Present Day
Harley tugged her hood up against the chilly October wind and pressed her frame into the slight indentation made by the recessed metal door. Chin tucked, she scanned the narrow road between her apartment building and the bar next to it. The flickering bulb a few feet from where she stood cast a strobe effect over the darkened alley. The chaotic aspect of it appealed to her darker nature. The fact bothered her, yet she couldn’t deny it, not when the taint she carried flared in response to it.
She ignored the urge to embrace that side of her persona and continued her inspection. Caution and awareness had kept her alive in the face of a lifetime of danger. She refused to take chances. Lives depended on it—hers and those around her.
The Dumpster and the discarded stack of cardboard next to it looked no different than they had before she’d made her hurried trek to the corner drugstore. The curtains in the windows above her remained drawn. Music blared from the tenants on the third floor, and the lovers on the second level still argued about who should do the dishes. Harley cocked her head and listened for other clues, drawing on her nonhuman side to feed her details.
Rats skittered along the ground and around the overflowing, rancid garbage. The small animals didn’t bother her nor did the cockroaches that infested the shithole building she called home. What did were the monsters she knew walked among the humans, feeding off their fear, pain and deaths. Those were the ones who caused her to wake up screaming in terror and kept her constantly on guard. They wanted her too, but for a different reason. She could give them power. Make them unstoppable.
Over my dead body. She clenched her jaw.
A shadow loomed at the mouth of the alleyway. She held her breath and tightened her grip on the six-inch blade she held against her thigh. A heartbeat passed before a rattly cough reached her ears along with the drag of her elderly neighbor’s cane over the macadam. A smaller shape joined the looming one inching its way across the entrance. Both shadows danced in the light flickering over the ground, distorting their images until they reflected the hunched shape of a sluagh, the foot soldiers of the fairies.
Not real. It’s not real. Just my fears haunting me.
The words helped alleviate the trembling in her body. Still, she waited for the man and his poodle to continue on their nightly path before easing away from the hidey-hole she’d occupied.
Forty-five minutes, that was all she’d been gone. She normally didn’t wander outside at night as there was more of a chance to stumble over a redcap, but Bea’s pain medicine had run out. Harley hated to make her wheelchair-bound neighbor wait until the store opened on Monday. Besides, Harley hadn’t lived here long enough for the fairies’ creatures to pick up on her trail. The iron in the buildings helped mask her presence, and in the morning, she was skipping town.
Her older brother, Ian, was getting married. He’d begged her to come home and share in his happiness. The idea of going back to the house where the rest of their family died chilled her. For Ian, she’d do it. He was all she had left. Besides, she had a promise to keep. Two promises, actually. She wanted to fulfill them before it was too late.
One more sweep of the area, and she darted toward the front of her building. She hopped the couple of steps, reached for the door and froze with her hand on the tarnished knob. The dark taint living inside her pulsed with life. The flare announced the presence of her kind, a warning system she’d come to rely on.
She glanced over her shoulder. The black eyes of a redcap, a human who’d sold his soul to a fairy in exchange for power and immortality, stared back at her. Good-looking and tall with a linebacker’s build, Raul could’ve passed for any number of twentysomethings wandering the town, but he wasn’t merely an attractive guy. He was the stuff of nightmares.
Then again, so am I. She shrugged off the thought and focused on him, looking for a weakness to exploit and finding none.
While she fought temptation, he embraced it. If the flush to his cheeks was any indication, he’d recently soaked the gauze-like material he had wrapped around his skull, his tie to his fairy master, with the life force of his latest victim. She couldn’t tell for certain, though. A black baseball cap infused with fairy magic hid the blood-soaked cloth.
A smile tugged at his mouth. He leaned his big body against the lamppost and slipped his thumbs in his front pockets. His nonchalant stance quickened her breath. She faced him and twisted her hand to reveal the obsidian blade she carried.
Laughter shook his chest. She fought the trembling in her hand at his dismissal of the only weapon that would kill him and waited for him to make a move.
They’d acted the same scene out for years, ever since he’d killed her mother. Only once in all that time had he ever captured Harley. Most of their encounters mimicked a cat-and-mouse game where he always let her get away. One day he wouldn’t. She knew it in her soul. Her time was running out, in more ways than one.
He glanced from her face to the window above her. His grin widened into a sneer, showing off a mouthful of pointy, razor-sharp teeth. Her heart skipped a beat before pounding wildly.
No, please no.
Not needing the confirmation but unable to stop herself, she inhaled and caught the stench of death seeping out from under the door behind her. A tremor racked her frame. No hiding it this time. Raul’s uncontained amusement in response to her shaking drowned out the sounds spilling from the bar next door.
Hatred grew and stirred the taint she carried. The desire to give in to it warred with the knowledge that doing so was exactly what Raul wanted. Each time she embraced her rage, it opened her up to the chaotic power of the world around her and fed the living evil attached to her soul. The dark stain grew, ate away at her insides and sickened her. It was slowly turning her into a monster, forcing her to embrace her heritage.
Making her Unseelie.
But not today. I won’t let it happen.
She locked her knees and met his mocking gaze with a derisive one of her own. Minutes passed while she held herself in check, but a scream from somewhere inside her apartment building broke their silent battle.
Raul winked at her and ambled away as if he didn’t have a care in the world. No chase. She didn’t know if she should be glad with the turn of events or wary. She tracked his lumbering frame with her gaze until he turned the corner.
Hand still tightened around the knob, she twisted it and flung the door open. The small entryway split into a narrow stairwell and an equally cramped hallway. She rushed up the stairs, following the anguished cries. More screams added to the mix. She skidded around the corner and pushed against the shoulder of the college kid from the floor above. He stumbled into the wall with her shove but flung out an arm, stopping her from getting past him.
“Stay back, Harley.” He swallowed hard. “Ms. Erville was murdered. Bastard freaking mutilated her. It’s not something you want to see.”
She nodded in acknowledgment of his warning, but scooted under his arm and ran the last few feet. The open door revealed a sight she’d seen too many times over her life. Her gut rolled. She choked on the bile burning her esophagus. No matter how many times she’d seen Raul’s handiwork, it always affected her the same way.
She cupped her hand over her mouth to block out the worst of the stench and swept her gaze over the scene. Blood coated everything. The walls, ceiling and furniture were dotted in red, but most of the liquid soaked the tan carpet around the tipped wheelchair. Harley forced her gaze from the dark stain spreading out from the chair to the body slumped over the armrest.
Bea’s tongueless mouth hung open, and the pinkie of her right hand was gone. A gash cut across her thick throat while more slashes decorated her arms and legs. Eyes wide, she stared vacantly, but Harley felt the weight of her empty gaze. The accusation in it cut at her, left her with yet another sin to carry and another memory to haunt her dreams. She accepted it, exactly as she had the last time she’d seen a similar corpse and the one before that. Each and every murder Raul committed was her fault.
He followed and tormented her by killing those close to her—friends, neighbors, people who’d said hello to her.
She hated the fact that she endangered everyone around her, hated the bastards who sought her and hated herself. She’d welcome death, but she couldn’t embrace it.
Words had power, and she’d promised to live—no matter what.