Laura Anne Gilman (6 page)

Jan stared at him, utterly at a loss. Then, slowly, the bits
she needed surfaced from her memory, taken less from stories than role-playing
games and movies, but enough that she began to understand.

“They seduce,” she said, slowly. “They lure...all of you do.
Fairies, and mermaids, and will-o’-the-wisps.... You drag humans off...” Like
they had done to her, she thought but didn’t say. Although, really, they’d used
less seduction and more strong-arming. Was that better, or worse?

“Why do you care? Why not just let the preters drag humans off
and good riddance? I mean, you’re all—” She waved her hand, as though to say
“all the same, not-me, not human.”

Elsa looked at AJ, who looked at Martin, who looked up at the
ceiling. Jan followed his gaze, as though there might be an answer. All she saw
was a tangle of cables and industrial lights, most of which had burned out and
not been replaced.

Something was going on that she wasn’t privy to, that they
didn’t want her to know about. Jan opened her mouth to demand an answer when AJ
cut her off.

“We’re not going to pretend to be saints,” he said. “But humans
have a history of bad behavior, too, and they tend to use more violence. So
let’s just call the past the past, okay? Like I said, we all belong here. We’re
part of this world. So we have to deal with each other, even if dealing looks a
lot like ignoring.

“That’s the difference. A thousand years of history show that
preters don’t deal, they don’t compromise. This isn’t their place, it’s a...a
storeroom they can raid. They don’t care about you, or us, or anything except
themselves and what they want—and whatever they want? It’s bad for us. All of
us.”

Jan shook her head. “You still haven’t given me any reason to
trust you. How do I know that anything you’ve told me is true? You could be
lying, this could all be some giant, impossible, stupid sick joke....”

The tickle in her throat got worse, and her chest closed up,
the warning signs of an asthma attack kicking in. Too much dust in the
warehouse, and with her luck she was allergic to supernaturals. She grabbed her
inhaler, hitting it hard until things eased again. Two in one day: that wasn’t
good.

Martin got up, shoving AJ aside and going down in a crouch next
to Jan.

“Are you all right?”

What do you care, she wanted to retort, but the concern in his
face was real, or
looked
real, anyway. His
black-tinted nails glinted even in the dimmer light of the warehouse, and Jan
thought of the tar-black hooves of his pony-form.

She waited until she could breathe normally, then shook her
head. “Asthma. It sucks, but I’m okay. That’s not nail polish, is it?”

He ignored the question. “Jan. I’m not going to ask you to
trust us. Trust is earned. But
believe
us.”

His voice was smooth and soft, especially after Elsa’s granite
rumble and AJ’s growl. More, his touch was soothing, his hands on her bare arms,
stroking down from elbow to wrist. The sensation eased the pressure in her chest
even more, as if it was enhancing the drugs in her system. If so, she wanted to
bottle that touch and make a fortune selling it.

“We’re selfish and we’re secretive, but I swear, on the river I
was born to, I swear this: everything we’ve told you is true.”

Jan’s practical side fought its way through. Preters seduced.
But so did supernaturals. The way he touched her... “Tyler was taken by elves?”
Her voice was too high, as if she’d sucked helium instead of albuterol.

“I know what you’re thinking. That that’s crazy. Too crazy. You
can see us, feel us, so you know we’re real, but we’re...strange. Monsters
maybe, even. Elves? Elves are the good guys, the graceful ones, the moonshine
and stardust ones. But they’re not. They’re predators.”

Behind him, AJ snorted, and Martin winced.

“They’re predators without an off switch,” he amended. “The
only thing that’s kept us safe until now is the barrier between our world and
theirs. A barrier they couldn’t control. And now they can.

“Jan, humans aren’t people to them, they’re toys. Things they
take, use, break, and discard.”

Jan looked him straight in the eye, but included AJ—and all the
others—in her question. “And you? Okay, fine, we’re all in this world together,
woo, that has never stopped humans from beating the crap out of each other,
doing horrible things. So, tell me, what are humans to you?”

He hesitated, although the motion of his hands never stopped.
“Neighbors. Family. Extended family, yes, but... We’re all of the same soil, the
same air, the same waters.”

Jan didn’t know if that was truth or bullshit. She didn’t know
if any of this was truth or bullshit. But if it was true...her faith in, her
love for Tyler was being validated. He hadn’t abandoned her, hadn’t been untrue,
not willingly. Something not-human had taken him. She clung to that and nodded.
It might all be insane, but the only other option would be to accept that
everything she had believed in was a lie, to walk away, to give up on Tyler, to
never trust her own instincts about love ever again.

“What do I need to do?”

There was a change in the air around her, as though the
warehouse itself had exhaled in relief, and Jan had the sudden feeling that
she’d just signed on for more than they had told her.

* * *

The feeling of being watched out in the parking lot had
been real: while only three of them had come out to convince her, once she
agreed, the shadows around the edges of the warehouse pulled back, and other
figures began to emerge. Most of them looked human enough, like Martin and AJ,
and she had to look carefully to see the scales or the horns, the slight hint of
a tail or fur. Ten, maybe a dozen; they came and went around the auto corpses
and workbenches with the air of people—things—people—on important missions,
although none of them seemed interested, just then, in power tools or tires.

Someone shouted and waved an arm at AJ. He snarled in annoyance
but got up and walked over to the shouter. After a hesitation, Elsa did the
same, her body moving more slowly than AJ’s brisk lope.

That left her with Martin.

“What do you expect me to do?” she asked again, trying to
ignore the flow of activity, knowing that they were all staring at her freely
enough. “If you can’t find them until they’re already here, can’t trace them
once they are here, how do you expect me to do any better?”

“You won’t. You can’t. But you can figure out how to lure them
to us. Offer them what they want—a human who is willing to buy into their
promises, give them what they want. And when they think they have you...we have
a way to figure the portal out—and you can take back what is yours.”

Jan stared at him, and then laughed, a harsh exhale that didn’t
sound amused. “I’m bait, in other words.”

Martin hesitated, just a bit. “Yes.”

“You know that I know what happens to bait, right?”

Martin tried to take her hands again; that seemed to be his
thing. “We will protect you.”

She moved her hands out of his grip. “Uh-huh.”

Jan had a very strong suspicion that it wasn’t as easy as
Martin was making it sound. But if they were right... If this had been going on
for months, maybe longer, then she wasn’t the only one to have a loved one
stolen away. But she was the only one who could do something about it.

“And the others...they’re part of a normal carjacking ring?
Or...?” She made a vague gesture to include the entire warehouse.

“We’re all volunteers. The car thing, it was a small operation
AJ’s pack ran. We’re using it as a cover, a place to gather. Whatever we
need—whatever you need—they will provide.”

That was comforting, she supposed. Although she had no idea
what she might need....

“Wait.” She reached out to touch Martin on the shoulder, but
something—some memory of AJ’s words, warning her not to touch him in
pony-form—made her stop. She had never been the hero type, never been asked to
step forward, or picked first for any team. “I’m not the only one you’ve tried
to convince, am I?”

Martin looked as if he wanted to escape, which made her eyes
narrow. “Tell me, or I’m walking, right now.” He had sworn to her that he
wouldn’t lie.

“No. You’re not.” His voice was full of regret, which made her
not want to know what happened to the others.

“What happened to the others?” she asked, anyway, with a
suspicion she knew already.

This time, when he took her hands, she let him. “The turncoats
came after them, too. We don’t know how, don’t know how they knew, how they
found them, unless the preters told them, but by the time we figured out who had
the connection we needed, the gnomes were already there, and—”

Her throat hurt, suddenly. “And had eaten them.”

“Yeah.” He looked as nauseated as she felt; if his other form
was a horse, then maybe he was a vegetarian?

“We found you in time, got you away from them. We’ll protect
you,” he said again. “We need you to be safe.”

There wasn’t much more she could say to that.

* * *

Eventually, AJ and Elsa came back, their faces grim.
Well, AJs face was always grim. Elsa’s craggy expression didn’t seem to change
much.

Jan had never been to a council of war, only what she’d seen in
movies, but she was pretty sure their version was pitiful: the four of them
sitting on old furniture in an old warehouse, with supernatural creatures
stripping cars in the background.

“We’ve been trying to predict where and when, with no success,”
AJ said. “There doesn’t seem to be any pattern or logic to it, except that they
always go back to where they came through, so the portal doesn’t move, and they
can’t just open another one by snapping their fingers. But they never reuse one,
either. Our old ways of finding them are useless, and we can’t wait for a portal
to open and hope that you’re nearby. You need to tell us what to look for.”

“Me?” Jan was already tired of asking that. “I’m not the one
who—”

“They are coming out of phase, at a time and place of their own
choosing, and returning with their prey almost immediately. How?” Elsa leaned
forward, the sound of gravel crunching with every move. “How did they find your
leman and catch his attention?”

“Sex.” Jan heard the bitterness in her voice, thick in that one
word. Elf—preternatural—or no, they’d used the most basic lure, and he’d fallen
for it. Apparently she hadn’t been enough for him, that he had to fuck around,
too.

“Yes, obviously.” Elsa gave her an odd look. “But how? In the
past, their victims have stumbled upon their portal-circles, or been caught at
transition times.”

“The dark of the moon,” Martin said, coaching Jan. “Fairy
rings. The change of seasons. Times and places a human might come in contact
with them, intentionally or otherwise.”

Jan tried to remember what he was saying while still focusing
on Elsa’s questions. He was too close, and she was noticing things like the way
he smelled, a green, musky scent, instead of what was happening around her.

“But they no longer need such things, if they reach directly
into homes and draw their prey to them, or go directly to where their prey
already waits. If they have found a way around the old, physical, temporal
limitations...how? That is what we need to know, to lure and trap them in
kind.”

Jan stared at her, completely out of her comfort zone, or any
zone she recognized. Her daypack rested at her feet, and she clutched at it now,
the only remnant of reality left. Her wallet, her cell phone—but there was no
one she could call. Nobody who could get her out of this, or throw her a
lifeline. “I... How am I supposed to know?”

“Think, human. If this man was in your life, you know his
habits. You know where he went and what he did, yes?”

“Yes.” Her response was immediate. Of all the things they had
asked, this she had no doubts about. “But he didn’t go anywhere. I was the one
who had to drag him out and be social. The only thing he did was...”

She stopped, and Elsa leaned forward.

“Yes?”

Jan dug her fingers into her hair, trying to massage some of
the stress out of her scalp, but all that did was remind her of the times Tyler
had done the same thing, the fingers that danced so quickly over the keyboard
going slow and steady through her curls.

“We...we do a lot of socializing online. Digital networking,
vid-conferencing, that sort of thing. But that’s people you already know. Tyler
wasn’t much for chat rooms, said they were overrun with noobs and trolls— Oh,
sorry. It’s a Net term, it’s not—”

Elsa stared at her, not taking offense, waiting for her to get
to the point.

“The thing is, we met on a dating site. It’s a...a place where
people go, when they want to meet someone else, outside their usual social
group. You put your profile into the system, and you look at other profiles, and
you decide who you want to talk to after you check them out, see if you share
interests....”

Jan swallowed hard, remembering the email she had found in
Tyler’s in-box. “It can get pretty racy there, if you want.”

Elsa’s eyes didn’t widen—Jan wasn’t sure her expression could
change, at all—but it was obvious that she understood. “This site, it allows
others to find sexual partners?”

“Yeah. Some of them are looking for marriage, some of ’em are
just wanting a hookup...the one we used was more casual.” Saying it made the
tips of her ears flush, as if she was some kind of slut, but that was silly: so
she didn’t want to get married, that didn’t mean she had wanted a bunch of
one-night hookups. And neither had Tyler—she thought. But if he had stayed on
the site, kept his account active after she closed hers... The bitterness stuck
in her throat, like heartburn.

“If you were using sex, seduction to lure someone—” wasn’t that
how they said a lot of serial killers found their prey? “—then a dating site
like that would make sense. People are open to it, not suspicious, or wary. We
want
to be seduced.”