SquidgeWorld Archive

Stealing the sheep had been the easy bit; this was an insurance job after all. Taking the lorry along the tiny country roads, with its woolly cargo was becoming the most difficult bit of Rachel's day. People underestimated the work that goes in to driving a lorry, there are so many gears, and although this wasn't the first stolen lorry Rachel had driven, and would probably not be her last, she was struggling.

      "The best place to hide sheep?" She asked the girl beside her suddenly.

      "In a field of sheep." Jenny parroted wearily. 

Rachel nodded at the girl smiling, and then looking in the rear view mirror swore under her breath.

      "You might want to find a field then Jenny, any field, quickly." She stammered. Behind them, some way off but undeniably there, was the bright blue flash of a police car's lights. 

Following them on a small scooter was the third accomplice Wendy, she would make an amiable effort to delay the police but, as Rachel thought bitterly, she probably hadn't noticed the lights yet. They passed an open field boundary, just as they turned another sharp corner, and started the descent down towards the village. As the corner straightened out, Rachel was forced to break hard as a large red animal transporter was entirely blocking the lane. Jenny screamed, but Rachel was already crunching the elderly gears into reverse. Forcing the truck back up the sharp hill, its engine whining in protest, Rachel could see the whole enterprise falling apart. The wheels span as she hurtled as fast as possible through the field gate at the top of the hill.

Jenny leapt from the passenger seat, and ran behind the lorry. Rachel herd the bolts being slid back and the ramp thrown down as her eyes scanned the road for the oncoming police. As Jenny and her wolfhound Marcus, chased the nervous animals out into the field, Rachel spotted Wendy's scooter rounding the bend, as their eyes met, Wendy nodded and span the scooter around in the lane, and returned back the way she'd come. 

After a few moments that seemed like hours Rachel heard the whine of a police siren and knew that Wendy had halted the oncoming car. Moments later Jenny and Marcus returned to the cab, and looked at her for reassurance.

     "What shall we do?" Jenny asked her eyes darting left and right, her heart audibly thudding "Run for it?"

     "No need" Rachel smiled at the girl, "we're clear now."

As she spoke the red transporter appeared up the hill and passed them with a cheery wave. Rachel crashed the gears once more, and the lorry descended the hill, and through the stone gate and over the cattle grid, and out into the village square. She turned sharply left, down a smaller lane behind the village blacksmith and parked it in a rickety shed.

Jenny threw Marcus out of the door, pushing his rump with her booted foot and encouraging him to run off back to their camp outside the village. Then she and Rachel ran into the maze of grey stoned buildings that make up the northern edge of the village. The reason the girls had undertaken this particular job, not that they’d had any real choice, was their ability to hide. Nobody expected a group of girls to be rustling sheep, to steal a lorry, or to run away from the law. In fact the whole enterprise was a masculine endeavour and that ‘The Man’ had said would keep the girls safe.

The Old Man, liked the girls, in fact he liked the whole of ‘The Man’s Tribe’ which is why they were welcome in the village at all.  He’d been busy in his workshop in the old barn range when he heard the girls run in. Rachel’s delicate skipping step and Wild Jenny’s tromping boot. He couldn’t hear Wendy and assumed she was keeping the police away somewhere. Those girls were dictated to by the men folk, he thought, would do anything asked and told. The village might think him foolish, and the girls might think him old but he could see what was going to happen and he shook his head sadly.

      “Rachel, come here sweetheart” he called out to the girl, now hiding behind an old wardrobe in the corner of the room. “I have something to show you”.

The girl crawled out of the dusty space, and stepped towards him, he’d been making dowsing rods and pendulums. Rachel he knew would be especially pleased with his work; he’d arranged a metronome device, which would answer any question asked. He was showing her its benefits using simple questions, when the front door banged.

       “It’s the police” Rachel stated simply and the metronome swung to yes.

She ran her fingers gently over the wooden device, calming herself as ‘The Old Man’ disappeared. The whole barn buzzed with static as the police poured in through the door. In her peripheral vision she saw Wendy scoot past and out of the back door, but as the two constables ran towards her she just smiled calm and aware.

Police Constable Nathan Halberd was new to the village, he’d been given the police constables house as a perk of the job, but he knew there was something off about his new home, and was finding hard to get comfortable.  His colleague Mark was little or no help; he’d been brought up in the village and lived with his Mum in one of the tiny stone cottages running down to the weir. Unlike Nathan, Mark was wary about disrupting ‘The Old Man’s’ workshop, he also seemed quite happy to allow ‘The Tribe’ to carry on however they liked in the village. They had only been there a few days but Nathan felt they had given the village as insipid air, like all the colour in the world was leaching towards them, while he and everyone else were turning as grey as the walls of the cottages.

As he entered the darkened building he saw Rachel standing by the work bench her fingers playing with the unusual instrument on the top. It was humming gently and he was intoxicated by the sound and the beautiful girl. Vaguely aware of Mark running through the building he walked towards her as if in a dream.

         “It will answer any question you wish to ask it” Rachel told him, caressing the metronome lovingly, “it can even speak to you with words, if you’re willing to wait a bit. It can only answer yes and no you see.” She turned and faced him, her head cocked to one side, and her smile gentle and calm.

Nathan held out his hand towards her, and she took it, “can you ask it if I’ll settle here?” He asked, unsure of why. He was surprised to see thin hand swing to yes. He was aware of the humming and very little else. As Rachel stroked the machine it returned to the middle, and emboldened Nathan asked it “will I meet the girl of my dreams?” The hand stumbled, and slowly reached the yes. Rachel soothed the machine, but Nathan noticed her eyes grew dark as she stroked the wooden triangle.

She nodded as the humming grew, almost as if she and it were in communication, Nathan was transfixed not by the magical object, the wonders of which could undoubtedly keep him engaged for all time, but by the otherworldly girl standing beside him. Suddenly the humming stopped and the hand crashed down to the yes section. He was surprised as Rachel turned to face him, her hands stretched out palms upwards to him.

      “What do you want me to do?” Nathan asked her, his mouth feeling thick.

       “I asked the dowser if you were going to arrest me” she answered motioning with her wrists, “please use plastic cuffs though.”

Mark had laughed when Nathan brought his trussed prisoner out of the back door of the workshop. He’d let the other girls go, and was surprised that Nathan hadn’t done similar. Nothing good ever came of disrupting ‘The Tribe’, but he supposed that the younger man would learn that soon enough. He helped him escort Rachel through the narrow lanes to the kitchen of the police constables house. It served as gaol and custody suite and all other rooms a police station should really have. Nathan put the kettle on while Mark made a show of writing down Rachel’s statement. However after name and the fact she was of no fixed abode he was more interested in his tea.

Nathan carefully removed the plastic cuffs with a knife, and sat beside his prisoner while she played with her cup of tea with the proffered spoon. She didn’t ask to go home, she didn’t seem upset, and in fact she sat by Nathan happily, while he told her about himself. Mark was aware after about an hour that Nathan was struck with this girl, that he had stopped talking about his plans and started talking about them. About how she could live here, and she’d be happy, and he’d love her forever, and suddenly he was asking her to marry him.

Mark was laughing at them, making jokes about buying them a kettle for their wedding, when Nathan joked about needing a new iron. Rachel shrieked with all her might, shocking the two policeman, she stood up from the table and Nathan ran to her side. Making soothing sounds he stroked her hair and begged her to come back to the table.

       “Please not iron, Nathan” she begged and cried “I’ll stay as long as you don’t bring any iron into the house.”

When the girls had gone to steal the sheep, the men of ‘The Tribe’ had taken a job as pall bearers for a gentleman in the village. They’d been given a few hundred quid each, and were now spending their cash in the village pub. Sitting outside in the summer sunshine, in various states of disrobing their black outfits, they nursed their pints, and snacked on crisps and bacon fries. They had been joined by Jenny and Wendy who informed the men of Rachel’s arrest. Most of the men had taken it in their stride, shrugging it off, they knew the village police of old, and she’d be fine. However one of the men had taken it badly, Dead Harry had taken the news poorly, and had been all for going to the police house and physically removing her. Until Rachel’s brother Steven had encouraged him to sit down, put an orange juice in his hand and kept his attention away from the stone building across the village green.

When Rachel stepped out of the police house, followed by Mark and a love-struck Nathan, Harry spotted her instantly. He was up and walking towards her, his full black suit cutting a sharp contrast with the lush green of the village centre. She looked up at him and matched his smile with hers. When they came together, he opened his arms and she cuddled into his chest, looking up at his face. He instantly saw there was something different.

“Is there something wrong Rachel?” Dead Harry asked.

“I’m getting married Harry” she told him, a slight giggle in her voice “and I’m going to live in a house, with a door and everything”

Dead Harry’s blood ran cold; he looked down at the girl in disbelief.  She had tears in her eyes, and his waistcoat was starting to dampen with large drops running down her face.

“What’s going on Rachel?” he asked her, putting his hand to her face and wiping away the tears.

“I gave him my bond, I would stay here with him, and he would leave the rest of you alone” She said, looking up into face, and realising he was hurting.

“You don’t have to do that Rachel, you should know that, we are strong together, you belong with us” but as he looked up over her head to where the two policeman stood, he saw the look on Nathan’s face. The boy was fey touched, in love with Rachel and she had bound herself to him for whatever reason. There was little possession within ‘The Tribe’ and he had no claim on Rachel, but the outside world was different she had given him her word, and until either he or she broke that bond, she would be the policeman’s.

“I would be yours Harry” she said,” but I have given my word I must stay here.”

He nodded sadly and clutched her closer, “you only have to call and I’ll come running, be a good girl Rachel, I love you” He let go and walked away, back to her brother to explain, but before he got there, looking over the girl standing in the middle of the village square he pointed at the young police officer, and raised his voice. “Beware young man, if you harm her we will come back, and the moment she breaks her bond with you, we will take her back.” Then he turned his back and returned to ‘The Tribe’.

The morning after the tribe moved on, leaving Rachel behind to start her new life with Nathan. She had cleaned the house, and cooked him breakfast and started working as a bride to be. It was of course easier for her than it would be for most. The cooker worked without her direct involvement, the hoover didn’t need or apparently want her supervision, and the washing up got on with cleaning itself without her. She had felt the tug as ‘The Tribe’ had moved on, she had heard the pain in Dead Harry’s soul while he wrestled with leaving her here. She had felt her blood tie to Steven when he convinced the teetotal Harry to but down the bottle of vodka he’d been considering. Finally she had felt her tug break and snap when Jenny and Wendy had removed her belongings from Harry’s tent, and had scrapped over who would take Rachel’s place in his bed.

‘The Man’ had let her go, convinced that her fey side would keep her safe, and trusting that if she had given her bond to a mortal man outside ‘The Tribe’ she knew what she was doing. Dead Harry however wasn’t so sure, Rachel was very young barely more than a child, she had given herself to a policeman to protect them all, and a sacrifice she didn’t need to give. He’d lost her, because she was brave and loyal, and like so many others thought her fey immortality would keep her safe. He’d lived with ‘The Tribe’ for longer than he could remember, and had seen many young girls go off with mortal men, it had always ended badly, they came back with their cambion spawn, and either pined away for their lost loves, or disappeared within themselves eventually vanishing into the elements.

Dead Harry tried to rid himself of the horror his soul was feeling, about the lost Rachel. He could have taken another lover; the sexual politics of ‘The Tribe’ was such that nobody would have batted an eyelid. He was handsome and broad and educated. He was sensible and dependable and ‘The Man’ trusted him, unlike Steven whose fey blood made him irresistible to all men and women, Dead Harry had to work on his charms, and that was a turn on as well. Harry however loved Rachel with all his body and soul, he didn’t blame her for what she had done, but like Sir Tristan of old he would take his disappointment with him. He would be hers in spirit awaiting for the day when she broke her bond and came back.

Nathan decided that Rachel needed to do something, at home all day he thought she would be bored. He had no real knowledge of her fey side, she had assumed he would know, and had never thought to explain what was fundamentally herself. So he thought her cleaning and cooking and baking and gardening where a sign of her being bored. She had painted some nice scenes of the church next door and he sent them off to the local art college. They in turn had invited her down to see them, and she had taken up a place on one of their courses.

She was invited to walk down the college hall of fame, on her first day. The elderly curator of the small museum happily showed her the famous ex-students. Then towards the end of the corridor Rachel spotted a familiar face.

“Harry, my Harry” she shouted running to a picture of a much younger Dead Harry. “Of course he’s not my Harry anymore” she told the older woman sadly. “But still Harry, was a student here?”

“You know him?” The older woman asked, “How can you know him? He disappeared before you were even born, where do you know him from?”

Rachel knew she’d crossed the line of secrecy, you didn’t talk about peoples past, and if Dead Harry had a reason to hide from these people she wasn’t going to argue with that. The woman started telling her about Harry, how artistic he was, how talented how his twin daemons of alcohol and violence had ruined his life. Till one day he just stopped coming into college. How she’d gone round to his digs and found them empty, had tried to find anyone to care, but in the end she’d given up. Harry the student was gone, and she like everyone else had to just stop caring.

At that moment Dead Harry was standing in a field in the pouring rain, marshalling a hunt with Steven and two of the other men of ‘The Tribe’, he stood watching the back of the ex-hells angel who went by the name Angel-Wing, whilst swathed in a brand new Barbour jacket that ‘The Man’ had given him that morning. The jacket was too big even for a broad shouldered man like Dead Harry, and the rain was dripping through the gaps and holes. He had a moment, one of the very few since she’d gone with that man, when he felt so close to Rachel. He could see what she was seeing, some old art work of his, his picture, his paintbrushes, the old him.

She had seen that side of him, lying beside him on moorland hills, while he painted the scene. She would copy his style, and run her fingers through his paint and he loved her for it. Whether she knew he loved her, how he loved her, he was still unsure of, but then when they made love he felt fey touched himself. Impossible of course but still he thought sometimes she’d got her talons into him as well, and he was as struck and bound as a mortal man.

She sent him a letter when she got home, telling him about his pictures and the old lady who missed him. She had been writing to him all the time she’d lived with Nathan, sending letters onto where she thought they would be next, sending letters to Harry and Steven via old friends and acquaintances. She hoped he was getting them, but as she’d had not one reply, she thought it very likely he hadn’t.

He had as it happened received most of her letters, not in the correct order, but all in her spindly spiderlike writing. The letters were full of what she’d been doing, what the house was like, who she’d seen but Harry worried. In all the time he’d known her she had prattled on about anything and everything to him, but always come back to food. It was their link together, he fed her. Fairy Bread, Syrup, Fairy Cakes all the things the Fey lived on, he worried because nothing in her letters suggested she was eating properly.

Steven would eat anything he could get his claws on, like most of the Fey as long as his blood stream contained high sugar content, he would eat normal human food. Harry had once tried to feed Rachel a pork pie, but she was violently sick. After that he ensured she kept to the strict traditional fey diet. She didn’t of course need to eat, and could survive on nectar but the Fey had developed to need more than that to be healthy.

The day that Dead Harry got Rachel’s letter about the art college, he had another psychic moment. It was obvious to him that Rachel and Nathan were attending a ball. He was in a tuxedo, stomping around at the bottom of the stairs, as she descended. Looking every inch the fairy princess, with her hair it’s glittering natural pink, a long aqua blue ball gown swamping her thin body, and matching blue heels.

Lying in his cot, in the quiet of his tent Harry felt his breath hitch. He noticed however Nathan wasn’t so impressed. His face was a mask, and Harry wondered if the young man was drunk. He seemed agitated and Rachel didn’t seem to notice, Harry wondered if it was the first time Nathan was seeing Rachel’s true form, her fey species shining out at him. Either that or he really didn’t like going to balls. Harry’s image of the scene faded as Rachel climbed onto the minibus parked outside, and his last image was her bright blue eyes, looking back from the bus windows.

The scream that woke Harry several hours later, was one of the most terrifying things he’d ever heard. Above the sound of Angel-Wings snoring in the next tent, above the sound of the howling wind, seemingly coming up from his very soul to rattle around his ears, this scream came straight from the other world. Dead Harry sat bolt upright and knew where that sound had come from; Rachel.

She was pleading and screaming with Nathan as he held her head against the solid police house door. Harry thought for one dreadful moment that he was watching a rape through the power of their psychic connection, but there was something off with that. Then he saw what was making his girl scream, the door was thick and heavy, a classic gaol door, with iron cross bolts. He saw her skin burning the desperation as she fought against the strong arms holding her, and all he could shout down the connection was ‘break the bond, for the gods' sake break the bond.’

He’d packed a kit bag, and headed out onto the moors as soon as his vision had cleared. He knew where she was, and he was going to go and collect her. He was her knight errant and she needed him. He had left the howling dogs and snoring men and women, and was walking through the pitch blackness when a voice interrupted him.

“You can’t go for her, you know?” ‘The Man’ asked the statement like a question.

“Why not? She needs me, she’s hurt and scared” Harry said as deadpan as he could manage.

“Go back to bed Harry, she hasn’t broken her bond. The boy is proving his dominance, that’s all.” The elder told him.

Dead Harry hated himself for it, but he followed ‘The Man’s’ instructions, he was after all a subject of ‘The Tribe’ he had no desire to usurp ‘The Man’. The next morning however he sent a letter to Rachel.

Just Break the Bond and I will be with you. DH

Rachel however didn’t break the bond, and Dead Harry travelled with ‘The Tribe’, throughout the winter they travelled taking small cash jobs, and taking on minor crimes. Meanwhile Rachel settled into her life with Nathan, her hair however went as brown as mud, and although her scars still showed, they healed to small welts, enough to remind both she and Nathan that she was his, bound to him.

The biggest issue with their life however came from the church next door. Nathan as the local bobby wasn’t expected to attend the Sunday service, but Rachel’s absence was noticed. The church however had a rather traditional view of Fey and had set in place measures to stop their kind entering the church. Rachel could walk in the churchyard as much as she liked, but if she came to close to the church door the aura of the place burned.

The Christian God holds no sway with fey magic, but the old women of the village knew how to keep fairy kind from their doors. Some of the houses would be barred to Rachel’s kind, and the same charms protected the church, and some of the graves. Nathan was angry that she wouldn’t enter the church, how was he supposed to marry her if the church itself seemed to reject her.

After the police ball she had explained, so matter of factly that she was fey, a supernatural creature of fairy tale myth. He was ashamed of the way he’d reacted, and now knew he’d hurt her, but she had said this was his warning. If he was to ever strike her with iron she would flee back to the Tribe, back into the realm of the supernatural and he would never see her again. He wasn’t sure how to deal with this side to her, and so had attempted to ignore it.

Rachel was hungry, so hungry, she had tried to bake fairy bread but the range in the police house kitchen wasn’t designed for fairy fire and it never rose. She had tried to eat human food, but it made her vomit, shopping for meat for Nathan had been fine but he became angry when instead of vegetables she bought candy canes and pixie sticks. So she had returned to eating nothing but nectar, carefully removing it from plants as her ancestor had once done. Now in the depth of winter even that source had dried up, and her body felt faded and sad.

To make matters worse she knew she was with child, a cambion spawn half mortal half fey, she hadn’t told Nathan, unsure how he’d react but she’d called out to her family using the bond connection to Steven to tell him of her woe, finally sitting under Harry’s picture in the halls of the art college and softly singing her sorrow into a song for him to hear.

Steven and Harry miles away to the south heard her song, and knew her sadness, the sadness of a fey carrying a child who would grow old and die before their eyes, a child who would be fairy touched, never fitting into either world. Steven wondered if she would return once her mortal man knew what kind of moon damaged child she would bear him. Harry a practical man at heart, asked for an audience with ‘The Man’.

“I will take the child as mine” Harry told the elder, “I will raise it, and it can be mine.”

“Has the boy rejected her, has she broken her bond?” The elder asked already knowing the answer.

“He will when it’s born, they all do.” Harry said deadpan, he had been with the Tribe long enough to know, “has a Cambion relationship ever lasted to a natural end?”

“Yes” ‘The Man’ told him, “my first wife was a mooncalf, her mother is one of us, her father was fairy touched, they lived out his natural life as husband and wife, and when he died my wife and her mother came to the tribe.” The elder smiled and gestured to a picture of a beautiful woman beside him, in a crowd of other silver photo frames, “She was a beautiful creature as well, her mother had warned her father that Cambion children are ugly and deformed but he didn’t care, he still wanted the child and so she was beautiful.”

“You think if the policeman stands by her, the child will be fine?” Harry asked

“The Cambion curse is a reaction to the breaking of bonds, if the marriage is true, the child could be whole, in mind and spirit and body.” The elder smiled as Harry’s face fell “But you worry not for the child but the health of the mother?”

“I worry for the child, for the sake of Rachel, but yes I worry for her as well.”

“She isn’t mortal, unless she chooses to give up her immortal soul, she will survive” The elder reminded him.

“But will she be well, she isn’t eating, she cries out her hunger” Harry cried

“No, the pregnancy will not be healthy unless she eats, soon she will start to fade and the pregnancy may end anyway.” The elder looked Harry dead in the eye “Are you sure that’s not want you want? That isn’t your wish? She would come back to you, if he casts her out, if he sees her as nothing but a fey ghost.”

“I would want her to come to me through her own choice, I would want her to be happy and safe and well. She is brave and loyal, and while she thinks this boy has some sway over the safety of The Tribe she would stay beside him, but her health, the health of her child must complicate this, surely for this sake we could take her back?”

“Why do you think she went with this boy willingly?” The elder asked “if she was so happy with you, why did she leave? She could have run from the boy and been safe in your arms but she stayed, she let herself be bound and caught, do you think Harry that we had forgotten she had left you through her own choice as well?”

“I don’t know I thought we were happy, I was happy with her, I thought she would be mine.” He choked bitterly “She is little more than a child, and fey, she will do as she pleases.”

“Harry, did you never think of your mortality?” ‘The man’ asked. “Did you never think that your relationship was equally limited, that your seed might make her sing a song of woe?”

“I am no longer mortal” Harry said “I am of the dead; while my body lasts I am hers.”

“You are not immortal though” The elder reminded him, “You are here through Fey grace if that were to end, your body would crumple to dust and your life force would be extinguished, what would that mean for any child she bore you?”

“My grace was given in thanks for saving the life of an unborn fey child, my own mortal life was extinguished before it was given” Harry gestured to his left temple where the bullet that ended his mortal life was still lodged, “I was never warned it was temporary.”

“All life is temporary even Fey” The elder told him “although while the child you saved is still immortal your life is in grace.”

“More of the reason why I should take her back” Harry said “If I bring her home before the child is born, I save the three of us.”

“And what for any children she bore you?” The elder asked.

“Would they be Cambion?” Harry asked “Is that what you’re telling me, any children we had would be touched, because I wouldn’t care.”

“How long have you been with us Harry?” The elder asked

“I am unsure, somewhere between 15 and 50 summers” he shrugged time in the Tribe meant nothing.

“And how many children have you fathered in that time?” The elder asked

“None!” Harry answered

“Stephen has over a 100, I myself have lost count.” The elder told him, “How many lovers did you take before Rachel, how many women of the Tribe shared your bed? Not one of them has fallen, all your time with Rachel, were your relationship was full, and yet she never carried your child.”

“You think I am incapable of creating a child? You think that’s why Rachel left me voluntarily, because I hadn’t made her pregnant?”

“Harry what do you know of Daemons?” The elder asked

“No offence sir, but I only know of you” Harry told the man, “I’ve never experienced another.”

The Man moved quickly stalking up towards Harry, “I am a Daemon; I am the child of a Fey and a Dead man. This is what would happen if Rachel bore your child.” He stood to is full 8ft height, swishing his long tail and releasing his horns from the long matt of hair that normally covered them. “Is that what you want?”

“I don’t understand?” Harry stepped back “If your father was like me, and your mother was like Rachel, why is there a problem with us having a child?”

“Daemon are created from raw emotion, they are either the product of rape or euphoria, my mother gave her immortality to recharge my father’s life essence, they add been bonded and I have many Cambion siblings but when my father was recreated the euphoria of their reunion birthed me.” The Man retook his seat, “my mother died soon after my birth, as Rachel’s mother died soon after hers, for a Fey to give their life force away is a serious matter.”

“But I am already touched by grace, Rachel would never have to give her life for mine, and as for rape, I wouldn’t, couldn’t take her by force.”

“You are forgetting the other option” The Man told him

“Euphoria?”

“The return from death isn’t the only type of Euphoria, you didn’t produce an offspring because, your happiness was easy, when she returns, and she will return, you must make her return euphoric.”

“I don’t understand?”

“You may think I care little for Rachel’s predicament, and frankly I don’t care as much as perhaps I should, but I am old, older than you will ever know Harry, and I must leave this Tribe in the hands of someone who can control it, who can filter it’s hive mind, who can understand it, I need another like me. The more that girl suffers the more likely of producing an heir.” He looked into Harry’s angry eyes “She will be yours, I will ensure it, and if you had wanted to take her in pain and anger I would have transported you myself, but you think yourself fey struck and in love with her, so you will wait till her suffering is so acute she throws herself at your feet, and then with my blessing you can take her in Euphoria and I will have my heir.” He put a clawed knarled hand to Harry’s broken temple “until then you are part of my tribe, and you do as I say, you do not ask for her, and you will trust that when the time is right, you will have all you desire.”

Rachel had discovered cheesecake, she had discovered it was perfectly acceptable for a grown woman to buy cheesecake in Nathans world, to sit in a café drinking soft drinks and eating cheesecake. It didn’t really stop her hunger, especially as she could only escape to do this once or twice a week. However she had stopped fading, she wondered about the baby, he, she could hear the child thinking, didn’t seem to demand much from her body, he didn’t want human food, and seemed happy enough with the fey foo, he just wanted more of it.

She still hadn’t told Nathan, he reacted badly to the single mothers in the big town, or those on TV. He thought it immoral for unmarried parents to bring a child into the world. She sang her song of sorrow, and soothed the child in her belly, and though of Dead Harry. Sometimes she saw what he saw, sometimes she heard what he thought, but often she just rested where she knew there was pain in his heart. He had written to her, telling her she could come home, he would raise her child as his own Cambian or not. However she knew she couldn’t, her bond to Nathan was strong, and strengthened by the child she carried.

The child was large, it’s heart beat strongly, its mind was constantly whirring, and she couldn’t hide the pregnancy from Nathan any longer. One day he came home from his beat, and she had prepared a large meal for him. He sat down, as she served him, and after he had gone through his day, she sat beside him.

“Nathan, I am carrying your child” she told him.

“You can’t be?” he told her “You must be mistaken.”

“No I’m not” she pulled her dress over her head, showing him her swollen stomach “I can hear him thinking, and singing, and he moves to get comfortable”

“But, we aren’t married” Nathan told her staring at her swollen abdomen with horror.

“That’s not important in getting pregnant, you’ve lain with me, you’ve filled me with your seed, and I am pregnant with your child.” She told him, still standing naked in front of him in the cold kitchen.

“But I’ll be ruined, the child will be a bastard, I can’t marry you, you don’t even have birth certificate.” He shouted standing up. “Can’t you get rid of it?”

“Nathan, no, it’s a child” She shrieked.

“You must know some magic herb to destroy the foul thing, are you even sure it’s mine not some gypsy scum you’ve been hanging around with?” He spat.

“Nathan please” she begged “I’m faithful, I gave you my bond”

“Like you gave your Harry your bond, worked for him, you hopped from his bed to mine without telling him” Nathan shouted he reached forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her down the steps from the kitchen and out into what served as the cell for the police house, and iron box sunk into the basement.

“Please Nathan, it’s not like that you know it’s not, please please not in there, it’s iron, please please Nathan” she screamed and sobbed, but he pushed her through the door and closed the lock on her.

“You can rot there you slut” he shouted, his eyes clearing, the loving fey struck look he normally wore, clearing black into pure hatred, “I don’t understand your evil ways slut, but you’re not ruining my life, you can birth your foul creature there for all I care, and then you can either dash it’s brains out on the walls or send it back to your filthy kin.” With one final vicious look he stormed back upstairs leaving her cold and shivering in the dark of the cell.

Harry sat up all night feeling her pain and desperation unable to do anything, the link between them dipping in and out he tried to send comfort and love to her. As stuck as she he couldn’t rescue her, make her warm, feed her, and protect the girl he loved and the child she carried. He sat on the cot in his tent, wrapped in too many blankets, hoping that by him being too hot to breath she might feel slightly warmer.

In the morning he realised he had fallen asleep and could no longer reach for her their connection was somehow broken, he lay on his cot for an age trying to reach her, trying to find her, but he couldn’t. Where he felt there should be something, where he expected to find a link to her, deep within himself there was just cold and emptiness.

He went to Steven but the fey man had nothing to add, he couldn’t tell Harry if Rachel was alive or dead, he had other sisters, lots of other sisters, if one had died why should he care, he would morn her when her spirit returned to the tribe to be reborn. Harry had wanted to go back to the Village and find her, but he was bound to The Tribe, and so he begged an audience again with ‘The Man’ after hours of sitting outside the elder’s tent, he received a hand scrawled note “trust me”.

Harry screwed up the note, marched away from the camp and down a small track from the moorland camp they had set up the day before, towards a small town and the bottom of the hill. He was free to leave the camp, he could go wherever he liked, but he knew he couldn’t, shouldn’t return to the Village, so he went to the nearest pub. He ordered a pint, and whiskey chase. He put two hundred quid behind the bar, and told the landlord to keep plying him with drinks. He hadn’t drunk anything alcoholic since his death; his mind briefly wondered how much he could take. Didn’t have to worry about liver disease, or even blood poisoning he thought.

At midnight the landlord told the still relatively sober Harry to “naff off” selling him three bottles of vodka and watched as the strange dark man walked calmly into the night. He’d been in the pub for ten hours drinking beer and spirits, but seemed as sober as he’d been when he walked in. Still he’d made a nice profit, and got the guy off without a comment. He looked at his open till, carefully counting the money, not bad for a weird day.

Harry sat in the park, huddled under a park slide, glugging vodka from the bottle. He heard the faint footsteps and recognised them immediately. Not that he was in any mood to move, or acknowledge them.

“Was it worth the wait Harry?” Steven asked him, sitting beside him under the slide, “The gods now how many years of sobriety, for one hell of a bender, was it worth it?”

“Sober as a fucking judge” Harry swore, “fucking dead body, can’t do anything right.”

“You’re swearing, never heard you swear before?” Steven half asked half told.

“Falling back into old habits.” Harry sniffed “Any more of this I might get myself shot again.”

“Yeah my sister would kill me” Steven laughed

“She’s alive?” Harry asked grabbing the man’s arm, “You’ve spoken to her?”

“She’s alive” Steven nodded “In this entire maudlin drinking nightmare, have you tried to reach for her? ‘cos she’s been trying to find you.”

Rachel awoke in the gloom, scared and cold she felt her body disappearing into the atmosphere, she willed herself to remain whole if only for the baby. She called in the darkness for Harry, for Steven but she felt nothing. She wanted to come home, she wanted to leave, she wanted to break her bond, but locked in the darkness with no way to escape she didn’t know what to do. She called for Nathan, screaming his name, making herself hoarse.

After a few hours Nathan came down the stairs. “What?” he asked

“I need you to let me out, I’ll leave and I’ll never come back, but please let me leave.” She begged

“Why should I trust you?” Nathan spat “You’ll be back with your brat calling after me”

“I swear let me out Nathan and you’ll never see us again” she begged

He opened the cage and she shuddered as he talked toward her, “you are fey, and I’ve been asking around there is a way you’ll never bother me again” he grabbed her hair, and she saw once again the blackness in his eyes, and smelt the alcohol on his breath, she shrieked as he slammed her head against the metal bars.

The room became very hot, as their bond was broken, missed swirled around her as her power returned to her. She shrieked like a banshee and Nathan was suddenly very sober, she rose bodily into the air.

“You are from this day cursed Nathan Halberd, you have broken our bond by violence, our child will grow without knowing his father, but you will know, your son is out there in the world, and that will haunt you.”

With those words she disappeared like a spirit out of the building and found herself on moorland high above a large northern town. The camp was laid out as it always was, and so she made her way to far end of the camp, to the largest tent, adorned with furs and banners, the home of ‘The Man’.

She didn’t wait for admittance, or an audience she entered sad and hobbling.

“Rachel, you return?” the elder asked.

“Yes, yes sir, if I am able to.”

“You have broken your bond to the mortal?”

“Yes”

“Yet you are still with his child?”

“Yes, yes I am.” She held back a sob, stroking her swollen stomach, “Am I banished till I birth my child?”

“No child but you must confine yourself to your brothers company, and you must remain with his women. When your time comes we will decide the fate of the spawn.”

She nodded, “What about Harry?”

“You think he would want you, debauched and pregnant by another man, a mortal man? After you left him of your own volition, destroyed his faith and soul, you think he would take you back to his bed, take on your bastard Cambion spawn as his own?”

“Sir” she sobbed “I am his if he will take me, and if he won’t I beg that I be left alone with my child, on the edge of the tribe.”

“You won’t take another man, only Harry?”

“Yes”

“So be it, you agree to abide by my terms, to be bound to Steven, to be the lowest member of his family?”

“I do” she curtsied “Thank you Sir.”

Harry heard of her return from Angel-Fire, he had woken in his own cot, and the ex-hells angel had been waiting for him to wake, to inform him of the news. By the time Harry had awoken Rachel was safely ensconced with Steven’s wives and family. He had pushed past his unwelcome roommate, and went straight to Steven’s batch of tents and hovels, only to find the man himself sitting outside smoking his pipe.

“The Man says you can’t see her, and she can’t see anyone” he told Harry

“How is she?” Harry asked, sitting own beside the fey.

“Bad way, she’ll have popped by the Ostara sabbat” Steven told him matter of factly, “I don’t think she’s eaten properly since she’s been with the others, the girls think she’s gone touched.”

Harry swallowed hard “would she see me, if he allowed it, would she see me?”

Steven shrugged “academic innit?” he smiled “what you gonna to do Harry, sit here till the bairn is born?”

“Yep” He told his friend.

And sit there Harry did, for 6 long weeks wherever the tribe moved whatever the tribe did, silent and unnoticed he sat, a silent vigil outside whatever hovel, room or tent Rachel resided in. When on the move, he walked beside whichever covered cart she had been loaded into, and when his other duties called him away, he returned to her side the moment he returned to the camp.

Till one night, high in the northern moorland hills covered in a light frosting of snow, a week before the festival the others called Easter, and the Tribe celebrated the Ostara Sabbat, Harry was woken by a blood curdling scream that tore at both his soul and his ears. Rachel’s time had come, she and the baby cried out, and Steven’s women cried and sang the women’s songs. As ‘The Man’ had pointed out, Harry had fathered no children; he hadn’t been through this fear before. He had stood beside the other men as they did, but always slightly aloof, usually waiting for Rachel to come out from the given tent.

He felt hot and cold at the same time, not unusual for a walking corpse. He was nervous and scared for the woman he loved, for a reason he couldn’t quite grasp he was worried for the child as well. He shook and stared outside the tent where his souls twin, was wrenched apart. After hours Harry heard the sound he’d been waiting for a high pitched child’s cry. He wanted to break into the tent, but he slumped beside the tent instead and slept.

Rachel lay exhausted, they had lain the child on her chest, but she didn’t really care. Her mind was void, her body tired and used, she couldn’t even cry. Sometimes she would think about Harry, and her whole body would be wracked with pain, deeper than the tears of birth, deeper than the scars Nathan had inflicted, like her soul itself was broken.  

After a week she was no longer welcome with her brother’s women, they were a tight nit family, all fey and the cambion child unnerved them. Admittedly he wasn’t broken and damaged as most were, in fact he was pale and golden and shining, and Rachel called him Finn, after the fair haired giant of the myths. Steven kissed her head, and sent her to sleep with the lost mortals and unflavoured beside the large fires in the middle of the tents.

The first night she was cold, and held Finn between herself and the flames, so he could be slightly warmer. She fought off the creeping men who thought to share their warmth with her, and she made some of them very angry, luckily most were drunk and left her be that night. However the next night she found no room for her by the fire, unless she was willing to let them take her.

It was wet and cold, and she had nothing not even a blanket, so she went and slept with the dogs and horses. There warm bodies keeping her slightly warmer, with Baby Finn swaddled in a single towel wrapped close to her body. She cried that night, and sang her sadness, but she was damaged and unless she took another man as her protector she would be doomed to the fringes of the tribe. Some women in her position would go mad, have visions and some would disappear into the elements as she lay between the dogs listening to their heavy breaths she could imagine that, she could imagine being as nothing but air. As she finally dozed off however her rebellious brain flitted to Dead Harry and she slept with only him on her mind.

Harry had watched her silently, he watched as the new men and the hangers on tried to take her, he watched as she fought them off and protected her child, he stood silent sentinel as they slept. He knew how not to be seen and he knew how to guard her without her knowing, it helped that she was distracted. The second night, he’d left his own dogs with the main pack, knowing they would instinctively guard her, and she would be safe. When she finally dozed he went and took a blanket to her, covering the exhausted girl and the child. Checking the tiny mortal still breathed wrapped so close to his mother.

The third night after Rachel was sent from Stevens’s family, Dead Harry received a note from the man, it just said “tonight”.

There was a massive storm, the clouds gathering high above the mountainside they were currently camped on, went from tan to bruised to an opal blackness. Unlike other campsites their current location offered little or no natural protection, so the men had built palisades and dug shell scrapes to shelter in with woollen or tarp roofs. The fires had been built up high and the animals sheltered close in the centre of the camp. Without any shelter but a thin blanket, when the rain started to fall, and win started to howl Rachel found herself crouched in a ditch with the blanket over her head.

Soon she was soaked, and shivering with cold, the ditch was filling with water and the rain was getting heavier. She looked across the darkened camp, and saw a single light swinging in the heavy wind, the child at her breast was cold and his breathing was hitched. Staring at the light she knew she had to put her pride and dignity aside if the child was to survive. She moved her stiff and cold limbs, and hunched against the foul weather made her way to the light. It seemed to take an hour but could have only been moments and she stood beside the lamp, the familiar marked tent it hung from flapping and moving in the high wind, she called his name and looked up as Dead Harry opened the flap to her.

“Rachel?” he asked

“Harry, I’m sorry, I have nobody else to turn to, the child, my child, Finn” she offered the bundle she carried up to his eyes.

“Come in Rachel” Harry told her gesturing to the warmth of the inside.

“I just need you to keep Finn safe, I can sleep, I can go, but you’re the only one I trust with my boy.” She sobbed, offering the child up again, and stepping further out into the storm.

“Rachel, come inside, bring the child in, it’s cold and wet outside it’s no place to be tonight.” He pulled her lightly inside by her elbow.

“Harry” she started and then looked round what used to be her home. The small pot boiler in the middle of the room was lit, as were almost all the storm lanterns. The large cot Harry usually slept on was covered with warm furs and extra blankets, sweetened milk was warming in a jar beside the boiler and a stack of chopped faggots lay beside it, enough for a whole night. A sensor hung above the cot, filling the canvas with the soft scent of lavender.

“Build up the fire, I will find something for the child to sleep in” he told her as she lay the baby in the centre of the warm cot, he took the smallest of the large trunks that made up his furniture. He flipped open the lock and emptied the contents to the floor, paint and brushes, inks and pencils tumbled to the read mat floor. While Rachel placed more faggots into the boiler, Harry placed soft cony fur into the trunk, lining the bottom, the reached for a soft towel from a pile he’s placed by his cot and laid it on top. He went to the bed and picked up the baby, stripping the child of his wet covering and chaffing at his soft skin with another towel. “Come on little man, let’s get you warm shall we?” he spoke gently, placing the child into the trunk, and covering him over and placing the little crib by the fire.

“He hasn’t been fed.” Rachel told Harry sadly as she watched him minister to the baby. “I’ve stopped giving milk.”

“Are you OK?” he asked going to her side, looking at her pale almost blue flesh, feeling her chilled skin.

“No” she shook her head

“Will the child take sweetened milk?” Harry asked “I have warmed some?”

She nodded, and he gave her the jug and a small wooden spoon, he watched as she lifted the baby’s head and dribbled the liquid into his ready mouth, he smiled as he watched his tiny tongue dart out and taste it. ”Harry may I stay tonight, I will be quite and won’t take up any room, an in the morning I will be gone.”

He looked at her intently “Stay” he said, and when she looked up he continued “stay, stay with me.”

“But I left you, I betrayed you, I come to you like this for the sake of my child, my child with another man.”

“Do you love me?” he asked her

“Yes” she answered, staring at her bare feet, “but you mustn’t love me.”

“Do you think I could stop loving you, because you made a foolish mistake, because you made a mistake that thousands have made before you?” he stepped towards her and pulled her into a hug, the roughness of his linen shirt scraping against her thin shift and he looked down as she flinched. “Stay with me Rachel, stay as my wife, as my woman.” He dipped his head and kissed her.

“What about Finn?” she asked turning towards her now sleeping child, “Would you have me deny him, send him away?”

“Give me your bond, give me you pledge and I will raise Finn as my own, as ours.”

“You aren’t mortal, and you aren’t Fey, I can’t offer you my bond, we cannot be one.” She told him, sobbing into his chest.

“Who says?” he lifted her head and kissed her lips, “who says we can’t be of one soul, who says we can’t be as one like other are?”

“You’re dead?” she said “we can’t, I mean we’ve not, erm.”

He chuckled despite himself and drew her closer kissing her forehead “Are you trying to say I can’t give you a child? Is that why you left me? Because I am a corpse? Is having a child that important to you?”

She nodded “It’s my purpose?” she explained sadly

“But we have Finn” he told her, reaching down and taking her hand, “you have had a child, I will raise it as part of the tribe, and you can be safe with me, just give me yourself.”

“Harry” she whispered kissing him, laying her head on his chest, a he cupped her head.

“Is that a yes?” he asked

“Yes” she moaned.

He picked her up and lay her on the cot, watching her strip and nuzzle into the warmed furs. “We have made love before Rachel; I want your bond first.”

She looked into his eyes “don’t you trust me Harry?”

“I want you to be mine, all mine, safe and permanent” he told her, kneeling above her “I don’t want your word; I want to share a true bond with you.”

She looked unsure “you want me to share myself with you, my power, and my abilities?”

“Yes, as if I were your Fey Lord, are you willing?”

“Gladly” she said reaching up and bring his face down to hers “but you know what this makes you? You will be as tied to me as I am to you; there is no divorce, no separation, no turning back? This isn’t a promise given to mortals this is a promise as Fey?”

“I know” he kissed her, then carefully removing his clothes and laying them to one side, he knelt above her naked, and reached for his blade. “I don’t want you to leave again, I want you to remain mine, you have given me your consent and your word, and so I seal this with my blood.” He sliced across his wrist with the blade and held it to her.

“I am yours my blood, my soul, my being is shared with you and we are as one” she intoned, running the blade over her own wrist and placing it to his lips as he gave his own wrist to her. They swirled the iron taste around their mouths for a few moments, before she took his hand and held their wounds together. She pulled him down towards her, and he settled between her thighs.

“I love you” he told her as they started to move together, aware of the uncomfortable limitations of their blood bond.

“I love you” she whispered just before his mouth settled on hers.

They awoke together, still wrapped in each other’s arms, sore and sticky. Rachel moved her arm first, dislodging the blood clot. Harry reached from the cot and tore the arms from his shirt, wrapping one around her wrist, and the other around his. He tried to pull her close to him when he realised what had woken them, Finn calling from his homemade crib. Rachel ran a hand over her breasts sadly.

“You’re not producing milk?” he asked and when she shook her head, he stood from the cot, and placed the milk jug back on the stove. Placing faggots back into the fire, and stoking it. He bent over the child, picking him up and rocking him gently. “Patience little one, Mummy and I will find you something to eat.” He held the child gently against his naked chest, and carried it over to the bed where Rachel had covered herself over with the furs.

“Harry?” she asked taking Finn into her arms “what happens now?”

He put a finger into the jug, and thinking it warm enough brought it and the spoon back to the bed. “We live our life” he told her kissing her head as she started to feed the baby. “We go back to how we were before Finn, just with a child to raise.”

“But the others” he started

“Will accept it” he told her kissing her head again, and chucking Finn under the chin, “do you think I’d have done what we have done without permission?”

“You asked?” she looked up shocked, “you asked permission to bond with me, fully, properly?”

“Are you upset?” he asked “You are mine, my wife as the laws of the tribe dictates.”

“Oh Harry” she nuzzled into him, upsetting Finn slightly, meaning he had to catch the child and bring him close as well. “Finn and I are really yours?”

“Yes” he smiled kissing her and laying back into the fur so his wife and child lay against him in the warmth of the bed.

Nine months later, Harry sat outside his tent Finn kicking and giggling on his lap as they listened to Rachel’s cries. The boy child she was bearing was strong and fighting his own birth. Harry hadn’t been a religious man before his death, and now only paid lip service to the gods of the tribe, but tonight he was praying. His blood bond bubbled and pulled as she laboured and if he hadn’t been charged with the care of Finn he would have been beside her side, rules or not.

The Man came and sat beside Harry, and the other men of the tribe all found elsewhere to be. Harry held Finn tightly to his chest and turned to the elder.

“A child of Euphoria” Harry told The Man.

“Yes, a new leader of the tribe.” The Elder smiled

“Is this; are you here because she is going to die?” Harry asked suddenly, clutching his son tighter.

“No” The elder smiled “This is a hard labour, but she will bear more children.”

“What?” Harry asked “I thought this was it, a child of Euphoria?”

“Do you imagine you will never be able to make her happy again?” The elder asked standing.

“But? I don’t understand?” Harry said.

“Be strong my friend, there will come a time when young Finn will need an army, you are charged with providing it for him.” He stalked off leaving Harry standing in the semi darkness clutching the bright shining child, he was going to call out, but the night was wrenched by a scream, and suddenly the clearing they were camped in reverberated with the deep sound of an infant crying. Finn lifted his head from his father’s chest, staring up at the high moon through and laughed and laughed with pure childlike delight.