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“I want to strike a bargain.”
“Roman mentioned you might. I might fancy a plump child or two to whet my appetite—it’s been so long since I’ve had bright flesh, you know.” She broke into a weathered laugh. “But to strike the bargain, we must meet. I make no deals over the phone. I wil see you first.”
Steeling my nerves—I was afraid of few things, but Ivana Krask was apparently one of them—I agreed to meet her. She set the place in Cedar Fal s Park, on the edge of Bel es-Faire, in an hour. I hung up, wondering what the fuck I was getting myself into.
Cedar Fal s Park was a welcome relief from the park in the Greenbelt Park District where I’d found the body. There was no sense, that I could notice, of ghosts or spirits here. Or if there were, they were keeping their mists to themselves. I found the bench that Ivana had indicated and gingerly sat on the edge, brushing the snow away.
As I waited, listening to the soft hoot of an owl cal ing through the trees, I had the feeling something was watching me. I slowly turned just in time to see a faint shadow on the edge of the tree line. I waited—no way in hel was I headed into the woods to meet one of the Elder Fae. She could come to me.
And then, the figure began to move. At first, I thought she was hunched over, some old woman beneath a bonnet and shawl and a crazy-ass patterned dress, with a basket on her arm. But the shadow blinked and was five feet closer. Only now she stood erect, and I could only see a dark cloak surrounding her shoulders. Another blink and a swirl of colors, a sickly green and dark purple, shimmered within the silhouette. Blink. She moved twenty feet without me noticing. As if we were in some movie filmed back in the days before the talkies, she jerked toward me.
Blink. She was beside me.
Slowly, I stood and stared at the woman. She was squat. My height at best, but I had the feeling her real height was far tal er. I gazed at the bony hand that reached out from the depths of the cloak and merely nodded. Not such a good idea to shake hands. She could claim I’d made a silent deal. The Elder Fae were bril iant about manipulating oaths and vows.
“Ivana Krask?”
“One and the same.” She pushed back the hood of the cloak and I gasped. Truly, Elder Fae.
Her face was distorted—or at least by my view. Terribly wide at the eyes, it narrowed to a sharp point at the chin. Gnarls dotted her face and neck, like old knots on trees, only created from flesh.
Her features were almost flat—her nose a pale little bump in the middle of her face. Wide anime eyes reminded me of the Cheshire Cat. Her lips were thin, almost non-existent, and when she smiled, bone-sharp teeth, like polished arrowheads, gleamed in a long row across her upper and lower gums. The woman could probably chew through metal with that set of choppers.
She cocked her head to one side, so much like an owl that I felt like a mouse hiding in the grass.
“Vampyr?”
She didn’t seem to be talking to me but reached out and put one long, jointed finger against my arm, then pushed. Hard. A shot of electricity raced through me—unpleasant, to say the least.
“Vampyr.” She seemed satisfied.
“Youch! What did you . . .” I stopped myself. It was not wise to ask unnecessary questions of the Elder Fae, that much I knew from my school days. And why she was shooting energy bolts through me wasn’t of particular interest right now, not unless it promised to prove fatal. “Ivana Krask, I presume.” No questions, just statements.
“Ivana Krask.” She tipped her head to the side again, and the owl I’d heard earlier flew down to land on her shoulder. “I am the Maiden of Karask. What do you want from me?”
Of course! The Maiden of Karask was one of the Elder Fae. She was famous for eating children, luring men to their grisly deaths on the moors, and turning young maids into old hags, but she had one other power that forced its way up from my memory.
The Maiden of Karask was able to vanquish old, powerful spirits. She could move them as wel , dislodging them from one dwel ing to take them to another distant haunt. In days long past, vil ages had offered up sacrifices of young children to her when they had a problem due to ghosts and spirits.
Now, I understood why Roman had put me in touch with her, but I’d have to be very, very careful.
One wrong slip, one misstep in word choice, could be deadly. And it would be a fight to get her to accept prime rib in place of bright meat, as she put it. I also now understood why Roman had warned me never to say thank you to her. It would bind me to her—the Elder Fae considered thank you to be a pledge of debt, even if the bargain had been struck and met.
I sucked in a deep breath. “I have spirits that need dispel ing. I offer you ten pounds of prime beef for one house, twenty pounds if you clear two spots. But there is to be no eating of any bright meat in the area, do you understand? No capturing, no eating, no maiming, no hurting, no claiming. Bright meat is off limits. The beef wil be tender and sweet, however.”
The Maiden of Karask stared at me, her eyes flickering, her irises round and yel ow in the wide curved white that glistened under the stars. She hissed, and the owl on her shoulder hissed. “No, I must have bright meat. It has been too long.”
“The world has changed, old woman. You cannot steal bright meat from humans or Fae or elves.
It is no longer the way, and you must change with it.”
“No—change the world may, but not the Maiden of Karask. I am Elder! I am beyond the rules.”
She straightened her shoulders, and I knew I’d better not argue the point with her or I’d be on her plate.
“Barring discussion. Back to the deal. Ten pounds of prime beef for one clearing. Twenty pounds of prime beef for a second. Are you wil ing to strike the bargain?” I crossed my arms and let my fangs descend to remind her she wasn’t dealing with any ordinary FBH or Fae.
Her eyes glistened with tears, tears I knew better than to trust. “You are harsh, dead girl. You are cruel. How can I keep my powers without the sweet, succulent meat I love so wel ? I am ancient past old and you would deny me my sustenance? Cruel you are, and vicious.”
