Blackness took over. It could
have lasted for a heartbeat or a year, or a decade.
That was the irritating thing
about the Fae realms, and life in the Fae enclaves. Time didn't run in synch
with the Human world, and other Fae didn't have the fine respect for clocks and
calendars--and the baseball and television seasons--that Maurice did.
He blinked and found himself
sitting on a backless wooden stool, pinned under a spotlight inside an ocean of
blackness. He was in his own body--at least his captor had let him wear
comfortable clothes, his favorite slate gray cashmere sweater and matching
slacks and his new Italian loafers--and he had iron manacles around one wrist
and both ankles, attached to iron chains. The leg chains extended into the
darkness beyond the pool of silvery-blue light. The arm chain led up into the
air, vanishing in the darkness just beyond the stream of the spotlight. No
matter how Maurice turned, he couldn't see what it was attached to.
Common sense said not to get
off the stool. It was more than possible there was no floor, no ceiling, and no
walls in this room--if he was in a room at all.
"Come on, guys! Do you
know how much work I put into that scheme? Let me finish the game, at least.
The guy was a bully. He deserved what I was going to give him."
Maurice winced as his words
seemed to hit a wall a hundred miles, or maybe a hundred years away, and were
absorbed. Chances were good that whoever had yanked him away from Sunrise--just
at the culmination of his game!--wasn't even listening. Or if he, she, or they
were listening, they weren't going to respond.
That was what he would do, if
he was on the Fae Disciplinary Council. Lock up the miscreant, leave him alone
for a while to squirm and protest and sweat, and then bring him out for judgment.
Eventually.
It was the eventually
part of the formula that worried Maurice.
No comments:
Post a Comment