Faerie Analyst pt 3

Sore and aching, Katrina limped her way down the hallway, still following the stout little woman who had been sent to collect her. Tiny rivulets of blood were slowly seeping through her clothes and her feet were swelling before her eyes. Katrina looked back once and was not surprised to see that her feet had started to bleed very slightly. Katrina was exhausted from the pain and irate. How dare they, she thought. Purposefully ignoring that she still did not know who "they" were, much less where she was. Katrina's guide finally stopped just outside a grand entryway. The gold gilded door frame rose in a Gothic manner to come to a stylish point above the doors. While the floor was marble, the doors themselves appeared to be oak, heavy and secure, with carved figures and designs. Katrina did not have the luxury of studying the doors as they almost immediately opened and she was pushed inside.

Katrina stumbled, arms windmilling slightly to help her keep her balance. "So," she heard. "What are ye going to do to fix my wee problem?" Katrina regained her balance and looked up, glaring, at the man she had encountered on the street on her way to work. He was sitting in a beautifully carved wooden chair, which was placed on a dais. From where Katrina stood, he closely resembled a king.

"Firstly," Katrina stated, "Who are you?"

The man smiled thinly, the general lack of emotion accompanying the smile more chilling than a threat. "I am the owner of Everlasting Emporium."

"And?" Katrina asked.

"And? And!" The man said, "Ye just put thousands of my people out of business. We rely on good standing with the community to peddle our products."

Katrina waved her hand, dismissing the man's statements before they had fully registered with her. "The company had no viable income. I did as I was instructed. We have strict rules about what we are allowed to accept and what we are not allowed to accept. I can appeal to my manager to review the application but really, I don't see how your company will be processed."

The man's face flushed and angry red. He clutched the arms of the chair and glowered at her. "I have product," he said. "What I donna have is a positive image with the community."

Katrina sighed. "Not my problem," she said. "You should have thought of that before creating your business. And who are you anyway? You simply abducted me from the street, tortured me, and are what? threatening me to ensure that I will return to my job and do as you ask?"

The man leaned back. "Of course," he said. "My kind deal as little as possible with your kind and I thought that from being treated to some of the pleasures that await my employees when the company has been dissolved, you would be more inclined to reverse your decision."

"It doesn't work that way," Katrina said. "And you still haven't answered any of my questions."

"My name is Cabhan."

"Just Cabhan?" Katrina asked.

"I've never needed a surname before," Cabhan stated. "You lot have never taken the time to get to know me or my kind in any capacity."

"What is it with 'my kind' and 'your kind'," asked Katrina in an exhasperated manner. "Irish? Because..."

"Not Irish," Cabhan interrupted, angry again, his face turning red. "Leprecan."

"What?"

"Of course you dinna ken that you were working for the fey folk," Cabhan stated. "But surely you suspected something. My people aren't known for their subtly."

"But I didn't know," Katrina said. And with that a rush of memories swept over her. The folk tales she loved reading, the other fantasy books about the fey, faries, and faeries. The light and dark. The depravity of both. And the knowledge that now that she had been made aware of their existence, there was very little chance that they would allow her to return to her old life.

"Ach," said Cabhan either not recognizing or not caring the turmoil that Katrina was experiencing. "Ye ken now. And ye will fix this issue for me."

Said as a statement and not a question, Katrina could only imagine what would happen if she did not, or could not, comply.

Faerie Analyst pt 2

When Katrina regained consciousness, she was laying in a rather odd position on what felt like sand. Katrina groaned and moved her hand to rub the back of her head. She immediately became aware that the odd bed she was lying on was made of millions of sharp needle like thorns. If she moved at all, she would have hundreds of new thorny friends in her skin. Katrina froze and then very carefully tried to move back into a more comfortable position. Katrina laid that way for what seemed like hours. Katrina replayed the interaction with the neon man in her head, trying to look for a clue as to who he was. Katrina was also making a conscious effort to not panic. Katrina consciously slowed her breathing and counted when the wave of anxiety threaten to swamp her ability to think. Katrina resorted to using cold, hard logic to push the intense emotions away and help her focus on where she was and how to escape. Katrina had not made any progress when a small potbellied woman trundled into the room.

"Oh," the woman said, sounding disappointed. "You're awake already."

Katrina took a very careful breath and whispered, "Yes."

"Well you can stop lying there for starters," the woman said. "I may be a brownie but you are not even a guest of the house so you can forget about me waiting on you hand and foot."

Katrina took another careful breath, "Needles?" she asked.

"Oh do you like them?" the woman's face brighten momentarily. "It's a design I made myself. Each thorn was specially picked and colored. And the bed is amazingly comfortable, as long as you don't move."

"Yes," Katrina said carefully. "I discovered that."

The woman stood, arms folded across her chest, as if waiting. "Well?" she said finally. "I don't have all day."

Katrina's eyes opened wide, the only physical reaction to the panic that was bubbling just below the surface she allowed herself. "You expect me to climb out?" she asked.

"Well of course," the woman said. "I don't have all day and the Master is eager to see you. Takes a chunk of time out of my day just standing here babysitting you when I could be attending to my other duties."

"Is there some trick to climbing out without getting stabbed?" Katrina asked.

"No."

Katrina took a shallow breath, preparing herself. She carefully raised the arm that she had moved before, immediately feeling the tiny torn's digging into her skin, and stretched out toward what she assumed was the frame of the bed.

"I wouldn't touch that for too long," the woman said as she watched Katrina's progress. "It's hot."

As Katrina's hand got closer, she could feel the heat radiating off the long solid beam. There was not going to be a way to get out that didn't hurt. Katrina instead decided to try to stand and jump out, at least that would put the majority of the spikes in one place instead of having the torture spread evenly throughout her body. Katrina gingerly balanced on her hands and feet and then stood. Taking a deep breath she jumped and landed on the red hot frame. Katrina screamed, lost her balance, and tumbled to the floor, hitting her head. Katrina could taste blood and reaching up felt a new bump and wetness which she assumed was blood. Katrina groaned.

The woman sighed. "No time for resting," she said. "If you didn't try to avoid the pain, it would have been over a lot sooner. The woman grasped Katrina's arm and Katrina gasped as she felt some of the hitchhiker thorns digging deeper into her flesh. The woman yanked Katrina to her feet. Katrina wobbled uncertainly, her vision going dark as her blood pressure tried to decide between her head and her feet. The woman tsked and shoved Katrina out the doorway.

Faerie Analyst

There was a time in Katrina's life when things were predictable. She knew where she was going to wake up and what she was going do to on any particularly given day. She knew the people around her and she absolutely knew that magic did not exist. Unfortunately, that was a very long time ago.

Katrina didn't exactly love her job but it paid the bills and it wasn't sucking the joy out of her life like some of the more unfortunate friends she knew. Katrina worked for the Center of Holistic Life and Being company. Which was a fancy way to say that they specialized in organization and management. Katrina's job did not consist of the more predigest aspect of firing people, she was just an analyst. Katrina would review potential clients, some who had invited the company and some who had not; and based on the probability of profit, she would send that information to the call center. The call center would contact the companies and would set up a time for the efficiency experts to visit the companies personally. Katrina never questioned her job until she saw something rather odd come across her desk. The company in question was Everlasting Emporium but as far as Katrina could tell, did not buy or sell any actual products. Katrina looked a bit deeper and found that the company had upward of 1000 employees with no observable methods of income. Katrina sent the information to the fraud department and put it out of her mind.

A few weeks later, while she was rushing to the office, lamenting over the fact that getting to work late was becoming a habit; she was stopped by the oddest looking man, causing her to stop short, and spilling her coffee all over her ivory top. Katrina stopped to glare at the man and gasped involuntarily at what she saw. He was a half a head shorter than Katrina and had on the most awful looking neon tweed suit, with a collection of colors ranging from pink to green to purple. Katrina, still shuttering from the affects of the tweed on her sensibilities, tried to move around the man but he stepped in her way again.

"Excuse me," Katrina tried. The man frowned.

"Ye were the reason why my loan was not accepted," he said with a think Irish accent, frowning up at her with lowered brows.

"I'm sorry?" Katrina said, "Mister..."

"It's not right," the man continued, ignoring Katrina's prompt. "Ye should be more careful. I have thousands of worker's depending on me. Ye canna just make decisions without thinking of those affected."

"I apologize," Katrina said, now trying to inch around the strange person. "But I really don't know what you're talking about."

"Ye will," the man said threateningly.

Katrina abandoned all pretense of civility and turned her back on the man. The last thing she remembered was a heavy hand on her shoulder and a cool icy fear racing through her veins.