Chapter 1

hough the rowhouse at the end of the row had originally been built in the beginning of the 20^th century, and had lived most of its life as a tiny bodega with an equally-tiny pair of apartments stacked on top, and the attitude had been more one of function and cheapness, that mattered very little to the Knockerfae when it came to improving it.

Especially since the person they were building for was their witch, who was not only a changeling child, but wanted interesting things—the Pickers had fun helping Aix search through their hoards of salvaged fixtures, finding stained glass hanging lamps, globe lights, colourful tile, and other things that were perfectly lovely and whose only crime was being out of style. The brasswrights were delighted to learn that not only did their witch see the practicality of radiators, but also wanted brass taps and door latches. He had a very clear idea of what he wanted, and he could describe it—something many of them struggled to get clients to do.

He wanted the lush and earthy decadence of the 1970s furnishings combined with the organic elegance of Art Nouveau’s architectural shapes, and—considering he had a clown now, and needed to consider what she wanted—perhaps a touch of the 1990s’ playful Wacky Postmodernism, particularly in the attic and the basement, which were Pippin’s spaces. The asymmetry of all the styles went together shockingly well—it surprised the Knockerfae, but Aix had pointed out a simple truth: that all three styles were simply expressions of the same desires—for A Lot and for Pleasure. Nouveau took pleasure in nature’s decadence, the seventies took pleasure in adult decadence, and Wacky PoMo took pleasure in child decadence. ‘And those are the three spheres of existence, aren’t they?’ Aix had said, with his wry tones.

While the house was being made habitable, Aix’s new city made sure he was far from homeless—he had so many invitations to stay with other nachtvolk in the Baltimore area that he never really felt frustrated. It was… odd. The upheaval was constant, but he liked the practise—how to pack better next time, what things were truly essential, how little he really needed…. Not to mention, playing with kids again, and talking to people older than him, and… just… being a person.

It had been so long since he’d been a person. At first, it was frightening—he kept tensed up, waiting for the other shoe to drop; but, when it kept not happening, he slowly acclimated to it.

By New Year’s Eve, he was attending a party held by the Avzaradels, friends of Victoria’s, out on the tip of Long Island. The gibbous moon’s light danced on the crests of the waves, and Aix was glad it had decided to be a clear night, and the bite of the wind wasn’t too awful, especially wrapped in his wool suit and new winter boots. Sitting out on the sliver of beach behind the house in an Adirondack chair, wrapped in a wool blanket, tending the fire pit, Aix was glad everyone else had gone back inside to get warm. Gogo, securely on a lead, was sitting curled in his arms, watching the tongues of flame dance in the sea wind with his bright eyes, which had turned fully orange now that he was all grown up. Pippin was inside playing the crowd, which included the actor playing Beetlejuice,¹ and so Aix was the only witness to the breakers suddenly lighting up with sea sparkle, like someone had switched a light on.

Deep down, Aix knew that it wasn’t just bioluminescent plankton; for one thing, it didn’t usually happen in this part of the world, or in the middle of winter. He watched as the sparkle spread, from the shore out to sea, lighting the whole of the water until it was a full mareel.

And there was a dark silhouette in the low light from the glowing water, he realised—a small sailboat, tossed upon the waves. Gogo chirruped and jumped down, straining at his lead; Aix pushed out of his chair, letting Gogo lead since both of them wanted to head for the pier, both ignoring the spray, the wind, looking intently out to sea.

‘What the fuck…’ Aix muttered, as the boat got close enough that Aix could tell the sail was torn, and the boat was listing dangerously. ‘…Oh, god.’

He didn’t dare leave the pier, but he pulled his phone out of his pocket one-handed and slid the ring holder securely on his middle finger, so he wouldn’t drop it into the waves. Then he turned the flashlight on, and held it up. ‘Here! Over here!’ he yelled, as loud as he could, holding the light steady. At the same time, he reached into Gogo’s mind, their link still new, and said.

And—terrified—he let go of the leash, staying with his light held aloft. He’d trained Gogo with ‘get help’ before, but it was still frightening to let go of the leash. He turned to see the cat streaking toward the house at a run, silhouetted against the light coming out of the glass doors of the house, and looked back to the sea.

The boat wasn’t being controlled, he realised with terror; the waves were just throwing it around, and this was a winter sea. But what could he do? He didn’t dare jump in the water, and he couldn’t hold a conversation over the crash of the water and the wind. All he could do, then, was stand steady, holding his light up with one hand, straining to see in the eerie light. Were there people aboard?

In the house, the party was in full swing, and nobody could see the cat at the glass door, scratching to get in, for some moments; but for the little clown, who suddenly dropped her juggling balls, her Mask going serious and her Flash turning red.

Gogo showed her, and Pippin looked around, going straight to the blond vampire sitting on one of the big curvy sofas, and taking his hand, pulling at him.

‘Boat in trouble,’ she said, and the room went quiet. These were not nachtvolk, not mostly, and Pippin knew The Rules—you didn’t speak unless there was an Emergency.

Roseblade followed her into the kitchen, taking off his shoes and leaving them by the door, stripping efficiently down to the waist, leaving his clothes over one of the kitchen chairs. He didn’t stay to wait for the hostess, he just opened the door and followed the cat.

The sea was glowing, and Aix was silhouetted in the ghostly light, standing on the pier and holding his phone aloft like a beacon. Roseblade waded into the glowing water, sparkling blue eddies spreading out in his wake, and then he was swimming, vampiric strength letting him cut through the water as fast as a seal, getting to the hull of the strange ship in no time at all, climbing up the side just as he had done a thousand times before, to hundreds of other ships,² heaving himself over the railing and onto the deck.

There was a old man, unconscious, laying on the deck, and it was only by chance that he’d gotten tangled in the cargo net and not slid overboard already. The mainsail was torn, but not too badly; Roseblade had steered worse into port safely. Seizing the tiller, he managed to get her to limp toward the shore, taking the mooring line in hand and jumping onto the pier when she got close enough, pulling her into dock and tying her off.

‘There’s someone aboard,’ he told Aix shortly, as he was knotting the rope around the cleat. ‘He’s unconscious.’ And he was on deck again, able to take the time to gently untangle the man from the netting he’d been caught in.

Aix stepped off the pier and back to the fire, feeling uneasy, even though he knew the logical thing was to get medical help. He stopped halfway to the fire, looking back at the ship as it rocked in the tide.

It was a wooden ship. A sail ship. Who would be sailing a wooden ship, at night, in this day and age?³ And the sea-sparkle heralding its coming was… weird. Wrong. Viscerally wrong.

‘Whoa, sorry!’ Xander said, gently putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘You look cold. Come on, that can’t be good for you…’

Aix bit his lip, tasting salt, and didn’t follow. ‘Something’s wrong,’ he said, looking at the glittering waves, ‘sea-sparkle isn’t native to this part of the sea….’

‘No,’ Aix said, having a scientist’s surety that wasn’t it. ‘It wasn’t…’ he didn’t get a chance to finish, before there was a shadow in the mareel, clouds suddenly roiling above.

Over the wind, the clarion call of a hunting horn sounded, as lightning started to trace the thunderheads, as the white foam of the waves started to look like horses….

‘No, Xander, you get inside! Get everyone inside! Now!’ Aix hurriedly took off the iron troll-cross he wore and put it over Xander’s head, as the wind whipped at his hair. ‘Get inside!’

He met eyes, just as the lightning flashed, and whatever Xander saw there made him listen.

The thing about the tip of long island was that it was very near parts of the country where the veil had been pierced so many times it was in liminal shreds.

The clarion called again, and Aix ran for the pier. ‘Captain!’ he screamed over the wind, just as Roseblade leapt over the side of the ship, the man slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

The waves sounded like the rushing of many hooves, and the wind grabbed at them like it had claws, screeching.

‘Go!’ Roseblade yelled, and Aix only ran because Roseblade’s feet had already hit the sand. He opened the gate to the backyard when he got there, looking back to the not-storm, the roiling darkness that wasn’t smoke coming down, racing toward him.

Roseblade got inside the gate, and Aix slammed it shut just as lightning flashed again, a monstrous horse rearing up and screaming, its rider wreathed in lightning flame, reaching an expectant, gloved hand.

‘No!’ Aix yelled, as furious as the thunder, and slammed down the oldest spell he’d ever known: a Ward.

He didn’t know who the person on the ship was, he didn’t know but that the ship had been coming here, coming from Another Place.

The riders rushed the little wooden two-rail fence, but their horses shied from the perimeter each time, unable to cross the Ward. Aix was shivering, and wet; but he felt all of the hairs on his body standing up from the electricity in the air even so.

‘No,’ he said to the lead rider, his voice swallowed by the wind, and started for the stairs to the deck. His fingers were so numb he couldn’t work the door, Harrison opening it for him, the warmth from inside fogging up Aix’s glasses immediately. He took off his coat, his shoes, knowing enough to know he was wet and cold and needed to get the wet off of him….

Thankfully, Harrison understood what Aix was doing—theatre people were pragmatic about nudity, and she had done stage tech all through high school and college, before doing it professionally. ‘You going full monty?’

‘May as well have a hot shower, c’mon,’ she said, and Aix started to gather up his wet clothes. ‘It’s okay, leave them,’ she said, and he dropped them. ‘You’re fuckin’ shivering, dude, don’t worry about the clothes.’

Rich as the Avzaradels were, Aix really liked this particular Avzaradel for being forthright, and queer, and wearing black jeans and a hoodie to a new year’s party in the Hamptons.⁴

‘Where’s the person that was on the ship?’ he asked, as Harrison led him up the kitchen stairs, which were narrow like all servants’ stairs, but had even treads and a handrailing (unlike the back stairs in a really old house—this house was just from the 80s trying to be Victorian, not an actual Victorian).

‘Still unconscious. Don’t worry though, there’s like six different people in the house that have first-aid training.’

They got to the room Aix was staying in for the weekend. It was the smallest room, which wasn’t saying much for a mansion like this; but the bed was only a full, and there was just enough room for Gogo and Pippin, and a bathroom. Aix finished stripping off, as usual not at all self-conscious, and turned on the shower. It was warm in the house, but he was covered with icy water. He understood why Harrison was staying nearby.

He was used to being cold, though; he turned the shower lukewarm and stepped in, sitting down on the bench inside and slowly turning the water up as he warmed up, rinsing off his glasses and setting them on the shelf before rinsing the salt out of his hair.

The Sluagh were outside, the Wild Hunt, the Host. They were chasing that person in the boat, so desperate they’d, what, stolen it? Kept going? How had they even gotten their bearings? What if Aix hadn’t stayed outside?

But you did, he thought to himself. You were there. You got help. That’s what you do.

It felt wrong, yet again, that he’d just been the messenger, and not—oh wait. Wait a second. Of course. Of course he was the messenger, that was his job! He was Hermes’ kid.

He got into a dry suit (it was so novel to have multiple suits?), and left his shoes off, putting on the matching mask and grabbing his cane.

When he got back downstairs with Harrison, it was a lot quieter. Someone had turned off the tv, and there wasn’t the loud and bubbly talking of before, just the sound of the rain beating at the windows like it was trying to break in.

When Aix got to the main room the party had been in, it was mostly empty, the decorations and demolished buffet table looking a little forlorn in the quiet. Victoria was one of the only people still in the room, sitting by the sofa the stranger was laying on, in her compact black chair that blended well with her black dress. Roseblade was nowhere to be seen, but then again the other guests weren’t either—and if you needed someone else to be the life of a party, Aix figured Roseblade was definitely your guy.

‘Sweetie, honey, baby, pussycat,’ rolled off Aix’s tongue like the script it was. ‘I’m a witch. What did you think that meant?’

‘And you were scared of meeting me,’ he joked, but still sounded a little shaken.

‘We all did,’ Harrison added. ‘Not sure what I saw, but it was something.’

Aix knew Victoria had given him the go-ahead to tell the truth; she was very helpful like that. He sat down on the big sofa, one of three in the room, and tried to arrange the words.

‘The sea-sparkle started first, and grew into a full mareel—that’s what the milky glowing effect is called—and that’s—that’s wrong. Bioluminescent plankton don’t occur in this part of the world, or at this time of year. It was… viscerally wrong.’

‘That’s not a storm, outside,’ he said, looking out of the windows. ‘That’s the Sluagh. I don’t know how I know, but it just—is.’

‘Some people call them the ghosts of the restless dead, some people say they’re just what happens when the Fair Folk get together to form a hunting party. They’re folk, of some kind, and they hunt. Once you hear the clarion call, you better start running, and don’t stop until you get inside a house, or a churchyard.’ He looked to the man on the sofa. ‘Who are you?’ he asked, softly, getting up to move closer, perching on the ottoman nearby.

‘Roseblade says there’s no internal bleeding, and I’m hesitant to call an ambulance, given the circumstances,’ Victoria said. ‘We got him dry and war—sir!’ she said, as the stranger woke and grabbed the nearest thing—which happened to be her arm.

‘The witch,’ the man said, his voice a croak, eyes red from the sea as he opened them, making the pale blue look almost white. ‘Warn the witch.’

‘Loosen your grip, sir, or I shall call my father to loosen it for you,’ Victoria said, calm and genteel but very, very powerful. That he let go immediately was a mark for him, in her opinion. ‘Thank you,’ she said, pulling her arm back and rubbing it—he’d pressed tightly, and she bruised easily for the same reason she needed a wheelchair. ‘You’re safe now, iron and salt at the door.’

‘And a ward,’ Aix said. ‘Can you sit up? Maybe have some water first.’ He wondered what the man had been wearing—he wasn’t wearing it now, someone had sensibly stripped him and dried him off too, and put dry clothes and blankets on him.

Harrison was already handing him one of the paper party cups. ‘Slowly,’ she said, ‘small sips, or you’ll be sick.’

He was not a young man, but he was not frail with his years either—his hair was snowy white, and he had English bones, but his skin… glimmered, slightly, and his nails were thick, and blue. It was almost like he’d taken enough colloidal silver to start turning blue, except… as he tilted his head to drink, Aix saw gills on the side of his neck.

‘I might be such a creature,’ he said, his voice not quite so hoarse, and coloured with an old accent. ‘But I come with a message. To warn—’ he started coughing, but waved them off. ‘Nay—nay, tis nothing.’ He sipped more water, cleared his throat. ‘To warn the witch.’

‘There’s a lot of us about, sir,’ Aix said, with a lopsided smile in his voice. ‘Do you have a specific one in mind?’ but inwardly, his blood was ice. How had it happened he’d been out there, how had it happened this man had come out of some corner of Faerie to warn a witch?

The strange man shook his head, but seemed able enough to sit up on his own again. ‘I know not the name, but that he smote down the Rosenprince of the Seelie court.’

‘Is the Wild Hunt coming after me not a good time to use obscenity?’ Aix said.

‘He has a point,’ Victoria said. ‘If ever there was an acceptable time to say “fuck” it would be when the Wild Hunt is at our door.’

‘I thought he might,’ Aix said, and his lack of shock and fear seemed to bother the stranger.

‘I do, believe me,’ Aix said. ‘But you’re talking to someone who has survived a great many murder attempts.’

‘I’m just learning all kinds of things today,’ Xander quipped reflexively, from his place sitting on the other sofa.

In the next room, there was suddenly a count down, and they all paused, as the large grandfather clock was drowned out almost entirely by the cheering.

‘Ah damn, and I wanted to kiss—Roseblade!’ Aix said, as the vampire sailed into the room, holding a bottle of freshly-opened champagne. For appearances sake, the vampire wore a mask too—elegant and matching his new outfit perfectly (Aix no longer wondered why he would bring an extra outfit—he was Roseblade, of course he would).

‘Hello, my doves, hello! I know we’re all being Very Serious and Grave in here, but I think our unexpected guest might need some cheering up. What say you, my dear?’ he said, offering the stranger the first flute of pink champagne. ‘A toast to the new year?’

‘Well,’ the stranger said, taking the glass, ‘if I might know the year, I would be glad to so toast.’

‘2023,’ Harrison said, as Roseblade filled flutes for all of them off the garrison of them sitting on the sideboard.

‘Twenty… by God and all His glory, is it really?’ the stranger said faintly. Roseblade leaned on the green marble of the fireplace mantel, and raised his glass to the stranger.

‘I find myself saying that every year,’ he said. ‘But let us toast! To the felicitous wind that brought you safe into harbour, and to the witch of Baltimore, who rescued you.’

‘And to the pirate who did most of the heavy lifting,’ Aix added wryly, raising his glass. ‘To old friends and new ones,’ he added to the toast.

‘To finding new homes and where we belong,’ Victoria said warmly, her gaze on Aix.

‘Well, I gotta say it if you won’t—to life, L’chaim,’ Xander said. ‘Especially when it’s strange and unusual.’

‘To Providence, who brought me to this friendly shore,’ said the stranger, ‘and to the kindness of strangers.’

‘Speaking of strangers,’ Harrison said. ‘I’m Harrison. Harry for short.’

‘I’m called Lady Blackstone,’ Victoria said. ‘That is my cousin, Mr Teague, and that dashing rogue is Captain Roseblade.’

‘Williams was my name, once,’ said the stranger. ‘Roger Williams, of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.’

‘…Oh my god,’ Aix said, a wide grin growing on his face, ‘you need to meet my Auntie.’

① Even with all the weird new things that had happened in the past year, meeting Xander Teague in person and having a long mutual gush about Mel Brooks was still the weirdest

② Usually larger than this little sloop

③ Other than Roseblade, who had recently hauled his old ship out of dry dock at the British Museum and made her seaworthy again, which was how he’d gotten to Montauk for the party.

④ Well, Montauk; Aix wasn’t clear on whether The Hamptons was a region or a city or what.

Chapter 1

The Good Reverend

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Index

Chapter 1

The Good Reverend

☙Back Next❧ Index

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Index