Corruption

by Jennifer Blackstream

  “I’ll explain everything later. Kelpies are holding my partner prisoner, and we’re going to get him back.”

  Laurie nodded. “Fey water horses, violent and beguiling. How can I help?”

  “I’m told you’re a paladin,” Flint said.

  She lifted her chin. “I am. But I am demon-bound. I have little magic but for the…gifts the demon would offer in exchange for more of my soul.”

  “My power should be enough to let you use your abilities again,” Flint said. “Can you feel them?”

  Laurie’s lips parted, her breath catching in her throat. “What? How is that possible?”

  “He’s a leannan sidhe, and he inspired you,” I said, almost dancing in place now. A paladin as old as Laurie was practically a guarantee of success. If Flint had given her access to her power… “Please, we need to hurry.”

  Laurie straightened her spine. “All right then. Let’s go.” She paused. “What happened to the grass?”

  “Don’t ask,” Flint muttered.

  We headed past the gate, trudging through the high grass until we left the range of Majesty’s spell. The kitten in question rode the black cat to the rocky set of stairs carved into the slope leading down to the beach. I held Peasblossom in the palm of my hand and drew my magic, pushing a spell into her to hold.

  “Remember,” I said as we approached the pier. “The kelpies don’t want him dead. They want him to suffer. They’re probably holding him under the pretense of keeping him safe while he heals from the gunshot. Hopefully Andy remembers what I taught him and he hasn’t agreed to anything, or taken anything from them. With any luck, we can make them see reason and be gone.”

  “That plan sounds familiar,” Flint murmured.

  I ignored that remark. It was true, talking our way out was a pipe dream, but that’s why we’d come prepared for a fight. Kelpies were violent, and if they got you in the water, you were done for. But they weren’t on the same level as a sidhe. They relied on ambush, and the element of surprise—which they did not have now.

  We’ll be fine, I promised myself.

  We marched over the beach and down the pier as a group. The houseboat floated like a sleeping sea monster halfway between the end of the pier and the shore. The water licked at the boat’s sides, filling the night air with the sound of a great beast licking its lips. Small red emergency lights adorned each corner, gleaming like a predator’s eyes in the darkness.

  Stop thinking of the boat as a monster, I chastised myself. There are plenty of monsters on board to worry about.

  I shook off creepy imagery and lifted my chin. Occupants aside, it was a plain, ordinary boat. I remembered it from my last scuffle with these fey, the expensive two-story luxury item with its gleaming white paint and slashes of burgundy accents.

  A small door at the rear of the boat opened. The large, shirtless man framed in the opening was the same man I’d met the last time I’d approached the kelpies at this house about a human they were holding. His skin had a faint blue tint, his dark black hair holding an impossible green shine when the moonlight hit it. Eyes too black and glossy to be human scrutinized me from head to toe before moving down the line of my associates.

  “Mother Renard. How nice to see you again.” He tone contradicted the sentiment of his words.

  “Rowyn, isn’t it?” I asked. “Lovely to meet you again.” I paused. “How’ve you been?”

  “Fine.”

  He didn’t offer more than that, so I wrenched my polite smile higher. “So pleased to hear it. I was hoping I might speak with Andy?”

  The kelpie leaned against the door jam. He wore sun-bleached grey sweatpants that made no sound when he moved and would tear like tissue paper should Rowyn need to shift into his equine form. The muscles of his broad chest flexed as he crossed his arms. “What makes you think Agent Bradford is here?”

  “A mutual acquaintance tells me you were kind enough to take Andy in after he was shot. I was delayed, but now I’m here, and I’d like to take him home—to recuperate,” I added.

  Rowyn looked at Laurie and Flint, then over at the black cat. His eyebrows rose at the sight of Majesty sitting on the black cat’s head, his teeth latched onto the large beast’s ear. “Seems you’re here for a fight.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “We’re here for Andy, that’s it.”

  He straightened, bracing an arm on either side of the door. One large hand thudded against the right side of the frame, then dragged a few inches down. It reminded me of a horse pawing the ground. “You’ve brought an army.”

  “Not at all,” I said, waving off the idea. “These are my…pets, and Flint is my…master.” I tripped over the last word, but kept going. “And Laurie is another witness.”

  Rowyn frowned. “Witness? Witness to what?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation,” I said quickly. “But yes, she’s a witness. As is Andy. I need to take him with me now so we can speak to the Vanguard.”

  Not quite a lie. The Vanguard wanted to talk about Paul’s murder, and when they found out Andy was a witness, they’d want to talk to him too.

  It took me a second to realize Rowyn’s interest had shifted to focus only on Laurie. He studied the paladin the way a neighbor might scrutinize a costumed child on Halloween, trying to determine who is beneath the mask.

  “Laurie, is it?” he asked.

  The paladin drew herself up to her full height, and looked down her nose at the kelpie the way only a paladin could. “Yes.”

  “Not Lorelei?”

  A muscle twitched in her jaw, but she didn’t flinch. “No.”

  Rowyn tilted his head. “But Lorelei is…in there. Somewhere. Right?”

  “Why are you so interested in Lorelei?” I asked suspiciously.

  Rowyn shrugged. “No reason.” He stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him. “If you’re here about Agent Bradford, you’ll want to talk to Siobhan. She is—was—Galen’s sister.”

  Oh, that did not sound good. I followed Rowyn’s gesture to a smaller boat drifting offshore about thirty yards. I hadn’t seen it until now, dwarfed as it was by the houseboat. A woman stood on the deck, one foot braced on the side. Wind kicked up her dark hair, blowing it like a flag toward the west. She wore black pants that might’ve been leggings or dress pants, it was hard to tell in this light from this distance. Her shirt billowed in the wind, a blouse buttoned only halfway up. She wore nothing under the blouse that I could see. Perhaps because she planned to shift?

  “They’re here for Agent Bradford?” she called out.

  “Aye,” Rowyn called. “He’s a witness, wanted for an interview with the Vanguard.”

  The woman gestured behind her. A man rose from his seat, pulling something off the floor of the boat. A man’s figure. After a short struggle, he got the man’s arm around him and approached the side of the boat.

  Andy.

  His suit jacket was gone, and he’d torn the dress shirt beneath it to use as a makeshift bandage. Blood soaked the white cotton, and more blood had dried on his stomach and pants. Red smears on his face and in his hair suggested he’d been thrashing around. His legs bowed as if even with assistance he couldn’t stand.

  I gritted my teeth. “Is he all right?”

  “He refused our care.” Siobhan shrugged. “He refused everything. Food, drink, first aid. I’m sad to say he’s in a sorry state. And far be it from me to keep him from an interview with the Vanguard. He’s all yours.”

  The kelpie carried Andy closer to the edge of the boat. Andy looked around, his head bobbing, obviously disoriented. The kelpie smiled at him, showing a line of large, flat teeth. Andy jerked away, stumbling and grabbing the side of the boat to keep from sinking to his knees. He gaze landed on the water and he tensed.

  I realized what he planned to do a second too late. “Andy, no!”

  Andy pitched forward, diving off the boat with the determination of a man escaping his kidnappers. But he was too weak
to stand.

  Too weak to swim.

  “He’ll drown!” I shouted.

  “I’ve got him!” Laurie flung out a hand, and Andy rose from the water with an uneven lurch. He coughed and spluttered, writhing in her telekinetic grasp. She half flung Andy to the pier, and he hit with a groan of pain. I cursed and dug a healing potion from my pouch, shedding cotton balls and bobby pins as I dropped to my knees beside him. “Bloody hell, Laurie, he’s already injured!”

  Laurie snarled. “I am trying to help.”

  I jerked the cork out of the healing potion and poured it down Andy’s throat, smacking his hands out of the way as he fought me, his cloudy brown eyes unseeing. He was delirious with pain, and possibly fever. I spilled at least a third of the potion, but he swallowed enough to fix the worst of it.

  “Andy, are you all right?”

  “They’re the ones that threw him into the water!” Laurie snapped. “And you’re yelling at me for not being gentle enough?”

  “Shade,” Flint bit out, not taking his eyes from the kelpies. “What in the name of flesh and blood is going on? Why is she using the demon’s gifts?”

  I stared at Laurie. Flint was right. He was right, and I hadn’t noticed. Telekinesis wasn’t a paladin’s spell—it was a demon gift.

  “Laurie, what are you doing?” I asked, trying to stay calm. “If you use Lorelei’s gifts, there’s a price, you know that.”

  Laurie glared at me, hazel eyes alight with a brightness that hadn’t been there a second ago. “So judgmental. I should have expected that from a witch. Godless creature.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “You poisoned me, didn’t you?” she demanded. “You think I deserve to die for my failings. I called you for help, but you’ve been working against me the whole time. Blaming me. You think I let it happen, I let them die.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Flint muttered.

  Andy coughed and I slid an arm under him, grunting as I helped him sit up. “Andy, you’re all right. Come on, you have to get up.”

  “I’m helping you, and all you can do is stand there, judging me!”

  I ignored her and tried to pull Andy to his feet. There was no time to make her see reason. No time to remind her that using a demon’s gifts meant giving up a piece of your rationality, a piece of your logic. Demons thrived on chaos, and that’s exactly what Laurie had let into her mind when she’d used Lorelei’s gift.

  Laurie growled. A second later, Flint rose off the pier, his eyes widening in surprise. I didn’t have time to shout, didn’t have time to grab him. Laurie hurled him at the boat, striking one of the kelpies and knocking him into the water.

  Siobhan laughed. “And so it begins!”

  Chapter 16

  Flint’s body hurtled through the air, sailing over the kelpies like a man-sized warning shot. He twisted in midair and landed on his feet, hitting the deck of Siobhan’s boat with a solid thud. Arms out to the side, he fixed the paladin with a glare that promised retribution, gold light fracturing his hazel irises visible even from a distance. Laurie should have cowered from that look. She didn’t. Quite the contrary, she stood on the pier with her chin raised in defiance, her hazel eyes reflecting the red security lights of the houseboat.

  Flint stepped toward the edge of the boat, ignoring Siobhan and her bodyguard and focusing on the paladin that had launched him like a cannonball onto an enemy ship.

  “Don’t move.” Rowyn aimed a small handgun at Flint’s chest.

  I didn’t know where he’d gotten the gun. The door behind him was open, and I had a real concern over what else might be waiting to join us. What other weapons the fey might pull.

  The leannan sidhe raised his hands, though none of the anger faded from his burning gaze.

  “This is bad.” I knelt, abandoning my effort to get Andy to stand. His breathing hadn’t evened out, and he’d made no move to rise despite my urging. I needed to stabilize him. If I could do it without getting shot first.

  Siobhan watched me without a word. Waiting. Her bodyguard didn’t move either, and Rowyn said nothing else to Flint, though he kept his gun aimed at the leannan sidhe’s chest. Laurie continued her staring contest with Flint. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said she was waiting for him to apologize.

  “Siobhan’s waiting for you to heal him more so he’ll be an active participant when the fight starts,” Peasblossom whispered.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I muttered. “But I can’t leave him like this.”

  The rough wood of the pier stabbed me through the thin cotton of my leggings, tiny pinpricks of pain as I shifted to face Andy. His labored breathing pushed his chest up and down, and his lips moved as if he were trying to tell me something. His eyes stared sightlessly at the sky, fever bright, and his face was too pale. I felt his forehead and winced.

  “You’re burning up.” I put my other hand over his chest. He’d obviously bandaged his wound himself, but the dressing did him no good now, soaked through as it was with blood and lake water. I didn’t have time to examine the wound, or give him proper medical care. I’d have to stabilize him and hope he survived long enough for me to get him away from the kelpies.

  “Stabiliendum.” I pushed down, gently but firmly. Magic coiled upward from the well inside me, spilled down my arms and flowed into Andy’s body. I closed my eyes, willing the blue energy to close around him like a cocoon. The light coated his skin, pulsing against my hands as the spell sealed itself. Andy’s breathing evened out, but he was too pale. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  “Shh,” I said. “Don’t talk. I’ll get you out of here.”

  Siobhan leaned forward with a predatory expression of expectation. “How is he feeling?”

  “Peasblossom, get another healing potion out of my pouch,” I said under my breath. Then, raising my voice, I spoke to Siobhan. “He needs medical attention. I’m taking him to a hospital.”

  “You are taking him nowhere.” Siobhan gestured to Laurie, a lazy sprawl of her hand that contradicted the implied threat in her words. “Your companion attacked us.”

  Despite the accusation, she didn’t draw a weapon. Her calm was getting under my skin, making me itch. Tension crackled in the air, made it harder to breathe. Flint remained on the boat, his attention on the kelpie pointing his gun at him. The black cat and Majesty hovered to my right, immobile. Waiting.

  “Please forgive my companion’s loss of control.” I gestured at Laurie. “It’s been a trying day for her.”

  “Do not make excuses for me.” Laurie straightened her spine, drawing herself up to her full five foot seven height. She turned the dagger Flint had given her over in her hand, sliding her fingers over the leather bound hilt. “I do not apologize to heathens who kidnap members of law enforcement, who deny medical treatment to a man in need. They are an affront to the Lord’s mercy, and they will have no mercy shown to them.”

  Siobhan wagged a finger at Laurie. “Now, now. I offered to help him, many times. The murderer refused our aid, refused help of any kind.” She shrugged. “He has no one to blame but himself.”

  Anger heated my blood. “He is not a murderer. Agent Bradford acted on the laws and principles of his culture. There was a human boy crying out for help, half-hysterical with the desperation to be away from your brother. If Galen had listened to reason—”

  “Reason?” Siobhan barked out a laugh. She lifted a leg to brace one bare foot on the edge of the boat. “There was nothing reasonable about what happened to my brother. That man murdered him.” She pointed at Andy where he lay on the deck, mumbling and fighting to sit up. “And thanks to your willingness to cover for him, a few strokes of the pen and a careless word stole any right I had to demand compensation—to demand justice!”

  Despite the fury in her tone, a smile curled over her lips, turning her mouth into a red sickle of dark satisfaction. “But now the law is on my side. We offered you no violence. In fact we surrendered your friend the mo
ment you asked. And yet you attacked us.” She gestured behind her to where Flint stood, a prisoner under Rowyn’s watchful eye. “This one cannot lie. When called as a witness, he must tell the Vanguard you attacked first.”

  Flint shifted his weight, and Rowyn took a step forward, gun ready. My heart pounded. The leannan sidhe was good, but even he couldn’t outrun a bullet. Rowyn wasn’t close enough to disarm. Flint could leap into the water, but that would put him at more of a disadvantage against the waterhorses.

  Siobhan put her hand on her hip, drawing my attention to the weapon holstered to her side. A silver gun that caught the moonlight and threw a shine out over the water. “Well, if it’s a battle you want, then a battle is what you shall get. But first…”

  I tensed, expecting her to draw the gun. Instead, she bent down to retrieve something from the floor of the boat. A breeze blew a lock of my hair across my face, and I swiped it out of the way, trying to see what it was.

  “How’s that healing potion coming, Peasblossom?” I asked urgently.

  “I found my bag of Pop Rocks.”

  “Find the potion!” I glanced at Laurie. “Can you heal him? We might need to run, and I don’t like my chances of carrying him.”

  “There is no time for healing, I must save my strength to fight!”

  I started to tell the paladin the glory of battle could wait, but just then, Siobhan raised her hand. I glimpsed a small piece of plastic the size and shape of a television remote. The kelpie’s grin grew wider, and before I could ask what it was, she pressed a button.

  Ten feet away, the pier exploded, sending a wave of splinters in all directions. One cut my cheek and I hissed, bowing over Andy to shield him. Larger pieces crashed into the lake, turning it to white foam, and thick black smoke billowed into the air as flaming bits of debris hissed and extinguished themselves in the water.