Wondrous Strange

apron…

Where Sonny went, reputation preceded him. As he passed the Fae on the streets, they gave him a wide berth, even though Sonny had no quarrel with them. Most had already had to fight against the Janus to cross over, and it wasn’t an experience any of them wanted to repeat. There were also those of the Otherworld who had been trapped in the mortal realm more than a century ago through no fault of their own. Some would even have gone back, were it not for Auberon’s harsh decree of banishment that had accompanied his closure of the Gates: If a Faerie had gotten caught-consorting with humans in the human world-then they could stay there.

Still, not wanting to appear to his remaining loyal subjects in the Otherworld as overly vengeful, Auberon had left it to his Janus to decide whether or not a Lost Fae would go on to pose an actual threat to the mortal realm. Most of them didn’t, and so the Janus left them in peace.

Even so, the Lost Fae remained almost universal in their passionate hatred for Sonny’s kind. He felt a familiar twinge of regret about that as he stood in the swiftly ascending elevator to his floor.

At the entrance to the penthouse, he sensed a presence even before he’d turned the handle on the door. It was warm inside, almost oppressively so. Sonny could feel the hair raise up on his arms as he stepped cautiously through the doorway.

A Storm Hag hovered a foot and a half off the floor in the middle of his living room.

“Hag,” he hailed her blandly.

“Watch thy mouth, fleshling,” she hissed. Tiny spears of lightning sparked from her fingertips, and her dusky robes billowed around her like gathering thunderheads. Servants of Mabh, the Storm Hags had long ago been chained to the mortal realm by their harsh mistress to carry out her commands. The hags communicated with Mabh, herself confined to her own grim realm, through enchanted mirrors. They were malicious creatures but- because they were Queen Mabh’s direct emissaries, answerable only to her and not to Auberon or any of the other Courts-they were untouchable; the Janus were forced to leave them in peace.

Which made it particularly frustrating when one showed up uninvited in the middle of your living room, Sonny thought.

“Queen Mabh sends a greeting.”

“Queen Mabh sent her ravens first.” Sonny crossed his arms and leaned against the bar, not in the mood for this. “A greeting might have been welcome before an attack.”

The Storm Hag’s gray lips stretched in a ghastly parody of a smile. “Be thou lucky Mabh turns any attention on such a crawly worm as you. She is mighty as she is merciless. She is the Darkling Queen, the Queen of Air and Darkness, bringer of storm and war-”

“I don’t need to hear her resume. Just tell me what she wants and get out.”

“An alliance,” the creature snarled. “This realm hides something that belongs to Mabh. You know this?”

The kelpie. Sonny went cold despite the room’s temperature. Auberon was right! It was Mabh. He nodded slowly.

“She wants it back. It should never have been sent here. It was a mistake. Find it. Return it. And the queen will grant you a boon.”

Sonny wasn’t entirely sure he wanted Mabh’s favor. But still, a boon granted by a queen of Faerie…that was a valuable thing. And Sonny had a feeling that such a gift might come in handy. He had to consider Mabh’s offer carefully.

“What say you, fleshling?” the Hag hissed wetly.

“I say call me that again and Mabh will have another minion to put back together with her magicks.”

Sonny walked a few steps away, thinking hard. Bargaining with the Faerie was always bad business. If a deal was ever broken, the consequences could be dire. An unfulfilled agreement was considered an unforgivable transgression by Faerie laws. If you wanted to break a bargain with the Fae-and couldn’t find a loophole by which to do it-then you risked granting the wronged party unlimited power to seek redress. It was always best never to enter into a deal with the Faerie in the first place, but here was an opportunity to not only eliminate the threat of the Wild Hunt waking-by getting the kelpie back to the Otherworld-but also earn a favor of a Faerie queen.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll get Mabh what she wants-but only because it’s for the greater good. She can send me word of time and place.”

He turned away.

“Now get out of here and stop drooling on my rug.”

XXI

She had to talk to Sonny.

Kelley waited on a bench by the carousel, wondering how long it would take for him to appear. She’d fled the Avalon the moment rehearsal ended, heading for the park. It wasn’t even ten minutes before Sonny stepped out from beneath the trees and walked toward her.

Kelley stood. “That was fast.”

“I was…hoping.” He shrugged.

Kelley walked a few steps away and said, “Okay. So. It wasn’t a dog that attacked me.”

“You can call it a dog if you want to,” Sonny said encouragingly. “Some people call them demon dogs, or the hounds of Herne. I call them Black-”

“Black Shuck. I know,” Kelley interrupted him. “So what exactly is this Herne, then? Is it a person? Did he send that thing? Is he a…Faerie?”

“Herne? No. Herne is…” Sonny paused. “Are you sure you want to hear all this stuff right now?”

“No time like the present.”

“All right.” Sonny sat down on the bench and waited until Kelley relented and joined him. “Herne was once a man. He became…something else. You would probably call him a god.”

“A…god.”

“But he wouldn’t have sent the shuck,” Sonny assured her. “They are only called his hounds because they run with the Wild Hunt. And a very long time ago, Herne used to lead the Hunt.”

“I see.” Kelley crossed her arms and chewed on her bottom lip, trying very hard to follow what Sonny was saying. She vaguely remembered something about a Wild Hunt from the web entry on the shuck. “The Wild Hunt. Sounds like some kind of party.”

“A war band, really,” Sonny said. “They are an old power. Very dangerous.”

“I see,” she said again.

“You do?”

“I really don’t.” She sighed, giving up.

“We could start with the basics,” Sonny suggested.

“Okay,” Kelley agreed. That might be a good idea. “Let’s just say-for the moment-that I buy into this whole I’m-a-Faerie-princess thing.”

“You are.”

“So what are you, then? Like a Faerie prince or something?” She frowned. “That sounds so wrong…”

“I’m not Faerie.” Sonny didn’t look at her, but his mouth quirked up at the corner. “I’m certainly not a prince.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m what’s called a changeling.” He kept his eyes focused on the ground as he spoke. “I was…I was taken by the Faerie from the human world as a baby and raised in the Otherworld.”

“Taken?” Kelley looked at him sharply. “You mean stolen?”

“I…Yes. I suppose so.”

So I’m not the only one, Kelley thought. It made her feel a bit queasy. “So they just come and go as they please?” she asked finally. “These Faerie?”

“They used to,” Sonny said. “You see, the Celts, the Elizabethans, the Victorians…they all believed in the