Summer (4 page)

Richard edged sideways. The
sluagh
rotated, following his progress. Its fat tongue flickered gently in the air, snakelike. Richard shuddered. He stood still, wondering if it was the heat of his body it sensed, or truly the scent of his flesh.

“I’m faster than you by far.” Water-Bearer minced back down the slope. It had bird feet, bare toes curled under and clawed. It didn’t move gracefully on the ground, but Richard remembered the Prince in flight and knew the monster told the truth. “Flee again if you like, but I’ve caught you, and you’ll only work up a bigger thirst in the running.”

It paused, head tilted, claws scratching for purchase in the gravel. “But mayhap you ran off to die, a dog abandoned by his pack. Is that it, apostate?”

Richard snatched up a jagged chunk of rock and pounced. He hit the
sluagh
sideways, shoulder-to-shoulder, swinging the rock hard at the monster’s head. Skin and bone crunched. Water-Bearer fell backwards against the slope. Richard landed atop the ghoul, sprawled on the creature’s chest.

He lifted the rock again and brought it down. The
sluagh
twisted sideways and Richard missed. No longer surprised, Water-Bearer was quick. It squirmed until Richard couldn’t maintain a good grip. His hands slipped. Water-Bearer hit him once, hard, with the back of its wing.

Richard rolled down the hill, sliding to a stop on his stomach against a boulder. Water-Bearer hopped after, wings flapping. It landed by Richard, set one foot hard between his shoulder blades, talons biting through Richard’s shirt and scoring his flesh.

“Useless animal,” it hissed. “I see you now.” Dark
sluagh
ichor ran from a gash above its eye. “Kin-slayer and coward, to leave your female alone and unprotected, in the grasp of the Wild Hunt.”

Richard bucked against the pressure of the
sluagh
’s foot. Water-Bearer flexed its claws, ripping at his flesh. Fueled by pain and desperation, Richard wriggled sideways and rolled again. He grabbed Water-Bearer’s foot in his good hand, squeezing until he felt delicate bones shift and then snap.

The
sluagh
shrieked and spat. It kicked, raking Richard across the chin, then fell in a huddle, wings pulled around its front into a defensive, feathery tent.

Rubbery flesh and a single claw dripped ichor in Richard’s hand. An entire toe and talon had come away in his grasp. Where the
sluagh
blood fell on gravel it smoked, and where it stained Richard’s fingers blisters rose. Hastily he dropped the grisly trophy, wiping his hand on his shirt.

Breathing hard, he regarded the
sluagh
. Water-Bearer glared back. Its one eye was grass-green, and very bright. One beautiful fairy eye, in an ugly, warty face.

“I’m not leaving Aine behind,” Richard said, surprising himself. What did it matter what the
sluagh
thought? “I’ll kill you all, and get her back.”

Water-Bearer laughed. “We aren’t easily killed, mortal. And this time, you’ve no human technology to aid you.” It showed its sharp teeth when it smiled.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Multiple agonies threatened to pull Richard under. His body wanted to give up and fall down. But he’d faced pain before, and always beat it back. “I’m resourceful.”

“Yes,” Water-Bearer hissed. It studied Richard thoughtfully. Clawed hands crept from behind the wing-curtain and fisted in the gravel. Richard couldn’t help but notice the elegant fingers attached to those claws. They were Winter’s hands,
sidhe
hands, but made grotesque by the addition of long talons.

Water-Bearer caught Richard staring. It laughed again.

“Aye,” it whispered, single eye bright. “We were all beautiful once. The queen’s glorious Host.  Most beloved, most powerful, most dangerous. Until Gloriana grew jealous, and frightened, and we were exiled
here
, a land more poisonous than envy. Here”
—
it stuck a pale foot from beneath its wings—”here, we change, and fall apart.”

Richard swallowed to keep from gagging. The foot wept black blood. A jagged piece of bone showed where he’d torn the monster’s claw away. The bone was thin, see-through, and pocked with tiny black craters.

Water-Bearer shrugged its wings and pulled its foot back behind the curtain of feathers.

“I’ve nearly reached the end of what I was,” it admitted softly. “Your blood and gristle are of little use to me. I’ve forgotten how to hunger.” It tilted its head, bird-like. “Just like I’ve forgotten other things. Tell me how you do it, your magic, here in this place where none exists?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” returned Richard. He took a few steps back away from Water-Bearer. He wondered if he’d best run again, or try to tear the creature to rotting pieces. He wasn’t sure he had the strength for either.

“I’m not so close to ending I can’t chase you to the boundaries of this cursed prison,” the
sluagh
said. “The Prince asked me to bring you back, and so I shall. Far better for us both if you return willingly. Are you thirsting yet?”

Richard licked his lips, then wished he hadn’t.  His tongue felt thick and fuzzy. Water-Bearer showed its teeth again.

“And hungry,” it guessed. “They’ve fed the female. But you—they’ve neglected you. They didn’t realize what they had.
I
won’t neglect you, mortal.”

Richard didn’t remember sitting down, but somehow he was on his knees in the gravel.

“Shut up,” he said. “I need to think.” He scrabbled in the dirt for a rock, clutching the chunk in his good fist.

Water-Bearer only laughed.

“A valiant attempt, apostate,” it murmured, “but above ground and without water you’ll die in a matter of hours. Your wounds have stopped bleeding. You’re drying up. Give way.”

Richard looked at Water-Bearer. The
sluagh
stared back, one-eyed and calculating. The small tentacles in his empty eye socket stretched and twitched.

“If you perish here on the scree,” it said. “You waste a life better spent for your female.”

Aine
, Richard mourned. Aloud, he said: “You’re talking riddles and nonsense. Shut up, or I’ll rip off your wings.”

Water-Bearer snorted through its melted nose. “No riddles. She’s got Mending in her veins. It’s not a quick or easy end she’ll face, not as a bridge between two worlds. She’ll be bled dry, several times over. You’ve guessed, or why come through in our wake? Slit her throat, spare her the suffering, redeem yourself.
That
’s why you’ve come.”

“I came to save her.” Richard’s eyes were gooping shut again, lashes drying together in crusts.

“There’s no saving either of you.” Water-Bearer rose. It shuffled across the gravel and stood over Richard, wings rustling. “But it will be interesting to watch you try.”

It bent in a swoop, and before Richard could twitch, it scooped him up in wiry arms, then sprang upwards. The last thing Richard heard as he let go of consciousness was the unearthly whoosh of strong wings beating against poisoned currents.

He dreamed he was drowning, then woke to a trickle of water on his tongue.

“Carefully,” Water-Bearer cautioned. “Swallow.”

Richard swallowed. The water was sweeter than he remembered. He drank until the jug was taken away. He reached up to rub the gunk from his eyes and a wet cloth was pressed into his hand.

“Use this. Hold it against your eyes until the scabs loosen.”

Richard didn’t argue. The damp eased his stinging face, soothing.

“I’ve splinted your hand. The bones are beyond resetting; fingers are difficult. The splint will prevent further damage. Even better if you shield it from notice.”

Richard took the wet cloth from his face. He opened his eyes, shuddering as lashes stuck together and tore apart. The world had gone blurry again, but Water-Bearer’s one eye glinted clear as day. Over the
sluagh’s
broad shoulders Richard glimpsed familiar shifting shadows: the Dread Host.

“Aine?” he called.

“Quiet,” Water-Bearer hissed. “Your female still lives. They’re preparing her for travel. The path is clear; we’re walking on. Now, eat this, quickly.”

He took the rag from Richard’s hand, replacing it with something small, hard, and warm. Long as a carrot and beet-red, it reminded Richard of a skinny turnip.

“What is it?”

“My dinner. Journey-root. Eat it. I haven’t saved you from death on the rocks only to poison you now.”

Richard was too hungry to be cautious. He took a bite, chewing greedily. Journey-root tasted like bitter onion. Richard didn’t care. He finished the root in four quick bites.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you never accept food from a fairy?”

This time his conscience sounded like Winter. He shook his head, chasing the voices away. It was far too late for warnings or premonitions. He’d left common sense behind the day he’d stolen C4 from Bobby’s basement.

“Remember,” Water-Bearer whispered as it rose, shedding feathers. “End yourself now and your female will suffer later.”

“Her name is Aine. She’s not mine.”

But Water-Bearer was gone, disappeared into the rocks. In its place stood the Prince, beautifully frightening, and at the Prince’s side two tall
sluagh.
They held chains in their clawed hands, short chains made of links of bronze.

Shackles.

“Very stubborn, for a mortal,” the
sluagh
Prince bellowed. “Nor entirely without wits.” It clicked its long tongue, then dipped its chin.

“Bind him,” it ordered, and the
sluagh
fell upon Richard, shrieking with delight.

Siobahn summoned the remaining exiles to Malachi’s Gold Street office. Located on the top floor of a boutique hotel and glassed in on three sides, the small apartment had plenty of light. It looked down onto a narrow cobblestoned alley. Across the alley a pizza joint spat out a constant stream of delivery boys on bicycles.

The office was meant to be modern-eccentric like the rest of the hotel, but Malachi had ignored building ordinances and instead furnished it with various pieces of mismatched furniture he’d collected through the centuries. Stickley and Tiffany competed for space with a faded Chesterfield and Chinese stools. He’d spread Oriental rugs over the original wood floors. Across the rugs he’d tossed skins of the bear and deer he’d hunted over the island before Manhattan became Manhattan.

The apartment also had an all-important back entrance: a fire ladder that eventually dumped into a second, smaller alley.

Siobahn arranged herself in a polished Stickley armchair, Morris standing silent at her back, and watched the open window over the fire escape.

No one ever used the apartment’s front door. Malachi had spelled it shut. Even his mortal visitors came up the fire ladder and through the bedroom window.

It was a silly precaution, Siobahn thought as she faced the open window, waiting. A locked door wasn’t likely to keep serious busybodies out. But Malachi liked his little dramas and they’d kept him from boredom.

“Tea, m’lady?”

Siobahn glanced at the spread of tea and biscuits Morris had set out for guests on a low, battered table that looked more Ikea than turn-of-the-century.

“Something stronger, Morris. Whiskey. One of the old bottles, from the bar.”

“Yes, m’lady.” Morris sounded disapproving, but Siobahn didn’t care. Morris disapproved of everything. It was why she liked him.

A blast of chill winter air blew in through the open window. Siobahn shivered, pulling the sleeves of the sweater she wore down past her wrists and over her fingers. The sweater had belonged to Malachi. It still carried his scent, as did the Gold Street office, and the penthouse over at The Plaza, and the Italian cafe on Thames Street, and every single pore of her body.

Morris bustled back. He extended a snifter of dark brandy. Siobahn took it, warming it between her covered palms, Morris in position behind her chair once more. Together they contemplated the open window.

“They’re late,” he sniffed after a moment.

Siobahn lifted her eyes to the clock on Malachi’s desk. It was a small carriage clock, enameled, a twin to one she kept in her own bedroom.

“Not yet,” she replied. “Give them time to remember.”

Morris cleared his throat disapprovingly, but kept silent. Siobahn drank from her snifter. She swirled the liquid around her teeth. She swallowed and considered Morris’s bland reflection in the windowpanes.

“Don’t you think,” she said, “the British butler routine is a tad out of date?”

Morris didn’t blink.

“No, my lady,” he said.

Siobahn shook her head and took another swallow of liquor. Before, Morris had been in charge of feeding the Progress, a dangerous job few in the Court volunteered to take on. Now he seemed perfectly happy arranging cookies on a tea plate and polishing silverware.

She knew he still wore a knife under his black dinner coat. She wondered if he remembered how to use it for anything other than slicing fine cheese.

The wind gusted again, this time carrying in flecks of snow, and the distinctive, earthy smell of
sidhe
.

“They come,” Morris murmured, relieved.

“Yes.” Siobahn closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was ready. “As I said, they but needed time to remember.”

They came through the window in groups and straggles, and arranged themselves the same way throughout the apartment, talking quietly amongst themselves, or staring vacantly out through the glass walls. Most were thin and ragged and more than half-mad. A few looked less fay than mortal. Three came in animal form: a cat, a raven, and a gray mouse.

The mouse made Siobahn miss Gabriel. But this mouse easily turned itself into a lean young man. He collapsed into the Chesterfield, pulled his mobile from a pocket, and was immediately engrossed. He didn’t once turn his head Siobahn’s way.

“Twenty-five,” Morris said quietly. “By my count we’re missing Katherine Grey, Nightingale, and seven more.”

His tray of sandwiches was mostly empty. Many of the exiles lived on the city streets where good food was hard to find. A few had tastes that had nothing to do with mortal fare.

“Katherine Grey isn’t reliable. Nor Nightingale. The rest will come.”

Morris set down his tray. He regarded the gathering, lips pressed together into a thin line. “Reliability isn’t something I’d expect from this lot, m’lady.”

“No.” Siobahn set her drink aside. She rose, unfolding her long limbs from the Stickley. “But loyalty is.”

She arranged the long skirt she wore beneath Malachi’s sweater. Freeing her palms, she clapped them together once, sharp. The sound, purposefully magnified, bounced off furniture, walls, and glass. When it hit the open window, it rattled the casing, dropping the upper sash with a bang.

The quiet chatter in the room went silent. Palpable tension rose until their fear and anger pricked against Siobahn’s skin.

“When Malachi stood on my right-hand with his sword and strength,” she said, “you remembered your place. Was it only the sword that made you bow? Have you forgotten obedience?”

She waited. They went down to their knees one by one, reluctantly at first, then more quickly, as they recalled who they were and where they’d come from. Only the boy with the busy mobile and a petite maid in a whore’s fishnet stockings refused to drop.

“Himself is murdered and gone,” the boy said without looking up from his phone. “He was the last who believed. There’s no Way home for us now. Why should we care who sits on a throne we’ll never see again?”

Siobahn crossed the room without moving. The lad at last glanced up from his screen. He had a shock of straight dun-colored hair that fell across his nose. He wore a bowtie and bespoke suit. His feet were bare and dirty.

Malachi would have remembered his name. Siobahn didn’t care to.

She flicked her fingers. The phone in his hand turned to a clutch of maggots. They fell from his hand, tumbling across the Chesterfield cushions in tiny pit-pats. When the larvae hit the ground, the nearest
sidhe,
head still bowed, snatched them from the rug and shoved them in her mouth.

The boy’s eyes widened, but he didn’t move.

“I had half my life on that phone,” he said, showing pointed teeth. “All my connections and contacts.”

“Connections and
contacts,”
Siobahn scoffed. “How human you sound. What of blood and vow?”

He shrugged, fists clenched on his thighs. “Himself is gone. It was Malachi kept us safe, kept us fed, while you, m’lady, hid away and watched from on high. Just like Gloriana.”

Siobahn slapped him, twice. Her hand left a red mark across his cheek. He half stood, then prudently changed his mind and fell back onto the cushions.

“Wise,” Siobahn said. She bent and scooped a single missed worm from the carpet, dropping it in the lad’s lap. “My patience isn’t what it was. Get down on your knees.”

He was canny enough to slide off the couch and onto the rug, but not before Siobahn caught the gleam of malice in his blue eyes.  He started to bow his head, hair flopping over his forehead, but Siobahn bent in one swift motion and grabbed his chin.

“What’s your name?” she demanded.

He kept himself still against the grip of her fingers, but Siobahn could feel the pulse beating under his jawbone. He was frightened, or angry, or both. The single tiny worm had fallen from his lap and squished beneath his knee.

“Carran,” he answered, not quite a hiss. “I kept your cloak from the mud, when we crossed through. I carried Himself’s helm. Don’t you remember, m’lady? I was
his
page. The one who slipped—

“—the poison to the Guard, and the sleeping
draiochta
into Gloriana’s cup.” Siobahn relaxed her fingers, remembering. He’d been barely a child, then. Now he was grown, like her own son. Grown, but not thriving, like a sapling pruned back.

“You were loyal to my husband. Willing to commit murder and high treason. You kept his blade clean, and you combed the leaves from my hair when we still ran like animals in the woods.” Siobahn regarded his bent head. “Yet now you’d rather play with human toys than prostrate yourself at my feet. Once you knew your place, Carran. My husband’s death does not change your standing. I am, and was always meant to be, your queen.”

“You have the bloodlines.” He’d put his hands behind his head as though she held a pistol to his lowered brow. “Aye, that’s true. But it was Malachi who treated us as his own, Malachi who held us together.” His eyes were cobalt slits through the fall of his hair. “You, you would have let us rot while you dreamed of revenge.”

Siobahn hit him again, knocking him flat. She conjured a small bronze knife to her hand, pinned him immobile with a word, and would have spilt his traitorous innards all across Malachi’s bear rugs if not for a sudden change in the room.

It was almost imperceptible at first, an inhale and an exhale as the
sidhe
grouped on their knees around the apartment began to stir. She’d held their attention completely and without trying, because it was the way of royalty, but now they were turning away.

Siobahn smelled the danger before she saw it. Not in through the window, no, but under the spelled door, in the gaps around the old frame; a familiar perfume, a hated fragrance, calculation and threat.

Morris rose to his feet. Siobahn wasn’t sure how he meant to protect her with only his small knife; still, he was quick as a cat, and spread himself in front of Malachi’s spelled door a heartbeat before it burst into splinters and shrapnel.

The exiles
rose in leaps and bounds, surrounding Siobahn. Power hummed, and weapons were drawn; pistols, bronze blades, and in one case a sawed-off shotgun. Siobahn felt a surge of satisfaction. They’d protect her even as they chafed under her rule, because it was bred in their bones.

Morris spat a quick Cant as he staggered upright. An orb of amber light spread across Siobahn and her small army.

“Nicely done,” the queen said, surprised. “You’ve a few tricks up your sleeve still, Morris.”

“Yes, m’lady.” Like Siobahn Morris kept his attention on the splintered threshold.

Around Siobahn and beneath the amber orb, the exiles arranged themselves for battle. Only the arrogant blue-eyed boy and the female in the fishnet stockings refused to join ranks.

Katherine Grey sent her human into the room first, a coward’s gambit. He was tall for a mortal, and fit, even after the explosion that had nearly killed him. He walked carefully, and there were sutures still on the right side of his head where emergency room doctors had shaved away his graying hair, but he held himself with the easy confidence of the unafraid.

“Detective Healy,” Siobahn purred. “You might have knocked.”

He scanned the room with a warrior’s quick precision, briefly considering the open window, then smiled at Siobahn.

“I did. You didn’t hear me.” He kept his gaze on Siobahn, but she knew he was assessing her small army and trying to determine the threat level in the room.

“So you kicked the door in?” Siobahn showed her teeth. “Overdone, Detective.”

“Shot the lock,” he said, twitching his coat so she could see the holster under his arm. “One of your son’s modified weapons.” He smiled back. Siobahn didn’t like the genuine amusement on his mouth. “I learned the hard way human technology and
sidhe
magic make a volatile combination.”

One of the exiles hissed and flapped the tiny black batwings sprouting from her spine. The long blade in her fist thrummed a reaction, shifting from black through all the colors of the dawning sky, then back again.

“An explosive combination,” Siobahn agreed. “You’re healing well. Liadan must be tending to you personally. Where is she?”

“Here.”

Morris spat a curse, whirling away from the door. Siobahn turned more slowly. She was used to the Grey Lady’s games; they’d been playing against each other for longer than Siobahn cared to remember.

Katherine Grey climbed through the open window. The curtain shivered at her passing, the worn lace pattern recoiling from her touch. She’d pulled her hair back into a plain braid and wore a black shirt and trousers instead of the overdone couture she usually preferred and Summer so admired.

Carran and his female companion rose from the Chesterfield and ranged themselves at her side. Morris growled, but Siobahn was unsurprised.

“So. You’ve come to sow dissent?” Siobahn set her hand on Morris’ arm to keep him from lunging forward. “I expected the treason, and the theatrics, and even the human.  But I find the mourning raiment distasteful. You never loved him; you haven’t earned the right to grieve.”