“My name is Seana.” She gestured to the others in turn. “The young lady is Mairi, and the gentleman over there is Kaine.”
I digested those names for a moment. Weird ones, to be sure, but it was a weird situation all around so they almost seemed fitting. I might have been more surprised to find a Bob, Carol and Suzy waiting around for me to wake up, like we were old friends. Seana had fallen silent and I realized that all three of them were staring at me again, as if I were expected to do some sort of trick. I cleared my throat. “Well, that’s great. Nice to meet you all. I’m Catlin, but I have the feeling one of you took a look in my wallet—which better still have the last three dollars I have to my name in it—and you already knew that.”
“Yes, ah, we did.” Seana’s cheeks colored a bit. She was one of those women who could blush prettily. “We crossed paths with you outside of the bar. After Kaine scared off the troll, we tried to rouse you but you were unconscious from the spill you had taken. When the taxi arrived, we thought it best not to send you off alone in such a state.”
“That’s nice of you.” That right there put a big hole in my hallucination theory. If they had seen the… “Wait, did you say the troll ?”
Seana didn’t so much as blink. “Yes.”
My stare had to have accused her of having three heads, but she didn’t look the least bit ruffled. I, on the other hand, had begun to regret not making a beeline for the phone straight off. “Okay,” I said slowly, drawing out the word. “You mean ‘troll’ as in the whiny Internet variety, right?”
“I’m sorry?” Her brow furrowed in a delicately befuddled sort of way. “I’m afraid I do not understand.”
“I guess not then.” I wondered what word was tripping her up. I had the sinking feeling that this gentle, motherly looking woman had no inkling of current slang. Hell, she might not even be aware of the existence of the Internet. “You said that freak who attacked me was a troll.”
Seana nodded. Both of her companions were watching me with matching deadpan stares. If this was a joke of some sort, they were playing along remarkably well. Somehow, I didn’t think they were acting. “And by that you mean an actual ‘lives under a bridge, threatening to eat poor little billy goats’ kind of troll?”
Her smile was the sad sort usually reserved for mental patients, making me feel like the crazy one for having to clarify what kind of troll she was talking about in the first place. She patted my hand where it rested on the back of the couch. “As you have seen from the one that crossed your path, trolls are a nasty sort, though they do not commonly stray from their colonies. Their rarity in these lands is a boon, seeing how easily they are given to violence. They often seek out… larger prey than the livestock featured in the myths your people tell.”
“My people.” She nodded again when I paused, as if in encouragement. My knees were starting to feel a bit weak and I wondered if I should have taken my head wound—missing state notwithstanding—a bit more seriously. “And that would make you…?”
“We are Aos Sí, the descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann.” It was the young woman who spoke; the pale waif Seana had called Mairi. She sat statue still in the exact center of my recliner, perched on the very edge of its seat with her hands folded in her lap. Teenage looks aside, when she met my stare it was with unwavering sureness. There was something frighteningly old about the eyes that gazed back at me. As I stared her down, her eyes seemed to change colors, flashing from hazel to a shimmering yellow. A chill ran down my spine.
Not wanting to stand there with my mouth hanging open like a complete tool, I managed, “That’s, uh, Irish right?”
“Yes, of a fashion. Mairi speaks the truth. We are the descendants of an ancient race who once lived side by side with the ancestors of humanity,
I digested those names for a moment. Weird ones, to be sure, but it was a weird situation all around so they almost seemed fitting. I might have been more surprised to find a Bob, Carol and Suzy waiting around for me to wake up, like we were old friends. Seana had fallen silent and I realized that all three of them were staring at me again, as if I were expected to do some sort of trick. I cleared my throat. “Well, that’s great. Nice to meet you all. I’m Catlin, but I have the feeling one of you took a look in my wallet—which better still have the last three dollars I have to my name in it—and you already knew that.”
“Yes, ah, we did.” Seana’s cheeks colored a bit. She was one of those women who could blush prettily. “We crossed paths with you outside of the bar. After Kaine scared off the troll, we tried to rouse you but you were unconscious from the spill you had taken. When the taxi arrived, we thought it best not to send you off alone in such a state.”
“That’s nice of you.” That right there put a big hole in my hallucination theory. If they had seen the… “Wait, did you say the troll ?”
Seana didn’t so much as blink. “Yes.”
My stare had to have accused her of having three heads, but she didn’t look the least bit ruffled. I, on the other hand, had begun to regret not making a beeline for the phone straight off. “Okay,” I said slowly, drawing out the word. “You mean ‘troll’ as in the whiny Internet variety, right?”
“I’m sorry?” Her brow furrowed in a delicately befuddled sort of way. “I’m afraid I do not understand.”
“I guess not then.” I wondered what word was tripping her up. I had the sinking feeling that this gentle, motherly looking woman had no inkling of current slang. Hell, she might not even be aware of the existence of the Internet. “You said that freak who attacked me was a troll.”
Seana nodded. Both of her companions were watching me with matching deadpan stares. If this was a joke of some sort, they were playing along remarkably well. Somehow, I didn’t think they were acting. “And by that you mean an actual ‘lives under a bridge, threatening to eat poor little billy goats’ kind of troll?”
Her smile was the sad sort usually reserved for mental patients, making me feel like the crazy one for having to clarify what kind of troll she was talking about in the first place. She patted my hand where it rested on the back of the couch. “As you have seen from the one that crossed your path, trolls are a nasty sort, though they do not commonly stray from their colonies. Their rarity in these lands is a boon, seeing how easily they are given to violence. They often seek out… larger prey than the livestock featured in the myths your people tell.”
“My people.” She nodded again when I paused, as if in encouragement. My knees were starting to feel a bit weak and I wondered if I should have taken my head wound—missing state notwithstanding—a bit more seriously. “And that would make you…?”
“We are Aos Sí, the descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann.” It was the young woman who spoke; the pale waif Seana had called Mairi. She sat statue still in the exact center of my recliner, perched on the very edge of its seat with her hands folded in her lap. Teenage looks aside, when she met my stare it was with unwavering sureness. There was something frighteningly old about the eyes that gazed back at me. As I stared her down, her eyes seemed to change colors, flashing from hazel to a shimmering yellow. A chill ran down my spine.
Not wanting to stand there with my mouth hanging open like a complete tool, I managed, “That’s, uh, Irish right?”
“Yes, of a fashion. Mairi speaks the truth. We are the descendants of an ancient race who once lived side by side with the ancestors of humanity,
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