Once Upon A Curse: 17 Dark Faerie Tales Read online

  "Thanks," Tam said.

  "Oh, I think could grow to like this." Bogs held up his hand to show Tam the burn marks on his palms. "Though I'd like mine in plastic." His smile fell. “Tam, duck!"

  Tam was already on the floor so he brought his head down and covered the back of it with his hands. He felt the air over him move as another shot rang out, and a second wolf collapsed in the hallway beside him. He lifted his head to look. It's time to get out of here.

  He pushed himself up and would have collapsed back down when his leg gave, but Bogs was there, helping him up. Tam looked down to see— "Oh, wow…"

  "Aye. Faery wolves. You just have to catch 'em before they—"

  "Look out!" Áine's voice shattered the brief respite.

  Another wolf bounded out of the hall toward Tam and Bogs. It was moving too fast for Bogs to reload and take aim, and Tam couldn't get to his gun quick enough, until an arrow fired into the thing's head and it went tumbling over them, knocking Bogs out of the way.

  Tam pushed himself to the side, favoring his bleeding leg, and grabbed his gun. When he turned to look back at the kitchen door, Áine stood there, her bow in her hand, breathing heavy and bleeding from a wound on her arm. But she was alive. "Thanks," he said.

  "No problem. Can we go now? Before the troll wakes up—"

  At first, he wasn't sure why she stopped mid-sentence. Tam frowned at her as her eyes widened and she looked down. His gaze trailed down her front, and locked on the cylindrical pipe protruding from her stomach.

  He didn't want to believe what he was seeing, until Magnus's shadow solidified behind her. His left eye was little more than a ruined hole where Tam's bullet had made contact, but the right eye was still very much whole. The troll wrenched the pipe out, causing Áine to collapse in a heap in the doorway.

  "Let's see how well you escape me again, Leprechaun, with your protector dead."

  Dead? Tam held the gun in his trembling left hand as he used his right one to pull himself closer to Áine's unmoving body. "No…" he said as he reached out for her.

  "Iron. Deadly to the Seelie." Magnus stepped over Áine and reached down for Tam. "Now, it's time to go, Prince. Your master is waiting."

  Tam couldn't take his eyes off of Áine. He willed her to get up. Silently screamed for her to rise and stab this bastard with her knives. He'd only really known her for a few hours, but he'd watched her for nearly a year, as she danced, and smiled, and had good times with her friends. All the while, he'd never known she was there for him.

  Just for me. To protect…me. And what am I? I'm nothing. I'm some Faery freak who can't do magic.

  His terror at the thought of losing Áine twisted into a boiling rage inside his gut. It spun into a ball of burning energy that ping-ponged around his body, igniting his limbs to move, urging his leg to heal, and finally resting inside his mind. It told him to grasp the thing he wanted. To take control of what was hidden. To take back what was stolen.

  That rage, that anger, that feeling of helplessness coalesced into single point, a pulsing, spinning spur of power that moved faster, and faster, and faster, and faster…

  Magnus touched his arm.

  …And then it released.

  At first, Tam wasn't sure what happened. He was on the floor, his calf a bloody, chewed mess, and then he was looking directly at Magnus, standing up, and brandishing a huge wooden stick in his left hand. The gun was gone. The stick glowed a bright blue and white light from its center. Vines grew from the wood and shot out like darts into Magnus's skin. The troll raged and flailed about. He took out the wall beside him and backed into the kitchen, but Tam followed him, careful of Áine at his feet, his attention fixated on the troll.

  "Stop!" Magnus shouted.

  But Tam pressed the power harder, heard nothing but the spinning, storming rage in his ears as the power created a whirlwind that rooted around in his memories and brought back the pain he'd endured at the hands of the trolls. It reminded him of the agony he felt as they laughed at him, called him a puppet, and beat him endlessly with their pipes.

  Tam…

  And then he saw the pipe sticking through Áine's stomach, and he released that power with a yell. It spun out of control, traveling down the vines and entering Magnus. Tiny explosions from within sent bits and pieces of the troll's hide out to coat the kitchen walls. Tam and Magnus were caught up in a whirlwind of power that shut out everything else.

  Tam, please…

  Finally, the troll disintegrated into ash and the whirlwind stopped. Tam, panting heavily, felt his knees give as he collapsed on the kitchen floor. The wooden stick vanished as he stared at the ceiling. He started shaking violently, as if burning with fever.

  Bogs appeared above him, his expression an odd mixture of sadness and joy. "You've done it, Tam. You've found your shillelagh."

  He nodded to his uncle. "Yeah," he said, as he closed his eyes and settled in for a long sleep.

  Chapter 5

  The room was warm, and the sheets soft. Tam turned over, and once again opened his eyes to find himself not in his bed. When he pushed himself up, he looked at his surroundings. I'm not in Kansas anymore. Hell, I'm not in Cambridge.

  This room, unlike the cramped clutter of Bogs's trailer and the sparse furnishings of his own room, appeared to be filled with the latest in tech and modern conveniences. Tam got out of bed and realized he wore a pair of soft loungers. Where were his clothes this time? He pulled the legs of the loungers up to look at his calf. All he saw was a long, healed scar where the wolf had bitten him.

  Is this my healing power again? He stood by the bed and took in the long wall of closed blinds, the enormous flat screen on the wall opposite the bed, the smooth, modern dresser with its handleless drawers, and two doors to his left. The door to the right was a bathroom, complete with a tub, a six-nozzle shower enclosed entirely in glass, and a separate toilet room.

  An assortment of bags sat to the right of the shower. He found clothing inside, all in his size. New jeans, sneakers, underwear, socks, a gold shirt, and a green hoodie. As he held up the hoodie, he noticed something on his left arm that hadn't been there before.

  He dropped the hoodie and turned to the mirror over the sink. Vines had been woven into the knots of his original tattoo. They traveled down his arm, wrapping around it, with four leaf clovers added here and there, some large, some small. The vines ended on the back of his hand as they twisted into a point just at the middle knuckle.

  His bird finger.

  The design looks so familiar. I've seen this before, but it was in gold. In fact, he'd just seen the vines—

  This is the same pattern on my dad's pocket watch! He ran out of the bathroom and found his old hoodie hanging on the back of a chair. Tam shoved his hand into each of the pockets. I know I put that watch in my pocket. I remember doing it! But a thorough search of his clothing proved he didn't have it.

  Tam ran back to the bathroom and looked at the new tattoos under the bright light.

  The vines moved as if they were traveling down his arm to his hand, but once they covered his hand they sprouted out from his palm and created the same walking stick he'd seen earlier. It formed in midair and would have fallen to the floor if he hadn't grabbed it. He put it in his right hand to make sure it wasn't still attached by the vines.

  It was separate.

  The stick itself was maybe five feet in length. It looked like someone had ripped a tree branch down and smoothed off the bark. It was irregularly shaped, with a larger knot at the top and tapered to the bottom. Or…is the knot the bottom?

  Carvings exactly like the ones decorating his dad's pocket watch were expertly worked into the wood. And the wood was warm.

  The pocket watch had been the most comforting thing he had. The only thing left to him by his real dad, and it was something Tam kept at his side since his dad died. Until that night at the drum circle. He'd left it on his nightstand, probably the first time he'd forgotten it in fifteen years.

 
; And now…it was part of his tattoo?

  "So, you're my shillelagh," he said, and felt a bit odd talking to a stick. "You're what that harridan wants."

  He felt a sort of…impression from the wood. Something akin to agreement, but not in words or in images. Just a…knowing. Is the thing sentient? He looked at himself in the mirror, saw the pointed ears and the remaining band of the tattoo on his arm. But the vines were gone.

  "I'm…a Leprechaun. Well…what the hell."

  But now he wondered how to make it disappear.

  The stick wrenched and lurched in his right hand. He held on to it at first, until a burning pain in his entire left arm opened his right hand. The stick disappeared, and the tattoos reappeared. The burning faded, but it made his arm sore. Had he interrupted it from returning by holding onto it? That was good to know.

  He heard loud voices outside the bedroom door. He stepped out of the bathroom and put his ear to the door. He recognized Bogs's voice, but not the other one. It was deep and commanded authority, not that Bogs had ever succumbed to someone telling him what to do.

  Tam took a quick shower and dressed, deciding that he wanted to install a multi-nozzle shower in his own bathroom. That is, once I clean Magnus's troll guts off the floor.

  A quick look in the mirror didn't do anything for the ears, but Tam trusted that whoever that was, he knew about Bogs and himself. He thought of Áine and hesitated before he opened the door and stepped out…

  Into a wonderland.

  The place looked like a cross between a lab and a home. He stood on a ledge overlooking a circular living area. A waist-high glass partition prevented him from falling as he leaned over and looked down. A circle of Celtic knots bordered the room, and he thought he heard something humming, like an engine somewhere.

  Glass stood in for most of the walls, and the view of Boston was breathtaking. It was night, and the city was lit up like a sea of precious stones against a black backdrop. Modern styled sofas and chairs littered the space inside the circle of knots, spiraling into a fountain in the center. From this height, he could see more knots in the face of the fountain.

  The arguing voices carried upward. He could hear them, but he couldn't see them, so he moved around the side till he found a set of steps and descended as quickly as he could. As he turned the corner into the round living room, he spotted Bogs standing on the far side, facing down another man.

  There was no mistaking who this was, and Tam was petrified with nervous energy.

  "This is ridiculous, you poor excuse for a dethroned ruler," Bogs said as he pointed at the taller man. "You think holding us hostage is the way to win over the Prince's trust?"

  "I think, dear Bogs, that we're no longer alone." The taller man turned and strode toward Tam. Bogs followed, albeit with a far less open attitude. "Mr. Kirkpatrick, I'm very glad to see you up and about." The man's accent wasn't as pronounced as Bogs's, but it was there. A touch of Ireland.

  Tam took the offered hand and shook it. He was a little unsure what to say, so, "Thank you," was the only thing he got out.

  "You look very well. It's good to see your Leprechaun half is awakening nicely. Allow me to introduce myself, I'm—"

  "Dian Cécht," Tam blurted out, making sure to pronounce it the way he'd seen it, Dee-yun Kehcht. "Oh, I know all about you, Mr. Cécht. I just read the article in 'Forbes' and I'm a bit of a gamer."

  Dian smiled. "I'm flattered to hear that, Mr. Kirkpatrick."

  "Please, call me Tam."

  "And you may call me Dian." Dian Cécht was as sharply dressed in real life as he was in every commercial and advertisement Tam had ever seen. He was thin, with soft, sharp features, and long blond hair he kept in a neat and tidy ponytail braided down his back. His suit looked like it was custom-made and fit him perfectly.

  There was just one small difference, something Tam hadn't seen in the magazine pictures.

  Dian's long, elegant pointed ears.

  Bogs held out his hands. "So…aren't you going to hit him with the real gut puncher now?"

  "Patience, you old Leprechaun," Dian said, though his tone was more playful. "Tam—"

  "Where's Áine? Is she dead?"

  Dian's smile broadened. "No, she's not dead. She's very much alive and in good hands."

  "Can I see her?"

  Dian's expression shifted just a bit. "Can you call your shillelagh?"

  Being more than happy to impress Dian, and hoping doing so would allow him to see Áine, Tam looked askance at his uncle. At Bogs's nod, Tam repeated his actions in the bathroom. But this time the moving vines went faster, as if their path to his hand was smoother. Within seconds, he held the shillelagh in his hand.

  The look of adoration on Dian's face was almost alien. Tam frowned at Bogs as Dian took a few steps closer, his fingers inches from the shillelagh.

  "I wouldn't do that—" Bogs started.

  Too late. A spark in the shape of a vine and clover shot out at the Faery's fingers and did a combo of shock and slap. Dian pulled his hand back, and for a second, Tam feared he'd made Dian angry.

  Instead, he shook his hand and laughed. "This is amazing. Do you know it's been ages since I've actually seen a shillelagh in the hands of its rightful owner?"

  "Really?"

  "I was a minor king back then, the healer to the three. An advisor no one listened to." He turned and moved into the center of the room. Tam dismissed the shillelagh; this time releasing it so it could disappear into the tattoo once again, and then followed alongside his uncle to the fountain.

  "Why didn't they listen to you?" Tam asked.

  "Because they were fools, boy-o," Bogs said. "All of them. Thought they were untouchable. Dian here had seen the wounded in battle, and knew that the Morrigan was on the move."

  "Aye." Dian nodded, but he faced the expansive view. "It was a terrible war, but it was a swift one. Within a year, we were disposed and the Morrigan held the power. The kings and queens were imprisoned. Bogs and I and several others escaped through a Cairn into this world and hid ourselves under the protective spell"—he glanced back at Tam—"before she, too, stepped into this world and committed the ultimate sin against the Morrigan."

  Tam figured he knew this one. "She had me."

  "With a human. Bogs has told you how the Morrigan has hunted down and either killed or controlled the Unseelie throughout the world. But she can't see into this world easily, so she sends her trolls, her wolves, and her crows—all of them impervious to iron. Which is why they can wield it against us."

  "You're not a Leprechaun." Tam shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  "No. I'm Daoine Sidhe by birth. Same as the kings and queens. Leprechauns were our connection to the mounds in stories you've probably learned in your folklore lessons, though many of the tales have been obliterated to a point of silliness." He turned to face them. "You represent one of two things, Tam Lin Kirkpatrick. The means for us to take back what was stolen, or the end of our time."

  "End of our time?" Tam looked between the two of them. "I don't understand."

  "He means, boy-o," Bogs said, "that the prophecy that frightened the Morrigan into controlling the Unseelie could be flipped on its head. If she gets her hands on you."

  "You mean if she gets the shillelagh?"

  "No," Dian said. "That time has passed now that you found it. As you've seen, no one can physically take it from you. It belongs to you."

  Tam held up his hand. "But Bogs said the Morrigan had her crows steal all the shillelaghs. Can she not touch it and they can?"

  "They can. But only if it's manifested. Yours apparently comes and goes."

  Tam looked away. Is it possible they don't know the shillelagh is my new tattoo?

  "I'm not sure why it does that," Dian said. "I don't think I've heard of that happening before. Shillelaghs were always something the Leprechauns kept on them. Perhaps yours adapted with the times. Either way, even if she can't get to the shillelagh, there is always the torque."

&n
bsp; Tam looked back at Dian. "Magnus threatened me with that. He said once the Morrigan put her own torque around my neck, I'd be her puppet."

  "This is true." Dian tapped his chin. "My intel informs me that the Morrigan doesn't know of Magnus's demise, and my people have cleaned and disinfected your home. Without direct proof or witnesses, she can't track that death with magic."

  "What about the wolves?" Tam asked.

  "You dispatched three of them. As far as we can tell, that was all Magnus brought with him. This also means she doesn't know you found your shillelagh. My guess is, after Magnus fails to answer her call, she'll form another raiding party to capture you, or kill you."

  "Why kill me?" Tam shrugged his shoulders. "If she kills me, she couldn't find the shillelagh."

  "If you died before you found it, it would die with you. So her reasoning would be, if I can get it from him, then I can take it. And if I can't—"

  Tam sighed. "Then kill him and the threat goes away. But what if there are other Unseelie like me?"

  "There will always be," Dian said. "But the magic protects them. By oak, and ash, and thorn."

  The repeating of those three trees stirred something inside of him. Some small bit of something he either knew or forgot or…just learned. "Those are the trees of magic."

  "Aye," Bogs said. "You'll not find them in Faery. They were used to make the spell that hides us."

  Dian reset his gaze on Tam. "You've learned your weaknesses."

  "Iron, and if someone stares at me. That's how Magnus attacked me in the house."

  "It's not just any stare. It's one with the intent to keep you still. Any person's gaze won't do it. So if someone hits you with an idle stare, you won't freeze."

  "Well, not him," Bogs said as he settled himself on a couch. "But for me? All stares become nuisances."

  "Because you're Seelie?" Tam asked.

  "Aye. Lucky for me, in these past few decades, kids stare at phones and not at people." He chuckled to himself.

  Dian took up the conversation again. "Do you understand the weaknesses?"