Anger flickered across his gold-flecked eyes, and he rose from his seat beside the harp. As if on a string, my body jerked into the air, feet hovering an inch above the floor, and then abruptly shot toward Abarta. He caught me by the neck, fingers tightening like a noose, cutting off my airway so effectively that panic thundered up my spine and choked its way from between my lips. I clawed at his wrist with my right hand—my left wasn’t responding, hanging paralyzed by the iron pin—but his hold was stronger than titanium. I couldn’t even scratch his skin.
“Vince!” Saoirse attempted to stand, but the dark elf pinning her down nicked her neck with his blade. Blood welled up and trickled to her collar, soaking it red. Saoirse stared at the elf in utter disdain but didn’t try to get up a second time. She wouldn’t be able to help anyone if she was dead.
Abarta drew my slowly suffocating body closer to his own and held me at eye level as he spoke. “You’re quite impertinent, considering the situation you’re in. I’m not sure if that’s the haughtiness of your higher fae blood breaking through your remaining glamours, or if it’s the inherent recklessness of your human side, but I’m quickly growing tired of your antics and your wit.”
His grip tightened all the more, and my vision dimmed at the edges. “I admit you played a fair game, particularly with that trick where you bounced to the Endless Sea to escape my svartálfar guard. But please understand, Whelan, that you were never a serious threat to my success in casting this spell, only to the order of events that will occur afterward. And because you chose to come here and attempt to recover the harp yourself, instead of reporting my actions to the queens, all in the name of protecting your pitiful ruin of a city, you lost any chance you had of saving the faerie capitals. They’ll burn bright right along with Kinsale.” He bent his smile into another sneer. “You failed, Whelan. The game’s over. I won. You lost. And—”
An orange cat wearing a tie raced into the room, followed by the barghest.
The cat fit through the main door with ease, streaking across the room and bolting through a much narrower door that led into an earthen tunnel—another secret passage. But the barghest, by virtue of being the size of a truck, fit through the main door about as well as a wrecking ball. It smashed through the frame and wall as if the wood and stone were cardboard, heavy debris careening across the room.
One piece of concrete struck the dark elf in the head so hard it nearly tore his face off. He spun away from Saoirse, dropped his blade, and collapsed in a bloody wreck. Saoirse herself only missed getting nailed by a lethal projectile because she was kneeling. At the sight of the giant dog monster blasting by her, less than a foot away from crushing her beneath its massive paws, she flattened herself to the floor, covered her head, and rolled away.
The barghest lost control of itself on the turn toward the narrow door, skidding across the magic circle and tearing up numerous symbols and lines that Abarta had etched directly into the concrete. It crashed into the wall so hard the entire room shook as if struck by a powerful quake. Cracks spread across all four walls, the ceiling, and the floor. The house atop the basement groaned as the foundation shifted. The barghest, dazed by the impact, struggled to get to its feet, rocking back and forth, eyes unfocused.
Abarta, stunned, dropped me beside the harp and furiously marched toward the barghest. “You stupid hound! What the hell are you doing, chasing a cat? Your quarry is right here!”
Floating in an ocean of pain, I managed to turn myself over—the sharp corner of something in my pocket jabbed me in the side, yet another pinprick—and then I reached out toward the harp. As my fingers brushed the wooden base, I searched my beleaguered mind for a spell that could destroy it quickly, before Abarta noticed what I was doing.
A shadow loomed over me.
Bismarck, now sporting a bloody cut on her cheek, and wielding yet another enormous hatpin. Fear jolted through me at the thought of suffering another iron wound, and I desperately grabbed at anything I could find. My pants pockets, containing nothing of value. My coat pockets, containing my gem chit bag and...the object that had poked me in the side a moment ago. An object I’d forgotten all about.
“You’re not that sly, Whelan,” Bismarck said as she inched closer, pointing the pin toward my face, threatening to gouge out my eye. “If you think I’m going to let you ruin what little I ‘did right,’ then you’re sore—”
A gunshot rang out.
Bismarck stumbled sideways and gasped, hand flying up to clutch her chest. She stared down in shock as bright red blood pulsed from the bullet hole near her sternum. She babbled out incoherent words, thick with pain and disbelief, before she dragged her gaze across the room to find a police lieutenant on one knee, holding a smoking gun. Saoirse, who had recovered her gun from the edge of the magic circle, didn’t flinch when she made eye contact with Bismarck. Didn’t show any emotion at all, except cold indifference, as she pulled the trigger a second time and shot the Duchess of Crime in the gut.
Bismarck collapsed.
Abarta spun away from the barghest, rage smoldering on his face as he took in the sight of the bleeding mob boss and traced her wounds back to a plucky cop. Growling, he raised his hand and pointed at Saoirse. Energy gathered around his fingers, a spell to wipe her from the face of the Earth. The first syllable of that lethal spell rolled off his tongue—
—at the exact same instant I ripped a folded piece of paper from my pocket and tossed it toward the harp. At the brush of paper against worn wood, I whispered the single word to strip my suppression spell from the conflagration charm that someone had stuck on the bent-up fence of my old and broken home.
The charm activated.
And the harp went up in flames.
“No!” Abarta bounded for the harp while I agonizingly rolled away from the growing plume of fire consuming the instrument. He attempted to create a vortex around the harp that would suffocate the flames. But before he finished building it, one of the harp strings snapped with the sound of a hundred mirrors shattering at once. And raked across his face.
Abarta reeled back, shrieking. Blood poured from the laceration that had split his left eye in two and sheared his skin clean through. He staggered away from the harp as the flames grew stronger still, licking at the ceiling, the support beams catching fire.
Magic older than the pyramids, imbued into the ancient instrument, began to grow and bulge and burst from random places on the harp, as the flames of the conflagration charm ate into the underlying structure. The discharges struck like lightning bolts, slamming into the ceiling, the walls, the floor, damaging the cracked foundation further. Half the room shifted five inches down as it sank into the damp earth, unsupported. The house above began to shudder and moan, louder and louder as the seconds ticked by.
Saoirse hurried to my side, eyes already tearing from the smoke. “We need to get out of here.”
“Pull the pin.” I shifted so she could grab the hilt.
“What? You could bleed out.”
“Pull the fucking pin!”
She grabbed it, hesitated for a fraction of a second, and yanked it free.
Sweet relief flooded my system as the iron’s touch released me. I rolled to my feet, more than a little wobbly, a deep ache in my shoulder that hinted at scars to come. But I was stable enough to stand, stable enough to run, if only just. I grasped Saoirse’s wrist, tugged her toward me, and tossed her over my shoulder like a sack of flour. She flailed, yelping, “What the hell are you doing?” But I didn’t have time to explain, didn’t have time to argue.
The basement was filling with smoke. The fire was spreading. Wayward magic lightning bolts were striking everything their gnarled fingers could reach. And there were twenty goddamn svartálfar racing down the hall. So I rocketed off across the room with Saoirse in tow and lunged through the narrow door that let out into the unfinished tunnel, leaving behind a fiery harp that had become a ticking time bomb.
Thick, choking smoke rode on my heels as I raced throug
h the darkness of the tunnel, praying there were no tripwires ahead, because I didn’t have time to stop. I could sense a massive buildup of energy in the harp, a reactor reaching critical mass, seconds from overloading. I pushed my quaking legs as hard as they could go, running even faster than I had when the ghouls were in pursuit. The burst of energy from the pin removal was rapidly fading, sapped by my body’s need to heal the wound in my shoulder as quickly as it could, the internal erosion of my muscles and bones severe. But I didn’t stop. Didn’t even think to stop. Do not die. And do not let Saoirse die!
Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel. The barely there glow of the full moon obscured by cloud cover. Cast down through a hole in the ground through which a ladder had been run. I skidded to a stop in front of it and practically threw Saoirse onto the ladder, screaming, “Climb!” She didn’t object. She scaled the ladder while I glanced behind us, the glow of fire bright and deadly even this far from the room. The magic bomb was reaching its peak, an audible pulse in the air that even human ears could hear.
Get out of here. Now. Fast.
Saoirse rolled away from the opening at the top. Instead of climbing after her, I jumped straight up with one last great push of energy from my nearly liquid legs. I flew past the opening, and Saoirse caught my arm and yanked me away from the tunnel. I landed on my feet somehow, and then the two of us stumbled into a sprint across another dead yard surrounding another dead house, vaulted a short wooden fence, and kept on going, and going, and going, and going, and—
The house that had been Abarta’s base exploded.
We were almost six blocks away, but the shockwave was so violent it threw us ten feet forward, sending us sprawling across a muddy yard. I landed face first in a puddle and came up sputtering. Saoirse, lying next to me, groaned in pain as she clutched her now dislocated shoulder. Behind us, an enormous field of fire that looked not unlike a nuclear blast gave way to a monstrous cloud of billowing slate-gray smoke. Charred debris rained from the sky for miles around, all that remained of the house and everything inside it. I didn’t have to see to know that a gaping crater had consumed the earth for at least fifty feet in every direction from the epicenter.
“Saoirse,” I said hoarsely, “besides the arm, are you okay?”
Her expression was pinched, but she nodded anyway. “Maybe a cracked rib or two, but other than that, just some bruises. I’ll be all right.” She eyed my shoulder. “What about you?”
“Glad you asked”—my arms gave out, and I splashed back into the puddle—“because I’m done for the night.”
“Vince?” She crawled over to me. “Hey, I need you to stay awake. I don’t know how bad your internal damage is, and if you’re not…Vince?”
I wasn’t listening to her. Or anything else. Between two iron wounds, one of which was serious, and the overexertion of my injured body, my energy had finally run out. Even my magic, wild and wrathful, couldn’t pump more power to my bones. My eyelids grew heavy. Saoirse’s voice faded to a faint hum. Her hand shaking me, trying to rouse me, was nothing but the sensation of rocking on a gentle sea. The world around me dissolved into darkness, and my awareness fell away.
It’ll be a miracle, I thought in the moment before I couldn’t think at all, if I wake up again.
Chapter Twenty
I woke up again.
It felt like I was slowly floating toward the surface of a pond until I broke through with nary a splash, eyes drifting open. The ceiling above me was unfamiliar, heavily patched and painted white. The thick, downy comforter and quilt that had been drawn up to my neck were nothing you could’ve scrounged from either my living area or the store beneath it. I dragged my gaze to the right to find a window, blinds drawn up to reveal a chilly day encumbered by a snow shower, flakes steadily fluttering down from the rolling gray clouds in the sky. Only the upper floors of the neighboring buildings were visible from my position, but I could tell I wasn’t anywhere near home.
A door squeaked open, and I turned my head to find Christie Bridgewater shuffling into the room. She held a tray that sported a nice china teapot, a matching teacup, and a plate of saltine crackers. When she noticed I was awake, she came to an abrupt stop, shot me a sour expression, placed her free hand on her hip, and said, “Well, look who finally decided to return to the land of the living. And here I was wondering if I should make your funeral arrangements.”
“Um, sorry?” I attempted to say, but my voice was a gravelly whisper.
Christie shook her head and brought the tray over, sitting it on the nightstand next to the bed. She poured a cup of steaming tea. “Once we get you situated, I want you to try a few sips of this. It’s a soothing blend. Should make your throat feel better after all that screaming you did the other day.”
“Screaming?” I hunted for memories of recent events, and found the equivalent of a soggy pile of newspapers sitting where they should’ve been. It took a great deal of effort to pry them apart and read the blurred ink. Oh. Abarta. Bismarck. The harp. The explosion. “Shit. Is Saoirse okay?”
“Your lieutenant friend is fine. She’s overseeing the police search of Kinsale’s new crater.” Christie sat the teapot down and leaned toward me, looking for the best angle to give me leverage to sit up. I was about to tell her I could sit up without her help, when I remembered Bismarck had stabbed me with a knifelike iron hatpin.
I tugged down the collar of the loose nightshirt someone had loaned me and found my shoulder bandaged with crisp white gauze. A focused stare revealed that, underneath the gauze, someone had woven a healing spell into my skin, which explained why I didn’t feel any pain. Saoirse must’ve taken me to a magic practitioner after I passed out.
“Crater, huh?” I said, releasing my collar. “And how did the ‘mayor’ and his entourage respond to that? They’re not calling in the cavalry, are they? Sending in soldiers?”
“Not that I’ve heard.” Christie tucked her arms under my torso, and with a gentle push, helped me into a sitting position. “But then, I’m not the one with the sídhe connections, so I don’t have access to insider information.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Like somebody I know.”
My heart skipped a beat. I smacked a hand against my cheek, like I could feel the swirling silvery marks inked into my skin. I searched my chest for my glamour necklace, only to locate it sitting on the nightstand next to the tray. Four of the six charms were devoid of magic.
Shit. I forgot. My fourth glamour had failed when Bismarck stabbed me, which meant that Saoirse, along with anyone else who saw me in the aftermath, knew the truth about my heritage.
“Oh, wipe that glum look off your face,” Christie said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not throwing you in the gutter just because you’ve got some of that fancy faerie noble blood, and neither is your lieutenant. Also, your bartender told us he already knew, so the truth is peanuts to him.”
“Bartender?” I asked. “You mean O’Shea?”
“Who do you think your lieutenant called for help? Obviously, she realized you didn’t want your heritage to be public knowledge—and I don’t blame you for that, given the way everybody panics when one of those sídhe steps foot in town—so she looked through your phone contacts and called the two of us to come help move you to a witch’s house for treatment.” Christie handed me the teacup. “And before you ask, the witch promised to be discreet too. She seemed like a nice enough lady. She ordered a large batch of tea from me after she was done working on you.”
“Oh, is that how you judge someone’s character?” I chuckled, uneasy. All the effort I’d put into ensuring no humans in Kinsale knew what I really was, that my mother was one of the ageless and powerful sídhe, one of the Unseelie nobles who’d crossed the veil and conquered Earth in Mab’s swift and brutal campaign to end the war and its destructive nuclear bombardment…and I’d thrown it away in a scant few minutes because I let Abarta bully me into a trap.
Shame blossomed in my chest, a voice in the back of my head chiding me for such a pathet
ic failure. Sure, Saoirse and Christie were trustworthy—perhaps even more so than a tightlipped bartender like O’Shea—but the more people who knew my secret, the more likely it was to escape through the tiniest holes and spread through public knowledge like wildfire. And if everyone in Kinsale found out about my heritage, then no one in this town would ever do business with me again. The public was too scared of the aes sídhe. The obliteration of DC had taught them the higher fae were beings of great and awful power, godlike warriors to be feared.
And I was half of one of them. Which made me wholly a person to avoid.
I’d lose my business, and wouldn’t be able to find work elsewhere in the human sphere. Which meant I’d have to slink off to the local fae government to bum a job off the very people I wanted to avoid…
Christie smacked me in the head with a paper towel. “For god’s sake, Vince, stop acting like your puppy just died. There’s no point in moping over a fear that something might happen. Nobody, except three of your friends and a single witch, knows you’re a noble faerie boy. And it’s going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. So chin up and be happy that you heroically saved the city from catastrophe.” She grasped my wrist and forcibly pushed the hand holding the cup toward my mouth. “And drink your goddamn tea.”
I took a sip—it was a mild, slightly sweet tea of some kind, and it did in fact make my throat feel better—my worries not quite assuaged but at least dampened for the time being. If only because Christie had no problem ramping up her tough love advice if you resisted being rational.
“So,” I said, “anything happen while I was out?”
“If you mean anything important, not really, besides widespread speculation about the explosion that rattled the entire city and left a massive crater behind. Your lieutenant gave a statement to the fae bureaucrats behind closed doors—don’t know what she admitted and what she left out though—but the general public is still in the dark.” Christie glanced out the window, at the strengthening storm. “I’m assuming there will be a cover story making the rounds in a few days. A gas main explosion. A lone terrorist bomber. Something like that. Doubt they’ll tell the truth about that Abarta guy. Seems like an issue the fae would want to handle internally.”
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