Soul of Fire tp-2

by Laura Anne Gilman

  The term he used, “leaf peeping,” was unfamiliar, but the intent behind the question was clear. He was challenging them.

  The female preter rested her hands on the table, her eyes bright. There was a temptation to englamour this one, but capturing him would cause more problems than it would solve; a guard would be expected to report in, and his going missing might raise alarms they had no wish to deal with just then. Likewise, they could not simply kill him.

  “We are visiting a friend who lives in the area,” the male said, placing his fork down on the table and folding his hands in an attempt to look harmless. “Is there something wrong?” His voice soothed and eased: There is nothing wrong here, nothing at all. A risk; if the human was sensitive to magics, as some were, he would know he was being manipulated, raising more questions.

  The human studied him carefully, too closely, and then, finally, shook his head, dismissing them from whatever suspicions he had brought. “We’ve had some trouble the past few weeks,” he said. “Your friend will fill you in, no doubt. It’s been all the gossip. So we’re careful with faces we don’t recognize. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Of course. Such diligence is to be commended. Might I ask as to the nature of the trouble?”

  “The murder kind,” the guard said bluntly, the faint englamouring cast on his perception not affecting him so much that he lost track of his duty. “Two local families, and two cops went missing looking for them.” He studied them, searching for some reaction. When they merely looked back at him, he smiled briefly, grimly, and touched the brim of his hat. “You folks enjoy your breakfast.”

  “Herself?” the male murmured as the human moved away, leaving them to their discussion again.

  “Or the creatures she has gathered around her,” his companion said. “You saw the scar on his face—that is the work of one the lower sorts. How she chooses to amuse herself is no concern of ours. Finish your food. The others will be finishing soon. When they are done...then we will be able to go home.”

  “Hmm,” the other preter said, casting a glance around the restaurant. “We should look up that guard before we go. He lacked the spark of some others, but there was an intelligence there that might be useful.”

  “We can come back for him later,” she agreed. “Later.”

  * * *

  What one gnome knew, they all knew. They knew about the human female, who had evaded them not once but twice, who had gone into the otherland and come out again. When she had appeared at Herself’s court, they had known, and they had waited and watched. Herself might be fooled into thinking this human was tame like the others, but gnomes knew better.

  They were not so foolish as to choose a single side or to trust the promises of anyone, super or preternatural. Both sides lied. Both sides used. But if they broke each other, gnomes would remain.

  They would play the game and win.

  So when the lupin, the Wolf, called a warning against the preternatural threat, they heard but did not heed, waiting for a better offer. And it came, as they knew it would. When their preter lords called, they responded. When Herself commanded, they obeyed. They did the dirty work, the bloody work. But always, always, they watched and waited.

  Eventually, the time would come for them. If they could survive.

  “We cannot go. They will slaughter us. Have you forgotten what happened the last time, and the time before that?”

  They had attempted to stop the Wolf’s pack twice before, on the preters’ orders, and most had been slaughtered. Gēnomos stalked and they rended and they disappeared, that was what they did, not this open frontal warfare.

  “This is not the Wolf.”

  “This is worse!”

  “A risk. A risk we knew and counted for.”

  “A risk that fails is not a good risk.”

  “The cost is high but the reward sweet.”

  “Enough!” One voice cut across the many, where they were huddled in a tent at the far edges of the property, as far from Herself as they could manage without raising her ire. “There is no other choice. Not now. Not yet. We die, to live.”

  “We die, to live,” the other voices muttered, agreement reluctant but inevitable. What one knew, they all knew, and what one won, they all won.

  Chapter 15

  Jan knew that something was wrong first, because she was watching Tyler. He didn’t say anything, kept singing some old love song Jan vaguely remembered from the oldies station, but she knew that his mood had changed. He didn’t look at anyone when he sang, letting his gaze float off somewhere, his thoughts entirely within his head. He used to look like that when he was working, too, not so much thinking as letting thoughts come to him. It was almost reassuring, that familiarity in the middle of so much that was strange. But halfway through, that cracked a little, and he was back, entirely present in his eyes. And the look wasn’t scared or worried: it was broken.

  Jan studied her lover cautiously, from under lowered lids. She had been released from her posing duties, the brownie that had been perched on her knee scrambling off, shooting her a dirty look as though arranging their positions had been her idea. She had hoped to escape as well, needing time to recover from the stress of trying to woo the preter over to the idea of the Farm as a potential site for her court, as well as the stress of holding her position for so long, but Nalith had gestured for her to come close, then indicated that the human was to stay by her.

  Exhausted but outwardly obedient, Jan had squatted on her heels by the preter’s chair. Occasionally, the preter lifted one of Jan’s hands to look closely at some detail or tilted her face to check the line of her jaw, then turned back to check her drawing, but otherwise she ignored her. The preter had her fingers on Jan’s chin just then, angling her to one side, so Jan had a clear view of the moment Ty’s expression changed. Her heart raced, a shot of adrenaline wracking her body, similar to an asthma attack but without the constriction. It was anticipation, fear, stress, all shaped into a bullet and slammed into her heart.

  What? She asked him silently. What is it?

  Then the fingers on her skin dug in too hard, the preter having somehow sensed that her attention had wandered, and Jan yelped, wrenching her head away instinctively. She hunched over, anticipating a blow, but none came. The mix of conversations, previously a low hum in the room, died, and Jan risked looking up.

  Nalith had risen to her feet, the sketch in front of her forgotten. Her narrow, elegant face was pulled even tighter, making her cheekbones and chin seem even sharper, and her eyes...

  Her eyes, when she looked around the room, were filled with an unholy gleam, the deep red of a candle flame obliterating any trace of blue. The atavistic response that had dulled in Jan over months of dealing with non-humans, the week of constant exposure to a preter, rose again suddenly newly urgent, urging her to get the hell away.

  “Call in the gnomes,” Nalith ordered, her voice sharp and thin as shattered glass. “Deploy them at the borders of the property. All others, inside. Deploy internal defenses. Now.”

  She did not raise her voice: she did not have to. All the supernaturals within the range—the entire main floor of the house, from the sound of things—moved immediately, following whatever plans she had established. Jan waited, still half-crouched on the polished wooden floor, until the main room had emptied of all but Nalith and the four humans, all in various stages of confusion.

  “My lady?” Her voice shook, but Jan told herself that it should be shaking in the role she was playing. Anything that upset her queen should upset her. “What troubles you?”

  The preter’s hand dropped back to Jan’s head, stroking her hair as though she were a cat. Jan managed to restrain a shudder, although across the room Tyler’s body shook once in revulsion. He was revisiting his own memories again, Jan suspected, and her heart ached for him, even as her brain was racing to get on top of this new development. “My lady?”

  “It is nothing,” Nalith said, her voice still splinter sharp. �
�Merely an intrusion on my territory by those I do not wish to see.”

  Hope rose that it was AJ and his crew, finally coming to their aid, and then was dashed again. Tyler wouldn’t look like that if it were supernaturals, certainly not supernaturals he knew. And Nalith would not treat AJ and his crew as such a threat, even if she knew about them, which she didn’t...did she? Jan’s head hurt as much as her chest, trying to parse that, so she let it go. If it was AJ, they’d roll with it. If not...if not, they were in danger, too.

  The other two humans were looking at Nalith not with fear or concern but utter befuddlement. The idea that there might be something that could upset her, much less challenge her, was beyond their comprehension. Jan had a sudden unkind thought that they looked like dogs who’d just been told all the bacon was gone.

  “Others of your kind, my lady?” Ty had stood up, although he stayed safely across the room from Nalith. He wasn’t asking, really; he knew.

  “Perhaps even your former mistress,” Nalith said, intentionally cruel, and Tyler’s jaw clenched, his shoulders hunching over slightly, but he didn’t otherwise react to the blow. Before either one of them could react, or Jan could figure out how to deal with this, there was the sound of loud voices and running feet outside, and one of the brownies came racing in, weirdly flushed. It wasn’t one she could identify, which meant that it was lower in their pack rankings, or however they figured it. Odd: normally they didn’t come in to speak directly to Nalith.

  “M-my lady, my lady, they are gone.”

  “Who are gone?” Those fire-red eyes turned on the brownie, and it gulped but did not flee.

  “The gnomes, my lady. They are not in their compound, and they do not respond to the call.”

  Turncoats, AJ had named them, changing sides and abandoning their fellow supers to work for a preter lord—or lady, as it had turned out. Jan didn’t know why she was surprised that they had abandoned Nalith, as well. Gnomes, it seemed, played no side but their own.

  Nalith was not surprised. Nalith was furious. Jan fell back, scuttling on her knees without shame until she felt the reassuring bulk of a wall behind her, and wondered if getting behind the sofa would help. Tyler held still, as though hoping that Nalith would forget he was there, and the other two humans, although clueless, weren’t dumb, keeping their mouths shut and their gazes elsewhere.

  “All gone?”

  “All, my lady.”

  There was more noise in the hallway, and some of the supers came back in, clearly waiting for new orders. Martin, Jan saw, was among them, although toward the back of the small crowd. She did a quick mental count. Without the gnomes and minus the supers Nalith had sent to the new houses, they were down to less than thirty, and that included the four humans.

  “I will deal with them later,” Nalith said. Jan thought the preter might believe her own words, or she might be whistling, trying to save face in front of the others. Most of them looked as if they wanted to believe her, wanted to believe that whatever was coming, she could handle it without the gnomes’ defense.

  “There are weapons in the shed. Cam and Alia, distribute them. Tell my winged guardians to take the roof, make sure nothing attempts to land there.” She looked around the room, and this time she saw the humans, clearly.

  “And you, my pets. Will you fight for me?” It wasn’t a question. “Serve me, in this, as you have in other ways.”

  Wes and Kerry stepped forward as if they were volunteering to go on a picnic. Idiots. They might have muscles, but she would bet that neither of them had so much as made a fist since they were in grade school. In a fight against foes Nalith feared? They would be cannon fodder. But they weren’t her responsibility. Jan held her breath, and Tyler shook his head roughly, running a hand over his scalp, leaving it resting on the back of his neck, hesitating.

  “You would rather chew out your eyes than fight for me, would you not, my singer?” She was using that voice again, the one that hinted at glamour, promised it, making you ask rather than forcing it on you. Jan hated that voice.

  “Yes. My lady.”

  Nalith smiled, and for once—for once—there seemed to be nothing cruel about it. “Then think of it thus. You would be fighting not for me but to inflict harm on others of my kind, who intend less well to your world. You would strike a blow against those who hurt you.”

  Jan bit her lip. She didn’t want Tyler in harm’s way, but if he could take real action, finally hurt the preters, in some way close to how they had hurt him, at least a little...maybe that would be the healing he needed.

  Finally, after an agonizing wait, Tyler nodded once.

  “And you, my little guide, my useless one?” The preter queen was looking at her, that awful gaze focused on her, pulling her in no matter what she might wish, might fear. If she would only give in to that fire, let herself be consumed by it, then all the worry, all the pain and fear, would be gone, and she would be warm and cared for, all the rest of her life....

  Jan resisted. She drew on the memories of facing down Nalith’s consort, of walking into—and out of—the preter court, holding on to the knowledge of what a preter’s care was like, the sound of Tyler’s nightmares and the look in his eyes when he finally came back to this world, all of it bricks in a wall she built, slowly, painfully, between herself and that demanding gaze.

  When she felt safe enough, she looked not at Nalith but at Tyler. He was looking at her, waiting. When she nodded once, the tension in his face eased at her assent. Whatever had been going on before in his head, it didn’t matter now. He wasn’t alone. She wasn’t alone. Whatever happened, they would face it together this time.

  Nalith either missed the subtext or, more likely, Jan thought, chose to ignore it, so long as she got what she wanted.

  “Martin.”

  Martin pushed through the crowd, putting himself front and center. “My lady.”

  “You will lead the defense.”

  “No.”

  The silence in the room previously was nothing to the utter dead air that filled the room at that.

  “You would prefer to guard your lady?”

  “No.” Martin’s voice was flat, unemotional, and final.

  “No.” It wasn’t phrased as a question, but she was clearly waiting for an explanation. Jan stared at him, wondering what the hell was going on in his head.

  His expression gave nothing away, his eyes flat brown, not showing any of the supernatural spark or human-recognizable emotion.

  “You are here in this world, and I recognize you,” he said slowly. “But this pitting of forces against each other, the violence that is filling our world, it solves nothing. You know this. We cannot destroy each other, or the balance between the realms will shift. You know this.”

  “I know nothing of the sort.” Nalith’s voice was tight, angry, and her entire body screamed danger, at least to Jan. Martin kept speaking, seemingly oblivious to the threat.

  “You do not belong here. They will bloody the very bones of the earth, tear apart our Center, to reclaim you. Sending more violence against that will not save you, nor earn you a place here.”

  It wasn’t Martin’s voice, Jan realized suddenly. Or it was his voice, but he wasn’t in it.

  “Upstart creature.” And now Nalith let loose her anger, lashing out with one hand. She was nowhere near him, and yet Martin staggered back, his limbs jerking as though he’d receive an electric shock, a high-voltage one. His eyes widened, and Jan felt her eyes try to close, indicating that he was about to change form. Then the impulse apparently passed, and he went to one knee, lowering his head.

  “My lady. I will guard your house.” The words were grudging, but Nalith took them at face value, that whatever had spoken before had been cowed into obedience.

  “Go. Take these humans with you. Make them useful.”

  * * *

  “What the hell was that?” The moment they were outside the main room, Tyler rounded on Martin, his voice low but furious. “Were you trying to get
killed? Were you trying to get all of us killed?”

  Martin held up his hand, black nails glinting in the overhead light, drawing Jan’s eye to them. She had gotten used to his looks, the fine dark hairs scattered over his skin, the narrow face and too-wide-set eyes, but the nails always reminded her: they were hooves in another form.

  “You two. Kerry, go to the shed. There are weapons there. Find something you think you can wield. Wes, go find Patrick’s supplies, all of them, and bring them down. His chisels might be the right size for some of our cohort to use. They were in good enough shape to be deadly.”

  Both humans looked vaguely ill, but nodded and went off to follow his instructions, still driven by their obedience to the preter queen.

  “What happened in there?” Jan asked. “What you said...”

  “He told me the same bullshit,” Tyler said, still furious. “That violence solves nothing, yak yak yak. Which, coming from him, is nice, isn’t it?”

  “It wasn’t him.”

  “What?”

  “It wasn’t him,” Jan said again. And then she said to Martin, “That wasn’t you talking in there, was it?” Jan needed him to answer that. It probably wouldn’t be one she wanted to hear, but she was getting used to that.

  Martin merely shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes!” There were days, she swore, she wanted to hold the kelpie’s head underwater. Not that it would do much other than amuse him.

  “What, something is beaming its words into your head, working your jaw?”

  “No.” Martin was certain about that, Jan less so. “It wasn’t words. It was just like this...knowing. Like when you’re trying to understand something and then all of a sudden it’s all there in your head?”

  Tyler shook his head, but Jan nodded.

  “There is a balance to this world, to both realms,” Martin said, putting a hand on each of their shoulders and pushing them into the now-empty and abandoned kitchen. “We have always known this, and you humans, too, when you think about it. The Center remains, and we balance around it. Occasionally it tilts one way or the other, but over time, it recalibrates, remains steady. If the portals hadn’t changed, that would have remained. Now...the preters may have lost their center, and we’ve done something that...filled the gap?” Martin’s long face scrunched together, as if he was giving himself a headache. “The magic changed, and they were vulnerable to it, changed by it. If we kill them all, here, we may damage our Center, as well.” He frowned. “I think. This is more Elsa’s thing, not mine.”