Faerie Read online

  Faerie

  Jenna Grey

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text and cover image copyright 2015 by Jenna Grey. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Contains adult themes, strong language, moderate violence, and explicit sexual content.

  *****

  Other Books by this author.

  The Tamarei series:

  Tamarei, Book One: Coming of Age; Tamarei, Book Two: Dark Gods; Tamarei, Book Three: Caranthus; Tamarei, Book Four: Feast of Fools; Tamarei, Book Five: Avenging Angel; Tamarei, Book Six: Twilight of the Gods; Book Seven: Fallen Angel; The Sorcerer’s Tale; The Guardian of the Gate; Blood Rites.

  Encounters:

  Night Caller

  Building Bridges

  The Fortunata series:

  Fortunata, Book One: The Lightning Struck Tower; Fortunata, Book Two: Deus Ex Machina; Book Three: Lord of Misrule.

  Miscellaneous:

  The Whisperer

  A letter from Desade

  Website: www.jennagrey.co.uk

  Email: [email protected].

  Twitter: Talisman_Queen

  Contents.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Author

  Chapter One.

  Cornwall, England.

  Lily struggled to open her eyes, struggled to move, but as hard as she tried she couldn’t make her muscles obey her. She was lost in darkness, a great black abyss that wrapped around her like a shroud, and even her sheer blind terror wasn’t enough to force her limbs to move or her eyelids to open. All she could feel in that darkness was a great weight pressing her down into the mattress with merciless intent, crushing her and making each breath tortuous. Something was sitting on her chest, keeping her pinned – she could feel hands over her breast bone, knees on her rib cage, a solid weight that had form and substance. And it wasn’t human.

  She had to open her eyes, had to see.

  A dreadful wave of fear swept over her as she felt a more solid weight settle on the end of the bed; a man, or something like a man, creeping slowly up the bed towards her. She could feel the undulating pressure as one knee followed the other, denting the mattress, moving steadily, relentlessly upwards. Small hands gripped her ankles, claws digging into her flesh like rat bites, and all the time the smaller hands kept her pinned with savage strength. She sent out a silent prayer, begging for help, help from the Powers That Be to spare her this, but her pleas were always in vain.

  The figure was beside her legs, a solid weight, his stinging cold form pressing against her thigh. She could hear the steady intake and out-take of his breath, deep and sonorous, each exhalation almost a sigh of pleasure. His all-too-solid hands were on her now, caressing her thighs, running over her body, and she willed her eyes to open, tried with every iota of her strength to prise her eyelids apart. At last she felt a tiny flutter. She could move her little finger, not much, but a tremble of movement – the paralysis was passing, but it was already too late. She felt the brush of fingers on her thighs, moving upwards, and she knew that if she didn’t open her eyes now, right now, then it would be too late.

  With one last superhuman effort she snapped her eyelids open and she saw.

  Perched on her chest was a diminutive figure, just a black silhouette that was nothing but shadow; a daevas, one of those noxious little demons that willingly served the darkness. It leapt away the instant she snapped her eyes open, giving a malicious little cackle, swiftly followed by the other two creatures that had been holding her ankles.

  She forced herself to look down at the figure crouching by her legs; she had to know, had to. The nebulous shadow of a large man, half mist and half flesh, was squatting beside her. It looked up at her and flashed a spiteful grin, like some malevolent Cheshire Cat; his yellow green eyes, two bright marbles, surrounded by velvet black.

  Lily smothered the scream that threatened to escape, forcing her fist into her mouth, and she watched as the figure, moving with impossible speed, vanished through the open window, leaving behind nothing but a cold mist, hanging in the air.

  She stumbled out of bed and slammed the window shut, barely able to fasten the catch, her hands were shaking so much. It was a useless exercise anyway; every night before she went to bed she shut and locked the window, but every morning she found it open again. Nothing could keep the Shadow People out.

  But she was Seelie Shee, and somehow she would find a way to stop them.

  She had no idea why these creatures were tormenting her, she only knew that of all the fey they were the worst. She had taken every precaution she could against these dark entities, but none of it had worked; she had used every kind of magical protection she could against them, but still they came, every night, getting bolder with each visit. That still and silent place between sleeping and waking had always held a certain kind of fear for her, but now she lived in dread of it, and no prayers could help her.

  And Lily knew, with absolute certainty, that one day she would not wake up in time.

  It was still dark – 3.20 – and far too early for her to go downstairs; she would do what she usually did in those pre-dawn hours and sit on the window seat, looking out at the moon bright night until dawn finally came. She only ever needed an hour or two’s sleep, so this had become a nightly ritual for her, this silent vigil, waiting, hoping, and always disappointed. Her room was at the top of the large old rambling house, the attic room, right up under the eaves, and she could see out across the lush green countryside from her high perch. There in the distance were the misty curves of the low hills, and the dark mirror of the lake, reflecting the near full moon with rippling brilliance. She loved sitting here for these few quiet hours, lost in a world that humankind could never hope to understand. Sometimes she truly pitied them for being so blind. And best of all, here for those few precious hours she didn’t have to pretend to be human.

  There was an old oak tree just outside her window, whose verdant foliage kept out a lot of light from her tiny room in summer, but she loved it being there, because the squirrels and birds would perch in its branches and she could feed them on her window sill; their constant chatter inspired her music ‒ bright chirpy tunes full of bird song and sounds of nature. An old owl had made its home right beside her window, and he would send her to sleep with his gentle hooting lullaby.

  It was almost a full moon, and she could see long shadows on the ground, every shape of every tree, and she would have given anything to be out there, dancing in the moonlight with her brothers and sisters, but she daren’t go out because the Shadow People were out there, always watching her, waiting to attack. She could see their dark forms moving in and out of the trees like wraiths, amorphous vapour, moving with terrifying speed, hiding in every shadow; they were probably scaring off any of her kind that might be out there and stopping her from going home.

  She had only ever seen her home in her dreams, but she had known that what she was seeing really was home, and not j
ust her imagination. Her world was neither above or below, neither near or far, just separate to this one, existing alongside of it, overlaying it like a double exposure. It was simply that humans couldn’t see it except in rare glimpses in places where the veil was thinnest. Many of the fey chose to live in this reality in an underground world, a crossover point between the two dimensions. Great underground caverns were filled with arcane light, and here the fey held court; in mines and burrows some of the smaller solitary fey, like goblins and pookas had their own little domains. Worlds within worlds and realities within realities, and she wanted more than anything to get back where she belonged. She was a stranger in a foreign land and her heart was breaking.

  The sun finally broke over the horizon, and Lily sat for a time, reading, until she could reasonably go downstairs without being interrogated about why she was up so early. She washed and dressed on autopilot, her mind still struggling with the memories of that dark form pressed against her legs. When she looked down, two livid bruises already encircled her ankles where the daevas had held her – proof that it wasn’t just her imagination, Not that she, for one moment, ever thought that it was. Needle-sharp punctures littered the purple anklet of bruised flesh, where their claws had dug in as they held her with such brutal restraint.

  She braced herself before she looked in the mirror, knowing that her face would show her fear – her mortal, or rather immortal, terror. Her waist length braid had become unfastened, and her hair spread out over her shoulders like a burnished mahogany cloak, it clung to her sweat-beaded forehead, and she rubbed the cold face flannel over her skin, trying to bring herself to life. The face that looked back at her from the mirror was haunted, her eyes like bright green glass, showing too much white. She was always ghost pale, but today her skin seemed almost transparent, little blue veins peeping out from under her skin. She pinched her cheeks to try and bring some colour into them. She had to stop this, had to stop being the victim – but she was the victim, wasn’t she? She allowed herself a few tears.

  Maudlin self pity over for the day, she plaited her waist length hair in one long braid down the back, just as she usually did – she had tried cutting it, but even when she cut it to shoulder length it had grown back down to her waist again by the next day, so she had given up now. She sprayed it with so much oil that it stuck together in matted clumps, turning it from rich dark brown to greasy black. Then came the pan stick – a thick coat over her lips, to make them look unappealing, and finally the face powder to dull down her skin’s natural luminosity. She looked quite dreadful – and that was just the way it had to be. All she needed to do then was to complete the ensemble: a shapeless, dull blue dress, huge baggy cardigan and black-framed Clark Kent glasses. A picture of style and elegance – but she was hidden. It would be so much easier if she could use glamour, but as hard as she’d tried she hadn’t been able to weave another form around herself. She stood in front of the mirror for hours, willing herself into another form, but all she’d managed to do was to lay a vague half-formed image around herself, as if someone were projecting a hologram over the top of her real shape. For now she had to resort to cruder methods to hide herself. It seemed that all of her other fey magic worked well enough – just not that one.

  She crammed the history text book into her already too-full bag and winced as she felt the seam pop a stitch or two. Downstairs she could hear her foster mother, Claire, screaming at one of the younger children, probably for nothing, and then there was the sound of a yelp as hand hit flesh. Lily felt her stomach tighten, anger nipping at her and making her face hot. One of these days... But then, one of these days was never likely to come, because she would be eighteen in a few days’ time and Social Services had already arranged for her to move out and go into a place of her own. They’d sent her a letter with the address and details, but she’d not even bothered to look at it – she only knew that it was on the other side of the village somewhere; fear of the unknown had forced her to cram the letter into her bag and refuse to acknowledge it. But it lay there, crumpled in the darkness and she knew that very soon she was going to have to deal with it.

  In many ways she would be glad to get away from this place, away from the foster mother from hell that seemed to hate all of her charges, away from the endless routine of chores and barked orders, away from lack of privacy and disregard of basic human rights. But she would miss her younger foster brother and sister; Liam and Sarah. Despite the drawbacks of living in this place, still it was home, and Lily had got used to it. The place she was going to was an unknown quantity, terra incognita, and she was just a little bit afraid. She would also have to start looking for a job, because she couldn’t live on income support for the rest of her life – the thought of that on its own was enough to bring her out in a rash.

  She hoisted the bag up over her shoulder and made her way down to the hall. Claire was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, arms folded across her pigeon chest, like a bird of prey waiting to devour her. Lily always swore that Claire could glower better than anyone she’d ever known; sometimes her face pinched in so tightly that Lily thought it would implode.

  “Make sure that you get back by four-thirty, I need a hand with the ironing,” Claire said, in a voice that could have sheared through hardened steel. Lily stared down at the floor, wondering what Claire’s face would look like covered in warts. It was too tempting a thought to dwell on it for too long. Lily went into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of cereal bars to eat on her way to college, jamming them into her already groaning bag.

  “I’ll get back as soon as I can, promise, but I’ve got to go to the library after college – my books are due back, and I’ve got some course work to finish, sorry,” she replied, sounding nothing like it – she had perfected compliant insolence to a fine art. The glower became a wonderful and terrible thing to behold as Claire went into battle mode.

  “I want you back here by five-thirty at the latest. I need you to get the kids to bed after we’ve done the ironing – I can’t do everything.”

  Lily thought that it would be rather nice if Claire did something, instead of leaving almost all of the housework to her, but she just gave the barest nod, hunching inside of her tent of a sweater, thinking dreadful thoughts and made for the door. Behind her she could hear Claire still screaming at little Liam. Liam was only three, and bright as a new penny, always watching and listening, taking everything in. Without Lily to protect him he would be at the mercy of ‘She Who Must be Obeyed’, always being screamed at for violating some imaginary rule or other – for simply being a normal three-year-old. His crime: failure to have enough manual dexterity to control a full, giant-sized box of cornflakes, resulting in the spillage of a few cornflakes over the side of his bowl.

  Lily turned and saw Claire standing over little Liam, raging at him, and decided that enough was enough. She closed her fist and visualised herself seizing a handful of Claire’s hair – it was as real to her as if she had actually done it; she could feel Claire’s grey-brown, wire-wool hair, in her closed fist, and she wrapped her hand around it, yanking it hard. Claire yelled and stumbled backwards, grabbing at her hair and pulling against Lily’s grip, looking around to see who had attacked her – the giant box of cornflakes she was brandishing like an offensive weapon flew out of her hands, showering the room with golden snow. She whirled around, still pinned by her hair, performing a sort of clumsy arabesque and looking terrified. The room was empty apart from little Liam – Sarah was just making a breathless hurtle down the stairs, pulling up her knickers and Kieran was still in the bathroom. Lily innocently waved Claire a goodbye with her free hand, a smile that would charm serial killers into mercy plastered on her face. Claire stared at her in bewilderment, rubbing her head, looking just a little afraid, and Lily noticed with some satisfaction a handful of hair lying in Claire’s open palm as she pulled it away. Lily gave a cheery wave as she went through the door, trying to stifle her giggles.

  Once outside she felt a great wave
of relief sweep over her, and she drew in a lungful of sweet air. It was always a relief to leave home behind her, to get out into the quiet country lane that smelt morning fresh, where the only sounds were of birds and nature. The smell of the woods and trees was like balm to her, soothing and reassuring. This was her world, a world of earth and sky and water. And for just a few moments she could forget the Shadow People and how much she feared them.

  Her present place of residence, Hale Hall, which she had long since named Hell Hall, was ten minutes’ walk from the village and that part of her journey was always the best part of Lily’s day. It was a lovely walk, through perfect countryside, a little bit of Elphame nestled in the world of men. Even the village was the right side of good, quaint and friendly even though Little Ostrey was a very small village by anyone’s standards, with a population of just over a thousand. It was a typically English village, with a row of Tudor houses, two pubs, a post office, a general grocery shop, a hairdressers and a florist. You could be in one side and out the other without even seeing it if you gave a slow blink, its peaceful tranquillity did make it a good place to live, if you were fey, and stranded far from home.

  She’d try to slow her pace as much as she could as she walked to college, without making herself late, drinking in the quiet serenity of the shady wooded lanes, sometimes stopping if she heard a noise in the bushes to see if she could spot a squirrel or fox, badger or rabbit – or dare she ever hope, one of her kind. The area was abundant with wildlife, a glorious nature reserve, teeming with furry and feathered life. She had found, at quite a young age, that she could ‘talk’ to animals after a fashion, getting vague impressions of what was going on in their little heads, although it never amounted to more than scattered images which usually revolved around nuts, sex, or stalking prey: pure animal instinct with no real thought or reasoning. But she could see through their eyes sometimes, which was the strangest of sensations – rather like those experiments she’d seen when a camera was fastened to a cat’s collar and you could see where they were going and what they were up to. She had tried sending thoughts out to them, but all she managed to do was scare them away.