Chapter Five: The Devil

Author's Note: The last quarter of this chapter contains some gruesome imagery and fantasy violence. Reader discretion is advised.

Soundtrack for Chapter Five:

"The Root of All Evil"—Abney Park
"Wish"—Nine Inch Nails
"Cry, Little Sister"—G. Tom Mac

The music thumped a beat in Bee's belly.

Rise
Rise
Rise
Fall deep from the Earth and rise…

…a voice in the echo of black Heaven

Rise
Rise
Rise

Finn, where are you? Bee called with all his heart, a heart made of fear, a fear rising, rising rising, an echo of—

No! The song was like a spell, trying to capture the rhythm of his breath, the pattern of his thoughts. And his fear was attracting attention he couldn't afford. Pale faces dusted with ash turned to look at him, eyes blood-rimed and darting quick in the flickering darkness on the dance floor. He pushed his fear aside, let those glances part on him like flowing water.

"This is going to be just ridiculously dangerous," Finn had said. "It might be a good idea, Bee, if you didn't get involved at all."

"It's a two-man plan," Bee had said solidly. "You can't do it without me."

"Or we could just call it all off," Finn had said. "We need a midwife, but we don't need that particular midwife."

"We made that midwife a promise, though," Bee reminded him.

"… I'm afraid," Finn said blankly. His fingers paused over the drawing of their plan, fingertips pulling together as if to crumple it entirely up.

"Finn," Bee said pragmatically, as he came to sit on Finn's knee on the park bench. He touched his forehead to his, feeling the pleasant firmness of his horns. "We can do this. We can."

Bee had expected some clever quip, some retort, but instead Finn kissed him, beard scratching against his beardless chin, flavor of pepper and almonds and cheap beer on his lips. Finn's kiss was fearful and chaste, and Bee grabbed him hard at the place where his collarbone met his neck. "It will work, Finn." He kissed him again, harder, feeling lust rise instead of courage. Transmittable, this feeling, in lips and hands and hot breath, because Finn's arms came around his back and urged him on, pressing him to his mouth harder. "Okay?" Bee asked. "Okay, Finn?" He slapped Finn's cheek gently.

"Okay," Finn replied, but with less enthusiasm than Bee had hoped for. He turned on his knee, rutting subtly against it, and pulled Finn's attention back to their schematics laid out on the park's chessboard.

"Let's go over the plan again," Bee said. He smiled as Finn's hands wrapped warm around his waist.

The light in the club should have been black, but to Bee it seemed all dusty sepia, the washed-out tones of a dead basement. And it smelled. It smelled like old teeth and hot copper and medical-grade disinfectant. He wondered if anyone else could smell it. He wondered how many of the guests at this party were trying to get away, or had tried. And he wondered where the spider of this web kept her parlor. I can see, Bee thought, closing his eyes. I can see things other people don't. I can see through anything. So why can't I see you, Finn? Where are you?

Bee wasn't half impressed with the cheap bodega that was their last stop in a long day of long stops. It was in a dingier borough than Jollymaker's, and was consequently a lot less deep and a lot more dirty. This neighborhood was so sad it would need to climb a few rungs on the ladder before it could join Spanish Harlem. Tacky, Bee thought, looking around at the cartons of cigarettes and fake flower arrangements and scratch-tickets under plexiglass. Tacky and superstitious, he amended, seeing a few lit saints' candles on a makeshift altar near the cash register, and the dusty apothecary's jars of mushy-moldy looking herbs stacked on the backboard. Finn asked the cashier a question in staccato Spanish. Bee caught the word bruja, but nothing else. The woman hooked a thumb over to the back of the store without looking up from her inventory.

Cheap and dirty and ticky-tackaroo, Bee thought. The floor was sticky under his shoes and there were fruitflies on the bananas. The door marked "Office" was open. A fat old woman in nurse's scrubs sat at the desk making notations in a small ledger.

"Miss Zoe?" Finn asked.

The woman looked up and evaluated them both carefully before snorting and turning back to her book. "Who's asking?"

"Your name has been mentioned in certain circles. Your skills have been noted and praised."

"You didn't answer my question," she said.

Bee squinted at her. There was something… odd about her, something compelling.

Finn flourished the tail of his coat like the proudest robin redbreast. "Don't you have eyes? Can't you tell? Or is the Red Branch come down so far that you can't recognize one of its brothers?"

"I recognize. I just have no idea why the Red Branch would come looking for me to ply my trade. Unless you boys have finally succeeded in turning your culo into coño. What do you want with me, carefully nameless Brother of the Red Branch?"

Bee eased down his pack and quietly removed his sketchbook from the front pocket. Something about her eyes, that was where the strangeness began. Her eyes were luminous, wet, green. Not green like Sarah's, green like slime, like lightning bugs.

"I've come on behalf of another, you've rightly guessed, gracious lady. A woman, a star among women, a jewel, a treasure."

"One of the Free People?" Miss Zoe said, momentarily interested. She stared at Finn, then shook her head, jowls jiggling. "No. I would have heard before this. So who? Speak plainly. I'm running out of patience."

"A human woman," Finn said coaxingly. "The wife of the Goblin King."

She snapped her ledger closed and stood up. She seemed very tall, seven feet tall, eight, massive as a semi truck. "The Goblin King. Well. I know exactly who you are now, Finnvarrah-Vercingetorix. I know your reputation. I want nothing to do with your king."

"Our king!" Finn insisted.

"No, not mine. Yours. I want no business with the Hidalgos. Not with the Goblin King, not with the King of Winter, not with any of them. They're all thieves and killers. All of them." She seemed angry. She also seemed...afraid, big like the puffed back of a cat. Bee knew the word for that. It was illusion, glamour. She wasn't what she seemed.

"My sister is the wife of the Goblin King," Bee said. He took her fear and anger and let it amplify him, until he felt ten feet, twenty, until he felt like he could burst open the roof with just the strength of his shoulders and back. "Listen to us."

"Your sister," Miss Zoe said, shrinking back to human proportions. She pinched Bee by the chin, and he discovered that he, too, had snapped to actual size. "Yours in particular, neh? How is it you play with fairy magic, and a human boy? You are his slave, servant, pet?" Her acid eyes eroded him.

"Partner in crime?" Bee offered, wishing his voice didn't crack, but she only smiled and let him go.

"Tell me, then, your sister, is she bespelled? Under enchantment? You answer me, pale boy. Is she different than she used to be?"

"She's not as sad as she used to be," he said with quiet meaning. "I think she was looking for him for a long time."

"She's like my brother, then." She looked at Finn with sorrow and warning. "He was tall, and beautiful, gente de bronce like your compa here. He went looking for his doom among the Hidalgos, and he found it." She crossed herself and muttered an incantation to some saint. And then she sat down again, exhausted by her outburst, and cupped her eyes in her hands. It was a strangely girlish gesture. "I can't get involved. I can't. I won't." she said, but she seemed to be talking to herself.

Finn took a seat opposite her in a folding chair and began a soothing and beguiling monologue of comforting nothings, which seemed to calm her. It's there, in her eyes, the difference, he thought. As Finn continued talking her down, Bee pulled his materials from his pack, propped one foot against the cinderblock wall and began to sketch her, using his thigh as a desk. Darker, harder lines slowly overlaid his initial tentative pencil. It was rare that he couldn't capture the essence of a person or a creature in a few strokes, but Miss Zoe was a hard get.

"What happened to your brother exactly?" Bee asked, not looking up from his work. The pressure he was putting on the pencil was hard enough to hurt his hand, as if he could dig the truth out if he pressed hard enough.

"This Gentrywoman, she cracked him open and sucked out his vis, his soul, like it was a tasty chunk of marrow. The Hidalgos, they do what they want, and what this one wanted was to eat my brother. And to kill my sisters and my mothers and my fathers when they went to rescue him. The ruin of my House. And now I'm the only one left."

"You could have come to one of us," Finn said kindly. "Any of the Houses would have been obliged to help you. There aren't that many of us, people like you and me. We would have taken you in. Or you could have come to the Labyrinth. The Goblin King isn't like them. He's… good. And he loves us, you know."

"That's such a lie," Miss Zoe sniffled, reaching for the tissues. "Doesn't it fork your tongue to lie like that? My family is worse than dead, and where was Rey Ladrónde Niños then? Nowhere. We're toys to them, Finnvarrah-Vercingetorix. Toys to him. Game pieces. Pawns in the great game they play. No. I've decided. Abduct some human doctor when your sister's time comes, and leave me out of it."

There she is, Bee decided. I've got her. He tossed his sketchpad onto the table between them.

He watched Miss Zoe look at the sketch. The jowled and wrinkled face, the bad teeth, the dull hair. But he'd captured a slim bar of something else, a view from a sliding peephole, of luminous eyes, the pointed tips of ears, youth and beauty. She looked, and she touched her own face, as if remembering.

"You're the only one in your family left." Bee said gently. "Hiding here, never going anywhere but where your luck takes you, and then scurrying back to this grimy hole as soon as you can?" He shook his head. "You're afraid because you think this creature that hurt you and yours is still after you. But we found you. Others can find you too. There's nowhere to hide."

She looked over at him, trembling. The eyes. That's where the truth of her is, under this glamour.

"I don't understand a lot of the ways you people do things, but I know you believe in taking care of your family." Bee crossed his arms. "I believe in that too. My sister wants a midwife. I bet you want something too. We can talk a trade." He could feel Finn desperately trying to catch his attention, but he kept them fixed on the young-old child-crone in front of him.

Bee kept his voice cool, but he felt a cruel smile beginning over his teeth. "Miss Life, have you considered revenge?"

"Yes," she said quietly. "I have considered revenge."

And the rest was all details.

"Why did you do that?" Finn exploded at him as they left the bodega and walked to their bus stop, lightly loaded up again with items Finn had wanted for their hunt. "Why did you make that offer?"

"Well you agreed to it," Bee said, winding his yo-yo, unperturbed.

"What choice did I have?" Finn asked. "Why, Bee?" He grabbed the boy and shook him.

"Chilly down," Bee said. "Do you think it's right that someone can come in and hurt people like that and no one does anything?" His string had unravelled; he wound it up again. "There's no justice for people like her. Didn't you say, didn't you say when you asked me to come away with you, that you were all about keeping things right? Protecting the weak? Well?" He spun out the yo-yo and reeled it back after making it sleep for a moment. "Are we heroes or just… hit men?"

"Heroes," Finn said, grasping his hair in exasperation. "We're heroes. But this is going to be like Cuchulain against all of Connacht."

"Eh?"

"David versus Goliath."

"Didn't David win? And with nothing more than a yo-yo." He swung it around-the-world and felt it snap back into his fingers.

"Sling. It was a sling. And that story was probably bullshit anyway. Gods be good, Bee!" Finn huffed and turned away, walking ahead of him. Bee stretched his legs to keep up. "She's probably House Crocus. Or was, when it existed. I've heard some bad rumors about them."

"Bad rumors?"

"They picked a fight with one of the Gentry—one of the fae—from the Winter Court, and all got killed for their trouble."

Bee struggled to close the distance and caught up after a few scissor leaps. "You pick fights all the time."

"Yeah, but only ones I can win. The Gentry, honey-Bee, are ones with whom not to fuck. You know this. Would you pick a fight with the Goblin King?"

Bee thought about this. He remembered the weight of the peach under his hand. He remembered Jareth's expression when he'd thought Bee was going to defy him and steal from him. And he remembered Jareth's offer, and of what might-have-been. "I would if I had to," Bee said. "Finn." He pulled Finn up to a stop and snuggled in close. "I would if I had to." He tilted his face up and gave Finn his best beguiling look. "Don't be such a pussy."

"Cuchulain against all of Connacht and me without a Gae Bulga," Finn said.

"I've got your gay bulge right here," Bee said, grasping him through his pants. And they kissed, deep and hard, clutching at tongues like last straws.

It took the three days to finalize their plans. Bee had wanted to go full in, guns blazing, the very moment they concluded their meeting with the midwife, but Finn had explained that his proposal was suicidal. "This won't be like anything we've done before," he had said, as they ate their dinner of remaindered lo mein and trashed packages of meatloaf dinner, just an hour past expiration, still warm. The weather wanted to snow but hadn't, and they spread their food over an empty chess table at the local park. "This will be more like…"

"Going down in a blaze of glory?" Bee suggested, slurping noodles.

"Eh. What's said is said, and done is done, and half a chance is more than none." He stole one of Bee's candied carrots.

"So why don't we rally a whole bunch of your family and just march in there and deal with her?" Bee asked. "Numerical superiority?" And I'd like to meet your family, Bee thought, I'd really like to see this Red Branch you're always talking about.

"There's no such thing as numerical superiority when it's ants versus boot," Finn said. "Well, conceivably there could be, but we can't muster those sorts of numbers."

"Well, you're magic. All the people I've met with you are magic. You're saying it's not enough?"

"I can use magic. Most of the Free People can use magic. But the Gentry? Fae, Rakshasa, Sidhe. They are magic. Raw, wild magic governed by unstable personalities. No souls. No need for souls." He looked at the boy. "Your story-learning is ridiculously poor, considering who your sister is, but you seem to know your Bible, at least."

"Ten years of Sunday School," Bee said. "Want me to quote Leviticus?"

"And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. The Revelation of St. John the Divine. But holy means other. The fae are to the Free People what angels were to Isaiah. Other, other, other."

Bee swallowed hard around the sudden dryness of his food. "They're angels? Gods?"

"Close enough for government work. You look pale. I guess you're finally starting to understand what you've gotten us into. So if we do this, we'll do it alone. No reason to drag anyone else into this when it can't make a difference to the outcome."

"We should have brought a bigger boat," Bee muttered.

"Bee, ain't no boat bigger enough. What we do have are the right hooks, and the right bait to land that shark."

"Me?" He couldn't help himself; he quailed at the idea.

"No." Finn stole his last carrot. "This time, I'm the bait."

The lair was a nightclub, thumping with bass and discordant screams in the dark. And the nightclub was a lair. And in the lair there was a predator.

How doth the little busy Bee
Improve each shining Hour,
And gather Honey all the day
From every opening Flower!

In works of Labour or of skill
I would be busy too:
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

"Okay, now look," Finn said on their third switchback through the same street. Finn had spent some of their precious and limited resources for a cab. Bee did, and saw the entrance to the club. It was like a mouth to some cavern, low to the ground, people clustered in line to get in.

"I see it," Bee said.

"That's the entrance," Finn said. They got out ten blocks away and set up their scout camp in the nearest park. "Once we get in, there'll be some inner sanctum, some core place where she lives. We'll have to find our way in deeper once we get inside."

The club was thick with people wearing paint and silk and chrome jewelry and corsetry that looked like torture devices. Bee kept his eyes open in the strobing lights, looking for that passage further in. He slid from one cluster of debauched body-mod aficionados to another, grasping for any changes in the texture of the air, the light. And then the light began to change, became the ugly orange of sodium lamps.

I'm crossing over into the other, the further, a reality that isn't quite this one. He shivered in his jacket and felt again for the precious weapons he carried with him. Finn, I'm coming for you. Hang on.

"So here's where we have weapons superiority," Finn said, gathering supplies from the bodega under Miss Zoe's watchful eyes. "Salt," he said, pulling out four indigo canisters. "Cold iron," he said, laying down two paring-knives. "And her name." He held out the scrap of receipt where Miss Life had scrawled the name in question. Finn had rewritten it phonetically several times. Oh-NO-skill-is. Oh-no-SKELL-yes. Ono-skull-YAYS. Miss Life had cautioned, and Finn had reiterated, that a name like this was too dangerous to repeat out loud, for fear of attracting the bearer's attention before they were ready for her.

"Which one is it?" Bee had asked in dismay.

"The first. Probably." Bee was not reassured by her reply.

"The salt will bind in the four cardinal directions. Her name will bind her above and below. And the iron… that fixes the center. There are other ways to do it, but for our purposes, this is the safest. But we'll have to coax her down into some sort of physical form first. She'll want to see me. She'll want to touch me." Finn looked at Miss Zoe. "Just like she did with your family. The second we walk out your door, it would be really smart for you to immediately go to the Labyrinth and put yourself in the service of the Goblin King and Queen Sarah."

"How do I guarantee that my services have been paid for before I go?" she objected.

"Look, sister," Finn's voice was uncommonly sharp. "If we win, you've been overpaid. And if we lose, you're going to want to be elsewhere for the fallout. Underground isn't a bad destination. Unless you want to walk this bargain back?"

Miss Zoe had barely hesitated. "No. I want her dead."

On the third night, Finn had declared them ready. "Tomorrow night, we'll do this."

"Why not tonight?" Bee asked.

"Two reasons," Finn said. "One, it's Tuesday and you have a phone call to make. Two, I want to scout out the place in person first. She'll notice me. That's what we want, to stir the pot a little. She's an old one. She'll be cautious and curious when she notices me. She'll be looking to see if I'm armed and alone. I can't wear my coat or my swords. It'll be like a neon sign. 'Hello, my name is Finnvarrah-Vercingetorix. I come from Red Branch, prepared to die.' But if she thinks I'm just a random one, all alone, she'll be eager and intemperate if I come back. She'll want to collect me. Or maybe attempt a seduction." He applied some eyeliner and stripped off his shirt, knotting it around his hips. His blue tattoos and his skin seemed to blaze through his undershirt. He could pass for a clubber, but Bee couldn't imagine this fae creature being cautious once she saw him. Finn was beautiful, and without his weapons or his coat, far too vulnerable for a predator to pass up. He shook his head in disapproval.

"We shouldn't split up," Bee said. "You aren't going in without me. What if she tries to snatch you right when she sees you?"

Finn had ducked his head and smiled to himself. "You're definitely right. We shouldn't split up."

"Right. Good. Okay." Bee dug his phone card out of his bag and walked the two blocks to the nearest working pay phone. His fury knew absolutely no limit when he returned after a pleasant fifteen minute chat and saw that Finn had gone ahead and left without him. But as the night wore on and Finn didn't return, the fury turned to worry and then to a loneliness so intense that he'd wrapped himself up in Finn's long wool coat, for the comfort of the smell of him.

Morning found him cold and alone in the park, but a note had slithered out of the red depths of Finn's coat, unseen until daylight.

If Im not back by 10, abort mishin. Go to J—, ask for help. Don't Bee Stupid. Bee Smart. I love you. –F.V.

"God dammit, Finn!" Bee had yelled, startling the pigeons and drawing the unwanted attentions of a few retirees who had braved the November cold for their chess addiction. Noticed, out-of-place, alone, Bee had gone about the business of gathering their combined possessions, caching them in newspapers and a garbage bag inside a dumpster, and deciding how best to go in like the cavalry for a rescue.

I wish I'd brought one of his swords, Bee thought to himself. But he couldn't work them. The bronze blade and the iron one threw off his balance when he tried wearing them. It took him three attempts just to draw the iron blade out of the scabbard, and his wrist had trembled under the weight when he'd awkwardly pulled it free. Your way then, Finn. Always your way!

"You asshole," Bee cursed, and shoved the tears out of his eyes with his palms.

The club had opened like a flower to Bee. No one stopped him, no one saw him. He wandered until he felt something in the texture of the world change. And then there weren't any more people, any more crowd, only a dusty hole with medical waste and rusty implements tossed aside, and mannequins which were breathing. It was the antechamber to hell.

It was an art gallery. The Goblin King had his court of goblins, but here the courtiers were all marionettes. The living dolls moved slowly, limbs given movement by strings of sinew and dry veins that extended forever upward into an infinite darkness, all hanged men in animal masks. Everything here was beautiful in its horridness, bones and dust, nadir-space of flesh and art, and a stage, and an empty throne made of chrome and skin.

There was a circling pulsing golden light, a wheel within a wheel, that descended from the depths of the ceiling, flashing in the eyes, illuminating nothing. It floated down, aggressive and sharp-edged, and stopped. And the chair on stage was suddenly occupied by a beautiful white woman who had pits of darkness where her eyes ought to have been. Bee wasn't sure why exactly he felt it was a woman—hairless, flat-chested, gold needles pressed through her cheeks and ears—but it felt feminine. This was the thing they'd been looking for. This was the one who murdered people for fun.

It, he though. More an it. His belly trembled with sickness. Power seemed to flow off her in molten waves, and every wave was a type of malevolence. It wasn't a person, it was a presence. Fae, Bee thought. Fae. Like the Goblin King. But he's so human, and she is not.

He would never mistake the fae for anything else magical or metaphysical after this. Never. Never again. He wanted to hide. He wanted to be a thousand miles away from here. He felt his balls struggling to pull into his stomach, and the rest of him wanted to follow, curl up and pop him inside-out of this world. And he would have run, but there was Finn, his belt buckled not around his waist but binding his arms back, leashed to a horned effigy to the Gentrywoman's left. There was Finn, shivering and ducking behind the gypsum figure, as if to avoid the attentions of the devil in this Hell.

Bee Invisible, Bee reminded himself. He could feel Finn's fear, and he stepped reluctantly into his wake, heart thundering like his, breath coming in silent gasps.

The she, the it, she watched the slow shuffle of her puppet courtiers. Bee recognized a few of them; they existed simultaneously in this space and in the club-space, ash-smeared, scarified, dead-eyed, without identity or will. The Gentrywoman's black eyes danced across each figure, and Bee realized with anger that she was playing with Finn, pretending to have forgotten him, pretending not to remember he was there. And then she laughed, belly arching, rubber apron falling decadently between spread white thighs. Her laughter smoothed the edges of the room into gritty chaos. And Finn cowered like a whipped dog.

Bee carefully counted thirty-two heel-toe steps backward, breathing only every third step. Unseen, invisible to this thing who had eyes only for Finn.

"Mutt," she called him. "Pretty mongrel puppy. Shall we play a game?" Her voice had rumors of other notes, unheard screams, beauty, cacophony. Bee wanted to put his hands over his ears.

Finn refused to answer. He turned his head away and pulled to the length of his tether, away from her. Bee lowered his eyes and listened. One wrong move, and he would be noticed. Once noticed, he would be dead.

Bee walked slowly to the left, scattering grains of salt from his pockets as he went. Small step by small step, never running, always turning, he slowly spiraled his way inward. He mastered his breath, which wanted to gasp with panic. He wanted not to breathe at all through his nose, because the bad smell that had curled his nostrils in the club was stronger here in the center of the nest, a rotten nightmare of spoiled meat and coppery-sweet blood, murder victims half-buried in wet plaster and papier-mache. Still, he kept walking, making the circle that would trap this inhuman creature, and hopefully get them both out of here alive.

"I'll engage her attention," Finn had said during their rehearsal, choreographing every move until Bee knew it with his body waking and sleeping. His adrenal glands were pumping out enough juice to lift a car, but he didn't falter. This was still the plan. Finn had engaged her attention. Bee's job was to be unnoticed, to bind.

"Mongrel puppy," she murmured in lover's tones. "Half-breed. The Judex made you. His signature is on you. Anyone of the brethren can see that." She kicked up her feet in joy as she stood. She had shoes like asses' feet, hooved and bloody. She came to Finn and grabbed him by the hair. "But I can improve on his art. I wonder how I'll improve on you?" She dragged his strappy t-shirt up to his throat, his pants around his hips, and fondled him dispassionately. One of her servants, zombie marionette, tottered over to her, gave her a stone-flake knife. Three more approached and held Finn still. Bee, horrified, almost missed a breath in his camouflaging pattern. He thought she was castrating him, and took his smothered sobs for stoic endurance. But his circle took him a few steps further, and he could see she was tracing the outline of one of the tattoos on Finn's hips, cutting shallowly and precisely, lifting off one perfect micrometer of skin, slapping it like decoupage on the body of the nearest servant.

"The Goblin King has strange aesthetics. But he went too far, making you and your kind." She sniffed at Finn's blood and drew back his eyelids one by one. "Too much like us, and too much like men. I'm here to make revisions. And you're so very textual." The knife cut around the edge of another tattoo. Not deep, not enough to do more than pierce the first layer of skin, strip it, slap it against her waiting servants like wet onionskin. Not enough to seriously injure or maim, just enough to hurt and humiliate.

"Is that what you did to the rest of them?" Finn said through clenched teeth. He jerked his head defiantly at her attendants. "Did you revise them?"

"Golden-eyed golden-skin, that's my charter. That's my nature. Shall I dig deeper, or are you ready to give over your flesh and play my game?"

"You've killed them," Finn said, gasping against the dead meat of the arms that kept him restrained. Bee could see his eyes, all golden, attention all on the Gentry. He hoped Finn couldn't see him either. This needed to work.

"All mortal flesh dies. Only we live forever. And if you are not immortal, how could you ever be one of us?" She threw her knife aside and grasped Finn again, one hand in his hair, one grabbing his crotch. Those strong pale hands squeezed and pulled like she was husking corn, and Finn arched and gave the first scream of pain Bee ever heard him give. She paid the scream no mind; she inhaled the scent of his open mouth and licked her lips.

Bee had finished his circuit; he wasn't going to let this go on for a single minute more. He pulled out the paring-knife from his breast pocket and cast it into the circle of salt.

"I name you Onoskelis," Bee said, voice cracking. "And I bind you by your name."

The Gentrywoman stared at him. Finn stared at him too. Then she laughed, and Bee felt terror overwhelm him. It hadn't worked. It hadn't. She surged forward on her tiptoe animal shoes, grinning wide enough to split her face, prepared to rip him into pieces and probably add him to her gallery of art.

Then she reached the perimeter of salt, and was cast back into the circle Bee had made. Her feet stamped and her hands clawed as she shouted obscenities at Bee in every language. "You dare!" she shrieked.

Finn had wasted no time after his first surprise. He jammed his feet against the stone effigy and used the leverage to break his leash and break out of her servants' arms. They seemed deadened, stilled. Their flesh-and-blood strings began to fray, one by one, with the snapping sounds of harpstrings. They slouched over into the dirt, unmoving, once they fell. And Finn was outside that circle, safe and free.

The fae shadowed Finn around the perimeter, striking out at it with sparks, testing for weakness. Bee met Finn halfway, ignoring her. "You okay?" he asked him, gently drawing his clothes back into place, unbuckling and unwinding the tangled weave of his bonds.

"My fucking 'jones," Finn said through gritted teeth, cupping his crotch.

"Yeah, well, if you hadn't snuck off last night then your balls wouldn't hurt now!" Bee embraced him, arms around his neck. "Don't ever do that again. Never-ever-ever. Promise me, Finn!"

"Ow! I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" He nuzzled his cheek against Bee's ear. "I won't, I promise." He tucked Bee under his arm. Some blood was seeping through his pants, but just a little. Bee helped him limp forward to face the Gentrywoman. Bee handed him the second carton of salt. Stiff-legged with pain, Finn kept his golden eyes on his target as he cast more salt through the circle. One slashing drift, two, three, and she was bound inside a triangle inside the circle. Three more, a hexagon. She cursed at them, but then changed her tone. She began to beg. Bee did as Finn did, and ignored her voice. Line after line of salt spiraled in, polyhedron upon polyhedron, narrowing the trap.

"Stay!" Finn said, half-crying and half-laughing. "Stay! Good dog." He staggered a little, and Bee caught him under the shoulders again.

The Gentrywoman was left with no place to stand except on the cold iron, and nowhere for her arms to go except above her head, as if she were rolled in an invisible carpet. She howled in rage, but then with pain. Her hooves sizzled and gave up smoke. She seemed to… begin to melt. That was the only way Bee could conceive of it. It wasn't gruesome, only slightly disgusting. A relief, like popping a zit. What a world, what a world.

Onoskelis, the fae, was quickly reduced to a puddle of bubbling golden liquid.

"Now we cauterize the wound she's left in reality," Finn said grimly. He slouched up with Bee's help, and walked to the very center, the bubbling golden pool. Toby handed him the lighter fluid.

Finn squirted the entire bottle into her remains, and then touched the flame to her. She went up in a column of black smoke and fire, into the endless black nothingness, the echo of a black Heaven. The ground tremored beneath their feet and the room began to crumble slightly around the edges.

"We've got to get out of here," Bee said, tugging at Finn's arm.

Finn shook him off and gone limping to one of the still bodies of her courtier-slave-puppets, and raised its eyelids. He flinched in disgust, and Bee saw that the eyes of the creature were gone, replaced with wads of carbuncled stone.

The edges of the room now resembled enormous ant-piles. "Finn, come on. They're dead! Leave them!"

"Which one has my skin?" Finn asked, going to another prone body. "Bee, help me!"

"Yes, sure. This way," Bee said, feeling like there was no time, that it was already too late, trying to discern the way out, and leading Finn with him. "Come on, this way."

Finn dug in his feet as he realized what Bee was doing, but, tired and hurt and overwrought, soon followed him again. "Damn her!" Finn cursed. "It's always like this. The Winter Court and the gentry do whatever they want to us, and nobody fights back. Nobody cares!"

"I care," he said. "The Goblin King cares, and Sarah too." Bee thought about this for a moment, and then asked in dawning horror, "Finn, the King of Winter… is he like that? Like her?"

"No, Bee. Worse than that. She was just an underling. He's her king."

"Sarah," Bee said, breathless. "Jareth. They're in real danger, aren't they?"

"Yes. So am I, Bee." Finn leaned hard on Bee's shoulder. "I need you to help me get to Red Branch. I think we're all in trouble."

"Okay, Finn," Bee said. "Okay." They stumbled out together as the inner sanctum of the Gentrywoman crackled into dust.

Next... Chapter Six: "Temperance"

Thank you to my beta, FrancesOsgood, for her help and support.

Various references made here. "You're going to need a bigger boat."— Jaws. "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." —The Princess Bride. "How Doth the Little Busy Bee..."—Isaac Watts. "How Doth the Little Crocodile"—Alice in Wonderland. If there are any I forgot to mark out for sheer negligence, please let me know in the comments.

Onoskelis's name and nature can be found in The Key of Solomon. She's real, and she's not doing anything here that she hasn't done a thousand times before. For a nice series of stomach-turning visuals for her lair, please enjoy the video for Bowie's "The Hearts Filthy Lesson," which directly inspired them.

Well? Are you not entertained? Please leave me a comment and don't skimp. It sustains my art.

Panda: Jareth owns Finn and would have given him to Toby. Jareth is also concerned about Finn's good opinion of him. The two motivations are not mutually exclusive, as we'll learn in the next chapter. Jareth can be a good guy, but he's not exactly a nice guy.

Jetredgirl: I want a lock of his hair!

brylcream queen: Thank you so much. He's a challenging 'voice' and it's gratifying to hear I've gotten him right.

Askeebe: Bee's not above being sexually manipulative when he thinks he knows what's best. Silly Bee.

irgroomer: PHRASING!

Jalen: I'm glad you like Finby, because this chapter is nothing but.

Kwizzle: Again, this is perhaps the best compliment a Labyfic writer can get. No sign of dem pants and people still enjoy it? Excellent!

Zephrbabe: Yeaaaah, that may be at issue later.