Roadside Magic

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Recognition jolted through Jeremiah. The city was familiar. It was, after all, his own. Summer’s Gates moved according to their own whims, slowly but definitely, and they’d been here for some twenty mortal years. In another ten or so, they’d be in another city, and the smaller entrances would follow in their almost-random patterns, branching through the mortal world like secret, sweet-poison veins.

  Unwinter, of course, could be reached from anywhere.

  Puck nipped into an alley; Jeremiah followed. A fire escape loomed, and they began to climb, Puck hissing as he skipped glove-shod along iron grating. “Just a little more, my fine Gallow. Then we shall see, we shall see.”

  Where the hell are we? He looked down, saw an alley, then a familiar slice of street. Ninth, with the shawarma place he’d eaten at damn near every day while they worked the Claigh Bank Building’s upper floors. That had been a hell of a job, and Clyde the foreman had brought a flask to work for the last week and a half.

  Think, Jer. Where are you?

  It had to be the Savoigh Limited. He stumbled a little, fetched up against the railing, and the entire iron contraption rattled.

  “Fool!” Puck hissed. “Come, up to the roof. We may parlay there. Be warned, Gallow-glass, Glass-Gallow, if you cannot find her, I will—”

  “A father’s care.” Jer cleared his throat. The consciousness of danger bloomed along his skin, and the marks tingled. He had in mind a different weapon, though, and his right hand crawled to his throat. “Touching.” The proverb rolled from his lips. “It is a foul father who eats his own.”

  Puck halted. His narrow, supple back was to Jeremiah, and he had the high ground. His head turned slightly, the fluid, terrible movement of sidhe articulation in every joint. It was enough to make you nauseous if you weren’t used to it. “You are a canny beast indeed, Half.”

  “Not as canny as I should be.” I’m slow, I know as much. But I get there. “You don’t mean Robin any good.”

  “Hers is a fine voice.”

  She’s more than just a voice. “You don’t love her.”

  Puck shrugged, a loose, easy, repulsive motion. “What is love? You took the dregs instead of the fine floss, and well my Robin knows it.”

  Does she? “You left her in the trailer park, Fatherless. Not me.”

  “And I returned; I brought her to Summer.” Puck kept climbing, and Jeremiah followed. “ ’Tis not any concern of yours, Armormaster.”

  The marks tingled on his arms. “There is something that does concern me, Puck.”

  “Oh?” Puck reached the top, clambered lightly over the waist-high barrier to the roof. Jeremiah followed, cautiously, but Puck merely paced across the rooftop to a particular spot, where a slug-opalescent residue of a sidhe death shimmered faintly. The lance solidified in Jeremiah’s hands, and the Horn burned cold-furious at his chest. His side burned, too, with a deeper, frost-rimed flame. I need one of the antidotes, dammit. Which will just leave me with three.

  Sort of ironic, how he wanted to live now. He couldn’t have been bothered before, but at this particular moment, he found he really, truly did want to survive. No matter what.

  He wasn’t ready to lie down and show his belly just yet.

  The drizzle intensified. A single huntwhistle thrilled into the ultrasonic to the south.

  It wasn’t one of Summer’s.

  “Yeah.” The lance lengthened, its blade dulling through silver, flushing along the sharpening edge. “Daisy.”

  Puck spread his narrow hands. “A mortal chit, a pale reflection of my Robin.”

  “My wife.” You and Summer both told me she went to meet a sidhe the night she died. A straightaway, a dry road, and an oak tree. Robin waited for hours, but Daisy didn’t show.

  It was pretty goddamn simple, when you thought about it.

  A gleam of yellowgreen irises, an impatient movement. “That does not make us kin, Half. Now, can you find my Robin?”

  “I can.” I have the locket. “Why can’t you?”

  Puck shook his head. “You have something of hers. Some gift my fine girl gave to thee.” His smile widened. He didn’t seem particularly concerned by the lance’s sudden solidity. “I shall take it from thy corpse, and send thy head to Unwinter.”

  “There’s two problems with that plan.”

  The boy shrugged, spreading his extra-jointed fingers.

  “First, I’m still breathing.”

  “That can be remedied—”

  Jeremiah was already moving, the lance shrieking as it yanked his recalcitrant body through space. A lateral sweep, Puck skipping aside with the eerie blurring speed of the sidhe. More huntwhistles bloomed, north and west; the lance doubled on itself and jerked back, tassels of moonfire blurring off its blunt end. Puck ducked, weaving, and Jeremiah’s breath tore in his chest. The burning in his side slowed him, he should have taken an antidote vial before this.

  It didn’t matter.

  Daisy, at the door. Just a quart of half-n-half, since you like your milk so much. Her shattered mortal body giving up its soul, the flat, atonal cry of the machines as her heart ceased. Daisy, flinching a little just like Robin did. She rarely spoke about her childhood, and he’d been content to leave it there so he didn’t have to talk about his own.

  It was the shadow of his own stupidity he chased across the rooftop, the lance warming to its work and humming, its hungry core alive at the prospect of worthy prey.

  Puck darted in, trying to get close enough for claws, and had to leap aside, ducking as the lance whickered through space and kissed a lock of his shaggy mane. The hair crisped, puffing up smoke-steam as cold iron blighted it, and Puck snarled, his face losing all its boyish handsomeness. Had Daisy seen that before she died? Pressed against a windshield, it would give any mortal a shock and send them veering off the road.

  Puck didn’t have his knife. Why? Jeremiah found he didn’t care. Here on open ground, with foe finally clearly revealed, all that mattered was the death he would mete out. A last gift, both to Daisy and to Robin.

  He hadn’t done right by either of them, but God, how he’d wanted to.

  Puck darted for the edge of the roof, but the lance swept in again. Had the Fatherless still possessed his pipes or his knife, it would have been a much different fight. The battle-madness was on Jeremiah now, and for once he didn’t try to control the lance.

  Instead, he gave himself up to its hunger, and the Horn was a cold star against his chest.

  Sidestep, blade singing, every possible move unreeling inside Gallow’s head, all narrowing to a single, undeniable point—Puck faded aside again, but the lance was there, sinking into the boy-sidhe’s left arm with a crunch that sent tiny cracks spiderwebbing out across the rooftop. An HVAC vent a little ways away resounded like a gong, and the iron blade bit deep across Puck’s chest, grating on ribs.

  The Fatherless screamed, whipped aside like a spider flicked into a candleflame, arms and legs folding in around the wound. Jeremiah panted, his knees buckling, and lunged forward, but Puck was rolling across the rooftop, his passage throwing up dust from the cracking, heaving rooftop, scattering steam from the flashing drizzle and spatters of thick blue-green ichor.

  The lance keened, hungry to finish the job, but fire-claws gripped Gallow’s side. His breath heaved, and his knees grated against the rooftop. Tried to surge to his feet. Couldn’t.

  Puck panted, harsh cough-choking breaths. He lay crumpled against the HVAC vent, curled into a tight ball, his yellow-green irises flashing, dimming. “I shall repay thee for this, Gallow.” His face, horrifically beautiful, was the last thing his mortal prey would ever see. A hideous blood-freezing grimace, but Jeremiah was past fear now. “Do you hear me? I shall repay.”

  “Sure you will.” Gallow coughed, swallowed blood. I need one of those goddamn antidotes. “You fucking sidhe bastard.” The lancebutt socked into the rooftop, the entire building shuddering like an unhappy horse. He dragged himself upright and tacked drunkenly for the vent, the la
nce lengthening. Even if Puck somehow scurried away, the ironblight would give him something to worry about.

  He drew the lance back a little. Its tip, leafshaped now, quivered hungrily. “Daisy,” he murmured.

  “You’re not the first to wound me in her name,” Puck panted. “Gallow. You think you can kill me?”

  “Let’s find out.” The lance lunged forward with a crunch, and Jeremiah Gallow twisted it. Blood hot on his lips, dribbling down his chin.

  Puck Goodfellow screamed.

  The huntwhistles rose again, so close the drizzle flashed into sharp silver ice. The lance shrieked, gulping life into its fiery core. He twisted it again, and the scream rising from the flopping, jerking body pinned to the rooftop pushed his hair back. Windows broke all around, sweet shivers of broken glass, and the building sagged again. Anyone in it probably thought it was an earthquake.

  It is.

  One last time, Jeremiah Gallow twisted, the blade growing serrations, tearing and ripping flesh, tangling in ribs, drinking greedily. Lava filled Gallow’s veins. So much power. So much.

  They boiled over the edge of the rooftop, nightmare steeds and bright-eyed hounds, a crowd of drow with golden nets, but Gallow was past caring. The poison burned afresh, but he couldn’t let go of the lance to dig in his pocket for a vial and let Puck wriggle away just yet.

  He jammed the lance further down into the rooftop, and did not need to twist it again. The lance hummed, sucking Puck’s dying agonies into its core. Its bearer slumped over its hungry keening, not even bothering to flee.

  Jeremiah Gallow was well and truly caught.

  THEN LEAVE

  54

  It was dark, and it reeked of mortals. She floated, somewhere between sleep and waking, restless when voices reached her.

  Come home to visit! Whooooo-eeeee! Look at me when I talk to you, girl!

  Other voices, swirling. Oh, my primrose darling . . . I will have your voice.

  Her own despairing scream, glass shattering, the long fall. Something over her mouth—she struggled, hearing a low faraway grumble, and a hissed word in a strange language.

  Her eyelids snapped up, her hands sprang like white birds to defend her, but he batted them aside. “Shhh, pretty girl.” Low and husky, another almost-familiar voice. “They’re sleeping; let’s not wake them.”

  He was just a shadow, and she lay on a narrow cot in a small tin shell. It was a trailer, but she didn’t hear the moan-whisper of wind outside. The shadow had dark eyes and shaggy hair, and terror crawled into her throat like a stone.

  “Shhh,” he soothed. “You’re safe now.”

  There is no safety. She clung to the thought; it was sanity in the middle of a jumble of broken glass and distorted faces. She blinked, her skin crusted with salt and sand, and he eased his hard-callused hand away. She could breathe again.

  “There,” he whispered. “They’re all sleeping, helped along by chantment. Do you know me?”

  She shook her head. Her hair was stiff and heavy, filthy and matted.

  The trailer was close and stifling, and there were solid shapes in the kitchenette, slumped against each other on a pair of rickety chairs, their heads together as if they were sharing secrets. Something heavy hung dripping in what had to be a tiny bathroom, and someone had wiped at her face to get the sand off. They’d tried to clean her up, and a woman had made her take two tablets and drink water. What she wanted, though, was milk. There was nothing better, and she craved it, her throat afire. She tasted blood, salt water, rotting ocean—but the stranger smelled oddly familiar. Spice and something wonderful under a tarnish, dampness and black wet earth.

  She coughed, rackingly, but the sleeping pair didn’t stir. “Robin,” she choked. “I’m Robin.” As if she had just now realized it. Where was her coat? The heavy velvet had weighed her down, but she wanted its comfort now.

  “You are.” He nodded, a faint gleam of eyes in the dimness. It was so dark in here. “And you do not know me?”

  If I did, I might not say so. She rubbed at her eyes, wincing a little at the grit. “Who are you?” The words were coated with rust, as if she hadn’t used them in a long time.

  A gleam of teeth, and she recoiled. He stripped his hair back, and the nightlight’s faint glow showed a slice of high cheekbones, the shape of his mouth, dark eyes.

  He was beautiful, and her breath caught. He seemed so familiar, but the fractured pieces inside her head wouldn’t form a constellation.

  All the stars of Summer’s dusk . . . Robin-mama, why did you kill me?

  A whine from outside. That was familiar, too. The hound.

  “P-pepper,” she breathed. “Pepperbuckle.”

  “He’s outside. Wouldn’t you like some free air? And milk. I’ll wager you want a draught, to ease your pains.”

  How do you know? “What does it cost?” It went better when she whispered. And she knew, didn’t she, that everything had a price?

  He shook his head, his hair falling back down to curtain that sharp handsomeness. It looked like a habitual movement. “You are the creditor, Robin, and I the poor debtor. Have mercy on me, and come outside.”

  Mercy? What the hell? She found she could move, and propped herself on her elbows. Her feet were bare, and that wasn’t right. “My shoes.” Two harsh, grating words.

  “Here.” He held them up—a pair of black heels, scuffed in some places, shining in others. She made a small sound, grabbing for them, but he whisked them away. “Easy, pretty girl.”

  Why does he call me that? Her heart beat, fast and thin, humming in her wrists and throat and ankles. Don’t trust him.

  But he had her shoes. “Give them back.”

  “I will. Let me help you.”

  She snatched for her shoes again, and this time he let her take them. She clutched them to her chest, the sharp edges of the heels biting her naked upper arms, and stared distrustfully at him.

  He sighed. “We cannot stay here, Robin. It’s dangerous.”

  So are you. Memory teased, turned into a yarn-ball inside her skull. The shivered pieces twitched, and she had the idea she wouldn’t like the picture they made when she put them back together. “Then leave,” she whispered.

  He nodded, once, and gained his feet in a lunge. She shrank away, against the trailer wall, but he just stared down at her, too tall for the confined space. Her arms hurt, and her throat filled with numbness. She inhaled, as if to scream . . .

   . . . and the trailer door shut, soft as a whisper. He was gone.

  Robin clutched the shoes and closed her eyes. “I am Robin,” she whispered. At least she knew that much.

  But where am I? Who was that? And what . . . where . . .

  She slid back down into the bed smelling of mortals—what a funny word, mortal—and her entire body turned to lead. Her eyes closed, and she fell back into half-dreaming again, rocking in the narrow cot. It was like her bed at Court.

  Court?

  But it was gone. She slid back into soft sleep.

  Outside, a warm spring night rustled palm trees, and a hound with a redgold coat sniffed carefully at a man’s hand. “You know me, don’t you? I fed you pigeons.”

  Pepperbuckle nosed the proffered palm, showed his teeth, and backed away a few steps. His haunches thudded down again, and he fixed his intelligent blue gaze on the trailer’s door again.

  Waiting for his mistress. When the stranger walked away, ducking under lines where washing hung to dry, the hound didn’t even twitch.

  A FAIR PRICE

  55

  Sirens resounded in the distance, mortals scurrying to repair damage. Full night had fallen, and the drizzle turned to pellets of stinging ice. The deepest pool of shadow, beyond the hooded slump of the HVAC vent, grew blacker and blacker. Jeremiah kept the lance steady. The rag of sidhe-flesh, smoking with ironblight, was still screaming, making noises that could drive a mortal mad. Curse-birds took shape, battering at Jeremiah’s hair and shoul
ders, spreading out to peck at the dogs and the armored knights, who simply waved them away or spoke single soft words of chantment, crunching them into puffs of noisome smoke.

  Gallow stabbed one last time, seeking the heart-knot holding the Fatherless to life. The ironblade found it, flushing forge-hot, and Goodfellow’s screams became choking gurgles.

  The clot of shadow behind the vent birthed a slow, murderous gleam, light playing on a serrated blade. It spread, and became the foxfire limning of dwarven-made armor. A rider and a high helm, a flowing cloak of motheaten velvet hanging from spiked shoulders, the rooftop cracking and settling as the cold radiated. Atop the black charger, its massive head a horrible reflection of a horse’s—because no horse had predator’s teeth—the bulk of the bloody-eyed lord of the Hunt and the Hallow smoked with ice that fell with tiny musical crashes.

  The hounds ringed Jeremiah and his victim. They champed and slavered, but their master’s will kept them from darting in to nip at him. The drow kept their distance as well, hissing and shaking their golden nets; the knights simply sat, hands tight on reins and the sparks of their eyes glowing hot. They were every color possible, those glowing eyes, except one.

  Only Unwinter bore the bloody gaze.

  “Gallow,” the once-Consort of Summer said, softly. The scar on Jeremiah’s side clenched, red-hot, but he kept the lance steady. The Horn grew heavier, its chain cutting cruelly at the back of Gallow’s neck. “I find you at murder again.”

  His mouth decided that he was already dead, so he might as well say what he thought. “Can’t get away from it, sir. No man can.” At least, no sidhe can. He should know, he’d tried.

  Unwinter made a low grinding noise. The hounds cringed, and Jeremiah tensed—but it was merely Unwinter laughing.

  Glad to know he finds me amusing. He ground the lanceblade, and the violated, Twisted thing under it choked out one last burble of agony and sagged, dissolving into bubbling, silent slime.