Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

So the Corca-dweebs aren't the only ones taking orders from her, Squire thought. He wasn't fluent in Danaaini, but he understood enough to get at least part of the conversation.

"Prepare," Morrigan said.

The other Fey muttered some sort of subservient bootlick response that Squire didn't bother working too hard to translate.

"We must be very careful if we are going to open — " Several words he did not understand followed this. And then: "Tell the skulkers to keep an eye out for Conan Doyle. I want to make certain he receives a proper welcome when he…

"What is that smell?"

Squire grunted in annoyance. Like humans, like the Fey, hobgoblins had their own scent. He couldn't smell it himself, of course, but Eve had often told him he smelled like rotten apples. And who would know better?

Silence had fallen in the room outside the weapons closet. The Fey could walk without any noise at all if they wished to, but Morrigan did not bother. Squire had an image in his mind of her sniffing at the air, of her pausing to glare at the doors to the closet. He heard her footfalls on the hardwood as she marched toward him.

With deep regret Squire glanced around at the weapons that remained, trying to choose what he would rescue for his final trip. There really was no question, however. There was a longbow on the wall that had belonged to Ceridwen, a gift she had given to Conan Doyle before he had left Faerie. Squire snatched the bow off the wall just as the closet doors flew open and Morrigan stood silhouetted in the light from the room beyond.

"You should have run further than this, wretched thing," she snarled, the red scarf that had covered her hair now down around her neck. Her nostrils flared. "Go on, hobgoblin. Choose whatever weapon you like." With a flourish she gestured to the armaments that remained in the closet.

The light from the outer room reached deep inside the closet. Morrigan had him trapped. Or so she thought. For the wicked bitch had barely noticed that she cast her own shadow, and it was as black as her heart.

"Sorry, babe," Squire said, taking a single step toward her. "I'm a lover, not a fighter."

And he dropped away into the shadow on the floor, her scream of rage following him down into the darkness.

In the living room at the Ferrick house, Clay stood behind a high-backed chair with his arms crossed. Eve sat at the edge of the chair, resting her hands on her knees, and when she spoke she sounded more earnest than Clay had ever heard her. On the sofa, Danny Ferrick stared at her, brows knitted beneath the little nubs of his horns. He was slouched down as though he might sink into the cushions, baggy black pants hanging on his legs like curtains. The boy's mother was so pale Clay thought she would either vomit or faint within the next few seconds.

She surprised him. The woman was stronger than she looked.

"You're lying!" Julia Ferrick said, her chest rising and falling quickly as though she was trying to keep from hyperventilating.

Clay put both hands on the back of Eve's chair. "No, Mrs. Ferrick. I can assure you that she's not."

Beside her, on the couch, the boy she had always thought of as her son began to laugh softly. Clay was unsure what to make of that laugh and he narrowed his eyes as he studied the boy, who kept rubbing the soles of his red Converse high-tops on the carpet. Danny Ferrick shook his head and reached up to run his fingers over his small horns again. He sighed, glanced at Clay, and then focused on Eve. He was a teenaged boy and Eve was every teenaged boy's dream of a woman, and so he trusted her.

"Seriously. You're not just messing with me?"

Eve shook her head. "No, Danny. No way."

The kid frowned again, narrowing his eyes. "So who is this Doyle guy again?" He turned to his mother. "How did you meet him?"

Mrs. Ferrick gazed at her son as though another word from him would shatter her like a china doll. She fidgeted with her hands again, and for the first time, Clay noticed how short her fingernails were. A couple of them were ragged. The woman had clearly been stressed even before all this lunacy had come into her life. Danny's mother gnawed her lower lip.

"I don't suppose either of you has a cigarette?"

No one responded. Mrs. Ferrick shook her head. "Just as well. I quit." Then she lowered her eyes. "Mr. Doyle came to see me a few years ago. Just showed up on the doorstep one day while you were at school. Your… your condition had already started to show up. Your skin. But only just. I… I'm not even sure you had noticed it yet, but I had, just at the back of your neck one morning at breakfast.

"Mr. Doyle rang the bell. He was so polite, and so well-dressed, I thought he must be selling something or… or trying to convert me or something." She uttered a tiny laugh of disbelief that sounded very much as though she were choking on unshed tears. "He said — "

The woman shook her head. Clay wanted to go to her, to sit with her and comfort her, but he knew there would be another time for that. For now, the truth was what mattered, and he did not want to interrupt the telling of it.

"What did he say, Mom?" Danny asked, trying to get his mother to look up at him. "Did he tell you… what Eve just said?"

"No," Mrs. Ferrick said, catching her breath. "All he said was that… that someday I would want to ask him some questions about you, and that when the day came I should call. And he gave me his card and he… he just left. I thought he was some nut. Some… some asshole, thinking he knows something about my son that I don't."

Eve sat back in her chair and lifted her chin, appraising Mrs. Ferrick. "But you kept his card."

The look the woman shot at Eve was full of venom. "Yes. Yes, I kept the card. He's my son. I brought him up myself. Everything I've ever done has been for him. I'd do anything for Danny. So, yes, I kept the card. Now you come telling me he's some… some demon child, some changeling baby, whatever the hell that even means."

"I explained what it — " Eve began.

"I don't want your explanations!" Mrs. Ferrick said, her voice on the edge of hysteria. She brought one hand up to her mouth, gnawing a bit on her thumbnail, oblivious to their attentions.

"Mom," Danny said, his eyes revealing his pain, and he touched her arm to try to calm her. She grabbed his hand and held on tight.

"Now you come telling me that he isn't my son? That Danny isn't my boy at all? To hell with both of you and your Mr. Doyle, too." Mrs. Ferrick glanced at Danny. "He's all I've got."

Eve began to say something more but now Clay leaned down and touched her on the shoulder and she closed her mouth. For a long moment the Ferricks, mother and son, just sat there holding hands, both of them staring at their unwelcome visitors. They were a strange sight, the woman in her suburban mother uniform of khaki trousers and white blouse, and the boy in his baggy, unbuttoned shirt with the bright orange surfing tee underneath. Clay focused on Danny. The boy seemed not to want to look at him, but at last he did. Clay nodded gently. Danny swallowed and licked his lips, baring his needle teeth, if only for a moment. He took a deep breath and turned to his mother.

"Hey. Mom. Look at me."

Mrs. Ferrick studied his eyes.

"No. I mean look at me."

Defiantly, she continued to stare into his eyes.

"It's killing me, what I see in the mirror, y'know?" Danny said, and the anguish in his tough-guy voice was enough to force Clay to glance away a moment. "But, well, what they say makes sense. Sucks, but it makes sense. And if it's true… God, if it's true I'm sorry, 'cause that means the kid you had in the hospital… he's somewhere else. I don't know where. But you're my mother. And you're the best. Seriously. You are.

"But if it's true… and I can't lie to you, it feels true. If it is, it means I'm not a freak. I'm not some fucked-up kid who doesn't fit in anywhere, 'cause I don't have to. I'm not one of them. One of the nasty little pukes I go to school with. If it's true… and I think I want it to be. That would be better, I think. Better than the way things have been."