The Stolen: An American Faerie Tale Read online

  DEDICATION

  For “The Boot” and to Dennis Morgan,

  who believed in me before I believed in myself.

  EPIGRAPH

  Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,

  For I would ride with you upon the wind,

  Run on the top of the disheveled tide,

  And dance upon the mountains like a flame.

  —­WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, “THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Brendan Kavanaugh smiled and examined the wrought silver claddagh ring, admiring its fine details. The small hands holding the crowned heart were gleaming perfection, a stark contrast to his thick fingers and scarred knuckles. The small emerald in the center of the heart sparkled in the flickering light of the jewelry store’s single kerosene lamp.

  “A finer piece of work I’ve never seen,” Brendan said to the jeweler, leaning on the counter. “Nicely done, sir.”

  “Glad you approve of it, lad,” Patrick said. “I’m sure Áine will as well.”

  “Not a gleaming diamond though,” Brendan said, his smile fading.

  Patrick smacked the back of Brendan’s head. “Oh, for Finn’s sake! Any good and proper Irish lass would prefer an emerald.”

  Brendan stood to his full height. He towered over Patrick, as he did everyone. He gave the old man a sharp glance and rubbed the back of his head, but he couldn’t keep from smiling. “Aye, and that she is, to be sure.”

  “You’re a lucky man, Brendan Kavanaugh,” Patrick said, pulling a small leather box from behind the counter. “And with God’s mercy, your children will take after their mother.”

  Brendan laughed. “Oh aye, that’s God’s truth there, to be sure.” Brendan handed the ring back and fished the cash out of the pouch on his hip as Patrick boxed the ring. “Thanks again, Paddy. For staying late and all, I mean.”

  “Just doing me part for young love.”

  Brendan put the money on the counter, took the box, and closed the now empty pouch.

  Patrick frowned. “Oh, and now we’ve got a problem.”

  Brendan knitted his brow. “Aye? What’s that, then?”

  “You’ve gone and paid me too much.”

  “But your man said—­”

  “He didn’t know about our special Fian wedding discount.”

  Brendan’s face fell.

  “Now don’t give me that bleeding look. Firstly, it’s ridiculous on a fella your size. Secondly, I don’t give a rusted shilling what happened in Ireland, and neither do any of us what know you. We know it was you pulled them dark bastúin off of old Joseph. Besides, this is my bloody shop. For discounts, I’m the one what decides who’s a Fian and who ain’t.” Patrick handed a few bills back. “You can’t give a girl a ring and not take her for a meal, wouldn’t be right.”

  Reluctantly, Brendan took the offered money with a nod and a faint smile.

  After a moment, Patrick let out a sigh. “Oh, bloody hell, man. Off with you now. Wouldn’t be right to keep her waiting, neither!”

  Brendan’s smile widened. “You’re a wise man. Míle buíochas.”

  Outside, the night bore the chill of early autumn, but Brendan didn’t feel a bit of it. The sky was clear, the stars shone their blessings from the heavens, and he didn’t care that he was smiling like a fool.

  The Boston streets were quiet, the streetcars having finished their runs. Brendan caught the scent of cooking food drifting from the tenements, mingling with the smell of burning coal, wood, and leaves. In the distance, a lone gasman lit the last of the streetlamps. Brendan knew the old fella. They’d arrived in Boston on different ships, but in the same year and, by all outward appearances, at the same age. But, unlike Brendan’s, the old man’s face now bore the lines of the decades that had passed since that day.

  The old man looked over from his work as Brendan drew near. He saw the kilt, then he looked to the pin worn on it like a badge, a claddagh encircling a wolf’s head. He met Brendan’s eyes, smiled faintly, and gave a firm nod of approval. The dark green kilt and gleaming pin clearly identified Brendan, to the older generations at least, as a Fian, a protector of mortals from things that go bump in the night. The older immigrants were the only ones who remembered Ireland. To their children, the first generation born in America, Brendan was just a strange, albeit large, redheaded fella in a skirt.

  Brendan returned the smile and nod. As he did, he saw a glint from the man’s ring finger. He squeezed the box in his sweaty hand tighter and felt his stomach churn. He increased his pace, focusing instead on Áine’s smile, the way her eyes shone, and the surety that they would sparkle just the same when she was old and gray.

  In minutes, he was just around the corner from where they were to meet at O’Connell’s Athenry Inn. He stopped, swallowed, and looked down at the modest leather box.

  “Dar fia, it’s really going to happen, ain’t it?”

  After letting out a long breath, he continued on to the inn. He didn’t see Áine waiting for him, so he stuck his head inside.

  She wasn’t waiting inside the door, or sitting at a table either.

  His stomach twisted. He wasn’t early. He was actually a little late. She never was.

  He closed his eyes and focused on the scents and sounds around him. He could hear the ­people inside the inn and the houses around him. He could smell the food, the smoke spewing from the chimneys, and the garbage in the alleyways, but not Áine.

  After a moment of consideration, he tucked the box in his pouch and began walking the path he knew she’d take. He ignored the stab of regret that he didn’t have his knives.

  The minutes dragged like slices of eternity with no sign of her.

  Brendan rounded another corner and came to a street lined with mills and factories; the farthest brick building was the textile mill where Áine worked a row of looms. The gas lamps were out, and the street was draped in darkness.

  The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he scanned up the street. He thought he could smell her scent, just a whisper on the air. It made him think of the green fields of home right after a heavy rain, but he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t imagining it. The odors of burned coal and textile dyes were strong, ugly, and overwhelming. He sniffed the air again and there was something else. Something wound through the industrial stench. It was the smell of flowers, but fetid, tired, and wrong. As if someone had forced the perfume from them long after they should’ve been dead—­

  A scream split the air and turned his blood to ice water.

  Long-­forgotten whispered threats from the dark faeries whose mischief he’d stopped now shouted in his ears. He could no longer ignore their threats of exacting revenge.

  Brendan sprinted toward the sounds of a struggle down an alleyway. When he reached it, he slid to a stop on the slick cobblestones and stared in horror.

  Three oíche, small and childlike, with hair of deepest black and clothes of poorest street urchins, had Áine pinned against the wall with their inhuman strength. One made to lift her long dress, while the other two held out her arms. She twisted and pulled, trying to wrench out of their grasp. One small, calloused hand came free, and she drove it into the face of an attacker, but the faerie shook off the blow.

  The two grinned, bearing pointed teeth, and yanked her back against the bricks. As they did, she brought a leg up and kicked. The heel of her black, laced boot caught the oíche in front of her on the bridge of his nose and sent him stumbling back. Before her leg came back down, the oíche had wiped the black blood away, seized her leg, b
ackhanded her, and then lifted her skirt once more.

  Time stopped and Brendan stood frozen, unable to believe what he was seeing.

  Áine turned her lovely green eyes to him, eyes that should’ve been filled with light and joy but were instead filled with pain and terror.

  Hell churned inside him, crying out to be released.

  Brendan obliged.

  Fury overtook him as he surged forward, steps pounding the cobblestones like the thunder of a deadly storm. He howled, and it was a sound not of this world.

  All three oíche turned their solid black eyes to him, their alabaster skin almost luminescent in the moonlight.

  He struck the dark faerie violating Áine first, seizing him by the shoulder. The oíche still had a grip on Áine’s skirt when Brendan twisted and hurled the faerie into the wall fifteen feet away. The sound of ripping fabric filled the alley.

  Before that one had fallen to the ground, Brendan seized another by the wrist and spun, driving the oíche face-­first toward the opposite wall. He hit a wide iron drainpipe instead of brick.

  The oíche shrieked in pain as the flesh of his face burned away amid a cloud of darkness swirling with motes of white light.

  Hearing the scream only fed Brendan’s rage, and he turned to face the last attacker.

  The oíche’s hand blurred as he raked his claw-­like nails down Brendan’s face.

  Brendan moved aside, but one claw dragged down his left cheek, missing his eye by a hairbreadth. He swung his fist and felt it connect with flesh and bone. He heard the smack of the faerie hitting the wall.

  Brendan wiped the blood from his eye just in time to see the oíche coming at him again, his snarl revealing rows of sharp teeth.

  Again, Brendan made to dodge, and again a single claw made contact. This one caught the left edge of Brendan’s mouth and tore a gash across his cheek.

  The taste of blood filled his mouth, stoking the fiery rage in his heart.

  The oíche slashed out again, but this time Brendan was faster. He caught the tiny wrist and twisted, spinning the fae around him. There was a pop as the faerie’s shoulder dislocated, followed by the snap of his wrist breaking.

  The oíche who’d hit the drainpipe had recovered enough to come at Brendan again, the darkling’s face half-­skeletal as he shrieked in rage.

  With all his strength, Brendan hurled the broken faerie at his companion. Both hit the ground and slid a dozen feet away.

  Brendan heard footsteps behind him. He turned as the first oíche he’d tossed ran along the wall and leapt at him.

  The rage boiling in Brendan now sang in delight. The pain in his cheek faded, and fresh strength filled his arms and legs.

  He caught the flying oíche and drove his face into the drain. Both bone and iron shattered amid a howl of pain, and it was like an angel’s chorus to Brendan.

  Brendan snatched a length of broken pipe and drove into the chest of the oíche writhing on the ground. The faerie vanished in a cloud of darkness and twinkling white lights.

  Cold iron in hand, Brendan turned to the remaining two oíche.

  Both stared at him with wide black eyes, frozen in place.

  Brendan pounced, slashing the end of the pipe across the throat of one. He then drove the pipe into the chest of the other so deep his fist broke rib bones. The second oíche exploded into nothing but a wafting darkness and tiny lights.

  Brendan’s hands shook as the battle rage continued to grow, unsated.

  Something moved in the mouth of the alley, and half a dozen oíche approached.

  “What’s going on here?” one asked.

  Brendan attacked. Each blow felled another, and still the rage inside him grew like wildfire. With each he killed, he moved faster. Now it wasn’t even a fight, it was a slaughter. In moments nearly a dozen oíche lay dead around him without having scored more than a blow or two of their own.

  Brendan roared in the delight of battle and the hunt.

  “Brendan! No—­”

  He spun, saw a final oíche, and was on her before she could finish her spell. He drove the pipe, now saturated with blood and gore, into her belly, and twisted.

  There was no scream, no darkness, and no lights.

  He looked into the oíche’s tear-­filled green eyes and knew something was wrong.

  Cold washed over him and the rage vanished. As it did, he saw Áine underneath him, impaled on the pipe in his hands.

  “Oh God, no!” He let go of the pipe, not daring to pull it out. He tore his shirt off and used it as a makeshift bandage. “Stay still, Áine. I’ll get you a doctor, you’ll be fine, love.” His tears and shaking hands betrayed the lie, but he made to stand.

  Áine caught his wrist. “No, stay with me.”

  Brendan took her face in his hands. Even now, there was no malice in her eyes. Her curly, fiery red hair was soaked in blood. He brushed it away from her face, leaving streaks of blood across her smooth, and freckled, pale skin. His vision blurred with tears. “A ghrá mo chroí, I’m so sorry.”

  Áine lifted her left hand and put her fingers over his lips. “Shh.”

  The tears broke free. “No! Don’t you leave me! You hear me?”

  “I love you so much, remember that,” she said, her voice weak.

  He took her hand and kissed it, shaking his head. “No, don’t you give up on me.”

  Áine smiled. “I never have, love. I never will.”

  “You can’t go. We’ve a long life to live together.”

  “You live it for us both.” She blinked, and tears rolled down her face. “Tell me you love me—­”

  “Tá grá agam duit, m’aingeal.”

  Áine smiled, then Brendan watched as the light in her eyes vanished and her small body went limp in his arms.

  “Dia ár gcumhdach!” he screamed and pulled her close. She felt so small against him. Barely five feet tall, she’d always felt small in his arms despite her womanly curves, but now it was like holding a whisper. Even through the coppery scent of blood, her sweet smell of Irish summer rain was there. It only made him weep harder. It had become the smell of home to him.

  In time, he looked up and saw the bodies of what he’d thought had been oíche at the alley entrance. They were mortals. Ceapa and passersby who’d come to see what had happened. He’d killed them too, all of them.

  In that moment, it was decided. He’d wait to be arrested and hanged. He might even see a trial. The rest was between him and the devil. Running footsteps, quick and light, came down the street. He lowered his head and waited for the constable to drag him away.

  “Shadowed dawn!” a familiar voice said between heavy breaths. “Brendan, is that you?”

  Dante. Worse than the bleeding ceapa. Brendan couldn’t bear to face him. “Aye.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was me. I murdered them.”

  “What?”

  The footsteps drew closer, and Brendan clenched his jaw tight when he sensed, rather than saw, Dante notice Áine.

  “No—­” Dante stepped around Brendan and knelt on Áine’s other side. His black frock coat skimmed the ground as he leaned forward and touched her neck with two fingers, looking for a pulse that Brendan knew wasn’t there. Light blond hair that was normally oiled and slicked back on his head fell across his temple, revealing the tips of his pointed ears. After a moment his shoulders slumped, his head bowed, and the solid green glow of his eyes dimmed.

  Brendan pulled Áine closer and kissed her brow. “Kill me.”

  Dante’s head snapped up. “What? No.”

  “If you call yourself me friend,” Brendan said, “don’t let me live with this.” His voice broke, and it took a moment before he could speak again. “I let it get control. It’s just like they said would happen.”

  “What happened? I mean, what would c
ause you to—­” Dante’s head turned, and Brendan saw him look at Áine’s torn dress, then at the bodies. “Who . . . ?”

  Brendan didn’t say anything.

  “Oíche.” Under the surface of Dante’s voice simmered a long-­held anger.

  There was silence for several minutes. Brendan just held Áine closer to him.

  “You can’t stay here,” Dante said. “Let me get you out of here.”

  “No.”

  “Brendan—­”

  “It was me what done it, and I have to account for it,” Brendan said. “I’ll stay here and get what’s bloody well coming to me.”

  “They’ll kill you.”

  “Aye, but not if you do it first.”

  “Don’t ask me to do that.”

  Brendan let his head fall forward, and he buried his face in Áine’s neck. He knew Dante was right. This was Brendan’s to carry, but he had to make sure this could never happen again.

  “Can you get it out of me?”

  “Get it out—­?”

  “Can you get the bleeding deamhan buile out of me?”

  “I don’t even know what your parents did to put it there.”

  “So, no, then.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Brendan inhaled Áine’s scent and gritted his teeth. “Can you bind it, then? Chain the bloody thing down at least?”

  Dante sighed. “I don’t know, maybe, depending on how strong it is. Even if I could, there’s no telling what effects it could have on you. It might kill you.”

  Brendan forced a chuckle. He wouldn’t be so lucky. “You do what you have to, then I’m leaving Boston.”

  “You’re not in any shape to make a decision like that!”

  “Dar fia, man,” Brendan said. “Word will spread fast, ­people will know. I have to leave, don’t I? Maybe if I can find some way to make this right—­”

  “And where will you go?”

  “Away.” Brendan took a breath. “I’ll be needing me a horse.”

  “I—­”

  “What else can I do, then?”

  “I don’t know, maybe . . .”