Fell Beasts and Fair Page 10

  “It’s gotta be, Petal!” Thornspur said. “We didn’t get drawn here by accident! Someone spoke our true names!”

  “So where…?” Featherpetal looked over at a painting of a sunflower. One side of the painting rattled from the air blasting it from a nearby vent. She flew over and pulled the side open, revealing a hidden safe.

  “Iron!” Thornspur shouted.

  “Irrun!” Mudlick yelled from underneath the cushion.

  “Calm down. It’s only a safe,” she said—but kept a discreet distance.

  “They’ve warded it against us!”

  Mudlick yelled incoherently.

  “Will you two shut up? Mortals use iron all the time. It doesn’t hurt them, remember?” She landed on top of the desk and looked up at the formidable obstacle. “The father must have recognized the book as valuable and put it in there.”

  “What do we do?” Thornspur asked. “We can’t go through iron!”

  “Irrun!”

  “We don’t have to, addlebrains. He’ll open it eventually. Once it’s out, we can take it back,” Featherpetal said, “before he can call forth any more of the Unseelie.” She looked around at the wrecked room. “Now we have to fix this den back the way we found it.”

  “What? I’m a Pixie Knight! Not a Brownie!” Thornspur shouted.

  “Bwownie!”

  “You’ll do what I say. We can’t alarm the mortals any more or he might never take the book back out.”

  “But…!”

  “Start cleaning.”

  Eliza sniffed and rubbed at her reddened eyes as she looked down at the spot where Long Tom slept the night before. She felt like crying again, but she was emotionally spent.

  Her father ransacked the house trying to find out how someone had gotten inside. Finding nothing, he resorted to changing the locks. The locksmith assured him that the locks he removed hadn’t been tampered with.

  After spending an hour double-checking every window, Dale sat up with his daughter as she read some old storybooks. Dale used to read to Eliza but she was now a voracious reader who disdained help unless it was a very big word. Eliza eventually succumbed to sleep

  “Why are we watching this mortal girl?” Thornspur asked as they looked down from the ceiling vent.

  “She pretty,” Mudlick said with a grin.

  “Because whatever Unseelie is lurking below might come back tonight. And it might not be satisfied with killing a cat,” Featherpetal said.

  “So?” Thornspur said.

  Featherpetal pointed at Eliza. “She could be harmed or killed.”

  “So?”

  Featherpetal sighed. “If the covenant with the mortal world is broken—even if it’s done by a minor Unseelie—we might get the blame. Especially after Mudlick was the one who lost the Chronicle.”

  Mudlick frowned and started to cry again.

  “Will you stop that? I said we’ll fix it!”

  “What does one mortal life matter, more or less?” Thornspur asked.

  Featherpetal raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you’d like to take that up with Queen Titania or King Oberon?”

  Thornspur’s eyes widened.

  “Break the covenant—or allow it to be broken—and they will find out. And neither one will be happy.”

  “’Beron!” Mudlick cringed in fear.

  “I guess we can watch the mortal brat for a few nights.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  Mudlick looked down at Eliza and a grin split his broad face. “She pretty one. We guard.”

  A half-asleep Eliza touched the indentation where Long Tom had once lain. She felt tears coming again when she heard the sound: an unhealthy skittering from the baseboard in the corner. She bit her lip in fear and tried to see through the gloom.

  At first she thought it was a rat. She wanted to scream but her breath froze in her lungs. The dark shape slouched forth from the crack and stood on two legs. Two red sparks on its face glared at her.

  Eliza found her voice and screamed.

  “Daddy!”

  A guttural laugh came from the misshapen form.

  “No one hear you, mortal meat.”

  She screamed louder, which caused more laughter. The small, humped form crawled up onto her bed. Frost rolled off its back.

  “I give you reason to scream, meat.”

  Eliza fumbled with her lamp. If she could turn on the light, she’d wake from the nightmare. Her fingertips touched the switch and light spilled over the bed. Instead of vanishing, the creature merely flinched from the light and Eliza got a good look. The thing had dark skin, a huge head with oversized jaws and was dressed in scraps of fur.

  Eliza wanted to scream again, but she couldn’t find the breath as the creature scrambled up the covers towards her. It left a trail of luminescent drool in its wake. It chuckled with every step, drinking in her fear.

  Its chuckling stopped when another small figure landed in front of it. It was a tiny, winged man a few inches tall, dressed in garish blue silk and wielding a rapier. The miniature man was unnaturally slender and moved like lightning.

  “Hold, boggart! This mortal child is under the protection of Thornspur the Pixie Knight!” Thornspur said, moving his rapier with blurring speed.

  The boggart froze in surprise for a moment.

  “Begone! Get lost, you Unseelie ruffian!” Thornspur danced around in an elaborate series of fencing moves.

  The boggart’s eyes narrowed. “My mortal meat.”

  “No, she’s not!” Thornspur said.

  The boggart lashed out with one of its long arms and knocked Thornspur the length of the bed. He skidded to a stop, his head spinning and rapier imbedded in a teddy bear.

  “Haw!” the boggart said and advanced towards Eliza again, setting off renewed terror. A second winged figure landed next to the first. This one was a miniature woman in a shimmering, feather-fringed dress.

  “You acorn-brain! Next time stab first and threaten later!” Featherpetal said.

  “He cheated!” Thornspur said, getting to his feet.

  The boggart was nearly to Eliza’s feet when another small figure dropped in front of the boggart. This figure had no wings and its arms were nearly as thick as its stout body.

  “You no hurt pretty mortal!”

  The boggart’s eyes widened in fear. “Spriggan!”

  “Yah!” Mudlick said as his oversized fist propelled the boggart across the room to imbed into the wall. As mighty as the blow was, the boggart wouldn’t have been killed except that chance interceded. A steel stud poked out of the baseboard just inside of the drywall, impaling the boggart. The boggart let out a gurgling moan of pain and smoke poured from its mouth. It twitched a few more times and then dissolved into a foul cloud of gas.

  “Go poof!” Mudlick said with a satisfied nod.

  The three faeries had a moment of silence. It was a solemn thing when one of the sidhe perished—even one of the Unseelie Court. Eliza stared at the three tiny humanoids with a combination of wonder and fear.

  Featherpetal, Thornspur and Mudlick stood in front of Eliza. Mudlick, being a bit top-heavy, fell over and looked up at Eliza with an upside-down grin.

  Eliza giggled despite her fear.

  “You pretty,” Mudlick said.

  “She can see us! I mean really see us!” Thornspur said.

  “She has the sight,” Featherpetal said. “A human child with elf-sight. I didn’t think there were any left.”

  “A-are you gonna hurt me?” Eliza asked in a small voice, clutching her comforter to her face.

  “No, child,” Featherpetal said. “We’re here to protect you.”

  “Purtect!” Mudlick said, righting himself.

  “Okay,” Eliza said, as if that made perfect sense. She pointed at the hole in her wall. “What was that?”

  “Boggart.” Thornspur sneered. “Foul minion of the Unseelie Court!”

  “The Un… what?”

  “Unseelie Court,” Thornspur said
. “The dark children of the Sidhe.”

  “Children of the she?” Eliza’s forehead crinkled up in confusion. “She who?”

  “Not ‘she’—sidhe.”

  “That’s what I said—she.” Eliza folded her arms defiantly.

  “No, no!” Thornspur jumped up and down, fists pumping in frustration.

  “Leave it be, Thornspur,” Featherpetal said, stifling a grin. “She doesn’t understand.”

  Thornspur scowled.

  “We are of the light faerie folk,” Featherpetal said, picking her words carefully. She pointed at the hole in the wall. “That was one of the dark faerie folk.”

  Eliza’s face brightened. “You’re good fairies!”

  “Close enough,” Featherpetal said. “My name is Featherpetal and I’m a sprite. My friend with the sword is Thornspur, a Pixie Knight.”

  Thornspur bowed with a flourish of his cap, evincing another giggle from Eliza.

  “And this is Mudlick… a Spriggan,” Featherpetal said with a sigh.

  Mudlick grinned and hugged Eliza’s leg. Eliza squeaked in surprise when the pressure on her thigh became painful.

  “Careful, Mudlick,” Featherpetal said. “Sometimes you don’t know your own strength.”

  The grip released.

  “You’re strong!” Eliza said with wonder.

  “Yah. Spriggan strong.” Mudlick smacked a fist into his palm with a crack.

  “Wow.”

  “You pretty,” Mudlick said.

  Eliza smiled. “You hit him good.”

  “Yah. Boggart go poof.”

  “Boggart?”

  “That was a boggart, child. A lesser Unseelie… I mean a lesser dark faerie. We think he slew your pet.”

  Eliza’s face scrunched up and she started crying.

  “Why is she doing that?” Thornspur asked.

  “Her pet died, emptyhead!” Featherpetal said.

  “Poor kit!” Mudlick started crying in time with Eliza’s sobs.

  “Now they’re both doing it!” Thornspur said. “Stop it!”

  They both cried louder.

  Thornspur opened his mouth to yell again but Featherpetal slapped her hand over it.

  “Hush! That’s not helping.” Before Thornspur could pull her hand away, Featherpetal started singing. Her voice was honeysuckle-sweet and her words spoke of elfin meadows and streams of liquid moonlight. Eliza’s crying trickled off and her eyelids grew heavy. Her head drooped over the pillow and after a moment she was asleep. Mudlick’s crying stopped.

  “That’s better,” Featherpetal said. “We’ll guard her until sunrise and then visit her again tomorrow night. You!” She pointed at Thornspur. “Fix the hole in the wall.”

  “I’m no Brownie!”

  She glared at him until he complied.

  “Daddy said I had a nightmare,” Eliza told her visitors the following night. “He didn’t believe me.”

  “He may not see us anyway,” Featherpetal said, “if he doesn’t have the sight.”

  “The sight?”

  “Elf-sight. You can see through our glamours.”

  “Glamour? Like supermodels?”

  Now it was Featherpetal’s turn to be confused. “I… don’t think so. It… it’s an image. An illusion that mortals have trouble seeing through.”

  “You mean it’s not real.”

  “Yes.”

  “’Kay.”

  “What’s your name, child?”

  “Eliza.”

  “That’s a fine name,” Featherpetal said.

  “Pretty,” Mudlick said. Thornspur had no comment.

  “How come bad fairies are tryin’ to hurt me? Why’d they kill poor Long Tom?”

  “Long Tom?”

  “My cat.”

  “Oh. Well, dark faeries rarely need a reason to harm mortal creatures, but they and the cat folk have an old enmity,” Featherpetal said.

  “Nimmity?”

  “They’re enemies.”

  “Oh. But that boggey thing was gonna hurt me.”

  “Boggarts delight in pain and fear. After your cat was gone he thought it was safe to harm you.”

  “Boggart go poof!” Mudlick said.

  “Yes, Mudlick—Boggart go poof,” Featherpetal said.

  “Will you stop saying that?” Thornspur said.

  “Where’d it come from?”

  Featherpetal pointed towards the crack in the baseboard. “It emerged from the depths of your house through there.”

  “Is it dead?”

  “Quite dead.”

  “How come it came here?” Eliza asked. “And how come you’re here?”

  “Your father has a book that is dangerous for mortals to possess. It has a portion of the Chronicles of Faerie. Several true names of the Seelie and Unseelie are contained within its pages. To speak names draws attention of faerie folk. Much as we three were drawn here.”

  “I don’t unnerstand.”

  “True names have power in the Courts,” Thornspur said, “if spoken properly and completely.”

  “Oh,” Eliza said.

  “Your father must have read portions of the Chronicle aloud. It was only good fortune that we were drawn as well as the boggart. The Chronicle has names of many potent faeries,” Featherpetal said.

  “Potent?”

  “Powerful.”

  “Oh.”

  “And we need to retrieve the book from your father’s safe before he can draw in more Unseelie—dark faeries. Until we do your household is in deadly peril,” Featherpetal said. “Can you help us get inside his safe?”

  Eliza shook her head. “Daddy told me to never go near the safe. That’s where he keeps his guns.”

  “Guns?” Featherpetal asked.

  “Mortal weapons,” Thornspur said.

  “Oh yes, now I remember. Loud, smoky things.”

  “Make boom,” Mudlick said.

  “We don’t want your father’s guns, we want the book,” Featherpetal said. “Before it’s too late. Will you help us?”

  “I dunno. Dad’ll be awful mad.”

  “We can’t do it without you, child. The safe contains far too much iron for us to bypass.”

  “Iron?”

  “Yes, iron. It’s deadly to all faerie folk except the dwarves. The purer it is, the more deadly. We can’t even touch pure iron without burning.”

  “Like silver to a werewolf?” Eliza asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yes child, something like that.”

  Thornspur rolled his eyes.

  “How come my daddy has your book?”

  “It was lost a short time ago. Your family and mine have some history. It ended up with your clan back in Ireland during one of our family squabbles.”

  “Ireland? My great-great-sumthin’ grandpaw lived in Ireland, I think.”

  Featherpetal frowned. “That’s a long time for mortals?”

  “Well, yeah!”

  Featherpetal shrugged. “Time is different for my folk. Mudlick lost the book to your kin right before they had some sort of famine. Then we lost track of it until a few nights ago. We didn’t even know it was on this continent. You mortals move very fast.”

  “Enough chit-chat!” Thornspur said, his wings buzzing like an angered bumblebee. “We need to get into that safe!”

  “I dunno….” Eliza bit her lip.

  “Pplleaase…?” Mudlick said as he hugged her leg. “Mudlick lost book. Me sorry.”

  Eliza smiled. “’Kay.”

  “Good,” Featherpetal said. “Until we do, we’ll have to remain on guard at night. The boggart may not have been the only Unseelie drawn in.”

  Eliza looked around the dark room in trepidation. “There might be more bad fairies?”

  “Have no fear, child. We’ll make sure you’re safe if there are. Now sleep.”

  Featherpetal sang her to sleep again. Mudlick curled up at her feet in Long Tom’s vacant spot.

  “Mrs. Gable’s cat just had a bunch of kittens,” Dale said at breakfast
the next morning. “Did you want to maybe pick a kitten?”

  Eliza’s face momentarily brightened and then sunk again. The pain of losing Long Tom was still too fresh. She shook her head.

  “Okay, but if you change your mind let me know. It’ll be a few days before she’s given them all away.”

  “’Kay, daddy.”

  “Sylvia is going to watch you this afternoon. Please don’t give her a hard time.”

  Eliza beamed and nodded. Sylvia had a habit of chatting on the internet for long periods. During her chats she was oblivious to Eliza’s activities.

  Eliza closed the door to her father’s den. Featherpetal and Thornspur flew down from the ceiling. Mudlick sat on top of the oaken desk.

  “Well?” Thornspur asked.

  “She’s on the internet talking about boys. She wouldn’t notice me jumping out the window.”

  “Internet?” Featherpetal blinked.

  “Yeah. Computer stuff.”

  “Computer?” Thornspur asked.

  “Yeah. It’s a thinking machine. Kinda.” Eliza began to get frustrated.

  “Never mind,” Featherpetal said. “If I remember correctly, if you turn the dial on a safe in the right directions, it opens.”

  Thornspur opened the false painting.

  “I don’t see a dial,” Thornspur said. “Just a bunch of black squares with numbers.”

  “It’s got a keypad,” Eliza said.

  “A what?”

  “You push the buttons in the right order and the safe opens.”

  “Oh. What order?” Featherpetal asked.

  “I dunno. But I think Dad’s got it written down somewhere in here.”

  “Where?”

  Eliza shrugged. “Maybe in the desk.”

  The quartet discovered that Eliza’s father wasn’t the most organized fellow. The antique oaken writing desk was crammed with papers in every drawer as well as stacks on top. Eliza, Featherpetal and Thornspur dug through the reams of paperwork. Mudlick tried to help but kept forgetting what he was doing.

  “What’s a ‘1040 form’,” Featherpetal asked, squinting at the tiny print.

  “I dunno. The box said ‘taxes’,” Eliza said.

  “Taxes?” Thornspur asked.

  “Tribute,” Featherpetal said.

  Thornspur glared at the piles of paper. “How is this tribute? Where are the jewels or moonlight wine?”