Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel)

by D. L. McDermott

  Liam hadn’t known what to expect, but the old man had made polite, charming small talk with the girl and paid Liam’s law school tuition when the bill came. It was difficult to juggle what was known to be an all-consuming graduate degree with his obligations to his family, but Liam was managing. There were advantages to being part Fae, and he seemed to have inherited Miach’s quick grasp of difficult concepts and ability to absorb texts with preternatural speed.

  But Liam had known better than to press the old man for more. He’d planned on waiting until the end of the first year to declare his intention of moving to Cambridge, and in with Amy.

  Now there was this fresh nonsense with Helene Whitney. If he expressed his desire to move out, it would sound like he was judging the old man’s choice. It didn’t help that Helene Whitney was still wary of Liam and Nial, and with good reason. When he thought back to the night he had helped Brian kidnap the women, he felt deeply ashamed.

  Liam bought Garrett an Italian ice from a cart. They’d been gone an hour and a half already, walking the beach and picking up shells and rocks and building sandcastles, and Liam figured an hour more would give Nieve the break she needed. Of course, if the old man ever learned that Liam and Nial had known about Nieve and Garrett when that Fianna was living under their roof, there would be hell to pay.

  It was nearly time to go home when the Fianna pulled up to the beach in their cars, eight of them, carrying baseball bats and two-by-fours, and led by Finn himself.

  Liam texted Angus and Kermit, then pushed Garrett behind him. The boy was too small, too trusting to tell him to run, and there was no one who could protect him from a Fae like Finn except the old man, who was half a world away this morning. The only choice was to face them and hope Angus and Kermit got there fast.

  “You’re a long way from home,” Liam said as they approached, Finn in the lead.

  “We’ve come for the boy,” said the Fae as old as Miach MacCecht. And while Finn might not have the powers that Miach did, he was a formidable fighter, a charismatic leader, and lightning quick to anger. Miach always said that emotion made Finn stupid—and dangerous.

  “This isn’t your day with Nieve and Garrett,” Liam countered. “And they don’t look like social services to me.”

  “You can keep your sorcerous slut,” said Finn. “We only want the boy.”

  “What is this?” Liam asked. He couldn’t believe that Garrett would have any part in abducting his own son.

  Garrett loved Nieve. Liam knew that. He’d watched them together for months, growing closer, trying to resist the thing blossoming between them, and finally giving in. He’d known the night it had happened, had seen them from the window of his room, overheard Miach earlier explaining to Garrett that he must find a right hand if he wished to practice sorcery, if he wished to study further with Miach.

  And then Liam had overheard the part that explained so much about the old man, the cruel truth of what it meant to be a sorcerer, the price of such power. Once Garrett was bound to another Fae, he could never form another such alliance. Could not bind himself permanently to a lover, human or Fae, because when that partner died, his death would consume Garrett, too. And with Garrett would die his right hand.

  Which meant that Miach and Elada had never had the option of loving another being with their whole hearts. Liam had gone up to his room then, shaken, and cried distinctly human tears for the Fae who had raised him.

  And that’s when he had seen Garrett leave the house with Nieve, under cover of night. She had come back changed. Glowing. Happy, as he had never seen her. Liam had kept their secret for months.

  “Nieve released him from their vows, not an hour ago,” said Finn. “Miach has double-crossed us.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Liam. Nieve hadn’t so much as looked at another man these past two years.

  “Have you ever seen a Fae who’s been released by a mortal?” snarled Finn. “It’s like snapping a taut cable. All that power blasting back into you with the sting of rejection to follow it up. He’s in a bad way. I warned him that any get of Miach’s would be a treacherous whore. There’s nothing I can do but bring him his son. Now give us the boy, and no one has to get hurt.”

  To be fair to the Fianna, they tried not to hurt him any more than necessary, but it took three of them to hold him down and Garrett’s half brother couldn’t resist putting the boot in.

  He was crawling to his knees watching them climb back up to the road when Angus and Kermit and the boys pulled up and blocked their path, and that’s when the real fight got started.

  • • •

  Miach opened his eyes on a blue sky. He could smell smoke and sulfur and burning stone and iron. It disoriented him. He hadn’t woken up to that smell since the day Elada had rescued him from the mound.

  He turned his head and saw the granite wall of a Druid temple, and his mind was hurled back two thousand years to a scene of devastation. He had been a special prisoner for the Druids, the sorcerer who had trained so many of them. Only their highest priests could be trusted to handle him, even chained, naked, in cold iron, starved and cut and cut and cut again. They feared his power.

  Needlessly. He had not been able to rescue himself. He had bled and suffered for nearly a year, and then a day had gone by when no one had come to torture, abuse, or interrogate him in the endless Druid quest for knowledge. True, a quest could be a noble thing, but this was not.

  Then he’d heard the feet on the stone floor, running, coming closer and closer, then the light, sudden and bright. Torches. The high priest who had been his jailor raised an iron sickle over Miach’s head and then froze, the point of silver sword bursting through his chest, and Elada’s familiar, youthful face—they had been bound less than a decade then—covered in dirt and blood revealed in the flickering light.

  He had only fragments of the memory of Elada breaking his shackles and carrying him outside. Did not remember withering the circle of wheat he lay in, or the trees at the edge of the field. The temple complex beside the mound with its forges and bakeries and huts and longhouses was a smoking ruin, and there were bodies everywhere. Dead Druids. And walking among them, the Romans in their bright armor and snowy white tunics.

  Miach opened his eyes again.

  Elada. The explosion. The Prince Consort’s compound.

  Miach turned his head and saw the smoking ruin of the complex. And a few feet away, the broad back of Conn of the Hundred Battles kneeling in the grass. With Beth Carter.

  He sat up, slowly, because he could feel a rib that was still broken. He thrust his fingers into the rich soil and focused on the pattern of blood and bone, on reknitting what the explosion had shattered.

  It was small-change damage, considering the force involved. He knew explosives. He sold them sometimes, bought them others. His injuries had to have been more extensive. Which meant that his little Druid—although Conn would not like him to refer to her that way—was learning fast.

  He climbed to his feet and came to stand over the Druid and her lover. Elada lay on the ground between them, breathing shallowly, his lips blue and the veins in his arms black.

  His oldest friend. The man who had rescued him from hell. Who had put Miach ahead of everyone else for two thousand years. “How bad is he?”

  Beth Carter looked up, her eyes wet with tears and wide with fear. “I don’t understand this. I’ve never seen a Fae sick.”

  “It is iron poisoning,” said Miach gently, displacing her at Elada’s side. “There were iron filings in the building, probably quite close to the bomb. It was rigged to kill Fae.”

  He prayed to Dana it would not kill Elada.

  “I know how to reknit broken bones,” said Beth. “And how to close wounds and regenerate organs. I don’t know how to deal with this.”

  “You have to channel life into him, while his flickers, and then wait. Time is the only cure for iron poisoning.”

  Miach took Elada’s hand, threaded his fingers through it, brough
t their crossed palms to the Fae warrior’s chest and gave. As much as he could spare if he was to face what was coming.

  Elada’s eyes didn’t open, but he was breathing, and that was hopeful.

  “That is all we can do,” said Miach. “It’s best not to move him until he’s stabilized. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Where are you going?” Beth Carter looked shaken, but he had to tell her.

  “I think Helene and Nieve are in danger. Thirty-six Druids departed here for Boston, not one. And there was no answer just before the explosion.”

  Conn rose to his feet. “I’ll come with you.”

  Miach wanted to accept, but the little Druid’s life was too important. If Miach fell, if these renegades tried to bring the wall down, someone had to stop them. Or Miach’s family was doomed.

  “No. It’s too dangerous to leave Beth and Elada here. There could be other traps. Or Druids on other parts of the estate. They will have heard the explosion. Move them both to Clonmel as soon as it is safe.”

  He reached for his phone to try Helene again but the explosion had shattered it.

  “Ours as well,” said Beth. “You could try the phones in the complex.”

  “Too dangerous,” said Miach. “If I had wired this place, I’d have placed more than one device. They may all be live now. Stay away from the buildings and get into town as soon as you can.”

  He passed then, to avoid argument and delay.

  He knew something was wrong the second he arrived in his library. The safe was open, the painting lying on the floor beside it. The box containing the Prince Consort’s silver arm was gone. It had probably been among the Druids’ goals from the very beginning.

  There were speckles of blood on the carpet near the door.

  He reached for his knives. He knew how to use his sword because his father had thought it a requisite part of every Fae’s education, but it was not his weapon of choice. It had a limited range, for one thing, and he liked his hands free for casting for another.

  There was no one on the stairs or in the hall, but at the foot of the steps lay Nial, with Liam kneeling over him, the smell of blood thick in the air.

  Liam looked up. “Granddad.” The relief on his face was plain.

  “What happened?”

  “They shot Nial and they’ve taken Nieve and Helene. They were—”

  “Druids,” Miach finished for him. “I know. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “I was at the beach with Garrett,” he said, shame in his voice. “I should have been here.”

  “Never mind that, Liam. You couldn’t have guessed.” But Miach could have, and he hadn’t. He hadn’t anticipated the bomb at the Prince Consort’s complex in Clonmel, or this attack on his home and his family.

  “Nial was still conscious when I got back.”

  Miach found the bullet in Nial’s chest. It was very near the heart. Miach’s hands were slick with blood. He had already given as much of himself as he could spare to Elada, but he had no choice now, or Nial would die. He had to focus and draw the bullet, and then pour life into the dying boy.

  He almost faltered when Liam said, “Brian was leading them.”

  His own son had done this. Miach hardened his heart and focused and went on weaving flesh and blood back together, making red cells and white for his grandson. Great-grandson. No, Liam and Nial were great-great, and he could remember their great-great-grandmother with joy and laughter, a girl who had come straight off the boat from Ireland and into his bed with a sunny smile and generous heart despite losing four children to starvation in the old country. Her descendants were cut from the same cloth.

  And Brian—who had more of his blood than these nearly human boys—was a monster. His monster. His mistake. He had cultivated all that was Fae in the boy, taught him the arts of their race. How to use his voice and cast, though Brian’s magical talents were weak and his martial skills were mediocre. What he had excelled at had been cruelty, which came in handy when you ran a crime family, in which hard men had to be disciplined by harder men.

  Miach had banished Brian after the business with Helene Whitney. All of South Boston knew he was not welcome there. And just in case he tried to take his anger out on Helene, Miach had kept tabs on her through Nial and Liam. And he’d believed she’d been safe.

  If Brian hurt her this time, Miach would take away those memories, whether she agreed to it or not. If he could get her back, he would take all of this away—the blackouts, the geis, the harrowing encounter with Finn—and if she didn’t want to be in his life, he’d give her own back to her, with no memory or understanding of the Fae. He would cross Beth Carter over it, no doubt, but in this he was determined to prevail.

  By the time the bullet was out and Nial was stable, Miach knew he had drained himself dangerously. “Call Angus and Kermit,” said Miach. “The whole family.”

  Liam swallowed hard and Miach knew it was bad news. “Angus and Kermit and the boys are at Mass General. The Fianna have Garrett.”

  • • •

  Helene cried herself out in the brick coffin. When she had nothing left in her, she listened to the sounds of the basement and stared in vain at the floor, hoping to see light under the door.

  There was no light, but there was sound. Druids passed her door twice, talking excitedly to one another. Once Helene heard a distant scream and prayed it wasn’t Nieve, which was selfish, because she wouldn’t wish this horror on anyone.

  She checked her phone again for a signal. For a second she saw a single bar flash, then it winked out. As though a connection to the outside world had drifted by on the breeze. It was possible that the basement was like the museum, with thick metal signal-blocking supports in one or more directions but pockets where her phone might work.

  She tried turning in the enclosed space but it was too tight, so instead she passed the phone around her body from one hand to another and found she could get a single bar of service if she held it against her hip in the left corner of the cell.

  She was so startled when it rang that she almost dropped it, and the sound echoed and rang off the brick so loudly that even though she muted it as fast as she could, fumbling in the suffocating space, she was sure she would hear running feet any minute, that the door would open and the phone would be taken away and she would be sealed in there forever.

  She dared not raise the phone to her head or risk losing the signal, so she crouched, her legs too long to bend in the shaft she was entombed in, hunching her shoulders and bending her neck double. She answered.

  “Helene.”

  Miach. “Tell me where you are.”

  “Winthrop,” she said. “The house I gave you the address of.”

  “Is Nieve with you?”

  “No. They took her somewhere else.”

  “All right. Stay calm. I’m going to pass to you.”

  “You can’t. The space is too small. It’s like a brick coffin.”

  “My God, Helene.”

  “This is a trap,” she said. “Brian wants you to open a box for him. There’s something inside that these people want.”

  She knew she was crying. She should stop. But she couldn’t.

  “Don’t cry, my love,” he said.

  She might not have noticed the endearment at any other time, but she noticed it now. My love.

  His voice washed over her.

  “Did they take your iron away?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I want you to listen to me. To my voice. Don’t fight it. Trust me this once. I love you. And you are not afraid, because a brick coffin is no match for Helene Whitney, and I’m coming for you.”

  Chapter 15

  Her fear dissolved. It was like the Dutch courage she’d downed before Miach had removed the geis. His voice was like whiskey. It warmed her inside.

  “They have cold iron,” she said.

  “I know,” he replied. “Don’t worry about me. Just tell me everything you know about where yo
u are.”

  She told him. She described the street and the stone wall and the iron gate. She described the drive to the house, the parkland around it, the beach behind it, and as much of the layout of the three-story structure as she had seen. She’d counted steps to the basement and doors and these she relayed to him now with a warning. “There are dozens of Druids,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “We found their training camp at Clonmel.”

  “They want to experiment on Nieve. You have to get her out first. Brian said he’s saving me.”

  “For what?” Miach’s voice was cold.

  “So the Court can torture Miach MacCecht’s whore, he said. But they’ve got Nieve on a table in a lab now. And there’s something wrong with them. They’re people but they’re . . . they’re cruel. Wild-eyed. I don’t understand it. Beth’s not like that.”

  “And she never will be, Helene. You don’t have to worry about that. Beth trained herself from a young age, even though she didn’t recognize what she was doing as such. By the time she came into her power, she was ready for it. Tapping into that kind of force is like . . . getting a glimpse at the whole universe at one time. Real Druids prepared for decades for that moment. The ones you’ve met were ripped out of their regular lives and shown something that would drive most humans mad. It used to drive some Druid acolytes mad even after years of preparation.”

  “They’re not just crazy,” she said. “They’re bloodthirsty.”

  “They had their power forced on them by the Prince Consort. His tendencies no doubt inform their own.”

  Helene heard footsteps outside her door. She ended the call, turned the ringer off, and stuffed the phone into her pocket.

  The footsteps passed by without pausing. She took her phone back out, but there was no signal again and she couldn’t get even a single bar, no matter which way she turned.

  • • •

  Miach knew there was no chance of storming the Druid compound with an army of MacCechts. Liam had been beaten to within an inch of his life and Nial was only barely stable. Angus and Kermit and their boys were in the hospital. The Fianna had outnumbered them badly.