Border, KS

“It’s been a week since our big pow-wow, and I’m not sure I’m any better at this.” Walter grumbled as he pulled himself back up the gym mat. He grunted a bit, although it wasn’t as bad as previous training sessions had been—they were go for spooky door in the afternoon, and they didn’t want to be beat all to hell.

Morgan stood in front of him looking very casual in her KU Medical sweats. Tanya, Ryan Aquino, Ryan Richards, and Siobhan and Antigone were all there as well in various forms of workout clothes, yoga clothes, and bare feet. Siobhan was the only one who looked like she was there to practice fighting of some sort, in the gi and hakama of the martial arts dojo whose space they were borrowing on a Saturday morning.

“Well you’re not supposed to be good at it.” Tania said dismissively, shrugging as she stepped forward to stand next to Morgan. “We’re older, faster, stronger, and we’ve been fighting since longer than this has been a country.”

“And so humble, too.” Walter offered wryly as he rolled his neck and shoulders. “So if I’m going to be so crap in this fight, why am I coming?”

Morgan gave him a soft smile, and put a hand on his chest to guide him back and away so they could demonstrate. “Because you’re not going to be fighting Oberon or his main retainers—we are. You’re going to be fighting the ones you can with Ryan, to help us.”

“And we’re here because?” Antigone asked. She looked the least comfortable with being there, and had not yet taken a sparring turn.

“Because I insisted you learn some if you’re going to keep getting attacked,” Walter answered as he leaned over to grab a water bottle. “Alright, since Tania is clearly itching for it, why don’t you two show us full speed.” He gestured as he took a long drink of the cool water. “Make me feel less bad about my righteous ass kicking.”

The two Faerie sisters shared a look and then a shrug, and settled back. With an impish grin, Morgan bowed deeply. “My lady of Summer, is the duel to be swords or no swords?”

Tania considered the words for a moment, before she shrugged and bowed back. “My lady of Winter, I choose fists, to three touches. Stand you prepared?” She asked with an edge of formality as she rose out of her bow to look at her sister. When Morgan nodded, Tania did as well. “Then I engage.”

The two of them were in motion so fast that Walter could barely process it. He heard the fight more than he saw it, the sound of fist meeting flesh an almost physical thing in the room. By the time he had adjusted enough to the speed of the fight to get a good sense of what they were doing, it was over. Morgan and Tania separated, Tania looking annoyed. When they bowed, Tania did so more deeply.

“Well, I’m boned.” Walter announced with a sigh.

“Do you remember the fight with the one you called Ninja Grandpa?” Morgan asked, as she went back to leaning against a wall.

“Are we just going to gloss over the fact that we just watched a live performance of The Matrix?” Siobhan said, a little bit stunned.

“Yes.” Walter answered, ignoring the color commentary for a moment.

Morgan smirked at Siobhan, but looked back to Walter. “What did you think of him?” She asked curiously.

“I thought he just about kicked my ass,” Walter answered with a snort, but then he paused to consider it seriously. “I thought he was young.” He pondered the words for another moment. “Or if not young then inexperienced. He’s used to fighting people who are slower than he is, by a lot—but he doesn’t really know how to fight because of it. He’s all speed and strength, but it’s all big hay-makers and telegraphed movements. Once you adjust to looking at him, or apparently touch iron, then you can see what he’s doing a mile before he gets there.”

Morgan nodded. “That is true of a lot of his followers. They’ve spent a century, minimum, primarily going after humans. And he always had draw amongst the youngest of our soldiers and knights, because he is a war hero and wooed them with stories of glory. We are like anyone else, it takes time for us to learn to fight—and that is your window.”

The older Ryan chuckled darkly. “But don’t think it’s too big a window, boss, because it isn’t. I’ve even got some tricks you don’t, and I have to use every dirty and nasty thing I ever learned to fight one of the Sidhe. And the highest of them are even worse, because they are likely to have been soldiers.”

“We have a tradition as a military aristocracy.” Tania said proudly. “But they’re right. We have mortal heroes who have killed knights in our history. Normally we either leave them to the Wild Hunt, or we take them as our retainers. So you have that going for you.” Her smile was leonine, and Walter wasn’t entirely certain how much of her statement was a joke. If any.

“Alright.” Siobhan said, with an air of certainty. “I want a piece of you.” She said, grabbing her wooden practice sword, the shinai, and pointing at at Tania. “You and me with swords.”

Tania looked stunned, and let out a little laugh. “You want to fight swords with me? For what possible reason?”

“One?” Siobhan asked. “Because I came here to sword fight, not for a history lesson. Two, because if I don’t fight great people I won’t get better—and there is literally no other chance I’ll ever have to fight someone as old as you with a sword.”

Tania considered it for a moment, as Walter looked at his daughter in slight bewilderment. “Fine, never let it be said a Queen of Faerie doesn’t appreciate mortal boldness. I will give you three touches before you can give me one,” she proclaimed as she grabbed another shinai.

Tania gave Siobhan a duelist’s salute, bringing the sword up to kiss where the cross-guard would be if it didn’t have the round guard of a katana. Siobhan bowed in the Japanese style, hands at her side and her back straight. “I engage.” Tania announced.

Walter was prepared this time, and so he was able to see the freight train coming at his daughter. He winced at the lash of the Summer Queen’s blade as it whipped out toward her. But Siobhan was apparently expecting it, and managed to deflect the blade just in time. That itself drew a gasp from the crowd, and especially from Walter. But Tania just looked peeved and pressed the attack. Her next blow came in faster and higher, coming down toward the crown of Siobhan’s head.

At first it looked like Siobhan stumbled, but Walter saw her fall to her rear was controlled. As she landed she thrust out her sword even as Tania’s swept down. While the louder sound was the gentle thwack of a controlled strike from the strips of bamboo to Siobhan’s head, there was a softer sound as well. As all movement in the dojo stopped, the martial tableau revealed itself fully. Siobhan was struck on the head, the practice blade quivering there with finality; but her drop had given her time to put the tip of her sword right in to Tania’s stomach, where it rested in defiance of all odds and predictions.

Tania blinked and her face ran through a maelstrom of emotions. Anger, disbelief, and even grudging respect were visible before she went stony, and bowed deeply.

Morgan supplied the sentiment for the rest of them. “Huh.”

CHAPTER 12: EXECUTION

The world swirled about, confusing shades of gray and white. They rolled in clouds that threatened to overwhelm Antigone as she tried to force her way out of them. At once it had a great weight and was weightless, binding her from moving until she thought that it was a dream—once she thought that, she could move through it effortlessly.

Shapes passed before her eyes in the land she knew was a dream, and she considered them. Green pastures, and a tree the size of the world. A flock of ink black ravens, one at the heart of the flock as white as snow. A splash of red on the winter snow, and blood red flowers growing through the fields of summer. A sword of flame, of ice, of star iron, and of the concept of death. Each one held by different hands, each one important in the days to come.

She walked through a door, deep in color and leading to a room of billowing emptiness. Within it she found figures she knew. She knew they needed her help, but she couldn’t get to them yet—it wasn’t the right time, and she was only seeing their shade.

She saw her sister, clad in dark with a brooch of pure white on her dress. When she saw her sister the dream faded, and she fell back in to the normal dreams of a restless night. Siobhan began to dream, gasping quietly in her sleep and almost waking Lacey on the air mattress in her room.

Siobhan saw men with hands of fire and dark heart coming, and she knew that if they took her it would end badly. They came with their eyes burning with rage and want, and she would have to cast them away from her if she wanted to have a chance. If she wanted any of them to have a chance. And in the distance, she heard a large hound baying.

She saw her father. He hung from the tree by one ankle, and then by his neck. But the dream did not pass to him, because he could not dream it yet—but he would. She knew that. Not soon, but he would know how the dreams soon and it would not be to any of their benefit.

Off in the distance she saw two figures, watching quietly. She did not know their purpose, but she felt like they were familiar. Reflections, waiting on the other side of the mirror to be reunited with themselves. It would be good when they were, but it would also bring crimson danger to the people she loved.

Antigone and Siobhan both awoke at the same time, drawing the same breath. They looked at one another, separated only by the frame of the open door, and their eyes met. Fear danced across both of their faces—tempered with the knowledge that they didn’t know what any of it meant or how they could do anything about it.

“I hate this town.” Siobhan mouthed to her twin.

“Me too.” Antigone mouthed in return, before they both flopped back. Each of the twins stared at the ceiling sand prayed for normal dreams, quiet sleep, or the wisdom to know what the hell was going on.

“I don’t think you’re making the right choice, letting the kids run around telling people about what’s going on.” Ryan said as they cleared the dishes. All four girls had gone back to the twins conjoined rooms, and the younger Ryan out to the garage to tinker with his board. It left the two adults to talk quietly as they washed the excess food and put it away. The clatter of plates and hiss of water out of the sink covered their discussion.

“I know you do.” Walter responded seriously. “I could tell, from the conversation. And you’re not wrong…it is of course a risk.” He says with a laugh. “Of course everything seems like it is a risk right now, but that could just be the cynicism talking.”

“I’m serious, boss.” Ryan offered as he put away the last plate, and reached out to fill the soap tray. “They take this crap really seriously. You’re treating it pretty glibly, but this is a serious thing. There aren’t any of the things that live in the dark and scare mortals that like having their secrets told. And Morgan and Tania aren’t as benign as they seem to be, if they get you alone an they’re displeased with you.”

Walter nodded and sighed, reaching in to the refrigerator and pulling out two water bottles. Without looking he tossed one over his shoulder to Ryan, confident the man would both expect and catch the thrown drink, before he closed the fridge. “I get it. But this came to me, and for whatever reason we’re all tied up on it. So we get to have a say in how we do it. Or frankly they can go suck an egg. Damn, I should have saved that one for when the kids were out here, it’s proper and everything.”

Ryan snorted, and sighed as he cracked open the water to take a long swig from it, then set the bottle down on the island. “But they won’t, Walt. They won’t go suck an egg, they’ll come after you if they’re displeased with you. I’ve seen it. Hell…I’m a Knight of Faerie, Walter—I’ve made clear the displeasure of the Queens to their enemies.” He offered almost sadly, leaning on the counter and looking down at his hands.

Walter considered his brother-in-law for a long moment before he opened his own water. “Ah hell, Ryan. I probably am in over my head and still digging. Just like always. But at least I’ve got somebody who knows what’s going on watching my back, right?” He asked, raising an eyebrow—his tone implying he knew that it was a loaded question and that he might be a little bit sorry he asked it.

“You know that it isn’t as simple as that.” Ryan said wit a sigh in response. “You know I’ve always got your back as much as I’m able, man…but their oath of enlistment is a little bit more strict then the ones we signed. There isn’t a lot of backing out, and it’ll be worse than a night scrubbing the bathroom with a toothbrush if you break it.”

Walter chugged a bit of water before he nodded. “Then why the hell did you sign up for it?” He asked seriously. “Seriously, you had to have had other options. Even ignoring PMCs,” he shared a meaningful look with the man, “there are lots of places for a vet with your skills. Hell, they took me as a cop, they’ll take just about anything.”

Ryan shook his head, and waved a hand like he was waving away Walter’s joking. “I saw you in Kansas City, remember? That gang shootout?” Ryan laughed. “Besides, you want to help people. I don’t know how they take the little shit you were and turn you in to a responsible man and crap, but I’ll give the Army credit. By the time we graduated you were ready to be a leader, and that’s why you’re here.”

“You were too, Captain.” Walter pointed out in return, shrugging. “I just stuck it out longer.”

“No, we were different.” Ryan said with a sigh. “For me there was always the element of enjoying it when the bullets were whizzing by. George Washington said something about it too, and it’s always been true for me. You had a family to come back to that made you OK with the administration—I just wanted to feel alive a little bit, and they offered the most interesting buzz.”

“And what…” Walter asked, quasi-incredulously, “now you’re bored with Faerie enforcement? You want to move on to Vampire bouncing, followed by Werewolf death boxing?”

“No, Vampires are crazy when you have to deal with them. And Werewolves re predictably good t boxing.” Ryan responded immediately. That caused Water to come up short, blinking.

“I…I really hope you’re not being serious, but I get the feeling that you’re not.” Walter sputtered.

“I’m not. And I’m not bored—and I suspect after we tussle with Oberon, I won’t need a fill of excitement ever again.” Ryan finished seriously, toying with his bottle of water absently. “Listen…just be careful. That’s all I’m saying. These people are dangerous. The Sidhe…they’re gorgeous, and awe inspiring, and they will devour you from top to bottom if you let them. There’s a reason why Rhee and I left for a while, and she didn’t come back.”

Walter nodded, but let the silence stand as they drank their water in silence.

END OF CHAPTER 11: PLANS

The numbers immediately presented a problem. Walter wasn’t going to be horrible and kick his daughters’ guests out because he hadn’t brought enough food for them all, but he also knew trying to stretch it between them would end up with reproachful glares from his garbage disposal of a son. Fortunately salvation came in the form of his brother-in-law, who texted if he could come see his nieces and nephew and didn’t mind supplementing their order.

When Ryan Aquino—namesake to Ryan Richards—entered the house he carried a large bag redolent of spices. He was about to say something when he stumbled over the pile of shoes in front of the door, and glared at them in consternation. “Still?” He asked.

“Always.” Antigone confirmed solemnly. The elder Ryan sighed and stepped over it, before he gave the three kids a grin. Antigone and Siobhan ran to the door, abandoning their serious defense of shoe-henge, and jumped to hug him. “Hey girls. You being bad as always?” He asked, mostly looking at Siobhan, who wiggled her eyebrows in response. Once his sisters were clear the younger Ryan walked up to the older and they shared a man hug, a handshake that turned in to two seconds of back patting before they both parted.

“Ryan Aquino, this is Lacey and this is Monica, who are not in fact strays but friends of the girls from school. And who also both I assume have last names, but have not chosen to grace us with them.” Walter introduced. “It’s to their benefit you gave Nineteen Ninety-Naan, the most hilariously named Indian restaurant ever, our second round of food today.”

Walter grinned as Siobhan and Antigone both gave him a mild glare at the teasing of their friends, but the friends took it better. They introduced themselves to Ryan—their full names turned out to be Lacey Miller, and Monica Bennington—before everyone moved over to the kitchen island and began to open up and serve the food.

“So you involved in the creepy Faerie business?” Monica asked Ryan directly, as curry and chicken tikka masala were passed around to eager hands. Ryan sputtered a bit, stunned by the directness of the question and choking as the rice he had just put in his mouth got sucked down into his lungs instead of his stomach.

“So much,” he managed after a couple seconds of coughing, “for Operational Security, Major?” He asked, more than a little annoyed and looking right at Walter. Walter shrugged as he grabbed garlic naan.

“Wasn’t my call. Let’s call it initiative in the ranks caused a loss of OpSec, and once the breach was there?” Walter offered with a non-committal little shake of his head. “I figured I would be better to bribe them with food then kill them and bury them in the back forty.”

Ryan nodded at that, but it was Siobhan who pointed out in a tone of obligation, “We don’t have a back forty. Or a front forty.”

Walter nodded. “And that.” He admitted honestly. “So first I’d have to buy a front forty, and then buy a back forty, and then kill them and bury them in it. And it’s really just too much of a hassle.” Walter reached out to take a sip of soda. “And…I think they’re right to have told them, Ryan. How much crap recently could have been stopped if more than four total people had known what the hell was going on?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. “People—Siobhan and Antigone right at the top in my mind—have almost died, and we’re damn lucky no one has. I’ve gotten the crap kicked out of me more times than I can count, and we’re about to go up and try to kill a God. Some people knowing about the apocalypse in case it all goes pear shaped wouldn’t be bad.’

Ryan put his elbows up on the table and leaned in to them, considering the food beneath him for a moment and pushing it around with his fork. “That’s not how they do things, Walt. I mean…there’s a reason you don’t see them in history books, and none of you knew about them. Rhiannon and I grew up with this shit, and they live on secrets. The last person that was killed for telling mortals about Faerie secrets wasn’t in our lifetime but it wasn’t much earlier than that either.”

The room went quiet for a moment in consideration of those facts, and Walter looked particularly unhappy at it for a moment. But then he shrugged carelessly. “I’m not saying that’s not true, mind you. But right now we are on pretty good terms with the two Queens of Faerie. And beyond that, they need us to help them kill their father. And really…if we fail miserably then people are going to know Faerie exists, when it nukes southern Kansas into glass.”

That got even raised eyebrows from the children, who hadn’t expected things to be quite that bad. Ryan sighed and shook his head, leaning back now as if trying to distance himself from those thoughts. “We’ll solve it by not failing, I guess. I don’t know…maybe I’ve just been dealing with weird stuff for too long now and I’m all cynical. But if we manage to off the old jackass then you need to know they’re not going to want you to run around willy nilly spilling their secrets.” He seemed almost dispirited as he spoke, but at the end he looked and met every other person’s eyes to make sure they understood.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Walter said seriously. “But things have to change, or we’ll just have some other crisis in a couple of years. You can’t fight darkness with darkness or lies with lies, you have to fight it with the truth. So maybe there will be another fight afterword, but it’s a fight that needs to be fought.” At that he gestured. “But that’s for another day when we’re not eating surprisingly good Indian food in Kansas. Come on.”

What had begun as a ride and turned in to a lunch, eventually ended up as an all afternoon planning session. Walter’s head spun with the basic primer of Faerie, and the knowledge that he was going to get a little lesson in how to beat up magical creatures. He had even stopped denying magic existed, if only so that he could try to keep everything straight. He was dropped off at home by Morgan, who sped off in a confident and illegal fashion to continue planning with her sister and start making the Scoobie-Doos, or whatever the knives had been called. He had some take out in his hands for his children, balancing drinks in one hand and food bags in the other.

Walter walked in to find a gaggle of teenage girls laying on the floor with a map of town, which he noticed shortly before he stumbled over the increased pile of shoes in front of the door. “Dammit, it’s growing!” Walter grumbled as he stepped over it toward the group it belonged to. “Does it always have to be right in front of the door?” He asked. He paused to check the food bags and drinks, and found them suitably saved by his quick steps.

“Last time it wasn’t a creepy guy broke in, tried to kill you, and disappeared in our closet.” Siobhan said helpfully, kicking her legs on the floor. “Is that Indian?”

“That something we’re talking about a lot in front of our friends?” Walter asked as he made his way over to the kitchen island to set down the food and drink. “Also not exactly true since you were out at a party when that happened.” He looked at the two girls. “I think this is the first time they’ve actually overcome their embarrassment of me to bring you two in to the house. I’m Walter Richards; for my sins, Antigone and Siobhan’s father.” He introduced himself to Lacey and Monica, the half of the gaggle he wasn’t related to. “You must be Lacey and Monica. Can I get you something to drink, have they played good hostess at all?” He asked, with a raised eyebrow to his progeny.

“Given it was their party, and they’ve been involved in all the freakiness that’s happened since?” Antigone answered for her sister. “We decided to clue them in, yes. The whole thing.” She said this last bit almost defiantly, looking at her father as if daring him to contradict her logic—an expression he was more used to on Siobhan than anything else. “And we got them water.”

Walter looked at the two teenage girls, very different on the outside. And yet from the way that his daughters had described them, and what he saw in the pride they had in Antigone’s trust, he sensed a similarity to them beneath the surface. A loyalty, and an honesty. “Good.” Walter said after only a moment of consideration more. “Too many shadows in this town and not enough flashlights; too many secrets and not enough truths. So what do you think?” He asked them, pulling a soda from the fridge and moving to sit at the island and look at them. His tone was neither condescending nor flip but sincerely curious.

“That Kansas City high schools can’t be that bad?” Monica answered first, while Lacey considered it more deeply.

“That a lot of people are in danger and they don’t even know it.” The blond student answered a moment later, after having rolled the thought over in her mind a little bit more.

“Well…” Walter said as he opened the can of soda. “Neither of you are wrong. I’m not sure that I won’t start taking fliers for other school districts. Possibly across the country. Underground.” He sighed. “But you’re also not wrong that people are in danger, and I’m not sure exactly what we can do about it.” He answered honestly.

“Is he always this honest with you?” Monica asked Antigone and Siobhan curiously.

“Price of being kind of an adult.” Walter answered, with that same honestly. “And the cost of truth. If you want to ask the questions, you have to listen to the answers that come. Even if you don’t really want to. And I don’t mind you all thinking of answers, either, as long as you’re doing your best to stay out of trouble. Or violence. Or boys.”

“What about girls?” Lacey asked, making googoo eyes at Siobhan for a moment. Walter considered for a minute, before he shrugged.

“As long as they keep their grades up, then they can stay away from girls too.” He offered equanimously. “Whatevs, as the kids say. So what are you working on here, and what’s it got to do with the craziness that makes up one Border, Kansas?”

“Magic doors.” Siobhan answered, showing her father the map that they were working out.”Apparently they’re all over the city, and we’ve identified a number of them. Antigone almost opened one today at school, and it was…” Siobhan paused to consider her words. “Well, anywhere else I’d say super crazy, but here it only managed to be normally crazy.”

Walter nodded at that, pondering. “You ever heard of any of them being open?” He asked the two Border natives with a raised eyebrow. “Anything we could verify and actually talk to someone about?”

“Nope.” Lacey supplied helpfully, to which Monica nodded in agreement. “It’s all urban legend and friend of a friend. And any time someone runs away there is always a rumor they got swallowed by one of the doors.”

“Do you believe it?” Walter asked.

Lacey and Monica exchanged a look, and then looked down at the map that they made. “Hell yes.” Monica answered.

Today isn’t a story day in Border, KS. This is prime blog material right here, something I’ve never done in lieu of story. But there is a good reason why: As of today, I have been doing Border, KS for one year.

The first segment launched on July 1, 2o14–which means in just over an hour and 30 minutes Mountain time (which I tend to measure it by, originally coming from Colorado–and it giving me an hour longer to post and make my deadline), it will have reached that milestone. I wanted to take a moment to thank each and every one of you who reads Border, and to share a little bit of behind the scenes information.

Not including headlines or blog posts, at the one year mark Border has roughly 85,800 words–343 type written pages in a soft cover book. That puts it firmly in the Novel length, although most novels are longer–as book 1 of Border will be.

My original plan was to have book 1 end at roughly the one year mark, then take a month off and post a short story that follows it and some other background info. That is…not going to happen. At this point I estimate I have between four and six months of material left (and probably closer to six). If I go another six months that will leave book 1 at roughly 109,000 words–respectably a novel at 436 pages. It might go a little bit longer, I don’t know.

Border has changed tremendously from where I originally thought it would be. I’ll go in to more detail in some of the bonus features of book 1 when it is done, but I’m comfortable saying that. Siobhan and Antigone were originally more secondary characters, until I discovered how fun they are to write. Morgan and Tania were also going to be more secondary as well as more remote and mysterious–but part of the fun for me has been showing that even a Faerie Queen can still be a person, and immortality is no bar to personality.

As some of you noticed, I also originally only posted 500 word chunks at a time. This was done to mirror the feel of a webcomic, where one strip is posted per day on a 2 times or 3 times per week schedule. But it wasn’t getting the job done, leaving too much out and not letting me develop the story either quickly or fully enough–hence the change.

One of these days I’ll get around to writing a real process post, about how I develop things–it’s pretty much jiggery pokery, as Justice Scalia might say. And if you’ve listened to the podcast I do with Cory and Robin Childs of Leylines Comic (that is currently on hiatus), you’ll know I tend to be much more a Gardener than an Architect. Things grow on me, and I grow on them, and they come out. Part of the fun of Border has ben writing in a way that the development process is seen by anyone who reads it, rather than being hidden behind a finished project.

The next year for Border should be fun. Book 1 will be finished, and book 2 begun–neither has an independent title yet, so book 1 may just end up being ‘Border, KS’. I hope to expand the readership, and tell stories taking you in to the dark places beyond the realms of the Fey. All in all I hope that you have enjoyed the first year of this little endeavor.

Since book 1 will not have a dedication page for a while, this is as good a place as ever to thank specific people. As it said in the first Legend of the Five Rings book, if you don’t thank your parents in your first book you go to hell. So thank you to Michael Parker, Linda Count, and Walter Count. If there is a recognizable name in there, that’s on purpose. Without you three I wouldn’t love books and reading the way I do, and everyone knows that’s just a gateway drug to writing.

Thank you to Pam and Matt Cole, who host my physical and internet spaces in a bed and serve respectively. You’ve seen this whole project from inception to now, and it couldn’t happen without you. Pam is so often my indispensable editor and idea sounding board, and Matt makes this crazy website thing work. You guys rock.

Thanks to Cory and Robin Childs, who were the first Webcomic people I knew and encouraged this all the way. They’re also some of the best friends I could possibly hope for, and do amazing work themselves.

And thank you to everyone who has read this. Whether you’ve read from the beginning as they were posted, are catching up now, or just started and this is the first ting you’ve read–thank you. I’m not just doing this because if I didn’t write I’d go mad, I’m doing this to tell a story to an audience, so this is as much for you as anything else.

Here is to a year gone by, and to another to follow. May the worst of our tomorrows be better than the best of our yesterdays.

Matt

“But we’re clear,” Walter said a little bit later after a mouth full of guacamole, “On the fact that this is a trap?” He offered, gesturing with a chip covered in the mouth-watering green chunks. “Like…a big, obvious, stinking trap?”

Andre Alexander reached for some of the chips, and Walter batted the other man’s reach away with his free hand. “I will hiss and arch my back and claw you in the face.” He promised direly, and the man let him take some more. Andre and William Alexander, and Leah Silverman, had come to the apartment shortly after the food had arrived in order to discuss the plan.

“Yes, it is totally a trap.” Tania said with a shake of her head. “But it’s also not a trap we can ignore, if it gives us a chance to jump him prison style, and shank him with Morgan’s leftovers. So how do we turn his trap back on him?” She looked to Morgan.

“I’ll move the portal.” She explained, looking up to meet Walter’s eyes. “If I try to move it to a completely different place, I’d need to open a new one. But I can try to…jolt it, stutter it with a burst of my own power. It’ll move it somewhere in the vicinity, within ten or twenty feet—but at enough of an angle that we may well be able to have the drop on them instead.”

The four police officers exchanged looks at that, considering the tactical situation, before they shared a general and communal shrug. “Still a trap, but it doesn’t suck quite as bad.” William Alexander offered. “Who is your team?” He queried the two Queens.

“Me, Ryan, Walter, and Gabriel.” Morgan answered, shrugging. “They’re the only ones we’ve talked to, and they seem to be the most involved in our fight.”

Andre and Leah shared a glance of surprise. “Like hell.” Andre said simply. “I’m on the SOR team, and we’ve both been involved in this since Walter got here. We’re not letting you all go gallivanting off to somewhere freaky without us.” Leah smirked as she was volunteered as well, but didn’t disagree with the sentiment.

Tania smirked, and Morgan gave her a beatific smile. “You owe me five dollars.” The medical examiner said to her sister. “I told you they would volunteer.” Tania reached in to her pocket and pulled out a bill, glancing at it to make sure it was a five before she passed it on down the table. “You both are very loyal, but this is going to be very ugly even if we get the best possible circumstances. This isn’t your war, you don’t have to be involved.”

“What, it’s my war?” Walter asked, sputtering a bit. “I wanted to come to a boring rural town and pull over redneck drunks with tattoos of the General Lee, not fight a war in a bullshit land of not-real magic.”

“You’re…well, you’ve managed to get yourself involved.” Morgan offered, and her voice was regretful about that fact. She reached out across the table and squeezed his arm. “The others know things but they haven’t talked to Oberon himself, he hasn’t noted them.”

Walter raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that he’s noted me?”

Tania smirked. “He notices everyone who stands up to him. We’ve jokingly referred to it as Level Two. Everyone exists at Level One, until they get noticed. Then he remembers them, and has to do something to make you fit in to his world. You need to serve, or be recognized by him as an equal, or be destroyed. So he definitely remembers you, and if we don’t do something about him then he will come for you—unless you die when he crashes Faerie into the mortal world.”

“Charming.” Walter sighed. “Well, assuming Andre and Leah are in, then what kind of equipment are we taking? Tactical load, or swords and armor?” Walter finished his question with a little bit of a smirk, which went around the table in various forms of laughter or snorting and shaking of heads.

“Guns. No vests unless you’ve got Dragon Skin armor tucked away somewhere, because they won’t have a lot of firearms.” Morgan answered. “And for the record yes I meant the modern body armor, not actual dragon skin armor. That was in the basement.” Morgan grumbled at that fact, and Walter assumed that if it actually existed that it would probably be protective.

“When do we go? I assume the answer is soon?” Walter continued to query as they cleared out the rest of the food, and began to tuck away the empty bags.

“We should do some training before we go, but we shouldn’t wait any longer than this weekend. They do know we’re coming, but if we keep them waiting too long they might get antsy. It will take a couple of nights for me to make the weapons,” Morgan gestured to the shards of metal, “and we need to train you three a little bit so we don’t feel like we’re leading you in to slaughter.”

Walter nodded, taking one of the empty beer bottles and tossing it expertly in to the recycling bin. “Well then. We train, and then this weekend we try to kill a Faerie King. And assuming that we survive, I try to forget having ever said those words.”

By the time Walter and Ryan re-entered the room the Mexican food had been put out on the table and the rest of the beer brought out. Gabriel Shepherd had also apparently shown up, and was sitting down to join them in their spicy repast. But there was something else in the center of the table that caught his eye, and he looked quickly up to Morgan.

“You have shards?” Shepherd asked, apparently stating the obvious as he considered what were very obviously shards of metal. They were silvery, shiny like steel but too much, and after a moment Walter realized they must be from some a sword very similar to the ones he had seen Morgan and Tania pull out of literally nowhere.

“Someone broke your sword.” Walter offered off-handedly as he came to a seat. “Maybe you can use this giant ass dining table to reforge it.” He gestured off-handedly, before he reached out with those hands to grab some chips and guacamole and pull them on to his table.

“It is reforged.” Morgan explained, as she cracked a beer and poured it in to a glass for herself. “It is from the Sword of Lugh, which is often confused with Fragarach of Manannan. It was, allegedly, given to Oberon by Lugh himself, but for longer than I’ve been alive it has been Oberon’s sword. It is fused with his own energy and traced with his own magics. And we will use it to kill him.”

Tania, Gabriel, and Ryan sat down at the table as well. They started divvying up tacos and burritos, and Walter was passed his carne asada fries. “Ok. I appreciate you’re still resisting us calling it Fraggle Rock, really—fighting a losing battle is worthwhile.” Walter offered with a grin. “But I’m sensing a lot of import in that sentence that I don’t get. Also, magic doesn’t exist.” He pointed out more out of obligation than anything else.

“It’s like what we talked about earlier with the store of goods, one of the rules of magic. The one thing you can’t protect against is yourself, something made with your own essence. It’s why we are so protective of things that are bound to us.” Tania explained while her sister grumbled at the continued re-naming of an important cultural artifact. “Which brings up another topic, besides Walter’s insistence that magic can’t be real even if Faerie Queens are. How the hell do you have this?”

“You’ve read Lord of the Rings, right Walter?” Morgan asked, as if it was a given that every other person at the table had. It probably is a given, considering all the stuff these people live through.

Walter shrugged. “Yeah. I figured you all for Sci-Fi people though. Figured fantasy hit a little bit close to home.” He offered with a grin as he took his fork and began shoveling hot French fries and warm steak in to his mouth.

“Oberon used the sword, Claidheamh Soluis, through wars against the Fir Bolg and the Fomorians, until it shattered. It was reforged for him and he used it until the end of the last great Faerie war. An ancient blade wielded by a man who would be king, broken and reforged by an Elf?” Morgan offered, striking a regal pose. “Not exactly the same, but Tolkien got a good story out of it.”

“OK, stop showing off.” Tania gestured. “Next she’ll be breaking out the D&D Books she had Gygax sign, and we’ll lose an afternoon. So let’s get back to the point: How do you possibly have these, and even though they’re pretty damn good what are they going to do about the fact that he’s the only thing keeping the Fomor back?” She asked before she drained her bottle of beer and set it aside with absolutely no sign of any effect.

“Because I’m going to make them into a goidte dubh.” Morgan said with all the weight of a pronouncement, and everyone else at the table leaned back in shock. “It’s the only way.” She said seriously to their obvious concern, shrugging it off with a swig of beer. “He won’t be able to stop it because it’s him, and then it will do its job.”

Walter was about to say something when Gabriel spoke up. “It means ‘Stolen Night’. It strips magic from one person and gives them to another, and if you kill the person while it is in effect then it is permanent. It is very rare and very difficult to make, and I didn’t know that Morgan knew how to make one. Although it makes sense, given it is a thing of transition and change. And,” He added with a side-eye toward Morgan, “Death.”

“So we stick him with the goiters, and then off him, and then what…you take over holding off whatever the heck those things are?” Walter asked. “Will you be able to do that? That has to have some long term side effects?”

Morgan and Tania considered their Mexican food for a long moment before they looked up almost at the same time. “Long term? Probably drive whichever one of us gets it more than a little batshit, maybe kill us. But it will save the world in the mean time, so sometimes you just have to nut up and embrace the crazy.” Tania said off-handedly, as she reached for another beer.

Walter stood out on the balcony of Morgan’s apartment. They had gone over some more of the basics of what Oberon’s plan likely was, to try to get Walter to understand—that way when they came back after lunch, they could come up with an actual plan. Delivery Mexican food had been ordered, and now Morgan and Tania were updating their allies—and Walter’s boss—with what they suspected was going on.

Left with nothing to do since Morgan was doing the Police side of it, Walter made his way out to the view of the city. It was a warm day for how late in the year it was, and sunshine had driven the frost away. He could see the whole of the city stretching out around him like he was the hub of a wheel, and he was beginning to sense every spoke contained something he wasn’t being told or couldn’t yet understand. The fact a chill breeze, the only stain on the otherwise lovely day, had picked up right when he thought that didn’t seem ominous at all. No siree, he thought.

He found his way to one of the deck chairs and put his feet up on to the balcony rails to look out. He could make out the red bricks of the Old Market, and could see his daughter’s school. He took in the courthouse, the river, and in the distance the forest and the hills. Soon there would be fewer people hiking in the forest once the real cold hit, and more people sledding on the hills. He thought it would be pretty, as he pulled out a cigar and a lighter from his jacket.

“They’ll hate you for smoking those here. Very sensitive noses.” A masculine voice said behind him as he heard the patio door slide open, and then closed. Ryan Aquino came and sat down in the chair next to him, putting his feet up as well. He had two beers that had apparently been broken out in advance of lunch, cold Dos Equis with beads of perspiration running down them.

“Well.” Walter said with a little bit of a shrug. “Normally I wouldn’t, but I figure if there’s ever a time to light one up, it’s when you find out a crazy immortal king is going to try to crash his city in to your city and kill all of you in the process.”

“Most,” Ryan corrected gently, “just most of us.”

“How reassuring.” Walter drawled, as he looked over to his brother-in-law, and friend. He had the same tanned skin as his sister, and the same dark hair—although he kept it short and spiky now, where Rhiannon Aquino had kept hers long. The man sported a new tattoo that Walter could see, on his arm where Walter and Rhiannon had both gotten theirs—except Ryan’s was some strange symbols that he couldn’t decipher.

“It keeps me from being tracked with magic too easily.” Ryan explained, rolling up the sleeve to show Walter the intricate patterns of lines and swirls in black and silver. “If we’d have had one that worked for normal stuff, we might have had some less interesting times, huh?” Walter only nodded. He let the silence grow between them, and it had an awkwardness that had never been there before. Walter looked at the man who had been comrade in arms, best friend, and family for a long measure of that silence before he said anything.

“I could have used you here, brother. It wasn’t easy. We needed you.” Walter said simply. He didn’t need to explain the subject—they both knew. It was the cause of the silence between them, the discomfort where once they had passed hours companionably relaxing.

“I know.” Ryan answered without answering, although there was a pain in his voice that did more of the heavy lifting of sounding sorry then his words.

“Where were you? What happened?” Walter said, puffing on the cigar. “I thought you’d hooked up with a private military company, some Blackwater knock off, and were in to private security now. Then I see you mixed up with Tania, and then you disappear again? What the shit, dude, you didn’t even stop in to see the kids.”

Ryan took a long draw from his beer as a cover for thinking, an old habit of his. When he finally set it down, he sighed. “I never signed up with a PMC. I signed up with Titania, and Mab, right after I got out. Pay was good, and we’d known them since we were kids.”

Walter nodded slowly at that, considering. “So what…you’re chief of security to the Queens of Faerie? Or do they have a Secret Service?” He looked around. “I’m not seeing elves with ear-buds or pixies in business suits.” Ryan chuckled, shaking his head.

“Little more feudal than that, boss. They have Knights. My business card, and I kid you not, says ‘Knight of Faerie’ on it. In gold lettering.” He explained, and then actually pulled one of the cards out to show to him. In paper that was divided horizontally between white and black, gold lettering did in fact spell out his name and that title.

“No cell number?” Walter couldn’t help but ask.

“The people I deal with don’t need cell numbers to talk to you.” Ryan said, and he gave an interestingly annoyed smirk at that. “And they wouldn’t let me put ‘No scrying after 9:00 PM on the card’.”

“And this is what’s kept you from visiting?” Walter asked, gesticulating with the card he had no intention of handing back. He reached over and set it on the table next to him. “From coming when your sister went missing, and from comforting you’re the kids?”

Ryan winced. “Walt…they told you we’re descended from them, right? That Ma has fairy blood, and that’s why Rhee always had those nightmares?” When Walter nodded, he continued. “They’ve been at war, man, for longer than we’ve been alive. They’re my people, and they needed help. The nice house and stupid amount of money is a bonus, but they’re my people.”

Walter met his eyes, dark and deep that he had used to be quite a lady’s man when they were younger. The eyes so much like his sister’s, eyes that were reflected in part in Walter’s children. “We’re your people too. A lot closer blood than anyone else.”

Ryan nodded, and sipped his beer again. “I know. I’ll visit. I got sent away right after I got here because they had an asset in the field they were worried would be hit next, but I’m back now semi-permanently.” He looked back to the city, kicking his feet a little bit—he’d always had a restless streak to him sometimes, a little bit of fidgeting that seemed like his natural quickness boiling over. “I’ll come see them, I promise.”

Walter relented, leaning back in his chair. He took his own beer and considered it. Deciding department regulations could be ignored for unusual occasions, he took a long swallow. On the pleasantly warm day the chilled beer was nice, and gave him a moment to think about his next words. “Ryan, we’ve been through a lot. You’re my brother, and you were way before I married your sister. I need to ask this, and I need to know you’re being honest with me—“

“I don’t know where she is, Walt.” Ryan answered before Walter was even done asking, and once more met his friend’s eyes. Walter saw nothing but honest truth, and concern for his missing sibling. “If I’d known where she was I would have told you.  I tears me up knowing I’ve got absolutely nothing I can help you with, and it’s part of why I stayed away. And that’s God’s own truth, or the Queen’s own truth, by any oath you want me to swear.”

“I don’t need an oath.” Walter said, turning his eyes to the city below them. “I just needed to know. Sorry.” He admitted a little gruffly, running a hand back through his hair. “The world is a lot crazier than we ever thought when we were exploring all the best parts of it, isn’t it.”

Ryan nodded. “I knew maybe ten percent of what I know now, then. What I’ve learned since makes me wish the worst I had was dudes with AK-47s who wanted to wear my pretty skin for a coat.” He flashed Walter a toned down version of his best smile, the radiance tempered with the discussion they’d just had. “You’ll adjust. You’re damn good at doing what you have to, man.”

Walter shook his head slowly, from side to side. “I didn’t want to be good at that any longer.” He sighed. “I was excited by speeding tickets and DUIs, and a schedule that might have sucked until I did my time but would at least be mostly consistent. They were talking about making me a pistol instructor at the academy before Rhee went missing, and that would have been day shift Monday to Friday.”

“Some men aren’t meant to be day shift, Monday to Friday, Major.” Ryan said philosophically. “Some men are meant to right wrongs and fight evil, and that doesn’t keep regular hours.”

“I did my twenty fighting evil. Or at least what we were told was evil, or the enemy. I was ready for graduations and barbecues and end of shift reports that could be kept to one page.” Walter sighed. They both knew what he was really thinking of, what he had really been looking forward to leaving behind, but neither of them said it out loud.

“Yeah.” Ryan agreed. “But come on, we both knew they would have put you on SWAT anyway. If you were going to do it, might as well expand your mind a bit right?” He offered with an amusing waggle of his eyebrows.

“Yeah, see…SWAT paid more.” Walter said, as the doorbell rang  and heralded the arrival of food. “Come on, we’ve got an apocalypse to plan for.”

“Not an apocalypse, it’d be more local than that. A local apocalypse. Alocalypse.” Ryan offered cheerily, drawing a snort and a smirk from Walter.

“Locally grown, farm to table Apocalypse. It’s a hipster’s dream—if they had particularly disturbing dreams.” Walter said as he left his cigar outside, and opened the door back in to the palatial apartment.

“What do you want to know?” Morgan asked in response to Walter’s words. She looked…unsettled, somehow, as if speaking the truth would make things real she didn’t want to be. Like dangers would come out just by speaking them.

“What is it, exactly, what your father is planning on doing?” Walter asked. “What exactly happened with him, too—all I know about him is his apparent proclivity for having children, and that he is a scary as hell Fairy King. Which is still insane to say out loud.”

Morgan and Tania considered each other for a moment before Tania shrugged, and Morgan leaned in to rest her elbows on her knees. “OK, so we’re going to have to get past the magic thing to explain any of this, or we’re going to be here all day. So can we just go with it being real, an get over whatever this thing is?”

Walter smirked a little bit at that, and shrugged. “It’s not that I don’t believe you’re doing the things you say you are.” He explained. “I’ve seen you pull swords out of nowhere, change what you look like, and I’ve watched people disappear in my closet. My objection isn’t to the things existing—because they obviously do, but calling it magic is bull.”

That caused both Faerie women, and Ryan, to blink. Morgan smirked a little bit, while Tania just looked at Walter as if considering a crazy man. “Magic is what we call something we don’t understand. Fire was magic, and lightning was magic, and coincidence was magic. Describe what it is that you do, and I’ll accept it—but I don’t believe there is just some unexplained thing you can do that is magic.” Walter finished explaining.

Morgan nodded, consideringly. She crossed her legs and took on an abstracted look, as if she was trying to figure out how to describe sight to a blind man or hearing to the deaf. Her hair began to slowly drift about her and floated like they were moving on a very gentle breeze. Tania looked at her curiously as she did it, but didn’t interrupt.

“It is like…reaching out with another sense.” Morgan explained, as she stopped whatever it is that she had been doing. “It is touching something that feels like light, like the gentle tingle of electricity, and turning a part of you toward the sun. And using that warmth to do what you want. For us it feels very natural, because we are part of nature and so is it.” Walter listened to that thoughtfully, as if trying to wrap his head around it.

“So it’s a sense?” He asked in follow up. Morgan grimaced.

“I know I described it that way, but that’s just kind of the way it feels. And when you refine your abilities with it you can sense when others use it, but…” Morgan gesticulated vaguely, to highlight the inadequacy of words. “It is more than that. We teach ourselves that it is as the Greeks said, the element that dances in the spaces between all the other elements. The quintessence that charges life and gives it vitality, what makes the wild…wild.” She offered. “So it might be that we are interacting with the world in a way that science cannot explain yet.”

“Or,” Tania interjected, her tone one of someone helping a particularly dim-witted child, “It could be magic and we could all get along with our lives.” She said, pointedly to Morgan. “He’s said he knows it is actually happening, so he isn’t dumb—just get to it.”

Morgan eyed her back, but then looked to Walter and shrugged. “It isn’t a terrible point. Whatever it is we do, we can do it. And there are times when it is possible for people to do more or less magic, based on what kind of person they are and how they interact with the world. We are the children of the wild, and so our tie to the magic is tied to the seasons. As the two Queens of Faerie we are equal at the equinox, and our powers are at their highest at the solstice. But at the very minute of the solstice is also a moment of transition—when power begins to flow out instead of in. In that moment of transition, there is danger.”

Tania nodded at that. “When we took power from the previous Queens we did so at the solstice, seizing that moment and their power. It is also why it is impossible, without being willing to blow a lot of other power all at once, to take over for both Queens at once. We did it by simultaneously destroying the powers of the High King.”

“And it appears,” Morgan finished, “That our father is going to do something similar by depleting some of our oldest artifacts and use it, with the power transfer of the solstice, to merge Border and Faerie in to one place. Both will exist in the same spaces but they will both be irrevocably changed, meaning he can enter them and try to take them over again. And since a huge number of us will be dead, he will probably have an easy time of it.

Walter shook his head at the last part of the explanation, sighing. “OK, I get stealing power from the artifacts—magical nonsense is like a battery, I can get behind that. But how can he…merge Faerie and Border? They are different places?”

Morgan and Tania exchanged one in a long series of inscrutable looks that Walter had seen them share. He had found it normally meant they were deciding what not to tell him, but he didn’t object this time since they seemed like they were going to tell him something at all. “Faerie isn’t just in another place, like you could get on a turnpike and go there. It is literally in another world, another dimension you could say, and it only overlaps with the mortal world in certain places. The strongest point Faerie is connected to the mortal world is in Border, and that connection will be the very thing he uses. Of course, that much magical energy might also crack the world like an egg, or burn all of Faerie away like a morning mist.” Morgan allowed after she explained.

“OK, well that is as horrifying as it is poetic. So what is the best case…what happens to Border and Faerie if he works?” Walter asked, unable to keep from shivering a little it himself at the thought of the world cracking or burning.

“Best case? The mortality of the world destroys the magic of Faerie and our people begin to age normally and die off. And humanity has the biggest collective freak out in history as it realizes it is a small part of a large world, and…” Morgan shrugged. “I don’t know, they nuke us? Yeah, nuke us.”

Walter considered all of that, from the quiet tragedy to the explosive finale. “Well, at least the stakes aren’t high.”