by S L Mason
My hands reach out, feeling for the face of the person who’d spoken in my ear. We keep everything pitch-black unless there is a night-light naturally in the building. We don’t have anything on tonight. It is a girl and her hair runs down the side of her face. I move my face in closer to hers, once my fingers trail past her earlobe. I put my mouth next to it.
“Are you sure it wasn’t animals?” The pulse in her neck beats rapidly under my fingers. I turn my head slightly to hear better whoever was talking.
She whispers. “No, I heard footsteps. It wasn’t a dog.”
I place my hand gently on Zoe’s shoulder, making her body jump slightly. She refuses to sleep anywhere but next to me. How she could sleep at night anymore I can’t imagine. But I guess I make her feel safe.
I hadn’t slept in three days. I catch a snooze or catnap here and there. I don’t know why they call them catnaps. Cats never look tired. I am tired, very tired. And yet I’m not able to sleep. Napping isn’t working. Nothing works for me.
I pull Zoe’s body to mine. “Gather up the little ones and head out the agreed door.” Her body shifts and moves away from me. I lean back over to our informer. “Get Nick and the rest of the boys! We need to move out.”
The girl’s warm body drifts away.
I shift my weight onto the heels of my feet into a squatting position. I reach out and pick up my crossbow while feeling my side to make sure my gun is still there. The last thing in the world I want is to try to lead anybody out of here completely unarmed. I’m never unarmed. I always have something to defend myself with. In my case, if it isn’t a sword, it’s a knife, a crossbow, or any kind of weapon I can get my hands on. I’d stabbed a stick through the eye of a dog attacking me once. I can still feel the warm blood pouring out of its eye socket and through my fingers. My belly tumbles with the memory.
All I have to do if I want to stop the Fae is open my mouth and raise my voice as loud as I can and sing. But that isn’t an option. Using magic feels like meddling in the natural order. It comes too easy for me, and that scares me, along with the little changes that are happening to me. Every time I use it, I become a little more Fae and a little less human.
I hear the humming of a song. The tone is familiar. I can’t figure out what it is, the cadence or the vibration, but it sings to the inside of me. It has to be Janice. He will never stop looking for me. If we make it out of this, Nick is right. We can’t wait anymore. I am more of a detriment to the kids than a help.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are. I’ve seen a princess, young and sweet, and I asked her what she likes to eat. She smiled and said mincemeat.” His deep tenor song tells me everything. The icy fire flows in my veins. It is Janice; it has to be.
I hear the shifting of bodies like rats in the dark, scurrying away. I stand up involuntarily and begin to hum. At some point in time, Janice will burst through the doors. Maybe he’s running around singing everywhere he goes, hoping to spook me, I don’t know. He’s searching for me. I feel it.
I run into a wall of man flesh, the scent of Axe and Monster energy drinks tells me it is Nick. Nobody else in our group is big enough or drank Monster. His hands rest on my hips.
I reach up and touch his face. His cheek is curved into a wicked smile. I want to smack that smile off his face. I pull his head down so that I can whisper in his ear. “Get the van! I’ll sweep up the lagers and cover our backs.” He pats my hip in understanding. We move in different directions in our pre-choreographed get-the-hell-out dance.
Janice’s singsong bullshit fairytale rhymes fill the background. “Come out, come out wherever you are. I asked her what she wants to eat, and she smiled and said mincemeat.”
I know he only says it in his singsong voice because that’s how fairies entrance people. They use their music to enslave you. The only way to fight fire is with fire, and I am that fire.
I have to sing and every song costs me. What will I look like if I go back? Will I even still be human? I only got out because I figured out how the magical music works. You can’t just sing a song and something suddenly happens. You have to want it to happen. It requires intent.
Fae intend to enslave those humans and then kill them. And every time I think about how they use their music to freeze people, the acid rises in my throat. I swallow even now, trying to keep it at bay. They sang those people to their deaths. I don’t understand how you can be so beautiful and so evil all at the same time.
I don’t care that Janice said: that he had to do it, what he is doing would save humanity and Fae. I think it’s all bullshit. He looks like he enjoys it, and he certainly doesn’t seem like it’s a problem. If it’s all about intent, he has intent. He means to kill humans. He wants to mentally enslave them. It’s the only way the magic works.
Warm, little fingers wiggle into the palm of my hand. I glance down to see the moonlight glinting off blonde hair. My stomach tightens as if every muscle in my body coils up in anticipation. There are only three blondes in our group, and two of them are tall. Only one of them is little. Olive. I whip my head left and right, looking for Zoe, but I don’t see her anywhere. All that comes back is the shuffling of feet on the other side of the warehouse and sniffing of little noses every now and again. The intake of breath from a yawning mouth as their lips open and close. My eyesight in the dark has improved tremendously in the last few weeks. But I still can’t see through the deep gloom. I don’t have to. I know where the shuffling feet are going. The little yawning mouths are going exactly where I sent them.
The soft padding of Fae footsteps drifts to me from on the other side of the doors. Fire with fire, the rumbling starts in the back of my throat bone-deep and low. One of those little ditties that you hear people mindlessly humming as they work.
Magic isn’t about the song; it’s about intent. It doesn’t matter what I sing or whether I sing it out loud or whistle. All I have to do is listen for the tone. It is the first thing I do everywhere I go.
Every object sings and I listen to their tunes. The different vibrations they live at. Some are high and sweet, some low and sharp, a few flat as winter snow. Steel. Steel is a chorus, an entire chord. You can hear it as a clear F major. Beautiful. If I hum it just right, I can convince the steel in the doors to merge with the steel in the frame, creating a magical weld by merging the door from being a separate part into a solid single object with the wall.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it will not hold long. I just need it to hold long enough.
So, I let the notes reverberate in my vocal cords, keeping my mouth shut. I picture exactly what I want the metal to do. I want it to blend, to merge, to become something more than what it is. No longer separate parts but one solid entity.
The shifting of the door handle stops. Then for good measure, it twists again. Obviously, someone was turning it from the left to the right. But the only thing moving is the handle. Even the bolt doesn’t slide anymore.
Oops! Oh darn, I guess, I welded that too . With my arm stretching out behind me and still holding the warm little fingers, and move swiftly across the room. It is easy to maneuver around the various tools. They are the modular cases for Snap-On tools. Auto mechanics keep all of their tools in these big boxes. They lock and roll. It’s easier to roll your tools from one vehicle to the next, and all I have to do is dodge around them like a dancer.
With every song I sing, it becomes easier. My body is light and agile. I bend like a willow or jump like a note. Every now and again I feel myself floating as I come down. As if I am a feather.
A clang slices through the air, jarring me and I freeze mid-step and turn to see the saucer-shaped eyes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to.” Olive’s lower lip puffs out.
I don’t reply. There is no point. Olive didn’t mean to knock the wrench down. I scoop her into my arms and leap across the room.
“Now, Mary, Mary, aren’t you being contrary? Open this door and show yourself.” Janice calls.
Really, he
can’t even get one fucking nursery rhyme, right? He twists them around and fucking them up. My feet know the way to go. I exit the back door of the warehouse and into the yawning opening of a van where little bodies are stacked one on top of the other. I smell the sweet breath of children along with sickly sour of fear, then drop Olive on someone’s lap and step in myself, crouching down to shut the doors as quickly as possible.
“Hit the gas, Nick! Let’s get the fuck out of here. Now!” I shout, as the roar of the engine and the heat replaces my voice. One of the older boys sits in the passenger seat —Stephen. He’s smart, good with a crossbow, big and strong, and most of all Nick trusts him. The vehicle jolts forward. I put my left hand out, steadying myself on the headrest as I reach out with my right to lock the side door. I gaze over the others and then turn around to get a look at our six.
Nick’s voice cuts the tension. “What’s behind us?” He demands.
Steadying myself as best I can, I lean over the Lincoln log pile of children’s bodies, and survey the scene outside the driver’s side windows. “The Fae are already behind us,” I reply.
Janice jumps down off one of the abandoned vehicles, landing light as a feather in the back alley. I have to admire his abilities. He is almost like a god with his long white hair fanning out behind him. As his hair falls down to his shoulders, his clothes highlight the tips; they’re black, that’s new. His skin is opalescent in the moonlight, his smiling teeth gleam. That isn’t what gets me, it’s those violet eyes. The windows on the van are tinted, but he stares through them, right into the heart of me.
My chest clenches. Is it excitement or fear? Part of me longs for him to come and find me and end this game of cat and mouse. I feel it in my chest, the increase in my breathing, a flush on my face. The other part of me cringes away. the part of me I think is still human and it’s stronger one, for now. That’s when the revulsion always hits and the burning bile rises in my throat. My instinct is to do anything to get away from those evil creatures.
Everything about the Fae draws you in their beauty, their song and mostly the way they stare at you as if you are the only creature in the world. But for me, it is almost as if the human in me, the survival instinct that we all intrinsically have, rails against their attempts to ensnare me. All I want to do is get away from them. My internal war lasts as long as I allow my eyes to stare into his. It could have been an eternity or only a second.
The van shifts turning a corner. Our gaze is broken, as is the spell. I sag against the release, part of me jubilant, I’m free. The other part of me cries out for the loss.
CHAPTER 4
Nick drives around in the city for twenty minutes, circling several times and criss-crossing down streets. I keep my eyes sharp out the passenger’s side windows.
Our lights are off. All of them. Stephen, our gearhead, has even managed to unplug the fuses for the brake lights. I don’t know how stealthy you can be in a huge cargo van with thirty-seven kids piled all over the place. Muttering and sniffling abound, along with all the wide eyes. I have to keep tearing myself away from their deep stares.
Terror, when you’re around children, it’s a palpable thing. They reach out for the adult, seeking the solace they can’t find within themselves. They climb all over Zoe. They love Zoe. She’s kind, patient, and calm for a fifteen-year-old. She’s great with kids. Try as I might, they steer clear of me. I have my moments. Truth is, I think most of them only cling to me because they see me as a source of power, thinking maybe I will keep them safe.
In the daylight, they don’t want anything to do with Nick or I. But as soon as the sun goes down, they cling to Nick and sometimes me. They’re scared. Hell, I’m scared. But you can’t be scared and in charge. Children—people, aren’t looking for a crybaby. They want to know you can save them. You must be all-knowing; you can’t have self-doubt. You must know the answers to all the questions, and if you don’t, you fake it. That’s what people look for in a leader. I have to be ten moves ahead, planning for the next ten. The unknown and indecisiveness, they’re killers. They allow chaos to creep in and cut your group to pieces bit by bit.
The van shifts back and forth as it turns, jostling my body left and right. We drive serpentine down many roads to avoid the dead bodies—the human logs. They lie all over the residential neighborhoods on the road, on the sidewalks, across yards and porches. The stench of death still fills the air and filters through the vents into the van. That sickly sweet scent of rotting meat coats the back of your throat, gagging you until you taste the vitriol rising to meet it. I swallow it all back, breathing through my mouth.
The driving rocks the van back and forth, soothing sleepy little bodies. The smacking of lips and exhaled breaths from little yawns reaches my ears and the tense pile of children’s bodies sag into a relaxed sleep. My eyes trail over them in envy. I wish I could find that kind of rest.
Finally, we enter another industrial district. Warehouses line the roads around us, some of them the dark gray of CBS block, others the rusty red of steel buildings. Nick drives around in circles before he turns left, heading down a narrow lane to the last building on the line.
There’s a bay door open enough for the van to slip inside the workshop. The gloom envelopes us, and Nick switches the engine off, allowing us to glide to a stop. The door handle clicks as Stephen jumps out of our still moving van. His door doesn’t quite catch to close. He trots back and lowers the bay door with the chain, painfully slow.
“All right, kiddies, we made it to our next destination. If everyone would like to exit the van to the right, we will move into our next hovel,” Nick snickers under his breath. He thinks he’s clever.
Glaring at Nick through the darkness, I bit my lip. The last thing in the world these kids want is his smart-ass comments, but I keep my thoughts to myself; no point in having an argument out in the open. I don’t care if we are inside a van. We’re still out in the open. Every moment we waste here is a risk.
I unlatch the two doors, slowly pushing them open with the utmost of care. Then I lower my feet to the floor with my crossbow shouldered, my right hand on the trigger, and my left hand holding the tip up. I move it from the left to the right, scanning the room. the vibrations around me are normal, but I trust my eyes more than my new ability. The soft foot falls of Nick’s shoes come around from the driver side.
He squats down in front of me, placing his fingers into the grate in the floor. This warehouse has an unusual feature. There is a large rain drain towards the back of the building as if the building had been built over a parking lot or street. I’m sure a lot of people thought it was for drainage. They used a lot of water in this building, water jetting small machine parts.
When I had first found this shop, I was hoping for an entrance to the sewers along with an exit. Water did drain down to the sewers. However, when I explored it two weeks before, I found a door. It was unlocked and opened into a shelter of some kind. Who knew? That was the beginning of the plan. To train our band of escapees to fend for themselves. Nick and I both groomed Zoe and Stephen to take over. All our plans were to get here, where the kids would be safe until we got back. If we got back.
I see the gaping hole in the cement floor and nod my head to Zoe in the dim light while snapping my fingers. The kids move like waves, parting to let her by. Nick grabs both of her hands around the wrist and swings her down into the hole, slowly lowering her. I watch her, inch by inch, disappearing into the inky blackness. A few moments later a dim glow comes from the pit. She’d found the light in the shelter.
“Let’s get the hell out of this workshop.” Nick’s voice reverberates off the steel walls. The double meaning isn’t lost on me, he’s desperate to leave.
One of the other little girls urges children forward, lining up next to Nick. The teenagers jump down by themselves. Nick lowers the little ones, one by one, to the bigger kids. Stephen moves over and stands next to the edge of the pit. He gives me a scout salute and then steps off the edge int
o the blackness. Nick hands the smallest children down to Stephen. I keep surveying the area. No one is here. I can’t hear anything. It’s only the sounds of insects and wind, the scurrying of a rat or maybe a cockroach. I don’t want to think about the last one too much.
When the Fae come, all sound ceases. Everything goes to sleep or disappears, scampering away desperate to not be noticed. Even the rocks die. It’s as if the world freezes at their will. All, except me. I don’t freeze for them. I will never freeze for them.
Finally, only Nick and I remain. “Ladies first,” he smiles.
I cock an eyebrow at him.
“You know the gig. We’ve already practiced this. It doesn’t work that way. Go on! I’ll be right down.” I reply.
He jumps down into the hole, and I hear an umph and a splash as he hits the bottom.
Stepping to the edge, I squat down and lower my bottom to the floor. I don’t want to think about all the dirt and grime on the floor. I’m wearing jeans. There’s no way in hell it’s ever gonna reach my panties or any other part of me. However, my hands are thick with mud. I lean over and pull the grate to me, covering half the hole. I’m left with enough space to slip through.
My feet dangle down into the dark gloom. I turn over onto my belly, sliding down blindly into the hole. Nick’s large hands wrap around my ankles. Using his hands, he guides my feet until I meet the reassuring firmness of his shoulders. I settle myself, and his strong hands clasp my calves, bracing me. It’s the only way I can keep my balance. My arms reach up high enough for me to slide the grate into place.
With my hands trailing along the moist wall, I lower my right knee and then my left to Nick’s shoulders. I rub the grime off my hands onto my jeans. Nick’s hands slide up my hamstrings over my butt, reaching my waist. I take both Nick’s hands in a climber’s grip. I straighten both legs, allowing my body to slide down his back. My feet dangle until they reach the floor. Nick and I had only practiced this three times.