Neela

Neela

I craned my neck to glimpse the ocean. Early morning sunlight glinted off the barrier to the fae realm, catching my attention. It was mesmerizing, shimmering like a gauze curtain hanging from the clouds to the sea.

It called to me.

No human had ever passed through that barrier. Ever. At least none had returned to speak of it. I might be a trashbag orphan from the streets, but I would make it to the fae realm one day, even if it killed me.

A low warning bark snapped me back to the streets around me. My hiding place was an alleyway between overflowing trash cans and a brick wall. The stench was bearable, and the spot was safe for now, but it was time to keep moving.

I peered around the corner to the Docklands’ main drag—I owed enough money to enough lowlifes to always check around corners.

The coast was clear, so I sauntered out, putting some height into my walk to give it that jolting gait of every other hardened Docklands native.

The sweet smell of cinnamon and brown sugar slammed into me, and my mouth watered. My belly was full of rice and beans, so I wasn’t exactly hungry, but it was always full of rice and beans. Sometimes I mixed it up and had beans and rice, but mostly rice and beans. My taste buds were so bored they were suicidal, so the prospect of that brown sugar and cinnamon muffin put me on high alert.

I slowed to a stroll. The muffins were twenty yards ahead on a collapsible table that a sharp-eyed woman was using as a stall. My timing had to be perfect. I gasped sharply, and as the woman glanced to follow my stare, I swiped a muffin and pocketed it.

My pants were baggy and loose, so they could hide whatever shit I stole.

I rounded the next corner and pulled out my delicious prize, sniffing the cinnamon goodness.

A pair of skinny legs barred my way, almost tripping me over. A small girl, as thin as an anchor, sat on the concrete with her legs splayed across the sidewalk. I cursed, and she pulled her knees into her chest, blinking up at me with wide green eyes.

She looked like she hadn’t eaten in a week. But this muffin was mine. I’d been on the streets since I was her age, and nobody had ever helped me or handed me a single damn thing, and I didn’t have to help her either.

I was like a ghost. That was how I liked it, watching from the shadows, analyzing, and keeping my distance, with no ties to anyone or anything that could compromise my safety. Solitude made an excellent shield.

The girl hugged her knees tighter and blinked at me again, not asking for anything, just watching the world like I’d done for endless hours.

“Fuck it,” I muttered and handed her the muffin. Life sparked in her face as she took it, and a warm glow nestled in my chest…but my taste buds were pissed.

Wandering down the sidewalk, I entered the heart of the Docklands, where piers jutted into the wide bay like broken teeth. From here, the magical barrier to the fae realm stretched over the distant water left and right, as far as I could see.

I sighed. One day.

A rough voice filled with menace shouted, “Oi!”

One of Joey the Bull’s boys had spotted me. My spiky blond hair was too damn recognizable. I broke into a sprint, diving back into the winding streets, and heard the man take chase, his feet louder and closer than I would have liked.

I was small and wiry, good over long distances, but this man had better acceleration, and if he caught me, I’d have to answer to the Bull. That man wouldn’t like my answers.

My heart pounded, and my breathing came fast. For a panicky moment, I felt like my lungs would burst, but I soon settled into a rhythm I could keep up for hours.

The man pursuing me was loud and shouty, yelling that he’d hooked a fish and bringing more pounding feet to join the chase.

But I was in my rhythm now, darting between cars, shooting up alleyways, and diving through the back doors of shops. Nobody knew their way around the Docklands like I did.

I’d also explored every other part of the city, which gave me the advantage. I wound through the streets toward Capitol Hill, where rich people had vast properties and tiny dogs and where the Docklands crews wouldn’t follow me.

I’d lost them, but I’d have to lay low for a few days until they forgot about me and moved on to their next target.

No matter. There were hidey holes all over the city, all stashed with tins of beans—fucking beans—so I’d be fine.

The homes up here had state-of-the-art security systems, so they were rarely worth a look, but I scanned them out of habit. Maybe I’d find a freshly baked cinnamon and brown sugar muffin to steal. And I would damn well gobble it up before any bloody street urchin blinked at me with her pathetic green eyes.

A large brick home was set back from the road and protected with an ornate wrought iron fence. On a whim, I pushed open the rose-covered gate and entered the established gardens. It felt like entering another world where trees were for admiring, not climbing, and gardens were for afternoon teas, not for hiding.

Something pulled me in, urging me to cross the garden and climb the front stairs.

“What the hell am I doing?” I muttered, but I didn’t stop myself from pushing open the heavy wooden door and walking into the house.

No alarms, no blaring horns, no outraged cries from posh voices.

Perhaps my intuition to enter this place was spot on. There must be a ton of shit in here just waiting to be sold on the black market, and I knew exactly which lowlife would buy which item. Daltona for art, Foster for jewelry, and Joey the Bull for electronics…maybe I’d skip the electronics.

I entered a massive living room with whisper-quiet carpets and stuffy armchairs. I crossed to the mantle over a huge un-lit fireplace and ran a finger along the smooth wood, imagining the fingerprints I was leaving behind but not stopping myself.

I unlatched the hook and flipped the lid on an intricate silver music box, and a tinkling melody filled the room. I should stop. I was better than this. What kind of thief left her fingerprints everywhere and then broke into song?

But something compelled me to keep going in my madness, and I fished out a curious bracelet from within the music box, turning it over in my skinny fingers.

It was terrible but beautiful, intricate interwoven lines of silver that had tarnished to almost black, with a large emerald gemstone in the center. This would fetch a fortune from Foster.

On instinct, I slipped the bracelet over my hand, and a sense of dread filled my body, trickling up my arm and then splashing down through my torso to my feet. Cold, hard fear, like I’d done something wicked and irreversible.

I tried to tug off the bracelet, but it was shrinking, collapsing around my wrist until it melded into my skin, becoming part of me.

My heart thudded, and my rib cage grew too large for my body, expanding in terror.

I clawed at my wrist, leaving red marks along my skin, but the damn bracelet had melded with me, the huge green emerald eye staring at me scornfully.

“Shit,” I whispered, barely audible over the mocking tinkling from the music box. “Fuck!”

I screamed in frustration, my fingernails drawing blood from my tattooed wrist. I tore from the house, my feet ringing on the treads as I clattered down the front stairs and hurtled across the paving stones.

My left arm tingled where the bracelet had enmeshed into my flesh, intense pins and needles that grew stronger and harder to ignore as I ran through the leafy avenues of Capitol Hill.

What the hell was that thing?

Feet pounding, I fled straight to my nearest hidey hole, an unused garden shed at the back of a villa on Delphinium Drive, and sat my sorry ass onto a saggy beanbag.

My wrist burned, pulsing like a malevolent presence, as though I’d absorbed an evil with a mind of its own.

I hunted around the shed for something to scrape off the tattoo, and the only sharp thing around was an old handsaw, which did not appeal. Not one fucking bit.

The burning grew more intense, and I had a panicky thought that if I waited too long, it would get into my bloodstream and spread through my body, infecting me like measles.

I plonked back into the beanbag and bit on a piece of wood while I rested a single saw tooth against my wrist. I pushed down and scraped away every layer of skin under one jagged tooth, figuring I’d start small.

Pain spiked in my brain, but I pushed it aside. I’d been through worse, and a little self-inflicted wound wouldn’t be my undoing. But the experiment failed. I wiped away the blood and saw the blackness had seeped through to the muscle. The only way I’d get rid of this tattoo would be to cut off my hand, which I wasn’t about to do.

I tried to settle down to rest, but the burning in my arm intensified, and I couldn’t sit still. When I paced the shed, the burning lessened near the door. Maybe if I went outside, the pain would reduce. And who cared if I imagined the relief? I would happily placebo my way out of this and swap my sanity for pain relief.

I headed out the rickety shed door and slinked across the garden. Out on the street, I turned left, and the pain worsened, so I headed right instead, and the throbbing in my wrist abated.

It wasn’t until I walked several miles pain-free that I realized the bloody tatt was leading me by the nose like a pig to market. Maybe it really was an evil presence with a mind of its own.

“Piss off, evil tatt,” I snarled and took a right, though the tingling in my arm tugged me the other way.

The agony immediately worsened, shooting deep into my bone and throbbing with an intensity that made me cry out.

Shit. Nothing was worth that pain. If the damn bracelet wanted me to return to the Docklands, I would. Nothing Joey the Bull could come up with would hurt more than that.

I had to get the damn thing off my wrist, and scrubbing it off wouldn’t work. My only hope was to return to the wrought-iron mansion and confess my actions. Hopefully, the true owner of the evil jewelry, Little Miss Fancy Bloomers, would know how to remove it.

Tomorrow. I’d go tomorrow.

In the meantime, I ducked and weaved through the Docklands. The bracelet didn’t lead me astray, never directed me into the arms of one of the Bull’s men, and took me through some of the best shortcuts I knew and even one I didn’t.

Impressive.

Dusk hit the Docklands, and my anxiety lessened. Low light was where I shone when I couldn’t be distinguished from any other street thug, though from my size, most people mistook me for a teenager.

Sometimes the best cover was no cover, so I pulled my hood over my spiky blond hair and walked out into the open and along a pier, following the bracelet’s intent. If it led me into trouble, I’d brave the pain and run away, but I was happy to follow its lead for now. It led me to a small fishing boat I didn’t recognize, and I found a nook up by the stern where I could sit undetected.

Finally, the damn tattoo left me in peace.

It wasn’t until the boat’s engines thrummed, jerking me awake to find the little boat was heading toward the magical barrier with the fae realm, that I began to panic.