  “But what vectors would transmit it?” Nick asked, glad of the distraction. He didn’t want to think about his sister’s children, his niece and nephew. “This would have to be an inherited condition.”

  Roman spoke from across the room where he was sharpening a sword on a giant whetstone. “Exactly. You don’t get it by inhalation or through sex, or a lot of humans I knew would be in trouble.” He grinned. Then he sobered. “It’s a thought, though, isn’t it? Magic as a disease. You can transmit certain things through the blood, after all, why not this?”

  “A disease, though?” Nick asked. “Isn’t it more likely a simple genetic trait?” He wondered what a fey DNA strand would look like. The thought made his pulse beat faster.

  “Well . . .” Roman and Jack exchanged a long look, then Roman continued. “Yes and no. Lyris and I probably won’t have another child—and it isn’t because we’re fey and thus can’t conceive.”

  “Wait,” Nick said, intrigued. “Conception among fey is impossible?”

  “Yes,” Jack answered. “Without magic. But that isn’t a difficulty here. Inside Cadalach, conception is possible.”

  “I see,” Nick said. He didn’t, but the news relieved him slightly. His carelessness with Zee on Christmas Eve still had him kicking himself. He turned back to Roman and asked, “So, why can’t you have children?”

  “Because I won’t. I was attacked by a vampire—a goblin vampire with a lot of psychic ability. In fact, he was the one who designed the goblin crosses that chased you. As Jack mentioned, unlike most goblins, he was very into high tech stuff, like genetic engineering. He engineered changes in himself. Now, Quede’s bite doesn’t seem to have affected me much—feys can fight off most things viral or bacterial—but his vampirism is somehow still floating around in my blood. In my magic. I can feel it, like cold black ink—and we are uncertain what it may do to my children. It might cause some permanent change that will be in their blood line forever, a bad change that could be visited unto the seventh generation and all that.”

  “You’re talking about germ cell alteration—from a bite,” Nick murmured. “A permanent change that will be passed on to successive generations from a vampire bite. A magical disease. Can that be?” He didn’t bother asking if vampires really existed. Of course they did.

  “That’s what Zayn called it: germ cell alteration. So this mutant strain of vampirism may not end with me if I have another child, and who knows what will be created.”

  “But there are in utero tests and therapies—”

  “For this? Get real.” Roman spoke impatiently but not angrily. “And it’s worse than you know. The physical symptoms are bad enough, but waiting for other charges is worse. You have to understand that, when he died, Quede was a fruitcake with a double helping of nuts. He was out to destroy all life. Human, goblin, fey—he didn’t care. Not at the end. And I think that it was his mutant vampirism that made him insane, not natural goblin sociopathy, which oddly enough has limits. Anyhow, he turned himself into a super virus and planned to infect the world by an army of carriers.”

  “You see,” Jack interjected, “most of Quede’s goblins were engineered to be latent virus carriers like himself. Some were small and cute, like puppies. He was going to market those as pets. Many were these troll crosses—stupid, mean, tough bastards to kill.

  A huge portion of the goblin population of New Orleans was affected, and they had to be dealt with very . . . carefully. But it didn’t end there. Unlike in the movies, the death of Quede didn’t mean liberation from his scheme. The crazy son of a bitch even introduced vampirism into several strains of orchids he was breeding. We spent a lot of time and resources helping the new master of the New Orleans hive—Lobineau—seek out the carriers and eliminating them.”

  Nick shook his head. Vampiric orchids? He began thinking about pathogens that could infect humans, feys and plants, too. It was enough to make his head swim, and he began to worry about possible infection from the goblin darts that had struck him and Zee. He also wondered what he could do to help if Roman was truly carrying some form of DNA-borne insanity that could be communica
ted to his children.

  “What happened to them—the infected goblins? What symptoms did they show?” Nick asked.

  “Extreme sensitivity to the sun—even more than usual—and eventually they went crazy with a kind of bloodlust that made them act like they were strung out on PCP,” Roman answered. “Some even turned cannibal. They had to be killed and then incinerated. There wasn’t a hospital in the world that could deal with them when they turned—not even the one Quede built. Besides, who could risk the infection spreading into the population outside the city? Even Lobineau isn’t that crazy, I don’t think. Although, most goblin kings have warped brains, so it’s hard to know where their limits are. See, there’s no father-to-son inheritance in the goblin world. Every hive has battles for leadership when a leader passes on, and may the most ruthless psycho win. Frankly, it worries me that Lobineau survived Quede. One wouldn’t guess it to look at him, but that’s one clever son of a bitch.”

  Nick felt himself blanch, his brain stuck on the word cannibal.

  “Are you sure this didn’t start out as something viral? That would be far worse. Genetic engineering takes trained personnel and special equipment to reproduce, but a virus . . . But, no. It can’t have started that way. In spite of your precautions, it would surely have spread everywhere by now. Actually, this sounds like some sort of psychosis brought on by a form of phencyclidine—a drug. That’s far more likely. Quede was—”

  “It wasn’t a drug,” Jack said. “Though goblins use those plenty. They have some real super-addictive stuff that can turn a human into a junkie with a single exposure,” he explained quietly. “Some are airborne, and some can be absorbed through the skin, no injection needed. But Zayn checked that option. Believe me, he checked. If you want to know more, talk to him. Or to Nyssa’s mother, Bysshe. They’ve been studying Roman’s little problem for months now, when he’s here to study.

  “Roman, when does your next play open?” the death fey asked, turning to look at his friend.

  “March,” came the Pooka’s reply.

  “Play?” Nick asked. Then: “Wait! You’re that Roman Hautecoeur? The play producer?”

  “The one and only.” The Pooka gave a graceful yet mocking bow. His sword seemed entirely out of place.

  Nick blinked. What did it matter, what job the man had if he was saddled with such a horrible problem? “I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly. This must be horrible for you. And I want to help, if I can.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Roman said. “If you want to help, I’m glad to have you onboard.”

  Nick nodded. Roman put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Anyhow, to make this long, sad story a bit shorter, we decided that since legend has it that all cross-breed vampires are born without bones . . .”

  Nick’s breath caught. “Born without bones? That’s . . . that’s beyond horrible. I can understand why you won’t take the risk of another pregnancy. What happens to a child without bones?” he asked himself softly.

  “They die,” Jack spoke up. “And because they’re part vampire and quite strong otherwise, they die very, very slowly.”

  “Are you lonely living here all by yourself, Mr. Dragon?” Gretel asked, stopping Nick dead in his tracks to take three quick breaths. Feeling slightly calmer, he followed the sweet sound of her voice down a passage into a large chamber. There he found both of Zee’s siblings sitting on the dragon’s scaled stomach, the beast lolling on its back with its legs in the air, rather like a dog playing dead. But the dragon didn’t look nearly as cute or harmless, and Nick had to fight the urge to rush in and pull the children away.

  “Does it make you sad not to have any dragon friends?” the piping voice of Gretel went on. She wrapped her small fingers around one of its claws, and admired the shiny talons that were at least twice as long as her hand.

  The dragon blinked at the question. Nick blinked, too. Dragon friends? The mind boggled at the notion of a gaggle of frolicking dragons.

  “Sometimes,” the beast said at last. It eyed the little girl curiously. “What about you?”

  “Sometimes I’m lonely,” Gretel confided. “But it’s better now that Nick and Zee are here. Nick is going to take care of us, and we’re going to see his friend when we leave. If you like, I could ask Nick if you could come live with us. He might say yes. He let us keep the imp. And Zee likes animals, so I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

  Hearing this, Nick clapped a hand to his head and stifled a groan. The dragon glanced over at the telltale sound, its long, thin lips twitching. Its reddish-yellow eyes began to gleam in a disconcerting manner. Clearly it could see where Nick stood in the deep shadows.

  “I’ll ask Nick, too,” Hansel said. “But it might be best if you didn’t mention liking dog cookies. That seems to upset him.”

  The dragon finally answered, and much to Nick’s relief it said, “I rather like living in the desert. But perhaps I’ll come visit you sometime. I’m sure Nick has a backyard or a spare bedroom. And I promise not to eat any dog cookies while I’m there.”

  Nick decided to intervene before things got worse.

  “Hey, kiddoes,” he said, approaching the dragon and the children. “Sorry to break up the party, but it’s time for lunch and then a nap.”

  “Will Mathias and Meriel be there?” Gretel asked, smiling at Nick. “Clarissa said they would be.”

  “Mathias and Meriel?” Nick asked. He felt overwhelmed by the names of all the new people he’d met.

  “Jack’s son,” the dragon explained, letting the children slide down his belly. Then he rolled over carefully and extracted his twitching tail from the crevice in the wall where it had been penned. “And Meriel is Thomas’s daughter, my . . . goddaughter, you might say.”

  Nick shook his head. That a dragon should be a godfather did not seem all that odd anymore.

  “Well, I don’t know about Mathias and Meriel being there,” Nick said to the children, taking their hands, “but I know you two need to eat and rest.”

  “I’m not sleepy,” Hansel announced. “I’m not such a baby that I need a nap every day, you know.”

  “Maybe not,” Nick said diplomatically. “But everyone needs to eat so they can grow up big and strong.”

  “Do they have any dog cookies?” the little boy asked.

  Nick heard a snort and met the dragon’s eye. He saw amusement there.

  “I’m sure they have something like them,” he murmured, turning and leading the children off.

  “Adieu,” the dragon called, waving a languid claw in their direction when they looked back. The beast caught Nick’s eye, and added, “I’ll be seeing you later—at dinner. And don’t worry . . . I won’t be eating dog cookies.”

  Nick felt his face tighten. When they went after the hobgoblin, the dragon meant, since the dragon couldn’t fit at the dining table, large as it was.

  Nick didn’t want to think about that just yet. He’d eaten, and that had helped, but he still felt like he needed about three weeks of sleep, and time to process all the new information bombarding his brain. Unfortunately, he needed even more information for things to make sense, and there was very little time to learn. He didn’t want to be walking into a confrontation with one of Roman’s Assholes of Evil until he was very clear about what he was up against.

  He also had nearly a million questions about what it meant to be a pixie. Jack’s inquiry about how it felt to be part fey—and about Zee being part goblin—had started Nick’s brain down a rugged path, and hearing about Roman’s problems made Nick wonder about inheritance and what oddities might manifest themselves if he and Zee had children. Some traits were recessive, cropping up in future generations in disconcerting ways. Could he and Zee have a child with four arms? Or with green skin? Or out-of-control pixie magic? What the hell would they do then? A child like that could never be passed off as human.

  And probably shouldn’t be, the ghost piped up.

  Probably not, Nick agreed. He sighed.

  “A
re you saying that what I feel for Nick isn’t real?” Zee asked Chloe. She had goose bumps on her arms and was still damp with perspiration from her nightmare.

  “No. It’s real. It just isn’t voluntary. Like the dream, the magic is making it happen to you.”

  Zee digested this. “And Nick?”

  “I doubt he is exercising any more free will than you are,” Chloe said quietly.

  “What about you and Zayn?” Zee asked. “Are you—”

  “I’m human,” she said quickly. “Magic didn’t choose him; I did. Or maybe circumstances did.”

  The woman looked over at her daughter. The child playing on the floor was clearly half-troll. It was equally clear that Chloe loved her desperately. Zee wanted to ask what she meant about circumstances— how it was that Chloe was with Zayn and yet had a troll child—but sensed there was still terrible pain in this young woman, and that it was all connected to her daughter.

  Here was another secret, another thing she didn’t understand and couldn’t ask about it.

  Zee was feeling cornered. First it had been her family trying to make her live a certain way. Then the monster, Qasim, had invaded her life and ruined her plans. Now the magic was trying to force her into doing something with Nick. Step by step, she was being backed into a corner—a dark one, where she couldn’t make out any details. Anger washed through her, causing her to shake.

  “Zee? Are you okay?” Chloe asked. “You look a little pale.”

  “What would happen if I tried to leave?” Zee asked slowly, her voice hardening as she brought her quaking limbs under control. “What if I just refused to cooperate with the magic?”

  “Leave Cadalach?” Chloe asked.

  “No—yes. I mean, leave Nick.”

  “I don’t know,” Chloe admitted. She smoothed her skirt nervously. “I . . . I honestly don’t think that the shian would let you go. I don’t know if Nick would, either. Truly, I don’t think he can. At least, not until . . . not until you do what the magic wants.”