Chapter 1

Fairy-Struck: Several types of conditions such as paralysis, wasting away, pining, and unnatural behavior resulting from an enchantment laid by an offended fairy.

Once upon a time; isn't that how all fairy tales begin? Except this isn't your average fairy tale. There are no charming princes or wicked witches within these pages, and the fair maidens are more deadly than any big bad wolf. This is a fairy tale in the truest sense of the words; a story about fairies... the real story.

My name is Seren Sloane, and I'm an Extinguisher. That will mean nothing to you, I'm sure, so let me go back a little further. No one knows the true origins of the Fey—I don't think even the Fey themselves remember—but theories abound. One has them evolving alongside us, but where we advanced in groups—banding together to become stronger—the Fey evolved from those outcast predators who were too wild for a pack. Those who don't believe in evolution, think instead that the Fey issue from the Divine; angels fallen from God's grace. Yet another tale insists that they were gods themselves, or demi-gods; led by a mother goddess named Danu.

A final theory suggests they were not gods or angels or outcasts; merely nomads from an advanced civilization. The Scythians or Sidheans from which the word sidhe originates. Myths tell of these talented Sidhe coming to Ireland where they flung about their magic and generally wreaked havoc until the aggrieved locals fought back and forced the Fey to retreat into their raths; holy shrines now known as fairy mounds. History has disguised the raths as burial mounds even though originally they were thought to be royal palaces for portal guardians. Although, I cannot validate the rest of the tale I do know this; the Fey don't live under mounds of dirt. The original descriptions strike closer to the truth. The raths shrouded portals, not corpses. Hidden paths to the fairy world; a realm laid parallel to ours and not at all underground.

Anyway, we did just fine living side by side with them until humans started destroying the environment around those entrances to Fairy. Fairies don't like it when you mess with nature and when they stroll from their magical abodes to find that mess strewn all over their backyard, they get even more pissy. So, they began to fling the mess back. All those old stories about fairies stealing babies and striking people with wasting diseases stem from this time period. Things got real bad, so bad that those of us who had the gift of clairvoyance and could actually see fairies joined together to defend the human race.

The first Human-Fey war erupted across Eire—now known as Ireland—and the losses on both sides were staggering. After the third war, a grudging truce was finally attained and councils were created to mediate between the races and support the truce with laws approved by both sides. A good start to be sure, but laws flounder and fail if they can't be enforced. Both councils conceded jurisdiction over their people to the other side; agreeing upon the penalties to be meted out should someone be found guilty of a crime. Rules for determining guilt and administering justice were set into place and military units were sanctioned to carry out the verdicts of the councils.

The Fey created the Wild Hunt. They gathered the fiercest, most terrifying of their people and trained them to stalk the shadows of our world; watching us like guardian angels until one of us breaks the law. Then the angels become devils who do much more than watch. Trust me when I say that you don't want to ever meet a member of the Hunt.

To police the Fey, we created the Extinguishers. Formed from members of the five great psychic families who originally defended humanity in Ireland, the Extinguishers inspire a fair amount of fear as well. Armed with clairvoyance as well as other talents which vary by person but can include telekinesis, pyrokinesis, telepathy, and psychometry, we also have some serious combat skills. Most humans don't have the ability to see a fairy unless that fairy wants to be seen so every council member and extinguisher must at least possess clairvoyance. The Human Council keeps an eye out for humans with exceptional psychic abilities so they can recruit more into their fold, but Extinguishers are born into the job. I'm one of those lucky few.

Kavanaugh, Teagan, Sullivan, Murdock, and Sloane. The first five psychic families of Ireland. Over the centuries we've become a secret society so big it spans the globe; gaining strength by breeding only within the Five. This has virtually guaranteed powerful psychic gifts in our children. I'm the product of a Sloane and a Kavanaugh. Over thirty generations of contrived breeding (not inbreeding, thank you very much) have given me abilities which rank me as one of the top ten extinguishers of all time.

I was trained from childhood to become what I am; an extinguisher, a hunter of fairies, remover of the light of the Shining Ones. Childhood wasn't horrible for me but it was definitely not what most would consider to be normal. Bedtime stories were non-fiction accounts of extinguisher heroism and instead of receiving platitudes that monsters weren't real, I was told most emphatically that they were and that when checking beneath my bed at night, I should always have an iron blade in hand. My only friends were children from other extinguisher families and every game or toy had practical purpose to it. Like the dolls my mother made me which showed what each type of fairy looked like... and had their weaknesses written on their backs in red ink.

Still, I was a child, and I knew nothing else. Life seemed magical to me; not just in the way that life is magical to all children but in a literally magic way. I was taught to move objects with my mind, create fire in the palm of my hand, and make things materialize anywhere I wanted them to (that's called apportation in case you're curious, not teleportation which is a thing of science fiction). When I got older, I was taught to fight and, finally, to kill.

Despite all of that, I wasn't raised to hate fairies. Quite the contrary; I was taught to care for them and protect them if need be. The job of an extinguisher is first and foremost to protect the peace. We kill fairies only when they disrupt that peace and then we do it in the most efficient and merciful way possible... after we receive a warrant of execution approved by the Council. We are, essentially, peacekeepers.

That changed for my family when my mother was torn to pieces by a pack of pukas. I know; it sounds funny, doesn't it? A pack of pukas. In reality, a bunch of fairy dogs the size of ponies, with teeth sharper than a shark's, shredded the flesh from my mother, gobbled down every last bit of it, and then gnawed on her bones until they shattered them and could suck out the marrow. That reality killed all the mercy in my father and a lot of the compassion in me as well.

We immersed ourselves in the job; taking every warrant issued for criminal fairies we could get our hands on until the Head Extinguisher himself finally noticed and called us to heel. We were sent to a small territory where very little fairy crime occurred and where we were supposed to get our shit together. Most humans would love to live where we do now and when I tell you where we were placed, I'm sure you'll roll your eyes, but let me assure you that this place is a slow death for an extinguisher. Peacekeepers need a certain amount of action to keep them sane, and Hawaii has very little of that on the fairy front.

Yes; I've been exiled to paradise and for someone with my fair Irish skin, Hawaii imitates Hell in so many ways. Sure, beauty abounds and the people here embody that tropical temperament of almost Gaelic hospitality, but when you're itching for a fight, you don't want to be scratching at your peeling, sunburned skin too. Plus, the only fairies to be found—the little local variety called menehunes—frolic about causing mischief but never mayhem. Yes; Hawaiian fairies exist. Does that shock you? It shouldn't, I've already mentioned how the Fairy Realm lies parallel to ours. Fairy mounds connect more than merely Ireland to Fairyland; they form bridges between Fairy and places all over the world. The fairies who frequent these paths seem to be influenced by the culture they cross over into.

And the fairies don't just visit. Ever since the creation of the Councils, a lot of fairies have moved into our world in an effort to support the peace. There was also the issue of the numerous entrances to Fairy which needed to be guarded. So, several fairy council members have very human jobs with very powerful positions. I think you'd be pretty damn surprised if I told you which companies secretly belong to the Fey.

We don't have any of those powerful companies here in Hawaii because, as I mentioned before, this place isn't all that important in the whole fey-human interrelations department. So, my life has become a constant preparation for a battle it doesn't look as if I'll ever be allowed to join, in a place whose beauty only feels like salt in my wounded heart. I will admit that my anger has lessened over my time here, as the memory of who my mother was slowly overshadows the memory of how she died, but for my father, this exile has only served to make him even more bitter, more vicious, and more intent on killing the entire Fey race.