by Brie Tart
“Your...you have claimed territory?”
“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”
“What is your trade? You hunt around in the woods for wary hikers and then skewer them?”
“Something like that...” A trade? Like a job? Wait, they’d been over that. Unseelie had specific ways of killing people like serial killers. “I’m gonna be like the Hook Man. Only I don’t shiv them with a hook. I’ve got my little knife right here.”
“Oh, that is precious.” The Lennan Sith giggled high and sweet like a metal fork skittering against a dinner plate. “You must be a very new abomination. Aspiring to become an urban legend? It’s too adorable.”
Helen didn’t resist her primal growl as the blatant condescension made the edges of her vision turn red.
“And she growls and lights up! Quite frightening.”
“Scarier than your kink for wannabe artists.” Helen held her ground despite her temper and the strange heat in her gut urging her to move. She needed that surprise back. If playing the dunce for a second was the only way to get it, she had to swallow her ego for a few more seconds.
“I give him inspiration, not fear. Your purpose is to destroy. Mine is to nurture. We each have our roles in the natural order.” She rolled her eyes and flipped her hair off her shoulder. “Me and my project will leave you to your little hunt. I’ll fetch him, and we shall be on our way.”
The Lennan Sìth turned down the path, exposing her back to Helen and the knife.
Red haze settled over Helen’s vision. She charged forward with her switchblade poised to strike. Her supernatural instinct took over and guided her aim toward the precise spot between the fae’s ribs where her heart was nestled.
The Lennan Sith happened to swivel as if checking behind her, and the knife ate into her bicep rather than her ribs. She jerked away, taking the knife with her. The steel blade tore through her sleeve and exposed the milky flesh underneath.
Gray veins crawled over her arm and crept toward her neck the longer the knife stayed in it. Smoke rose wherever they went. The fae clawed at the switchblade as her shape shifted into a luminescent bombshell in a ghostly gown with flowers braided into her caramel hair. She managed to get a grip on the knife’s rubber handle and threw it far away, over the cliff’s edge.
Shit. Helen’s one weapon and she lost it. She dove for the shining figure. Maybe if she could grab the fae, she could grapple her and figure out another plan.
The Lennan Sith darted away and her subtle glow intensified. Helen’s stomach flipped. She tripped to her knees.
A branch from a nearby tree slithered out at Helen as if it had a destructive mind of its own. Helen rolled to her feet as it passed her, but another branch swiped at her other side. They wrapped around Helen’s elbows and pinned her arms at her waist. The thin branches bit as Helen thrashed against them and their fresh green wood twisted around her like a snake’s coils. She was lifted her until her toes left the ground.
“How are you able to break the truce?” The Lennan Sìth cradled her arm against her chest. “Your queen swore for you. You should be bound!”
Helen only grunted as the bark digging into her intensified with the branches holding her in the air. The nausea became a burning that spread through her bloodstream. That intense heat numbed everything: fear, panic, even pain. Her skin seemed swollen from holding it in. Tongues of red, orange, and yellow flared off of her as if she’d burst into flames.
“You broke the treaty, an oath. You lied to me.” The Lennan Sìth edged closer to Helen and stopped just out of kicking range. “But you feel like them. You have fire and darkness like one of her Hellhounds.”
Yoel slinked out from behind his shrub and pulled out a revolver with thick cylinder from his jacket. That model was familiar, something Tommy always wanted to buy but never did. A revolver-shotgun?
“Come a little closer. Say that to my face!” Helen kicked out and her boot came within inches of the fae’s chin.
“The Pretender never unleashes her incomplete creations on the world.” The Lennan Sìth only watched the sole of Helen’s shoe as it came up and swung back. “Could you be a new kind of abomination? My queen must hear of this.”
Yoel set himself along the fae’s flank, just outside her periphery, and squeezed his trigger. An explosive bang shattered the nighttime hum of chirping insects, skittering critters, and owl hoots. Helen had heard gunshots before, but always muted through ear muffs. That full-powered blast so close made her ears ring.
The Lennan Sìth’s shrieks tore through the forest even worse than the gun. She clutched the red-spattered, smoking spots all over her side and stomach. Her fair skin had turned to shredded meat, and gray veins crawled over it like hungry worms.
The branches twitched and undulated, flinging Helen with them. The fae ran for the trees. Helen pushed against her woody bonds and made enough slack to slide out. She dropped on her side, but rolled to her feet.
Yoel reached into the inner lining of his jacket and pulled out a familiar machete in a beat up leather sheath. He tossed it to Helen.
The moment Helen caught the weapon, the fire in her veins demanded she run. Her extra instinct seemed to have more control of her limbs than she did as she charged the escaping fae and tugged out the blade. She leapt and thrust the naked steel at her target’s spine.
The Lennan Sìth contracted as the sharp point made contact. The fae skidded to the dirt. Helen landed on top of her back. Grass and soil absorbed the once beautiful creature’s muffled cries as the gray lines circled around her thin throat. Her limbs convulsed, and every inch of her bubbled with red blisters. Helen kept her machete lodged in that tangle of smoking flesh and twitching muscle until she went still.
Each wave of heat surging through Helen turned into a rush of warm, intoxicating tingles. The satisfaction overshadowed any other high she’d ever had—adrenaline, drugs, sex. She had no idea a part of her had been missing until that purposeful kill made her whole. A starving predator finding its perfect prey.
“Leah!” Someone shouted in the distance. The human boyfriend ran back through the shrubs.
CHAPTER 11
Helen turned with her red-dipped machete toward the noise. Without the sunset’s orange rays illuminating the forest, the trees became gray clouds with black rods stabbing into them. The darkness sharpened everything in Helen’s crimson-tinted vision. The instinct urged her on. More.
Something tugged on her arm. Helen whipped around, her weapon raised, ready to add whatever it was to her hunt.
Yoel faced her. Those black-framed glasses he fiddled with, the way his slicked hair wilted to one side after doing anything rough, his stoic line of a mouth that rarely curved into anything else. He was teacher, ally, not to be touched.
Helen’s blood ran cold and the world around her lost its haze. The night faded into an indistinguishable blur of shadows again. She had to hold onto her knees to keep upright through the abrupt comedown.
The photographer stopped a matter of yards away, gaping between Helen and the shriveled remains of the Lennan Sìth. While the fae didn’t resemble his girlfriend anymore, Helen could imagine the panic running through his head: Who was the crazy lady swinging around a machete in the middle of the woods? Who was the mutilated victim under her? Was he going to be next?
It dawned on Helen that he might have to be. He was a witness and a possible threat. He’d never understand what Helen saved him from, and wouldn’t believe her if she told him.
The photographer scrambled around and high tailed it out of there. Helen went to run after him.
“Wait.” Yoel pulled something else from inside his jacket lining: a small leather cup with two looped strings attached to it, like a slingshot without a handle. It emanated that nauseating Seelie vibe that kicked up Helen’s heart rate and got her excited for another fight. He picked up a small stone from the ground and weighed it in his palm.
The photographer climbed a boulder as he gained more distance. H
elen could hardly pick him out in the descending darkness. Did Yoel plan to hit the kid from that far away, in those conditions? He might be able to make that shot if he had a night vision scope to go with the rock.
“What’re you doing? He saw us. He’s gettin’ away!”
“Patience is a virtue, Miss Carver.” Yoel set the rock in the leather cup and held it up by the strings. He squinted ahead. Lining up a shot? He swung it into an overhead arch.
The rock flew out of the leather and zipped through the air. A second later the photographer stumbled and went down in a heap.
“He gonna be alright?” Helen winced in part admiration and part pity for the accuracy of that shot.
“Physically, he’ll be fine. This sling enchants its ammunition. Anyone hit by it will fall asleep and forget their attackers.” Yoel set another pebble into the sling and flung it a shorter distance at the Lennan Sìth’s corpse. It must work on dead people, too. “In the long term? There’s no way of knowing.”
“What about the body?”
“The Seelie know when someone has slain one of their own. I’m not sure how, but they’re fast in eliminating the remains and cleaning the memories of any witnesses.” Yoel bundled the sling into his jacket’s lining and tucked his revolver-shotgun in after it. He scooped up the machete’s sheath as he walked ahead. “We should hurry out of here before they arrive.”
“You sure they can’t track us?” Helen caught up with him in a few long strides.
“Even if they found a way, she isn’t from a high enough caste for them to bother. Besides, most of them will mistake you for an Unseelie bound by their treaty, like she did. That’s your greatest protection.” Yoel rested his empty hand in his jacket’s actual pocket, as clean as the rest of him. “I will continue to shelter myself in the small community of recovered changelings, witches, collectors like myself, and fae hunters like your uncle, that the Seelie allow among their society. They leave it alone as long as none rise up to become a serious threat. It’s only when someone comes across a dangerous secret that the higher powers intervene.”
“Meaning Uncle Tommy found something big.” Helen gripped her machete tighter.
“My thoughts exactly.” Yoel held out the sheath to her. “Clean the blade and put it away. I’ll keep it at the shop with me.”
Helen found a nearby trunk with moss clinging to it. She paused long enough to wipe the blood away from the steel, then shoved it inside the sheath. Yoel reached out to take it back. Helen handed it over, but hesitated to let go. It molded to her hand as easy as her motorcycle fit between her thighs.
“I’m only keeping it safe for you, don’t worry.” Yoel gave Helen a shadow of a smirk as he took the machete and slid it into the other flap of his jacket’s lining.
Helen looked over her shoulder toward the unconscious young photographer. The ominous way Yoel spoke about him set her on edge. It was a sober reminder that she had to curb her thrill and find a way to care. Uncle Tommy might have liked the mystique of it all, a lone vigilante unraveling a secret conspiracy. Finding justice for her mom and protecting her drove him, though. To keep her on his path, she had to remember her reason behind it, her own people to avenge and defend.
* * *
“How does it feel passing your first exam?” Yoel asked after they returned to the basement of Daath Books. He’d taken her riding jacket and boots to wash the blood off of their worn, thrift store leather. The space stank like shoe polish as he worked over Helen’s jacket with his white undershirt and foreign dog tags exposed.
“Pretty good.” Helen had washed and changed in the bathroom before coming down. She studied her empty palm as she flexed her fingers. It was incomplete without something sharp in it. She’d never had that trouble before. “What’s left to learn after this?”
“Plenty. We must review what you already know, continue practicing tactics for your new weapon, figure out those odd abilities of yours.” Yoel trailed off and paused his scrubbing.
“I was pretty surprised you pulled out that tiny cannon. What kind?”
“A Taurus Judge. I like to have it around as an extra precaution. I haven’t had to use it very often, though.”
“Lucky me.” Helen snickered. “You got any commentary about what the fae meant back there about me ‘being bound’ and all that?”
“Time for short quiz. What is the treaty?”
“The Unseelie Queen and Seelie High Queen got together and promised that them, and everybody under them, wouldn’t attack each other.”
“Yes, in essence. The way it’s phrased does allow some exceptions like self defense and anything else the monarchs agree on. The point of the document is to ensure neither side can overcome the other. It keeps the balance between their forces.” Yoel went back to scrubbing the sleeve of Helen’s jacket. “Fae nature makes them keep their oaths and renders them unable to tell a lie. Since the queens are linked to those under them by magic, their promises bind the rest of their subjects who are written into the treaty.”
“Makes sense.” Helen stretched one leg out, then the other. Her latest pair of jeans still dug some around her knees and didn’t fit quite right around her ass. “Why’d she call me an ‘abomination’ and a ‘Hellhound’?”
“Abomination is a common slur for Unseelie fae that Seelie often use,” Yoel said as he pinched his eyebrows together. “Hellhounds are what the Unseelie Queen calls her bodyguards. They are the nastiest, mightiest, and most faithful of her creations. She modeled them after dogs because their sole purpose is to do her bidding.”
“So the Lennan Sìth thought I was one of those?”
“Yes. Imagine an Unseelie Hellhound that could lie and break oaths.” Yoel shook his head and the ball chain his foreign dog tags hung on swung with the motion. “The only thing binding the Dark Queen and her subjects is the treaty. If she learned how to make creatures who could break it, the fragile stability between the courts established in the dark ages would fall to war, and take down humanity with it.”
“Well I’m not one of hers, so we don’t gotta worry about that.” Helen rubbed the white scar on the inside of her right hand.
“The question is, who did make you?”
“What did Uncle Tommy tell you about his sister Ellie?”
“Only that the Seelie kidnapped her and killed her.”
“She found her way back before she died.” Helen clenched her hand into a fist as she called up the memory. “She yanked me out of bed one night when I was eight, stabbed me into the floor, then chanted some weird shit over me. Her hair turned white and her face went gray. Then a fire started, and Tommy busted in. Mom got distracted and didn’t put up a fight as Tommy took me out of there. It’s real faint, but I could’ve sworn I saw some people ganging up on her as we went down the fire escape…”
Yoel’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out at first.
“You alright?”
“Your story is as much of an anomoly as your condition,” Yoel said, pressing his lips into a line. “I’ll look into it and see what I can find out.”
“Enough talking about me for a night.” Helen forced her fingers to relax and leaned back on her hands. “Let’s switch to you for a change. What’s on the necklace you’ve always got on?”
“It’s nothing.” Yoel glanced down to the perforated metal square on his chain and tucked it into his undershirt. “Family heirloom.”
“Is it a dog tag?”
“It is.”
“From where?” Helen asked, curiosity getting the better of her. “Did you serve?”
“Oh no, they’re my father’s.” Yoel set his rag aside and inspected Helen’s jacket as he spoke, never looking up from it. “He was from Israel originally, before he came to Britain. He served in the Israeli Defense Forces, infantry, for most of his young life until an injury forced him into retirement.”
“Damn, that’s intense. What’s he do now?”
“He passed a
way some years ago,” Yoel explained with a mechanical monotone that made it sound rehearsed. Back to his usual deadpan. “Mental health reasons.”
So PTSD got the better of him? Helen didn’t bother asking aloud. “Is he the one who taught you how shoot, or did you pick that up yourself?”
“A little of both. He started me on it, and I kept in practice.” Yoel handed the jacket over.
“I bet you kept it up ‘cause of that Indy phase.” Helen smirked as she tugged the jacket on, one arm at a time. “Shooting Nazis, saving the girl, and saying everything belongs in a museum.”
“Mostly the last one.” The tips of Yoel’s ears took on a pink tint as he started scrubbing one of Helen’s boots next. “Studying actual humanities hasn’t given me the privilege of trying the other two.”
“Well, I’d have been tree chow without you.” Helen clapped him on his shoulder and squeezed. “You saved my ass tonight.”
“Of course.” Yoel quirked his head to one side as if the idea of doing anything other than bailing Helen out hadn’t even entered his mind. “You’re my student. That was your first test. If something went wrong, and I wasn’t there to help, then all the promise you’ve shown would be wasted.”
“And you would’ve wasted a ton of money paying to teach me.”
“Money comes and goes. Education is priceless.”
“Said like somebody who’s always had it. But still you take this teaching gig real serious.”
“I like to share what I’ve learned, as did the character of Henry ‘Indiana’ Jones.” Yoel pointed over their heads, toward the ground floor with the shelves and shelves of books. “Why else do you think I make my living running a bookshop instead of being a mercenary like you?”
“I’m a bail enforcement agent,” Helen corrected. “If it wasn’t for Tommy wanting me close, I probably would’ve joined up with some kind of merc group and you’d have no idea I existed. I was such a little shit to him sometimes ‘cause he wanted me to stick around...”