Herbie Brennan - Ruler of the Realm

‘I can only tell you while my implant’s deactivated. I’m me now, but the thing is I remember. I know what the demons are doing. I know what Beleth has been planning.’

‘What?’ Blue asked.

‘Total conquest,’ Henry said. ‘They’re going to take over your whole world and mine.’

The plan had been in place for years, Henry said. The aim was demon mastery of both the Faerie Realm and its analogue, the human world. The means was to be a breeding programme. Beleth decided it should be tested first in the human world. Up to that time, there had been sporadic attacks by demons on humans. But the new plan meant an end to overt action. Demons no longer harassed humans openly, but concentrated instead on kidnapping selected individuals and breeding with them. It was a difficult process. The offspring were often sickly and many died. But enough survived to be infiltrated into positions of power in the human world.

‘They started off with tribal chiefs and witch doctors in Africa,’ Henry said. ‘Then later it was European kings and their advisors, popes and priests and people like that. Recently it’s been politicians and dictators. They’re not all bad, of course, but some of them are demon children linked to the Hellmind by blood. They’ve been nudging humanity towards Hell for ages now.’

‘Didn’t anybody notice?’

‘That was the really clever part,’ Henry told her tiredly. ‘As soon as they started infiltrating, they all worked hard to convince people demons didn’t actually exist.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Blue said.

‘I know,’ Henry nodded. ‘Beleth didn’t think even humans could be that stupid, but one of his advisors drew up a strategy. Instead of hiding, demons kept appearing to humans, but in silly forms. Leprechauns and boggarts and stuff like that. Anything that sounded dim. Lately it’s been little green men from outer space. Nobody takes them seriously.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Blue interrupted. Something he’d said earlier was niggling her. ‘If breeding with humans was so tricky, why didn’t they just implant people the way they did with you?’

‘New technology,’ Henry said. ‘They simply didn’t have it when Beleth drew up his plan. They’ve started using implants now, of course. The British Prime Minister and the American President both have one. But the demons have to be careful. These things show up under X-rays. If humans found out what was really happening, it could sink the whole plan. Beleth doesn’t want that – it’s been working far too well already. So you see,’ Henry added.

After a moment, Blue said, ‘See what?’

‘Why we’re here,’ said Henry.

Blue saw nothing of the sort. She wanted to take Henry and shake him, but she controlled herself.

‘Why are we here, Henry?’ she asked quietly.

‘Infiltration,’ Henry said. ‘It’s worked so well in my world, they want to try it in the Faerie Realm.’ He hesitated, turned his head away from her and murmured, ‘Starting with our child.’

Travelling up in a suspensor shaft was a lot less intimidating than travelling down. You didn’t have to step into space at the beginning of the trip for one thing.

As they floated side by side, Pyrgus said uncertainly, ‘Do you think the Generals mean it?’

‘They mean it,’ Fogarty told him. He turned to Madame Cardui. ‘Have you contacted the Ferals?’

‘I do wish you wouldn’t call them that, dahling.’

‘Have you contacted the Forest Faerie?’ Fogarty said tiredly.

‘You really think it will come to war?’

‘You heard the boys in uniform. We’ll be at war from sunset tomorrow. We’ve tried to avoid it, Cynthia. The trick now is to win it. You’ve been in touch with Cleopatra, haven’t you?’

Madame Cardui lowered her eyes and nodded. ‘I got a message to her in the night. She was kind enough to send an immediate response.’

‘Which you didn’t tell me about.’

‘My deeah, when did I have the opportunity? You were still in bed when Pyrgus arrived with his news and then we went directly to the Situation Room.’ She shrugged. ‘In any case, it gets us no further. Queen Cleopatra sends her profound regrets, but believes the present situation is a matter for the Faeries of the Light and the Faeries of the Night. It has no bearing on or relevance to the Forest Faerie and consequently she has formally declined to put her forces at our disposal.’

Fogarty snorted. ‘Can you arrange for me to meet Queen Cleopatra later today?’

‘You won’t change her mind, Alan: I know her very well.’

‘I’m not trying to change her mind,’ Fogarty said. ‘If she won’t join us, she won’t join us. But she might have some ideas where Blue has gone – the foresters know a lot about hiding places. And she might help us capture the time flowers. Or destroy them.’

They arrived at the surface and stepped out of the suspensor shaft. Pyrgus was suddenly animated.

‘You mean a commando raid, Mr Fogarty?’

‘Something like that.’ Fogarty caught Madame Cardui’s expression and added, ‘Look, we’ll be at war tomorrow. We need to start thinking about ways to win it.’

‘That’s a brilliant idea!’ Pyrgus told him enthusiastically. ‘I’ll lead the raid!’

‘No you won’t!’ said Fogarty and Madame Cardui together.

‘They want us to have a child?’

Henry nodded miserably.

Blue stared at him for a long, long time. There were so many questions boiling in her mind, but at the end of it all she simply asked, ‘Why us?’

‘You’re Queen,’ Henry said, a bit too quickly. ‘If you had a demon child, it would automatically be in a position of power. When it grew up.’

He was hiding something. ‘Why you?’ Blue asked. ‘Why not -’ she thought of Black John with his fur and his tail and his clawed hand in hers, ‘- a real demon?’

‘I am a real demon when they activate that thing. It’s just my shape that stays the same. They thought you wouldn’t… accept… something in demon form. Actually, they thought you might know it was a demon in my form. That’s why they deactivated my implant.’

‘They could have forced me,’ Blue said coldly.

‘No, they couldn’t,’ Henry said earnestly. ‘Not something like that. The implants don’t work on faeries.’

That was a bit of interesting information. But they wouldn’t have used an implant on her anyway – they wanted a faerie mother, not some demon who looked like one. All the same, the demons could get into your mind, whether you were human or faerie. Why couldn’t they control her that way?

Hesitantly she asked, ‘What about… possession?’

‘Possession won’t let them push faeries to do something against your deepest moral principles,’ Henry said. ‘They can only hold you still and make you walk and things like that. It’s different with humans – they can make us do anything they want.’

Mr Fogarty was possessed by a demon when he killed her father. They could make humans do anything they wanted. Up to and including murder. Blue shifted uneasily. She still had the feeling Henry was holding something back.

‘Why did they pick you, Henry?’ she asked again.

Henry’s face flared bright scarlet. His eyes went down to the floor and he drew away from her stiffly. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he mumbled quietly, ‘They think you might be in love with me…’

Blue wanted to hold him then, but it clearly wasn’t the time. Besides which, her fury at the demons was consuming her.

‘They think all they have to do is put us in a room together and we’ll make a child just because I’m in love with you?’