As she’d done with Christopher, so Azganaroth then did with me. With one effortless bend of her arm she drew me so close to her face that her breath poured over me in a hot, sulfuric wave. Her eyes turned their stare of living flame upon me; I couldn’t help looking into them. Falling into them, or so it felt, falling into and drowning in eyes and power as ancient and as primal as a newborn world.
Tarrant jammed his sword back into his sheath and stooped to pluck Melisanda up off the ground as soon as she reached him. With tender care he cradled her against him, and with a burning glare in my uncle’s direction, he stepped through that wavering rectangle of light and vanished. In his wake the doorway shrank down to a single gleaming star; then it too disappeared. As the gate closed down Malandor started, his head snapping around a heartbeat too late, his titanium eyes widening in shock.
Azganaroth rumbled, almost softly, a noise no louder than a semi barreling right past me at a hundred miles per hour would have been. Then without warning and without a word she released Christopher and me, letting us tumble limply to the ground next to Elessir. And with the distinct air of a mountain turning to look at something that’s made it very angry, her tail narrowly avoiding slashing open both Christopher’s face and mine, she turned back to my uncle.
Millicent fired a second round.
This time her shot struck home, and as Malandor’s shoulder exploded in a burst of red, the circle of power disintegrated.
The demon leapt.
With the same gargantuan hand with which she’d seized me, Azganaroth plucked the Seelie lord up off the earth and lifted him high over her head. A fifth and final time she roared, the loudest roar of all, and she kept Malandor aloft in her claws even as she leveled her attention back upon me.
CHILD OF MORTAL AND IMMORTAL, TELL YOUR IMMORTAL KIN THAT THIS SACRIFICE WILL REOPEN THE GATE TO THE SOULS OF THEIR YOUNG UNBORN.
My mouth opened. Then it closed. And I just bobbed my head vigorously, unable to think of what to say to a being that was very possibly older than the entire planet and able to break me, Christopher, and everyone else in the immediate vicinity into miniscule pieces besides. Around Azganaroth and her captive the air opened again, this time in a sphere of liquid, lava-orange light that started as a fist-sized ball somewhere around her belly and expanded to engulf demon and Seelie alike. Malandor’s features, white with pain and horror, turned yellow-orange in the glare before the shining ball began to contract as rapidly as it had grown, taking both of them with it.
Only then did my brain reconnect to my mouth. It might have been that last sight of Malandor that prompted it, thanks to the niggling memory of something he’d done back at my house, but the plaintive yelp that broke out of me was rather ridiculous under the circumstances.
“Wait! He’s got Jude’s—”
Just as the sphere of lava-colored light reached the size of a basketball, Azganaroth’s fist punched out from within it. Something small and silver-gray and incongruously delicate dangled in her massive fingers; this, she tossed out towards me. Then her hand retreated. The sphere diminished to an ember that hung in the air before dying away. And I was left to take up in my own much smaller hand what the guardian of the gate of life’s beginning had restored to me.
The wolf’s head necklace.
Chapter Twenty-One
The night returned to normal—or at least as normal as a night can get when a hitherto unknown uncle, who just happens to be an immortal, magic-wielding lord of the Seelie Court, has just tried to sacrifice you to an ancient fertility demon.
Remnants of power lingered in the air, though those began to dwindle until I could sense the more prosaic taste of ozone on the breeze, left over from the storm. Only weak moonlight filtering down through the clouds remained to offset the natural darkness; for a few moments, until my vision adjusted, I felt almost blind. And a little deaf too, till my hearing slowly began to recover from the demon’s roars. Small sounds began to reach me, the tentative buzz of nocturnal insects returning to their business now that everything had settled down, the idling of Jude’s truck’s engine, and the tread of running feet closing in fast.
And a little groan from Christopher, who hugged me with enough strength to if not break then at least bend a rib or two. “Holy Mary, Mother o’ God,” he said. His voice sounded like my knees, weak and wobbly.
“Which god?” I mumbled into his shoulder, my fist wrapped around the cord of Jude’s necklace, both arms wrapped around Christopher. “Think I just had the fear of six or seven put in me!”
Then Jude reached us and threw herself at Christopher and me both, squeezing us to her with even more force than the young Warder had mustered. “Dear Lord and Lady, you’re all right, right babe?” she demanded. From the look of her she feared that something else might happen if she let go. I felt exactly the same way.
Millicent took longer to reach us, what with limping along with the aid of—of all things—Christopher’s staff in one hand. In her other, she brandished Butch. She still had on her heavy fringed vest and a T-shirt beneath it, but in place of her camouflage pants she sported a long, loose, floral print skirt. One foot bore one of her battered military boots; the other, a neon purple cast. Unwilling to wait for her to close the distance, I ran over to hug her too and got a fierce one-armed embrace in return as she clung to the staff for support.
Hell, I even hugged her gun. She cracked a wrinkled, gamine grin at me as I did it, too, though I thought I glimpsed a suspicious wetness in her bright black gaze. “Brings a tear to an old lady’s eye to see a young person appreciating a good firearm,” she told me gruffly.
“Damn straight,” I answered, giggling with a touch of hysteria I didn’t mind feeling, because we were alive. “I think that last shot of yours probably saved us. Are you okay? Jude said you broke your ankle!”
“Hah. Bit busted up is all, girlie, I’m too ornery to keep down for long.”
I could believe it.
Then Christopher stepped up beside me, hugging the old woman with the impulsive, desperate relief of a small boy whose parents have just snatched him out of the path of an oncoming car. “Far better than I could have done. God Almighty, I’m too new at this—” Then he caught himself and pulled back, his bearded features crinkling uncertainly. “Will you teach me, Millie?”
She eyed the Newfoundlander askance even as she took the hug, and then looked him up and down. Both of them had unvoiced apology in their eyes and equally awkward expressions; I wondered for a moment if I’d have to poke them both. But Millicent harrumphed and said, “Well. About time you changed your mind, son.”
“I’m not entirely dense,” Christopher replied, a tentative smile tugging at his mouth, and the older Warder sniggered.
“Don’t sell yourself too short,” she advised. Her tone was amiable now, to my great relief; the unspoken apologies had been accepted. “If the way you were tapping into the city is any sign, you’ll do all right. Takes work to blow open a circle of power even on your bonded earth, but I think you’d have pulled it off if you’d had another minute or two.”
“Couldn’t have done it without Kendis,” Christopher readily admitted. And though he frowned as he did, he went on, “Or Elessir. He gave us a boost, too—”
Millie started to speak, her expression flaring with sharp interest. But I didn’t pay attention. Christopher’s confession had reminded me of the Unseelie singer, and with a fretful oath, I whirled and ran back to him.
He lay crumpled on his side where he’d fallen, Tarrant’s dagger still sticking out of his back. Elessir had passed out when he’d hit the circle my uncle had raised, and as far as I could tell he hadn’t moved since. Was he even breathing? I exchanged swift anxious glances with the others before throwing myself to my knees at his side, trying to get a look at his injury. “Shit,” I moaned to no one in particular. “We wouldn’t have blown the chains off without him—we’ve got to help him!”
Dismay swept across Jude’s face, shrinking her mout
h to a dot and broadening her eyes to the size of silver dollars. “First aid kit,” she blurted as she dashed for her truck. “Got one under the seat, be right back!”
“He’s still bleedin’. He’s alive.” With a grimace of reluctant worry, Christopher squatted down at my side and peered at Elessir’s back. The Unseelie sported a thin ring of red around the hilt of the blade embedded in his flesh, and as I leaned over him even that small amount of blood hit my sense of smell with a hard coppery tang. “Don’t pull the knife out yet, lass. Might only make it worse.”
Stumping up behind us as fast as she could manage on her injured ankle, Millicent shot Elessir the same searching look she’d given Christopher and me. Her only comment, though, as she whipped her cell phone out of her vest pocket was a brusque, “Calling an ambulance now. You kids keep that boy still—”
“An ambulance,” a cool, languid voice interrupted right out of the air, driving Christopher and me back up to our feet and making Millicent one-handedly snap her gun back up into firing position, “will not be necessary.”
Correction—not out of the air, but rather out of a rectangle of light like the doorway Tarrant had occupied at my uncle’s order. This glowing portal had a wintry blue sheen to it, and as it materialized not three feet away, the owner of that cool voice stepped through it into our presence. Never mind her pointed ears. Never mind the ice-white hair shaved in close along her neck but sweeping forward in a spiky wave over her brow, or the peacock hue of her iridescent eyes, or the form-fitting black and silver garments she wore that made her seem clothed in shadow and moonlight. After the treatment I’d gotten from Elessir, Malandor, and his lieutenants, the thin, lofty smirk she turned on us was all I needed to peg her for one of the Sidhe.
That, and the power that spilled off of her like the light from a city at night. It wasn’t remotely on the same scale as Azganaroth’s, but I could feel it just by standing near her, without even meeting her eyes. She felt, I realized in alarm, more powerful than Malandor.
This could not be good.
“White flag,” she said dryly, giving a graceful wave of her hand by way of greeting. “Not that I have one on me, but I’m sure an imaginative group of mortals like you can visualize. Do forgive my abrupt dropping in.”
Millicent scowled down the length of her gun barrel. “This is a Warded city, girlie, so unless you’re here to help I’m going to have to be asking you to move along. We’ve got a wounded fey here. Kendis—” She tossed me her cell phone. “911.”
“Normally it would be far indeed from me to impose upon your jurisdiction, Lady Warder.” The white-haired Sidhe inclined her head smoothly to Millicent and then slid a glance at Christopher. Her brows lifted a trifle as she studied him, but she went on without missing a beat, “Warder Second. But in this case I’m afraid I must make an exception. I’m here on official business.” As she spoke that cloud of power around her spiked, resonating all along my nerves as she looked my way—or, to be more precise, at the phone I’d just caught. Without fanfare or any dramatic display of heat or light, the device went abruptly and entirely dead in my hand. Just like my phone had done, back at my house.
“What is it with you Sidhe and phones?” I peevishly demanded.
His face going stern and hard, Christopher straightened to his full height and put in his own demand on the heels of mine. “Who are you, then?”
“Luciriel,” came a sepulchral murmur from the form at our feet. Elessir didn’t bother to open his eyes, nor did he yet move out of the awkward position into which he’d collapsed. “Winged voice upon the wind of night. Star that gleams at the heart of darkness. Queen of the Unseelie Court.”
The newcomer grinned, a small, cat-like grin that didn’t go at all well with the dangerous glint that sparked across her eyes as she realized the singer was awake. “You forgot one, my bardling,” she purred, a sound very near to a growl. “Sovereign liege whose vassal has been conspiring with the enemies of her court, and who will be, as the humans so colorfully put it, handing said vassal his ass as a hat.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am. Ah jes’ don’t know how that slipped mah mind.” Elessir’s drawl, even roughened with pain, made him sound far more sardonic than repentant.
“It ‘slipped your mind’,” Luciriel responded in frigid tones, the grin leaving her lips and the glint in her eyes turning lethal, “that I sent you into this city to convey a simple message, not deliver the intended recipient of that message to murderous kin?”
Elessir was already deathly pale; he couldn’t blanch any further. But his eyes darkened with something that looked like fear as he croaked, “Oops.”
“What did the Seelie offer you to betray me, my bardling? No, wait—do not answer that.” The white-haired Unseelie swung back to face the rest of us, raking her wrathful stare across us all. “Here is not the place for this conversation.”
Christopher and I shot glances at Millicent, looking for a cue from the weathered little Warder. So did Jude, who’d jolted to a halt on her way back from her truck with the first aid kit clutched to her chest. “As long as you’re going to bring up betrayals,” Millie remarked acerbically, “the boy’s gone against the Pact. My Second and I are in our rights to hold him.”
“And yet, you were about to call upon your mortal healers to tend his wound.”
“Can’t hand out justice if he’s bleeding to death.”
A wraith of a smile curled Luciriel’s mouth. “Indeed. And if I were to tell you that I am here to mete out that justice for you, what would you do?”
Much to my distress Millicent lowered her gun, and Christopher made no move to stop her. “Not a damned thing I can do,” she groused, “if you’re here to extradite him.”
The Queen nodded once more, long lashes as pale as her hair fanning down over her eyes and dusting their avid, baleful gleam with frost. “Just so. As, and so I trust I shall not have to remind the Lady Warder, is my right according to the Pact, as well as human law.”
“Whoa, whoa, hold on,” I interrupted, waving both hands for attention and trying not to let my tongue stumble over the Queen’s name as I did. “Listen, uh, Luciriel, what exactly are you planning on doing with him?”
She turned her gaze round to me, and the first thought that flashed through my head as a result was that attracting this particular Sidhe’s attention was a bad idea. The second thought was that her peacock eyes had an amazing, compelling depth of color, and for a fraction of an instant I was tempted to stare into them for a while. Just to see how many shades of blue and green I could find…
“Ah yes, the changeling,” Luciriel murmured. Her voice still held that purr, but now it seemed significantly friendlier, almost inviting. “Call me Lucy, my dear.”
“Lucy? The Queen of the Unseelie’s name is Lucy?” That was Jude. Or at least, I thought it was. Whoever had spoken wasn’t the Queen and therefore didn’t seem important.
Millicent’s gun snapped right back up. Along with it came her power, older, deeper, and stronger than Christopher’s, pointedly tingeing the air around her. “The Pact allows you,” she barked, “to take one of your own if he’s transgressed against mortals in a Warded city. Nothing else. All due respect and all that, girlie, but we’ve had quite enough of anything else tonight.”
Letting out a low, feline chuckle, Luciriel said, “But of course.” Then her gaze slid away from mine—and I could breathe again.
I growled through clenched teeth, furious, sick of Sidhe trying to hijack my brain along with everything else the last couple of days had brought me. Christopher took my hand, and his power coursed palpably from him over to me, keeping my head out of the figurative magical water. Braced by his contact, I snapped at the Queen, “You haven’t answered my question. You can’t kill Elessir. He just helped us, and for fuck’s sake, he’s hurt. By the same Seelie who were after me! If you’re going to take him, get him to a doctor or a healer, or whatever you have.”
There went that stupid conscience
of mine again. Much as the singer had yanked my chain, he’d helped Christopher and me. I couldn’t just hand him over to someone who was about to turn his backside into a chapeau, either figuratively or literally. Not like I could do a damned thing about it if the Unseelie Queen let loose with that power almost visibly swirling around her, but well hey, conscience.
“Did I say I was going to kill him, child?” Luciriel’s pale brows eloquently rose. “Though if the matter is of concern to you, tell me, are you willing to bargain for his life?”
“Kendis,” Christopher breathed, his hand tightening around mine.
Millicent’s eye and gun remained focused upon the Queen, but her stern admonition was obviously for me. “Don’t go off half-cocked, girl.”
Both of the Warders had cautioned me before not to bargain with the Sidhe, and that little tradeoff with Elessir at Mama’s downtown bore out the truth of that warning. Now, with both Christopher and Millicent warning me again, I faltered. Jude watched me with fretful lines creasing her brow; Elessir, however, turned his head just enough to cast a wan, resigned glance up at me. Pain dimmed his eyes almost to the midnight black of his hair, but they held no trace of entreaty or surprise at my hesitation, only the look of someone acutely aware of impending doom.
Nor did any surprise appear in the face of Luciriel. “Uh-huh,” she drawled before I could find words within me to answer her, “I thought not.” The Queen was only a little taller than I was, but that slight advantage made all the difference in the world as she leaned in close and added, “Do not speak for causes you are not prepared to champion, changeling girl. In mortal society, you will merely be branded a fool; in the Court of the Unseelie, it will get you beaten.”
Then she turned and carelessly flicked her hand down at Elessir. Frost-blue light sprang up in a halo all around the singer, lifting him slowly up off the rain-battered grass. He groaned as he ascended, wrapping his arms tightly around himself, one hand at his waist and the other fumbling at the shoulder that still bore Tarrant’s knife. Even that small movement was too much for him, though. He went slack as he hovered, his head drooping forward.
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