by Jocelyn Fox
Tyr said nothing, his eyes lingering on Merrick’s bandaged arm. Corsica giggled and fell onto her back, flinging her arms wide, eyes closed again. Tyr pushed himself up onto his forearms, still silently staring.
“Sorry, bud, not enough for two right now,” Duke said firmly, stepping in front of Merrick.
For a moment, the silver-haired man leaned toward them anyway, a primal hunger written across his face. Ross sidestepped to get a better angle on him, her finger slowly sliding toward the trigger of the Glock. Then Tyr grunted and grimaced, shuddering as he closed his eyes. He turned and touched Corsica’s shoulder, making an inquiring sound.
“They have a runetrap in the yard for the bone sorcerer,” Corsica said languorously. “But it’s not quite right.”
Tyr sighed audibly and stood. He gestured between Corsica and Merrick, a question written on his face. Everyone stared at him. Tyr mimed cutting his arm, and held the arm toward Corsica.
“Yeah, she drank his blood,” said Duke.
Tyr raised his eyebrows.
“She said she would fix the runetrap in exchange for the blood. Or…I’m guessing that you could fix the trap,” Ross said.
The slender Exile rubbed both his hands over his face but said nothing.
“He doesn’t talk,” murmured Corsica. “I talk for both of us.”
Tyr sighed again and raked one hand through his shaggy silver hair. He pointed toward the door and swept his hand around toward the back of the house.
“It would be really helpful if you’d actually tell us what he’s trying to say, then,” said Ross in irritation.
“Stop being so dramatic,” replied Corsica. “He’s the one who will fix the runes. He wants to go see them. And if you have supplies, he would like those too.”
Ross heard Vivian rummaging in the kitchen. Her stomach growled incongruously, reminding her that she hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast before all hell had broken loose that morning.
“How do we know that you won’t sabotage the runetrap?” Ross asked, forcing her mind away from the thought of food.
Corsica blinked at her with wide eyes, and then she grinned. Merrick’s blood darkened a few of her sharp teeth. “I gave my word, didn’t I?” She rolled to her belly and then to her hands and knees, sinuously stretching. “Wouldn’t want the Northman to put that axe in my pretty chest. No, no, that’s not what I would want at all.”
Tyr offered Corsica his hand with a glint of impatience in his slate eyes. She sat back on her haunches and linked her arms overhead, taking her time before she delicately placed her gloved hand in his and stood. Luca watched impassively. Duke still gripped Merrick’s shoulder, the dark-haired Sidhe’s color more gray than white now.
“Merrick can’t supervise the rune corrections,” said Duke. “We’d have to carry him out there.”
“I’m not so far gone as all that,” protested Merrick weakly.
“I will supervise,” said Luca. “I know enough of runes to see any malicious intent.” He hefted his axe as he looked at Corsica. “And I know enough of trickery to see that as well.”
“I gave you my word,” said Corsica, “and my word is good for both of us.”
Tyr nodded. He winced and touched the back of his head. His fingers came away stained lightly with blood, but he darted to the side when Duke stepped closer to look at his wound.
“He doesn’t like strangers,” Corsica said. “Neither of us does.” She wrinkled her nose. “And you smell strange. Not like the Old World. Like…like fire and gunpowder and iron.”
“’Long as he doesn’t fall over before he fixes our trap,” drawled Duke with a shrug. He glanced at Ross. “You stayin’ in here?”
“If that’s what’s needed,” she replied, though she didn’t want to leave Duke alone with Corsica for some reason. Maybe it was the hungry way the Exiled woman kept glancing at Merrick. “I’ll keep an eye on Merrick.”
“I don’t need a wet nurse,” grumbled the navigator.
“That argument would be more effective if you could stand on your own,” Ross retorted. She nodded to Duke and Luca. “Give a yell if anything goes wrong.” Catching Corsica’s eye, she held up the Glock. “This might not look as intimidating as an axe, but I guarantee you I’ll put you down if you hurt them.”
“Threats, threats,” said Corsica. “Axes and guns, knives and spells.” She clicked her tongue. “No trust, but that’s to be expected.” Tugging at her gloves, she motioned to Tyr. “Come, come, time to go look at the runes. Time to catch a bone sorcerer.” She giggled brightly and murmured something else to herself in a low voice.
“The paint and brushes are in the shed,” said Ross, watching as Luca opened the door and motioned to Corsica and Tyr. “And take my set of keys for the door. I’m going to lock it behind you.”
Duke nodded and stashed the Beretta in his waistband. Ross winced at the makeshift holster, but didn’t comment as she handed him her set of house keys. Their hands touched briefly, and he gave her his signature cocky smile. She locked the door behind him.
“Are the creepy ones gone?” asked Vivian, emerging from the kitchen with half a peanut butter sandwich in one hand.
“For now. And only Corsica is really creepy. Tyr didn’t talk at all.” Ross eyed the half-eaten sandwich.
“Glad I didn’t watch.” Vivian shook her head. “I wouldn’t have been able to eat anything afterward, and you know how I am when I get hungry. Looks like it didn’t spoil your appetite, though. Come on, I made extra.”
Ross unloaded the Glock, locking the slide back and checking the chamber before she placed the gun on the kitchen counter. She fairly inhaled two peanut butter sandwiches, pausing only when her first bite of the second sandwich yielded a strange crunch. “V…what’s in this?” she asked slowly.
“Bacon,” replied Vivian brightly. “There was some left over from yesterday morning’s breakfast. It’s a good combo. Salty and sweet, you know?”
Ross started chewing again, squinting slightly as she evaluated the taste. Either Vivian was right and it actually tasted good, or she was just too hungry to care.
“Well, we have to make a grocery run. That’s all the bread we’ve got in the house,” said Vivian as she finished arranging another dozen sandwiches on a plate. A smaller plate sat to its side, already bearing its own two sandwiches.
“Jeez, V, think you made enough?”
“Have you seen Luca eat?” retorted Vivian. “He’s like Thor’s younger brother or something. And besides, Duke eats a lot too. You know that.” She covered the platter of food with plastic wrap and pushed it back slightly on the counter. “That should be good for now. I don’t know what we’re going to do for lunch, though.”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” admitted Ross as she filled a glass with water to wash down her last bites.
“Well, someone has to,” said Vivian with an air of practicality. She took the smaller plate and walked into the living room. Merrick opened his eyes and looked warily at the sandwiches. “I know you might not be hungry,” said Vivian, “but I think you need to eat, especially since you just gave Corsica some of your blood.”
Merrick took one half of a sandwich and peered at it curiously.
“Peanut butter and bacon,” said Vivian. “Pretty good, if I do say so myself.”
Though he ate slowly, Merrick eventually finished both of the sandwiches. Vivian looked satisfied as she brought the empty plate back into the kitchen. Ross changed into different shorts and a t-shirt, prodding at the bruises she’d received in the fight with Corsica. None of them were any worse than what she’d experienced in her other sparring matches. She rubbed the scar on her arm unconsciously as she contemplated their next moves. How was Duke going to live when he was supposed to be dead? He couldn’t just hide out here at the house forever…though theoretically she supposed he could. Suddenly she straightened. Was he going to tell his teammates’ families that they were all alive? She couldn’t decide if it would be crueler
to let them continue to believe that the men were dead, or tell them that they were alive, but just in another world of magic and Fae. It would probably hurt more than it helped, unless the men came back themselves. She sighed and rubbed her forehead, walking back into the main room.
“Is there anything we can do to help you?” Vivian was asking Merrick as Ross rejoined them. “I mean, I know you said that Luca is better because his wolf is in this world now, but isn’t there anything that can, I don’t know, make you any better?”
“Keep feeding me peanut butter and bacon sandwiches,” Merrick said lightly, but his haggard face belied his attempt at humor.
Vivian crossed her arms. “Seriously, Merrick. There must be something.” She pressed her lips together. “Could you…I mean, Corsica and Tyr, with the blood…” She rubbed her own arm, trailing off.
“No,” said Merrick vehemently. Vivian jumped guiltily at the sudden strength of his voice. Merrick shook his head and looked very tired. “Sometimes a choice between life and death turns into a choice between surviving as a monster, or dying as yourself.”
“You’re…dying?” Vivian whispered.
Merrick nodded. “I have a few days, a few weeks maybe. But I don’t have the protections afforded to the travelers sanctioned by the Queens.” He took a breath and paused. Even talking seemed to tire him. “Without the traditional runes, this world…it strips away at us. It’s like…” He grimaced as he tried to find the words. “It’s like a dust storm, wearing away at my skin.”
Vivian shivered. “So that’s why Corsica and Tyr drink blood?”
“They might have known the runes,” admitted Merrick. “In the days before the Great Gate was sealed, many more Sidhe knew the runes to protect themselves in the mortal world.”
“Then how did they become what they did?”
“I don’t know.” Merrick shook his head. “They’ve survived for centuries. Far longer than any Sidhe who has made the mortal world their home…at least as far as I know. And I am not a Scholar.”
“Could I…do you think I could come with you, when you return to the Fae world?” Vivian asked hesitantly. She couldn’t hide the spark of hope that shone in her eyes.
Merrick frowned. “Why…why would you want to come to my world?”
“Because it would be an adventure.” Vivian grinned and then saw Ross’s disapproving expression. “Not forever, I don’t think. I’d probably come back.”
“It was law until not so long ago that no mortals could travel into our world,” said Merrick slowly. “But then there was the Bearer, and her brother and his teammates. So I don’t rightly know. Perhaps.”
Vivian’s face flushed and her eyes shone with excitement. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”
Ross sighed. “V, if you go into the Fae world, who will take care of the shop?”
Merrick looked questioningly at Vivian, who fidgeted with the empty plate on her lap.
“There’s a coffee shop in New Orleans,” she explained. “My great-grandparents started it, and my grandparents ran it, and now it’s mine.” She shrugged and said defiantly, “I could just say that I’m traveling. Going away for a while. Backpacking across Europe or something. Mike and Evie are good managers, they take care of mostly everything anyway.”
“And what happens when they can’t get ahold of you at all – you know that there are very few places where you can’t answer email nowadays,” Ross pointed out.
“Don’t crush my dreams!” protested Vivian.
Ross shrugged and shook her head, smiling even as she gave up the argument. “I’m going to go check on everything out back, if you two are okay in here.”
Merrick nodded wearily and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. Vivian watched him worriedly for a moment and then shook herself slightly, grabbing the empty plate and walking into the kitchen.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Ross as she followed Vivian, retrieving the Glock from the counter, replacing the magazine and chambering a round.
“Yeah,” said Vivian distractedly, deep in thought.
“It’s never good when I can see the hamsters running at full speed,” said Ross, nudging Vivian with her shoulder as she passed by her on the way out of the kitchen. She paused. “Hey.”
Vivian looked up at her. A corkscrew curl escaped her braid and she tucked it behind her ear.
“We’ll figure something out,” said Ross in a low voice, with more confidence than she felt. She just didn’t like seeing the worry written across her friend’s face.
“You’re just trying to make me feel better.” Vivian smiled slightly. “I know you think I need protection, Ross…and you’re right, I haven’t done what you have. I haven’t ever shot a gun, much less shot at anything.” She shrugged. “But this…this feels like what I’ve been waiting for. It just feels like everything is falling into place.” She sighed. “But I hope you’re right. I hope we figure something out with Merrick. It makes me feel so…helpless.”
Ross nodded. “And that sucks. But trust me. We’ll find something. Does Luca seem like the type of guy who’d leave his buddy hanging out to dry?”
Vivian shook her head. “No. You’re right.” She grabbed a glass and filled it with water. “We’re good. Go check on the progress of the crazies at making our trap sorcerer proof.”
“I wouldn’t call them ‘crazies’ to their faces,” cautioned Ross with a smile as she left the kitchen. “I’m taking the spare key with me.” After pulling her black Converse shoes onto her feet, she grabbed the key from the dish on the table by the door and ventured out into the humid midmorning air. Now that she wasn’t hungry, she enjoyed the feeling of stretching her legs as she walked with long strides around the side of the house. She ignored the urge to check her bedroom window for scratch marks left from the crazed gas station cashier. As the back yard came into view, she glimpsed Corsica turning a few graceful cartwheels in a circle around Tyr, who crouched at the perimeter of the runetrap. Luca stood near Tyr, and Duke was watching Corsica with an expression somewhere between bemused and irritated.
“How’s it going?” Ross called, the long blades of grass tickling her ankles as she walked toward them.
“Well, I don’t really know,” confessed Duke, “since he doesn’t talk and she’s just been doing acrobatics like a rejected Olympic gymnast ever since we got out here.”
Ross raised an eyebrow as Corsica switched to back walkovers, leaning back in a graceful arc until her gloved hands touched the ground, then neatly flipping her legs overhead and landing upright. “She’s certainly…flexible.” As Corsica passed them, still following her circular path, Ross heard the Exiled woman humming a strangely unsettling tune. She frowned. Maybe Vivian’s description wasn’t so off the mark after all.
“I believe he is about halfway done with his improvements,” said Luca without looking away from Tyr’s work. “He is using a few archaic runes that I have never seen, but all are for our purpose.”
Ross wasn’t entirely sure, but she thought she saw Tyr roll his eyes at Corsica as she passed him. What was the bond that had brought the two of them together? She tried to pick out any similarity between them, and decided they weren’t siblings. Had they been lovers, or were they still? She mulled over the possibility as she watched Tyr painting on the flat rock with sure, quick strokes. He’d fashioned his own brush using a stick and a few black, glossy feathers. For a reason she couldn’t name, the sight of the strange little brush sent prickles down Ross’s spine.
Luca suddenly straightened, looking sharply at the house. Ross instinctively followed his gaze and her pulse quickened as she saw the five figures making their way toward them. But she glanced at Luca and Duke and realized they were both grinning in recognition.
“Well, knock me flat with a feather,” said Duke. “Looks like the rescue expedition finally found us.”
“Rescue expedition?” repeated Ross as the other group closed the distance between them. A tall, fair woman led them, her hair a g
old so light that it was almost white, her heart-shaped face beautiful but fierce. She rested her hand on a golden whip coiled at her hip. Behind her, a pale man wearing black armor walked between a dark-haired woman and a man almost the match of Liam in stature. The man wore his long pale hair tied back in a neat ponytail, the woman kept glancing at the man in the dark armor, who walked mechanically, his face expressionless. At the rear of the group, a tall man with a scar across one side of his face raked his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair, trying to unobtrusively catch his breath.
Corsica paused in her acrobatics, crouching in the long grass on the far side of the runetrap, watching the newcomers cagily through the curtain of her silver hair. Tyr continued working without sparing them so much as a glance. He seemed almost happy as he dipped the black feather brush in more paint.
The fair woman raised a hand in greeting to Luca, but she increased her pace and Ross saw her smile fade as her eyes travelled between Luca and Duke, glossing over her and the two Exiled. She was clearly looking for someone else, and a trace of worry crossed her face.
“Calliea,” said Luca warmly as she approached. Ross eyed the strange woman and thought that she’d want to be on her side in a fight.
Calliea didn’t return Luca’s greeting this time, uneasiness plain in her voice. “We saw the fight earlier – please don’t tell me that Merrick…that he…” She stopped and swallowed, as though the words choked her.
“Merrick is inside,” Duke replied quickly. “He’s…well, he’s not fine, but he’s alive.”
“Thank the White Wolf,” breathed Calliea, closing her eyes briefly. Then she gathered herself and looked back at Luca. “Tess will be here soon with Kianryk. She’s going to lead the bone sorcerer here. Niall saw the runetrap when he was scrying this morning.” She glanced at the sun making its way overhead. “Maybe half an hour, maybe a bit more time. We were in the abandoned trailer by the river.”
“You walked here from there?” said Ross in surprise. “That has to be at least ten miles.”