Discovering Fae

“Malachi King!” I shouted into the morning air. “If you don’t find me today, I swear, I will make the rest of your life hell! You hear me?!”

It’s the morning of the third day in this jungle. I still don’t know where I am, but I can honestly say I was not a fan of the night life. It was down right scary out here after hours and I was super happy that I was able to make a fire. I was also able to get a little bit of water. Barely enough to fill my mouth, but it’s better than no water at all.

I made a trap to catch whatever small meat giving creature I can get, but the only time I caught anything, something else got to it before I could and only left behind some blood and bits of fur.

“I am sure whoever you are speaking to cannot hear you,” a raspy voice said and I froze, half ducked like I got caught dancing in my room. “Don’t worry. If I wanted to harm you, I would have done it days ago.”

That certainly didn’t make me feel any better.

There was no sound at all for a moment before this old man came out of the jungle. If I didn’t watch it myself, I wouldn’t believe he had walked. He didn’t make a sound.

He had dark skin from a long life in the sun and it looked wrinkled and rough from the elements. His hair was thin and white and wild, close to his ears in length. The whites of his eyes were yellowish and the irises were so dark, I couldn’t tell where they ended and his pupils began. He was bony, but not in an unhealthy kind of way. He was just old.

“Who are you?” I asked him.

“That is not the question you have come here to answer,” he answered in his raspy, thickly accented voice.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“You are here,” he smiled.

“Do you have anything useful to say? Or food that doesn’t crawl around on the way down?” I snapped.

He laughed a gravely rasping laugh that flashed uneven yellowed teeth.

“I have watched you since you came out of the sacred cave,” he said gesturing towards where the cave mouth was a fair distance away. “You have many troubles in your spirit.”

“I was working on that when I ended up in your “sacred cave”, which freaks me out, by the way, because bats are disgusting cave rats with wings,” I shuddered.

“They are sacred to my people,” he said.

“I suggest changing that,” I replied flatly, making him chuckle again.

“Like bats, your troubles hide until the light has gone. Sometimes, they can be found in the light, but only one or two, never the whole colony,” he said.

“I am aware of them, but also like the bats, I’m not about go into that cave and try to chase them out,” I crossed my arms. “Can you please tell me where I am? Or how in the heck I’m going to get back?”

“You are here and you go the same way you came,” he gestured towards where the cave was.

“Any clue how I got in there in the first place?” I asked.

“The ways of the spirit are not so clear,” he answered.

“Any ideas, then? I’ll take a guess, at this point,” I said and put more wood on the fire.

“First, you must ask. Then, you must seek the answer,” he said, holding up his bony fingers as he spoke. “When you have the answers you came here to seek, you must calm the troubles of your spirit. A calm spirit will lead the way.”

“I am asking,” I snapped at him.

“You ask the wrong questions,” he smiled.

“Who are you?” I asked, getting irritated.

“Who are you?” he countered.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“Why are you here?” he asked instead.

“You are not helpful at all,” I glared at him.

“Help comes from within before it comes from without,” he tapped his temple.

“Well, your name is clearly not “helpful”, is it?” I asked.

“I told you, it is not me you must know,” he chuckled. “Tell me, who are you?”

“My name is Fae,” I answered as I dusted my hands off on my rather dirty jeans. Gods above I bet I smelled terrible. No wonder he was keeping his distance from me.

“It’s not your name I ask for,” he shook his head. “I will try again some other time.”

I watched as he turned around and left just as quietly as he came.

“Yeah, well, hopefully, I won’t be here later,” I said, more to myself than the crazy old man.

I needed to let Mal know I was okay. He had to be freaking out and taking it out on himself because he couldn’t find me. Maybe he had and it’s just taking a long time for him to get here. I may not know where I am, but the closest jungle was thousands of miles away from him. How far could he fly in one day? Surely he would have to take detours to avoid being seen by humans. That would slow him down. Then there was the weather. Who knew what storms there were between where he was and wherever the heck I was.

Yes, I needed to let him know I was okay. He’d get impatient and reckless and do something dumb, so I really needed to figure out how to use this Bond. I had been told the general idea, but Mary and Quinn said that each Bond is different. What worked for them might not work for us. Mal had tried to explain how he was able to use the Bond to find me and I didn’t really understand anything he said beyond “I focused on you”.

My focus had been on him since I came to this place. My chest was damn near raw, I had been rubbing at the empty ache so much. It couldn’t be that hard, right?

Blaine

My parents and I had spent more time in the Sidhe than on earth since I got home and told them that Zane had gotten out of the containment cell under the dining room. We only went back to pay bills and keep things managed. Like getting rid of the old food in the fridge and taking out the trash that had started stinking up the whole house, checking the mail, paying bills.

Mostly, we were in the Sidhe, moving from one place to the next looking for Zane. We still had no idea how he got out of the cell or how he got to the Sidhe in the first place, let alone how he showed up at the battle when we needed him the most. He was right next to me just before he took off. I tried to stop him, but I was stopped by a gray Demi. At the time, I was exhausted and knew there was no way I could fight them off. Not without my brother beside me.

By the time we started looking for him, the trail had vanished and we couldn’t track him. Not even Dad, and he was a fully grown hellhound with decades more experience than me.

Still, when Ben showed up in a village of clerics, cursing and swearing while he smoldered from being a demon on blessed ground, I left my parents to find my brother while I went to find out what happened to Fae.

And that was how I ended up facing off with a hellcat in the middle of the woods in front of Nana’s house.

Hellhounds stole and consumed souls when unbound. Hellcats, on the other hand, were sort of like the ferrymen for the souls claimed by demons. If you sold your soul to a demon and then died when your timer ran out, a hellcat would be sent to collect. If that demon, however, decided that he wanted payment before your clock expired, usually, a hound was sent.

We had similar jobs, but, just like our non-fae counterparts, we did not get along very well. I respected Jacob because he wasn’t a real hellcat, and he was helping Fae. But then, Ben tells me he could be the reason she’s gone and refuses to tell us how that happened? Yeah, I’m skinning me a cat tonight.

He wasn’t as big as me and I outweighed him, but he was faster, older, and had freaking claws. Those things hurt. But I was born to be a hound. He was cursed to be a cat. In the end, I got the better of him and had him pinned by his throat.

“Don’t kill him,” Mal reminded me as he pushed off the side of the house where he had watched us. “Yet.”

Now, I may be a terrifying hound of hell, but I am smart enough to fear certain things. My mother when Zane chewed her favorite boots when he first shifted was right up there next to an angry Fae and spiders. But I would rather deal with both of those angry women throwing flaming spiders than to ever be near Malachi King when he believed Fae was in danger.

He may be all soft and squishy and all dopey looking when Fae was around him, but the second Ben and I popped out of the Sidhe, I wanted to turn tail and run back to my mother. He was furious, vengeful, and I could smell Death following him. There was no doubting how far he would go to get her back and this cat was currently standing in his way.

“Do you know what happens when a hellhound kills?” Mal asked Jacob. “Smart man like you probably does. Pretty much everyone knows what happens. I am curious to know what happens when a hellhound kills a hellcat, though.”

Jacob hissed as best as he could with me standing on his stomach and chest and biting down on his neck. I growled, shutting him up.

“Ben, Blaine, and Fae all tell me about you helped her after I was an idiot and left her. I appreciate it, really,” Mal said as he walked around us so Jacob to look at him. “But now, she’s gone. The Bond is telling me she’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And you, Jacob, were the one that was with her last before she freaked out and disappeared.”

Jacob’s tail lashed around behind us, and his pupils dilated to narrow slits when Mal crouched down so Jacob to look at him without trying to bend his neck, which I was not loosening up on enough for him to move.

“Mary and Quinn don’t think you did anything to hurt Fae, and I believe that,” he continued. “But I also believe that you had something to do with it. I believe that you know where she is. Or you might know. Either way, you’re going to tell me what you know and you’re going to do it fully. No leaving things out. Remember, you’re not in much of a position to annoy me and if I think you’ve held back or lied in anyway... I guess I’ll find out what happens when a hound kills a cat.”

Nana huffed and crossed her arms in her doorway as she watched the scene play out, Ben standing nearby, in case she tried to interfere, which she didn’t oddly enough. I would have thought she would have at least said something, but that huff was the first sound she’s made since the three of us showed up to find Jacob already waiting for us outside.

“She’s here,” Jacob struggled to speak. I still refused to let up any. “And she’s there.”

“That makes no sense,” Ben scoffed.

“Actually,” Nana said, rubbing her temples. “Such a place exists. If that’s where she is, then we all have a very big problem.”