Daughter of the Night

The moon was nearly full on a cloudless night as I leapt cheerfully from building to building. All this white marble was a new experience for me.

It had been three or four days since I had left Aaron on the subway. I didn’t feel guilty, although I supposed I should have. Still, the fact that he was now out of my company made me feel much more confidant. He was definitely safe. I didn’t have to worry about him. No more dying, no more hostages.

And to be completely honest, his constant presence had been beginning to chafe. It wasn’t that he was annoying, but I had been alone for so long that I was unused to constant companionship. Now that I was alone again I was more relaxed.

It was probably also the fact that so far, I hadn’t encountered any werewolves or vampires at all. I had detected old scents of the Fae, but so far I hadn’t encountered any face-to-face. It was almost like they were avoiding me, because normally they would want to defend their territory. Still, I didn’t mind.

So far, I hadn’t fed yet either. Unfortunately, I was about due, because my metabolism had sped up in response to the long-term effects of my exposure to the sun. Tonight may have to be the night. Tomorrow if I could push it off. Still, I was sure that as soon as I made a kill I would bring down the faeries upon my head. This was, after all, their city, and as far as I could tell they had some excellent methods for driving off other supernatural rivals.

The fact that their security was so good was starting to make me think that they were aware of my presence. There was no proof, of course, but that’s what my instincts were telling me. And they were rarely wrong.

D.C. was certainly different from N.Y., I thought as I studied the city from the top of a slippery white-grey marble building. Some things never changed, such as the crime, or the poverty. That appeared to be even more of a problem down here. Still, the city was also more vibrant in a way. It wasn’t looming, like New York. The sky was always clearly visible, and the buildings were lighter in color than those in New York. The monuments were as beautiful as they were in the pictures.

All in all, I was in a very good mood. Still, I knew that was going to change as soon as I was forced to hunt. Not that finding a target would be difficult. I had already stopped a rape, several robberies, and a potential gunfight. Still, that was confined to only part of the city. Some parts of the city were very safe.

I wondered which part the Faerie courts were located in.

I was just turning to leap from the marble roof when I heard a rustle of cloth behind me. I turned slowly, mostly so that I could have time to inhale the scent. The air had the taste of wild things, grass and the sea breeze and dark earth and smoke. My first encounter with the Fae.

There were six of them. That there were so many among them did nothing to allay my fears that this would lead to violence, but I tried to keep my hopes high.

As I studied them more closely, their originally human appearances were quickly dispelled. While humanoid, the Fae were slightly slimmer, more graceful, their skin more illuminated. Their eyes were catlike, their ears pointed, and similar to vampires and werewolves but not to the same extent, their incisors were sharp. There were three women and three men among them. All had different colors of hair, ranging from deep plum purple to coconut brown to sky blue. Their differences in skin colors were of a similar range, but they were normal hues of creams and browns.

After studying their contours, my eyes dropped to their clothes. Their wardrobes were a mix of modern day fashions and ancient armor. Leather bracers and buckskin quivers of arrows protected were strapped on over jeans and hooded sweatshirts. I also saw the glint of weapons; swords and daggers and throwing knifes were either buckled on or discreetly hidden in secret pockets. I had to stop myself from grimacing. The superior metals used by the Fae surpassed anything that humans had thus far invented. These were weapons that could part a werewolf from its hide with the ease of a hot knife through butter. It could sever a vampire head just as easily, for that matter, I thought grimly.

It was for this reason that the Fae were the undisputed inhabitants of this city. Without weaponry, while they had superior reflexes, their strength was not on par with vampires’ or werewolves’. With weaponry, however, they were the most technologically advanced among all the hidden races.

It was then that I noticed a scent that had been earlier overpowered by the Faeries. My eyebrows shot up in surprise, but I quickly reined in my expression. Behind the six Faerie guards, practically hidden in their shadows, was a familiar green-eyed person.

Aaron.

I studied him closely. With my owl like vision, I could make out every line of his face. He was looking slightly less fatigued, as if he had managed to get some quality shut-eye in the past few days. His hair was spiked again, although it still looked unkempt. He was dressed in the same old leather jacket, but he had on a different pair of jeans and a white long-sleeve shirt underneath.

Most important, though, were his eyes. Not guilty, nor ashamed. His expression was the same as whenever he cracked a joke.

When he saw me looking at him, he winked. A mixture of anger and affection welled up within me. Definitely Aaron.

I had, however, seen this coming. It was nothing too surprising. I should have recognized it the second my suspicions were dulled around him. Still, now I was trapped, for better or for worse.

“You are the vampire Cross, descendant of Dracula, truly?” Asked the foremost faerie. She had vivid pink eyes and silky purple hair with pale skin. And her English was a strange combination of modern day and the Renaissance.

“Yes,” I replied shortly.

“The Summer Queen requests thy presence at her court tonight,” the Faerie said. “We are here to… escort thee.”

“To what purpose?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.

“That is to be discussed with the Queen, and not before.”

“And I suppose ‘request’ is just a gentler substitute for ‘demand’?” I plowed on, deciding to cover all the bases just in case. “What if I don’t want to go?”

“Ye shall go.” She stated like it was a fact she was reading from an encyclopedia. She also loosened a hunting knife from its sheath, so that I didn’t entirely miss the source of her confidence. I scanned the array of weaponry displayed again. My best bet was to transform into fog so that the arrows couldn’t touch me, but throwing knifes were quicker to ready. And the faeries had superhuman reflexes to rival my own.

How had they snuck up on me so silently? Stealth was a vampire thing; it disturbed me to think that another race had mastered it to this degree. It was equally unsettling to know that I, the unseen, could be taken by surprise not just by one but by six faeries.

I hid my discomfort, though, and tilted my head to appraise the faerie warrior before me. “I bear no ill intentions toward the Court of the Fae, but I will not be led around by you like a dog on a leash.”

“And you will not be,” the faerie said. “But you have knowingly entered the territory of the Fae without permission, and now that you are here, you will consent to the judgment of the Summer Court.”

I pretended to consider this statement, although my mind had been made the minute that six faerie warriors had flanked me silently with no apparent difficulty. If there was a fight now, I wouldn’t be able to win.

“Fine,” I agreed. It was the awkward moments like these that I really missed my cape. Over the years I had discovered that ominous black capes more than compensated for less than a less-than-intimidating performance, as long as one could pull it off. And I could.

“By agreeing to our terms, you have acquiesced to allow us to take you to the Summer Court,” the faerie droned. I had the sense that she was back on familiar territory, for she said this part with the monotone of something frequently repeated. “However, to prevent the compromising of the safety of the Court, certain security measures must be met.”

I took an involuntary step back. “I never said anything about agreeing to your security measures-“

“But you already did,” said another faerie with grass green hair pulled back into a braid.

I pulled my lips back in an annoyed hiss when I felt something cold and sharp pierce my upper shoulder. I whipped around to see yet another faerie warrior pocketing a now-empty syringe. Normally such a thing wouldn’t penetrate my skin, but it was that damn faerie metal. The world began to spin, and the ground jerked upwards to meet me. Damn faeries. No better than the freaking werewolves.