A Kiss of Shadows mg-1 Read online

  My shields were always in place, tight, and loaded for bear. It was automatic for me. So automatic that most people, even very sensitive ones, mistook the shielding for my normal power level. It meant that I faced Jeremy with shields at full strength, I didn't have to do anything to add to it. My shielding was better than his, just a fact. My offensive spells on the other hand, well, I'd seen Jeremy work magic. He'd never get through my shields, but I'd never be able to hurt him magically. It would come down to blows or weapons. I was hoping it wouldn't have to come to anything.

  "Is the ride to the airport still open, or did you change your mind while I was in the shower?"

  "The ride to the airport is still on," he said. Most of the sidhe can see magic in colors or shapes, but I've never been able to do that. I can feel it though, and Jeremy was crowding the room with all the energy he was pouring into his shields.

  "Then what's with the power trip?"

  "You're sidhe. You're Unseelie sidhe. That's just a step above being a member of the sluagh." Jeremy's Highland accent leaked through onto the phrases. I'd never heard him lose his all-American-from-the-middle-of-nowhere accent. Made me nervous because many of the sidhe pride themselves on retaining their original accents, whatever they may be.

  "And your point is what?" But I had a sinking feeling that I knew where he was going with it. I'd almost have rather had a fight.

  "The Unseelie thrive on deception. They are not to be trusted."

  "Am I not to be trusted, Jeremy? Does three years of friendship mean less to you than old stories?"

  Some bitter thought crossed his face. "It is not stories," and again his accent thickened. "I was cast out as a boy from the trow lands. The Seelie Court would not deign to notice a trow boy, but the Unseelie Court, they take in everyone."

  I smiled before I could stop myself. "Not everyone." I don't think Jeremy got the sarcasm.

  "No, not everyone." He was so angry that a fine trembling had started in his hands. I was about to pay the bill for a centuries-old grievance. It wouldn't be the first time. It probably wouldn't be the last, but it still pissed me off. We didn't have time for his temper tantrum, let alone one of mine.

  "I'm sorry that my ancestors abused you, Jeremy, but it was before my time. The Unseelie Court has had a publicist for most of my lifetime."

  "To spread the lies," he said in a brogue so thick, it was guttural.

  "You want to compare scars?" I lifted my shirt out of my pants and let him see the handprint scar on my ribs.

  "Illusion," he said, but he sounded doubtful.

  "You can touch it if you want. Glamour fools vision, but not touch, not for another fey." This was a partial truth at best, because I could use glamour to fool every sense, even of another fey, but it wasn't a common ability even among the sidhe, and I was betting that Jeremy would believe me. Sometimes a plausible lie is quicker than an unwanted truth.

  He walked toward me slowly, distrust clear on his face. It made my chest tight to see that look on Jeremy's face. He peered at the scar, but stayed out of touching range. He knew that the sidhe's most powerful personal magic was touch-activated, which meant he knew the sidhe more intimately than I'd thought.

  I sighed and laced my fingers on top of my head. The shirt slid down over the scar, but I figured Jeremy could move the cloth. He kept peering up at me as he moved forward into arm's reach. He touched the green silk, but stared into my eyes for a long time before he raised it, as if he were trying to read my thoughts. But my face had gone back to that familiar polite, slightly bored, empty look that I'd perfected at court. I could watch a friend be tortured or put a knife into someone's gut with the same look on my face. You don't survive at the court if your face betrays your feelings.

  Jeremy lifted the cloth slowly, never taking his eyes from my face. He finally had to look down, and I was very careful to make no move, however small to spook him. I hated that Jeremy Grey, my friend and boss, was treating me like a very dangerous person. If he only knew how very undangerous I was.

  He ran fingertips over the raised, slightly roughened flesh.

  "There's more scars on my back, but I just got dressed, so if you don't mind, this is as far as I'm going."

  "Why didn't I see them when you were naked or in my office being fitted for the wire?"

  "I didn't want you to see them, but I don't bother hiding them when they're under my clothes."

  "Never waste magical energy," he said, as if to himself. He shook his head as if he were hearing something I couldn't hear. He looked at me, and his eyes were puzzled. "We don't have time to stand here and argue, do we?"

  "I've been saying that."

  "Shit," he said. "It's a spell of discontent, distrust, discord. It's means they're coming now." Fear flowed over his face.

  "They could still be miles away, Jeremy."

  "Or they could be just outside," he said.

  He had a point. If they were just outside the door, then a safer bet might be calling the police and waiting for help to arrive. I wouldn't say that Unseelie bad guys were hiding in the bushes, but I was pretty sure that if I called up Detective Alvera and said that Princess Meredith was about to be killed on his turf, they'd send help.

  But if I could, my preference was sneaking away. I needed to know what was out there.

  Jeremy was looking at me strangely. "You've thought of something. What is it?"

  "The Host isn't made up of sidhe, except for one or two sent along as keepers, masters of the hunt. It's part of the horror of being chased by them. I may not be able to find the sidhe if

  they don't want to be found, but the rest of the Host, them I can find."

  He made a sweeping motion with his hands. "Then by all means." He didn't argue. Didn't ask if I could do it, or if it was safe. He just accepted it. He wasn't acting like my boss anymore. I was Princess Meredith NicEssus, and if I said I could search the night for the Host, he believed me. He would never have believed Merry Gentry, not without proof.

  I cast outward, keeping my shields in place, but flinging my power wide. It was dangerous, because if they were on top of us then that opening might be all they needed to overwhelm me, but it was the only way to know how close they were. I felt Uther and Ringo outside, felt their beings, their magic. There was the force of the sea and a thrumming to the land, the magic of all living things, but nothing else. I cast farther and farther outward. Mile after mile and there was nothing, then, there, almost at the edge of my limit something pressed on the air like a storm moving this way, but it wasn't a storm, or at least not a storm of wind and rain. It was too far away for me to get a clear sense of what creatures of faerie rode with the sidhe, but it was enough. We had some time.

  I pulled sack inside my shields, squeezing them tight. "They're miles from here.'

  "Then how did they do the spell of discord?"

  "My aunt could whisper it on the night wind and it would find its target."

  "From Illinois?"

  "It might take a day or three, but yes, from Illinois. But don't look so worried. She would never dirty her hands personally with fetch-and-carry duties. She may want me dead, but not from a distance. She'll want to make an example of me, and for that they'll need to get me home."

  "How much time do we have?"

  I shook my head. "An hour, maybe two."

  "We can get you to the airport in time then. Getting you out of town is the only thing I can offer. One sidhe magician, one not even on the spot, kept me out of Alistair Norton's house. I can't break sidhe magic, and that means I'm not going to be any help to you."

  "You sent the spiders through the warding at Norton's house. You warned me to hide under the bed. You did great."

  He gave me a strange look. "I thought you did the spiders."

  There was a moment when we stared at each other. "It wasn't me," I said.

  "It wasn't me, either," he said, softly.

  " I know this is a cliché, but if it wasn't you, and it wasn't me..." I left the rest u
nsaid.

  "Uther isn't capable of something like that."

  "Roane doesn't do active magic," I said. I was suddenly cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature. One of us had to say it out loud. "Then who was it? Who saved me?"

  Jeremy shook his head. "I don't know. Sometimes the Unseelie can befriend you before they break you."

  "Don't believe all the stories you hear, Jeremy."

  "It's not a story." Anger made those simple words hot and unpleasant. I realized suddenly just how afraid he was. The anger was a shield for the fear. His reactions all had a personal taste to them. He wasn't just afraid in a general way. It was specific, based on something besides stories or legends.

  "Have you been up close and personal with the Host?"

  He nodded and unlocked the door. "We may only have an hour. Let's get out of here."

  I pressed my hands to the door, stopped him from opening it. "This is important, Jeremy. If you've been in thrall to one of them, then that sidhe will have... power over you. I need to know what was done."

  Then he did something I hadn't expected. He started unbuttoning his shirt.

  I raised eyebrows. "You're not still being affected by Branwyn's Tears, are you?"

  He smiled, then, not his usual smile, but still an improvement. "I was befriended once before by a member of the Host." He left the tie and collar tight, but unbuttoned the rest, slipped his jacket off, folded it over one arm, and gave me his back. "Lift the shirt."

  I didn't want to lift the shirt. I'd seen what my relatives could do when they got creative. There were so many awful possibilities, none of which I wanted to see carved into Jeremy's flesh. But I lifted the crisp, grey cloth because I had to know. I didn't gasp because I was prepared. Screaming was overkill.

  His back was covered in burn scars, as if someone had pressed a red-hot brand into his flesh again and again. Except this brand was in the shape of a hand. I touched his scars, as he had mine, lightly, fingers tracing them. I started to put my hand over one of the hand marks, then hesitated, and warned him. "I want to place my hand over one of the scars to see the size."

  He nodded.

  The hand was much bigger than mine, bigger than the mark on my own body. A man's hand, the fingers thicker than most of the sidhe. "Do you know the name of the one who did this?"

  "Tamlyn," he said. He sounded embarrassed, and he should have.

  Tamlyn was the John Smith of faerie aliases. Tamlyn along with Robin Goodfellow and a handful of others were favorite false identities when true names were to be hidden.

  "You must have been very young not to suspect something when he gave that name," I said.

  He nodded. "I was that."

  "May I check your aura?"

  He smiled back at me over his shoulder. The movement wrinkled the skin on his back, making the scars form shapes. "Aura is a New Age word. The fey don't use it."

  "Personal power then," I said, but I was staring at his back. I pushed the cloth of his shirt over his shoulders. "Were you tied while this was done?"

  "Yes, why?"

  "Can you put your hands in the position they were tied in?"

  He took a breath as if he'd ask why, but he finally just raised his hands above his head, and moved into the door so that his body was flush against it. He raised his arms until they were held extended as far as they would go, slightly out from his body until he formed a Y shape.

  The shirt had slipped back into place and I had to raise it again. But when I did, I saw what I thought I'd find. The hand-shaped burns had formed a picture. It was the image of a dragon, or maybe more accurately a wyrm, long and serpentine. It was vaguely oriental-looking because of the hand shape, but it was most definitely a dragon. But the burns only formed the picture if Jeremy was in exactly the same position as when he was tortured. When he lowered his arms the skin separated and it was just scars.

  "You can lower your arms," I said.

  He did, turning so that he could look at me. He started tucking in his shirt. I don't think he even realized he was doing it. "You look grim. What did you see in the burns that no one else has seen?"

  "Don't tuck your shirt in, yet, Jeremy. I need to lay a warding on your back."

  "What did you see, Merry?" He stopped fussing with his shirt, but didn't untuck it for me.

  I shook my head. Jeremy had carried the scars for centuries and had never known that the sidhe had played a little game upon his flesh. It showed such disdain for the victim, a callousness that was hard to wrap your mind around. Of course, it might be very practical; cruelty with a purpose, as it were. The sidhe, whoever it was, could have laid a spell on the burns. They might be able to call a dragon out of his flesh or shapeshift him into one. Probably not, but better safe than sorry.

  "Let me ward your back, then I'll tell you on the way down to the van."

  "Do we have time?" he asked.

  "Sure. Hold the shirt out of the way so the burns are bare."

  He looked like he didn't believe me, but when I turned him to face the door, he didn't argue. He held the silk shirt out of the way so I could work.

  I spilled power into my hands like holding warmth cupped between my palms. I slowly opened my hands, palms facing Jeremy's bare back. I placed my hands just above his skin. That trembling warmth caressed his back, and Jeremy shivered under its touch.

  "What runes are you using?" he asked, voice just a touch breathless.

  "I'm not," I said. I spread that warm power across the scars, down his back.

  He started to turn.

  "Don't move."

  "What do you mean, you're not using runes? What else can you use?"

  I had to kneel to make sure the power covered every scar. When I was sure that everything had been covered, I sealed it, visualizing the power like a coating of glowing yellow light just above his skin. I sealed the edges of that glow so that it clung tight to his skin like a shield.

  Jeremy's breath came out in a shivering gasp. "What are you using, Merry?"

  "Magic," I said, and stood.

  "Can I let the shirt down?"

  "Yes."

  The grey silk slid into place, and the warding was so solid in my mind's eye that I felt like the cloth should bunch over the magic, but it didn't. The silk slid over his back as if I'd done nothing to it. But I never doubted that I'd done my job.

  He began to tuck the shirt in, before he even turned to face me. "You used just your own personal magic for that?"

  "Yes."

  "Why not use runes? They help empower our magic."

  "Many runes are actually ancient symbols for long-forgotten deities or creatures. Who knows? I might be invoking the very sidhe that injured you. I couldn't risk it."

  He slipped his jacket on, straightened his tie. "Now tell me what scared you about the scars on my back?"

  I opened the apartment door. "While we go to the van." I went out into the hallway before he had time to argue. We'd used up too much time, but not to ward his back would have been too careless for words.

  We clattered down the stairs in our dress shoes. "What was it, Merry?"

  "A dragon. A wyrm actually, since it didn't have legs."

  "You saw a vision in the scars?" He got to the outside door before me, and held it open out of long habit. I drew the gun from behind my back, clicking the safety off.

  "I thought the Host was miles away," Jeremy said.

  "One lone sidhe could hide from me." I held the gun down at my side so it wouldn't be immediately noticeable. "I won't be taken back, Jeremy. Whatever it takes."

  I stepped into the soft California night, before he could say anything. A lot of the fey, especially the sidhe, considered modern weapons cheating. There was no written rule against using guns, but it was still considered bad form, unless you were a member of the Queen's, or the Prince's, elite guard. They got to carry guns if they were protecting the royal body from harm. Well, I was a royal body, a wee, disowned royal body, but still royal whether the rest of them
liked it or not. I had no guard to protect me, so I'd do it myself. Whatever that took.

  The night was never truly dark here-there were too many electric lights, too many people. I searched that gentle darkness for a lone figure. I searched with eyes, and energy, casting outward in a straining circle as we hurried to the waiting van. There were people in the other houses. I could feel them moving, vibrating. A line of seagulls moved along one of the roofs, half-asleep, moving in protest, aware of my magic sweeping over them. There was a party on the beach. I could feel the energy rising higher, excitement, fear, but the normal fear; should I do it, should I not; is it safe? There was nothing else, unless you count the shivering energy of the sea that was constantly with you near the shore. It got to be like white noise, something ignored, like the crush of so many people, but it was always there. Roane was somewhere in that huge rolling power. I hoped he was having a good time. I knew I wasn't.

  The sliding door of the van opened, and I got a glimpse of Uther crouched in the dimness. He held his hand out to me, and I gave him my left hand. His hand engulfed mine, pulling me into the van's interior. He slid the door closed behind me.

  Ringo looked back over the driver's seat at me. He barely fit in the driver's seat, all that muscle, those inhumanly long arms, that huge chest squeezed down into a seat made for humans. He smiled, revealing a mouth of some of the sharpest teeth I'd ever seen outside of a wolf. The face was slightly elongated to accommodate the teeth, which made the rest of his more human face seem out of proportion. The teeth flashed out of a solid brown of skin. Once upon a time, Ringo had been a fully human gang member. Then a group of visiting sidhe from the Seelie Court had gotten lost in the wilds of deepest, darkest Los Angeles. A group of gang members had found them. Cultural interaction at its best. The sidhe got the worst end of the fight. Who knows how it happened? Maybe they were too arrogant to fight a bunch of inner-city teenagers. Maybe the inner-city teenagers were just a hell of a lot more vicious than the visiting royals had expected. However it happened, they were losing. But one of the gang members got a bright idea. He switched sides on condition that he get his wish.