“Not noncorporeal beings, Merry, but a different kind of spirit.”
I blinked at him. “You mean, what, ghosts?”
He nodded.
“Ghosts don’t do things like this, Rhys. They might be able to scare someone into a heart attack, if the person had a weak heart, but that’s it. Real ghosts don’t harm people. If you get true physical damage, then you’re dealing with something other than ghosts.”
“It depends on what kind of ghosts you’re talking about, Merry.”
“What do you mean by that? There is only one kind of ghost.”
He glanced at me then, having to turn his head almost completely around because of the eye patch. He often glanced at me when he drove, but it was a movement without meaning because his right eye was gone; he couldn’t see me. Now, he made the effort to look at me with his left eye. “You know so much.”
I’d always assumed Rhys was one of the younger sidhe, because he never made me feel like I was in the wrong century. He was one of the few who had a house outside the faerie mound, electricity, a license. Now he looked at me as if I were a child and would never understand.
“Stop that,” I said.
He turned back to the road. “Stop what?”
“I hate it when any of you give me that look, the look that says I’m so young and I couldn’t possibly understand what you’ve experienced. Well, fine, I’ll never be a thousand years old, but I’m over thirty, and by human standards I’m not a child. Please don’t treat me like one.”
“Then stop acting like one,” he said, and his voice was full of reproach, again like a disappointed teacher. I got enough of that from Doyle. I didn’t need it from Rhys.
“How did I act like a child? Because I wouldn’t drop shields and see all that horror?”
“No, because you say there is only one type of ghost, like it’s the only truth. Trust me, Merry, there are more than human shades running around.”
“Like what?” I asked.
He took a deep breath, flexing his hands on the steering wheel. “What happens to an immortal being when it dies?”
“They’re reincarnated like everybody else.”
He smiled. “No, Merry, if it can be killed, then by definition it’s not immortal. The sidhe say they’re immortal, but they aren’t. There are things that can kill us.”
“Not without magical help there isn’t,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter how it’s done, Merry. What matters is that it can be done. Which brings us back to the question, what happens to the immortals when they die?”
“They can’t die, they’re immortal,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said.
I frowned at him. “Okay, I give up, what did that mean?”
“If something can’t die, but it does, what happens to it?”
“You mean the elder ones,” Frost said.
“Yes,” Rhys said.
“But they are not ghosts,” Frost said. “They are what remains of the first gods.”
“Come on, guys,” Rhys said. “Think with me. A human ghost is what remains of a human after death, before it goes to the afterlife. Or in some cases, a piece gets left behind because it’s too hard to let go. But it is the spiritual remains of a human being, right?”
We both agreed.
“So aren’t the remnants of the first gods just ghosts of the gods themselves?”
“No,” Frost said, “because if someone could discover their name again and give them followers, they could, theoretically, rise to ‘life’ again. Human ghosts do not have such an option.”
“Does the fact that the humans don’t have the option make the elder ones less a ghost?” Rhys asked.
I was beginning to get a headache. “Okay, fine, say that there are ghosts of elder gods running around. What has that got to do with anything?”
“I said I knew the spell. I don’t, not exactly. But I have seen the shades of the elder let loose on fey. It was as if the very air turned deadly. Their lives were just sucked out of them.”
“Fey are immortal,” I said.
“Anything that can be killed, even if it reincarnates, is mortal, Merry. Length of life doesn’t change that.”
“So you’re saying that these ghosts were let loose in that club?”
“Fey are harder to kill than humans. If the place had been full of fey, some might have survived, or been able to protect themselves, but, yes, I am saying that that’s what did it.”
“So the ghosts of dead gods killed over a hundred people in a nightclub in California?”
“Yes,” Rhys said.
“Could it have been the Nameless?”
He seemed to think about that, then shook his head. “No, if it had been the Nameless, the building wouldn’t be standing.”
“That powerful?”
“That destructive.”
“When did you see this happen the first time?”
“Before Frost was born.”
“So a few thousand years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Who called the ghosts up then? Who did the spell?”
“A sidhe who has been dead longer than England has been ruled by the Normans and their descendents.”
I did quick history math in my head. “So before 1066.”
“Yes.”
“Is there anyone alive today who could do the spell?”
“Probably, but it’s forbidden to do it. If you’re caught, it’s an automatic execution, no trial, no commuting the sentence, you just get dead.”
“Who would risk such a thing to harm a crowd of humans on the edge of the Western Sea?” Frost asked.
“No one,” Rhys said.
“How sure are you that these elder ghosts did this?” I asked.
“There’s always the possibility that some human magician has come up with a new spell that resembles the effects, but I’d bet a great deal that it was the elder ghosts.”
“Do the ghosts take the lives for their master?” Frost asked.
“No, they keep the lives, and they feed on them. Theoretically, if they were allowed to feed each night unchecked, they could become … alive again, for lack of a better word. They need the aid of a mortal to do it, but some of the elder ones can be brought back to full strength if they get enough lives. Sometimes one of them will convince a cult somewhere that they’re the devil and get them to sacrifice themselves, and that could work, but it would take enormous amounts of lives to do it. Taking the lives from the mouths of the victims is quicker, no wasted energy, like trying to drink blood from an offering bowl.”
“Has one of them ever been brought back to full strength?” I asked.
“No, it’s always been stopped before it got that far. But to my knowledge they’ve never been let loose to feed directly—except for once, and that was in a controlled situation where they were contained as soon as the spell was finished. If they’ve gotten out without a leash on them, then …”
“What can stop them?” I asked.
“The spell needs to be reversed.”
“How do we do that?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to some of the others back at the apartment.”
“Rhys,” I said softly, because a horrible idea had just occurred to me.
“Yeah.”
“If the only person you’ve ever known to do this spell was a sidhe, then does that mean it’s one of us again?”
Silence for a few heartbeats, then, “That’s what I’m afraid of. Because if it’s a sidhe and the police find out—if they could prove it—it might be grounds to evict us all from American soil. There’s an addendum to the treaty between us and Jefferson that says if we perform magic that is detrimental to the national interest, then we are considered outcast, and we’ll have to move on.”
“That’s why you didn’t mention this in front of the police,” I said.
“One of the reasons,” he said.
“What’s the other?”
“Merry, they
can’t do anything about this. They can’t stop these things. I’m not even sure that there are sidhe alive today who can stop them.”
“There has to be at least one sidhe who could stop them,” I said.
“How do you figure?” Rhys asked.
“A sidhe let them loose. He could put them back.”
“Maybe,” Rhys said, “or maybe the reason they slaughtered a hundred humans in a matter of minutes is that the sidhe lost control of them. They may have killed him when he couldn’t control them.”
“Fine, if a sidhe raised these things, why are they in California and not in Illinois where the sidhe are?”
Rhys did another of those full-face turns. “Merry, don’t you get it? What if they wanted a way to kill you that couldn’t be traced back to faerie.”
Oh. “But we did trace it back to faerie,” I said.
“Only because I’m here. Most of the court forgets who I was, and I don’t remind them, because thanks to the Nameless I don’t have the power to be that anymore.” He couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of his voice. Then he laughed. “I’m probably one of the few sidhe alive who saw what Esras did. I was there, and whoever raised the elders just forgot about me.” He laughed again, but it burned with mockery as if it hurt coming out of his throat. “They forgot about me. Here’s hoping I can make them regret that little oversight.”
I’d never heard Rhys so full of … anything but lust or teasing. He was never serious for long if he could help it. I looked at him as he drove us toward the apartment to pick up Kitto. There was a look to his face, a set to his shoulders. Even the grip of his hands seemed to have changed. I realized in that moment that I didn’t really know him. He hid behind a veil of humor, lightness, but underneath was more, much more. He was my bodyguard and my lover, and I didn’t know him at all. I wasn’t sure if I owed Rhys an apology, or if he owed me one.
Chapter 24
THE DRIVE ALL THE WAY BACK TO EL SEGUNDO WAS OUT OF the way, to say the least, but when Kitto had woken up this morning he’d had circles under his eyes like purple bruises, and his pale skin had seemed tissue-paper thin, as if he’d worn thin over the night. I couldn’t see him walking around on the open beach with nothing but a press of sky above him. Once I knew the location of the scene I gave Kitto a chance to decide, and he’d opted to crawl back into his covered dog bed.
I walked up the stairs from the parking area, sandwiched between Frost in front and Rhys in back. Frost spoke as we rounded the edge of the small pool. “If the little one does not begin to thrive, you are going to have to send him back to Kurag.”
“I know,” I said. We went up the last flight of steps and were almost instantly at my door. “I’m just worried about what Kurag will send next. He expected me to be offended when he offered Kitto in the first place. The fact that I took him and was okay with it really bothered him.”
“By goblin standards Kitto is ugly,” Rhys said.
It made me glance back at him. He still hadn’t regained his usual savoir faire. He looked downright glum. I didn’t ask how Rhys, who understood almost nothing of goblin culture, knew what they considered pretty. With a sidhe warrior theirs for the evening, I was sure the goblins had given him only the most beautiful among them, by their standards. The goblins prized extra eyes and extra limbs, and Kitto didn’t fit the bill. “I know, and he’s not connected to the royal house in any way. Kurag expected me to refuse, and thus he’d have gotten out of our treaty.”
We were at the door. A small potted geranium, pale pink, was sitting by the door. Galen had taken over most of the house chores, like searching for an apartment big enough for all of us and buying flowers for wandering fey to rest in. We’d have had a bigger apartment ages ago if price hadn’t been a problem, but it was a very big problem to find a place big enough for all of us that we could afford. Most places had limits on how many people they’d allow to live there, and six adults was over that limit.
I was still refusing money from the courts, because no one gives money without expecting something in return. Frost thought I was just being stubborn, but Doyle agreed that there was always a price on any favor. I was pretty sure what Andais’s favor would be—not to kill her son if I got the throne—and that was one favor I could not afford to grant. I knew that Cel would never accept me as queen, not as long as he was alive. That Andais didn’t understand this was simply a mother’s blindness. Cel was a wretched, twisted being, but his mother loved him, which was more than I could say for my own mother.
Frost pushed the door open, entering first; he’d checked and the wards had been intact. The sweet clean smell of lavender and sage incense met us at the door. The main altar sat in the far corner of the living room so that everyone could use it. You didn’t need the altar. You could stand in the middle of a meadow, or a woods, or a crowded subway and deity was always with you—if you paid attention, and if you invited it into your heart. But the altar was a nice reminder. A place to start out every day with a little communion of the spirit.
People often thought that the sidhe had no religion—I mean they were once gods themselves, right? Well, sort of. They were worshipped as gods, but most sidhe acknowledge powers greater than they are. Most of us bend knee to Goddess and Consort, or some variation thereof. Goddess is the giver of all life, and Consort is all that is male. They are the template for everything that descends from them. She, especially she, is a greater power than anything on the planet, anything that is flesh, no matter how spiritual that flesh may once have been.
Except for the thin trail of incense from the altar, and a small carved bowl of water that had been added to the altar, the apartment looked empty. It didn’t feel empty though. There was the small skin-tingling of magic nearby—not big magic but more the everyday kind. Doyle was probably on the mirror talking to someone. He’d opted to stay behind today and try to uncover more information about the Nameless from some of our friends at court. Doyle’s magic was subtle enough that he might go completely undetected as he moved around amongst them. I could not have done it.
Rhys locked the door and pulled a taped note off it. “Galen’s out apartment hunting. He hopes we like the flower.” He pulled a second note from the door. “Nicca hopes to finish up the bodyguard job today.”
“The actress is in no danger,” Frost said, as he began to slip his jacket off. “I believe most sincerely that her agent put her up to it, to get more attention for a … how do they say, flagging career.”
I nodded. “Her last two movies were pretty much flops, both financially and artistically.”
“That I did not know. But the media is there to photograph us more than her.”
“She’s taking you to all the hot spots where you are bound to get seen.” I wanted to slip off the high heels, but we were going right back out to work. So instead I walked to Kitto’s covered hidey-hole and knelt down, smoothing my skirt behind automatically so the buckles on my shoes wouldn’t snag my hose.
I could see his back curled toward the opening. “Kitto, you awake?”
He didn’t move.
I touched his back, and the skin was cold. “Mother help us. Frost, Rhys, something’s wrong.”
Frost was at my side instantly; Rhys hung back. Frost touched the goblin’s back. “He’s like ice.” He reached farther in so he could feel the pulse in the neck. He waited, waited for too long, before finally saying, “His blood does flow but slowly.” He reached in and began pulling Kitto out from his nest. He came like one already dead, his limbs moving as if he was just dead weight.
“Kitto!” I didn’t scream his name but it was close.
His eyes were closed, but it seemed I could see the vibrant blue of his pupils behind the closed lids, as if the skin was translucent. His eyes fluttered open and a slit of blue showed before his eyes rolled up into his head. He was murmuring something, and I bent close to hear. It was my name, “Merry, Merry,” over and over.
He’d stripped down to his shorts, and I could see his
veins through his skin, the muscles. A dark shape on his chest moved, and I realized that it was his heart beating. I could see it. It was as if he were melting, or …
I looked up at Frost. “He’s fading.”
He nodded.
Rhys had gone to the bedroom door and brought Doyle out. They gathered round us, but the looks on their faces said more than words.
“No,” I said, “it’s not hopeless. There’s got to be something that we can do.”
They all exchanged looks, that flitting game of glance throwing, like the thoughts were too heavy to bear and you had to throw them to the next person and the next.
I grabbed Doyle’s arm. “There has to be something.”
“We do not know what would hold a goblin from fading.”
“His mother was sidhe. Save him the way you’d save another sidhe.”
Doyle looked a little disdainful, as if I’d insulted them all.
“Don’t go all high and mighty on me, Doyle. Don’t let him die because he’s less mixed than either of us.”
His expression softened. “Meredith, Merry, a sidhe fades only if he wishes it so. Once the process is begun, it cannot be stopped.”
“No! There has to be something we can do.”
He frowned down at us all. “Hold him, while I try to contact Kurag. If we cannot save him as sidhe, we will try to save him as goblin.”
Kitto lay still in Frost’s arms. “Merry needs to hold him,” Doyle said, as he went for the bedroom.
Frost laid Kitto in my arms, across my lap. I slumped to the floor, put a hand under his legs, and pulled him into my lap. He fit; here was a man who I could hold in my lap. I’d spent much of my life around beings smaller than Kitto, but none who had looked so sidhe. Maybe that was why he seemed so doll-like at times.
I laid my cheek against his icy forehead. “Kitto, please, please, come back, come back from wherever you’ve gone. Please, Kitto, it’s Merry.”
He’d stopped murmuring my name. He’d stopped making any noise, and his weight, the way his body slumped against me … He felt dead. Not dying, but dead. There is a weight to a dead body that the living, no matter how sick, do not have. Logically, it has to be the same, but it never feels the same.
A Caress of Twilight Page 19
