Night Stalker by L.B. Carter

Author:L.B. Carter [Carter, L.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: L.B. Carter

Chapter

Eight

My eyes widen. I don’t relax my hold, but I don’t release it either.

Expecting to see the Cyhyraeth, I am floored to come arrow-tip-to-nose with a normal-looking woman.

She’s short for a human, closer to Puc’s height than mine, and bony to the point of being nearly skeletal. Her eyes are wide as they take in the weapon, though they’re oddly large to begin with and set wide on her round face. A flat mouth that reminds me of the toads I heard in her garden pulls down beneath a knobby, hooked nose. Most humans in this country practically reflect the moonlight; this woman’s skin is leathery and tanned to the point that she can probably camouflage in the trees around her house.

“Don’t,” the woman squeaks. “Don’t take my daughter.”

Years of interacting with Uncle taught me to withhold reactions. The arrow barely wavers.

The woman does know me, saw me before… and understood what I was here for. She’s the threat.

I take a deep breath. “Tell me your name,” I demand.

Her lips remain together.

“Please?” Humans and their favors.

“Will you leave my daughter?” A bargain. That’s more like a Tylwyth Teg.

I cock my head. “Who are you?” Is the threat to the monarch greater than I first thought?

Something moves behind the woman, and my arrow points directly at it.

The woman doesn’t move; she thinks me a greater threat than the Cyhyraeth? Or perhaps that’s proof there is no Cyhyraeth; perhaps it’s the child she begs to keep.

“Let me in, tell me your name, and I will leave your child.” It’s not my mission anyway.

She does shift then, only to block my way through the door—as if I couldn’t easily dispatch her and enter myself.

Frustrated, I lower the weapon. “Help me take out the monster in your child’s room, tell me your name, and I’ll leave you be.” Uncle may not though.

Although I am offering her a truce, I expect her to either panic and run to her child herself or call what she thinks is a bluff, and stand stronger against me. She does neither.

Her head cocks and her eyes seem to lose focus for a second, pupils dilating wide enough to overcome the green irises. Her body shudders once, perhaps chilled by the night breeze filtering through her loose t-shirt and sleep pants.

“Help you. Yes,” she mutters in a dreamy murmur. Then she steps back without complaint, allowing me to pass.

Puc blocks my way as he approaches the woman. “Na, Bwbach?”

“A brownie?” I repeat in the same awed tone. “They were wiped out during the war.”

So far as the Ellyllon knew. Or so I was told.

Bwbachod are human-loving deserters. They don’t live with the rest of the Tylwyth Teg. Instead, like symbiotic algae, they attach to an iron-bearing abode in this realm and work for the simplistic humans like slaves.

During the war, they decided to get involved in Underhill matters and chose a side. The wrong side. Of course, they were easily overpowered and wiped out.

Mostly, it seemed.

My lip curls as I take my first look at a Bwbach.

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