To the Waters and the Wild ch. 13
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I despise feasts. Oh sure the food, once you’ve been charmed resistant to its entrapment, is marvelous. It’s the company I find questionable.
Crowds of politicians all with their own agendas. It wasn’t any different from my step-mother’s old cocktail parties. Well a little different. At least here, the males were handsome rather than overweight old geezers. But only a little.
I saw Kit and Will were holed up in their usual corner arguing excitably, probably over the wording in their poetry. Every century or so they convinced themselves that it would be a grand idea to write something together.
It never ended well. They were both too stubborn and different in their writing styles.
Then I felt a hand placed on my shoulder and the low voice of Lucifer, Prince of Hell and Star of the Morning greeted me.
He was all dark light. The black onyx of his grand wings melded into the crown of shadows, not the oily coloring of Mephistopheles, but rather the dusky tinge of a moonlit night.
“Hello Morningstar,” I smiled, “back from your foray into kidnapping?” I teased him and he must of still held some of the angelic grace in that his patience remained.
“Sarah. I did not kidnap yon princeling” he gestured towards the platform where Daren was being smothered by Titania’s greeting, “he visits us. Placing some of his power into the ring that protects all not of the mortal plain.”
“I don’t understand. I thought your agreement with Faerie was like the Mafia. An offer they couldn’t refuse?”
He threw back his head and laughed, the false light glinting off his teeth.
“That’s just precious” he chuckled wiping tears from his face. “I’ll have to repeat that to Faustus; mayhap. But no. Their tithe is more like a return for out wardenship.”
“You make it sound as if we were dependent” Puck joined us, carefully not meeting my eyes.
“There is strength and there is strength” Lucifer answered mildly. “The fey have their power in dreams and illusions, but they are weak to the growing science and technology. The fear of the flames, however, keeps the mortals in line.”
“So Bill Gates… is a minion?”
“One of our best,” Lucifer nodded.
“There is Faerie and there is Hell,” Puck agreed, tipping his glass back like a man intending to get drunk quickly.
As he strained for the last drops, the long sleeves he wore fell back and I got a glimpse of scarring around his wrists. What would scar a fey?
Before I could confront him a hush fell on the crowd.
“The grand entrance,” I thought sarcastically.
And then he was there.
I was struck by the realization that he looked… good. Obviously his stint in Hell had not harmed him.
His eyes caught mine and his face twisted into a proud smirk. Nor had his arrogance suffered a diminishment.
I turned my back on him only to see Lucifer chuckling.
“You two bring out the matchmaker in me.”
“Get thee behind me demon.” I glared.
He held up his hands in mock surrender.
I was caught in the swirl of court politics. Even Underhill the constant jockeying for power never stops and I was hard pressed to maneuver myself around the figures seeking either to gain my favor as an influential figure or catch me in a trap of words.
I kept an eye out for Daren. Although I was older now, and more confident regarding my own abilities, I did not want him to corner me.
However, I could not work on two fronts without being dangerously distracted. And it was at the point where I was jousting with the wily Sir Chaucer, a strange figure with a buck’s antlers and a leontine tail, when he took the opportunity thus presented.
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