Heart of Briar

Or it could get her killed. That would be a less-nice change.

Up close, the warehouse was in better shape than it seemed at first; the windows, set high up in the walls, were intact, and the cement walls had been repaired recently. The cargo-bay doors were padlocked with heavy chains. They walked around the side of the building to an oversize metal door with an “all deliveries to front” sign over it. The door looked heavy as hell, but AJ pulled it open without hesitation. It was unlocked, which surprised Jan. Why padlock the front, and leave the side open?

Inside the warehouse, the first thing she saw were remains of old cars, clearly cannibalized for parts, and workbenches filled with power tools. She took that in, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light, and saw, farther in the back, the huge lifts that you saw in repair shops. Off to her side there was a long metal table covered with license plates from a dozen different states.

Her eyes went wide, even though she would have sworn that nothing else could have surprised or shocked her then. “You guys are car thieves?”

“It’s a living,” AJ said tersely.

She was not given time to gawk, but led away from the machinery and cars to a corner of the warehouse that had been set up to look slightly more homey, with seating and a small kitchenette jerry-rigged against the wall.

AJ disappeared, and Martin indicated that she should sit down on the battered couch that looked as if it had been pulled from someone’s garage. It was like someone’s cheap college apartment; all it was missing were the milk crates up on cinder blocks.

“You want something to drink? I think we’ve got coffee, tea....”

“Tea would be nice, thank you.” The politeness made Martin smile, and he went off to fuss at the kitchenette, finally returning with a mug of tea that smelled like mint.

Jan hated herbal tea. She took it, anyway.

Martin sat down next to her while AJ returned with someone else he introduced as Elsa.

Jan blinked, and then laughed, the sound escaping her like a sob. “I’m sorry. I just thought you’d have—” Jan gestured a little, helplessly, sloshing her tea on the concrete floor “—more unusual names.”

“Some do,” Elsa said, not taking offense. Her voice was a rough, grating noise that matched her appearance perfectly. Jan understood better now why AJ and Martin had been sent to find her, if the newcomer was more typical of...what had AJ called them? Supernaturals. AJ’s face might be unusual, but nobody could avoid noticing a moving pile of rusty brown rocks shaped—vaguely—like a woman.

“I’m a jötunndotter,” Elsa said. “It’s all right to stare. I prefer it to those sideways looks people use when they’re trying to be polite.”

Jan, who had been trying to not look at her directly, blushed.

“You don’t want to meet the ones who insist on old-school names,” Martin told her. “They’re...difficult.”

“What swish-tail means,” AJ added, “is that they’re isolationist, and would just as soon humanity went a tipper over the edge into annihilation. Or went themselves, which is more likely.”

“There aren’t many of them. Not anymore.” Martin took her hand again, the one not holding the tea mug, and Jan pulled it away out of reflex. He was way too touchy for her taste, even if he was sort of homely-cute. “Humanity used to be good at getting rid of threats. The rest of us...well, there aren’t that many of us left, either. But we adapt. We try to blend.”

Elsa was not about to blend anywhere.

“Most of ’em aren’t blending so much as they’re sticking their heads into caves and leaving their asses hanging in the breeze. And good riddance to the lot of them.”

“We don’t play well with others,” Elsa said, almost apologetically.

“We don’t play well with ourselves, either,” Martin said, and AJ snorted agreement.

The sense of curiosity from earlier was tipping into panic again. Jan kept her life on an even keel. She liked her even keel. This was leaving her distinctly unkeeled. “You’re all... How many different... No. You know what? I don’t care.” Jan reached for her inhaler, just to have something real in her hand rather than because she needed it. “This is all insane, and the only reason I’m even here is that you keep telling me that Tyler’s been taken, that I’m his only hope—that those things are out to get me because of that...but nobody’s actually told me what’s going on!”

“We were too busy trying to save your life,” AJ snapped. “In case you’ve already forgotten.”

“My life wasn’t in danger until you showed up!”

Elsa shifted her weight, a crackling noise accompanying the movement, and glared at AJ until he looked away.

“It’s a lot to take in,” she said to Jan. “We know. But they had to get you here, safe, and even now there’s no time to answer everything, or explain things you don’t need to know. The clock’s been ticking ever since your boy was taken, and you waited too long to show up and claim him.”

“Excuse me?” Jan was, weirdly, relieved to feel angry. She didn’t like anger, but it beat the hell out of being scared and confused. She put the tea down, having only taken one sip from the mug, and glared at all three of the...whatever-they-weres ranged around her. “If you knew what the hell was going on, whatever the hell is going on, why didn’t you do anything? Before I was in danger—before Tyler was in danger?”

The jötunndotter lifted her hands, each finger a smooth length of brown stone, the palms like congealed gravel. “We couldn’t. Not without—there are ramifications and limitations to the natural world, and—”

“Elsa, stop.” AJ stalked back from the perimeter, which he’d been pacing, and crouched in front of Jan. He’d pushed the hoodie back when they’d come in, so she couldn’t avoid seeing the strange wolfen features, or how his oddly hinged jaw moved when he spoke. “We didn’t because we can’t. It doesn’t work that way. What’s going on caught us by surprise, too.” It hurt him to admit that, she could tell. “We’re trying to play catch-up.”

“So you’re not....” She didn’t know what she was going to ask, but AJ laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh.

“Humans veer between thinking they’re the only ones here and assuming that there’s this malicious cabal of woo-woo, messing with their lives at every turn. Both’re crap. There’s the natural, that’s you, and the supernatural. Us. We all belong in this world together...you people just take up most of the room. Mostly, we ignore you. Occasionally, our paths cross. It doesn’t end well for us, most of the time.”

Jan spoke without really thinking about it. “Fairy tales.”

AJ spat on the ground, and Martin sighed.

“Humans call ’em that,” AJ said. “Humans don’t have a clue. They revile what they don’t recognize, demonize what they fear, simplify it so they don’t have to deal with reality.” He sighed, his muzzle twitching, and then shrugged, as though deciding it didn’t matter.

“Like I said, we try to ignore humans, the same way you ignore us. Most of the time when our people meet, it’s just...skirmishes. Awkward moments and bad relationships.”

“But not always?”

“Not always. Sometimes it works out—not often, but sometimes. But that’s when it’s us, natural and supernatural.”

“There’s something else?” Jan felt her body tense, as if a fight-or-flight reaction was kicking in, although nobody’d said or done anything threatening in the past minute, and wasn’t that a nice change?

“Yes...and no,” Elsa said.

“Seven times that we’ve recorded,” AJ said, “something else gets added to the playground.” He held up his hand, not even trying to hide his claws now. Three fingers ticked off: “Naturals, supernaturals, and preternaturals.”

“Preter...”

“Humans call them elves,” Martin said. “What we call them isn’t so pretty.”

Elves. Jan thought of Keebler elves first, baking cookies, then the slender, coolly blond archers of the Lord of the Rings movies, and suspected AJ wasn’t talking about anything like that.

“Why two names? Aren’t you both—?”

AJ didn’t roll his eyes, sigh, or make any other obvious sign of irritation, but he practically vibrated with it. “Supernatural, above nature. Preter, outside nature. One belongs here, the other does not. Nobody teaches Latin anymore, do they?”

Jan had gone to school for graphic design, not dead languages.

“Supernaturals are part of this world,” Martin said. “The preters...come from somewhere else.”

“Fairyland?” Jan laughed. Nobody else did.

“And they...took Tyler? Why?” If they didn’t belong here...where had they taken him? How had they found him?

AJ settled in on his haunches, resting his elbows on his knees in a way that she would never be able to balance. Another reminder that he wasn’t human, that his body wasn’t what it looked like....

Jan tried to focus on what he was saying, now that they were finally explaining things.

“Preters have a history of stealing humans. Used to be, they’d slip through and steal whatever took their fancy. We didn’t know why they liked humans so much, but they do. Babies, especially.”

“Changelings,” Martin said.

“Right. Only sometimes they take adults, too. Males mostly, but sometimes females. And they never let ’em go.”

“And they took Tyler.... why?” Jan knew she was repeating herself. She was trying to process all this. All right, she’d accepted—mostly—the fact that there was more than she knew, more to the world than she’d ever dreamed, after what had happened on the bus. But this? Changelings and kidnappings and elves from another world, some kind of parallel universe or something? Seriously?

Tyler was gone. These people—supers—were here, and they were the only ones giving her any kind of explanation, no matter how insane it sounded. Unless ILM or some other Hollywood effects company was involved, there was no way this was any kind of prank.

Then her eyes narrowed, and she looked first at Elsa, then at Martin, and then back at AJ. “But why do you care?”

A werewolf’s laugh was, Jan discovered, a particularly atavistically terrifying thing, like a harsh howl that echoed against the roof and raised the hair on her arms. Almost instinctively she turned again to Martin for reassurance. He shook his head, his long face solemn, and looked back at AJ. So she did, too.

“Smart, yeah. You’re smart. And quick. Good.” AJ was serious again. “You’re right. We’re not all that fond of humanity overall. Sometimes we have periods where it’s bad, sometimes when it’s hunky-dory, but mostly, we don’t care. But this isn’t about you. It’s about us. Like I said, this world is our home, too. We both belong here. The preters...don’t.”

“They are not part of our ecosystem,” Elsa said, moving in closer. Jan shifted, uncomfortable, and the jötunndotter stopped. “They come in like invaders—”

“They are invaders,” AJ said. “Never forget that.”

Elsa nodded. “They cross borders that should not be crossed, and take from us. From this world. Humans, and livestock, and whatever else strikes their fancy. In the past, only a few have been able to pass, and only in force large enough to be noticed. Troops, they were called, and we could find them, and force them back.

“That has changed, Human Jan.”

Elsa seemed at a loss for what to say next, and Martin took up the narrative. It was almost a relief to turn to him, even though Jan knew damn well—intellectually, anyway—that he was no more human than the other two.

“It used to be, they had to wait until the moon was right, or some other natural occurrence, um, occurred. Then they came through either one at a time, or in a troop. Even with the natural world cooperating, it was an iffy thing, unpredictable. The portals shifted, moved. The damage they could do was limited, and if they stayed too long, we found them.”

The implication was pretty strong that, when found, they weren’t invited in for tea.

“The past year, maybe more, that’s changed. They’re coming in during times that the portal should not be open, in places they should not have access to—cities were never their domain. Even cities that were built on old sites: over time the pressure of naturals wore the access away, broke down the ancient connection.” Martin looked over at AJ, as though waiting for permission to continue, and then said, “The preters have found some way to open the portals that we don’t understand, move them to places they should not be, and they’re raiding us like an unguarded vegetable patch.”

“Taking humans...” Jan was still—understandably, she thought—stuck on that.

“Taking a lot of humans,” AJ said. “And that’s just in the three months we’ve been aware of it.”

“You didn’t know, before?”

“I told you. Mostly, we—supers and you naturals—ignore each other. And whatever use preters have for humans, we don’t fill it. None of our people disappeared. So, no, we didn’t notice that your species was disappearing at a faster than usual rate.

“Not right away, anyway. The dryads...they’ve always been fond of humans. No idea why, but...they like to listen. And they love to gossip. And they heard whispers. Those whispers reached us.”

Somehow, Jan suspect “us” meant him, AJ. For all his cranky manner—or maybe because of it—he reminded her of her first boss, a guy who’d known everything that was going on in the office, even the stuff they’d tried to keep from him.

“And then we discovered why. Or rather, how.” Elsa sounded almost...frightened. “The barrier between our worlds shifts, and can be influenced. We knew this, but never cared overmuch about the whys or hows...but the preters cared. Very much so. Before, it required, as AJ said, a natural turn, some conjunction to open a portal large enough to be useful. Now they have discovered a way to...thin the barrier. To create an unnatural portal that they can control, and not depend on the whims of nature or the tides of the moon.”

“How?”

“If we knew that...”

“It’s because of your computers,” Martin burst out.

“What?” Jan was suddenly lost again—her brain having slowly twisted around the idea of werewolves and trolls and elves, roughly hauled back to technology.

“Back then, it was all environmental. We could feel when they came into the system, when something shifted. Like an earthquake, or a storm coming in off the ocean; something changed. But it’s been quiet for a long time now. And then the whispers started, and we realized that quiet didn’t mean dormant.”

“They’re using technology, somehow.” Martin got up and paced this time, while AJ stayed put and continued explaining. “We know that much; once we started looking for it, we can feel it around their portals, the aftermath of them, like a static shock in the universe. It’s the same feeling that hovers around some of your labs, the major scientific ones. CAS, Livermore, CERN, Al-Khalili...” He shrugged, as though knowing all those names was unimportant. “But we don’t understand how. We don’t...that’s something humans do. Technology. Computers. But the preters have figured it out, and it’s giving them access—giving them control of where and when a portal opens.”

Martin touched her shoulder, drawing her attention. “That’s your world, Jan, not ours. Technology is a human invention. We wouldn’t know where to begin.”

Jan started to laugh. “So, what, you want me to shut down everyone’s computers? Set off some kind of virus to kill the internet? I can’t, I’m a website tech, not a hacker, I can’t do something like that, and I wouldn’t even if I could!” She worked with tech; she didn’t make it—or break it. Not intentionally, anyway.

AJ snarled at her, and this time it was a purely human—human-sounding—noise of frustration. “We’re not idiots. No. We can only find them after a portal opens—and that’s too late for us to do any good. We need to find out how they’re using it, learn how to shut it down. The only way to do that is to catch one of them. And the only way to do that is to play their game. But we don’t know what it is.”

“And you think that I do?”

“You can help us find out,” Martin said. “We need one of their captives, to find out what was done to them, and how. But they don’t take supers, only humans, and the only thing that can reclaim a human from a preter’s grasp is the call of their heart. Only a mother, or lover, has ever been strong enough. You’re the only one who can save Tyler...and Tyler is the only one who can save the rest of us.”

Jan officially overloaded. “You’re all insane. This is insane, this is...he wasn’t abducted! He went off with some hot chick, that’s all. He quit his job, just walked away from everything....”

“Not walked. Was led. The preters...” AJ was reduced to waving a hand at her—his fingers were tipped with short, blunt claws that looked as though they were designed to tear flesh off bone, so it was an effective swipe, making her scoot as far back on the sofa as she could. “Come on, woman, have you read no stories in your entire life?”

Jan stared at him, utterly at a loss. Then, slowly, the bits she needed surfaced from her memory, taken less from stories than role-playing games and movies, but enough that she began to understand.

“They seduce,” she said, slowly. “They lure...all of you do. Fairies, and mermaids, and will-o’-the-wisps.... You drag humans off...” Like they had done to her, she thought but didn’t say. Although, really, they’d used less seduction and more strong-arming. Was that better, or worse?

“Why do you care? Why not just let the preters drag humans off and good riddance? I mean, you’re all—” She waved her hand, as though to say “all the same, not-me, not human.”

Elsa looked at AJ, who looked at Martin, who looked up at the ceiling. Jan followed his gaze, as though there might be an answer. All she saw was a tangle of cables and industrial lights, most of which had burned out and not been replaced.

Something was going on that she wasn’t privy to, that they didn’t want her to know about. Jan opened her mouth to demand an answer when AJ cut her off.

“We’re not going to pretend to be saints,” he said. “But humans have a history of bad behavior, too, and they tend to use more violence. So let’s just call the past the past, okay? Like I said, we all belong here. We’re part of this world. So we have to deal with each other, even if dealing looks a lot like ignoring.

“That’s the difference. A thousand years of history show that preters don’t deal, they don’t compromise. This isn’t their place, it’s a...a storeroom they can raid. They don’t care about you, or us, or anything except themselves and what they want—and whatever they want? It’s bad for us. All of us.”

Jan shook her head. “You still haven’t given me any reason to trust you. How do I know that anything you’ve told me is true? You could be lying, this could all be some giant, impossible, stupid sick joke....”

The tickle in her throat got worse, and her chest closed up, the warning signs of an asthma attack kicking in. Too much dust in the warehouse, and with her luck she was allergic to supernaturals. She grabbed her inhaler, hitting it hard until things eased again. Two in one day: that wasn’t good.

Martin got up, shoving AJ aside and going down in a crouch next to Jan.

“Are you all right?”

What do you care, she wanted to retort, but the concern in his face was real, or looked real, anyway. His black-tinted nails glinted even in the dimmer light of the warehouse, and Jan thought of the tar-black hooves of his pony-form.

She waited until she could breathe normally, then shook her head. “Asthma. It sucks, but I’m okay. That’s not nail polish, is it?”

He ignored the question. “Jan. I’m not going to ask you to trust us. Trust is earned. But believe us.”

His voice was smooth and soft, especially after Elsa’s granite rumble and AJ’s growl. More, his touch was soothing, his hands on her bare arms, stroking down from elbow to wrist. The sensation eased the pressure in her chest even more, as if it was enhancing the drugs in her system. If so, she wanted to bottle that touch and make a fortune selling it.

“We’re selfish and we’re secretive, but I swear, on the river I was born to, I swear this: everything we’ve told you is true.”

Jan’s practical side fought its way through. Preters seduced. But so did supernaturals. The way he touched her... “Tyler was taken by elves?” Her voice was too high, as if she’d sucked helium instead of albuterol.

“I know what you’re thinking. That that’s crazy. Too crazy. You can see us, feel us, so you know we’re real, but we’re...strange. Monsters maybe, even. Elves? Elves are the good guys, the graceful ones, the moonshine and stardust ones. But they’re not. They’re predators.”

Behind him, AJ snorted, and Martin winced.

“They’re predators without an off switch,” he amended. “The only thing that’s kept us safe until now is the barrier between our world and theirs. A barrier they couldn’t control. And now they can.

“Jan, humans aren’t people to them, they’re toys. Things they take, use, break, and discard.”

Jan looked him straight in the eye, but included AJ—and all the others—in her question. “And you? Okay, fine, we’re all in this world together, woo, that has never stopped humans from beating the crap out of each other, doing horrible things. So, tell me, what are humans to you?”

He hesitated, although the motion of his hands never stopped. “Neighbors. Family. Extended family, yes, but... We’re all of the same soil, the same air, the same waters.”

Jan didn’t know if that was truth or bullshit. She didn’t know if any of this was truth or bullshit. But if it was true...her faith in, her love for Tyler was being validated. He hadn’t abandoned her, hadn’t been untrue, not willingly. Something not-human had taken him. She clung to that and nodded. It might all be insane, but the only other option would be to accept that everything she had believed in was a lie, to walk away, to give up on Tyler, to never trust her own instincts about love ever again.

“What do I need to do?”

There was a change in the air around her, as though the warehouse itself had exhaled in relief, and Jan had the sudden feeling that she’d just signed on for more than they had told her.

* * *

The feeling of being watched out in the parking lot had been real: while only three of them had come out to convince her, once she agreed, the shadows around the edges of the warehouse pulled back, and other figures began to emerge. Most of them looked human enough, like Martin and AJ, and she had to look carefully to see the scales or the horns, the slight hint of a tail or fur. Ten, maybe a dozen; they came and went around the auto corpses and workbenches with the air of people—things—people—on important missions, although none of them seemed interested, just then, in power tools or tires.

Someone shouted and waved an arm at AJ. He snarled in annoyance but got up and walked over to the shouter. After a hesitation, Elsa did the same, her body moving more slowly than AJ’s brisk lope.

That left her with Martin.

“What do you expect me to do?” she asked again, trying to ignore the flow of activity, knowing that they were all staring at her freely enough. “If you can’t find them until they’re already here, can’t trace them once they are here, how do you expect me to do any better?”

“You won’t. You can’t. But you can figure out how to lure them to us. Offer them what they want—a human who is willing to buy into their promises, give them what they want. And when they think they have you...we have a way to figure the portal out—and you can take back what is yours.”

Jan stared at him, and then laughed, a harsh exhale that didn’t sound amused. “I’m bait, in other words.”

Martin hesitated, just a bit. “Yes.”

“You know that I know what happens to bait, right?”

Martin tried to take her hands again; that seemed to be his thing. “We will protect you.”

She moved her hands out of his grip. “Uh-huh.”

Jan had a very strong suspicion that it wasn’t as easy as Martin was making it sound. But if they were right... If this had been going on for months, maybe longer, then she wasn’t the only one to have a loved one stolen away. But she was the only one who could do something about it.