Gossamyr (26 page)

"Keep your head up and walk swiftly," Ulrich muttered.
He slid a hand into Gossamyr's free hand and directed her steps. He
limped, but had not complained since they'd left the shore of the
Seine. Likely putting the incident with the werefrog far from
thought.

Overhead, the flutter of the fetch's wings occasionally captured a
glint of moonlight. So it had returned. Not soon enough to catch
Ulrich's attack; good thing. Shinn would question her inability to
protect her travelmate from danger.

"I should give them coin." Gossamyr dodged to avoid
stepping on a child, a dirty adult-size shirt hanging from its thin
shoulders. "Ulrich, you cannot turn from their need."

"Can you perform a miracle of loaves and fishes with your
mutable coin, Faery Not?"

"I don't understand."

"It means, no, you cannot. You have but a few disks of faery
coin in your purse. Of course you cannot increase it. Can you?"

She shook her head.

So she pressed ahead, clinging to Ulrich's hand and using Fancy to
part the crowd. They were trailed for a few steps, then the crew
veered off, likely in search of more giving marks.

"How does your leg fare, Ulrich?"

"Those fangs were like needles, a straight pierce and then
out. They did not tear the flesh so much, so I feel little pain."

"Either that or your leg will fall off before we find
shelter."

"Be you the bearer of such fine tidings, my lady?"

"Sorry. Methinks it is this gown. It binds and digs into me.
I will split the seams anon."

"I shall keep watch for a string of laundry. If you can wait
until the morning, the shops will be open. All the braies your coin
can purchase."

"Very well."

Gossamyr followed the trail of a fat rat as she strode alongside
Ulrich and the mule. The rodent looked overly plump, not sleek and
speedy as the meadow rats. Truly, this city of evil corrupted even
the vermin.

High above, the shadowed shape of the fetch reassured. She wished
the fetch worked both ways, that she could get images from Shinn.
But, alas, she could not connect to the fetch, much as Shinn had
attempted to teach her the mind-share required. She mentally sent
blessings to her father. Be he lacking in enemy revenants to battle.

Beside her the soul shepherd sucked in a breath. She sensed
Ulrich's leg did hurt, no matter his concessions to lacking pain.
Interesting to find both a kelpie and werefrog here in the city of no
Enchantment. Had they been called up by a magical spell?

Where in this tangle of humanity did the succubus hide? Shinn had
not known, beyond that she lived deep in Paris. Gossamyr could guess
the Red Lady would place herself at the perimeter of the city, far
from the draining influence of the mortal population. But the
perimeter seemed to be the most violent, attracting brigands and
cruel Armagnacs.

Might there be a central gathering location where the Disenchanted
congregated? Fée were attracted to splendor and elegance. They
would not be found in filth and destitution such as Gossamyr had seen
upon passing through the gates. A palace, surely they would insinuate
themselves into the court.

Startled back to the now by a touch to her shoulder, Gossamyr
looked in the direction Ulrich pointed. Here the streets were quiet,
save one single man fit out in finery and staggering as if soused.

Skipping across the wide gutter gurgling down the center of the
street, Gossamyr approached the man who clung to the corner of a
building. He moaned and spat blood. A dueling injury?

It wasn't until Gossamyr got right up to the miserable wretch that
she saw his stare. Now she assessed the fine gold stitches darting up
and down his slashed doublet of crimson plush. Gold chains swung at
his hips, decorating a graceful stretch of limb.

He groped through the air in an attempt to clutch at her. She
dodged, yet moved right back into his face to study his eyes. The red
did not drip down his cheeks but instead clung to the eyeball as a
convex shield. Close then, she thought. Death stood near. Though, why
the unfortunate things did not immediately die was unclear to her.
Why did the succubus not directly take the essences? Or had this one
merely escaped? The one in the village had gotten far away.

Looking about, Gossamyr scanned down a narrow alley that was
nothing more than a whisker of space between towering buildings.
Something rustled within.

"Watch him," she hissed at Ulrich, and dashed into the
shadows. When the rustling became a scramble she picked up speed and
thrust out her staff, catching the man who ran away under the chin
and effectively pinning him against the rough stone wall. A black
leather hood shadowed half his face and covered his head, save a wisp
of unnaturally red hair.

"Who are you?"

Even with the dim light that poured through the end of the alley
where Ulrich knelt over the dying man, Gossamyr recognized her
captive's face. It could not be!

The entire world slipped from beneath Gossamyr's feet.

To find this one man in such a place? Memory flooded with glimpses
of happier times: a sensuous discovery, followed by a heart-wrenching
betrayal. Swaying, she fought against a sudden rise of dizziness.

The man she held pinned with her staff kicked out, a bare foot
jabbing her in the gut. In his right fist clacked a conglomeration
of—Gossamyr slid a look over the gleaming instruments—pins.

But the man.
Him.
He— Did he not recognize her?

"Gossamyr," Ulrich called. "Methinks he is soon
gone!"

"No!" Her quarry struggled.

She did not relent, keeping her staff tucked under his chin.

"It is time!"he moaned. "Release me!"

"Did you injure that man with those pins? Tell me!" She
pressed closer, staring deep into his pale eyes. Violet. And yet,
each blink glossed them over with a receding sheen of red. Curving
around his left eye were fine pinpricks of red, forming an arabesque
design.

Was it truly? It could not be! Yet, her heart knew.
Banished.

"Ave—" She choked on the name. Three days of
tears. Never again had she wept. She had not thought to ever see him
again. "Do you not recognize me?"

A globule of spit hit Gossamyr's neck. She twisted her staff,
wrenching a yelp from the man. Pins scattered and dropped to the
ground in a sinister clatter.

It could not be coincidence, this—this fée who
smelled of summer flowers and blood and who wielded sharp pins had
been lurking so close to the dying fée. Was he connected to
the Red Lady? The succubus's signature gleamed in the man's crimson
violet eyes. Mayhap he had received her killing kiss? What manner of
weapon be those long pins of steel? This man had been...

So close.

A stolen tryst.

More than a tryst.
True love?

Faeries cannot love.

Why then did her heart ache so?

With a bend of her elbow, Gossamyr lowered the staff and jammed it
into the man's gut. He doubled and sank to the ground. Long groping
fingers curled about the carvings wrapping the end of the staff.

"Look at me!" she commanded.

The pin man jerked his face up at Gossamyr's command. Eyes
narrowed, he stared at her, looking so deep and yet, skimming but her
surface. Did he see her? Know her? How could he not?

"Remove your threat, wench!"

"It is me—" she crouched before him "—Gossamyr."

"He is gone!" Ulrich shouted.

Gone? Dead. A long suffering death, so unlike the immediate
twinclian
that signified a normal fée death. And the
reward for such suffering? The revenant would soon claw from the
body.

Blight, but she hadn't time for reunions. But oh, how her heart
pulsed to watch this tatter of a man look upon her. Such confusion on
his face. He did not recognize her! He could not have forgotten.

Reaching to shove back his hood, she stopped when he snarled.
Brilliant crimson hair sifted across his shoulder. Red as blood. It
had never been that color. Black, black as crow wings 'twas
what
it should be. Could she be wrong about his identity?

"Quickly!"

Gossamyr turned to Ulrich. The soul shepherd, one hand clamped to
his wounded leg, gestured madly that she join him. Vacillating
between his urgent pleas and her troubled heart, Gossamyr surrendered
to the mission. She pushed up and stalked back to the street. With
one last look to the pin man—how had he come to such a
state?—she bent over the body. Red streamed from the dead fée's
eyes and bubbled up in his pores.

"His essence," she said. "Ulrich, can you...see
it?"

"Unless the fée are different—and they well
could be—the essence should not be visible."

"But...can you feel it?"

"Get away from him! I must witness!"preceded an attack
to Gossamyr's back. The wily pin man jumped her shoulders and gripped
her loose hair like reins on a horse.

"Cease!" she shouted, but to no avail. Hands at her
temples yanked. Strands of hair let loose in pinching pulls. She
swung her shoulder to the right, but the man wrapped his leg about
her waist. Impossible to put a bruising blow to him.

To Ulrich's favor he did deliver a punch to the man's jaw, only to
dodge a steel pin slashed through the air. Her angry passenger
sprawled across the cobbles, Gossamyr spun an
arret,
but
stopped, arms falling to her sides at sight of Ulrich's frozen state.

The bespelled soul shepherd whispered, "What in all of
Hades?"

Gossamyr turned to the dead man and witnessed a most remarkable
sight. Emerald light quivered and jelled and began to rise above his
head.

"I guess you
can
see their souls," Ulrich said,
awestruck.

"Make it go back in the body," Gossamyr hissed.

"No!" the man with the pins cried.

She snapped out her staff, catching him across the gut. The blow
sent him reeling into a spin against a wall. Red hair spilled about
his face. His hand, pin held gleaming, stretched to follow the
floating green light. "Lost!" he cried.

'Twas the fée's essence. It shimmered with glamour,
gorgeous in its undulating movement, slowing rising from the body
until it hovered eye level with her and Ulrich.

"I can feel tendrils of the former life," Ulrich said,
his left hand thrust before him. He moved his fingers delicately, as
if stroking the essence, but not touching. "Very much like our
souls. But this one, it knows where it is to journey."

Of course it did. 'Twas the final
twinclian.

A searing red pain erupted in Gossamyr's cheek. Slapping a hand to
her face, she spied the retreat of the steel pin and the fleeing
heels of her attacker.

Blood streamed in the lines of her palm. He had cut her!

"How could he?"

That he did not remark her, or even remember?

The tremendous ache that had been planted in her heart not so long
ago pulsed, reminding of the bruise that would never heal.
He is a
Rougethorn. Never will I allow that sort to court my daughter.

"It's so beautiful." His vision fixed to the green
light, Ulrich backed up and walked right into Gossamyr.

She shoved him away and staggered. The fact she had taken a cut so
easily astonished her. That it had been by a man she'd long thought
lost to her, a man she had loved—

"You're hurt? Let me take a look."

"No, I must follow him." She vacillated between the
shimmering essence and the retreating pin man.

The light suddenly dispersed, stretching and thinning until it was
but a shimmer of fée dust sifting to the cobbles. No revenant.
This death, though prolonged, was true.

"The final
twinclian,"
Gossamyr whispered. "I
think that one is safe," she decided. "The pin man did not
get the essence so the revenant was not released. I hope."

Pin man? Her Avenall? It
had
been him. Red pinpricks
circled his left eye. Banished. Just like the Red Lady. Could the red
hair be a side effect of banishment or a taint from the Red Lady's
erie?

She skipped down the street and looked around the corner.
Moonlight trickled across a line of laundry and the curious stare of
a mongrel mutt sitting on a doorstep. "Where did he go?"

Ulrich strode up behind her, and she walked right into him. "Watch
out!"

"Let me look." He gripped her wrist so tightly Gossamyr
paused and granted him her attention. He touched her cheek, imbuing
her stiff jaw with a settling softness. "It looks deep."

"No deeper than the bite marks on your leg. I must go."

"No." He squeezed her wrist. "He's gone. And you
are injured. We must wash and stitch it. There may have been poison
on the tips of those pins. We will to my uncle's home, it is not far
from here."

"The pin man," she whispered. "'Twas him. He serves
the Red Lady, spearing the essence on his pins. He...I...Ulrich, I
know that man."

"You have such friends?"

"Once a friend. He has changed."

"A fellow faery?"

"Yes. He was—" A lover, or very close. The only
man she had ever desired. The one man her father had banished in a
fit of rage.

"First, rest."

"Ulrich, there is no time to pause, we must pursue..."

Blackness snuffed out her words.

Ulrich caught Gossamyr's limp form in his arms. Her weight was
fée, much like her history. More faery than mortal, he thought
now as he turned about in the center of the street, scanning for the
escaped pin man. But so mortal in that she was not invincible. If she
had plans to rescue Faery from an evil succubus Gossamyr required
rest.

"He's gone," Ulrich said to himself, satisfied he'd
searched, then tugged Fancy along behind him. His leg did pain him,
but he would not reveal such. This refugee from Faery needed him to
be strong. As he needed much the same from her.