Briar Queen_ A Night and Nothing Novel - Katherine Harbour Page 0,13
chair in his tiny kitchen. Finn stood at the stove making tea, and Christie slouched in another rail-backed chair. The stranger sat in the main room, transfixed by a movie on Jack’s small TV. He wore one of Jack’s T-shirts and a pair of his jeans.
“You don’t have any theories?” Finn brought three mugs to the table. As tired as she was, the mysterious young man with the moth tattoo fascinated her.
“I suspect he’s some poor bastard who’s been yanked out of his life to serve the Fatas. What he was doing in that house, I have no clue. Maybe he was enchanted into some sort of antique object Redhawk bought.”
“This is going to be another weird conversation, isn’t it?” Christie looked stern.
Jack said, “Yes, it is, Christopher—don’t touch that!”
The stranger had begun wandering and his fingers were poised over the case holding Jack’s Stradivarius. At Jack’s reprimand, the young man looked up resentfully, tangled hair in his eyes, and said, “I wasn’t going to.”
“Jack. He’ll have to stay with you.” Finn watched the youth crouch down to gaze at Jack’s cat, BlackJack Slade.
“Yes.” Jack resignedly stirred his tea. “I realize that.”
“What are we going to call him?” Finn watched the young man rise and continue to move around the apartment.
“I’ve no idea. I’ll speak with Phouka tomorrow night, take him to Tirnagoth.”
The young man spoke softly, gazing at two old-fashioned keys on a bookshelf, “‘By heart, you love her, because your heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her.’”
As he sank to a crouch, the keys in his hands, Jack stood and moved to him, squatted to face him. “Finn, would you fetch me one of those pins from the desk?”
Finn rose and selected a thumbtack, then walked to Jack. “Jack, I don’t want him getting tetanus.”
“Dip it in that bottle of rum then, please.” His gaze never leaving the young man, Jack held out a hand. Finn dipped the thumbtack in a lid full of liquor—and didn’t ask about why the rum was there—then dropped it into Jack’s palm. “Thank you.” To the stranger, Jack said, “I need to see if you bleed.”
The young man held out a steady hand and didn’t even flinch when Jack pushed the thumbtack into his skin. As blood welled, Jack sat back on his heels.
“Moth,” Christie suddenly said and everyone looked at him where he stood in the kitchen doorway. “That quote he just recited . . . it’s from Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. That last bit was spoken by a character named Moth.”
“Well.” Finn sat on the sofa. “Should we call you Moth? It suits you. With that tattoo on your back.”
“What about his other tattoo?” Christie indicated the Celtic design on Moth’s upper left arm. “That looks kind of like a dog or something.”
Finn glanced at Jack, who, along with “Moth,” was staring at the dark tattoo banding their guest’s arm.
Jack said, quietly, “It’s a wolf.”
BEFORE RETIRING FOR THE NIGHT, Jack called Finn to make sure Christie had gotten her safely home. His cipher of a guest had fallen asleep on the sofa. Jack hadn’t recognized the stranger’s moth wing tattoos, only Seth Lot’s mark on his arm. Why had Jack never seen this young man in Lot’s house? Was he dangerous or did he need to be protected?
Jack didn’t think he’d be able to sleep—he tried not to. But, even after three cups of coffee, his eyelids drifted down.
He dreamed of a winter forest. A girl stood among the trees, head down, a black gown swirling around her. Her heavy dark hair was strung with pearls the color of a corpse’s skin. She held a pair of tattered ballet shoes red and slick as blood. As she began to raise her head, he realized he didn’t want to see what remained of her face—
The image jerked like an old film, into another scene.
Clotted gore streaked a wolf of white marble. Huddled nearby was a boy in jeans, his bronze curls crowned with autumn leaves and toadstools. Flower petals bled from a wound in his chest. It was Nathan Clare. He said, “You mustn’t save her. It will bring death to the world.”
Swift and silent and vicious, flashing tooth and claw, an enormous shadow glided through the forest behind Nathan.
Jack woke in a chilled sweat, whispered, “Nate . . .”