My father left blood spoor at my door in the hind end of the night. It was a child’s blood, one not yet weaned. I had to follow; there was never any choice. Gods, how I hate him. And how he feeds on that hate.
The trail led me to the park as I knew it must. He does not like the gray buildings. They heap him. They leech him. They age him as they age all fey who settle here in the human towns. Green runs in our veins like sap. It keeps us young.
If I am ever to throw my father over, it will not be in the park but in the grayness or on the iron trail. Yet I went to the park. The blood called and I had to follow.
He waited beneath a linden tree, its heart-shaped leaves serrated like the teeth of little saws. I think he waited under the linden because of the leaves. He loves such metaphors. He is telling me by waiting there that I must do his bidding or he will put a saw to my heart. And I believed that. I am his child and his dog only so long as I am useful to him. After that, I am mere meat.
“Welcome, son,” he said in his growl of a voice. Sometimes he laughs, but not this time. I was glad of that. His laugh is worse than his growl. I hate these visits, but I cannot stop them. Small favors, my mother said before she died, meaning that he did not visit her anymore, had already torn her up so much inside that there was nothing left but a hollow. I wish he would do such small favors for me.
He stood there, arms crossed. He did not open them to me. It was not that kind of a relationship. “Welcome once again.”
I nodded at him and could not help but smell the blood on his cap. It was more of the child’s blood. He always dips that awful cap in his kill. A woman will weep tonight, I thought. And then I thought—many women will weep tonight. That is the human way. As my mother had wept. For herself. For me.
“I need you to seek.”
Of course he did. That is all I am to him. His hound. His Dog Boy. The one who seeks.
He told me no name. Names do not help me in the finding. But he gave me a taste of the scent he wanted me to follow. I was surprised. It was a strange combination of human and fey, a bit fetid as if the two had not combined well.
“Do not kill,” he said, “but follow closely. There is another who may come too, attracted by the light of your prey. Younger, sweet-fleshed and fey. Bring that one to me. And if you are successful, I will unleash you at last.”
I nodded and looked down at the ground, never into his eyes. Did he mean what he said? I doubted that. But I did not fully disbelieve. If I thought I would never be free of him, I would have to kill us both.
Instead I pissed on the roots of the linden as he watched. He laughed, thinking I did it to mark my territory, but I did it to dishonor him. He knew that as well, but would not let himself know.
Until it is too late, I told myself. It was my only hope.