Summoned to Tourney

by Mercedes Lackey; Ellen Guon

  That’s right, little fellow, Blair thought. Hate me. Give me a handle to use on you, a window into your thoughts. Let’s see what you’re afraid of…

  :You think to imprison me, a Knight of the Seleighe Court? And now you try to entrap my mind! I’ll kill you first, bastard!:

  Blair couldn’t understand all of that… what in the hell is a Seelie Court?… but he certainly understood the way the young man launched himself from the floor, hands reaching for Blair’s throat.

  Harris intercepted easily, hurling the kid against the wall. Harris always made it look so easy. Years of practice, Blair thought, a little enviously. Harris was used to the difficult ones, the ones that tried to fight before they settled down to become a useful part of the Project.

  Harris crossed to where the woman was slumped against the wall. Grabbing her long hair with one hand, he drew his handgun with the other, pressing it lightly against her temple. The woman flinched once at the touch of the metal against her face, but otherwise was completely unaware of anything happening around her.

  The young man moved painfully from where he had fallen onto the concrete floor. A trickle of blood slid from his mouth; he ignored it, looking up at Blair and Harris with eyes filled with hatred.

  “Now, let’s talk,” Blair said calmly, sitting down on the bare concrete floor. “I don’t think I need to explain Harris’ role in this, do I? Behave yourself and be a good boy, and tell me what I want to know, and nothing will happen to your friend. Understand?”

  :Never, Unseleighe scum. I will kill you and leave your bodies lying for the forest creatures to feed upon, I will curse your names for a thousand years, I will laugh as your blood pools at my feet, I will do anything to kill you, even brave the touch of Cold Iron itself:

  Blair blinked, astonished at the clarity of the young man’s thoughts. “I don’t think you understand your situation,” he said slowly. “You aren’t in any position to—”

  He stopped short. The key—the kid had given him the key without even realizing it! Admittedly, it was the strangest phobia he’d ever heard of in his life, but it was a lock-hold he could use…

  “I’ll be back in a minute, Harris,” he said thoughtfully, and left the room.

  At the end of the hallway, in the new construction area, he found what he was looking for. It took a little improvisation with a pair of handcuffs and some wire, but then he had what he needed.

  Of course, he didn’t understand why the kid was so afraid of certain kinds of metal, but that didn’t matter. The fears themselves were unimportant; it was the effect of the fears upon the subject that was so valuable. He walked back into Room 12, and held out the contraption with a smile. The kid’s eyes widened.

  Blair moved cautiously toward the young man, handcuffs ready in one hand. Suddenly everything happened very fast; the kid knocked the handcuffs out of Blair’s hand, making a dash for the door; Harris dropped the handgun and tackled him from behind, wrestling with him until Blair could snap the modified handcuffs onto his wrists.

  The kid screamed, a long gut-wrenching wail of despair, as the wire wrapped around the handcuffs touched his bare wrists. Then he fainted.

  Well, it wasn’t exactly the response Blair had wanted, but it was a good start. He’d never seen such an immediate physiological reaction to a mental aberration, but that didn’t matter. It just meant that it would be easier to work with the kid, later.

  Then he saw the pistol, lying on the floor next to the woman. She was staring at it, uncomprehending. Her hand twitched, moved toward the handgun…

  “STOP!” Blair shouted at the top of his voice.

  The woman jerked her hand back, clutching her hands to her mouth. She began to cry again.

  Harris, breathing hard, reached down to pick up the pistol. “Sorry, boss,” he said. “Next time, I’ll be more careful.”

  “You’d better be,” Blair said tersely. “We can’t afford any more mistakes.” He glanced at the unconscious blond boy. “We’ll start with him in the morning.”

  The image faded. He reached out his hand, through the layers of light, as Beth’s face disappeared into the shadows.

  Eric set down the flute. So much for magic, he thought. After all’s said and done, it can’t help me find my friends.

  He tried to think of another plan of action… maybe calling the cops? It would mean some awkward questions to answer, and possibly a lot of trouble over Phil’s death, but the more he thought about that, he decided it was worth the risk. Sure, they might have found some physical evidence that he and Beth were at Phil’s house after he was killed, but the odds that they could conjure up some proof that he and Beth were the killers… not too damn likely, he thought. It’s worth the risk.

  His hand was reaching for the phone, and it hit him a split-second later.

  Fire and ice, burning upward from his wrists, an unbelievable pain that knocked him out of the chair. He didn’t feel the impact against the floor, but lay there, gasping for breath. Then Kory’s voice, screaming in his mind—

  :Eric, help me!:

  A flurry of images, too fast for Eric to recognize. The pain ripped through him, an agony that went on and on, not stopping…

  Darkness.

  Eric curled into a ball on the floor, tasting blood where he’d bitten his tongue. For several long seconds, all he could do was lie there and breathe. Then the realization hit him.

  Kory. That was Kory. Somehow he made me feel what he was feeling, somehow he…

  Oh, Christ, is he dead? Could someone have gone through… whatever that was… and survived? He could be dying right now!

  He took several deep breaths, closing his eyes and concentrating on the images that had flashed through his mind.

  Beth, huddled in the corner of a room, illuminated by witchlight…what is wrong with her, why won’t she speak to me?

  A pair of handcuffs, wrapped with some kind of wire…

  A woman at a gate, refusing to let him pass. A sign on the gate, black words printed on white… Dublin Laboratories. Authorized personnel only.

  Eric sat up abruptly, his fists clenched. “Kory, what in the hell were you doing in the Dublin Labs?”

  He remembered joining some Faire friends for the yearly protest, sitting in the street in front of the gate until the cops showed up to take them away. The armed guards, the electric fence, the ground beyond the fence was probably filled with land mines, for all he knew…

  He thought about the impossibility of breaking into the Labs to rescue them… for God’s sake, they build nuclear bombs there! The place has the best security in the world, millions of armed guards! How am I supposed to get them out of a place like that?

  What in the hell are Kory and Beth doing in a place like that?

  He sat there, breathing unsteadily, wondering what he was supposed to do next. A single-handed assault on the Dublin Labs just didn’t seem like a good plan. If he had a personal army, maybe he’d have a chance. But alone…

  No. He wasn’t alone. They had friends in San Francisco, good friends who would help them out. Especially when he told them what Kory had told him, just before their “connection” had been cut. The Mist-Hold Elves, sure, they’d help in a second.

  If Kory was still alive…

  He forced himself to relax. Panicking wouldn’t solve anything. He began dialing.

  Five minutes later, he’d listened to eight answering machine messages, two unanswered ringing phones, and one “This number is out of service, and there is no new number” message.

  What a great night for this, he thought sourly. Everyone’s out at the Forty-Niners game. Terrific. Couldn’t the Bad Guys have picked something other than a Monday night for their kidnapping and attempted murder?

  He dialed the last number on his list, the Holiday Inn near Pier 39. After two rings, someone picked up the phone.

  “Elizabet?” Kayla asked. Even across the phone lines, Eric could tell instantly that she was crying.

  “Kayla, this i
s Eric. What’s wrong?”

  The girl spoke all in a rush. “Elizabet went downstairs to buy a stupid newspaper, she didn’t come back, it’s been over two hours, the stupid local cops say that’s too soon to file a missing person report, I’m all alone in this stupid city and I know something’s wrong, I know it—”

  “Whoa, slow down!” Eric tried to kick his mind into overdrive. Three disappearances in one day? A coincidence? Not bloody likely. “Elizabet’s not the only one who’s disappeared today.” He quickly described the events of the day, and the images Kory had sent to him, and the unbelievable pain he’d felt at the same time.

  “That sounds bad,” Kayla said seriously, gulping down her tears, and getting herself under tight control. “I don’t know too much about elven physiology, just what Elizabet and I learned after that fight at Griffith Park… I don’t think Cold Iron is immediately fatal, not unless it breaks the skin. I’m not certain about that. Elves are so weird, it’s hard to say. One of the L.A. elves told us about how long-term exposure to Cold Iron is deadly, but I think he said it took a couple days to kill someone.”

  Eric realized he had been holding his breath, and reminded himself to keep breathing. “Thank God. So Kory’s probably still alive.”

  “Yeah, but he must be in a world of hurt.” Kayla’s voice was tight. “Cold Iron apparently triggers all of the nerve synapses continuously during the time of exposure. It’s like having your hand stuck permanently in an electrical socket. Really weird. Elizabet has always wanted to know more about it, since we’re doing a lot of work with the L.A. elven community now, but we can’t exactly do experiments with it, y’know? All of our information is secondhand, and usually hundreds of years old.”

  “You’d better start at the beginning, Kayla. When exactly did Elizabet disappear? And did you see anyone suspicious around Elizabet today?” Like two guys in suits, driving a pale blue Mercedes?

  “Okay, okay.” He heard the sound of her blowing her nose on the other end of the phone line. “Elizabet and I spent all day at the conference. It was great, I met this priestess from Mendocino who loves Oingo Boingo’s latest album as much as I do… anyhow, we came directly back to the hotel after the last discussion ended. I didn’t see anyone following us or anything like that when we were walking back.”

  “Anyone suspicious at the conference?” he asked, waiting for the payoff.

  “Well ... yes. These three guys showed up right as we were about to break for the night. They were wearing business suits, so they stood out like sore thumbs against all of us.”

  Bingo.

  “Did you see their car? Was it a blue Mercedes?” he asked, breathlessly.

  “No, they were still hanging around the conference when we left, asking questions of various people.” Kayla’s voice took on a harder tone. “So, Eric, what’s your plan? What are we going to do?”

  Plan? You mean, I’m supposed to have a plan? Eric suppressed an impulse to blither insanely and spoke quietly instead. “We’ll get them back, of course.”

  “How?”

  “First, I’m coming over to your hotel to get you. Don’t open the door for anyone,” he said, wondering if Kayla was on their list, whoever they were. “I’ll be over there as soon as I can.”

  He hung up the phone, thinking fast. Bus service in San Francisco was one of the best in the world, but the buses would stop running in another couple hours.

  If only he had a car…

  But he did have transportation. Two motorcycles. In the garage.

  Except he didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle.

  Except these motorcycles were really elvensteeds, old friends of Kory’s that had agreed to live with them and pretend to be motorcycles. They were Faerie horses, they just looked like motorcycles. At least, that was what Kory said.

  He slung his flute case under one arm, grabbed two helmets from the hail closet, and headed to the garage. Inside, the two motorcycles sat tamely. Kory had sent the two bikes—horses—back over to the Faerie Court that morning (since they didn’t like Earth-style horse feed, or so they said), so at least they were well-fed. Or fully fueled, depending on how you thought about it.

  “Listen, horses,” Eric said awkwardly. “I have to ask a favor of you. Kory and Beth are missing, and I need to find them. I don’t know how to ride either horses or motorcycles, so you’ll have to get me there. I gotta get over to the Holiday Inn at Pier 39 and get Kayla, ‘cause they have Elizabet too. Are you willing?”

  For an answer, the bright red and gold motorcycle’s engine coughed into life, revving loudly. A moment later, the other bike followed suit.

  “Uh, thanks. I appreciate it.” He lifted the garage door, then sat gingerly on the red bike, stuffing the flute case into the tank bag and fastening the spare helmet onto the seat clip. “Hey, you,” he called to the black and silver bike, “You’ll just have to follow us, okay? We need to get Kayla before anything else. She may be in danger too, I don’t know.”

  The black bike’s headlight flashed once. Eric assumed that meant an affirmative, but he wasn’t certain.

  “All right, then,” he muttered. “Time for the cavalry to come to the rescue.”

  The bike sat motionless for a long second, and Eric began to wonder whether or not this was going to work. Then the bike kicked itself into gear, popped the clutch, and vaulted out of the garage so fast that Eric nearly fell off. A split-second later, the black bike followed them into the street.

  It’s just a horse, Eric thought dizzily, as the bike weaved through the cars, heading straight down Geary toward the Pier. It’s just a horse. And it’s only doing… eighty-five miles an hour. In a thirty-five zone. Oh my God.

  Eric tried to look calm, tried to look like he was actually controlling the bike and knew what he was doing, but after the third high-velocity skidding turn around a corner, he gave up and wrapped his arms around the tank bag, holding on for dear life. The bike made a noise between an engine cough and a chuckle, and accelerated through a red light and into another high-speed left turn. Eric closed his eyes and refused to open them.

  The wail of a police siren forced him to look up. One of San Fran’s finest was right on their tail. The two bikes swerved through another right turn, heading due west off Van Ness up into one of the hilltop residential areas. We’re going in the wrong direction! Eric thought, glancing back as the police car followed them up the hill. The bikes zigzagged through a small series of streets, then turned north again. Eric’s heart and stomach both leaped into his throat as he realized they were heading straight for a large stone stairway leading back down into the city below.

  With all lights off. As if that made any difference.

  “No, don’t!” he yelled involuntarily as the bike leaped up onto the sidewalk and then down the stairs. The police car screamed to a stop at the sidewalk behind them. The bike bounced down the stairs, jolting Eric with every one, and skidded to a stop at the bottom of the stairway. It revved its engine, waiting for the black bike to reach the street beside it.

  The rest of the ride to Pier 39, thank God, was totally uneventful.

  Eric left the bikes parked on the street near the hotel’s back entrance, and hurried up the stairs to Kayla’s room. He knocked on the door, then knocked again. “Hey, Kayla!” he called, suddenly afraid that he might not have gotten there in time.

  The door opened suddenly, and a small hand reached out, grabbed him by the wrist, and yanked him into the room. Kayla quickly shut and locked the door.

  “They’re out there,” the girl said quietly, her back against the door. “Three guys in business suits. They don’t have a warrant, so I wouldn’t open the door for them.”

  “Smart thinking, Kayla. Was one of them a young, blond, muscular guy?” Eric asked.

  “No. All older men, in their forties or fifties. They weren’t the same guys I saw earlier today at the conference.”

  “We’d better assume they all work for the same company.” Eric walked to the windo
w, looking down. “It’s a big drop, do you think you can do it? Or do you want to risk going through the hotel?”

  She bit her lip, but looked not only determined, but eager. “Of course I can do it. How are we going to get away, though? Did you bring a car?”

  Eric thought about the two motorcycles, now parked sedately in the motel lot. “Uh, no, not exactly.”

  She shrugged. “Well, let’s get moving, Bard. Hallway or window?”

  “Let’s try the hallway first,” he said. He opened the hotel room door, glancing down the corridor.

  Three men in business suits. Not ten feet away from his nose. Eric slammed the door shut.

  “Then again, the window is probably a better idea.” He picked up a chair, advancing on the window. “Stand back, kid, this’ll probably make a real mess.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.” Kayla stood next to the door, and visibly flinched as someone pounded on it hard from the other side.

  Eric swung the chair hard against the glass. It shattered loudly, almost loud enough to hide the sound of two someones slamming themselves against the hotel room door. The door budded, but held.

  “Come on, kid!” Kayla ran toward him, as a gunshot echoed from the corridor outside. One of the three men kicked the door open, just as Eric grabbed Kayla and dived through the window.

  They fell haphazardly toward the street below. Somehow he had managed to pucker up and begin to whistle a descending melodic minor scale as they exited—in the final quarter second, their tumble slowed to a high deceleration, but impact-less landing.

  The motorcycles rolled up beside them a moment later, engines rumbling.

  Kayla blinked and stared at the riderless bikes, “It’s okay, they’re friends.” Eric climbed onto the red bike. “Just hang on real tight, okay? They don’t slow down for turns.”

  “Hey, I’ve never fallen off a bike in my life,” Kayla said, seating herself on the black bike. “Except maybe if you count that time up in Wrightwood… SHIT!” The black motorcycle made a strange noise, something that sounded vaguely like a horse’s whinny, as it accelerated out of the parking lot. Eric glanced once at the speedometer as the bikes headed toward the Bay Bridge, and wished he hadn’t. Can’t they wait to do ninety miles an hour until we ‘re at least on the freeway?