There were lots of aluminum fencing supplies and old copper pipes for plumbing. All my pry bars and good steel tools were on the other side of the garage.
Fideal shrieked, a nasty ear-splitting sound that echoed wildly. It was followed by a ringing clank, like a digging bar being flung across a cement floor.
Then there was no sound at all and Warren lay unmoving on the floor.
"Warren?"
Not even the sound of breathing. I ran across the garage to stand over his body, still armed with the walking stick. There was no sign of Fideal.
Something cut my face. I swiped blindly and this time the stick vibrated like a rattlesnake's tail when I connected. Fideal hissed and ran, tripping over a jack stand and into a small tool chest. I still couldn't see him, but he made a mess of my garage.
I jumped over the fallen jack stand, knowing that Fideal couldn't be too far away. As I rounded the tool chest, something big hit me.
I landed on the cement chin-, elbow-, and knee-first. Helpless. It took me a full second to understand that the buzzing in my head was someone snapping nasty phrases in German.
Even dazed and facedown on the floor, I knew who'd come to my rescue. I only knew one man who snarled in German.
Whatever he said, it made Fideal lose control of whatever magic he'd been doing to block my nose. The whole building suddenly reeked of swamp. But it stank more in one place than any other.
I ran for the place where the shadows were the darkest.
"Mercy, halt," Zee said.
I swung the walking stick as hard as I could. It connected with something and stuck for a moment, then blazed as brightly as the sun.
Fideal shrieked again and made one of those impossible leaps, jumping over the Rabbit and up against the far wall, knocking the walking stick from my hand as he leapt past me. He wasn't down or even hurt. He just crouched in a manner no horse could ever adopt and stared at Zee.
Zee didn't look like someone worthy of the wariness of a monster. He looked as he always had, a man past middle age, lanky and rawboned, except for his small pot belly. He bent over Warren, who started coughing as soon as Zee touched him. He didn't look at me when he spoke. "He's all right. Let me handle this, please, Mercy. I owe you at least this."
"All right." But I picked up the walking stick.
"Fideal," Zee said. "This one is under my protection."
Fideal hissed something in Gaelic.
"You grow old, Fideal. You forget who I am."
"My prey. She is mine. They said. They said I could eat her and I will. Barnyard animals they give me. That the Fideal should be reduced to eating cow or pig like a dog." Fideal spat on the ground, showing fangs blacker than the grayish slime that coated his body. "The Fideal takes its tribute from the humans who come into its territory to harvest the rich peat to heat their houses or the children who venture too close. Pig, faugh!"
Zee stood up. The area around him lightened oddly, as if someone were slowly turning up a spotlight on him. And he changed, dropping his glamour. This Zee was a good ten inches taller than mine and his skin was polished teak instead of age-spotted German pale. Glistening hair that could have been gold or gray in better light was braided in a tail that hung down over one shoulder and reached past his waist. Zee's ears were pointed and decorated with small white slivers of bone threaded through piercings that ran all the way around them. In one dark hand he held a blade that was identical to the one he'd let me borrow except that it was at least twice as long.
Shadows pulled away from Fideal, too. For a moment I saw the monster that Adam and his pack had fought, but that gave way to a creature that looked like a small draft pony, except that ponies don't have gills in their necks—or fangs. Finally he became the man I'd first met at the Bright Future meeting. He was crying.
"Go home, Fideal," Zee said. "And leave this one. Leave my child alone and your blood will not feed my sword. It, too, hungers and it feeds best on things less helpless than a human child." He waved a hand and a motor spun to life, lifting the garage door next to Fideal.
The fae scrambled out of the pole barn and disappeared around the corner.
"He won't bother you again," said Zee, who once more looked like himself. The knife was gone, too. "I'll speak to Uncle Mike and we'll make certain of it." He held out a hand and Warren used it to pull himself to his feet.
Warren was pale and his clothes were wet as if he'd been immersed in water, seawater from the smell of him. He straightened himself slowly, as if he hurt.
"Are you all right?"
Warren nodded, but he was still leaning on Zee.
The walking stick was just in front of Zee's foot—the blackened silver knob had smoke gently rising from it.
I picked it up gingerly, but it was as inert to my touch as the stick I'd thrown for Ben on Saturday. "I thought this was only good for making ewes have twins."
"It's very old," said Zee. "And old things can have a mind of their own."
"So," I said, still looking at the smoking stick. "Are you still mad at me?"
Zee's jaw stiffened. "I want you to know this. I would rather have died in that cell than have you suffer that madman's attack."
I pursed my lips and gave him my truth in exchange for his. "I'm alive. You're alive. Warren's alive. Our enemies are dead or vanquished. That makes this a good day."
I went to work on Monday morning and learned that Elizaveta, the pack's very expensive witch, had been by and done cleanup. The only trace of my run-in with Tim were the scars I'd left on the cement while I was trying to destroy the cup. Even the door Adam broke had been replaced.
Zee had come in on Friday and Saturday, so all my work was caught up. I had a few bad moments, which I had to hide from Honey, who was Monday's guard, but by lunch I'd reclaimed the shop as mine. Even Gabriel's hovering (after school was out) and Honey camped in my office didn't disturb me as much as I'd expected. I finished at five sharp and sent Gabriel home. Honey followed me to my driveway before going home herself.
Samuel and I ate take-out Chinese and watched an old action flick from the eighties. About halfway through, Samuel got a call from the hospital and had to leave.
I turned off the TV as soon as he was gone and took a long hot shower. I shaved my legs in the sink and took my time blow-drying my hair. I braided it, reconsidered, and wore it loose.
"If you keep fussing, you'll make me come in and get you," Adam told me.
I knew he was there, of course. Even if I hadn't heard him drive up or come in, I would have known he was there. There was only one reason that Samuel wouldn't have called for a replacement. He'd known Adam would be over soon.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My skin was darker on my arms and face from the summer sun than it was on the rest of my body, but at least I'd never be pasty pale. Aside from the cut on my chin that Samuel had put two stitches in and a nice bruise on my shoulder that I didn't remember getting, there was nothing wrong with my body. Karate and mechanicking kept me in good shape.
My face wasn't pretty, but my hair was thick and brushed my shoulders.
Adam wouldn't force me. Wouldn't do anything I didn't want him to do—and had wanted him to do for a long time.
I could ask him to leave. To give me more time. I stared at the woman in the mirror, but all she did was stare back.
Was I going to let Tim have the last victory?
"Mercy."
"Careful," I told him, pulling on clean underwear and an old T-shirt. "I have an ancient walking stick and I know how to use it."
"The walking stick is lying across your bed," he said.
When I came out of the bathroom, Adam was lying across my bed, too.
"When Samuel makes it back from the hospital, he's going to spend the rest of the night at my house," Adam said. "We have time to talk."
His eyes were closed and he had dark circles under them. He hadn't been getting much sleep.
"You look horrible. Don't they have beds in D.C.?"
"So have you made up your mind?" he asked.
I thought of his rage when he'd broken down the door to my garage, of his despair when he persuaded me to drink out of the goblet again, of the way he'd pulled me out from under the bed and bitten my nose—then held me all night long.
Tim was dead. And he'd always been a loser.
"Mercy?"
In answer, I pulled the T-shirt over my head and dropped it on the floor.
FB2 document info
Document ID: 6e9e9e3e-164b-43c3-a6c0-c42625eb452e
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 10 June 2009
Created using: FB Editor v2.0 software
Document authors :
Bakoro
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
Iron Kissed mt-3 Page 28
