Neon Blue by E Frost (best big ereader .TXT) 📕

I peer at her. Speak softly. “Hello.”

She lifts her head. Dark pits of eyes meet mine for a second.

She howls into my face.

I throw myself backwards so hard my chair tips over, and land on the floor in a crack of wood. I reach and yank my churi out of its shadow-sheath. I raise the blade, squint into the glow of the protective silver.

She’s gone.

The pocket door slides open. Toby, his furry face wrinkled in concern, pokes his head into the room. “You okay, Tsara?”

I stand slowly. “Yeah.” I sheathe my churi back in the darkness and scrub my hands over my face. “Are you?”

He nods his elongated head. He hasn’t been able to shift back yet, because shifting doesn’t heal wounds and I’m worried his will reopen while his skin and bones are busy rearranging. “Felt something.”

“Me, too.” A very unhappy spirit. And whatever’s called her to me, I don’t want to feel her again. Not without some precautions.

I spend the rest of the evening re-warding the house. Then I call Lilliwhite.

The fae are a funny bunch. They can use modern technology, as long as it doesn’t involve cold iron, but they don’t. I call Lilliwhite in my scrying mirror. It takes her a while to answer. A cell phone or pager would be so much faster. They’re all plastic nowadays anyway. How hard could it be to make a fae-friendly pager?

“Tsara?”

“Hi, Lilliwhite. I need the Squire.”

“Oh, it’s not a good night—”

“I know what night it is.” It’s a noswaith lawen. A dancing night. Which means the fae are busy. But I’ve depleted my stocks of protective herbs by sealing the house, and my stocks of healing herbs in dealing with Toby, and I need the usual compliment of ingredients for next week’s batch of fertility potions. All of which means a trip to the woods. And I’m not going on my own. Not with a pissed-off ghost looking for me.

“Okay, I’ll ask him.”

I wait, chopping comfrey for the healing potion I’ve been giving Toby.

Finally, the Squire’s helmeted face appears in my scrying mirror.

I bow, wipe off my churi and carefully cut my thumb. Smear a little blood on the edge of the mirror. The Squire’s a very traditional fae.

“I am in need of protection,” I say. The words that first brought the Squire to me, when I was attacked by a ghoul pack in the Lexington cemetery.

He bows his helmeted head. I’ve never seen his face. I’m not totally sure he has one.

“I offer my services to the Fair Folk whenever they are in need.”

He bows again, and the pact is sealed for another night. He protects me and if the fae ever need my services, I’m oath-bound to provide them. What services they might need, I’ve never asked. And, evidently, they’ve never needed anything.

But Lilliwhite doesn’t come by just for the coffee. She’s keeping an eye on me. Spying on me, really. Finding out what I can do. For the day when her master decides to call in the debt I owe the fae.

After the mirror goes dark, I pack up my things and seal my herbarium. Ana’s already arrived to keep the convalescing werewolf company. They’re playing Escape from Butcher Bay on Toby’s Xbox in the parlor, which I find disconcerting. Maybe it’s the digital blood splashing all over my TV. When did computer games become so violent? I miss Pac-Man.

Before I’m even to the door, the Squire’s there. I can see the shine of his helmet through the stained glass lites. I open the door and invite him in – because Lilliwhite told me I’d offended him by failing to do so. He shakes his head. He never accepts. Evidently it’s the invitation that’s important.

He holds out his gauntleted hand for my backpack. Ever the gentleman. His other hand stays on his sword-hilt. Ever the warrior. I’ve seen him in action. Against the ghouls that nearly got me. Against a pack of barghast that caught my scent in the Estabrook Woods. He’s amazing. Like something out of The Matrix. He moves too fast for me to follow. He wields the sword like it’s part of him.

He leads me to his horse, which waits patiently at the curb amongst my neighbors’ Suburus and Chevys. The horse shimmers silver in the streetlights. And that’s all anyone looking at the horse, or the Squire, would see. A faint shimmer. The wink of a firefly. The fae are only visible when they want to be to those who don’t have the Sight.

It’s a trick I’d like to learn, but I’m afraid to. My great-great Aunt Rupa was obsessed with invisibility. She wanted to create a potion that could hide our whole clan from the gavver. Her ‘testing arm’ eventually disappeared. Completely. My life is challenging enough without parts of me disappearing.

The Squire leaps onto the back of his horse like he’s weightless. He offers me a hand up. This is the part I hate. Trying to climb onto the back of a horse in a long skirt. I only wear the damn skirt because Lilliwhite told me I was offending the Squire by showing the shape of my legs. Traditionalist. So I wear a skirt and mostly it doesn’t get in my way. Except when I’m getting on and off the horse.

I struggle up behind the Squire. As always, I get the sense that the Squire and his horse are being patient with me. And having a little laugh at my expense.

Once I’m aboard, I grab the Squire tightly around the waist. I’ve learned from experience that I don’t want to fall off. Particularly during the scary part.

I squeeze my eyes closed.

There’s a sense of movement. Rushing. Cold wind against my cheeks, ruffling through my hair. The one time I didn’t shut my eyes I saw a blur of shape and color – and, I swear, stars streaking past – that made me queasy. For days. So now I know to keep my eyes shut until we