Sprite
Chapter 73

Neistah never thought he would say this, but he was bored!

The last fun thing Neistah had done was entrancing old Avery into believing he was a sprite.

Neistah circled the bottom of Leane’s pond where he had gone to wait for Lara who obviously wasn’t coming. Launching himself out of the water, he startled Pup who had come looking for Norah. The changeling Sprite involuntarily stepped back, and Neistah perversely shook water droplets all over the surprised changeling. “Do you want me to take you to her?” he asked, a gleam in his eye. With a shake of his head, he indicated the water where Norah swam as she did every day far beneath its smooth surface.

“Would you?” Pup stepped forward eagerly.

Pup had no trepidation whatsoever. “Find her yourself,” Neistah muttered, rolling his eyes when the changeling dove in with a splash. It would serve him right if Norah drowned him by accident. Humans.

Neistah looked for something else to do. Miriam was in the kitchen preserving end of season peaches. Neistah helped himself to a peach and leaned past Miriam to peer into the big pot she had set to boil on the stove. He nuzzled her neck, grinning when she jumped. “Want to go swimming?” he murmured suggestively.

Miriam firmly pushed him away and went back to her peaches. “No, but you can take Jenny if you want. She’s been asking to go.”

What was wrong with these humans? Had they no fear of what the sprites might do? He watched Miriam’s full mouth purse in concentration as she deftly peeled the ripe fruit and sliced it into neat sections. He remembered that mouth pressed to his underwater. No, she trusted him.

“Wait, aren’t you going to take Jenny swimming?”

“Later.” Neistah waved a hand in the air as he quickly disappeared around the corner.

-Lara?- Neistah trotted up the stairs to replace Lara holding Roselle’s baby, with Leane peering over her shoulder. Neistah stared at the child for a moment, wondering what they would all think if he took this mortal swimming, only to remember they had already done it. -Fine,- he sent, stalking out to Lara’s indulgent laughter. His own lips quirked in rueful agreement.

Valin was off doing something he undoubtedly considered important. It looked like Neistah was on his own. He started down the dirt road towards Black Pond, since Miriam had inadvertently stirred up his memories of the place, among other things. He didn’t want Miriam, not really. He wanted Lara.

Neistah slipped under the water as he heard voices approaching Black Pond and recognized one of them as his daughter’s. One of his own should have sensed him there, but Norah was occupied with other matters, and swimming was the last thing on her mind at the moment. Neistah unashamedly eavesdropped.

Norah spread a blanket on the soft grass beside Black Pond, giggling as Pup grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down on it to lie beside him. Neistah’s eyes just cleared the water, invisible in the shadows on the far side of the pond. Norah really should have sensed him by now. He would have to have a talk with her about keeping up her guard when she was among mortals, anytime, really. She was just too trusting. But in the meantime, Neistah intended to have a little fun.

Pup kissed her, and the pleased shock flowed through the ambient to Neistah. Norah was attracted to the mortal changeling. They spent some minutes kissing and gently touching, oblivious to their unseen guest. Pup was gentle with her, Neistah noted with approval, never pressing Norah for more than she wanted to give.

When Pup ran his hand along the inside of Norah’s silky gown all the way up her long legs, Norah jumped to her feet and slid the gown completely off her shoulders. “Let’s swim,” she said breathlessly, never realizing that her innocent gesture of removing the constricting clothing so that she could swim as she normally did would be taken as an altogether different signal from the aroused Pup. She dove into the water, followed noisily by Pup, who naturally lost sight of her instantly as Norah easily outdistanced him across the pond.

She came face to face with Neistah. -What are you doing here!- she sent incredulously, flicking her wrists to stop her forward motion.

Grinning, Neistah answered, -What are you doing here, daughter?- His shoulders shook in silent laughter as Norah immediately reddened, even under the water. Far above them, Pup splashed on the surface, occasionally calling out Norah’s name. -Shall I fetch him?- Neistah raised one brow.

-No!-’ Norah surged forward, grabbing Neistah’s arms urgently. -Don’t let him see you!-

-Why not?-

-Because, because . . . .- Norah had no idea what to say. She glanced nervously at the surface.

-I should go. He’s probably worried by now.-

-Yes, you should go,- Neistah agreed with a smirk. -Though I don’t think it’s worry he’s feeling.-

He laughed silently at Norah’s innocence as she stared at him in confusion, and flipped in the water to circle a mere few feet underneath the churning that marked Pup’s presence near the surface. Norah mirrored him anxiously, afraid that he would reveal his presence to the unsuspecting changeling. Neistah laughed again, sharing his amusement with Norah, who did not appreciate it at all. -Go!- she sent, streaking by him to come up beside Pup, hoping the distraction would mask any motion Neistah might make.

Neistah wondered if she realized she was playing the age-old game of the sprites, teasing a male, then fleeing, then letting herself get caught. Pup would never play the game as well as a real sprite simply because he was lost in the water, and Norah would always be a water creature first. Breyan would have played the game much more seriously, and would not have let Norah get away as the human changeling had. Norah should know that. -I won’t tell Breyan,- he promised as he flipped once more and arrowed towards the bottom of the pond. Somewhere above him, Norah pulled away from Pup in dismay, making Neistah chuckle.

If Pup wasn’t supposed to see him, then Neistah had no choice but to leave Black Pond through the hidden tunnel to the forest outside Hanan’s lands. He’d heard about Norah’s run-in with Rellan, and once again, she would have been at his mercy except for the fact that Norah was a water sprite and Rellan, like Pup, was not.

Summer was coming to a close once more. Avery had been quiet lately, for the most part. His road crews still occasionally crossed the forest, as was evidenced by the group Norah and Rellan had come across. The repercussions from their sudden deaths had reached back into Datro, and the word Pup and some of his scouts had heard was that Avery was having a hard time replaceing replacements. Neistah would not have killed the road crew, well, probably not. He would have killed the hunter, however. Someone did—but it was not Rellan. Norah had said the hunter was alive when Rellan stunned him with his glance. One of Neistah’s kind, likely Breyan, had put an end to the hunter without Norah’s knowledge. The girl was still too human in many ways.

Here, the forest had definitely been damaged. Neistah’s lips tightened and his good mood threatened to desert him. Neistah steered clear of the spot where they had buried the woodcutters Rellan had killed. Neistah could sense faintly the presence of at least one mortal close by. He shrugged. Ah, well. He had wanted to play, hadn’t he?

Laughing to himself, Neistah stalked the lone hunter. He easily came abreast of the man and was not surprised to see him bristling with iron weaponry, including a long-barreled gun. The man was squatting near some bushes, examining something on the ground.

Neistah crept up behind him and tapped the hunter briefly on the shoulder before disappearing into the underbrush. He felt the hunter’s start of alarm, and allowed himself a mocking laugh as the hunter whirled about, coming to his feet with his long gun pointed outward. It swiveled to the spot where Neistah’s laugh had sounded, but of course Neistah was no longer there. His laugh rang out again, directly behind the hunter, and again, to the side when the hunter twisted around to aim his weapon towards the sound. These humans were so slow it was easy to fool them. The hunter probably believed himself surrounded.

The hunter backed away, keeping to the trees, and Neistah let him go. He wanted to see what the hunter was so diligently examining near the bushes. He eased closer and pushed away the bottom branches, half-expecting to see the remains of one of the woodcutters, but it was a footprint the man had been studying—a footprint with webbed toes! Neistah’s smile turned grim.

It was not as if Neistah had ever intended letting the man go, but now there was even more reason to make sure he never made it back to his comrades. The footprint might have belonged to Norah or even to Breyan or one of the others—they certainly were close enough to the place where the sprites had come in response to Norah’s call. This footprint had been half-hidden by the heavy bush—easy to overlook –unless someone was deliberately looking for it.

Neistah decided play time was over. He slipped behind the man and casually laid his knife across the bigger man’s throat. “Drop it,” he purred. The proximity of all that iron bothered Neistah, and he stepped around the man, who had dropped the gun immediately. “Now the rest,” he instructed, waiting until the man complied.

The hunter’s eyes widened at the sight of the creature who had him. Neistah’s webbing, dry now that he had been out of the water for a while, was quite visible on his neck and hands, and his dark hair shone with greenish highlights. The hunter glanced down, despite the knife whose point now rested snugly against his jugular, and noted the webbing on Neistah’s feet matched the prints he had been studying. Neistah grinned maliciously, pressing in slightly with the knife until a bead of red ran down the man’s throat. “It won’t do you any good,” he said, glancing down at the footprint. “You won’t live long enough to tell anybody about it.”

The hunter flared panic, and his eyes darted beyond Neistah to the clearing behind him where broken trees and cleared boulders marked the spot where the doomed woodcutters had met their final end. “Andy, run!” the hunter shouted. Neistah cursed inwardly. He had been so focused on the hunter that he had not sensed anyone else. He twisted around, dragging the hunter in front of him.

A mutant child, a boy of perhaps three or four, with light blond hair, large eyes, and visible gill slits behind his ears stood with his thumb in his mouth, staring at them. “Run!” screamed the hunter once more, but instead the boy came closer. The hunter’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Don’t hurt him,” he said tiredly.

Neistah blinked. The hunter wasn’t hunting? Was he looking for a changeling village? “Who is he?” he asked, indicating the boy, who had come forward and raised his arms to the hunter. Neistah noted that the child’s fingers had extra skin in between, not quite webbing, but not far off, either.

“My son,” the hunter said quietly, stooping to pick up the boy.

Neistah lowered his knife. He couldn’t very well kill the man now. “What are you looking for?” Neistah couldn’t help looking at the child, comparing him to Norah. There were enough differences for Neistah to realize the boy was human, and only human, but an interesting variation on the other mutations he’d seen. “Can he swim?”

The hunter shrugged. “I don’t know. We never tried. Can I sit down?” He didn’t wait for Neistah’s reply but sank to the ground, settling the boy in his lap. The child stared back at Neistah with big eyes, thumb still firmly in his mouth. “We heard about the Sprites in Datro. After my wife died, there was no one to take care of him.” The hunter’s voice faltered. “No one to hide him anymore. I couldn’t let them take him. He’s my son.”

“But you’re a hunter.”

“Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it?” The big man laughed softly. “Andy was a beautiful baby. There was nothing wrong with him except his hands and feet had a little extra skin. We didn’t even notice the lines behind his ears until a few days after he was born.” The hunter’s eyes automatically went up to Neistah’s neck, where the fins covered the fine lines behind the sprite’s ears. His son didn’t have fins—just the gills. “By then we had fallen in love with our perfect little boy, and neither one of us could bear to give him up. Stella cared for him at home and never took him out. Then she died.”

“And you decided to do what? Take him into the forest?” Neistah was skeptical. The man was admittedly a hunter. He brought back mutants for a living, or killed them if the situation warranted it. How did he reconcile what he did with how he felt about his own son?

“I was a hunter because that was the best way to keep others from looking too closely at my own family,” the man admitted. “I got the best information—when I heard Avery was looking for Sprites in particular, I started paying attention to the rumors of sightings. We’ve been hearing about Sprites on and off for years, but nothing as specific as recently. When I heard,” his voice broke. He paused, then went on. “When I heard the description—webbed fingers and toes, gills, I thought—I thought Andy would have a better life among them. So I snuck him out of the city and followed the rumors here and, well, you know the rest.” The hunter stared up at him bleakly. “All I ask is that you take care of him. I don’t care what happens to me. Just—don’t let him see it, all right?”

Andy smiled brightly at Neistah, and reached out his hand to touch Neistah’s neck webbing. Neistah leaned forward a little to oblige him. The child’s hands were not the same as his or Norah’s—they were human hands with a bit more. He’d seen mutants with similar fingers, though not so well-defined as this boy’s. “Was that what you planned on doing? Drop your kid off among the changelings and go back to being a hunter?”

“What? No. I mean, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” He patted his son’s back and the little boy settled against him, laying his head on his father’s chest.

Well, this changed things. He couldn’t leave them out here for the other hunters to replace. They were far away from Hanan’s place and the only quick route back was one that would surely drown the father. The boy, though, the boy just might survive it. Neistah actually considered it for a moment. But the kid would probably cry without his daddy, and Neistah really was in no mood to deal with a crying kid, mutant or no mutant. Shaking his head, Neistah beckoned the man to follow him. “Leave those,” he snapped, when the man stooped to pick up his discarded weapons.

He could still have fun along the way. There were plenty of lakes and streams between here and the Hanan compound. He wondered how Daddy would react to seeing his precious child thrown into one of them? He wouldn’t actually let the little boy drown. In fact, he was hoping the kid would surprise him and show some aptitude for surviving underwater.

“Do you have a name, Hunter?” Neistah asked.

“Uh, Tom—Tommy. Tommy Martin. Where are we going?” The man’s thoughts had brightened considerably once he figured out that Neistah wasn’t going to kill him after all. “Are we going to your—er—people?”

Neistah laughed. “We’re going to his people.” He’d found another one for the changelings. This one was not one of his, like Norah had turned out to be, but one of the new breed of mortals, truly a changeling. In that sense, maybe he was one of Neistah’s. Maybe they all were.

At least he wasn’t bored anymore.