Cold Iron (12 page)

Conn was her Troy.

But he was also a man. The first one she had ever brought to this apartment. It was her first real home, and though it was shabby, it was a reflection of her, and she was proud of it. She’d gone from her parents’ chrome-and-laminate-filled mid-century ranch, to a dorm room full of institutional furniture, to Frank’s steel and glass condominium off Harvard Square. None of those places had really been her.

The triple-decker was. She’d fled Frank’s house with nothing but a suitcase, crashed for three months at Helene’s, and found, once she’d talked to a lawyer, that she would walk away from her marriage with more or less exactly what she had brought into it: nothing.

Her apartment hunt had been a revelation. She couldn’t afford new or luxury, but neither of those things mattered to her. Good light mattered, but old houses in Somerville had that, even if the windows were a little cranky and leaked on occasion. A stove didn’t have to be new to be good, quite the opposite, she decided, the first time she’d fired up the antique enameled range. The floorboards creaked, but she found that reassuring, like the apartment knew that she was home.

There had followed an odyssey of thrift-store shopping for furniture and household items, and the gratifying discovery that natural materials of any age married well with one another and the result was a harmonious—if shabby—whole.

She was probably going to take Conn to bed here, on top of the soft cotton quilt one of the docents at the museum had made for her. She touched the earrings in her ears. The
geis
pulsed on her shoulder. Yes, she was going to take him to bed. But not because the mark told her to. Because she wanted to. Because there was a whole world of physical desire she had cut herself off from, and she wasn’t willing to live like that anymore. She didn’t think the panic that had gripped her in the gallery would come back. Conn knew her secret now—knew more about the power inside her than she did.

She shivered again. Okay, maybe she was going to take him to bed
beneath
the soft cotton quilt. After a shower. A hot one. She shucked her tattered dress in the pink-tiled bathroom, ran the water until it steamed, then realized a shower would get water on the
geis
and she didn’t think that would be any good for it, so she ran a bath instead.

She got in, but it wasn’t hot enough. She ran more hot water. Then more. Then finally gave up and got out of the bath, wrapped a towel around herself and emerged from the bathroom.

Conn was lying on the bed. He’d rolled back his sleeves and opened his shirt, so the
geis
that bound his wrists and the golden rings in his nipples were visible in the soft morning light. He sat up. “Ready to make your inspection?”

“Yes.” Her mouth felt dry. She knelt on the bed, still clutching the towel to her chest. The room felt cold. She wanted to touch Conn, to be warm. She reached for him, and his expression turned quizzical.

“You’re shivering,” he said.

“I’m cold.” Duh.

He sat up, gripped her arms, steadied her, but still she shook.

“Beth,” he said. His voice sounded small and far away.

He shook her. Didn’t he know that wasn’t helping? She was already so cold, she was shaking. The shaking was making her tired and she wanted to lie down.

“Beth,” he said, low and urgent. “What is wrong?”

She didn’t know. She hadn’t felt this way since . . . Mexico. The Yucatán.
Malaria
.

“Beth,” he said. “You must tell me what is happening. I will call Miach.”

A tiny hiccup of laughter bubbled out of her throat. “Not Miach,” she managed to say, though her teeth were chattering now. “Malaria. Call Helene. She’ll know what to do.”

She’d survived a wound from a mythic sword and managed to stay conscious while a psychotic Fae sorcerer tortured her with his needle only to be brought low by, of all things, a mosquito. It was ludicrous. And it was her last thought before she passed out.

H
e found Beth’s cell phone
and called the blond Amazon first.

“Does she have a fever?” the woman asked.

“Yes.”

“There are pills, in her medicine cabinet. Get her to take them. Then call an ambulance. I’ll be right there.”

Then he found the cell phone Miach had given him and called the Fae sorcerer.

“She passed out?
Before
you had her? A piss-poor seducer you’ve become, old friend.”

“What is this Malaria? Her friend wants to take her to a hospital.”

Miach swore. “You can’t take her to a hospital with that mark on her shoulder.”

“If they can save Beth—”

“Mercury is a poison to ordinary humans. The first thing they’ll do in the hospital is try to remove the
geis
. If they succeed, her wound will reopen and kill her.”

“Miach,” he said. “I will not leave her like this. Even for the sword. If you want it recovered, you must come tend to her.”

M
iach tried to recall a
time he had left South Boston when he did not intend to steal something, burn something down, or sell something he had stolen. All of his family lived in Southie and held their celebrations there. When he wanted open spaces, the wide sea, he went to its beaches. Treats for the endless grandchildren and greater-grandchildren, he went to its bakeries. Finery for his women, he went to its jewelers. Finery for himself—well, his tailors came to him.

He contemplated taking the Porsche, which had been too pretty to sell, no matter what he’d told Conn, and instead tossed Liam the keys to the Range Rover and let the boy drive.

When he arrived at the little Druid’s apartment, he found Conn of the Hundred Battles being assaulted by an Amazon. She was all of the adjectives he usually steered clear of in a woman: educated, expensive, aggressive. Tall for a female, nearly five foot ten, wearing, ludicrously, for the New England weather in autumn, beaver-fur Eskimo boots, the tiniest of madras shorts, and a thick woolen pullover. She was all tanned legs and flying golden hair.

“Give me that!” She lunged for the cell phone Conn held in the air.

He crushed it in the palm of his hand—reducing it to a twist of metal and plastic. “No hospital,” Conn said.

“She needs to see a doctor.” The woman’s fury made her even more appealing.

And you need a proper seeing to,
Miach thought
.
“I’m a doctor,” he said. It was true, in the strictest sense of the word. He was a learned man, and he knew far more about the body than any human physician. He’d had lifetimes to learn.

The woman turned to look at him, and he resisted the instinct to use his glamour on her.

But Conn saw. “I would wager she is not from your neighborhood,
Doctor
Miach. Beth is in the bedroom.”

The sight of the blond Amazon and the thought of bed were enough to conjure images of spreading her tanned legs wide and taking her. With the fur boots on. Yes, that appealed to him. But first he had to prevent the Betrayer’s little Druid from dying. If he could.

C
onn watched as Miach examined
Beth. The blond Amazon was right. He should have taken her to a hospital. Miach had saved her life once tonight, against his better judgment. He might not do it again.

Conn had never felt so powerless. He knew everything there was to know about killing, and next to nothing about saving lives. Even battlefield triage had seldom interested him. Whether his enemies, or those who fought under him, lived or died of their wounds had meant precious little to him.

The sorcerer sat down on the edge of the bed, felt Beth’s forehead, and gently opened her eyelids. “How long ago did she contract the malaria?”

Helene answered, a little calmer now, “About a year ago, when they went to Mexico. Shouldn’t she be in a hospital?”

Miach didn’t answer. He peeled back the quilt Conn had wrapped her in, revealing the angry red
geis
.

Helene gasped. “What is that?” She turned a fierce stare on Conn. “What the hell did you do to her?”

“He saved her life,” Miach answered curtly. Conn knew the sorcerer didn’t like the humans outside his little fiefdom to learn of the Fae, but he also knew he couldn’t allow Miach to hurt Beth’s friend.

“Get her out of here,” Miach said. “And tell Liam to bring the ice up from the car.”

“Why is the
geis
still so red and angry?” Conn asked. He knew now that he had not been entirely selfless when he’d accepted Miach’s dictate that this was the only way to save Beth. If she died, it would be his fault. He had to know. “Did my mark do this to her?”

“Malaria is a disease that can lie dormant in the body. The wound from the Summoner weakened her, gave the disease a chance to flourish. Your mark closed the wound, but she’s a Druid. The magic in her is naturally resistant to Fae control. Her body is fighting too many battles at once.”

“This is crazy,” Helene said. “All this magic and fairy nonsense. Drop the act—you’re going to kill her.”

She backed toward the door. Miach stood. “Get Liam and the ice. I’ll take care of the woman.”

“She’s Beth’s friend,” Conn warned.

“I won’t harm her,” Miach said. Then he struck. And Conn remembered why the Fae hosts took their sorcerers into battle.

He couldn’t see the magic Miach used—not the way the Druids could. They trained themselves to harness Fae magic, tuned their bodies to sense its currents. For the Fae, magic was like air, invisible but always there. But he saw its effects. Helene slumped, her back against the door, her eyes fluttering as Miach took hold of her mind.

She gasped for air. “Don’t hurt her,” Conn warned.

Miach rolled his eyes in exasperation. “I’m trying not to, but she’s fighting me.”

The sorcerer crossed the tiny room in one stride and caught the Amazon as she went boneless in his arms. “She was too worried about her friend to take light suggestion. I had to cut off her breath until she blacked out. She’s only unconscious,” Miach assured him. “Get Liam and the ice.”

“Don’t molest the woman,” Conn warned.

“I’ll leave her on the sofa. She’ll come around soon enough. And your Druid will need a nursemaid.”

The next several hours passed in a hellish blur. Conn brought up the ice and the medical supplies Liam indicated. The boy hovered, looking nervous, but Miach chased him from the room and told him to watch over the Amazon.

Conn didn’t like the looks of the needles and strange fluids Miach wanted to use on Beth. “What is that one?”

“It’s primaquine. This is what they would have given her in the hospital. It isn’t always effective, though. She’ll already have had a course of it when she was first infected. It can’t hurt, and it may help, but more important now is to bring her fever down.”

She fought them the first time they lowered her into the icy bath, but not the second, and that worried Conn. “The fever has broken,” Miach explained. “Most attacks only last six to ten hours. She’s out of danger now. Wrap her up warmly and put her to bed.”

Conn lifted her out of the bath and laid her on fresh towels on the bed. Once she was dry, he settled her under the soft cotton quilt. He could feel the work of aged hands in the fine sewing, was glad that Beth slept under that kind of protective magic. As he tugged the counterpane up to cover her shoulder, he looked at his
geis
on her pale skin, and froze.

It had changed. The edges were no longer raw and red. The quicksilver ink lay smooth across her skin, shimmering faintly in the morning light slanting through the windows.

And moving. In a sinuous circuit. Alive. Rewriting itself. His own symbol, the hundred-fold knot that told his history in its twisting pattern, was still there, but another pattern was emerging beneath it.

He heard Miach enter the room and flicked the quilt over her shoulder.

“The Druid is out of danger,” Miach said. “We must find the Summoner.”

“Yes.” Conn said. “Helene will know where to find Beth’s ex-husband. Pity you had to knock her out.”

“She’s awake. I doubt she likes either of us very much,” Miach said. “But it sounded as though she hates your Druid’s ex-husband more.”

She did. They found Helene sitting on the sofa in Beth’s living room, looking daggers at poor Liam and nursing a cold cup of tea. “I want to see Beth,” she said.

“She’ll be up soon,” Miach assured her. “Tell us about her ex-husband.”

She looked at Conn. “I thought
you
were working with him. With Frank. That’s what Beth thought. That all of this Ren Fair reject nonsense was to get her out of the way so Frank could steal the gold.”

“Ren Fair reject?” Conn had absorbed a great deal of their popular culture in a few short days, more than a human mind would have been capable of, but the reference eluded him.

And tickled Miach, who laughed. “She means your hair. You should cut it. Or perhaps not. She likes mine better, don’t you, Helene?” His voice was potent now with lures.

“Someone should have gelded you ages ago, Miach,” Conn said. “We aren’t working with Frank, but we do want to recover the treasure from Clonmel.”

Helene’s brow wrinkled. “What are you? FBI? Interpol?”

These were words Conn did recognize, and useful ones, but Miach beat him to it.

“Interpol,” Miach said smoothly, allowing the cadences of their native tongue to lace his speech. He was using a subtle glamour. While Conn recognized the necessity of it, he would not allow the sorcerer to hurt the woman—or make a conquest of her.

“You know he smuggles more than antiquities, right?” Helene asked.

“Tell us,” said Miach.

Under Miach’s suggestion, Helene poured out what she knew about Frank Carter. Some of it Conn had guessed. The man was a charismatic charlatan, who had used his good looks and charm to build a career off the work of besotted women. Then he had found Beth, who was more valuable than any of his former conquests. What Helene saw as talent, Conn knew for Beth’s latent Druid powers.

Conn risked a glance at Miach while Helene talked. The sorcerer was no fool. He would realize, as Conn had, that Beth was very close to becoming an operative Druid. She’d studied—not the Druidic method but a close enough modern equivalent, the historic method—for most of her life. She knew how to recognize patterns. And she’d been using her power for years, clumsily, and without benefit of training, to be sure, but she’d been dowsing the Fae successfully all the same.