Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel)

by D. L. McDermott

  She followed him into the light and airy house. It was bisected by a broad tiled hallway with a dining room on one side and a parlor on the other, all pale wool carpets and elegant upholstered furniture with striped drapes in soft pastel shades. A door at the back of the hall beneath the stairs was open and the heady aroma of coffee and cinnamon wafted out.

  “Are you hungry?” asked Kevin

  She had barely eaten all day. She’d been too nervous in the morning, when she’d finally made the decision to visit Miach MacCecht. The events at the museum had been too harrowing to leave her much of an appetite, despite the spread Nieve had prepared.

  “A little,” she said.

  A lot, actually. The smell of food had triggered her appetite.

  “Great. Dinner is in a couple of hours, but as soon as you’re settled in, you can come down and forage in the kitchen.” He beckoned her up the wide carved staircase.

  There were four doors on the second floor, but Kevin kept going until they reached the third. The ceilings were a little lower, a little homier up here.

  He opened the first door they came to, revealing a spacious bedroom with an en suite bath. The pale-green walls, canopied bed with toile hangings, and French Provincial furniture were straight out of Helene’s teenage fantasies. Or a decorating magazine.

  “Is this okay?” asked Kevin. “It’s quiet up here and Miach said you’d had a stressful day.”

  “It’s beautiful,” said Helene. She strove for simplicity in her work and living spaces because detail often meant clutter, and clutter made her feel claustrophobic, but there was nothing oppressive about this space. It was a corner room lit with three large windows, and there was a staircase—wood, she noted—in the corner, leading up to a glass hatch.

  “Roof deck,” explained Kevin. “We just finished building it. It’s small, but you can hop up there to get a little sun. It’s tough to carve an outdoor space in the city. And Deirdre hates crowds, so we stopped going to the esplanade for the Fourth of July, even though she loves the fireworks. But now we can watch them from up here. I’ve even got the deck wired for a set of speakers so we can hear the Pops concert.”

  We. Helene doubted that Deirdre, being Fae, kept a handsome Olympic athlete around the house just to advise her on home remodeling. Which meant Kevin was her lover. And Miach, at the moment was not. Unless she misunderstood Fae sexual politics entirely. She had read Miach and Conn as possessive and territorial, couldn’t imagine her Fae sorcerer tolerating another man in the picture. At least not in the permanent picture. She’d gotten the definite impression that Fae sex was . . . adventurous . . . but also that the Fae held fast to what they had.

  “I wish I’d brought a bikini,” said Helene. “Or anything, really.”

  “Deirdre has things you can borrow. And I can run out and pick up any little items you might need downtown.”

  Helene tried to picture the famous Olympic athlete scouring the racks at the H&M in Downtown Crossing for her. “I think I’ll be okay,” she said. “Nieve was going to pick up some things from my apartment.”

  She wasn’t that far from her own place here, a mile at most. If she wasn’t under the sway of an unknown Fae attacker, she could walk through the Public Garden, then down Commonwealth Avenue, and into her apartment. It seemed like days, not hours since she had been home.

  “Come down and have something to eat when you feel like it,” he said.

  He left her to settle into her room. She didn’t have anything to unpack, and the morning had left her exhausted and emotionally drained, so she brushed her teeth with the guest supplies in the sun-filled bathroom, washed her hair with the lilac-scented shampoo she found there, wrapped it up in a towel, and lay down on the chenille bedspread.

  She was drifting into a troubled sleep, lulled by the soft light and softer pillow, but tormented by the fear of being summoned again, of never waking up, when her phone rang.

  She answered it groggily. The voice on the other end was rich and deep and more welcome than she expected. “Are you at Deirdre’s?” Miach asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you met Kevin?”

  She thought she detected amusement in the Fae’s voice. “Yes. You’re not her lover now, are you?” she asked.

  “Would it bother you if I was?” And now he definitely sounded hopeful.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’m sorry about what happened in the library, Helene. Your whole world has been turned upside down by Fae magic, and I wanted to give you something . . . normal when I touched you. Instead, our first encounter is tainted by still more Fae complications. That isn’t how I wanted things to be between us.”

  She believed him. And she was fairly certain that the Fae weren’t in the habit of apologizing. But that didn’t mean she wanted to be part of his world. She was attracted to him, but so far all her encounters with the Fae had been terrifying.

  But so had Beth’s, and yet the archaeologist felt that she had discovered a world of wonders with Conn. “Tell me what you do want between us,” Helene said.

  There was a silence on the other end of the line. That was another thing the Fae didn’t do often, she realized: consider their words, think before speaking. Not because they were thoughtless, but because their worldview, with their own interests at the center of every transaction, was fixed. Their responses were usually automatic.

  But not Miach’s now. “There’s a beach near the house,” he said. “You can see for miles there. A pure horizon. I’d like to show it to you.”

  “I’d like that,” she said.

  “Good. Stay inside at Deirdre’s. I warded all the doors and windows for her last year. Your attacker won’t be able to summon you out of the house.”

  It was both comforting and slightly worrying. “Does Deirdre have that many enemies?”

  “Have you met her yet?” asked Miach.

  “No.”

  “Deirdre is . . .” he trailed off, took what seemed a new tack. “When you began having the blackouts, why didn’t you come to me?”

  She didn’t know why he was reminding her of things she was only now beginning to understand—and potentially forgive him for. “You know why.”

  “Because our first meeting was a painful experience for you. Because you thought I was endangering your friend’s life, because I knocked you out, because my son kidnapped you. And then I actually tried to kill Beth.”

  “Yes,” she said. “For all of those reasons. Although I’m coming to understand why you did some of those things.”

  “Don’t build up a false image of me, Helene. I want you. I want us to be together. I want to have something normal with you, something close to human, but I’m Fae. Deirdre wants the house warded for the same reason you hesitated to come to me: experience. All the free Fae were tortured by the Druids. She fears them still, even when there are none left to torment her.”

  But Miach made her feel safe, casting fresh wards on her house every year. Which seemed to her an entirely human thing to do.

  “At least there aren’t Druids after me, too,” Helene said. “We have enough to worry about. Have you spoken to Finn?”

  “Yes,” said Miach. “We’re arranging the details of the meeting now. It’s likely to be a long night. Try to get some rest.”

  “I am trying. Every time I close my eyes, I’m afraid it will happen again, that I’ll black out.”

  “You can’t be summoned from a fully warded house. You’re safe there.”

  “I know. I still can’t seem to sleep. I was thinking of lying outside and getting some sun, only I don’t have a swimsuit.”

  “That sounds very appealing,” said Miach. “Why don’t you take your top off,” he suggested.

  “Because I’m afraid Deirdre’s neighbors might see me.”

  “I’m sure they won’t mind. But, no, I meant now. In your room. For me.”

  “But you’re not here.”

  “Close your eyes,” he said, “and pretend.”


  “Oh.” She’d never done anything like that before, but the idea made her breathless. “Tell me how.”

  “Put the phone down and take off your top. Then unclasp your bra and leave it on and lie back down.”

  She did it. She’d never been so aware of her clothes against her skin before, of the soft cotton skinning her tummy, her breasts, her underarms, as she lifted it over her head, of the crisp lace of her bra brushing her nipples.

  Lying on her back, the chenille bedspread soft as fur beneath her, she picked the phone back up.

  “Miach?” she said, anticipation making her words breathy.

  “Cradle the phone between the pillow and your ear, so your hands are free.”

  She did.

  “Now slip them beneath the cups of your bra and touch your nipples.”

  She hesitated. “I don’t do that,” she said.

  “Of course you do, Helene. Even the Fae, who can have any partner, man or woman, they want, touch themselves at times. It’s a unique pleasure, the feeling of your own hands. When we’re truly lovers, you’ll touch yourself in front of me.”

  The thought—images and sensations—of that made her moan.

  “You like that idea, don’t you, Helene? Of being free to enjoy yourself in my bed.”

  “Yes,” she admitted. Her affairs were usually of such short duration that sex was always tentative, polite. The small talk of carnality. It never progressed to the deeply satisfying terrain of exploration and mutual satisfaction, the freedom to explore that came from shared experiences and mutual understanding.

  “For now,” said Miach, “I suppose I’ll simply have to imagine how wet you already are at the thought.”

  He was right. Her sex was slick and throbbing.

  “Now touch your nipples,” he said.

  His love talk had stiffened her buttons into hard peaks already. When her fingers touched them, she whimpered into the phone.

  “Good girl. Keep going.”

  “I want . . .” she gasped. Her hand snaked down her belly.

  “Not yet, Helene,” said Miach, knowing exactly what she wanted.

  “Please.”

  “Stop. Put your hands on the bed at your side.”

  “I hate you,” she said.

  “I know. Now take your skirt off, bend your knees and spread your legs, but don’t touch yourself.”

  She followed his instructions, felt the cool air kiss her heated flesh, pressed the phone to her cheek. “I hate you even more now,” she said.

  “Really?” asked Miach feigning innocence. “Then tell me what you want.”

  She couldn’t put it in words. After the silence dragged, he said, “I won’t tell you what you want to hear until you admit it.”

  “I want to touch myself,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “Between my legs.”

  “Then do it now,” he said.

  She followed his instructions and sobbed into the phone.

  “That’s it,” he encouraged her. She stroked herself unashamedly and listened to his voice as he described for her the things they were going to do in bed together, to one another, for one another. Her climax, when it came, was intense. His voice, at the other end of the line, was full of praise for her.

  “Good girl,” he said. “Now hang up the phone and sleep for a little while, Helene.”

  She switched the handset off and curled up, sleepy and sated, and napped. It was the first time in days she’d slept deeply, and even though it was only a few hours, she felt better when she woke up.

  She explored the rest of the third floor until she found a washer and dryer hidden in a closet, where she put her clothes on a short cycle.

  While they spun in the machine, she rested, flipping through magazines left in her room. Deirdre, apparently, had a taste for photography.

  When Helene’s clothes were washed and dried, she crept down the stairs. The second floor was larger than the third, with a long hall leading into a perpendicular service wing at the back of the house. This part of the house had been renovated some time recently, and the entire second story of the projecting wing was one large room with a cathedral ceiling and tall windows on all sides.

  It was a painting studio. There was tarp laid on the floor and easels set up all around the room. The Public Garden appeared to be a favorite subject, although Helene had never seen it rendered in such a way. The willows over the ornamental pond seemed lit with a mysterious inner life, the water to hold incandescent secrets. It was recognizable and completely alien at the same time, and Helene realized she was seeing the world through the eyes of the Fae, the energy that Miach drew to heal himself, had drawn to save his granddaughter, rendered in two dimensions.

  There were several paintings of Kevin, and if Helene had been the kind of woman to wonder what a man looked like with his clothes off—and truth be told, she was—she need wonder no longer. Kevin had an athlete’s toned body. But it was an entirely human level of perfection, attained through hard work, flawed and somehow self-effacing, and endearing.

  “I’ve never painted Miach, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  Helene turned around at the sound of the musical voice.

  Deirdre. She wasn’t what Helene expected, even though Helene hadn’t known what to expect. Conn had spent the last several hundred years, according to Beth, sleeping under a mound in an Irish backwater. Miach looked, in his human guise anyway, exactly like what he was, a polished urban criminal. Elada looked like a man who hurt people for a living, albeit a very handsome specimen of the type. Deirdre looked like . . .

  Helene’s second-grade art teacher, a lingerie model and Venus/Aphrodite all rolled together. Her ageless features, plus her unlined face and shapely form that were those of a twenty-year-old, were all unmistakably Fae. She was doing nothing to mask her soaring cheekbones, tip-tilted eyes and winged brows, nothing to obscure her ample breasts, sculpted waist, heart-shaped ass, and lush hips.

  She wore an Indian caftan in a red-and-gold block print, cinched at the waist, the kind of thing an eccentric Boston Brahmin or a bohemian artist might lounge in at home, but it clung to her curves as though it was soaked, her nipples visible through the fine cloth, her legs outlined by the soft drapery. Her hair was coiled on either side of her head in two massive honey-gold plaits, and would probably touch the floor when it was unbound.

  Helene had never really felt attracted to a woman before, but she felt this woman’s pull now, very strongly. Wanted to kneel down in front of her and worship her. It was a siren song that bypassed mind and heart and played directly on flesh and glands. . . .

  She realized, dimly, that she was staring.

  Deirdre smiled. She must have known how she affected ordinary mortals.

  Helene shook it off with frustrating difficulty. “I wasn’t wondering,” she said. “I’m not Miach’s . . .” She wasn’t certain what she was to him. Or what he was to her. She settled for: “We aren’t in a relationship.”

  Deirdre cocked her head and looked at Helene. Her expressive face said she didn’t believe her.

  “But I can sense him all over you,” said the otherworldly beauty. “And Miach MacCecht does not take casual lovers.”

  That news shouldn’t have pleased Helene so much. It was one thing to want to know what it was like in a Fae’s bed. It was another to contemplate a relationship with one.

  “He’s protecting me from another Fae,” Helene insisted. “One who wants to bring the wall between worlds down.”

  Deirdre offered her a bittersweet smile. “They do love their wall, Miach and Finn, but the truth of it is, it won’t last forever.”

  “Why do you say that?” Helene asked.

  “Nothing lasts forever,” said Deirdre. “Nothing endures but the earth. Live long enough, and you’ll see empires fall, civilizations die, cities buried beneath the sand. The wall is two thousand years old. It’s like a Roman aqueduct. Well-built, of course. And it still works, but only because i
t lies undisturbed.”

  Helene didn’t like that idea at all. “Miach will stop the Fae who’s behind this,” she said. She had faith in him.

  “Miach might stop this Fae,” said Deirdre. “But Miach has no control—none at all—of the Wild Hunt on the other side of the wall. He can’t feel them. He is a sorcerer. He knows magic. Energy and mass. Bodies and mechanics. Elada is a warrior. He knows blades and killing and combat. Purblind, the pair of them. At least in this.”

  Deidred shifted slightly, from one seemingly artless, perfectly studied posture to another. Helene had the feeling she belonged—that she was—on a stage. “But I—I’m an artist. I know emotion. I open myself to it, and I render it in two dimensions. And I can feel them.”

  Helene felt a chill run down her spine. “What do you mean?”

  Deirdre’s eyes took on a faraway look. “The Wild Hunt is agitated, angry, pressed up to the gates, ravening like a pack of wolves. And they’re expectant. They’re close to breaking through. I can feel the Prince’s dark hatred, and the Queen’s effulgent cruelty. I could almost paint them, but if I did, if I showed them true and whole, those pictures would drive you mad.”

  The hairs on the back of Helene’s neck rose. “We can’t let them break through,” she said.

  Deirdre shook her head, her eyes becoming focused, and now sad. “We can’t stop it. Nothing can. We can only, perhaps, postpone it.”

  Something silver flashed in the air, and there was suddenly a knife in the Fae lady’s hands. “And defend, when the time comes, what is ours. I would open Kevin’s throat before I’d ever let the Wild Hunt have him.”

  Helene didn’t doubt it. She realized that all of the Fae she had met, even Conn, now had things—loved ones—to protect in the human world.

  Nieve arrived an hour later. She had a bag of clothes from Helene’s apartment and a bag of toys for little Garrett. Helene ran down the stairs when she heard the gates open, but Kevin stopped her before she could walk out the front door.

  He apologized for the restriction. “Miach’s instructions. The gates and courtyard aren’t warded. Just the house.”

  “So you know what they are, Miach and Deirdre and Elada?” she asked.