Soul of Fire

Chapter 10

The Huntsman was old. He remembered when the world was a slower, larger place. He also remembered that it had never been a simpler place. Some things never changed.

The note from the old wolf had come on the heels of the witches’ warning. He had needed neither, already aware of the change in the world.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” the man across the counter said.

“I’ve been away.” He had been hiding. Spending long afternoons in the Center, the tree-ringed clearing where there was no time, no stress, only peace and calm. The last time he had been there, he had sat all night by a fire, watching the stars wheel and turn, and found no peace, no calm.

Preternaturals stalked this world. AJ had warned him, and the witches had confirmed it. The Huntsman had no beef with supernaturals; how could he, tangled in their hold for all these years? If he sometimes longed for the dust and oblivion that would have been his measure had he not stepped between a wood nymph and a wolf centuries before, that did not mean he did not still love his nymph, and the wolf...

He had called the lupin friend for almost as long. Supernaturals did not hold grudges. Not of that sort. And neither could he. But preternaturals did not belong here.

“And now you’re back.” The human across the counter finished bagging up his supplies, slow and methodical. “You do nothing without a reason, David.”

That was true. The witches—the only of his species who could see what he was, who could understand—had called him to duty.

The grocer was human, but he was human the way the Huntsman himself was: touched by their grace, changed by their magic, able to see the fantastical and, having once seen, unable to live anywhere or any way else.

He had once thought he had paid the price for that, paid in double and in full. He had been wrong.

“There’s a storm coming, Jack.”

The grocer wasn’t fool enough to bother looking at the clear sky outside his shop. “Your lumbago tell you that?”

“No games.” He had never been one for games, but Jack had. Once it had been all games and foolishness with the boy, and how long ago that seemed now. Jack hadn’t been a boy for decades. “No ache that tells me the fair folk are distressed, that magic is stirring where none should move. The elves are at their tricks again.” He was an old-fashioned man, and he would use old-fashioned terms, and to hell with any who mocked him for it.

“Ayup.” Jack was no fool, for all that he’d once played one. “And you think we need to do something about it? You?”

“Once a meddler, always a meddler, it seems,” the old man said, not without some rue.

Jack put his elbows on the counter, his palms pressed together. He had been a fair-haired boy once, before that hair receded and the bright, clever look in his eye was replaced by a more knowing one. “What do you have in mind?”

“Nothing...yet,” the Huntsman said. “But be ready for my call.”

When the storm hit, all hands might be needed.

With his performance against the brownies, Martin became the queen’s new favorite, her obsession with art and creativity washed away for the moment by her appreciation for violence. He bowed to her, a shallow thing, but she ate it with a spoon, drawing the kelpie close, her arm tucked through his. She was taller than he but so slender, they made an odd, almost complementary pair.

Jan set her jaw and reminded herself that this was all part of the plan, as much as they had an actual plan, following the pair back into the house like an obedient human. Martin wasn’t hers—he was her friend, her colleague, fine, but she didn’t own him.

This wasn’t the same as Tyler and the elf-bitch who’d stolen him. Martin wasn’t being abused or brainwashed; they were here for a reason. They were here together, all three of them. Safety in numbers. She wrapped herself around that fact, warmed herself on it.

There was coffee and tea set up in the kitchen and an assortment of warm muffins filled with cheese on a platter. Jan took one, suddenly aware that she was hungry. Whatever else she might think about brownies, they kept house like champions.

The sense of hunger faded once the muffin was gone, and all that was left was an emptiness in her chest. She couldn’t identify it at first, then a sudden panic clenched her gut and made her breath come short. She was reaching into her pocket for her inhaler before she realized what it was.

The sense of a clock ticking down a deadline that had moved within her, ever since the bargain she’d made in the court...was gone. No fear, no pressure...but Jan didn’t for a moment think that the threat was gone, too. If anything, it was closer than ever before.

“Nothing’s changed,” she told herself, ignoring the sideways look a lupin gave her as it grabbed a muffin for itself. A human talking to herself couldn’t be all that off the weird-o-meter, not here. “Just keep going.”

There were no clocks or calendars in the house that Jan had seen, and she had a feeling that asking someone what day it was might not be the best way to blend. They were supposed to be here by choice, waiting on Nalith’s whim, not waiting on outside forces. The queen’s schedule set the day, and everyone seemed to follow along. “So, follow along,” she said in the now-empty kitchen and went where everyone else had gone.

The preter queen was settling into her not-quite-a-throne-seat in the main room, Martin standing by her side while she conferred with another one of the supers, a thin, reedy thing with a face like vanilla pudding. Their voices were too low to overhear, but neither of them seemed particularly upset, and Martin’s face was still that calm, waiting expression that told her to hold the course and not do anything.

The rest of the room was not crowded, exactly, but filled. Tyler had come back, now dressed and looking more awake, a mug of coffee in his hand. Kerry never woke before midday if he could avoid it, he’d told her, but both Patrick and the unnamed man had joined him, the three of them settled into a corner of the room, watching Nalith’s face like dogs might watch their owner, waiting for a command. Jan caught Tyler’s eye and was somewhat reassured when his left lid lowered in what might have been a wink. They were still there, still here, still them. For a moment, a strained, dizzy moment, she had doubted that.

“You, Patrick, attend me,” Nalith said, dismissing Martin and beckoning for the human, who jumped to his feet as though he had been waiting for her call. He had, of course. Jan watched as he made his way to the preter’s side, remembering with a sick twist in her stomach the way Tyler had stood next to the bitch-preter who had captured him, seduced him. How she’d tried to destroy his mind, his will, his personality, turning him into an empty vessel, a tool to be used to open portals.

No. Stjerne had failed. Jan had won. Tyler was here, not safe, no, but aware. Human. This wasn’t the same. She wouldn’t lose him, wouldn’t lose either of them.

“I wish to see the progress you have made,” the preter said to Patrick. He nodded, almost a bow, really, and left the room, Jan presumed to fetch his current project.

“And there you are. Sing for me, my bird,” Nalith said, almost offhandedly, as Patrick came back with a cloth-wrapped object the size of a small child in his arms, his tool kit slung over one shoulder. Tyler didn’t bother to ask what she was in the mood for—did he know, did he guess?—but opened his mouth and let sounds come out, a sweet, slightly mournful song that Jan didn’t recognize. Not the pop songs he used to sing in the shower, but something older, more suited to this court, about a lady who was locked in a tower and desired more than anything to see the living ocean and be tossed upon its waves.

Nalith didn’t seem to be paying any attention, more focused on what Patrick was setting up in front of her, but there was an easing of tension in her shoulders and jaw that gave her away.

With the preter distracted for at least a little while, Jan risked slipping away, moving quietly out of the room. Several of the supers glared at her, as though she were giving offense by leaving, but none of them tried to stop her.

There were maybe two dozen supers that Jan had been able to identify, although it was difficult when so many of them looked alike; there could be ten brownies or thirty, and that was without considering the gnomes.

Jan shuddered as she went into the kitchen. She didn’t want to think about the gnomes. They weren’t allowed in the house. Let them stay far away, doing whatever errands the preter had sent them on. Let them be someone else’s problem, as horrible as that sounded. She had enough to deal with here.

There were three brownies and what looked like a water-sprite of some sort, based on the gills and seaweedy hair, still in the kitchen. They turned to look at her, and while they didn’t say anything, she didn’t feel particularly welcome, either.

She needed somewhere to think, somewhere she would be left alone with her thoughts but not perceived to be hiding or doing anything wrong that would be carried back to the queen. But this place was almost as bad as the Farm, for privacy.

The basement where most of Nalith’s followers gathered, where the most useful gossip could be overheard, was off-limits to humans; that had been made clear their first hour in the court. Going back into the front rooms, having to see Tyler singing like a pet canary for the preter, or Martin standing like some kind of...obedient pet, wasn’t going to help her thinking, though.

Jan had the choice of going back upstairs to her room, where anyone could easily find her, or going back out into the yard. She chose the yard.

There was a single super on the deck, its face turned up toward the sun, but it ignored her, and she returned the favor. The grassy area was cleared of any sign of bloodshed or even a battle at all, although she could see the remains of what looked like a campsite at the far end that hadn’t quite magically grown over.

In a weird way, the space reminded her a little of the Center, where she’d been taken after her apartment was attacked. The wear marks on the grass there had faded magically, too. The Center felt utterly different, though; it was calm, steady, instead of the constant upset Jan felt here.

Jan didn’t know where the Center actually was—the bansidhe had flown her there, wrapped in its wings, the first time, and Martin had blindfolded her when they’d left so she wouldn’t freak out at being dragged into a river, but she wanted to go back rather desperately.

Things had almost made sense in the Center. The thought made her almost smile. She’d been centered in the Center.

No chance of that here. Jan exhaled, trying to force the tension out of her shoulders, through her spine, and out of her body, and rested her hands on the deck railing.

“I’m bored,” she said out loud, the first thing that came into her head. “How can I be bored?”

“Because it’s boring here.”

Jan almost jumped off the porch, then turned to see one of the brownies standing in the doorway, watching her. She couldn’t tell them apart, really, except by what clothing they were wearing, but this one seemed almost familiar. Not one of the ones in the kitchen...no, it had been part of the group that had been out here during the fight. Not one of the ones who had attacked, though.

“Excuse me?”

“Boring,” the brownie repeated, not seeming to be offended or angry. “This is a dinky little excuse for a town, with nothing to do except dance to her tune, and when she’s not playing a tune specifically for you...” The brownie shrugged, skinny shoulders rising and falling with a surprising eloquence. “Boring.”

“I had thought...” She wasn’t sure what she was going to say.

“What, that we live and die to serve her? That we don’t have a life beyond the kitchen and the laundry?”

Jan blushed, feeling the heat in her cheeks, and the brownie laughed, only a little meanly. Cam, that was its name, she remembered now. It was the one that interacted directly with Nalith when needed, and she’d called it by name a few times.

“Yeah, well,” the brownie went on, “we’re trying to expand our interests. As one does.” There seemed to be a joke in there, but Jan couldn’t find it. “At least you have the option to wander into town, as boring as it is, once she lengthens your leash a little. We’d raise too many eyebrows, even out here, so she’ll probably have you doing the grocery shopping soon enough.” The brownie—Cam—thought about it. “Yeah, only woman, she’ll send you. She’ll want to keep the songbird with her just in case. You won’t wander away without him.”

They didn’t plan to be here long enough to restock the kitchen, Jan thought but didn’t say out loud. They didn’t have time. She couldn’t feel the ticking anymore, but if the change of pressure meant the deadline was here, if not today then tomorrow, or maybe it had already happened...

Then the preters would be crossing over again, freed to steal more humans, their plan, whatever it was, back in motion. Probably it wouldn’t be an overnight thing, no sudden apocalypse, but Jan felt the ghost of that pressure in her chest again, replacing the fear of an asthma attack with something worse and less easy to predict or control. There was no medication, no inhaler that could stop this. Only them. Somehow.

“Is there an internet café in town?” she asked. “We came here not really sure what was going to happen, and we didn’t leave a note because, well, what could we say, ‘Off to find the elven queen and offer our services’?”

She had, actually, sent exactly that message. Or she hoped she had, anyway. She needed to talk to Martin, find out if the emails had gone through, and get her damn phone back. If the kelpie had lost or broken it, she was going to kill him.

“Anyway,” she went on, trying to be as artless as possible, “the chance to email now would be great, ’cause I’d love to let my friends know I’m fine, that there’s no reason to worry about me, before they throw out an APB and the cops show up. Not getting the cops involved is always a better idea.”

The brownie’s ears twitched once, front to back, and it studied her, as though trying to decide something. Then it smiled, as though it had come to some decision, and shook its head. “No, no cops. They like to poke and prod and cause all sorts of breakage and mess. Definitely do not want them around. They would irritate Her and that would be bad.” It shook its head once more, still smiling. “There is a computer in the basement. We use it for... We use it. But you can’t go down there.”

Humans were not wanted, not allowed, no matter what. Not that it mattered, in this case; any computer in the heart of super territory—supers who had thrown their lot in with the preter queen—was not going to be a good place to get in touch with Glory or AJ.

“I couldn’t even just to send email?” she asked anyway, projecting a slightly worried but not-yet-frantic tone into her voice.

“There’s Wi-Fi signal over near the campgrounds,” the brownie said thoughtfully. “You could go there.”

And hope that her cell phone picked up enough signal to work. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the only one she had.

“But don’t go until you get permission,” the super added. “Herself doesn’t like it when her pets wander off.”

“I’m not a pet,” Jan said, bristling almost automatically.

“Sure you’re not,” the brownie said, cackling as if she’d just said something unbearably amusing. “You just try going off and see how fast she yanks your chain.”

Jan glared at the shorter creature and then marched off the steps, heading away from both the house and the area where the gnomes had camped, the brownie’s mean-spirited cackle following her.

The more supernaturals Jan met, the more she started to think that she really didn’t like them.

She did not, however, go beyond the wooded property line that had been pointed out to them their first day. Just in case.

“He’s right, you know.”

“What?” Jan missed a step and almost tumbled face-first onto the grass when a voice spoke in her ear.

“You can’t leave without permission. Or you could, but Herself’d be upset. And she’d either drag you back by the scruff of your neck or not let you back in. And she’d absolutely keep your boy toy, and you’d never see him again.”

The speaker danced in front of Jan now, girlish and loose limbed, but the smile on that face was filled with sharp green teeth, and her eyes were pools of solid black that matched the inky hair flowing past her shoulders.

“Jenny Greenteeth,” Jan said, more than a little worried as she identified this particular super. There wasn’t any water bordering the house or running through the trees that she’d noticed, walking up... No, wait, there was the creek that bordered the town that they’d driven over coming in. It was large enough to have at least one water-sprite, probably more, although Jan would have hoped for one with a...less evil reputation. Surely Martin would have said something? But they hadn’t been able to exchange even a word since he’d shown up, and—

“Relax, human,” the river spirit said, still grinning, leaning in to sniff at Jan’s hair in a way that was deeply disturbing. “I’m no brownie-man, to begrudge you your place in the court. We all come here for our own reasons. She uses us as she will, and we take what she gives.”

“And what is she giving you?” Jan asked. They’d known, back at the Farm, there were supers following the preter queen willingly, but not why, not beyond vague guesses and suspicions. The brownie had talked about expanding their interests, whatever that meant, but...

“Entertainment,” Greenteeth said, her slim form still dancing around Jan, forcing her to turn in order to keep the super in sight at all times. “I am not of her court, not me, but I watch. It will not be dull while she is here. Allies and enemies, plots and plans, whispers and hisses.”

“Your very own reality show?”

“Yesssss...” Those black eyes sparked with something deep in the pupils, and Jan knew she should be disturbed, maybe even frightened, but suddenly Greenteeth seemed less frightening than, somehow, endearing.

“Jenny. Are you englamouring me?” Jan tried to sound stern, but her voice cracked on the last word.

“Heeeee. Human who smells of kelpie and witch-spell knows better. I don’t have to try. You’re already halfway there.” The greenteeth leaned closer and pressed her lips to Jan’s, a warm, wet tongue darting out to lick her once quickly, before the super had danced away again.

“That’s sexual harassment!” Jan yelled after her, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, but she was laughing despite herself. The river sprite made her think of Martin again—terribly dangerous and yet charming, disarming.

Like drowning, she thought. A terrible way to die, and yet she’d read somewhere that it was easy, too. All you had to do was let go.

“Not an option,” she said and started walking again, keeping the tree line to her left. She could feel Jenny—or something—watching, but she refused to acknowledge it. She hadn’t had a chance to walk the borders of the property yet, and it might be something that would be useful later, knowing exactly where, when, and what might come out of those woods. And it kept her out of the house, until she could face the queen again with her besotted mask in place.

The human, Tyler, could sing. Not professionally, no, but he had a good voice, a clear tenor, and apparently an inexhaustible recall for songs, because he hadn’t repeated anything yet, and the preter had him singing all morning.

Martin leaned against her chair enough that she was aware of him, but not so much that he was off balance or too far into her personal space in a way that might have appeared to be presumption. It was a constant recalculation and one he was not adept at, but so far she had not reacted badly. The main room was filled: half a dozen of the house-brownies clustered in a group and shooting him dirty looks even now; two fire-wisps that stayed near the fireplace, occasionally ducking in when they got too cool; and a handful of individual supers, most of whom he didn’t recognize without AJ there to coach him.

And the humans, of course, the two artists and another he had not been introduced to, on opposite edges of the room as though they did not trust each other and trusted the supers even less.

If so, that was the first wise thought they’d had since falling under the preter’s spell.

Jan had slid out of the room much earlier; the queen did not seem to notice that she was gone, but Martin suspected that she had noted and simply did not care to make a fuss about the defection. The queen seemed to have no goal in this morning’s gathering, merely enforcing her will on them, reminding them that they were hers, here solely to dance attendance on her. Nalith was flighty, spoiled, bloodthirsty, and casually cruel; exactly what he had expected, after seeing the preter court she had left behind.

And yet, she had left it behind. Not come as the vanguard of an invasion, not even as a conqueror might. She took all sorts into her court and seemed almost, oddly, content in this place, without any significant luxuries or adulation. As queen, she could have commanded an entire world. Here—much less, and she did not seem particularly eager to change that immediately. She had, in fact, run before discovery, rather than striking out in battle.

He still was not fool enough to trust her or dismiss the threat she posed. All preters, in the end, wanted one thing: control.

Supernaturals—and naturals—were not inclined to give that up without a struggle, even under glamour.

“Kelpie.” Her hand had lifted gracefully to shoulder height while he was thinking; she was summoning him. Martin dragged his attention back to her, worried that he had missed something, something important. “The gnomes return.”

The moment she said that, he could feel it, as though the air rippled against his skin, bringing the feel of thick, sticky fingers, like tree frogs clinging to everything. He scanned the room, catching Tyler’s eye and trying to send a warning, but the other man had no experience with turncoats, didn’t know what he would be facing. He hoped that wherever Jan was, she was out of their path, could avoid them entirely. They might have no connection to the ones who attacked her, but they couldn’t take that risk.

“They have been my weapons, until now,” Nalith said. “But now I have you.”

Martin didn’t pretend to be any sort of champion for morality, but he would rather beat every gnome in existence into the mud with his hooves than work with a single turncoat.

“I am but one,” he said, trying to sound honored by her words, rather than nauseated. “And they are many. Together, we will best serve you.”