by C. T. Adams
He was getting ready to argue when she heard a woman cry out. Maxine—Brianna recognized her voice despite the terror in it.
The doctor dropped her hand and raced away. As he pushed through the curtain, Brianna caught a glimpse of what was causing the disturbance: Valjeta.
She was inhumanly beautiful, skin glowing pale and perfect, eyes blazing with power, long blonde hair fanning out behind her in a breeze that smelled of death and corruption and held the shifting shadows of faces, each one screaming in soundless agony.
“Give me Maxine.” The words sounded odd, as if she spoke with not one voice, but the roar of a crowd. The temperature in the room dropped until Brianna could see her breath. She forced herself upright. Steadying herself with the IV post, she walked toward her enemy.
“Maxine, come to me.” The order was backed with magical compulsion. Brianna heard her friend moan and struggle to obey. When the woman did not appear, Brianna assumed her friend was restrained in some way.
“Stop.” Brianna’s command was irresistible. The spirits that had been circling Valjeta froze in place, their eerie gazes locked on Brianna.
“You.” The blonde Fae’s smile made Brianna’s blood run cold. But she gathered her strength and courage, steeled her spine, and gave her opponent a look of evident disdain.
Valjeta spoke. “You’re not looking nearly so well as you did in your shop the other day, and the injury to your hand looks positively lethal.”
“You wish.”
“Bold words, let’s see if you can back them up, shall we?” The blonde raised a hand. Flames danced on the end of her fingertips.
“Let’s not.” Kenneth appeared in the doorway behind her. He was smiling and swinging a sling. He loosed it, sending a cloud of what looked like rock salt and nails flying toward Valjeta.
The Fae woman screamed, as much in rage as pain, and hurled a fireball the size of a softball straight at Kenneth. He dropped and rolled and the fireball soared through the door to splatter like napalm against one of the trees outside, instantly setting it ablaze.
As Valjeta turned to face her once again, Brianna heard Mei’s voice, ringing out clearly from behind a pair of interior metal doors marked RADIOLOGY. The dragon was chanting a spell.
Valjeta spun toward the door. Using the air around her she gathered the weapons Kenneth had attacked her with, flinging them in a wide arc. There was so much power behind the blow that the tacks embedded themselves in the surface. But there was no blood, no scream of pain, not even a pause in the chanting, which now seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere, a second voice, Sophie’s, having joined in the chant.
Valjeta hissed, her body hunching in seeming pain though there was no sign of a blow having struck her. “This isn’t over, child of Leu. Tell your father, I will have what is mine.” Then, with a blur of speed too fast for eyes to follow, she was gone.
36
“Put that down.” Sophie appeared in the empty air in front of the doctor, who’d rushed across the room and grabbed the phone to call for help.
“The hell I…” He stopped speaking, his face smoothing into bland blankness as she shone like a star in front of him. The receptionist, equally affected, stared slack-jawed at Sophie, her eyes blank. “Ard Reigh, how do you want to deal with this?” Sophie asked.
That was a good question. This situation was a complete and total disaster and Brianna couldn’t think straight. She felt loopy from the drugs, her mind wandering from one thing to another, seemingly without her control.
“Your grace, you need to sit down.” Mei put an arm around Brianna’s waist before guiding her into the nearest chair. “You’re not well.”
No, she wasn’t. Although she didn’t feel bad. Was this what Rihannon felt when she took the drugs? There was no pain or worry, just lovely apathy. The drugs had blunted everything, including her ability to reason.
“Sophie, what do you see in our immediate future?” Mei asked.
Sophie’s expression grew distant. “We need to leave. The police and fire department are about to arrive and there’s too much we can’t explain. We can take the Ard Reigh with us, but not the other woman—she’s too damaged. Unfortunately, we can’t leave her unguarded.”
“I’ll stay,” Kenneth offered.
“You’ll need to convince them you’re her family. Otherwise they won’t let you near her.” Brianna paused. “Not that I’m complaining, but how did you get here?” Brianna asked.
“I carried him,” Mei answered. Her expression was defiant, as if daring anyone to comment.
Brianna saw Sophie’s eyes widen in shock and felt like gasping herself. Dragons were proud and prickly. Never in her entire existence had she heard of one willing to be ridden like a beast of burden.
“Fine.” Mei turned to Kenneth. “Stay, guard the woman until you hear otherwise. I’ll see to it that none of the employees remember our being here and that they delete Brianna’s records.”
“Videos, too.” Brianna smiled at the three Sidhe, who stared at her blankly. She pointed to a camera in the corner.
Mei swore. “Fine. That, too.” She turned to Sophie. “Take the Ard Reigh and go. I’ll meet you back at the shop.”
The shop. Yes, Brianna definitely wanted to go home. There was something she was supposed to do … something about the wards, and Pug. The Sidhe … Valjeta, she’d wanted him. That couldn’t be good.
Swiftly but with care, Sophie removed the IV lines from Brianna’s hand. The discomfort was enough to distract Brianna from her thoughts.
“Ard Reigh, can you walk?”
“I don’t know,” Brianna answered truthfully. Weariness was beginning to creep up on her again.
Sophie muttered something under her breath as she helped Brianna to her feet. The older woman half carried her through the doors to radiology before steering her out an emergency exit.
“Why this way?”
“Because the police and firefighters will come to the main door and we don’t want them to see you,” Sophie explained.
“Oh. That makes sense,” Brianna said. And it did, for a moment or two.
Brianna could hear sirens approaching as Sophie helped her stagger across the parking lot. She slumped into the passenger seat of the BMW; Sophie reached across to fasten her seat belt, then rushed around to the driver’s side. They were out of the parking lot and a block away when the police and fire vehicles passed them, going in the other direction.
“I hope it’ll be all right,” Brianna said as the clouds in her mind began to clear again.
“Kenneth and the dragon are very capable. They can handle things at the hospital.”
“Not there. At the shop.”
Sophie gave her a long look. “Ard Reigh, are you sensing something?”
“It’s Pug she wants.”
“Why?”
“He’s the only one on this side of the veil. So it makes sense she would need him.” It was obvious from the other woman’s expression that she wasn’t getting the point, so Brianna tried again. “Valjeta wants Pug. She needs him if she wants to open the veil wide enough for more than just herself to pass through.”
“Why?”
Brianna wanted to curse the woman for being obtuse. Sophie was a seer, after all—why couldn’t she understand?
“I saw it in her mind when I called earth and air. She believes my mother used the stone trolls as the ground for her spell. Pug is one of their royalty.”
Sophie slammed on the brakes hard enough to throw Brianna forward against her seat belt. The car behind them swerved, its driver laying hard on the horn as Sophie steered the BMW onto the shoulder. With a muttered word and a gesture of her hand, smoke began pouring out of the engine compartment.
“Stay here,” she ordered.
Brianna didn’t argue. She was too tired to move anyway. She watched Sophie walk into the tall grass beside the highway. The seer squatted down and Brianna felt a soft warm wave of power wash over her. Illusion magic, strong, but
subtle.
Interested, her mind fighting the drugs that her body wanted to give into, Brianna shifted in her seat to get a better view of what Sophie was doing and pressed the button to lower the electric window, curious to hear Sophie’s words. The older woman drew a circle in the air before her. Her sibilant whisper carried clearly to the car even over the sounds of traffic passing by on the highway.
“Leu, Leu, King Leu of the Sidhe, I must speak with you.”
A shimmer of light appeared in the air six inches in front of Sophie’s face. Brianna was both surprised and not surprised to see her father looking out at the seer. “Cephia?” he said.
“Your majesty, we have a situation.” Sophie swiftly explained what had happened, including the injuries to Brianna and Maxine.
Her father turned toward Brianna, his eyes locking with hers across the distance. To her shock, he suddenly looked old. And though she knew she should be angry with him, that wasn’t what she felt. Sad, hurt, worried, yes, but not angry.
Leu’s voice was harsh as he spoke over his shoulder. “Clear the room. Send for one of the mages with human magic and my personal healer. She will be going through the veil to tend Brianna Hai. Move!” When the last of the courtiers and servants had left the room, he turned back to the women. “Tell me everything.”
Sophie did, speaking swiftly as she could to take advantage of the brief moments of privacy he’d bought for them, concluding with “Brianna says that the stone trolls are the anchor for Helena’s spell, and that Pug is one of their royals. Is she correct, or suffering from delusions brought on by human medications?”
“She is correct. Helena gave them speech in exchange for permission to use them as the anchor.” Leu stared at his daughter. There was pride in his smile. “So, you figured it out.”
“Nope. Overheard it in Valjeta’s mind. Did you approve?” Brianna asked. If she’d been in better shape she wouldn’t have dared. The king would not be pleased to be questioned, even by one of his daughters. She wasn’t sure he would answer. But he surprised her.
“Of course not,” he snarled. “Nor did she consult with me. It made me furious, but at the same time, it served my purpose not to stop her. Trapping Valjeta on the human side of the veil separated her from her allies and bought me time.”
“I understand.”
“Yes, I think you do.” He sighed. “That time is almost up, Brianna, whether we are ready or not. And while I would gladly kill the gargoyle myself, we cannot let Valjeta have him.” The bitterness in Leu’s voice cut like razor blades.
Brianna sighed. “I am sorry for Eammon’s death.”
Leu gave his daughter a sharp look. His voice was cold and hard. “Are you? The two of you never cared for each other.”
Lying was for weaklings, and while she was injured, she was not weak. “No, we did not like each other. But he was my brother, and I find I am sorry just the same.”
Leu’s expression softened slightly and he gave her a long, searching look before finally saying, “I believe you.” There was a moment of comfortable silence between them. “Protect the gargoyle.”
“I’d do that anyway.”
“I know.”
She didn’t mean to close her eyes. She couldn’t help herself. She was tired now, so tired.
“Brianna Ard Reigh!” Her father’s voice cut through the mists fogging her mind like nothing else could. She fought for consciousness, crying out in pain, but it was too much. She was too far gone, too weak. Velvet darkness embraced her.
It was an odd dream. No, not a dream. The colors were too bright, too intense to be a dream. A vision, then. Or perhaps the afterlife.
She was in the clearing from Ed’s painting—she recognized it at once. The soft sunlight of an early summer morning filtered through flickering leaves of every color of green to speckle the forest floor. The air was warm, thick with the scents of flowers. She could almost feel the life throbbing through the loamy earth beneath her hands. She looked down at those hands—whole, unharmed.
She sensed movement in the brush and looked up. There was nothing to be seen, but she heard the whisper of leaves, a faint footfall. A shadow fell on the ground in front of her—the shadow of a man, but with no one to cast it.
As she watched, the shadow writhed and twisted. She heard a faint moan that became a sibilant whisper: “Murderer … thief…”
Pain, breathtaking and immediate, centered on her injured hand, ripped Brianna from the vision, dragging her back to the reality of the front seat of a BMW.
“What the hell?” Sophie gasped in shock.
“Sweet deities, Brianna, what have you done?” Morguenna whispered at the same time.
Brianna’s eyes fluttered open. She was still strapped into her seat, but her injured arm was stretched out over the window frame and held firmly in place by Morguenna, who also grasped a scalpel smeared with blood and pus. A dark mist hovered in the air above Brianna, swirling and seething with restless energy.
“Tell me now, Ard Reigh, what you’ve done. For king or no, oath or no, if you’ve taken to working death magic I will not use my talents to heal you.” Morguenna’s face was filled with a terrible rage and her words rang with both power and fury.
37
NICK ANTONELLI
Anyone who has ever bothered to watch a police procedural on television knows about the two-way mirrors. Thing is, they’re still effective. You may know somebody might be behind there, but you can’t be sure, and you don’t know who.
Right now the only person in the room behind the mirror was Nick. It wasn’t large, and was dimly lit, but there were a pair of chairs with a small table between them to hold your copy, and with a pencil cup and scrap paper in case you wanted to take notes.
Nick stood, restlessly shifting his weight from one foot to the other, watching his brother be interviewed by Reynolds and some unknown fed, the lawyer watching over the proceedings, making sure nothing untoward happened.
“You and your friends like to LARP?” The fed made it a question.
LARP? Oh, yeah, Live Action Role Playing … like Dungeons and Dragons. Why—shit, they were listening at the shop, had to be. What else could they make of all that shit about seers and dragons?
“Occasionally.” David looked at the mirror and gave an odd smile, which was weird. It was almost like he’d heard Nick’s thoughts. Only other person Nick had ever seen do that was Grandma Sophie, and it was spooky as hell.
The door to the room opened quietly and Jesse Tennyson stepped through. He wasn’t wearing the jacket to his suit, his tie had been loosened, and his sleeves were rolled up to show well-muscled forearms. He glared at Nick, eyes blazing, his expression holding equal parts anger and scorn. Taking a seat, he gestured for Nick to do the same, then slammed a file folder onto the table between them.
“What in the fuck did you think you were doing?”
Flipping open the file he showed Nick a photo taken with a telephoto lens showing him carrying one half of a damaged settee to the Dumpster wearing his borrowed sweatpants and tee.
“Getting you an in to the gym.” He didn’t say “asshole” but his tone definitely implied it. “Had to work my ass off to get it, too.”
“Explain.”
“I was driving to the hospital to visit my partner when I saw my brother and another idiot wrangling this huge painting. The wind had caught it and was dragging them into the street. The other idiot was Brianna Hai. I offered them a ride back to her shop to keep them from getting themselves killed and wound up getting roped into helping them sort through a bunch of her mother’s stuff that her father had dumped off on her.” It was the truth—almost literally.
“You went into the building wearing jeans and a different shirt. Those are women’s sweats.”
There wasn’t a question there—just an implication. Nick waited for him to ask the obvious question, keeping the upper hand by remaining silent.
“Did you sleep with Brianna Hai?”
“Nope
. As you probably heard, judging from the fact that you have her under heavy surveillance.”
Tennyson didn’t deny it. “Why the change of clothes?”
“I was moving furniture.” Which was a non-answer answer. He could’ve moved the furniture wearing jeans—probably would’ve. But they probably would’ve gotten ruined. Which was exactly what happened anyway. “Mei is the one who owns the gym, but Brianna said she’d talk to her about letting you in.”
“Brianna,” Tennyson sneered.
“Yeah, Brianna. And for the record, I think you’re wrong about her. She seemed okay. But you were listening, so you know I didn’t blow your cover. But she does think you’re a cop.”
Tennyson growled.
“All my friends are cops; so’s everyone who hangs out at my uncle’s gym. You want them to think you’re something else, you should’ve come up with a different cover story.”
“Right.” Tennyson leaned back in his seat, looking at Nick through narrowed eyes. “So, who’s the dragon?”
“That would be Mei, the little Chinese woman. Scary bitch.” Nick shuddered at the memory of how casual she’d been about rearranging his gray matter.
“Scarier than Hai?”
“Oh, hell yeah.”
“She the one in charge?”
“Of the gym, yeah.”
“Of the operation.”
“I don’t think there is an ‘operation’,” Nick responded. “But if anybody’s in charge, it’s Brianna.” Nick leaned back in his seat.
“What was your grandmother doing there anyway?”
“She’s the seer—prophet, psychic. Whatever.”
“Part of the game?”
“I guess.” Nick sounded bored and more than a little irritated. The last, at least, wasn’t acting. Tennyson was definitely getting on his nerves and, no doubt as planned, had kept him from hearing what was going on in David’s interview.
The logical conclusion: he suspected Nick of being involved.
Shit.
