by Rhys Ford
“It’s coming around.” Ducking back into the car, he shook his head in disbelief. “We’ll talk about the dragon thing later. Can’t you just outrun it?”
“I can outrun anything that’s dead,” I reminded him. “Alive and flying, not so much. It’s got up, where I’ve only got forward, backward, and sideways. That’s kind of a disadvantage.”
“You’ll not shoot it,” Ryder warned me.
The arrogance in his voice didn’t go unnoticed. I still had the option of using the second round on something other than the dragon, but wiser thoughts prevailed. I had no place to dump his body, and I was in the middle of a run that would go a long way toward keeping Newt in tuna.
“I’m sure as the humans’ slaughtered god going to blast it to hell if I’ve got a clear shot,” I snapped back. “And keep your head down. You can’t pay me if you’re dead.”
The whistling grew louder, keying to a higher pitch. I struggled to keep the Mustang on the pavement, ducking my head in the futile hope of spotting the dragon before it clamped its claws on the roof of my car. I felt a jolt, then we hit something large in the road, the undercarriage rocking with the impact, and we went airborne.
As we pitched forward, the dragon struck, slamming into the trunk with both front claws extended. I punched the gas before we landed, praying the Mustang would hit the ground at full speed. A back tire caught, burning a half circle in the road before the other hit. Catching the ground in midspin, we turned again and came to an abrupt stop, slamming back into our seats as the dragon overshot us, its damaged tail slapping at the roof as it went by. The slashed tendrils curled through the window, and I caught a smear of its fluids on my cheek, the membrane slicing my face.
The boulder I’d avoided was off in the distance, the Mustang’s headlights playing over its rough surface. I stared at the immobile rock for a second and leaned forward, flicking off the lights.
“What the…? Gods…!” Ryder grabbed at the dashboard then held on as I hit reverse at full throttle.
“Hold. On. Shut. Up.” I spun the wheel, working the Mustang around, and brought us to another stop. The brake lights flared on, creating a line of bright red on the road. I held my foot on the accelerator as I waited for the dragon to turn in the sky.
Under the starlight, it flew toward us, undulating with purple and green scales. I revved the engine, drawing its attention to our location. Screaming, the dragon flung its talons out and plummeted, aiming for us, its mangled antlers flattened against its lithe body.
At twenty feet, its breath steamed the windshield, and I let Oketsu have the run of the road. Sending an apology to any god that might have a spare moment, I winced when I felt the ground shake behind us, and smoke from the tires filled the air.
Drawn by the light, the dragon struck the road where I’d idled, slamming into the ground at its full speed. The crack of bone hitting pavement made my jaw hurt, the backs of my teeth aching from the sound. Ryder stared behind us, silent with numb shock as the dragon flailed in its death spasms, its head angled sharply from its long body.
I didn’t look back after catching the last image of its writhing form convulsing in its death crater. Flipping the headlights on, I steered away from the dying beast, keeping my eyes out for any more surprises in the road.
“Well, at least you didn’t shoot it,” Ryder commented, turning around. His seat belt had twisted at some point in the chase, and he unlatched it, straightening the bindings. “I’m not sure that… I don’t even know what I could call that….”
“Pancaking,” I offered and shrugged when he gave me an incredulous look. “That’s what I’d call it. And let’s get one thing straight. I’m on the job because you needed me. If I think something needs to be shot at, it gets shot at. You ever risk my skin again because of your… ideas, then I’ll leave your ass right there.”
“So, we live and die by your rules, is that it?” Ryder bit back. “No one else has a say? Including the person paying you?”
“Especially the person paying me,” I replied. “You hired me to get you through this. It’s a stupid time to be going through the area, and what’s worse, we’ll be coming back the same way with one and a half more people. I don’t care if you want to throw yourself out the gods-damned window in some sort of self-sacrifice to the almighty lizard; don’t endanger me or the girl. And make damned sure that someone can pay me before you go serving yourself up as a blue-plate special.”
The interior lights of the car were dim, but the disgust on Ryder’s face was so familiar, I would be rich if I had a nickel for every time I saw it. “You have fallen so very far from what you should be.”
“I didn’t fall.” There was something else in his voice, a sadness that I couldn’t answer. “I was pushed.”
“Are you planning anything else like that stunt with the dragon? Maybe something I should know about?” Ryder asked.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
The tone in his voice rang like someone unused to being disobeyed or questioned. He was going to have a rude couple of days if we survived that long together.
“Pulling the wings off of faeries? Fornicating with ainmhí dubh and eating the stillborn puppies? Assassinating one of the sidhe lords in the Elfhaine Dawn Courts?”
“Nope, not off the top of my head,” I said. The sheen of Anaheim’s lights lit up the sky, and the sidhe Clans’ towers filled the far-off horizon. “I’ll let you know if we come across something I think you’d object to.”
“Do me a favor.” He exhaled sharply. “Don’t talk about this to anyone we meet at Elfhaine. I have enough trouble to deal with without having to explain away a dragon killing.”
“Not a word, promise,” I said softly. “Hell, I wouldn’t even be going near the place unless you were paying me.”
“Do I have to pay you extra to keep quiet?” An elegant eyebrow lift mocked me.
“No, that I’ll do for free,” I replied. “Just stop trying to get us killed.”
CHAPTER TEN
OKETSU MUMBLED a low complaint when I pulled off to the side of the road. It was as if he knew what was coming and had a few words to say to me before I popped open his trunk to activate the electric cells and backup motor I’d wired into his system. Running gasoline through his 351 was necessary to get through Pendle in one piece, but on civilized roads, it would mean a hefty jail sentence and a one-way trip to the crusher for the Mustang.
As dawn hit, we’d come out of Pendle near the Elfhaine limits. The off-ramp from the freeway ended in a gravel road, the coarse stones packed down into a fragrant soil. The forest smelled and felt old, a rich loamy perfume in the air, and the ground was clear between the expansive trunks. A light mist fed dribbles of water from dripping leaves, bursts of flowers dotted small hillocks, and a small rabbit popped out to look at us, its cheeks puffed up as it chewed on a blade of long grass.
It was an idyllic woodland scene filled with birdsong and the sound of a burbling stream nearby.
The place gave me the creeps.
“So you can run both?” Ryder asked, leaning against the quarter panel as I shifted the controls. “Why bother with the combustion?”
“Because a combustion engine can outrun just about anything but a fully enraged dragon, which, to be fair to Oketsu, I’d never had to do before,” I said, clicking down the last connector. “An electric can’t compete. For a long haul, it might be able to give good speed, but not right off the line when you need the power thrust. Besides,” I said, grinning at him, “a motor sounds cooler.”
“I’ll clean off what I can of the dragon from the car.” He splashed water from a bottle over the hardtop then wiped it down with some cloths from my trunk. “Not like we can find a car wash out here.”
I used an old toothbrush and a mouthful of water to clean my teeth, spitting the slurry out and narrowly missing a small furry animal bouncing through a patch of dark red poppies. A handful of water took the sleep out of my eyes, and I
used my shirt to dry my face, wondering if there was some place I could shower once we hit Elfhaine.
The Merge left much of Orange County in elfin territory. The cities vanished, and vast forests, craggy ranges, and Elfhaine remained. I’d seen the Living City from a distance, crystal white and copper towers emerging from the side of the Esgar Mountain. Still miles away, the snow-covered jag dominated the sky, rising high above the lower, darker ranges. I couldn’t see Elfhaine from where I’d parked, but its presence was unmistakable. The ground thrummed and sang beneath my feet, an eerie shiver running through my spirit.
To my knowledge, I’d never been to North America’s sidhe capital, but I couldn’t say for certain. Dempsey swore he’d been up in NoCal when he bluffed his way through that losing hand, but he’d been known to misplace facts following some heavy drinking. For all I knew, I had blood kin in the Living City, and my gut told me they’d be none too happy to see me.
I didn’t want to go walking into an elfin city, and certainly not one that housed one of the largest sidhe populations in the merged world. One gave me the shivers. I couldn’t imagine how my body would react surrounded by them.
“Have you been?”
“What?” I started, pulled from my thoughts. “To Elfhaine? No.”
“It’s a beautiful city. Overpowering, but beautiful,” Ryder said, wiping his hands. “My House has had a retreat there for over fifteen generations. We were considering relocating to Elfhaine, but the family decided to stay up north in Beltaine.” I must have looked confused, because he continued, “You don’t know basic Court history? When some of the Courts didn’t Merge and the Houses decided to relocate to even out our numbers? Are you suffering from an amnesia of some sort?”
“Let’s just agree that my sidhe education is lacking in some areas,” I grumbled, slamming the damaged trunk shut. The paint was scratched to shit, and in some places the dragon’s claws had pierced right through the metal. I added an additional ten percent to the bill I was going to hand Ryder just to cover my pissiness. “And I don’t need it to drive you up to the gates, let you out, and wait in the car while you go get the girl.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” he asked, stopping me in midstep.
A wild cat cried out in the trees around us, sending a flock of sparrows into the air. They darted and dove through the branches above our heads, the blue dots of their wings flashing as they beat a retreat to safer branches. I took a few steps around Oketsu, the gravel crunching under my boots. My brain began having a small meltdown, arguing with itself about whether I could leave Ryder in the middle of the road.
Years ago when I’d seen Elfhaine, it had rendered me speechless. Literally. I couldn’t drag my eyes from the creamy white towers shot through with copper and brass, verdigris filigree work connecting the spires, and the rush of water flowing from seemingly impossible angles. Enormous trees rose and covered floating gardens, woven metal threads suspending impractically large platforms bursting with greenery and small buildings. The larger towers turned, slowly changing the views and keeping the shadows from consuming the buildings’ interiors.
At the time, as I peered through my lens-scopes, I wondered why workers had abandoned a half-built sunroom. After a few minutes, I glanced back to the construction site. The glass panels were slowly growing into the metal frames around them, spindly shoots reaching out to form a larger web, giving the growth a framework to fill in. Smaller details came into my focus, the copper leaves unfolding from thick vines edging up around casements. A stony veil filled in behind other frames, firming into a hardened coral white and leaving spaces for doors and waterways. Cables wound down from other platforms, connecting to clamps and lifting to form walkways or tension bridges from one cluster to another.
And the little black voices in my head began to scream, terrified of returning to my rusted cage.
Leaning against the car, I spoke to Ryder over the hardtop. “You’re here. Why do you need me to go in? You go in, and I’ll stay and watch the car. Maybe knit a sweater. If I knew how to knit.”
Avoiding the sidhe in general sounded like a very good idea to me, but Ryder was having none of it.
If his House was known for diplomacy, then it had skipped Ryder completely. He spoke to me slowly, as if enunciating the obvious for a dim child. “Because you’re… a sidhe. Why wouldn’t you want to go into Elfhaine?”
“You don’t need two people to grab takeout,” I pointed out. “Why do you need two to pick up a pregnant woman? I don’t need to go into Elfhaine for that.”
“No, you don’t,” Ryder insisted, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. “I know you don’t think of yourself as sidhe, but I didn’t think you were a psychotic anarchist.”
“I’m not an anarchist.”
“I see you’re not denying you’re psychotic.”
“I don’t even know what qualifies someone as psychotic, but if it’s wanting to stuff the person who hired me into a trunk, then yes, I’m definitely psychotic.” The prickles on my skin rubbed harder as I stepped back from the car. Esgar loomed, swallowing the sky with its whiteness.
The sidhe were as foreign to me as they were to Dempsey, and my questions had been answered with shrugs and grunts. What I remembered from before had no wonder in it, just darkness, pain, and blood. I couldn’t remember much of the language, and he said I spoke none, communicating mostly with hisses and sharp teeth.
“One day from being sold to the red lantern district for meat,” he’d told me later. “None of them would care if you knew what was going on. A few ropes or a shot of numb-powder and you’d make a profit. Meat is meat, boy. Don’t you forget it.”
Dempsey was a practical man, and I’d become much more trouble than I was worth. There was not a whit of teasing or joking in his tone. He was dead serious.
“Cloth and water aren’t much help with this. All I’m doing is spreading it around,” Ryder said, jerking me from my memories. He stared down at the Mustang’s roof. “Give me a minute. I know a cleaning spell I think I can use.”
There were other words, long syllables in his golden flowing tongue. For all I knew, Ryder could have been spouting centuries-old love poetry and declaring his undying love for a squirrel. The fluid elfin triggered something inside me, something dark and frightened, and I turned, emptying my stomach into the grasses growing at the side of the road.
Touch should be a reassuring thing. Countless scientists and nurturing mothers attest to that fact. For me, touch held its own horrors, a funhouse excursion through cloudy memories where all I know is sharpness and tears. Ryder’s hands on my shoulders fed my embryonic fears until they grew and pressed me in.
I felt the gravel road beneath my knees, and the fragrant green forest whispered around me, drowning under the smell of my own sick. The mewling feral castoff Dempsey brought in awoke inside me and screamed, hammering at the civilized mask I’d built around its ugly face.
There were images, small flashes of faces like mine, shadowed and splattered with blood. I knew from my memories the blood was mine and would taste of cinnamon if I dabbed some on my tongue. Something burned, cooking flesh, then a keening echo, separated by blinding flashes of agony. The sensations roiled over me, catching me in their tides, slamming me back into my past.
“Kai.” A drop of gold pierced the red and black, rippling outward. The light faded and then struck again, pulling me out. “Kai, come back. It’s okay.”
Blinking, I tried speaking and choked on the dregs in my throat. The sky stretched over me, edged in by long branches and Ryder’s worried face. Moving brought pain, and I was ashamed to hear myself whimper when I tried to dislodge the rigidity in my muscles.
“No, just stay there. Here.” He lifted me slowly, carefully supporting my shoulders against his chest. I lay between his legs, curled up and shaking. “Drink something.”
Water hit my lips, the rim of the bottle resting against my mouth. He urged me to sip, cautiously spil
ling drops onto my shriveled tongue. My palate was dry, and when I tried to swallow, the water stung as it went down my throat. I let it trickle in, tilting my head back slowly.
The cool water tasted like Ryder, green tea and vanilla spiced with gold. He’d been sipping from the bottle earlier, leaving himself on its rim. I needed to pull back from the taste, but I needed the water more, so I let Ryder fill me.
“That’s it.” Soothing, he spoke softly, rubbing at my belly as I drank. “Just go slowly.”
I caught my breath eventually, and the dark edges around my vision faded. Swallowing my last mouthful, I shook my head when he offered more. “No, I’m… good. Thank you.”
“What the hell was that?” Ryder wet a napkin and wiped off my forehead and cheeks.
“I don’t know.” It pained me to admit it, but I was shaken down to my guts. If I’d had anything more than a few mouthfuls of water in me, I’d have pissed myself. “Maybe I’m allergic to dragon guts.”
“Do you need me to take you to a healer? I can drive us….”
“If you think I’m letting you drive my car—” I choked on a laugh. “—you’re crazy.”
“Okay.” Ryder got to his feet, helping me up. “Come on, maybe if you walk it off. You need to eat more. You’re too light.”
“I eat plenty.” Grumbling, I stood and found my legs wobbling under me. “Okay, you might have to drive Oketsu, but if you get one scratch on him, I’ll kill you.”
“Then you won’t get paid,” he teased. I caught my balance under me, but the going was rough, as if I’d spent a night sucking at a bottle of rotgut whiskey in hopes of finding the bottom. “Remember?”
“Okay, later, then. After you’ve paid me.” I sniffed. “Hurt the car, and as soon as we’re back in San Diego, I will kill you dead.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RYDER SLOWED the Mustang to a stop so I could take my first real good look at Elfhaine.
