The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity (15 page)

“I can't. I need to get some work done.” I ducked into the stairwell before Jo could question me further, took the steps two at a time. Hurried down the hall as though the devil himself was at my heels, keyed into my room and slammed the door so hard the wall shook. Backed into a corner and stood, shivering and hugging myself as delayed shock took hold.

“Knock, knock?” The door opened a crack, and Jo peeked inside. “Are you all right?” She looked at me, and her eyes widened. “No, you aren't, are you?” She stepped inside and closed the door. “What's the matter?”

“I'm okay. I'm just …” I forced myself to move into the middle of the room, even as I longed for the solid press of brick and plaster at my back. “Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing here. Why did any of us come here? You can't go a mile in any direction in Illinois
without tripping over an MBA program. There's the University of Chicago. Northwestern.”

“Our companies wouldn't pay for UC or Northwestern.” Jo sat on the edge of the bed. “And I hate to sound cruel, but could any of us have gotten into places like those? We're not exactly the movers and shakers here. We just want that piece of paper.”

I walked to the window, twitched aside the curtain. The dorm overlooked a yard bordered on three sides by trees, rendered dark and solid as a prison wall by the night and the fog. “I just think there's something wrong here.” I pressed my ear to the window, and heard the faintest rise and fall of a voice. It spoke the same weird language I had heard on the hill, and even though I couldn't understand the words themselves, this time I knew what they meant.

Come out, come out—we know where you are …

“Lee?” Jo got up and walked over to me. “You're spooking me, you know that?” She tugged me away from the window, then gripped my shoulders. “When you walked into the lobby, the look on your face. It was like you had seen a ghost. Did something happen?”

I started to speak, then stopped. How could I describe what I had seen without sounding crazy? Who the hell would believe me? “I'm just tired.” I massaged my forehead. “I have a headache.”

“Is it allergies? I have some meds that will knock you out for the night.” Jo left, returning soon after with a glass of water and a pill bottle. “Take these. Get some sleep. I'll meet you in the morning for breakfast.” She shook a couple of tablets into my hand, then patted my shoulder. “Maybe take a hot shower. They always relax me.”

“I will. Thanks.” As soon as Jo closed the door, I
locked it, then tossed the pills in the trash. Opened my laptop, and ran every kind of search on Monckton College that I could think of. What did I hope to find? A history of student disappearances? Evidence that the campus had been built on some ancient native burial ground?

Go to bed, Lee
. Whatever was out there, I didn't want to face it in the dark. Better to wait for the light of the morning. All would be clearer then.

Slowly, eventually, the tension eased, leaving me yawning, exhausted. I didn't even bother to shower or change into pajamas. I just took off my jacket, stretched out on my bed and closed my eyes—

Come out!

I dragged my pillow over my head, and tried to shut out the voice. So high and light. If bells could talk, their speech would ring as these words did.

Come out, Kincaid! Now!

I struggled out of bed, knees weak and heart stumbling, and crept to the window. My hand hovered near the curtain. As much as I wanted to open it, did I really want to see what called to me?

Come out! Time for class to begin.

I pushed the curtain aside. The fog had thickened so that it flowed and swirled before my eyes, but I could pick out Ashford standing in the middle of the yard. She wore a raincoat as red as the beads she had sported that morning, and held a tray covered with a cloth.

Come out, Kincaid.
Her lips never moved, yet her voice sounded clear.
You know you want to learn. You know you want to see
. She held the tray up to me.
I have what you seek right here, quiet one. In a few minutes you could know everything
.

I let the curtain fall and backed away from the window, images of what the tray might contain flitting through my head. I had watched too many horror movies growing up. The visions weren't pretty.
Jo
. I had to get her. She had to see this. I needed a witness. I felt like Alice, asked to believe impossible things, ridiculous things.

But as soon as I grabbed the doorknob, I stopped, and pressed my ear to the panel. Heard the barest footfalls in the hallway just outside. Child-light steps, back and forth.

Come out now!

I went to the desk and collected my car keys, then looked around for anything else I could use as a weapon. The twin bed consisted of a mattress and box spring on a metal frame, but I would have needed tools to pull it apart. The dresser and desk were built from wood.

I checked the closet. Instead of being bolted to the wall, the metal clothes pole rested in notches cut into a wooden frame. I pulled out my clothes and tossed them on the bed, then lifted out the pole, which turned out to be hollow but heavy nevertheless. I swung it back and forth, like a batter warming up. Strode to the door and flung it open, stepped into the hallway and saw … no one.

“I'm losing it.” I had strung perfectly normal events together, and spun an impossible tale. Sheryl and Jerry simply hadn't wanted to talk to me, for whatever reason. So they ran away from me and hid in the woods. And Hawthorn had simply gone for a walk. Was it a crime for an instructor to go for a walk?

But what about me? Explain me, Kincaid
. Ashford's strange lilt, goading me, mocking me.

“I can't explain you.” I slumped against the wall. “I don't think I want to.”

But you've come this far.
Laughing words, bright as coins, sharp and cool as winter.
You may as well come outside and learn the rest
.

“Maybe you're right.” I returned to my room for my warm wool coat. My gloves. Muttered a prayer from my childhood, even though I doubted it would do any good. Hefted the clothes pole, dented and rough with rust. “I'm coming.” I knew she heard me. I felt her smile.

Ashford still stood in the middle of the yard, the dim safety lighting encircling her. She laughed when she saw me. “I knew you couldn't stay away. I knew!” She started toward me, tray in hand.

I swung the clothes pole. “Stay away from me!” I stepped forward and swung it again, struck the tray and sent it flipping through the air, its contents scattering. Thick circles the size of my fist, with holes in their middles.

Then their smell hit me. Toasty. Buttery. Cinnamon and sugar and the yeastiness of fresh bread.

“Bagels? Are these bagels?” I picked up one of the halves that had rolled near my feet, felt the warmth through my glove, and flung it aside. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

Ashford backed away each time I moved, her eyes on the pole. “They were a present. So you would join my class.”

“I can't join your class. The add date's past.”

“I could arrange it.” Ashford's shiny pebble gaze moved to my face. “I can arrange anything. I have power. I am very powerful.” She picked up one of the bagel halves, brushed off water and bits of leaf. “I can free you
from this world. No one will even know you've gone.” She held out the bagel. “Take it. Eat it.”

I could see flecks of dirt stuck to the butter, which had already solidified in the cold. I should have been repulsed, but instead, my mouth watered and my stomach rumbled and all I could think of was the saltiness of the butter, the spicy taste of the bread and the softness of the raisins. I reached out—

—then stopped as the clothes pole grew warm. I looked down at it just as bits of rust flaked off and floated to the ground.

“Put it down.” Ashford's voice rattled against my ears, its bell tones gone flat. “You tried to strike me with it. That was evil of you. Put it down.”

A few more flecks of rust peeled away, revealing shining silver metal beneath. Ashford's voice sounded harsh now, a spoon banging against a pot, all beauty vanished. “No. No, I think I'll keep it.”

Ashford straightened quick as a cat and circled me, taking care to stay just out of reach of the pole. “Evil. Evil and cruel.” Her fingers curled like talons. “Put it down. I order you—”

“
Ash
.”

Ashford and I turned as one toward the voice. It came from the shadows along the side of the building, a sound soft yet firm. The warning growl of a wolf.

“What did I tell you?” Hawthorn walked out into the circle of light. He wore no jacket against the cold, only jeans and a heavy shirt, and the mist had matted his silvery hair into a skullcap. “That's not how we do things now. We do not lie. We do not trick. This isn't a fairy tale.”

“From the time of my father and your father, and their fathers before them, and their fathers before them,
it was how we did things.” Ashford glared at him. “It is what we are.”

“Not anymore.” Hawthorn looked down at the scattered bread, and sighed. “Are you all right?” He glanced at me, then back at the mess on the ground. “You look a little shaky.”

“Just a little?” I stood aside as he picked up the tray and the cloth that had covered it and stuffed them in a trashcan.

“The animals can have the rest.” Hawthorn joined Ashford in the middle of the lighted circle. “Do you want this one?”

“I don't know.” Ashford regarded me sidelong. “I thought her quiet, but she doesn't listen.”

“We want willing students, not slaves.” Hawthorn met my eye. Then his green gaze moved down to the clothes pole. “And she understands. Without being told, she knows. There's memory there, from the time of her father, and his father before him, and his father before him. That is what we need. The old and the new, together.” He continued to watch the pole as he spoke. It seemed to fascinate him, like tinsel draws a cat. “You're a Kincaid. Your family came from the old land.”

“You heard her—” I pointed to Ashford, but I didn't know what to call her. Doctor Ashford? Professor? Your Highness?
Ash, like the tree
. “You heard her say my name in the coffee shop.” My voice shook. Every time Hawthorn spoke to me, he implied he knew more than he let on. I didn't like it.

“Kincaid.” The clothes pole didn't affect his voice as it had Ashford's. It still came soft, steady, persistent. “It's your father's name. You took it back after you and your husband—”

“
Yes
.”

His head dipped, and maybe it was an apology. Then he turned his attention to Ashford, who stood, arms folded. “Go back to your office, Lady. Leave this one to me.”

Ashford let her arms fall to her sides. The top of her head barely reached Hawthorn's shoulder, yet at that moment she exuded just as much power. “You dare—”

“Yes, I do.”

Ashford studied him for a time. Then she looked at me, and a smile played at the corner of her mouth. “Very well.” She walked across the circle of light, and vanished into the dark.

Hawthorn finally turned to face me. “If I might have some of your time, Lee Kincaid?”

I looked at the dorm, counted up and across until I picked out my lighted window. Part of me wanted nothing more than to go back inside, burrow under the covers and sleep, forget any of this had ever happened.

Then I looked down at the pole. It had grown almost too hot to hold, the metal free of rust and as silvery as Hawthorn's hair. “All right.”

“You don't need that, you know.” For the first time, he sounded the faintest bit nervous.

I gripped the pole harder as again my father's voice sounded in my head.
Always have your keys with you.
But this time, I remembered the rest of his warning.
Always have some iron in your pocket
. He had told me it was for luck, but that had never made sense to me. Now, finally, I understood. “I think I'll hang onto it, if it's all the same to you.”

Hawthorn hesitated. Then he gestured for me to join him.

We walked in silence. The chill had worsened, working its way through my coat, my gloves. Hawthorn's shirt
had gone dark with damp and clung to his skin, and I shivered at the sight of him. “Aren't you cold?”

He shook his head. “It's refreshing.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and breathed deep. “Like a plunge in a winter stream.”

I waited for more, but he fell silent again, eyes fixed straight ahead. “I get the feeling I'm supposed to ask questions and you'll answer, but that's not really fair, is it? I don't even know where to start.”

A hint of a smile. “I think you do.”

“No, I really don't.” A car drifted down a cross street, the driver hunched over the wheel and watching us. What drew his attention, Hawthorn's soggy appearance or my choice of walking stick? “One of yours?”

Hawthorn shook his head. “We can't drive.”

I waited. Then I took my phone from my pocket, opened the browser, and keyed in
fear of steel iron metal
. Paged through the links to websites about steel markets and fears of strikes and commodities pricing until I found the link to a page that I knew to be the right one, even though this was the 21
^st
century and we didn't believe in such things anymore. “The fae fear iron.” I read for a time, then put my phone away. “Tall fae. Short fae. Light. Dark. Fae, fae everywhere.”

“But yet you don't believe?”

“When I was in my room, I heard Ashford's voice in my head. Just as though she stood next to me, even though I knew she was out in the yard. It sounded lovely, until this started to work.” I raised the pole, but when Hawthorn moved away from me, I lowered it. “You're here at Monckton because it's an old, out of the way place, all brick and wood and trees.” I pointed to one of the buildings. “But there's iron in those, too.”