Wilt//Part Four

Wilt//Part Four

"I don't know, I don't think I should be leaving—"

"Only take a moment. You'll be back before the show's over," Wick assures her as they continue their fast pace down Reynard Street. Annie couldn't go back to The Magnolia if she tried; Wick's grasp is a steel clamp around her waist.

"Where are we going?"

"Sideways."

His next step takes them more than just forward. Annie feels the change ripple over her like the surface of a shockingly cold lake, a thin and pliable surface tension that breaks in a wave of shivering dread. She gasps and begins to stumble, ankles wobbling above her high heels, but Wick steadies her without breaking stride.

"It wears off quickly," he says, but Annie barely hears him.

Her mind is reeling. The soft spring night has become a swirling stage for intensity: sky the color of crushed lapis, air silken and scented strong (cherry blossoms, maybe, and gardenia), delicate laughter and haunting melodies riding the breeze…her toes and fingertips feel weighted with lead and her tongue is exclaiming over flavors it never could have imagined.

Why does she find this headiness familiar?

Annie takes a deep breath and focuses only on walking until they reach their destination. Anything else is too much, too—much too beautiful—and instills in her the strongest sense of déjà vu she's ever encountered.

Only when they reach the City Park, and the field of daisies, does she turn her eyes to Wick and ask, "Where are we?"

"In Faerie," he says. He doesn't let go of her waist, as she thought he might. Instead he sits her down on an ancient tree stump and with his free hand, removes her shoes. That done, he takes hold of her with both hands and gazes intently into her eyes. "Don't be afraid. This is real."

He stands and stretches. At least, that's what he appears to be doing. His shirt disappears, revealing the same muscular chest as in the photograph—

—revealing cracked tree-bark skin and a back full of spines, which he flexes like a coat of daggers. Each one is easily as long as her forearm and the width of her thumb at the base. The points are hypodermic needles and the color of bone, which darkens to a copper shade to match his hair.

Gregory hadn't lied after all. Annie digs her fingers into the stump's rotting wood, not caring about the bugs that scurry over and under her hands. She wants to run, run, run away back to the bright lights of the city, away from this deepening dusk and its impossibility, and yet…and yet…

This is art. Wick is art, something wild and beautiful and barely confined by the bounds of logic. This is what Annie has been searching for all these years, in museums, between the covers of dusty history tomes, in galleries, and in studios. This is the art she seeks, and now that she's found it, she can hardly leave. Whatever that might mean.

And he's going to help me, remember that, he said he'd help, she thinks frantically, he offered to
(squatting shirtless beside the deer, blood on his face and large hands, he looks less friendly and more feral)
help me.

Wick titters at her and slides a rough-barked hand under her chin. "You look absolutely terrified."

"Should I be?" The words struggle to move past her throat and cling to her tongue.

"Yes," he says, and when she tries to jerk away, he holds her chin firmly. His eyes are still dark but no longer warm. "Sorry. You asked me a direct question, and my kind can't lie. Therefore, though, I didn't lie about helping you with your problem, Annie. But you have to understand that you have to pay the price. Can't get something for nothing, sweetheart."

"What kind of price?"

Once again he loops his arms around her waist, this time lifting her up and spinning her round to face him directly. The daisies bow their heads and brush at her bare calves.

"Nothing terribly costly, considering what you're getting in return. The power of success! Everyone will like and love you for your charm, your wit, your confidence. It's easy to get what you want when you look as if you already have it. Nothing will be beyond your reach. All I require is your name and your heart," he says, and grins more wickedly than in the photograph. His teeth appear almost pointed.

"You want…me as a wife?" Annie says uncertainly. Certainly he can't mean what he said literally, and besides, marriage is a classic trade-off between humans and supernatural beings in fairytales. Oh God, Annie thinks suddenly, I'm living in a fairytale. This isn't a happy thought. The Brothers Grimm are her favorite authors, and no strangers to unhappy endings.

"That I wouldn't mind either," he says, eyes dropping to her breasts and hands moving a little lower than her waist, "although it isn't what I'm asking. You must tell me your whole name, nothing left out, no sobriquets, and then I will take from you your beating heart."

Before he's finished speaking, Annie shoves him as hard as she can and breaks away while he doesn't expect it. Forget her shoes—the soft, cool dirt squelches between her toes and gives her firmer grip, a grip on life—but she only gets so far. Wick grabs her with his ungodly strength, and she falls, taking him with her. He pins her to the ground, where everything smells of chlorophyll and decomposition. Life and death. The first stars of the evening crown his wiry copper head.

"It won't kill you," he says, ignoring her struggle to escape. "Not the way I do it, not with my…you would call it magic. You'll hurt just this one last time, and when it's over, you'll never hurt again. You'll never love again, either, but what is love? Love is pain. Sorry, but I need this as much as you do."

His voice grows breathier as he speaks, excited and anticipatory. Annie imagines that she can sink right into the earth, but no such escape comes to her. She pulls at the daisies with her fingers, but they do nothing more than caress her trembles and grow where her tears fall. Grow? Yes, grow—it would seem that she isn't complete anathema after all.

Wick lowers his head and sinks his teeth into the flesh above the place her heart resides in its cage of bone. There is nothing erotic in his bite, only pain which makes her toes curl and her body spasm in protest. Warm rivulets of blood run from the steadily deepening wound, collecting against her collarbone and trickling between her breasts.

"Now, tell me your name," Wick murmurs, lips brushing against her broken skin. "Tell me, Annie, what the rest of your name—"

"Don't tell him anything!"

Wick looks up at the sound of the new voice. His eyes are wild and his mouth is red with her blood, an image which she knows she will never, ever erase from her mind.

Now the daisies do help. With impossible speed, the flowers surrounding her and Wick grow to gargantuan size and push the faery from her. Annie immediately rolls over and scrambles to her knees, clutching one hand to her bleeding chest. She knows she should crawl towards the owner of the voice she just heard, but knows not where he is. Or why his voice sounds so familiar.

However, Wick is not so easily defeated. She watches him shred the attacking flowers with the spines on his back, which remain in an erect position. The scowl on his face is almost as horrifying as his grin. Annie freezes in place like a wounded hare.

"I thought you might be a problem," Wick growls, "Blake."