Halloween I.F. – “Something Rich and Strange” – Day 22

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Star closed his eyes, drawing deep breaths and trying to think through what the best next steps were. Vayne had said that it had sounded like there were other hostages, so with Caoimhe out of touch, he had to assume that she and her friend who’d needed help had both been captured. 

At the same time, the only people who would be particularly worthwhile hostages against Dandelion were people who were important to Dandelion himself. There were others who Dandelion associated with, of course, friends and colleagues, and he was a decent person who’d probably try to help others if he could. But given that they’d tried to go for Star directly, he had to assume that they were going for the people in Dandelion’s inner circle: so, the band, the only people Dandelion had regularly associated with over centuries.

It made sense, especially if you were thinking of it from a crueller perspective. He, Adrien, and Caoimhe were Dandelion’s vassals, sworn to him, and so he was also sworn to them in a way that he wasn’t sworn to any friends or family. Sídhe nobles were dangerous at best, so someone who did not know Dandelion would approach him with the assumption he was heartless behind his affable facade. Appealing to his heartstrings wouldn’t be the smart approach. Appealing to his oath as liege lord to the few people he’d gathered to his side after exile, that was practical.

Even if the enemy might have known his desire to intervene in the tithe hundreds of years to, that didn’t mean they’d assume he was a pushover. There could be many reasons to do so beyond simply trying to protect human souls: political instability, a desire for war, a desire to recruit those humans behind his own banner, who knows what they’d have thought. They might not have put it down to a soft heart.

So the people who were for sure at risk were Star himself (as he’d discovered), Caoimhe, and Adrien.

So. Yeah. Caoimhe’s lack of contact almost certainly meant she’d been captured. Star clenched his fists and released them against the anger he felt building. That was his companion, his fellow vassal, a sometimes-lover and always-friend. Calling her his sister wasn’t right, under the circumstances… but they were both people who were in the same position willingly and happily, so she was some kind of kin regardless. She was his, in a way, the same way he was hers.

Then, rescuing her had to come before any of his other hopes or plans. Star stepped into a nearby convenience store and drifted into the back corner where he was unlikely to be seen, quickly running through his options as to who to bring in to help save her.

Dom? Dom did want to help, but Dom could also be a hostage against Star’s compliance, and he didn’t have the advantage of knowing the warehouse as he would the track clubhouse. No, if he were to ask for Dom’s aid, it should be for the assault on their actual HQ.

Georgio? If what Vayne had said was true, and Star saw no reason to doubt it under the circumstances, Georgio was at least a few hours away from being able to get back here, and Star didn’t think they could afford the time. And it didn’t seem possible Georgio could be used as a hostage against Dandelion, given that the two didn’t even know each other, so there was little point calling him out here where he might get used against Star instead.

Besides, he wasn’t sure what benefit Georgio would be on a practical level. He was strong, yes, but in a best case scenario they’d be in and out of the warehouse with the hostages and not have to end up fighting anyone. If he brought Georgio it would have to be a fight. Georgio wasn’t exactly quiet. Still, he figured he’d at least call the stables to make sure the Manotaur was actually safe. Hopefully he could get him back for tomorrow, just in case, but he couldn’t wait on his plans to do it now. He put Georgio to the side and went back to running through the other people involved.

Viv? Viv was a good idea, actually. She wasn’t the strongest witch, and her wife would kill Star if Viv got hurt or worse, which was its own danger. But she could identify spells as well as any witch and that might be clutch by itself. He wanted to know what was up with the halter.

And of course, that left Dandelion and Adrien. Dandelion would insist on going, and Adrien would too, and Adrien was nearly as good as Georgio in a brawl. They were also Caoimhe’s band, so it had to be them.

Grimly decided, he texted those three about his suspicions on what had happened to Caoimhe, asking them to meet him down here. The sooner they could sneak into the warehouse, the better.

Star received immediate positive answers from Dandelion and Viv, but none from Adrien, though that wasn’t uncommon, as he often turned his phone off during hookups. Star didn’t like it, but he wasn’t going to jump to conclusions just yet.

And then he waited.

Waiting was the hard part. He called the stables and confirmed Georgio was there, and asked for him to be transferred back tomorrow, which of course the stables said they couldn’t do without permission, and he told them to ask Georgio himself for permission, then hung up. Then, he bought himself some jerky and ate it between two pieces of magic bread like a sandwich, and was relieved when only a half hour later, Vivian and Dandelion showed up—they’d apparently traveled together, which was a relief. Strength in numbers, and all that.

“Any word from Adrien?” Star asked as they approached him.

Viv shook her head, and Dandelion frowned, folding his delicate fingers together. “No, but—”

“But?” That hesitance was something Star was familiar with, a desire to protect his people and shoulder things himself. He was sure a prompt would break through it, and he was right.

“—Well, you know that I’m able to sense what direction my people are in. A rough, if not precise, idea of their location that gets sharper the closer we get,” Dandelion said, unhappily.

Star groaned, tossing his head. “He’s the same direction as Caoimhe, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Dandelion said, almost an exhalation. 

Shit. Well. Fuck. That sense of anxiety tightened around Star’s throat, tighter than any lead line could be. “This doesn’t change anything,” he said. He stepped out of the shop, beginning to walk downhill. “Our plans don’t change if it’s two people instead of one. Let’s scope the place out, at least. The warehouse should be just down this way. Is it the same direction as you feel them in?”

Dandelion closed his eyes. “…Yes.”

“Great! Cool. Well, I was going to have to check there anyway, right?!” Star muttered, throwing his hands up. “Here, Viv, take this.” He handed her the halter—albeit with a moment’s hesitation, but there was nothing in Viv’s personality to say she’d use it against him and, besides, again, her wife wouldn’t look on it happily if she did. “What’s it do besides the obvious?”

Viv let out a hiss of breath. “Uh, let’s see.” She mumbled at the rope a bit, frowning, and then glanced back over. “Well, it’s got a love spell.”

“A WHAT?”

“Devotion, at least,” Viv said dubiously. “I guess, since it’s a halter, maybe call it domestication or taming… You’d be forced to be enslaved normally by having the halter put on at all, but with something like this on, you wouldn’t look for a way out. You’d want to be his tame horse and delight in serving him.”

Star swore. “That fucker, Vayne—”

Dandelion reached out and took the rope halter from Vivian, closing his fist around it. Silvery vines climbed it, burning it away; it crumbled away into dust in his hand. He shook his palm in the air to dislodge the last of the ash and looked back at Star with mercury-shifting eyes that seemed far too placid for the show he’d just made. “Vayne may not have known about it, from what you said,” Dandelion said thoughtfully. “But I will find out, and I won’t overlook it if he did.”

Viv waved a vaguely placating hand. “You’re getting all murdery awfully early. Honestly, I suspect Enemy Number One had cast it so that the halter could get handed over to them after getting Vayne to bring Star there. Or, if nothing else, with Vayne under their control, they were going to use Vayne as the method of controlling Star. Not that Vayne was horny for him.”

“Hate that anyway! Don’t like it,” Star ground out. He shook himself, clothes dissolving into fairy matter and shifting them into the place where he kept his other belongings. One source of agitation removed, he stomped down the sidewalk in only a speedo.

“I, wh, yuh?” Viv said. “Did you have to—why is getting naked a response to this—”

“It makes me feel better,” Star snapped, and forced himself to draw a deep breath. Viv wasn’t responsible for any of this. “I’m glad you could identify the spell. Now we have another concerning thing to worry about them doing to me.”

“Mm, not just you,” Dandelion said. “As an elverpigen, Caoimhe can be forced into marriage likewise and will love the one she’s wed, and Adrien…”

With a groan, Star completed the thought. “Adrien’s leadable by his dick, yeah. All three of us have natures that put us under someone’s control, and make us susceptible to a spell meant to function alongside that.”

“Because you’re all fairies, or…well, a satyr, you’re all weak to things that force you into love and devotion,” Viv said, a bit breathless from their quick pace downhill. Viv would know, of course. She’d been accidentally wed after helping a leannán sídhe, and she hadn’t even realized it until they’d been married, what, a few days? “Though with Star, the ‘enslaving’ element is from an item, the bridle or halter, while with the others, it’s tied to actions. The halter can be transferred, but actions can’t. So it’s likely that the others haven’t had the spell cast on them yet.”

Star ground his teeth. “I bet their plan was to show it off with me and hold it over the other two as a threat.”

“I think,” Dandelion said softly, “getting there quickly has become even more urgent.”

They couldn’t move faster than they were, though, and even so the ground was flowing underfoot in a way that made Star suspect that Dandelion was spending some of his power to make distance go a bit more quickly. Maybe not for the best, not without weakening him, but Star wasn’t going to tell Dandelion what to do. He reached out and took Dandelion’s hand. “Did you recognize the description I sent?” he asked, only half to distract him. “Of the abyssal, I mean.”

“It sounds like if it’s a demon, he’s either in a human disguise that’s starting to wear off, or he’s possessing someone and their body is giving way,” Dandelion said. “With the cracks and something looking out from the outside. I mean, even in the Valley a powerful demon would stand out and be harder to cast some kind of obfuscation on.”

Yeah, magic was theoretically easier if it worked with something rather than against it. Star said, “Dandelion, you didn’t actually answer.”

Dandelion chewed briefly on his lower lip with pearl teeth. “…If it were any of those three, it’d be Ramullin of the Wastes. Cracks and heat are both what I’d think of with the Wastes. But I don’t want to say it’s certainly them. It could be someone else.”

It could be, though the motive would be lacking. Then again, Ramullin’s own motive didn’t seem the most solid, either—of the three demons who had tormented Dandelion, only Ferthur had missed the chance to torture him at all. Ramullin and Naeri had succeeded at it, if only for one night each. But of course, then, he didn’t know how the tithe getting ruined had looked politically for each of the demons, or if it affected one of them more than others.

He abruptly began paying attention to where they were again and gestured the other two to a halt. “We’re here. The warehouse should be just over there.

Dandelion’s glamour slipped over the group before Star could say anything else. It would be most effective against humans, at least if they hadn’t somehow discovered one of the ways to see through glamours, but it wasn’t ineffective against other fairies or abyssals, either, depending on if they were stronger or weaker than Dandelion. It was definitely stronger than Star’s own glamour. 

Still, Star shuffled into a side street quickly, beckoning the others to do the same. Never hurt to plan for the just-in-case. “Okay, how’s it looking?” he asked, as Dandelion peeked out. 

“Caoimhe and Adrien are definitely in there somewhere,” Dandelion said grimly. “I can feel them. I can’t speak to anyone else, as none others have offered me their life to do with as I would.”

The next step would be getting in, finding the other two’s exact locations, freeing them, and getting out—hopefully before they got caught. “What about entrances, though?”

“I see a front entrance, an entrance on the side facing us, and…” Dandelion hesitated. “There seems to be a parking lot behind it, so probably a back entrance, though I can’t confirm that.”

Star nodded. So, he should try to figure out what was theoretically the best entrance to go into off almost no information, and also if they should leave Viv out here or take her in too.

“Also,” Dandelion said, a little quizzical, “I hear harp music? Maybe another captive occupying themselves, or a musically-inclined captor? Or perhaps someone just playing nearby, but…”

Right, Star reminded himself. There might be more captives than just Caoimhe and Adrien, and there might be more people involved than just the two he knew about. That was also worth considering.

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