Gossamyr (22 page)

"Your head is heavy."

"Your legs are bony," he murmured. "Wake me when
the provisions have passed inspection."

Stunningly, the man drifted to a low snore within a few blinks.
Sure he faked it, Gossamyr leaned over his face and studied his
eyelids, smooth and motionless. Real sleep?

As Ulrich's soft snores segued to a somnambulant rhythm, Gossamyr
rested her head against the boulder and closed her eyes. The sun
warmed her face and made her smile. This Otherside was made even more
beguiling by the flaws or differences from perfection. Even the
dangers appealed. For when, in Faery, had she been so thoroughly
challenged?

Smiling again, she realized she increasingly found favor with the
Otherside. Her side, for the time.

Better here.
The thought, unbidden, flashed in her mind.

To stay would be to embrace Disenchantment. Unthinkable.
Glamoursiege needed her. just beyond the fortressed walls lay Paris.
Lure for the Disenchanted, and home of the Red Lady. Soon her
adventure would prove itself and she would finally realize her worth.

Gossamyr skimmed her hand over Ulrich's scalp, mowing her fingers
through the strands of tangled hair. Heavy and dirty, the texture
intrigued. And there, she traced the curve of his ear, small and
close to his head. Her fingertips moved down and across the hard line
of his jaw until sharp bristles of beard set her senses to a fine
alert. She toggled the pads of her fingers back and forth over the
bristles, thinking their texture so much rougher than the hair on
Ulrich's head. How be it not the same?

A strange murmur, like supreme satisfaction, drew Gossamyr's
attention. She flashed her eyes open and looked into Ulrich's
upside-down gaze. Awake? She jerked her fingers from his face.

"I thought I dreamed," he said with a sleepy smile.
"Don't pull away. That felt good. First tender touch I've had in
a long time. Or has it been mere weeks? Ah! Almost makes me..."
He closed his eyes and turned his head to the side.

"Makes you what?"

"N'importe."
He rolled onto his side and tucked
his hands up by his chest, moving his head farther toward her knees.
"You have no idea what you just did, eh, Faery Not?"

"I...well..." Gossamyr could but stare at the fingers
that had moments ago been tracing the man's face, feeling his
features as if she were blind. What
had
she been doing?
Following her lover's abrupt banishment she had stashed away any
feelings of desire or need. And yet, they strived for release with
every moment she spent with Ulrich.

"So lacking in emotion, these faeries," Ulrich murmured,
his words drifting to a sigh, and then to a snore.

"I..." Gossamyr crossed her arms and tilted a snarl at
the sleeping soul shepherd.

I
do have emotions,
she thought as gruffly as she
could.
I just...
Well, she wasn't sure what to do with them,
so they were quickly pushed back. Left to wither.

Why punish yourself for your father's cruelty? Is it not your
right to seek another lover? Before you
tie
yourself to one
man? This world is bursting with men. Look at them!

She looked at her fingertips. One hand bracketed the side of
Ulrich's face; a finger strayed down to the dark beard. Contact.
And...connection. Of a sort that intrigued. Mortal touched, and happy
to do so.

Ulrich's eyes opened to look right at her. "No time to
consider romance, Faery Not?"

"Romance? You are begroggled. I am just—"

"Lusting?"

Had
she been lusting over a mortal? A man who could not
care if she was half-blooded. But would he think her exotic? "That
would please you?"

"Surely."

"What of the damsel?"

"You think I have a romantic connection to her?"

Gossamyr nodded.

"I no longer have connections to any, be they woman, child or
lover."

The sadness in his voice clued Gossamyr he had lost a great piece
of his heart. Had he loved and given so much?

A finger to the circle of violet and green that stained Ulrich's
right cheek intrigued. He winced at Gossamyr's touch. "I'm
sorry. Does it hurt verily?"

"It aches—" he placed a hand over his heart "—in
more places than my face."

Gossamyr wasn't sure what that meant. She saw no other bruises.
"How did you come by such a bruise? It looks a few days old—"

"A week, to be exact."

"And?"

A heavy sigh puffed up his relaxed gut. "You really need to
know?"

"If you wish to tell."

"I received this bruise from a stone. A good-size stone that
easily fitted into a woman's palm."

"A woman did this to you?"

"Indeed. My wife."

It never took longer than a day for the Red Lady's taint to
extinguish her victims. Atimes but an hour passed; other times the
sun would rise and set before the tainted fée would stumble
and finally collapse. The pin man preferred the event happened in
privacy. The disgust or sudden shock of the public never aided his
retrieval. The essence he claimed yesterday behind the stable in
Juvisy had almost been witnessed.

Why did they not keel head to ground immediately? He would never
understand the working of his mistress's deadly kiss. Nor must he
care. Maybe? No. No reason to.

This day, the sun sat high and bright; one could not determine
where the ball of light ended and where the crystal sky began. A tug
to the leather brigandine he wore shifted the amigaut between his
shoulders blades. One of the bone splints sewn into the doublet had
poked through and irritated the base of his wings something horrific.
He gave ichor daily for the success of his mission. Did the red bitch
appreciate the sacrifice?

How she wounded with her indifference.

The streets bustled with midday marketers en route to purchase the
rotting remains of fish from the skiffs moored on the Seine. Precious
few boats tied up for no longer than it took to pillage their stores
and burn the boat, but this day the English patrolled the riverbank
with a keen eye to marauders. Cobbles beaten smooth by the centuries
echoed with the clop of horse hooves, the call of fishmongers, and
the scrambling feet of those who literally starved inside this great
city of riches. For the gates were a risky leave to purchase flour
for bread from the millers who would rather shelter away from the
attacks.

Assuming a straight-shouldered pose—tall and fine—the
pin man scanned the bleary day, tainted with a fine mist. The
succubus's mark had meandered from her embrace early this day and had
been wandering the narrow streets in a thrall. Clothed in simple
black wool, the barest of lace crept out from the mark's doublet
sleeves. The fée must have fallen on hard times since the
Disenchantment.

The pin man shrugged at the irritation scratching his back. Hard
times, indeed.

Fine rain slickened his face. He lashed out his tongue to drink in
the minute liquid and tasted the sooty air and briny muck of the
Seine.

Now the victim began to slow. The pin man scampered to within a
leap of the Disenchanted. As the fée stumbled, a palm catching
against a wall for surety, lithe shoulders swayed in an attempt to
find that easy balance. He turned his head to scan whence he had
dallied; red-glossed eyes sought nothing, only squinted at a bleary
crimson sky.

The pin man cringed when the fée started down the massive
stone steps to the Seine. Would he attempt to drown his agony? It
would make retrieval difficult, if not impossible. Even in the
miserable weather so many bustled about. The silver glinting river
hoarded dozens of slender boats and skiffs. The bridge, pressed with
houses and humanity, verily oozed an awareness of the river so close.
Someone would witness.

Tugging his hood securely upon his head, he stealthily descended
behind the victim. To reveal his strange hair coloring amongst the
crowd would elicit stares. It had not always been such a color—
he sensed as much—but he could not recall a time when it had
simply been black, as remained the lower half of his tresses. There
had been a time—that time—when...

Brows furrowing and his entire face squinting, he sought the
origin of...of...

Ah!

Lost the notion.

Here, along the river's edge a log bench beckoned, its rotted,
warped legs coated in clinging ivy. Stench of scale and sewage
crowded against the walls of the riverbank. A rusted iron ring larger
than a cow's head hung a leap away, waiting to moor up a visiting
skiff.

The fée folded onto the bench, a surrender to his body's
loss of will. Now he noticed the pin man's arrival and managed a grim
smile and gestured he join him on the bench, which the pin man did
eagerly. No words were spoken. A fine pounded-gold sheath was missing
the sword the pin man had remarked this morning when the fée
had first stumbled out from his mistress's embrace. Most likely
abandoned in a whirl of dizziness, for so suddenly the Red came upon
them, choking from within, or rather, drowning its victim with thick
viscous fluid. Blood? Or somesuch. Couldn't be blood, for ichor ran
through the fée's veins. But the pin man never pondered the
conditions of the death overmuch. He lived for but one task. Always
had, always—

—well, not always. Yes? Or...no? Tricksy, the remnants of
memory that cloyed.

The fée, smiling woozily at him, laid his head back against
the moist stone wall that fortressed the river. A seabird careening
low scanned for food. The creak of moorings secured wooden boat hulls
kissing against one another.

The fée blinked. A red tear slithered down his cheek. He
whispered, each syllable a husky dying hush, "'Twas...a
remarkable kiss."

The pin man nodded, slid his thumb along his rain-slickened
braies. Memory teased him. He knew he'd had the similar experience of
longing but could not place the time or face or even name.

Be gone stupid flickers of a different life! Be gone or be
whole!

"A kiss, yes." He said what he knew the fée was
thinking—what they all thought. "Much like... Faery?"

"I—" a sense memory appeared across his face
"—miss it so..." Death relaxed the fée's neck
muscles. His head lolled, dragging his body down toward the pin man.
He caught the fée by the shoulders and pushed him back, taking
a moment to straighten the wool doublet. Silk frogs clasped the black
wool from chin to loin. Valuable. Of little concern.

Anticipation making his fingers shake, the pin man dug into his
leather sheath and pulled out a fine shiny pin. Pure silver, the
pointed shaft, a ward against glamour—not that he need fear
such from the Disenchanted. As long as a man's forearm, the shaft,
but no thicker than his littlest finger. The polished iron knob, a
perfect ball, hummed in his grip. Not completely safe, the
winter-forged iron, but endurable. It negated the power of the
silver. Why though? He could not guess.

He held the pin poised over the dead fée's skull, and the
wait began.

And he replayed her seductive voice in his head.
Aaahh...
aaaae...eee...mmmmmnooo.
How he desired his ruthless red
mistress. And how he despised her. Her song meant:
Come to me.
Come to me, kiss me, drink from my life. Taste Faery. And die.

Only, the pin man was not dead. He remained in limbo ever after.
For she toyed with his essence, keeping it high above all the others.
'Twas the difference between the Disenchanted and those yet
Enchanted. Or so he figured. The Red Lady could steal but a spark of
an Enchanted essence, a portion that did not kill them, but instead
dangled the hapless fée between the Infernal and the
Celestial. A cruel mastery, for only death would grant relief. Mayhap
her control over the Enchanted was greatest then, for it toyed for an
eternity rather than granting a quick escape to Death.

Twinclian. Final.

The odd words visited briefly.
Twinclian?
Whatever that
meant, he could not know. But should.

Ah! Banish the pesky thoughts!

A brilliant spark of corporeal property arose from the fée's
skull. So brief, the moment of release, but the pin man had honed his
skill. Stabbing expertly, he speared the essence. Tiny cry of death,
defeated in its softness.

Tilting the needle up, he watched the blue globulus mass of
undulating glimmer slide down to the iron-ball head.

Success.

A gargling yowl loosened as the revenant escaped its shell. Always
blind to the speared essence, like a banshee the revenant soared up
into the sky and flitted over Paris. Its destination, the pin man did
not know. So long as the skeletal apparition did not torment him it
could descend to the Infernal for all he cared. All occurred within a
blink; none on the riverboats or walking the bridge took note.

Careful now to hold the pin upright, the pin man backed from the
deflated corpse and skipped up the stone steps to the street. The
shell of a former life he'd left behind would disintegrate with but a
powerful gust of wind, faery dust dispersing across the Seine in a
twinkle.

Twinclian?
Hmm...

A bell toll later, the pin man danced merrily down the white
marble floors of his mistress's lair. Along the walls clung huge
white marble gargoyles bearing candles as wide as a knight's thigh in
their wax-encrusted dragon-claws, brilliantly illuminating his
skipping journey.

"Malchius," the pin man sang as he passed the first
stone-eyed creature. "Maximianus, Dionysius, John." He
always named the silent watchers as he passed. A blown kiss to the
fifth was caught with a void stare. "Constantine, you precious
thing."

The pinned essence glittered madly, as if all of Faery had been
crammed into one globulus mass.

Spinning and kicking up his feet, the pin man celebrated his
triumph. Such a good puppy he was!