Laura Anne Gilman (15 page)

And that raised unsettling questions. Martin was set to protect her, and he had—but for how long? If a kelpie killed...how long could he hold his nature at bay? That had been what AJ had meant, when he’d said that Martin would have to decide...after.

Jan didn’t want to believe that he could kill her, but she knew one thing for sure, deep in her gut: they were all dangerous. The preters, Martin, the
bansidhe,
even Toba with his beak and claws, and the gnomes, with their grabbing fingers and gnawing teeth. Maybe even Elsa, who looked too slow and solid to harm anyone...she had looked Elsa up, as well. A
jötunndotter
was another name for troll, and troll had unsavory reputations, too.

Kelpies lured victims onto their backs, and killed them. All the stories were clear about that; if you got on, it was game over.

Jan shifted in her seat, her thoughts taking her places she didn’t want to go. Nothing of the fairy world was to be trusted, all the websites she had visited—except the seriously new-age touchy-woo-woo ones—had been clear on that. It was Martin’s nature to kill, same as it was his nature to flirt. He would, eventually, inevitably, lure her onto his back and take her into the river, and she would drown. For all that he was her ally, her partner in this, she could not trust him. Even he had admitted that.

But she had been on his back and been underwater, and not drowned. He didn’t seem particularly homicidal to her. He held her when she cried, and sent her funny texts to cheer her up, and...

AJ, on the other hand... Now him, she could easily see him taking someone’s throat out. And yet, even when he was yelling at her, she felt safer around him than she did any of the other supers, even Martin. It made no sense. Maybe because his teeth were front and center, and he made no pretense....

It didn’t matter. The supers might be more dangerous than the preters, in terms of history—after all, the only thing she could find about elves was that they took humans as pets and lovers, and didn’t always return them. No eating, no drowning... But they had taken Tyler.

She took another look at the time and sighed. Half an hour after the man on the other end of the site-connection had agreed to meet her.

he’s not going to show up
, she started to text, when the door’s chime sounded, and she looked up, not even hopeful at this point.

A woman came in, slim and elegant in jeans and a bright red blouse that looked vaguely Russian, and then a dark-skinned man, wide in the shoulders, with a stubborn set to his jaw.

Jan’s breath caught, a painful hitch halfway between lungs and throat.

Tyler.

Chapter 10

“D
on’t.”

Martin’s hand on her shoulder sank her back into her seat before she’d been aware that she was halfway to standing. She didn’t even wonder where he’d come from or how he’d gotten there so fast—or had she been caught in some kind of time warp, staring in disbelief?

“But that’s—that’s Tyler,” she said, her voice a harsh whisper, as though afraid to spook him, or herself, or the entire coffee shop. “It’s Tyler!”

“Look twice, Janny. He’s not alone.”

Jan felt Martin’s hand fall away—he was leaving? She felt oddly abandoned, and then his words sank in. Not alone? She slid another glance toward the so familiar, so beloved figure sitting at the table across the room. Tyler—it
was
Tyler—looked tired, and his hair was shorn too close, the thick black curls she had loved now a bare fuzz against his scalp, his dark skin carrying gray shadows under his eyes, visible even at this distance, under the harsh lights overhead. Never bulky, he seemed even thinner now, as though he had been ill for a month and poorly fed. Jan was amazed now that she had recognized him; but it was him. She had no doubt.

He’s not alone.

Martin had left. She could get up and go to Tyler, hug him, rage at him, ask him what the hell he had been up to, make such a scene that he’d have no choice but to tell her.

He’s not alone.

She looked again, and this time she saw the way his gaze kept going to the front counter, as though something there held all his attention. She let her own gaze follow, tracking through the crowd.

There. Jan felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. The tall, slender woman who had come in just before him. The woman turned just then, looking over her shoulder as though scanning the room, and Jan swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. The woman was golden-pale, with thick black hair around a pointed face, cheekbones that a supermodel would kill for, and eyes too large to be natural. Even without looking into those eyes, Jan knew.

Preternatural.

How did no one else sense it? How could no one else be aware? Jan’s stomach twisted in on itself, her skin crawling, and she took a sip of her coffee to try and cover the shudder that went though her. The one in the café had not set off such a strong reaction, but she hadn’t had time to observe it carefully. Or maybe she just hadn’t been sensitized enough yet. AJ and Martin, Toba, and even Elsa, all of the things she had seen—even the turncoats and the
bansidhe,
they had been odd and frightening and fierce...but they had
belonged
here. They were part of this world.

This...creature, did not. AJ had been right. It was an abomination.

Preternatural. Outside of this world.

And it held her Tyler in its delicate hands. Jan understood that, as the preter approached the table bearing two coffees, and Tyler rose to his feet in a way he’d never done for her, his gaze never leaving her face, as though he was terrified that she might disappear, might turn out not to be real.

Jan had hated a lot of people and a lot of things in her life. But it all faded behind the rage she felt toward the preter—to all preters, right then. All the beauty in the world—in two worlds—couldn’t hide what it was, a vile
thing,
as hideous as its turncoat tools. She wanted to stomp on it the way you would a cockroach, erase any sign it had ever existed.

We need one alive,
AJ had said after the disaster in the restaurant, leaning across the sedan’s backseat toward her, his wide-set brown eyes glimmering with a feral red light deep within.
We need it bound and within our grasp, to get the truth from it.

They needed to know how the portals were being opened, and how to shut them from this side. That was their only protection. Jan had promised to follow AJ’s plan. Had promised not to confront a preter directly, but to follow it, trap it.... But this was the bitch who had taken Tyler from her. This was that bitch Stjerne, Jan was certain of it. And Martin had gone off and abandoned her....

No. Jan’s rage subsided a little, her practical nature reasserting itself. Martin hadn’t abandoned her. He wouldn’t: she knew that now, as well as she had known it was Tyler, the moment he’d stepped through the door. Martin had come in to warn her, to stop her from doing anything stupid, but preters could scent him; if he had stayed, the bitch would have been alerted. Whatever reason they had for being here, she would flee—and take Tyler with her.

Or would she? If threatened, might not the preter abandon the human, cast him aside as a decoy, to distract her enemies? The thought, the possibility, filled Jan with determination. AJ had said that she was Tyler’s only chance to escape, that only her love could free him. Tyler’s showing up here was a gift, however it happened, and she would be a fool to ignore it.

Never mind what she had promised AJ. She would not let that bitch take her boyfriend away again.

* * *

Everything around him was noisy, so noisy and too bright, and almost-familiar without being familiar at all. Still shaky from the portal-crossing, still uncertain where they were, or how they had gotten there, he waited the way Stjerne had told him to, holding the table against others who might try to take it, glaring away those who tried to abscond with the empty chair. If he could do that properly, obey perfectly, the uncertainty and discomfort inside him should disappear.

Finally, Stjerne returned to the table, bearing two cups and a look of peaceful satisfaction on her face, a look he had never seen before, and one that made him shiver with fear, not pleasure, as though it somehow boded ill for him. But how? Had he done something wrong, after all?

He thought to hold his tongue, and not risk angering her, but the fear and uncertainty overran him. Once he opened his mouth, though, the words that came out were not the words he had thought to say.

“I know this place,” he said, even as he was accepting the coffee from her hands as though it were a precious gift. “I brought you here...but I don’t know how. Or why.”

She sat with grace, her long legs stretched out before her, seemingly unconcerned by either his worry or how they’d arrived there. “I desired coffee. You knew where there was coffee to be had. You performed your duties perfectly: think no more of it, my pet.” Her words matched her expression, a satisfied purr that not even his best efforts had been able to evoke. It reminded him, uncomfortably, of the looks on the faces of the ones who held him down, who did things to him, after he gave in. Hunger...sated.

He didn’t think it was the coffee that had made her feel that way.

Still. She said he had done well. A quiet burn of pride kindled within his chest, warming away his unease.

“Drink your refreshment, and we will be on our way. I have things I need to do here. So long as the portal holds, it would be foolish to abuse this opportunity, before we must return.”

“Return?” He wasn’t comfortable here, but the thought of going back was not pleasant, either.

“It is not yet time for us to stay,” she said, and her voice thinned a little in annoyance. “Not yet. He wants at least thrice-ten portals in our hold, before we show our hand. But soon we will be able to come back, and stay. And then we will see who holds the power....”

He didn’t understand anything she said, but there was something fierce in her, like the sound of wings beating against a cage or the roar of a lion over its kill. He felt himself harden at the sound, like a dog hearing a bell ring. Unlike when such a thing happened back in the structure of stone and mist, he felt a flush of embarrassment that she could play him so easily.

He stared down into the coffee, and in that flush of emotion something poked at his thoughts, the faded ragged edges of his memory, prying its way in. The music playing in the background of the café reminded him of another tune, something too-distant to grasp, but tantalizingly familiar.

“Black coffee.” He looked up, a fact clear in his memory, and compared the shades of his to hers. “You take yours plain.”

“Yes.” The fierceness in her remained, but muted, as though she had turned down the sound. “It is not a thing we have, and I have developed a fondness for it.” She was speaking to him, but he was hearing something else. Another voice, a woman’s voice, ordering coffee with just the slightest touch of cream.

“I want it to be the exact same color of your skin. Oh.” Her eyes, her sweet green eyes, had gone wide, and she’d looked horrified. “Was that racist?”

He had laughed, and cuddled her, and reassured her that it hadn’t been, that she was purely incapable of being that mean. And then he had put aside both their mugs and kissed her....

“Oh, pet.” Stjerne’s voice was steel and fire. “Look at me.”

Tyler raised his head, unable to deny her. The eyes that met his were not green but golden, and filled with something that unmanned him.

“Too soon,” she said. “He was right, the overbearing pretender, he was right. Too soon; you are not yet ready, and I was too eager. But no damage has been done, only a small setback. Give me your hand.”

He placed his hand in hers, and the gaze and the touch pulled him forward, soothed and anchored him, and the memory faded, the music faded, until all that was left of him was her.

“There. Better.” She smiled at him and leaned back, sipping at her coffee, still holding that fingers-to-palm contact. “I was not wrong; the bond held. The others worry far too much. So, a postponement, for now. A small delay, until you are ready. Soon enough we will claim what should be ours, put an end to this endless foolishness, and then no one—nothing—will keep me constrained, limited to what has been.”

He nodded agreement, although he had no idea what he was agreeing to, and drank his coffee, her presence and her pleasure enough to banish the last uncertainty and confusion.

* * *

It was unbearable. Or, like bears tearing at her insides. Or something, she didn’t know what, and she couldn’t calm her thoughts long enough to be rational. Jan waited at her table, her body practically quivering, trying hard not to stare, as though the hatred in her gut would somehow alert them...and it might. It was a vivid, tail-lashing thing, like a cat about to strike, and she was afraid that it could easily give her away, if she let it.

But she didn’t dare move; as much as she might want to make a scene here, drag Tyler away, scream at both of them, she hadn’t gone that far over the edge. No. She needed to get Tyler back, but she also needed to trap the preter, the way AJ wanted. Somehow.

So she waited until her mug was empty, and she had no more excuse to linger, and yet they sat there. They did not talk after that first exchange; every time she glanced their way, the preter sipped her coffee, that narrow mouth curved in a smile, and Tyler...

Jan’s stomach hurt, and the cat-anger lashed its tail again. Tyler stared at the preter as though he were unable to look away, trapped in her web.

“He’s been taken. Trapped. It’s not his fault.” She murmured that to herself over and over again, willing it to be true.

But she hadn’t forced him to hook up online—there were plenty of men who had gotten the lure and walked away. Just not him. Anger spat again, deep inside, and while most of it was directed at the preter—and Tyler—some of it curled around and burned her, too.

“Let it go,” she told herself. “He needs you. They all need you, all the ones who had been taken.” Because there had been others—at least three others, people whose lovers had tried, and failed, to rescue them. “You have to be strong.”

Besides, Glory would kick her ass if she knew Jan was beating herself up over a guy’s screw-up. And she’d be right to do so. Jan knew that—intellectually.

Glory. God, what she wouldn’t do to be able to talk to the other woman. Tell her what was going on.... Get some
human
perspective on all this. But Jan didn’t even know where to begin, how to explain any of this without sounding like she was two fries short of a Happy Meal.

Her phone let out a gentle, insistent beep. She looked down to see a new text from Martin.
Come outside

The text was a relief—an excuse to do something rather than sit and watch the love of her life moon over something not-human, and wonder about her own sanity.

Jan got up, carefully, nonchalantly, not drawing any attention to herself, and walked toward the door. There was no way to avoid it; the path took her right past their table. She walked past, close enough to reach out and touch his arm...and neither one of them looked up.

Then she was at the door, through the door, a step away from the door, and Martin’s arms were around her, pulling her close. To the outside it might have looked like a playful hug, the kind old friends or siblings might give, but the intensity in his hold was unmistakable. It was the same sensation she’d had when riding his other form, that she couldn’t have slipped away, couldn’t fall, even if she’d tried.

“Oh, God.” She gasped, feeling the coffee she’d had rise up as if she was going to vomit, and gulped it back down again, despite the horrible taste. She would not show weakness. She would not let that bitch cause her to lose it.

“I have you,” his voice promised against her hair, even as he was moving her away from the door. “I’ve got you, I’m here. Hang on and I won’t let you drown, I swear it.”

She clung, until the shaking in her legs eased, and her stomach settled. Tyler was alive. He was here, within reach. She should go back in there and demand answers, beg him to come back, throw something at him—maybe throw something at that bitch, too.

Instead, she stayed within Martin’s embrace, letting him guide her away from the coffee shop. His body was solid, reassuring, even without the magic of his other form.

Tyler was leaner, his chest narrow, his arms looser around her shoulders, somehow less comforting. That was unfair, she thought, but the comparison remained.

Magic.
Martin used magic, glamour, something, to make her want to come with him, to keep her on his back. It wasn’t real. But it
felt
real.