by Dawn Metcalf
FIFTEEN
JOY FIDGETED IN the passenger’s seat, aware that every moment was another that the Red Knight might have already killed Ink. If this was all a ploy to flush her out of hiding, it was working very well. She could be playing into a trap. She could be running toward death. She was dropping her protections, her defenses, one by one. But she couldn’t help it; even if he didn’t want her anymore, even if the Twixt refused her, she had to try—she had to help Ink.
It was stronger than a promise. It was her choice. She chose him over feeling guilty, being scared or worried about making more mistakes. Letting pride get in the way would be the biggest mistake she could make. It was her own advice that echoed in her brain. You love him, you don’t want to break up, so don’t. It’s that simple.
She loved him, he loved her, end of story. Really, it was as simple as that.
And she was going to save them both.
She’d told Stef she had to leave as soon as he’d come home—thankfully after Filly had gone off with her instructions. Stef had been none too pleased about their latest visit from an Other Than, and she’d needed him to listen. Once he’d gotten it into his head that the house was no longer safe and that he couldn’t make her stay, he’d relented—albeit angrily—and insisted on coming along. Unfortunately, Joy couldn’t make him stay, either.
Stef drove, sleeves pushed up to the elbows, arms riddled with drawn-on glyphs. Joy couldn’t help staring at them any more than he could help staring at hers. Her brother hadn’t liked the fact that she’d cut the house wards—and liked her urgent, desperate plan to leave the house even less—but he’d agreed to drive her wherever she wanted and to keep his mouth shut as long as he got to come along.
It was the perfect sibling outing: under duress.
Joy stared out the window, trying to follow every detail flying by. As long as the Red Knight didn’t attack them en route, they’d be okay. Joy knew Stef would kill her if she wrecked his new car.
“For the record, I really don’t like this,” Stef said.
Joy sniffed and twisted her fingers in her shirt. “Duly noted. Keep driving.”
He checked the GPS again. “I’m serious, Joy. Striking deals with Other Thans is a bad idea,” he said. “Historically speaking, it’s an incredibly bad idea.”
“So says the apprentice wizard,” she said. “‘Sometimes we must choose immediately unpleasant things in order to prevent greater unpleasantness.’”
“Who said that?”
Joy sighed. “Ink.” She stared grimly out the window and thought about Ink and Inq and the ugly, fearful churning in her stomach for what she was about to do. Unpleasant hardly covered it.
“It’s up here,” she said and pointed up the gravel lane past the nature preserve’s brown wooden sign. Stef obligingly pulled up the road, small rocks pinging harmlessly off the underside of his car. His eyes craned around the lush forest.
“Are we going anywhere special?”
Joy nodded, keeping her eyes forward. “It’s just up ahead. I’ll tell you where.”
They rumbled over a stretch of road, almost indistinguishable from any other stretch except for the thick wooden pole half-buried by weeds. Joy turned in her seat, the wrenching fear and doubt drawing tighter. She pressed a fist to her gut.
“This is it,” Joy said.
“Here?” Stef asked as he touched the brakes. “You sure?”
Stef couldn’t see why yet, but Joy did.
“Yep,” Joy said, her breath fluttering. “Positive. Look.”
The Nissan slid to a stop with a crunch of gravel and dirt. A cloud of dust kicked up from the tires, parting like a curtain to reveal a lone thin figure in a camouflaged cloak, tied by a length of rope to the post. Joy shouldered her backpack as Stef tapped his thumbs nervously against the wheel.
He turned to look at her as she opened the door—there was the fear again, but also anger and resolve. Her armor glinted off his rectangular frames.
“Now remember,” she said. “Don’t freak out, don’t say anything and keep your thoughts and opinions to yourself while I’m talking. Got that?”
His lips were a thin line. His hands squeezed the wheel. “Got it.”
Joy frowned. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
She stepped a foot out the door, paused and looked back at him as he opened his door. “And please don’t be stupid,” she said.
Stef sighed. “I remember. No Stupid.”
She smiled with wished-for confidence. “I know what I’m doing, Stef,” she said. “Trust me.”
Joy got out of the car and circled the hood. The wind blew in her face, pushing her hair back as Stef slammed the driver’s side door, squinting into the sun. It was eerie how bright and alone the woods could be. Joy was overconscious of how many conifers were around.
Kestrel rustled beneath her mottled cloak; the leather hood twisting querulously with little pic-pic noises as Joy stepped into the tall grass. She didn’t want to get too close, knowing that Kestrel was both strong and skittish and she couldn’t speak the tracker’s language. She gave the hunter a wide berth as she approached the post. Joy dropped her backpack and checked her supplies as she waited for the others to arrive. The wind rustled the leaves. Birdsong tittered in the trees. The grass folded and parted off to one side of the road.
For some reason, Joy had pictured him dressed in his usual suit, which made her feel foolish. Kurt emerged from the brambles wearing desert khakis and a sleeveless muscle shirt. Chest straps crisscrossed over his heart, steadying the massive sword on his back. His black shoulder holster was threaded beneath it, a Maverick pressed into his side. He held a dull metal box in both corded hands, reflected sunlight hitting the ugly scar at his throat. He wore black tabi shoes. His face was grim. Stef stared at the bodyguard and said nothing.
“I’ve been expecting your call,” he said.
Joy sighed and zipped up her bag. “I wouldn’t have called unless I had a good reason,” she said. “You told me not to.”
“I did,” Kurt agreed and glanced at Stef. “I thought that it might be you asking to gain my support with the Bailiwick or to pass a message on to Inq.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t think you would do that.”
“You were right.” Kurt scanned the perimeter with a wary eye. “This is a strategically poor location.”
“Couldn’t be helped,” Joy said, jutting her thumb at the tracker. “This is the only drop-off point I know.” She’d trusted Mr. Vinh to make the arrangements and to broker payment. Joy wasn’t too familiar with dollars-to-dead-rabbit conversion rates. The fact that Kestrel was here gave her hope that she could do this. Even without Inq and Ink, she had her own ties to the Twixt, her own resources, her own allies, and she was going to use them all.
Kurt studied the tracker’s hood with its topknot of braided leather and long cracked stitches. “I presume you have a plan.” The Bailiwick’s butler said the words as a statement rather than a question. Joy nodded as she scanned the overgrowth, avoiding his eyes.
“Yep.”
Joy tasted the change on the wind, the metallic whiff of an ion charge at the moment she felt the hairs on her arms rise. Stef felt it, too, and eased to one side. Kurt shifted his shoulder, tilting the hilt, moving gracefully as he turned the box in his hands.
“I don’t deny you have every right to ask for this,” he said, scanning the treetops. “But I sincerely hope you know what you’re doing.”
Joy squinted, preparing for the flash. “Yeah. Me, too.”
Stef glared at her.
There was a crackle and a clap of thunder and Filly strode confidently into view, escorting a hunched, grubby figure bristling with long quills and mealy rags. Joy’s legs loosened and her stomach curdled—just the shape of him touched somethin
g nightmarish in her mind. The scent of his fetid-meat breath hit her like a fist. Her brother gasped, stepping back, and coughed for clean air.
Briarhook’s smile creased his wobbly cheeks and his piggy eyes sparkled. He glanced eagerly between Joy and Kurt. His clawed toes raked the earth. Kestrel’s hooded head perked up and she whickered with an all-body shudder. Stef regained his composure and flexed his fingers.
“As requested.” Filly tossed Joy a plastic contact container with a screw-on cap. “Three tears per month, four months,” she said. “Delivery included.” Joy was grateful to the horsewoman; she’d forgotten to ask for that. She should be more careful when dealing with wizards. “And the Wizard Vinh said that your offer was only good for the one order, not the other, and not to confuse the two.”
Joy nodded, thinking of what she was getting into. Mr. Vinh now had her on tap for a while. She stuck the container in her back pocket, trying her best to ignore Stef’s look of shock and Briarhook’s hungry stare. “And the other thing?” she asked quickly.
“Hmph.” Filly snorted her displeasure. “Ladybird said he’d already named his price.”
Joy frowned and then remembered. “That was for Ilhami’s debt! And I said no.”
“He said you’d say that,” Filly said. “And that his price still stands.”
Joy’s insides squirmed. Three drops of blood, willingly given. That’s what Ladybird had said. What would he do with them? She shuddered to think. She glanced at Stef, who said nothing, and she couldn’t afford to ask. What else could she do? Her plan was shaky to begin with and she needed every advantage she could get. It sickened her to ask the drug dealer for anything, but she needed this plan to work.
“Fine,” Joy said.
Filly smirked and reached into her side pouch. “He said you’d say that, too.” She passed Joy a small glass vial with an address label and a tiny pillow made of peach silk, folded in plastic wrap. It sagged in her hand like a sigh. She tucked both into her other back pocket and wiped her hand on her shorts.
“Now you,” Joy said to Briarhook. “I know what you want. Do you know what I want?”
“Want many things, you,” he rasped. “But this want. Me.” He held up a drawstring pouch and opened it with a careful claw; the satchel yawned in the thick of his palm, the briar seeds spilling over one another inside. Joy nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “They’re the same?”
He retied the slipknot. “Touch soil, seeds grow.” His mouth curled in a hungry line, exposing wet yellow teeth. “Price, mine—half.”
“No,” Joy said, shaking her head. “No way. You gave me some for free.”
Briarhook laughed. “Know Ladybird, you.” He gestured at her pocket, quills rattling. His long hairless tail swished in the grass. “Know you—first time, free. Second time, pay.” He leered. “Make message. You.” He raised three hooked fingers. “Price, mine—third.”
She looked at Kurt and Filly for some assistance. Both looked at her impassively with no hint at all. Stef stared intently at the thick metal plate in the hedgehog’s chest. Great. She was trying to bargain with a nightmare monster and was no good at haggling. It was times like this that she really wanted Monica for backup.
“A thumb’s width,” Joy countered, her voice quivering. “That much.”
“Ha!” Briarhook spat. “Joke, you. No. Third.”
“An eighth,” Joy said. “You burned your mark into my arm!”
“Scribe cut out heart, mine!” he seethed and bashed the metal plate fused to his chest. “Owe, you. Lehman to Ink!”
Joy felt her shoes grind deeper in the dirt. She wanted nothing more than to get away, forget all of this, run away—run! Briarhook’s anger rattled something brittle inside her. Her instincts screamed, and she squeezed the pack straps to keep her hands from shaking. Joy forced herself to focus on his words: Ink. Yes. This was for Ink, and she hadn’t time for this.
“A sixth,” she said.
“Fourth,” he said through a mouthful of spittle. “Quarter or no.”
“A fifth,” she said. “Or I stay empty-handed and you go away empty-hearted.”
Briarhook growled. His feet scoured the earth. He grumbled. “Fifth. Yes.”
Joy nodded to Filly, then Kurt. “Done.”
Wordlessly, Kurt flipped the latches on the iron box. Both Joy and Briarhook edged closer to look. The beefy butler pulled a knife from its sheath tucked somewhere near the flat of his back; it had three wide holes like Swiss cheese and its blade was the width of Joy’s wrist. He flipped open the lid and held it up for all to see: tucked inside a gray foam cutout was a living, beating heart, veined with blue-and-white fatty patches. Its aorta gaped, gasping, pumping nothing but air.
Briarhook salivated. Joy blanched. The heart kicked in its cage.
Glancing a cool confirmation at Joy, Kurt placed the knife at the point where perhaps it could be divided into fifths and cut a smooth line through the rubbery flesh. The muscle parted easily in a way that made Joy’s own heart falter. After stabbing the gobbet on the tip of the wicked knife, Kurt held it up and closed the lid with a snap.
“First the briar seeds,” Kurt said. “Then the bargain is witnessed and sealed.”
Briarhook seemed to have forgotten himself and dropped the pouch in Joy’s hand without a word of broken English or a backward glance. His eyes drank in the bloody scrap skewered on Kurt’s knife. A thick spool of drool fell from his lip.
Joy pushed the pouch into her side pocket and took a wide step back, closer to Stef.
Kurt slid the bit of heart meat into Briarhook’s waiting hand and withdrew the knife, wiping its edge against his pant leg, leaving a dark smear. Briarhook touched his thumb pads to the rippled red surface and giggled through his nose. Tipping back his snout, he dropped the piece of heart on his tongue and rapidly gobbled without chewing, his throat stabbing upward wildly at the mouthful as it choked its way down.
His quills clattered as he closed his eyes, the saggy flesh of his body shuddering grotesquely. A scrap of loose rag fell to the ground. Briarhook sighed and his eyes snapped open, cunning and clever and cruel. Joy flinched.
“Go,” she whispered.
“Ah,” he said, happily. “Next time, eh, lehman?” He shuffled into the thick grass, weaving his hand along the tasseled tops swaying gently in the wind. His tail swung contentedly. “This mine,” he said. “Feel it, I. Lost kingdom, the Twixt. This bit—the forest, the wild woods—mine.” He pointed to Kurt and to Filly and to her. “Hear, you,” he said. “I will have my heart.” He struck a pose, claws curling into two shaking fists. “Never you free, Briarhook, ’til my heart, mine!”
His back bristled with a shiver as he lumbered into the woods, each breath sounding horribly like laughter, rusty and raw.
Kurt made a big show of securing the latches of the iron box and tucking it tightly against his abs. Filly flicked her thumbnail against the bone handle of her knife, and Joy watched him go with the cold, clammy splash of being too close to violence. Too close to danger. Too close to death. Kestrel’s hood moved in short, quick jerks, searching for the rank scent that had now thankfully disappeared.
Stef was breathing hard, his arms behind his back, nostrils flaring.
“You know he’ll kill you once he gets it all,” Filly said. Joy didn’t answer. She’d known it, of course, but this was the first time she’d actually seen it in the hedgehog’s eyes.
“I’m beginning to doubt the wisdom of this plan,” she said.
Stef raised a hand. “Am I allowed to say anything?”
Joy glared at him. “No.”
“Well, I think it’s brilliant,” Filly said. “Bloody clever and bloody violent!”
This did not comfort Joy in the least.
“Very well,” Kurt said. “I have delivered your property an
d witnessed your trade. My part in this is done. I must get back to my duties. Sir. Ladies.” He bowed to Stef, Joy and Filly, his crisp suit and starched mandarin collar seeming to materialize over his rumpled camo and sweat-tinged shirt. “May you have every success.”
“Thank you,” Joy said, feeling increasingly nervous and uncertain. Kurt knew how to use that sword and the gun and the knife and who knew what else he carried on him, but she felt she couldn’t ask him to stay. She knew what he’d say and didn’t want to hear it, and part of her thought that, perhaps, he wouldn’t want to say it. He was still part of Graus Claude’s world and Inq’s lover for more than a lifetime. While asking him for the heart was legitimate business, asking Kurt to fight the Red Knight for her was not. Still...
“Kurt?”
He turned. The look he gave her froze her tongue. She cleared her throat.
“Please tell Graus Claude that I am very grateful. And if you could tell Inq to protect her brother, please say that I’m trying to do the same.” She swallowed a mouthful of fear and spit. “And that I’m sorry for what happened,” she said. “I really am.”
The bulky bodyguard said nothing for a long moment but lifted his chin in acknowledgment, flashing the long scar at his throat. “I’ll do that, for you, Joy Malone,” he said. “Good luck.” Kurt gave a quick nod like a salute to each of them before stalking into the thicker wood. Joy lost sight of him in a shadowy copse of birch trees. Filly stepped forward; Joy hitched her pack on her back.
“Luck?” Filly snorted, testing her knife. “Skill is a warrior’s luck.”
Stef massaged his arms, smoothing down gooseflesh. “I wouldn’t mind having a little extra luck.” He pulled out a marker and drew a quick symbol on his wrist.
Joy patted her backpack. “Well, I’ve got a John Melton’s boon, for whatever that’s worth.”
“Ah.” The horsewoman nodded as if that explained everything. “And now?”
“And now,” Joy said. “We see to our tracker.”
Everyone turned to the lone figure still cloaked and hooded in patchworked bits of leather of shady browns and greens. The hood cocked to one side at their approach and an anticipatory foot pawed the ground. Joy saw that Kestrel’s feet were bare and coated with mud.
