Mistral's Kiss mg-5 Page 17

  I started to turn away, but couldn't quite tear my eyes from Frost. Once he had been the Killing Frost: cold, frightening, arrogant, untouched, and untouchable. Now he was Frost, and he wasn't frightening, or cold, and I knew the touch of his body in almost every possible way. I wanted to go to him, to hold his hand while Doyle tended his wound.

  "Merry," Doyle said, "if you do not get us out of here, Frost will not be the only one hurt."

  I caught Frost's gaze. Pain, I saw there, but also something hopeful, or good. I think he liked that I was so worried about him. "Get us out, Merry," Frost said between gritted teeth. "I am fine."

  I didn't call him a liar, but I did turn away so I couldn't watch. It would have distracted me too much, and I didn't have time to be weak.

  "I need a door to the Unseelie Court." I said it clearly, but nothing happened.

  "Try again," Rhys said.

  I tried again, and again nothing happened.

  "Sholto said No doors," Mistral said. "Apparently his word stands."

  Sholto's feet had touched the edge of the field I'd made. He was only yards away from the first of the clover. The air above him was thick with tentacles and mouths and claws. I looked away from it, because I couldn't think while I was staring into it.

  "Call something else," Abe said.

  "What?" I asked.

  It was Rhys who said, "Where rowan, ash, and thorn grow close together, the veil between worlds is thinner."

  I looked up at the circle of trees that I'd called into being. Their branches had formed a lace of roof above us. They still hushed and moved above us the way the roses in the Unseelie Court moved, as if they had more life than an ordinary tree.

  I began to walk the inside of the circle of trees, searching not with my hands, but with that part of me that sensed magic. Most human psychics have to do something to get themselves in the mood for magic, but I had to shield constantly not to be overwhelmed by it. Especially in faerie—there was so much of it that it became like the engine noise of some great ship, and you ceased to "hear" it after a while, though it was always there thrumming along your skin, making your bones vibrate to its rhythm.

  I reached out from behind those shields and searched for a place in the trees that felt…thin. I couldn't look simply for magic; there was too much of it around me. Too much power flowing toward us. I needed to cast out for something more specific.

  "The clover has slowed them," Mistral called.

  This made me glance back, away from the trees. The cloud of nightmares rolled above the clover like a pack of hounds that had lost the scent.

  Sholto just kept running, his hair flying behind him, the nude beauty of him beautiful in motion, like watching a horse run across a field. It was a beauty that transcended sex; simply beautiful for its own sake.

  "Concentrate, Merry," Rhys said. "I'll help you look for a door."

  I nodded and went back to looking only at the trees. They thrummed with power, inherently magical and invested with further power because they had been called into being by one of the oldest magicks.

  Rhys called from across the clearing. "Here!"

  I ran to him, the clover tapping at my legs and feet as if patting me with soft green hands. I passed Frost on the ground, where Doyle sat holding his wound. Frost was hurt, very hurt, but there was no time to help—Doyle would take care of him. I had to take care of us all.

  Rhys was standing by a group of three of the trees that looked no different from the others, really. But when I put my hand out toward them, it was as if reality had been rubbed thin here, like a good-luck penny rubbed in your pocket.

  "You feel it?" Rhys asked.

  I nodded. "How do we open it?"

  "You just walk through," Rhys said. He looked back at the others. "Everybody gather around. We need to walk through together."

  "Why?" I asked.

  He grinned at me. "Because naturally occurring doorways like this don't lead to the same place every time. It'd be bad if we were separated."

  "Bad's one way of putting it," I said.

  Doyle had to help Frost to his feet. Even so, he stumbled. Abe came and offered his shoulder to lean on, still grasping the horn cup in one hand, as if it was the most important thing in the world. It occurred to me then that the Goddess's chalice had gone back to wherever it went when it wasn't mucking about with me. I had never held on to it the way Abe did with his, but then, I had been afraid of its power. Abe wasn't afraid of his cup's power; he was afraid of losing it again.

  Mistral was backing toward us. "Are we waiting for the Lord of Shadows or leaving him to his fate?"

  It took me a second to realize he meant Sholto. I looked toward the lake. Sholto was almost here, almost to the tree line. The sky behind him was totally black, as if the father of all storms was about to break, except that instead of lightning there were tentacles, and mouths that shrieked.

  "He can escape the same way," Rhys said. "The door won't close behind us."

  I looked at him. "Don't we want it to?"

  "I don't know if we can close it, but if we can, Merry, he would be trapped." There was a very serious look in his one eye—a measuring look. It was the look that I was beginning to dread from all the men. A look that said: The decision is yours.

  Could I leave Sholto to die? He had called the wild hunt. He'd offered himself as prey. He'd trapped us here with his no doors. Did I owe him?

  I looked at what chased him. "I couldn't leave anyone to that."

  "So be it," Doyle said from beside me.

  "But we can go through ahead of him," Mistral said. "We don't have to wait."

  "You're sure he'll sense the door?" I asked.

  Everyone answered at once. Mistral said, "Yes." Rhys said, "Probably." Doyle and Frost said, "I do not know." Abe just shrugged.

  I shook my head and whispered, "Goddess guide me, but I can't leave him. I can still taste his skin on my mouth." I stepped in front of the men, closer to the farther edge of the trees. I yelled, "Sholto, we're leaving, hurry, hurry!"

  He stumbled, fell in the clover, and rolled to his feet again in a blur of motion. He dived through the trees, and I thought he'd made it, but something long and white whipped around his ankle just before it cleared the magical circle. It caught him in that instant when his body was airborne, not touching the clover, not inside the trees. The tentacle tried to lift him skyward, but his hands reached desperately for the trees. He caught a limb with his hands, and he was left suspended, feet above the ground.

  I was running forward before I had time to think. I don't know what I planned to do when I got there, but I didn't have to worry, because a blur of movement rushed past me. Mistral and Doyle were there before me.

  Doyle had Frost's sword in his hands. He leapt into the air in an impossibly graceful arc, and cut the tentacle in two. I smelled ozone a second before lightning crashed from Mistral's hand. The lightning hit the cloud and seemed to bounce from one creature to another, illuminating them. It was too much light. I screamed and covered my eyes, but it was as if the images were carved inside my lids.

  Strong hands were on mine, pulling my hands away from my eyes. I kept my eyes tight shut, and Doyle's deep voice came. "Clawing your eyes out won't help, Meredith. It's inside you now. You can't unsee it."

  I opened my mouth and screamed. I screamed and screamed and screamed. Doyle picked me up in his arms and started running toward the others. I knew Mistral and Sholto were behind us. Whimpers replaced my screams—I have no words for what I'd seen. They were things that should not have been. Things that could not have been alive, but they had moved. I had seen them.

  If I had been alone, I would have fallen to the ground and shrieked until the wild hunt caught me. Instead I clung to Doyle and buried my nose and mouth against the curve of his neck, keeping my eyes fixed on the clover, and the trees, and my men. I wanted to replace the images that were burned inside me—it was as if I had to clean my eyes of the sight of the hunt. I breathed in the scent of
Doyle's neck, his hair, and it helped calm me. He was real, and solid, and I was safe in his arms.

  Rhys moved to help Abe with Frost. Doyle still had Frost's sword naked and bloody in his hand, held away from me. The blood smelled the way all blood smells: red, slightly metallic, sweet. If these creatures bled real blood, then they couldn't be what I had seen; they weren't nightmares. What I had seen in that lightning-kissed moment was nothing that would ever bleed real blood.

  Doyle told Mistral to enter first, because we didn't know where the doorway led. The Storm Lord didn't argue, he just did what he was told. All of us, including Sholto, followed his broad back between the trees. One moment we were in the clover circle; the next we were in moonlight, at the edge of a snowbanked parking lot.

  CHAPTER 18

  THERE WAS A MARKED CAR AND SEVERAL UNMARKED CARS SITTING there. Inside, cops and FBI stared at us, eyes wide. We had simply appeared out of thin air; I guess it was worth a stare or two.

  "How are we going to explain this?" Rhys asked softly.

  The car doors started opening. Police of all flavors poured out into the cold. Then there was wind at our backs…warm wind, and a sound like birds, if birds could be too large, and too frightening for words.

  "Oh, God," Rhys said, "they're coming through."

  "Mistral, Sholto, hold the door closed if you can. Give us time," Doyle said.

  Mistral and Sholto turned to face that warm, seeking wind. Doyle ran toward the cars; I was still in his arms. The others followed, though Frost's wounds caused him to follow slowly behind us.

  The police were calling to us. "What's wrong?" "Is the princess hurt?"

  "Stay in your cars and you'll be safe," Doyle yelled.

  The closest car held two dark-suited men. One was young and dark, the other older and balding. "Charles, FBI," the younger one said. "You don't give us orders."

  "If the princess is in danger, I can, by your own laws," said Doyle.

  The older one said, "Special Agent Bancroft, what's happening? That's not geese I'm hearing."

  A uniform that was St. Louis city, one Illinois state trooper, and a local precinct cop joined us. Apparently, when the rest of the police went away after we'd last dealt with them here, they'd left a little bit of everybody behind. No one wanted to be left out, I guess.

  "If you all stay in your cars, you will be safe," Doyle repeated.

  One of the younger uniforms said, "We're cops. We're not paid to be safe."

  "Spoken like someone who is not even close to his pension," another officer said, one with more weight around his middle.

  "Jesus," one of them said. I didn't have to glance back, for now Frost had caught up with us. He'd bled all over Rhys, so that it looked like Rhys was hurt worse. Abe was still bleeding from falling among the bones.

  One of the uniforms touched his shoulder radio and started requesting an ambulance. Doyle yelled above the growing sound of wind and birds, "There is no time. They will be upon us in moments."

  "Who?" Bancroft asked.

  Doyle shook his head and moved around the agent. He laid me in the passenger seat of the car, then opened the backseat door, saying, "Put Frost inside, Rhys."

  "I will not leave you," Frost said. The men laid him in the seat even as he protested.

  Doyle grabbed Frost's shoulder and said, "If I die, if all of us die, if the others are gone into the ground for good, then you must survive. You must take her back to Los Angeles and not return."

  I started to get out of the car then. "I won't leave you."

  Doyle pushed me back into the seat. He knelt down and gave me the full weight of his dark eyes. "Meredith, Merry, we cannot win this fight. Unless help arrives, we will all die. You have never seen this wild hunt, but I have. We will give them sidhe to hunt, and they will ignore this car. You and Frost will be safe."

  I gripped his arms, so smooth, so muscled, so solid. "I won't leave you."

  "Nor I," Frost said, struggling to sit up in the backseat.

  "Frost," Doyle almost yelled it, "I do not trust anyone but you and me to keep her safe. If it is not to be me, then it must be you."

  Bancroft said, "Get in and drive, Charlie."

  The younger agent didn't argue this time; he got behind the wheel. I was still holding on to Doyle, shaking my head over and over. One of the other cops had gotten a first-aid kit out of the car. Bancroft took it and crawled into the back with Frost.

  "No," I said to Doyle. "I am princess here, not you."

  "Your duty is to live," Doyle said.

  I shook my head. "If you die, I'm not sure I want to."

  He kissed me then, hard and fierce. I tried to melt into that kiss, but he tore himself away and slammed the door in my face.

  The doors locked. I glanced at the agent, who said, "We have to get you to safety, Princess."

  "Unlock the door," I demanded.

  He ignored me and started the engine, hit the gas. Just then wind slammed into the car, so hard that it skidded the vehicle to the side. Charlie fought to keep the car in the parking lot and out of the trees.

  "Drive," Bancroft yelled, "drive like a son of a bitch!"

  I looked then, because I had to. The wild hunt had broken through, and it was like the moment in the cave—as if the darkness had split open and was spilling out nightmares. But the nightmares were even more solid now. Or maybe, now that I'd seen them, I couldn't unsee them.

  A coat flew over my face, and I was left scrambling at it. "Don't look, Merry," Frost said, his voice choked, "don't look."

  "Put on the coat, Princess," Bancroft said. "We'll get you to the hospital."

  I held the coat in my arms, but turned to look back.

  The police were shooting at the hunt. Mistral lit the sky with lightning, and one of the police crumbled to the ground. Was he screaming? The horror spilled over Sholto, and he was lost to it. Doyle leapt toward the tentacles and teeth, the sword glittering in the moonlight. I screamed his name, but the last thing I saw before we drove into the dark was Doyle lost under a weight of nightmares.

  CHAPTER 19

  FROST'S HAND GRABBED MY SHOULDER, PRESSING ME AGAINST the seat. "Merry, please, don't make Doyle's sacrifice in vain."

  I touched his hand, pressed it against me, and there was more blood on it. "How can I let them drive us to safety and not fight it?"

  "You must. I am too hurt to help, and you are too fragile. I would willingly die with them, but you must not die."

  Agent Charlie had us on the narrow road, driving a little too fast for the darkness and the snow. He hit ice and skidded.

  "Slow down or you're going to put us in a ditch," Bancroft said. "And you, Frost, right, you need to lie back and let me finish putting pressure on this wound. You bleed to death and you can't keep the princess safe."

  "Did you see it?" Charlie said as he slowed down. "Did you see it?"

  "I saw it," Bancroft said in a strained voice. He pulled on Frost. "Let me take care of the wound like your captain ordered."

  Frost let go of me, slowly, his hand pulling away. I started drawing the trench coat over me. I didn't know whose coat it was, but I was cold. Cold in a way that the coat wouldn't help, yet it was all I had.

  Agent Charlie slowed at a sharp turn, and I caught a glimpse of something in the trees. It wasn't the wild hunt, and it wasn't our men.

  "Stop," I said.

  He slowed further, almost stopped. "What? What is it?"

  I saw them in the trees: goblins. Goblins walking in single file, cloaked for the cold, bristling with weapons in the cold light of the moon. They were walking away from the fight, though some of them glanced back. That was enough to tell me they knew what was happening, and they were leaving my men to die.

  "Drive," Bancroft said.

  "Stop," I ordered.

  Agent Charlie ignored me. The car picked up speed.

  "Stop," I repeated. "There are goblins out there. They can tip the balance. They can save my men."

  "We're doing wh
at your guard demanded," Bancroft said. "We're going to a hospital."

  I had to stop the car. I had to talk to the goblins—they were my allies. They had to help, if I asked it, or be forsworn.

  I reached over, touched the agent's face, and thought about sex. I'd never done this to a human before, never used that part of my heritage for evil. And it was evil—I didn't know him, didn't want him, but I made him want me.

  The agent slammed on the brakes, throwing me into the dash, and throwing the men in the back into the floorboards. Bancroft yelled, "What the hell are you doing?"

  Agent Charlie threw the car into park, skewing halfway across the road. He unbuckled his seat belt, pulled me toward him, and started trying to kiss me, his hands everywhere. I didn't care, as long as the car was stopped.

  Bancroft came over the seat. "Charlie, for God's sake, Charlie. Stop!"

  I took advantage of the fight to reach across and unlock the door while the men fought almost on top of me. I opened the door and fell backward into the road. Charlie tried to crawl after me. Bancroft slid over the seat and on top of his partner.

  I got to my feet on the icy road, huddling under the coat.

  The goblins were there in the dark, just outside the headlight beams. Two faces looked at me, two nearly identical faces: Ash and Holly. The wind blew their yellow hair from their hoods. I couldn't tell which twin was which in the uncertain light—the only difference was eye color.

  "Hail, goblins," I called.

  One of them touched the other and nodded toward the dark. They began to turn and leave. I yelled, "I call on you as allies. To deny me is to be forsworn. The wild hunt is abroad, and oathbreakers are sweet meat to them."

  The twins turned back to us, and the goblins who were only dark shapes behind them shifted in the dimness. "We did not make this oath," one of them called.

  "Kurag, Goblin King, did, and you are his people. Do you call your king a liar? Are you king now among the goblins, Holly?"