Unfortunately, I had a feeling that vague, date-shaped window was closing. I’d been so busy lately, I hadn’t been able to follow through with the offer I’d made after she helped me do some crucial research—and before that, it was a few years before I even realized she’d wanted me to ask her out. So she was probably pissed at me.
Couldn’t blame her, really. I’d never had much success in the relationship department. I wasn’t charming or handsome or funny or rich. My job was unusual and interesting, but it also tended to turn women off when I told them I hauled dead bodies around all night.
To be honest, I didn’t mind my generally dateless existence. Kept me from getting too close to anyone.
But it was hell on my sex life.
It was a little before noon when I got back to the Castle and pulled my van through the narrow space hacked into the overgrowth around it to park in the front yard. The place wasn’t actually a castle, but it was formerly called the Castle Hotel. It had been abandoned for years. With the Hive destroyed, we’d needed a new, hidden place for twenty-six displaced Others to live.
This had been Daoin’s idea. No one knew how he’d found it, or how he managed to not only remember the place, but magically transport all twenty-six of us here at the same time from the subtunnels under the city.
That was the last crazy magic he’d performed. Since then, he was just plain crazy.
I walked in the front door to the former hotel lobby. The place still looked like a dump, but we’d done a lot of work to upgrade it from total shithole to merely abandoned. When we got here, the entire lobby floor had been a carpet of ferns and moss—and that was the smallest of the problems. At least now there was sporadic running water and electricity, some of the rooms were semi-habitable, and the kitchen could be used if you didn’t mind a little plaster dust or wood shavings in your food.
Though we’d cleared out most of the junk, the lobby still contained an immobile hunk of a front desk made from solid walnut and battle-scarred with age. Behind the desk, at his usual station, was the immobile hunk of Grygg. The massive, nearly eight-foot tall golem had been the gatekeeper at the Hive, and he seemed to have set himself the same task here. For decades he’d made sure no unsanctioned human or suspicious Other had passed through the magic barrier that separated the underground haven from the rest of the world.
Until Milus Dei came along with Reun in tow, and somehow managed to remove his head and one of his arms. But apparently that kind of injury was just a minor setback for a golem—he’d made a full recovery.
Some of the others who’d come here at first had drifted away over the past month, and we were down to eighteen residents. Six of them were still Duchenes, so now they were one out of three people here.
They’d claimed the top floor of the place. Everyone else elected not to go up there, ever.
I closed the door behind me and waved to Grygg. “Did I miss anything while I was gone?” I said, not expecting much of a response. He wasn’t exactly the talkative type. I’d seen him go a full two days without uttering a word or moving from his post.
The golem’s blank expression barely changed as he looked at me. “You made her angry,” he said in his stone-ground voice.
“Her who?”
In answer to my question, Sadie came barreling out of the big side room off the lobby with fire in her eyes. “You idiot! Where have you been?” she nearly shouted. “You take off, don’t tell anyone what you’re doing, and—oh my God, you’re bleeding. What happened?”
“Damn. Still?” I touched my fingertips to my nose, and they came back wet with blood. “Son of a bitch,” I said. “I’d kill that guy, if he wasn’t already dead.”
Sadie paled a few shades. “Why were you talking to a dead guy?”
“Long story, and I’d rather only tell it once. Is Taeral in there too?”
She nodded. “We were thinking about sending a search party after you.”
“I do have a phone, you know,” I said with a smirk. “You could’ve just called me. Not all of us need magic bags to communicate.”
“Oh. Right.” She brushed nervously at the white leather fringed pouch that hung from a cord around her neck—her spirit bag. It was supposed to let her stay in contact with her pack, even though she’d been away from them for almost ten years. From what she’d told me, it’d been a separation of mutual hatred, with one exception.
And Milus Dei had taken that exception away from her in brutal fashion. She’d been waiting on edge the past two months for someone from the pack to contact her about her mother, dreading it. But the bag remained silent.
“Come on,” I said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “We need to talk.”
She flashed a slanted smile. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”
Taeral was waiting in the parlor.
Best guess, this space just off the back of the lobby had been some kind of old-fashioned card room, where gentlemen in suits walked around with cigars and brandy snifters or something. The old-timey equivalent of a modern seedy bar. There’d still been a few wooden chairs and felt-covered tables standing in here, the surfaces worn to faded green and sandpaper grit. Actual bookshelves lined the side wall, and held a scattered handful of moldy, moisture-swollen volumes with titles like Sexual Behavior in the Human Female and Why Johnny Can’t Read.
These people had strange tastes in reading material.
I approached the table where Taeral sat gazing out a scratched, filthy window at the blank walls of an alley behind the place, an unopened bottle of whiskey in front of him. He’d been trying to curb his drinking problem, but it wasn’t easy considering the hell he’d been through with Daoin lately.
Unfortunately, I was about to make things worse.
He watched with a dulled expression as Sadie and I took seats at the table, but it wasn’t long before concern sketched itself in when he got a look at my face. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing good,” I said.
It didn’t take me long to explain. By the time I finished, Sadie had lost a few more shades of color, and Taeral was clutching the bottle in his metal hand. He stared at it for a long time, and finally let go with a reluctant sigh. “I don’t suppose this dead man told you where Reun might be now,” he said.
“I lost the connection.” I’d left out the part about the assault by singing. That was my own damned fault, and I didn’t need Sadie reminding me what an idiot I was. “Besides, I doubt Reun shared his plans for the future while he was carving the guy up.”
“He may have. Reun is unbelievably arrogant.”
“Enough about Reun,” Sadie said. “What are we going to do about Milus Dei?”
Taeral gave her a calm stare. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” I echoed. “Maybe you didn’t hear the part about them having countless legions. Let me repeat. They have countless legions.”
“We do nothing,” he said firmly. “The dead cannot lie, but the truth they speak is their own. Perhaps he believed there were more. Some vast shadow army, quietly preparing to conquer the world. A pearl of legends and myths built around a grain of truth. But real enough to some.”
I glared at him. “He’s not the only one who told me this. The dead guy at the Hive said there were tens of thousands.”
“Again. The dead speak their own truth. Why would he not have believed the same myth as his fellow?” Lip curled in a sneer, Taeral snatched the bottle and pulled the cork. But he still didn’t drink. “Reun is an immediate concern,” he said. “I’ve seen no evidence of these countless legions.”
“Goddamn it, Taeral, they’re a cult. A secret society.” I couldn’t believe he was still acting like this, after everything they’d done to him—and especially what they did to Daoin. “You think maybe that’s why you haven’t seen any evidence? Because it’s a secret!”
His blue eyes burned into me. “And what do you suggest we do about it, DeathSpeaker?” he said quietly. “If it’s true. If they’ve amassed an army of sold
iers, ignorant and single-minded humans with just enough misguided knowledge to capture and endlessly torment any one of us. Should we set off to find them, to fight them, with a handful of broken beings who’ve already endured suffering beyond belief? Should we hand them the key to our destruction? And in case you’ve somehow forgotten, that key is you, brother.”
“No, we shouldn’t,” I said bitterly. “But we should do something.”
He gave a cold laugh. “Something, indeed,” he said. “I plan to drink. That is something.”
“Uh, guys?” Sadie, who’d taken a seat facing the entrance to the room, leaned forward suddenly. “He does not look okay…”
We both turned, and Taeral stood so fast, he knocked his chair over. “Father!”
Daoin stood just inside the doorway, somehow looking worse than usual.
His usual appearance was bad enough. He’d come out of Milus Dei looking like a corpse from a concentration camp. And that was before Murdoch had drained most of the life from him, breaking the conditioning they’d tortured into him so that if he escaped, he’d be driven to kill Taeral—and then himself.
Now he didn’t even have enough magic for a glamour, an instinctive camouflage spell the Fae wore to make them more human. Everyday Daoin had blue skin and silver eyes, pointed ears, too-long limbs, and an extra joint in each thorn-tipped finger. His long, formerly black hair had gone white from shock while the bogeyman fed on his fear.
This Daoin was swaying on his feet, stiff and pale, the blue of his skin washed out to dull, dead gray. His benign and vaguely cheerful expression had been replaced by terror. The same look he’d worn back in the tunnels, when he didn’t recognize Taeral. When he still remembered the horrors he’d suffered inside the cult’s headquarters.
“Someone is coming to see me,” Daoin said in a choked voice. “Someone…is here.”
Taeral rushed to him, putting an arm around him before he could fall. “There is no one here, Father,” he said. “Only those who belong. Perhaps—”
A tremendous, splintering crash from the direction of the lobby cut him off. The floor trembled, suggesting Grygg was moving toward whatever made the sound—and then the minor earthquake stopped when a voice said, “Dhuunad sios’na.”
I knew those words. I’d used them to shut down Milus Dei’s death machine. They were Fae words.
“Daoin Ciar’ Ansghar! I know you are here. Present yourself, Unseelie.”
Damn it, I knew that voice too. I’d only heard it once…and that had been more than enough.
Reun.
CHAPTER 4
Taeral pulled Daoin further into the room, practically forcing him into a chair at the table. “Stay here, Father. Please,” he said. “Sadie, will you—”
“Yes. Go.”
He nodded and sprinted for the lobby.
I was already out of my chair, halfway to the door. “I’ll help him.”
“Gideon…be careful,” Sadie said.
“Yeah.”
I hadn’t exactly fared well against Reun the last time. In fact, if it wasn’t for Murdoch I’d probably be locked in some Milus Dei cage right now. But there was still no way I’d let Taeral go up against this guy alone. Reun had taken him down without much of a fight, too. The bastard had beaten him down, then ripped his replacement arm off and thrown it at Foley’s feet like a prize.
I rushed out, caught a glimpse of Grygg frozen in place behind the desk, and kept moving toward the hotel entrance—only to find Reun on his knees in front of Taeral, with Taeral’s knife plunged to the hilt in his stomach.
Okay. So maybe he didn’t need my help.
“Traitorous Seelie slime,” Taeral snarled, looming over him. “I will flay the skin from your flesh and wear it as a coat.”
I shuddered. Mostly because I believed he’d do it.
Reun made no move to attack, or use magic, or even try to take the knife out. “Taeral, son of Daoin,” he rasped, and blood bubbled on his lips. “I’ve come to surrender myself to your father.”
My jaw dropped. But before either of us could respond, a new voice joined the conversation.
“If you really wanna surrender, nasty little insect, you surrender to Denei.”
Damn it. This was a complication we definitely didn’t need.
Denei Duchene strode toward us from the back of the lobby with her brother Zoba in tow. She wore skin-tight black leather today. Her black hair was swept up into a bun, held in place by a pair of sharpened human bones. Zoba was also dressed in black, but it didn’t really matter what he was wearing. Not many people got past staring in horror at the tattooed skull that covered his face—unless it was to stare in greater horror at his mouth full of pointed teeth.
She stopped beside Taeral, her glittering yellow eyes fixed on Reun. “We want him,” she drawled in her heavy Creole accent. “Don’t we, Zoba?”
Zoba made a sound. It was not a good sound.
“Stay out of this, hell-child,” Taeral snapped. “The Seelie is mine.”
“Not this time, Fae. You always get the good stuff.” She planted a hand on her hip and glared at him. “We owe this cochon bastard, and we gonna break him ‘til he begs for death.” Her gaze slid to Reun, and a chilling smile rose to her lips. “You know why, after what you done to our kin. Ain’t that right, big boy?”
Despite the fact that he was kneeling in a puddle of his own blood, Reun managed to look smug. “You’ve no claim to me, fledgling swamp-woman,” he said hoarsely. “Even the one you serve would not dare lay hand to a Seelie noble.”
“Oh, yeah? How’s this for laying hands?”
She stepped up and backhanded him, hard enough to draw blood.
Taeral caught her wrist. “Enough,” he said, not unkindly, and released her. “I’ll hear what he’s come to say. And if I do not like it…” He reached out and yanked his knife free with a sharp downward thrust. Reun gasped, closing his hands over the gaping wound in his gut—and Taeral forced his chin up with the bloodied tip of the knife. “Then I will bring you personally to the Duchenes, and make sure you do not leave until they’ve had their fill of causing you pain.”
“Good enough,” Denei said, her cold grin returning. “Pretty sure you ain’t gonna like anything he’s got to say. So we’ll be waiting. Come on, Zoba.”
Zoba made a noise that could only be described as a pants-shitting threat of epic proportions, and then followed her out.
“Now.” Taeral twisted the knife until it dimpled his skin. “On your feet, and explain yourself.”
With a brief shudder, Reun rose slowly from the floor. He was the only Seelie I’d seen so far, and I wondered if they all looked like him. Shoulder-length blond hair, moustache and goatee, incredibly green eyes. Dressed like Errol Flynn in the old Robin Hood movies. He must’ve changed his glamour while he was killing the guy in Central Park, because the witnesses would’ve remembered him looking like that.
He glanced at me. “DeathSpeaker,” he said. “You still wear your father’s stone. Tell me, how is it that it’s come to you?”
Taeral shoved him. He staggered and almost fell. “You’ll not ask the questions here, traitor. You’ll answer them, and you’ll do it now.”
“A traitor, am I?” Reun’s smile was bloody and uncertain. “Come now, Taeral. You know as well as any that a gealdht is unbreakable. Even now, you suffer under the burden of your own.”
“One more word that is not an explanation, and I’ll open your throat.”
He sighed. “Very well. Then I tell you that I promised Foley to lead him to the Hive, ensure that he and his men could gain access, and shield him from harm during the relocation of their headquarters.”
“The dead guy already gave me that impression,” I said, too pissed off to keep quiet any more. “Why the hell did you promise that? You had to know what those monsters were doing down there. You helped them do it to Sadie.”
“Yes, I did. I’d also planned to set them all free, once the move was completed and my prom
ise fulfilled. I knew they’d not kill the prisoners…save one.” He looked at Taeral with sorrow in his eyes. “My promise was given in exchange for Foley’s word that he would not allow Daoin to be destroyed.”
Something in Taeral’s face changed. “You lie,” he said roughly. “A Seelie noble, swearing to protect the life of an Unseelie? You must think me a greater fool than you, if you expect me to believe that.”
“It’s true. I need Daoin alive…I must surrender to him.” Reun shivered slightly and clutched his bleeding gut a little tighter. “Though I’d not known that Milus Dei had identified the DeathSpeaker, until I’d already sworn to serve them.”
“Yeah, well, humans are tricky bastards like that,” I said. “And that’s not all Foley lied to you about. They were going to kill Daoin anyway. They left him back in their vault to bleed out while the building blew up around him.”
Fury lit Reun’s features. “Yes. And that’s why I’ve slain the rest of their soldiers, now that you’ve released me from the gealdht.”
I was about to tell him that he might’ve missed a few thousand soldiers, but Taeral shot me a warning look. “Why would you surrender to my father?” he said. “The Unseelie do not recognize your ridiculous notions of nobility. If this is a matter of the Courts—”
“It is personal.” Reun closed his eyes briefly. “Daoin is the only chance I have to reclaim what is left of my Aeshara.”
I frowned. “What’s an Aeshara?”
“She was my wife,” he whispered.
Damn. Well, at least that explained Murdoch’s nightmare form back at the substation. The indescribably beautiful green-haired woman the bogeyman turned into, the one that scared Reun into a non-responsive statue, must’ve been his wife.
But that didn’t explain what any of this had to do with Daoin.
“Aeshara is dead,” Reun said without any prompting. “I killed her. Now I’ve no memory of her, save the rage and humiliation that led to her death…but Daoin does. I’ll gladly surrender to him in exchange for those memories.”
Fields of Blood (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 2) Page 2