Not for the first time, Laurel had to fight the near overwhelming urge to kill Phoenix.
Sam clearly didn't feel the same way. The moment they saw Phoenix, they broke into a run and wrapped him up in a tight hug. "Where've you been, you wretched wanderer?" they reprimanded with a brilliant smile across their face, a real one like burning sunlight. Phoenix's was brilliant starlight. The two of them laughed and slapped each other's shoulders as if all bygones were vanished and Laurel just was a bitter old hag to feel any differently.
Even if she had wanted to run to him — she didn't — he was quickly swallowed up by the rest of the crowd. All living or undead beings caught up in his orbit. They always were. Laurel’s hand reached for Eli’s, and she felt a rush of gratitude and affection to find it still there beside her. Of course Eli saw through him. She watched him, too, but with the same sort of bemused expression that came with witnessing a child have an outburst from across a store.
The human, too, held back, but not in a way that seemed apprehensive or unimpressed. In fact, her eyes brightened at the sight of Phoenix with avid interest. Laurel groaned. That was just what she needed. The human was enough trouble, but where Phoenix came, he always left devastation in his wake.
"We don't have enough beds for you and all your friends." Laurel crossed her arms.
She wasn't sure if Phoenix would hear her, but his red eyes snapped up and latched onto hers. His smile grew. Laurel's arms tightened.
"Oh, that’s alright.” He waved a hand. "We're not planning on sleeping, you know? As for the crowd, my bad. I ran into these guys on the way here…” He reached around Sam and gestured towards a handful of figures, six in total, carrying guitar cases on backs or drumsticks between their fingers. One hulking man had a triangle looped to his belt. “And as soon as I shared the good news, everyone wanted to join in.”
At this, the human did take a step forward. "Wait a second. The Moonlit Pipers?"
The throng around Phoenix broke into more excited chatter. Phoenix cast his grin at the human. "Ah, you've got good taste in music.”
Things were spinning out of control. Laurel couldn't grasp a hold of it. And Sam wasn't helping. "It's been too long since we've had live music here," they called above the din. "Isn't that right, Laurel?"
She knew Sam meant to bring her into things, to urge her to let go of the past and be happy with them. But it felt like just another stab of betrayal. She turned on her heel without answering. Let them do what they wanted. They always did.
No one seemed to care or call her back as she left for her room. No one except Eli, who appeared in the doorway the moment Laurel sat down on her bed. Eli's lips twitched in what Laurel imagined was her version of a sympathetic smile. "So that's the ex?"
Laurel snorted. "My tastes have evolved."
Eli shrugged. She stepped into the room, closing the door behind them and sat on the opposite bed. In many ways, their relationship had happened backwards. They became roommates when they barely knew each other, when Eli was the prickly, silent high school dropout who insisted she needed no one and Laurel was determined to help her. Friendship had developed slowly, and romantic feelings even slower — Eli had been in no position to think about romance when they met. It was only in the past few months that they had begun to carefully tiptoe along that path.
Laurel groaned. She'd never imagined the timing would be so catastrophically terrible.
“I promise you, I didn’t know he was coming.”
“I know.” Eli rolled her eyes. “You would have been way more uptight about the human girl if you had.”
Laurel huffed. “I think I’m being pretty reasonable all things considered…”
“Laurel.” Eli leaned forward, her tone gently exasperated. “You’re fine. No one’s blaming you.”
Laurel knew it wasn’t her fault, exactly. Maybe she could have been more careful when they started the website, but no one had anticipated this. Still, even if it wasn’t her fault, it was her responsibility. This was her hostel.
"Do you...want a hug?" Eli asked awkwardly.
Laurel gave a pitiful laugh. "A bit."
Eli crossed the small space to Laurel and enveloped her in warm arms and the musk of fur that was not there. She was not an especially touchy person, too tightly wrapped within herself. But Laurel was, and Eli knew it. Her arms were thin and her frame wiry, but somehow they always felt secure. The gesture of care was enough to make Laurel want to kiss her, but she contented herself with the hug for now.
"Thank you," Laurel breathed. "You know what? Why don't we do our date tonight? We can just leave, find a nice restaurant or club. I think we could both use the change of scenery."
Eli pulled back. "I have to be up early tomorrow," she mumbled. "I have a shift at the lab."
Laurel's brief moment of pleasant distraction clattered to the floor. "Right. I forgot about that."
Another reason it had taken so long to get to this point with Eli was their conflicting schedules. Laurel slept during the day and came awake at night. Eli worked early mornings as a lab assistant and was fastidious about getting in her eight hours of sleep. The result was that they usually had only a few hours between them in which they were awake at the same time.
"Sorry."
"It's okay," Laurel lied. "I probably should keep an eye on things here anyway. And you should get some sleep soon."
She pushed herself to her feet. "Thanks for putting up with my moodiness."
Eli frowned. "You're not..." But she trailed off. She couldn't say that Laurel wasn't being moody. Eli wasn't the type of person to sugarcoat like that. Instead she sighed. "Wake you before I leave?"
Laurel gave her a small smile. "Please."
She pulled the door gently behind her, closing it with a soft click. Whenever she and Eli finally did get around to their date, she was going to have to pull out all the stops at this point.
***
The Moonlit Pipers were really here.
Anne-Marie took her lager from the ivy covered bar in between two crabapple trees and found a black wooden table against the wall where she could watch the band tune up. She shouldn’t have known at a glance that it was them. She had only seen them in one grainy photo, on a thrift store bought album that originally came out in 1998: Bitter in the Sweet. But it was undeniably them, and though a few had aged a bit, they may as well have stepped out of time.
Frontman Ganelon Moore’s electric blue guitar was his trademark, recognizable by the engraving of a flute on the side. There were no pipes in the band’s repertoire, so the guitar was named Pipes. His dusty brown hair stuck out at all ends, and the tattoo of an ox in the center of a sun was just as it had been on the album.
There was the lanky drummer, Kamran Brody; the blue haired keyboardist, Harley Faron; Sasha, the scowling base player; Alix Seward, the rhythm guitarist with a constant restless fidget; and the near-giant Julius Spitz hanging back with the horns or hurdy gurdy or violin or pretty much any instrument that was needed.
Julius was in the midst of a weighty handshake with Phoenix that involved a small bag. Probably drugs, or maybe blood. At this distance, she couldn't see the color. The casually illicit nature of it all was part of what kept Anne-Marie from approaching.
The rest was that now that she was faced with her elusive favorite band, she wasn't sure what to say to them. She had never been accused of shyness, but anything she could say seemed trite. Your music got me through college or You wrote the only song that ever made me cry or some such things that they had probably heard a million times.
She had picked up her first CD in a thrift store back in high school. They were a bit folksier than she usually gravitated towards, but that folk atmosphere exploded to life with theatrical rock sensibilities. Their lyrics were strange to the point of being nonsensical, but the story of the music drew her in, made her feel as though she were dancing in a dark glade far away rather than lying on a book-laden bed in an unfortunately mauve bedroom.
They had released six albums in two decades, and Anne-Marie had them all. But they never toured. There were never any announcements of upcoming shows or music festivals that they took part in, and no interviews to explain why they were so private. They simply released albums and then faded into obscurity.
It made sense that they were of this world, and Anne-Marie wondered how many hidden Moonlit Pipers concerts she had missed.
Julius and Phoenix parted. Phoenix picked his way through the crowd to Anne-Marie.
His eyes were brown now, the red apparently just his way of making a dramatic entrance. The sunglasses, too, had disappeared into a pocket or tossed somewhere carelessly. He looked youthful — younger than Anne-Marie. In reality, he must have been much older.
Maybe she should have been afraid, should have sought to hide herself or maybe locking herself in her room for the week was a good idea, after all. But his smile was playful rather than leering and, despite her common sense, kind of endearing. Plus, it was nice to be greeted rather than glared at by someone.
"You're the Pipers fan,” he began without preamble, leaning over the table behind which she had taken her seat.
"Well, I know next to nothing about them and their music has turned my heart inside out and torn it to shreds a dozen or so times. So yeah, fan covers it, I guess." In truth, it was the understatement of the century, and yet felt strangely inadequate. But maybe part of that was that fan implied something of a community, and she was used to the Pipers dwelling in a private corner of her heart.
"I'm Phoenix."
"I heard. Anne-Marie." She stuck out her hand.
He shook it. "Anne-Marie. You're new here. And human."
She arched an eyebrow. "Aren't most people at a hostel new there?" She pointedly avoided the human part of things, grateful that at the moment at least he didn't look interested in eating her.
"Not this one. So I've heard, at least. My first time here, so I guess that makes two of us newcomers."
"You didn't seem new. At least if those reactions had anything to do with it."
He waved a hand. "Sam and Laurel and me are old friends. The hostel is a new thing that they started without me." The hurt affect in his tone was offset by a playful laugh. Still, she wondered. The look Laurel had given him was not a look of old friends. In fact, Laurel seemed even more upset by his presence than she had Anne-Marie's.
She changed tactic for now to touch on it later. "Well, you were busy hanging out with rock stars it looks like."
He threw his head back and laughed. "I like you, Anne-Marie."
She liked him, too, despite herself. Besides being a vampire, he reminded her of the sort of boy that might have made fun of her in high school for being weird, nerdy, and obsessed with ghosts. But neither of them were in high school, and Phoenix was both friendly and the first person to be a little bit forthcoming since she had arrived.
"So the band." She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "And I apologize, I would ask this in a nicer way if I knew what the hell to ask. Are they...you know, fanged variety or howl at the moon types?"
Phoenix raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching in either delight or mockery. "Why don't you guess?"
Well, she deserved that. Humans didn't like being asked "what are you," and she couldn't imagine that people who went bump in the night did, either. She looked at the band, who was in the process of tuning up their instruments.
"Ganelon hasn't aged since the 90s, which could be good genetics or maybe a great plastic surgeon. But neither has Julius, and Alix looks as baby-faced as ever, too, so I'm guessing those two are some sort of immortal. They can go out in the sun, so probably not vampires. Fae, maybe? There should be at least one werewolf with the 'moonlit' part of the name. Sasha would be an obvious choice, but I'm gonna say Kamran. He writes a lot of the lyrics about hard changes and mysteries of the night. Sasha might be, too. They seem pretty chummy so they could be part of a pack. As for Harley…no clue. Witch, maybe? Changeling?”
Phoenix pretended to carefully consider it at first, but by the end, he was laughing too hard. "Wow. You really are just human. How did you even get in here?" Anne-Marie flushed.” You know witches can look younger if they want, too, right?"
She groaned. She should have known that. Even going just off of folk tales and the somewhat credible firsthand accounts she had found, there had been plenty of stories of old crones disguising themselves as beautiful young women. But that made it nearly impossible to guess under these circumstances.
"Can you tell me if I got any of them right, at least?"
He grinned and leaned his elbows on the table, so far that his feet dangled off the ground. He cupped a hand around his mouth, and then hesitated. His eyes fell somewhere behind her. When Anne-Marie glanced over her shoulder, she saw Laurel at the bar, eyes narrowed at Anne-Marie and Phoenix. Her two least favorite people.
Predictably, when Anne-Marie turned back to Phoenix, his feet were back on the ground and he had pushed off the table. The moment had passed. "Maybe later. I'm going to go say hi."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"
Phoenix, already walking away, tossed a confident grin over his shoulder. "Of course! Laurel loves me."
Anne-Marie turned to face them, taking a sip of lager. Laurel's shoulders were tense, her glare deadly. Phoenix's step had a bounce that could have been excited or nervous. Laurel felt something for him alright, but Anne-Marie didn't think it was love.
***
"Well, if it isn't the Sunsinger."
The rest of the Moonlit Pipers were on stage tuning for their set. Only their fearless leader had tucked himself into one of the side rooms off the courtyard, resting on a faded yellow couch and waiting for the whiskey he had ordered, a "pre-show tradition."
Sam guessed that Ganelon cared less about the whiskey than who delivered it. Nonetheless, they passed him the glass. "Not much of a singer anymore." Or a player. Or anything other than a detached appreciator of music. There were trade-offs to no longer living under the thumb of the Summer Court.
Ganelon took the glass and raised it in thanks before downing it whole. "Waste of a gift," he gasped.
Sam shrugged and took a seat in a vine rooted plastic chair. "All the better for you, or your band might be looking for a new frontman.”
Ganelon smiled, but there was a sharp edge to it. He swung his legs over until he was sitting. "Your king grieves for you."
There it was. Sam wondered if they would flirt the subject a bit before Ganelon plunged the knife, but why bother with that? They both knew the script.
"And I him." Sam sighed. "Did he send you?"
"You know he can't go back on his word."
"Mm. And his word was that he wouldn't force me back, not that he wouldn't send people to manipulate me into coming back." It didn't take cleverness to figure out that loophole, or even a knowledge of the Summer King, though Sam had both. But it was also what the king had been doing for the past decade.
Ganelon spread his free arm out. “What are you doing out here? Playing human? You know it can't last for much longer."
Sam was keenly aware. Worst yet, so were most of their friends. "I won't go back. I'm sorry. But I won't be a weapon for his whims."
Ganelon set the empty glass on the ground and stared at his hands, one running over the crook of the thumb of the other. "You ever think about how things would have gone if your crisis of conscience came a little bit sooner?"
Faces flashed to mind for Sam, too many to count but never enough to forget. All of their eyes held single-minded adoration, their smiles serene. Lambs to the slaughter. "Every day," they said. "And every night it haunts my dreams."
Ganelon didn't answer, and his band didn't give him a chance. The ridiculously stretched out drummer knocked on the doorframe. "Gan? We're ready when you are."
Ganelon stood up and cast one passing glance at Sam. "You look tired," was all he said. Then he left.
Sam sagged and buried their face in their hands. They felt tired.
***
"This is a neat idea," Phoenix called to Laurel as he strode towards the bar. "I think when Sam and I had it before, it was just the bar. So I'm guessing the hostel was all you."
Laurel tapped her fingers impatiently on the butcher block bar. "What are you doing here?"
He slumped into a stool and grinned up at her. "Aww, come on. Is it so bad that I wanted to see my friends?"
"With no warning, naturally. And a crowd following behind you, and a big mess to clean up when you leave."
He gave a dramatic sigh and then turned to order a water. Being a vampire didn’t preclude Phoenix from drinking, and certainly not drinking alcohol. It had just never been his drug of choice. "Didn't you miss me at least a little?" He pouted. "I missed you."
She had determined not to miss him at all, and she had succeeded…mostly. She threw herself into the hostel. She met new people and reconnected with old ones. But sometimes it slipped in, the missing him. When she and Sam shared an inside joke that used to be for three instead of two. When a plane flew overhead and she thought about his pilot phase.
Fifty years worth of memories. What else could they do in their retirement but bite at her and kick at her?
Most of the time, though, like when she stared at a notification that was about him but not from him, she hoped he would never come back at all.
And now he was placing his hand over hers, running his thumb over the crook of hers, and the missing him flooded her. The old love reared its ugly head. But it wasn’t the same. It was a longing without the heat.
She sighed. "I'm seeing someone, Phoenix."
"Alright." He grinned wickedly. "Want to introduce me?"
Her lips pursed. "Exclusively."
He pulled back a bit, and she took some small satisfaction in surprising him. "Seriously?"
She couldn’t look at him or she would lose her nerves, so she looked at her yellow nails instead. "It's new, and I'm not sure exactly where it's going, but...yes. I really like her."
The confession — a momentous one for Laurel — met empty air from Phoenix, met only the sounds of chatter around them and tuning instruments. Phoenix stared at her blankly.
“Well, what do you expect?” she huffed, crossing her arms. “That I sit around pining for you whenever you take off and wait for the next scraps I can get? That's not fair."
It was as though he had been shut down, and was only now coming back on. He smiled. “That’s cool. I just meant I missed hanging out is all.”
Laurel’s blood could no longer rush to her cheeks when she was embarrassed, but she felt the residual burn. "That's really all you have to say?”
"What?” He blinked, guielessly. “Was I supposed to say something else?"
She laughed. A small part of her, the part of past Laurel that still resided in her, was offended at his lack of jealousy. The rest of her was relieved. “Fifty years, and I still can never tell what you're going to do."
"That's my charm." He grinned. "I keep everyone on their toes."
"It sure is your something." She looked past him and waved to Rickard and Elba as they passed. The two of them were fairly new guests, and couldn’t have been more different: he gregarious and charming, her reserved and on edge. But it was nice to see a friendship forming between them.
Phoenix leaned forward to peek at them. "Is it one of them? Wait, is he human? You have two humans here?"
Laurel elbowed him. “He is partially possessed by a demon. The demon is our guest." She brought her hand to her temple. "As for the other human…I didn't have a say in the matter. She booked online."
He whistled. That's incredible. I mean, probably bad for your business if you want to keep humans out of here, but she seems fun."
"She's nosy," Laurel said through her teeth. "And smug."
"Like I said. Fun."
"Well, the good news is she's only here for a week." Laurel sat in her stool. "Speaking of which. How long are you staying in town?"
She regretted it the second she asked. Her tone was light, casually curious, but it reminded her too much of the sort of desperation she’d felt in the past. Hoping that he might stick around, knowing he wouldn’t.
He nudged her stool with his foot. "How about you? I heard this place moves around."
"You know that's not what I mean," Laurel said. She put a hand on her hip and looked at him with what she hoped was a challenge. "We move around to protect the identities of our guests. You could always come with us if you wanted to."
"Do you want me to stay?"
"Don't put that on me." She glared at him. He held up his hands.
It wasn't always him that left, though it usually was. A couple times, she had left him, tired of waiting around for him. He would come back around after enough time had passed that she forgot about the agony of it. But whatever happened, it always ended in one of them leaving the other behind. She reminded herself, as she had countless times before, that there was no point in getting attached to Phoenix.
"I don't know," he answered. There was a softness and uncertainty to his voice. "It depends on some things I have going on."
She might have rolled her eyes or scolded him, but the vulnerability sank its hooks into her. He seemed…almost serious for once.
“What things?” she asked.
And then one of his followers broke the moment.
"Excuse me.” The voice came from a tall, willowy witch with round, intense gray eyes fixed on Phoenix. They were dressed warmly even inside, complete with a scarf peeking out of their waist-length gray jacket. "Sorry to interrupt. You’re Phoenix, right?”
He looked up, and his bright, boyish smile came right back into place. "That's me. What's up?"
"Hey. I'm Lux."
A look of recognition flashed across his face. "Lux. That's right, I owe you a drink, huh?"
Lux looked between him and Laurel. "Yeah. Is this a bad time?"
"Of course not," Laurel answered, pushing back away from the bar. "He's all yours."
"Aww, come on, Laur," he whined. She shook her head. She hadn’t had his undivided attention even back when she had been entitled to it, so why would she expect it now?
The human. Where had she gotten to? Laurel scanned the growing crowd. She didn't see her, though that told her little. The human was exceptionally ordinary looking, slouchy posture tucked into her slouchy black zip-up hoodie. Mid-length black hair, plain face, no make-up. She was exactly the sort of person who could get lost in a crowd — or sneak out of it.
"Fuck," Laurel muttered just as the lead singer of the band took the stage and the crowd became more of a throng.
"How's it going, Afterlight denizens?" the charismatic front man cooed, hugging the microphone close. "We're the Moonlit Pipers and we're going to put on a little show for you if that's alright." His laid back invitation was met with cheers and shouts. The lights of the courtyard dimmed. The drummer started the pickup.
***
Fuck. Anne-Marie was missing the start of the set. “First Wind” wasn’t her favorite song of theirs, but this was her first Moonlit Pipers concert, maybe her only concert of theirs. The music fanatic in her wanted to soak up every moment.
Unfortunately, the show also provided a distraction the likes of which might not come again for the rest of the week. The opportunity to snoop took precedent. She slipped into the darkness of the crowd, past Phoenix sharing a drink and flirting with a nervous looking beanpole in a rainbow colored scarf. Just past Laurel, who roved about the scene like a hawk on a hunt. Past a group of three bulky looking figures sneaking into the room as she sneaked out. Until she finally reached a little green door on the far end of the courtyard.
The door was locked, of course. But Anne-Marie had been in the business of snooping too long to let that stop her. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was looking at her and then withdrew an old warped paperclip. One day she needed to get herself an actual lock picking set. In the meantime, it was whatever pliable but still sturdy wire she could get her hands on.
Clipsper the Friendly Lock Pick tickled the tumblers and massaged the lock until finally Anne-Marie felt that satisfying click. She turned the handle, the sound of the opening door drowned out by the thrum of drums and guitar strings. She slipped inside and clicked the door closed behind her.
Inside the door looked to be a small office, despite the vines that grew along the walls like overgrowth carried over from the courtyard. It caught her off-guard at first, to see the wild brushed up against the mundane. Although she had long believed in magic in theory and sought it out, she had to keep reminding herself that it was real and capable of doing things she didn't expect.
Aside from the vines, it seemed normal enough. An old computer and desk decorated with cluttered gatherings of papers (too scattered to be called stacks). A tripod, ring light, and camera faced a blank gray wall (unadorned with vines). That was interesting. It was possible that whoever had the office had something of an online presence, but why film against the most boring backdrop in the room?
She rummaged through the papers. Each displayed a Michigan state ID, driver's license, employee card, and other such forms. The pictures showed faces smiling awkwardly against the gray wall. Each, Anne-Marie could only guess, was a fake. So the hostel for the paranormal also served as a front.
Of course there would be something like that. How else could immortal, unaging creatures get a job or go back to school for the fiftieth time? What doctor would make an official note for werewolves to let their boss's know they would have to miss work on the night of a full moon for some obscure health reason? These people - most of them, anyway - probably had to blend into human society at least a little. These days, that involved a lot of paperwork.
"I thought vampires didn't show up in pictures," she muttered as she flipped past the image of a girl who had flashed a bit of fangs at her in the courtyard earlier.
"That was only when cameras had silver in them."
Anne-Marie jumped at the voice that came from inches behind her. She grabbed the nearest thing she could find that wasn't paper - a pen - and clicked it threateningly as she whirled around.
The pale figure behind her was a little taller than her, with flame-like orange hair that fell to their jaw. They looked to be no older than thirty, though premature gray sprouted through the orange. Green eyes peered at the click pen with a bit of suspicion. Glitter splayed across their freckles. This was the person she had seen from the balcony earlier, talking with Laurel and Eli.
"Sam, I presume." Her voice was thin with fear, pen still held aloft no matter how ridiculous she felt.
"Pesky human, I presume." They sighed. "I hate to give Laurel a reason to say she told me so."
Anne-Marie straightened her spine and tried to gather her composure. "Just what was she saying about me?"
They should have thrown her out already. They should have threatened her or reached for a weapon or tried to work some sort of fae magic on her. The reservation may have served as a contract protecting her from being kicked out, but she didn't think it protected her from the consequences of her own actions.
But instead, they merely sank into their rolling desk chair and turned it until it faced her. "Just that you would bring ruin on everything she built, endanger all the guests under her care, that sort of thing."
Endanger them? Even with taking a few self-defense classes, no one had ever mistaken Anne-Marie for dangerous. Especially not in a crowd like this. "I'm certainly not planning to."
“The worst catastrophes never do. And you're snooping through my office."
Their office. Anne-Marie swallowed. It could have been worse, she supposed. It could have been Laurel's office.
"Alright, you've got me there. But I wasn't doing it to steal anything, and I for sure wasn't doing it to destroy anything."
Sam tilted their head. "You're not lying."
Anne-Marie's fear abated to curiosity. "Is that a fae thing? I thought you just couldn't lie. But you can tell when other people are lying, too?"
They laughed rather than answering her. "What did bring you here then?”
There was no point in lying, which was lucky because Anne-Marie didn't have a good one. Somehow the knowledge that she couldn't put her more at ease. It was like the difference between being afraid to get on the plane in case of a crash and being in the air when turbulence hit. She knew for some the turbulence only heightened the fear. But the way Anne-Marie saw it, there was nothing she could do at that point.
She was already in the air. Nothing for it.
"I was hoping to learn a little more about this place, honestly. Which I did, but I'm not gonna run to the cops or post about it online or whatever you're worried about." She shrugged and hoisted herself onto the desk, carefully brushing the papers to one side. "And I don't know, I was hoping I'd find something interesting about magic or Faerie or something about the paranormal that's not folk tales or an obscure Reddit post."
Sam snorted. “So you jumped into the rabbit hole with no ulterior motive except that you're a believer and wanted to prove yourself right."
Once again, Anne-Marie felt rather small for her plan. "Well, I won't say that wasn't part of it." She traced a finger on the edge of the desk. "Although I do have a few questions that you might be able to help with in particular."
"Naturally." Sam spread their arms. "You can ask, but I make no promise to be helpful."
Anne-Marie's stomach flipped. She was used to keeping her personal research project close to the chest. And she found it best not to divulge all the details when searching online forums. People tended to take advantage if you seemed too desperate.
Then again, all the stories said the same and worse of the fae. But at least Sam was more likely to know something than a stranger on the internet.
"I'd like to know more about how people end up in Faerie. Regular people. Wait, sorry, that's probably offensive. Humans."
Sam stilled, and she wondered if maybe she had really offended they. She opened her mouth to apologize again, but they spoke first. "Lots of humans end up in Faerie lots of different ways. Rarely by choice, and I wouldn't advise it."
Anne-Marie snorted at that. "Yeah, I'm not quite that stupid yet. I'm not planning to go myself, just want some information."
“Someone you lost, then?” Sam looked at the black computer screen and then their hand on the arm of their desk chair. They didn’t scowl or shake, but they pointedly noticeably did not look at Anne-Marie. It both made her uneasy and certain that she was on the right track.
“I’m not sure. I think so.” She had to give more than that if she wanted to get anything in return. “I was abandoned as a baby. My birth mother disappeared right after giving birth to me. And I have reason to believe it has something to do with Faerie.”
Sam sighed. “You want to make sense of your abandonment. If it was fae, then at least you would be special, even if you were lonely.”
“That’s not it!” she shot back, her face hot.
She remembered now why she had stopped trying to bring people into this. It wasn’t the outright dismissal she hated, it was the pity. The assumptions that she was some poor little lost girl with an abandonment complex making up stories for her own comfort. Anne-Marie had no memory of her birth mother. She had been adopted as a baby into a family that she loved who had raised her well. She was not a missing piece searching for her whole.
But her birth mother was missing. Had been for twenty-four years, with a family left behind who everyone had dismissed the same way that Anne-Marie was now dismissed. Someone needed to put an end to it.
Sam glanced at her, and in that brief glance it was clear that any dismissal they’d made before was gone now. “And what makes you think she was lost to Faerie?”
Anne-Marie took a deep breath and let her blood cool. “My grandmother — my birth grandmother, Tilda — went to her grave saying that her daughter hadn’t just run away. That I was taken from her, and she went to get me back but never returned. My birth mother had journals full of ravings about a…changeling child, and some sort of bargain.” She gave Sam a hard look. “Do you want to tell me I’m making this all up now?”
“I never said any of that,” Sam said in a surprisingly gentle tone. They stood up. “Do you have your mother’s journals?”
Here Anne-Marie’s cause lost steam. She deflated. “No. And I’m told my grandmother probably destroyed them before she died.”
Sam’s eyebrow went up. She saw the recognition dawn. “Did you ever even meet your grandmother?”
Anne-Marie opened her mouth to explain. Sam’s hands dug into their haired they let out a laugh that made Anne-Marie’s cheeks burn.
“No, okay? I found Tilda’s obituary online. Then I got on a bus and I snuck into her funeral, and after that I talked to all her neighbors. I know she was my grandmother, but I don’t have a way to prove it, so I worked with what I could. That’s what I do.”
“How?” Sam’s hands still covered their mouth.
Because her ghost saved me the night she died. Because her eyes looked just like mine.
Her mouth hung open, but the words would not fall out. They were trapped behind too many gates.
Sam laughed again, and swung open the door to their office. “Go home, Anne-Marie in Wonderland. This place doesn’t exist to give you answers.”
***
Lux’s fingers tugged at the ends of their scarf, smiling to themself at the gift they had received from Phoenix. It was a small thing…smaller than they expected, but it changed everything for them.
They wanted to get out of this place. They hated crowds, and they wanted to feel the fresh night air on their face, not this glamoured and constructed thing. Their energy was flagging already, and they wanted a moment to revel in their freedom before they ran.
It was hard enough to believe that they had been able to slip out, without being caught under her watchful eye. Harder still that they found someone who could help them. But that they hadn’t been followed...that was a dream. It was too good to be true.
They didn’t know what it was like not to be held in someone else’s hands. They had always been passed from one to another. But that ended tonight.
They pushed through the people in the back of the courtyard, whispering apologies and searching for the door. Then they froze. It had been too good to be true, after all. They had been followed, or if not, they were about to be discovered. They dove back into the crowd and pushed through the other way.
***
Laurel was in no mood for a show, no matter how much the crowd loved the Moonlit Pipers. (Why “Moonlit Pipers,” anyway? There wasn’t a single pipe among them. Unless it was some reference to smoking.) She was tired and frustrated. She wanted Eli. Maybe she could go back to their room and take a nap, if such a thing could be had through all this racket.
But no. This night was set on tormenting her.
“Hey!” She stormed towards a vampire who was currently baring her fangs at a witch lad trying to squirm away from them. “Back off. Willing blood only here.”
It was enough of a distraction for the man to run off. The vampire, a muscular woman with buzzed hair sneered at Laurel. “He was willing enough to dance with me.”
“Yeah, that’s not the fucking same, is it though?” Laurel knew this vampire’s face, if not her name. She was one of Marisol’s. Bad things came in threes, and here was the third and possibly worst of them all. If Marisol’s people were here, someone needed to lock the human up for her own sake.
The vampire pushed herself up, getting in Laurel’s face. “Mind your own business. Think you’re some sort of vampire queen?”
No, Laurel thought. That’s Marisol. “This is my place,” she said, dripping acid into each word. “And that’s my guest. So if you’re going to come here, you play by my rules or you leave.”
The vampire scoffed. “We’ll see how long that lasts.” She stalked off.
It was an empty threat. Marisol’s people were full of them. Marisol was a control freak and her gang of vampires were thugs at best. But on a night like tonight, it took Laurel a moment not to let her confidence be too shaken.
***
The concert was still going strong as ever back in the courtyard. The Moonlit Pipers did not, in fact, have some secret insight into Anne-Marie’s soul. They played on, a slow and haunting rendition of “Islemist,” oblivious to her inner turmoil.
Sam had not come out of their office, and Laurel had not stormed forward to tell Anne-Marie off, although Anne-Marie noticed her watching out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t care. Or rather, she was too busy trying to keep herself from crying to care.
It was supposed to be different here. No one ever believed her at home, and that made sense because they had never experienced what she had. But here was a place where people knew about the supernatural. Where they were the supernatural and deeply entrenched in everything about it. Sam was from Faerie, or at least she assumed, though for as much as she’d spilled to them she’d received nothing.
Mistrust was one thing. Caution, fine. But she hadn’t expected to face disbelief here of all places.
So maybe she was the problem. If this didn’t prove that everyone was right and that she was jumping at shadows, she didn’t know what else did.
Someone smashed a glass, shattering Anne-Marie's pity party. A short red-eyed vampire stood on top of the bar, shouting, “THE AFTERLIGHT SUCKS! ALL A BUNCH OF WEAKASSES.”
Someone tackled them off the bar. The crowd’s attention split wildly, between the band — who kept playing — and the fight.
Someone shoved against her shoulder as she tried to get a better look. The beanpole that Phoenix had been drinking with earlier, the one with the rainbow colored scarf staggered away from her, silent. Anne-Marie wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it was clear they was drunk. She caught their arm.
“Hey. You alright?”
The eyes that met Anne-Marie’s were large and gray and unmistakably clear. They nodded timidly. Okay, maybe they weren’t drunk, but they were clearly hurt or something.
“Do you need a doctor?” Anne-Marie asked, then realized that might have been a stupid thing to ask here. “Or…potions?”
“It’s okay.” They looked up towards the fight and pulled their arm out of Anne-Marie’s grip and staggered away. “I’ll be fine. Just let me go.”
That only made Anne-Marie more worried. But she also wasn’t sure what she could do to help.
“Look, at least let me help you find one of your friends or something—”
As if to punish her for her nosiness, the room went black with the sound of an electric snap. Bodies shoved her as voices cried out in protest. Anne-Marie reached into her pocket for her phone, frantically clicking for the flashlight app.
The phone flew out of her hands as a runner smacked into her. “Hey!” She turned, too quickly, and heard a thump of someone hitting the ground behind her. She crouched down, searching for her phone, only to have her hand stepped on.
“Can everyone just calm down?” she tried to call, but it was lost in the din. Her hands moved over something slick and wet. Frankly, even she didn’t want to know what that was.
Finally, she clasped a cold glass rectangle — just as someone else ran over her, knocking her into another poor soul who had been knocked down.
Then, slowly, light came back. Not light from the electricity, but four balls of light, each as big as Anne-Marie herself, floating up to the ceiling. It was dim, but it was enough to see the shoe print on her hand, the cracks all along her phone screen, and the red on her finger tips.
Someone close by let out a piercing shriek. Followed by another, and another. They were staring, it seemed, at Anne-Marie. No. Not at her. Behind her. She looked over her shoulder, and then jerked away with a “Fuck.”
Because on the ground was a deathly still body, blood pooling from two wounds in their neck, large gray eyes staring blankly above.
Thank you all so much for reading the first two chapters of Seven Nights at the Afterlight. I hope you're enjoying it! As a reminder, for mental health reasons I need to take a hiatus but I will be back on March 31st (and March 1st for Ko-Fi subscribers) with chapter three.
