“Four,” I corrected, motioning to the eldest of the children huddled behind me. Her name was Sara Brady, she’d told me grudgingly, and she was eleven years old. Her brother, Thomas, was seven, the girl holding his hand was five, and the baby a mere ten months.
As I reached behind Sara to unfasten the satchel that held her sleeping sister, she tensed, rising to the balls of her feet, and knocked my arm away, thin shoulders trembling. Poised to run, her eyes darted nervously as she considered her odds: the chilly, dangerous night or the warm, inviting light.
“You agreed to come here with me,” I reminded. “You’ll be safe and well cared for.”
“How long have they been on their own?” Rainey asked quietly.
“Nearly two months. Like most, they’ve no idea what happened to their parents.”
“I do. The Faerie took them,” the boy blurted. “I saw it, I did, with my own—”
Sara’s mouth thinned to a line as she kicked him sharply in the shins. “Hush Thomas, you’re not to be speaking of that!”
The boy began to cry, tears trickling down grimy cheeks. He rubbed his eyes with his fists then shook one at her. “But it’s true! I saw it! It was one of the Faerie! You know it’s true, Sara! You—”
When she kicked him again, harder, I moved between them and drew one to each side, resting my hands on their thin, knobby shoulders. “You’ll be safe here. This is Rainey Lane. She helps run the foster center.”
“Where they’ll split us up!” Sara hissed, pulling away from me.
Rainey spoke swiftly. “We never separate siblings. If we’re unable to find a good home for the four of you, you may stay in the center as long as you like.”
That was one of the things I’d been counting on when I’d brought Rainey the first of the abandoned children I’d discovered, half dead in the streets. Her adopted daughters were biological sisters: Alina and MacKayla Lane. Family was everything to her. Still, it wouldn’t be long before the recently formed center became too full to continue offering such an alternative.
Sara Brady squinted up at Rainey through damp, tangled hair, hostility blazing in her eyes. Silently, I applauded her bravado. The terrified eleven-year-old had managed to take care of her infant sister and her young siblings for nearly two months, without the many sidhe-seer gifts I’d had at her age. She was a fighter. But she was an eighty-pound-dripping-wet fighter, and Dublin, AWC, was no city for lightweights.
“You know who I am and what I do,” I said to Sara softly. “Have you heard such terrible things about me, then? Or the foster center?”
“I’ve not heard of your ‘foster center’ at all,” she said stiffly. “But kids on the telly always get split up.” And dreadful things happen to them, the shadows in her eyes said.
“What about me?” I said.
“What about you?” Sara said, with a dismissive sniff.
I smiled faintly. She knew who I was. I was a legend. My talents coupled with the infrequent appearance of Shazam had seen to that.
“You’re some kind of superhero!” the boy exclaimed. “And your sword,” he gestured to it where it was sheathed across my back, “crashes like lightning when you fight. And you have a great, fat cat with superpowers!”
I winked at Thomas. “Never call him fat. It makes him grumpy. Nor is he…quite a cat.” Well, he was a Hel-Cat, but that was an entirely different thing.
“There’s no such thing as superheroes,” Sara scoffed. “And if you are one, why didn’t you stop the Faerie—” She clamped her mouth shut.
These weren’t the first children I’d found who believed the Fae had stolen their parents. It made no sense. Fae didn’t abduct adults, they lured them off with glamour, illusion, and lies. “Where else will you sleep tonight? They firebombed your squat and burned you out,” I reminded.
For no reason. In a moment of boredom, a diversion for the three bullies who’d done it. They’d laughed as the children fled the blazing shell, screaming. Sent three half-starved kids and a helpless baby out into the deadly night. I’d been torn between going after the kids or the bastards who’d tossed the bombs. I’d gone for the kids.
First.
Sara fisted her hands at her sides. “It wasn’t fair! I found that house. No one else was living there. I watched it for five days before we took it! And they burned it. A perfectly good place to live. They didn’t even want it! Why would anyone do that?”
A house with running water and electricity; a thing she’d needed desperately to keep her family alive. But possession was nine-tenths of the law only if one was strong enough to enforce that law, and her ragged troop wasn’t.
During the day, Dublin, AWC, was a normal, bustling, safe city, if there was such a thing with the walls down between Fae and Mortals, two-thirds of the world population gone, fragments of Faery drifting free, Light Court Fae living openly in town, establishing cultlike settlements around the country, and gangs warring to control supply and demand.
At night all bets were off. The predators came out to play, and if you weren’t one of them, you were meat. There were only three types of beings that dared trespass beyond the protected Temple Bar District after dark: the very powerful; the very foolish; or the helpless, driven there by one threat or another.
“Just stay here with me for the night,” Rainey said gently. “See how you feel in the morning. No one will force you to remain with us. May I see the baby, Sara?” She extended her arms. “I believe we’ve a diaper that needs changing.”
Sara shot a quick glance over her shoulder and sniffed. Then glared up at Rainey.
“I suppose you’ve no diapers,” Rainey went on in a low, soothing tone. “No food, or change of clothing. We’ve plenty of that here.”
Of course, Sara had nothing, I thought with a rush of bitterness and relief. She hadn’t been in the streets long enough to realize a child on her own needed many, many places to hide. All that she’d managed to beg, borrow, or steal was stashed in the house that was taken from her.
It was time for tough love. I said, “Do you want your baby sister to get diaper rash? Or catch cold from the weather? How will you get medicine if one of you gets sick? You might be able to survive out there, Sara, but the others won’t. What if something happens to you? What will your sisters and brother do then? You’re responsible for them. You have to be strong enough for four. Now isn’t the time to be shortsighted and selfish.”
Sara flinched and cried, “I’m not selfish!” Fear, isolation, crushing responsibility, she woke up to it, lived it all day, and fell asleep with it—a too-heavy stone in her too-empty stomach. I wanted to hug her. Take her in my arms and promise her life would be good again. Not selfish at all. Selflessly doing everything she could. But I needed to get her inside the door of the townhouse. There were three bastards skulking around out there, preying on the innocent, with my sights on their backs.