Those Words I Dread (Tales of the Tuath Dé #1)

1

The rain was more of a hindrance to Julien than the fairy’s glamours. He weaved through people on the street, shouldering his way between couples and upsetting more than a few umbrellas, but he always kept the creature’s back in sight. It was slow; the wound in its gut made it limp down the sidewalk, perhaps unseen by anyone but Julien himself. He would need to chase it until he could force it into a less public location. His boot sunk into a puddle as he was forced off the curb by a cluster of people, soaking his sock, and he cursed as he wiped the plastered hair from his forehead.

Ahead of him, the fairy ducked into a building, and Julien picked up speed, taking the front steps two at a time and flinging the glass door open to keep the creature in view. He moved to follow it through the lobby and was stopped by a quick shout and a hand on his chest.

“Afternoon, sir,” the doorman said in a tone less friendly than his words. “Can I help you?”

Julien looked past him to the fairy in the corner, clutching its stomach and watching him with a wicked grin. The guard couldn’t see it. As big as a man and standing two feet from him, laughing—and he couldn’t see it.

“I’m here to see someone,” Julien said as calmly as he could, glancing briefly at the man in front of him. He couldn’t exactly tell him the truth.

The doorman looked over his shoulder a moment to follow Julien’s gaze, but he only saw the elevator doors and the tall potted fern in the corner of the lobby. “And who’s that?” he asked, turning back to the taller man with a more skeptical eye.

Julien grit his teeth at the fairy’s snickering grin. The creature looked up as the elevator beside it let out a soft ding, and it slipped inside, wiggling its fingers at Julien in a taunting wave as the doors slid shut between them.

“Sorry,” he ground out. “Wrong building.” He watched the numbered lights above the elevator go up and up, but he had to turn and leave before he saw them stop.

Julien let out a curse as he stepped back out into the rain, pushing his wet hair back from his forehead as he craned his neck to look up at the building. He hadn’t anticipated the fairy having a home. Maybe only a hideout. He took a look up and down the street, as well as he could see through the pouring rain. Nothing but housing. He would just have to wait, try again in the morning with a different doorman.

He hunkered under some scaffolding and dug in his pocket, retrieving his small brass compass and clicking it open. The makeshift screen inside still lit up green, confirming that a magic creature was still nearby. The compass case had made a convenient receptacle for the magic tracker he had cobbled together years ago. The fairy had been killing women around Vancouver for months, and now that Julien finally had it in his sights, he didn’t plan on letting it slip away from him. He shut the compass and dropped it back into his pocket, then settled under the scaffolding and lit a cigarette. He could wait.

Ciaran leaned his head against the back of the elevator and took a few long, slow breaths before looking down to check the seeping wound under his hand. Black blood had smeared across his palm and soaked his shirt where the hunter had cut him, and the open gash burned from the iron blade’s touch. He felt lightheaded. Damn that man. Who did he think he was?

The elevator rose up to the top floor of the building, as he had requested, but a sick turning in his stomach made him punch the button marked ‘9’ and stop it one floor early. He needed somewhere to hide, and that tugging feeling in his gut told him this was it. The door was locked, of course, but it only took a turn of the knob to click it open. He put his hand back to his stomach as he entered, leaving a coating of pitch-colored blood on the door knob.

The apartment was spacious and sparsely decorated, with cool stone floors and tall windows. There was hardly any color anywhere—only a black leather sofa and the cold stainless steel of the kitchen fixtures. Ciaran spotted the source of his unrest in the octagonal mirror on the wall, the round convex glass surrounded by black, red, and yellow markings. He couldn’t read them, but he knew a talisman meant to keep evil spirits away when he saw it. Luckily for him, he wasn’t an evil spirit. At least, he didn’t mean this particular resident any harm just now. He peered at his distorted reflection, one green eye growing large as he leaned close to the polished surface. He looked as pale as he felt. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, only smearing the gathered sweat. He could barely breathe.

He walked through the open dining area and living room, pausing by the kitchen and taking a few sniffs near the pantry door. He helped himself, though the skim milk in the refrigerator was a disappointment, and the blueberry muffin he stole from the counter was a bit stale. He eased himself down onto the sleek leather sofa near the balcony doors and sighed, wiping a few remaining crumbs from his mouth. He could feel the iron in the heavy wooden armoire nearby, no doubt hiding some other collection of spiritual goodies. What sort of person lived here? Whoever it was, the magical trinkets would doubtless help to hide him when that hunter inevitably came calling again.

Ciaran curled up fully dressed on the sofa, his hand covering his tender injury, and he slipped off to sleep with his belly not quite as full as he would have liked.

By the time he woke up, the lights in the kitchen were on and the double doors near him had been opened, showing the office inside. A man sat at the desk chair with his back to the door, typing something on the laptop in front of him. Ciaran sat up and lifted his shirt to inspect the crusted injury on his belly. It was still open, but the bleeding had stopped, at least. He wiped idly at the dark stain left on the sofa seat and stood to approach the office door with an unsteady step.

The man at the desk didn’t notice him, of course. No one ever noticed him unless he wanted them to, or unless they were unfortunate enough to stumble onto something they shouldn’t. It was just the nature of his kind.

Ciaran sat on the desk beside the open laptop to catch his breath. Damn the iron. The short walk from the sofa to the office had winded him. He would have to think up something truly unpleasant for that man the next time he saw him.

The man beside him now, however, was a bit of a surprise. He was very young, and Chinese—which Ciaran supposed explained the mirror by the door. A handsome kid, with soft black hair just touching his ears, and deep brown eyes that narrowed as they peered at the computer screen through rectangular half-frames. The apartment was quiet except for the ticking clock in the living room, and as Ciaran leaned forward to see the screen for himself, he found nothing interesting there. Just a bunch of figures and charts. He wished he hadn’t made the trip from the sofa just for this, even if his unwitting host was good-looking.

The man rose at a distant knock on the door, and Ciaran made his way back to the couch to listen. A boring conversation with a maintenance man about the blood Ciaran had left smeared on the knob, and the open door itself—oops. He hadn’t even bothered to make the place look burgled. Except for the muffin. Speaking of muffins.

Ciaran pulled himself away from the sofa with a squeak of leather cushions and went into the walk-in pantry, pulling down boxes of pasta, bags of potato chips, and tins of nuts. He let them fall to the floor as he dug through the shelves looking for anything that might satisfy him, and he heard the front door shut. He turned his head when his host appeared in the pantry doorway, a bewildered look on his face as he took in the scene. Ciaran had to steady himself against the shelves from the exertion of standing, and he took a slow breath as he let his forehead rest on a beam. Damn that man.

He heard a short gasp from the door and looked up to find the young man a step closer to him, staring straight into his face with narrowed eyes.

“Who’s there?” he demanded, seeming to have lost sight of Ciaran in a moment. His glamour must have slipped in his weakness. The man moved past him to look around the corner of the pantry, then scowled back toward the door when he found nothing. Well, now Ciaran had two options. Explain himself, which would be boring and repetitious but might give him a chance to rest, or keep hidden and risk drawing the attention of some sort of hired exorcist or medium. That had happened before. Catholic priests had little power over him, of course, but it was a nauseatingly drawn-out endeavor that made it hardly worth staying.

So, the fairy reached toward the younger man, and with a quick whisper, found himself eye to eye with his unknowing benefactor. The young man jumped back in a start and swore as his back hit the wall.

“Easy, boy,” Ciaran said, holding out one hand and letting the other rest over his aching wound. “I didn’t come to give you no trouble.” His voice was quiet and deep, with a smooth brogue that went well with his impish smile. The long-sleeved shirt he wore was ragged and stained, stretched out of shape and hanging loosely over his jeans.

“What the hell are you doing in here? How long have you been here? Why couldn’t I see you?” The man inched toward the pantry door without turning his back on Ciaran.

“Fair questions, all,” the fairy admitted. “But ones that might take a bit of explaining.”

“How about what you think you’re doing to my pantry?”

Ciaran glanced over at the shelf to his right, which held a tantalizing bag of sugared candies.

“Forget it. I’m calling the cops.”

“Won’t do you no good,” Ciaran called after him, and he let the man turn to see him in the pantry door before vanishing and reappearing on the sofa a moment later, candy bag in hand.

The young man stopped with his hand on his phone on the kitchen counter, and he looked between the sofa and the pantry door once or twice before settling his frowning gaze on the interloper eating his candies .

“What the hell is going on?”

“Fairy magic,” Ciaran said simply, slurred by a candy. He waggled his fingers for effect, but the other man didn’t seem impressed. “See, I’ve been in a bit of a scrap, and this spot here was nearby enough and has just enough magic in it that it should hide me away decent enough. So I’ll just be staying a few days and I’ll be on my way.”

“The hell you will.”

Ciaran shrugged. “Call the police as you like, boy, but they won’t find nothing here but a ranting lad and a messy larder. You stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours, and as soon as I’m well, we can happily part company.”

“Stay out of your way? You’re in my house!”

“Aye, and it’s not the coziest of spots, is it?”

“So sorry it’s not up to your standards, crazy,” he answered with a sneer.

“Hey now, there’s no call for any of that. You’re the one what sees strange disappearing men.”

The young man took a deep breath, and he took his hand away from his cell phone, stepping closer to lean against the kitchen island and fold his arms over his chest. “You’re the one that left that black shit on my door?”

“Blood, aye. Sorry I was busy bleeding to death; didn’t think to clean up after myself.”

“That’s blood?”

“Fairy blood. Slightly different.”

The man snorted at him and only stared for a long moment, the crunching of candies echoing through the apartment between them. “So assume I believe at least that you’re on the run,” he said at last. “I’m supposed to believe the rest of it is ‘fairy magic?’”

“Aye. Don’t you believe in fairies, boy?”

“Stop calling me boy. And no.”

“Don’t you know whenever you say that, somewhere a fairy drops dead?” The other man sighed through his nose without answering. “You’re right; that’s probably not true at all. At any rate, you saw what you saw, hm? Believe yourself if you don’t believe me.”

“Why here? What the hell did I do to deserve having you show up here? ”

“Well you’ve got a fair bit of magic in this place, as I’m sure you know.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ciaran gestured toward the entry hall. “That mirror, for one. Don’t get many bad spirits in here, do you? There’s other things; I haven’t exactly been searching the place.”

“That stuff isn’t magic; it’s just old.”

“Magic and old are frequently one and the same, lad,” the fairy smiled.

“Why should it matter if it’s magic or not anyway? No—you know what? I don’t even care. It doesn’t matter. Magic or not, you’re not my problem. Get out.”

“Well that’s pragmatic,” Ciaran chuckled. He pushed himself off of the sofa and stepped closer to the young man, setting the candy bag on the counter beside him and smirking to himself as the young man straightened, clearly wary of their proximity. “Let’s try this again.” He offered the other man his bloodstained hand. “Name’s Ciaran. What’s yours?”

The young man sneered down at his hand without reaching for it, so Ciaran slowly moved it forward until his fingertips touched the other man’s stomach.

“Don’t be rude, lad,” he murmured as he lightly prodded his belly, a smile touching his lips at the man’s slight squirm.

“Trent.”

“What’s that, boy?”

“My name is Trent,” he said again, and he scowled as he took Ciaran’s hand in his and gave it the briefest of shakes. “And stop calling me boy. What sort of a name is Ciaran, anyway?”

“Keer-an,” the fairy corrected him.

“Whatever.” Trent pried his hand away and slid out from between the counter and the other man.

“The way of it is, Trent, I’m not in top form,” Ciaran said, wincing a bit as he lifted his arm to let the younger man see the black stains on his shirt. “There’s a man after me, and I’m in no shape to run. I’ll be staying until I am.”

“What did you do?”

Ciaran seemed hesitant to answer, so Trent snatched the open bag of candies away when the fairy reached for them.

“What did you do?” he asked again.

Ciaran sighed. “It’s a bit complex.”

“I’m a smart guy.”

The fairy pondered, glancing between the candy bag and the other man’s face. “All right. Let me sit down.”

Trent sat across the L-shaped sofa from his unwelcome guest, letting him settle and shift until he was comfortable, and then Ciaran took a deep breath and let it out with a puff of his cheeks.