Physically at least, I felt closer to it than I had the night before. Mentally, I wasn’t so sure. The surprise trip to Faerie and everything that had involved, the state Christopher had been in, and all of the damaged, flooded parts of the city we’d seen on our way to my house were bad enough. But on top of all those things there was a dragon on the loose, a dragon carrying the ghost of the wife of the Unseelie singer who’d gone from ‘trying to kill me’ to ‘disturbingly kissable’—and exactly when the hell had that happened, anyway? I was reeling from all of it, badly overloaded. Now on top of it all, for crying out loud, my best friend was carrying a sword.
“Not really, but I’ll get over it.” Sooner or later. I hoped. “We’ve got too many other things to worry about at the moment. Freaking out is not an option.”
Jude canted her head. “So does that mean this would be a bad time or the best possible time to mention Melisanda and me?”
“You already mentioned—” Then I stopped, and I blinked several more times as comprehension dawned. I’d known Jude was bi; that part wasn’t the surprise. The prospect of the Sidhe relation I’d only barely just begun being able to deal with being anybody’s romantic prospect was another question entirely. “Wait, Melisanda and you as in, operative word being ‘and’?”
“Well… not quite yet.” Her eyes, the eyes that still looked human and yet something a bit more now, twinkled. “I haven’t clued her in yet that I want that option on the table. I’m letting you know now, just between you and me, just because you look like you aren’t up for any more surprises at the moment.”
That sounded so familiar, just like the Jude I expected—the Jude who hadn’t been attacked by the bone walker—that I couldn’t help but giggle and lean over to hug her. And if my giggle had a bit of a hysterical tinge, yeah, well, that was why we were having this conversation in private. “Thanks for telling me,” I said. “I, ah, don’t really know her well yet but I hope I get to be happy for you. I think under the circumstances we could all use all the happiness we could get.”
With that, Jude twisted around where she sat, just enough so that I could get an excellent view of the blade she carried along her back. It wasn’t large as swords went, I supposed, though it looked quite substantial in the tooled leather scabbard she wore. The hilt too was leather, and its tight-wrapped black strips bore a faint sheen in the places I figured were most likely to take the grip of her hand. Weapon and scabbard alike also showed countless little scuff marks, overall signs of regular function and use, at least to my eyes. Not that I knew a damned thing about swords.
But I knew about Jude, and I knew the determined look that came into her eyes as she nodded at her accoutrement.
“Damn straight,” she said. “And with this, I’m going to do my part to make sure we get it.”
* * *
Last to show up at my place, in response to Millicent’s call for a council of war, were Makiko Asakura and her sons.
Which of course should not have surprised me in the slightest, even though it did. Seeing her arrive at my door and receive a sober welcome from the group at large, seeing that she’d established a place as a known personage in Seattle’s club of the Magically Aware, was almost as much of a shock as Jude being a year older and a swordswoman to boot. Yet here she was. The nogitsune woman, like everyone else had done, had changed—and in her case, this manifested as deeper lines in her face and white streaks in her long dark hair that hadn’t been there the first two times I’d seen her. She entered my house with as proud a stance as I’d seen her show in Kobe Terrace Park, yet there was a weariness in her dark eyes, something far more profound than the simpler physical exhaustion Christopher had brought upon himself.
I didn’t have to ask how she’d spent the surprise intervening month of my absence. Not if the bone walker still had control of the dragon, her own child.
Was there anything left of Saeko Asakura at all?
This question turned out to be the whole theme of our war council.
We gathered in my living room, sitting or standing as suited each person best, with the skull of the Unseelie Melorite in plain view before us all. It rested, gleaming, on the cushion of Elessir’s folded jacket on my coffee table, where Elessir had placed it. I hadn’t wanted to go near enough to the thing to move it onto anything else, or even to touch it. Nor had anyone else. Only Fortissimo paid it regular attention and then only from several feet away, his ears back and his tail lashing, a faint growl rumbling beneath the louder sounds of our conversation.
Millicent was the first of the bipeds in the house to finally acknowledge the thing’s presence. “I don’t need to tell any of you what we’ve got before us,” she said. “You all know what we’re facing, since most of us have been facing it for weeks now. But what you may not know is what we can do about it, or what Kendis and Elessir have brought us now.” Her attention turned to me. “Girlie, would you please do us the honors?”
“It’s hers,” I said. I’d taken a spot on my couch, with Christopher beside me, and one of his hands lay in my lap. As I spoke, I clasped those fingers tightly. “Elessir says it’s the alokhiu’s skull.”
Those words made a stir through the room, particularly with Makiko, who gave a violent start. “Then why is the thing still intact?” she demanded.
An excellent question, one for which I had no answer, but Elessir took care of that problem. “Firstly, because we didn’t have time to destroy it before we arrived. Secondly, because it’s an artifact of Luciriel’s power, so sorry, y’all, it ain’t comin’ down without magic. A nogitsune of your power, Ms. Asakura, just might have a shot at damaging it.” His mouth curled, but his gaze was entirely serious as it swung to me. “But honestly? It’s all about you, Miss Thompson.”
“You might have mentioned that,” I chided, trying not to look as blindsided as I suddenly felt. Wait, what, me? No pressure or anything!
“Another thing we didn’t exactly have time for.”
“What about Christopher and Millicent?”
Scowling at the skull, Millie said, “I can sense the magic on it, and it even feels like the bone walker, but by itself it ain’t an active threat to the city.”
“It’s just a thing,” Christopher agreed. “Warder magic can’t do anything to it just for being here.”
The two Warders were the ones I trusted most to have the clues about all things magical. To hear them admitting that this was outside their scope didn’t exactly fill me with confidence even if it made a frustrating kind of sense. “I’m the only one here with active Sidhe magic, and the Queen did let us walk off with the skull…”
“Therefore it’s reasonable to assume that Luciriel reset the spells on it to allow you a chance to destroy it,” Elessir said, finishing my thought. “It talked to you. You already have a link to it.”
So he’d figured out I’d gotten a vision off the thing. I didn’t ask how he might have read that in my expression or whether he got similar flashbacks handling it—or for that matter, whether he was getting them just from the general suck of the situation at large. If I were force-fed the vengeful soul of somebody I’d been married to, I was pretty sure I’d be a gibbering mess.
And man oh man, did that thought take me places I absolutely did not want to go.
“Okay,” I said. My voice came out a little thin, but on the whole I thought I did okay avoiding sounding like the aforementioned gibbering mess. “I’m Thor and get to throw Mjölnir at it, got it. Why am I not making with the lightning yet?”
Elessir swept a measuring look around the room, and lingered longest on Millicent and Makiko. “There is the question of the child.”
His voice was the very model of diplomatic understatement, and even given that, Aggie and Millicent, the other two humans in the room old enough to have had children, both drew in ragged breaths. Those of us in the younger generations glanced uneasily at one another. What Elessir and Melisanda thought was impossible to tell; I had no idea whether either of them had ever had offspring
. Neither of them gave anything away in their faces, though.
“We haven’t been able to get close enough to it to see if Saeko herself survives,” Jake said quietly, speaking up for the first time.
“Several of us have taken turns scouting, kiddo,” Carson told me. “Jake and me, Hiroshi and Ryuji.” The two nogitsune boys bobbed their heads at this. “And Melisanda and Jude, and what reinforcements we could recruit between Portland and Vancouver. But it’s a bitch trying to track a creature that can fly.”
Millicent nodded to this, sourly. “Which means we’ve had to recruit our own airborne spies. And good luck getting fairies to go anywhere near a dragon.”
“Yo,” Jude said, and then nudged Melisanda—the first sign I’d seen her show so far of increased comfort with the Seelie warrior. “We’ve got something to toss in for this.”
Did Melisanda’s expression ease just a bit? I couldn’t tell from where I was sitting, whether I was imagining things just because of what Jude had told me in my bedroom. She did however promptly offer to the room, “Queen Amelialoren charges me to report that Court mages have succeeded in one scrying of the dragon. It was not a clear sighting, but enough was seen to suggest that at least in that moment, our quarry was writhing in pain. Or possibly in conflict with itself.”
Despite being less than definitive, the effect of the Seelie’s news was electric. We all straightened, and most of our expressions brightened. Only Makiko remained stone-faced, though she among us all had the strongest need for whatever crumbs of hope she could get. “If we do not know for certain,” she said, her voice taut, “then we must assume unless we discover otherwise that my daughter is lost.”
So much for brightened expressions, but Millicent was undaunted and only slightly gruffer than usual. “We’ll plan for both options,” she said, her finger jabbing decisively first at Elessir and then at the skull on the table. “Sonny, you got any recommendations on method and timing of destruction for this thing, now’s the time.”
“Pulling Melorite back into her skull would be the best method,” the Unseelie said. “This will require line of sight and as much proximity as possible.” Then he smiled, a feral glint of anticipation sparking in his eyes. “After that, I’d suggest fire.”
“This means we have to get Kenna to the damned thing, though. Or get it to come to her.” Christopher glowered at Elessir, and slid his arm around me. There was no tremor in either his tone or his arm, but I needed no intuition to tell me he was less than amused by either concept.
Which of course made two of us. “Bait! Fantastic, the career to which I’ve always aspired,” I drawled. “And I’m assuming you’re meaning definitions of ‘fire’ involving magic, not charcoal briquettes and lighter fluid.”
“We can bring those too,” Jude suggested blithely.
“Nuke the skull from orbit,” Carson agreed. “Only way to be sure.”
Millicent waggled a hand at them to shut them up, though without much force to it—she was too canny not to let us blow off steam if we needed to, though she also had a knowing eye on Makiko, who was stoically ignoring the younger people in the room for the most part. But I didn’t pay much attention to the others. My focus was entirely on Elessir.
“Actually, Miss Thompson,” he said, “I had myself in mind as the bait.”
That, more completely than Millicent’s most schoolmarm-y glare, shocked us all into silence. Even Christopher blinked, first at the bard and then at me. Grateful and comforted as I was by his presence at my side, I couldn’t help but lean forward where I sat, and damn well almost leapt to my feet. “Excuse me? This is a good idea how?”
“I may be without my magic—”
“Because your darling ghost succubus wife ate it out of you!”
“—But I might remind you that I am also a perfectly competent swordsman, and if I am armed, I am capable of defending myself?”
Melisanda put in grudgingly, “That is true; we’ve dueled more than once.” She eyed the other Sidhe sidelong. “If you’d be willing to carry a Seelie blade, I’ll loan you one of mine.”
The bard showed only the slightest of hesitations before he inclined his head to her. “If you’re willing to let an Unseelie hand touch its hilt, my lady, I’ll take it.”
Frustration still swamped me, more strongly than I wanted to admit, but I choked back the urge to argue—at least with Elessir’s deciding he was combat-ready. “So you can use a sword,” I groused. “How’s this going to help against a creature who can fly and throw hurricanes around, and who has it in for you? And did I mention, what the hell kind of marriage did you have with her anyway?”
A couple of stifled coughs gave away that I wasn’t the only one wondering that very question. Elessir, however, didn’t rise to the bait. “Not relevant to this gathering’s interests, darlin’.” His tone was cool, though I caught a flash of something—memory, maybe—darkening his expression before he dialed it back hard.
“It’s relevant if you’re assuming your past relationship will get the bone walker to come to you,” Millicent said. “She already damn near finished you off, son. Are you sure she’s going to want to come back to mop up?”
“Very, very sure.” Once again, Elessir’s eyes turned feral.
“Then we have to draw her to you.” The Warder woman surveyed the lot of us, swinging her attention around the room, and stopping first on Makiko. “Last I checked, the kitsune have no telepathic abilities.”
Makiko had barely moved from where she’d stood during our entire conversation. She did not shift position now. “The nogitsune are not so gifted,” she affirmed.
“My empathy’s improved,” Jake said, “but it’s still limited to detecting physical pain, and then only on contact. I’ll still serve us best as a healer.”
Yet another thing I’d missed during my absence? I started and gaped over at my housemate, who shot me a modest little smile in reply, but who otherwise offered no clarification. Nor did Millie give him any time to do so as she turned her gimlet regard on the two Sidhe. “And for practical purposes, neither of you count as mages at the moment. Christopher and I can only sense the dragon, and only if she’s in our range. No matter how big the boy’s has gotten, that still matters.” Finally, she looked at me. “So it really is down to you, honey. You helped find Jude in Bellevue before. You’re going to have to do that again, only times ten.”
Okay, that at least I could begin to get my head around. Melorite had nearly gotten into my brain. Even if the others hadn’t seen me for a month or more, subjectively, I hadn’t had time to shake the revulsion of that. I still remembered all too clearly what her mental contact felt like, and my hands shook a little at the thought. “Right then. When and where?”
“Somewhere away from houses,” said my aunt Aggie, speaking up for the first time in the whole conversation, with the same weary gravity with which she’d greeted me the instant she’d laid eyes on me. “I can’t contribute to the defense, but if my Kendie has to put herself at risk, do it somewhere where you won’t endanger anyone else, and where you’ll have room to—” She caught herself then, and I was certain she’d been about to say ‘protect her’. Instead, she went on, “To help her do what she must.”
“One of the parks,” Jude proposed. “Discovery or Carkeek. They’re right on the Sound and they’re both plenty big enough.”
Millicent pronounced without batting an eye, “Discovery. It’ll give us all the room we need and minimize our chances of being spotted. Which we’ll need, because make no mistake, children, this is going to be the biggest fight yet and I’ll need every last one of you. Christopher and I will boost the Wards on the park. The bone walker will have to go through us to get anywhere else, and we’ll have to shield against the worst of any weather as well. Makiko, Hiroshi, Ryuji, you’ll be needed if there’s any chance Saeko’s spirit survives. Swords, be ready to take down the dragon if we have no other choice. Carson, Jake, and Aggie, you’ll be on tap to watch our backs, guard our way
out, and patch any of us up if we need it. Elessir and Kendis, we do this when you’re ready. Sooner better than later, since the city can’t take much more of what’s been thrown at it since you vanished.”
I blew out a breath, tightened my grip on Christopher’s hand, and bobbed my head.
“Then there’s no time to lose. Let’s do this thing.”
Chapter Twenty-One
As it turned out, we had only a few hours to prepare.
Weather warnings were blaring all over the local TV and radio stations, urging citizens to stay undercover, as the next storm was expected to roar through the Seattle area by nightfall. News and weather sites on the Net—at least the ones still reachable through the city’s faltering networks—loaded search results for the Puget Sound region in dire, all-caps-laden shades of red. Our various phones buzzed three times through the course of what was left of the day, with texts reinforcing the warnings from all the other sources. When exactly Seattle had activated a citywide emergency texting system, I had no idea. I didn’t bother to ask anyone if this was yet another thing I’d missed in my absence. We had too much else to do.
My part in everything, at least at first, wasn’t much. I helped pack vehicles with emergency supplies we all thought we’d need: raincoats, flashlights, two first aid kits for anyone who got hurt, and packets of beef jerky for fast infusions of protein for anyone about to hurl around massive amounts of magic. I fed Fortissimo, and even though Carson and Jake had already physically weatherproofed the house against the earlier storms, I made a circuit of every room just to make sure all the hatches were suitably battened. The house brownies would, I suspected, take care of any incidental damage the building sustained. Just in case, nonetheless, I set cookies and milk out for them.
After doing all that, I had to reassure myself that my house, my stuff, and my cat were still all essentially the same, since hi, surprise, away for a month. Especially my violin. The Seelie Queen had fixed the instrument for me after my uncle Malandor had destroyed my house and everything in it—and I was loath to put it at risk again. In the relative quiet of my room, I let myself stop long enough to rest the violin in place upon my shoulder and call “Da Slockit Light” up out of the strings.
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