by Eric Asher
Another member of the archives nodded to us as I crossed the threshold and exited onto the steps of the old building. I wondered how much time Koda had spent there, or if the building had even been around when he was still alive. The weight of a great many spirits inside hadn’t escaped me, but Saint Charles was a place where the dead were always close.
The wide steps led to the uneven brick of the sidewalk. I glanced to the south and frowned at the edge of the site where not so long ago the military had set up thousands of tents, right in the heart of Saint Charles, right in the heart of Main Street. It was still hard to reconcile some days that we’d fought that battle here, but Lewena had brought the water witches to our home and destroyed so much of the riverfront.
Aeros and the Undine’s had done an amazing job rebuilding things. And I’d seen more than one green man tending to the trees that had survived. But I’d seen something else in the shadows, too. Something I’d once seen in the darkness of Greenville. It towered like a green man, but the savage gouges in the bark-like flesh that formed its face made an unsettling impression. The creature had seemed to have no ill will toward the green men, but anything I couldn’t identify tended to concern me.
In the last three months, we’d seen a good influx of commoners returning to the area. Some of them thought they’d be safer staying near the supernaturals and the military they’d trained. But others had bought into the propaganda. They’d come to realize who we were. That we were the ones Gwynn Ap Nudd had called out in his infamous television appearance.
Now we were just as likely, or perhaps far more likely, to receive a death threat at the store’s email as we were to receive an order. Frank had managed to set up some excellent filters, which kept the worst of it out of our sight, but there was still something disconcerting about seeing all that hate documented so thoroughly.
I turned away from the open patch of ground, now sprinkled with dead grass, and headed north toward Death’s Door. Some of the usual county construction had started up again along Main Street. It was a rare day where you didn’t see some amount of cobblestones torn up, or the sidewalks dug up, to either repair the sewers and pipes beneath them, or simply fix the sidewalk to help keep the pedestrians from snapping their ankles. The old cobblestone roads required quite a bit of upkeep, but I always felt like it was worth the cost to preserve that history. I hoped the city would also continue to believe it to be worth it.
The rains had stopped. Puddles still waited in the uneven cobblestones across Main Street. A few brave souls had already ventured out, unsure if the last wave of the thunderstorm had already passed, or if they’d be trapped in another deluge. A family of red-haired children stood on the corner, seemingly beyond the worry of rains or the coming storm. I suspected the family may not have been entirely human. We’d been seeing more Fae lately around Saint Charles. Some who had moved from Falias, and others who claimed to have done the same. I wasn’t the only one who was concerned that there might be spies among them. Foster and Aideen were already looking into that.
A few large drops of rain crashed against the glass plates of the gas streetlamps. A flurry of umbrellas rose across the sidewalks, shielding those less tolerant of the rain. Lightning lit the brick of the restaurant beside me and thunder shook the sky a moment later. It was perhaps an omen of things to come, the gathering clouds of a storm none of us would want to be in.
I made my way past the print shop where we sometimes had flyers done for the store, dodging around another bit of street repair. Farther up the street, I paused in front of Main Street Books. It was a modern shop, and while they didn’t carry the things I was generally looking for, they did stock quite a few titles on the history of Saint Charles, written by modern historians. But instead of the bookstore, I’d been sequestered away in the attic of Death’s Door, nose deep in the library doing research. It had been months since I’d read a book simply for entertainment, and the thought made me groan.
When this was over, the first thing I’d be doing would be turning off my phone and locking myself in that library with a good read.
I passed a couple of bars, and eyed the crowd gathered around an old antique store. The rain started to pick up, and I frowned at the old metal awning declaring the area historic Saint Charles. That part of the street always looked dark to me in the rain. Like some ominous thing, ready to swallow anyone who wandered too close.
I picked up my pace, passing restaurants and the occasional pedestrian and only a handful of soldiers. The rain was a steady drizzle, but by the time I made it to the shop I was still soaked.
The bell jingled on the front door as I walked in, the old handle cold beneath my fingers.
“Damian,” Aideen said as I stepped inside.
“Hey.”
“That’s 15.98 with tax,” Aideen said, turning her attention back to the customer at the counter. I smiled as the fairy danced barefoot across the tablet, before shoving it toward the customer. “Just swipe your card, and you’re all set.”
A little girl with light brown hair stepped out from behind what I supposed was her mom. She went up on her tiptoes and smiled up at Aideen. “She’s beautiful.” And it was said in that matter-of-fact way only a child can speak. There was no deception to her words, no exaggeration or manipulation. She was simply stating what she felt was the truth.
“Thank you, dear,” Aideen said. “That’s always nice to hear as we get older.”
The mother ran her hand through the child’s hair. She looked back to Aideen. “You can’t be that old. You look like you’re in your twenties.”
“We do not age quite the same as humans,” Aideen said, giving the pair a broad smile. “I am much older than you might think. Although I did have a very good friend that lived to be almost 5000 years old. Now that’s old.”
The child giggled, and the mother just stared blankly at Aideen for a moment. She shook herself and signed the tablet.
“Thank you, dears,” Aideen said. “If you’d like a bag, feel free to help yourself. I hope to see you again.”
The customers thanked our Fae proprietor, gathered up their purchases, and headed for the front door. I stepped into the far aisle to give them plenty of room to pass. The mother’s steps slowed when she saw me, and I braced myself for whatever words she might have to say. Her arm wrapped around her child’s shoulders in a protective stance.
“Thank you,” she said. “Some people in the city don’t understand what you’ve done for us. They say you brought hell to our streets. We saw what you fought back in the river. Thank you.”
It was my turn to stare blankly, as the woman took her leave and the bell jingled on her way out into the rain.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, waving at the front window as the little girl waved back.
“They stayed in town when the water witches attacked,” Aideen said. “They saw you and Bubbles and Nixie take down the harbinger.”
“We didn’t take it down,” I said.
Aideen held up her hand. “They saw what they saw Damian, nothing can change that. I for one am grateful we have goodwill among some of the commoners.” She glanced at the now-empty window. “And perhaps we have more than we realized.”
“Thanks for watching over the shop,” I said.
“Of course,” she said.
“I’m heading to Vicky’s now.”
“You never responded to their letter. The letter her parents sent you?”
I grimaced. “I know. What the hell was I supposed to say to that?”
“I’m sure they’ve grown more accustomed to her by now. They may have missed out on some years, but they have their child once more. They’ll understand you don’t have all the answers they’re looking for.”
“Let’s just hope it doesn’t come up. Because now I have to talk to them about their daughter’s dragon.”
Aideen gave me a huge grin. “Good luck.”
I narrowed my eyes and pushed my way through the saloon-style doors, passing t
he Formica table and the old grandfather clock before Bubbles ripped an enormous snore from the safety of her lair. The closet door creaked when I pulled it open, pondering a change of shirts. I could don one of the vampire-skull T-shirts Vicky had given me. The vampires certainly seemed to be amused by them, but this wasn’t exactly a social call. I hadn’t even talked to Vicky in a few months. It felt best to leave her be, so she could have a normal life.
The umbrella on the shelf caught my eye, so I grabbed it and headed through the back door. I glanced back at the deadbolt, surprised it hadn’t harassed me. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve sworn it was sleeping. It made me wonder if Aideen had found an effective way to threaten it into silence. The thought made me happy.
I pulled the door open on my thirty-two Ford, the car I’d taken to calling Vicky before the little ghost had taken on that name. Before she’d been trapped in the Burning Lands. Before she’d been resurrected.
And now I was going to talk to her parents.
I slid into the small seat and collapsed against it. The car started with a roar, and I made my way onto the streets.
CHAPTER SIX
There was one thing I was sure of: Vicky wouldn’t have come out of hiding without reason. The question was, how good of a reason? And how dangerous? The thought of what might be out there hunting her caused my pulse to spike. Was it the vampires? Nudd himself? Something from the Burning Lands that had snuck through the cracks between realms?
I turned the wheel and the car veered around the entrance ramp to Highway 70, starting the short trip east before I merged onto 141 and headed south.
I’d almost reached Manchester Road before my nerves really kicked in. As I tried to take my mind off things, I recalled a particularly eventful trip to the old altar. We’d managed to summon a demon, and then kill it at Zola’s cabin. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I might have more nerves about this trip than I’d had then.
And with that, my thoughts returned to Vicky like a rubber band. I thought about talking to Vicky’s parents, telling them part of what had happened. But how would I do that? How did you tell someone about the hell their child had been through? Would Vicky even want them to know?
My knuckles whitened as I strangled the steering wheel. It was a conversation I’d tried to have in my head a dozen times, a hundred times. But I never had a good answer. So here we were. Time had passed, and some things had perhaps gotten better, but others had most assuredly gotten worse. Nudd was here, in our world. He spent more time stalking the palaces of Falias than he spent in Faerie. He put on such a benevolent show, like a magnanimous ruler returning from obscurity. I feared he’d hoodwinked half the commoners.
But benevolent wasn’t a word anyone should use with Gwynn Ap Nudd.
His treaty, or partnership, or whatever hellish agreement he had with the dark-touched gave him an edge I didn’t care to think about. The Morrigan told us Nudd was a fool for entering into such a bond. The dark-touched could not be controlled like that. They were too elemental, too undisciplined, but I’d seen them fight with the water witches and their harbingers, and I knew we hadn’t seen the last of them.
I took a deep breath as I turned onto a street lined with old oak trees. Neatly trimmed hedges rose up sporadically, and it didn’t take long for me to find the one that I’d hidden behind the night we’d taken Vicky home.
My stomach flip-flopped as the old car bounced into the driveway. I wouldn’t be hiding in the shadows anymore. I supposed this was inevitable. The desire to see Vicky again warred with the dread of meeting her parents.
The car door thudded closed. A few footsteps carried me up to the porch. I watched my finger ring the doorbell, as if it was someone else’s, cast upon a movie screen in a dark theater.
Footsteps and muffled voices sounded inside the house before laughter grew louder and the deadbolt clicked open. The hinges whispered, and the face of a man not much older than me appeared in the doorway. I remembered seeing him that night. He’d been broken, with nothing but routine to keep him moving from day to day. But that wasn’t the man who stood before me now. This man stood straight and looked well, though his grip on the doorknob turned his knuckles white, and his smile was strained.
My brain didn’t fully register what I was hearing as I stared into the dark blue eyes of Vicky’s father.
“Jasper, no!” a woman’s stern voice shouted.
I frowned slightly as Vicky’s father stumbled out of the way and a large gray thing exploded through the screen door. I didn’t so much as have time to curse before the wide ball of gray fluff smacked into me and sent me to the ground, flailing into squarely trimmed bushes that were not nearly so soft as they appeared. Jasper chittered and squeaked, his size shrinking then expanding as the round ball snuggled up against my neck and bounced on my chest before shooting back into the house.
A woman about my age appeared at the hole in her door. She looked down at her husband, who lay sprawled across the foyer. “James, I told you we needed to take that screen out.”
“I was thinking about it, Lori, but I didn’t think Jasper would get that excited about anyone who would be visiting us. You must be Damian. Please, come in.”
“It’s the—” I started. “It’s nice to meet you.” I accepted a hand when he offered, and he helped me out of the bushes.
“Vicky’s in her room,” her mom said. “She’s been waiting for you.”
I frowned at that. Elizabeth was the name I’d expected to hear. I didn’t want to ask why they weren’t calling her Elizabeth, but I guess my expression wasn’t so subtle.
“That’s her name now,” her dad said with a sigh. “Just have to get used to it.”
I pulled the door shut behind me, the punched-out metal screen dragging and squeaking along the concrete until it clicked closed.
“Can I get you a drink?” Lori asked. I frowned at her for a moment before shaking my head. For years, I’d been friends with this family’s daughter, with the ghost of their daughter. In all that time, I’d always thought of them as Vicky’s mom and Vicky’s dad. It was strange to think of them as something else, as their given names. It felt right, but it also brought their loss crashing back down onto my shoulders.
“I’m good, thanks,” I said quietly.
“Vicky’s room is down the hall to the right,” James said. “It’s right at the end. Why don’t you talk to her?”
Getting a chance to speak to Vicky alone sounded a hell of a lot better than ambushing the whole family at once. I hadn’t seen Vicky in person in over a year.
I nodded. Mirrors mounted on the wall to the right caught my attention before I turned the corner into the hallway. The house wasn’t very big. It appeared to be three modest bedrooms, two barely large enough to comfortably fit a twin-size bed, and the other the master bedroom. I froze in the hallway for a moment. I’d done more than fail Vicky. Was I really going to risk taking her away from a real home? What the hell was I thinking?
Jasper purred on my shoulder. I reached up and scratched the furball between his giant black eyes. The deep trill woke me from my reverie, and I started down the hall again, my boots silent on the old beige carpet.
Even if James hadn’t told me which bedroom was Vicky’s, it wouldn’t have been hard to figure it out. The door stood open, but I still stopped and knocked on the frame. I stared across the room at a wall covered in newspaper articles and photos that had clearly been printed off the net on a cheap printer. Some of the pages were wrinkled, unable to maintain their form under the weight of the ink. Pictures of Nudd hung in one section of the wall, while red string tied between tacks trailed to an ethereal drawing of what I was quite sure was Hern. I traced those lines and found the Morrigan and Edgar and Camazotz and the dark-touched. Farther down the wall was a photo I didn’t remember taking. Four of us huddled in the library above Death’s Door—me and Happy and Foster, with Vicky asleep on one of the overstuffed chairs.
But the warm feeling I got from that pho
to, of seeing Vicky and Happy together, fled when I saw the photo next to it.
I stepped into the room, vaguely aware of Vicky sitting at the desk on the nearest wall, refusing to believe what I was seeing. But as I grew closer, there was no doubt. It was her, and a fairy, and two dragons.
Rage like I hadn’t felt in months boiled in the pit of my stomach. “Drake,” I snarled.
“At least he returns phone calls,” Vicky said, pulling her headphones off.
The growing fire in my gut fizzled. “You have Drake’s phone number? The right hand of the Mad King? Murderer, deceiver, and number one Fae who ought not be trusted?”
Vicky gave me a half smile that lit up her eyes. The only word I could think to describe it was sarcastic. “Some of the fairies say the same thing about me. So it seemed like a good fit.”
“Fairies? Plural? How is this keeping a low profile?” I asked as I gestured uselessly at the photo of her and the infuriatingly charming-looking Drake. “Is he why you were flying your dragon around downtown? I didn’t pull you out of the Burning Lands so you could live an extremely short life. I yanked you back so you could have a normal life!”
Vicky’s mouth pulled into a flat line. She held her hand up, curled it into a fist, and lit a brilliant soulsword.
I blinked at the dense blade.
“Not one call, Damian,” Vicky said, holding up the index finger of her free hand. “Is this normal?” She gestured to the soulsword before letting it snap out of existence. “You left me with a dragon and fragments of memories.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t get those back. Kid, you know now I can’t be around you. It’s not safe.”
“Bullshit. If there’s a weak link in the Devil’s Knot that binds us together, it’s not me.”
I felt a light pressure on my shoulder as Jasper compressed and launched himself across the room into Vicky’s lap. She scratched the furball between the eyes, and with her legs crossed and her shoulders back, she could’ve been mistaken for a Bond villain. It was then that I noticed the black clothes, the antique enamel skull pin that adorned her left shoulder, the dark eyeliner.