The Autumn Prince

Part Two: Rocks and Hard Places

Colledoc sat across the street, his back against a car, wrapped in a glamor. His brother's death had been an infuriating loss, but he took solace in the hope that revenge would come quickly and fatally, and knowing his former captain, it would be served with considerable terror and pain.

They'd been about to leave the city after following a cold trail for more than a week when everything went to hell. The glamor muted scents, though usually not enough to interfere with tracking, and Rhogan had insisted on dropping his before they abandoned their prey. He'd been so certain that they were close and didn't want to give up too soon. He never knew how right he was.

It was pure chance that he scented the old crow before she found them. Rhogan quickly shifted back into his human form and they ran in different directions. It was the last time Colledoc saw his brother alive. However, his death had borne unexpected fruit. After clawing out Rhogan's throat, the woman led Colledoc straight to their target.

He hid until she was gone, then summoned the birds and waited as instructed. Surprise didn't come close to describing his reaction when Caratacos appeared instead of Nictis or one of his captains.

Colledoc shouldn't have been caught off guard, but the gean canagh was clever, fast, and those damned cigarettes masked him just enough to let him get close. By then it was too late.

"Tell Nicky to stop using ravens, they're a dead giveaway." The former enforcer chuckled softly in Colledoc's ear, dropping a bloody, feathered mess at his sneakered feet.

"M—my lord—" the satyr spun, stuttering with the voice of a young boy and backed swiftly away. He'd been a hunter under Caratacos almost twenty years before, and no-one was nostalgic for those days. He'd been the reason The Great Lady never chose another Left Hand, despite the years Nictis spent seeking the role.

"I'm not your fucking lord," the man with salt and pepper hair said with bored confidence. "I'm tired and pissed off and haven't had a good fuck in days, so be a sport and tell me you found the little shit."

Colledoc nodded nervously and licked his human lips with a long, narrow tongue. The disguise wasn't entirely perfect. "His guardian left last night. Three remain in the apartment."

"Three?" Caratacos scratched his beard and pulled a cigarillo from his coat pocket. "The brat's building a harem? The fuck is it with kids these days? You're sure he's mine, and that he's gone through the change? I'm not just pissing in a river by coming out here?"

"Th—the scent—"

"He's amped up and so are his little sluts, and I'm sure you can smell it from here." He sucked at the brown cigarillo. "What else?"

"My lo—uh, sir?"

Caratacos leaned dangerously close and blew smoke into Colledoc's face, "Is he a darkling?"

Colledoc shook, "No, sir! I mean—I don't know. He has your—your gifts, but he still bears the mark of a human, and—and something else."

"So he's still changing."

"No, it's—he isn't in transition, or if he is it's not like anything I've ever seen, but the Moirae—" he trailed off. Caratacos already knew what the seer had said or he wouldn't have come. The gean canagh stood, thinking carefully for several minutes during which the satyr dared not move.

"Well fuck," he said finally, "It's not worth the risk until I know for sure." He thought for a minute, then glanced down at Colledoc with a cruel grin and stretched out his hand. "How about we send you in there to test him?"

"N—no! Please sir!" He began to scramble backward out of the monster's reach, when all the good fortune of Colledoc's long life converged at once with a distant, distinctive smell on the morning breeze. "Wait, there's another!" he said through his panic.

"Another what?"

"A girl... she has been tainted. It's not strong. She—she's known him, but he hasn't taken her. Getting closer!"

The man with salt and pepper hair stood up and looked around. They were less than a block from his kid's apartment. "How far?"

"A few blocks at most. That way." He pointed a thick finger in the direction of the school.

Caratacos sucked on his cigarette and blew another thick cloud into the air, then looked back down the street. "Coming this way?"

Colledoc nodded.

"I'll find her." The gean canagh bared his teeth in a grin. "Stick around, dipshit, this is going to be fucking hilarious," he said and sauntered off, straightening his lapel with a quick tug.

Once he calmed himself, the satyr decided his best option was to wait and see how events played out so he could report back. If Caratacos finished the job, Colledoc might even be commended for managing the situation. Nobody needed to know he nearly pissed himself.

That's why he now huddled behind a car, less than a hundred yards from the offspring of two powerful Fae, a being that worried even the self-proclaimed death god and his untouchable queen, and waited for the aftermath of whatever Caratacos had planned.

He allowed himself a grin when the sharp retort of a gunshot reached his ears, followed by the lamenting screams of the bastard's women and the delicate smell of blood. "That's for Rhogan," he mumbled to himself, then prepared to assume his natural form and begin his journey back to the Tir with all the speed of his kind.

Colledoc's smile faded suddenly. A new scent made him whirl in unanticipated fear. He tried to run away again, but in panic he nearly collided with a pair of legs emerging from beneath a dazzling white dress. Slowly, he looked up to meet the golden eyes of a woman he feared almost as much as the gean canagh.

"Oh shit," he whispered into the cool, morning air, and they were the last words he ever spoke.