Of Gods and Fae

This book is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the
author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights
reserved.

Cover design: Cara Michaels-Carey | caramichaels.com

Cover
photo credits:

©
Vukvuk | Dreamstime.com - Muse Photo

©
Pixattitude | Dreamstime.com - Silhouette Man Full Length Shooting With Gun
Photo

©
roxanabalint | canstockphoto.com - csp15224313

Kindle Edition © 2014 Tom Keller

I'd like to thank everyone that helped make this book
possible, especially my wife, Karen. Without her support this book would never
have been written. She acted as editor and put up with a lot of discussion
about the Fae and other mystical beings. For that I am truly thankful. Oh yeah,
one more thing. Any grammar or punctuation errors still left are totally my
fault. We don’t always agree on everything but after 34 years you'd think I'd
learned by now. Go figure.

Thanks to Cara Michaels for her cover design. She's a good
friend as well author of the
Gaea's Chosen
series, also available on
Amazon.

A special thanks all those Facebook fans that liked my
author page and kept those comments coming in. Knowing that you are out there
really made a difference in getting the manuscript finished and the book
published.

To my granddaughter,
Aeva Katherine Carvouniaris, because her imagination is unlimited

…and every girl
needs faeires and princesses.

The buzzing was familiar. I'd planned to get up early, and
I used my cellphone like a lot of folks do as an alarm these days. The warm
body lying next to me was not. It took me a moment to go through last night's
events in my head. A lot had happened in the last month but I could have sworn
I'd gone to bed alone. Hell, I hadn’t even been drinking. Had I?

She was a Faerie, of course. But then again, what else
would she be? Sure, you're probably thinking of sweet and cutesy little Faeries
like those on TV wearing tight fitting woodland garb. You know the ones.
Flitting all about, making sure the seasons unfold as they are supposed to or
something like that. Well, you'd be partially right, they were cute. To be
honest, most were sexy as hell. But that's where the similarities end. The Fae are
dangerous. I should know, I am one.

I pushed her brown curls from my face and reached around
her to turn off the noise. "Excuse me," I said, gently nudging her. "Who
are you?" I must have startled her.

"Oh, deep apologies, my Lord. I did not mean to wake
you," she said as she sat up. She was of course, naked as a jaybird.

"You didn't," I replied, now sitting up as well.
"But I have to ask again. Just who are you and what are you doing in my
bed?" Unlike most human girls who might find themselves in a stranger's
bed, this Fae didn’t seem concerned. That's one thing about them, the Fae that
is, they aren’t modest.

She was beautiful, of course; early 20s, dark skinned with
light brown, curly hair, hazel eyes, nice breasts, as well as other assets. Not
that I was trying to stare, but it's kinda hard not to notice when you're lying
next to someone in your own bed. To be honest, I was almost used to it. I'd
been in contact with several of the Fae, and depending on the place, clothing
seemed to be optional. Especially when crossing over from one plane to the
other. As for me, well, let's just say that with all the weird shit that's been
happening to me lately a naked hottie in my bed was a nice change of pace, Fae
or not.

"I'm sorry, Lord, I was so tired," she finally answered.
She hopped out of bed and began perusing my nightstand. "I have seldom traveled
to the human realm. What is this?" she asked as she picked up my
cellphone.

"That's a cellphone. We use it to contact one another,"
I answered as I got out of bed. I walked into the bathroom and pulled on my
robe.

The alarm went off again. I guess I'd only hit the snooze.

"A messenger device? But why does it speak so
strangely?"

"Speak strangely? Oh, that was the alarm," I
answered, taking the phone from her and resetting it.

She gave me a perplexed look but didn’t say anything.

"It's the noise I use to wake me in the morning."
I shook my head, why was I trying to explain this now? "OK, listen; I need
some coffee and then I need to take a shower, then we'll talk. Did you bring
any clothes?" I asked as I put the phone back down on the nightstand.

"Clothes, oh yes, I came prepared." She walked
over to the doorway and retrieved a brand new neon Tinker Bell backpack and
held it up. "Here they are."

A Faerie with a Fairy backpack, now that's something you
don’t see every day. I shook my head and stifled a laugh. "Great, why
don’t you get dressed while I make the coffee? Meet me downstairs when you're
finished."

She was pulling things out of the pack as I headed
downstairs to the kitchen.

I started the pot and went out and got the paper, I grabbed
one of my latest cups, it was white with a big red button on it, and was just pouring
the coffee when she came down. She had on a pair of tight jeans and a black t-shirt.
I almost burned my lips. The shirt had a giant size Fairy printed on the front
and said simply,
Tink
. It, too, was in neon. Well, at least her backpack
matched.

"Tinker Bell?" I just had to ask.

"Oh, yes, do you like it?" she asked striking a
pose. "Tink is a very popular Fairy."

How do I respond to that?

"It's very nice. Look, I need to take a shower. Then
we can talk. Can I fix you anything to eat while you wait?"

She shook her head as she began perusing the items around
my kitchen.

"Ok, I'll be back in a few" I said as I went to
the back door. "Charlie," I yelled. The huge black and white dog came
flying from around the side of the house and ran up to me. "Come with me,
boy," I said and headed back up to my bedroom with him in tow.

"Would you mind telling me who the hell the Fae I
found in my bed is?" I asked as I set my cup down and turned the shower
on. Charlie just stood there meekly, head down and eyes looking up at me. Well,
that is, if over 185 pounds of Great Dane mix can ever be said to stand meekly.

Then again, and to be truthful, Charlie's not a regular
dog. Which is why I can ask him that question. He's descended from Fae hunting
dogs that were bred by the Greek God, Pan. To be more precise, they were the
dogs given to Artemis, Greek Goddess of the hunt. He can also talk.

When I first learned we could communicate I only got
single words, but now we seem to be getting better at it. Let me clarify, he
makes dog sounds, barks and grunts, and the like. Which, I hear as words in my
mind. Don’t ask me how, it's the magic, but like a lot of it, I have no clue
how it works.

Like I said, I'm not exactly human, either. Although, until
recently, I actually thought I was. Hell, I was a retired cop and P.I., and
even if I did know a little bit about weird religions, I would never have
believed this shit was for real. Then I kinda got involved in saving someone's
life and got shot in the process. Not to worry, I wasn't hurt. Turns out I got
shot with a magic wand that fractured some spell I've been under for the last
40 or so years. Now I've got magical animals, Dwarves, and other Fae coming out
of the woodwork. Of course, I do have a magic sword, given to me by Ouranos
himself, as well as a bunch of new powers, so I guess it was a fair trade.

To make a long story short it turns out my mother was a
Dryad and my grandmother had once been the leader of her clan. To top it off, I'm
somehow descended from the Greek Goddess, Demeter. Who knew? Anyway, the bottom
line is I'm supposed to be some long lost King of the Faeries. What they call a
High Fae. Pain in the ass really, but what am I gonna do?

It gets worse. I also met this girl, Delia. Turns out
she's a Lilin. What you might call a Vampire. She doesn’t have fangs, damn
thing looks more like a needle, but she does drink blood. Anyway, she helped me
out in this battle with the other High Fae, who… well, let's just say she wasn't
a nice person. Ok, so I sort of had the hots for her as well… Delia, that is. But
that doesn’t take away from the fact that she almost got killed fighting at my
side. Turns out the Lilin are under a decree because they lost the war with the
Fae a while back and I hold the key to releasing them from that bond. Actually,
I sort of promised her I would. Probably not one of my best decisions, but what
was I supposed to do?

I'd already done something about that. Of course, I hadn’t
even known I'd done it when it happened. Apparently, when I formally announced that
I would free the Lilin some of the magic that had bound them to be subservient
to all Fae had been released. So although they were still bound by the decree,
they were no longer forced to obey just any Fae they came in contact with. 
They could actually stand up to them now. Naturally, not everyone's happy about
that. But what else is new? There's a lot more. Hell, there's always more where
the Fae are concerned. Which was why I was asking Charlie about the one
downstairs.

"Sendy is Aurae, she friend," Charlie said.

"Charlie, damn near every Fae you meet is your
friend? And what's an Aurae?" I asked, distracted by the fact that we
seemed to be communicating so well. I still couldn’t understand why he sometimes
spoke in short, limited sentences yet my cat, Lucinda, spoke normally. Go
figure.

"Aurae are Sky Fae, fly on wind, good allies,"
he answered. "Sendy good, no worry. Charlie knows friends — and enemies."

I couldn't really argue with that. In my battle with the
other High Fae Charlie had taken an arrow meant for me. I guess if he trusted
her, I could.

"Okay, but next time, wake me when you let them in. It's
disconcerting to find strange Fae in my bed," I said as I jumped in the
shower, still surprised that I was now getting complete sentences from him. That
was the problem with this magic thing. Sometimes it worked right away and
sometimes it trickled out slowly, there was no rhyme or reason to it. I turned
to see that he was still lingering by the shower door and then I heard him bark
to get my attention.

"Sendy, pretty Fae," I heard him say as he gazed
at me through the glass shower door. "You still think too human."

I got the distinct impression that he was berating me for
not hitting on her. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. In the world
of the Fae you never know what's gonna happen, I mean, where else is your dog
gonna criticize you? I just shook my head and chuckled. Of course he did have a
point. Maybe I
was
still thinking too human. I mean, hey… the Fae are
damn near all beautiful, especially the females, and Sendy was no exception.

Now I've always taken pretty good care of myself. In the
human world I was still 50 and I looked pretty close to it. But in the Fae
world I looked closer to someone in his mid-20s. That's one of the perks about
the Fae thing; I could switch my persona at any time. Most Fae could do the
same. They keep their Fae selves hidden, for the most part, while in the human
world. No Fae wants to be discovered and never growing old was a sure sign of
something not right to the average human. Hell, they'd burn you at the stake
for that not too many centuries ago.

Magic is powerful but it can still be overcome with enough
bullets or heavy weapons. Just read the old stories. All those Gods and Goddesses,
where are they now? Which is another good example illustrating that the High
Fae are not really Gods. If they were they wouldn't be dead. But try telling
that to the average Faerie.

I finished my shower, got dressed and headed downstairs to
talk to Sendy, the Aurae. When I reached the kitchen she was at the table
looking over the newspaper.

"Find anything interesting?" I asked, following
the aroma of fresh brewed coffee.

"Why do humans care about such trivia?" she
asked, looking up at me.

"It sells papers, I guess." Well, a few at
least.

She gave me a quizzical look as I filled a
Starfleet
Academy
mug. I'd left the other upstairs, and then sat down at the table beside
her.

"Humans are curious about many things. Some
important, some trivial, the news gives them both." I moved the paper
away. "I'll try to explain later. But first, why don’t you tell me why
you're here?"

"The winds whisper of strange tidings," she answered.
"They say the High Fae have returned and the evil one has been banished. Yet
others say that she may still return. We wish to know if this is so."

"Ok," I answered, drawing out the two letters
that formed the word. "Who, exactly, is we?"

"I am of the Breezes, the Aurae. We are the
messengers of the Gods," she replied as if that would explain everything.

"I thought Hermes was the messenger of the Gods?"
I shot back, glad that I'd polished up on my mythology.

"And so he was," she answered. "But we were
his voice, and his wings, before the Gods departed."

"Makes sense," I agreed. Although it was said
that his winged shoes were made with real Faerie wings, less the Faerie, but I
didn’t say that aloud. "Ok, fine. Yes, it's true," I finally replied.
We'd been able to keep things fairly quiet up till now but things in the Fae
world were moving faster than I'd hoped. The truth was that I was still fairly
new to this Fae thing and I wasn't keeping two steps ahead as I would have been
able to in a strictly human world.

"I must ask for proof," she said quietly. "It
was difficult to find you and except for the hound's assertion, I cannot detect
any magic about you. My apologies for being so brazen, but you are unlike any
God I have heard of." She stood and I could now see how nervous she
actually was.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," I replied, wondering
why she had joined me in bed if she had her doubts. Who knew with the Fae and I
didn’t have any history with the Aurae to judge. So, with a wink I transformed
into my Fae persona and Sendy gave me an astonished look as she realized that I
was indeed who she had been searching for. Then, as usually happened when the
comprehension kicked in, she dropped to her knees and bowed her head. I really
hated that part, even if I was getting somewhat used to it.

"My apologies, my Lord," she answered with a
trembling voice.

"Rise, Sendy of the Aurae," I said as I went
over and helped her up. Of course I had to switch to a formal speech type. It
seems like they always expect that with something like this. "Times have changed;
you need not bow or kneel. The old Gods were vain and fickle. You will find
things different today, at least with me." With that I switched back to my
human persona and offered her a chair. "Sit, and let's talk."

She sat back down in the chair next to me.

"OK, now that that's done, who sent you?" I
asked.

"Well, that is a bit complicated," she said
after a moment, looking almost embarrassed.

"What isn’t?" I sighed. "Why don’t you just
start at the beginning and we can go from there."

"There have been less and less of us since
The Fall
.
When rumors of the High Fae's return surfaced, we wished to know if they were
true." She paused and looked directly at me. "I was forbidden to
search, as I am youngest, but none of my sisters had returned so I left to find
them." She was fidgeting now. "And then I found your hound, Charlie. It
was he who told me of you. So, you see, no one sent me. I have come on my own
because I had to see if you were the one."