Bataleur
It was barely a shadow that moved across the strained floorboards in the half-deserted darkened wineshop. All movement was done in small flickers, as though seeking out certainty – yet hungry and insatiable, drinking in the left-over smells of gun-powder and blood and sweat.
Inch. Inch and another inch towards the old dirt-walker on the table, its generous years and over-full soul hovering ripe and ready above it.
The creature moved again, a sudden final surge towards the dead mortal, shadowy arms reaching out and a shadowy face suddenly clear in the guttering moonlight which filtered in through one shut and barred window. Gunpowder. Blood. The smells so tantalising – so delicious – and then frayed and fried into a burn if vicious holly, rowan, iron and something like…
HOOKS
The word came clear into the creature's mind even as it felt itself stopped and jerked ferociously backwards, bound thrice over from each of the four corners. It swore loudly in its native child tongue.
The other in the room, a tall man with a fierce, alert face – wolf-like and predatory – gave a brusque laugh. "And the same to your dam, and your dam's dam."
"Who are you?" The creature moved slightly, restricted by iron in its flesh. Hooks. Its face was beautiful, ethereal, desirable all at once. Pale and lovely in a touch of moonlight and it spoke French poorly in a thick accent that hailed from somewhere – old.
"No bericain to give y' that," the man was stood against a broad pillar, face mostly shadowed and arms pinioned. "What raw greenshod pony'd tell you his real, honest t' the good lord in heaven like a sainted aunt with her crosses and beads true Name while his hooks burn in your flank?"
"This is no sacred ground," the creature said, moving again. "This is no place banned by powers I must obey. Let me go, mortal, or as I am older than these walls I take your soul with his."
"You tell me once," the main drawled in a low gruff sing-song voice. "You tell me twice, you tell me three times over. Good for you. Very very good. I applaud you in my heart where it counts. Go ahead and try to take the soul of a bataluer."
There was a pause, and neither of them moved.
"Let me have him and I will free you."
"To eat me."
"To save you."
"Fine saving with your pretty white teeth in my throat. Try again."
It became more beautiful than ever, large grey moon eyes and dark lashes. "You know we can't lie, mortal man. Wizard."
"I note," the man said dryly. "You made no promises not to harm my venerable head or heart."
It grinned with sharp teeth. "I'll take your name from the air you breathe if you don't free me."
"Try," he yawned, his mouth huge and gaping. "Faith, I'm getting tired of saying that."
"Favre. Josef Favre."
"Splendid! Wonderful. Complete bullshit, but I look a Josef. Always knew it. It's the nose. And the eyebrows. Josef eyebrows, these." He straightened suddenly, very very tall in the darkness. "You, however, are Sal from the hills in Beaune, of the Rath of Five Stones. Unseelie from western windows come, my little friend. The door's east. You're out of place and stupider than an edict on washing laundry in the dark to pay no heeds to the tracings of the barricade. On Belenus's name himself, no less. Dordi dordi."
The unseelie thus named shrank and then swelled into a composition of dark angles, no less beautiful but completely lacking in light. Something shifted between them, and it moved forwards, teeth bared. It was breathing on the man's face when he drew his iron knife and jammed the blade up into its chest.
Inspector Javert – which was also not his real name – replaced his knife and drew out a long-stemmed pipe which he lit thoughtfully with the embers of the fairy. After a moment's pause, he rechecked the bans and spells on the room and the warding on the western window. Then he sat on the table and nodded to the dead man. "Still secure, M. Mabeuf."