The Stolen: An American Faerie Tale Read online

  The boy’s eyes narrowed and he looked at her for a moment before he smiled wider. “Boo!”

  Caitlin flinched and he laughed again. She could feel his black eyes bore through her. This child exuded evil. She tried to slow her breathing or bring her heart rate back down, but nothing worked. She couldn’t even cry out for help.

  “Listen to her heart pound,” purred a voice from behind Caitlin, this one more feminine. “Oh, I think you scared her, dear brother.”

  Light footsteps sounded on the concrete as whoever it was drew closer and the screaming part of Caitlin’s brain kicked the rational side to the ground and locked it in a closet.

  “Now,” the voice said, this time in her ear. It was soft, almost seductive. “While we’ll enjoy you trying to fight, in the end it will only be worse for you.”

  The breath was as icy as the voice it carried was alluring. Soft fingers ran along her neck, sending waves of pleasure through her, and she found herself enthralled by the cold touch and voice.

  “But if you just go along with us . . . ,” the voice cooed, “oh, it will be so much better.”

  Caitlin had a flash of all the horrible things that were going to befall her. As desperation set in like a raging river, she found a handhold in steely resolve. She wouldn’t go without a fight, if not for herself, then for her daughter. Her parents had left her at an early age. She wasn’t going to leave Fiona. She gripped the keys in her sweaty fist and spun to see the female counterpart to the Goth boy, clad in Doc Martens, fishnet stockings, and a black dress.

  The girl gave her a pouty look. “Uh-­oh. She’s mad now.”

  Caitlin set her jaw.

  “I don’t think she likes us.” The boy laughed and stood next to his sister.

  “Get out of my way, right now.” Caitlin began to plan where and how she would strike if it came to that. Part of her hoped it would.

  “Tisk, tisk,” the girl said, then gave a disapproving look, a shake of her head, and even a wag of her finger. Black eyes, like her brother’s and just as empty, locked on Caitlin’s, and the girl bared her sharp teeth in something closer to a snarl than a smile. “I tried being nice.”

  Caitlin had to swallow before she could find any words. “Don’t, don’t make me repeat myself.” Her muscles went tight, ready to strike.

  Both sets of black eyes blinked at her, turned to each other, and looked back to Caitlin.

  The girl’s look went back to the haughty sneer. “Well then, if that’s how you’ll have it. Brother, would you like the pleasure?”

  The boy moved much quicker than Caitlin expected, but she’d been waiting for something to happen. She punched with all the strength she could muster, and her fist connected hard with the boy’s neck, the metal keys sinking into his white flesh.

  His eyes went wide as he staggered back a step.

  When she pulled her hand back, it was coated with a cold, black sludge.

  “That hurt, you bitch,” the boy said through gritted teeth. He licked the pad of his thumb and dragged it over the wound. When he was done, the punctures were gone.

  Caitlin’s brain locked up trying to process what she’d just seen.

  The boy rotated his neck as if stretching it, causing it to crack a few times before he leveled his gaze at Caitlin. “Just for that, I’m going to take you slow.” He bared his teeth and drew back.

  “That’s a skawly idea there, Tinker Bell,” said a familiar voice at the corner.

  Caitlin turned. James? No, it couldn’t be.

  Brendan stepped out of the shadows and folded his arms over his broad chest. “Best you and that oíche-­bitch let the cailín go on her way.”

  “Mind your own—­” The girl stopped midsentence when she saw Brendan. Her eyes moved from his scarred face to his kilt pin. “The Fian!”

  The boy’s mouth turned up into a wicked grin. “Oh, I could go for a piece of that as well.” He held his arms out, extended his fingers, and his nails grew to sharp claws.

  “I’m about to lose me head here, bucko.” Brendan smiled. “And if I do, then you’ll be losing yours. Let her go. Mind, if I have to be asking again, I won’t be nearly so polite about it.”

  “He’s mine!” the girl said, then leapt at Brendan.

  Brendan drew a large, curved knife out from behind his back. It glittered in the streetlight as he stepped to one side and slashed.

  If Caitlin had blinked, she would’ve missed it. The blade cut across the girl as she flew past, and when she fell to the ground, shrieking in pain, Caitlin could see what looked like thick black smoke filled with tiny motes of light wafting away from the wound.

  Caitlin’s mouth opened, but the boy went for her again. She punched with the keys, this time hitting his face and one eye.

  He grunted in what sounded more like annoyance than pain.

  She kicked his groin, but he didn’t crumple. He just grunted and sucked in a breath.

  She swallowed hard and stumbled as she tried to back away.

  “You’re starting to piss me off, a bhitseach dhaonna!” The boy glared at her with one good eye as black fluid poured down his cheek. He rubbed his injured eye, and when his hand came away, his eye was whole once more. A streak of black across his face was the only evidence of her punch.

  Reason stopped banging on the door and decided it was nicer in the closet. “What are you?” Caitlin asked.

  The boy lunged again.

  Caitlin punched, but he caught her fist in one hand and took her by the throat with the other, lifting her off the ground as if she weighed nothing at all.

  Caitlin clawed with her free hand at the vise of flesh and bone squeezing the life out of her. Her back slammed into a wall, hard, her head bouncing off brick. Her vision began to spin and fade to blackness as she tried to draw in a breath that wouldn’t come.

  No, please, God.

  “Mind yourself!” Brendan shouted, but it sounded far away, or like it was underwater.

  The hand came loose and Caitlin fell to the ground. Cool air rushed into her lungs as her vision, though still blurred, opened back up. Sharp pain lanced through her head as she gulped air and struggled for any kind of coherent thought, but each just slipped away.

  Brendan crouched down and lifted Caitlin’s face by her chin so he could look her in the eyes. “You all right there, love?”

  He glanced over, and Caitlin followed his eyes. The girl was gripping her side and grunting as she struggled to her feet, the black smoke still seeping from between her fingers. Behind Brendan, Caitlin could see the boy clear on the other side of the street, also getting to his feet.

  “Are you all right?” Brendan asked again.

  “I, I think so.” She put a hand to her head and kept blinking, waiting for this all to make some kind of sense. “What’s going—­” She stopped.

  “What?” Brendan asked.

  “My purse!”

  “Go, Brother!” the girl shouted through clenched teeth.

  “No, you don’t!” Brendan spun in his crouch and threw his knife at the boy. It turned end over end as it sped to its target, the blade flashing in the streetlight.

  The boy jumped several feet up to grab an overhang, swung himself up into the air, and landed on the roof of a ten-­story building.

  The knife passed where the boy had just been and stuck in the bricks.

  Caitlin stared, openmouthed, hoping that any moment she’d wake up.

  The boy turned and ran, vanishing into the darkness, his laughter fading behind him.

  “You fecking coward!” Brendan screamed.

  Caitlin’s heart was trying to escape her chest, then her vision snapped into clarity as she saw the girl charging Brendan. The warning moved up her throat, but she knew she couldn’t say it in time.

  With one hand, Brendan snatched the girl out of the air like a l
obbed softball and, with a grunt of effort, drove her into the wall. The girl’s skull made a cracking sound as it hit the bricks.

  Caitlin gasped and reflexively turned away, eyes closed tight. She covered her ears with shaking hands, desperate to deflect the sounds of the girl’s struggle. A nightmare, this had to be a nightmare. Nothing this bad could be real. It had to be bits from a horror movie she’d seen as a kid that her subconscious had dredged up and formed into this.

  The girl screamed in pain. Caitlin pressed her hands harder against her ears, but the shriek pierced into her brain. She wanted to scream, or vomit, but instead she chanced a glance and saw the girl pinned to the wall by a knife in her shoulder. Darkness, not smoke, Caitlin realized, poured from the wound, and again tiny white lights danced in it. She jerked back around, closing her eyes and bending near double to shield herself from this horrific scene. Why was no one coming? Someone had to have heard all this. Where the hell were the cops?

  Brendan said something, but Caitlin couldn’t hear it over the wailing. The girl screamed back in that glass-­shattering shriek, and while Caitlin couldn’t understand the language, there was something familiar about it.

  There was the sound of metal against stone, followed by another scream. Caitlin heard the unmistakable sound of splintering bone, and the girl’s voice became a pathetic gurgling sound.

  Caitlin pressed her head against the brick wall beside her and drew in deep breaths to try and keep the sudden dizziness at bay. This wasn’t like the things she’d seen at the hospital. That was always after the fact, always insulated from the actual violence. She’d never been in the midst of it. Now she was drowning in it.

  The gurgling finally stopped, and the sudden silence was overwhelming. Caitlin turned and opened her eyes in time to see the girl disappear into a cloud of darkness sprinkled with lights. In moments, the cloud had dissipated, leaving only a knife handle sticking out of the wall.

  Brendan knelt down beside Caitlin. “You still with me, Áin—­” His breath caught in his throat. “Uh, love? Did they hurt you?” He looked at her arms and face, his gentle hands moving over her neck and shoulders.

  Caitlin’s mind was grasping for anything that even resembled normal, but she couldn’t find it. She still felt dizzy, and nothing seemed to hold in her mind, until finally, a single thought rose to the surface of the maelstrom when she looked at the knife still in the wall. She kicked at Brendan. “Get away from me!”

  He stumbled back and stared at her.

  “I don’t know what, who you are, but just stay back.” She began inching away from him.

  He raised his hands and his eyes looked sad. “I’m not going to hurt you, love. If I wanted that, I wouldn’t have stepped in, now, would I?”

  He kept talking but Caitlin didn’t hear it. She tried to speak, but nothing would come out. Tightness in her chest made it hard to breathe, and things started to go black again.

  “Don’t lock up on me,” Brendan said. “Come on back, love. It’s over. You’re safe now. They’re gone.”

  “You—­” She stopped, and looked from Brendan to the knife buried in the wall. With a great deal of effort, she pointed a shaking hand at the blade. “You killed—­”

  Brendan made a pained expression, but it was gone in an instant. “Breathe. You’ve got to breathe.” His eyes seemed to radiate something that was oddly comforting, but the streetlights cast shadows over his face that made his scars more prominent, almost feral.

  “I, what just happened?” The logical voice in her head was now out of the closet and ranting.

  “Oíche-­sidhe.”

  “I’m sorry? What?”

  “Dark fae.”

  Caitlin blinked.

  “Faeries? The sidhe, fair folk?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Though the oíche aren’t what I’d call fair.”

  “No, that’s not possible.” She shook her head and started laughing. “No, there’s no such thing as faeries.”

  “I think they’d beg to differ with you on that, love.” He stood and offered her his hand. “Come on now, up with you.”

  She stared into his eyes and somehow knew he was telling the truth. Her floundering mind seized on this ridiculous explanation as a refuge from the unexplainable events.

  “Faeries?” She thought of all the stories her grandmother had told her, but the faeries in those stories were nothing like these. No. Faeries don’t dress like Hot Topic refugees. They dance in mushroom circles or drink the bowl of cream left out for them.

  This was all too much. Caitlin had to get home, back to the sanity of her life. She looked around. “Damn it, where are they?”

  “Where are what?”

  Her eyes darted to a glint in the streetlight. She grabbed the keys and got to her feet.

  “Would you wait a bleeding minute?”

  Caitlin got to her feet and shoved Brendan aside. “Just stay away from me.” She moved on shaky legs to her car. “I have to get home.”

  Brendan followed her. “I can help.”

  Caitlin unlocked her car, opened the door, and got in. She paused when she saw Brendan, then forgot to shut the door. She tried to put her key in the ignition, but her hands were shaking so badly she dropped them. Brendan bent to pick them up for her, but she got to them first.

  “I—­thank you, but—­” She closed the door as she jammed the key into the ignition and turned the engine over.

  “Wait, you should ride with me. You’re in no shape to drive, and me truck is just—­”

  Caitlin put the car in gear, stepped on the gas, and sped away from the curb, leaving Brendan with nothing but the smell of burned rubber.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Caitlin gripped the wheel so hard that her hands ached as she tore down the street. She reached for her cell phone, only to remember it was in her absconded purse. She cursed under her breath and pressed the accelerator. She had to distance herself from all this; if she could just see Fiona, everything would be okay. The high speed almost caused her to lose control of the small car, but she somehow managed to keep it on the road. She tapped the brakes and slowed down, but no matter how many miles passed, the feeling of dread wouldn’t abate.

  After what seemed like a century, she skidded to a stop in her driveway and leapt out almost before the car had stopped. She started to push her key in the house’s lock, but the front door was open.

  Caitlin fought to ignore the knot in her stomach as she stepped into the living room.

  The place was quiet and still. She looked around. “Fiona? Kris?”

  No answer.

  She spotted Kris lying on the floor behind the coffee table. Caitlin ran to her friend and knelt down beside her. She found no obvious injuries, but Kris was unconscious.

  “Fiona?” Caitlin called as loud as she could manage.

  “Mommy!” Fiona yelled from upstairs, and the tone of her voice froze Caitlin’s blood.

  Before the sound faded, Caitlin was on her feet and running up the stairs. As she reached the second floor, Fiona’s door flew open and the little girl ran out. Before she could reach Caitlin, white hands and arms sheathed in black fabric grabbed her.

  “Mommy!”

  “No!” Caitlin roared and charged into the room.

  Amid the bright colors and stuffed animals, the boy who had attacked Caitlin was placing a stump of wood in Fiona’s bed and muttering over it. It shimmered and almost looked like Fiona, but the body was pale and lifeless.

  Caitlin tore her eyes away from the simulacrum and saw a second boy, almost a twin of the first but without the black streak on his cheek, struggling to keep hold of Fiona, who was kicking and punching him.

  Caitlin lunged for her child’s outstretched hand.

  The boy trying to restrain Fiona muttered something and a cold shiver passed over Caitlin.

  Fiona’s tear-­str
eaked face went quiet and her body went limp.

  “No! My baby!” Caitlin screamed.

  The boy on the bed, who’d just turned around, said something Caitlin couldn’t hear. She felt another wave of cold, but it vanished in an instant, and she drove her fist into the faerie’s face.

  “Son of a bitch, I’ll kill you!” she said. Bone cracked under her knuckles and the oíche released Fiona as he spun and fell to the floor.

  Caitlin grabbed Fiona and turned to run from the room.

  “Codail!” a soft voice said into her ear as the voice’s owner threw dust into her eyes.

  Caitlin shook away a wave of dizziness and drove an elbow into the ribs of whoever was behind her. She heard the person grunt, stumble back, and hit the wall outside the room.

  “Sleep!” the one on the bed shouted, and threw more dust at her.

  As Caitlin took a step forward, her leg went out from under her. She drew Fiona close and turned so the child fell on her rather than the other way around.

  Sprawled on the hardwood floor, her body wasn’t responding to her commands, and her eyes grew heavy as she watched the boy casually climb off the bed. He smirked as he pulled Fiona from her arms.

  Inside her mind, Caitlin screamed that he was supposed to be taking her, not Fiona. She willed her body to grip her child and pull her back, to stand and fight. No sound came from her and her body didn’t answer.

  The boy snickered as he lifted one of Fiona’s arms and waved it at Caitlin. “Bye-­bye, Mommy,” he said, his words soaked with derision.

  “No,” Caitlin managed to say. In a final push of will, she reached with one arm for her child.

  The oíche slapped her hand away and it fell to the ground.

  Tears poured from her eyes.

  The oíche she’d punched gave her one last look before picking up a pink blanket from the bed and stepping over her. The one holding Fiona kicked Caitlin in the stomach before following his compatriot out of the room.

  Her eyes closed and darkness overtook her.

  CHAPTER FOUR