A Kiss of Shadows mg-1

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  There were people gathering on the sidewalks, people getting out of their cars, standing in the open doors. There were two police cars parked in the middle of the intersection, stopping the traffic that was still trying to drive on the cross street. The lights on the police cars cut the night in splashes of colored light, competing with the signs and lighted windows of the businesses and clubs that were on either side of the street. I could hear the wail of an ambulance coming closer, probably what the police were clearing the traffic for.

  I searched the crowd with my eyes, and there was nothing unusual to see. I cast out with that other sense. I'd be limited with Uther's energy leaking all over me, but not completely helpless. I might be able to spot how close they were before I revealed myself.

  The air wavered two cars ahead of us, like a ripple of heat, except it wasn't heat, and you never got that effect after dark. Something large was moving between the cars, something that didn't want to be seen. I cast out farther and found three more ripples. "Four shapes moving out there, all bigger than a human. Closest one is only two cars up from us."

  "Can you see shapes?" Jeremy asked.

  "No, just ripples."

  "To be able to hold glamour in place when you're tipping over cars is more than most fey can manage," Jeremy said.

  Apparently, none of us believed the first car had gotten on its roof by itself. "Even most of the sidhe couldn't do it, but some of them can."

  "So four larger than human, and at least one sidhe close by," Uther said.

  "Yes."

  "What's the plan?" Ringo asked.

  A good question that. Unfortunately, I didn't have a good answer. "We've got four policemen at the intersection. Are they going to be a help or a hindrance?"

  "If we could break their glamour, make them visible to the police, and they didn't know it right away..." Jeremy said.

  "If they did something harmful in full sight of the police..." I said.

  "Merry, my girl, I think you've grasped my plan."

  Ringo looked back at me. "I don't know much about sidhe magic, but if Merry isn't a full-blooded one, is she powerful enough to break their glamour?"

  They all looked at me. "Well?" Jeremy said.

  "We don't have to break the spell. All we have to do is overload it," I said.

  "We're listening," Jeremy said.

  "The first car was turned over, but the rest just crashed. They're peering in the cars, looking for me but not touching anyone. If we get out and fight them, the sidhe won't be able to keep them unseen."

  "I thought we wanted to avoid a direct fight if possible," Ringo said.

  The ripple was almost here. "If anyone's got a better idea, you've got about sixty seconds to share it. We're about to be searched."

  "Hide," Uther said.

  "What?"

  "Merry hides," he said.

  It was a good idea. I slipped behind the secondary seats, and Uther moved away from the wall just enough for me to worm behind him. I didn't think it would work, but it was better than nothing. We could fight later if they found me, but if I could hide... I pressed myself against the cool metal wall and Uther's warm back and tried not to think too hard. Some sidhe can hear you thinking if you're agitated enough. I was completely hidden from sight. Even if they opened the big sliding door, which I didn't think they would risk, they wouldn't see me. But it wasn't really their eyes I was worried about. There are all types of fey, and not all of them have a human's reliance on their vision. That wasn't even counting the sidhe who was doing the glamour. If we were the only car with fey occupants, the sidhe would come to investigate before they left this area. He, or she, would have to see for themselves.

  I wanted badly to watch that wavering in the air peer in all the windows. But that would have defeated the purpose of hiding, so I crouched behind Uther and tried to be very still. I heard, felt, something brush against the metal wall at my back. Something large was pressed against the metal. Then I heard it, a loud sniffing like of some gigantic hound.

  I had a heartbeat to think, "It smells me," then something smashed through the metal inches from me. I screamed, scrambling out from behind Uther, before my mind had fully registered the fist, large as my head, stuck through the side of the van.

  A sound of shattering glass whirled me around. An arm big as a tree trunk and a chest wider than the car window was pressed through the driver's-side window. Ringo beat at the arm, but it grabbed the front of his shirt and started pulling him through the broken window.

  The gun was in my hand but there wasn't a clear shot. Jeremy moved across the seats, and I saw the flash of a blade in his hand.

  Metal screamed as giant fists pulled the side of the van apart until a huge leering face peered into the hole. He looked past Uther like he wasn't there, yellow eyes on me. "Princess," the ogre hissed, "we've been looking for you."

  Uther smashed his fist into the huge face. Blood sprayed from the ogre's nose, and the face fell back from the hole. There were screams from outside, human screams. The glamour had collapsed under the violence. The ogres had simply appeared to the humans like magic. I heard a man's voice yelling, "Police, stop where you are!"

  The police were coming. Yeah. I put the gun back in my waistband. I didn't want to explain it.

  I turned back to the front seat. Ringo was still in the driver's seat. Jeremy was leaning over him, and there was blood on his hands. I moved through the middle seats to them. I started to ask if Ringo was hurt, but the moment I saw his chest, I didn't have to ask. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood, a piece of glass as wide as my hand stuck out of his chest.

  "Ringo," I said his name softly.

  "Sorry," he said, "I'm not going to be much help to you." He coughed, and I could see it hurt.

  I touched his face. "Don't talk."

  I could hear the police talking to the ogres, telling them things like, "Hands on top of your heads! On your knees! Don't fucking move!" Then I heard another man's voice, a smooth masculine voice, with just a touch of accent. I knew the voice.

  I scrambled to the big sliding door, while Jeremy was still saying, "What? What is it?"

  "Sholto," I said.

  His face remained puzzled. The name meant nothing to him.

  I tried again. "Sholto, Lord of That Which Passes Between, Lord of Shadows, King of the Sluagh."

  It was the last title that widened his eyes, and drove fear sharp in his face. "Oh my God," he said.

  Uther said, "Shadowspawn is here?"

  I glanced at him. "Never say that to his face." I could hear the voices through the broken window, so very clearly. I felt like I was moving in slow motion. The door didn't want to open, or I'd grown clumsy with fear.

  That voice was saying, "Thank you so much, Officers."

  "We'll wait for transport for the ogres," the policeman said.

  The door slid open and I had a frozen moment to see everything. Three of the ogres were on their knees on the sidewalk, hands clasped on their heads. Two policemen had their guns out. One officer was on the sidewalk in front of the ogres; the other one, separated from them by the line of parked cars. A tall figure, though only human tall, stood by the cars and that policeman. The figure was dressed in a grey leather trench coat with his white hair trailing down the back of it. The last time I'd seen Sholto, he'd been wearing a grey cloak, but the effect was surprisingly similar as he turned, as if he felt me standing there. Even from yards away in the electric-kissed darkness I could see that his eyes were three different shades of gold: metallic gold around the pupil, then amber, and last a circle the color of yellow autumn leaves. I was afraid of Sholto, always had been, but when I saw those eyes, I realized how homesick I was for the sidhe, because for a second, I was glad to see another person with a triple iris. Then the look in those familiar eyes sent a chill across my neck and the moment of connectedness was gone.

  He turned, smiling, back to the police. "I will attend the princess." He started walking toward the van, and they d
idn't stop him. I realized why as he moved closer. He had the queen's emblem, a badge that her Guard carried, hanging from his neck. It looks surprisingly like a police badge, and it had been well publicized that to use one of the emblems if you didn't deserve it came with a curse. A curse that not even a sidhe would risk.

  I didn't know what he'd told them, but I could guess. He'd been sent to stop the attack on me. He'd see me safely home. All so very reasonable.

  Sholto moved toward me in a long-legged, graceful stride. He was handsome, not the heartbreaking beauty of some of the sidhe, but striking. I knew that the humans watched him as he walked, because they could not help themselves. The grey coat blew back and there was the faintest bulk around his middle. Sholto had the hair, the eyes, the skin, the face, the shoulders, everything- except that from just below his nipples to vanish into his pants was a nest of tentacles, things with mouths. His mother had been sidhe, his father had not.

  Something touched my shoulder and I jerked, screaming. It was Jeremy. "Close the door, Uther."

  Uther slid the door shut, almost in Sholto's face. He leaned against it, so that it couldn't be opened from the outside without some effort.

  "Run," Uther said. 11

  "Run," Jeremy said.

  I understood. Outside of a war, the sluagh hunted one prey at a time, and I was it. Sholto wouldn't hurt them if I weren't here. I slipped out the jagged metal hole that the ogres had made on the other side, managing to worm through without cutting myself. I could hear Sholto knocking, oh so politely, on the van's big door. "Princess Meredith, I've come to take you home."

  I dropped low to the ground and used the parked cars to hide me as I made it to the sidewalk and the crowd that had gathered to watch the show. I threw another coating of glamour over me. Hair a nondescript brown, skin darker, tanned. I moved through the crowd, changing my appearance a little at a time so that no one would point and draw attention to me. By the time I made it out the other side and started down the side street, the only thing that still looked the same was the clothes. I slipped the suit jacket off, took the gun in my hand, and rolled the jacket around my hand and arm. Sholto had seen an auburn-haired woman with pale skin in a navy jacket. Now I was a brown-haired woman with a tan, and a green shirt. I walked calmly down the street, though there was a place between my shoulder blades that itched as if he were staring a hole through me.

  I wanted to turn around and glance back, but I forced myself to keep walking. I made it to the corner without anyone yelling, "There she is!" When I got to the corner, I stopped for a second. Dear Goddess, I wanted to look back over my shoulder. I fought the urge and stepped around the corner of the building. When I was safely out of sight, I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding. I wasn't out of danger, not with Sholto on this coast, but it was a start.

  A noise came from overhead. A high, thin sound, almost too high to hear, but it pierced through the normal sounds of the city like an arrow through the heart. I scanned the night sky, but it was empty, except for the distant trail of an airplane glowing against the darkness. The sound came again almost painfully high, like the sounds of bats. There was nothing there.

  I started walking backward, slowly, still scanning the sky, when a movement caught my eye. I followed that flicker to the top of the nearest building. A line of black shapes huddled on the building's edge. They were like a line of ink-black hoods the size of small men. One of the "hoods" shook itself like a bird settling its feathers. The blackness raised its head to flash a pale, flat face. A slit of a mouth opened and that high-pitched cry sounded.

  They could fly faster than I could run. I knew that, but I turned and ran anyway. I heard their wings unfurl with a sharp sound like thick, clean sheets snapping in the wind. I ran. Their high-pitched calls chased me into the night. I ran faster.

  Chapter 10

  THEY CAME LIKE A WIND AT MY BACK, THEIR SOUND MELDING INTO A rush of wind like a chasing storm. That's what humans would hear: wind, storm, or a flight of birds. If there'd been humans to hear anything. The street stretched deserted to the end of the block. Eight o'clock on a Saturday night in prime shop district, and there was no one. It almost seemed arranged, and maybe it was. If I could run out of the spell area, there would be people. The wind buffeted against my back, and I threw myself onto the sidewalk, rolling with the impact. I kept rolling, over and over, getting dizzying glimpses of the nightflyers spilling over me, less than a yard off the sidewalk like a run of airborne fish, moving too fast after their leader to change direction.

  I rolled into the nearest doorway, surrounded by a roof and glass on three sides. The flyers only took from above. They wouldn't come down on the ground for me. I lay there for a few heartbeats listening to the thud of my own blood in my ears, when I realized I wasn't alone.

  I sat up, my back against the window display of books, trying to think of any excuse good enough to explain to a human what I'd just done. The man had his back to me. He was short, about my height, wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt and one of those soft-rimmed caps that come down over the eyes. Not something you see at night much.

  I pushed to my feet, using the glass of the window. Why was he wearing a hat to keep the sun out of his eyes at night?

  "Some wind," he said.

  I eased around the window, keeping the shop awning over me. I still had the gun in my hand. The jacket was loose, flapping like a matador's cape, but it still shielded the gun.

  The man turned, and the light from the shop fell upon his face. The skin was black, eyes like dark, shiny jewels. He grinned, flashing a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. "Our master wants to speak with you, Princess."

  I felt movement behind me and turned my head to see, but I was afraid to turn completely around and give my back to the grinning figure. Three figures emerged from the next shop. It was dark, no lights to hide from. The figures were taller than me, cloaked and hooded.

  "We've been waiting for you, corr," one of the cloaked figures said. It was a female voice.

  "Corr?" I made it a question.

  "Slut." A second female voice.

  "Jealous?" I said.

  They rushed me, and I spilled the jacket to the ground, pointing the gun two-handed at them. Either they didn't know what a gun was, or they didn't care. I shot one of them. The figure collapsed in a pile of cloth. The two others huddled back, clawed hands extended as if to ward off a blow.

  I pressed my back to the window, spared a glance for the grinning man behind me, but he was standing in the doorway with his small hands clasped on top of his hat, as if he'd done it before. I kept the gun and most of my attention on the women, though that was a loose term for them. They were hags. I wasn't being mean. It was what they were... night hags.

  The one I'd shot struggled to sit, cradled in the second one's arms. "You shot her!"

  "So happy you noticed," I said.

  The wounded one's hood had fallen back to reveal a huge beaked nose, small glittering eyes, skin the color of yellowed snow. Her hair was a dry ragged mass, like black straw coming barely to her shoulders. She hissed as the second hag spread the cloak enough to see the wound. There was a bloody hole between her sagging breasts. She was nude except for a heavy golden tore around her neck, and a jeweled belt that rode low on her thin hips. I caught a glimpse of the dagger that hung from the belt and was tied to her thigh with a golden chain.

  She writhed, unable to get enough air to curse me. I'd hit her heart, and maybe a lung. It wouldn't kill her, but it hurt.

  The second hag raised her face into the light. Her skin was a dirty grey with huge pockmarks covering her face, tracing along the sharp nose like craters. Her lips were almost too thin to cover the mouth full of sharp carnivorous teeth. "I wonder if he'd still want you if you didn't have all that smooth white flesh."

  The last hag was still standing, hooded, hidden. Her voice was better than theirs, more cultured somehow. "We could make you one of us, our sister."

  I sighted at the grey one's face. "The
second someone starts a curse, I'll shoot her through the face."

  "It won't kill me," Grey said.

  "No, but it won't help your looks either."

  She hissed at me like some great crooked cat. "Bitch." ', ; "Ditto," I said.

  It was the one still standing that I was worried about. She hadn't panicked or let anger get the better of her. She'd suggested using magic against me when she was still partially hidden by shadows and night. Smarter, more cautious, more dangerous.

  I had purposefully not used glamour to hide. I was standing in front of a lighted bookstore window with a gun in plain sight, obviously pointed at someone. The gunshot alone should have sent someone to ,; the door or to call the police. I gave a quick flare of power, searching, and found the thick folds of the glamour. Heavy and well made. I was good at glamour, but not this kind. Sholto had covered the entire street with it, like an invisible wall. The humans in the shops would just want to stay inside. No one would see or hear anything to alarm them. Their minds would explain the gunshot as some ordinary noise. If I screamed for help, it would be the wind. Short of throwing someone through the window in back of me, into the shop itself, no one would see anything.

  I'd have been willing to throw any and all of them through the glass, but I didn't trust them up close. The hands that clasped at the wound had black claws like the talons of some great bird. The teeth that bared when she hissed were made for tearing flesh. I would never win a one-on-one battle. I needed them at bay, and the gun kept them there, but Sholto would come, and I needed to be gone before that happened. Once he arrived I'd lose. Come to think of it, I wasn't doing too well now. They couldn't hurt me, but I was trapped. If I moved out from under the awning, the nightflyers would get me or at least mob me, then the hags and the grinning man could take me. I'd be disarmed or worse before Sholto showed up.