by A. E. Lowan
“Little Bella kept her up most of the night using her bladder as a trampoline, but she’s fine. She’s in the shower now. We’re just getting a slow start.”
Winter raised her brows, even though he could not see her. “Both of you?” Corinne was the CEO of Xanadu Entertainment Limited as well as being Lion Queen. Her husband Santiago oversaw all security operations. Their mornings routinely began almost as early as hers.
His chuckle rolled over her like soft fur. “You know Corinne. She refuses to suffer alone.”
Winter found her ignition key by touch and slid into the driver’s seat. She faintly heard Cian’s voice raised in protest and glanced briefly in the direction of the shop’s back door. “I actually have a reason for calling.”
“Was it about that… magic thing?” Tension leaked into his rich voice.
“Yes. I’ve got to deal with fallout from that, so I can’t man the shop clinic this morning… maybe for the rest of the day, I’m not sure. Would Doc be willing to take patients today?”
“Sí, I’ll talk to her, but I’m sure she’ll be fine with it.”
“I’ll owe you…” Her passenger side door swung open and Winter gasped in alarm, then saw it was Etienne swinging in to sit beside her, belted sword in hand.
“Winter, you all right?”
She widened her eyes at Etienne in exasperation. He grinned in reply. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’ll call you guys later.” She exchanged goodbyes with the Lion King and hung up before turning her full attention to the faerie knight. “What are you doing?”
“Going with you.” He snapped his seatbelt home with a definitive click.
She sighed, rested her forehead on the steering wheel, and wished it would rain coffee. “No, you can’t. Go back to the store.” She was wasting time.
“Because the factions will object to you showing too much favor to anyone?”
“Yes,” she said to the dashboard.
“My lady… Winter, what faction do I belong to?”
She paused, then sat up and really looked at him. He was looking back at her with half a smile tugging one corner of his mouth. It pushed against the spell scar on his cheek.
He continued. “Since I am not of this city, and will depart when my business is concluded, consider me your mercenary.”
Her eyebrows shot nearly to her hairline. “My what?”
Both corners of his mouth became involved. “Mercenary. Sell sword. It’s my usual line of work, as forges are often in short supply, and I’ll accept my usual rate of pay.”
She looked at him askance. “Which is?”
“Room and board for Cian and myself. Of course that’s just for lending you my sword arm. For helping to rescue Prince Senán I suppose I’ll have to put in extra effort.”
Something about the way he said that in the close confines of her car made her heart beat faster. “I’m…” she began.
He reached up and placed his fingertips on her lips. She could feel the hardened edges of his calluses, breathe the hot metallic scent the sword hilt had left behind. “Don’t say ‘fine.’” He brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek before pulling his hand away. “You are very far from ‘fine.’”
Winter’s lip quivered and her eyes began to burn. She twisted away from him, her face turned toward the driver’s side window and the blank brick wall beyond. Etienne was a silent presence beside her as she bound her emotions back under control and for that alone she was deeply grateful. Finally, she inserted the key into the ignition without looking at him. If she saw the pity in his gray eyes again she might not be able to keep herself together. “All right.” She pulled out of her space and looked over the list of addresses at the same time, all the while managing to avoid hitting other cars in the lot. Which one first? Biggest? Closest? Again, her life was a matter of triage.
But how to perform triage when you were one of the bodies on the ground?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When it came to rifts, Winter had decided that size mattered.
She parked on the South City side street and downed the last of her burned-bitter fast-food coffee in one large swallow, attention riveted several blocks away on the smoking textile factory swarming with emergency workers. It would not be the first time she had had to evade human eyes as she worked – that was a skill every preternatural had to acquire, or else they would be killed by the Servants of the Eldest before they could reveal their true natures to the world at large. It would, however, be her first time working in such a busy accident site.
“I take it our rift is there.” Etienne watched the fire fighters. Winter could see no flames, only the smoke, and wondered where it was coming from. It was a big building. If the rift site was actively burning she was not sure she would be able to get close enough to seal it. On the other hand, maybe nothing would be able to come through until after the fire was put out, either.
She made a soft, rude noise to herself and began to dig in her bag. This was Seahaven. She knew better than to hope for things like that.
“The power release that tore the rift open is what caused the damage,” she explained as she sifted through her bag. She pulled out a felt tip marker. “On the positive side, the explosion would have occurred on both sides of the rift, giving us time.”
“And on the negative whatever is on the other side is going to be pissed as hell.”
She pointed the pen at Etienne to acknowledge his point. “So, what I need to do is get in there and seal the rift before anything on the other side notices it’s there and gets curious enough to pass through.” She rested her left hand on the steering wheel and began drawing on the back of it.
Etienne leaned forward, drew his handgun, a Glock if she was not mistaken, from the holster at the small of his back and checked the slide to make sure he had a round chambered. “I’ve seen my share of rifts, jumping between the realms as often as I do.” He holstered the gun again and straightened his leather jacket back down over it. “I can feel the pull from here. That’s why things cross over. Did you know that?”
She did know that and felt the pull of the rift herself. What she did not know was if she felt it because she was part fae, or all preternatural. She had asked her cousins and her sisters, rifts being a common subject of conversation among the wizards of Seahaven, but as all were part fae in some way or another none could come to an agreement, and Winter was reluctant to bring young Jessie, with her pure wizard blood, out into the field. She finished the design on her hand and blew on the ink out of habit to hurry the drying.
“Pretty. What is it?”
“It’s a misdirection ward.” She spoke the Words of Command and the ward glowed bright even in the morning light before settling into her skin. Now if the ink was smeared all to heck the ward would remain stable until she removed it. If her hand was removed she had bigger problems than losing the ward.
“Does it make you invisible?” He reached for her hand to take a closer look, and she moved it closer to him, angling her wrist to better show the design.
“Not exactly. It encourages human eyes to skip over whoever or whatever it’s cast on, and whatever I’m engaged with, to technically see what’s warded but not be able to consciously acknowledge it. It makes working near humans easier and safer.” She took her hand back and opened the car door. Etienne followed suit.
“Just humans?” he asked over the roof.
She hitched her bag over her shoulder and locked her door with the key. The yellow Bug was a ’69 and had no power anything. “Yes. Anyone preternatural will see right through it, like you’re doing now. Curiosity’s is covered with them. It’s why only those with a strong magical spark can find it.” She came around to lock his door and found his head bent down to the task of fastening his sword belt around his hips. The hilt was very simple, lacking entirely in ornamentation and the cross guard was a little imperfect. She tilted her head to the side, curious. “If you have a gun, why the sword?” She knew why vampires carried both, at least
within their courts. The surest way to kill another vampire was decapitation and vampire politics could be lethal. It was only in recent decades that guns had become powerful enough to do any real damage to them.
Etienne shifted the sword hilt around until he was satisfied with the position. The wry twist of his mouth had returned. “I’m cheap.”
That was a new answer. She had expected a short lecture on effective killing methods of various fae and other preternaturals, the sort of information that had been poured into her ears since she was a child. She locked his door, then pulled a piece of spell chalk from her bag and motioned for Etienne to turn around, giving her his back. “Cheap?”
He twisted his head to the side, peering at her over his shoulder as she smoothed the back of his jacket, fingers pressing against the outlines of the gun rig he wore underneath as she made herself an even work surface to draw the ward. The handgun at the small of his back stood out in sharp relief against the brown leather. His muscles moved smoothly under her palms as he gave a small shrug. “Used to be with flintlocks that I could make my own bullets from lead. And if I could retrieve them I could melt down the lead and re-use it. I didn’t like them very much, though – damn slow to reload and pretty useless against anything not human, and humans mostly leave me alone.”
Winter was having a hard time with a tricky curl and bent at the knees to grind the chalk against the pavement to sharpen her edge. The pen would have been easier, but she hated to mark up the soft, worn leather. “What about iron shot?”
“Not as easy to forge as you might think. No, I was much more impressed the next time I came to the Mortal Realm and revolvers had taken over everything. They were more powerful, did a lot more damage, but the bullets blew themselves to hell. Still do. So, every time I use the Glock, I have to bear in mind the cost of buying more ammunition.”
Winter smiled as she drew. She understood that, being frugal herself. “What about the gun under your arm? I’ve seen you go for the one at your back, but not that one.”
His good humor disappeared, replaced by something darker. He hesitated, then, “That’s Agmundr. It’s only for killing sidhe.”
And she remembered; she had seen him reach for it – when Cian had felt her soul-read him and Etienne had been angry. She knew, then, he had slipped his hand under his jacket with killing her in his thoughts. The October morning was suddenly much colder even under her felted coat, a shiver taking her smile away. She had not been wrong, he had not hurt her and she was right to trust him… but still. She swallowed and finished the ward in silence.
Winter set other wards to protect them from the smoke and to give them some resistance to heat. Making them fireproof was beyond her talents. Only a wizard with a specialty in ward magic could do that. As they approached the smoking factory she scanned the faces of the busy fire fighters, looking for flickers of notice and recognition. There would be no vampires among them, she was relatively certain. It was unusual for a vampire to take work outside of a court and she knew all of both Erik’s and Katherine’s vampires and court therian. But there could very well be free therian or witches or other preternaturals on the fire crew.
She bypassed a water-filled pothole and stepped over a large hose, watching men and women move briskly back and forth without so much as a glance in their direction. A large man, listening to his radio, spun on his heel and changed paths, forcing Winter to dance out of his way and bump hard into Etienne’s chest. Even still, the stiff fabric of his gear brushed against her hand as he passed.
“What was that all about?” Etienne asked, letting his hands drop away from their steadying grip on her elbows.
She blew out a determined breath and kept moving toward the large set of open doors. She would have preferred a more out-of-the-way side entrance, but experience told her that in South City neglect ran rampant and even the best unlocking cantrip meant nothing to a rusted-out padlock. She simply lacked the upper body strength to contend with time-frozen steel. “The misdirection wards keep the humans from noticing us as long as we don’t do anything to overtly draw their attention, like bumping against them or making a lot of noise nearby.” The open doorway looked like an anthill some child had jiggled a stick in. She could feel the worry lines crease her brow.
Etienne watched with her. “And tell me why we’re going in this way?”
She glanced wistfully at the side of the building. “The side doors are rusted shut.”
She heard a sigh behind her, and his large hand caught her by the upper arm and steered her in that direction. “Etienne…” she began, her voice rising to an indignant pitch as he pulled her further from the busy front. Even through her coat and sweater she could feel each finger against her skin and it… wasn’t unpleasant. He pulled his hand away a moment later and she surprised herself by fleetingly wishing for its return.
“Let your mercenary earn his keep, my lady,” he replied, a hint of amusement coloring his voice.
They moved far away from the bustling fire crew across cracked pavement where dried weeds as tall as Winter’s thighs crowded against her long skirt and stockings, leaving little barbed seeds as souvenirs. A steel door with lines of rust weeping tears of age down its face came into view, its padlock the size of her open hand, frozen into place by years of neglect. “I don’t see what you think you can do to get that open,” she said. “I’ve tried others like it before. Even the tumblers in the lock are rusted solid.”
His eyes twinkled with amusement. “If I wanted to unlock it, I would be concerned.” He grasped the padlock with one hand and she felt a magical pull between him and the leather gun rig he wore. He gave one swift twist and with a sudden, painful shriek the lock snapped off. Winter spun around to look behind, but no alarmed, uniformed faces looked their way. She opened her mouth to ask how, and then remembered the ease with which he carried that backpack. Sidhe strength, something she had never inherited. Something about the rig combined with his heritage granted him the full strength of a sidhe warrior. Etienne eyed the neglect-encrusted door. “This is going to make considerably more noise. Is there anything you can do?”
Winter pulled out her secondary focus from under the collar of her dress, a ring on a silver chain. The ring was a simple, slender, golden band with an oval opal stone set between two small diamonds. When she moved the ring the sunlight played across intricate engravings on the inside of the band. It was Maria’s wedding ring, once her great-grandmother’s secondary focus, and now it answered to Winter. She quickly sketched out a simple sound baffling spell. It would not cover up the percussion of a bomb blast, but the screech of a rusty door it could handle. She needed to conserve as much power as possible, as it took her time to renew her magic by drawing from the earth. This was only rift number one.
Etienne looked around until he found an old length of rebar lying in the weeds and then used it to pry up enough of the door to give himself finger holds. That did not make too much noise and Winter began to relax, to stop flipping her attention from the faerie knight to the fire fighters and back again. The buzz from the fast-food coffee was fading into memory and weariness was creeping into her joints.
Then he dug his fingers into the divots he had made and the rusted-out door screamed like a thousand tortured angels. Her hands flew up to cover her ears even as she spun about, expecting firemen to come running, wards or no. But as he dragged the door open just enough for them to slip through into the smoky darkness, no one came.
Etienne did not wave gallantly for her to precede him. His face grew serious, eyes wary of danger, determined to put himself between her and whatever lay beyond. He drew his blade and waited in the doorway, listening. The scabbard coiled itself up tight, removing itself as an obstacle for his legs. Winter noticed that while the sword’s cross guard was unpretentiously imperfect, the blade itself was a work of art, the pattern welded steel rippled like water over stones – the smith who forged it placed his priorities on function over form. She had grown up around those whose liv
es depended on the weapons they bore, even though she herself went unarmed, and could view Etienne’s blade with an educated eye. She knew from lessons learned at Erik’s knee that the carbon beaten into the pattern welded steel made it not only durable but wickedly sharp.
The metal down the middle of the blade was like the swords he had practiced with only an hour ago. It was a pale silvery gold color with an iridescent quality, very beautiful, and the rippling of the pattern welding only enhanced its beauty. But the welded edges were darker, also pattern welded to a rippled beauty, though this beauty spoke to her of death, somehow. With a start, Winter realized why the edges were so much darker.
They were forged of mortal steel. Cold Iron with carbon beaten into it. Etienne was brandishing a killing blade, completely unlike the swords she had seen him use this morning while teaching Cian, something capable of delivering death to a lesser fae even without a mortal wound. He was prepared to slay other fae.
What was he expecting to come through the rifts? She knew from long experience it could be anything, from anywhere. What did Etienne know that she did not?
“I can’t hear anything over the fire crew,” he said evenly, and his words sank into the empty space beyond. Voices rang distantly to them, fire fighters calling to each other in the gloom. She could smell the chemical nature of the smoke but it did not burn her lungs. The wards were working.
“It’s in there. Let’s go before one of them finds it,” Winter urged, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder and waited for him to move forward. She knew better than to put herself in front of an armed escort.
Etienne slipped through the doorway and after an uneventful moment Winter followed. Morning sunlight speared from the entry through the smoke into the vast space cluttered with rows and rows of dust and filth-shrouded machines, marching in ranks into the dark depths of the factory floor. Tall patchwork windows let in a grimy species of light, shot through with the occasional brightness of a vandal-broken pane. To their right and several hundred yards away the main doorway was a hive of light and activity and a roof of smoke hung low over their heads, undulating like a living thing as it made its constant escape through every opening it could find. Finally, Winter saw the flames, licking their way in a sulky fashion down at the far end of the factory and seeming to send up more smoke than actual heat – not even hot enough to attract salamanders or any other of the common fire elementals. Maybe something was actually going her way for a change.
