Chapter 5: Infection!
The transition from the Market’s oppressive otherness to the familiar, grimy embrace of London’s night air was like surfacing from a deep dive. Jan stumbled onto the cobblestones of a shadowed mews, gasping, her hand pressed to the stitch in her side. Fatima followed, leaning against damp brick, her eyes scanning the empty street before she too allowed a long, shaky breath to escape.
“Clear,” Fatima muttered, the word more for herself than anyone.
The others spilled out behind them, a ragged parade. Godfrey, seemingly no worse for wear, gave himself a vigorous shake. Hank still clutched the skillet. Brigid’s face was pale but composed, her mind clearly still racing through equations and threat assessments.
“What was that?” Will asked, his arm tight around Sarah, who was trembling. “That… silver-haired guy. He moved like light hitting a prism.”
Brigid wiped a smudge from her cheek, her voice clinical despite the adrenaline. “An elf, maybe? Or a fairy lord of some kind. The morphology is similar but the magical signature is distinct.”
Cameron, gingerly testing his ribs, limped up beside them. “Is there a difference?”
“Yes,” Brigid, Jan, and Fatima said in unison.
Jan managed a weak grin. “Elves are snobs. Ancient, arrogant, and they consider being called a ‘fairy’ the gravest of insults. Fairies, the human-sized ones at least, often look like elves, but they’re beings of pure magic who look that way by choice. Probably another reason elves hate them. It’s like… intentional cultural appropriation of smugness.”
Fatima pushed off the wall, her analytical mind cutting through Jan’s attempt at humor. “The good news is, if it was a fairy, his primary weapon is blunted here. London is both too modern and too old. Ancient human sorcerers wove wards and spells into the city’s bones—protections against fae glamour specifically. The sheer weight of human history and belief acts as a barrier. He can’t warp reality here like he did in the Market. His powers will be weaker, more... contained.”
“We still don’t know his name,” Brigid pointed out.
“We know he wants me dead,” Fatima said flatly. “The ‘why’ can wait. We need to get off the street.”
The hotel Jan had booked was a modest, creaking establishment near Covent Garden, its floral wallpaper slightly peeling and its carpets faded. The night clerk, an elderly man absorbed in a crossword, barely glanced up as the disheveled group entered. Jan took charge at the desk, her voice a forced, bright chirp.
“Right! Two rooms, please. One for the happy couple,” she said, gesturing to Hank and Fatima. “And one for the… study group.” She nodded at Brigid, Will, and Sarah.
Fatima arched an eyebrow but didn’t object. Hank just looked relieved to finally put the bags down. Jan secured the keys and turned, her expression turning serious for a moment. “Nora, you don’t need to sleep. Would you mind keeping an eye on the lobby? Just… watch the door. Anyone comes in who feels even a little bit like glittering vengeance, you come get us.”
Nora gave a single, curt nod, the torn synthetic skin on her cheek already beginning to knit itself back together in a subtle, mechanical way. “I will be a silent sentinel. Get your rest.”
Upstairs, the rooms were adjacent. Hank and Fatima’s was first. “Get some rest,” Jan repeated, meeting Fatima’s eyes. A whole conversation passed between them in that look: Watch him. Watch yourself. We’ll talk tomorrow.
Then Jan turned to her sister’s cohort. “You three… recharge. However you need to.” Her meaning was clear.
The door to their room shut, sealing Brigid, Will, and Sarah inside. It was a cramped space with a large, plush bed dominating it. The residual fear from the Market still hung in the air, a toxic mist they’d carried with them. Brigid shrugged off her jacket, her movements deliberate.
“Jan’s right,” Brigid said, her voice softer now. “We’re running on fumes and shock. Our bond is a battery. We need to… recalibrate. Cleanse the static.” She looked from Will to Sarah, her gaze open and loving. “We need to connect. Properly.”
It wasn’t a demand. It was an invitation, a medical prescription from the most caring doctor imaginable. Sarah nodded, already pulling her baggy sweater over her head, revealing the lacy black bra beneath, her body seeming to sigh in relief at being free of the concealing fabric. Will smiled, a genuine one that pushed back the shadows under his eyes. He reached for Brigid, drawing her into a kiss.
It started as it always did—a gentle re-acquaintance. Will’s lips on Brigid’s, Sarah’s hands on Will’s back, her mouth finding the sensitive skin of his neck. Clothes fell away, a puddle of fabric on the faded carpet. Skin met skin, a comfort against the world’s chill.
Brigid guided Sarah onto the bed, laying her back against the pillows. She kissed her way down Sarah’s stomach, her fingers hooking into the sides of Sarah’s panties. “My turn to focus on you,” Brigid murmured, her breath warm against Sarah’s thigh. “You were so brave today.”
Sarah moaned, spreading her legs in invitation. Brigid buried her face between them, her tongue finding Sarah’s clit with practiced, loving precision. She licked and sucked, her fingers slipping inside Sarah’s wet heat, curling upwards. Sarah’s back arched, a sharp cry tearing from her throat as Brigid’s tongue flicked rapidly over her swollen bud.
“Oh God, Brig… right there, don’t stop…” Sarah panted, her hands fisting in the red hair between her legs.
Will watched, kneeling beside them. He loved seeing this, loved the sight of Brigid’s intense focus lavished on Sarah’s pleasure. It usually filled him with a warm, shared joy. But now… a cold, sharp stone settled in his gut. The sight of Brigid’s head bobbing, hearing Sarah’s choked moans of ecstasy… it felt exclusionary. A club he wasn’t part of. She’s better at that than I’ll ever be, a treacherous voice whispered in his mind. They don’t need you. They have their magic, their connection. You’re just the channel, the empty pipe. The warmth of the bond was still there, but beneath it, this new feeling festered, silent and sharp.
Brigid brought Sarah to a shuddering, gasping climax, Sarah’s hips bucking against her mouth. As Sarah came down, Brigid crawled up her body, kissing her deeply, letting Sarah taste herself. Then Brigid turned to Will, her eyes dark with desire. “My turn for you,” she whispered, pushing him onto his back.
She straddled him, guiding his cock into her with a slow, sinking motion that made them both groan. She began to ride him, her petite body moving with a growing rhythm, her small breasts bouncing. She leaned forward, capturing his mouth, her hips grinding down on him, taking him deep.
“You feel so good, Will,” she breathed into his ear. “So perfect inside me.”
Will’s hands gripped her hips, losing himself in the sensation, in her words. But as Brigid’s pace increased, as her cries grew louder, Sarah, lying beside them, felt a knot of anxiety tighten in her chest. The sight of them, so perfectly joined, felt like a wall. She’s forgetting I’m here, the anxiety whispered. This is their original bond. I’m the add-on, the accident. What if one day the circuit only needs two points? She felt love, immense love, but it was now ringed with a desperate, clinging fear. She reached out, touching Brigid’s back, just to remind them she existed.
Brigid came with a sharp cry, clenching around Will, which pushed him over the edge. He spilled into her with a muffled shout, his hips jerking upwards. As they shuddered together, Brigid, immersed in the shared physical peak, felt a faint, discordant ripple through their soul-merge. A tiny splinter in the perfect crystal. Stress, her rational mind supplied. Aftermath of the attack.
They collapsed together in a sweaty, panting tangle. After a few moments of recovery, Will, wanting to chase away his own irrational jealousy, turned to Sarah. He kissed her, his hand cupping her breast, his fingers teasing her nipple. “Your turn,” he said, his voice husky.
Sarah responded eagerly, her anxiety seeking reassurance in physical closeness. Will moved down, spreading her legs, and replaced Brigid’s earlier attention with his own mouth. He licked her, his tongue thrusting into her cunt, lapping up the mixed fluids of her own arousal and Brigid’s. Sarah whimpered, her fingers in his hair. “Yes, Will… fuck, your tongue…”
Brigid lay beside them, watching, a smile on her lips. But as she watched Will eat Sarah out with devoted passion, as she saw Sarah’s face contort in pleasure, that faint feeling returned—a nagging sense of wrongness, like a single instrument playing just off-key in a familiar symphony. They were beautiful together. It was supposed to feel whole. Instead, it felt like she was watching something private, a duo that had momentarily forgotten its third.
Will brought Sarah to another orgasm, and she pulled him up, kissing him deeply before guiding him into her. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he fucked her, their bodies slapping together in the quiet room. Brigid touched herself, wanting to be part of it, but she felt distant, an observer to a connection that seemed suddenly… intense in a way that excluded her. The soul-merge hummed, but its frequency felt strange, bearing a subtle, foreign dissonance.
They finished, a heap of limbs and slowing breath. Silence fell, broken only by the distant hum of London traffic. The expected glow of deep, trinitized connection was there, but it was murky, clouded by unspoken currents.
“Feel better?” Brigid asked softly, tracing a finger over Will’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” Will said, but the word was hollow. He kissed her temple, pushing down the sick feeling that he’d just been performing.
“Much,” Sarah whispered, cuddling into Will’s side, her anxiety momentarily soothed by contact, but already coiling again in the quiet.
Brigid nodded, the slight, inexplicable feeling of wrongness a cold seed in her gut. She wrote it off as exhaustion, as psychic backlash from the fight. She closed her eyes, listening to their breathing even out. The spells, woven deep into the subconscious layers where even a soul-bond didn’t shine its light, had taken root. They were fed by the very intimacy meant to drive them out.
In the adjacent room, Fatima lay awake, staring at the ceiling, Hank already snoring softly beside her. She hadn’t heard anything concerning from next door. Just the normal, muffled sounds of love. But a different chill had settled in her bones. The silver-haired fairy’s eyes, right before the skillet connected, weren’t just filled with hate.
They were filled with promise.
Across the hall, in the room Jan had booked for herself, a different kind of tension was unwinding. Cameron locked the door and turned, his blue eyes dark in the low light. Jan was already pulling her shirt over her head, freeing her short red hair. The adrenaline of the fight was transmuting, heat replacing cold fear in her veins.
“Need to burn that feeling off,” Jan said, her voice a husky scratch. “The one where his eyes crawled over my skin.”
“I know the feeling,” Cameron replied, shrugging off his own jacket. A bruise was blossoming on his ribs where he’d hit the wall. He didn’t mention it. He closed the distance, his hands finding the curve of her waist. His kiss wasn’t gentle; it was a claim, an affirmation of life against the memory of that silver gaze.
Jan met it with equal hunger, her teeth nipping at his lower lip. Her hands went to his belt, fumbling with the buckle. “Want you in me,” she muttered against his mouth. “Hard. Don’t be careful.”
He didn’t need telling twice. He pushed her back towards the bed, her knees hitting the edge. He yanked her jeans and underwear down in one rough motion, letting them pool at her ankles. She kicked them away, naked now, her skin pebbled in the cool room. He freed his cock, already thick and fully erect, the head flushed and wet. He didn’t bother with foreplay. He guided himself to her entrance, pressed the blunt tip against her, and pushed in with a single, deep thrust.
“Fuck, yes,” Jan gasped, her head falling back. She was wet, ready, her body welcoming the sudden, delicious stretch. He buried himself to the hilt, his pelvis grinding against her. He pulled out almost all the way, then slammed back in, setting a punishing rhythm from the first.
The bed frame knocked against the wall in a steady, thumping cadence. Jan wrapped her legs around his hips, heels digging into his ass, pulling him deeper with each drive. Her cunt clenched around him, hot and slick. “Just like that, Cam,” she panted. “God, your cock feels so good. Fill me up.”
He fucked her with the focused intensity of a soldier, each thrust a deliberate act of reclamation. His hands gripped her hips, holding her in place as he pounded into her. The sounds were obscene and glorious: the wet slap of skin, their ragged breaths, the creak of the old bed. Jan’s fingers clawed at his shoulders, her moans growing louder, unrestrained. “Right there, oh fuck, right on that spot,” she cried, her body tightening around him.
Cameron’s control was fraying. The sight of her beneath him, freckled skin flushed, breasts bouncing, her mouth open in a silent cry of pleasure, was too much. He felt his orgasm coiling at the base of his spine. “Jan, I’m gonna come,” he grunted, his rhythm becoming erratic.
“Do it,” she demanded, her own climax building, a tight coil about to snap. “Come inside me, fill my fucking pussy.”
Her words tipped him over. With a choked groan, he drove into her one last time, hilting himself as he pulsed deep inside her. The hot spill triggered her own release; her inner muscles clamped down on him in rhythmic waves, milking his cock as she shuddered through it. He collapsed on top of her, both of them slick with sweat, hearts hammering against each other.
They lay like that for a long moment, the frantic energy spent. Cameron eventually rolled off, pulling her against his side. Jan traced idle patterns on his chest, the silence comfortable. Then the air by the window shimmered, like heat rising from asphalt.
Lady Eleanor materialized, her Victorian gown a soft grey against the darker room. Usually, her appearance was preceded by a cheeky comment or a hum of bawdy curiosity. Now, she was silent, her form less solid, her eyes fixed on some distant point only she could see.
“Eleanor?” Jan said, propping herself up on an elbow. The ghost’s jolly demeanor was absent, her translucent face drawn. “What’s wrong?”
Eleanor’s gaze focused slowly, as if pulling herself from a deep well. “A feeling, my dear,” she said, her voice lacking its usual musical lilt. “One I haven’t experienced since my lungs last drew breath. A sort of… spiritual chill.”
Jan sat up fully, pulling the sheet around her. Cameron watched quietly, recognizing a shift to something more serious. “What kind of feeling?” Jan asked.
“Dread,” Eleanor stated simply. She drifted closer, her feet not touching the floor. “It’s absurd, of course. A phantom feeling for a phantom.”
Jan studied her. “I don’t know much about how you died, Eleanor. You always change the subject to the more… lively parts of your biography.”
A faint, sad smile touched Eleanor’s lips. “I was the third child, second daughter of a minor baron. A disappointment, really. More interested in poetry, riding astride, and… well, the company of exciting people than in securing an advantageous match.” Her form seemed to solidify with the memory. “I was what you might call a wild child. A libertine.”
She paused, her eyes growing distant again. “I fancied myself in love. With a slightly older man, a viscount named Peter Harrington. Charming, sophisticated. He appreciated my… appetites.” Her voice hardened. “He had other designs for me, it turned out. After a particularly pleasant night together, I awoke. Not in his bed. I was naked, strapped to a cold stone table. A masked man stood over me, chanting words that hurt my ears. I knew it was him. I could see his eyes above the mask.”
The room felt colder. Jan reached for Cameron’s hand.
“He plunged a knife into my chest,” Eleanor continued, her tone flat, matter-of-fact. “It wasn’t metal. It was made of darkness and bone. I didn’t feel the blade so much as I felt something tear loose from the very core of me. My vitality. My future. Then I was standing beside the table, looking down at my own body. I’ve been here ever since.”
She drifted to the window, looking out at the London night. “I drifted to the Dark Market. It suited me. So much interesting traffic. Eventually, I found the Chicago gate. Met interesting people. Like you.”
“What brought this on tonight?” Jan asked softly. “You usually prefer stories with happier endings. Or at least more inventive positions.”
Eleanor didn’t turn. “That feeling. The dread. It came over me in the London Market tonight. A dark presence in the air… it reminded me of him. Of Harrington. Which is impossible, of course. The last I heard, over a century ago, a coalition of London magical orders was hunting him through the sewers and alleys. He must be dead. Dust and bones.”
Jan exchanged a look with Cameron. The name ‘Harrington’ meant nothing to them, but the coincidence was a cold finger on the neck. “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself of that, Eleanor.”
The ghost finally turned from the window. Her expression was one of profound, ancient unease. “Aren’t I just?” she whispered, and then her form dissolved, leaving only the faint scent of rosewater and a lingering chill in the air.
Jan stared at the space where she’d been. The satisfaction from moments before was gone, replaced by a new, intricate fear. The silver fairy’s attack was a direct threat, a blade they could see. This was a shadow from a forgotten grave, whispering a name that made a centuries-old ghost tremble.
“Harrington,” Jan said aloud, testing the weight of it.
Cameron squeezed her hand. “A ghost’s memory. Could be nothing.”
“Yeah,” Jan said, not believing it. She looked toward the wall behind which her sister and friends slept, unaware of this new, old poison seeping into their world. “Could be.”