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Tarrien
I should not have called the banshee hybrid stupid. Clearly, she is not. That was discourteous and now I owe her an apology for that. Yet Indigo is proving to be as annoying as her mother and when her green eyes flashed at me with such disregard, the ill-mannered words simply fell out of my mouth.
I should have given her more information about the abominations and what happened to her sister, Aleah. I thought to introduce the threat more gradually, to avoid any unnecessary panic. Now, I see that perhaps she would be more receptive to straight-talk. I will try that tactic, when I see her again.
Why will she not simply accept that I wish to protect her? Why will she not take my word for it that the danger is real and potentially headed her way?
Annoyance fills me, together with something baser that my mind veers away from labelling.
I didn’t expect her to be so hauntingly beautiful. Sure, she’s half-fae, but I live in Faerie. I mix with both full-bloods and hybrids on a daily basis, so it isn’t her banshee-human combination that sends my senses into overdrive. Renna is a renowned beauty but that woman leaves me cold. Frozen wasteland cold. I am the perfect winter warrior when Renna is near. Her very presence ensures my heart remains encased in the ice that is supposed to keep my actions pure.
The moment I laid eyes on Indigo—when she began to sing with the voice of an angel like the diva she is—my warrior blood heated in a way it never has before. Her green eyes stared down at me from the theater stage in what looked like contempt. A curl of her beautiful, blood-red lips cemented that effect.
Her blonde hair was stunning enough, while she sang. But seeing her real hair—those thick dark waves cascading down her back—almost had me sinking my fingers into the delicious sea of darkness as soon as I entered her dressing room.
I had to concentrate to keep my hands to myself and my gaze off those lush, ripe breasts almost spilling out of the tight red dress. The outfit was clearly designed to reel in men of all species and to keep us suspended on the edge of reason as we imagine sinking our faces into her cleavage and tasting the delicious, pale flesh on offer.
And more than that—inciting us to want to own that flesh. Take possession in a way that would send the contempt on her face spinning into non-existence and eliciting a full-throated cry of passion that would let loose for the whole world to hear.
A banshee cry. All mine.
Fuck.
I rub my temples, washing away the beginnings of a headache. I need to be better than this. Desire is not supposed to be this difficult to avoid. I am a winter warrior, I remind myself. My heart is protected from the heat of passion for a reason. If I succumb, I cannot fulfil my duties of protection and healing as effectively as I need to.
Look at what happened when Father gave in to his needs.
Right now, with the banshee hybrid in denial about the growing threat of violence and death, I need to keep my power at full strength.
I have to shut down my emotions and my physical attraction to Indigo if I want to protect her. And I have to protect her, if I ever want to be free of this incessant debt that my family owes to Renna. Stay focused on the task and perhaps my father will not be executed or go to prison when he is caught.
Prison in Faerie is nothing like prison in this realm. My father would not survive the rigors of those winter cells in the dungeons beneath the palace, I am sure of it. And if my father passed from existence, I know my mother would soon follow suit. Despite the fact that what he has already done has destroyed her life and that of our whole family, she still loves him and holds a kernel of hope for his return.
Damn my father. And damn Indigo, for being such an enticing, stubborn, annoying little wench. I won’t succumb to her hybrid charm. I can’t.
Not if I want to do my duty and keep her safe from the abominations.
Now, I will have to secretly follow her home and somehow ensure her continued safety, without her cooperation.
***
Indigo
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART is, and for me, that’s my black and white cat, Lola. She turned up one night just after Sienna died, at a time I needed her most, and has stayed ever since, sleeping by my side and within reach whenever a banshee call tears my body and my emotions apart.
“Hey, girl. Want some supper?”
We have a routine. When I get home from a show, invariably well past midnight, she’s waiting. I arrange her supper first, and then have mine before we cuddle up together on the couch while I de-stress with some internet surfing on my laptop.
We are mid-routine, fed and happily curled up on the couch with Lola’s purr vibrating against my thigh, when I feel the beginnings of a call.
Oh, God. No, no, no. Not tonight. I don’t have enough energy. Not tonight. Please, not tonight.
The lethargy I experienced earlier has delivered a present I do not want to accept.
Too bad I don’t have a choice. The agony rushes in and the wail builds, the force of it pushing up and out of my throat in a pulse of energy that carries the call of the banshee out into the night air.
I begin to cry as if my heart is about to break, the sobs uncontrolled, the pain centering in my gut. Who is it? What is happening to them? Why, oh why must I live the agony and sadness of death, over and over and over?
Is it someone I know? Can I do something to help? To warn them? Something!
Lola is already standing sentinel, alert and waiting to see what I need from her. I stagger to my feet and head toward the front door. Lola follows, biting at one of my ankles. She obviously doesn’t want me to leave the apartment, but this agony is beyond the norm. The strength of the call means it must be someone close by. If it is someone in the apartment building, then chances are it is a neighbor. I might know them, at least a little.
I don’t have a choice. I have to do something. I have to try and help.
I have no idea how I reach the elevator but I manage to push the button before another wave hits. Oh, my God, the pain. What is happening? Whoever is going through this is probably a hundred times more desperate than me. I hit the button for floor six. The agony feels like it is coming from above, and there is only one floor above mine on level five.
When I stagger out a few seconds later, I know I’m correct. Blood spatters line the hallway, from the elevator all the way to one of the apartments on the right. The door is wide open—most unusual for anyone living in the city—and I belatedly try to pull my phone from the pocket of my pajama top to call for assistance. It’s not there. My phone must be still downstairs in my apartment.
Pain explodes in my head. I gasp and let out another wail before falling to my knees. Is whoever is doing this to my neighbor still in there? Will this be the end for me? Is this the death that will finally end up killing me, too?
I’m not stopping now, though. I’ve come too far to give up. I begin to crawl on hands and knees, passing a hall table on which a vase of fake flowers rests. I scrabble, pulling myself up the leg of the table until I reach the vase. I tip the flowers out and smash the vase itself, grabbing a piece of broken pottery in my hand.
Not much of a weapon, but it is better than going in empty-handed.
Plus, I have my voice. That is a weapon in itself. As a fresh wave of agony hits, I finally stop holding back. I let loose the true song of the banshee.
My voice rises to such a level that glass shatters nearby. I stagger forward and the volume of my song increases, the notes becoming higher and purer, the nearer I get to the open door.
Another door opens further down the hallway and a horrified male face peeps out briefly, hands covering his ears, before quickly disappearing. Get help. Call for help. Now.
I hope the neighbor is racing to their phone. I hope someone already has called the cops. If not, I’m likely going to be as dead as whoever is dying in that room ahead, within the next couple of minutes.
I reach the door just as the pain dissipates into nothing. The dying person, whoever they were, has left this earthly plane. I collapse completely onto the ground, curling into the foetal position. I somehow manage to roll onto my side so I can peer into the room. I wish I hadn’t.
Carnage is everywhere, but beyond the blood and guts and bits of former human spread across the carpet and furniture, the specter of a huge werewolf fills my vision. At least, I assume it’s a werewolf. I’ve never actually seen one that looks like this before; a strange half-form that is neither human nor full wolf. It looks misshapen and wrong, and horror rolls over my skin when it raises its head from where it feasts on a piece of human meat. The eyes gleam with a strange, purple-red glow.
“Ah. Hybrid. You took the bait. You came.” The voice is slow and difficult to understand, but the feral expression is unmistakable. “Unlike your sister, you will not escape our reach.”
He leaps across the room, so fast I hardly register it.
I don’t think there’s anything left in me to scream. Not after living the death that took place here only moments earlier. Even though I’m half banshee—a woman renowned for the power in my song—I can’t even whimper when a werewolf worse than anything from my wildest nightmares is standing over me, ready to tear out my throat.
This is how I die? The arrogant faerie man was correct, and I didn’t listen. Now I’m about to pay the price for my cockiness.
Only...the thing doesn’t bite. Instead, its giant maw shoves itself in my face and sniffs greedily. A medallion on a chain around its neck dangles precariously close to my nose. A trail of mucus dribbles off one of his huge yellow teeth and I cringe away to prevent the slobbery wetness from landing on my cheek.
“Delicious......” The breath hisses out as it speaks, delivering with it the stench of blood and something completely rotten. “Give us your name. Your true name.”
My stomach heaves. Don’t vomit. Don’t panic. Don’t...
I can’t help it. Terror fills me up until there’s nothing left but the need to shriek. I was wrong. I do still have a voice. I open my mouth and release all the angst and horror and dread that I’ve been holding inside since Sienna’s death.
The sound is piercing, no longer melodic as I drop all pretence at control of the banshee magic that swirls deep inside.
The thing leaning over me recoils. It’s working. He’s retreating. But then he’s back; the flash of purple in his glaring eyes is stronger.
He grabs me by the arm and jerks me up. “I take you.”
That’s when I remember the shard of pottery clutched in my fist. I slash with the pointy end of the shard at the furry clawed hand holding me, drawing blood. It drops me, then lurches down and grabs my fist, twisting until I can’t help but let go of my piddly little non-weapon.
That defense didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.
The creature leans right into my face. My song cuts off as I have to hold my breath to avoid breathing in the stench of rot.
“I want to kill you...” The purple in its vicious eyes flares brighter than the red and it shakes its head repeatedly as if trying to rid itself of something it doesn’t like. “I won’t. I won’t. I take her.”
My feet aren’t working but it doesn’t care. It lopes out of the apartment and down the hallway, dragging me along in its wake. I bump along the floor, continuing to scream, and wail, and sob, but there’s no one here to save me. My heels scrabble, looking for purchase on the carpet but nothing works. It avoids the elevator and heads straight for the fire stairs.
Oh, God. The creature is going to drag me down six flights of stairs? My back won’t survive that. Where is it taking me? Why has it not killed me? It wants to. I saw the murderous rage in that terrifying gaze.
Just as we reach the stairwell door a blinding flash of silver light fills the hall.
What the...?
“Unhand her, abomination!”
Tarrien? If I wasn’t so utterly terrified in this instant, I’d burst out laughing at his quaint turn of phrase.
I turn my head and confirm that it is, indeed, the faerie man who has come to my assistance. But this version of Tarrien is so different to the other that I can’t do anything but gape upward from the floor. There’s nothing funny about facing a giant, armor-plated fae warrior with battle fire in his eyes. Especially when he is waving a huge silver sword in one hand and a short but wickedly sharp-looking dagger in the other.
His eyes are as murderous as the monster’s, but in Tarrien I welcome the rage. Especially because it is directed at the monster rather than me. I scrabble with my feet, trying to get purchase to stand. When his arm rises as if readying for a blow, I stop scrabbling and go completely limp. The shift in weight throws out the werewolf’s balance and it stumbles.
Tarrien slashes sideways with the sword and darts in to plunge the dagger directly into the creature’s heart. The latter is unnecessary; the first move sliced the head right off its shoulders. The now-dead headless carcass crashes to the ground beside me. The death-song rushes out of me in a wail filled with angst and grief and I roll on the ground in agony as the pain flows and ebbs and flows again until, finally, the call recedes and silence reigns.
When I come back to myself, I am cradled in Tarrien’s arms. He is seated on the ground, my limp body laying across his lap. He rocks me back and forth, crooning in a language I don’t recognize. Tendrils of comfort wind around me. I don’t want him to stop.
The body of the werewolf is on the floor, half in and half out of the stairwell doorway several meters away. The remains stop the door from closing completely. The head is nowhere to be seen. I think it may have rolled down the stairs.
I shudder at the thought, and Tarrien’s arms tighten. Where did the arrogant faerie man go? Who replaced him with this hero who seems to know exactly how to soothe me? I try to smile up at him in thanks, but I’m not sure how successfully the message is communicated.
No sign yet of the police, or anyone else who might have been able to help in time. The neighbors are doing what sensible neighbors do, and steering clear of the horror happening right outside their doors.
“Th...thank you.” Unlike my earlier banshee cries, my voice is merely a whisper.
He stops crooning and shifts a lock of hair out of my eyes. “You’re back.”
“It would appear so.” Though how intact, mentally and physically, remains to be seen. I shift a little, feeling faintly ridiculous laying across him like this, but for some reason I am unwilling to leave the coziness of his embrace. “Without you, I don’t know what would have happened, Tarrien.”
“I apologize, Indigo.”
I blink. “For what? Saving my life?”
He makes a tsking sound and his brows wrinkle. “Of course not. I apologize for going straight for the kill rather than wounding the creature. I forgot the impact that its death would have on one such as yourself.”
I manage a light chuckle. “Never hesitate to go for the kill, Tarrien. Not with a monster like that. I’d rather bear the consequence of the banshee cry than actually die.”
My chuckle disappears into nothing as remembered terror fills me.
The sudden tension in my body must be evident because he briefly tightens his hold. “You’re safe. I am here to protect you, like I said, and I fully intend to fulfil my duty. Even if you don’t want to accept it.”
“Well.” This time a different kind of tension rushes through me, one that starts up right about where my left butt cheek is pressed against his groin. It spreads through my system and ends somewhere deep down inside my belly. My heart does that weird flip-flop thing.
“I also apologize for calling you stupid earlier, and making fun of your half-cleaned face. It was rude, considering I barged into your dressing room without warning.”
“I...err...don’t worry about it. I think saving my life makes us pretty even.” I try to use a teasing tone but Tarrien merely nods without smiling.
“That is good. Fae do not enjoy being indebted for longer than they need to.”
He doesn’t seem to recognize humor or teasing. I grin awkwardly, and then slide out of his embrace and off his lap, though I don’t quite have the energy yet to stand.
Tarrien stretches out his legs and leans back against the wall. His sword and dagger have disappeared, as has his impressive dark armor. He’s wearing street clothes now—a black tee-shirt and a pair of jeans that are tight enough to showcase the impressive package I inadvertently rubbed against earlier. It’s several seconds before I realize I’m staring, and I quickly shift my gaze back up to his.
Laughter lights his silver-gray eyes and a tiny grin lifts the corner of his lips. Oh. Seems I was wrong about that. Faerie man does know how to smile. I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat, and look away before the heat in my cheeks has a chance to spread.
The sight of the bloody hallway drains away any semblance of warmth. How could I forget, even for a second?
“Who or what the hell was that, Tarrien? I mean, I know it was a—well, I think it was a—werewolf?” At his nod, I continue. “But there was something off about it. I mean, more than the misshapen body and the stink. I’ve met werewolves before, in their human form, at least. Even worked with one once, back in my chorus days—a really charming guy, and a great dancer.”
I swallow, remembering tonight’s murderous purple rage.
“That creature...” I gesture toward the body without looking at it again. “It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen. It was warped. Wrong. And why did it only kill that poor person in 602? Why did it not kill me, too? You called it...an abomination?”
The serious warrior-face returns. “I do not know the answer as to why it did not kill you, Indigo. But I can confirm that it was, at heart, a supernatural creature turned loup. Crazy. Though it was different to a normal loup, which basically goes mad and kills without reason or discrimination until someone puts it out of its misery.”
“A loup?”
“An abomination,” he corrects. “A loup that somehow has retained a modicum of reason. Very concerning. There have been a series of deaths, violent and concentrated in one area—Hatton Grove—in recent months. Plus, other scattered attacks all over the human world, the past several years. Turns out someone is creating these abominations—rogue supernaturals that can reason, and in some cases even work together. Which is almost unheard of. Somehow, someone has learnt how to control these loups, and it appears they are being sent after humans. Some preternaturals—non-humans—are being hurt in the ensuing mess, but primarily, it appears that the target of the violence remains human.”
“Hatton Grove? Where’s that?”
“It’s a small town in a regional area of the state, north-east of this city. Your sister, Aleah, lives there.”
“Oh!” I tap my chin, wondering if there’s a connection between the attacks. If another of Renna’s hybrid children has been at the epicenter of a series of violent occurrences, then maybe the abominations are after banshee hybrids. Maybe the humans being hurt are simply collateral damage.
But why?
From what the monster said after it killed the person in 602, it was deliberately trying to lure me upstairs. And yet, it was going to take me, not kill me. Did it murder the other woman because it still needed to fulfil its homicidal instinct?
The random attack that killed my best friend Sienna a few months ago and left me afraid of being alone for a while, suddenly takes on a whole new meaning.
Oh, God. Was Sienna’s death not random? At the time, the police said it was just an unfortunate tragedy where my friend happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I always blamed myself because I forgot my purse, and in running back to the theater to get it, I left her alone, providing an opportunity for the attacker to strike. I never considered that it might be more than a random opportunistic attack. Was her death directly because of her association with me? My heart speeds up so fast I feel a little dizzy.
“This is a lot to take in.” I close my eyes for a couple of seconds, massaging my temples. “A few hours ago, my life was the same as it always is. I was up on stage, performing...”
Performing the song of death, to dilute the effect when the real thing comes to call. I don’t say that last part out loud, but his eyes narrow as if he’s aware I cut short my sentence.
“You will need to come back to Faerie with me, Indigo. I can protect you far better there than here. My powers are strongest at home, and as one of Renna’s hybrids, it is not safe for you to remain in this realm any longer.”
I hold up a hand. “Firstly, please call me Indie. As far as I can remember, the only person who ever called me Indigo was my mother. She also gave me another, ridiculously long name, and told me never to reveal it as it held great power and could be used for evil if it fell into the wrong hands. So. Indie will do.”
“Indie.” He says it slowly, as if savoring the flavor. “I like it.”
“Hmm. Well, lucky for me, I do, too. Seeing as it’s my name. The second thing is...” How do I put this nicely? “There’s no way in hell I’m going to leave here and go to Faerie with you, Tarrien. I’ve heard stories about how time works there. It morphs into weird-as-fuck computations that rarely match what is happening here in the real—I mean, the human—world. Who knows how long I could be stuck there? I could hang out with you for a day, and arrive back here to find half a lifetime has passed. I have a life, there are people I care about, a cat—”
“You could bring your cat. I think.”
“You think? Yeah, sorry, it’s not going to—”
The door to the stairwell flings fully open at the same time as the elevator pings and opens. A swarm of masked and uniformed figures pile into the hallway from every direction.
