Blood, Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter Two

The familiar sensation of a cat biting my toes woke me. It’s almost as reliable as an alarm clock with the bonus of being far more annoying. Cats are unclear on the concepts of shift changes, weekends and days off. Swearing, I untangled myself from the sheets and sat up in my bed. My little angels, Merri and Pippin, were staring up at me from the floor, waiting to be fed. I used to feed them at night, trying to preserve the sanctity of my mornings, but they took to gobbling down their food and waking me up to demand more anyway. Thusly I was outsmarted by my cats.

“Fine, fine, I’m up,” I assured them. Placated, they trotted out into the kitchen to await their breakfast. Glancing at the clock, I swore again-it was a little past nine in the morning. I don’t function well before the crack of noon under the best circumstances, and with only four hours of fitful sleep I wasn’t at my best and brightest. Coffee, I needed coffee, and lots of it.

I stumbled into the kitchen and made a beeline for the coffeemaker. A furry missile attempted to trip me about halfway through the room, but I managed to avoid it. Coffee first, cat food second. Believe me, the little ginger butterballs weren’t about to starve to death. Once I managed to start the coffee brewing I scooped food into the monsters’ dishes and got out of their way. While the coffeemaker hissed and spat on the counter I padded toward the living room, intent on checking my email.

The scent of cinnamon hit me a split second before I heard the distinct rustle of wings. One of my unusual gifts is that I can smell magic. I’ve never heard of another magician who can do it. Strange though it sounds, it’s a rather useful gift, especially considering no one knows I have it. Faerie magic smells like cinnamon to me, and it gets stronger as the magic gets more powerful.

I paused in the doorway and blinked at the faerie perched on the arm of my sofa. Enormous silvery white wings glistened and glimmered in the sunlight shining through my front windows. Thick waves of hair the color of newly fallen snow fell forward as Portia bent over the television remote held in her hands. I envy her those hands. Her fingers are slender and delicate, and her pale skin is flawless. Though small in stature, she does not have the willowy, almost anorexic angles many artists seem to favor when painting faeries and pixies, but instead her form is rounded, curvaceous. Aspiring artists also have faerie fashion all wrong-they don’t usually go for flowers or diaphanous gowns. Portia likes ripped jeans in a bleached 1980s style, white fishnet stockings, combat boots and torn sweatshirts. I keep waiting for her to update her style, but she must be waiting for it to come back.

The mysteries of the remote have always eluded Portia, probably because there aren’t many electronics in her world. “Kitty, make it work!” She held the remote out to me with a petulant frown. “I want to watch the game show.”

“It’s not on ’til ten,” I replied, taking it and setting it down on my end table. Portia has a love of The Price is Right. She gets excited every time the announcer yells “Come on down!” and her wings shower the room in ice faerie dust, which is damn hard to vacuum up I might add, in addition to leaving a layer of damp when the frost melts. “It’s early, Portia, what’s up?”

“Stuff. I’m going to escort you to the big meeting. I’m your sponsor now. You’d better hurry up and get ready.”

“Whoa, whoa, I never actually agreed to be in the running. I just told Mac I’d think about it, and I thought I’d just drop by and see who turned out for it.”

“Oh, you talked to Big Mac about this too? Big Mac is very wise, you should listen to him.”

From the kitchen I heard the soft beeping that alerted me that my coffee was ready, and I turned around and fled the room. The strong smell of cinnamon followed me, signaling that Portia was not far behind. When I entered the kitchen I discovered the cats had vanished, off to work on whatever important feline business was next on their schedule. Reaching into the cupboard over the counter, I grabbed my largest mug and filled it with the beautiful, steamy nectar of life.

“Kitty, you just have to be the new Titania!” There was a childish whine in her voice I knew she couldn’t help. A faerie’s vocal range goes both above and below a human’s ability to hear, which is why we can’t speak their language, no matter how much a magician studies it. Still, even knowing that fact it was difficult to avoid the instant headache that formed behind my eyes.

“Portia, that’s really a lot more responsibility than I’m interested in.” I opened my refrigerator and grabbed the bottle of vanilla-flavored creamer.

“But you’re good at it.”

“Yeah, right, I’m a regular candidate for governor. Hey maybe I’ll run for mayor and unseat Daley.”

After adding a healthy helping to my coffee I replaced the bottle in the fridge. Turning around, I leaned against the counter and watched Portia as she tried to figure out who this mysterious Daley person was from her perch on the corner of my kitchen table. Faeries don’t sit, they perch, and though they look as solid as a human they are far lighter, so I had no worry that my cheap, rickety table might snap under her weight. Hell, it’d be more likely to snap under the weight of one of my fat cats than Portia.

“I’m not a people person,” I explained, but she was unconvinced.

“You don’t need to be a people person, you need to be a faerie person.” She jabbed a slender finger at me for emphasis. “You’re perfect for that, your blood’s strong. The Silverleafs all love you.”

“My blood’s not as strong as Maureen’s was, not by a long shot.”

“Few people are anymore. She was half-blood.”

Choking, I nearly spat a mouthful of coffee across the room. Maureen being half faerie would explain a great deal about why she was so powerful, but it did bring up another question.

“Why didn’t any of her children inherit it then?”

“Oh, they did.”

“Why the hell didn’t one of them get named as her heir?”

“Never got trained, might as well have been born straights.” Portia sighed, her wings drooping in disappointment.

My mouth opened as I almost asked another question, but I swallowed my curiosity. If Maureen hadn’t trained her children, there was a reason for it, a personal reason that was none of my business to know. I’d been to her home a few times, but never met any of her family. It made more sense now-she probably didn’t want to explain to them how she knew me.

“She’d want you to do it.”

I nodded in silent agreement. Maureen would want me to do it, she’d always believed in me. She supported me when no one else would, she looked after me after my mother died and made sure I went to a witch’s foster home, instead of being dumped into the straights’ system. I owed her a lot. I owed her this much…

“What time is this meeting?”

“Soon! Drink faster!” she urged, and I took a gulp of coffee.

“All right, all right.”

Portia barked orders at me as I hurried to get ready-though I had no idea how to prepare for this sort of thing. I was glad I’d showered when I got home from the café, because there was no time for it now. After shedding my pajamas I stood in front of my closet in only my underwear, wondering what to wear. My wardrobe consists mostly of casual, comfortable clothing: jeans, T-shirts, sweatshirts, that sort of thing. I don’t own very many things that fall into the “nice” or “formal” category, as I seldom have the opportunity to wear them.

This trip was just plain difficult to plan for-the first and most important lesson I’d learned about the faerie realm is you must expect the unexpected, and that’s nigh impossible to dress for. The rules and laws that apply here don’t necessarily extend there. Faerie is a world of pure magic, and that makes it far more fluid than our world. Locations and landscapes shift on a whim. Even time runs differently-remember those old stories about people being snatched up into a faerie mound for a night and when they return home the next morning they discover a hundred years has passed, and everyone they loved has died? All true. Magicians eventually learned that taking a piece of time from our world, first as an hourglass and later as a pocket watch or wristwatch, keeps us grounded in our own timeline when we return home.

“Portia?” I said, waving a helpless hand at the selection.

“Dress for battle. Do you have armor?”

“Yeah, they give you a Kevlar vest when you move into the neighborhood,” I joked, rolling my eyes.

“What’s Kevlar? Is it shiny? I like shiny.”

“Never mind.”

“How about something with lots of pockets? For spell components.”

Well, at least I knew I’d need to be prepared to do magic. The knowledge was not very reassuring, and likely meant my abilities were going to be put to the test. Spellcasting is one of my many strong points, always has been, but like any witch I have an automatic handicap where it’s concerned. Witches require tools to cast spells. We need words, ritual and physical components like wands, daggers, herbs, candles and crystals, to name a few. And we need lots of ’em. A sorcerer can conjure up fire with a thought, but a witch needs to speak an incantation and have a symbol of it on hand, like a match or a lighter. That split-second difference has cost many witches their lives.

I settled on wearing my many-pocketed cargo pants, an army surplus button-down shirt over a black tank top, and my black combat boots. Rifling through the drawers of my dresser, I started pulling out nearly every amulet, talisman and holy symbol I own, stuffing them into my pockets and hanging them around my neck. Next my gaze settled upon my ritual dagger and sword. They both serve the same purpose, performing the same tasks and symbolizing the same things, but each would send a different message to my observers. The sword was a more aggressive symbol than the small dagger.

“Bring both,” Portia suggested.

“Both?”

“Yup. Just in case.”

“Of what? Barbarian invasion?” I joked. Grabbing the belt out of my closet, I affixed the sword’s scabbard and the dagger’s sheath to it.

I loaded my fingers with rings, my wrists and arms with bracelets and watches, and then earrings for my double-pierced ears. Next I brushed out my hair and let it fall long and loose down my back. The final touch was my favorite: my top hat. It’s a detail that is my trademark, and Portia in particular loves it-she probably wouldn’t let me leave without it. It’s black, of course, and Two Tarot cards-Justice and The Moon-are tucked into the satin band.

“You look good!” Portia assured me when I was finished.

“I look like a gypsy going to war.” Turning toward my bed, I nodded to the two cats that had been overseeing my progress. “Well, what do you boys think?” Pippin expressed his opinion by rolling over and demanding a belly rub, which I indulged him with, and Merri just yawned. “Gee, thanks.”

“Good, let’s go!”

Fluttering into the air, she zipped across the room and through the dressing mirror. The glass rippled like water in her wake, and normally I would’ve expected it to display an image of the place in Faerie she’d traveled to, but instead my reflection stared back at me. Guess I’d have to create my own gateway this time.

“Okay, everybody out,” I ordered. Pippin hesitated, wanting more attention, but in a stunning display of actual obedience, both cats hopped down from the bed and hightailed it from the room.

After shutting the door to my closet and to my bedroom, I crossed to the antique mirror. The old dressing mirror stretched taller than me and just slightly wider, and my reflection stared back at me, resigned to our fate. Taking a deep breath, I drew the dagger from my belt and sliced a long, shallow cut across my right palm. The blood welled red, bright and painful against my pale skin, and I placed the palm against the center of the mirror.

“Between the worlds, I make this door,

Safe passage through, as time before.

The lock undone, with blood as key,

As I will, so mote it be.”

The image shimmered and a ripple spread out from my hand like rings on the surface of a pond. A glow formed and lit the room, suffusing the entire reflection until it was a blank sea of light. I inched my hand away and the light brightened even further, almost to the point of blinding until it suddenly faded. My room was no longer reflected in the mirror, but instead an image of a grassy hill appeared. Fluffy white clouds wandered across the landscape’s sky, and the long grass waved in the breeze.

I glanced at the two photos atop my dresser-one of me and my mother on my fourth birthday, and one of me and Maureen at my high school graduation. “Wish me luck, ladies,” I said softly.

Squaring my shoulders, I stepped through the mirror.

I’ve lived in the city all my life, so it’s no surprise that the sensation of breathing fresh air is strange and foreign to me. I’m used to exhaust, smoke and other general pollution, and the absence of it makes me wary. To me, it’s the ultimate reminder of not being in Kansas anymore, Toto. Aside from the cleanliness, Faerie isn’t so different from our world as far as looks go. The grass is green, the sky is blue and the sun shines during the day and the stars at night, though admittedly the constellations are different. I’m not sure why that is, I’m no astronomer, and I haven’t had the time or inclination to find out.

With one hand secure on the hilt of my sword, I walked forward toward the hill. The portal closed behind me with a muffled pop, but I paid it no mind. I knew how to get home without it, even though I had no idea where I was. Despite the fact that I’ve used the same mirror in the same spot for seven years in a row now, it’s never opened to the same place twice. I knew the hill was a faerie mound, and if this was where the door had brought me then this was where I needed to be.

“Portia?” I called out as I walked. It was slow going, or at least in comparison to a brisk walk down the concrete sidewalks of home. Like I said, I’m a city girl. I like my roads paved, my messages instant and my coffee to go.

“Kitty! This is so exciting!”

I turned to see the faerie fly over to join me. A cool shower of faerie dust rained down as Portia fluttered above me, and I couldn’t help but sneeze.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be a real barrel of laughs,” I muttered. My fingers itched to light up a cigarette, so I balled my hands into fists and stuffed them into my pockets. No point in being rude to the locals. Yet. “So I take it we’re going in the mound. Whose is it?”

“The Underhill clan. They’re good people. I have cousins here on my mother’s side.” She smiled at me, and then plopped down to walk at my side. I’d heard of them-despite the terribly unoriginal name, they had a good reputation for fairness, and more importantly, did not have a reputation for causing trouble in the human world. Some faeries, mostly the clanless ones, just can’t seem to resist mischief making. A common activity is breaking human gadgets. Ever wonder why your car battery died for no apparent reason? Find your keys in places you know you did not leave them? You’re not crazy, you just had the misfortune of being targeted by a faerie with nothing better to do with eternity.

“Am I the only candidate who’s going to be at this meeting?”

“One other.”

“Only one? That can’t be good. Who is it?”

“Don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough.” Portia shrugged.

Too soon, in my opinion. The base of the hill grew closer and closer with each step we took. My stomach dropped down somewhere between my knees and I swallowed hard. I had to be crazy to be doing this. For one, I was too young to be Titania. I wasn’t even thirty yet. I didn’t want to go into politics. This was just insanity.

There was no visible entrance, but I didn’t expect to see one, not yet anyway. Portia and I continued on in silence until I felt her hand on my arm. Stopping in my tracks, I glanced over at her. She launched herself into the air once again and fluttered ahead of me. A low rumble like distant thunder emanated from the base of the hill, and the ground swelled and split. Dirt and uprooted chunks of sod tumbled up and away to reveal a large wooden door covered with intricate carvings of intertwined roots and vegetables. Decorative potatoes, who knew? With a graceful wave of her hand the door swung open, smooth and soundless, and Portia flew inside. I followed behind, struggling to keep my expression neutral and my nerves calm.

The smell of faerie magic almost overpowered me as I stepped through the doorway, so much so that it made my eyes water. Walking into the mound was like stepping into a cinnamon-roll factory set for high production. Portia led me down the hallway, a long corridor with walls of rough earth that were common for the inside of a mound. Tiny balls of light bobbed up and down near the ceiling as though floating in a lazy river, casting everything in a soft glow. I was a little unnerved by the quiet hush surrounding us, broken only by the soft whisper of her wings and the clomping of my heavy boots. Most faerie dwellings are constantly filled with noise-they really dislike silence. In addition to that we ought to have run into members of the Underhill clan by now.

“Where is everyone?” I whispered.

“Just wait.”

Great. It wasn’t like Portia to be ominous, or quiet for that matter. A wave of nausea rolled through my stomach, and I did some mental bargaining with it to keep it steady. Losing my lunch in a strange clan’s home would not be a polite way to introduce myself.

Finally we reached an enormous set of double doors, ridiculously large by faerie standards and even pushing the limits of human ones. They were covered in runes I couldn’t read, but I knew this had to be their great hall. Portia fluttered behind me and hovered just over my right shoulder, placing her hand upon it and giving it an encouraging squeeze. The doors opened at a ponderous rate, revealing the room in slow degrees. My breath whooshed out of my lungs in astonishment, and I stood slack-jawed and gaped at the assembled faeries. The entire clan had turned out, as well as members of several others. I scanned the crowd for familiar faces and caught the eye of Tybalt, Portia’s older brother, and he gave me a big grin. Good to know I had some people on my side.

I could barely make out the other end of the hall. Some days it sucks extra hard to be nearsighted, and it reminded me that I needed a new set of glasses. Squinting, I managed to spy three large chairs-no, thrones. The faeries had brought in their Council of Three to oversee the proceedings. The temptation to draw my sword and fall upon it suddenly seemed like an appealing idea. It would be quicker and far less painful than the fate that would await me when my stupid mouth said the wrong thing and pissed off their leaders.

Every faction of magical society is governed by their own Council of Three. Witches, sorcerers, vampires, shapeshifters, everybody. Larger populations have more than one council, each in charge of a certain region. There’s only one faerie Council of Three responsible for dealing with North America, and they were sitting in those chairs. Portia gave my shoulder a bump, and with my heart in my throat I made my way into the hall. The silence here was especially eerie, only the low whispered hush of wings and swishing of tails occupied the room. The sound of tails made me take a closer look at the assembled group. Faeries take the form of whatever they want, whenever they want. Not all prefer the delicate wings Portia sports. Some take on animal features, elemental or even demonic aspects. Whatever catches their fancy, really. I don’t think anyone’s ever seen the original form of a faerie, if the faeries even remember what they were at all.

I remembered not to stare at the council, which would have been really rude, and kept my gaze lowered to stare somewhere around their feet. They were dressed in their finest, glittering and shining bright enough to be their own light source. As I studied the latest in faerie formal footwear I noticed an additional, unexpected pair of shoes standing behind the council and off to the side: a scuffed pair of black combat boots. Despite my better judgment, my curiosity got the better of me and I let my gaze travel upwards. Black duster, black pants, black shirt-the man almost blended completely into the shadows around him, which normally would’ve hinted at a sorcerer, but I knew the faerie council wouldn’t trust one to stand behind them within fireball range.

It had to be a guardian, and my heart sank as I realized it was Lex. There was a casual air about him as he stood with his hands in his coat pockets, and the rest of his appearance complemented his laid-back manner. Unlike last night, his shoulder-length light brown hair was unbound and extra stubble lined his jaw. Lex was watching me, and he gave me an encouraging smile. Flustered, I tore my gaze away, concentrating instead on the figure kneeling with its head bowed low in front of the trio of thrones.

The person’s face was hidden by the hood of a long black cloak. Yuck, must be a sorcerer. Sorcerers tend to lean toward wardrobes befitting wizards in fantasy stories-long robes, pointy hats, gnarled wooden staffs topped with crystals and the like. Someone really needs to tell them that they are not Gandalf, and they need to join the twenty-first century with the rest of us. I noticed a slender man in a dark gray business suit standing behind the sorcerer, but I didn’t recognize him either.

Once we reached the other candidate I knelt as well, trying to look as graceful as I could manage.

“Greetings, Catherine Marie Morrow,” a voice in front of me intoned. I flinched at the sound of my True Name-usually I go by Catherine Baker. I’ve gone to great lengths to hide my True Name from the magical world, and here it was being shared in front of every damn faerie in the hemisphere. Great. My reaction was to be expected, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed the black-cloaked figure had flinched as well. I turned my head toward him as he looked toward me. I peered into the depths of that black hood and recognized him, much to my immediate shock, and my brain shut down as my mouth took over.

“Aw, hell no,” I growled. Leaping to the side, I knocked him off his feet and pinned him to the floor, and the man glared up at me with a mix of shock and hatred. “’Lo, Dad.”

I heard something like the rustling of a thousand wings at once and everything around me went black.