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Oct. 19th, 2005 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhienellethOk, as I said in my earlier entry, I'm posting those twenty pages to get any quick, knee jerk responses you all might have to them. Especially the beginning, as that's the part I reworked. And yes, I'm posting the entire twenty pages, because...why not?
Note: italics are denoted by underlining, because that's the way the manuscript has to be submitted. The rest of the formatting is the way it is because that's how LJ read it.
Chapter One
When Lyn started her trek from NYU toward home that night, she didn’t expect it to end in blood. The apartment she shared with her roommate, Nessa, was only a few blocks from the university library. She traversed the path between the two several times a week without incident, at all hours of the day and night. Tonight had seemed no different.
She left the library a little after midnight, knowing how Nessa would worry, otherwise. Her friend was a criminology major; she was forever rattling off the latest statistics on twenty-something victims of rape, kidnapping, and murder. Most of the time, Lyn tried to be sensitive to what she considered Nessa’s paranoia, but sometimes it was all she could do to suppress an exasperated eyeroll. Sure, bad things happened, and monsters targeted victims all the time. But Nessa’s monsters weren’t the same as Lyn’s, and never would be.
The sort of things her family faced and fought every day would give Nessa a full on panic attack. Certainly, they made her concerns seem laughable, and the predators she feared pathetic. Like the unfortunate incident with a drunken idiot at that frat party last year. His feeble attempt to rape Lyn in a bathroom ended with him writhing on the ground, clutching a broken arm. She’d been tempted castrate him as well. It wouldn’t have taken much; a flick of her wrist with the knife she always carried. In the same situation, Kiera would have done it. Or at least made the fool think she had.
Thinking of her sister brought a smile to her face as she crossed the campus in long, easy strides. Fraternal twins, the bond they shared kept them close despite the physical distance separating them. Kiera still lived on the West Coast, preferring to aid their father with his work over attending school with her sister. Lyn had not yet decided to take up the family business. She much preferred reading about great battles in her history texts to fighting them in real life.
Even so, the path her thoughts had taken tonight put Lyn on her guard as she entered Washington Square Park. Not in the paper as often as Central Park, still, it had been a more frequent location for drug deals lately. She picked up her pace, choosing the most direct route across.
Something unexpected whispered across her nerves, quickening her pulse just a little. The park looked and felt empty, but something was off. Always pay attention to your instincts, her father told her, over and over. Good advice. Lyn shifted her backpack to her left shoulder, and used her right to unclip the folding knife from her belt, flipping it open with practiced ease. Folded lines of silver and gold patterned the blade, an effect no store bought steel knife could achieve. She held it low and close to her leg, less visible to anyone watching. She was nearly certain someone was.
Nervous now, Lyn moved quickly, her eyes darting to the trees on her left, searching every shadow cast by the sliver of moon in the sky tonight. The wind bumped a wadded up paper bag across her path, sent a couple of stray leaves skittering over the grass. Slight movements, barely heard noises that scattered her senses, divided her attention. Intentionally, she knew suddenly. She could feel the weight of it on the wind, a heaviness that coated the night air and caught in the back of her throat when she breathed. Magic.
No garden variety rapist stalked her tonight. For the first time since she’d moved away from her family, real fear touched her. She couldn’t afford to watch and listen any longer.
She bolted into a run, dropping her bag for speed. Tall and athletic, she was a fast runner. But she only made it five paces before a hand closed around her arm, so hard she could feel her bones grinding beneath the grip. It jerked her off her feet, and she was suddenly thrown to the ground. She tucked and rolled over the grass, coming back up again almost instantly, her posture guarded, her knife held close and ready.
There were four of them, their skin gleaming an unearthly white in the moonlight. In the darkness, they looked nearly identical. Tall and lean, clothed in black armor that reflected no light. She swallowed. Sidhe. Four Sidhe. Oh, God, she didn’t know if she could survive this. It had been too long since she’d fought the otherwordly races, and the Sidhe were the most powerful among them. She wished suddenly, intensely, for her father to be here, or Kiera. But they weren’t. She would face the Sidhe alone.
One of them opened his mouth and laughed, a beautiful, crystalline sound that made her catch her breath in awe. Garnet shaded hair shimmered as he moved, the length of it sliding with silken grace over one black-clad shoulder. She’d never been this close to the royal fey before. She’d never experienced their perfect beauty for herself, only heard of it secondhand through her father’s teachings. The fact that the laughter was cruel and without mirth didn’t detract from its pure exquisiteness.
“Keelyn, daughter of Tiernan,” said the one who had laughed, “lay down your arms and we promise to make your death quick.” His voice, melodious and strong, drew her, made her yearn to simply stand still and listen. To do so, she knew, would be death. Instead, she moistened dry lips and forced herself to speak, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“You’ve got the wrong girl,” she said, a slight quaver to her voice. “My name is Lyn. My father’s name is Thomas.” Who the hell is Tiernan? Maybe they really did have the wrong girl. Keelyn wasn’t a common name, but surely there was more than one living in the world. In New York, even.
“We do not,” he disagreed, and took a step toward her. “That weapon you clutch so desperately will not be sufficient to harm us. Do not struggle, and you will die quickly.” He smiled, a quicksilver flash of expression, quickly gone again. “Fight us, and risk invoking the Wild.”
The Wild? The term called up old readings, nights spent studying in her father’s library. Fear spiked instantly into terror. Oh, God, they’re Hounds! Panicked, she thrust with her knife, catching the Sidhe off guard as she lunged forward. He didn’t try to evade. No mortal blade could pierce his armor, nor harm his flesh for more than an instant. But Lyn’s blade wasn’t mortal. Four inches in length, it sank in to the hilt, prompting a sharp spasm of shock from her opponent. His breath hissed out between clenched teeth, and this close, she could see the flecks of jade in the amber irises of his eyes as they widened and dilated. His hand closed over hers like a vise, easily overpowering her and forcing the blade to slide free of his flesh. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes. Lyn fought to remain standing. If she didn’t do something, he was going to break her arm in the next instant.
She kicked his knee with all her strength, felt the crunch of bone and cartilage beneath her heel. He gave a cry and fell, releasing her wrist, and she turned to flee. But the other three were there, circling her warily now. She stopped, heart pounding, weighing her options. What options? Her knife arm was numb, her fingers barely managing to grip the hilt. Fighting seemed a guaranteed road to death, but even if she could manage to get free of them long enough to run, she knew better than to try. The Hounds of the Wild Hunt loved the chase.
Behind her, she heard the crack and pop of bone snapping back into place. He was healing. No mere broken bone would stop one of the immortal Sidhe. His imminent recovery forced her hand, and she darted for one of the others, slashing at his throat with her knife. This one was more cautious, evading her strike while making a grab for her other arm. She threw herself past him, diving low. She hit the ground, rolled, and came up next to her real target, one of the park’s few trees. Thank God.
She shifted, put her back against it. At least now they couldn’t get behind her. A laugh bubbled up her throat at the thought. So, she would meet death facing it. She had no doubt now, as the four stepped closer, ranging themselves to cut off any possibility of escape. She took a breath, letting it out as a strange calm enveloped her. Fear and pain faded from her awareness.
The one she’d stabbed pushed to the front, one hand pressed to his wound.
“She carries a Sidhe blade,” he warned the others, lips twisted into something half between a grimace and a smile. His amber eyes focused on her. “You should have run when you had the chance.”
Lyn shook her head. Run from any other Sidhe, perhaps, but not from Hounds. Once the Wild Hunt began, only death could stop it. Being torn to pieces didn’t sound like a good way to die.
“I am not some ignorant girl to fall for your trickery, Hound. I will not run.”
His smile widened, and he drew a long bladed knife from his belt. A faint silvery glow shimmered around it. Ranged behind him, the other three drew identical blades.
“Then we shall have our fun here and now.”
He came for her, and she twisted, his blade biting into tree bark instead. She cut for his neck, but he was already darting back out of range. Staying where he was, he nodded to the others, and two of them closed on her. Her tree was large enough to use as a protective wall at her back, but in limiting the number of directions they could use to come at her, she’d also limited herself. And they were fast. She twisted and ducked as they traded turns cutting at her. The first time one of their blades parted flesh, she gasped. She’d been cut before, but never by a Sidhe weapon. It burned, oh God, it burned.
Blood dripped down her arm, but not much of it. A superficial wound. She kept moving, but they didn’t press the advantage. Don’t want me dying too soon. They were toying with her. Foolish, under normal circumstances, but they clearly didn’t view her as any real threat. Just as clearly, they meant her to die slowly. Another nick, two, three more, and she clenched her teeth against the pain. Her eyes narrowed. What would they do when she tired enough, when they’d bled her enough to drain the fight from her? She shuddered. Not going to happen.
They moved back, their counterparts moving forward to replace them. Lyn saw her opening, and took it. She used one of her feet to kick off the tree, propelling herself at the nearest one. He tried to sidestep, but her goal wasn’t merely to cut him. Her shoulder collided with his, and she threw her whole weight against him. They tumbled to the ground together, Lyn on top. She plunged her knife into his thigh, the silver-gold blade slicing easily into flesh. His blade hand came up, but she twisted and kicked it. She didn’t have the leverage necessary to do any real damage, but it knocked the weapon away as blood started pouring from his leg.
It was all she had time to do before rough fingers closed over her, hauling her off him, stripping her knife from hands that were slippery with blood. As his companions pulled her away, she stared at the fallen Sidhe, watching dispassionately as he tried to staunch the steady pump of crimson onto the ground.
One of the others said something in a language she didn’t understand, kneeling beside his fallen companion. A moment later he said something else over his shoulder, his tone clipped and harsh. She was yanked around and shaken roughly.
“What did you do to him?”
It was the Sidhe she’d wounded first, his face abnormally serene and emotionless given the circumstances. She recalled her father saying something about Sidhe and emotion, but she couldn’t remember the words just now. She tasted blood in her mouth; she’d bitten her tongue. She swallowed it and forced herself to appear unaffected.
“I cut him,” she said coolly, “just like I cut you. I just had better aim this time.” He struck her across the face, hard enough to whip her head back.
“Do not play with me, girl. We cannot heal his wound. What did you do?”
She blinked back tears, forcing herself to raise her head and ignore the burning pain that now throbbed over half her face. She looked him in the eye.
“I cut him,” she repeated evenly. And she smiled, even though it hurt. “Try to heal your own wound, and you’ll see what I mean.”
He stared at her for a moment, then said something soft and vicious that sounded like a curse. He lifted his blade, rested it against her throat. No more games now, she saw. He meant to kill her. She could read that much in his enigmatic eyes. At least it’ll be quick. Lyn struggled not to think of her father or sister, especially her sister. Not now.
“Sidhe aren’t so different from humans, after all,” she said, deliberately baiting him, “You bleed just the same.” She paused, glanced carefully at the one she’d killed; if he were human, his femoral artery would bleed out in less than four minutes. She estimated he had less than thirty seconds left. She looked back at the one holding her, his knife pressed dangerously into her flesh. Just one little push, she thought, and forced a mocking smile across her lips.
“You die just the same, too.”
Chapter Two
Blood, warm and metallic tasting, welled up in her throat, choking her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think as panic ripped away rational thought. She grabbed uselessly at her neck with slippery fingers, felt them coated in something warm and wet. When she lifted them away, she wasn’t surprised to see more blood. She couldn’t feel the cut, but she knew her throat was slit, knew her life was pouring from her body in a steady stream of crimson. Knew in the next breath that she was dying, and there was nothing she could do to save herself. Keelyn!
Kiera woke gasping for breath, heart pounding, the sheets a tangle around her legs. Her hands flew to her throat, finding only smooth, unblemished skin. No blood, no cut. She lurched out of the bed, grabbing her cell phone off its charger. Her pulse was thrumming in her ears as she dialed her sister’s number, only to get kicked directly to voicemail. Hi, this is Lyn. I’m probably busy studying, or…
She ended the call without leaving a message, and just sat on the edge of her bed for a moment. As terror from the dream receded, so did the adrenaline in her body. Her heartbeat slowed, and the ridiculousness of her actions finally set in. Of course Lyn’s phone was off. She snuck a glance at her alarm clock. It might be ten o’clock here, in Oregon, but it was nearly one in the morning in New York. She’d been asleep for a little less than an hour herself.
Slowly, she set the phone aside. Her hands were steadier, at least. Dreaming of her sister wasn’t an uncommon occurrence; she missed having Keelyn close by. Normally her dreams weren’t violent, and she didn’t usually experience them so personally. This one had felt shockingly real, and she knew, somehow, that it had been Lyn in her dream. Not herself, not Kiera. Though she could still taste the blood in her mouth, feel the wetness coating her hands. She looked at them again, reassuring herself that her fingers were dry and clean.
Right after she’d moved to New York, Kiera had dreamed of Keelyn almost every night, and called to talk to her nearly every day. Now they usually used e-mail to stay in touch, both of them too busy to indulge in regular phone calls. In the morning, when Lyn was sure to have her phone back on, she would call and tell her about the dream, and her sister would tease her for working too hard.
That’s all it was, she told herself firmly. Too much work, too much stress. It wouldn’t be the first time her job had given her nightmares. Some of things she’d seen in the last two years would give anyone nightmares. Whatever the cause, it left her wide awake, unsettled, and feeling very alone.
Except she wasn’t.
The sudden, certain knowledge that someone else breathed in the darkness of her apartment seeped into her, and sent a new surge of adrenaline through her limbs. Her fingers curled around the Sig Sauer P229 she always kept chambered and loaded, lying in readiness beneath her pillow.
She slid from the bed, her cotton T-shirt skimming the tops of her bare thighs. She wished suddenly that she’d worn more to sleep in, but modesty was the least of her concerns. She held the gun in a dual handed grip, ready to fire, and began a slow, methodical search of her apartment. It was small, thankfully, a single level two bedroom, and kept very neat and uncluttered. She appreciated order.
Her bare feet padded silently across carpeted floors as she systematically cleared each room -- bedroom, bathroom, hallway, kitchen. And yet with each elimination, the certainty of malevolent eyes upon her grew, until she approached the darkness of her living room. She froze a few feet from the threshold. It was in there. She knew it without a doubt. It sensed her, knew exactly where she stood, and yet it did not act. Instead it waited for her, a spider in its web.
It was fey. The knowledge made her stomach churn, her body break out in a cold sweat. She wondered what it was, how powerful it might be. Prayed that it was not a Sidhe lord crouching in wait for her.
The vinyl floor was cold beneath her feet. Something dark and heavy slowly pressed in all around her, an otherworldly pressure against her skin that sent a shiver quaking down her spine, that made her hands tighten on the gun as she forced herself another step forward. Kiera Ambrose would not be a coward in her own home.
She took two more steps, her movements stiff, and sighted down her gun into the living room. Her eyes could discern the familiar dark shapes of the couch, the plush leather recliner, the shadows of the curtains over the window, and nothing else. Nothing that shouldn’t have been.
And that, more than anything, frightened her. She knew it was there, she just couldn’t see it. Her own heartbeat thrummed in her ears.
…ssssstupid meat…
She froze, the sibilant words a breath in her ear, a shadow that passed over and around her, a chill against her skin. She tensed, took a deep breath, had barely begun to turn her head when the darkness rose up and hit her like a freight train.
Something slammed into her wrist, knocked the gun flying even as it snaked around her legs and yanked her from her feet. Her arm went numb from shoulder to fingertips, the breath knocked painfully from her lungs as she hit the floor.
Something held her there, tightening around her limbs like coils to hold her in place. Like the constricting of a snake, the more she fought to free herself, the tighter it cinched down, until every breath was a painful struggle, until she thought her ribs would snap from the pressure, until blackness crowded her vision.
Oh God, she thought frantically. For the second time in less than an hour, she felt her life start slipping away.
…sssssstupid, ssssscrawny, helplessss meat…
On a breath that was a shallow sob, she closed her eyes, frantically searching her memory for anything she might have read, been taught, or heard about that resembled her attacker. Anything at all that might show her a weakness she could exploit, a way she could work herself free before…
It suddenly screamed. She had no other word to describe the piercing sound that shattered the darkness, that speared through her head like a hot needle forced into her brain. She might have screamed with it; she couldn’t be sure. Suddenly her limbs were free, the coils loosened to a heavy weight, no longer constricting.
She took a shuddering breath that filled her burning lungs with air, staving off the darkness shrouding her vision, and opened her eyes just in time to see a silvery, shimmering thing part the air above her. It was long and thin, a blade that sliced through the shadows with a sound like flesh rending. Something warm and wet splattered across her face and neck, the floor, the walls. She gasped, recognized the metallic tang of fresh blood in the air. And knew in that moment that the danger was far from over.
She could make out a figure this time, a form in the darkness that wielded a glowing Sidhe sword, the gold and silver lines in the blade unmistakable. It moved as if to take a step toward her, and she didn’t wait to see the action completed.
On a fresh surge of adrenaline, she dove for her gun with her good hand, her right arm still numb, all but useless. Just as her fingers brushed the grip, something grabbed a fistful of her shirt and lifted, yanking her away from it. She was set on her feet and flung back against the hard surface of the refrigerator. The door handle dug into her already abused ribs.
She would have moved, would have lunged away from the door and down the hall to her room, where other weapons awaited her, but the tip of that shining sword was suddenly at her throat. She froze. Her hands clenched, gripped at the sides of the refrigerator for balance. She tipped her head back, away from the blade that, if it parted her flesh in even a scratch, might kill her. One never knew what enchantments the Sidhe wove into their weapons. Spells to make the blood boil, to send poison racing toward the heart, to steal the soul.
She kept her eyes focused on the figure before her, what little she could make out. Tall, male, Sidhe. She knew it. Only one of the Royal Fey moved with such lithe grace, an efficient elegance as deadly as any of their magics. He eased closer, and only the refrigerator at her back kept her from shrinking away. She could see little of his features in the darkness, just enough to discern the wiry strength of the body behind the weapon, and to make out the curving points of his ears. His eyes shimmered, a flash she barely caught. None of it was reassuring.
She felt him studying her, was suddenly, acutely conscious of her state of undress. Never had she been more aware of her own mortality, her own vulnerability. She had a sudden vision of her father discovering her half clothed, dead body, and grimaced. Beyond the fear, she felt anger stir, sharp and bitter.
How dare the fey invade her home and attack her? She sucked in a breath, felt the edge of the blade kiss her skin. She narrowed her eyes, and spoke in the lilting language of Faerie.
“Why are you doing this?” He cocked his head in response, apparently puzzled, but did not answer her. She tried again.
“Do you enjoy killing humans?”
Comments? Criticisms? Glaring errors? My feelings won't be hurt, whatever you say.
Note: italics are denoted by underlining, because that's the way the manuscript has to be submitted. The rest of the formatting is the way it is because that's how LJ read it.
Chapter One
When Lyn started her trek from NYU toward home that night, she didn’t expect it to end in blood. The apartment she shared with her roommate, Nessa, was only a few blocks from the university library. She traversed the path between the two several times a week without incident, at all hours of the day and night. Tonight had seemed no different.
She left the library a little after midnight, knowing how Nessa would worry, otherwise. Her friend was a criminology major; she was forever rattling off the latest statistics on twenty-something victims of rape, kidnapping, and murder. Most of the time, Lyn tried to be sensitive to what she considered Nessa’s paranoia, but sometimes it was all she could do to suppress an exasperated eyeroll. Sure, bad things happened, and monsters targeted victims all the time. But Nessa’s monsters weren’t the same as Lyn’s, and never would be.
The sort of things her family faced and fought every day would give Nessa a full on panic attack. Certainly, they made her concerns seem laughable, and the predators she feared pathetic. Like the unfortunate incident with a drunken idiot at that frat party last year. His feeble attempt to rape Lyn in a bathroom ended with him writhing on the ground, clutching a broken arm. She’d been tempted castrate him as well. It wouldn’t have taken much; a flick of her wrist with the knife she always carried. In the same situation, Kiera would have done it. Or at least made the fool think she had.
Thinking of her sister brought a smile to her face as she crossed the campus in long, easy strides. Fraternal twins, the bond they shared kept them close despite the physical distance separating them. Kiera still lived on the West Coast, preferring to aid their father with his work over attending school with her sister. Lyn had not yet decided to take up the family business. She much preferred reading about great battles in her history texts to fighting them in real life.
Even so, the path her thoughts had taken tonight put Lyn on her guard as she entered Washington Square Park. Not in the paper as often as Central Park, still, it had been a more frequent location for drug deals lately. She picked up her pace, choosing the most direct route across.
Something unexpected whispered across her nerves, quickening her pulse just a little. The park looked and felt empty, but something was off. Always pay attention to your instincts, her father told her, over and over. Good advice. Lyn shifted her backpack to her left shoulder, and used her right to unclip the folding knife from her belt, flipping it open with practiced ease. Folded lines of silver and gold patterned the blade, an effect no store bought steel knife could achieve. She held it low and close to her leg, less visible to anyone watching. She was nearly certain someone was.
Nervous now, Lyn moved quickly, her eyes darting to the trees on her left, searching every shadow cast by the sliver of moon in the sky tonight. The wind bumped a wadded up paper bag across her path, sent a couple of stray leaves skittering over the grass. Slight movements, barely heard noises that scattered her senses, divided her attention. Intentionally, she knew suddenly. She could feel the weight of it on the wind, a heaviness that coated the night air and caught in the back of her throat when she breathed. Magic.
No garden variety rapist stalked her tonight. For the first time since she’d moved away from her family, real fear touched her. She couldn’t afford to watch and listen any longer.
She bolted into a run, dropping her bag for speed. Tall and athletic, she was a fast runner. But she only made it five paces before a hand closed around her arm, so hard she could feel her bones grinding beneath the grip. It jerked her off her feet, and she was suddenly thrown to the ground. She tucked and rolled over the grass, coming back up again almost instantly, her posture guarded, her knife held close and ready.
There were four of them, their skin gleaming an unearthly white in the moonlight. In the darkness, they looked nearly identical. Tall and lean, clothed in black armor that reflected no light. She swallowed. Sidhe. Four Sidhe. Oh, God, she didn’t know if she could survive this. It had been too long since she’d fought the otherwordly races, and the Sidhe were the most powerful among them. She wished suddenly, intensely, for her father to be here, or Kiera. But they weren’t. She would face the Sidhe alone.
One of them opened his mouth and laughed, a beautiful, crystalline sound that made her catch her breath in awe. Garnet shaded hair shimmered as he moved, the length of it sliding with silken grace over one black-clad shoulder. She’d never been this close to the royal fey before. She’d never experienced their perfect beauty for herself, only heard of it secondhand through her father’s teachings. The fact that the laughter was cruel and without mirth didn’t detract from its pure exquisiteness.
“Keelyn, daughter of Tiernan,” said the one who had laughed, “lay down your arms and we promise to make your death quick.” His voice, melodious and strong, drew her, made her yearn to simply stand still and listen. To do so, she knew, would be death. Instead, she moistened dry lips and forced herself to speak, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“You’ve got the wrong girl,” she said, a slight quaver to her voice. “My name is Lyn. My father’s name is Thomas.” Who the hell is Tiernan? Maybe they really did have the wrong girl. Keelyn wasn’t a common name, but surely there was more than one living in the world. In New York, even.
“We do not,” he disagreed, and took a step toward her. “That weapon you clutch so desperately will not be sufficient to harm us. Do not struggle, and you will die quickly.” He smiled, a quicksilver flash of expression, quickly gone again. “Fight us, and risk invoking the Wild.”
The Wild? The term called up old readings, nights spent studying in her father’s library. Fear spiked instantly into terror. Oh, God, they’re Hounds! Panicked, she thrust with her knife, catching the Sidhe off guard as she lunged forward. He didn’t try to evade. No mortal blade could pierce his armor, nor harm his flesh for more than an instant. But Lyn’s blade wasn’t mortal. Four inches in length, it sank in to the hilt, prompting a sharp spasm of shock from her opponent. His breath hissed out between clenched teeth, and this close, she could see the flecks of jade in the amber irises of his eyes as they widened and dilated. His hand closed over hers like a vise, easily overpowering her and forcing the blade to slide free of his flesh. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes. Lyn fought to remain standing. If she didn’t do something, he was going to break her arm in the next instant.
She kicked his knee with all her strength, felt the crunch of bone and cartilage beneath her heel. He gave a cry and fell, releasing her wrist, and she turned to flee. But the other three were there, circling her warily now. She stopped, heart pounding, weighing her options. What options? Her knife arm was numb, her fingers barely managing to grip the hilt. Fighting seemed a guaranteed road to death, but even if she could manage to get free of them long enough to run, she knew better than to try. The Hounds of the Wild Hunt loved the chase.
Behind her, she heard the crack and pop of bone snapping back into place. He was healing. No mere broken bone would stop one of the immortal Sidhe. His imminent recovery forced her hand, and she darted for one of the others, slashing at his throat with her knife. This one was more cautious, evading her strike while making a grab for her other arm. She threw herself past him, diving low. She hit the ground, rolled, and came up next to her real target, one of the park’s few trees. Thank God.
She shifted, put her back against it. At least now they couldn’t get behind her. A laugh bubbled up her throat at the thought. So, she would meet death facing it. She had no doubt now, as the four stepped closer, ranging themselves to cut off any possibility of escape. She took a breath, letting it out as a strange calm enveloped her. Fear and pain faded from her awareness.
The one she’d stabbed pushed to the front, one hand pressed to his wound.
“She carries a Sidhe blade,” he warned the others, lips twisted into something half between a grimace and a smile. His amber eyes focused on her. “You should have run when you had the chance.”
Lyn shook her head. Run from any other Sidhe, perhaps, but not from Hounds. Once the Wild Hunt began, only death could stop it. Being torn to pieces didn’t sound like a good way to die.
“I am not some ignorant girl to fall for your trickery, Hound. I will not run.”
His smile widened, and he drew a long bladed knife from his belt. A faint silvery glow shimmered around it. Ranged behind him, the other three drew identical blades.
“Then we shall have our fun here and now.”
He came for her, and she twisted, his blade biting into tree bark instead. She cut for his neck, but he was already darting back out of range. Staying where he was, he nodded to the others, and two of them closed on her. Her tree was large enough to use as a protective wall at her back, but in limiting the number of directions they could use to come at her, she’d also limited herself. And they were fast. She twisted and ducked as they traded turns cutting at her. The first time one of their blades parted flesh, she gasped. She’d been cut before, but never by a Sidhe weapon. It burned, oh God, it burned.
Blood dripped down her arm, but not much of it. A superficial wound. She kept moving, but they didn’t press the advantage. Don’t want me dying too soon. They were toying with her. Foolish, under normal circumstances, but they clearly didn’t view her as any real threat. Just as clearly, they meant her to die slowly. Another nick, two, three more, and she clenched her teeth against the pain. Her eyes narrowed. What would they do when she tired enough, when they’d bled her enough to drain the fight from her? She shuddered. Not going to happen.
They moved back, their counterparts moving forward to replace them. Lyn saw her opening, and took it. She used one of her feet to kick off the tree, propelling herself at the nearest one. He tried to sidestep, but her goal wasn’t merely to cut him. Her shoulder collided with his, and she threw her whole weight against him. They tumbled to the ground together, Lyn on top. She plunged her knife into his thigh, the silver-gold blade slicing easily into flesh. His blade hand came up, but she twisted and kicked it. She didn’t have the leverage necessary to do any real damage, but it knocked the weapon away as blood started pouring from his leg.
It was all she had time to do before rough fingers closed over her, hauling her off him, stripping her knife from hands that were slippery with blood. As his companions pulled her away, she stared at the fallen Sidhe, watching dispassionately as he tried to staunch the steady pump of crimson onto the ground.
One of the others said something in a language she didn’t understand, kneeling beside his fallen companion. A moment later he said something else over his shoulder, his tone clipped and harsh. She was yanked around and shaken roughly.
“What did you do to him?”
It was the Sidhe she’d wounded first, his face abnormally serene and emotionless given the circumstances. She recalled her father saying something about Sidhe and emotion, but she couldn’t remember the words just now. She tasted blood in her mouth; she’d bitten her tongue. She swallowed it and forced herself to appear unaffected.
“I cut him,” she said coolly, “just like I cut you. I just had better aim this time.” He struck her across the face, hard enough to whip her head back.
“Do not play with me, girl. We cannot heal his wound. What did you do?”
She blinked back tears, forcing herself to raise her head and ignore the burning pain that now throbbed over half her face. She looked him in the eye.
“I cut him,” she repeated evenly. And she smiled, even though it hurt. “Try to heal your own wound, and you’ll see what I mean.”
He stared at her for a moment, then said something soft and vicious that sounded like a curse. He lifted his blade, rested it against her throat. No more games now, she saw. He meant to kill her. She could read that much in his enigmatic eyes. At least it’ll be quick. Lyn struggled not to think of her father or sister, especially her sister. Not now.
“Sidhe aren’t so different from humans, after all,” she said, deliberately baiting him, “You bleed just the same.” She paused, glanced carefully at the one she’d killed; if he were human, his femoral artery would bleed out in less than four minutes. She estimated he had less than thirty seconds left. She looked back at the one holding her, his knife pressed dangerously into her flesh. Just one little push, she thought, and forced a mocking smile across her lips.
“You die just the same, too.”
Chapter Two
Blood, warm and metallic tasting, welled up in her throat, choking her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think as panic ripped away rational thought. She grabbed uselessly at her neck with slippery fingers, felt them coated in something warm and wet. When she lifted them away, she wasn’t surprised to see more blood. She couldn’t feel the cut, but she knew her throat was slit, knew her life was pouring from her body in a steady stream of crimson. Knew in the next breath that she was dying, and there was nothing she could do to save herself. Keelyn!
Kiera woke gasping for breath, heart pounding, the sheets a tangle around her legs. Her hands flew to her throat, finding only smooth, unblemished skin. No blood, no cut. She lurched out of the bed, grabbing her cell phone off its charger. Her pulse was thrumming in her ears as she dialed her sister’s number, only to get kicked directly to voicemail. Hi, this is Lyn. I’m probably busy studying, or…
She ended the call without leaving a message, and just sat on the edge of her bed for a moment. As terror from the dream receded, so did the adrenaline in her body. Her heartbeat slowed, and the ridiculousness of her actions finally set in. Of course Lyn’s phone was off. She snuck a glance at her alarm clock. It might be ten o’clock here, in Oregon, but it was nearly one in the morning in New York. She’d been asleep for a little less than an hour herself.
Slowly, she set the phone aside. Her hands were steadier, at least. Dreaming of her sister wasn’t an uncommon occurrence; she missed having Keelyn close by. Normally her dreams weren’t violent, and she didn’t usually experience them so personally. This one had felt shockingly real, and she knew, somehow, that it had been Lyn in her dream. Not herself, not Kiera. Though she could still taste the blood in her mouth, feel the wetness coating her hands. She looked at them again, reassuring herself that her fingers were dry and clean.
Right after she’d moved to New York, Kiera had dreamed of Keelyn almost every night, and called to talk to her nearly every day. Now they usually used e-mail to stay in touch, both of them too busy to indulge in regular phone calls. In the morning, when Lyn was sure to have her phone back on, she would call and tell her about the dream, and her sister would tease her for working too hard.
That’s all it was, she told herself firmly. Too much work, too much stress. It wouldn’t be the first time her job had given her nightmares. Some of things she’d seen in the last two years would give anyone nightmares. Whatever the cause, it left her wide awake, unsettled, and feeling very alone.
Except she wasn’t.
The sudden, certain knowledge that someone else breathed in the darkness of her apartment seeped into her, and sent a new surge of adrenaline through her limbs. Her fingers curled around the Sig Sauer P229 she always kept chambered and loaded, lying in readiness beneath her pillow.
She slid from the bed, her cotton T-shirt skimming the tops of her bare thighs. She wished suddenly that she’d worn more to sleep in, but modesty was the least of her concerns. She held the gun in a dual handed grip, ready to fire, and began a slow, methodical search of her apartment. It was small, thankfully, a single level two bedroom, and kept very neat and uncluttered. She appreciated order.
Her bare feet padded silently across carpeted floors as she systematically cleared each room -- bedroom, bathroom, hallway, kitchen. And yet with each elimination, the certainty of malevolent eyes upon her grew, until she approached the darkness of her living room. She froze a few feet from the threshold. It was in there. She knew it without a doubt. It sensed her, knew exactly where she stood, and yet it did not act. Instead it waited for her, a spider in its web.
It was fey. The knowledge made her stomach churn, her body break out in a cold sweat. She wondered what it was, how powerful it might be. Prayed that it was not a Sidhe lord crouching in wait for her.
The vinyl floor was cold beneath her feet. Something dark and heavy slowly pressed in all around her, an otherworldly pressure against her skin that sent a shiver quaking down her spine, that made her hands tighten on the gun as she forced herself another step forward. Kiera Ambrose would not be a coward in her own home.
She took two more steps, her movements stiff, and sighted down her gun into the living room. Her eyes could discern the familiar dark shapes of the couch, the plush leather recliner, the shadows of the curtains over the window, and nothing else. Nothing that shouldn’t have been.
And that, more than anything, frightened her. She knew it was there, she just couldn’t see it. Her own heartbeat thrummed in her ears.
…ssssstupid meat…
She froze, the sibilant words a breath in her ear, a shadow that passed over and around her, a chill against her skin. She tensed, took a deep breath, had barely begun to turn her head when the darkness rose up and hit her like a freight train.
Something slammed into her wrist, knocked the gun flying even as it snaked around her legs and yanked her from her feet. Her arm went numb from shoulder to fingertips, the breath knocked painfully from her lungs as she hit the floor.
Something held her there, tightening around her limbs like coils to hold her in place. Like the constricting of a snake, the more she fought to free herself, the tighter it cinched down, until every breath was a painful struggle, until she thought her ribs would snap from the pressure, until blackness crowded her vision.
Oh God, she thought frantically. For the second time in less than an hour, she felt her life start slipping away.
…sssssstupid, ssssscrawny, helplessss meat…
On a breath that was a shallow sob, she closed her eyes, frantically searching her memory for anything she might have read, been taught, or heard about that resembled her attacker. Anything at all that might show her a weakness she could exploit, a way she could work herself free before…
It suddenly screamed. She had no other word to describe the piercing sound that shattered the darkness, that speared through her head like a hot needle forced into her brain. She might have screamed with it; she couldn’t be sure. Suddenly her limbs were free, the coils loosened to a heavy weight, no longer constricting.
She took a shuddering breath that filled her burning lungs with air, staving off the darkness shrouding her vision, and opened her eyes just in time to see a silvery, shimmering thing part the air above her. It was long and thin, a blade that sliced through the shadows with a sound like flesh rending. Something warm and wet splattered across her face and neck, the floor, the walls. She gasped, recognized the metallic tang of fresh blood in the air. And knew in that moment that the danger was far from over.
She could make out a figure this time, a form in the darkness that wielded a glowing Sidhe sword, the gold and silver lines in the blade unmistakable. It moved as if to take a step toward her, and she didn’t wait to see the action completed.
On a fresh surge of adrenaline, she dove for her gun with her good hand, her right arm still numb, all but useless. Just as her fingers brushed the grip, something grabbed a fistful of her shirt and lifted, yanking her away from it. She was set on her feet and flung back against the hard surface of the refrigerator. The door handle dug into her already abused ribs.
She would have moved, would have lunged away from the door and down the hall to her room, where other weapons awaited her, but the tip of that shining sword was suddenly at her throat. She froze. Her hands clenched, gripped at the sides of the refrigerator for balance. She tipped her head back, away from the blade that, if it parted her flesh in even a scratch, might kill her. One never knew what enchantments the Sidhe wove into their weapons. Spells to make the blood boil, to send poison racing toward the heart, to steal the soul.
She kept her eyes focused on the figure before her, what little she could make out. Tall, male, Sidhe. She knew it. Only one of the Royal Fey moved with such lithe grace, an efficient elegance as deadly as any of their magics. He eased closer, and only the refrigerator at her back kept her from shrinking away. She could see little of his features in the darkness, just enough to discern the wiry strength of the body behind the weapon, and to make out the curving points of his ears. His eyes shimmered, a flash she barely caught. None of it was reassuring.
She felt him studying her, was suddenly, acutely conscious of her state of undress. Never had she been more aware of her own mortality, her own vulnerability. She had a sudden vision of her father discovering her half clothed, dead body, and grimaced. Beyond the fear, she felt anger stir, sharp and bitter.
How dare the fey invade her home and attack her? She sucked in a breath, felt the edge of the blade kiss her skin. She narrowed her eyes, and spoke in the lilting language of Faerie.
“Why are you doing this?” He cocked his head in response, apparently puzzled, but did not answer her. She tried again.
“Do you enjoy killing humans?”
Comments? Criticisms? Glaring errors? My feelings won't be hurt, whatever you say.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-19 11:35 pm (UTC)But I hate the first line. :) I unhelpfully have no alternate recommendations, but it felt very muder-mystery cliche, and this obviously deserves so much better.
Couple of little things that made me pause in the "wait, what?" sort of way:
<
But I hate the first line. :) I unhelpfully have no alternate recommendations, but it felt very muder-mystery cliche, and this obviously deserves so much better.
Couple of little things that made me pause in the "wait, what?" sort of way:
<<It was all she had time to do before rough fingers closed over her, hauling her off him, stripping her knife from hands that were slippery with blood. She stared into his eyes, wide and shocked, the same amber as the other Sidhe’s, and watched dispassionately as he tried to staunch the steady pump of crimson onto the ground.>>
Had trouble figuring out whether it was the guy she'd stabbed that hauled her off, and if he was also the owner of the eyes or not. I initially assumed it was someone else hauling her off, but then the rest made me think, no, wait . . . .
<<It was the Sidhe she’d wounded first, his face abnormally serene and emotionless given the circumstances. She recalled her father saying something about Sidhe and emotion, but she couldn’t remember the words just now. She tasted blood in her mouth; she’d bitten her tongue. Good. Whatever tale his face told, his actions said he was angry.>>
Following "she'd bitten her tongue" with "Good" didn't work here for me-- the "Good" failed to harken back to her supposition about his anger just previous, and I was left trying to figure out why her biting her tongue would have been good. Unless she was referring to that, in which case . . . in which case I'm lost. :)
Regardless-- thank you for sharing. I think it's a strong beginning, and I'd love to get the chance to read the rest someday.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-19 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 01:31 am (UTC)As for the first line...oh, dear. The last thing I want either of the editors to say is "I stopped reading on the first line, because it was too much of a cliche, and that's exactly where I'd stop if this came through my sluch pile." Hmm. I'll see if I can come up with something better.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 07:10 pm (UTC)