Faerie Tale (20 page)

‘I’ll let you drive,’ she said with the air of one conferring a great favour. 

Finvarra did not look as if he greatly appreciated it. 

But he bowed graciously. ‘As you wish,’ he said to her complete surprise.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said, and roughly ripped the dress up both seams right up to the thigh.  Finvarra’s eyes widened.

‘Can’t sit on a motorbike in a tight skirt,’ she said playfully.  ‘Okay, I’m ready.’

Finvarra hesitated.

‘We don’t have to go,’ she said.  ‘I don’t care, you can just bugger off if you like.  Or you can put up with me as I am,’ she grinned, she was flying now.  ‘Take me or leave me,’ she told him.

‘As you are,’ said Finvarra apparently coming to some internal decision.  He climbed onto the motorbike and held out a hand courteously to help her on, just as he would have, had it been the proposed limousine.

‘That’s better,’ said Cindy hiding her confusion admirably.

They entered the restaurant with Finvarra holding her arm proudly, just as if she had been properly dressed, and they marched in as if completely oblivious of the stares and muttering of the other patrons. 

‘Shabby chic,’ said Cindy blithely in a loud voice.  ‘It’s the latest thing.’  She looked like she had been through a hurricane; she had bits of twig in her hair.

She had to admit she was impressed, despite herself, at the way Finvarra dealt with it; he could not have been ready for this.  Cindy was vain, everybody knew it, the idea that she would go out in public looking like a tattered urchin with no makeup on and no shoes even (her feet were filthy) was inconceivable. And yet Finvarra handled it with gracious aplomb and treated her like a duchess all evening.

They were at the end of the second course, and he still had not got to the point.  Cindy’s curiosity was almost at bursting point, but she was too well drilled in the peculiar etiquette of this sort of situation to point this out. 
He
had invited
her
; therefore, it was for him to bring up the reason in his own good time.  Besides, she had no intention of letting him know that she was curious, or interested even. 
She
was doing
him
a favour. That was the fiction here, and her pride demanded that she maintain the façade.

‘I expect you’re wondering why I asked you here?’ he said suddenly as the supercilious waiter left with their empty plates and his nose in the air.

‘Well it wasn’t to show me off anyway,’ laughed Cindy glancing at the waiter.

‘You look beautiful,’ he said with apparent sincerity. ‘You always do,’

Despite herself, Cindy’s pulse quickened.  This sounded like the beginning of one of those adventures that had been so plentiful in her past.  It was an age and a half since she had been wined and dined and flattered like this.  She felt better than she had for a long, long time.  And after all, why not?  He
was
handsome and charming and almost certainly experienced and no doubt skilled
^*

*
[
In Cindy’s experience, experience did not necessarily mean skill. Only if the experience had been backed up with the intelligence to learn by it
]

He was certainly good at the compliments, and if he was the enemy, well she was forewarned about that. No doubt she would learn far more from him than he would from her.

Finvarra sighed.  ‘Where to begin,’ he said.  ‘I have such a lot to tell you.’

‘Begin at the beginning,’ said Cindy.  ‘I usually find that’s best.’

‘That was a very long time ago,’ he said.  ‘A thousand years.’

‘I’m not that bloody old,’ said Cindy indignantly.

‘I am,’ he said.  ‘And
you
may not be, but nevertheless, our story does begin that far back.’

He leaned across the table and took her hand.  ‘You may have a young body my dear, but you have a very old soul.’

He leaned back.  ‘I have been searching for you for a thousand years. I’m only sorry that she came back and found you first. It has caused so much trouble.’

‘You will kindly explain what you are talking about,’ said Cindy with the forced politeness of someone hanging on to the last shreds of their patience.

‘I’m sorry if I sound cryptic,’ he sighed again.  ‘I was hoping that you would remember.  But that, it seems, was too much to hope for.’

‘Remember
what
?

‘How much I once loved you.’  He leaned in close and held her gaze in a hypnotic stare.  ‘And still do,’ he said.

Cindy started to shake.

* * *

Stiles was shaking too. In his case, it was because he was dying for a drink. The voices in his head were driving him mad and he kept setting the furniture on fire by accident.

Learning to use your new super powers was not as easy as Denny had made it look.  Of course, Denny had always been laid back about everything, whereas Stiles was pretty tightly wound at the best of times, and now was not the best of times, what with the thoughts of a million Faeries roaming haphazardly through his mind. And, of course, at the time Denny had been singularly unhampered by moral considerations whereas Stiles was worried about hurting people.  No wonder it had been easier for him.

Hecaté decided it was time to do something about the situation.  She had left him alone in the hope that he would come to her – but it had apparently not occurred to him to seek the advice of the only other deity within his personal circle. 

‘And he calls himself a policeman,’ she thought.  ‘Hah!’  More importantly, he had not thought to go to his wife and confide in her.  But that was mortal men for you – immortal men too if she remembered rightly. 

She eschewed the small talk and got straight to the point, a trick learned directly from him. You cannot live with a policeman and not learn a thing or two about interrogation.  First rule, you already know whatever it is they are not telling you.  Assume that and let them fill in the blanks in an attempt to keep up.

‘You can hear them all can you not?’ she said without preliminaries. ‘In your head.  I imagine it is difficult for a human to manage.  I am used to it of course.’

Stiles stirred and gave her a good view of his blurred and bloodshot eyes.  ‘You?’ he said.’  ‘You can hear …?’

‘Every witch in the world, yes.’

Stiles sat up interestedly.  ‘Really?  How do you stand it?’

‘It has always been that way,’ she told him.  ‘It is part of being a god.  But I can help you.’

‘Can you help me shut it off?’

‘Is that what you really want?’

Stiles thought about it. ‘No, not really, but I don’t think I can take much more of it without going insane.’

‘A human mind was never meant to deal with this power,’ mused Hecaté.  ‘But then, not
all
of your mind is human any more.  Part of it is the deity now.  He’s in there with you, is he not?’

The gauntlet …’ said Stiles vaguely.  ‘He runs it from inside my head, only … it’s me too.  But it’s him that tells me how.’

‘So he is in there?  That is the part of you that can hear the Faeries.  Let him deal with it.’

Stiles frowned. ‘It’s that easy?’ he said.  ‘Just … let him deal with it.  But he’s
me
.  I don’t see …’

‘Just try it.  Separate your mind.’

Stiles closed his eyes.  After a minute, he smiled and began to snore.

Hecaté smiled.  ‘I knew you could do it,’ she said softly and leaned down to kiss his forehead.  ‘Sleep well my love, sweet dreams.’

* * *

The morning hit them like a hammer. The sun did not so much rise as shoot up into the sky like a rocket and burst into flame. 

‘Bloody hell!’ said Denny but more as a matter of form than anything else, they had been expecting something like this.

Tamar laughed; it had been a long time since he had seen her so happy.  It was the prospect of violence ahead.  Denny had always deplored this side of her nature, but he had to admit she reined it in most of the time.  Only those who deserved it felt her wrath.  And no one could argue that Queen Onagh did not deserve it. 

He brushed his hair away from his face and rubbed his gritty eyes, he could do with a wash. And, naturally, there was a handy stream nearby.

The water was so blue it looked dyed, and so still that it reflected a perfect mirror image of his face. 

‘Ugh,’ he said and bent down to splash said face with (hopefully) cold water.

It happened so fast that even Tamar could not react in time.  A figure, that appeared to be composed of water, itself rose vertically from the stream’s surface, extended watery arms, grabbed Denny round the neck and pulled him in.

There was not even a splash.  He just disappeared.

Tamar forced herself to remain calm.  She glanced from a safe distance into the water, but it had regained its smooth mirror-like surface.  There was nothing to be seen.

‘Big mistake Onagh,’ she muttered.  ‘If you want a fight, you’ll get more than you bargained for.  Denny’s mine and no one’s taking him away from me.  I
know
you can hear me!  I’m coming to get you.’

‘Be afraid,’ she thought dramatically.  ‘Be very afraid.’

She raised her head and shouted to the blazing pink sky.  ‘I’M COMING TO GET YOU!’

* * *

‘Here we go again,’ thought Denny wearily.  It was even the same dungeon – or an exact facsimile anyway.

There were differences this time though.  No Athame taunting him from a safe distance for one thing (he had not brought it with him).  No other Faeries had appeared yet either.  It would appear that there would be no torture this time.

She
was different this time too. Softer, gentler, more conciliatory, and, if it had not been too incredible, she seemed almost humble. 

‘No singing here,’ she said.  ‘No breath.’

Denny nodded.  He knew it, he and Tamar, and now he and the Queen had not actually been speaking to each other in the usual way at all, he realised. He was so used to telepathy that he had not really noticed it until now. Even now, he barely noticed the difference.

‘No magic, at least no magic that
you
can use,’ she shrugged.  ‘Unless you join me.’

Denny contrived by his expression to indicate that this was not even worth answering.

She pouted.  ‘Look at me!’ she ordered him petulantly.  ‘I shouldn’t have to beg you to love me.’

‘I shouldn’t bother if I were you,’ he said callously.

Her face darkened.  ‘So you say,’ she said.  ‘But I have broken stronger men than you.’

‘Uh oh,’ he thought.  ‘Looks like the torture might be back on the menu after all.’

She smiled. ‘We are in
my
world now,’ she said.  ‘New rules.’  She brought her face up close to his. ‘Tell me you love me,’ she ordered.

Denny opened his mouth to say it. Then shut it again firmly.  ‘
No!
 
Don’t say it, but I want to.  No you don’t.  It hurts.  Shut up.  don’t say it. 
Don’t
say it!’

‘You can bugger off,’ he managed.  ‘I’m not that easy to manipulate.’

She spun on her heel and stalked out of the dungeon.

Denny sagged; this was not going to be easy.

* * *

Cindy lay on her bed staring at the ceiling.  She was in shock, incredulous and yet she believed him.  She had seen the love in his eyes; it went fathoms deep.

Apparently, a thousand years before, Finvarra had met and fell in love with a witch. Her name had been Alisande and she was apparently an ancestor, in direct line, of Cindy herself.  But there was more to it than that.

Cindy had heard the legends about the witches of the olden days passing on their souls to their descendants.  A measure of immortality, the only one available to witches, who were basically human, but she had never believed it – until now.

Alisande had given her life to seal the portal and trap the Faerie Queen. Cindy knew this was true. What she had experienced in her unconscious state on the motorway had not been a premonition; it had been a memory. 

That it had become inextricably mixed up with her present life was not so surprising, given that it come to her as a dream.  The feelings she had felt as Alisande for Finvarra had translated into her current feelings for Denny. Or had they?  What
did
she feel?  And for whom?

What
was
certain was that Alisande had made her tragic sacrifice for the same reasons as she, Cindy, had done in her dream. Queen Onagh had been horrendously jealous over Finvarra.  She would never have let him go.  She would have died rather.  So Alisande had killed herself for his sake.  And the Queen had now set her sights on Denny instead. Could that explain Cindy’s confusion? Was she just reacting to a thousand year old memory, or were her feelings for Denny real and unrelated?

Finvarra had told her that, before she died, Alisande had told him she would be reborn in the body of a descendant.  And the Queen had heard her. It had, no doubt, he said, seemed fitting to Onagh that she find this prophesied descendant to seal the stones once more.  Both the soul
and
the blood of the same witch.  It had a nice mythic ring to it.  Faeries
like
mythic.

Coming across Denny had been a mere bonus. She had been
looking
, as Finvarra had, for Cindy.

And Jacky?  It was just as he said.  Finvarra had sent Jacky to watch over her in his absence. There was something he was not telling her here; she knew it.  Something about Jacky or perhaps her own son.  But she had not pushed for more.  She had enough to deal with for the moment.

Then there was the problem of Finvarra’s expectations.  It seemed that he still loved … no
adored
her.  Alisande had apparently captivated the Faerie King in a quite unexpected and wholly irreversible manner. And he had clearly expected that, when he found her, the relationship would just pick up where it had so abruptly left off.

He had made it quite clear that he fully expected her to return his feelings.  But a thousand years is a long time.  He may not have forgotten, but
she
had.