Just Believe (5 page)

"Read that." Eochy leaned back in his
chair and laced his fingers over his belly. "That's the headline
that will appear once the reporters get wind of this."

Gaelen lowered his eyes, his stomach
already churning. The words on the page jumped out at him, putting
his acid pump into overdrive.

Co-ed's Sad Tale: My Boyfriend was
Abducted by Aliens!

Gaelen swallowed a mouthful of sour
spit, then looked for the subheading.

Ripped from His Lover's
Arms.

He couldn't read any more.

"How do you know this is about Lucas?
These tabloids make all this stuff up," Gaelen said.

"Do they?" Eochy relaxed, absently
twirling the tip of his wing around his meaty fingers. "What about
the face on Mars? Hmmm? And I suppose they just made up the story
about Elvis Presley working at a gas station in Kalamazoo? No,
Gaelen, these guys are the most tenacious investigators on the
planet. I just thank the Lord there are aliens. Otherwise, we would
have already been found out and either disbelieved out of existence
or the Council of Elders in Ireland would have our heads mounted in
the empty places at Newgrange."

"Come on, Eochy, they don't take heads
anymore." Even as Gaelen said it, his smile faded. The expressions
he saw on the faces around him had him wondering.

Eochy wasn't smiling at all.

"The reason the Fairy Controversy was
put on the agenda is this. We've received a directive from the
Council in Ireland to cease all contact with mortals. It's just too
dangerous."

"What!" The word echoed all around the
chamber.

Gaelen stared in disbelief. "Eochy,
that's unreasonable. We all," he motioned around the chamber, "have
careers, lives out there. We can't just drop them." He paused, not
even having the words to continue. "To do what? To go
where?"

"I suspect we'll all be ordered back to
Ireland."

The grumble of discontent grew
louder.

"Look, people, I didn't do this.
Irresponsibility like that practiced by Lucas Riley did." Eochy
leaned back in his big chair. "Don't you remember the stories in
Britain in the twenties? A bunch of fairies thought it would be fun
to reveal themselves to some schoolgirls. These schoolgirls got
their little Brownie camera out and, voila! Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
gets on the case and our pictures are all over the London papers."
He sighed. "I understand, believe me I do, but times have changed.
Revealing ourselves only results in mortal folk going out of their
way to disprove our existence. Do you know how many fairies faded
to nothing, just because a number of our group couldn't keep their
wings folded up?"

Eochy's voice rumbled off the walls,
rattling the magic stones in their brass mountings. The last time
Eochy had gotten this worked up, he'd shattered a couple of stones
and, until they could get some shipped in from Ireland, the North
American Council of Fairies had held their meetings in the
dark.

"So, what happened, Eochy?" someone
asked.

"As far as I can tell, Lucas and this
young lady, this--" Eochy referred to his notes. "Erin Tinker. Yes,
she's a nursing student at the University. They were...well,
anyway, when he..." Eochy yanked his specs off. "His wings popped
up, and she screamed, and he squooshed."

"He squooshed with his wings extended?"
another fairy asked.

"Ouch!" said one compassionate
listener. "Didn't you explain the facts of life to your brother,
Gaelen?"

"My father did," Gaelen replied, angry
his family was the center of such a scandal. When Gaelen got his
hands on his little brother, Lucas would have more to think about
than a pair of sore wings.

But such a mishap would explain the
pain Gaelen sensed when he'd had contact with Lucas earlier. He
felt Lucas's injury in the right wing, the torn connective tissue
underneath the shoulder blade. A sympathetic twinge reminded Gaelen
of a similar injury he himself had sustained in similar
circumstances.

But not with a human, for Bridget's
sake!

"He's hurt, Eochy."

"All the more reason to handle this
matter right here. He must be brought before the Council. He must
be dealt with. The girl, too."

Gaelen shuddered. "What are you
saying?"

Eochy's wise old black eyes fixed on
him. "We might be able to handle this ourselves. But we must not be
discovered. If we can contain this, prevent the tabloids from
spreading the story, maybe I can convince the Elders to rescind
their order. But we can't risk our literal lives for the sake of
our lives in the Otherworld. If the humans find out about us..."
Eochy spread his hands. "Well, you know how quick they are to
disbelieve."

"Some of them believe," Gaelen
said.

Eochy nodded. "Some of them will
believe anything. But humans as a race cling to the belief they
have a clue about what's going on in the universe. When the
scientists get started..."

A murmur arose in the assembly followed
by a wave of fear.

"We'll all end up on ice at Area 51
with the aliens," came a gruff prediction from the
gallery.

The idea of being a scientific
curiosity appealed no more to Gaelen than it did to anybody else.
If this story was true, then Lucas had committed a major
felony.

"So, what do you want me to do?" he
finally ground out.

"Find him. Bring him to us so we can
handle this, or the Elders will."

"What will you do to him?" Gaelen
asked, his belly twisting as he waited for the answer.

"You know the penalty for consorting
with a human and revealing the fairy nature."

Bile filled Gaelen's throat. He gulped
it down and tried to keep his wings from trembling. "Eochy, you
can't be serious."

Eochy closed his eyes and nodded
gravely. "Banishment to Tir-Nan-Og."

Oh, Bridget. Eternal life with no
responsibility might sound good in theory, but the lack of
challenge made a man soft, useless. After a few thousand years of
constant partying, one would plead for the rigors of Hell out of
sheer boredom.

Personally, he'd rather be disbelieved
to death. At least then he'd see what was on the other
side.

"And the human girl?"

Eochy wouldn't meet Gaelen's eyes. "We
will not be discovered, Gaelen."

Gaelen's sick stomach flipped
over.

"Find him and bring him to us." Eochy
rose. "If there is no other matter to be discussed today, I will
close this meeting." He looked across the table to Gaelen. "Get him
a good advocate, Gaelen. Maybe something can be done to save him.
Especially if he cooperates in silencing the human
girl."

Wings fluttered as the Council of One
Hundred rose and departed.

Gaelen sat alone at the table, only
barely aware of how his wings were still twitching. Ordered back to
Ireland. Bridget, what a curse.

Not that he didn't like Ireland. He
loved Ireland. He traveled there every year to talk to the Old
Ones, to get new stories from fairies who'd been spinning tales for
millennia. Since the days of Amergin, and the Iberian's Land
Swindle, he thought with a grin, and Tir-Nan-Og, the Land of
Perpetual Youth, where you could live forever, young and strong and
happy. Fairies were allowed to visit and even stay if the place
took them, which it did.

At first.

He frowned. Club Med for fairies. A
great place to visit, but not a place for a man to live.

And even with wings on his back, Gaelen
Riley was still a man, a man with a passion which couldn't be
fulfilled in Tir-Nan-Og.

Gaelen Riley's passion was teaching.
How could a sprout like himself teach the Old Ones anything? How
could he pass on to them the excitement of a tale of war and
heroism and love? Fairies are war and heroism and love. But
humankind, they need the stories. They need the inspiration. What
would they do without us?

In that instant, he understood what he
had to do, even if it made him sick. It was Gaelen's responsibility
to make sure Lucas and his human didn't rock the boat. The cost-to
both human and fairy-would be too great.

Surely the life of one human girl
wasn't too much to ask so the magic of fairy and the drive of
humankind remained available to each other? For without the magic,
humankind would be smothered in the mundane. Without the drive of
humankind, Faerie would be rudderless.

Bridget! He'd die of boredom. Better to
get it over with quick.

Gaelen folded his wings and picked up
his torn shirt and jacket.

Time to find Lucas and his human
girl.

Chapter Four

It was the flash of light at the window
that awakened her. Annabelle groaned and raised her stiff neck off
the back of the chair where she'd fallen asleep. Only after looking
around and rubbing her gritty eyes did she remember where she
was.

Erin stirred in her sleep and murmured
Lucas's name. Annabelle rose and tucked the blankets tighter around
her sister, as though she could protect Erin from the heartache
Lucas Riley had left behind him.

Ticky-ticky.

Annabelle jerked her head toward the
sound. A bright pinpoint flickered, accompanied by a ticky-ticky as
it hit the glass. She left the bedside and approached the
window.

"Fireflies?" The light continued its
ticky-ticky tapping at the window.

"Annabelle?" Erin's sleepy voice
carried in the silence of the late hour. "Are you still
here?"

Quickly returning to Erin, Annabelle
took her hand. "Yes, and I'm going to stay here until you're
better."

Erin shook her head. "You don't have to
stay. You have your own life. What about your job?"

Annabelle smiled. "Don't worry about
that. I have some vacation time, so you'll have me in your hair
until you're up and out of here and back to normal."

Erin took Annabelle's hand. "You think
I'm crazy, too, don't you?" she asked, pitifully.

"No," Annabelle answered truthfully. "I
just think you've had a shock, and you're handling it the best way
you can."

A huge sigh shook Erin's body.
Annabelle thought she could hear tears hiding behind it.

"He'd be here if he could," Erin
whispered.

"Who?"

Erin frowned. "Lucas, of
course."

Her mouth opened and closed, but
Annabelle couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't irritate
her sister.

"Look!" Erin's voice trembled. "They're
here to get me, too!" She grabbed Annabelle's sleeve and pulled
with one hand as she pointed with the other. "There. By the window!
Just like when they took Lucas."

Annabelle followed the guidance of
Erin's extended finger. There by the window was the solitary
firefly.

"Honey," she said, her voice calm even
if her heart was thumping a hundred miles an hour, "it's just a
firefly. See?"

"No, Annabelle, it can't be! It's too
early for fireflies."

Erin was right. It was March, far too
early for fireflies.

But there it was, a flickering point of
light dancing at the window, smacking against it, as though asking
to come in.

Annabelle shivered.

"It's them! Don't let them get
me!"

Erin's grip tightened, pulling
Annabelle onto the bed.

"Erin! Let me go. I'll close the
curtains."

"That won't help. They can come through
the walls. Don't you watch the Sci-Fi Network?"

"No, I don't," Annabelle replied in a
deliberately calm voice, trying to free herself from Erin's
grip.

"What about the stories you write for
your paper?"

"Erin, you know perfectly well I make
those up." Finally loosening Erin's hold on her, Annabelle quickly
went to the window, jerking the curtains closed. Now as anxious
about the mysterious flickering light as Erin was, she hurried back
to Erin's side, tightly taking her sister's hand.

The sisters stared at the closed
curtains, waiting, listening. The ticky-ticky stopped.

"Annabelle, what do you think it
is?"

"It's nothing. I'll bet it's only
leaves falling or maybe even raindrops catching the light from the
room." Before Erin could inform her it wasn't raining, she added,
"Or maybe your guardian angel looking in on you."

"I think I need one," Erin whispered,
still clinging to Annabelle's hand.

"Hey, squirt, loosen up. I gotta go."
With a fake grimace, she tipped her head toward the
bathroom.

"Sorry," Erin whispered. "Sorry." She
released Annabelle's hand, but her grip tightened again and she
said in a hoarse whisper, "Hurry, though. I don't want to be here
alone when they come."

Was her sister always going to be nuts?
It was a struggle to keep her tone easy when she answered. "Sure
thing," she said, and escaped with all possible speed into the
adjoining bathroom. Annabelle gently closed the door and only then
did she permit her body to start shaking and the tears to
pool.