Trueheart (Portland After Dark Book 1) (12 page)

"Catch her! Catch the human girl! She can see us!" The horse creature called to the rest of the market. Heads turned as Tess raced, gasping and sobbing, through Underbridge.

The whispers sounded like the dry rasp of autumn leaves scudding over pavement.
She can see us. Sees us. She can see! Catch her, stop her, damn her eyes, damn her very bones!
People closed in on every side, directing her terrified flight into a spiral that curved back through Underbridge and toward the redcaps and their barrel.

"I will have her teeth for my dice," said a wet, hungry voice to her left.

"And I her toes for my necklace," said a different voice.

"And I her hair, to make nets to catch the fat pigeons!" gloated a third.

Tess felt panic, beyond bone-deep, settling into her, as the spiral of people—creatures—tightened and became a circle with only one exit...the glowing barrel. She halted, facing that ominous gap, her breathing harsh and rapid, teeth bared. She plunged her hand into her shoulder bag and fished for the pepper spray, holding it out like a talisman.

Still the circle tightened. Some of the people were smiling, but some twisted their mouths in rage. Even worse were the faces that were eager and hungry. She felt tears on her face, but now was not the time to focus on that. Tears only revealed weakness, the last thing she wanted to show.

But it was only herself and a single can of pepper spray against so many. The ring shrank further, driving her toward that exit, where the three men waited, teeth bared in awful smiles. Someone darted forward and made a snatch at the stone in her hand, but she thrust the rock down her shirt and felt its cold weight settle against the skin of her stomach where her shirt tucked into her jeans.

Now she couldn't see them as they truly were, but perhaps that was for the best. Why ask for her mind to shatter at the horrors they represented? Wasn't it enough to be hunted like a hare? Her gaze settled on the languid young man, flanking one side of the exit. He was smiling, beckoning with his long fingers, but all Tess could think about was the double horror she'd seen, horse and human, denim and hide, crowned by that eager phallus.

"Please let me go," she said. "I didn't see anything. I won't tell. I promise."

"Hark at her!" said a tiny little woman dressed in a muddy bathrobe and rubber boots. "You'd best hand over that stone. And we'll think about letting you go."

"Speak for yourself, Nelly Long-Arms," grunted a fat man, wheezing up behind the woman in the bathrobe. "Give her to Sharpwit. We've lacked for meat these past weeks."

There must be thirty of them around her now, all staring, all angry. A tall man in a flannel shirt stepped too close, and Tess, shrieking, sprayed him in the face. He made an unholy squawk and growled, covering his streaming eyes. She sprayed again wildly in all directions, and the circle loosened just the slightest.

"Her little can won't last for long," said the languid young man. "And then we'll have her. She's mine, though. I touched her first."

"I can see your slime on her coat," said Nelly Long-Arms. "You'll share?"

"When I've done with her. I'm
hungry
. It's been long and long since I tasted such a one."

"A week." The fat man snorted. "We know you. We saw what's left of your last meal. You left it out where the humans could've found it. Sharpwit had to clean up after you. We ought to take you to the Queen. She'd have something to say about your mating and eating habits."

"We ought to take the girl to the Queen," suggested someone behind Tess. "Let her decide what to do with the human who can see us."

There was a rumbling murmur, half dissent, and half agreement. Tess wondered who the queen was, and if it was the same one Thomas had mentioned on the beach. She decided to try negotiation.

"I'm just looking for a friend. I came here to find him; I think he might be hurt or lost."

"And who would that be?" asked Nelly Long-Arms, rocking forward in her wet slippers. The hem of her bathrobe had trailed in mud and something brown-green.

"His name is Thomas—"

There was a collective intake of breath around the circle, and a few uneasy foot-to-foot shiftings.

"Knew I'd seen her before," said someone.

"Thomas? He'll be angry if we eat her."

"We can deal with Thomas."

"He has the Queen's ear."

At that last comment, there was a brief silence. Then the fat man said, "I ain't afeared of Thomas. I say we kill her now and let Sharpwit make a stew—"

The man's voice broke off when two big hands wrapped around his throat from behind and squeezed. To Tess, it looked like someone from the bizarre world of professional wrestling had joined the crowd. He was tall, with low-set, pointed ears, and a standing stripe of hair down the center of his large, otherwise hairless head. His nose was fat and bulbous, like someone had smashed it one time too many. There were cuts and bruises on his forehead and cheeks. He bent to the fat man's ear and whispered, as if to a lover, "Not afeared of Thomas? And why not, Will Cunning?"

Tess was riveted by the voice and the long black oilcloth coat. Could it be? Was it Thomas? Though she'd tried to block the image from her mind ever since, it looked very much like the creature she'd seen when she first looked through the stone at the seaside.

"Thomas?" she gasped, and knew for certain when his eyes, the beautiful Thomas eyes, flicked over her once. "Oh,
Thomas
, I—"

"Shut it, you," he said to her. "You've made more than enough trouble tonight." He tightened his grip on the fat man. "You owe me an apology, Will, and maybe even a little restitution. I've got an iron nail in my pocket that's for your neck if you don't."

Will Cunning lifted his fat, pawlike hands. "I was kiddin'. You know what a joker I am. I wouldn't have give her to Sharpwit, honest. We're just trying to make sure she don't go tellin' what she's seen. 'Twouldn't be good for anyone."

"You know our Queen has made me the law here. You should have brought the girl to me in the first place." Thomas gave one last squeeze and leaned hard on Will Cunning, who fell to his knees when Thomas let go.

Nelly Long-Arms coughed a short, sharp laugh. "How were we to know she belongs to you? You've not set your mark on her. The only mark is the kelpie's."

Thomas gave a growl, and Tess felt tears starting anew. "That wet slug knows full well what he's doing. Trying to charm what's not his to charm."

Thomas muscled his way through the circle of people and set a clawed finger at the base of Tess's throat, where she could feel her pulse beating frantically. His eyes met hers, and she felt a strange calmness, almost like cool water, pour over her. The claw moved slightly against her skin. He licked the claw-tip, and she knew he had drawn blood. She clapped a hand over the spot, watching as Thomas's eyelids drooped as if he were savoring her salt-copper taste. The crowd gave a collective moan that made Tess shudder in renewed fear. Was this how the turkey felt, just before its trip to the oven?

"We could all have a lick, just a taste..." whispered Nelly Long-Arms. "It wouldn't take much, she's got salt to spare!"

"You see my mark," muttered Thomas. "I will take her to the Queen myself. Because you're correct, the Queen needs to know what's been going on
in her own market
." He gave them all a slow, significant look, and with a mutter the crowd trickled away, abashed and slinking.

"We didn't mean nothing," said Will Cunning, from his position at Thomas's feet. "We was just hungry."

"Speak for yourself," said the kelpie. He moved into Thomas's path. "Nelly spoke the truth. My mark is on her."

"And I have tasted her blood." Thomas loomed over the young man, who stood unflinching. "I have the greater claim."

"But mine is the oldest." The kelpie spat at Thomas's feet. "You humans...you never forget where you came from, do you? Not even when it would be in your best interest."

Thomas's broad smile, a shark-like note in his damaged face, gave Tess chills. "Never," he agreed, and towed Tess out of what was left of the circle, shouldering past the kelpie and glowering at the redcaps, who had been thwarted in their search for new dye.

"Be sure you do tell our Queen this news," the kelpie said. "For she will surely hear."

Thomas growled in answer, dragged Tess closer, and swung her body over his shoulder despite her flailing and shrieks.

Oh God, out of the frying pan...

T
HERE
WAS ONLY ONE PLACE
secure and private enough to be while Thomas controlled Tess's reactions to the new horrors she had experienced. His own home, the trow-hold inside the Burnside Bridge.

He didn't want her there.

He longed to have her there.

They were ruined. After the disaster at the market, there was no way he could keep her from the Queen. Too many little telltales had too much to gain by exposing Thomas and his pet human to the Queen. He guessed they had perhaps as much as two hours before the Queen came calling. He hoped it would be enough to get Tess calmed down and somewhere safe.

There was no way he'd simply hand her over to the Unseelie Queen. He needed time to think up a plan, find a way to hide her. Or maybe hide them both.

There was just the little problem of the Queen's band around his arm.

Thomas sprinted through the market at top speed, still in trow-form. He dodged through the chain link fence at the pumping station, hearing Tess yelp as some of her hair snagged on the fence. Thomas leapt high to the girders of the bridge and swung up onto it with Tess hanging over his shoulder, struggling and squawking in mingled fright and fury. Even the thick paint over the steel didn't stop the iron burn. His muscles still ached from the snap-back crash landing of the broken ley, making this awkward task even harder.

"Be still," he growled. "Or I'll drop you in the river. You don't want that." He adjusted her so that she was more centered on his front. Her legs were getting in the way, and he maneuvered them around his waist, his hand beneath her ass. At any other time, this would have seemed ideal.

"Oh God," she wailed. "Please, just let me go. I swear I'll never come back here. I won't go to the cops, I—"

"Be. Quiet." He needed concentration to negotiate the web of girders.

Tess craned her neck at the Willamette running dark and ominous beneath them, and screamed again. Thomas ignored her noise, stretching far. "Hold on to me, or you'll fall."

"Oh God." Her voice was a frightened squeak, but she locked her legs around his waist and clutched at his neck with her arms, burying her face in the collar of his coat. Several more acrobatic swings ended with them teetering on his perilously narrow doorstep, and with a push of his big hand, raw from the iron, they were through the door.

Thomas released Tess immediately, putting his back to the door so she couldn't run out and fall into the river. Still panicking, she flung herself against the far wall and groped with both hands along the concrete.

"We're safe for now."

"You call this safe?
Safe
? There are homicidal...I don't know
what
they are, out there, things that—they wanted to eat me, and now you've dragged me off to your lair and for all I know
you're
going to eat me, you gashed my neck and—and—"

Thomas let her sputter while he turned to the door and spun its big latch mechanism. He used his sleeve cuffs to shield his palms from the metal. With his limited magic, no spells he could cast would keep the fae out, but the door's iron bindings and lock would, at least until the Queen got serious about rooting him out of his hole.

"I did it for your own good. Most of them will leave you alone from now on. They know they'll have me to face if they don't." Satisfied the door was as secure as he could make it, he started down the concrete steps to the rooms below, leaving Tess to do as she wished.

What she wished, apparently, was to fling herself at the door and struggle with the latch. Thomas shook his head and continued down the stairs.

It was several minutes before he heard her footsteps coming quietly into the room behind him. He had taken off his coat and hung it away, after checking its pockets for all his tools and weapons. He dunked a cloth in some cold water and stood at the mirror, holding the cloth to his nose. It was still bruised and sore from the ley line accident, and not improved by Tess's flailing. Tess met his eyes in the mirror. She stayed close to the wall and the stairs, but her eyes were unflinching, and in one hand she held the beach stone.

"You're hurt," she said at last, and Thomas felt his shoulders slump as tension drained from him. That kindness at the very heart of Tess was already winning out over the terrified woman he had dragged away from Underbridge. "Your hands are raw."

"It's not bad." He looked at himself in the mirror once more, seeing the creature Tess saw, the trow, and not the human man he longed to be once and for all.

"Why is it I can see you—like this—without the stone?"

"I'm not glamoured." He turned to face her. "The folk in the market, they wear glamours so the humans in the city don't discover the truth of them."

"Then you've worn glamours with me."

"Yes. I had to."

"The...things...in the market, they want to hurt me because I know the truth about them?"

"Pretty much. If the humans knew what—who—whatever—lives alongside them in their city, there would be war."

"Humans would win." She spoke with certainty until Thomas laughed.

"You have no idea what you're up against, Tess. Think about the nightmares you've just seen. Now multiply that by ten thousand. You and I have to leave here soon and find someplace safe for you to be until this blows over. I think you should get out of town for a while. Maybe a few months. Longer, even."

Tess snorted. "You're crazy if you think a bunch of Halloween trick-or-treaters are going to make me leave. I've got a job, and a house, and...no. And what do you mean? What has to blow over?"