“And so you are the last of the Nephilim.” One hand absently stroked the long mustache that drooped down to his chin.
“What happened on the estate? Who killed Eliza Drake?”
The Master took his turn with the poker, turning the embers, staring into the fading flames. His lean, aristocratic features held as much expression as the stone in the walls of his fortress, but I could tell he wrestled with some unease. Too much humanity glinted through the mask. “I have the one directly responsible. He awaits my judgment.” Some signal passed unseen from him to a courtier. The courtier vanished through a doorway. “But there are complications. He did not act alone. And the other is beyond my power.”
I bent down, caught his gaze. “I am not bound by place. Who did this thing?”
The mask of his face gave me nothing. “A citizen of Night-Town. And one from outside. One strong enough to strip Eliza Drake of her defenses. Then the killer moved in.”
That ran through me like a lightning bolt. The same method had been used to kill Corvinus. Fetch was the first half of my answer, and I had a solid suspicion for the other half. I felt movement behind me. I did not need to look back to identify the prisoner the two Wolfbreeds hauled between them. Emory Drake.
I turned. Emory smiled when he saw me. “Too late to save her. Always too late. And in the Master’s hands. You are a fool, sorcerer. Your captive spirits are not enough to help you in this place.”
He hadn’t been kept well informed. Of course, he had been more of a tool in this game than anything else, and in the confines of the Master’s gaol, he probably hadn’t been kept up on current events. The power within stoked rage to a white heat. “You killed your sister. Why?”
He laughed. “It was the price I asked. The favor owed me in return for the death of your master. He died screaming like a woman. My sister was even better …”
His words ended abruptly. The large, clawed hand of one of his guards had wrapped itself casually around his neck. His toes scraped the flagstones. As a vampire, he couldn’t be strangled to death, but it seemed to be an effective way to keep him from talking.
The Master stood abruptly. “I am asked for a judgment. The crime is trespassing and killing without my let.” He nodded to me. “He is yours. I give him to you.”
The wolfbreed dropped Emory and stepped away from him. His partner stepped back at the same time. Emory straightened his coat and smirked at me, showing considerable fangs. He obviously thought the Master had just handed him my head on a plate. Had this happened before my journey through the valley of shadow, he might have been right.
Then again, maybe not. Emory hadn’t shown many signs of brilliance.
His sudden rush surprised no one. I let him come, power within me flaring in anticipation, shaping my flesh to my desire. His movements slowed. The dance of the firelight froze. As he reached for me, I slipped my arms under his, clasped my hands under his chin, set my hip against his pelvis, and broke his back.
I used the moment of shock. I caught and held his gaze, and ripped the identity of his patron from the surface of his mind. I recognized her. She wore the same shape she had when she had brought me into her place of power.
I saw him kill Eliza through the lens of his memory. I saw Fetch take him there, dancing to Titania’s command, smashing through Eliza’s defenses, stripping her of her powers, and releasing Emory to his work. I saw it as a reflection of a reflection, an act repeating the earlier attack on Corvinus.
It was little more than confirmation.
Shadowy streamers curled out from the darkness covering the wall of the Master’s fortress as I dropped him. His mouth stretched wide in a scream of pain and rage. I choked the scream in his throat, locking him in the prison of his own thwarted fury. Guided by my will, coils of darkness caught and bound him, then snapped him back to the wall with irresistible strength. I reached into the flames, shaped the fire with the power of creation and the strength of my will into the form of an eighteen-inch spike. I pulled eight more golden spikes from the heart of the flames.
Then I pinned him to the wall with nails of fire and a hammer of darkness. His blood sizzled and spat as the spikes ate into his hide. His curses became screams that would have torn the flesh from a living throat. I nailed him at wrists and ankles, shoulders and hips. The last spike I put between his eyes. His screaming never stopped. Nor did his screams escape to meet any sense other than mine. I had bound him within himself. I had left him his agony for comfort. In the absence of guilt, pain would have to be enough.
The darkness thickened, covered him over, and faded. When my will eased back from the shadow, Emory Drake could no longer be seen. The stone of the wall bore scars like a tormented face, and nine holes marked it. Echoes of the hammer danced lightly through the hall.
When I turned, the courtiers flinched.
The Master shook his head. “I would have made him last longer.”
I gave him a smile full of malice. “He will last as long as his strength holds, and as long as this place stands. I have given him his own private hell. I have given him all he ever deserved.”
The Master looked away from me. “And now?”
I stared into the flames. I give you this, I told Eliza silently. Would that I could have given you better.
It helped and it didn’t. I have ever found revenge to be dissatisfying. It doesn’t help with the pain. For me, balancing the scales is a need, not a pleasure. Something within me, though, something old and something new, fed and grew on Emory’s pain.
I thought about Fetch, and what I had seen through Drake’s eyes. Drake’s story of my master’s murder matched Shaw’s story of how Corvinus died except in one detail—the last visitor, who had cleaned up after Fetch and Drake. Fetch had to be acting as Titania’s errand boy still, and Titania was Drake’s patron. Titania had reached beyond her limitation of place through her agents. They were nothing more than tools, really, executing her will.
She would be waiting for me. I had no doubt of that.
I could see it clearly enough. She had taken Corvinus, but lost the opportunity to find his research through Drake’s clumsiness. So she’d turned to me, and set me on the path. She had Fetch to insure my death, but first, if luck was with her, I might lead Fetch to Corvinus’s research and give her the opportunity to destroy the key to the Fane. My evasion of Fetch in the Deep-Town workshop had broken those plans. How desperate Titania must have been, how heavy her fear must have weighed upon her, to drive her down this path to try and close every possible Way that led back to the Nephilim.
And so had she brought me to become what she most feared.
I didn’t understand, though, why Corvinus hadn’t followed the key to the Fane. Maybe he’d known more than I, or hadn’t been desperate enough to take the risk. The knowledge would have been his main goal anyway. For Corvinus, knowledge was the true power.
I considered my options. I needed to think. Revenge alone was not enough for me. I didn’t enjoy it as well as some. I harbored no illusion that Titania would leave me be. She had spent centuries sharpening her claws and honing her enmity for the Nephilim. She would not fall as easily as Drake had. Fetch still remained as a complication. I needed time to consider. I needed time to prepare. I decided to take the time to see an old friend and an old enemy. But first, I would take the time to stop by my place to free the ones I had bound there. I didn’t want any debts outstanding when I came to face Titania.
I opened a door in the darkness, and stepped through to a starlit evening at the edges of CrossTown.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE WILLOWS murmured together like old women gossiping at a funeral. Wood fragments ranging in size from sawdust with ambition to daggers longer than my hand covered the ground around my house. Of my fence I saw no sign, other than the splinters. Pieces of broken jade glittered in the moonlight amongst the fragments.
My spirit dogs had put up a fight. I hoped they had at least drawn blood.
This had been
something other than a couple of frisky dire wolves. This had been someone a bit more serious. A kind of weariness settled over me as I picked my way to the broken door. What Fetch lacked in subtlety he made up for in enthusiasm.
A whirlwind had passed through the place. No fragment larger than a fingernail remained of the contents of the house. Even the walls had been broken and smashed to ruin. The roof sagged dangerously overhead. Moonlight slanted down through ragged breaches in the ceiling. I remained outside, on the steps, surveying the damage in relative safety from having my house collapse on me. My awareness roamed through the shadows. Touching the darkness had become an unconscious act for me.
“Silver?” My voice vanished in the whispering tones of the wandering wind. No one answered.
I closed my eyes. I felt hollow inside. Even if I had wished to let this thing go, they would haunt me. Titania had loosed her hound upon me. I would have to face him.
I considered Titania, and Fetch, and the lands bordered by the Iron Hills, and I set my course. First I would check in the court of Nuada Silverhand, to assure myself that Oisin and the rest had arrived without harm, and to settle the matter that lay between us. Then I would visit Titania, to settle all that remained.
I turned, sensing a presence, to see Emerantha Pale fade into view. She paused at the remnants of the gate. “I thought it might be you. I almost missed your arrival. I had begun to wonder if you would return at all.”
I cocked my head. “You’re out of your regular stomping grounds, aren’t you?”
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened. “My territory is what I make it. Where is the Key?”
I sighed. “I begin to suspect you may have motives somewhat less pure than the driven snow.”
“Don’t try my patience, Zethus,” she said sharply. “Corvinus died for it. You might yet. As well as many others. If the matter of the Key isn’t ended, the Ways will run with blood. The old race wars will be on us again.”
“It’s gone.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “How would you destroy such a thing? And even if you had, the prize remains. Enough know of it now, or suspect. They will be looking.”
I laughed. “Let them. The prize itself is no more, Pale. No one else will join the ranks of the Nephilim. Not even you.”
She sputtered.
I leaned forward. “Look me in the eye. Listen to what I’m telling you. You will find nothing but death in the valley of the shadow. The light is gone. Only the darkness remains. Understand?”
She looked me in the eye. She didn’t like what she saw there. Snarling softly to herself, she spun, took a fast step, and faded into the Ways, leaving me alone on my shattered doorstep. I paused a moment to wonder. Had she had a hand in it? Or had she simply been cruising for scraps?
Time would tell. If she moved against me, I would know. I would have cause to act.
Considering the players, I chose to deal with the devil I knew. Shadow opened around me. I rode off down Roads of darkness on a midnight steed of my own making. My steed carried me to the borders of Silverhand’s country, where I released my hold on shadow and let the shaping fade back to the deepest darkness. The pall of night faded around me. The directionless glow of Faerie pushed its way into my personal space.
I stood in the middle of a winding river of white stone that cut through a lake of emerald grass. Trees with golden bark and silver leaves walked along the Road, pacing its progress. The Road and its escort of tall timber wound up a great hill, toward a spare fortress of tall towers and open causeways. A pair of riders appeared on the Road, flowing gracefully down toward me.
The Lord of that place would be concerned. I hadn’t given him any warning of my approach.
I walked up the hill to meet the riders. Practical scale armor burned with more than reflected light. The lances they carried had heads of pure flame. Long hair whipped behind them as they rode. The faces held the inhuman beauty of the Sidhe, the kind of beauty that rises from an absolute joy in taking every breath. I couldn’t help but admire them as they closed the distance between us.
Their steeds whirled around me, and they split to walk at each side. Lances lifted toward the sky, the flames of the heads dancing and sparkling with brilliant colors. Neither of the riders said a word. I glanced at the horses, aware of the power running through them in place of blood. Cut them and flames would wash out to the air. Light sparkled in the eyes of the steeds. Thick, rubbery lips curled back over teeth never meant for chewing grass.
I ignored my escort as they appeared to ignore me while we covered the distance to the keep with deceptive speed. Towers rose before me as I passed through open gates of sparkling alabaster. Tall Sidhe lords and ladies turned to regard me as I walked through the gates and into Silverhand’s great forecourt. A fountain of water and light rose higher than the walls in the center of the vast space of the courtyard. Shapes moved in the rippling curtain of mist and bright colors, dancing to the music of the falling water.
I skirted the fountain, my escort falling back, the silvery metal clash of their mount’s hooves on the flagstones of the court the only sound other than the rush of the fountain. Shining ranks of Sidhe opened at the far side of the fountain to reveal the tall, elegant figure of a more than handsome man. Light glittered off the crystal in his left hand as well as the animate metal of the hand itself.
Nuada did not move, his beautiful features a blank, passionless mask. Nuada had always been most dangerous when he revealed nothing of his passions. A tall redhead stood at his side. Her green eyes sparked fire at the sight of me. “You look a bit ragged, Zethus. Fallen on hard times?” Maeve’s voice had teeth. But then, everything about Maeve had always had a bit of a bite to it.
I nodded to Nuada, ignoring Maeve. Her jaw tightened. “Sidhe Lord. Has your son returned?” I asked.
A familiar voice came to me from my left. “We made it back, Zethus.”
I edged around one of my escorts enough to see Oisin raise his glass to me. “No problems on our end.”
I straightened as Nuada spoke. “Come to bargain for aid, sorcerer?”
Even carefully neutral and flat in tone, Nuada’s words always fell as music. He couldn’t help himself. Music was as much a part of his nature as violence. Only Lugh and the Dagda had him beat for the former, and only Lugh and the Morrigan for the latter. Which was why Lugh held the high seat.
That and the matter of the hand.
I smiled. “I don’t need aid, Nuada. I don’t make any charges. I want this thing between us laid to rest. I want to know that you won’t interfere.”
He arched a brow. “Between you and Titania? I thought you would be looking for allies, or taking your charges before Lugh. I had no idea you were so foolish as to contemplate confronting Titania in her lair.”
A stage whisper came from my left. “Told you humans were crazy.”
“I’m not so sure that Titania’s crossed any of the High Lord’s boundaries,” I told him. “Though she may have crossed yours by invading your demesne. If she was behind the raid. I have no proof of that.”
Maeve stirred impatiently. “Have done. He’s given himself to you.”
Nuada held up his right hand. “Patience, Maeve. Patience. Why have you been stirring your troops around my lands, sorcerer? Did you think I would not feel them? I know the taint of your captives.”
I had no idea what he meant. “What?”
He opened his mouth to respond and lightning fell out of the sky. Sidhe scrambled for cover. The world incandesced as the first bolt struck. I swallowed the second and the third into rippling folds of darkness as I picked myself up from the flag-stones spitting blood and snarling. Wind struck in that moment, driving daggers of ice.
My will lashed skyward, found a familiar lupine spirit, and hurled him to earth. He struck like a white meteor. Gleaming stone fountained skyward and rained down over the crowd. Power crackled over the battlements as the Fae began calling on the forces of the land.
&nbs
p; My Fae escorts lunged at me. Power built within me. The rainbow flames of their lances went black. Shadow pooled around me and stretched out across the courtyard. The mounts recoiled from the darkness and streaked back out through the open gates. Their riders dropped their lances but kept their seats. A form rose out of the darkness. Wings of many colors opened before me. A sword of fire struck me through the body. I howled in anguish and a surge of force hurled the avenging angel away from me.
The second stroke followed, as graceful and inevitable as the second step in a dance, taking me in the side. My hand closed around the blade, darkness dripping from my side like blood. My other hand caught him by the throat. For an instant I stared into the tortured face of Blade.
Then I ripped the sword out of my side. Darkness filled the gap, rolling out around me in pulsing waves. The directionless light of Faerie vanished in the spreading pool of shadow. I tore the blade from his grasp, from the foundations of his self, and wept molten tears as I felt his agony. I bound him in black chains of midnight strength, then I turned to catch Bright Angel’s second stroke on Blade’s sword.
The impact sent her shivering back. Dark flames crawled up the burning blade to eat the light. Lightning, wind, and ice stormed through my shield of darkness as I closed with Bright Angel. Power turned and folded upon itself as Bright Angel’s ragged rainbow wings beat desperately against the hungry dark. I wound her in a shroud of shadows and cast her down into the stone.
I could feel the shielding pool of darkness thinning under the combined efforts of lesser ones. I pulled my strength back, and back again, until I had wrapped myself in layers of compressed ebon power. The broken Legion came swarming after. I took them in groups or singly, binding them with my will and chains of shadow into the fountain that had once been bright.
I felt the White Wolf rise from the earth and turn to flee. I caught him with a black rain lashing down from the same clouds he had once bent to his cause. Winged and clawed shadows, extensions of my will, brought him to me and held him before me. I studied him, tracing the bindings that lay heavily upon him. “Titania?”
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