Just Believe Read Online Free PDF

A
twisting, mangled ripping mutilated him deep inside. He laughed at
himself as he recognized the signs of fairie sorrow. "Aye, boyo,
and you've got it pretty bad, ha' you not?"
    Aye, I do, he admitted to himself as he
struggled to his feet and headed down the long hallway between the
bedrooms at the end of the house, peeking around the doorways, not
making a sound, not even breathing. The last thing he needed was
for Mrs. Tinker to hear him. He didn't think he could face her
yet.
    But no danger was terrifying enough to
keep him from his love's side.
    "This one, I think," he whispered, his
voice inaudible even to his own ears. He eased around the doorframe
and adjusted to the darkness inside the room. "Erin."
    The gray outline of a bed faced
him.
    She isn't here. "Erin," he whispered
more loudly.
    There was no answer, no uneasy shifting
of a sleeping body on the bed.
    "Erin!" he said aloud. "Where are
you?"
    * * * *
    There you are, you little
punk!
    "Have you located him,
Gaelen?"
    Gaelen jerked his eyes from the
polished surface of the table to meet Eochy's.
    So, the old bantam was watching me.
Gaelen smiled, but didn't answer.
    Eochy studied him for a moment, then
bent his gray head over his papers.
    "All right, now that Phelan's nonsense
is over for another year, can we please move on to item three?" He
perched his specs on the edge of his nose and peered over them at
Gaelen. "This is the most egregious case of miscegenation we've
ever had to deal with."
    Gaelen hated that
word--miscegenation--and wondered how his people had chosen it to
describe relations between fairies and others. To him, it smacked
of evil hiding beneath white sheets, a word born of fear and
irrational hatred.
    "Lucas Riley has taken up with a
non-fairy woman," Eochy announced.
    There was no exhaled gasp of surprise.
This was really not a big deal.
    "So what, Eochy? Lots of us take up
with non-fairies," Gaelen put in.
    "Of course, but we're not talking about
pixies or sprites or the unfortunate attraction some of us have
for..." Eochy pulled off his specs and grimaced. "Trolls. I, for
one, could never understand that, but to each his own, I
say."
    "So, Lucas's own is a non-fairy,"
Gaelen repeated.
    "She is a human."
    The gasp of surprise finally rolled
over the assembly.
    "Human?" Gaelen sat forward and stared.
"I don't believe it. Lucas isn't stupid. He knows the
laws."
    "Know the laws he may, still, he is
consorting with a human and he has had relations with her. Not only
that, Gaelen, but he allowed her to see his true nature, and she's
going to spread the news around that college town like pixie dust
at Christmas." Eochy tossed a tabloid newspaper across the table.
It slid the last two feet and stopped right in front of
Gaelen.
    "Read that." Eochy leaned back in his
chair and laced his fingers over his belly. "That's the headline
that will appear once the reporters get wind of this."
    Gaelen lowered his eyes, his stomach
already churning. The words on the page jumped out at him, putting
his acid pump into overdrive.
    Co-ed's Sad Tale: My Boyfriend was
Abducted by Aliens!
    Gaelen swallowed a mouthful of sour
spit, then looked for the subheading.
    Ripped from His Lover's
Arms.
    He couldn't read any more.
    "How do you know this is about Lucas?
These tabloids make all this stuff up," Gaelen said.
    "Do they?" Eochy relaxed, absently
twirling the tip of his wing around his meaty fingers. "What about
the face on Mars? Hmmm? And I suppose they just made up the story
about Elvis Presley working at a gas station in Kalamazoo? No,
Gaelen, these guys are the most tenacious investigators on the
planet. I just thank the Lord there are aliens. Otherwise, we would
have already been found out and either disbelieved out of existence
or the Council of Elders in Ireland would have our heads mounted in
the empty places at Newgrange."
    "Come on, Eochy, they don't take heads
anymore." Even as Gaelen said it, his smile faded. The expressions
he saw on the faces around him