[Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight (7 page)

“You are babbling again,” she said, crossing her arms under her tight firm breasts.

“I want to contact the police and bring in a forensic team.”

“A what?”

“Scientists who specialize in helping the police solve crimes in the human world.”

She was shaking her head. “I do not want the human police tramping through here.”

“Nor do I, but a few policemen, and a few scientists. Just a few, just enough to gather evidence. All the sidhe are royal, titled; they all have diplomatic immunity, so technically we can dictate to an extent how much police involvement we allow.”

“And you think this will catch whoever did this?”

“I do.” I stepped a little away from Doyle, so I wasn't huddling against him. “Whoever did this is worried about magic tracking them down, but it will never occur to them that we would use forensic science inside the land of faerie. They will not have protected against it, and in fact, they can't protect against it, not completely.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We, even the sidhe, shed skin cells, hairs, saliva; all of it can be used to trace back to the person. Science can use a smaller piece than is needed for a spell. Not a lock of hair, but the root of a hair. Not a pound of flesh, but an invisible fleck of it.”

“You are certain that it will work? Certain that if I allow this intrusion, this invasion of our privacy, human science will solve this crime?”

I licked my lips. “I am certain if there is evidence to find, they will find it.”

“If,” she said, and she started pacing the room again, but slowly, quietly this time. “‘If' means you are not certain. ‘If' means, dear niece, that you may bring all this upon us and the murderer may go free. If we bring in the police and they do not solve the reporter's death, it will undo all the good publicity I have acquired for us in the last two decades.”

“I think it will work, but either way the media will be impressed with your willingness to allow the modern police into your faerie mound. No one has ever done that, not even at the golden court.”

She glanced back at me, but she was moving, slowly, toward Barinthus. He was indeed kneeling at the foot of her bed, on a black fur rug. “You think we will gain media points over Taranis and his shining people.”

“I think this will show that we meant no harm to anyone, and that such things are not tolerated among the Unseelie, contrary to all those centuries of dark talk.”

She stood in front of Barinthus now, but still spoke to me. “You truly believe that the media will forgive us allowing one of their own to be murdered simply because we invite in the police?”

“I think some of them would slaughter their own photographers on altars, with incense and prayers, to get a chance at covering this story.”

“Clever, Meredith, very clever.” She turned to Barinthus then. She stroked her hand down the side of his face, like you'd touch a lover, though I knew she had never taken him to her bed. “Why did you never try to make a king of my son?”

Unless Barinthus and the queen had been having a very different conversation, the question seemed out of nowhere.

“You do not want me to answer that question, Queen Andais,” he said in his deep, sighing voice.

“Yes,” she said, still stroking his face, “yes, I do.”

“You will not like it.”

“I have not liked many things of late. Answer the question, Kingmaker. I know that if my brother, Essus, had been willing, you would have had him kill me and put himself on the throne. But he would not slay his own sister. He would not have that sin on his heart. Still, you thought he would be a better king than I a queen, didn't you?”

Dangerous questions. Barinthus said again, “You do not want the truth, my queen.”

“I know the truth of that question. I've known that for centuries, but I do not know why you never looked to Cel. He approached you after Essus died. He offered to help you slay me, if you would help put him on the throne early.”

I think all of us across the room held our breaths in that moment. I had not known this. The looks on everyone's faces around me said that most of them had not either. Only Adair and Hawthorne behind their helmets were still hidden from their surprise.

“I warned you of his treachery,” Barinthus said.

“Yes, and I had you tortured for it.”

“I remember, my queen.”

Her smile did not match her words, but then neither did the constant caressing of his face and shoulders. “When Meredith came of age, you turned to her. If she had had the magic she now possesses since her stay in the lands to the west, you would have offered her what you offered Essus, wouldn't you?”

“You know the answer, my queen.”

“Yes,” she said, “I do. But Cel always had the power to be king. Why did you not put him on the throne? Why did you foster a half-breed mongrel of a princess over my pure-sidhe son?”

“Do not ask me this,” he said.

She slapped him twice, hard enough to stagger him even on his knees. Hard enough to have blood spill from his mouth. “I am your queen, damn you, and you will answer my question. Answer me!” The last was screamed into his face.

Barinthus answered her, blood flowing from his mouth. “You are a better queen than Cel will ever be a king.”

“And what of Meredith? What of my brother's child?”

“She will be a good queen.”

“A better queen than Cel a king?”

“Yes,” he said, and that one word dropped into the silence of the room like a stone thrown down a great height. You know it will make a sound, but only after a very, very long fall.

The sound came with her words. “Meredith, you will do nothing with Barinthus that will chance you being pregnant by him. Nothing, is that clear?”

“Yes.” My voice sounded strained and hoarse as if I'd been the one screaming.

“Contact the police. Do what you think best. I will announce to the court and the media that you are in charge of this little problem. Do not bother me with it again. Do not report to me unless I ask it. Now go, all of you, get out.”

We went. All of us, even Barinthus. We went, and were grateful to go.

CHAPTER 5

I CALLED MAJOR WALTERS OF THE ST. LOUIS POLICE DEPARTMENT
, who had been in charge of our security at the airport the day before. I called from the only land line phone in the Unseelie sithen. The phone was in the queen's office. Which always looked to me like a black and silver version of Louis the Fourteenth's office if he had liked going to Goth dance clubs for the dissipated rich. It was elegant, dark, expensive, and exciting in that chill-up-your-spine way; modern, but with a feel of the antique; nouveau riche done right. It was also a little claustrophobic to me. Too many shades of black and grey in too small a space, as if a Goth curtain salesman had persuaded them to cover every inch of the room with his wares.

The phone was white and always looked like bones on the secretary's black desk. Or maybe that's just me projecting. I did not understand the mood of the queen tonight. I'd asked Barinthus, as we walked to the office, if she'd given him any clues as to why she was behaving so oddly, and he'd said no. No clues.

Why was I calling the St. Louis police when the faerie lands are technically in Illinois? Because Major Walters was the current police liaison for the lands of faerie and the human police. Once upon a time, a few hundred years ago, there'd been an entire police unit assigned to us. Why? Because not everyone in America agreed with President Jefferson's decision to bring the fey to this country. The local people who were going to be close to us were especially upset. They didn't want monsters of the Unseelie Court coming to live in their state. At that time, St. Louis was the closest major city with a working police department. So even though we were technically located in Illinois, police problems had been sent to Missouri and St. Louis. They got the joyous duty of protecting us from the angry humans and also walking the perimeters of our lands so we couldn't sneak out and wreak havoc. If the courts of faerie hadn't come with a sizable bribe for several different branches of government, and certain powerful individuals, we might have never made it into this country. No one wanted to mess with either court after the last great human-fey war in Europe. We'd shown ourselves entirely too powerful for comfort.

What no one really understood about us—from Jefferson on down to the yelling mob—was that a line of human police wasn't really going to keep the fey, any fey, from leaving the area. What kept them inside and behaving themselves were threats and oaths to and from their respective kings and queens. But the police did keep the humans from harassing us.

Gradually, when nothing bad happened, the police presence was reduced, until they left altogether, and we only called on them when they were needed. As the local humans realized that we mostly wanted to be left alone, we had to call on our private police less and less. Soon, the police assigned to us had other jobs in other areas of the police force until they were needed for faerie duty, as it came to be called. Come up to present day and the unit had become a single detective or officer. The last time he'd been used was my father's death, but since that had been on government-owned farmland, the locals had been cut out twice. Once by the feds and once by us. All right, by the queen. I'd have taken a platoon of soldiers into the mounds if I thought they could have caught my father's killers.

After the liaison was so ineffective with my father's murder, I thought the post had been abandoned. But I'd been wrong.

Doyle had found out that Major Walters was still our liaison. The last remnants of a unit created by Thomas Jefferson himself. We'd also never had anyone as high a rank as major in the job. Major Walters had volunteered for the job, because the last person to have it had also done our security at press conferences, and that had landed Walter's predecessor a large salary as chief of a big corporation's security. Executives like to be guarded by someone who's guarded royalty. It adds a certain panache to the résumé. Doyle had even learned that Walters had a very well paying job lined up. I wondered how the big corporation felt about Walters after yesterday. It looks great on your résumé to guard royalty, but not so great to let them get injured on your watch. Nope, probably the executives would be a little nervous about being guarded by someone who let Princess Meredith get shot at by one of his own officers. Humans believed in magic, but not as an excuse for screwing up. No, they liked to blame someone, not something.

Walters would be needing to recoup. He'd need to redeem himself in the public eye. Though my guards and I knew that he'd had no chance to prevent what had happened, the humans wouldn't accept it. The major had been in charge. He'd take the fall. It was simply how they thought.

Christine, my aunt's secretary, was petite, well-endowed, and more plump than was the fashion. In her day she'd been perfect. Her blond hair curled over her shoulders, and her youthful face was eternally beautiful. One of our noblemen had lured her away centuries ago, but he'd grown tired of her. To stay in faerie she needed to be useful, so she learned shorthand and computer skills. She was probably one of the most technologically savvy people in either court.

She suggested that we call the Bureau of Human and Fey Affairs. Logical, I suppose, but they were more useful for social difficulties or diplomatic problems. If you want something done, don't call a politician or a bureaucrat. Call a cop.

I took a deep breath, said a little prayer to the Goddess, and dialed the number the secretary had given me.

He answered on the second ring. “Your Highness,” he said.

He must have had caller I.D. “Not exactly,” I said. “Princess Meredith, actually.”

His first words had been professional, his next held the hint of suspicion. “Princess, to what do I owe this honor.” In fact, he sounded positively hostile.

“You sound angry at me, Major Walters.”

“The newspapers say you don't trust my men to keep you safe. That human cops aren't good enough for your guard detail.”

I hadn't expected him to be so blunt. He was more cop than politician. “I can only say that I never even hinted to the media that I doubted your men.”

“Then why were we barred from the second press conference?”

Hmm, that was a sticky wicket. “You and I both know that it was a spell that made your officer shoot at me, correct?”

“Yeah, our unit psychic found the magical remnants on him.”

“I'm safer here in the sithen, but your officers won't be. Someone did a spell in a building of metal girders and beams, with technology all over the place. Put that same spell caster inside the sithen, inside faerie, with no damper of metal and technology on them, and your officers would be in even greater danger of being bespelled.”

“What about the human reporters; aren't they in danger of being bespelled?”

“They aren't armed,” I said. “They can't do that much damage.”

“So we just aren't up to your standards, is that it?” He was angry, and I wasn't sure why.

The queen's secretary must have caught enough of the conversation to give me a hint. She flashed the headline of the
St. Louis Post Dispatch:
POLICE FAIL TO PROTECT THE PRINCESS.
Oh.

“Major Walters, I've just been shown a newspaper. My apologies for not understanding the effect this situation was having on your life. I was a little too preoccupied with my own being in danger.”

“I don't need your apologies, Princess. I need my men to be good enough to protect you at public events.”

“How much crap are you getting about what happened? Are they trying to scapegoat you?”

“That's not your business,” he said, which was almost as good as a yes.

“I think we can help each other, Major.”

“How?”

“You sitting down?”

“Yeah,” and that one word was not happy.

I told him the briefest version I knew about the reporter and Beatrice, and that the queen had given it to me to clean up.

There was utter silence on the other end of the phone for so long that I finally said, “Major, you still there?”

“I'm here,” he said, in a hoarse voice.

“I'm sorry that being on faerie duty has just gotten so horribly complicated. I'm sorry that it is screwing with your plans.”

“What do you know about my plans?”

“I know you want to be chief of security at a certain place of business when you retire early next year. I know you took the job as liaison to us for your résumé. I know that letting me get shot at probably didn't win you any points at your soon-to-be new job.”

“You know a damn lot for a princess.”

I let that go, not sure if it was compliment or insult. “But what if I show, plainly, that I have utter confidence in you, Major Walters?”

“What do you want from me?” The suspicion was thick enough to walk on.

“I want a Crime Scene Unit down here. I've got the crime scene itself isolated, but I need science, not magic, on this one.”

“Didn't you just lecture me about my men being in danger from enchantments if we came into your place?”

“Yes, that's why I want only you, the CSU, and maybe one or two others, tops. My guards can protect you individually from magic if you are a small enough group.”

“The entire department is being crucified in the press, especially the St. Louis press.”

“I know that now. Let's show them that Princess Meredith and her guards don't believe all that bad press. I do have confidence in you, Major Walters. You and a good forensic unit. How about it, Major? Do you want to play, or do I leave you out of this? I can pretend I didn't call, and just start with the chief of police.”

“Why didn't you start with him?” Walters asked.

“Because you're my police liaison. I respect that title. You're who I'm supposed to call. Besides, you're almost more motivated than I am to solve this case.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Don't be naïve, Major Walters. The department is taking heat. They'll hang someone for it, and it will most likely be you. Let me show the department that you still have my trust and they'll back off. They'll be desperate to solve this second violent episode and have someone to punish. They'll fall all over themselves to give you anything I ask for.”

“You seem to know how it works.”

“Politics is politics, Major, and I was raised in the thick of it.” I sat on the edge of the desk and tried to get my shoulder to loosen up. The injured muscles had tightened sometime during the interview with the queen. Funny that, but now my arm ached, and that wasn't funny, at all. Of all the things I missed with being part human, not healing instantly was one of the biggest envies I had. “I need a cop, Major Walters, not a politician. I need someone who understands that my crime scene is aging even as we speak. That valuable evidence may be getting contaminated right this minute. I need someone who will worry more about solving this mess than the political ramifications of it. I think you're that man, and now that your political star runs beside mine, you are doubly motivated.”

“What makes you so sure of that? What makes you think I won't cut my losses and run for the hills?”

I thought about that, and said, “The look in your eyes yesterday at the airport when you were angry with having to share leadership with Barinthus. The fact that you showed anger to me now on the phone rather than trying to toadie to me. I wasn't sure with a rank as high as major, but you're more cop than politician, Walters. And if you knew how little I like politics, you'd know what a compliment that is.”

“You seem pretty good at politicking for someone who doesn't like the game.”

“I'm good at a lot of things that I don't enjoy, Major Walters. As I'm sure you are.”

Silence again. “If we don't solve this, my ass is grass, and no amount of confidence shown in me, by you or anyone else, will save it.”

“And if we solve it . . .” I said.

He laughed, a deep chuckle. “Then I'll be the department's shining star, and the executives will be climbing over themselves to give me an even bigger salary. Yeah.”

“Are you my man, or do I pretend that I didn't make this call?”

“I'm your man.”

I smiled. “Good. You start making calls, and get me some CSU out here as soon as possible.”

“What do I tell the Chief about why you're letting us into your precious faerie land?” he asked. Oh, yeah, he was definitely a better cop than politician.

“Explain that whoever did this has diplomatic immunity, but we are allowing this investigation to happen out of our mutual desire for cooperation and justice.”

“You want the bastard who did it, don't you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You probably don't remember me—I was just another uniform keeping the crowd back—but I saw you the day your father died. They gave you his sword.”

If I'd had any doubts that I'd called the right person, that one sentence took them away. Out loud I said, “Yes, yes, they did.”

“Catching this bad guy won't catch your father's killer.”

“That is a very insightful remark for a man I've only met twice.”

“Well, I've been the uniform on faerie duty off and on.”

“My mistake, but it was still insightful, uncomfortably so.”

“Sorry. Sometime after we've caught this guy, and if faerie princesses have drinks with lowly police majors, I'll tell you why I became a cop.”

It was my turn to be insightful. “You lost someone, and they didn't catch the bastard who did it.”

“You knew that already.” He sounded accusatory.

“No, I swear I didn't.”

“Then that was a hell of a guess.”

“Let's just say that those of us who bear a particular wound recognize it in others.”

He made a humph sound, then sort of growled, “Yeah, I guess we do. What will you be doing while I make phone calls and get everyone out there?”