Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) (22 page)

“Ours is not a childish feud,” said Finn, “and it began long before my son entered his house.”

“You fought Druids together once. How can you let Miach fight them alone now?”

“If Miach had listened to me, there would be no Druids left to fight. We would have destroyed them, root and branch, two thousand years ago.”

Helene remembered Deirdre’s words: “
You killed them all when you freed me. I never got to strike a single blow, slit a single throat. They were all dead. Even the small ones.”

“So you will let him die now because he wasn’t callous enough to kill children then,” said Helene.

Finn’s expression didn’t change, but his voice was cold as ice. “You think I
liked
doing it? You think I took pleasure in killing children in their cradles? You think Miach is the hero because he wouldn’t? I did what had to be done—what
others
could not bring themselves to do—so none of this would happen again. But it was all for nothing, because it is happening again, now, because Miach could not stomach the killing then.”

“Maybe Miach chose the less certain path,” said Helene. “But what’s done is done, and if you allow him to die, you will have no sorcerer to fight the Wild Hunt when the wall comes down.”

“You make a pretty argument for your lover,” said Finn. “But you offer me nothing.”

“What do you want?” she asked.

“There are many things I want from Miach MacCecht,” mused Finn. “But few that you can give me. Take the dress off.”

Chapter 17

H
elene stiffened but didn’t move. She had known their bargaining might come to this, but she hadn’t expected such a direct command. And if she hadn’t taken Kevin’s ring from the floor of Deirdre’s studio, she would have been powerless now to resist it.

Finn smiled. “Are you wearing cold iron?” he asked, looking intrigued. “Or do you have the skill to resist my voice?”

“I’m wearing cold iron,” she admitted.

He looked disappointed. “A pity. I would enjoy breaking Miach MacCecht’s lover.”

“You are tied to him by marriage,” said Helene. “Your grandson shares his blood. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“We are no longer tied. Nieve released my son.”

“Because she thought she was going to die.”

“Nevertheless, he is free. Free to live a Fae span, and enjoy other women. He is welcome to keep Nieve. She is nearly human and makes a pretty thrall. And the child is charming.”

She had been lulled by dealing with Conn and Miach and Elada, but there was no humanity in Finn.

“The Fae may flock to your banner,” said Helene. “But Miach is worth ten of you.”

Finn laughed. “Oh, now you do intrigue me. You are devoted to him. And not under his compulsion, if you wear cold iron. Remove it, please.”

She had thought this terror behind her. That once she had killed Ransom Chandler, she would be free from magical summoning. But she had no choice now. She took a deep breath and slipped Kevin’s ring off her finger. For a moment she held it in her palm, then she placed it on the marble fireplace mantle.

Finn gestured with his hand to indicate that the dress should come next. He did not, she noted, use his voice.

It was another test. She had proven she was willing to face him without cold iron. Now he wanted to see how far she was willing to go to save Miach, if she would obey his commands without the use of his voice.

She reached for the halter clasp behind her neck and unfastened it. She hadn’t worn a bra. Hers had been covered in blood, and Deirdre’s wouldn’t have fit.

Helene stood in front of Finn’s chair and lowered the navy-blue gauze top of her dress until it hung from the cinched waist, exposing her breasts. She waited for further instructions but Finn remained impassive.

It was only her body. She’d been prepared to give that to a Fae she had come to care for. She was prepared to give it to a Fae she did not, in order to save Miach.

“Promise you will rescue him,” she said.

“I promise nothing,” said Finn. “Please me and I will consider your request.”

She could walk out the door and leave, but she knew he would not call her back. He had the opportunity to see his enemy humbled—starting with his enemy’s woman. But she could choose not to be humbled by the experience.

She untied the cord at her waist and allowed the dress to drop. She wasn’t wearing panties, either. Finn’s eyes were level with her sex, and she had to force herself not to blush or cover herself with her hands or react in any way that might give him satisfaction.

He rose from his chair and circled her. He had not used his voice to compel obedience, because he wanted her to tremble and be afraid. She was not going to oblige him.

He stopped behind her and lifted her hair off her neck, then traced the symbol Miach had drawn on her shoulder.

“I would take you from behind, the first time, so I could see this while I was fucking you,” he whispered in her ear. “So I could enjoy it before it faded. His symbol on you. His property.”

“I’m not his property,” she said. “But even after it fades, even if I agree to your terms, I’ll still be Miach’s.”

“That,” he said as he paced to the desk at the far side of the room, “would only add piquancy to the experience. Put the dress back on.”

She exhaled in relief and snatched her dress off the floor. She turned to see Finn picking up the phone. “Send my son in to see me,” he said into the receiver.

He replaced the phone and turned to Helene. “Bargain with me now for the life of the sorcerer.”

“Brian has him in cold iron. He wants him to open a solstice gate in the basement of the museum at the university. Free Miach and help us kill the Druids.”

“And his son, Brian? Would you like me to kill him, too?”

“Brian is Miach’s to deal with.”

Finn considered. “It was Brian who told Miach about Garrett and Nieve, and Brian who suggested to Garrett that the sorcerer would not allow them to keep the baby.”

“So you do love your grandson,” she said. “And you do care about Nieve. It isn’t just vanity.”

“Do not pretend to understand the Fae,” said Finn coolly. “You can buy Miach’s life at the price of your freedom. Agree, and you will be marked now, as mine. Until such time as I see fit to release you. If ever.”

It was a Fae bargain, but she was determined to come out ahead. “Vow that you will not act against Miach or his family while I belong to you. If you wish to renew your feud with him, you’ll have to release me.”

Finn laughed. “Perhaps you have some Fae ancestry, Helene Whitney. You bargain like a child of the
Tuatha Dé Danann
.”

But still, he had not agreed.

The door opened.

Little feet stampeded into the room. Young Garrett made a bee line for his grandfather and held up a plush stuffed elephant with one chewed off ear. Finn considered the pachyderm a moment, then accepted the toy from the toddler’s outstretched hand.

Nieve’s husband—ex-husband, Helene realized—entered the room.

Garrett looked surprised to see Helene. And he looked pale and drawn, as Miach had when he’d come to rescue her.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Finn didn’t look up from his grandson. Instead, he smoothed his fingers over the raggedy elephant’s ear again and again, a soft light infusing the stuffed toy until the velvet ear was regrown, whole. He handed it back to his grandson, who squealed with delight. “The terms, Helene Whitney,” said Finn softly, “are agreeable.”

• • •

E
lada drank the milk and
the honey that the landlady brought him and parted the curtain on the window over his bed to look outside.

Dawn wasn’t far off. He could see it on the horizon. But the details of the parking lot, the garden, the outdoor seating area, were all bright as day. The Druids had cast a ring of fire around the building, and it lit the scene in a green, unwholesome light.

As the right hand of a sorcerer, Elada was used to fighting in the presence of magic. But not like this.

The Fae called forth powers of destruction when they battled. Fierce winds, stampedes of animals, rushing waters. Not disease and decay. The broken Druids outside had raised a rotting dog from the ground and sent it rampaging into the inn. Conn had dispatched it. Swarms of biting flies had followed, which the warrior had managed to trap in an empty bedroom.

Beth frantically cast protections on the doors and windows.

“Don’t you have any offensive magic?” Elada asked.

“Miach didn’t like the idea of a Druid knowing spells of attack,” she replied.

“You see how well that has worked out,” said Conn of the Hundred Battles.

They dared not leave the inn until the Druids were dead or they possessed some means of countering their magic. One of the patrons in the bar—drunk, surly, and disinclined to believe in the old ways—had stormed out of the inn, jumped through the ring of fire, and walked down the road. Elada had watched from the window as the man slowed and staggered, then fell forward onto his face, then been consumed by maggots.

And the only one of them who could fight these ravenous creatures was Elada. Miach had released him, but his body was still covered with the sorcerer’s protective
gaesa
. He would be immune from almost anything these petty mages could cast on him, if he could only get out of bed.

• • •

M
iach’s wrists and ankles throbbed.
The iron shackles burned his skin. The iron chain net was almost certainly overkill. He couldn’t cast bound in cold iron. The shackles were enough to incapacitate him. The net only added a pounding headache and nausea.

The basement had been hot and filled with smoke by the time Brian had come for him. Miach had begun to think that he was wrong, that his son would let him burn. Instead, Brian had unlocked the shackles from the wall, leaving Miach chained and helpless, and ordered his Druids, singed and reeking of smoke, to drag him up the steps and out of the hatch.

The house was well and truly ablaze, long past saving, and Miach found himself grinning despite the smoke and the pain. He had known Helene was resourceful. He’d learned that much firsthand when she’d thwarted his attempt to kill Beth Carter so many months ago, waylaying Elada at a rest stop and convincing a crowd of good Samaritans that she was an abused wife. Elada had lost precious time extricating himself from the situation, and Beth Carter had gotten away. Even at the time Miach had felt a grudging admiration for Helene.

Now he vowed that if he got out of this, he’d give her the paintings he had shown her, that she had arranged in her mind, for exhibition at the museum. Because the fire had been a stroke of genius. Even if she hadn’t managed to free Miach, she’d gotten away from Brian, and that left Miach free to act when the opportunity arose.

It had also flushed the Druids from their nest. Miach observed them now, running around screaming, some of them watching the house burn. Only a small group, no more than a dozen, seemed able to act in concert, to salvage their possessions from the house and load the vehicles waiting in the drive.

That was encouraging. The great strength of the Druids had been their ability to organize, to work together—a strength the Fae had always lacked except when led by a charismatic figure like Finn—and even then it was only possible to lead a Fae in the direction he already wanted to go.

But most of these Druids lacked the focus to work together toward a common goal. And none of them had the power of Beth Carter.

In the van they threw the net over him again. As they careened out of the compound, Miach could feel Helene through the tracking
geis
. He resisted the urge to turn in her direction, but he could tell that she was not far. He did not want Brian or the Druids spotting her.

“Why are you so determined to carry out the Prince Consort’s plans, Brian? The Court won’t thank you for it. They are Fae, and to them you are human. A little faster, a little stronger, a little less delicate than ordinary men, but still human and to be scorned.”

“Don’t patronize me, old man. I know exactly how much the Fae scorn humans. I learned it at your knee, when you chose to train Garrett, and not me, because he was a true-Fae, even though I’m nearly a full-blood myself.”

Miach had known Brian resented Garrett’s presence in their house, but he had assumed it was the natural friction of young men—or Fae—thrown together at an age when they were still struggling to find their place in the world. He had not known that Brian believed it was because he was a half-blood.

And in one sense, he was right. “I didn’t train you beyond your natural abilities, Brian, because that is what happened to the Druids. Their magic wasn’t natural. It was thrust on them by the Fae. For our convenience. So we didn’t have to lead or administer, just rule. And it twisted them.”

“You twisted them,” said Brian. “With your cruelty.”

“The Druids overthrew us, but they could have banished us all. They didn’t need to keep us in their temple mounds. They didn’t need to cut us open and search for even more power. It was our magic that twisted them. There have been revolutions without vengeance and cruelty, Brian. We’re living in the product of one, a country that threw off its shackles and built something new that looked forward instead of back.”

“Don’t tell me that you held me back for my own good,” sneered Brian. “You gave Garrett everything that should have been mine, and even after he took Nieve, you still wouldn’t train me. At least the Prince Consort will. And the Court won’t care that I’m a half-blood if I’m of use to them.”

“Even if you are right, you would be condemning Nieve and Garrett and Liam and Nial and your whole family to hell.”

“And don’t forget you, old man. Don’t forget you.”

• • •

G
arrett led Helene back downstairs,
past the kitchen, and into a finished basement. The hill fell away sharply behind the house and the back of the basement was aboveground. There were two small bedrooms for servants down here, a second kitchen, a large entertaining area with French doors leading out onto a patio, and at the front of the house, where the basement was truly below ground and the small windows were set above Helene’s head, was a workshop.

It was clean, well lit, finished and painted, but Helene still felt a chill when Garrett told her to sit at the table. “The tatt’s going to hurt,” he said. “No way to get around it.”

“Just do it,” she said.

“Where does he want it?” asked Finn’s son.

“He didn’t say.”

Garrett shrugged. “Then where do you want it?”