Dead and Gone

and step down rather than see you killed in a slow and painful way. He loooooves humans.”
    Two said, “He should have gone to the Summerland long ago. Consorting with humans will kill us off even faster than we are dying already. Breandan will seal us off. We’ll be safe. Niall is out of date.”
    Like he’d expired on the shelves or something.
    “Tell me you have a boss,” I said. “Tell me you’re not the brains of the operation.” I was sort of aware that I was seriously addled, probably as a result of the spell that had knocked me out, but knowing I wasn’t myself didn’t seem to stop me talking, which was a pity.
    “We owe allegiance to Breandan,” One said proudly, as if that would make everything clear to me.
    Instead of connecting their words with my great-grandfather’s archenemy, I pictured the Brandon I’d gone to high school with, who’d been a running back on the football team. He’d gone to Louisiana Tech and then into the air force. “He got out of the service?” I said.
    They stared at me with a total lack of comprehension. I couldn’t really fault them for that. “Service of whom?” asked Two.
    I was still blaming her for saying I was a skank, and I decided I wasn’t speaking to her. “So, what’s the program?” I asked One.
    “We wait to hear from Niall, who will respond to Breandan’s demands,” he said. “Breandan will seal us all in Faery, and we will never have to deal with your like again.”
    At the moment, that seemed like an excellent plan, and I was temporarily on Breandan’s side.
    “So Niall doesn’t want that to happen?” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
    “No, he wants to visit the likes of you. While Fintan hid the knowledge of you and your brother, Niall behaved himself, but when we removed Fintan—”
    “Bit by bit!” said Two, and laughed.
    “He was able to find enough information to track you down. And so did we. We found your brother’s house one day, and there was a gift outside in a truck. We decided to have some fun with it. We followed your scent to where you work, and we left your brother’s wife and the abomination outside for all to see. Now we’re going to have some fun with you. Breandan has said we can do with you what we will, short of death.”
    Maybe my slow wits were speeding up a little. I understood that they were enforcers for my great-grandfather’s enemy, and that they had killed my grandfather Fintan and crucified poor Crystal.
    “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” I said, quite desperately. “Hurt me, that is. Because after all, what if this Breandan doesn’t get what he wants? What if Niall wins?”
    “In the first place, that’s not likely,” Thing Two said. She smiled. “We plan to win, and we plan to have a lot of fun. Especially if Niall wants to see you; surely he’ll demand proof you’re alive before he surrenders. We have to leave you breathing . . . but the more terrible your plight, the faster the war will be over.” She had a mouthful of the longest, sharpest teeth I’d ever seen. Some of them were capped with gleaming silver points. It was a ghastly touch.
    At the sight of those teeth, those awful shining teeth, I threw off the remnants of the magic they’d laid on me, which was a great pity.
    I was completely and utterly lucid for the next hour, which was the longest of my life.
    I found it bewildering—and utterly shocking—that I could feel such pain and not die of it.
    I would have been glad to die.
    I know a lot about humans, since I see into their minds every day, but I didn’t know a lot about fairy culture. I had to believe Thing One and Thing Two were in a league of their own. I couldn’t imagine that my great-grandfather would have laughed when I began to bleed. And I had to hope that he wouldn’t enjoy cutting a human with a knife, either, as One and Two did.
    I’d read books where a person being tortured went “somewhere else” during the ordeal. I did my best to find somewhere else to go mentally, but I remained right there in the room. I focused on the strong faces of the farming family in the photograph, and I wished it wasn’t so dusty so I could see them clearly. I wished the picture was straight. I just knew that good family would have been horrifed at what they were witnessing now.
    At moments when the fairy duo wasn’t hurting me, it was very hard to believe I was awake and that this was really happening. I kept hoping I was suffering through a particularly