Chapter 8

While Torro escorted Tyler out of the room, faeries took turns tearing Tyler's clothes off of him. Gobo wrapped a long ragged sheet around Tyler's waist. The banshees passed out buckets. They're puttin' their hands in that. What are they goin' to do? They threw the meat at Tyler. The meat clung to Tyler's hair and body. This smells like rotten meat.

One being threw the meat hitting Tyler on the head. "You're no better than rotten brownie meat!"

Another creature threw a ball of meat that hit Tyler on the chest. "You think you can bring about the prophecy. You're nothing but a dumb human. You'll be punished tomorrow!"

Torro opened the door and pushed Tyler into the hall and escorted him to the dungeon. Torro shoved him causing him to hit his head on the wall, and Tyler fell to the floor.

The troll locked the cell door. "Seelie scum." He marched away.

A few minutes later, Avia floated to his cell.

"I hate seeing you like this. The prophecy must happen. I don't want to live in this darkness any more. I want to be able to kiss a man without killing him. When my people were sorans, we were able to do that. We had men in my race back then. They all died as a result of the Great Faerie War that Queen Mabon caused. She was angry that her mother banished Cydia from the Faerie Realm. I want to be under Queen Morganna's rule. I'll help you leave if you'll take me with you."

"How do I know I can trust you? Even if I did, there's no way out that I can see."

"You can trust me. I'll come back later."

An hour passed when Marta walked up to the cell. "Hello, my love."

"Hello, my love, nothin'. You're the one who betrayed me. Why?"

"Power, the taste of evil, I've always wanted to be part of the Unseelie Court. I've been loyal to Queen Mabon for quite sometime. I've been sick of Queen Morganna and her hypocries. No one knows her secret over at the Seelie Court but me." She grabbed the cell bars. "My race was born to be evil. We were going to be ruled by Cydia, but she was banished. I believe she was banished for something Queen Morganna had already done herself, but Cydia succeeded where she didn't."

"Power! Is that all you care about? Would you really trade someone's life for it? I don't believe Queen Morganna would do anything evil." Would she? Did she leave out things about her past that might have caused this that she didn't tell me about?

"Yes, to get what I want. I'm tired of working in a saloon being touched by faerie men that I don't want to be touched by! Queen Morganna's quite shady. Don't let her royal exterior fool you." Marta drifted away before Tyler could say another word.

Torro came back and grabbed Tyler cutting into his left arm. "Queen Mabon has decided the trial will be tonight."

He drug Tyler down the dark hallway outside to the palace square where a black platform was in the middle with two mahagoney thrones with cracked sapphires on them.

Faeries were on all sides of Tyler shouting, "Crucify the Seelie trash!"

Mabon and Dylan walked upon the platform from behind. Dylan sat on the left and Mabon on the right.

Mabon stood and raised her arms. "We must give Tyler Walsh a trial." She lowered her arms. "What do you know about the prophecy?"

"Nothin' much. Just that I'm one side of the coin."

"What do you know about Samdy?"

"He's just a little boy."

Mabon's angry eyes widened. "Wrong, he's the freak I gave birth to, and tomorrow will make eleven years ago." She turned to Dylan. "He's your son!"

"What? I'm the father of that weird kid. Why's he livin' with his grandmother instead of you?"

"He was non-magical, and I could smell the human scent on him. He didn't have an aura when he was born, so I had Soko to ditch him at the border. I was hoping that Soko would've thrown him so hard it would've cracked his skull, but my mother's unicorns found him." She sneered and turned back to Tyler. "Do you know why I despise my mother so?"

"No." Tyler shook his head.

"My mother kicked Cydia out of the Faerie Realm. We were very close." Mabon stood and paced around the platform. "Mother exiled her for falling in love with an ancient and powerful man named Lucifier. This made her angry for some reason. I could never put my finger on why. Mother just didn't approve and banished her to Lucifer's portal called Deacon, Mississippi."

Gobo shuffled through the crowd and up on the platform. "My Queen, I've found a portal to Deacon."

Queen Mabon turned to Dylan. "We can leave here and be more powerful than you can ever imagine!"

"Let's git on out of here. All we've got to do is git rid of Tyler." Dylan stood up and pointed. "What are those two varmits?"

Two, tall hairy trolls and Avia ran through the crowd. The creatures grabbed Tyler and Avia. The beings sprouted wings and flew away.

"While the creatures flew up in the air with them, Tyler shouted, "What's goin' on?"

"They came to rescue you. I saw them sneaking across the border and told them you were being put on trial tonight!"

"Be quiet, we're not out of the woods yet," growled the troll carrying Tyler.

"Wait until we reach the palace before you start celebrating," screeched the other beast.

It's takin' a long time to get to the castle. Sure hope these beings don't drop us.

They landed on the bridge in front of the palace. The two creatures changed before his eyes. Sendie and Dimenia stood before Tyler and Avia.

"Didn't know you two could change into other creatures," Tyler said.

"All water faeries can shape shift into anything they want," Sendie said.

"Her majesty's waiting for us. We must hurry." said Dimenia.

Tyler and the faeries ran up to the palace door. Sendie waved her hand twice over the door. He ran inside with them to the throne room and stared at the band of faeries waiting for him.

He glanced around the room. I've seen these creatures in the pictures in the hallway.

A woman with auburn hair and orange eyes walked up to him. That must be Cemilla.

She touched his cheek, "Son, I'm so happy to see you!"

He stepped back. "My ma died because of childbirth. You can't be her."

Tyler turned to walk away, and Charlo grabbed his hand. "The lass is right. She's ye mother, and me is ye father."

"How can that be? I knew my father, and he disappeared when I was eighteen. Just reckoned he got tired of workin' the ranch and dealin' with Dylan. Funniest thing was he just vanished in front of my brother, so he said." Tyler folded his arms and glanced away.

"We're transplanted faeries. When I died as a human, I was transported here. I was so weak, but her Majesty took care of me." Cemilla crept over to Tyler.

"Me took over this body when it was about to die. Me didn't remember anything about being a human until the queen revealed the prophecy." Charlo faced him.

"Are there any other transplanted faeries?"

"Marshal Hock's ye grandfather. He was me father on the Earth Realm. He was killed in the fire that burned the ranch in the summer of 1835, five years before ye were born."

"That's why some of you seemed familiar. This is startin' to make sense. Are any of the faeries in the other court my kin?"

"Yes, unfortunately. One of the three wise hags is your grandmother, and the other two are your great-aunts. Your uncle's the elf who's the bartender at the saloon and his stillborn daughter's the head banshee named Megone. They were all your father's family. I was an orphan and never knew my family." Cemilla held his hand.

"Why aren't the two of you together now?"

"We didn't know our Earthly identies until an hour ago. Besides, Charlo has his own family. In this world, you know not who you were in another life unless it's revealed to you."

"Ye need to talk to the queen. She'll brief ye on what she'll want ye to do."

Tyler glanced at the queen sitting on her throne. He walked over to her.

"Mr. Walsh, I'm very sorry for what you've gone through. I'm glad Sendie and Dimenia were able to rescue you. I see you made an ally while you were over there too. I want you to clean up and get plenty of sleep tonight because starting tomorrow there will be little of it for any of us. Some of us, including you and I, will go the Deacon tomorrow to fulfill the prophecy." She handed him a scroll. "I want you to read this before you go to sleep. It's the prophecy. You need to know what you're getting yourself into. Pegland will take you to your room now."

"Goodnight, your Majesty." Tyler bowed his head.

He walked to the door where Pegland waited for him. While Pegland flew, Tyler strolled down a long corridor where he gazed at more portraits.

"Here's your room. I've already drawn a bath for you and made clothes like the ones you were wearing, including the cute hat." Pegland snapped her fingers, and the door opened.

"Thanks, goodnight." Tyler smiled.

Pegland flew away, and he ambled into the room. He glanced down at the scroll and opened it. What in the world? This really is true. Wonder what Deacon is like? They make it sound like Hell.