The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity (21 page)

Leannán kept the door firmly in place between them. “That depends,” she said, coy. “Do you have the payment, Mr … ?”

“O'Farrell,” he said. “Alan.”

She smiled. There was a great power in the knowing of names. “Very well. So, do you, Mister O'Farrell?”

“Of course,” he said, digging to the bottom of his outer coat pockets. When he pulled his left hand out, the objects in it shone like miniature suns as daylight hit them. “Although I have to say gold is a bit hard to come by. Wouldn't cash be easier?”

Leannán took the coins from his hand, feeling the weight of them, loving the familiar heft. “Currencies come and go, but gold, well, that's eternal… .” She pulled the door open, waving him inside the darkened cottage. “Don't try anything funny. This place is charmed… .”

He laughed, following her in. Like most mortals, he probably took it all as part of the role-playing act, but the laughter soon stopped. She turned back to look at him. He was still following, but his eyes were trying to take in the interior of the cottage as he slowed to a shuffle behind her.

The walls were bright white pine, the woodwork around all the interior doorways and shuttered windows carved with intricate mythological figures. Sprites, pixies, naiads, and fairies flew and flittered up and down the wood, so
well rendered that they almost looked alive. Throughout the space, tables, sideboards, chairs, and benches sat, cushioned in bright fabrics that resembled the near-cartoonish exaggeration that one would expect straight out of a fairy tale. At the center of it all stood an elaborate four-poster whose sheets looked like a shagged green swatch of moss. The man's eyes worked their way around the main room all the way up the carved beams that reached high overhead. He looked back down after a moment.

He whistled. “Am I allowed to sit on the furniture? It's not made out of candy, is it?”

She gave a bitter laugh of disgust. “That's Hansel and Gretel … they're more of a tag team duo. Not really my thing.”

He laughed at that. “What is this place?”

“This?” she repeated, twirling around. “They used to call it the Scottish Cottage.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You're Scottish, are you?”

“I'm a lot of things,” she said.

“I can see that,” he said. “Has this always been your home?”

“Not exactly; they built this cottage for the Centennial International Exhibition in 1876, but that was in Philadelphia. I remember them moving it here after, along with several of the other cottages, but I think the only other one that still stands is the Swedish one … they turned it into a marionette theatre, I believe.”

He cocked his head. “You
remember
them moving it here? In 1876? That's over a century ago … you mean you remember someone telling you about it, yes? Your grandmother, perhaps … ?”

“I stand by my words,” she said, giving a smile. “Fae, remember?”

“And this Disney-fied pastiche was all part of the attraction?”

“No,” she said with pride. “This is all of my own making.” She twirled around on point in her robe, the bottom of it rising, pulling his eyes to it. “You know, most men don't come here asking me about my family. They don't seem to like thinking of me as someone's daughter.” She crossed to the lavish bed at the center of the room and sat on the edge of it, making her face doe-eyed and innocent. “Unless you're into that sort of thing… .”

His face washed over with lust, but there was still some reluctance in his eyes. “Don't you worry about getting caught?” he asked. “I mean, leaving flyers out for chrissakes and running your operation right here in the middle of Central Park?”

“Don't worry about that,” she said, standing back up, laying the slip of paper off to the left of the room on a sideboard next to a decorative ball. She tapped at the slip with one of her polished nails, looking down at it. “That ad does not catch the eye of everyone.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You ask a lot of questions. Are you an officer of the law?”

“Me?” he laughed, shaking his head. “No.”

“Too bad,” she said with mock sadness as she walked off toward the enormous bed, pouting out her lips. “Some of my best clients have been men in uniform.”

He held up both his hands, like he was being held at gunpoint. “Not me,” he said. “I'm definitely not a cop, although I'd be down for the handcuffs, if that's one of your things.”

She gave a small seductive laugh.

“But believe me,” he continued. “My job is the last thing I want to think about right now.” He walked over
to the little slip of paper on the sideboard. “I came here for the theme you listed in the ad.” His eyes shifted to the decorative ball sitting next to the piece of paper, then his right hand drifted towards it.

Leannán jumped up from the bed and ran over to the sideboard, blocking him from it, driving him back a step.

“What is that thing?” he asked. The light of the room danced across the orb, soaking into it, looking as if it was filling it.

“It is nothing,” she said, but the man didn't seem convinced.

“It must be something,” he said. “Or else you wouldn't have it placed here in your little fairy cottage set up.”

“Remember when you walked in and what I said about this place being charmed?” she asked. He nodded. “Well, this is the source of that, a source of power for me, if you will. We fairies are bound by certain laws, such as this remaining out in the open to keep my fair cottage looking so fair.” She twirled around on one foot, laughing. “A fair fairy in her fair cottage.”

He laughed at that as well. “You are truly a wonder,” he said. “Tell me your tale then, oh fair one.”

She stopped her spinning and looked at him. “You might not like me so much if I tell you,” she said, coy and pouting.

“You're right,” he said, giving her a devilish smile. “I might like you more. Indulge me.”

Another hardcore role player
, she thought.
Fair enough. Let me give him what he came for then. Let him think my truth a lie.
Playing that game would only add more mischief to this whole event, something that spoke to the dark core of her very being.

“Very well,” she said, scooping up the orb, dancing it
along the top of her fingers. “You know those happy stories people tell about fairies? The kind they make movies of, with songs and dancing and ever so much fun?”

He nodded.

“Well, mine is not such a tale,” she continued. “Those stories are an insult to our origins. Many fae tales are born in, of, and about death—an omen of such things, and you see, I've been a very wicked little pixie.”

“How so?” he asked, enchanted as he watched the ball drifting back and forth across the back of her hand.

“I am known as the Betrayer of my people, one with a hunger for humanity that my kind found … distasteful. They do not like the manner in which I dabble in mortal affairs, not caring for my reckless disregard for humanity. I've done what many of them consider dark deeds in the fairy world, crimes against mankind for which they wish to punish me. When taken to task, I fought for my freedom, and even killed several of my own kind escaping their judgment.” She flipped her hand over, grabbing the orb, stopping it. She held it up. “The powers of this ball are many, you see. Not just a charm over my home. Its power is what saved me, transported me, allowed me to escape.”

“I do see,” he said, his eyes coming to life again now that the ball was no longer in motion. Leannán could tell by his face that he wasn't quite buying the tale, but it was no matter. That wasn't what he had really come here for now, was it?

“Anyway,” she said, replacing the orb on its stand with a wicked grin. “I don't think you came here for a history lesson on the fae.”

“You could say that.” He looked down at the slip of paper under his hand on top of the sideboard, then up again at her in her robe. “Can I see them?”

She gave a slow nod of her head, her eyes locking on his as she undid the robe, shrugging her shoulders and letting the garment fall to the floor. Underneath she wore an outfit she knew most men found familiar, a short green strapless dress that left little to the imagination. She tossed her blonde ponytail to the side so the tip of it flipped just over the front of her right shoulder.

“You really did go for Tink—”

She held a finger up to her lips. “Shh,” she said. “I am most definitely not like the Disney version of that fairy at
all
.” A soft whisper came from behind her back and two opaque wings rose up, fluttering open to their full expanse, standing almost two feet higher than her shoulders. They pulsed with a gentle rhythm that matched her breathing, shimmering in the low light of the cottage.

“They look so … real,” he said, raising his hand out towards her to touch them, but she stopped him, taking his hand in hers.

“I
do
strive for an authentic experience here,” she said, backing him over to the bed. She twirled around once again, spinning like a ballerina, before she wrapped her arms over his shoulders and around his neck, finally dropping the gold coins onto the bed. Her heart raced with excitement as her lips touched his and their tongues met, knowing what was coming next.

She pushed him back onto the bed, his body giving at the joint of his knees, and she threw herself on top of him. She felt his body reacting to her touch as he elbowed his way further up onto the bed. Her wings fluttered as she ground herself against his body, opening her eyes to look at him as he grabbed her hips. His eyes were open as well, looking over her shoulder as he fixated on the wings, marveling at them. She leaned down, his
breath hot on her skin. She raked her teeth along his neck, and then bit down.

He let out a grunt of pleasure, but as she pressed her teeth harder against the skin—breaking it—the sound turned to pure pain. He tore his hands off her hips and shoved them between their bodies, forcing her up by her shoulders.

As Leannán sat up, a warm trickle of salty blood ran down the corner of her mouth. “Not the strongest of humanity I've tasted,” she said, a bit disappointed, “but it will do.”

His eyes locked on it, widening. “What the hell?”

“Too rough?” she asked, sweet and coy, running her finger along the corner of her mouth, working the blood up to her lips. Her wings vibrated with delight. “I warned you I wasn't the Disney version.”

“Get off me!” he shouted, anger and disbelief in his plea.

Leannán remained where she was, pressing down hard against him before dropping the glamour she had held in place. All around her the interior of the cottage wavered, then faded away. The cozy confines were gone, replaced with the worn down abandonment of a dark, dirty house in ruin. The bed beneath them became a cold stone slab with tatters of blood-soaked sheets underneath them, some of it still tacky to the touch. Three of the walls were barely visible in the surrounding shadows of the main room, piles and piles of stacked skulls and bones obscuring them. She herself became her true gaunt, wiry form, dressed in tattered, stained remnants and blonde hair crusted with blood and dirt.

“What
are
you? What is this place?” he screamed, increasing his struggles.

“Why, it's my home,” she said, running her hands along the cold slab, “and this is your final resting place.” She raised a hand, her fingers stretching open like a cat getting ready to strike. “As to what I am, well let's just say there's truth in advertising.”

“You're an
actual
fairy?” he shouted. “What the hell kind of fairy acts like this?!”

She let out a laugh that turned into a growl. “Not the good kind, unfortunately for you.” She licked at the blood on her lips again, the taste … it wasn't just that the humanity was weak in this one. There was something else about it she couldn't quite put her finger on.

“Let me go,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “Y–you can keep the money.” His eyes darted around the room, no doubt looking for hope among the horrors.

“Let you go?” she repeated. She reached down to the slab and scooped up the gold coins lying there. “I'm afraid I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I've already been paid … and in
gold
.”

“So?”

She let out a laugh, this time less like wind chimes, more like broken glass. “A man who pays in cash, well, that's worthless now, isn't it? But a man who pays in gold … well, that's a man who put some effort into his bargain, isn't it? That gives our arrangement power, one that sticks, one that binds. As I said, there are rules for the fae.”

He shook his head, blubbering so hard she could feel it in her hips. “But I didn't know that's what I was bargaining for!”

“Incorrect,” she snapped loudly, venom full in her voice. “You came here hoping for corruption like the mortals from ages ago … therefore your soul is forfeit to me.”

“But—”

“Enough,” she shouted, both hands still raised—one with the coins in it and the other one poised like a claw. “The deal has been sealed.”

Without another word, she plunged her hand down, digging into the man's chest.

He cried out in pain and writhed beneath her like a trapped animal, but like all the men—and women—before his visit, she knew how to hold him down as she pulled at his life force.

Leannán basked in the power she felt. The sensation never got old, not even centuries later, but something felt not quite right. She tried to place what it was, and it eluded her, until a strange sensation coming from her other hand drew her full attention.

The coins she held were shifting, transforming in the same fashion as the walls around them had moments before.

“What—”

The gold faded, replaced by thick round discs of bread that filled up her hand and spilled out of it. She followed one of them as it hit the slab, cracking in half, crumbs spreading everywhere. She was so focused on them that she didn't notice the searing sensation in her hand until it was too late. She cried out and slid off the man, trying to stand, but instead tumbled to the worn wooden floor.