Cold Iron (15 page)

It was the escape the landlady’s sister had chosen. What Conn’s daughter had chosen when she’d decided life wasn’t worth fighting for, sanity wasn’t worth suffering.

I am not them
, Beth thought.
I will not break.

Her eyes locked on the pattern of knots in the floorboards. Patterns.
Everything is patterns. Every living thing has a pattern. You know them all. You know how to use them. Wake up! Wake up!
An ancestral voice. A
Druid
voice, but she didn’t know what to do with its patterns.

She rose on her knees and looked up at the Fae.

This close, it was possible to see how inhuman he was. Nothing human moved like that, in perfect silence and with such feline grace. No man was proportioned like that, a Greek kouros, a living breathing collection of ideals. His skin gave off the scent of sunlight and green grass, and to be near him was to breathe in the essence of a warm summer day, lush and intoxicating.

His clothes proclaimed him a princely wanderer. His court shoes were silk, embroidered with silver wire atop a Louis heel. His jeans were thoroughly modern, midnight black, finely tailored, and obscenely expensive. He wore an embroidered shirt, open to the waist, of the snowiest white cotton, and a silk frock coat of pearl gray beaded with a pattern of black roses. Even his long black hair was ornamented, plaited into hundreds of slender braids bound with silver leaves that tinkled softly when he moved.

“Where is the sword?”

He wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to Brian. Liam, Nial, and Helene were clustered near the door, and she realized that the two younger half-breeds were as frightened of the three true Fae as she was. That didn’t bode well.

“We didn’t get the Summoner,” Brian admitted. “You said that if she was powerful enough, she wouldn’t need it.”

“But she
isn’t
powerful enough. That makes her no use to me without it.” The true Fae’s voice was distant music, like a piano drifting softly from an upper-story window, and it caused the iron hoops in her ears to vibrate.
Conn.
His gift to her. She would thank him properly for them—if she lived—because she knew they were muting the Fae’s effect on her—and she was going to need every advantage she could call upon to survive this encounter.

“She must know where it is,” Brian said. “Or at least how to find her ex-husband. He’s the one who has it.”

“And you,” said the Fae, menace dripping through his words, “want me to take the knowledge from her mind for you? Do I look like an errand boy?”

“No,” Brian said quickly. “She’ll tell me, as soon as I get to work on her friend.”

Helene. He was going to torture Helene for information Beth didn’t have.

Foolish
, said the Druid voice.
Do not do this.

But Beth knew what she had to do to save Helene.

“Search my mind.” She forced herself to look into the Fae’s eyes. The Druid voice was probably right. She didn’t have the skills or the power to survive that unscathed, but she couldn’t think of any alternative.

The Fae cocked his head, looked down at her. He was intrigued and . . . excited. Yes. The cut of his jeans left little room for mistake. He was going to flay her mind, and the thought excited him.

“I’ll let you in,” she said. “I won’t fight you. Just don’t hurt Helene. She isn’t part of this.”

The Fae ran his gaze over Helene, then smiled faintly, as though he knew something the others did not. “Miach’s bastard will not molest the woman,” the Fae agreed.

Never bargain with a Fae.
Like Beth had any choice.

She took a deep breath, exhaled, and opened her mind. She expected an invasion. Not this feather soft touch on her consciousness. It was far worse than anything she could have imagined. He didn’t push or batter, but he slid inside her memories, and like a rich man examining expensive baubles in a shop, he turned them over and tested their weight, with the unspoken threat that he might at any moment drop one on the floor, just to see it break.

He slipped deeper into the past, lingered over youthful embarrassments and then more recent indignities, secret and shameful, and caressed them, made her live through them again. He found Frank, and there his interest peaked. Pain sparkled, and she realized he was digging through her thoughts and impressions to search for something hidden. The sword, of course. He wanted the Summoner. Could he use it without her? How?

Thought became action and suddenly she was hurtling through his alien mind in search of the answer. She found herself in a maze, a labyrinth of plots so intricate they had no end. Laughter. His. And thought. His again.
Careful, little Druid. I could break you with a whisper.

He could. She knew that. But he hadn’t so far, so she pressed on, because for motives too obscure for her to grasp, he let her. He was toying with her.

Yes.
His thoughts again.
Let’s play.
Then he was there in her memories of Conn, pressing on them like levers. Arousal, terror, gratitude, and then something warmer. Affection, longing, the stirring of something sweet and sacred.

Memory
, said her Druid voice, like a doctor explaining the procedure in process,
is experience sieved through perception. And perception is a filter of learned patterns.
In the twinkling of an eye the Fae learned the patterns that made up Beth Carter’s memory and began to reverse engineer new ones.

She saw herself and this Fae naked and twined on her quilt, felt an explosion of sensation so vivid she cried out. He combined fantasy with memory and showed her the two of them together, at the museum, at a dig, at Beth’s well-worn desk in her apartment, as he answered her questions and filled in the thousand little details of his long-vanished world.

These, she realized, were the fantasies she would have spun about a future with Conn, if she allowed herself such emotional luxuries. She hadn’t, but the Fae had used her memories, her wants and desires, to construct them, with himself in Conn’s place.

“NO!” It was the voice she had used on Conn in Clonmel, but it didn’t throw the Fae across the room. And it didn’t throw him out of her mind either. Instead, he held her mind a second longer, to let her know he could, then dropped it.

She caught herself on her outstretched hands. Felt the solidity of the wide-planked floor. She was on all fours at the feet of the Fae again, and from the stillness of the room and posture of his companions and her half-breed captors, only minutes, perhaps seconds, had passed since the creature had invaded her mind.

“She doesn’t know where the Summoner is, and her ex-husband will not trade it for her,” the Fae announced to the room at large.

Then he went down on one perfectly formed knee, tilted her chin up to look into her eyes, and spoke softly, for her hearing alone. “You are not yet strong enough to free the Court, my little Druid, but you will be. Until then, I have no use for you. But when you are ready, come to me. You will be well rewarded. First, though, I’m afraid you’ll have to survive Miach’s petulant children. And to do that, you must grow stronger.”

He stood and brought his exquisite silk shoe down on her splayed hand. Agony gripped her. Bones snapped and crunched as he ground his heel into her knuckles. She saw black, then white when he lifted his foot away and the pain screamed louder.

She rolled to her side to take the pressure off her broken hand and saw, through a haze of pain, the beautiful Fae smiling down on her. “I hope we meet again,” he said, and stepped back,
through
the delicate Sheraton card table, and the ormolu mirror, and the wall, and disappeared, his Fae companions following, into the night.

Chapter 8

T
hey
passed
!” Brian screamed. “They fucking
passed
and left!”

That was what Conn had said the night he’d invaded her bedroom in Clonmel. He’d
passed
into the room. He’d used the term again last night, when they’d left the museum, said he could
pass
faster than any human could travel. She didn’t realize he’d meant he walked through walls . . . and furniture . . . and glass.

“If the old man finds out they were here—” Liam started.

“Shut up,” Brian snapped.

No one seemed to care much about Beth or her crushed hand at the moment.
Heal yourself
, said the Druid voice.
How?
screamed her conscious mind. But there was no answer.

“We’ll do this my way.” Brian dragged Helene to the rotting sofa and threw her down.

“The Fae promised you wouldn’t touch her,” Beth said.

“And now he’s gone,” Brian said, pinning Helene on her back. “All bets are off.” Helene screamed. Brian slapped her. He gripped her knees and shoved them apart, then swore. “What is that?” he snarled.

From the confusion in Helene’s eyes Beth guessed she didn’t know, but there on the inside of her thigh was a mark. Black, hastily scribbled, but unmistakably drawn by the same hand as the tattoo on Beth’s shoulder.

“Miach,” said Beth.

Brian screamed.

“It’s no good, Brian,” Liam said. “The old man’s claimed her.”

“What does that mean?” Beth prayed it meant Helene was safe.

“It’s a warding. Any man that touches her will find his cock withered,” Liam explained.

“Careful, Brian,” advised Nial. “That shit can be permanent. Remember what happened to the Fianna who touched our sister.”

“You might already be fucked,” Liam said. “You’ve smacked her around a good bit. That might count.”

“Shut up, Liam.” Brian licked his thumb, rubbed the mark on Helene’s thigh, and laughed. “It isn’t a tatt. It’s Magic Marker. It’ll wear off.” He yanked Helene off the sofa. “And I’ve got just the place to keep you in until it does. Cozy. Tight. Snug. You like that, don’t you, enclosed spaces? Narrow walls. Low ceilings, pressing down on you.”

Helene was hyperventilating.

“Stop it!” Beth shouted.

“It stops when I get the sword,” he said. He turned to Nial. “Get rid of him,” Brian pointed to the musician. “And
don’t
let the Fianna know the prince has gone.”

Nial hesitated. “Some of them have already left.”

So there were other half-breeds on the island. Nial wrested the oboe away from the wild-eyed musician and led him from the room. In the sudden silence, Beth heard voices. The discontent Fianna, somewhere else in the house.

Liam licked his lips nervously. “Maybe we should let the women go, Brian. If the old man figures it out and tells Conn, we aren’t a match for him. Not without the prince.”

“He’s one Fae,” Brian said, dragging Helene to the door.

“They say he’s never been defeated,” Liam replied.

“They say a lot of things. Watch the Druid. If she wants to see her friend again, she’ll think of a way to get her ex-husband here with the sword.”

And then he was gone, Helene’s quiet sobs drowned out by the creaking of the stairs.

Beth didn’t want to look at her hand, but the voice in her head told her she must.

She’d broken bones before. Her arm, climbing rocks one summer at camp. A small bone in her foot on a dig. Those were simple breaks. This was a compound fracture. Broken skin, blood, her fingers pointing the wrong way. It was her left hand, and that at least was good, because she’d broken her left arm and learned then that it was always better to break the arm or hand that wasn’t dominant. Because after a really bad break, you were unlikely to get total function back.

Keep going
, said the voice in her head.
Fit this into patterns you already know.
What else did she know about broken bones? They’d made her keep her arm elevated in the emergency room, to reduce the swelling. And for the first several days after they’d applied the plaster cast. Her shoulder had ached from holding up her arm, but she knew it was important.

She tried to raise her mangled hand, but the pain traveled down her arm, made her dizzy, and she crumpled again. Then she braced her right hand on the floor, felt the strength in the old oak floorboards, the patterns in the grain of the wood. She needed that strength, and she took it.

Her fingers tingled. She looked down at her good hand on the floor and saw the seasoned wood pale, dry, and shrink in an expanding circle, its life force—she could find no other words for it—sucked out of the oak and into her body.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Liam said.

The wood beneath her hand crumbled to dust, and she almost pitched forward into the hole that opened in the floor. She rolled and caught herself, squeezed the vitality she could feel in her good hand, compressed it, and sent it hurtling across her body to the injured one.

Bones straightened.

It hurt like hell. Like having her arm pulled back into place in the emergency room.

Bones were patterns. She knew the patterns. But she didn’t have enough of that sweet energy to knit them back together. The wood in here was old, feeble, hewn down long ago, its life force only a whispered memory.

“Liam, I can heal myself.” Or at least she was pretty sure she could. “I think I just need to go outside. Tap into something really alive.”

The young man looked at the hole in the floor, then back in the direction Brian had gone. She could see him weighing his choices: loyalty or compassion. He looked at her mangled hand again, made his decision. “Come on.”

Liam checked to see that the entrance hall was empty, then slipped her out the front door.

The ground right outside the house was covered in gravel that glowed white in the moonlight. That was no good. She wanted green grass and growing things the way she wanted cool water on a hot day. She could feel her body thirst for it, an herbal taste, like wheatgrass and juniper. The slope was grassy, and she stumbled down it until she found a wide verdant patch. Then she sank to her knees and placed her shattered hand on the ground.

And took. She was taking life away from one thing and giving it to another, and there were words she was supposed to say. Something tumbled out of her mouth but she didn’t recognize the language. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the energy flowing into her, rekniting her bones, blood vessels, arteries, until she knelt in a wide brown circle of dead dry grass and a tree at the edge of the clearing groaned and sagged.

She stood up, held her hand in front of her face, flexed her fingers, and bent her wrist. It looked mostly right. Her ring finger seemed a bit crooked, but perhaps it had always been that way.

Her hand was healed, but she still felt thirsty, and now she wanted stronger drink. Stronger, more complex magic. Stronger, more complex life. “Liam,” she said.

“I’m here.”

He was standing a few yards away, wary of her now.

“Run.”

M
iach drove the Porsche straight
onto the jetty.

“Why can’t we
pass
to the island?” Conn asked. Miach insisted his grandsons wouldn’t allow Brian to harm the women, but Conn wasn’t so certain. He wanted to get to Beth,
now
.

“Iron chains. The British used them to seal off the harbor when the Americans rebelled. There’s thousands of feet of them sunk in the water. It’s the boat, or nothing,” he explained.

The boat was sleek, wooden, and beautiful, and there in the bow waiting for them was a face he remembered from another lifetime.

“Elada,” Conn acknowledged. The sinewy, golden-haired Fae was as close-shorn as Miach. And far more heavily armed. “I should have known your strong right hand would not be far away.” Because Fae sorcerers were not masters of arms and dead sorcerers were useless to the Fae, most had warrior companions to defend them.

Elada acknowledged Conn with a curt nod of his head and tossed him a silvery short sword. “I hear you misplaced yours.”

Conn was relieved when Miach didn’t unfurl the sails and, instead, a massive engine roared to life. For the second time in as many days, Conn was grateful for human technology.

Normally he liked the smell of the salt sea and the feel of the wind in his hair, but tonight he liked nothing that stood between himself and Beth. As they drew near the little island, forested and hilly, Miach spoke. “Brian is my son.”

And Beth was Conn’s . . . she was his woman. If that meant living a mortal span, so be it. The knowledge rocked him, standing in the boat, beside a Fae as ancient as himself. He had known her a few short days, not even a blink in the span in which he had lived. But he was certain he would never tire of knowing her.

And Miach had saved her life, against his better judgment. “Your son is yours to deal with.”

Then they were at the dock. Miach tied off the boat and was ready to jump down when Elada put out a hand to stay him. Conn drew his sword. If Elada sensed danger, then there was danger.

The sorcerer’s bodyguard vaulted over the rail and landed softly on the dock. He listened for a moment, then knelt. When he stood, he held a finely chased silver bead resembling a heart-shaped leaf in the open palm of his hand.

Miach swore.

“The Prince Consort,” Conn said, recognizing the ornament. A dangerous Fae.

Elada walked to the end of dock and back again.

“He’s been and gone,” Elada said, “with two others.” He examined the planks more closely. “Neither of them a woman.”

Conn did not realize until that point that he had been holding his breath. Miach put a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Come. We will deal with my son, and find you your woman.”

B
eth didn’t need a map
or a picture to find the Fae on the island. Brian had the most Fae blood, the most magic, of any being there, and she could have found him in the dark, had she been deaf and blind.

His magic called to her. It wasn’t strong. Not as strong as Conn’s or Miach’s anyway, and definitely not as strong as the elegant Fae prince who had broken her hand. But stronger than anyone else on the island, and she was hungry, deep inside, for the spark he had in him. She turned to the house like an animal scenting water.

She was dimly aware of Liam following her. She’d told him to run. There had been a moment outside when she’d wanted
more,
and he’d been temptingly close, but as soon as she felt Brian’s stronger Fae presence, she’d known Liam wouldn’t be enough. No reason to sip from a puddle when she could slake her thirst from a stream.

Liam was trailing behind, frightened. He’d seen what she’d done to the wood and the grass. Come to think of it, she was frightened, too. Frightened of what she would do. But he didn’t need to worry. “
I don’t want you
,” she said. “
You’re not enough
.” She meant it to sound reassuring, but her voice sounded strange. Deep, cold, imperious.

“Where are you going?”

“
Into the house
.” Duh.

“There’s half a dozen of them in there. Look, I’ll call the old man, tell him you’re here. But for the love of God, don’t go in there. There’s no telling what Brian will do.”

“
Brian
,” she said with a prickle of fear, recognizing the Druid voice coming out of her mouth, “
I want Brian
.”

She felt every stone under her feet, the vibration of every creaking floorboard as she entered the house, passed the room where the Fae had broken her hand, and continued on toward the sound of laughter and music and the too-bright light of electricity.

A generator. Modern, rational Beth recognized the dense smell of diesel fuel and the chug-hum of its engine. Ancient Druid Beth said,
Some Fae these are, that want such a
thing
here, in a wild and beautiful place.

The room had once been a kitchen. The yawning fireplace and giant black kettles told her that much. There was food on the table, but it hadn’t been cooked in that cold hearth. It was papered and poisoned and part of the modern world and her inner Druid did not like to see it in this place, but her inner Beth’s stomach growled.

Six men. Brian and Nial and four others she did not know, all honey-blonds in sports jerseys and jeans. They married the physique of half-Fae with the demeanor of petty thugs. The Fianna. One of them saw her and whistled, and all talk stopped, only the tinny sound of the radio, blaring Irish heavy metal, continued on.

And the catcalls.

“Who’s your girlfriend, Brian?”

“Come over here, sweetheart.”

Worthless,
the voice in her head told her.
More human than Fae.
Dilute blood. Dilute magic.
She ignored them and the outstretched hands that tried to snatch her up, and made straight for Brian, sitting with his back to the hearth.

He got up, the disgust visible on his face. He raised his fist to strike her. Nial restrained him a moment. “Look at her hand.”