A Rude Awakening - Part One

Wherein A Fae Finds Himself Freed

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The large chunk of cold iron rammed into my chest.  It wasn’t a faerie’s only weakness, but it is certainly our greatest. The sword’s cross guard was the only thing that stopped it from passing through me entirely. That pain was the last thing I felt. I’d say it hurt like Hell, but as the next few minutes—or perhaps hours, days or even centuries— proved there is very little truth to that hyperbole. Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer agony I endured next.

I lack the words to describe what it feels like to have your soul pierced with a million needles. You see methods in ancient literature involving hot coals, impalement through various orifices, being boiled in a variety of fluids. Not even close.  Why... how can a soul even FEEL pain?

Some people would take this experience and use it as fuel to be a better person. Not me. I plan on spending the next few millennium hunting down the fucker who created Hell. Then we’ll see how he likes being on the receiving end.

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The first thing I heard upon returning to the mortal world was the voice of John Fogerty. The singer’s wail filled the apartment from wooden boxes. The first thing I smelled was the pungent and familiar odor of burning marijuana. The idiot who summoned me had done me a favor, but I would have preferred making my entrance smelling decent incense and hearing Vivaldi.

I had anticipated spending a lot more time with my attendant demons, say at least a few millennium. My innate sense of time told me that it was only a few seconds past midnight on the birth of the year 2014. Time in the nether regions was fluid. The last time I visited Earth was at least a hundred and fifty years earlier, and that ended rather badly. Had I been in that cell for over a century?

My summoner looked as surprised as I felt. When I crushed his larynx with the side of my hand, his look of surprise dimmed rapidly and my own satisfaction increased. Venting my anger at my prison guards on this fleshy shell whetted my appetite for vengeance, rather than abating it. 

I stepped over the cooling corpse. The crude summoning circle told me almost everything I needed to know about the man at my feet. He was a rank amateur with more power than brains. He had to have a book or a scroll to have summoned me from the depths of Hell.

I looked around for the tome, thinking it would help me in binding my essence here or in returning to my true home.

I found a torn and yellowed page. Among all of the arcane language, I saw my name, my true name. Unpronounceable to anyone not schooled in my native tongue, most mortals called me Laurent. These symbols were not meant to bring just any fae here, they called me and would bind me. In horror, I folded the paper and tucked it deep into my pocket. The charm I placed on it would kill any mortal who touched it.

A quick scan of the ritual revealed he hadn’t had a clue about what he possessed. What person in their right mind would open a portal to Hell in order to rescue the soul of one of the Faerie folk? If we could be said to have souls. I felt a bit of sorrow for the man. He had done me a favor a mere mortal could never understand, and I had repaid it with a death blow.

There was little time to mull it over. Having read the spell, I knew I’d have the remaining hours between now and sunrise to ensure I stayed on this plane. If I didn’t secure a few needful things, I’d be writhing in the clutches of a rather perturbed jailer. They didn’t get my kind in Hell often enough and losing me would cost someone their continued existence.

Looking down at the corpse and around at his apartment painted an interesting picture of my summoner. Aluminum foil covered the windows, and clippings from newspapers spelled out what the man hoped would provide him with a more arcane variety of protection. It was the work of the dedicated, the insane, or both. As crazy as he was though, it might work. The preparations, combined with the ley line, whose thrum I could feel under my feet, were the only things that made my being here possible.

I used the available arcane power to cast a glamour and clothe myself in the garb of the day. The skinny jeans and a black tee shirt which screamed “FUCK YOU VERY MUCH!” in a gaudy script were what the gods thought I should be wearing. I didn’t object.

I tucked the scrap of paper in my hip pocket and took the large fixed blade knife from the dead man’s hand. It had a clipped point, and the swirling patterns in the steel spoke of metal forged by the Celts. Bending near the body to take the weapon’s sheath from his belt, I examined him for the first time. 

Humans all look the same to me, pitiful and unimaginative. The creator didn’t do nearly enough with their substance when It was molding them. Dead, they struck me as little more than the lumps of clay they started out as. This one was different. Even in death, there was a spark of divine madness that spoke more of my people. That I had killed one with even an ounce of my own blood in him pained me.

I sheathed the blade he had unnecessarily bloodied himself with and clipped the weapon to my belt. I had been brought here by a Changeling, the offspring of human and faerie, and the fact made me even more curious. His nature meant I wouldn’t be able to get any information from him post-mortem. The mixture the bloodlines provided protection from Necromancy. 

I arranged his body as best I could, closing his eyes. With that dead end, I remembered the clock was ticking. If I didn’t use my time wisely, the “why” surrounding my appearance wouldn’t be any more material than I would once the sun came up. The sole exit was through a flimsy wooden door. I listened at it, and then peered through the clever little peep hole, assuring myself no one waited in the hall.