Wondrous Strange (8 page)

S
onny dropped painfully to one knee to avoid having his head bitten off.

The boggart he was fighting had burst forth from a rift in Strawberry Fields. It was covered in venomous thorns and had a prominent set of gnashy teeth. Hissing at him, the boggart hurtled off into the dark. Sonny swore and broke into a sprint to chase it, trying hard to concentrate—and forget about that strange, infuriating girl.

The boggart snarled, bounding through a thicket, and Sonny cursed and followed. The clearing beyond was empty, but Sonny could smell it—like the stench of milkweed. The
thing was hiding, but it was still close.

There was a rustling in the trees above his head. Sonny glanced up, only to realize too late that the boggart had led him straight into a trap.

A cloud of ravens swirled in the air overhead, and Sonny went cold with apprehension. These were no ordinary ravens. They were creatures of Mabh, the Autumn Queen of the shadowy Faerie Borderlands. Huge birds with oily black feathers, they had red eyes and claws like scythes, and a terrible hunger for human flesh.

The boggart must have been one of Mabh’s minions as well, Sonny thought as he frantically pulled out the bundled branches from his satchel. At his incantation, they transformed once again into the silver-bladed sword.

On the other side of the clearing, the boggart emerged, lifting its gnarled hands into the air as though signaling troops. The ravens attacked.

Sonny’s sword flashed through the air as he whacked two of the murderous birds out of the sky. He cut through several, but others followed, and he thrust sharply, impaling them on the end of the blade. He ducked away from another attack, narrowly missing losing an eye.

Kelley’s face appeared before him in his mind. This time Sonny didn’t try to fight it. Thinking of her smile, he redoubled his efforts. The ravens came at him again, and his sword whirled, a shining arc in the darkness.

The light from the rising sun was pouring through his windows when Sonny stepped through the door into his apartment. Out on the balcony, the elegant figure of the Unseelie king sat on a lounge chair. Sonny wearily threw his jacket and satchel on the settee and went onto the terrace.

“Mabh is mightily annoyed with you, young man,” Auberon said, his words colored with a chilly merriment. “She is very fond of her pets.”

“Next time tell her to keep them home. Or, if she really wants to test me, to send bigger birds.” Sonny stretched his tired back. In truth, the murderous ravens had taken a great deal of skill to handle, but Sonny was pleased with the outcome. Not a single one had gotten past him.

When she had roamed the mortal world freely, Queen Mabh had been the stuff of nightmares. Her transgressions against mortals had grown so terrible that Auberon and Titania had been forced to join together and imprison Mabh within the confines of the Borderlands, her own darkling realm. But Mabh had still relished the pleasure of sending her minions through the Gates to wreak chaos—which she would track with her scrying glass, as though watching horror films.

The thought of Mabh’s creatures being loosed upon the world again made Sonny take his duties as a Janus very seriously. He might not want to live in this world, but he did not wish it harm. Especially not when it had such creatures in it as his Firecracker….

Sonny felt Auberon staring at him. He had a disjointed
sensation that the king had asked him a question and he hadn’t even heard it.

“My lord?” Distracted, Sonny looked up. Into the eyes of his king.

“Tell me of the girl,” Auberon said.

Sonny had not meant to think of her. He had certainly not planned to mention her to Auberon. But his mind, it seemed, was a problem in that respect. And he had made the dangerous mistake of exchanging glances with the Unseelie lord.

“I can see her. In your eyes.” Auberon’s dark gaze held Sonny like a fly trapped in amber. He could not look away, even as he felt Auberon’s mind stabbing into his own. “Who is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do not lie to me, lad.” The king’s voice remained easy, but Sonny knew that, Janus or no, he was in a great deal of peril in that moment.

“It is no lie. She is…an actress. Just a girl from the park, really.” Sonny expected that at any moment Auberon would shred through his formidable mental defenses as if they were paper and learn everything he knew about her. Even though that wasn’t much, Sonny unaccountably did not want the Faerie king to take any sudden great interest in finding out about his Firecracker.

“Hmm,” Auberon murmured.

Sonny felt the pressure inside his skull lessen. He raised himself up off his knees—he hadn’t been aware that he had
fallen to them—and shook the tension from his shoulders.

“I cannot gather her from your mind,” the Faerie king mused, sounding intrigued. “And yet, you hold her image there.”

“She is pretty.” Sonny shrugged with what he hoped was an appropriately casual air. “For a mortal.”

After a long, weighty moment, the king’s lips twitched in the ghost of a smile. “Not so pretty, I hope, as to make you forget yourself, Sonny Flannery. Or your duties.”

Sonny bowed his head slightly in deference. “Of course not, my lord.”

“Good. Because I have an unsettling sense that Mabh’s harbingers are simply that—heralds of things to come. There is a great deal of unrest in the Faerie realms, Sonny. And the closing of the Gates, while I deemed it necessary, has become a thing of contention and a rallying point around which my enemies gather. If my Janus Guard falters, it will go hard.”

“We will not, my lord.”

“That would be best,” Auberon said. “And what news, else?”

Sonny hesitated for an instant, but only for an instant. Auberon was his king. His very purpose as a Janus was to serve him. Why was he even
thinking
about dissembling? Bob the boucca’s words were a tiny echo in the back of his mind, and Sonny pushed them away.

He told Auberon about his encounters at the Gate. The king already knew about the boggart and the birds from
Mabh, so Sonny told him, instead, of the swarm of piskies, mildly chagrined by his amusement at the tale—much like Maddox’s. Then, swallowing nervousness at the thought of his failure, Sonny told Auberon of the Lake and of the creature that he—and, indeed, all the Janus—had somehow missed entirely: the kelpie that had escaped through the Gate and disappeared into the night.

“Kelpie are dangerous, surely.” Auberon shrugged, unconcerned. “But not smart enough to evade my entire Janus Guard for long, I wouldn’t think.”

“I’m not sure that it was just
any
kelpie, my lord,” Sonny said. He stood and went back into the apartment to retrieve his messenger bag. He drew the three onyx gems from the inner pocket of the bag and, returning, placed them in Auberon’s upturned palm. A few coppery strands of horsehair were still tangled in the beads. “I found these talismans in the mud by the Lake. I don’t think I’ve ever seen their like before.”

“I have,” the king murmured.

Sonny wouldn’t have thought it possible for Auberon’s face to turn a paler shade than it already was, but it did. The tall brow remained smooth, the regal face impassive. But the air on Sonny’s balcony plummeted to glacial temperatures.

“The Hunt…”

Sonny had to strain to catch the words. “My lord?” he asked.

“These are charms of making.” The king’s eyes were midnight pools. “They can call the Roan Horse into being.”

Sonny’s blood froze in his veins. He knew, suddenly, what the glittering black jewels meant. “But…the Roan Horse leads the Wild Hunt.” His voice came out in a rasping whisper.

“Yes. It does.” Auberon’s hand clenched into a fist around the beads, then he dropped them to bounce along the flagstones at his feet.

He stood and stepped to the edge of the terrace, looking down on the park, and it seemed to Sonny that the Faerie king had forgotten that he was even there.

“Oh, Mabh,” Auberon whispered, his expression stricken. “Is this what your folly has brought us to now?”

There was a blur of motion, and Sonny threw a hand up in front of his face to shield it from the sudden ice-sharp wind. When he lowered it, the king was gone, his cry melting into the keening of a falcon.

T
he Avalon was on fire, and there was nothing Kelley could do about it.

All of Manhattan was on fire.

Brighter than day, the night sky was orange with the light of the flames, leaping to singe the clouds. Terrible music thundered; pipes and drums and skirling voices clawed the air with triumphant, horrific noise. There was the sound of hooves. She looked down at the ground, far, far below, and saw that the streets of the city ran red with blood.

She could not stop it.

She didn’t want to.

A savage glee filled the space where her heart should have been, and Kelley opened her mouth wide to add her voice to the sounds of the war cries ringing through the air all around her.

“Hey, Winslow—get some sleep last night?”

Kelley looked up, jolted from the remembrance of her disturbing dreams. “Hey, Alec,” she sighed. Scenes of carnage had paraded through her head all night. “Yeah, I slept. A ton. Wish I hadn’t.”

Alec regarded her with a grin. “You are an odd, odd girl.”

Kelley smiled back. “That’s what I was thinking of writing for my bio in the show program. You know, that and only playing this part ’cause the real actress went
snap
…”

“Hey! Don’t kid yourself—I think you’re a smokin’ Titania. And just between you and me? Before she went
snap
? I shuddered at the thought of having to do the bower scene with Crazy Babs every night. With you it’ll be fun!” Alec leaned beside her against the wall. “Wanna go practice? It’ll only take a second to grab my ass…uh…head. My ass head.”

Kelley threw back her head and laughed, her mood brightened. It was becoming pretty obvious that, bad jokes notwithstanding, Alec would have cheerfully run off to a darkened corner of the theater to “rehearse” with her. She chose to ignore that and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You know I’m still the
only
hired help around here, right?” She waved one hand in an airy gesture, intoning imperiously, “I,
Titania, Queen of the Fairy Realm…had better go mop the stage before Mindi sets my wings on fire.”

With that, she made her escape, surprised to find that her heart was pounding a little too fast in her chest. He was cute…but it wasn’t the thought of rehearsing in dark corners with Alec Oakland that set her heart racing.

She ducked Alec after the end of rehearsal, too. Another day of having Lucky stuck in her tub had led Kelley to the conclusion that the only way she was going to get rid of him was if she could find out to whom he actually belonged. She had spent the morning on her computer, printing up fliers on hot-pink paper with a picture of Lucky (taken with her camera phone) and just enough information to hopefully get someone to call her without calling the police or a mental institution. After rehearsal, armed with the fliers, a stapler, and a roll of tape, she hit the park and headed toward the few scattered public bulletin boards so that she could post her notice. She started at the south end of the park and sneaked a look at her watch, wondering despite herself whether…

Cue actor—enter stage left
.

Sure enough, she’d been in the park only about five minutes when an increasingly familiar reflection appeared over her shoulder in the glass-cased bulletin board.

Kelley didn’t even turn around.

“Don’t you have a home?” she asked, awash in studied nonchalance. She opened the glass and stapled a pink flier over a
free-concert notice from last summer on the corkboard.

He answered her question with a question: “What are you doing here?”

“I’m posting information fliers,” she replied, waving the little sheaf of paper she held. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Kelley glanced back to where he stood behind her, brooding.

“Nice to see you again, too,” she said as she walked away.

He’d caught up to her before she’d taken five full steps. “That wasn’t what I meant,” he said, a note of frustration in his voice.

She couldn’t tell whether he was frustrated with her or with himself. She realized she felt almost exactly the same way. The crisp fallen leaves crunched under their feet as they walked side by side in what, under any other circumstances and with any other guy, would have felt like companionable silence.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said at last.

“What, exactly, are you sorry about?” Kelley didn’t slow down, and didn’t look at him.

“Uh…I’m sorry that I frightened you.” His voice was gruff, awkward, as though he was unused to having to apologize.

Kelley was determined not to make this easy. After all,
he had frightened her—badly. Why was she even talking to him? “Apology not accepted.”

Beside her his steps faltered, and he fell a bit behind as he said, “Oh. All right. I…understand.”

“No, you don’t!” she called over her shoulder, and kept up her pace.

A moment later and he was back at her side, his long stride having made up the difference without effort. He walked silently beside her for another moment. “You’re right,” he said finally. “I really don’t.”

Kelley sighed. “I don’t see any reason to accept an apology of that kind from a total stranger, under these particular circumstances. I can accept ‘sorry about that’ from the guy who bumps into me on the subway car.
That
is entirely appropriate.” She shot him another brief glance. “However,” she continued, “‘sorry about that’ from some mysterious guy who gives me a gift, then disappears, then shows up at my place of work, then disappears, then shows up lurking in the alley beside my place of work, then disappears—”

“
You
ran away that time!”

“Don’t interrupt.”

“Sorr—Er, go on. Please.”

“And
then
shows up again, as if by magic, when I am running errands in the park—” Kelley stopped abruptly and held a finger up to his chest. “Well, I do
not
accept a bland, measly, unembellished, unexplained ‘sorry about
scaring the hell out of you’ apology from
that
guy.” She turned away again and continued her swift progress down the path. “As a matter of fact, I’m not even going to accept the shiny, impressive, embellished, explained apology from that guy. Not without knowing who, exactly, that guy is. Your choice.”

After she had gone several more yards, he put a hand on her arm and pulled her to a stop. “Sonny.”

Kelley looked up.

He shook his head, smiling a little, and tapped his chest. “My
name
is Sonny.” He paused, his expression turning just a bit cautious. “Sonny Flannery.”

“Kelley,” she said slowly. “Kelley Winslow.”

“And you’re an actress.” The tone of his voice made it almost a question, as though she was really something else entirely and he just wasn’t sure what.

“Yes…,” she answered hesitantly. “You saw me at the theater, right?”

“Right.”

“About that,…Sonny.” It felt funny suddenly knowing his name. “Seeing as how you know way more about me than I know about you, how about returning the favor?”

His brow clouded. “There is nothing the least bit interesting about me.”

Kelley laughed. “I’m pretty sure that’s not true!”

Sonny remained silent.

“Okay. So…do you go to school? College? Work? What do you do?”

“I’m a…a guard.” He shrugged, feet scuffing through fallen leaves. “Of sorts.”

“Like, security?” Kelley asked.

Sonny hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Like security…I suppose.”

“Fine. So you’re a night watchman.”

His mouth quirked. “Yes.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Kelley turned to continue their stroll again, and Sonny fell into step beside her. She remembered Tyff’s theory that Sonny was some sort of junior PI or something, hired by her crazy aunt to keep an eye on her. It made a certain kind of sense—especially if he worked for a security firm. She tried to picture him wearing an ill-fitting rent-a-cop uniform with scratchy gray polyester pants and decided, just for the sake of her own imagination, that he worked plainclothes.

They took the path that led east around Bethesda Fountain and down through a leafy stone archway, skirting the north side of Conservatory Water. Usually there was a smattering of toy-boat hobbyists, sailing remote-controlled yachts on the shallow pond, but it was deserted so late in the day. Kelley hugged her elbows.

“It’s going to be chilly again tonight,” she said.

Sonny froze in his tracks as if she’d uttered some kind of
curse or spell. He turned his face from her, shoulders stiffening. Kelley was startled by his sudden change.

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath.

She looked around but couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out what was wrong. Everything seemed utterly still and silent in the park.

In the distance, a dog howled.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Sonny said, his voice harsh, as he looked off in the direction from which the sound had come. He seemed a thousand miles distant. Closed off. Hard.

The abruptness of Sonny’s mood shift caught Kelley off guard and swung her sharply back into defensive mode. Had she offended him somehow?
How?

Still, she tried to keep her tone light. “You know, the last time I checked, this was a
public
park. I”—she pointed to herself—“am public.”

The dog howled again, closer this time. Kelley
knew
it was a dog because she was standing in the middle of one of the largest cities in North America. If she’d been back at home in the Catskills, she would have said it was a coyote.

Sonny turned to her, his gray eyes dark. He pointed very deliberately to the west. “The sun is going down.”

Kelley crossed her arms. “It does that, I’ve noticed.”

He suddenly seemed years older. He frightened her. “I’m glad. Now you should go before you get yourself into any more trouble. Like you did the other night.”

“What? That was
not
my fault!” Kelley was flabbergasted enough not to bother questioning how he knew about her near drowning. “How was
that
somehow my fault?”

“Whose fault was it then?”

She glared at him pointedly.

“What?” he yelped, jarred for an instant from his menacing attitude. “You can’t possibly think to blame me for…I’m not even sure what you’re blaming me for.”

Kelley was irate. “Okay. You see, if
you
hadn’t been all Mr. Chivalry in the first place—with the romantic gesture and the rose and the lilty voice and the eyes and everything—then
I
never would have hung around here long enough to have found Lucky and he wouldn’t be standing in my bathtub and I”—Kelley dug through her bag and pulled out the slightly rumpled pink sheets she was supposed to be posting—“wouldn’t have had to come back here with these stupid fliers. Which means we wouldn’t have run into each other again, and I’m starting to think that would be a really good thing!”

“‘Lucky’?” Sonny looked lost.

“He’s a horse.” Kelley shook the handful of fliers at him angrily.

“Of course.”

“
Don’t
start that.”

“I’m not starting anything. Wait…” Sonny’s eyes went wide. “Do you mean to say you have a
horse
in your
bathtub
?”

“Don’t look at me like that. Animal Control didn’t believe me either.”

“Is there water in the tub?”

“Yes!” Kelley blurted, surprised. “How did you know? Every time I try to pull the plug and drain the bath, he nips at me and manages to turn on the taps with his nose. I think he’s a circus horse or something. But I worry he’ll get hoof rot!”

“He’ll be fine. I mean, as far as his hooves are concerned, anyway…. You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into!”

Kelley snorted and shook her head, refusing to indulge any more of this kind of crap. She turned sharply on her heel, heading north up the path.

Sonny shot out a hand and grabbed her, stopping them both in the shadow of the park’s famous
Alice in Wonderland
statue. “You can’t go that way.”

“I can go any way I damned well please!” Kelley erupted, shaking loose. What was
with
this guy?

Sonny huffed. “Why?
Why?
”

“Why what?”

“Do you see anyone else here?” He flung out an arm.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Kelley was mystified and angry, although she had to admit that they did seem to be the only living souls around.

“Most of your kind avoid this place like it’s plague ridden at times like this!” Sonny snarled. “Why did
I
have to get the one nutcase mortal who thinks it’s somehow fun to fling
herself repeatedly into the midst of dire peril?”

Kelley stared at him, openmouthed in her astonishment. “I’m not even going to pretend I know what you’re talking about.” She stabbed a finger at her chest. “And
I
am clearly not the ‘nutcase mortal’—Wait a minute! What the hell does that even mean?”

“What—
nutcase
?”

“No!
Mortal
!”

“Aren’t you?”

“Of course I am!”

Sonny shrugged and muttered, “It’s getting harder and harder to tell.”

Kelley took a deep breath and said, “Okay. Okay, I’m going home now.” She took a few steps and then turned back. “Do I even need to tell you not to follow me again?”

“No.” Sonny wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. He looked upset and relieved at the same time. “I promised the first time I wouldn’t, and I haven’t.”

“So what
is
this then?” Kelley cried. It made no sense to her—she barely knew him—but this
hurt
her. “What is this
constantly
running into you? Coincidence? It’s a big park, Mr. Flannery. It’s a big city! And yet, somehow,
you
just happen to find me here. Just like you managed to track me down at the Avalon—”

“That was planned. I told you; I went looking for you. And
this
was not coincidence because there is no such
thing
as coincidence,” he said bitterly. “
This
is
your
stubbornness and
my
sheer, bloody-minded bad luck. The Fates have it in for me. What did I ever do to them?”