The Darkling Lord: Court of the Banished book 1 (Annwyn Series 4) Read online

Perhaps he should have bought the theater, at least then there he could’ve arranged performances for free and given the mortals something. A thank you for letting him stay in their city and steal their souls one by one.

  He certainly wasn’t making any money.

  Why had he thought coming here would be a good idea? He’d arrived with grand ideas of setting up businesses and making money the way he had once before, of taking over and showing the humans how it was done. Plenty of fairies from Annwyn were in the mortal world helping. Well, their version of helping anyway. This place had a chance of reforming itself into something better. But it was too big, too sprawling and too corrupt.

  Throwing a few dollars at the people who begged for help wasn’t going to do much in the long run. Nor would assassinating the Mayor, even though he’d thought about it more than once. But then he’d have to kill off the police commissioner, the deputy mayor, and before he knew it the offices would be awash in blood. While he was sure his assassin and right hand man, Kaid, would enjoy the mess, Henry didn’t want a bloody coup.

  That wasn’t the fairy way—nor would it work. He wanted people to trust him. To lift him up and drag the corrupt officials down. A good game wasn’t always a fast game, but the results were always better. At the moment he was seen as an eccentric millionaire holed up in his closed casino. He wasn’t actually doing anything. Anything useful, anyway. Perhaps he didn’t have the stomach for hard work after all. With another year until he needed a soul, the guilt would fade and he’d be able to forget.

  A Grey about four feet tall and as thin as a twig joined him at the bar. Penn’s skin was an unhealthy pallor, as if he was terminally ill—which in a way he was since he was banished from Annwyn. A fairy cut off from the magic of Annwyn was as good as dead; it was just a question of how fast.

  “Enjoy your birthday?” Penn sat on a stool, his legs dangling. For a Grey he didn’t look too hideous. Some were the stuff of mortal nightmares.

  Henry rolled the dice. A silver one as expected, and a bone three. “Nope.”

  With his needs dealt with for another year, Henry could think clearly and make some plans. He needed a plan. He needed to do something. Either cut his loses or go all in.

  He took another sip of water, almost regretting the extra three whiskies. No, they were almost a tradition. Perhaps it had been the fourth one for good luck that had been his undoing. It was easy to blame the homebrew for the kicking in his head.

  He scooped up the dice and dropped them into his pocket. Tomorrow he’d pick two different dice to carry around. One never knew when they would come in handy.

  “Did you enjoy the twenties?” Penn said.

  Henry smiled. “Of course.” Prohibition had been fun and a major money spinner. It had taken him decades to get rich; the twenties and the stock market had helped considerably. He was no longer a London gutter brat.

  “Then why let a license stop you?”

  “Because no one has money to gamble.” He’d underestimated the situation. The whole world was shaking with the aftereffects of Annwyn’s war. Economies had crumbled. Cities had been decimated. Industries had collapsed. The one thing he did like was the push back to the old ways. Things he remembered from growing up. Cities had gone but communities were growing. But not here. He looked at Penn. “Even you lot don’t have money.”

  “We have fun. Every fairy likes a gamble.”

  Henry nodded. They also liked to count cards and rig the roulette wheel. If there was a way to tilt the odds, they found it. Amongst themselves, they made deals as though they were in Annwyn and jostling for status and power—not that he’d ever seen Annwyn, but he’d heard enough about it to know he never wanted to go there.

  A spark of an idea formed.

  New soul, new life, new ideas. “If I let humans in, the Greys can’t play.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Despite his withered looks, Penn was as sharp as any Court fairy and acted as Henry’s general liaison to the Greys haunting the casino.

  “Perhaps an open night. We hand out chips at the door so people can play for free and have fun, but at the end swap them for real money.” Money that had been taken from the people anyway by the corrupt officials. As the idea tumbled around his mind, he liked it more and more. It wasn’t a plan but it was something to do, and right now that was what he needed.

  “You have a job for us?” Excitement flickered on Penn’s face.

  Restoring a building was one thing, but making trouble for mortals was another. It seemed that Greys relished that more than their own lives. Every so often he’d devise a job for them, something that would mess with the mayor, or the cops or gangs. It all depended on who had pissed him off the most recently. Last time it had been the gangs.

  Today he was thinking of hitting the bank where the Mayor did business. Greys were also exceptionally good at spying and reporting back—mostly because humans couldn’t see them—and while he didn’t trust them, they had a working business relationship. They got his casino as their base and he got their services.

  “Yeah, I do. Let’s find Kaid and cut the Mayor where it hurts the most.”

  If nothing else, he’d get to make trouble for the person who kept trying to stick his hand in his pockets. Bribes weren’t how fairies operated. Deal and gambles, weighted dice if you were stupid enough not to check first, but it was all on the table. Perhaps it was time that the mayor learned a few fairy lessons.

  Chapter 3

  Darah fingered the edge of her shirt. While Felan had given her a role of the greenish mortal paper money to outfit herself more appropriately, she had simply taken what she’d wanted. Paying was what mortals did and she wasn’t mortal. And she hated dressing like one. However most exiled fairies tried to pass for mortal, and that meant wearing mortal clothes not just appearing to wear mortal clothes.

  The fabric was coarse, the styles lacking any hint of creativity—shops had multiple items that were all identical. As if the wearers were interchangeable.

  She wasn’t a Brownie—a fairy that kept house for a mortal—by any stretch, but she knew enough to make a few changes and make the clothes more her style. She’d embellished the jeans, as she’d seen the new Queen, Jacquie, do. Darah wasn’t sure if Felan’s choice of wife was a breath of fresh air or too much change too fast.

  Either way Jacquie had provided a few tips on surviving the mortal world.

  Darah checked her reflection in the cracked mirror again. She’d found an empty house and made it hers, but hopefully she wouldn’t be stuck there long. She didn’t let the pang of homesickness take hold. She had to focus on the job.

  Was the outfit too much or not enough?

  Too much would put the darkling on edge. Not enough would make her appear weak.

  Her husband, Shea, had thought her weak. She smiled. Did he realize with his last breath that she had betrayed him and the old queen? She hoped so. He’d turned out to be a lying oath breaker.

  There was nothing worse than a man who didn’t keep his word on either side of the veil. Given that the darkling was the child of a banished fairy, she expected to find plenty of evidence against him tonight. Game over.

  The jeans and shirt would do. She’d fit in with the other mortals attending the party at the casino.

  She ran her fingers through her hair, made sure that her expression wasn’t too haughty and then left the house. After a block she let the mortals see her, even though she was tempted to remain glamoured and out of sight. The confrontation with the men had left her on edge. It was unnerving that mortals could have that effect on her. She really didn’t know what her grandfather had seen in the mortal world, but then things had changed over the last three thousand years—things had changed in the five hundred she’d been alive.

  None of it for the better.

  The casino rose up like a blob of metal. Could the darkling have picked an uglier place to make his base?

  Probably not.

  She missed the castles of Europe. An
d the gowns. That had been more her scene, more like Annwyn. A tan dog walked down the center of the road, but paid her no heed. This casino open day was her best chance to get in and have a look around without being too obvious, although she had no doubts that every Grey in the building would know she was fairy.

  She walked along the cracked sidewalk, dodging the plants that were invading and refuse that had been dumped. Hopefully, to the Greys she’d looked like a fairy trying to be human. She was sure she didn’t have to fake looking lost. The mortal world was not her idea of fun, it never had been. It was unwelcoming, dirty and crass at its best.

  Before going in she smoothed her hair and fixed a smile—but not too broad. She didn’t want it to look as though she thought she owned the place, the way most Court fairies would. She still wanted to look uncertain. The apprehension in her stomach would serve her well. Getting used to showing what she was feeling, however, went against everything she’d ever done. Part of her wanted to pull up the mask of knowing superiority that she’d worn in Annwyn for centuries. But that wouldn’t help her here. This was a game with different rules than what she was used to playing.

  Why had she agreed to this job?

  She had never set out to be Felan’s spy. Informing him of his mother’s schemes had simply been a way to ensure her husband’s fall. Now this. Surely the King of Annwyn wasn’t threatened by a darkling? But too many Greys in one area always made Annwyn pay attention. Greys were trouble. That was why they’d been banished in the first place.

  She ran her hands over her shirt and approached the door. Two men were guarding it. She was ready to glamour them to be let in if necessary, but they handed her some brightly colored tokens called chips and let her in. No one had asked her name or what she wanted. It was almost too easy.

  Suspicion took the place of apprehension. Nothing was ever that easy. She cast her gaze around to get a quick take on the situation before walking in. The main floor was full of people. There was music going, the gambling tables were open and there wasn’t a fairy, banished or otherwise, in sight.

  Where were they? Did the darkling have them locked up?

  Darah walked through listening to the conversations. There was everything from suspicion to outright joy that Mr. Saint had opened up his casino for free.

  Wasn’t Mr. Saint delightful?

  But she didn’t buy the fairy philanthropist angle at all—even if he did call himself saint. No one did something nice just because they could. What was the catch? What game was he playing that these fools didn’t see? Humanity. They didn’t live long enough to learn from their mistakes, so every generation kept on repeating them, swearing they’d be different.

  Gradually she became aware of a man in a suit watching her. No, make that two, and they weren’t human, of that she was sure. Was one of those men Mr. Saint the darkling? Any self-respecting fairy would be at the tables tricking mortals or stealing their coins at the very least.

  Yet no one was.

  Her hands were practically itching to do something. After a year and a day as a shadow, she was probably out of practice. She walked toward a table, and from the corner of her eyes saw one of the men move toward her. Her heart kicked in warning, but this is what she was here for.

  “If you want to play at the tables, Lady, you will need to get some chips.” He inclined his head a fraction, as if acknowledging that she was a Court fairy. Not good.

  “I have some chips.” Darah went to pull some out of her pocket, but the man hooked his arm through hers and drew her away. He wasn’t a darkling. She didn’t know what he was, only that he smelled like the ocean and his eyes were dark brown the way no fairy’s ever would be. And yet he was definitely not human. “And you are?”

  Touching me when you have no right. She tried to pull her arm free, and when that failed, attempted a gentle glamour to get him to release her. It rolled off him like water. By the river what was he?

  “Not letting go if you keep doing that. My master doesn’t want trouble from your kind.”

  “My kind?” They had a casino full of Greys and humans and they thought she was going to be trouble? He was going to toss her out? She hadn’t even had a proper look around yet, much less established who the darkling was. At the moment all she had was half a name.

  “Court.” He said the word with a sneer.

  She was going to argue, then decided keeping her mouth closed might serve her better. When it became clear he wasn’t going to throw her out, she slowed her steps. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To see my master.” He led her deeper into the casino.

  “Master?” Did the darkling have servants the way a Lord did? She wasn’t sure if she should be impressed or concerned that he was giving himself such status.

  The man refused to be drawn into any further conversation until they reached the stairs where the other man who’d been watching her now stood. He wasn’t fairy, but he had that look about him up close. The edge in his pale blue eyes and the tilt of his head said he expected to be obeyed. He also had a soul…and yet something wasn’t right about him. Nothing she could pinpoint immediately. If she hadn’t known she was looking for a darkling, she might’ve passed him off as an odd changeling.

  “Thank you, Kaid.”

  The man who had escorted her here gave a little nod and moved away, back to monitoring the floor. Which left her with the man she was supposed to be spying on.

  “Henry Saint.” He offered his hand. What was she supposed to do with it? Kiss it? Wasn’t that his role? He looked at her, obviously expecting to learn her name. He could have part of it. But not all of it. In Annwyn names had power and no darkling was going to get anything from her for free.

  “Darah.” She extended her hand and he clasped it and shook it. His skin was warmer than she’d expected for a darkling, cool but not icy. His dark brown hair caught the light and shone with gold. He didn’t look like a creature that should be hiding in the shadows.

  “Darah who? I know you Court fairies love your names and lineage.” He hadn’t released her hand yet. His grip was firm and yet not threatening, not yet anyway. He wasn’t at all like a Grey. She’d expected a darkling to be more withered, older, frailer. Less fairy looking and less vital.

  She hesitated, but what would he do with her name here? Not a lot. If she refused, he would be wary. She swallowed down a little of her courtly pride and remembered she was playing the role of an exile. “Darah merch Hathor. Recently removed from Court.”

  He looked at her as if he was searching for the lie. Fairies didn’t lie—and those that did soon regretted it. They bent the truth, left out pieces, but never told an outright lie—where was the skill in that? She had been recently removed from Court, to come here and spy on him.

  “Daughter of a goddess? Oh, that’s rich, even for you lot.” He laughed, but it didn’t seem joyful. It was more like the fake laughs she was used to hearing at Court and around Eyra, the old Queen. But where once her blood had boiled at the mention of the old queen’s name, now there was little more than an unpleasant taste at the back of her throat. Eyra and Shea deserved each other.

  “My mother was named after the goddess as my grandfather loved all things Egyptian.” From what her mother had said, he’d spent a lot of time there playing god or traveler, depending on where the wind took him. He had been a true fairy drifter, making a life in the mortal world without thinking too far ahead. Her mother had tried to re-establish the family at Court and Darah had continued her mother’s work.

  “That is where you get your looks from. Quite the Cleopatra.”

  Darah forced a smile. She didn’t like being compared to humans even if they had been queens. “Cleo had nothing on fairies.”

  “That was a compliment.” He released her hand, his gaze breaking away from hers as he scanned the floor. “So why are you here, Lady Darah, recently removed from Court?”

  “I heard about the party and wanted to see for myself.” Also true, though not the whole tru
th. She had heard whispers from other fairies about the darkling of Detroit as she’d travelled. He may not know it, but word was spreading.

  “And what do you think?” This time he offered a hint of a real smile. The corner of his mouth turned up as though he were quite proud of his achievement.

  Darah allowed herself a moment to peruse the casino floor and watch the gambling and feasting mortals before turning back to him. “I wonder what you hope to gain.”

  His lips curved in a wicked smile that on a fairy would have made lust tumble through her body. However he wasn’t fairy and she wasn’t here to play.

  “Information.”

  Chapter 4

  So far his idea was working perfectly. The acquiring of the contents of the armored truck had gone beautifully. The cops were blaming the gangs, the gangs were accusing the cops of being corrupt, and he was sitting back and watching them attack each other. Meanwhile, none of the mayor’s ill-gotten gains had been banked. Henry’s Greys had spent days playing with the coins and notes, stacking them up and knocking them down. Reliving the prank again and again. He tried to imagine that behavior happening at Court and failed.

  From all accounts, life in Annwyn was very rigid and often cruel. When he looked at Darah, he saw the cool reserve that Court fairies were best known for. No emotion crossed their faces unless they wanted you to see something.

  Her pale turquoise eyes watched him for a moment before she looked away, as if mentally dismissing him. Her mouth was set in what must pass for a smile across the veil. She was as brittle and beautiful as she was intriguing.

  She was also hiding something, but right now he didn’t care.

  He had spies all over the room listening to the whispers. He wanted to know what the people wanted. Unlike most fairies, he could appreciate humans in all their fragile mortal glory. He got a taste of it once a year and that was enough for him. Imagine living with that all the time, knowing that there was no way to eke out another year of life from a dying body.