Trueheart (Portland After Dark Book 1) (10 page)

The trouble was, she
did
trust him. But she also trusted her own eyes, which had just deceived her. Slowly, she lifted the stone to her right eye once more, and peered at him through the hole.

His face was blocky and rough like something carved from teakwood or brownish stone, flanked by large, tufted ears. A peculiar shock of thin, spiky hair, blondish in color, slid along the center of his scalp like a goth kid's Mohawk 'do. A large nose, blunt and somehow sore-looking, as if it frequently ran into fists.

She took the stone away and there was Thomas. She heard herself panting, quick breaths of near-panic.

"How is this possible?" she demanded. "How are you doing this?"

He shrugged while she watched again through the hole in the stone and saw shoulders built like boulders rise and fall. "It's what I said. The glamour vanishes."

Tess couldn't look away. It was like examining a laboratory specimen through a microscope. Something so strange, and yet of this world? Her gaze kept returning to his eyes. As unfamiliar and un-Thomaslike as the rest of him seemed, with the stripe of hair and the muscles in his neck as rough and strong as tree roots, and the ears...dear God, the ears, with bobcat tufts at their pointed tips...his eyes grounded her. Throughout the quivering, shuddering shift of form, Thomas's eyes remained warm and human, that same undecided, entrancing smoke-blue hazel they had always been. It was as though he were simply putting on a costume, a Hollywood monster suit, and if she were to search beneath the black oilskin duster, she would find the zipper.

Thomas fidgeted.

Tess stared out at the ocean through the stone, but it looked just the same as always. She looked at the log, and apart from a faint glitter like fine diamond dust on the silvery wood, it looked as it had.

Before.

Before I learned there really is something weird in the world. Something different and strange and...wrong. But why did he show this to me? What does he hope to accomplish? Birch girl, Green Man, dark elf. Oh, Stephen, is this how it began for you? Will I fall too?

"Are...are you...
what
are you?" she whispered.

"I was human once...I still am, some of the time. A lot of the time. But it's a hard form to hold."

"But you're also...something..."

"It's called a trow."

"A troll?"

"Not a troll. Those are bigger, uglier. Like rocks."

She took the stone away from her eye. It was easier to talk with him when she wasn't looking at a creature from God knew where. The laugh that broke from her was confused and shrill. "Uglier!"

He looked away, and Tess saw she had hurt him with her startled exclamation. The idea that something so strange and disconcerting in its appearance had vanity... "I mean...I don't know what I mean. I can't think. This is insane.
I'm
insane, or you are, or maybe both of us—" Her babbling ceased as Thomas gripped her by the wrist. She flinched in terror, but he would not let her go.

"Neither of us is insane. Just...listen, can't you? Put the rock in your pocket. You'll want it later."

Tess shoved it on the log. "I won't want it."

"You will. Now listen. It's not a long story, but you need to hear it for your own safety."

Now he was using keywords that triggered alarm bells in someone trained to deal with addicts and other dysfunctional personalities.
This is what stalkers say to their girlfriends. This is what abusive spouses say: it was for your own good, the safety of the family, you need to learn...

"Let me go, Thomas. You're scaring me."

Instantly he released her, scooting backward, hands up, palms open. "Please hear me out."

"You've got two minutes, and then I'm leaving. Sooner if you do something stupid."

"Two minutes is all I need." He took a deep breath. "Back when Portland first became a stop on the river routes to the sea, the Unseelie Court moved from somewhere in England to here."

"Unseelie what?"

"They're not Seelie." Thomas dragged his fingers over his scalp. "It's hard to explain. The Unseelie belong to the court of the dark fae—the dark faeries. English people and farms crowded out the fae and ruined the forests. So the fae fled, and they came here."

"Fairies. In Oregon." Tess snorted.

"You promised me two minutes." His gaze pinned her where she stood, and at last she nodded. "Right. So the Unseelie Court has a Queen. She likes to take human lovers, and she picked me. For some reason, she decided not to kill me when she was through with me, but she bound me to her and gave me the trow-form. It's been almost two hundred years since she did that, and every year it's harder to stay human. But I'll do it. I won't be like this forever. I'll get my own life back."

Tess stood very still. If she hadn't just seen something completely outside her reality through that stone, she would have thought Thomas's story was by far the most unique delusion she'd ever heard.

Thomas continued. "Some of the fae think you're involved in something at the goblin market, and I was afraid for you. That's why we came here today, so I could find you one of these stones that will let you see the fae as they are." He spread his hands wide. "As
I
am."

"Me, involved with fairies. And what goblin market are you talking about?"

"Under the Burnside Bridge."

"That's the weekend artists' market—"

"Sure it is, at the weekend. But other times, it's the goblin market. Humans shouldn't go there. The fae aren't above taking advantage of the ones who do."

"This is nonsense."

"You've met some of the fae yourself. The fortuneteller, for one."

"You've been spying on me! Are you stalking me?"

Thomas's smile was grim as he looked up at her. "No. The Unseelie Queen has told me to watch the market. There are thieves, and she wants them caught. You just happened to be there last week, more than once. In fact, I've seen you there for months. But this time you caught my eye."

"And you think I'm in danger now."

"Yes, I do. Because other fae have noticed you, not just me."

"What other fae? The fortuneteller?"

"Her, yes...she's a banshee, not exactly a fortuneteller—she can only tell you when you'll die—that's if you give her your truename. And the three men at the barrel...they are redcaps. If you hadn't let on you knew the Queen's latest lover, they would probably have dyed their caps in your blood just for speaking to them. And the young man you spoke to—he's a murderous kelpie. You need to stay away from the goblin market."

The Queen's latest lover...the lady, she ride him...not drugs, but enchantment? What are redcaps, what's a kelpie?
Stephen's singsong rang in her ears.
Birch girl, birch girl...

Tess backed away, shaking her head at her own inflamed imagination. If Thomas could be believed, Aaron was the Unseelie Queen's paramour, and she had cast a spell on him. "No. This is crazy. I have to go now, Thomas, and I'm really, really sorry, but I don't think I can take you back to Portland with me. This is...I have to go."

She hurried back up the beach the way they had come. Thomas followed, but at a distance that respected her boundaries. She had to give him that.

She waited at the top of the stairs to the parking lot, arms crossed over her body, car keys in her hand.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I hope you'll be all right. Do you need some money to get home?"

"Don't worry about me." Thomas reached out slowly and she saw he had the perforated stone in his hand once more. "Please. You need it to keep you safe."

Maybe if she took it, he would leave her alone. She took it from his hand, stretching to reach it, and very careful not to touch his skin. She shoved the stone into the pouch of her hoodie and repressed the urge to wipe her palm on her jeans.

"If anything at all seems odd, look through it. Know when you're dealing with the fae. I won't ask another thing of you. Please."

She stood, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot. "I need to think about this, Thomas. If that's your name."

"It is. My truename. Like I said, I was human once. I give it into your keeping. If you were fae, it would give you power over me. Likewise, you should guard your own name where the fae are concerned." He nodded toward the road. "I'll find my own way home. I've done it before. It'll be a nice change from the city."

"I could...I don't know, maybe call a ride for you?" Guilt began to nag at her.

"Who? How? You want to go to the market, maybe, tell them you left a trow at the coast? For them to send a kelpie down the Columbia for me?" He shrugged, and all Tess could think of were those burly, bestial shoulders under the oilskin. It was better if they simply ended this now.

Tess drove away, leaving him standing in the little parking lot. She watched him in the rearview until the curve of the road hid him from sight.

The stone weighed heavy and cold in the pouch pocket. She pulled it out and tossed it into the passenger seat. Never in her life had she left someone standing by the side of the road, but her sanity wouldn't let her turn the Jeep around.

It might mean she believed him, and she couldn't have that.

T
HOMAS
WATCHED
T
ESS
'
S
J
EEP UNTIL
it was out of sight. He sighed, shuddered into his trow-form, pulled up his hood and jammed his hands into his coat pockets. He strode due east, disregarding roadways and hopping over fences. Somewhere nearby there would be a fae-door underground, or a ley line to follow, and he'd use it to shorten his return to Forest Park and Underbridge.

He had frightened Tess with the view through the hole in the stone. His stomach was heavy with regret. No doubt he'd seen the last of her. Ordinary humans didn't take well to being shown the raw flesh beneath the glamoured skin of the fae. Trows were hardly beautiful creatures. They weren't thugs like trolls, but their bulk lacked in grace what it gained in strength and speed.

The forest smelled richly of moss and fern, the spice of balsam and the musk of lichen. The odors made him hungry, and he wished for some of Sharpwit's winter stew. No chance now for the chowder he and Tess had planned on as part of their day at the coast. Thomas closed his eyes to concentrate on testing the air for a fae link of some sort and drifted northeast, following the urging of his senses. A mile or so further on, he found it, a ley line that started at a hillside spring and aimed straight for Portland.

When he stepped onto the ley, a chill tingle rose up his legs, as if he had stepped in cold water or a flood of winter air tight against the earth. Each stride moved him many yards along the pathway. Firs, spruce and hemlocks slid past; rocks bulged beneath him and were behind him just as quickly. He had gone several miles in only a few minutes when the line gave a tremendous snap like a whip, flinging him from the track. He landed upside-down against a big hemlock half a dozen feet from the ley.

Thomas staggered to his feet, dizzy and shaken. He clutched his iron-edged knife in his palm, where it bit and stung, but not so much that he couldn't hold it. Not many fae had the power to clear a ley like that; most would have met a fae traveling in the opposite direction and negotiated who would step off and have to wait for the other to be a mile beyond before returning to the ley and continuing on their way. But Thomas had been ejected. He readied himself.

"Hail fellow, well met!" Hunter and his fae hounds—gaunt redcaps, bogles, a kelpie or two, others of the lesser, more bloodthirsty fae—paused in front of him. The hounds milled restlessly, eager to be gone.

Cold dread sank into Thomas's gut. He'd never met Hunter outside of Forest Park, where the Queen's wishes and will held Hunter in check. He was deep in the Coast Range now, far from the Queen's senses and spies. Hunter never made a secret of his dislike of Thomas. The Queen had soiled the Unseelie Court with her human pet, instead of discarding Thomas when her interest waned, the way she did with her other lovers.

Hunter's expression was as unreadable as always. Nothing showed behind that antlered mask.

"Hail," Thomas replied, sidling to the east along the track. "I yield the ley to you, Hunter."

"Naturally." Hunter angled his long wooden staff in front of Thomas to block his path.

"As I said, I yield the ley."

"Tell me, Half-made...what brings you so far from home? I thought you never left the market except to do our Queen's bidding."

"I don't have to explain myself to you."

Hunter's hounds shifted and gibbered at Thomas's audacity, dancing close to Hunter's mount and risking a skull-shattering kick when the horse's eyes rolled, lit with a feral green light. A hound showed its fangs to Thomas.

"Ah, but there's where you're wrong. Any foolish human cluttering my Queen's court will answer to me."

"I answer to
my
Queen and no one else."

Hunter shook his head. "You need a friend at court, Thomas. You are being replaced, you know. Two human centuries is long enough for the Queen to tire of your novelty. She seeks fresher flesh than yours." The staff moved, prodding at Thomas's shoulder in the oiled duster. "Change is coming. I could be that friend—save you from the worse that's to come."

"What change?" Thomas took hold of the end of the staff, keeping his knife hand low at his side. Hunter was no fool. He'd be ready for any weapon Thomas could wield, but his hounds might not.

"The Queen is ready to make her move. You'll only be in the way, and you know what happens to toys that have outlived their usefulness."

Thomas did know. He'd been astonished to last this long, frankly, and had wondered what appeal he still held for the Queen. He pushed the staff away from himself and retreated even farther from the ley. "Speak plain, Hunter. What is it you want from me, and perhaps—I said perhaps—we can strike a bargain."

"You have had her ear long years and long. Bed talk reveals much. You hear things at the market. Simply come to me with your knowledge, and I will speak for you when the time comes to shed your blood for her own purposes."