[Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight (15 page)

Doyle pulled me in against them again, but turned me so that I half sat and half lay against their laps. “Some of the prince's guard have access to human newspapers and magazines,” Doyle said. “They have noticed that your guards seem to be having a much better time than either the Queen's Ravens or the Prince's Cranes.”

“I still can't get used to hearing them called Cranes. That was my father's bird, his guard.”

“Many of them belonged to Essus's guard,” Frost said. He held my hand in his. “They were simply given to Cel after Essus's death.”

“Were they given a choice?” I asked. At the time, the least of my worries had been my father's guard, for had they not failed him? Had they not allowed him to be killed? Now I wondered how many of them would have dropped their vows as royal guard if they'd been given a chance.

Doyle cupped the side of my face, brought my attention to his face. “It was your sending for the other men last night that has sent some of Cel's birds to speak to us about life under him.”

“Why did that loosen their tongues?”

“It showed that you cared for all your guard, not just the ones you like. Such caring is not something the Cranes have seen in many a year.”

I could feel Frost's body shudder against mine. “I thought what we endured by the queen's hand was bad enough . . .” He shook his head. “Such stories.”

“We cannot give the court over to him, Meredith,” Doyle said. “I believe him truly mad.”

“Being imprisoned and tortured isn't going to improve that,” I said.

“No,” he said.

“Tell her the rest,” Frost said.

Doyle sighed. “You remember that the queen allowed Cel's need to be slacked by one of his guards.”

I nodded. “Yes, and that night there was an attempt on both my life and the queen's.”

“Yes, but we are still not absolutely certain Cel ordered it. It could simply have been those loyal to him moving in desperation to rescue him before he goes so mad that everyone sees him for what he is.”

“You think the nobles would refuse to follow him?”

“If he tried to do to the court what he has done to his guard, yes,” Doyle said.

I settled back in the curves of their bodies, fur and leather. “What has he done?”

“No, Meredith,” Doyle said, “perhaps later when we have the luxury of time and hours to go before we would sleep. None of it is comforting bedtime stories.”

“We have a murder investigation; trust me, we won't see sleep for hours,” I said.

“What you need to know,” Doyle said, “is that he has fixated on you.”

“Fixated how?” I asked.

They exchanged another look. Doyle shook his head. But Frost said, “She needs to know, Doyle.”

“Then tell her. Why must I always be the bearer of such news?”

Frost blinked at him, and fought not to show on his face what he and I were thinking. We hadn't known that bringing bad news bothered Doyle. He had been the Queen's Darkness, and the Darkness could speak hideous truth and be unmoved, or so it had seemed. It was as if the one outburst had stripped Doyle of some part of himself.

Frost said, “As you will then.” He looked down at me. “He called one of the women guards by your name and swore that if his mother is so determined to have you with child, it will be his seed in your body.”

I looked into that handsome face, and wanted to ask if he were joking, but I knew he was not. It was my turn to shudder. “I would rather die.”

“I'm not certain he would care,” Doyle said softly.

“What do you mean by that?”

“One of the lesser fey died during one of Cel's rapes.” Doyle sighed again, and a look came into his eyes I hadn't seen often—fear. “He liked that she died during the sex. He continued to rape her corpse until her body became quite decayed.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Or so his guard say,” Frost said.

“You saw their eyes, do you truly believe they lied?”

Frost let his breath out in a long sigh, and shook his head. “No.” He bent over me, hugging me, burying me beneath a spill of silver hair. “I am sorry, Meredith, but we felt you needed to know.”

“I was afraid of Cel before,” I said.

“Be more afraid now,” Doyle said. “Someone like that cannot be handed the keys to the Unseelie Court, especially now that power seems to be returning to us. With power, we are more dangerous. Too dangerous to be given over to a madman.”

“Power returns because of Meredith,” Frost said.

“Yes, but once power is reborn in the sidhe, it will be like a gun. It will not care how it is used.”

“The Goddess may abandon us forever if the power is misused,” I said.

“I thought as much, but think of the damage we could do before she took back her new gifts.”

We sat on the floor and contemplated new possibilities for even larger disasters. Doyle hugged me tight, then stood up, and shook himself like a dog. He settled the leather coat around his tall frame, and said, “I thought to keep the news of Cel and his new madness until after we had brought the police inside, but . . .” He slid the dark glasses over his eyes, so that he was the tall, dark, inscrutable Darkness. Only the silver shine of his earrings gave him color. “We will escort you to the police and the FBI. I am sorry for losing control as I did, Princess, and for delaying us further.”

I let Frost help me to my feet. “One fit in over a thousand years, I think you're overdue.”

Doyle shook his head. “It is my fault that Rhys and the police are waiting in the cold. Inexcusable.”

I touched his arm, but it was hard muscle encased in leather, as if he could not allow himself any softness. “I don't think it's inexcusable.”

“If she comforts us again, we will be even later,” Frost said.

Doyle smiled, a quick flash of teeth. “It is nice to be comforted instead of punished.” He held up the fur cloak. “Please, just for now. We will find something else more to your liking, but just for now.”

I still didn't like the idea of wearing the cloak, but after what I'd just heard about Cel and his guard, it seemed a lesser evil. I allowed him to put the cloak around me. “How does it look?” I asked.

The wall quivered like a horse's skin when a fly lands. Doyle shoved me behind him. Frost already had his sword naked in his hand. Doyle aimed a gun at the rock wall.

A full length mirror surrounded by a gilt frame floated up through the stone, shining in the darkness of the room.

I peered at it around Doyle's body, my pulse in my throat. “Where did that come from?”

Doyle still had a gun pointed very steadily at the bright surface. “I do not know.” Almost all the fey could use mirrors to make a sort of phone call. Doyle and some of the other sidhe could travel through mirrors. We stood waiting for a figure to appear, for something terrible to happen. But the mirror just hung on the wall, as if someone had put it there to be a mirror and nothing more.

The tip of Frost's sword lowered.

Doyle glanced at us. “Why did it appear? Who sent it?”

Frost stepped closer to the mirror. “Meredith, look at yourself in the mirror.”

Doyle looked skeptical but he moved so I could see myself. The red and gold of the fur went well with my hair and skin, and brought out the gold in my eyes. With the hood up, I looked delicate and a little ethereal, like something between a Victorian Christmas card and a barbarian princess. Well, a small barbarian princess.

“Now, thank the sithen for the use of the mirror, and say you no longer need it.”

I frowned at him, but did as he suggested. “Thank you for the mirror, sithen. I do not need it right now.”

The mirror stayed on the wall, as if it had always been there.

“Please, sithen, a mirror could be used to harm her, please take it away,” Frost said.

It felt as if the very air shrugged, then the wall quivered again, and the mirror began to sink back into the wall. When the wall was empty stone once more I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

“Are you saying the mirror appeared because I asked how I looked?”

“Hush,” Frost said, then he nodded.

“Now that,” Doyle said, “is interesting.”

“The sithen hasn't answered to whims since—” Frost stopped as if trying to think how long.

“Long enough, my friend, that I, too, am not certain when the last time was.”

“So is this good,” I said, “or not?”

“Good,” Doyle said.

“But dangerous,” Frost added.

Doyle nodded. “I would be careful what I said aloud from now on, Meredith. An idle comment could have grave consequences, if the sithen has truly returned to that much life.”

“What do you mean?”

“The sithen is a living thing, but it does not think like any living thing I have ever known. It will interpret what you say in its own way. You ask how you look, and it gives you a mirror. Who knows what it might offer you, depending on what you said.”

“What if I yelled for help, would it do anything useful?” I asked.

“I do not know,” Doyle said. “I have heard of it giving you objects you asked for, but never touching people. But there are enchanted items locked within its walls, things that simply vanished. Some theorize that they did not go back to the gods, but inside the very walls. There are things that I would not want appearing before you without more help than this.”

“More help than you and Frost?”

He nodded.

I started to ask what object could possibly be so dangerous that the Killing Frost and the Queen's Darkness could not keep me safe, but I didn't. One disaster at a time. It was almost as if something wanted to keep us here tonight, distracted by one semi-important event after another. I shook my head. “Enough, we are leaving now. Rhys and the police are waiting.”

When we stepped out the door we were in the main corridor just inside the outer doors. My room should have been three levels down, and nowhere near this area. The guards waiting to accompany us were staring at us as we walked out.

Galen said, “That door wasn't there before.”

“No,” Doyle said, and he got everyone in formation, with me in the center, hidden once again behind a phalanx of guards. I would have said men, but at least three of them were female, including Biddy. She and Nicca would probably be useless in a fight. They were still too magic befuddled, but we were afraid to leave them behind. I was almost certain that without someone to stop them, they would have sex, and until I cleared it with the queen that was an automatic death by torture for both of them. Doyle did make them stop holding hands. He thought the police might get the wrong idea.

Cathbodua and Dogmaela had joined our little band. I suddenly had three women in my personal entourage who might have owed more allegiance to Cel than to me. Doyle made some noises about me needing ladies in waiting, and wouldn't it be useful if they were also trained warriors. But I knew the real reason. We took them with us because the queen might at any moment change her mind and demand them back into Cel's service. We took them out into the snow to meet the police because they were safer with us than without us.

CHAPTER 13

I DIDN'T SEE THE POLICE BUT I HEARD THEM, A RUMBLE OF DEEP
male voices. Sound carried so much better on those still, bitterly cold nights. My cheeks were stinging, and my breath had fogged and frozen in the fur of the hood. Barinthus had kept me warm on the walk to the faerie mounds after the assassination attempt, but I walked on my own power now. The snow was knee high for me, and my boots didn't quite keep it from soaking into the knees of my jeans. I tried to call the feel of the summer sun to put inside my shield and help keep back the cold, but it was as if I couldn't remember what summer felt like. The moonless night was clear with a thousand stars flung across the darkness like bits of glittering ice, diamond glints across black velvet. I focused on the fight to lift one foot, then the next, and struggle through drifts that the taller sidhe walked through effortlessly. It was undignified for a princess to fall on her face, but it took effort to keep from doing it. I suppose that struggling through the snow wasn't exactly dignified either, but that I could do nothing about.

But it was Biddy who stumbled. Nicca caught her before she hit the snow. I heard her apologize, “I don't know what's wrong. I'm so cold.”

“Stop, all of you, stop,” I said. Everyone obeyed, some of them looking out at the snow, fingers near weapons.

It was Galen who asked, “What's wrong, Merry?”

“Are Biddy and I the only ones here with human blood?”

“I think so.”

“I tried to conjure the feel of summer sun, and I couldn't remember what it was like.”

Doyle had worked his way back to me. “What is wrong?”

“Check Biddy and me for a spell, a spell that attacks only human blood.”

He pulled off one of his black gloves and put his hand just above my face, not touching skin, but searching my aura, my shielding, my magic.

He growled low and soft, but the sound raised the hair on the back of my neck. “I take it you found something.”

He nodded. Then he turned to Biddy, who was half fainting in Nicca's arms. “I am sorry, Doyle. I am truly better than this.”

“It is a spell,” he told her, and lifted off her helmet to lay his hand above her face. He handed the helmet to Nicca and turned to me, unable to hide the spark of angry color in his eyes. He was fighting down his power, raised by anger. Anger at himself most likely for letting yet another spell slip under his nose. We had some truly subtle spells being worked on us. One of us would have noticed something big, but such small spells were harder to guard against.

“It is tied to mortal blood. It simply sucks at your energy, and fills you with cold.”

“Why is Biddy more affected than Merry?” Nicca asked. He was covered completely in a thick cloak, except for his wings. They were held tight together as if they would stay warmer that way, and maybe they did. He was warm-blooded; moth wings did not change that.

I answered him. “She's half-human, I'm less than a fourth human. If it is seeking human blood, she's got more than I have.”

“Are the human police affected?” Hawthorne asked.

Doyle put his hand back over me, and this time I felt a warm pulse of magic shiver over my shields. “It is like a contagion. It was put on either Biddy or the princess, then jumped from one to the other. If we do not remove it, it will spread to the police.”

I looked up at him, speaking with the warmth of his magic against my skin, like breath. “What would it do to full-blooded humans?”

“It made a warrior of the sidhe stumble in the snow. She is disoriented, and would be useless in a fight.”

Frost was staring off into the darkness. He and another fringe of guards were all staring out into the cold night. His voice carried to me. “Is this the beginning of a more overt attack?”

“Who would be so bold as to attack the human guards?” Amatheon wondered aloud. He'd been eager to come out into the cold, anything to be farther away from the queen, I think. But I remembered again that he had been Cel's creature for centuries. Did a few acts of honor and kindness erase centuries of allegiance? And as close to Cel as he had been, he had to have witnessed some of the horrors the female guards spoke of, didn't he? I made a mental note to ask him later, with Doyle and Frost at my back. Onilwyn was inside the faerie mound, because he had not recovered from the beating Maggie May and I had given him. Cold iron forces even the sidhe to heal human slow. Him I did not trust at all. Amatheon I was beginning to trust; was I wrong to trust him? Of course, the question itself meant I didn't trust him, not really.

“Who indeed,” I said, and fought not to look at him, not to let him know with body language that I wondered if it was him.

Either I betrayed myself, or he felt insecure, because he said, “I will make any oath that I did not know of this.”

“You said you were a man without honor,” Adair said. “A man without honor has no oath.”

“Enough,” Doyle said, “we will not squabble amongst ourselves, not this close to the humans.”

“Doyle's right. We will discuss this later.” I raised my face up to him, and said, “Can you remove it so that Biddy and I do not infect the police?”

“I can.”

“Then do it, and let us get this done.”

“You sound angry,” Galen said.

“I am tired of whoever is doing all this. Tired of these games.”

“It is a good sign, in a way,” Doyle said.

I looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“It means our murderer fears the human police, fears they may find him where our magic has failed.” He stuffed his gloves in the pocket of his coat and slid my hood off, so that the cold air spilled around my face. I shivered.

“I am afraid I will have to make you colder before I am done.”

I nodded. “Get this off of me, and I will warm myself.”

He pushed my cloak back. The cold rushed in, stealing the shell of warmth that the cloak had made. I fought not to shiver as he spread his hands over me, not touching even so much as my clothing, but caressing just above my body. His power shivered over my aura, and it felt as if he scooped something off of me, almost like flicking an insect off my skin.

He raised his hands upward, cupped as if he truly held something. He called that sickly green fire to his hands. It was the painful flame that I'd seen eat along a body. It could cause death if you were mortal, or excruciating pain and madness in the immortal. Now he used it to burn away the spell that had clung to me.

Rhys's voice came from behind us. “What's wrong?” He had a gun naked in his hand, but held along his body so the police probably wouldn't see it from a distance. He saw the green light, and said, “What is it?” with a new urgency in his voice. “What am I not sensing?”

Galen answered him. “Someone put a spell on Merry.”

“On both the human bloods,” Frost said.

“It would have been contagious to the human police,” Doyle said. The green flame vanished, leaving the night a little darker. He turned to Biddy, where she half sagged in Nicca's arms. “Let her go, Nicca.”

“She will fall.”

“Only to her knees in the snow. It won't hurt her.” Doyle's voice was surprisingly gentle.

Nicca still held her against him. His wings flared out once, then clamped tight again.

“It's all right, Nicca,” Biddy said in a soft voice, a little breathy. “Doyle will help me.”

It was Hawthorne who came to him, and began to gently draw him away from her. “Let the captain help your lady.”

Nicca allowed himself to be drawn away, but when Biddy collapsed into the snow, he moved to catch her, and only Hawthorne and Adair on each side kept him from grabbing her before her knees hit the snow.

Rhys gave a soft whistle. “That would have done bad things to our nice policemen.”

“Yes,” Doyle said, as he knelt in the snow, his greatcoat spreading out like a pool of darkness against the white. He passed his hands above Biddy, much as he'd done me, but he hesitated close to her belly. “That someone could lay such a thing on her while she wore this much metal . . .” He shook his head. “It speaks of great power.”

“Or mixed blood,” I said. “Those of us with a little human or brownie or a few other things can handle metal and magic better than a pure-blooded sidhe.”

His mouth twitched. “Thank you for reminding me, because you are exactly right.”

“Can you trail it back to its owner?” I asked.

Doyle cocked his head to the side, the way a dog does when it is puzzled by something. “Yes.” His hands tensed above Biddy's body. “I can remove it, but I can also add magic of my own, and force it to fly back to its owner.”

“You mean not just track it, but make it run back home?” Rhys asked.

“Yes.”

“You have not been able to do that in a very long time,” Frost said.

“But I can do it now,” Doyle said. “I can feel it in my hands, my stomach. All I have to do is remove it, and add my power at the moment of its release. It will be a chase to keep up with it, but it will work.”

“Who will go with you?” Frost asked. “I must stay with the princess.”

“Agreed.”

“I will go,” Usna said. “No dog can outrun a cat.”

Doyle gave him one of those fierce smiles. “Done.”

“I, too, will go.” It was Cathbodua, once a goddess of battle, now a refugee from Cel's guard. Her cloak was formed of black feathers, so that it sometimes seemed as if her fine black hair was part of the cloak, and if you looked at her from the edges of your eyes, her hair looked as if it were made of feathers. She was Cathbodua, battle scald crow, and though diminished in power, she was still one of the few in the courts who had kept her original name. Rumor had it that she had not been as abused by Cel, for he feared her. Dogmaela, who stood in armor next to her, had been nicknamed Cel's dog because she was given every awful task he could find. She had publicly denied him sex, and he'd never forgiven her. Cathbodua had done the same thing, and not suffered overly much for it. There was something about her, standing there in the snow, all black and feathered, with some air of . . . power that would give a braver man than Cel pause.

“You think you can keep up, birdie?” Usna said.

She gave him a smile cold enough to freeze the smile from his face. “Don't worry for me, kitty-cat, I won't be the tail end of this race.”

Usna made a cat-like growl. “Remember who the predator is here, birdie.”

Her smiled widened, and filled her eyes with a fierce joy. “Me,” she said.

“Us,” Doyle said. “Keep her safe, Frost.”

“I will.”

“Oh, don't mind me,” Rhys said. “I'm not fast enough to keep up, and apparently I can't be trusted with the safety of the princess.”

“Help her with the humans, Rhys.” Doyle glanced at Cathbodua and Usna. “Are you prepared?”

Cathbodua said, “I am ready.”

Usna said, “Always.”

Doyle turned back to Biddy. “This may hurt.”

“Do it.” She braced herself, hands in the snow.

Doyle flexed his hands, so that they looked like black claws against the silver of her armor. Biddy let out a sharp breath. His magic flared even through the shields that I held in place to keep me from being overwhelmed by the magic of faerie. Her aura, her metaphysical armor, flared like a flash of light that covered her body. Doyle plunged his hands into that flare of light and came out with a round ball of light, but the light wasn't the clean yellow-white light of Biddy's aura, it was a dark sickly yellow with an edge of orange flame to it. Doyle cupped his hands more closely around it until the flickering of the orange flames spilled out from between his fingers.

He stood carefully, as if he held a very full bowl of very hot soup. He stepped around Biddy, and the other guards spilled away so that there was nothing between him and the mounds but empty snow.

Usna and Cathbodua moved up on either side of him. Usna undid his long cloak and stood dressed mostly in leather, his breath fogging in the cold, his face eager, eyes shining with anticipation. Cathboda's face was like pale marble, perfect, beautiful, and cold. Far from flinging her cloak off, she gathered it more tightly around her. I realized that her breath did not fog in the cold. I had a moment to wonder why, then Doyle flung his hands skyward, and the flame was now a bird, a falcon made of red and orange flame. It flashed shining wings once, twice, to gain altitude. Doyle undid his long black cloak and let it fall to the snow. He undid his weapons and flung them all to the snow. The falcon beat its wings twice more and stared down at us all with eyes made of fire, an arrogant look, as if to say, “You will never catch me.” Then it was gone, streaking like some hand-sized comet, flaming into the night.

Doyle was simply gone. I know he ran, but it was like trying to watch darkness fall. You never really saw it happen. He was a tall dark shape, loping over the snow. Cathbodua was with him, though she didn't seem to be running. It was almost as if the long feathered cloak floated above the snow, and she with it. Usna trailed them both, but not by much. His multicolored hair shone in the starlight, sparkling like colored snow, as he ran graceful and full out behind them.

“He has his work cut out for him,” Rhys said.

“Yes,” Frost said, “you cannot outrun the Darkness.”

“And anger travels on the very wind,” Dogmaela said.

“Anger?” I made it a question.

“She is the scald crow. She is the dissatisfaction that drives men to quarrel.”

“She starts the fight, then feeds on it,” Biddy said, as Nicca helped her to her feet.

“She did once,” Frost said, “but that is no more.”

“You think not,” Dogmaela said. “Cathbodua still enjoys a good quarrel, make no mistake about it, Killing Frost. She grows bored with so much peace.”