Not wanting to face that thought, Zee wrapped herself around Nick, pulling him closer and taking comfort in the warmth of his body.
“Make love to me,” she said into the curve of his throat. “It’s what I want.”
“You’re certain?” Nick asked, pulling back far enough to look at her. His eyes held concern.
“More certain than I am of anything else,” Zee answered, straining upward toward his lips. She allowed herself to enjoy the sweetness of his kiss, let physical sensation push emotional doubt aside. And for a time, it was enough.
Chapter Two
“The press is aware of the mall Santa’s murder— and though there was nothing on the radio yesterday, by now they probably know about the children’s disappearance,” Nick said to Jack the next morning over breakfast; he’d seen it on the Internet. He was feeling odd: happy, but with an edge. He was sated but still anxious, because he knew the time for battle was approaching and his contentment would not last. He’d tried reading poetry as a diversion but soon noticed that though the book he’d found described misery in great detail, it little discussed degrees of happiness. Probably because happiness was often ephemeral, whereas misery was forever.
“Maybe so, but I’m betting the details were hushed up. The lutins won’t want this getting out and the human authorities will want to avoid panic. They’ll probably keep the children’s families quiet by telling them to wait for a ransom demand,” Jack answered.
“So, the humans and goblins are going to hold hands—or at least their tongues—on this?” Nick asked, disbelief casting a first shadow over his good mood.
“I suspect so. Still, I can’t imagine Qasim allowing that to happen. He’ll need the press for his announcement, and he’ll offer them something spectacular as a lure. If the bribe is impressive enough, they’ll broadcast anything he wants.”
Nick felt suddenly cold and the last of his happiness died. “We have to find those kids. Now.”
“We have!” Thomas Marrowbone said, walking into the room. He carried several sets of papers in his hands, which he spread out on the table. “Abrial and Roman are on their way back as we speak. Take a look. I’ve confirmed Nyssa’s findings with Spy-Sat photos. Qasim was definitely headed toward L.A., and he had all two hundred children with him.”
“Spy-Sat photos?”
Thomas smiled and confessed, “I sometimes borrow the government’s toys.”
“And the cavalry has arrived as well. Nick, meet my Uncle Farrar,” Abrial announced before Nick could speak, waving a hand toward what looked like a giant centaur. The creature didn’t seem particularly solid, and Nick wondered if he were a hologram or perhaps a ghost. Whatever Farrar was, Nick knew he was there because Nyssa had summoned him from someplace called The Yesterdays.
Abrial’s wife was now in another room, in a deep trance, attended by her mother. The chamber where she lay was an odd one, made of dark glass that seemed to have large forms fused into its black crystals; Nick had caught a glimpse on his way to this council of war. She was lying on her side on an altar of glass, one delicate arm curved protectively over her round belly. Her pregnant vulnerability had moved him and made him even more determined to find and stop Qasim before the hobgoblin hurt his daughter again.
“It’s a pleasure,” Nick lied to the Piper. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the centaur, but he definitely found the Piper’s colorful cloak lined in skinned but living rats repulsive.
“Isn’t it?” Farrar answered. His eyes spiraled crazily as he looked at Nick, and Nick found himself wondering if that was entirely accidental.
Abrial ignored his uncle’s odd behavior—which perhaps wasn’t odd for Farrar—and gave everyone in the room what looked like a pennywhistle without any holes. Each was threaded on a long thong, which the others dropped around their tunics. Nick tried the whistle and detected no sound, yet he was sure that some sound was being made.
“Softly, young man,” Farrar warned, moving a little closer. The hair on Nick’s arms began to lift and the smell of ozone filled the air. He thought of that line from Macbeth: “And by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” Farrar’s eyes grew bright, as though guessing his thoughts and finding them amusing. “That little pipe can call many things besides children.”
Roman entered the room. The pooka looked unusually sober and didn’t give Farrar more than a glance.
“Okay, so here’s the plan,” Jack said. “Farrar will bespell the captured children and divide them into three groups. We’ll each take one group to guide out of the ancient hives, where Qasim is hiding them. We will try to remain together during the escape, because the roads are tricky and in some places booby-trapped, but will split up if we have to.
“The dragon will be running interference, and Cyra, Lyris and Io will set off some diversions we have planned in case the goblins try to interfere with the rescue—it isn’t a happy thought, but we have to assume that at some point they will become aware of the fact that we have crossed the fringes of their territory, and that they will send search parties to intercept us. They are, after all, hunting Qasim, and they will want to get him before we do—in case we are insane enough to be helping him. Paranoia in the L.A. hive is at an all-time high, and they don’t trust us a bit.
“And of course we have to watch out for Lobineau’s crew.
“Remember, gang, we need to watch out for their darts. We have some antidote and will carry it, but if enough poison gets into our systems, we’ll be incapacitated for several hours.”
“Or until a goblin cuts your head off,” Farrar murmured, earning himself a withering look from Abrial.
“Why three groups?” Thomas asked.
“Because other than Cyra, none of us can enchant so many minds and manage them and still remain mentally clear enough to fight off any enemies who happen along. We also can’t do it without leaving the kids fey-struck.” Jack looked over at Nick and explained: “You may have heard of being pixilated? It’s a sort of addiction to faerie magic that can come after a human is deeply enchanted by a fey. The young are especially vulnerable, and there is no cure for the ailment. The infected would become magic junkies, trying their whole lives to get enchanted again. For humans, it’s worse than crack. Frankly, it would be kinder to let the kids die now.”
“Once you go fey, there’s no other way,” Roman joked, but his smile did not reach his eyes. Clearly he was disturbed about what they were going to do, though supposedly Farrar’s musical enchantment would not harm the children permanently.
Jack shook his head, anticipating Nick’s next question. “No—Cyra can’t bespell them without hurting herself. She has started having convulsions every time she conjures, and will continue to do so until we can reanimate her selkie skin. Farrar is our best and maybe only choice.”
Nick nodded. He didn’t like the sound of this, but he knew they would never be able to lead two hundred panicked children out of the hobgoblin’s lair and through the goblin tunnels without this plan. The whole endeavor was a bit of a long shot. He prayed they wouldn’t be detected. He’d been getting a crash course in goblin hives and knew they were terrifying and confusing—much worse than the giants’ caverns had been. Added to that was the possibility that the children were already fey-struck. There was no way of knowing how careful Qasim had been. Zee seemed to think that his mind control had been fairly clever and delicate, that he hadn’t wanted to terrorize or hurt the kids unduly, but that was what she’d sensed before he had stolen them away; there was no knowing what he had done to the children recently. They might not even be in any shape to flee. Which was a danger they all refused to contemplate. They simply did not have enough people to physically carry two hundred children to safety.
“This seems easy enough, but don’t get overconfident. Remember, wars are won one battle at a time,” Jack told them.
Nick didn’t think the warning was necessary. None of this seemed easy to him, am he was in no danger of getting cocky.
>
“And just remember,” Abrial added, “we need to win them all. We are living in a house of cards. Lose one battle and our entire world comes down. Like it or not, we’re all interdependent.”
“Every man’s death diminishes me,” said Thomas, thinking of John Donne.
Nick had never felt such a weight of responsibility: They needed to save these children, which would stop a war between humans and goblins, but they also needed to avoid provoking a war between themselves and a slowly uniting goblin empire. Fate did not often ask so much.
Perhaps it was just as well that they were setting off almost immediately. Nick’s friends who were in the army had told him that it wasn’t the firefight that shot one’s nerves, it was all the waiting beforehand; that was where uncertainty blossomed into dread and when a man began to doubt his abilities and goals.
The only thing that cheered him was the ghost’s absence. The spirit seemed to appear only when the situation was on the verge of being dire, or when he thought Nick was about to screw up.
“I don’t know how this affects us, but we have a new wrinkle with the Lobineau problem,” Thomas said, producing a second sheaf of printouts. “It looks like several of the cemeteries inside New Orleans have been systematically excavated— including the tombs of Marie Laveau and Malvina Latour, the voodoo queens.”
“Excavated?” Jack asked, a frown gathering between his brows. Nick felt the flesh on his arms begin again to creep, moving toward his neck and shoulders.
“Like King Tut’s tomb,” Thomas confirmed. “There isn’t so much as an earbone left in any of the ossuaries. They’ve been vacuumed clean.”
“Isn’t this how Qasim was found? Could someone be looking for more undead hobgoblins again?” Roman asked. “Or are they after some magical voodoo grave power?”
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know. Whatever it is they were looking for, if it was there, they have it. And a lot of bones as well.”
Jack was calm. “I think we’d best prepare ourselves for some nasty surprises. I don’t see how this affects this operation—not directly. But we will bear it in mind.” He looked at each of the men in turn. “We have time yet to say good-byes. Do it. Make any peace that needs to be made. Then we have to go. I can feel a darkness gathering. It is the human New Year’s Eve tonight, and there will be both a blood moon and a lunar eclipse. Other than the Lupercalia in February, there won’t ever be a better time for Qasim to do his dark work.”
Make peace. That was exactly what Nick wanted to do: go back to Zee, climb back into their bed and hold her close, to breathe in her rich scent and fill his senses so that he could carry her with him while he went to war.
The team split up—except for Farrar, who seemed content to perch on the table, swinging his hooved foot impatiently until Bysshe entered the room. Her appearance made him smile.
Nick hurried back to the chamber he and Zee shared, and he was pleased to find her still abed, her golden hair spread out on her pillow. “I’m glad you’re still here,” he said, kneeling on the fur coverlet and leaning down to kiss her.
Zee’s eyes fluttered open and she sighed, returning his kiss.
“Of course I’m here. I’ve made my bed and I’ll have to lie in it. That’s the saying, yes?” Zee asked, smiling a little.
“Yes.” And she’d be lying in it spread-eagled and tied to the bedposts if Nick had had any say in the matter. Then, his moment of lightness abandoning him, he said, “We are about to embark. The children have been found and Jack says that he can feel the danger getting close. We have to go now.”
Zee’s eyes clouded and she sat up, sliding her arms around Nick and cuddling close to his chest. “The Goddess be with you all,” she whispered, running a hand through his hair. “You come back to me, Nick. To me and the children. We aren’t finished yet. I . . . I have something important to tell you when you come home.”
Home. Was that what Cadalach was? He couldn’t really say. In many ways, it was more like home than his apartment near the hospital, but he probably felt that because Zee was here.
“I will be back, never fear,” he promised, and he meant it. He was nervous—maybe even a bit frightened—about going into the goblin lands and taking these children from Zee’s monster, but he had a definite sense that this wasn’t his day to die. And since she would be here, in Cadalach where it was safe, all would be well. “I’m sorry that I have to go when things are . . . well, so wonderful. It’s sort of like finding out that you’re honeymooning on the Titanic.”
Zee shook her head, her hair gliding over his hands. “You have to go,” she said, her voice unhappy but resigned. “Our parts in this play were assigned long ago, and we must do what Fate wishes.”
“Must we?” Nick asked, pulling back enough to look into her eyes. He’d never heard her talk this way. She sounded fatalistic.
“Sometimes. This time,” Zee answered. Then she leaned forward and kissed him again.
“Are you all right?” Nick asked, wondering where the question came from. Why wouldn’t Zee be all right? She was here in Cadalach, safe, healthy—and she would remain so whatever happened, because the goblins would never reach this stronghold.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Don’t worry. Fate has plans for me, too, I’m sure—but they will never be as dangerous as what you face.”
Nick nodded and stood.
“Zee, I . . .” he began, but found he couldn’t find the words for what he wanted to say. “Just, be well. I’ll be back soon. And then we’ll have lots of time to talk.”
“Lots of time,” Zee echoed, averting her gaze.
Nick took a deep breath and forced himself to turn away. The sooner he went, the sooner he’d return.
Qasim stared sightlessly at the sleeping children curled up on the cavern floor. His head was full of memories tonight—bad ones. He mostly thought about his prison.
Prison. What an inadequate word for the hell to which he’d been confined for two centuries. It had been more awful than even Gofimbel intended. Because he’d been imprisoned in the heart of a faerie tree, he hadn’t actually slept, hadn’t hibernated, hadn’t died. Qasim had been frozen in place but still aware, still screaming with his mind, if not with his stopped-up voice. He’d hungered and thirsted and gone slowly insane as the wood of the tree grew into his sinews and chewed through his brain. And thus he’d lived for two hundred years.
Worse still, he had thought at the time that it would go on for eternity. He had known utter despair. For that, more than anything, he hated Gofimbel and Gofimbel’s goblin heirs.
Qasim’s hands clenched, his claws puncturing his palms, but he didn’t notice; the small physical pain was no match for the anguish of his mind. His brothers were probably still suffering this way, thinking themselves shut up for all time, buried in trees and inside stones, starving and screaming, praying for a death they realized now would never come.
It was because of their damned fey blood, the tiny bit supplied by Gofimbel when he’d stolen that lock of King Finvarra’s hair and put it in his creatures as a vicious jest. It would not let them die so long as they were in fey wood or fey stones; it wouldn’t let them age, wouldn’t let them sleep. Not ever. They could starve, could go insane—but they couldn’t expire. That was the blessing, and that was the curse. And only one of Finvarra’s blood, one from that Seelie line, could remove the taint and take back the stolen faerie magic.
Qasim would gladly give away the blood and its power to have his brothers’ freedom—that was all he was living for, anyway—but his research said that all the Finvarras had died in the Great Drought. So, he had only one other choice, one other way to free his agonized brothers.
Qasim’s eyes slowly focused on the sleeping children. His expression didn’t change, but he felt a small bit of pity, and had it been possible, he might have shed a tear.
But that wasn’t possible, so he turned on his heel and walked away. It was time to begin.
Chapter Three
She waited, concentrating fiercely. Breath left her body, and breath returned. Nothing bad happened. No monsters jumped out of the closet. Nothing growled from under the bed. Life went on— normally, if such a word could apply while in the shian—in spite of her misgivings about her situation and uncertainty about her place in the order of things.
Love went on, too, she thought, her heart contracting. She could turn away and pretend she didn’t feel; she could play deaf and mute, but her feelings were still there—stronger than ever. Denying them had not made them disappear; they only clamored louder now that Nick had gone. And she was discovering that for some things there was no analgesic, no forgetfulness. The love she had sought had been found. And that love had disassembled her defenses and left her naked to new kinds of worries and pain. And she would remain unclothed and vulnerable until she acknowledged her emotions and knitted up some new reality that encompassed the truth of her love.
That was terrifying.
But necessary.
So, it all came down to faith. She had to trust— trust that Nick wouldn’t hurt her, that he wouldn’t reject her when they left the protection of the shian because of what had happened, because of her being pregnant and having goblin blood. And she had to trust that if he did not love her yet, he would eventually. And that he would love their child, too. There was a purpose in their lives—that’s what all the Goddess’s people said. Their feelings were guided by something greater and were not just random acts of chaos—and the Goddess was not just some fey deity doing what was expedient.
Zee hugged Nick’s pillow to her face and breathed deeply, and a shiver of pure elation passed through her. Grateful, she held the pillow tighter. It was weak of her, but she needed this tie to Nick, to feel that he was close.
Because she was still afraid?
The Master Page 23
