A Bargain of Blood and Gold by Kristin Jacques

Author:Kristin Jacques
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-64898-059-6
Publisher: City Owl Press

Chapter Eighteen

Vic slapped a hand over Johnathan’s mouth. He looked around with jerky, nervous movements. Johnathan pried him off, unsettled by the feeling of cool flesh, squeezing the vampire’s wrist so tight that Vic’s attention pulled back to him.

Vic frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong—you dragged us out on a wild chase for bleeding fairies,” Johnathan snapped. His chest heaved, too angered and unbalanced to deal with this nonsense. Vampires, ghouls, even the strange beasts here were tangible threats. But fairies?

“It’s not—” Vic paused to look around. “It’s not nonsense, John.” He scowled. “That aside, you insisted on coming, my dear idiot.”

Johnathan wasn’t listening because through the trees he saw the sight of antlers, dipping and weaving amid the branches. “Please be a stag.”

“What?” Vic turned to follow his gaze. “Shit.”

“Is now a good time to admit my poor fighting condition?”

Vic’s hand shot out, crushing the wooden buttons of Pastor Shaw’s coat in his bid to keep Johnathan from moving. “If you try to fight one of them, we’ll be in worse than poor condition.”

Johnathan rolled his eyes. “If that is your clever way of saying the fairies will kill us—”

“They won’t kill us,” said Vic.

Johnathan looked at him. “You’re serious.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here? They might need a pet.”

Johnathan clenched his jaw. “Don’t accept any food. Acquiesce to a dance, but don’t dance too long. Refuse further invitation through my own will.”

“You listened,” Vic said softly.

“Ridiculous as I find this whole exercise, it is never wise to ignore instruction.”

“I guess Society training has its merits.”

“Do shut up,” said Johnathan. He peered back through the trees, but the hint of antlers was gone. “It might have only been a deer.”

“Doubtful,” Vic muttered.

“Pastor Shaw will be put out by the destruction of his buttons,” remarked Johnathan. He frowned. “It’s the middle of the day.”

“Last time I looked.”

“Don’t fairies wait until the light of the blue moon or some other such nonsense before they reveal themselves to mortals?”

“Those are stories, John. This is the real thing, and they follow their own rules.” Vic inhaled deep for patience. “You’re from Boston, yes? Lots of Irishmen there. And you’ve obviously heard a tale or two.”

Johnathan thought of Dr. Evans. He was the son of an Irish immigrant, and sometimes, after too many drinks, he rambled off stories from his father’s homeland.

“What makes you think their legends aren’t as real as vampires?” Vic went on. “Every land has its lore, Johnathan, but understand that the inhabitants of such places aren’t bound by map lines. Just as fairies are accessible in the cairns of Ireland, they’re also accessible here, in a creepy woodland in Maine.”

Vic released his hold on the pastor’s much-abused coat and followed an unseen path, straight and true. Johnathan followed in his footsteps, wary and more than a little skeptical of the forest around them. Flashes of movement flicked through the corners of his vision, flights of brightly colored feathers, darting shapes with strange edges, but when he jerked his head around to look, nothing was there.

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