Page 39 of Wicked Things

She told me that the Bible said that God opposed the wicked and their ways. She said their actions would ultimately lead them to ruin. I knew now that she must have been right.

For a long time, I thought my poor grandmother had been simply raving, out of her head in her last illness. She had died from the White Plague, a terrible wasting disease that ate away at her muscles and flesh, literally “consuming” her body, no matter what I tried to do for her. I still remember the hollowness of her eyes, and the coughing that went on all day and night. Not to mention the high fevers and night sweats every night that left her so exhausted and weak.

“I never told you about your grandfather, did I, sweet boy? I always promised you I would,” she said to me, late one night when I was sitting up with her. I had tried to ease the relentless coughing with a healing potion I’d gotten from the same old wise woman, herself incredibly old by that time, that she had taken me to when I was a little boy.

“I was sixteen years old, and his name,” my grandmother said, “was Zaguel, or at least that was the name he told me. He was so beautiful, Braden, with his silvery hair and the bluest eyes I ever saw. Like yours—like the sky on a summer’s day. I knew even then that he couldn’t have been a mortal being. But I didn’t care. I was so lonely and he’d come to me in my time of need. I thought he might be an angel.

“He first came to me at evenfall at my family’s cottage in the woods, while I was sitting by the doorstep, carding wool to spin the next day in what was left of the dying daylight. My father was gone by then and I knew my mother was attending a young mother giving birth, and she wouldn’t be home until morning, but I wasn’t afraid to stay by myself. I’d done it many times before.

“It wasn’t quite dark, you see. It was that lovely twilit time of day between light and dark. Caught between the two and neither one nor the other. Like Zaguel was himself in a way…and he seemed so sad. The saddest, most melancholy being I ever met. So filled with sorrow and regret that nothing I could say or do could ever reach him. And I tried so hard…”

She’d trailed off then, overcome by weakness and the relentless, racking cough that brought the bright red flecks to her lips. I wiped them away, gave her water and tried to get her to rest, but she wouldn’t, not until she’d told me everything she remembered.

The coughing interrupted her story again and again, until she was too weak to continue any longer. She’d tried to tell me later, though, the next night, and then again, night after night, lost in her memories of him, right up until the hour of her passing.

Zaguel, my grandfather, she’d told me, said he was a fallen one, cast out of heaven and no longer able to be in the presence of God. There were reasons for it, like rebellion, and showing pride, and yielding to temptation. His sin had been a relatively minor one, he told her, though he’d been vague about exactly what he’d done. In comparison to Lucifer and Azazel and Shemyaza, and others who had rebelled against Heaven, his own sin had been minor and insignificant—according to him. He had been bitterly punished for it, nonetheless. Now he was what he’d called a “watcher,” and had been made to descend to earth. She had taken him in and tried to console him, but by the next morning, and the coming of the dawn, he was gone.

She might have thought the whole thing had been some kind of dream, but for the fact that he came back to her again and again. Night after night, he would come and she knew a few weeks later that she was going to bear his child, the little girl who would grow up to one day be my mother. It was Zaguel’s beauty then that I’d inherited, my grandmother insisted, and not some Faery’s. (Though since I’d been in Otherworld, I knew better than she how Faeries looked, and I thought that couldn’t have hurt my chances very much either.)

I was thinking about my grandmother as I sat on the bed in Ehlbert’s house, after my lord had stormed out. If Fionn killed me, I might see her again soon, and perhaps other members of my family who had gone on before me. Maybe I’d get to meet my father, King Callum, though I had to wonder if his soul would even end up in the same place as mine. My mother had said I was evil and destined for hell. Then she’d killed herself, and according to the Christian religion, that was a mortal sin that would doom her to go to hell too. I wasn’t overly anxious to see my mother, either in hell or elsewhere. She still frightened me, even after all these years.

I tried to stretch out on the bed, but Darragh had bound me too tightly, and I couldn’t lie down without my arm getting little pins and needles after a few minutes. Finally, in frustration, I muttered, “Damn you, stupid rope, you’re hurting me. Get off me!”

And the rope simply fell off onto the bed.

I sat there for a moment, in the dark because they’d left me no candle, staring at the pieces of rope, stunned and unable to believe in my good fortune. Darragh must have tied some complicated knot that didn’t hold with all my twisting around. Or else he hadn’t tied it tightly enough, and I had loosened it while struggling against it.

Or else I had caused it to fall off with what I’d said.

A little shiver ran down my spine, and I suddenly knew that was the truth, and that it was exactly what had happened. The question was, what would I do now? Would I stay here and wait to see if Fionn would believe me and listen to me when I told him the truth about what had happened? I knew he’d been far too angry for that to happen earlier. The things he’d said, and the way he’d said it. Like he hated me. He had cursed me, told me not to touch him and as the coup de grâce, said he’d kill me and paint the walls with my blood. That should be clear enough even for me.

Devastated, but with my mind made up to survive, I got to my feet and took the cover off the bed. It was summertime, but the nights were still cold after all. If the boundaries of this world matched the ones of the mortal world, and I thought they did, then we were pretty far north. I stripped off the fur cover from the bed and wrapped it around me. Then I crept to the window, knowing that Fionn had posted a guard on my door. I slid the window open easily, and it barely made any noise at all, thank goodness.

I climbed outside onto the ledge and stood there looking down. It was a pretty far drop, but there were some thick bushes under me and I aimed for those. Other than a few bruises and some scratches on my face and arms, I made it more or less intact. I headed straight for the barn, hoping to find the horses, but there I had no luck. They must have been corralled with the others at the Faery camp. I considered taking one of Lord Ehlbert’s horses, but back in my world, the punishment for stealing something as valuable as a horse was quite severe. It could lead to mutilation or even death. Considering the cruel nature of the Faeries, I didn’t want to take such a risk. If I could make it back to my world, I could perhaps barter for one with the expensive clothing I was still wearing or even my wedding ring, though the idea of parting with it made an ache start up in my chest. Foolish to still feel so much for someone who despised me and wanted me dead.

I did get lucky, though, when I found a disreputable pair of old boots in the barn, stained with horse dung and splashed up with mud, but they’d do me fine. I pulled them on happily and set out walking. The only question was where could I go? I remembered fairly well where the portal was that we’d taken to get here to Falias, so I set out for it.

I had asked Fionn how the portals worked, and he’d shrugged and said that they’d “take you wherever you should be or want to go,” which didn’t exactly make sense to me. I was hoping it meant they took where you needed to go, too, and in this case, I desperately needed to get back to the mortal world. I was hoping to throw myself on the mercy of my uncle Leofric and pray that he’d let me stay with him until I could get my trading route going again. If not…well, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. Fionn had left me little choice.

Chapter Seventeen

Fionn

After racing upstairs to release Braden, I was devastated to find that he had escaped. I didn’t think he’d been gone long, because the scent of purple asters mixed with the slightest hint of brimstone still lingered in the room. Where the hell did he think he was going? He was in a foreign land in a foreign realm and he had waltzed off with no coat and no weapon and no damn boots and no fucking idea in his head where he was going to go. I paced up and down the room, furious and scared and trying not to panic. Where would he go?

Darragh thought Braden might have remembered where the portal was, but I wasn’t sure he’d be able to use it even if he did. It required Faery magic, though any kind of strong magic would do. Even demon magic, obviously, since the ogres had passed through it easily enough.

Darragh went to get the horses and more men to help us search, while I went downstairs to find some black tea—the stronger, the better after the night I’d had. I didn’t have an appetite, but I needed to try and eat something for the long day I had ahead of me.

I was surprised to see Tadgh sitting at the table in his father’s dining hall, when I came back downstairs. He was eating boiled eggs and ham and some kind of cake as he broke his fast. I was actually glad to see he was feeling a little better—at least well enough to be at the table. Part of me still despised him for his role in last night’s debacle, but I knew he was as much a victim as I was. Maybe more. He did covet my consort, and I didn’t enjoy that. Going forward, I’d need to make that clear to him. But I knew that many men wanted Braden, and I couldn’t very well go around killing people for that alone. I’d have to get rid of half the population. As long as he realized it was a look-but-don’t-touch situation, he should be fine.

Tadgh was about my age or a bit younger, and he was handsome, damn him, like all the Faery men, but he had an easy way about him too that most sorely lacked. And that included me, or so Braden was fond of telling me.

I sat down across from him, after first going to the sideboard and filling my plate. I didn’t have much appetite, but I didn’t know when I’d get a chance to eat again, and I needed to question Tadgh again to fix the details in my mind before I questioned Braden, assuming I found him. The thought of not finding him made my stomach clench.

I wondered if Braden was hungry—but then he was always hungry. I banished the idea from my mind so it wouldn’t distract me and concentrated on Tadgh instead.

Tadgh looked at me sheepishly and cleared his throat. “Your Grace, he began, “About last night…what happened…my behavior. And my father’s, for that matter…I can only say neither of us were thinking straight, and I beg you to…”