Heart of Briar

“What is—” she started to ask, about to pull herself loose from their grip and tell the bus driver something was wrong, when the floor buckled one last time, and something shoved its way through, a long arm with small fingers, skin the gray-white of old bread streaked with mold, stretching as though to grab at whatever rested above.

Right where she would have been sitting.

Suddenly, getting off the bus seemed like a damn good idea.

The hand sank below the metal again, the fingers creeping around the opening, as though searching for something. Or someone.

“Off,” Black Nails said, and with a shove from behind, they were out, even before the bus had come to a stop, and the three of them were standing on the street. “Keep moving,” he said, and pulled her forward, away from the curb. “Don’t look back.”

Jan felt her chest clench and grabbed her inhaler out of her pack, even as they walked too quickly for her comfort. “What...what was that?”

The other one, the one with the snout, answered. “A turncoat.”

“A what?” Her fingers curled around her inhaler, and she took a hit from it, feeling her chest ease slightly.

“A—” He growled, and this time it was a definite growl, the skin on her arms pricking again with goose bumps. “There’s no time, now. They’ll figure out we’re gone in a minute: we have to get you somewhere safe.”

“But...the others on the bus...” Jan waved her free hand vaguely back at the street. “We can’t just—”

“Once you’re gone, it’ll leave, too. The damage will be blamed on metal fatigue, or something. Worry about yourself, not them!”

“Where did we leave the truck?” Black Nails asked.

“Down there, back in town, a couple—five blocks.” They switched direction, walking too fast, almost dragging Jan between them. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the bus was out of sight; was whatever had broken through still on the bus right now? Or were these guys right, had it left, was it after them?

“What the hell is a turncoat? And who the hell are you? And where is Tyler?” Jan’s usual tolerance had taken a hard blow today, and she wasn’t the most patient of people even on a good day. But this...this was beyond enough. She coughed and then, despite the inhaler, started to wheeze.

“I need to sit down,” she told them.

She must have looked as bad as she felt, because they swung around and plunked her onto a bench in the Green, away from the inevitable gaggle of teenagers hanging around the fountain. She bent over and tried to calm down, waiting for it to pass.

“You okay?” Black Nails asked.

“Stupid question,” Hoodie-guy snapped.

“No, I’ll be okay.” She was able to speak, and her chest was starting to ease, now that she’d stopped moving.

Black Nails sat down next to her while Hoodie-guy prowled back and forth, clearly looking for...something. His gaze flickered everywhere, the nervous energy pouring off him, just like it did Tyler when he was wound up by an idea.

His nerves got on her nerves, which were already ragged, and she wished that she had something heavy to throw at him, to make him stop pacing like that.

Black Nails tried to take her hand again, but she pulled away and glared at him, horrified to feel hot tears prickling in her eyes. She rubbed the heels of her hands against her jeans, hard, trying to drive the tears away.

“I swear, tell me now or I’m gone.” She didn’t care about Tyler. She didn’t. But that thing on the bus.... “What the hell was that, on the bus?” she asked again.

“Turncoats. They’re...” Black Nails hesitated. “They’re rooting for the ones who took your leman, they want to prevent you from rescuing him. They will do anything to ensure that—and the easiest way is for you to...”

“Die.” The growl was back. Hoodie-guy stood in front of them, his hands fisted on his hips, and scowled. Not at her, Jan noted, but at the other man. “If you’re too delicate to tell her, I will. They’ll catch her and tear her apart and eat her for good measure. They’ve always liked human meat.”

“AJ...”

Jan latched on to one word out of all that. “Human? What do you mean...”

“Of all the moon-washed idiocies...we don’t have time for this.” The one called AJ reached up and pushed his hoodie back. “Human. You. Not us.”

Not a monobrow. Not a misshapen nose. This close and clear there was no denying that it was a real muzzle, short but obvious, with the jaw hinged oddly, coarse dark hair overrunning what would have been a hairline to trace down to the end of his nose. Round dark eyes set too far back stared at her, waiting for her reaction. Not red, but she thought they would glow in firelight, a bright, dancing red. Like a wolf’s.

She stared, and then turned to the other man, studying him more carefully. He looked human. Face normal, if a little long to be attractive, and his hair was a neck-length tousle of black that a supermodel might have longed for. The right number of fingers and limbs, his skin tone normal for someone who was maybe Indian or South American, she thought, even as a part of her brain shrieked run, you idiot, run!

“No,” he said, his voice still silky-smooth and soothing, his hands taking hers between them, holding her still. “I’m not human, either.”

She jerked her hands away and tried to stand up, but they had her effectively trapped. She should have listened to her gut, back on the bus, she should run, she should scream...but she didn’t.

Her heart raced, but her mind was oddly clear. Or maybe she’d gone into hysteria already, and this was what being crazy felt like.

She’d stared down muzzle-boy—AJ—once already. That memory gave her just enough courage to ask again, “And that thing under the bus...it wasn’t human, either.” She had known that already. Mostly. Guessed it, at least, even if she hadn’t let herself acknowledge the insanity of it.

“Gnomes,” he said. “Nasty little bastards, all teeth and greed.”

“Gnomes.” All right, then. “And Tyler? He’s been taken, you said. By...”

“Not by us, or ours,” AJ said. He watched her carefully, not the staring contest of before, but cautious, judging. “Our enemies. Yours now, too.”

“This is a joke, right? Tyler set this whole thing up. That’s some kind of costume—a good one, you got me, but the joke’s over.” She looked between them, shaking her head. “Is this being filmed? ’Cause it’s not funny anymore and there’s no way in hell I’m going to sign any kind of release form for you to use the footage. And Ty’s still a shit for pulling this.”

AJ growled again. “For pity’s sake, Martin, you show her.”

“Me?” Black Nails sounded...worried?

AJ had pulled his hoodie back up and looked up at the sky, as if that was supposed to mean something. “I can’t, you idiot.”

“And you want me to—” He—Martin, Jan reminded herself—waved his hands, the black-painted fingernails catching light and sparkling slightly.

“We’re running out of time. And so is her Tyler. Come on, you swish-tailed wuss. I know damn well you can control yourself when you want to.”

Martin sighed and heaved himself off the bench and— There wasn’t any warning, just a drawn-out groan and the sound of things crackling, the sound you’d hear when you stretched after sitting for too long, bones protesting and muscles stretching and the urge to close her eyes as though water was pressing against them, swimming underwater, and when she opened them again, Martin was gone.

And a solidly muscled pony, russet-coated with a black mane cropped short, was regarding her with deep brown eyes that were disturbingly familiar.

Jan had been the normal horse-mad kid, but that stage had worn off years ago. Still, she couldn’t help but reach up to touch that nose, then slide her hand along the side of its neck. The pony lowered its head and turned slightly, as though inviting her to continue. Without meaning to, she found herself standing by its side, contemplating how difficult it would be to tangle her fingers in that stiff brush of a mane and haul herself onto its back.

AJ let out a harsh, rude growl. “Martin, stop that. I swear, we should have left you behind, if that’s how you’re going to behave.”

The pony shook its head and whickered, and Jan stepped back, the spell broken.

She stared at it, and then at AJ, who was suddenly, bizarrely, the lesser of two weirdnesses. “That’s...oh, my god.”

“No, just Martin.” AJ still sounded disgusted. “Don’t get on his back. He really can’t help himself then, and we need you intact.”

“What?”

“We’re— Oh, so help me, swish-tail, if you relieve yourself here, I’m going to pretend I don’t know you. Go do your business elsewhere if you can’t wait.”

The pony—Martin—gave an offended snort, and the crunchy-snapping noise made her close her eyes, and when she was able to open them again, he looked human again.

Looked. Wasn’t.

Jan thought she might pass out.

* * *

The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the bench again, with Martin on her left and AJ pacing again, looking up and down the street and occasionally stopping to scowl into the gutters. Keeping guard against those...things from the bus, she guessed. Or whatever else was about to come bursting through the sidewalk, or popping out of a mailbox. As insane as it all had to be, as insane as she had to be, somehow Jan couldn’t doubt it, not any of it. Not after Martin had done...what he had done, and not with the memory of those moldy-looking fingers reaching up to where she had been sitting, forcing their way through metal to get to her....

“They’ve always liked human meat.”

Neither of her two rescuers were exactly knights in shining armor, but they had to be better than that.

“No knight, but the steed,” she said, and a slightly hysterical giggle escaped her. Shock. She was in shock.

“What? Oh. No.” Martin smiled, picking up the joke. “A sense of humor, that’s good. You’re going to need it.”

As unnerving as the transformation had been, she still felt herself lean toward him, moving like a flower to follow the sun. AJ was unnerving and dangerous. He...AJ said Martin was dangerous, but instead she felt comforted. Protected. Safe.

That was insane. Not human. Hello, not human!

A were-pony? Jan closed her eyes, shook herself slightly, opened her eyes again. Martin was still there, watching her.

Jan had always been a practical sort: she worked with what she could see. There was no way to believe— no way to convince herself to believe that this was a hoax or a prank, not anymore. She had seen Martin change form. She had seen AJ’s face, heard him growl, a noise that couldn’t have come from a human throat. She had seen...something tear through the bottom of a city bus as if it was cardboard.

God, she hoped everyone on the bus was okay. There hadn’t been any sirens or screaming, so she had to believe her two rescuers—captors—were right, that it had abandoned the uptown bus the moment they left....except that meant that thing was looking for them.

Why? What had she been yanked into?

“Okay.” She breathed in and out once evenly, the way her doctor had taught her, calming her body, telling it to relax and stand down, and sat straight-backed on the bench, watching a squirrel balancing on the bike rack opposite them, nibbling at something. “Not human.”

Martin nodded once, approvingly, and she heard a muffled snort coming from AJ, that they both ignored.

“You know Tyler. You said something had taken him.... Something like those turncoats?” The thought made her cringe inside—maybe they were hurting him, maybe... Oh, god.

“No.” Martin shook his head this time, the thick black hair falling over his eyes exactly the same way it had done in his other form. Somehow, that small detail made it make more sense in her brain. “Not them. We could have stopped them, if that were it. Or, we could have tried to stop them, anyway. They’re just...turncoats.” The way he said the word made it sound like a curse. “They’ve sold out their own kind.”

“You...your kind...?” She made a gesture that was meant to indicate him and AJ, who was pacing again, but instead came out as a wimpy hand-circle.

“Us, and you.” AJ’s muzzle twitched. “Look, there’s natural folk, you humans, and us, the supernaturals. That’s...there are different species, all scattered around the world. Some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t, some don’t come out much anymore. Mostly we get along because we ignore each other. And humans like to pretend we don’t exist, at all. It’s better that way. Safer.”

Safer. Jan wondered if he used the word the same way she did. None of it mattered; she only wanted to know one thing. “What happened to Ty?”

“Your leman...he’s....” Martin stopped and considered her, as though gauging how much more she could take. “Not much” was the answer, she suspected, but she’d do it, she’d deal with it. Her hand slipped down to touch her inhaler, reassurance, even though she didn’t need it just them.

“We didn’t know about him specifically,” AJ said, his pacing taking him away and then back to stand in front of Jan. “We were tracking the preter, found her in time to see your leman being taken, two nights ago. We were too late to interfere, but we backtracked from there, found his wallet, and waited outside his apartment, to see who would show up. Three days, we waited!” He sounded annoyed. “We were just about to give up when—”

Jan wouldn’t let herself be distracted. “Who. Took. Him?”

Martin sighed. “For lack of a more useful term... Elves.”

Chapter 3

Tyler didn’t know how long he had been there, or even where there was. There were birdcalls in the distance, sweet and high. He tried to focus on them, reaching for the music that had always come naturally, but the voices in his ear were too loud. He did not know this language, although he tried to pick out words; when he was clearheaded he knew they did not want him to understand, that they were talking about him.

He was not clearheaded most of the time.

The chair was too soft, the air too thin; it all felt wrong, but he couldn’t say why, couldn’t put a finger on what bothered him. He tried to remember. He had been somewhere familiar, the smell of coffee thick in his nose, laughter and clatter around him, and then she had taken his hand, drawn it across the table, and spoken to him.... And then nothing, a sense of time passing but no details in the void.

He was not supposed to be here. He was not supposed to be in this place; it was morning, and every morning he...he... What did he do? The memory glided out of reach, taunting him with the memory of pale green eyes and soft skin, lighter than his and soft as a peach....

“Eat, sweet.”

He ate, although he couldn’t have identified what he was eating. Not a peach, although it was sweet, and soft, like overripe fruit, but without any juice, and the moment he finished it, the taste was gone, nothing lingering in his mouth or throat. He felt languid, drained, his usual energy faded to nothing.

A hand took up his, sliding against his fingers, the tawny skin almost translucent...did it glow? He could not trust his eyes, he could not remember his name.

They had hurt him, until the pain was too much, and then offered him a way out. All he had to do was let go, let go of...what?

“Walk with me.”

He walked, although he could barely feel his feet, unable to resist that voice. The path they followed was plush with pale green grass, and the trees reached overhead, blocking any view of the sky. It was night, he knew that—or thought he did, anyway. He had left his apartment at night, drawn by urgency, a fear that she would not wait for him.... He had...

What had he done?

There was a low, steamy-sounding hiss and a dry, metallic rattle somewhere behind him, then the low sweet voice whispered something and the rattle went away, fading into silence. The rattle-voiced ones were everywhere, but they never came close enough to see.

He shook his head as though bothered by a fly, and his feet stopped moving. He looked up at the branches, trying to see beyond them. This...wasn’t right. He had left his...apartment.... Why? What had he left behind?

Skin like a peach, sweet and succulent. Eyes like leaves. But who?

“Easy, sweet. Do not worry. All is well.”

The soft voice wound around him, bringing him back.

Stjerne. The voice was Stjerne’s.

The name brought memories to fill the gray void. Her hand in his, her lips on his skin, solace and cool comfort against the unbearable pain. She had brought him here and given him food to eat and wine to drink, and now she walked with him, her fingers laced in his own.

“Come. Walk with me.” It was less a request than a command, this time. The fingers were cool against his skin, her voice soft and heavy in his ears.

Tyler was not certain he wanted to go anywhere but could not resist. He breathed the air and smelled the same sweet scent of the food he had been given, the perfume that floated around Stjerne herself, and then exhaled. Chasing after a worry had never helped; whatever he’d forgotten couldn’t be that important, or he’d remember it soon enough. And a walk might help, yeah. It certainly couldn’t do any harm.

She led him through the garden, to a building made of silvery stone, where others waited. He tensed, the faded memories telling him what would come next.

“Do you trust me, sweet?”

Of course he did. He nodded, and she handed him over to those others. They took him, took his clothing, dripped too-sweet water into his mouth, and forced him to swallow, and left him naked and shivering in the odd light, his skin both cold and too warm, unable to move, feeling the clank-and-whir of things settling over his skin.

They had done this before. Before, and again and again...

“Stay with me,” she said. “Feel me. Give in to me. It will all be over soon.”

It would never end. He knew that, a split-second of clarity before the feel of tiny claws digging into his skin intensified, burning like drips of acid down through to bone. They held him down on the chair of feathers and thorns, the one that Stjerne said was his throne, built just for him, to sit by her side, and impaled him and burned him, a little more each time.

“Can you feel me, sweet?” Stjerne, just out of range, just beyond touch.

Tyler would have nodded, but he could not move. “Yes.”

He could. No matter what they did to him, he could feel her there, like the sun that he could never quite find anymore, the only warmth in this world.

Sometimes, he could remember another voice, another touch...brighter lights and different sounds, different smells. But they faded, and there was only her. She protected him. She took care of him. She would make them stop this, silence the voices and take him by the hand and lead him along the path that ended in a warm soft bed and cool hands stroking him to incredible pleasure. Everything she had promised. And all he needed to do was...what?

He focused, trying to remember, and her hands touched him again, calling him back.

“Open to me,” she said, her voice spice and smoke, swirling around him. “Let me in, and we will be together forever, you by my side, never aging, never dying. Sweet days and sweeter nights, and everything you could dream of, I will give you, once you let me in.”

The feathers swept and the thorns dug, and he could feel the things the chair was doing to him, scouring out what had been. Agony. Stjerne’s lips touched his, her scent filling his nostrils, and all he wanted to do was please her, so that she would make the pain go away.

But something resisted, held on. If she were in him, where would he go?

* * *

“There’s no more time to dither, or wait for you to make up your mind. We have to go. Now.” AJ was getting more agitated, his muzzle twitching with every breeze. A middle-aged woman pushing one of those wheeled shopping bags in front of her slowed down and stared, then sped up again when he growled at her.

“AJ.” Martin sounded scandalized.

Jan was now pretty sure that she had lost her mind. Or the entire world had been insane all along, and she was only now realizing it. But even if it was mad, it was real—and the mad ones were the only people who were taking her seriously. Even if what they were saying was impossible, insane, crazy. Even if what she knew she had seen was impossible, insane, crazy.

Maybe she was hallucinating all this: Tyler was actually asleep in bed next to her, snoring faintly, and she had dreamed it all, his disappearance, and everything since then....

It was real. She was stressed, and tired, and tearful, and afraid of that thing she had seen on the bus, more than even AJ’s teeth, or Martin’s...whatever it was Martin was, but she couldn’t deny that it was real.

“Go where?” she asked.

“Somewhere safe,” Martin said. “Where we can protect you. And explain things better, not...so out in the open.”

“Now,” AJ repeated, practically shoving them into movement.

Martin frowned, clearly trying to remember where he had left their vehicle, and then pointed back toward town. “That way.” They walked four blocks away from the park, to a street lined with old Victorians in various states of repair, and stopped in front of a small, dusty, dark red pickup truck.

Her lips twitched, looking at it. “I thought you nature types were all supposed to be environmentally conscious?”

“Funny human,” AJ growled. “Get in.”

AJ drove, while Martin sat on the passenger side, Jan squeezed between the two of them. Martin took her hand again, the way you would someone on the way to the doctor for surgery, to reassure them—or to keep them from bolting. She stared down at the black polish on his nails, then past him out the window. Neither of them tried to talk to her, or to each other, for which she was thankful. Anything more, and she thought her head might fly apart, or she might really throw up this time.

She needed time to take it all in, to figure out... No, there was no figuring out. She just had to roll with it until something made sense again.

They had an answer to what had happened to Tyler. She clutched that thought, warmed herself with it, soothed her uncertainty and the awareness that getting into this truck might have been the last, stupidest thing she’d ever have done.

Somehow, she didn’t believe they would hurt her.

“Last words of every dumb, dead co-ed ever,” she said to her reflection in the window, and sighed. And then, in self-defense, and because she couldn’t do anything useful, and neither of them seemed inclined to explain anything yet, Jan let her brain drift into white noise, her gaze resting on the rows of storefronts and apartment buildings as they drove farther out of town, trying not to think at all.

And, despite everything, or maybe because of it, she fell asleep.

* * *

Martin woke her with a gentle nudge with his elbow as they pulled off the road and parked, the engine turning off with a low cough. Jan, blinking, sat up and looked around. The sun had slipped low enough that streetlights were starting to come on, but half the posts were burned out. They’d gone east, toward the waterfront, but she didn’t know where, exactly.

She looked around as they got out of the car. They were in a small parking lot next to a warehouse that looked as if it had been abandoned for years. The nearest sign of life was a strip mall a little while away, the lights barely visible, and the sound of traffic on the highway a little beyond that. There were two beat-up pickups in the parking lot, which was cracked through with weeds and a sense of desolation beyond merely being abandoned.

“This way.” AJ started walking toward the warehouse, and Martin waited until she followed, then fell in behind.

Jan had the feeling, as they walked from the truck to the building, that they were being watched. The question—watched by what?—flashed through her mind. Not human. Whatever was going on, wherever Tyler had gone to, she was getting the feeling that getting him back wouldn’t involve sitting in front of a monitor fixing other peoples’ mistakes or listening to excuses. That might be a nice change.