Chapter 2
A sneak peek of the first two chapters of Cursed Fae!
Over the years, I’ve fed so much of my power into the tunnels they feel alive to my senses—imprinted with my magic. That’s the only reason I can get inside while I’m depleted. The stone magic recognises me and lets me in.
I’m gently lowered, and as my feet touch the ground, a familiar cloying, musty, salty scent fills my nose and hits the back of my throat. It is eerily quiet, and the distant echoes of laughter and music from the pier above create a unique ambience.
Home.
The tunnel is pitch-black. It’s so dark here that I can’t see my hand before my face. I’m unconcerned. Groaning, I drop the hold I have on invisibility magic, and the sudden lack of its metaphysical weight makes me feel instantly lighter. Like I’m floating.
Oh heck, that’s not a good sign.
I’ve never strained my power so hard before. With a hiss and a tug, my broken wrist comes out from underneath my tunic. Being careful not to jar it—the movement still knocks me sick—I wiggle the heavy bag off my shoulders. It slips down my good arm and thuds to my feet.
“Okay. First, I need to fix the light situation.”
This entire section of the tunnel has carefully hidden fae lanterns, but the lights need a spark of power to ignite, and I’m tapped. I’m completely tapped out. If I use more magic right now, the mere attempt will lay me flat out.
With purpose, I hobble into the darkness, and after two wobbly steps, the toes of my boots knock against the wall and my questing fingers find the big battery-powered torch I have tucked behind the concrete pillar for emergencies. I heft it down. The metal is cold and gritty in my palm.
I run my thumb across the barrel, hit the switch, and the solid Maglite turns on.
The warm beam of light dances across the tunnel, highlighting the shoulder-height blue tiles with the grotty white walls above with its mouldy blown plaster and the cracked and peeling paint as it curls in rotten powdery strips from the ceiling.
I breathe a tiny sigh of relief; the tunnel is exactly how I left it.
Bracing my broken wrist high against my chest and leaving the mystery bag where it has landed, I shuffle towards the toilets. There’s a witch-made healing spell squirrelled away in there, and I seriously need to get cleaned up—I stink.
The entrance to the ladies’ toilets doesn’t have a door but a sliding security grill.
The rusty metal shutter is wedged open, and the gap is just enough for my scrawny self to slip past. I sidestep to avoid the random orange traffic cone.
Why a traffic cone has been left down here is anyone’s guess.
I’m a tad superstitious—keeping everything the same ensures I don’t advertise my presence, not that anyone is rushing to come down here.
But I’ve altered nothing, and the familiarity settles something inside me.
It’s safe. It screams of safety. The grill rattles as I squeeze inside.
I move past the glass and rotting wood bathroom attendant’s office, the old, damaged turnstile—back in the day, to use the toilets was five pence—and past a set of rusty weighing scales with a peeling handwritten sign, its yellow crumbling tape saying Do Not Jump On The Scales.
The bathroom has atrocious bubblegum-pink floor-to-ceiling tiles over a dozen stalls, worn with use and time.
Interestingly, in the men’s toilets next door, the tiles are pee yellow.
The second toilet from the end is mine. The door is solid wood, and I’ve intentionally left the exterior filthy.
The floor in front has a nasty brown stain, but inside, the entire toilet cubical is sparkling clean.
It’s the same with the sinks. The one clean sink I use is tucked away from sight, next to a dysfunctional paper towel dispenser. The counter is also wider. Perhaps it was used to double as a baby-changing area.
I shuffle over and place the torch down, angling it up so it doesn’t blind me. The light falls, highlighting the side of my face, and what stares back at me in the old mirror isn’t pretty.
The light makes my bruised, bleeding skin garish, and I look way worse than I’d imagined. It’s a shock. I drop my eyes to avoid my reflection.
I’ve never been beaten before. No one has ever laid an angry hand on me, and I’ve never dealt with such physical pain. In Faerie, occasionally I’d been bitten by a rogue plant or animal, fallen over and scraped my knees, but nothing like this.
The elves made me feel…
I take a deep breath, push the thoughts away, and slide the hidden bag from underneath the sink. Inside is a spare set of clothes, a clean cloth, a towel, a washbag, and the almost-empty first aid kit. I plop everything onto the counter and get to work.
As I undo the single button on the tunic, I find a tangle of long, pale blond hairs. A scream bubbles up my throat with the urge to cry and freak out as if I’ve seen a poisonous spider and have a phobia. I swallow the noise so it’s just a whimper.
The elf’s hair must have got tangled up when he was hurting me. The skin on my fingers feels itchy, and I ignore the urge to fling the hair away. I want to be sick, but I carefully unwind the hairs from the button’s thread.
In my washbag, I have a few reusable small plastic bags.
With a grimace that makes my lip throb, I grab one, slide the hair inside, seal it, and then shove it into my washbag out of sight.
That’s better. I undo the button, lift the bottom of the tunic, and quickly find I’m not only hampered by having one working arm but also by my sweaty, blood-coated skin that wants nothing more than to hold on to the fabric.
The tunic sticks to me. It takes energy I haven’t got and a lot of grunting and grumbling to prise the bloody thing over my head.
I drop the disgusting top to the floor, nudging it aside with my foot to throw away later. I then shuck my pants and boots off.
The sticky warmth of blood makes me glance down. Getting the tunic off has re-opened a nasty gash across my ribs. I whimper as more than a trickle runs across my hip. I ignore it for now, wash my hands, then dampen the cloth—for the hundredth time feeling grateful the water here still runs.
They had turned the main’s water off, but the stop valve on the promenade was easy enough to find. I’m still thanking the lazy contractor a few times a week.
Groaning and gritting my teeth, I slowly and methodically clean all the cuts and scrapes across my body. I rinse the cloth, and light blue blood swirls down the drain. I repeat and rinse until I’m clean or as clean as I can get with a stand-up wash.
Hand trembling, I grab the Heal Me potion from the first aid box.
I only have the one. The spell should be a vibrant silver, but it’s a little dull in the torch light.
The liquid glops against the glass as I prise off the lid, then dab and drip the potion sparingly onto the various wounds.
It stings and tingles, then itches as multiple layers of my skin respond, stitching themselves back together—accelerated healing at its best.
At least now I shouldn’t get an infection.
I glance down at my sore wrist. Ah, now that’s another story. Despite all the swelling, I can see the bone has shifted to the right. Even with a top-notch potion, I’d be a fool to think I could fix it.
The only way for it to heal is to have an excellent rune or realign the bones and manipulate them back into position, and I’d need to do that before I could use a potion. I feel sick with the thought there’s no way I can do it myself.
No, I need a medical rune or professional help, and if I don’t get help, what’s the likelihood that I’d lose the use of the arm or the bloody thing falls off? I sigh, and with my other hand rub my face, catching sight of the unsightly mark on the underside of my forearm. I glare down at it.
It’s a rune.
The elves tagged me like a dog.
The magic in the rune is set to track me and relay my status to the realms. It’s a slave rune.
Acknowledging that fact makes my heart flip, and a whine of fear leaves my sore throat.
The only bit of luck is that it hasn’t been activated yet.
It’s not linked to anyone, which I’m glad about.
If they’d known I had strong magic, I’d have been in way more trouble.
As it is, this rune does nothing but look ugly. I need to get it off my skin.
I stand naked, racking my mind for a solution to all my problems, but my thoughts are dull, as if my brain is underwater.
“What am I doing? These are things to deal with when I’ve rested and I’m not swaying like a zombie on my feet.
” Goosebumps pepper my skin. I’m ice-cold and shivering.
Yeah, no wonder I can’t think. I glare at the clean clothes.
Now comes the arduous task of getting dressed.
It’s slow going.
Once dressed, out of habit, I put everything away, shoving the towel and the cloth into a washbag to be cleaned later. I slide my feet back into my boots that, unlaced, flop as I shuffle across the tiled floor.
I need to be careful I don’t trip. My naff ankle is feeling better, and not lacing them will tempt fate. But I’m doomed if I do much of anything else. The black spots dancing across my vision hint that I’m close to passing out.
Squeezing through the grill door, I half clomp and shuffle towards where I discarded the bag. I click off the torch and put the Maglite back. Then, once again, pitch-black darkness surrounds me. Blind, I grab the bag, take a big step to the right, and walk through the wall.
A light-filled curved brick tunnel is on the other side. It is beautifully designed, built in the days when creatures had genuine pride in their work: all brick, no iron or steel rods. The air here is different. It’s clean, dry, and warm.
The tunnel continues until a junction meets it roughly at a 45-degree angle and then proceeds to dissect it and continue its journey as it sharply branches to the right.
The angle provides some stunning brickwork, with each brick seamlessly joining the two tunnels made especially for its place.
The alcove to the left is where the light comes from.
I shuffle, dragging the heavy bag behind me like a champ.
If I stopped to think about it, I’d leave the damn bag behind.
It’s not like it’s going anywhere. But I’m in zombie mode now and just going through the motions.
Exhaustion pounds in my mind, and I’ll be sure to lament my stupidity when I’ve slept.
I reach the branch in the tunnel, turn left, and step into the light-filled dead end. Home sweet home.
The tunnel’s alcove is roughly twelve feet long and eight feet wide.
Within the arched brick ceiling, six milky white glass blocks link to the pavement outside, letting the natural light in during the day, and a handy lamppost over them gives all-around light at night. The milky light makes the tunnel cosy.
Businesses line this side of the road, and I can pick up the Wi-Fi for free as it’s been years since they changed their passwords—not that I have a datapad or a phone to use thanks to the bloody elves.
Home. This has been my secret space for years, and yes, it’s a cliché for a troll to live in a tunnel underneath a road. Tunnel, bridge. Whatever. I’ve heard all the jokes.
This place fits me just fine, and finding somewhere to live would be a nightmare as I haven’t got permission to visit, let alone stay in, this realm.
I prop the bag next to the wall of shelves, toe off my boots, and then flop onto my stainless-steel framed canvas bed.
My energy levels have hit an invisible wall, and the fatigue has me shivering.
I have enough strength to prop up my broken arm with a pillow, cover myself with a shabby blanket, and I’m out like a light.