Strings, p.1
Strings, page 1
Strings
Ruthanne Reid
4th Floor Publication
NEW YORK, NY
Copyright © 2014 by Ruthanne Reid
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Ruthanne Reid/4th Floor Publication
www.ruthannereid.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com
Strings/ Ruthanne Reid. – 1st ed.
ISBN 978-0-9852600-5-7 (ppbk)
ISBN 978-0-9852600-4-0 (ebook)
To Cameron, Nikki, and Kelli:
“Dargons” rule.
“Men heap together the mistakes of their lives, and create a monster they call Destiny.”
―John Oliver Hobbes
Contents
An Elf in Mahattan
Catching Up to You
Shadow-Eaters
Notte
Just a Wandering Minstrel, Ma’am
Dreams
Need More? Read On!
No One Writes Alone
● CHAPTER 1 ●
An Elf in Mahattan
My music made a lovely magic. It was tiny magic, sure, but effective: it thickened the air and deepened the candles’ warm light, caressed the listener like intimate fingertips and teased sleeping nerve-endings toward a gently quivering wakefulness.
Go, me. I made it all happen.
Generally speaking, humans suck at love. They go into it selfishly, thinking of themselves and not the needs of the other, already planning in their little heads what they’ll do when it doesn’t work out. Idiots. Does anything else work that way? Can you learn art or become a mechanic without devoting yourself to those crafts? Can you graduate from college without paying attention to a coursework’s needs, without being willing to spend time feeding it what it requires?
Well, yes, you can, but not well. And yes, colleges have needs, too. Every living thing does.
I could help the lovelorn attendees of tonight’s bar-hop, and I had every reason to. Helping them helped me. The more they loved, the more I fed—and while humans do suck at getting love started, once it takes root in them, it grows like Kudzu. (That Kudzu-thing was one of my cousin’s ideas, by the way. Don’t look at me. I’m not a plant-wizard.)
My set was nearly done, which meant it was time to build up to my exit. Step one: a Spanish riff with a hint of blues, tossing in just enough Elvis to bring out the smiles, because smiles make everybody see the beauty of their partner. It’s magic!
Step two: sadder arpeggios, delicately plucked, as if the strings sang only when tears fell upon them. The fragility of life and its shortness (short for humans, that is; there’s a reason we call you lot the Ever-Dying) sank in like a stain, and all my listeners knew it. They knew they didn’t have much time, knew that things might change, knew that they could lose this special other person to the inevitability of the grave.
I’d never leave them there, of course. It was time for step three: hope. Trills in a faster pace with high, quick chords danced from my fingertips like sun-sparkles on water. Yes, you lonely sods, you have each other now. No, that special person isn’t perfect, but neither are you, and they will love you in spite of yourself. You could make each other happy. You could make this work—if you’re willing to learn, to try, to forgive.
To love.
The magic moment bloomed, and love in the room tasted like raspberries in wine, toasted coconut and rum, and a hint of orange-infused chocolate. I could have stopped playing there, but I’m a thoughtful lover myself, don’t you know, and the after-party is just as fun as the build-up. Tiny melodies trickled from my strings like secret giggles, bringing everyone gently down and getting them sleepily, drunkenly ready for bed.
See? I’m not a bad guy. I’m really not. Nobody among the Mythos would agree, but that’s why I was there in the human Ever-Dying world and not among my own kind. My world wasn’t nearly as forgiving as this one.
At last, it was time to put the guitar away. The band for the next set was already bringing in their amps. For a fancy midtown Manhattan night-spot, it was almost peaceful. Quiet conversations glittered with intimate and precious words, requiring little volume. Yum, yum, yum. Delicious.
All right, so I know it probably horrifies you that I do this. It’s manipulation of the highest form (which some would call art), and flirts with the concept of non-consent and force. Well, I’m not forcing anyone. Encouraging silly people to do things they should be doing anyway is very gray territory, but I’m all about gray territory. It’s even in my name.
My view in the bar’s huge mirror was a good one that night. I am of the Fey, Unseelie and royal, in fact, with perfect ears like long thin leaves and enough magic to keep them hidden. My spun-gold hair (which I do not hide) falls just past my shoulders, and though I’m lovely enough to be a woman (if I do say so myself), my strong jaw and my cheekbones preclude that misconception.
I’m distinctly male, yet fabulous. Take that, Orlando Bloom.
I’m just glad Tolkien finally broke the world of the stupid idea that elves are all tiny and annoying. Those are not elves. Those are sprites. It’s thanks to all that sprite nonsense that the word “elf” has become offensive.
“Hey, Grey. Can we get you to fill in Friday?”
This manager wasn’t interesting because he loved nobody, and that made him taste like dusty cement. The paycheck he handed me, atoned for much. Nice. “Sorry, but no. I’m booked through March.”
He laughed and made some remark about schedules, his ex-wife, and their broken children, and I didn’t bother to tell him I probably wouldn’t be back to his bar ever again. Crazy Ever-Dying humans, always wasting the short time they have. Makes me sick.
I sighed a hefty sigh as I slid my guitar into my hatchback. On the front passenger side lay a wide-brimmed hat, a bolo tie, and a leather thong for tying back my hair, all prepped for the country-western bar that was my next stop. The cowboy boots were new, and kind of stiff, so—
There was a blue envelope lay on my dashboard.
I had not put a blue envelope there. Someone or something had been inside my car!
Rage made me briefly stupid. How dare they, whoever they were! This was just rude. Ah, but only another magic-user could have gotten through my little wards, and if I’d been thinking clearly, I’d have abandoned the car, the clothes, and the lot, and run for the proverbial hills. Instead, I snatched up the offending stationary with all due drama, and only then saw what was written on the front.
It bore my full name in thin, flowing handwriting perfect enough to come from a laser printer: John Baron Grey.
I knew this handwriting. Only one person would come to me this way, with easy knowledge of where I was and who I was, and leave just a simple note without any traps set or warning flares placed. No wards I could put up would have stopped him, anyway.
I didn’t know what he wanted, but I already owed him more than I could ever repay. My love-high went out like a candle in a stiff breeze. His persistence in thinking I’m a better person than I am always holds me like a vice.
I keep forgetting you’re human, Ever-Dying. You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?
Notte is ... What terms shall I use? Ancient? Magical? Unique? Glorious beyond all reason, in spite of his disturbing penchant for blue velvet and formal dinner parties?
He’s soft-spoken. He’s deeply powerful. He’s the nicest man I’ve ever met, and he scares most among the Mythos to death because he can do something we don’t understand: he can turn humans into us.
You don’t get it. People are magical among the Mythos, or they’re Ever-dying. You’re born magical or you’re not, and humans are not.
Before you go off on witches and ghost-hunters and special sparkly New Age angels, hear me out. Bats have sonar. Eels have electricity. We have magic. You don’t. Yet Notte can take an ordinary human and transform her into something else. She becomes like him, never-aging, requiring a specific and sticky substance to live, and like him, can change other human beings the same way.
Yes, it’s like a disease, and no, I’m not being nice about this, and yes, he is my friend, but I’m not nice when I’m hungry. When I’m hungry, my Unseelie nature comes out. We are not a nice people.
I was hungry, and I couldn’t bring myself to open the envelope. After the next gig, I’d open it. Not before. Notte would understand still being hungry. Of all those among the Mythos, he definitely could not blame me for that.
● ●
● CHAPTER 2 ●
Catching Up to You
My next gig went to crap.
The bar was dry as a bone. Nobody was in love, everybody was drunk, and I felt like I was licking the inside of an empty soup-bowl. I could smell what had been in there, but nothing was left for me. My chords tripped clumsily over their own bar-lines, and I even hit two wrong notes. Me! Wrong notes!
The surly bartender had checked out completely, drying the same glass for the past fifteen minutes. It’s a safe bet he wished he had somewhere else to be. Or maybe he just wished he had more hair. That look could have covered either, truthfully.
Soon, the only people left in th
Bored Fey means mischievous Fey, yeah? It was time to be ridiculous. “Oh, here, upon a weeknight dreary, thus I played for bleak and beery humans dancing quaint (but ancient!) steps to my well-practiced lure,” I crooned, following it with a bunch of pointless oooohs.
At least one of them was literate and whispered to the others. They all gave me their attention.
I winked salaciously at them. “While I drank them, my lust capping, suddenly there came a tapping as of someone gently rapping, rapping at the pub’s front door. ‘Tis some poor drunk oaf,’ I muttered, ‘tapping at the pub’s front door—only this, and nothing more.’”
None of it fit into the standard meter, but the ladies were too tipsy to care, and now I was entertaining myself. I stood and raised one boot to rest on the stool to give the world a good look at my business. “Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, and each separate belching singer left his mark upon the floor. Naturally, I mean the bathroom—nasty place, I won’t deny you—which could do with scrubbing nightly, scrubbing done upon the floor.” Poe or any other poet would shriek and run at me with torches for that, but carpe diem, yeah?
By then, the ladies were laughing like teenagers while the bartender glared stormily in my direction. My new game of rude-but-handsome-country-singer was simply too charming to abandon, so I winked at them again, this time adding the kind of upside-down chummy nod that ladies find charming. “Land o' Goshen, they won’t thank me! Called them out, embarrassed now, but at least I’m not a bore. Yes, that is true: I’m not a bore.” I inhaled, ready to riff on the bar’s reflections on the ceiling (which could have come from the bartender’s head), when there came a tapping, gently rapping, rapping at the bar’s front door.
Actually, that’s a lie. The rapping wasn’t gentle. It sounded like someone outside hammering with both fists, like they had to have a drink right now or die.
This was a bar. A public place. Open for four more hours, in point of fact. Why would anyone knock on the door of a bar?
The bartender scowled harder and put down his rag, then reached under the counter as if going for a weapon.
Well, that was interesting, but whatever was going on, I was hungry and tired, and needed to go someplace else. “Well, I thank all y’all for your kindness tonight,” I drawled, my good-old-boy persona wrapped around me like a cloak. “I sure do enjoy playing for you, and I hope you can come back and see me again in March. Check my website for my full performance schedule. Be safe out there while you scamper on home!”
The ladies in the corner gave me a wild ovation, whooping and hollering, which might be why they didn’t notice what the bartender did next. Whoever was outside pounded on the door again, hard enough to spill a little plaster dust from above, and the bartender evidently took that personally. He emerged from behind the bar with a thick wooden bat in his hands and marched for the door with murder in his eyes.
Whatever that was about, it was clearly time to leave, so I packed up my equipment maybe a hair faster than a human could manage. My only patrons were buzzed, anyway, so they didn’t care. Guitar stowed, amp hefted, I headed for the back door, away from whatever was about to go down.
I wish I’d packed more quickly.
A storm of claws and black, shiny whips exploded through the door with a weird hiss like sand on glass, spraying splinters and glass everywhere. The ladies’ screams sounded like the kind of things monsters like to wetly choke off. Self-preservation not being one of my weaknesses, I dropped everything and dove into the bathroom.
The bartender roared and apparently went to work with his bat. Meaty whuds like some kind of steak-tenderizing factory told me things were afoot, and I eyed the tiny window. Nope, couldn’t fit through that, so I’d have to go back into the hall.
The ladies’ screams grew closer. They weren’t dead yet? What kind of self-respecting monster was this? I peeked out just as the six of them stumbled unsteadily by in their dress shoes, so frightened they kept running into the walls.
They had no shadows.
Let me say that again: they had no shadows.
I reacted without thinking, following them to the fire exit door because I had to prove my eyes wrong. And the moment they went through, they started flaking, like cold ash the morning after a fire. I skidded to a halt. One of them realized her arm was gone and screamed. Another fell into the trash cans because her face flaked away and she couldn’t see anymore, and then they were all on the sidewalk, screaming while white ash drifted away like lazy fireflies.
The fire door swung closed in my face, and I dared not push it open. I didn’t know if whatever had killed those women was contagious. I didn’t know if everyone in the building was cursed. All I knew was their deaths had been activated when they stepped into the alley, and I didn’t want to go the same way.
I started to go back to the bathroom, but the thought of being trapped in there with that monster coming for me was too much. Judging by the sounds from the main room, the bartender was still alive. Call me a fool, but I had to see.
What a sight he was.
He crouched on top of the thing, whacking it over and over with his bat. Sweat flew like Holy Water at a Mass. He clung to one of its tentacles with white-knuckled intensity, somehow keeping his feet when it rolled to try to crush him. Long, shiny whip-things flailed all around his head, trying to get him, but the beastie could only bend its limbs backwards so far, and he avoided them.
I didn’t want to help. I doubted I even could. I’ve never liked violence that wasn’t quick and close-up and secret, and this dark creature had eats pretty silver-tongued Fey for breakfast written all over it.
The bathroom, I thought. I’m going to hide there. Forever. That stall on the left, that one will be my new home—
And then the bartender spoke. “Set it on fire!” He brought the bat down with a meaty, wet thud and dodged a tentacle. “Fire! Set it on fire!”
Why not? I didn’t know what this thing was, but most beings hate to be on fire, unless they happened to be made of it. “‘Tis the season!” I howled for some idiot reason, grabbed a bottle of brandy, and threw it.
The monster was so rubbery the bottle bounced off, then happily smashed into the wall and splashed it anyway. I waved my hand, gathering the tiny flames from the candles on the tables, and blew a kiss to send them into the spill.
The brandy ignited.
Bright fire raced up the wall and over the monster, and the bartender jumped free as the blaze wrapped over the thing like new skin. The monster didn’t shriek. It hissed, rattling like it had a throat full of rain-sticks under layers of rubbery flesh. When the bartender came running my way, I took the hint and vamoosed back down the hall.
Could we even go outside? I stepped back so he could be my guinea pig, to see if he would flake away, but I didn’t get the chance. With a look that pronounced me a fool, he grabbed my arm and yanked me into the alley.
“Stupid elf!” he snapped, which was deeply insulting, but I was too busy to respond, what with running and panicking and sliding my hands over myself to be sure I wasn’t flaking away.
I still had my shadow in the early-morning light. So did he. Maybe we were all right.
He took a sharp left and dragged me down the street, and we made another left around the next corner. That way, we put a full block behind us before the bar blew up.
Boom.
● ●
● CHAPTER 3 ●
Shadow-Eaters
The thing about explosions is it’s not the boom that kills you.
First, there’s a blast of heat and pressure (and, if you’re too close, shrapnel), which compresses you. Organs, veins, and bodies in general don’t like that. In the wake of that nastiness comes a split-second of vacuum, and for that instant, you are practically in space. Bodies don’t like that, either, but don’t worry: the final phase of an explosion fixes the vacuum bit. Pressure and air rush to fill it in with such force that you are thrown off your feet and into solid walls.
