Bone Walker

by Angela Korra'ti

  “You heard her,” Carson told them, jerking a thumb over his shoulder towards the short hallway that connected my half of the duplex with his and Jake’s. “C’mon, you two. Let’s give them some space.”

  “I’d like to know more of the nogitsune, if you’d be so kind,” Jake added. His tone was less brusque than his partner’s, more mannerly. But the tension hadn’t left his frame or his eyes, and even though he gestured graciously ahead for Melisanda to precede them, the look on his face told me he was about to pump the warrior for data as soon as they got her out of sight and earshot. “Come with us?”

  Carson didn’t go so far as to actually grab Elessir to drag him off, but he did stay within quick reach of the singer. I wasn’t sure whether it was to make sure Elessir actually went, or to catch him if he fell. The latter seemed reasonable. Elessir moved as though the floor was unreliable beneath his feet, as if it might turn at any moment into something far more dangerous than carpet. I didn’t watch them go; I didn’t want to think about him walking off with my Aunt Aggie’s quilt wrapped that close around him.

  I didn’t want him to smell like me.

  Chapter Nine

  Macaroni and cheese and tuna fish sandwiches. They wouldn’t make for a very refined lunch, and I had no real idea if Melisanda or Elessir would turn up their noses at such blatantly common, mortal fare. I was, however, as previously mentioned, completely out of givable damns. Grudgingly or not, I’d allowed them into my home, and Aunt Aggie would tear me a new one if she found out I failed to feed them. The Sidhe would just have to cope with my human hospitality.

  From my cabinets I fetched a pot to boil water and a can of tuna; from the refrigerator I brought out milk and cheese. The tasks kept me moving. But they did nothing to calm my thoughts, and I scowled at the quaver in my voice as I said, “So, ah, how big a problem is what happened to Christopher? Do we need to care?”

  Both of the Warders had followed me into the kitchen. Without asking if I needed the help, Christopher reached around me to get out glasses and plates. “Warders don’t walk across city limits under their own power,” he said. His brow was furrowed in hard thought.

  I knew this already, of course, since it’d been one of the first things I’d learned from him and Millicent. But I was out of my depth, and from the look on Christopher’s face, so was he. That left Millicent, and I shot her an anxious look even as I measured out water to boil in the pot. “So do we need to care?” I repeated. “Nothing happened—he’s okay. He only went a few yards!”

  “Boy’s right,” said Millie. She still wore a ferocious glower, though it was tempered now with dismay. “Lake Forest Park’s been its own city since before both of you children were born. He shouldn’t have been able to go one step into it, much less several yards.”

  “But he’s okay,” I insisted. Now that everyone else had retreated, I let myself whirl around, look up into his eyes and demand, “You are, aren’t you?”

  One end of his mouth quirked up, just a little. “I’m fine, lass.”

  “I mean, that fox bitch bit you and yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, kitsune aren’t werewolves, but I swear to God if you start growing a tail—”

  “Kenna.” Christopher gripped my shoulder with one hand. With the other he caught the palm I slapped against his chest in my frustration, cutting me off at the pass. “I’m all right.”

  Hearing him say it twice made it sink in at last. I shuddered, heaved a sigh, and then flung my arms around him to pull him close. “It’d be too much,” I mumbled against his chest. “Anything happening to you, along with all the other shit that’s happened this weekend.”

  “Nothing had damn well better happen,” Millie groused. She too had to be restless, for she took the dishes Christopher had gotten out and stalked over to lay them out on my small kitchen table. “I need you, boy. This ain’t the time for you to conk out on me. You feel anything at all, the slightest thing that ain’t normal, I want to know about it.”

  “I’m fit, Millie, and that’s God’s own truth,” Christopher said. “I wish I knew what to tell you about what happened at the city line, but I don’t. Those few steps didn’t feel any different. They…” I felt his shrug, since his arms were still loosely curled around me. “They felt like Seattle.”

  “Maybe it’s just because it blends in together anyway?” I suggested, anxious for anything that sounded reasonable, and which might chase the looks of worry off the faces of the two people I trusted most to help me make sense of my own changed world. “You couldn’t tell where Seattle stops and Lake Forest Park ends just by looking. Maybe the magic can’t tell either.”

  Millicent snorted, though not unkindly, as she turned back to us both. “Honey, the magic always knows where a Warder’s city stops.”

  “So what does it think about Christopher’s?”

  “Lass, I think your first question’s still the right one,” Christopher said. “Right now, I don’t think we can care. Not with everything else about us.” He glanced at the older Warder. “We’ll not talk of this in front of the Sidhe.”

  It wasn’t a question so much as a promise, and Millicent bobbed her head once in curt approval. “Definite need-to-know basis. They don’t. Until we understand it better, this stays between us.” Before I could chime in, she pointed at me. “For all I know, girlie, you may have something to do with this. You two are still all tangled up together, magically speaking. So I’ll need you to keep this to yourself too.” She drew in a breath and let it out again in resignation. “That means no talking to Jude about it either.”

  I went still, something in my belly going cold, for I’d beaten her to that very thought. “Because we don’t know what happened to her,” I said. “What… went into her.”

  “Finding that out, fast as we can, is more important than anything else right now. And there’s only one person who can start filling us in.”

  “Elessir,” Christopher said, his embrace stiffening around me. I couldn’t take any issue with the scowl that rolled down his face, since I had one of my own, and the tension that tautened his frame echoed in mine. Millie, on the other hand, gave us an abrupt feral smile.

  “Exactly. And I’m gonna wring him for every last thing he can tell us.”

  * * *

  After all of that, Millicent gave the Unseelie until after lunch before she started her interrogation. Not that any of us said anything much past the barest minimum dictates of politeness. Christopher and I, to be sure, couldn’t think of much to say to either Elessir or Melisanda that wouldn’t come out as an accusation or a challenge. Carson and Jake were better at it, and it was only after I’d started handing out sandwiches to everyone in the house that I remembered that the boys had experience dealing with the Seelie Court. They’d even been there when Melisanda and Tarrant, my uncle’s other lieutenant, had brought word to Queen Amelialoren of my uncle’s death at the hands of the demon Azganaroth. I hadn’t ever asked exactly how they’d gotten in good enough with the Seelie to have that kind of pull, whether it was through Millicent or what. Right then, tense as I was, I didn’t care. It was enough to leave them to what they’d already been discussing when I called them to the table—the nogitsune, where we’d fought them, and the other traces of them Melisanda had followed along the northernmost stretch of King County.

  Nor did Millicent miss a word of it. As soon as we’d had sustenance she proclaimed Jake the best one of the lot of us to pursue where the nogitsune might have gone and to find out their identities if at all possible. Jake avowed that he’d planned to do just that. After trading meaningful looks with his partner, he invited Melisanda to take him and Carson out to where we’d fought on the Burke-Gilman Trail to see what they could pick up from there.

  Which left Millicent, Christopher, and me alone with Elessir.

  He knew what was coming, of course. The Unseelie took no food, though he did accept tea and simply sat with it on my couch for a while as the rest of us ate, cradling the mug in his hands as if desperate
to soak in its warmth. When the others left and Christopher and Millie and I returned to the living room, though, he lifted a wary gaze to us.

  “This would be the part where I’m to gush out my life story, then?”

  “Nope,” Millie said as she plopped herself down in the nearest chair facing him. “Not that you ain’t got a story to tell, son, and I’m sure you do. But right now how the hell you fell through a portal into my city, what came out of you and went into our friend, and whether you got any other surprises we need to know about are all more important.”

  “Tell her.” Christopher didn’t sit, taking full advantage of the looming potential of his six-foot-plus frame. His eyes had gone gold with his irritation and the spark of his magic. “Or we’ll be punting you right back into Faerie the way you came.”

  So this, I thought with a smirk, was good cop, bad cop, Warder style. I hung back on purpose and let them go to it, noting the underlying rumble of their magic, just distinct enough to underscore their authority on Seattle ground and drowning out the much smaller magic I knew would be going on in the kitchen: the house brownies, who’d be coming out to take care of the lunch dishes stacked in the sink. While I listened I settled into the chair in the far corner of the room, taking up my violin out of its open case and plucking each string in turn to tune.

  “Where would you have me start then, Lady Warder?” Elessir asked with brittle cheer. “I believe I remember you asking how I escaped?”

  “That’ll do for a start.”

  The D string of my violin was flat. I adjusted it, grimacing, and tried to pretend I could ignore the Unseelie’s presence in the room. The weight of the instrument in my hands helped, and so did Fortissimo, who came out from under the couch and leapt with a chirruping meow up into my lap. Neither of these, though, could shield my ears from Elessir’s hoarse, exhausted voice.

  “The truth of it? I don’t know how I managed. I’ve been… less than myself.” I glanced sidelong at him, just at the right moment to see his mouth curl in self-disgust. Problem was, he caught my eye at that exact instant. “Tell me, Miss Thompson, how long’s it been since I saw you before?”

  I so very much did not want to speak to him. Fort had the right idea, for my money. The cat had an unblinking stare fixed on the Unseelie, and his tail lashed slowly back and forth across my stomach. He wasn’t purring so much as vibrating with a low, soundless warning, not quite a growl, but something that might become one at the slightest provocation. “Two months,” I admitted, knowing exactly how my cat felt.

  Elessir studied me for several heartbeats, and then reluctantly turned a measuring stare to each of the Warders. “Not long… I didn’t think it had been. None of you look much changed…” A dazed little giggle slipped out of him. “Not that I’m any good at judging when it comes to humans. Or even humans with our blood. Though didn’t you have a beard before, Mr. MacSimidh?”

  “Get hold of yourself.” Christopher held his glower firm. “You’re babbling.”

  At that Elessir giggled again, a loose and slurred sound, tinged with desperation. Slumping back along the couch, he turned a hollow, lopsided smile up to a bare stretch on one of the walls. “Oh, you would too, I just know you would too if you fled my Queen’s ever-lovin’ arms…”

  My A string twanged under my fingers, half a step flat. Ordinarily that would never have bothered me, but now the sound of it made me clench my teeth, and my fingers trembled against the tuning peg. Millicent and Christopher both looked at me, the younger Warder with distinct discomfort, the elder with a meaningful nod towards the Unseelie’s slumped form. Her gesture needed no translation. Elessir seemed more coherent now, but only just, and I couldn’t help but notice he was still clutching at the blanket he’d draped around him like a cloak.

  Damn it.

  I pushed Fortissimo out of my lap and leaned over to carefully return the instrument to its case before I damaged it in my frustration. Only then did I rise to approach the couch. “Look, pal, we need more out of you than this.”

  His head turned, and his gaze lifted to me. “Two months. I tried to kill you… and now I’m in your house.” Another grin wobbled across his face. “Ain’t that just a kick in the head?”

  “If you’d like to stay in my house—” Since I didn’t really need to finish that sentence, I glared instead. Mostly. I couldn’t bring myself to confess that I wasn’t honestly going to pitch Elessir out the door in the state he was in. Not to him anyway. He was shivering, even beneath the blanket; I scowled and touched his brow. It was still warm, though perhaps less so than before. “Water?” I murmured to the others and then flashed Christopher a weak smile as he backed away to the kitchen to fetch a glass. His answering smile was no stronger than mine.

  Pitiable as he looked, the Unseelie must have been hanging on to a scrap of his pride, for so far he hadn’t tried to touch me in any way. But when my hand brushed over him, he shuddered once more and then subtly relaxed. There wasn’t anything magical about it I could sense, just the simple contact of one person to another. Simple human contact, anyway.

  Was it ever that simple for the Sidhe?

  “He’s still feverish,” I reported to Millie, who gave me a single brisk nod. Christopher came back, and his eyes mirrored the look in the old woman’s: frustration, yes, but compassion along with it. I squeezed his fingers with my other hand as I took the glass from him, and then turned my attention back to the ailing bard. “Elessir. Here. Drink. It’s water.”

  That single word, water, revived him a little more. He stirred, and even found enough physical coordination to drink from it without my help. Yet he didn’t sit up. Nor did he move his head out of the range of my hand. Because it seemed to soothe him, I left it there while I prodded, “Talk to me.”

  “Go on, boy, tell the girlie what we need to know.” Millicent’s eyes conveyed her worry, but her tone remained brusque. Apparently I was good cop now. “Price of your sanctuary. Pay up.”

  With barely a pause for air, Elessir gulped down half the water in the glass before sagging back at last, his head turned towards my hand. “She…” He flinched once, his fine pale features tightening, before he finally breathed, “She let me go. Must have. It was too easy, the wards falling down, the goblin at the door… shouldn’t have worked. Didn’t have the strength for the spell but the bastard died anyhow…”

  We all went still at his first words. As the Unseelie went on, Christopher and I shot wide-eyed looks at each other and then at Millicent. Only she, of the three of us, never wavered in her attention. Her entire face tightened as she listened, accentuating every line her years had etched into her features and adding more for good measure. That expression scared me in a way that Elessir hadn’t, or even the ghostly shape that had flung itself into Jude. New as I was to magic and fey things, I followed the old woman straight to where her thoughts were going.

  “Is she coming after you?” I asked Elessir, fighting to keep my voice soft and even, my hand steady. Without quite consciously willing it, I set to a rhythm of stroking his hair.

  More harshly, Millie added, “Is she sending anything after you? Is anything coming to cross my city’s Wards?”

  “No. No, she isn’t coming, shan’t send even the lowest of her creatures. The almighty Queen of Air and Darkness won’t threaten the Pact for the likes of me…” Elessir violently shook his head against my palm, and for the first time since I’d joined him on the couch, he huddled closer to me. In the grip of his fear, all traces of his drawl gave way to cadences that flowed like a cool mountain stream. I thought all at once of the few scraps of Faerie words I’d heard. Was this something closer to the singer’s truest voice? “She has no such need. Do you not understand, Miss Thompson? She set me free with my own doom… eating the heart and power out of me… she needed do naught but wait for me to die!”

  Okay, yeah, I had my issues with the guy. Watching this, though, was beyond the pale. I leaned closer and looped an arm around him, keeping up that stroking of
his hair. “Hey. Hey now. Nobody’s dying. It’s okay.”

  “Not if we can help it.” Millicent too leaned closer, though she held back from making any actual contact with Elessir. “But you need to tell us what she did, son. You need to tell us what it was that came out of you.”

  “Because it’s taken our friend,” Christopher pronounced, “and if it harms her, it’ll be on your head.”

  Elessir stiffened against me as if somehow loath to accept my presence, only to at last bury his face against my shoulder and haul in a heavy breath. His arms snaked around my waist while the rest of him trembled with weakness, a sharp contrast with the frantic strength of his embrace. “I don’t want to hurt her.” That sounded like anguish. I thought in dawning amazement that he might even mean it. “Sorry. C-couldn’t keep it in. Took everything I had… sorry, I-I couldn’t…”

  I held him, because I seemed to have to, but the facade of comfort I put forth took a hard hit from within by rising dread. “What got out of you?” My voice wouldn’t stay gentle, not when knife-sharp thoughts of Jude and what might have invaded her jabbed through me. “Elessir. You’ve got to tell us what it was, so we can figure out what to do about it.”

  He groaned, his head shaking back and forth. For one moment, maybe two, I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then a few more words tore out of him, deep and harsh and almost guttural.

  “It was my wife…!”

  * * *

  The body she’d stolen was too short, too heavy, and too mortal; she could feel it dying around her with every breath. Yet it was a body. It gave her access to senses again, and even at human levels, to have sight, sound, smell, and touch again at all was a victory. Jude Lawrence’s shell had no magic to sustain her, and with the slightest exercise of power, she could feel its physical substance beginning to burn.

  Elessir, her delicious, delectable Elessir, had fed her very well. With his power still lending strength to her own, she barely even needed what feeble nourishment the spark of the human girl’s awareness could provide. She toyed with it nevertheless, turning it about in her mind like the shiny bauble it was.