Sarah Remy's Blog, page 4
August 18, 2015
HAUNTED
The pier groaned and shivered beneath their step, tortured by ship and sea. The planks stank of tar; both pier and tall ship were regularly painted in the thick substance. More open barrels waited in groups of three for the lift: silver fish and clams and sea crawlers and oysters tossed together in a welter of fresh catch.
“The real coin is there,” Mal said, nodding down the pier at a pyramid of stacked square crates. “Spice, chai, and kahve. Spice and chai from the north, and kahve from the Black Coast. Wilhaiim pays dearly for all three, the merchants and islanders are rich, all.”
Liam studied the crates. Blue and green sigils labeled their contents, dye faded after a long, hot voyage.
“Avani’s an islander,” the boy mused. “And not rich.”
“No.” Mal frowned, watching as Jacob chased a fat gull away from a dropped, flopping fish. The raven pinned the fish between sharp claws and plunged his beak into the glassy, dead eye. “Although once her family might have been. Before the eight islands sank, they were known for a rare fabric woven from the silk of orange butterflies.” He whistled, sharp, between two fingers. “The butterflies were lost with the islands and the islanders.”
Merchants and seaman froze at Mal’s whistle. The raven did not. Jacob swallowed down the fish’s eye, and went to work on its gills. Mal cursed.
“He’ll not come till he’s ready, my lord,” Liam said, wise beyond his years. Then, “Look, there, that fellow with the ring in his ear. He’s waving, my lord, do you know him? He looks like a pirate, but he ain’t, I mean, isn’t he? Can we go and say hello?”
“Pirates sighted near Selkirk are quickly keelhauled,” Mal replied, shaking his head over Liam’s tangled grammar. “The feather means he’s first mate. And the ring in his ear belongs to the ship. But I do believe I recognize those freckles. Come, lad, and let’s see if my suspicions are correct.”
Merchants and seamen dodged discreetly out of the way as Mal and Liam walked the pier. The man with the feather in his cap and the ring in his ear stood on the planks midway between sand and water, foot propped on a square crate, hands now full of net and blue glass. His dark, freckled face creased into pleased, sun-worn lines as Mal approached. He grinned, revealing tobacco-blackened teeth and a single true-gold incisor.
It was the tooth that convinced Mal.
“Cousin.” The sailor winked, turned and spat, then winked again, this time at Liam. “You’ve lost me twenty pieces of silver.”
“Have I?” Mal couldn’t help but smile back. “Still not learned from past mistakes, Seb?”
“It was a sure bet. Even Biaz misdoubted you’d bother show your face, Malachi Serrano.”
“Doyle,” Mal corrected. “Malachi Doyle, now, cousin.”
“More fool you, taking a flatlander name.” Sebastian Serrano spat again, then dropped the tangle of rope and blown glass globes into Liam’s arms. He held out a brown hand. “It won’t stick.”
Malachi clasped the offered hand, felt the scars and calluses.
“It has, and will,” he said, gently. “Seb, this is my lad, Liam. Liam, my cousin Sebastian, first mate,” Mal glanced at the ship rocking behind his cousin, “On The Laughing Queen?”
“Aye,” Sebastian said, taking his hand back, chest expanding with obvious pride. “Three years now, it’s been. She’s a good ship, outruns the best of them.”
“Fair way up from novice lineman,” Mal said. “Liam, Seb and my brother Rowan used to work the rigging together.”
Liam appeared deeply engrossed in a blue glass buoy. The stare he turned on Sebastian was calculating.
“I don’t like boats,” he said, quietly dismissive. “And neither does my lord.”
Surprised, Mal opened his mouth to protest, but Sebastian beat him to it.
“Your master had the makings of a great sea captain,” he corrected on a laugh. “Would have been, too, if not for the magic.” He carefully didn’t look at the ring on Mal’s hand. “Magic and the sea don’t mix, lad, because the sea is jealous of any power but its own.” He gathered net and glass back from the boy. “Ships are like songs, Liam. Some men can carry the tune, and some can’t. Now, Queenie here, she’s sweeter than the sweetest ballad, because she’s not just a merchant marine, she’s also part of the King’s Navy, best known for the pirates she’s brought to heel.”
“Aye?” Liam considered The Laughing Queen’s barnacled starboard. “Real pirates?”
“Are there any other sort? We’ve a collection of confiscated cutlass and chivs pinned to the dodger, some yet brown with old blood. Also a Black Coast flintlock, off the last corsair we drug beneath the keel.” Sebastian cupped his chin. “Mayhap you’d like to see?”
Liam was near quivering with excitement and curiosity. Mal saw the reluctant denial on his furrowing brow and spoke first.
“Go up, lad,” he said. “It’s fine. I’ll wait here.”
“But, my lord!” Liam looked horrified. “I don’t know—”
Sebastian interrupted, putting fingers to lips and splitting the air with a piercing whistle to match Mal’s earlier attempt. Immediately a man popped head and shoulders over the deck rail.
“Oi?” the man shouted over the wind. “Whatzit?”
“Visitor, Fiennes!” Sebastian called. “Come and show him up.”
“My lord!” Liam tried again, but Mal cut him off with a wave of his hand.
“Hold tight to the ropes,” he said, watching as Fiennes shimmied his way to the deck. “And don’t touch the cutlasses. I’ll be here when you’ve looked your fill.”
“Here to see the cutlasses, are you, lad?” Fiennes had even fewer teeth than Sebastian. “Well, don’t stand about with your tongue hanging. Come on, then.”
Liam gave in. He plucked the rose crown from his brow, set it on the planks, and jumped after Fiennes without further protest, scurrying up the rope ladder with an unnatural ease that might have made a more observant man pause. Sebastian only shook his head, pinched a fresh twist of tobacco from a pouch at his belt, and popped it between his lips.
“What happened?”
Mal arched his brows. “I became vocent, Sebastian. It’s been a while; I assumed you’d hear.”
“Most powerful man in the kingdom,” his cousin quoted, less than impressed. “I wiped your tears the day word of Rowan’s loss made Selkirk, or have you forgotten? No.” He swiveled and spat. “I meant the lad. What happened to his face and hands? More of your magic?”
“No.”
Sebastian waited a beat, then shrugged. “Come to pass on the title, have you? You’ll not be wanting it, I imagine.”
“You imagine correctly,” Mal said. “It was never mine to begin with.”
“Nay, it was Rowan’s.” Seb pursed his lips in thought. “Your mam still believes he’d have done well by it, but I’m not so sure.”
“Oh?” Gulls were diving the pier, shrieking. Mal caught a glimpse of black wings, and winced.
“Nay. Rowan never shed a tear in his life. Even as the tide dragged him down, he didn’t so much as squeak. Loved him like a brother, I did, but nothing ever roused him to passion, do you understand?”
Mal frowned.
“Music,” he said after a moment of thought. “Dancing. Good drink. Pretty lasses.”
“You remember differently than the rest of us.” Sebastian rolled his shoulders. The hem of his faded tunic flapped in the rising winds. “No matter. It’s been a long time, h’ain’t it? Come aboard?” It was a challenge.
“Nay,” Mal replied. “The pirates don’t look friendly.”
Sebastian stiffened. “Pirates?” His bare, cracked feet scratched on the planks as he turned to stare up at his ship. “We haven’t any pirates aboard.”
“You’ve plenty of them,” Mal said, mildly, showing his teeth. “Or did you think the rogues wouldn’t haunt the ship drowned them beneath her keel? Your afterdeck’s cluttered with vengeful spirits, cousin.”
Sebastian’s wrinkled face slackened. “Nay, not truly?” He shuddered. “Don’t you go spreading rumors, now, Mal. No good seaman will willingly sail a ghost-ridden ship. Word gets out she’s haunted, The Laughing Queen’s dead in the water.
Mal fixed his smile in place as Liam popped over the rails.
“I’ve no patience for rumors,” he said, watching as Liam half clamored, half jumped from ladder to pier. “I’ll see you tonight, Seb, at the dedication?”
“Aye,” his cousin muttered, distracted. “I’ll be there.”
“Good.” Mal put his arm around Liam’s sweaty neck, steering the lad away.
They walked the rest of the pier in silence, ignored by merchant and seaman both. Liam goggled over the remaining ships, but showed no inclination to visit another deck.
“You’re thoughtful,” Mal said as they turned about again, faces to Selkirk, wind against their backs. “Not cut out for adventure on the high seas?”
Liam shrugged, not quite dislodging Mal’s arm.
“It ain’t—isn’t—that, my lord,” he said. “The swords were fine, and the flintlock puzzling. It shoots a lead ball, my lord, like a canon, Fiennes said. With enough force to pass clean through a man, and kill him dead.”
They stepped off the pier and onto uneven sand. Morning was just giving way to afternoon, but already small boys and girls were using long, thin Selkirk matches to light the torches on the beach. Clouds raced overhead, and the young attendants had to shelter the flickering match-heads with their hands.
“That’s what’s bothering you, the flintlock? You likely won’t see another in your lifetime, lad. They’re extremely rare and by all accounts both difficult to manufacture and dangerously unreliable.”
“Not that, my lord.”
“Then what?”
“They’ve no respect, here, my lord. For you, or for the crown. They whisper behind your back, and spit. And I heard ’em call His Majesty a cheat and dishonest.”
“Ah.” Malachi urged Liam north along the beach, away from Selkirk and her pier, away from the torches. It didn’t escape his notice when Jacob left his game with the gulls and followed after, wheeling lazily overhead. “Most of the people on the coast have never had cause to make the trip into Wilhaiim, lad. To them, the king is only an idea, or an image. They watch their coin go to taxes, and see little in return. They’ve more local concerns; the tides, the weather, the catch. Even pirates are a rare threat these days; spooky stories used to scare infants in the cradle.”
Liam scuffed his sandals, kicking up sand. His hands were clenched at his side.
“His Majesty shouldn’t put up with it.”
“They pay their taxes, Liam. In truth, vague grumblings are natural, and nothing to worry yourself over.”
The boy’s low reply was made incomprehensible by a crash of feathers. Jacob landed hard on Mal’s shoulder, claws piercing linen, tongue clicking in his beak. Mal swore.
“God’s balls, monster. That hurts!”
“What’s that, my lord?” Liam asked, sulk interrupted. He pointed ahead, up the beach.
“That—” Mal reached up and tried to forcibly loosen the raven’s claws in his flesh. Jacob chortled, unrepentant. “—is where we’re walking to. One last thing to show you before we return to the keep.”
Liam cocked his head.
“It looks like part of a building, my lord. Sticking right out of the sand.”
“It is,” Mal answered. “Run ahead and take a look. There’s a plaque, I believe, in the royal lingua. You’ll be practiced enough to read it, I believe.”
The boy didn’t need to be told twice. Grievances forgotten for the moment, he galloped along the beach, scattering seaweed and gulls as he went. Mal followed more slowly, Jacob huffing in his ear.
“You know what it is, I imagine,” Mal said.
The bird didn’t bother to answer.
The stretch of beach was narrow, a silver strand between water and high cliffs. The spring winds, trapped against stone, howled. It had been on a similar spring night ten years earlier when the islands sank, that Gerald Doyle had sent Mal home to help with rescue and recovery, in the hopes that his blossoming magics might provide some assistance.
They hadn’t. Instead he’d waited on the sand, collecting limp, waterlogged bodies from skiff and rowboat and skipper, and in the dawn, directly from the rolling waves. He’d quickly lost count of corpses, but the spirits of the island dead hadn’t let him forget; they’d shrieked and wailed and called for their lost even as he pulled new bodies from the sea.
He’d wept with the violation of it, his inability to keep them out, the ineffectiveness of the few cants and mediations he’d begun to learn and his father had been embarrassed for his youngest son’s display of emotion. And angry. Later, after the island dead were piled and burnt according to their custom, while the flames were still hot, reaching high against the cliffs, the Selkirk had beaten Mal for cowardice, then sent him back to his foster father, ears still ringing with threats and recriminations.
The Serranos of Selkirk are men, Malachi, and not babes to weep over the sea’s fickle temper, the Selkirk had said between gritted teeth. You’re more flatlander than sea lord, now. Return home and tend your gentle fields.
“My lord,” Liam said, startling Mal from the past. “Is it a grave?”
“A monument,” Mal corrected. The beach was quiet, peaceful, those distraught spirits long moved on, or seeking shelter from the wicked wind. “There were too many corpses to inter, twelve times twelve at the end. Selkirk lit a great bonfire, and dedicated their souls to whatever gods they best loved, and stacked the corpses in the flames.”
“What’s this then?” Liam squinted at the monument. “Is it a rafter? It’s not part of a ship. I’ve never seen wood like this, striped and spotted.”
“The islanders call it monkey wood.” Mal regarded the beam. It had taken five of Selkirk’s men together to dig down deep enough to secure the monument against the tide. By all accounts they’d sunk it the length of a man into the earth, and still the beam over-topped the tallest man on the beach. “A support joist, part of a canopy or building. It floated past with the corpses; a few of my father’s men swam out and hauled it back in.”
He stretched past Liam, knocked the wood with this knuckles. “Hard as rock, but apparently very light. Can you read the plaque?”
Liam sank to his heels in the sand. He ran one finger over engraved bronze, touching each letter as he mouthed.
“All life springs from the waves. All life returns to the sea.” Liam frowned. “But that’s not right, my lord. We bury our dead in the ground, far away from any water, lest the bones rise and float away.”
“Flatland customs differ from coastal, just as island customs differ from both. Islanders burn their dead, flatlanders bury their dead. The coastal clans prefer to send the dead back into the sea.”
Liam’s face lit with curiosity. “How’s that, my lord? How’s it done?”
“Tonight,” Mal promised. “You’ll have the witnessing of it.”
Jacob clicked his tongue, unimpressed.
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July 23, 2015
Not The Fairy Tale You Remember
Once upon a time the wool merchant of Littleton was a very rich man, blessed with guile and luck, and a glass-windowed house, and a pretty wife who loved him well, and four healthy children. The wool merchant’s name was John, but Corbin called him ‘Da’ and believed him to be the bravest, most clever man in all of the world.
Twice a year – spring and fall – Da would travel through the great northern forest to the coast. There he’d meet the merchant marine at port. In the spring he’d offload the previous season’s wool, and in the fall he’d collect his earnings, in coin or fabric, or wine, or in tins of the foreign spices Corbin’s mother so loved. Sometimes Da would take Mother with him through the forest to the coast, because she adored the bustling port town, called Sweetmarch, and because Da would do anything Mother asked, just to see her smile.
In the spring of Corbin’s seventh year Da loaded ten bags of shorn wool into the back of the family cart while Mother kissed her children farewell. It was a pleasant morning, bright and warming toward the promise of early summer. Young lambs played in the fields behind Corbin’s house. The carthorse, called Snip for the white on his nose, stamped one hoof in impatience, making Mother laugh.
“Mind your Nan,” she said, kissing first her three girls, and Corbin last of all. “Be a good lad and keep your sisters in order. And the lambs.”
Corbin’s sisters were red-eyed and snuffling where they stood in the cottage doorway. Corbin awarded them a pitying glance before he hugged Mother around the waist and nodded against her skirts.
“I will,” he promised, dry-eyed. “I’ll make certain Beauty eats her veg and Hope tends the hens, and I’ll help Nan with Faith’s nappies.”
Mother laughed. She ruffled Corbin’s red hair. Then Da helped her up into the cart where she settled herself atop the wool. The cart had room enough only for Mother and the mercantile; Da, Corbin knew, would walk alongside Snip all the way through the forest to the seashore. Da clucked his tongue, long reins clutched in his right fist, until Snip started obediently forward. Da didn’t look around as the horse pulled the cart away from the cottage, but Mother twisted on her high perch and waved one hand in farewell. Then she looked through Snip’s ears, putting the cottage at her back. Corbin stood beside Da’s chopping block, watching until the cart and horse grew smaller and smaller and at last disappeared around a bend in the road.
Nan chased Corbin’s sisters back into the cottage. She swooped and clucked just like a hen herself. Corbin’s sisters stopped snuffling and giggled instead. Nan glanced over her shoulder at Corbin before she crossed the threshold.
“Go into town and fetch back some bread from Baker,” she said. “I’m near out and we’ll have kidney and toast for supper, I think.”
Corbin pulled his attention from his vanished parents. Littleton proper was in the opposite direction on the King’s Highway, which meant there’d be no chance to tail Snip and the cart all the way to the edge of town. He’d only been halfway considering the chase, because Da would beat him if he caught him playing at adventure. He glanced at Nan and saw she knew exactly what he’d been thinking.
“Go and fetch the bread,” she said. “Spare yourself a lashing. Wee mite like you has no place near the forest.”
Corbin was a red-headed lad with a red-headed temper, but he knew better than to argue with Nan early in the morning, so he took himself obediently past the cottage gate and onto the muddy road all along the swell of new barley toward town.
– BEASTLY MANOR, November 2015
This time around, it’s not Beauty who breaks the curse.
Read the Corbin shorts from Reuts and Madison Place Press, and look for the full length novel later this year.
June 2, 2015
Pleased as punch to announce M.P.P.’s newest release:
Sum...
Pleased as punch to announce M.P.P.’s newest release:
Summer, Volume Two of The Manhattan Exiles
*****
Summer’s the sort of girl who enjoys being a princess.
Summer would rather study dressmaking than learn spellcasting, rather shop Soho than practice swordsmanship. Summer’s vengeful mother is the exiled queen of the Sidhe. Summer’s father is a 
warrior prince, adored by his stranded people. Summer’s older brother can read minds and isn’t afraid of anything – not cursed rapiers, fire-wielding changelings, or the predatory, flesh-eating Dread Host.
Summer’s always dreamed of Fairyland.
Now Summer’s brother has disappeared through one of his magical Gates into another world. And Summer’s father is dead, cut down by a human assassin right in the middle of Sixth Avenue. So when Summer’s mother discovers a back door into Tir na Nog, it’s Summer she sends on a quest between worlds to depose the upstart sidhe pretender and free the Exiles. But Fairyland’s not at all like Summer imagined, leading a quest is hard work, and it turns out being a princess means making all the difficult decisions.
And while you’re supporting your hybrid author, don’t forget to pre-order Across the Long Sea from HarperVoyager!
*****
The gripping follow-up to Stonehill Downs
As the most valuable asset in the kingdom of Wilhaiim, Malachi Doyle has many responsibilities—protector, assassin, detective, and King Renault’s right-hand man. And until he met Avani in the cursed village of Stonehill Downs, he believed he was the last of his kind: a magus who can communicate with the dead.
But Wilhaiim is left vulnerable when Mal and his page, Liam, are kidnapped and ferried across the Long Sea to a warring kingdom in search of its own magus. To make matters worse, a springtime plague is rapidly spreading, and beneath the earth the sidhe are preparing for war. With Mal missing and presumed dead, Avani reluctantly takes his place as Wilhaiim’s magus. But her powers are unreliable and untested, her many allies are treacherous, and she is certain Mal is alive. Will she be able to keep Wilhaiim—and herself—safe?
And finally, how about a freebie?
Onward, Voyager: A Science Fiction and Fantasy Sampler
featuring an absolutely delicious collection of scifi and fantasy authors, including Chuck Wendig, Mitchell Hogan, Liana Brooks and many more (including me).
April 28, 2015
SUMMER
Volume Two of The Manhattan Exiles
Coming June...
SUMMER
Volume Two of The Manhattan Exiles
Coming June 2nd, 2015
from Madison Place Press
*****
Summer’s the sort of girl who enjoys being a princess.
Summer would rather study dressmaking than learn spellcasting, rather shop Soho than practice swordsmanship. Summer’s vengeful mother is the exiled queen of the Sidhe. Summer’s father is a warrior prince, adored by his stranded people. Summer’s older brother can read minds and isn’t afraid of anything – not cursed rapiers, fire-wielding changelings, or the predatory, flesh-eating Dread Host.
Summer’s always dreamed of Fairyland.
Now Summer’s brother has disappeared through one of his magical Gates into another world. And Summer’s father is dead, cut down by a human assassin right in the middle of Sixth Avenue. So when Summer’s mother discovers a back door into Tir na Nog, it’s Summer she sends on a quest between worlds to depose the upstart sidhe pretender and free the Exiles. But Fairyland’s not at all like Summer imagined, leading a quest is hard work, and it turns out being a princess means making all the difficult decisions.
March 1, 2015
Emerald City Con
Heading to Emerald City Con at the end of March? Come and find me! I’ll be sitting on a couple of great panels, and basically fangirling around. If you see me, say hi. I love to meet new folks.
Summer Chapter Five
Forbidden
“Crawlers,” Lolo said. He shone his flashlight left and right, but looked straight ahead. “Don’t stare. It just pisses ‘em off.”
Barker shifted minutely. Summer felt the stir of power as he muttered a Cant under his breath. She hoped it was some sort of protective spell, because the stares from the tunnel’s edge made her shiver.
“Stupid boy,” Barker hissed. “You’ve walked us into a lion’s den.”
“No.” Lolo continued to walk. “Most of ‘em aren’t violent, just high. They don’t want any trouble. They just want their fix, and to be left alone.”
Summer wasn’t so sure. She knew the effect sidhe beauty could have on even the steadiest of humans. The lost group sheltering in Federal Station looked anything but steady. Many of the slumped forms were still, caught in their own drug-fueled dreams, but a few took glassy-eyed notice, and one man with a tangled, ginger beard licked his lips as they passed, and showed Summer his tongue.
“Lolo!” She hurried to catch up. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“You said you wanted to see the gate,” Lolo said. He dodged a pile of trash and the sleeping man curled around it. “The gate’s down here. They can’t hurt us, Summer. We’ve got Barker.”
Summer grabbed a handful of the back of Lolo’s sweatshirt. For once he didn’t make fun of her. She looked over her shoulder at Barker. The older sidhe kept his flashlight trained on the curving tunnel sides. His mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“What about the sluagh?” Summer asked.
“The trains aren’t running. If there were monsters about, we’d be walking through a blood bath, not a flop house.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Sorry,” he said, but Summer didn’t think he meant it. She wanted to hit him, but couldn’t make her fingers let go of his hoodie.
“I smell smoke,” said Barker.
“Up there ahead,” replied Lolo. “Bonfire. That’ll be where the big bosses are crashing.”
“Big bosses?” Summer repeated.
“Pushers,” Barker murmured. “Dealers. Lorenzo – ”
But Lolo was already ten steps ahead, dragging Summer behind.
“Look natural,” he said, and Summer couldn’t decide whether she wanted to laugh or cry.
The bonfire was more smoke than flame, but it gave off enough heat to warm Summer’s cheeks as they approached. It burned between the tracks and over, turning the rails warm several inches to either side of the blackened wood, and effectively blocking their way. Folding lawn chairs were set in a circle, exactly as though the tunnel crawlers intended to roast marshmallows and sing camp songs.
Four mortal men sat in a half-circle around the fire. Summer wasn’t good at guessing mortal age, but she thought they looked little older than boys, beardless and wiry. Three had tattoos, one was bald, and the fourth had a ring in his nose.
He looked up as Lolo approached, and set the neatly flared hand of cards he’d been studying upside-down into the dirt, safely away from the fire.
“Evening.” He smiled. “Shopping?”
“Passing through,” Lolo corrected. “Vale?”
“Sure. But there’s not much past here, except the hole.”
“Tourists,” said Lolo. “They want to see the damage.”
“Huh.” The shifting light glinted on the piercing in his nostril as he wagged his chin back and forth. “People are crazy. Don’t I know you, kid?”
Lolo shrugged dramatically. The beads in his dreads clicked.
“Could be. Used to mule for Bobby Lorimer some, before I got a better gig.”
“Yeah. I remember.”
Summer decided the sway of his chin was a tick, or a spasm. She couldn’t help but notice the flecks of spit in the corner of his smile. When he caught her staring, she looked away, embarrassed.
“How much you making off this tourism?”
“Not enough to pay the rent.”
One of the other men shifted in his lawn chair. The bonfire picked out the planes and wrinkles on his face, making him ugly.
“You want to pass, you got to pay the troll.”
“Toll?” Barker echoed in clipped tones. He was little more than a silhouette against Summer’s spine, yellow eyes muted.
“Troll.” He giggled under his breath, then jerked a thumb at his younger companion. “We call him the troll, because he collects the gold.”
“Oh, come on,” Lolo whined, suddenly sounding his age. “This tourism thing is my gig. I thought it up, I paid off the cops. Let a man make a living.”
“It’s a good idea, but you ain’t no man, kid.” The troll held out one hand. “Give us a cut, or you don’t get by.”
Barker pushed past Summer, Winter’s Glock in hand. Summer wasn’t sure whether he’d conjured it to hand or simply plucked it from Lolo’s waistband.
He leveled the pistol at the troll’s head. “Move aside.”
Lolo went very still under Summer’s hand.
No bullets, Summer remembered.
The troll grinned.
“You won’t use that,” he said. His three companions rose one by one. Two pulled pistols of their own. The third dragged a shotgun from underneath his chair. “Unless you’re stupid. Three against one and now I’m wondering, hermano, exactly what sort of tourist carries a semi-automatic instead of a camera phone?”
“Hey.” Lolo lifted both his hands, palms up. “Hey, hey. I’ve got nothing to do with – ”
The empty Glock spat four times in a row. Summer bit back a scream, then choked on it as the troll fell sideways. He hit the ground, twitching, and his foot and the cuff of his jeans scraped through the bonfire. His shoe began to smoke.
“You’ll want to move him once we’re past.” Barker told the troll’s frozen companions. “He’s not dead, but if you leave him to burn, he soon will be.” He nudged Summer, hard, with an elbow, Glock still steady in his hand. “Go. Now.”
Summer edged around the fire and lawn chairs. She had to pull Lolo with her, because he’d gone quiet and dull-like. The troll’s friends didn’t move. They watched Barker and Winter’s pistol as the sidhe circled past.
Once the bonfire was behind her, Summer began to run. Lolo stumbled after. Barker drifted behind, insubstantial as mist. Summer had forgotten the flashlight in her hand, and now it bounced in her loose grip, sending round circles of light up and down and sideways, dizzying. She thought she heard shouts, and angry voices, but she didn’t see any more faces against the tunnel wall.
Eventually Barker reached out and pulled her to a halt.
“Steady,” he warned. “They’ve not come after, and I’ve no wish to get lost in this place. Lorenzo, pay attention.”
Lolo was bent in an L-shape, hands on his knees. He coughed and spat.
“You killed him,” the boy said without looking up. “You shot him, with an empty gun. Four times.”
“It was only a Glamour,” Summer said, confused when Lolo retched and spat again. “The gun’s empty, remember? No bullets. A Glamour, and a sleep spell, right?”
“Of course,” Barker replied. “Now.” He took Lolo by the arm, hauling the boy upright and around. “Which way?”
Lolo jerked back, out of Barker’s reach. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then tugged his hoodie straight. Ignoring Barker, he pointed his flashlight at the wall.
“We almost ran past it,” he told Summer. “A few more yards this way.”
“How can you tell?” Summer demanded.
“I can tell because this is my home turf,” the boy said. “But when we first moved in, Win left a mark every ten feet. In case we got lost, or mentally fucked by a psycho sidhe who can kill with an empty gun. Look.” He stepped closer to the wall. The white circle shed by his flashlight expanded to pie-size. “There. It’s always on the east wall.”
A small glyph glittered on the edge of Lolo’s light; an amber rune etched into the stone wall at shoulder height, a tiny stick man with a round face and wide, anime eyes.
“Funny.” Summer reached out to touch the glowing mark. It felt no different than the stone behind it, but the shine turned her fingers gold.
“They’re not all the same. Couple of them are doing some really lewd things. There’s one that makes Richard blush.” He paused. “Used to make Richard blush.”
“Those are more than bathroom humor.” Barker continued up the tunnel. “Those are homemade Wards, crafted with an aes si‘s tutelage. A few yards up, you say?”
“There will be a gate in the wall, on your right.” Lolo didn’t move. “It’s unlocked.”
“Are you alright?” Summer asked, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Shouldn’t have dipped in the minibar for dinner, that’s all.”
“Okay.” But she grasped the edge of his hoodie again, more for his comfort than her own. She supposed maybe they were both remembering Michael Smith fallen on the sidewalk, face ruined by Lolo’s bullet.
The gate hung open. Barker had gone ahead.
“Heads up,” Lolo warned. “There are rocks and shit on the stairs.”
Summer pressed her free hand against the rough wall. She descended one step at the time, counting as she went. Twenty-three steps farther down into the earth. Lolo was right. Chunks of the wall and low ceiling had fallen into small piles on the stairs. She was glad of Lolo’s light.
At the bottom of the steps a heavy metal door stood cracked open.
“No me chingues!” Lolo said. “I locked it behind us when me and Brother Dan left. I always remember to lock it. No one knows the code but Win and Richard and me.”
He aimed his light at what must once have been a keypad on the wall. The plastic buttons were melted. Summer could see a faint charring around the small rectangle.
“I don’t think Barker needed the code,” she said.
“Fuck,” Lolo spat. “Winter’s going to kill me.”
The metal door looked heavy. Lolo squeezed through the crack. Summer followed. She smelled rotten food, and damp, and old sweat, and beneath it the faint spicy-scent that was her brother.
“Gross.” She covered her nose. “Something in here’s off.”
Lolo grunted. “No electricity. Richard’s salami is probably growing fuzz in the fridge, not to mention Win’s veggies. Come on, this way.”
Old train tracks ran down the center of the narrow tunnel. Floor to ceiling curtains divided the space into odd little compartments. They passed through a kitchen and several bedrooms. Twice they had to edge around piles of collapsed wall.
“The library’s pretty much destroyed.” Lolo shone his flashlight between two curtains. Summer caught an impression of jagged rock and shining puddles. “Something came down through the ceiling, brought pipes with it. It’s all turned to mud.”
Summer thought he sounded breathless all over again. She’d only seen Lolo cry once before, and that was at her father’s burning, but she figured seeing his home destroyed might be even worse. Lolo hadn’t known Malachi, but he’d grown up in the Metro.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Whatever. We were outgrowing the place, anyway.”
Beyond the library the tunnel opened up and dead-ended in a huge pile of junk. Spears of metal and large coils of cable made frightening shadows against the floor and ceiling. Summer almost tripped over a fallen bucket.
“Richard’s workshop,” explained Lolo. “Guess he built the bomb here, and we never even knew it, cobarde, and we never even guessed.”
“Do you hate him now?” Summer asked. She guessed he must.
“I don’t know.”
“Children,” Barker’s voice rang like low bells in Summer’s skull. “Come down. Cautiously.”
“He means the pit,” Lolo explained. “There used to be a real path, but it’s all fallen over. Try not to step on anything sharp. There’s a lot of it.”
They picked their way through piles of junk. Summer stubbed her toe on a rusting gear and was once again glad of her tennies.
“No wonder Winter always dresses like a bum. It’s a dust-fest in here.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Past the mountain of trash Lolo came to a sudden halt.
“Watch it,” he warned. “You don’t want to fall in.”
“The pit.” Summer remembered. She aimed her light into the depths. “Barker!”
“Here. At the bottom.”
“This way.” Lolo scuffed sideways along the edge of the hole. “There’s a path down.”
The way down was more of a crumbling slope than a path. The dirt shifted under Summer’s feet as she half-walked, half-slid her way slant-wise into the grade. Bits of mineral or glassin the sand glittered against flashlight beams. She heard dripping water and smelled more damp, and something else that stank like rot and sewer.
“Corpse-stink,” Lolo said, breathing through his mouth. “That’s the sluagh.”
Summer’s scalp prickled. “Are they here?”
“No,” Barker said from the shadows, making Summer jump and fumble her flashlight. “It’s their prison you smell.”
“Fuck!” Lolo hissed. “Can you be less dramatic? Almost pissed my pants, you bastard.”
Barker murmured a word in the Gaelic. The pit went all bright and white and stark, then black again. Summer blinked, momentarily blinded.
“The gate sucks it away,” Barker said. He sounded mild, but Summer thought she could smell his fear mixed with the corpse-stink. “Starlight. My torch lasted only a moment before the batteries died.”
Summer’s own flashlight began to flicker in reply. She switched it quickly off, alarmed by the dying strobe.
“Didn’t used to do that,” complained Lolo. “Always just spat out monsters.”
“Where is it?” Summer demanded as Lolo’s light faded. “I can’t see it. It’s too dark.”
“Look.” Barker took her shoulders. “This way. The moon has mostly set, but you can see a glint off the water.”
At first Summer didn’t understand. Then she saw it, all at once, a blacker patch in the darkness, and at its center a shifting gleam: faint light off the roll of waves, but so far away it was like watching the neighbor’s television one apartment building over.
“I can see it now.” She stretched out a hand, but the reflection of moon-on-water stayed out of reach. “It’s floating. Winter’s gate.”
“Sluagh door,” said Lolo, disgusted. “What’s it doing here? Used to be all the way down past L’Enfant.”
“It moved.”
“No shit. How’d it do that?”
“I’m not positive.” Barker Called starlight again. It flashed and then fizzled, but this time Summer knew what she was looking for, and caught a quick glimpse of the gate itself: a man-sized tear in the air, no wider than a bath tub, floating at knee-height.
“It needs to be closed,” the sidhe said. “Before it begins to suck more than light and warmth.”
“Like a black hole,” Lolo said.
“You can’t close it!” Summer argued, frightened. “Not if Winter’s in there!”
“Is he? Lorenzo, are you certain?”
“I saw him go in. Dunno if he still is.”
“It’s a one-way door,” Barker murmured. “Shoddily made by a child who didn’t know what he was attempting and was lacking in both knowledge and power.”
“It can’t be one-way. You’re wrong. Win wouldn’t leave us behind. He promised Mama.” Summer made herself speak calmly, one word at a time, willing Barker to understand. “He has to kill the Queen, and save Mama. You know he has to. We have the sword, we have Hannah.” She wanted to shout, but thought her father would disapprove. “Winter promised.”
“Summer.” Lolo’s hand found Summer’s in the dark. He squeezed her fingers. “Calm down. We’ll figure something out. Win will figure something out. He always does. He’ll find a way back, because you’re right, he wouldn’t leave us.”
She heard Barker shift, Barker who was always silent.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s possible your brother didn’t know. Either way, the rift needs to be closed before the sluagh grow restless again.”
“No. I won’t let you.” To Summer’s shame, she felt tears overflow her lashes and drip down the side of her nose. “You can’t. I’m Siobahn’s daughter, princess of the royal blood. And I’m telling you: leave it open!”
Lolo’s hand slid up her wrist, tightening. She thought he meant to pull her out of range in case Barker flipped out. She was wrong.
“Summer,” the boy said. “He’s right. You’ve never seen. The shit the ghouls get up to. The things … it’s bad, Summer. They’re really bad.”
“Your brother spent every moment of the last ten years trying to protect mortals from this gate,” Barker said evenly, a low growl in the dark. “His best friend brought down the earth trying to close it. And you’ll tell me no, Samraidh? Make very sure, before you speak again. Because I’m bound to listen.”
“Summer,” Lolo pleaded. “You have to let him close it. Win will find another way home.”
Summer wiped snot from her face with the back of her arm. “What are the chances of that? Barker?”
He was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. In the darkness of the pit, alien light shifted on water that had never seen a mortal sun.
“The Dread Host were imprisoned for a thousand human years before Winter cracked a hole in their prison,” he said at last. “And they never found escape. But your brother is a constant surprise to those of us who remember astonishment. It’s not impossible he will find a way when the slaugh did not. Unlikely, but not impossible.”
“Summer.” Lolo let go of her wrist. “Winter saved my life. But the sluagh, they eat babies. Like you and I eat chocolate candies. I’ve seen it. They. Eat. Babies. You can’t let them come back. There’s no one left here to fight them off but me.”
“No one left here…” Summer repeated. Her father was gone, Winter was gone. Lolo was what she had left, and she could hear the terror in the crack of his voice.
Mercy, Malachi had said, a few weeks before he’d left her. Remember mercy.
“Close it,” she said. “Close it, and this time, make sure it’s closed for good.
February 7, 2015
Summer Chapter Four
The Queen
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 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 floor. Over the rugs he’d tossed skins of the bear and dear 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 actual 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 positioned himself at her back once more. Together they eyed 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, numbing her tongue. 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 do use it for anything else 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 the glass walls. Most were thin, and ragged, and more than half-mad. A few looked less folk than mortal. Three came in animal form: a cat, a raven, and a grey 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, the Troubadour, 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. 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 brandy 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 from where they’d come. Only the boy with the busy mobile and a petite maid in hooker’s fishnets 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 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 curly dark black 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 in twos and threes, 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 rose, then 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, black curls 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.
“Finvarra,” 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 draochta in Gloriana’s cup.” Siobhan relaxed her fingers, remembering. He’d been barely a child, then. Now he was grown, like her own son. Grown, and stopped growing, 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, Finvarra. 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 revenge.”
Siobhan 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. He didn’t carry a gun, or a sword, or even a knife. Siobahn wasn’t sure how he meant to protect her; 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 sidhe 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 Siobhan 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 Siobhan 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 greying 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, a child-sized female with tiny batwings sprouting from her spine, hissed. The long blade in her fist thrummed reaction, shifting from black through all the colours 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, 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.
Finvarra 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 sew 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.”
“I loved him.” Katherine replied. “So much so that I’ve come to pay you my respects, because it’s what he would have wanted.”
“Detective Healy.” Siobahn paced back to her chair. “You’ve made your point. Come all the way in, please. Morris, see what you can do about the door before we attract the notice of our neighbors.”
Morris nodded. His protective sphere tightened around Siobahn. Bran circled the room until he stood at Katherine Grey’s side. The Exiles hissed and seethed as he passed.
“Not your usual bodyguard,” the detective said. “Where’s Barker?”
“Indisposed.” Siobahn settled herself on the edge of her chair. “Still recovering from Sorrow’s bite. I’ve discovered Morris has a talent for more than driving.”
Bran’s eyebrows rose. He set himself at Katherine’s Grey left shoulder, alongside Finvarra, then watched with exaggerated interest as Morris cast a Glamour over the broken door.
“Pay your respects on your knees, Liadan,” Siobahn ordered the Grey Lady. “And I’ll worry less you’ve come to kill me.”
“I haven’t.” Katherine set a restraining hand on Bran’s arm. She lowered herself to the floor, shoulders bowed. “Come to kill you. My lady.”
Siobahn shifted her attention to the human. He rocked on his heels, hands crossed behind his back, brows still raised.
“No,” he said. “You’re not my queen, Siobahn. You’ve paid me well to guard your son, but you haven’t earned my loyalty.”
“Winter has,” Siobahn guessed. She felt the shift of attention in her Exiles, even as they waited without moving.
“Winter is my friend.” Once again the human scanned the room. “Where is he?”
“Not here.”
“Not in D.C., either. I’ve a desk jockey meant to keep an eye on him while I’m away on holiday. My man says Winter’s gone AWOL. I assumed he’d come home. For the wake.”
Siobhan felt grief take a strangle hold around her heart.
“We burn our dead,” she said, sharp. “We don’t wake them. I’ve sent Winter on an errand.”
The mortal bristled under his coat. The stitches in his skull stood out against clenched muscles.
“You don’t think the kid deserves a break? Maybe a few days to recover? Or isn’t he allowed to grieve his daddy?”
Siobahn would have burnt the detective to ash but for the sly smile she glimpsed on Katherine’s mouth. The expression was gone as quickly as it came, but Siobahn wasn’t fooled.
“My son is Malachi’s get, and a warrior.” She pitched her voice so it echoed across the ceiling. “Grief is for the weak, and the idle. Gamraidh is neither. My son has gone to avenge his father’s murder.”
“Smith’s dead,” said Bran. “Brains splattered all over 6th Avenue. NYPD’s still looking for a suspect. I hear Barker’s on the top of their list.”
“Barker’s indisposed,” Siobahn repeated. “Michael Smith means nothing to the sidhe. He was but a pawn in a larger game.”
This time, when the Grey Lady smiled, she lifted her head.
“You fool,” she said. “You’ve actually done it. You’ve sent a child to best a monster. Your ownchild, Siobahn, and the last prince of the old blood. If Malachi weren’t already lost to us, this surely would break his heart unto death.”
She rose to her feet, the treason Siobahn expected, garbed all in mourning.
“You’re mad,” Katherine Grey accused, while around Siobahn the Exiles began to stir. “You’ve been on the edge for centuries, and Malachi’s death has finally sent you over.”
January 31, 2015
Summer Chapter Three
Broken
Richard woke in stages.
The fingers in his left hand twinged first; useless, swollen appendages throbbing in time with his heartbeat. The painful itch of the Cold Fire burns on his thigh joined the throbbing chorus.
Grit and gravel and sand had abraded the seeping Cold Fire blisters when the Dread Host pinned him to the earth on the dark side of Winter’s portal. Richard had fought back and in the struggle managed to rip a few feathers from sluagh Prince’s ebony wings.
Then the Prince ordered Richard’s hand broken as punishment.
“Human bones are fragile, just like human minds,” said the Prince, wormy white tongue flicking in contemplative circles as it directed two lesser sluagh to hold Richard down while a third smashed his hand with a chunk of rock. “I have need of your mind yet, but your bones will serve whole or in pieces. Touch us again without permission and you’ll soon be naught but a sack of jelly.”
Richard screamed when they held him prone on the beach. The air burned his throat and the sand stung his flesh. Where the lesser sluagh gripped his forearms, Richard’s jacket and shirt smoked away and frost-bite fingerprints marked his flesh.
Aine, standing motionless in a circle of wing and tooth and claw, watched Richard’s fingers snap and didn’t make a sound.
The hungry, hollow pit of Richard’s stomach woke next. They’d had nothing to eat for at least a day, maybe longer.
“There’s nothing grows on or near the Dark Waters safe to eat,” the Prince explained. Its voice, unlike the rest of it, was beautiful. “Mayhap, when we reach the Catacombs, there will be something suitable.”
“We’ll die without food,” Richard argued. “Food, and water.” He’d still had spirit, then. Spirit, and his fingers.
“You were willing enough to die only hours ago,” rebuked the Prince. It had raven wings, dark and glossy, and man-high. They moved gently when the sluagh inhaled and exhaled. “And this side of the Door is no place to regain hope.”
“What about Aine?” Richard challenged. “She’ll die, too.”
The Prince clicked its teeth.
“The human siofra will need nourishment,” it acknowledged. The Prince pulled its wings close, for warmth or protection against the acrid air. “She’ll last until the Catacombs.”
Richard’s eyes were sealed shut. Thick, dried crusts glued his lashes together. He rubbed at his eyelids with his good hand, gritting his teeth to keep from groaning when the bones in his other hand shifted. He scrubbed until the crusts fell away and his eyes wept fresh tears, stung by the poisonous air.
He was afraid to open his eyes, but he did anyway. He’d been afraid for most of his life. Until Winter came along and showed him differently, he’d assumed everyone walked through life in a constant state of dread.
He’d fallen asleep on his side, but somehow he’d shifted without waking, and now lay on his back. The sluagh dimension’s round white sun hung directly overhead, shedding a cold grey light. It was high in the sky, which meant half the day was already gone. It was one of the first things Richard notice; the alien sun kept time with the still-running pocket watch on his belt.
Which meant maybe it wasn’t an alien sun after all, but the very same Earth star seen through a different filter.
Richard’s pocket watch was failing. It was too difficult to wind the spring one-handed. But when he’d collapsed into a nest of gravel many hours earlier, the sun was setting. Which meant he’d slept for far longer than he’d yet managed. Usually the Prince allowed his army only a short break.
Richard sat up carefully, cradling his left hand in his lap.
The sluagh Prince crouched only a few feet away. It sat on its heels, clawed hands resting on its knees. The sluagh’s wing feathers trailed in the gravel. It smiled at Richard, showing sharp teeth.
“The path ahead is blocked,” the Prince said. “We must wait until it’s safe again before we move on.”
“Blocked?” Richard asked, but the Prince only stared and smiled.
“Water?” the monster offered, polite as a maître de at any four-star restaurant.
Richard was almost overcome by a wave of hatred. He wanted to pummel the sluagh until the ghoul’s ugly face was nothing more than slime, until those knowing green eyes were jelly on his knuckles. Only the pulsing agony in his broken hand kept him from trying.
“Yes,” he said.
The Prince whistled, the sweet trill of a bird in spring. A smaller sluagh detached itself from the shadows of a boulder. Richard recognized the sluagh by its vacant, one-eyed stare. A warty growth of small tentacles grew where its other eye should have been.
Richard had taken to mentally calling the one-eyed ghoul ‘Water-Bearer’, because as far as he could tell its only purpose in the small army was to lug around a large leather jug full of drinkable water.
Water-Bearer bent at the knees in front of Richard. It un-stoppered the jug and held it out so Richard could suck from the leather tit like a baby. The sluagh smelled like rotting flesh and moldy soil, and the water from its jug tasted metallic, but at least the water was cold and not poison.
Water-Bearer waited patiently while Richard drank, then resealed the jug and took it back into the shadows.
Bracing his injured hand, Richard inched backward until he could set his spine against a boulder for support. The rock was cold even through his clothes, but it was dry, which meant he didn’t have to worry. The sluagh had put the poisonous lake at their back quickly, marching away from the shore on a well-worn path. Even with the lake well away, the air remained acrid until they passed into a rocky valley between low hills and the wind died.
Now he could breath the air without searing his mouth and lungs. His eyes still burned and wept, but some of the blur was clearing from his vision. He no longer felt like he was watching the alien landscape through a pair of foggy glasses.
The Prince rose, stretching his dark-angel wings. It lifted its chin, opening its mouth, fat tongue quivering between sharp teeth, tasting the air. It hissed, Richard thought in anger, then leapt from the gravel and into the air.
The draft from the Prince’s wings smelled foul. But once in the air the monster was graceful, almost beautiful, a misshapen dancer between the white sun and dark hills. Richard couldn’t look away. He watched until the Prince disappeared, and he couldn’t pretend the lurch in his heart wasn’t more envy than fear.
Water-Bearer stirred. As Richard watched, it inched away from its solitary pool of shadow and approached the rest of the Host where they gathered in a knot against the sheltering hill, guarding the changeling. Richard could see only their dark forms, a wall of feathers and grotesquely twisted limbs, but he knew Aine was there among them, guarded by sharp teeth and wicked claws.
At first Richard assumed they were protecting her from the poisons in the air. Now he wondered if it was something more.
The group muddled, parting enough just enough to let Water-Bearer squeeze through. Richard half-stood, hoping to catch a glimpse of Aine, but the feathery gap closed again too quickly.
Once he’d eased back onto the gravel it occurred to Richard that he was ignored. Whether out of curiosity or distrust, the Prince had been his guardian since they’d crossed through the rift. As far as Richard could tell, the rest of the Host had dismissed him in favor of the jewel that was Aine. And now the Prince was gone.
Go! Richard’s conscious always sounded an awful lot like his father. Get your ass up and go! Just like I taught you, Rick! Now!
He was up and away before he really thought about it, running through the ever-present twilight, dodging boulders and slipping on gravel, leaving the sluagh path behind. The resulting pain in his hand made his head spin, but he didn’t slow, even when his Cold Fire-damaged leg began to drag.
Richard put the lake at his back and limped uphill. As he climbed out of the shelter of the valley, the wind picked up again, stinging. It sucked the air from his lungs and he was forced to slow to a jog, then a staggering walk.
Eventually he stopped. He found a man-sized spear of granite and sank down against it, cradling his hand. The sun seemed brighter from the hillside, the cold light malevolent. He looked back the way he’d come, but saw no sign of pursuit. He could just make out the trail the sluagh had worn into the earth. A pale thread through the darker gravel: it ran parallel to the lake and toward the lowering sun.
West, Richard decided. East was where Winter’s portal spat them out, all in a rush, the heat of C4 following them through, singeing sluagh feathers and making Aine cry out in terror.
Richard shivered. The explosion was bigger than he’d expected. Richard’s father was infamous for his immolation expertise – or had been until he’d had both legs blown off in one of his own traps. From Bobby, Richard learned how to build and rewire; he’d repaired old clocks and old buildings, antique phones and rusting gas-lamps. Richard was a tinkerer. Bombs were no more difficult than analog clocks.
Something went wrong, Richard thought, recalling the roaring flame and the seismic blast. It was only supposed to be enough to collapse the Way.
“Forty thousand tons of stone, Richard. That comes down, there will be real damage.” Bran had warned, right before the timer on the ignition clicked down to zero, triggering the accelerant, blowing the tunnel.
“Sorry,” Richard whispered to the alien sun. “I’m sorry, Bran.”
He used the side of the granite spear to leaver himself back upright, even though his legs and eyes ached. His broken hand sent tiny zaps of nauseating pain straight to his stomach. He missed his cane – a cane that had once belonged to Oscar Wilde – and wondered if it had survived the explosion. Last he’d seen it, Aine had been using the long ebony stick as a weapon against the invading Host.
Aine, who’d gone faded and dull since she’d surrendered to the sluagh. The few times Richard had gotten close enough to whisper a word, she’d been unresponsive. He wondered if she hated him. She’d sacrificed herself, and all for nothing.
It didn’t matter. He’d find a way to rescue her from the Host, just as soon as he recovered some of his strength, and got a good look at the environment, and figured out what sort of materials he had to work with. He’d come up with a good plan, because he always did, even if a good plan meant tossing chunks of rock at the Prince and its minions. And because he’d promised her, in a whisper, that he’d save them both.
Then he’d gone and run off like a coward and a fool.
“Recon,” Richard reminded himself. “Recon is good. Always start with recon.”
He’d run, but not far. He’d just circle back down the hill, follow the army at a safe distance and wait until an opportunity solidified.
He started back the way he’d come, jogging slowly. He couldn’t help but wish for Winter and one of the sidhe’s pain-blocking Cants, or for Gabby and her magic healing ointment.
It was a lucky thing Richard was moving carefully, because if he’d gone back to barreling about in fear and distress, he’d never have noticed Water-Bearer in time. As it was, he barely had time to step out of the sluagh’s half-flying, half-shuffling trajectory, and freeze.
You can’t see me, Richard thought, motionless. I’m not here. You can’t see me.
It was the tiny prayer he’d held close to his heart since Bobby had first busted his nose, when Richard was three. It was every broken child’s useless mantra, but for Richard, it always worked.
Water-Bearer loped past Richard, unseeing, exactly as they all did, because Richard refused to be found.
I’m not here. You can’t see me.
Bobby, and Bobby’s goons. Elementary school teachers. Social workers. The retail clerks on the Capitol streets, and grocery store baggers. Tourists, street police, museum guards, fish-eyed cameras, traffic cops. If Richard didn’t want to be noticed, no one paid him any attention.
The only person Richard couldn’t fool was Winter, and that was because of the sidhe’s wicked sense of –
“Smell,” said Water-Bearer, just as Richard remembered. His heart jumped into his throat. “I can smell you, Jehovah’s child. I know you’re near, I can smell your blood and bones and sweet, sweet flesh.”
The monster stopped ten feet up the hill. It turned, wings partially spread, and peered back down in Richard’s direction. It turned its head, seeking blindly, single eye narrowed, no longer vacant. Then it snuffled, scenting prey.
“Brave, but naive.” It had the Prince’s alto tones. “You won’t last long without water, mortal. And there’s none safe to drink outside the Catacombs.” It grimaced, tongue flicking. “Only what we carry.”
Richard edged sideways. The sluagh swiveled its head, 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, and swung 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 and 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, fetching up 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. I see you now,” it hissed. 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 flesh. Fueled by pain and desperation, Richard wriggled sideways and rolled again. He grabbed Water-Bearer’s foot in his good hand and squeezed until he felt bird-bones shift.
The sluagh shrieked and spat. It kicked, raking Richard across the chin, then fell in a huddle, wings pulled around its front, a defensive, feathery tent.
Rubbery flesh and a single claw dripped ichor in Richard’s hand. Where the sluagh blood fell on gravel it smoked. 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.
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 bones 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 ends 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.
“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’s sacrifice. 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, before he passed out, was the unearthly whoosh of strong wings beating against poisoned currents.
He dreamed he was drowning, then woke to a trickle of water past 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. The world had gone blurry again, but Water-Bearer’s one eye glinted clear-as-day, and over the sluagh’s 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 conscious 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.”
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 belled. “Or entirely without wits.” It clicked its long tongue, then dipped its chin.
“Bind him,” it ordered, and the sluagh fell upon Richard, shrieking delight.
