Creatures ok anthology, p.42
Creatures of the Dark Anthology, page 42
“Special iron core bullets,” said Callan with a smile. “Much slower than regular ones but lethal to the fae.”
However, his triumph was short lived. The Baobhan Sithe crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye. One of her arms swiped at his torso, throwing him to the ground. The gun and the backpack flew out of his hands. Before he could get up, the creature jumped on him and pinned him down. His head hit the hard concrete road.
For a moment, he saw black. Blinking several times to clear his vision, he felt five sharp knives slowly piercing his body. Looking up, he saw the creature above him with its talons digging into his chest. He felt the warmth of his blood as it soaked through his shirt. Powerless, he looked into the gleaming crimson eyes.
Within seconds, her talons would pierce through his heart. He searched his soul for regret but found none. Irene had probably run into the woods that stretched on both sides of the road. She could hide there until help arrived.
He looked away from the merciless scarlet eyes. He glanced to the side and almost shouted. Irene was still there, rummaging through his backpack.
A gasp tore out of him as the talons dug deeper. Eyes streaming with tears, he looked back at Irene. He’d held a secret fascination and crush over her since the day he laid eyes on her three years ago. Tonight had been the longest conversation he ever had with her. A chuckle escaped him despite the pain.
“Back away!” hissed Irene suddenly.
Both Callan and the Baobhan Sithe turned towards her. She held a curious contraption. It resembled a crossbow but instead of an arrow at the front, there was a golden circular ring. Moonlight reflected off its sharp outer edge.
“Irene,” said Callan with his remaining strength. “Run! That device doesn’t work.”
For a fleeting moment, their eyes met. Next second, thin filaments of silver light appeared around her arm. They wrapped together and steadily wove their way towards the contraption. With a click, the golden disc shot forward. Rotating at high speed, it whistled through the air like a Frisbee. Before the creature could guess what it was, the circular blade had sliced through its throat.
The monstrous head fell down to the ground with a low thud and rolled away while its body remained stationary, still positioned over Callan with its nails pierced through his chest.
Throwing the crossbow away, Irene rushed forward. One by one, she wrenched out the talons. Blood oozed out from the holes, darkening the white cotton shirt he wore. But his heart was still intact. He would live. Probably…
With her help, he was able to sit up.
“Are you hurt?” he asked in a low, pained voice.
“No. But you are.”
“Leave me here. There is an intersection half a mile away. There’s more traffic there than on this route. You will find someone to give you a ride to go back to the headquarters.”
“No,” she said. The firmness in her voice surprised him. “You are coming with me.” Standing up, she extended her hand towards him. Blood loss was making him woozy but he grit his teeth. He would not make a sissy out of himself in front of Irene Hayton. Taking her hand, he stood up.
“There are two cars around that bend,” she said, pointing ahead. “I’ll drive us to your home.”
“My home?” Callan asked, confused. “I need to go to the hospital and you need to get back to the headquarters. Henry would want to know you’re safe.”
“No.”
Her refusal to go back to the safety of the Order was baffling. Why was she insisting to go back to his place?
“It’s not the grandest of places,” said Callan honestly. “You wouldn’t be as comfortable.” The sadness in her crystal blue eyes astonished him. He decided to go with what she wanted. She was probably traumatized by the events to think straight. “Hey, it’s all right,” he said in a softer tone. “You can home with me.”
3
Callan was a tall and well-built man. He leaned against Irene heavily while she opened the car door to help him inside. She felt her knees about to buckle under his weight. She was out of breath as she muttered, “Slide in.” As he climbed into the car seat, she secured him with the seat belt. “I’ll be back with your stuff.”
Callan leaned against the seat. His face had gone pale and sweaty. “Forget it.”
“No. I don’t want to leave behind any trail.” Before he could say anything, she closed the door with a loud whack and went back to the bloody scene.
Doing her best to not look at the men’s corpses, she picked up the backpack. It was difficult to see in the dark but she was able to locate the gun and the circular blade that had sliced through the Baobhan Sidhe’s throat. She was about to leave the scene when something occurred to her.
Turning around to face the grotesque unattached head of the Baobhan Sidhe, she smiled. “Thank you, Miss Grundy. Your greed for my blood opened my way to escape the Order.”
She walked back to the car. Callan opened his eyes but they were mere slits. “Are you okay?” he asked. His voice was slurred.
“I am fine. Tell me your address. I will take you home now.”
“Fifth floor of Tulip Towers. 243, Westerton Avenue.”
Irene started the car and hit the accelerator. Within fifteen minutes, they were on one of Lost Sanctum’s deserted streets. Since it was late night, she drove at high speed until they reached a suburban area of the city.
“You live here?” asked Irene, staring up at an old building. Illuminated by flickering street lights, it looked dark and foreboding. The entryway was dimly lit, giving her pause. It looked like the sort of place where low life smugglers met for drinking and trading pot.
A chuckle escaped Callan. “I told you so. It won’t be comfortable for you here. If you could just call for emergency services, I’ll be fine. You can leave.”
“No,” she replied in a tight voice. “I’ll take you inside now. Come on.” Climbing out from her side, she walked around the car and opened the door to help him out.
Her spine felt like it would crack under the engineer’s weight. She breathed hard but didn’t utter a single complaint as she tottered forward. Entering the building’s entryway, she saw the elevator at the end of a long, narrow hallway.
“Move your feet,” coaxed Irene. “We’re almost there.”
It was with relief that she stepped inside the elevator. She hit a button with a faded “5”. With a jerk, they began to ascend.
When the elevator came to a halt, Irene breathed out. She’d been holding her breath until then, unsure whether the ancient thing would break apart before they reached the fifth floor.
“We are here,” she said, taking his arm. “Which one is your apartment?”
“E,” slurred Callan.
“Where’s your key?” she asked when she’d reached a wooden door with a metallic “E” on it.
“Unlocked.”
“What?” she asked, turning to look at the man beside her. Not believing him, she turned the knob hard. To her surprise, the door opened with a whine of the rusty hinges.
Callan removed himself from her and staggered forward. He supported himself on the wall of a narrow corridor until they reached the living room. He switched on the lights.
“You’ll find a first-aid kit in the cabinet over the sink,” he said pointing to a door to the right. “I’ll be in the bedroom.” Leaving her to look around the small flat, he slowly headed to the room further ahead.
Opening the door that Callan had pointed to, she found herself in a tiny bathroom. Her gaze went to the mirror over the sink. Her blond hair was sticking out in tangles. The plum-hued gown was torn in several places. Dirt and scratches marred the otherwise flawless skin of her arms and face.
“You look mad,” she said to her reflection. A smile lit up her face before she looked up and opened the cabinet above the mirror. Taking the first-aid box, she went into Callan’s bedroom.
He’d thrown his jacket on the floor. As she looked on, he unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a bloody vest. Removing it, he slowly sat down on the bed. There were five deep gashes at the left side of his chest.
Irene rushed forward. “Lie down. I’ll take care of it,” she said, helping him lie on the pillow.
She began cleaning his wounds by dabbing a towel in hot water doused with antiseptic lotion. He grit his teeth against the stinging pain each time she touched the gashes. Over the next hour, she patched him the best she could.
“Take these pills,” she said, handing him two tablets and a glass of water. “One is a painkiller and the other will help you sleep.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, taking them from her.
She watched his eyelids slowly shut close. A part of her felt guilty for involving him in her plans but she had no choice. Her goal was to escape the Order and the clutches of its director, Henry Davenport. Callan changed both their destinies the moment he’d decided to risk his life to save hers.
Even if she had died that night, her strategy would have still worked. She knew the red-haired woman was a Baobhan Sidhe. Henry had mentioned it in the passing as he led her around the stately ballroom. All she did was pierce her thumb with a safety-pin. Miss Grundy could not miss the scent of fresh blood and once she took a good whiff, she knew Irene was no ordinary woman. Irene had laid the bait and Miss Grundy spent no time in going after her. Irene insisted on going back to the Order much earlier than Henry, making sure he wouldn’t have a clue about what happened to her.
Miss Grundy easily finished off the agents who were with her. She’d tried to escape before being caught but the Baobhan Sidhe had made a fast job of killing the men who opposed her. Thankfully, Callan arrived at the exact moment to rescue her. Still, even if she’d died, she would have congratulated herself. Davenport could no longer use her to push humanity to the brink of another Great War.
“I’ll be back soon,” she said, stroking the long strands of Callan’s raven-black hair.
Crossing the front hall, she closed the door behind her and went down the elevator. The inky sky looked a little lighter than before. Dawn was close. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, she climbed into the car and drove back to the scene of carnage.
No one had come across the bodies yet. Luck was with her that night. She got out of the car and left the door open.
She started walking away from the car. The road merged with another highway half a mile from there. She could wait for a car or truck to pick her up from there. This way the Order would not be able to track the car. They wouldn’t know whether she was alive or dead. There was just one more thing to handle but that could wait.
Her feet ached from walking the long distance in her stilettos but she kept going. The hem of her expensive gown was dirty and torn. However, the long breaths of cold air she took tasted sweet with the essence of freedom.
Her life had not always been that way. Irene grew up in foster care with a good family with two children. Life had been wonderfully ordinary. She went to school, whined about homework, loved summer and looked forward to her birthdays and Christmas.
It all changed the day when Irene turned fifteen. She was forced to reveal her powers to save the students of her classroom from a gunman. The man had barged in, threatening to shoot. He stood at the doorway, blocking the way out.
While the kids along with the teacher cowered, Irene had stood up and allowed her magic to reach the man’s gun. She disabled the contraption but a room of twenty teens had witnessed the silver filaments emanating from her arms and reaching the gunman.
The Order had appeared within the hour along with the cops. She never returned home again.
Henry Davenport told her she was special. He introduced her to the Otherworld- a world of creatures that rarely appeared even in fairy tales. Over the years, she was told how dangerous they were. The Order did everything in its power to keep people safe from them.
In his defense, the fae were dangerous. Every now and then, some of their kind would break the ancient treaty and hurt humans. The Order was charged to protect the people from all things that went bump in the night and it did so quietly, in secret.
However, it was also its duty to arrest people who broke the treaty and harmed the fae. Peace between the two factions always hung in the balance but over the last four thousand years, it was maintained by the Order and the fae royalties all over the world.
One particular day, she came across Henry Davenport’s hidden lair in the basement of the Order’s headquarters. She’d been sixteen at the time.
She found a naked woman with half her body submerged in a tank of water. Her wrists were bound with iron manacles and thick chains forced her arms upwards. She had dark green hair that stuck to her shoulders and arms.
Approaching closer, she found the woman’s body covered in black bruises. Looking into the tank, she saw a fish tail in the water. From what she could tell, the woman was a mermaid.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
The woman opened her eyes slowly. The pupils were thin black slits in a stretch of white. Seeing Irene, she blinked and raised her head.
“Has the man sent you to torture me, girl?” the woman asked in a hoarse voice.
“No,” said Irene. “What did you do to deserve such punishment?”
Her mouth chomped viciously. “Nothing!” she hissed. “I refused to talk about my family and give away the secrets of my clan. I do not trust humans. They always long to capture us and make us their pets.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Irene. “Why would the Order capture you to ask about your people? The Order already knows enough about merpeople and their ways.”
“Because it is the best way to defend ourselves,” said a voice from behind her.
Turning around, she saw Henry Davenport. The mermaid gnashed her teeth and rattled the chains that bound her hands.
“I don’t understand. Why is she locked here if she hasn’t done anything criminal?” asked Irene.
“At times, I break the rules,” said Davenport with a shrug. “I use my personal men to capture rogue fae and question them about their kind. We experiment to find their weaknesses. If some day one of them attacks us, we can fight back.”
“There’s no need for this, Henry,” said Irene. “The Fae Court of Lost Sanctum will give us this information freely. There is no need to hurt innocent fae.”
Davenport scoffed. “Innocent? I’d wipe them all away if I could. It is disgusting that my city contains the greatest fae population in North America. Their hordes reside under the ground, making claim over Lost Sanctum as their own. They even have the audacity to host a fae court in a town where the Order’s headquarters stand. ”
Irene never knew what happened to the poor mermaid but Davenport had finally found a way to bring about the destruction of the fae in Lost Sanctum.
Few years ago, he came across an underground vault that was filled with dismantled weapons from the Golden Arsenal of the Tuatha De. With the help of Callan Galloway, he’d been able to put them back together and fix them. And he forced her to energize those contraptions. Davenport had an artillery of the most dangerous fae weapons, thanks to both her and Callan.
Irene had been watched over ever since she stepped into the Order’s headquarters. Agents secured her suite and any time Davenport allowed her to go outside, she would be guarded by them.
That night, her guards had failed. She was free.
All that was left to do was to get Callan on her side and perhaps, there would be a chance to foil Henry Davenport’s insane plans to wipe out the city’s fae population.
4
The sun was shining through the curtains when Callan woke up. Blinking against the glare, he turned to look at the clock on his bedside table. It was 2 P.M. Rubbing his eyes, he sat up. At the same time, he felt an intense pain slice through him, reminding him of the wounds on his chest. His hands brushed over the bandages. Events of last night flashed though his mind. With a start, he looked around his room.
Irene Hayton was there. She was perched on a chair and sleeping with her head down on the desk in the corner. In the rays of the afternoon sun, the strands of her hair shone like burnished gold.
He rarely got to stare at her this way at work. Each time she came down to his workshop at the Order’s headquarters, the director would be there by her side. He was smitten by her angelic face and quiet demeanor the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. But with Henry Davenport possessively hovering around her, there never was enough chance to look at her or even talk to her.
A goofy smile came upon his lips as he gazed at her now.
His stomach rumbled loudly. Grumbling, he climbed out of bed and walked into the front hall of the flat. Picking up the telephone attached to the wall there, he dialed the number to his favorite pizzeria.
“Hey Steve, this is Callan,” he said in into the receiver. “Send me two large pepperoni pizzas as soon as you can. I am starving.” He hung up. The food would arrive within half an hour. He headed to the small kitchen on the other side of the hall and started making coffee.
“Who were you talking to?” said a cold voice.
Turning around, he saw Irene staring at him.
“I was ordering pizza. How do you like your coffee?” he asked.
The suspicion on her face was replaced by surprise. “Black with sugar. Thanks.”
Callan gave her a nod and switched on the coffee maker. He approached her at a slow gait, doing his best not to alarm her. “Would you like a shower first?”
“Yes but I don’t have anything to wear.”
“None of my clothes would fit you,” said Callan, looking away. “But you’re welcome to use anything from my closet for the time being. We can get you something new later.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Galloway.”
“Call me Callan,” he said at once. Then he faltered. “I mean…after what we went through last night…”
She chuckled softly. “You’re right, Callan. There is no need for formalities between us.” He sensed she was still suppressing a lot from him but he let it go. They both needed to relax. And coffee was a must before he could start making sense of why Irene Hayton had decided to follow him home.
