Killing Flies with Honey

It was a beautiful summer evening.  The sun—though it had been scorching all afternoon—now sank toward the horizon, letting the air cool slowly and steadily.  Even so, it was definitely too hot to go for a run in anything more than a pair of anti-chafe leggings and a supportive sports bra.  Delilah couldn’t resist her preferred basic black and hoped the temperature under the forest canopy would compensate for her fashion choice.

The trails through the woods were undoubtedly her favorite for her fleet-footed adventures.  The songs of the birds, the rustle of the leaves in the breeze, the dappled light scattered by the branches; it was all she needed to feel at home.  It was her temple, her fortress, her natural habitat.  The scent that diffused from the damp soil with every stride she took was invigorating.  It drove her, fueling her to run another mile, and another, and another….

…Sometimes it carried her away… and before Delilah knew it, it was twilight.  Her first reminder was when she noticed the almost ethereal appearance of a deer between the foliage.  It startled her since the softness of the light that was no longer from the sun but not yet from the moon cast the world into vague hues.  Amongst the various grays, the deer was here one moment and gone the next, if only because it moved and then grew still again.

Oops, Delilah thought to herself.  Out a little too late.  The night creatures are waking.

She spared the tiniest smile for no one but herself.

Then she heard it.

The shuffle of the leaves and the crack of a dry stick.  It wasn’t much, but somehow, it wasn’t quite the noise of her fellow forest-dwellers.  And it was enough to make her stop in her run and turn to look behind her.

But no one was there.  No animals either.  At least, none that she could see.

Nor any that she could hear.  The only real noise was the heavy panting of her own breath, her heart and lungs still working overtime from her relentless pace.

Which she then decided to resume.  If there was something somewhere behind her—anything, anyone—it stood to reason to put some distance between her and it.  So even here, on the last leg of her trek, she didn’t hold back.  She took what was left in her tank and used it, and added some of the reserves she now drew from the adrenaline that was slowly leaching into her bloodstream.

Because the hair was rising on the back of her neck.  Gooseflesh was erupting along her back, as if she could sense whatever was behind her staring, keeping close, following; a predator latched to a scent.  It was her sixth sense she was forced to rely on as the twilight world was lacking in detail.  Every time she glanced over her shoulder, she couldn’t quite perceive the shape of her pursuant.

Delilah ran faster still, and then yet faster, her heart pounding hard against her sternum.  Where were the people on this path?  Would anyone round a corner to interrupt the chase?  They were all likely finishing their dinners, or winding down for the night, or putting their children to bed, each and every one of them tucked safely in their houses away from the woods and the dangerous things that lurked in the night.

Finally, Delilah cast one more desperate look behind her and saw nothing… but stumbled over the uneven footing and fell hard to the ground.  She barely managed to catch herself—a stupid move; she could have broken an arm—and with a clumsy motion she scrambled to her feet.  How many seconds of separation had she just lost?

Enough, she found out, because suddenly he grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides.  Delilah screamed and struggled, kicking her legs in a desperate attempt to writhe free.  But there was no hope of liberation, no leverage she could get with her legs because he kept lifting her off the ground.

And yet… her feet could somehow always make contact with the mosses and the fallen leaves.  No matter how many times her attacker tried to lift her, or upend her, or leverage her off balance, he couldn’t.  She always came back down.  It was as if in a dream, where he tried to run but couldn’t make up any ground no matter how fast his legs moved, and the physics of what debilitated him were not just inexplicable but inescapable.

Beyond that, her screams didn’t echo through the forest like they usually did.  It was as if her voice stopped just a handful of strides away from the place of their skirmish.

And it was a skirmish.  It seemed wild and unhinged, yet somehow… not?  She kept struggling but to no effect, almost as if she was all bark and no bite.  Did she think this was a stage fight?  Where she exerted no real force, but made it look like a violent tousle?

Shaking off his confusion, he changed tack and tried to walk her to the bushes.  Maybe there he could gain control.  But the moment he tried to move, he couldn’t.  Something was wrapped around his ankle.  And his other ankle.

“What the hell?” he gasped.

Then she stopped struggling… and put her feet back on the ground… and sighed.

His arms were still about her upper body, his grip still tight.  So she reached for the thumb side of his palms and twisted them down and away from her body with a sudden snap.  The movement broke both his wrists.

His screams didn’t echo through the woods either, just as confined to the vicinity of their battle as hers had been.  Delilah stayed within the bubble as well, stepping no more than out of reach now that he was incapacitated and restrained by what he could now see were numerous roots and vines encircling his feet and lower legs.

“Seriously!  What the hell?!” he shouted.

“Hell’s got nothing to do with it, hot shot,” said Delilah, turning delicately on the spot to face him.  “Nor heaven.”

He looked up at her, terror in his eyes.  Delilah frowned patronizingly back at him, seeing the youthfulness in his face.  A lot of them were young, but he seemed yet more so than the others.

“Oh, poor thing,” she lamented.  “What little bit of evil got into you so early in your life to make you into this?”

“What?” he gasped back, still reeling from the searing pain in his wrists and hands.  “What are you?!  The forest witch therapist?!”

“Ha!” Delilah barked a laugh.  “Oh, honey.  The witches ain’t got nothin’ on me.”

Then she sighed and looked into the distance thoughtfully as she reminisced; “There was a time people called me an avenging angel, but… mortals usually put their best guess at a familiar name to something they don’t understand, just because they’re afraid of not understanding it.  I think with me it was the wings that threw them off.”

It happened in a split second, so fast he wasn’t sure it had actually happened.  They flashed like lightning, but rather than bright, white light, they were streaks of black outlined in wisps of violet.  They lanced out from behind Delilah’s shoulder blades, cutting through the air in the shape of tattered, gossamer butterfly’s wings, the tendrils reaching high overhead as well as down low and away.  The mere pinpricks where they just barely touched the ground left scorch marks in the foliage.

“But don’t worry,” Delilah continued, unperturbed by the young man’s wide, incredulous eyes as she stepped forward.  “This confusion is perfectly normal.  You’re not the first cad to die by the hand of a faerie.”

She meant it literally.  Because suddenly her fist was buried so deep in his torso she touched his spine.  It was always a strange sensation to Delilah; all that squishy stuff, warm and wet and oozing, then right amidst it all, this odd, hard, lumpy column.  But it was too familiar to her to be disconcerting.

Though it definitely wasn’t familiar to the young man, and more than disconcerting.  More than horrifying, even; it was baffling.  This was far beyond anything he had guessed might happen when he decided to go stalking in the woods.  And as strange and shocking and agonizing as it was to have this woman who wasn’t a woman skewer him on her own arm, what was still more disturbing was that as the blood poured out of his mouth, he looked her in the eye and she emitted the most clear, musical, melodic giggle he’d ever heard.

Then she withdrew her hand from his body and the vines from his feet, and he collapsed to the ground.

Delilah inspected the gore on her hand, turning her arm over as delicately and lyrically as a dancer.  Then she looked heavenward; it had finally gotten late enough the moon had taken over the sky.  So she strode a few steps to a bright shaft of pale moonlight and ran her hand through the beam.  Like dipping her arm in a stream, the blood dissolving into the very air.  When she withdrew from the light, she was perfectly clean.

She gave her assailant turned victim one last glance, his blood seeping into the dirt.  Then she decided she needn’t run—nor even fly—home, and walked casually off down the path.  It really was a lovely evening.  The air was now cool enough to be pleasant but not chilly, and the wind was practically nonexistent without being stagnant.  Superb conditions for a meandering stroll back to her home.

What was now her home.  She had moved around quite a lot in her seven hundred years on Earth.  Her current compact apartment wasn’t exactly her natural dwelling, but it was hard nowadays for a Darkling Fae to luxuriate in the forest without being stumbled upon and ultimately displaced.  Such a fuss people made over a woman just lollygagging in the woods.  If they’d simply leave her alone like they used to….

But she did what many of the other mystical creatures had done as urbanization wandered into their realms; she adapted.  She shifted her habits.

Though one thing always remained constant and untarnished in Delilah’s life—her reason for existing as the entity she was.  She never let a lascivious man go unpunished.