The quality of light was starting to increase, which means I was entering the gnomes’ domain. Joy. On the plus side, whatever had been skittering in my shadow decided to stay back. I guess the gnomes had rat-proofed or something. Or it didn’t like the taste of their flesh. Either way, it was a good thing. But I kept the wand out, anyway. I really didn’t want to have to shoot anyone. Even down here, there would be paperwork.
“You. Lost?”
I swear, the gnome hadn‘t been there half a second ago. But it was now, a foot high and all of it filled with the finest street corner ‘tude you could muster. Dress it in colors and it’d pass for a gangbanger.
“Nope. Visiting. Here to see a shut-in friend.”
I can’t blame my genetic donor for my smart mouth — that came down straight from the maternal line.
The gnome didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. But he didn’t call for backup, either. Just stared at me with those oversized eyes, the ones that you just know can find you in the middle of the night in a pitch-black room, and nodded, then let me pass by.
That creeped me out, way more than anything else had. Why wasn’t he worried. What were the little metal-skins planning?
“Huuuuman…” A taunting whisper, a mocking call, the tingle of fairy-dust on my skin, like a shiver in the middle of the night, coming from ahead of me.
“Huuuuuman.”
That one came from somewhere off to my left. The shiver became an itch, the urge to follow, to find the treasure such a creature undoubtedly hid here, below ground, in its mines.
“I don’t think so, boys.” I was a little old and jaded to be dusted that easily. I had no desire to be found, seven years from now, starved to death in a metal hole.
“And don’t bother with the rats, either,” I said, more loudly. “I’ll just turn them into stew.”
Bravado — if they actually did have rodents of unusual size down here, there’s no way I’d be able to hold off more than one, two max. But the whispering faded away, and they let me continue on unmolested.
No idea how much longer I walked, waiting any moment for giant teeth to dig into my arm or leg, getting more and more unnerved each moment, when I came to a four-pronged branch in the tunnels. One way was the correct choice, the others would leave me stranded somewhere I didn’t want to be. Maybe with rats. That’s why the little bastard wasn’t worried; it knew odds were good I’d end up lost.
“All right, Lee, now’d be a good time for your toy to work.”
As though it were listening, the globe in my hand flashed red when I moved it past the leftmost option, so I turned that way.
In the distance now I could hear noises, the rumble of machinery and voices blending into grey noise. A while in, and doorways broke the smooth walls, the sheet-steel doors boasting tiny latches just perfect for gnome hands. There weren’t any markings on the doors that I could see, but remembering the bush-baby peepers on that gnome, I didn’t assume that meant there weren’t huge signs everywhere my crap day-timer sight was missing.
Another multi-pronged split in the hallway, and I waved the globe back and forth slowly, letting it tell me where to go. If I hadn’t had the globe, I’d have been lost ten ways from Monday. Hopefully it would work on the way out, too. Or my bones would wash out into the East river’s low tide seven days from now, gnawed bare.
“Stop freaking yourself out, Hendrickson.”
This time the globe suggested the right side, and about five doors down that hallway, it flared so bright I almost dropped it.
“Here, then?” The sphere declined to answer. Either it was worn out, or it didn’t feel my stupid-ass question deserved an answer.
I tried the door handle but, as expected, couldn’t quite get my hand to work the latch properly. Thinking quick, I took the wand and bent the non-grounded end slightly. The metal was soft enough to do it without much effort, although I hated to ruin the thing. Not just because I didn’t know what effect it might have on it as a weapon but because it was a beautiful piece. Lee couldn’t make anything simply utilitarian. It wasn’t his nature.
The bend slid under the handle, and I could apply the right pressure to make the lock click open. Go me. I pushed gently, and the door swung open. Alert to anything from screams to gunshots to a vase coming down on my head, I stepped inside.
The room was about as far from the bleak exterior hallway as you could get. The walls were gray rock, framed at ceiling and floor with a dark, patina’d metal, and the floor was mostly covered in a thick fleecy rug, white and soft to the touch. There wasn’t any art on the walls, but the bed had a bright blue coverlet, and there were pillows that looked comfortable. A white wood vanity with a mirror above it, and enough geegaws scattered around to make any 14-year-old girl happy, I guessed.
No photos of her loving parents, I noted. No photos at all. No artwork, nothing representational. The fatae loved beauty, but mostly their own. Not so much about looking at pretties someone else made. That seemed to be a human thing … something Miss Susan was already losing.
“Who are you?”
I had been so busy looking around, I hadn’t secured all the entrances. I turned slowly to face the girl who’d come in through a side door, cursing myself upside and down. Thankfully, she was carrying a towel, not something that could be thrown or otherwise used as a weapon, and seemed disinclined to scream.
“Hello, Susan. I’m Danny. Your folks asked me to stop by and check on you. They’ve been worried, you know.”
Susan didn’t even blink, although she did shrug. Draping the towel across her neck, she walked into the room and sat down at the vanity, peering into the mirror as though checking for wrinkles. Her posture and pose was that of a mature woman, but her body was still skinny-gawky teenager, and her pose was just that — a pose.
“You should at least have left them a note, told them that you were all right.”
“They’ll forget about me, get a new kid,” she said, oh so casually. “That’s how it works, right?”
Oh we were going to play that game, were we.
“Sometimes. But mostly, no. Mostly the parents worry and stress and hire people to go looking, and sometimes they even risk their own lives — their souls — to bring back their loved one.”
I wasn’t getting through, I’d known I wouldn’t the moment I saw her. She was completely dusted. To her, this wasn’t a dreary hole in a dreary tunneclass="underline" it was fairyland, and she was the shiny new queen. Why did nobody read Thomas the Rhymer any more?
“You’re here to try and talk me back into going Above. I’m not interested. Tell my parents I’m fine.”
“You really think they’re going to believe that. Come tell them yourself.”
“No. If I leave, I’ll never find my way back. Ageo told me so. I’m not going to risk all this just to reassure them.”
Well, she had the Snow Queen cold down already. I very much did not like Miss Susan at all.
“Look. She stopped and looked at me. She had her father’s eyes, and her mother’s mouth. Nowhere near as pretty as she wanted to be, but not bad, overall. Give her another ten years and she might even break a few hearts. But not if she stayed down here.
“You have no right to tell me what to do.”
“True. I don’t.” And telling her anything would be useless, even if she hadn’t been dusted — she was a teenager. Short of dragging her out of here by her hair, there wasn’t much I could do.
The hair thing was tempting. But I had one card I hadn’t played. I hadn’t even thought to, honest, but seeing her sitting there trying so desperately to be what she thought was adult and sophisticated and … fatae-acceptable…
She had been missing for six days now. One day left, before she was lost to the above world forever.
I made my decision before I let myself think about it. If I thought about it, we’d lose her.