Dame of Owls

This wasn’t the worst town Sid had ever been through, but it was putting up a fight. It was farcical, the way they tried to lay claim to magic here. Ceramic pixies in the windows, their flowing skirts all gauze and glitter. If any of these people ever saw a Fairy Queen riding into battle, armor gleaming and battle flag snapping in the wind, they’d shit themselves. Sid spent a long time standing in one particular spot, eating a mediocre sandwich and glaring at the nearest shop as if she could make it spontaneously combust.

Queen’s orders. Of course. Sid would have refused any lesser authority, but the queen was to be obeyed. Not that this was the reason Sid had sought knighthood. She’d been looking for glory, for bloodshed, for a reason to take up arms and fight for her people.

This was babysitting. The queen had fobbed this one off on her with the claim that, as a half-mortal, she was in a better position to play nicely with the humans. Nevermind that Sid was four hundred years old and had only just gotten a handle on the internet. Plenty of the very young ones spent more time than not in this realm, jabbing at cellphones and pushing their iron resistance to the limit. You can use a gun, they told her, as if that explained everything. She was only rounding up the queen’s latest paramour, there was no reason she’d need one.

Not that she hadn’t brought it. She had most definitely brought the gun. Sid patted the bulge under her jacket as she popped the last of her sandwich into her mouth and steeled herself to have a rousing go at small talk. She wasn’t much for chatting. People could usually tell.

The shop she’d been staring at was, at least, a bookstore instead of a purveyor of dubiously occult doo-dads. It looked nice enough, if a bit grimy and in serious need of a cat in the window. A bell jangled cheerfully when she pushed the door open, and the whole place smelled like a failed attempt to keep up with the cleaning. The New Age section stuck out with obnoxious clarity, but all in all she couldn’t find much to fault.

Except the general emptiness, the decided lack of quarry.

“Hey!” It was the politest thing she could dredge up.

“One sec!” called a voice from the back, followed by a resounding thump.

Sid shoved her hands in her jean pockets and rocked back on her heels to wait. It was difficult not to be on her guard. This mission was her come-down period on the back of being out in the field, where a Summer dragon had infringed upon the Court's land. Dragon slaying was never comfortable business, and Sid was lucky she’d come away with her flawless record of strictly treatable wounds intact. Her fingers still twinged every now and again, the healing dragging on as if to remind her what not to get cut off.

It wasn’t long before a man emerged from between the shelves.
Ah
, thought Sid,
well, that explains that.

Here was exactly the sort of mortal who got whisked away through fairy circles in the old tales. He was at least a foot taller than Sid, though she’d never been able to claim height as one of her strengths. The queen preferred them this way: long, lean, and graceful. His brown hair was touched with red, and just a bit of gray at his temples added dignity to his otherwise young face. A strong nose and jaw softened by a full mouth and his choice of glasses. Earthy brown eyes. The queen was such a sucker.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Sid straightened her back and tried to look respectable. “You work here?”

“Yeah. I’m Chris. What’re you looking for?”

Over her long years, Sid had met a good many mortals. There were those who were willing to believe anything you told them, no matter how tall the tale sounded. Fairy Queens, rivers of silver, eternal winter? Sign them up, the very existence of fine print denied. She had a feeling that this man was a bit sharper, or at least more careful.

Sid could see tattoos under the hems of his t-shirt sleeves, and the way his hair fell didn’t quite cover up the nasty scar tracking its way across his forehead. She guessed he wouldn’t take kindly to stories about police officers or family estate lawyers. But she needed him to come with her to someplace quiet and isolated where she could knock him over the head. Then she’d haul him home with her and he could pitch whatever fit at a higher authority.

“I.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and prepared herself. "I was looking for a gift.”

“Can I ask who for?” He cracked a charming smile. “Boyfriend?”

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. She almost felt bad for the poor bastard, but if he was impressed by Sid, he’d be blown away by the Winter Queen.

“Oh, no. I’m single,” she said, and that was where her script ended. “I’m looking for a present for a friend.”

“What does she like?”

Sid tried to imagine her best friend setting foot in a bookstore. Or reading a book. Or doing anything with a book other than lighting it on fire. No go in that direction. What did men like to hear before you lured them down dark alleys?

“Sexy things.”
Bravo.

Chris eyebrow raise was not suggestive in the least. “Sexy things?”

“You know.” Her hands sketched out vague shapes in the air, and she was really tempted to come back later, break in through the back, and just beat him unconscious the good old-fashioned way. “Sexy.”

“Well, the book that new romance movie is based on is in stock just over – ”

“Sexier.”

Sid could never quite keep straight what was ‘flirting’ personal space and what was ‘the dueling field at dawn’ personal space. Luckily, most mortals were no longer in a position to recognize the difference. He laughed warmly, and was raising a hand to touch her arm. She’d invite him to a bar, he’d never know what hit him –

Glass shattered somewhere beyond the bookshelves.

Chris swore and pulled away from her, turning to hurry back into the heart of the shop. He did call a hasty ‘sorry’ over his shoulder, but Sid was no longer paying much attention to him. The air reeked of greenery and heat, as sweet as a corpse decaying in the hot summer sun. She sprinted past Chris, ignoring his confused exclamation.

The Summer Knight hadn’t shattered a window to gain entrance. He hadn’t needed to shatter anything. He’d picked up one of the shop’s kitschy decorative lamps and dropped it, and now it lay in pieces at his feet. He’d done it because he could, with the Summer Court’s usual capriciousness. Sid thought she might recognize him, though not by name; he was a knight of their Lily house, and she may have almost severed his leg once.

Judging by the face he was making, he remembered that encounter just fine.

“What the fuck was that for?” Chris sounded oddly resigned to broken furniture.

The Summer Knight glared at Sid for a long, hard moment. Then he gathered himself, and leveled a finger right at Chris.

“Christopher Protz. The Queen of the Summer Court has requested your presence, and she will not wait with patience or kindness.”

Chris, for some awful reason, relaxed a little. “Hey,” he said, almost gentle. “Hey, whatever you’re on, you can tell me. Did somebody give it to you?”

Sid could have punched him. She could have punched the Summer Knight even more. Another House, Fox, or even Sparrow, she might have tried to negotiate with. House Lily was another matter, particularly with dismemberment such a recent, tender history between them.

“Back off,” she warned him, rather generously in her opinion.

“You will not interfere, Dame Obsidian.” Well, she had certainly made an impression. “I am under strict orders, and I will kill you here and now if need be.”

“Hey now,” said Chris.

Sid pulled her gun.

“God damn it,” said Chris, in the tone of one for whom this was not a new problem.

Sid aimed her gun at the Lily Knight’s thin face. “I laid first claim. That makes this my territory, and you the trespasser. You are violating the treaty, and I have the justice of the kill.”

Chris raised his eyebrows. “Oh my god, are you LARPing? Look, I told your buddies last week you can’t do that here without permission, I don’t care what the crazy lady at the bakery says, there’s a reason we call her the
crazy lady
at the bakery. And you!” He pointed at Sid. “I know that’s real, it had better not be loaded.”

What the hell was larping supposed to be?

“Mortal!” The Lily Knight shouted. “Mortal! This is beyond your ken. Come with me and put this business to rest before I lay vengeance at this woman’s doorstep.”

Chris looked distinctly unimpressed. “You can either give me your parents’ phone number, or I’m calling the cops. You are taking this way too seriously.”

The Lily Knight’s face twisted in outrage, his carefully held human guise starting to slip around the edges. On his hands and neck, Sid could see green peeking out from under tan skin. The smell of flowers intensified.

Making an executive decision, she shot him. The gun was very loud in the little shop, and it took awhile for the ringing to clear out of her ears.

“Holy shit!” Chris had probably been saying that for a good minute.

The Lily Knight laid sprawled on his back, a neat hole between his eyes. His blood seeped out onto the floor, as brown and sweet as sap. He was a noble; he wouldn’t stay down for long. Sid holstered her gun and grabbed Chris’s elbow.

“We need to go.”

“You shot him! Lady, I am trying to stay
out
of prison!”

“There’s no time to explain.” There was also no time to decapitate the Lily Knight, cremate him, and spread the ashes of his body to ensure he wouldn’t heal. Fae were damnably difficult to kill permanently.

“I’m calling the cops.”

“You’re coming with me.”

Chris drew himself up to his full height, daring her. Little did he know how far she’d drag him by his hair if she had to.

The Lily Knight groaned something unintelligible and twitched. Sid hoped the iron bullet would do long term damage to the part of his brain he used to speak. She had to haul back hard on Chris’s arm to stop him from darting forward to perform CPR or whatever harebrained things mortals did to dying people these days.

“He’s alive – ” Chris began.

The Lily Knight sat up. His face was green and streaked with the dirty sap of his blood, and orange flower petals scattered themselves through the fall of his now-filthy hair. His eyes refused to focus, but his mouth was trying desperately to form sounds and words. Sid could only imagine he wasn’t pleased with her.

Chris made a deeply unhappy noise, but he finally allowed Sid to pull him out of the bookstore, down the street towards where she’d parked her rental car.

---

They were almost out of town by the time Chris’s gears started turning again. The first thing out of his mouth was a barrage of swear words; Sid let them wash over her like poetry, since he wasn’t trying to take off his seatbelt or open the door. Then he slumped down in his seat.

“We should have called the cops,” he said.

“They wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”

“Yeah, but now I’m your accomplice.”

“Kidnapping victim,” she said, in the thin hopes of making him feel better.

“What the hell was that?”

“A fae of the Summer Court.”

“And I don’t suppose you actually want to go out for a sexy drink with me?”