A woman stepped onto the path in front of her. She was as tall as Kenzie, had a sharp, rather pale face, very dark eyes, and many braids of white blond hair that fell to her waist. She was beautiful-in a frightening sort of way.
The clothes she wore had once been rich-velvets, brocades, and fur, cut to flow with her every move. But the brocade was fraying, the velvets torn, the fur damp and matted. The entire ensemble-long tunic and cloak over breeches and soft leather boots-was stained with mud and what looked like dried blood. Kenzie also noticed that though the woman's voice was cool, her scent broadcast her fear.
"Who the hell are you?" the woman returned. "More fodder for the trials? I have told him, I'm a hunter, yes, but not a killer. A clean hunt for food and feasting is one thing. Murder to harvest organs is something else entirely."
Kenzie's mouth sagged open. The woman was angry, scared, and arrogant. She was also Fae.
"Harvest organs?" Kenzie repeated.
"To create the mythological beasts. Why stop at Shifters? Why not the griffins, unicorns, and manticores of legend?"
Kenzie folded her arms, suddenly cold, though the air here was warm. "Who wants to create them? Gil?"
The woman frowned and shook her head. "I know not this Gil."
"Who do you know? Who are you? And why is a Fae in the woods in North Carolina?"
"I know not this Northern Carolina either. My mother warned me of the mists, but I forgot in the excitement of the hunt. If I had been a fine young lady and followed the rules, I would be at home weaving tapestries instead of trapped in the mists." The corners of her mouth turned up a little. "I might be, as you say, bored out of my mind, but I'd be safe."
Kenzie had to smile. She'd feel the same. "I'm Kenzie," she said. "And you are . . . ?"
The woman shook her head. "You Shifters. So quick to give away names."
"We don't have a big hang-up about them, no. Though I understand the idea about true names being used for magical control. You have a name you let people call you, don't you? Even if it isn't your real one?"
She conceded this with a nod. "Brigid. You may call me that."
"Good. So, Brigid, where the hell are we? And why are you here? Instead of home weaving tapestries?"
Brigid gave a little shiver. "That I do not know. I was hunting with my sisters. I chased my prey into a misty dell and quite suddenly found myself in this wood. I called for my sisters, but they never heard me."
"Are we in Faerie? Not someplace I want to be."
Kenzie's voice was steady, matter-of-fact, but inside she was tight with worry. A Shifter stumbling through a gate into Fae realms might never get out again. She could be hunted, captured, killed, her wolf skin hung up like a trophy. Or she could be enslaved as Shifters had been of old, used as a fighting and hunting beast.
The best thing Kenzie could do in Faerie was get out. Fast.
"I do not know where this place is," Brigid said. "It might be the inside of a gate between the real world and another place, perhaps many places. I am stuck here, released only when he comes for me."
"He?" Kenzie asked. "He who?"
"Human names make no sense to me. I don't remember. But he likes my skills. I am a-I don't know how to translate to your language, but I breed and raise animals. Hunting dogs, hunting cats, hawks. My father does, that is. I assist him, but I am plenty good at it myself." She ended with pride, a touch of Fae arrogance.
"A breeder?" Kenzie asked, taking a step back. "You keep the animals in cages and take away their cubs?" So the Fae had done to Shifters in the old days, the stories went.
Brigid shook her head. "No. Young taken from a mother too fast can decline and die."
"Hmm, sounds like things have changed. Or maybe that was only special treatment for Shifters." Cubs had been ripped from mothers' arms, never seen again, families torn apart. Humans could be cruel to Shifters, but they had a long way to go to surpass the Fae.
Brigid's frown deepened. "There are no Shifters in Faerie anymore. Breeding them is forbidden, and those secrets are lost. I have tried to tell him that, but he doesn't listen."
Kenzie's focus sharpened. "A human is trying to get you to breed Shifters?"
"Not Shifters. Fae beasts, as I have said. But in the human world, they become monsters."
"Yeah. Seen one. Didn't like it."
"But he is a fool," Brigid said with scorn. "The animals are not viable. They might perhaps be if we were in Faerie, but the magic does not appear to hold in the human world."
"You made the griffin," Kenzie said. "Or what passed for one."
She inclined her head. "I attempted. The beast did not last."
"It lasted long enough to tear into a roadhouse full of Shifters and humans and hurt a lot of people." Kenzie glared at her. "It was on a rampage we barely contained. It almost killed my mate."
Her heart wrenched at the thought of Bowman lying half-crushed in Cade's truck, his body a bleeding wreck. He'd been lucky to escape with only a broken leg.
"Why did you do it?" Kenzie asked angrily. "How could he make you create something? I even felt sorry for it when we found it dead. It was as much a victim as we were."
"As am I. He had begun the experiments himself, but he needed Fae magic to make them work. And he has ways-threatening to trap me here forever, threatening my children. He has agents in Faerie, it seems, or so he says. If I do not help him, he sends word, and my daughters die."
Kenzie went silent. Gil was certainly magical, maybe enough to get through to Faerie, but she'd never sensed such cruelty in him. Then again, he'd been skilled enough to make her believe he was a human cop and a fairly normal human being, not a mysterious, hundred-and-fifty-year-old whatever he was.
But then, Gil had been astonished by and interested in the griffin. That interest had not been false, she was sure.
If not Gil, then maybe Turner? But . . .
"If we're talking about the same guy," Kenzie said, "I don't see how he can threaten your kids. He's a university professor, not a mage or a half Fae. He's human, and not even magical."
"He has found a way. Or he has minions who do his work for him. I do not know. He showed me a picture." Brigid's arrogance gave way to fear and sorrow. "Of my wee ones tied up and locked away, their eyes bound. I do not know how he made this picture, but it looked so real. He had it on a human device." She shaped her hand as though holding something the approximate dimensions of a smartphone.
"Oh," Kenzie said. "The picture might be real. I'm sorry."
"He takes me out of here at times and locks me into another place, a human place, a shed he calls it. It smells terrible, and the human world has so much iron. It hurts me."
She shuddered. Kenzie stepped to her. "I'm sorry," she said again. It was a strange feeling to have sympathy for a Fae, but the woman's fears were understandable.
Brigid lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "It is what is before me, the challenge I must meet. I will obey him and breed the beasts-I can't risk the life of my daughters. But all the while I wait for a chance to kill him and return home."
"I like the way you think. We'll gut him together." Kenzie went so far as to lay her hand on the woman's arm. The acrid, sulfur scent of Fae curled in her nose-but she didn't pull away. Touch was comforting, soothing, even for non-Shifters.
"I have no weapons," Brigid said. Her smile returned. "Though now I have you."
"True." Kenzie looked around, seeing only trees, mud, and leaves, encircled by mists. "Are we really trapped in here? Why can't we just walk back out through the mist?"
Brigid gave her an amused look. "Of course, I would be standing here mourning my children if I could simply walk through the mists and be home. I have tried. Many times. You go through, and end up back here."
"Then how does Turner-or whoever it is-come and get you?"
"That I do not know. He appears, locks me in cuffs, and leads me out. Then I am in the human world, in tall woods, and he shoves me into the small building and locks the door. When I am finished, he walks me back again. I have tried again and again to discover the gate to the human world when he is gone, but always I find myself here again. I thought that if I could get to the human world, perhaps I could find another way to Faerie, through the standing stones I have read about. Are there standing stones near where you came in?"