Cruel Fate

by Kelley Armstrong

  “Technically, they’re grotesques,” Ricky said as Todd lifted a branch to take a better look. “A gargoyle perches on a roof and diverts water. A grotesque is any gargoyle-like figure that doesn’t serve that purpose. You can thank your daughter for that bit of trivia. She’s the one who knows her architecture. The locals still call these gargoyles. Even Liv does. She hates to sound pedantic.”

  Todd chuckled. His tone said he wasn’t quite sure what the last word meant, but he got the gist of it in context.

  The blur continued toward them. It had picked up speed now that they’d stopped, their backs to it while they discussed the local gargoyles. I crept along, rolling my feet, moving silently on the grass.

  I drew near enough to see the figure of a woman, faint, like a hologram. It pulsed in and out of my vision, one second clearly a woman, the next no more than an indistinct smudge. She was less than three feet from my father. Right behind him as they chatted unaware.

  She crouched to spring. I lunged to knock her flying and—

  And then I was on the ground. Flat on my back, pain slamming through me, as if I’d been hit by a wrecking ball. I sprang up, ready to fight.

  Ricky and Todd rushed toward me. I opened my mouth to warn them about the fae, but she was gone. I spun, looking for that telltale blur. I caught a flicker of motion off to my left up by the roof. When I looked, though, it was an owl, gliding to rest on the roof’s edge. It peered down at me and hooted.

  I spun again, looking around.

  Ricky caught my arm. “Liv?”

  “Did you see that?” I said.

  “See what?”

  “There was a fae stalking you two. I saw the shimmer of her, and she was about to attack, so I lunged and…”

  I looked at the spot where I’d fallen. As I twisted, pain shot through my side, so hard I winced.

  “Are you okay, sweetheart?” Todd asked, taking over for Ricky, supporting me.

  “I’m fine. I just…” I winced again and rubbed my side.

  Todd led me to a bench and insisted I sit.

  “What did you see?” I asked.

  “You, flat on your back,” Ricky said. “I heard a thud and a thump, and when I turned, you were lying there.”

  Todd nodded. “That’s what I heard. Exactly that. Like someone hit you—hard—and you went down.”

  Which was what happened. I had to struggle to even remember being hit, it happened so fast. The wrecking ball analogy was a good one. A single rock-hard blow. What kind of fae could do that? I had no idea, but I was sure as hell going to find out.

  Eleven

  Olivia

  I called Gabriel. I told him we’d found Todd, and Ricky was with him. I was sending them back to the house, and I’d appreciate it if Gabriel met them there. I needed to speak to the elder most likely to explain this situation to me: Veronica.

  I headed to her house. Pepper answered the door. Pepper was…I guess you’d call her Veronica’s ward. To the non-fae in town, she’s an exchange student from Greece. In reality, she was a damaged lamiae—a Greek subtype of fae—whom Veronica took under her wing, giving her shelter and letting the town’s energy heal her. When I met Pepper last year, she was the developmental equivalent of a five-year-old, and even holding her glamour in place took more energy than she could afford.

  Today, the fae who answered the door looked like a teenage girl. That was the lamiae’s only choice for a human glamour. Now, though, when she smiled and when she welcomed me in, she really was that teenager, not the child I’d first met.

  “Hey, Liv,” she said as she opened the door. “Come on in. Is everything okay?”

  “I just had a nasty run-in with a fae,” I said. “I was hoping to talk to Veronica about it.”

  Pepper waved me inside. “Veronica’s lying down, but if you’re trying to figure out what kind it is, I might be able to help. I’m becoming something of an expert.” She picked up a book she must have just set down on the front table. “Patrick’s been letting me read through his library. Now that I actually can read. Gives me something to do until the elders agree I’m well enough to actually get a job.” She gestured me through to the kitchen. “Did you see it in the city? Or in the countryside?”

  “In town.”

  That made her turn sharply. “In Cainsville?”

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to Veronica. There was a fae stalking my father. A woman. She tried to attack him. I jumped in to stop her and ended up on the ground.”

  Her eyes rounded. “What? That shouldn’t—that can’t happen. Veronica has the wards up. All the wards. With your dad coming home, she wasn’t taking any chances.”

  She turned toward the stairs leading up to the second story and presumably the bedrooms.

  “I know she’s resting,” I said, “but I really do need to talk to her.”

  “Right. Totally. Except…she’s not just resting. She’s in a…” Pepper fluttered her hands. “I don’t know how to describe it. A trance? A coma? She’s unconscious, and if I wake her, I’ll break the wards, and it’ll take hours for her to get them back in place.”

  “Unconscious?”

  “Like…” Another flutter as she searched for words. “Like when you’re using a generator, and you can either run ten small appliances or one big one. Veronica needs all her power for these wards. So she’s shut down her body. It’s a fae thing. Like hibernation, maybe? Sorry, I’m not describing this well. The words still don’t always come. I know what I mean, but I can’t quite articulate it.”

  “No, you’re making sense. Veronica has diverted all her energy to the wards. Unless it’s an emergency, we shouldn’t wake her.”

  “Right. If it’s urgent, I’ll definitely do that, but what exactly happened?”

  I told her.

  When I finished, Pepper was nodding, processing. “You saw a fae following your father. It looked like she was going to attack him. No local fae would ever hurt your dad. And the wards are working. They must be, or Veronica would wake up. Is it possible the fae wasn’t actually preparing to attack? That she made a sudden move, which you understandably interpreted as an attack?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I know the local fae are curious about your dad. Fae are curious.” She smiled. “It’s one thing we all have in common, whatever our subtype. Maybe one snuck up for a closer look. She moved toward him, and you went after her, and she reacted on instinct. When she realized who she’d hit, she took off. Is that plausible?”

  I considered. It was indeed plausible. When I said so, Pepper said, “I’ll still wake Veronica if you’d like.”

  I shook my head. “No, the more I think about it, the more I think you might be right. In any event, I’m fine, and Todd’s safe. I’ll talk to Gabriel. If he’s concerned, we’ll speak to the elders.”

  Once I returned home, I got the best part of my day. Whatever crap we were dealing with, there was nothing quite like curling up in my parlor, working through a problem with Gabriel and Ricky. It reminded me how lucky I was to have them in my life. Not just people to solve problems with, but people who also enjoyed this aspect of our lives. Nothing got our blood pumping like mystery and danger and, yes, trouble. A challenge to be faced and vanquished and an adrenalin rush to enjoy.

  Given that my father was the one in danger, that certainly dampened my enthusiasm. I worried what he’d think, seeing us attack this problem with more excitement than might be proper. Yet that night, working through the possibilities and the solutions, he came more alive than I’d ever seen him. More engaged. More relaxed, too, as odd as that sounded. I understood it, though. We were tackling his problem with gusto, treating it—despite some unseemly enthusiasm—with all the gravity it deserved. We took it seriously. We were prepared. We were capable. We had this under control…or, if he believed so, well, a vote of confidence never hurt. I just hoped we lived up to his expectations.

  Tomorrow, we expected our fae adversary to make his or her move. News of Kirkman’s u
nearthing would hit the papers, and whoever was behind this would ensure we knew about that ASAP.

  Our second avenue of investigation came from the other end of the chain. Who could have known where to find Kirkman’s body? It was a very short list. Our adversary had also known where to find the body of his last victim and had moved him there. That information almost certainly came from the Cwˆn Annwn, however unwittingly.

  Ricky would speak to Ioan about that. He was their Arawn, and he had as much leverage there as Gabriel did here in Cainsville. This was where Gabriel would concentrate his own efforts—he wanted to know who’d attacked me tonight. He’d follow up on that. As for me, well, I got the exciting job of waiting for that message from our adversary—the e-mail or whatever they’d send to say, Hey, look whose body just turned up!

  Twelve

  Ricky

  As Ricky turned onto Ioan’s road, he slowed his bike and rolled his shoulders against a crick in his neck. That’s what he got with three hours of sleep spent on Liv’s couch.

  He could have gone home, of course. He had a proper one now—a farmhouse equidistant from his dad’s place, Ioan’s and the clubhouse, close enough to each to be convenient, far enough for privacy. The privacy part was important. While no one hovered over him, he felt the weight of their expectations, the weight of their gazes. Ricky was Ioan’s Arawn, and his father’s heir, and the Saints’ future leader. Everyone had a vested interest in his future. Liv might joke that Ricky was the most mature and responsible twenty-two-year-old she’d ever met, but he was still twenty-two, and he needed time and space to himself. Time when he could kick back with a beer and Netflix and not have someone hanging over his shoulder, suggesting more productive uses for the two hours of the day he wasn’t working his ass off.

  So maybe, after five days working that ass off in Miami, he should have been happy for the excuse to go to his new house and sleep in complete peace and quiet. Except…well, to be honest, the whole happy homeowner thing wasn’t working out as well as he’d expected. His house felt…empty. Yep, he was whining about the exact thing he’d claimed he wanted. Without even Lloergan there, he’d been in no rush to get home, even if it would have meant a proper bed.

  Spending the evening with Liv and Gabriel certainly hadn’t made his empty house any more inviting. Ricky was a pack animal. Maybe it was his Cwˆn Annwn side. Maybe it was growing up in a motorcycle club. He liked being surrounded by people. He just didn’t like the expectations that came with that these days.

  Liv and Gabriel expected nothing except the pleasure of his company, and if anything, they could commiserate with the rest, being in the same position. Well, Liv commiserated. Gabriel allowed Ricky to bitch and didn’t check his phone or start answering e-mail, which he’d been known to do when a conversation bored him. He listened, and that told Ricky he sympathized, and Ricky knew he was dealing with the same pressures as Gwynn, even if Gabriel would never whine about that…or anything else, damn him.

  Ricky rolled slowly along Ioan’s road, his helmet off as he listened for a familiar sound. When he heard it, he smiled and waited until he saw a flash of black fur. Then he hit the accelerator. The bike took off in a cloud of dust as Lloergan appeared. She fell in beside the bike, running full out. Ricky veered into Ioan’s lane and up the drive. When he stopped, Lloergan jumped up, massive paws on his leg, and he braced the bike to keep it from toppling. Then he rubbed and scratched her head.

  “You heard me even farther away this time,” he said. “Your ears are getting better. You kept up, too. Forty miles an hour.”

  He whistled and shook his head, and Lloergan whined with excitement. He never knew whether she understood everything he said, but he talked to her as if she did, and she wriggled like a puppy. After a few minutes, he gently lowered her paws off his leg and wheeled the bike up beside the garage. Then he cocked his head. From the barn, he caught the skritch-skritch of a brush. Sure enough, Brenin appeared at the barn door. The alpha cwˆn looked at Ricky before retreating inside.

  Inside the horse barn, Ricky found Ioan brushing his mount. Ioan looked over and smiled, set down the brush and wordlessly came over to put an arm around Ricky in a half embrace.

  Ioan asked how the trip had gone, and he seemed genuinely interested in the answers, genuinely happy to have Ricky back. The truth, Ricky was certain, was that Ioan was interested, was happy. The question he couldn’t answer, and maybe never would, maybe never should, was why.

  Ricky was the Cwˆn Annwn’s Arawn. That gave their pack power. It also gave them leverage with Matilda. Ricky would champion them with her, and as long as his bond with Liv remained strong, so would hers with the Huntsmen. It was in Ioan’s best interests to make nice. If Ricky felt that his interest went beyond that, was that his ego talking? Not wanting to think Ioan and the pack treated him well only because he was useful as Arawn?

  It wasn’t dissimilar from his situation with the Saints. Everyone knew his father intended to make him leader, and as long as he lived up to his potential—which he was doing—he’d assume the mantle in about ten years. So it was in each member’s best interest to treat Ricky well, securing their future position. With both the Cwˆn Annwn and the Saints, Ricky could accept that and use it to his advantage and not give a shit about things like genuine friendship, genuine belonging. Except he wasn’t that guy. Never would be. He wanted the biker life too much, and he needed it to want him back. Same with the Cwˆn Annwn.

  No matter how different the groups might seem, they were at their heart the same, with their sense of camaraderie and purpose, and Ricky loved being a Huntsman as much as he loved being a biker. Most times, he accepted that he did fit. Their attention and affection felt genuine, and so it was, and the rest was navel-gazing overanalysis. There were still, though, moments when his mood dipped, and he couldn’t help but wonder whether he was like the guy who got accepted into the cool clique in high school because he had a nice car or a fat bank account.

  Ioan was also Ricky’s grandfather. Ricky preferred to forget that part. It added a layer of awkwardness that didn’t help reconcile his ambivalence. Ioan played the role of the proud grandfather, thrilled by Ricky’s accomplishments, pleased by the man he’d become, and all of that seemed sincere. Good, right? His grandfather had entered his life, and now they could have the relationship that had been denied them. Only it hadn’t been denied them at all.

  Ioan had gotten Ricky’s grandmother pregnant when she was a young woman, and then he’d left, acknowledging Ricky’s father only with punctual and very generous support checks. What Ioan did doomed Ricky’s grandmother to life as an ostracized single mother. Not that Ricky would ever say that to her face. She’d tell him off if he did. To her, that baby and those checks meant she could open her own business and never need to marry, enjoying lovers instead. Still, Ricky knew that part of that had been his strong-willed grandmother making the best of difficult circumstances. Making lemonade from the lemons Ioan had given her.

  For Ioan to waltz into Ricky’s life and see no problem with what he’d done? That burned. Ricky had eventually told Ioan how much it burned, what a shitty thing it’d been to do, and he knew that’d been a revelation to Ioan. Airing that issue had helped, but it didn’t fix the past, and Ricky had come to accept that he might always prefer to simply think of Ioan as “leader of the Cwˆn Annwn.” A colleague, a mentor, maybe even someday a friend, but nothing more.

  They finished the small talk, and then Ricky headed through the airy stable to where his horse, Tywysog Du, had an oversized stall. All the stalls here were huge, with acres of pasture beyond and two Huntsmen assigned as full-time staff. Like the hounds, the horses weren’t pets or property. They were partners, treated with all due respect. It didn’t matter that there was a Huntsman on duty in the stable even now—Ioan would be here every morning before work to curry his horse and put him out for the day.

  Ricky brought Tywysog Du from his stall and led him over near Ioan. Then he picked up a currycomb and
began working his way down from the horse’s neck.

  “The body is Kirkman’s,” Ricky said as he circled the comb over Tywysog Du’s flank.

  Ioan shook his head. “That isn’t possible.”

  “Gabriel was there. The police were following an anonymous call. They found Kirkman’s last victim in the brush where he left her. They found him buried right beside her.”

  “Which means it’s not Gregory Kirkman. I realize Liv is worried, and if she’s worried, then you are. Overreaction is completely understandable under the—”

  “Ioan?”

  That was all Ricky said. Just the one word and an accompanying look. Ioan nodded and murmured an apology. Liv and Gabriel dealt with the same crap from the elders. The leaders of the Tylwyth Teg and the Cwˆn Annwn saw them as children and needed to be constantly reminded that they weren’t, and that patronizing “I understand your concern” bullshit was not appreciated.

  If Ricky were a two-hundred-year-old fae, he’d probably treat a twenty-something human the same way. That didn’t mean Ricky had to put up with it. So he didn’t, and he had to give Ioan props for acknowledging his mistakes, something Liv and Gabriel never got from the elders.

  “It’s the body of a man,” Ricky said. “Roughly the same age as Kirkman. Buried for about twenty years. The remains showing signs of a savage knife attack. And he had Kirkman’s ID on him.”

  “There,” Ioan said with satisfaction, turning from his horse. “That last part proves this is not Gregory Kirkman. I destroyed his ID myself. All the contents of his wallet are gone.”

  “This was a social security card.”

  Ioan paused. “He didn’t have that on him. I emptied his pockets. Two Huntsmen searched him after me to be sure. It’s standard procedure. The card on that body was planted.”

  “Yes.”

  Ioan stopped, as if he’d been about to argue.

  “We figured that,” Ricky said. “Whoever moved him wanted to make sure he was ID’d. They found or made a social security card to point the cops in the right direction.”