Cold Iron

by D. L. McDermott

  He battled to remain conscious through the pain now, because these might be the last minutes Beth spent on earth, and they were ticking away on Miach’s mantle clock. His only comfort was that he would not survive her long. His vow to Miach and the marks on his wrist might compel him to retake the sword and fight for the sorcerer’s family, but nothing would keep him in this life long afterward without Beth.

  He heard, shrill as the bean sídhe, the phone ring on Miach’s desk. It could mean only one thing: that Beth was gone. He thought he would have known, been able to feel it, sense the flight of her beloved spirit. But he’d felt nothing.

  Instead, he heard Miach, terse and angry. “How could she have been warned?”

  Hope, joyful and terrifying, welled up inside him. He hauled himself to his knees, focused all his attention on Miach and the phone.

  “He is here, and in cold iron,” Miach said, casting a glance at Conn. Then his changeable gray-blue eyes roamed the room, lighting briefly on Nial, sullen and suspicious in the window seat. “Where is Liam?”

  “Am I my brother’s—” he began.

  “Yes.” Miach cut him off. “Find him. And bring him here.” He turned his attention back to the phone. “Follow them.” Another pause. “That may actually be useful to us,” he said, frowning, and hung up the phone.

  Nial returned with Liam in tow.

  “Give it to me, Liam.” Miach held out his hand.

  “What?” The boy was a poor liar. Conn almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  Miach backhanded him. A vicious blow, no allowance for the boy’s human frailty. Bone broke, blood spattered. Now Conn did feel sorry for him. Not for the injury, easily healed if Miach so chose, but for the hurt written on the boy’s face, the look of betrayal in his eyes.

  “Give it to me,” Miach repeated.

  The boy fished Conn’s cell out of his pocket and handed it over. Miach flipped the phone open and tapped the keys. “Why, Liam? Why would you endanger your family like this?”

  “Because it’s wrong,” the boy said, his voice nasal through broken bone and bloodied flesh. “I’d rather take my chances against the New York Fae and the Prince Consort than save my skin at the cost of a woman’s.”

  “Then you would die, Liam. And so would Nial. And Nieve downstairs, and her baby, and all the others who share our blood. The Court would kill you all. I have given you and your brother Fae weapons, and the true Fae would take great offense at the presumption. When they were done slaughtering you, Nieve and the boy would make good sport for the kinds of games they like to play.”

  Liam resisted the impulse to staunch the blood flowing from his nose and looked his patriarch in the eye. “Then so be it,” he said.

  Miach let out a sigh. “Come here.” He beckoned the boy. “Let me tend that.”

  Liam shook his head and stalked to the window.

  “Fine,” Miach said, flipping open the phone once more. “Nial, call our friend at the police station and tell him we need a trace on a cell.”

  Helene’s BMW, as stylish as everything else about her, was comfortingly familiar. Surrounded by so much normality, including the eternal traffic on Storrow Drive, Beth found it difficult to believe they were being pursued by a Fae assassin.

  “We should head for the interstate,” she told Helene. “Ninety-five is the most direct route to Portsmouth.” She fished her maps out of her handbag.

  Helene tapped the GPS screen. “What’s the address of Egan’s clinic?”

  “I don’t know the address. Just the rough location. I’ll be able to feel it when we get close.”

  Helene looked sidelong at her. “Does that mean you’re like them?”

  A good question. “No, not exactly. But I can feel their artifacts. It’s how I found all those sites for Frank. I’m not one of them, not Fae. I’m a Druid. Or I would be one, if I knew how to be. But I don’t.” She explained about the Summoner, and Miach.

  Helene laughed, a bitter sound, something Beth had never heard from her lighthearted, carefree friend. “So all this time he’s been courting me, sending me gifts, he’s been meaning to kill my best friend.”

  “I would say it’s more like he’s always known he might feel obligated to,” Beth said. “Miach saved my life after Frank cut me. I don’t think he wants to kill me. I don’t think he will kill me, if we get the sword back. If it’s any consolation, I think he’s genuinely smitten with you, but he’s so inhuman, I’m not sure he understands why killing your best friend would be an obstacle to seduction.”

  “That’s the sick thing about it,” Helene said, turning to look straight at Beth. “It almost isn’t. I wanted him from the first minute he walked into your apartment.” She swallowed hard. “I still want him. I fantasize about being with him. I know it’s the compulsion he’s using on me, but I still feel so ashamed.”

  Beth wasn’t going to tell Helene that Miach hadn’t glamoured her since that first encounter in her apartment and had refused to compel her when it would have ensured her safety on the island. Beth wasn’t going to make Helene feel any more ashamed and conflicted than she already did, and she certainly wasn’t going to defend a man who was presently doing his best to kill her.

  They were halfway to Portsmouth, the colorful foliage of New England autumn rolling by on either side, when Beth heard the muffled ring in her handbag. She pulled out the cell and checked the number. “It’s Conn.” Relief flooded her. She answered. “Conn. I think I know where Frank is.”

  “So do the Manhattan Fae, Beth.” Not Conn. Miach.

  Beth saw the color drain out of Helene’s face at the sound of the sorcerer’s voice.

  “Where is Conn?” Beth asked. She would know if he was dead. She would know.

  “He’s with me, in South Boston. Come back now, and he won’t be hurt.”

  “And you’ll kill me,” Beth said. She was certain of it. And then Conn would die, too.

  “Beth, listen to me. The Fae are going to strike against Carter today. If you go to him now, you’ll hand our enemies everything they need to summon the Court back from exile: yourself, and the sword.”

  “I have to try.”

  “Helene is with you, isn’t she?” Miach asked.

  Helene grabbed the phone and jammed it into her car speaker.

  “I’m here, you asshole.”

  “Helene,” Miach said. His voice, piped over the car speakers, had changed. Beth could hear the music in it. A tear slid down Helene’s face. She could hear it, too, and was fighting to resist its beauty. “Beth is dragging you into terrible danger. Come back now.”

  “Promise you won’t kill her,” Helene said.

  “Helene,” he repeated. This time her name was a tangible caress. “Even if you reach Frank Carter before the Manhattan Fae, he will not hand over the sword.”

  Helene shook her head. Beth knew the cost of resisting that voice. “Promise you won’t hurt Beth,” she demanded.

  “I promise,” Miach said, his voice measured and even, “that neither Elada nor I will harm you, Helene, if you give yourself into our keeping. But I cannot allow Beth to be taken by the Manhattan Fae. We have a trace on your phone. Elada is only a short distance behind you. Pull over at the rest stop in two miles, or I will tell him to run you off the road.”

  And on this road, at this speed, they would both die.

  They had no choice.

  Helene looked at Beth, mouthed, Trust me, then said to Miach. “Okay. All right. We’ll pull over.”

  “Wait for Elada, Helene. You won’t be hurt, I promise.”

  The call ended.

  “What are you planning to do?” Beth asked. She didn’t think Helene would betray her, but she knew the power of Fae compulsion. And without Helene’s car, her chances of reaching Portsmouth would be slim.

  Tears were streaming down Helene’s face. “I’m
going to make sure you get to Portsmouth. And I’m going to send that bastard Miach a message.”

  “I’m sorry,” Beth said. “I’m so sorry I brought this into your life.”

  Helene’s expression turned hard. “Don’t be.”

  They pulled off the highway onto the curving access ramp for the rest stop. It wasn’t much: a long, narrow parking lot and a scrubby strip of grass with picnic benches. There was a tiny, utilitarian visitor center. Beth knew its kind well from childhood vacations—no heat, no hot water, a mile-long line for the vending machine. And, thankfully, at this time of year always thronged with leaf peepers and apple pickers.

  Helene slid them into a space partially hidden from the road by the visitor center and jumped out of the car. She popped the trunk and came back with a small nylon pouch. Inside was a multitool with an impressive knife.

  “I’ve seen Elada fight, Helene. I don’t think we’ll be able to take him with a Swiss army knife.”

  “Just watch me.” Helene said. “I’m going to buy you some time.” She took a deep breath. “Hit me.”

  “What?”

  “Hit me. Give me a shiner. Then drive. I’ll wait until I see Elada pull in. Then I’ll wave him down and tell him you ran into the trees. It won’t take him long to search the rest area so when he figures out you’re not here, I’ll scream and tell everyone that he’s my boyfriend and that he punched me.”

  “It won’t work, Helene. He can use his voice to compel people.”

  “Not if I’m screaming bloody murder, he can’t. And while he’s dealing with the scene I create,” she brandished the multitool, “I’ll slash his tires.”

  Beth was impressed. “Helene, that is brilliant and devious, but dangerous. Elada is a killer.”

  Helene smirked. “I know. That’s why I goaded Miach into promising not to hurt me. He’ll call his attack dog to make that clear. I can raise all kinds of hell for Elada, and from what you told me about Fae pledges, he can’t touch a hair on my head.”

  “He can still compel you, get inside your head, force you to tell him where I’ve gone.”

  Helene nodded. “I know. I won’t like it. But I can bear it. And since you don’t know exactly where Egan’s clinic is, all Elada will get out of me is that the place is near Portsmouth. Now—hit me.”

  Miach hung up the telephone and wheeled on Conn.

  “Your woman and her friend are resourceful. The Amazon waylaid Elada and persuaded an entire rest stop full of Good Samaritans that he was her abusive boyfriend. Then she slashed his tires.”

  “Not my woman and the Amazon,” Conn corrected. “Beth and Helene. They have names, Miach. Histories. Mothers and fathers. Siblings like Liam and Nial.”

  “Helene won’t be harmed,” Miach said. “And after this, it’s unlikely there is any wooing that will bring her to my bed. Elada had to compel her to tell him where Beth was headed. Portsmouth, apparently. Does that mean anything to you?”

  It didn’t. “I wouldn’t tell you if it did.”

  Miach sighed and beckoned Nial. “The Druid has the Amazon’s car. Get our friends in blue to run the plates. If there’s a theft-tracking device, get it activated. We have to find the Druid. She won’t be foolish enough to use her phone again.”

  “Miach, if she can get to Carter and obtain the Summoner before the Manhattan Fae, then there is no need to kill Beth. Please, at least tell Elada that.”

  Miach hesitated. “I will tell Elada to bring her back alive if she has the sword, but if the Manhattan Fae gain control of the Summoner, he will have to take the prudent course. He must kill her.”

  Beth didn’t need the map after she passed through the center of Portsmouth. The sword was north and west. She knew it in her gut. What she didn’t know, unfortunately, was how many of the narrow two-lane roads leading out of town dead-ended or doubled back on themselves.

  It took her an hour to locate the clinic. She missed the turnoff the first time, a dirt road with nothing to mark it but a mailbox. The drive was lined by sugar maples. At the end was a sprawling house, the sort of faux-rustic palace a robber baron must have built at the turn of the last century to play at hunting and fishing and Edwardian country weekends, his simple existence supported by an army of servants and an endless caravan of imported luxuries. The fieldstone foundation was squat and graceless, the Queen Anne–style porches too wide, too dark, and thoroughly uninviting. Institutional use had added functional insult to fanciful injury, and the misshapen mullioned windows were covered with chicken wire stretched over rusted bars. A tennis court with a listing net and cracked paving completed the air of Gilded Age luxury gone to seed.

  Now that she was here, she wasn’t certain what to do. She parked Helene’s car behind the carriage house, a fish scale–shingled monstrosity larger than most single-family homes, and approached the front entrance.

  It was damp and musty under the porch. The safety glass on the double doors was filthy, but Beth saw no signs of life inside the shabby entrance hall. She knocked, then tried the bell. It blared long and loud, more a buzz than a ring, another harsh institutional touch. The clamor of it made Beth feel exposed and vulnerable.

  She waited. If she hadn’t felt the Summoner, singing to her somewhere inside the graceless house, she might have given up.

  “Who’s there?”

  The voice, tense and angry, came from a window to Beth’s right. Frank.

  “It’s me. Beth.”

  “Beth?” Even through the muffling layers of glass and curtain and carpet, she could hear the disbelief in his voice.

  “Open the door, Frank.”

  Silence. She glimpsed furtive movement, heard the floor creak, then the sound of deadbolts turning, locks clicking, chains being drawn back, and, finally, Frank, disheveled and twitchy, on the threshold in front of her.

  “Are you alone?” he asked, looking past her shoulder. Poised, perfect Frank was coming apart at the seams. It should have given her joy. Instead, it sent a shiver up her spine. Something about the way he asked the question wasn’t right. His voice was too loud, his interest too intense.

  “I came with Helene,” she said, hoping the half truth would be more convincing than a whole lie. No one knew where she was. It had been an advantage, fleeing Elada. It didn’t feel like one now.

  “Where is she, then?” Frank asked, stepping past her to the edge of the porch, cutting off her retreat.

  “Behind the carriage house. With the car.” She pointed.

  Egan strolled around the side of the carriage house and shook his head. “She’s alone,” he said.

  She didn’t like the way he said it.

  “Quit playing games, Frank,” she said. “And give me back the sword. I don’t care about the gold. Just the sword.”

  “That’s funny,” Egan said, climbing the porch steps. Now they both stood between Beth and escape. “Those weirdos in New York said the same thing.”

  Weirdos in New York. The Manhattan Fae. And Frank and Egan still didn’t understand what they were dealing with. “Tall, long hair, uniformly good-looking, really charismatic?” she asked.

  Frank’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about them?”

  “I know they’ve figured out where you are, and that they’re coming for the sword.”

  Frank blanched, but Egan didn’t miss a beat. “Then it’s good that we’ve got something new to bargain with,” he said. “When Frank went to New York, his buyers were very curious about how he found that tomb, and when he told them, they became very curious about you, Beth.”

  “You can’t bargain with them, Egan,” Beth said, concealing her disgust. “Whatever they promise you, it will be a trick. That’s how it went down in New York, isn’t it?”

  She turned to Frank. She’d been married to him long enough to know that the only way to persuade him was to appeal to his vanity. “They promised
you money, but you were too smart for them. You didn’t bring the blade. And then you got the feeling that something was very, very wrong, didn’t you? You knew in your gut that they were going to kill you. They’re not human. They’re like Conn. They’re Fae.”

  She saw Frank waver and pressed on. “Christie Kelley is dead. They murdered her. But not before they found out about this place.”

  Now Frank looked panicked. “How can Christie be dead? I talked to her yesterday morning.”

  “Come on Frank—Christie isn’t dead,” Egan said, taking a step forward. “Your ex-wife is delusional.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a bottle and a syringe. “You’re a danger to yourself, Beth.”

  Beth watched, frozen in terror, as he filled the syringe. They’d drugged her once before. The helpless shame and misery of the memory choked her. She took an unconscious step back, felt the threshold of the front door touch her heels.

  Another step. Now she was in the house, dark and smelling of mold, and still Egan came on. She reached inside her for the voice, the one that had thrown Conn across a room.

  It didn’t come.

  Chapter 11

  They tackled her before she could decide which way to run. Frank seized her wrists. She kicked and screamed, but Egan punched her in the stomach, driving the air from her lungs. Pain bloomed low in her abdomen. She doubled over, and Egan jabbed the syringe into her arm.

  She felt the sting, but not the effect. Not yet. For now all she could feel was the pain in her belly, the desperate need to draw air into empty lungs, but she didn’t think she’d have long. Minutes, maybe seconds, before whatever it was went to work. She tried to twist free, but her movements were clumsy and Frank’s grip too tight. Egan fisted his hands in her hair and yanked her toward the stairs.