The Darkened Veil Read online

  I needed some air. The table was so deeply engrossed in conversation that I don’t think anyone noticed me get up. I picked a winding path through the ranks of patrons stacked in front of the bar and walked outside. The air was still warm and heavy. I was hoping for a cool, fresh breath to clear my head, but the breeze was soft and redolent of spring foliage and the first blossoms. It was nearly as intoxicating as the mojitos I had been downing all night. The street in front of the bar was quiet. It seemed like everyone who was out was inside one or another of the bars on the street. I wanted to stretch my legs a bit so I walked along the sidewalk. I was completely alone and soon the sounds of music and voices from the bar faded enough that I could hear the chorus of insects having their own night-time party.

  I passed an empty lot filled with little bushes and tall grass. Someone had cleared it of trees in the hope of building something, but it seemed those plans had been stalled for quite a while. I stared into the woods behind the lot, enjoying the sounds of the night. Then the insects all stopped. Silence filled the lot. The only sound audible was the soft, muted noise coming from the bar. I looked around to find the cause. Had my presence caused the insects to go quiet? I tried to stay still while scanning the woods and the road behind me. Then I saw him.

  Walking down the sidewalk from the direction of the bar I had just left was a small man, no more than five feet tall. From his gait and his hunch, he looked old; a conclusion reinforced when the moonlight caught a silvery beard. What was an old man doing walking around this time of night? He kept walking at a steady pace towards me. He didn’t look at me or give any indication that he even noticed me; just kept walking along the sidewalk. I stepped back into the empty lot to give a bit of space for when he passed by.

  He was almost beside me, still giving no indication that he saw me or was paying any attention to me, when I noticed something very odd. His face was bright blue. He turned toward me and I only had an instant to register his huge round eyes which reflected the moonlight, like a cat’s, before he leapt at me with shocking grace and speed. I dove to the side, rolling and coming back up to my feet. The, whatever he was, was slinking toward me again, all semblance of age or feebleness now discarded. His arms, short but thick, ended in heavy, stubby fingers tipped with claws that glinted in the soft, silver light. Heart racing, I fumbled in my purse for the pepper spray I always carried. He approached unhurriedly, almost playfully. A sick grin split his white beard, revealing dull pointed teeth. My fingers closed on the canister, I raised my arm and discharged the spray right in his blue face. He stopped for just a moment, rubbing his eyes, but before I could make a move to run, he opened them again and laughed. A guttural, unpleasant sound. He came forward again.

  I tried to move around him to get back to the road, but he was quick. I realized I was being herded back toward the forest. Presumably he wanted to kill me somewhere there wouldn’t be any chance of being seen and rescued. I had to get back to the road. I tried to recall some of the self-defense classes I had taken in high school, but none of the moves I’d learned seemed to apply to the current situation. He was too quick for me to get around him and I was sure I didn’t want to get too close. He was short, but looked heavily muscled. I wasn’t going to overpower him. I needed an edge. I had to surprise him, catch him off guard.

  I had been slowly backpedaling, dividing my attention between the figure in front of me and the uneven ground behind. The last thing I needed was to trip over a rock or root. I took one more step back, planted my foot, and sprang forward. The grin disappeared on the strange little man’s face. I swung my leg forward, aiming my foot right at the center of his bright blue face. But I hit only air. He rolled to the side and I tumbled forward, losing my balance in mid-air. I landed awkwardly. The road was in front of me now. I hesitated for just a moment. Should I try to run for it or should I attempt to take another shot at my attacker. The moment was too long. The blue-faced man had dodged aside and come at me again in one smooth motion. I tried to start running toward the road but it was too late. A powerful, claw-tipped hand gripped my forearm, yanking me backward and to the ground. The air was driven out of my lungs. His blue face partly obscured by the long white beard, the man, creature, whatever he was, stood over me. That sickening grin had returned.

  In a desperate move, I tightened my stomach and whipped my leg up toward my head, landing a solid blow on the little man, knocking him backwards. Before he hit the ground, I was up and running, stumbling toward the road. I had only taken a few steps when I felt a sharp pain across my thigh. I lost my balance and landed hard in a bush. Twigs snapped, their sharp, broken edges snagged my clothes and dug little cuts into my skin. Strong hands rolled me over onto my back. The grin was gone from the strange blue face, replaced with a snarl. He kneeled on my chest and wrapped his hands around my throat. I could feel my blood pumping, feel it struggling to get up to my brain, which was quickly being starved of oxygen. A deeper darkness crowded out the night sky.

  As my vision started to fade, I realized that I was about to die. Part of me wanted to be calm, to ease into the darkness that was swallowing up the stars above me. But another part refused to go without a fight. I beat at his arms and face with my fists and writhed about, trying to throw him off. To no avail. He was too strong. He was choking the life out of me and I couldn’t stop it.

  A tree branch swung into my rapidly diminishing field of view. For some reason, it bothered me that I hadn’t noticed a tree close to where I’d fallen. Your mind goes to strange places sometimes in extreme situations. Then the twigs and little branches wrapped themselves around the blue-faced man and flung him into the air. I gulped down deep breaths and felt the blood returning to my head. My vision sharpened and expanded. I followed the branch with my eyes to find that it wasn’t attached to a tree at all. It was a spindly limbed creature on two legs. Its whole body was made up of leaves, twigs, and tree parts, except its eyes. Its eyes were a bright amber, glowing as if lit from within. I was sure it was the same creature I had seen from my apartment window.

  From somewhere behind me, there was a flash of golden light. I twisted around to see a tall woman, blonde hair woven in an elaborate single braid. She held up a long spear with a leaf-shaped blade at the end. Before I could say a word, her body tightened, every muscle pulling and pushing in harmony as the spear launched forward. Right toward me. I tried to will myself further into the ground and closed my eyes. I could hear the spear whistle over my head and heard it land with a wet, sickening thunk.

  Cautiously, I opened my eyes. The blue-faced man was lying there, almost at my feet. The spear tip protruding out his back. The giant, dark eyes no longer reflected any light. I tried to scoot myself along the ground to get some separation, but a sharp pain flared in my thigh, making my vision go white. When the pain faded, I saw the tree thing and the spear woman standing over me. She was talking, but I could only hear bits of what she said.

  “…scratch on her leg…poison…away from here.”

  I tried to speak, tell her she needed to call an ambulance, but my tongue wouldn’t respond. My whole body was going numb. The last thing I remembered was the amber eyes of the tree thing rushing toward me.

  Chapter 4

  When I woke up, the pain in my leg was gone. My eyes felt like they were stuck together with glue. I tried to rub them and noticed that there was an IV running into my left hand. Slowly, my tear ducts started working and I was able to get both of my eyes open, though I still had to squint away the bright lights reflecting off the white walls. I was in a stark white room. Bright sunlight streamed in through the window. It looked like I was in a hospital bed. I saw more clues. There were monitors and other medical accoutrements. So, someone got me to the hospital after I passed out. I tried to recall what had happened last night, but I could only recall bits and pieces. Had I just had too much to drink and hurt myself? Did someone slip something into my drink while I wasn’t looking? Because the other option was far more disturbing.


  I stretched out as best I could, flexing and relaxing every bit of my body from my fingers to my toes. But when I flexed my right thigh, I felt a sharp pain. I rose up in bed to look down at my leg. It was heavily bandaged, right where that blue-faced man had scratched me. I wasn’t hallucinating. Now I was really scared.

  Before the shock of that realization had time to sink in, the door swung open. I felt my mouth fall open as into the room flitted a small humanoid creature with butterfly wings larger than her entire body. She looked just like a pixie, or like one of those faeries from the famous 19th century photographs. Those pictures were proven to be a hoax, but here was a real fairy flying around my hospital bed. I would have put it down to pain killers, or something, if not for the scratches on my thigh. The pixie picked up my chart, which must have weighed many times as much as she did, and perused it without even acknowledging me. I heard my heartrate increasing through the pinging of the monitor. The pixie looked up from the notes to peer at me. She put the chart back in its holder and flew forward, grabbing me by the cheeks with a strength that seemed impossible, given her size. I was too shocked to do anything but stare as she examined me. She looked into each of my eyes and then nodded to herself before dropping my head back and flying out of the room without a word.

  I had just started to gather my wits when the door opened again. I steeled myself for whatever might show up next, but what walked in was a handsome young man. He had dark brown hair, caramel skin, and perfectly normal sized hazel eyes. His hands were tipped with well-groomed fingernails. He smiled as he approached. Normal, human teeth. I must have worn a skeptical, inquisitive look because the first words out of his mouth were, “Don’t worry, I’m human.” I felt myself relax and sink back into the bed. I wanted to ask a million questions, but I didn’t even know where to start. I just waited in silence as he lifted my leg and unwrapped the bandage on my thigh.

  “You must still be feeling pretty disoriented.” He looked at me for confirmation and I managed a weak nod. He returned to my leg. “Voidniks have a nasty toxin in their claws. If Morea and Herje hadn’t gotten you back here when they did, we might have had to remove the leg. But it looks to be healing nicely now.”

  He replaced the bandages with a fresh set. His hands were gentle. I didn’t even feel a twinge of pain, despite the tight binding. He set my leg back down flat and looked up at me.

  “You must be exhausted, and very confused. Everything will be made clear soon. I promise. But for now you need to sleep.” He made a complicated movement with his fingers and I thought I saw a pale blue glow surround his hand. “Sleep now, Skylar.” And I did.

  When I woke again there was silver light streaming through the window and the lights in the room were dark. I felt considerably better, better than I had felt in months, actually. I felt refreshed, invigorated. I looked down at my thigh, hiking up the gown they had dressed me in, and stared in shock. The bandages were gone and the wound had almost completely healed. It was clear I would have a nasty scar, but the tissues had knitted together entirely. How long had I been asleep? I decided to test out my newly healed leg and hopped out of the bed. I landed on the cool tile floor. My leg felt strong and springy. My hand was still attached to an IV bag, so I grabbed the stand and rolled it along with me.

  I walked to the window to try to get my bearings, but the scene outside only served to reinforce the weirdness. The light beaming in from the window was from a moon that was many times larger, or closer, than the one I was used to. Not only that, it wasn’t alone in the night sky. A second, smaller moon shone a soft orange closer to the horizon. The moons filled the courtyard below with a brightness nearing daylight. Gorgeous, delicate lanterns on slender curved poles provided extra illumination. And filling the courtyard was a scene out of a fairy tale. No, not a fairy tale. All the fairy tales. It was like the pages of the books I’d read as a child or studied in college were all poured out into this beautiful square.

  A pair of unicorns neighed a greeting to a group of dwarves who were so covered in ornaments of gold and silver that they sparkled in the moonlight. Nearby a giant human form walked carefully along the path. It kept lifting its feet high into the air before proceeding. Something clicked in my mind, the Aigamuxa, a creature from South African myth that had its eyes in the soles of its feet. Here it was, on an evening stroll below my hospital window. Although I was inside, I heard the sound of pounding hooves and shouting voices announce the passage of a half-dozen centaurs; drunk, no doubt. From the bushes, a small, child-sized creature with shaggy brown hair leapt out and stuck a long pole under the legs of the nearest centaur, causing it to crash into the one to his right and then, in rapid succession, tripping up the rest of the troop. Each of the horsemen picked themselves up and began shouting even louder, pointing fingers and shoving at one another. The little creature, no doubt a boggart, had scampered off and was rolling about behind the bushes laughing.

  I realized that my mouth had been hanging open for quite a while. I didn’t know how, but this was real. The blue-faced man, or voidnik as the doctor had called it, the tree-thing which must have been a dryad, the tall blonde who was the spitting image of a Valkyrie, and the extraordinary scene below, it was all real. If I was hallucinating, if this was some incredible dream, I didn’t want to wake up.

  A shadow crossed the moon, a dark spot that began to grow rapidly. My heart began to beat faster. The shadow continued to grow and then disappeared, dropping below the silver circle. An instant later, I saw a giant serpentine form with eyes that glowed like molten gold, four clawed legs, and leather wings that stretched out like an airplane. Holy shit. A dragon. It swept gracefully over the square, flying straight toward my window. For a moment, I thought I saw it look right at me. I felt frozen to the ground, like I had been turned to stone. But then, scales glittering in the moonlight, it banked and flew over the building to my right and out of view.

  I was standing there, too stunned to move, when I heard the door open behind me. I jumped a little in surprise. Into my room walked the doctor and the tall blonde he had referred to as Herje. Alongside them was the most beautiful man I had ever laid eyes on. His skin was pale, but seemed to glow. His eyes were almond-shaped and a radiant emerald green that had a light of their own, like a crystalline fire. The tips of his ears peeked out from his coal black hair which fell below his shoulders. His features were narrow, refined, but strong. He must have been an elf. The other two treated him with deference as he crossed the room to stand right in front of me. I was very aware of the fact that I was wearing a hospital dressing gown and hadn’t looked in a mirror since my fight with the voidnik in the vacant lot. Compared to this elf in his brocade jacket studded with gemstones, I must have looked a mess. He did not seem to notice, however, as he took one of my hands in both of his.

  “Skylar Dufresne, welcome to the Inter-realm.”

  Chapter 5

  The elf, who confirmed his identity and gave his name as Finbahir, said he was an officer of T.R.I.P., which, as he explained, stood for Trans-Realm Investigation and Protection.

  “It is a bit of a mouthful, I admit. It is a decent enough approximation in English, but frankly there are so many languages among our ranks that coming up with a snappy title in every one would be exhausting. So internally we just refer to it as the Realm Guard. We have been watching you for quite a while, and you have impressed. Not many humans could fight off a voidnik for that long without training. We would like to offer you a position with the Realm Guard. On a trial basis.”

  I was stunned. I felt like a fool just standing there silent while the three of them stared at me. I shifted my weight uneasily. I looked at the doctor, the one who said he was a normal human. He smiled kindly and nodded an encouragement. Herje, the Valkyrie, gave me a wink. Even Finbahir, whose face remained a mask of serenity, seemed to smile with his eyes.

  “Umm, thank you for your offer. But I have no idea what you are talking about. I don’t know where I am or what the hell is going on. I
mean, a dragon just flew past my window and there are two moons in the sky. I feel like I am lost inside my own imagination and you are talking about some job like it is normal? This is not normal. I…I…” My train of thought was derailed by the entry of the little flying nurse I had seen before. “I mean, come on. She’s a pixie. Am I supposed to just accept that I haven’t gone insane?”

  Finbahir glanced back to the doctor, who shrugged his shoulders and flashed an ‘I told you so’ expression. The elf turned back to me and brought his hands up to his heart. “I apologize. I had assumed that, as a veilwalker, you were familiar with the various peoples and creatures that you’ve seen.”

  My mind was spinning already, but this was too much. “What do you mean? What is a veilwalker? Will somebody please tell me what is going on?”

  The tall elf let out a long exhalation. “Let’s go for a walk. Iridessa here has put some new clothes in the drawer by your bed. Put them on. I will explain everything and show you around.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel and swept out of the room. The doctor and Herje followed. Herje gave me a sympathetic smile and closed the door behind her.

  The pixie, Iridessa, flitted over to the dresser beside the bed and pulled the drawer open.

  “I had to guess your size. Hopefully it fits.” Her voice was small but resonant. It had a musicality that made even the mundane statements sound like a song.