“Why bother?” asked the Fae.
Len gritted his teeth. “Because even if it’s full of toxins, I gather it won’t actually kill you. And if I’m going to die of something, I’d prefer it not to be thirst, because dying of dehydration sucks balls.”
Albigard pushed himself reluctantly to his bare feet. “This is merely delaying the inevitable,” he said.
“Yes,” Len retorted. “That is, in fact, kind of the whole point of the exercise. Delay the inevitable for as long as possible in hopes that a solution will eventually come along.”
“Useless,” Albigard muttered.
“Fuck you,” Len told him. “Drink the damned water and see if you puke it up in an hour or two, because I’m fucking thirsty and you’re harder to kill than I am.”
His fists were clenched again. He consciously relaxed his hunched shoulders and opened his hands, working the tension out of his fingers. Somewhat to his surprise, Albigard turned without another word and made his way down the beach to kneel at the edge of the water, where he drank from his cupped hands.
Len took the opportunity to look around the immediate area. He must have dropped the cat-sidhe’s brooch-thingie in the cave, but the dagger had come through the portal with him. He picked it up and wiped the blade against his jeans to get the dust off. Albigard returned a few moments later, and Len held the weapon up for inspection.
“This came through with us. It might be useful.” He paused. “Uh... I haven’t brought a curse down on myself by accidentally stealing it from a Fae, have I?”
“Hmm. Let’s see. You’re trapped in a dead sub-realm with no means of escape or long-term survival,” Albigard pointed out, laying on the snark with a trowel. “Does that count?”
“Never mind,” Len told him, not amused. “Sorry I asked.”
“The water tastes pure, for whatever that’s worth,” the Fae went on.
“Give it until tonight,” Len said, sticking the dagger through his belt. “If you still haven’t suffered any ill effects, I’ll have some then.” He ran a hand roughly through his unstyled fringe of hair. “And, hey! Just think. You and I will be singlehandedly responsible for repopulating this place with our disgusting bacteria and parasites.”
“Yes. Until the Hunt returns and sterilizes it again, I suppose,” Albigard allowed, frowning. “In truth, I find the concept vaguely disturbing.”
“Oh, come on. Just picture it. Planet of the eyelash mites,” Len quipped. “I can see it now.”
“Not without a microscope, surely,” Albigard returned, though he sounded tired.
Len raised his eyebrows. “Holy crap. So you do have a sense of humor buried in there somewhere. And... don’t call me Shirley.” Albigard didn’t dignify that with a reply, so Len went on to broach another subject that had been bothering him. “Okay, I have a question. You said we could circumnavigate this place in a day. But you can’t mean it’s a spherical globe, right? The horizon’s all wrong for it to be that tiny, and the gravity would be almost nonexistent. So what did you mean by that?”
The Fae pulled his blood-matted hair back from his face and plaited it into a messy braid. “You’re correct, insofar as it goes. It’s probably easier to see for yourself rather than have me attempt to explain in your language.” He waved a hand to Len’s left. “We are near the boundary in that direction.”
Curiosity pulled at Len as he looked in the direction Albigard had indicated. He couldn’t see anything unusual about it. He turned back to the Fae. “You’ll be all right here?” Giving Albigard a searching look up and down, he added, “Sorry—I should have asked earlier. Are you okay after wrapping my car around a telephone pole and being chained up in iron for hours?”
“I am weakened. Not to mention, as has been previously stated several times, trapped and facing certain death. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t join you on your sightseeing trek.”
Len scowled at him. “But are you okay?”
Albigard looked exasperated. “I am unlikely to spontaneously expire before you return—assuming you’re able to avoid tripping over a rock and breaking your neck, or some such.”
“I’ll do my best,” Len said after a beat, since the alternative was to yell ‘Oh my god, why do you insist on acting like such an asshole all the damned time?’ at an uncomfortably loud volume.
He headed off in the direction Albigard had pointed, not at all sure what he was supposed to be looking for, but happy to get away by himself for a bit. Already, he regretted running off half-cocked this morning with nothing more than a couple of Pop-Tarts and too much coffee in his stomach. He’d be paying for his poor eating habits before long, though the situation would at least be improved if he ended up being able to drink the water safely.
As Albigard had predicted, his surroundings remained as bleak as the place he’d started from. The bare sand of the sloping beach gave way to dry, crunchy remnants of grass or some kind of similar ground cover. Every once in a while, he ran across piles of dead leaves that had collected in hollows formed by jutting rocks. That was a bit worrying, since it implied strong winds. He walked for maybe half an hour, still not sure what Albigard expected him to see.
The ground grew rockier, forcing him to focus his attention on picking his way safely among the scree. The next time he glanced up, it was to find the lake in front of him rather than behind him. He stopped abruptly, unsure how he could have gotten so thoroughly turned around in such a short space of time. Pivoting so the lake was once more at his back, he started off again. A few seconds later, the lake was once more in front of him.
Very deliberately, he turned around and took a few steps. Though he was absolutely certain he was walking a straight line, the landscape twisted around him and he was looking at the lake.
“Well,” he said to no one. “That’s certainly... a thing.”
Reaching down, he grabbed a fist-sized hunk of rock from the path and faced away from the lake. After a brief wind-up, he hurled it with all his might. A clatter sounded behind him, and he whirled, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste. The stone bounced to a stop, one hundred eighty degrees opposite from the direction he’d thrown it.
Admitting defeat, he headed toward the beach located between the lake and the skeletal forest on the hillside. Thankfully, it stayed put as he walked toward it. The deeply buried science geek in him was fascinated by what he’d just experienced... though truthfully, the place would have been a lot more fascinating if he hadn’t been trapped in it.
NINE
WHEN HE GOT back, he found Albigard dragging a decent-sized broken branch toward a large pile of similar branches near the edge of the water.
“This place is completely whacked,” Len declared, and flopped down in the sand to rest. “It’s insane.”
“This place is a discreet pocket dimension with a recursive boundary layer,” Albigard retorted.
“It doesn’t make sense, though,” Len insisted, waving a hand at the actinic white sun moving across the lavender sky. “I mean, that’s a star, right? And we’re obviously orbiting it. That’s outer space, up there. A whole sky’s worth of space.”
The Fae shrugged. “No doubt you saw a landscape beyond the boundaries of the pocket, as well. You simply couldn’t get to it. If you attempted to launch some sort of flying craft into the sky here, it would reach the boundary, twist around the edge of the dimensions, and crash back to the ground.”
“It’s crazy,” Len said with finality. “Utterly batshit.” He indicated the pile of branches. “What’s all this for?”
“Dead wood still burns,” Albigard replied. “It will grow cooler here at night.”
“Do we have a way to start a fire, though?” Len asked. “Because I don’t have a lighter or matches, and if it’s a matter of me rubbing two sticks together, we’re probably screwed.”
Albigard flicked his fingers toward a small pile of twigs and bark, which promptly burst into flame. He broke a few larger pieces off the branch he’d just hauled o
ver and tossed them on top, where they quickly started to smolder as the dry wood caught.
Len stared at him. “I thought you couldn’t do magic here.”
Albigard’s expression hardened. “I cannot replenish my magic here. The amount of power necessary to cast a portal that crosses between realms is orders of magnitude greater than what’s required to light a pile of dry tinder.”
Which... all right... made sense, Len supposed.
“The journey here did not quite succeed in draining me dry,” Albigard continued, bitterness creeping into his tone. “That particular achievement, I will leave for the Hunt.”
Len didn’t have an answer for that, so he busied himself breaking one of the branches into usable lengths and feeding a few more pieces to the growing fire.
“So, bonfire on the beach, huh?” he said, to fill the silence. “I’ve always wanted to do one of those. Maybe not quite like this, admittedly.”
The Fae sank down to sit in the sand, facing the flames. “No doubt your fantasy involved more alcohol and debauchery than our present circumstances allow.”
Len shrugged and built the fire up a bit more. “Alcohol and I don’t get along very well. I’m neutral on the debauchery. Though you can bet your Fae ass I’m jonesing for another pan of pot brownies right about now.”
Albigard didn’t look like he disagreed with the sentiment. “For what it’s worth, the water does appear to be potable. I’ve experienced no negative effects from drinking it.”
“Okay, thanks,” Len told him. “I was going to wait a little longer, but after walking for nearly an hour, I’m parched. I do, however, reserve the right to bitch at you with my dying breath if I end up getting alien dysentery or something.”
“Noted,” Albigard replied.
Len left him to go to the lake’s edge, where he crouched and cautiously scooped up a double handful of the clear water. It was cool but not cold, and tasted of nothing—dull and flat on his tongue. Still, he was thirsty and just starting to feel the first stirrings of hunger, so he drank until his stomach was full.
The ripples from his cupped hands spread outward across the lake in growing arcs, breaking the perfection of the mirror-like surface. Thirst sated, he tilted his head to take a discreet sniff of himself, suddenly aware that it had been well over a day since he’d showered. Since then, he’d sprinted the length of his neighborhood while jumping and climbing several fences in the process. He’d also been repeatedly terrified out of his mind, and then topped things off by flopping around in the dust after falling through Albigard’s portal.
If he really was going to be trapped here until he died, he figured he might as well have a quick wash while he was waiting.
“I’m going a little way further down the beach to clean up in the lake,” he called over his shoulder, not waiting for a reply. “Back in a bit.”
He walked along the waterline until he figured he was far enough away from the campfire not to dirty the water they’d be drinking. After removing the cat-sidhe’s dagger from his belt and stripping down to his briefs, he folded his clothes and set everything a few feet away from the water. Goosebumps pebbled his skin as he waded in until the water was waist high, then crouched down, scrubbing at himself with his hands.
The irony of the longing he’d felt for access to proper hair products after the first time he’d been unceremoniously dragged to Chicago wasn’t lost on him. It was oddly disconcerting to think that he might never even see a bar of soap again.
One thing about washing without benefit of any kind of cleaning products whatsoever—it was quick. He took a breath and ducked under long enough to scrub the dust and sand out of his hair, then surfaced and waded back to the shore.
With no towel available, he considered using the cardigan to dry off, but he didn’t want to risk it still being wet if it got cold after dark. Instead, he picked everything up and carried it back to the fire, figuring the heat from the flames could dry him off.
Albigard looked up at his return, his expression unreadable. Len hooked a thumb in the direction of the water.
“If you want to wash the blood out of your hair, better do it now so you have time to dry off before the sun sets,” he suggested.
The Fae only grunted in reply, but he did rise and head for the stretch of shore Len had just come from. Len took a moment to marvel anew at how quickly the man healed from injuries. He’d seen the state of his car after Albigard wrecked it, and the rusty streaks matting the Fae’s pale blond hair spoke to a serious head injury at the very least. Yet he was fine now—if you ignored the part about being trapped in a pocket dimension until he died or the Hunt ate him, anyway.
Len threw more wood on the fire and stood in front of it, having realized in fairly short order that sitting down would only result in more sand ending up where he definitely didn’t want it. The damp briefs he was wearing clung to his skin unpleasantly. He rotated slowly in front of the flames to try and dry them out faster—feeling like a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store.
Partway through a rotation, his eyes fell on Albigard at the edge of the water, and he stilled. The Fae’s back was to him as he slid the loose cotton pants over his slim hips and down, stepping out of them gracefully. And, yes... Len watched. He couldn’t stop himself.
Jesus Christ, he realized. I’m going to die in a few days or a few weeks, and I’m never going to have sex again. The last time I got laid will end up being the last time I ever get laid, and it wasn’t even that memorable.
Albigard’s frame was all hard, sleek muscle—the body of a runner or a swimmer rather than a bodybuilder. It wasn’t the first time Len had seen him naked, though on the previous occasion, the Fae had been suffering from horrific injuries that would have killed a human stone dead. Additionally, Len had been spitting mad at pretty much everyone present in the room at the time... Albigard included.
Even so, he was already familiar with the large tattoo that spanned much of the Fae’s torso and wrapped around his hips, extending onto his glutes. Len had gotten the impression that the Celtic lines and swirls were supposed to represent a tree, with its bare branches curling over his chest and reaching for his collarbones. The twisted trunk extended along the midline of his six-pack abs, where it exploded into a riot of tangled roots below his navel.
Len’s attention at the time had been mostly focused on the dozens of severe, penetrating injuries riddling the Fae’s body, but he was pretty sure those tattooed roots even curled around Albigard’s cock and scrotum. Which... yeah. Len wasn’t in the habit of yucking on anyone’s yum when it came to weird shit like that, but—ouch.
He continued to watch as Albigard tossed the cotton pants aside and waded in to wash, because, frankly, why not? Irritating bastard that he was, no one could argue that the man wasn’t impossibly beautiful. And, as he’d previously established, a bit of casual voyeurism was apparently all Len had left to look forward to in the sex department.
The Fae washed himself much as Len had done, taking longer with his hair as he scrubbed at the streaks of dried blood. The brilliantly white sun was slanting low in the sky when he finally emerged from the water. It lent everything an odd, silvery sheen that would have been shaded gold on Earth. Albigard either didn’t notice or didn’t care that Len was staring at him as he swiped off as much water as possible with his hands and pulled on the loose trousers to cover his nakedness.
He returned to the fire without much evidence of enthusiasm and lowered himself to sit cross-legged in the sand. The orange light of the flames darkened his pale, wet hair to a brassy color. Len watched as the Fae tore a thin strip of cotton from the cuff of his left pant leg and used it to tie the thick mass back from his face.
By that point Len had mostly dried off, so he dressed with awkward movements while standing up—making an effort to brush and shake the sand off everything as he went. Unfortunately, he still ended up with grit in his socks, which was about as irritating as it sounded. When he was done, he sat down with a h
uff.
“Maybe we could roll some bigger pieces of wood down the slope tomorrow to use as seats,” he suggested.
Albigard shrugged his disinterest. “If you like.”
Apparently, they were back to stoic fatalism again. The Fae’s apathy pissed Len off, but he caught himself before he could lash out at his companion in favor of asking himself why it bothered him so much.
“How old are you, anyway?” he said instead, as the sun dipped toward the crest of the rocky hilltop. “It never occurred to me to ask before.”
Green eyes lifted to meet his gaze, as though Albigard were surprised by the question. “In Earth years? I’ve no idea. I was already an adult when I visited the human realm for the first time.”
“When was that?” Len pressed, figuring it would at least give him an idea.
“I do not recall the year, but the emperor Charlemagne had just died, and there was a degree of political upheaval throughout Europe in the aftermath.” Albigard’s eyes grew far away. “It was the first time I ever witnessed the Great War’s manifestation on Earth. The demons had been attempting to seed paganism inside the court of the Holy Roman Empire, and Charlemagne’s son instituted a purge against the heathens, influenced by Fae advisors working behind the scenes.”
Len tried to resurrect hazy details from his long-ago high school history class and failed. He was pretty certain of one thing, though. “That makes you quite a bit older than Rans, doesn’t it? He was... what? Seven hundred or so?”
It still hurt to talk about the vampire, but Len wasn’t willing to pretend he and Zorah had never existed. Right now, even the familiar, dull ache of grief was preferable to feeling nothing at all.
Albigard hesitated. “Quite a bit older, yes.”
“Well, congratulations,” Len told him. “That makes you the oldest person I know.”
But the Fae shook his head. “I assure you, it does not. The sidhe existed long before the Seelie and Unseelie came to be. And demons have always existed.”
Forsaken Fae: The Complete Series, Books 1-3 (Last Vampire World) Page 24