Whiskey and Water (14 page)

Matthew stepped away from the girl,
pretending not to notice when she pouted after him. He settled his topcoat and
pushed escaped strands behind his ears. "Well," he said, shoving his
hands into his pockets, licking his lips as if that could get the taste of
acid off his tongue, "here we go again."

Seven years out of Faerie. Seven years
crippled, seven years in hiding. Seven years pretending he hadn't lost anything
more than he could stand to lose. That it wasn't his choice that had destroyed
friends, allies, acquaintances, on behalf of the ancient predators he'd spent
his life fighting. Seven years chill and alone, pretending he hadn't walked out
of Faerie as broken as anybody else who dared its gates. Seven years, and here
he was back again.

When they were halfway along the road, the
flat clack of hooves greeted them. Jewels, who had taken Geoff's hand to
mollify him, squinted to distinguish two big shapes clattering abreast over the
cobblestones. The riders reined their animals in and turned them, bowing and
snorting, to greet the travelers without the sun at their backs, although she
did not know if it was implicit threat or courtesy.

She saw tall narrow-faced black horses
with riders in outlandish costumes, as elaborate as anything in a Tudor
painting. Both men were dark, black-haired where black meant the true color and
not poetry, but otherwise as unalike as apple trees. The one on the left was
burly, bearded and stern, his hair long in ringlets over the layered patchwork
cloak curling from his shoulders in a heavy drape of brocade, velvet, silk, and
humble homespun. A cased harp rode at his saddle and a sword upon his hip, and
the hands on the reins seemed shaped to manage either one.

The one on the right was of moderate
tallness and moderate breadth, paler of complexion. His skin was ivory,
redhead-fair, his eyes green enough that the color was bright the width of a
road and the height of a horse away. He sat his mount straight as a sword blade
on a long-stirruped American saddle, and he wore black velvet, a doublet and
breeches slashed with flame-colored silk taffeta, rubies and carnelians sown
about the standing collar. A silver circlet crossed his brow, almost vanishing
under the gloss of long bangs parted to reveal ears that lifted to a delicate
point.

Jewels gasped, and crowded into Geoff's
arms.

The Elf-prince's horse curvetted. He
gentled it with a hand against its mane, then bowed in the saddle like a herald
in an old movie. "Matthew Magus. And my lady Merlin. And master and miss,
whose names are not known to me" — Jewels thought his gaze and his cool
little smile lingered on her scars and her pointed ears with amusement, and
she ground her teeth, feeling grubby and small — "I am Ian MacNeill. My
companion is Cairbre the Bard. On behalf of the Queen of the Daoine Sidhe, I
bid you welcome in our hall."

Ian," Carel said, glad of her skirt
as she dipped an awkward curtsey. She stepped forward when Matthew didn't,
extending her hand. Ian leaned down from the saddle to clasp it, bony fingers
strong. "Wolf and heir. It's good to see you. Our companions are Juliet
and Geoffrey. Your mother's waiting?"

Aye, and Morgan too." He shrugged,
and when Carel put a hand on his horse's silver bridle, he threw her the reins
and swung down with a coursing hound's leggy grace. He tossed his head,
flicking hair from his eyes, and dusted his hands on his velvet. He didn't ride
with gloves.

*                                                           *       *

Ian swept an eye over the travelers. The
Mage was clad in some barbaric finery that didn't seem out of place in Faerie,
the human boy was hung every inch about with animal hide and steel—in
particular, the pins lining the outer seam on his left trouser leg, and the
closures on his coat—and the Merlin could dress as she pleased, but the girl
looked cold and unwashed, and Ian wasn't about to feed any mortal girl with
elf-cut ears to his mother clad in yesterday's dirty jumper.

Cairbre smelled angry, but then, Cairbre
often did, and the sight of a Promethean —even this Promethean—was enough to
set the bard's teeth a-clench. But Cairbre would do as Ian asked.

"But," Ian continued,
"they're not so eager to see you that they can't wait on a bath and a
change of clothes. And then perhaps join you for a meal, if you'll accept my
safekeeping and a promise that the hospitality is a gift, and what you accept
here will not bind you. My word as the Queen's son."

The boy's brow creased. The girl looked at
Matthew Magus, and Matthew shrugged, returning Ian's scrutiny.

Ian MacNeill.
Matthew knew the name, although he'd never met the
Prince himself. "Carel?" "His word's as good as Morgan's,"
Carel said. "How does it feel to be back in Faerie, Matthew?"

"Strange," he said, and followed
the Merlin and the Prince and his attendant up the path, Geoff and Jewels at
heel like cygnets behind a swan. "Stranger than I had thought it would be,
coming back again."

If I Should Fall from
Grace with God

T
he Fae came to Boston. Not comfortably. Not commonly.
But with a tourist's curiosity. They explored doorways and ancient graveyards
sandwiched between office towers, and the tree-clotted banks of the wide brown
Charles. They were occasionally seen threading through the pack at rock concerts
and Red Sox games, and generally behaved themselves with decorum. Their Queen
had let it be known that those who ventured into the iron world would follow
mortal law or pay a price of her choosing, and few were eager to discover what
that choosing might be.

Even among the Fae, there is a certain
amount of awe reserved for the one ruthless enough to sit on the White-horn
Throne, and the Queen's ruthlessness was not reserved for herself.

Boston was bemused by the attention. There
was concern for a few weeks over a string of suspected supernatural killings in
Cambridge and Somerville but, like the manticore reportedly sighted in
Franklin, they proved of human agency. The Beacon Hill vampire was another
matter, however, and so was the colony of redcaps that infested the Common one
autumn. The details were never made public, but enough suspicion and innuendo
had crept through the city that wreaths of garlic joined the iron and thorn hung
on doors throughout the metropolitan area.

It was the age of wonders, and it had everybody
who was interested in an uneventful life running more than a bit scared.

Lily loved it. She made Algiers at seven
fifteen and staked out a table. Tea came, and she was surprised to discover
they offered a full menu. She'd never been inside before.

She was contemplating the merits of hummus
and lamb sausage when Christian's shadow fell across her table. "Maybe we
should just stay here for dinner," she said, as he slid into a chair
opposite and let his backpack thump onto the floor. Something clinked inside.
Lily picked up the pot and warmed her cup.

"What's in the bag?" She smiled
at him around the rim of her cup. He looked tired but remarkably alert for
somebody who must have been up for almost thirty-six hours.

"Beads, mostly. Samples I didn't have
time to look over at the store. You're sure? You want to eat here?" He
gestured around the Algiers, the college students and unpopular poets.

"I just suddenly realized that I was
dying for lamb kebab," she said. "And hummus. And enough garlic to
terrorize every vampire in Massachusetts. So yeah, I think I'd like to eat
here, if you don't mind."

"Well, I wouldn't have suggested it
if I didn't like it," he said. She noticed that the waiter brought him Moroccan
coffee without being asked, and he smiled and said thank you.

She always paid attention to how people
she was interested in treated the waitstaff—and how the waitstaff treated them.

She settled back in her chair, the casters
scraping lightly, and rested her forearms on the table. An enticing melange of
roasted meat, garlic, coriander, and other spices floated on the air, almost
disguising an ingrained aroma of tobacco smoke. She imagined if she closed her
eyes she could pick out layers and strata in the scent. Instead she smiled at
Christian and leaned forward over her folded arms, watching his face to see if
he glanced down her top. The black crushed velvet was cut down to
there, w
hile
the brocade bustier she wore over it provided a
there
for it to be cut
to.

"You're not exactly dressed for
Gothing," she said. Not that the jean-jacket and white T-shirt looked
bad
on him—anything but, with the copper-colored ponytail spilling over
dark-blue denim when he ducked his head to look at the menu—but it wasn't club
attire.

"Is there a dress code?" He
didn't look up, but he might just have blushed a little, as if he'd gotten caught
checking out her cleavage.

"Only when the Red Sox are
playing," she answered. "I'm not sure where else we'd go,
though."

"Well, clubs aren't exactly conducive
to conversation. Why don't we start out here, and see where the evening goes?
If it comes down to it, either you can dress me up however amuses you, or I've
got a bottle of shiraz and a box of crackers at my place; we can watch
Shaun
of the Dead."
"I thought that wasn't on DVD until
Christmas."

He grinned. "It's not.
Officially."

"Oooo. Racking up the negative karma
there, Christian."

A sideways slant of his head, and he put
the menu down. He leaned forward, with an inviting air of conspiracy, and
murmured, "I don't wait well. I should probably tell you that in advance.
So what do you say?"

"I should say,
in advance of what?
But I was never very good at coy." She glanced up. The waiter had
noticed Christian's gesture with the menu and was already coming toward them.

Christian smiled at her—if you could quite
call it a smile.

"Well, it's a good band," she
temporized. And then grinned right back. "So, want to show me your samples?"

"Beg pardon?"

She gestured to his bag. "The beads.
Haul 'em out, let's have a look. I can tell you what all the Gothy girls will
want."

After dinner, they went for a walk. The
night had grown cool. Christian buttoned his jacket against the chill after
offering it to Lily. She, however, had a Russian goat's-hair shawl that crushed
into a space as small as a pocket handkerchief thrust into a side-flap of her
purse, and wrapped the cobweb knit around her shoulders for comfort.

That doesn't look very warm," he
said. "You're so thin; you must get cold easily."

She tugged the shawl tighter and said,
"It traps the air next to my skin. Is this going to turn into a lecture
about taking care of myself?" Not at all. I saw you dive on that baklava.
You must burn it off— "

"It's a good joke, that. By rights, I
should be as round as I am tall. My endocrinologist thinks I'm a space
alien."

They strolled side by side, as if arm in
arm would be too much of an admission, stealing giggling sideways glances like
children. Lily bought a bag of popcorn and they shared it, salt and slick
butter extinguishing the last honeyed traces of the baklava. She liked the way
Christian licked his fingers to clean them, eyes half-lidded and the red red
tongue peeking between digits long and pale as bones. She liked the way he
leaned close to her without saying a word.

Lily saw auras sometimes. Not always, not
something she could rely on. But once in a while, when she was thinking of
something else, like the way a red-haired boy's freckles clustered up against
his hairline as if pushed there by a current, something would flicker at the
edge of her vision, and she'd just sort of
know.

The way she knew now: that the long
flickering cloak curling like burgundy-black bat wings from his shoulders would
vanish in daylight, that the shadows that wreathed him and crowned his brow
would blow out like a snuffed candleflame, along with the glow that shimmered
in the back of his eyes, brightening their hazel to amber. "Do you believe
in any of it?" she asked, surprising herself.

"Any of what?"

A steady, appraising glance, and she met
it with calculated forcefulness. "Wicca. The threefold law, the left-hand
path. Do you think it works?"

She expected him to consider, but he
shrugged and rolled his shoulders back, the unreal cloak fanning and tattering
on a breeze she couldn't feel. She stared at him directly and it vanished, long
curling streamers peeling away to flutter down the street. Vanquished by
attention, like so many mysteries.

"Yes. I absolutely believe that magic
can effect our will. I presume you're not asking me if I believe in magic —
"

"Not in this day and age."

"I didn't expect so." He smiled,
a streetlamp casting long shadows down his face, making his eyepits skeletal.
"So you must be asking if I believe we have any power over the world. And
yes, I believe it. As much power as we're willing to take responsibility
for."

"Maybe that's my problem, then."
She kicked a tin can. "Did you say you wanted to watch a movie?" "I
said I had a bottle of shiraz."