Tempestuous

by Lesley Livingston

  In spite of her assurances, Sonny still flinched violently as Chloe’s lips touched his and the familiar sensation of paralyzing cold—like ice damming behind his eyes—lanced through his skull.

  Sonny heard Chloe begin to whimper as if from a great distance. The sound of singing in his mind shifted subtly—the voice changing from his mother’s rich lilt to the airier, more ethereal sound of what Chloe’s haunting Siren voice had once been. But she seemed to shy away from the song and, for an instant, the pain intensified. Then Sonny heard Maddox’s voice in the room.

  “Chloe,” he urged gently. “Hang on, sweetheart. . . . You can do this.”

  Sonny felt his limbs start to shudder as he reacted physically to the psychic agony, but he tried not to move. Tried not to pull away from the icy kiss the Siren bestowed upon him. He could feel her hands on the sides of his face, fingers knotted in his hair to keep him there, and he struggled to stay focused beyond the pain. He concentrated fiercely on the tune—a simple, heartbreakingly lovely Irish lullaby, and tried to add the strength of his own inner voice to the melody. As he did so, Chloe seemed to rally. Sonny felt the tearing away of the charmed memory deep within his mind but—this time—he was content to let it go.

  Suddenly Chloe gasped in wonder, breaking the kiss, and fell away from him. She staggered back a step and collapsed into Maddox’s arms, weeping soundlessly. But in spite of the tears, there was a smile on her face as she looked up at Sonny.

  “No one has ever given me a song freely before,” she said, wonderingly. “I didn’t know what a difference it could make. Thank you.”

  Chloe turned back to Maddox, a wan but playful gleam in her eyes, and touched his temple lightly, brushing at his sandy hair. Sonny saw him shiver.

  Then Madd grinned and said, “Nah—you don’t want what’s in there, luv. I’ve got a mighty tin ear.”

  Carys was waiting for Sonny out on the terrace. “What now?” she asked as he came and leaned on the balustrade beside her, staring out at the city.

  “Now . . . I go find Kelley.”

  She nodded. “Where do we look?”

  “I’m not asking you to come with me.”

  “I wasn’t waiting for an invitation.” She turned her head and gazed at him, unblinking. “It wasn’t your home they invaded.”

  Sonny couldn’t argue with that. He stood silently, gazing out over the darkened expanse of the park’s trees and fields, and imagined, for a moment, that he could feel Kelley’s presence there . . . her firecracker spark. It was, of course, only his imagination. Without his iron medallion, Sonny’s Janus senses were nonfunctioning. Still . . . for a moment he thought . . . no.

  He turned and went back into the apartment, Carys behind him.

  Kelley, he was sure, was nowhere near the park. She was far too smart. Wherever she had gone after she’d left Herne’s Tavern, Sonny was certain that it would have been somewhere far away—if she’d left under her own power, that is. She’d promised him that she would come back. And if she hadn’t, it was because she’d been taken or had been forced to flee. Either way . . . he was going to find her.

  He just didn’t know how, exactly.

  “Use the Force,” Maddox suggested, grinning as though vastly pleased with himself over some private joke.

  “Force of what?” Sonny asked.

  Maddox rolled his eyes and said, airily, “You should get cable, Sonn. You can learn all sorts of things from the movies.”

  Cait pressed her lips together in order, it looked like, to keep from laughing. “He has a point, Sonny,” she said after a moment. “Sort of.”

  “What’s that, Cait?” Sonny asked.

  “The Green Magick.” She said the words with a degree of reverence. “Use it. You say that the charm was originally created to find the power that lies within you. Well . . . you should, in that case, be able to reverse engineer it, so to speak. Follow that same connection in the other direction to find the charm. And, if she still wears it, Kelley.”

  That made sense, Sonny thought. And, from somewhere deep within, he felt a kind of stirring excitement at the thought of tapping into the magicks that had lain dormant inside of him for so long. He mentally shook himself.

  “All right,” he said. “But you’re going to have to give me the guided tour, Cait. Magick this big is a foreign country to me.”

  Before they began, Sonny opened up his leather satchel and checked to make sure the small, compact crossbow and quiver were still there. His wood-sword was there, too, in its guise of three bundled branches. Sonny lightly ran a fingertip over the familiar surface of each; oak, ash, and thorn. Even though he couldn’t transform it into a blade without his Janus magick, its presence comforted him. As did the sheaf of paper his fingers brushed next. Kelley’s Midsummer script. He’d carried it with him since the day he’d first met her. It was his talisman. His good luck charm. He ran his thumb over the brass page fasteners and slung the bag over his head. Then he added a pair of easily concealed short swords from a trunk in his front hall closet and went back to face the others.

  “All right, Cait,” he said. “Tell me how to do this thing, and let’s go find our princess.”

  Chapter XXII

  “Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves . . .”

  Kelley heard the words ring out as she stepped from the rift just on the other side of the Delacorte’s fence wall. The “Between,” as Mabh had called it, had indeed been populated with wraiths. But Kelley had fastened her charm around her throat after she’d created the rift—and before she’d stepped through—so she’d managed the passage without even really being noticed.

  Well . . . without being noticed by anything in the Between.

  The bundled shape of a homeless guy lying on a park bench was another matter. He shifted at her approach, and Kelley saw that his eyes were wide open and staring right at her.

  “Oh,” she said. “Hi . . .”

  “You just . . . appeared,” he mumbled. “Right outta thin air.”

  Kelley hesitated. “Uh . . . yeah. Yeah, I did.”

  “What . . . are you?”

  She wondered what she should say. He had just seen her step through a rip in the fabric of reality accompanied by a crackling blaze of magick. Really, what else was she going to tell him? She told him the truth.

  “I’m a Faerie princess,” Kelley said. “Look . . . Central Park really isn’t the best place to be these days. There are all sorts of nasty creatures popping out of rifts like the one I just came through. I’m trying to help fix that but, in the meantime, if any of them find you here, they’ll probably try to eat your face. Would you mind if I asked you to relocate for a little while? For your own safety?”

  The guy blinked at her. Then, much to Kelley’s astonishment, he nodded. She stood there as he clambered up to his feet, picked up a bottle that had lain underneath him, and a teddy bear. Peering at her, the man said, “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Well . . . I seen a lotta weird stuff in this park over the years. Everybody else always tells me I’m either stone-cold crazy or stupid-drunk. But I know what I seen. I appreciate you tellin’ me the truth. Maybe I’ll try Bryant Park down by the library for a change. Is that one okay?”

  “Oh! Yeah!” Kelley nodded. “Bryant Park’s really nice.”

  He nodded again and shambled down the path, calling, “Good luck, Princess . . .” over his shoulder as he went.

  Kelley suddenly understood the Fair Folk compulsion for telling the truth. When it worked, it felt pretty good.

  She turned back to the Delacorte, where the sound of Gentleman Jack’s voice echoed through the still night air.

  “I have bedimmed the noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,” he intoned, “and ’twixt the green sea and the azured vault set roaring war. . . .”

  Kelley waited, veiled, in the shadows outside the amphitheater. Rehearsal was almost over. When that scene ended, Quentin called a halt and told everyone to pack
up and head home. Notes on the morrow, look over your scripts, write down your bloody blocking, or heads will roll . . . all of that good stuff. Kelley felt a pang of longing.

  Someday soon, she thought, I will be back onstage.

  All the actors started to drift away, and Kelley moved closer to the stage door, invisible and silent, waiting for the moment to catch Tyff’s attention.

  “Psst!” she hissed at the spitting image of herself—if she’d ever been inclined to carry a Prada bag, that is. “Tyff!”

  “Whoa!” Tyff jumped half a foot. “Winslow? Where are you?”

  Kelley glanced around and, not seeing anyone else nearby, dropped her veil and shimmered into view.

  “You’re getting good,” Tyff said in a voice that was somewhere between her own sharp tones and Kelley’s softer ones. “And you’re taking the massive risk of sneaking around here . . . so I figure you’re about to warn me that something fairly dire is riding over the horizon. Right?”

  Kelley nodded. “You’re—we’re in danger.”

  “Do I get a prize for guessing correctly?”

  “How much danger?” Gentleman Jack asked, stepping out from the shadows beneath the backstage house eaves.

  Tyff jumped again. “Jeez! Would everybody please stop sneaking up on me like that?”

  “Sorry, ah . . . it’s Tyff, isn’t it? I don’t think we were formally introduced last time we met.” Jack nodded politely at the glamoured Faerie, unfazed by the fact that there appeared to be two Kelley Winslows standing in front of him at that moment. And one of them had appeared out of thin air. He turned to that one and said, “Welcome back, kiddo. How’ve you been?”

  Kelley gave the older actor a hug. “How did you know? How long have you known?”

  “From the start of rehearsal.” He tapped his temple. “Keen powers of observation, remember?”

  Tyff glanced down at her chest and muttered, “I knew I made them too big. . . .”

  Jack cleared his throat. “Actually . . . I just knew it wasn’t Kelley onstage. No offense but . . . you could use an acting lesson or two. Purely for the mechanics. You know—diction, phrasing . . . Kelley here’s an old pro.”

  Tyff rolled her eyes, and Kelley blushed and looked away. As she did so, she saw a familiar figure standing under the shadow of the trees, just beyond the path that circled north of the Delacorte.

  “Jack?” Kelley turned back. “I have something I have to take care of, but I need to make sure Tyff gets out of the park safely. Can you walk her home?”

  The beautiful Summer Fae snorted. “I’m several thousand years old, you know. I think I can manage to look out for myself.”

  Jack inclined his head gracefully toward her. “But you would do me a great honor if you would allow me the privilege of escorting you.”

  “I . . .” If there was one thing Tyff was susceptible to, it was gallantry. “Oh . . . fine. I’ll just go grab the rest of my stuff.” She swung her temporarily fiery auburn hair over her shoulder. “I’ll even let you buy me a latte on the way, Mr. Savage.”

  “I’d be delighted, Miss Tyffanwy.”

  Tyff sashayed off to collect her gear, and Jack turned to Kelley.

  “How’s your dad doing?” he asked quietly.

  Kelley shrugged and looked away. “Not good. I guess. I dunno.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I rather got on with the man.”

  “Yeah. Well. He’s real charming. Right until he rips your wings off.” Kelley stared hard at the ground between her feet. “Some people get what they deserve, you know?”

  “Kelley Winslow.” Jack put a finger under her chin and tipped her face up so that she was looking him in the eyes. “You don’t really mean that.”

  Kelley blinked rapidly, the sting of gathering tears pricking behind her eyes.

  “I think I got a pretty good read on your old man in the time I spent with him,” Jack continued, his deep voice quiet in the night air. “Somewhere, buried deep inside of him, beneath all of that frost, there is a part of that man that sees you as his daughter. That loves you. And the pity of it is, he’s just way too damned proud to let that part show.”

  Love? Kelley thought. Impossible. Jack was wrong. Auberon didn’t see her like that. As a daughter . . . no. An inconvenience, maybe. A potential rival, definitely. A threat even, one day. Only . . . he had gone to an awful lot of trouble to hide her in the mortal realm. And instead of eliminating a potential threat to his reign, he had constructed an elaborate ruse, tricked Bob into helping Emma steal her away from the Unseelie Court, all just to keep her safe. . . .

  Jack smiled at her as she stood there silently, frowning, lost in deeply conflicted thought. “There are always two sides to every story, Kelley. Something I learned playing Richard the Third and Macbeth: if you’re playing the ‘bad guy,’ you never really think of yourself as bad. It’s just that your motives are often . . . misunderstood by everyone else.”

  Kelley breathed a sigh of relief as Jack and Tyff disappeared down the bridle path. It was only a brief stroll to the park perimeter, but Kelley had made Tyff transform back into her own non-Kelley shape so that there would be no mistaking if someone came looking.

  Now to get herself the hell out of there. But first . . .

  “Fennrys?” she called as she approached the spot where she’d seen him standing.

  The tall, blond figure stiffened and pushed away from the tree he’d been leaning on. After a moment of what seemed like hesitation, he turned and smiled at Kelley. She wished he wouldn’t do that. Fennrys’s smile was a strange, disconcerting thing. It wasn’t his fault—he just didn’t seem used to the expression. He rarely employed it, after all.

  “Hello, Princess,” he said, walking toward her. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “What are you doing here, Fenn?” Kelley asked, as she walked toward him.

  “Ah, jeezus,” he muttered, dropping all pretense of casually running into her. “What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Won’t you bloody learn? This park is bad news for you.”

  “It’s bad news for everybody these days. Or hadn’t you noticed?” she said, startled at his snappish response. In the distance, Kelley could only just hear faint howling sounds. She ignored them—just like every other New Yorker was trying to do. Coyotes. Yeah, right.

  “It’s worse for you, and you know it.” Fennrys took a step toward her. “Why in hell do you insist on coming here?”

  “Why do you?” she asked again.

  The Wolf glared at her. Then he shook his head sharply and answered her question. “I’m here because I am a glutton for punishment. Apparently. Now c’mon. I’ll walk you to the street.”

  He took a step past her, and Kelley realized she’d had enough of his evasions. He obviously wasn’t going to tell her why he was there, so she blurted out another question.

  “Where’s your Janus medallion, Fenn?” she asked.

  Fennrys stopped, an expression of surprise on his face, and was silent so long that Kelley thought maybe he wasn’t going to answer that question either. Then, finally, he said, “I lost it.”

  Funny . . . she thought. That’s exactly what Sonny said.

  “How? Don’t lie to me, Fennrys. Please.” Kelley waited as he turned and walked back the few steps he’d taken, stopping directly in front of her. Close enough so that she had to tilt her head and look up at him.

  “I gave it to Gwynn,” he said finally.

  Kelley’s mouth dropped open in surprise. And dismay. That was the last thing she’d expected him to say.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because he wanted it. I didn’t ask why. I don’t care why.”

  “Fenn—”

  “I did it for you,” he said. So quietly Kelley wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

  “What?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Fennrys took a slow breath, and his gaze locked with hers. “In exchange for your safe passage back to the mortal realm when we wer
e in the Otherworld—”

  “Fennrys, no!” Kelley was aghast. “What on earth did you do that for?”

  “I wanted to keep you safe.” The shadow of a frown creased his forehead. “Kelley . . . I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. That’s all.”

  That’s all? she thought. That is so not all!

  Alarm bells were clanging in her head—if Gwynn had wanted that medallion after all that time, it wasn’t just so he could have some trinket, some way of flouting Auberon’s authority and his ownership of the Janus Guard’s loyalty. There had to be more to it than that. Even if it was just that . . .

  “That medallion is part of who you are, Fennrys,” Kelley said.

  “You mean who Auberon made me,” he snapped, the corners of his mouth turning down in disdain. “Bloody Faerie meddling. I had a destiny in this realm, you know. I was a prince. I was a warrior. I would have lived and died and gone to my reward in Valhalla along with my brothers and forefathers if it hadn’t been for the Fair Folk.”

  “Gwynn was the one who stole you from this world—not Auberon. Auberon was the one who made you a Janus. I thought you were loyal to him. Even if you didn’t always agree with his methods, I thought . . .”

  “Yeah, well. I’ve come to realize something, you know? I realized that, in order to be loyal to someone, they have to be loyal to you. I don’t owe loyalty to anyone in the Otherworld. Now I’m all about saving my own skin. And maybe, every now and then, yours. No offense, Princess, but your old man’s a bit of a bastard.” The Wolf took another step toward her, close enough so that she had to fight the urge to take a step back. “And Sonny’s his man, through and through.”

  “Why are you saying this to me, Fennrys?”

  “I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Auberon hurt you.” He was so close now that she could see herself reflected in his eyes. “He took your wings. And Sonny? He took your theater. That place was your home. I can’t see how that proves he really cares so very much for you, you know? You should give it some thought, Kelley.”