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Scene #92
Catherine O'Connell stood helplessly on the sidewalk, unable to
prevent the impending disaster. People walked by in downtown
Seattle in business suits and shorts, enjoying the afternoon
sunshine and the green of the city park by the water's edge.
Tourists snapped shots of the Space Needle in the distance, and
traffic from the warf and shipping docks mixed with shoppers intent
on going to Pike's Place Market. The loaded eighteen-wheeler was
already going far too fast for the narrow streets. The driver, a
balding man chatting on his cell phone, was oblivious to the scaly
blue-skinned faery clinging with evil glee to his back bumper.
Blue fae were notorious for causing chaos, the higher the body
count, the better. Cate started running, although what she
planned to do when she caught up she had no idea. “Don't you dare,”
she muttered. The faery stretched his scaly arm impossibly
long and slit the back tires on the left side of the big rig with a
hooked, razor-sharp fingernail, then shot his fae friends hanging
on the buildings a triumphant pseudo grin. Cate's heart
stopped even as she picked up speed, not easy to do in heels. She
paused to kick them off, the sidewalk hot under her bare feet as
she snatched up her shoes in one hand. Her breath sawed as she
hauled ass fumbling in her purse for her cell phone without taking
her eyes off the truck with the blown out tire barreling downhill
toward the busy intersection. A few people whipped around to
stare as she sped past them on the sidewalk and the homeless didn't
even bother to hold out their cups as she ran flat out, waiting for
the 911 operator. The hideous screech and squeal of the
locked brakes preceded blaring car horns and a bone-crushing crunch
as metal bent around metal. The small four-door car seemed mashed
into the grill of the truck like a bug. Chaos and mayhem, faery
fun. Other fae instantly appeared, bird-like ones dancing along the
power lines, leafy faeries peering from behind the foliage of
plants and trees, and dark, slick fae popping out of the sewer
drain along the street. The blue faery was laughing so hard
he fell down to the pavement, rolling with hilarity. The others
pointed and laughed too, the mixture of their laughter tinkling
like shards of shattered glass falling on concrete, a discordant
upsetting sound that made her flinch. A rolling heat boiled
up in Cate's belly. “Little blue bastard,” she muttered under her
breath wanting to drop kick him back into the water where he'd come
from. Forbidden of course. But then so was staring. Still clinging
to the tire the ugly faery turned his head and grinned, exposing
long yellow pointed teeth. For a second he reminded her of the
stuffed “mermaid” on display at Ye Ole Curiosity Shoppe on the
waterfront. Yetch. Cate turned her attention to the blaring
sirens and flashing lights of the emergency vehicles as they came
screaming up the street toward the chaotic scene. They were
crawling with curious fae. Including one she'd seen far too many
times before. One that disturbed her like none of the others.
Time to leave. A fire truck, ambulance and several police cruisers
slewed across the intersection. The truck driver was being helped
out of his truck. No one appeared to be seriously injured.
Cate slipped her shoes back on. Her hand automatically curled
loosely, defensively, around the rusted nails deep in her pocket.
From as far back as she could remember, her Grandmother had
kept an old mayonnaise jar full of rusted nails by the front door.
Every time the O'Connell sisters walked out that door, Gran would
admonish them to take a small handful and place them in their
pockets. For protection against the danger no one else but the
O'Connell women could see, lurking, cavorting, waiting outside the
blessed walls of their home—the fae. Walk away, Cate. Walk
away, now. Breathe. In, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three.
Feet moving, Cate focused her vision to the next step in front of
her. She ignored the slender, waif-like creature dancing beside
her, with eyes far too big for her head, and a head too big for her
body, like some macabre bobble head doll. Cate forced herself to
keep a constant steady pace. She didn't flinch even when the faery
reached out and stroked a long evenly jointed finger down her arm
and blinked. Three rules had governed the O'Connell girls' every
action from the day they were born: One: Don't let the Fae know
you can see them. Two: Don't talk to the Fae. Three: Never,
ever follow them. “You're right, Rook, she's very pretty
pretty,” the big-eyed faery said as she stepped back to take the
arm of the far too familiar nearly human proportioned dark-haired
faery that strolled along behind Cate. “To bad she's an
uplander,” he replied. Little Miss Big Eyes giggled, fawning over
him as the two fae keep pace with her. If they'd been human she
would have politely asked them to step out of her personal space.
Fae had no sense of boundaries. More so, Cate suspected, because
they thought themselves invisible to humans. Picking up her
pace, Cate rubbed her ears, wishing she could block out their
voices. Rook had followed her from the scene of the accident as
she'd known he would. He'd been following her since she'd
turned sixteen. Cate had begun to learn that the warm
shiver she felt shimmy up her spine now and then was a reaction to
Rook's gaze moving over her body. He was bigger than the other
fae, more muscular, darker, more alluring. Power radiated off of
him in a literal glow that made his dark hair look at times like it
may have been created from jet-black points of polished marble. His
presence was certainly enough to ramp up her libido in all the
wrong ways.
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