"You're afraid for her," I said.
"One thing she accused you of, my sweet Merry, is very true. You have stripped her of all the best and most feared of her personal guard. She retained her position, in part, because of... "
"You," I finished for him.
"Not only me."
I nodded. "You can say his name, Doyle. The Queen's Darkness, and her Killing Frost."
"It upsets you to hear his name."
"It does, but that doesn't mean we don't say it."
"It would if you were Queen Andais," Rhys said.
"I am not her."
"But Doyle is being too modest," Rhys said. "Yes, Frost was feared by the queen's enemies, but it was fear of the Queen's Darkness that kept a lot of courtiers in line."
"You exaggerate," Doyle said.
I shook my head. "I'm not sure he does. I've heard people talk about you, Doyle. I know that the queen would say, 'Bring me my Darkness. Where is my Darkness?' and then someone would die. You were her greatest threat, next to the sluagh."
"Are you saying that Captain Doyle here is as feared as the host of the sluagh?" Gregorio asked.
We all looked at her. I said, "Yes."
"One man, against a host of nightmares," she said, and didn't try to keep her disbelief out of her voice.
"He can be pretty scary all on his own," Rhys said.
Gregorio stared at Doyle, as if trying to see more of him in the dim light.
"Shouldn't you tell Sergeant Dawson that the magic will be stopped by the trucks?" I asked.
"I'll tell him it will probably be stopped." She got on the radio.
Rhys said, "Some of them might be able to make illusions real enough to lure the soldiers outside the trucks."
"What kind of illusions?" I asked.
Voices came over the radio, frantic. "Sierra four to all Sierra, we have wounded soldiers in line of travel. Stopping to render aid."
"Those kind," Doyle said.
"Tell them it's not real," I said.
"Tell them not to get out of the trucks no matter what," Doyle said.
Gregorio tried, she really did, but one thing our soldiers are not trained to do is leave their wounded behind. It was a brilliant trap. The soldiers went to check the wounded, and once they left the trucks, the sidhe attacked, and no human magic could stop them.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Voices came in snatches over the radio. "It's Morales, but he died in Iraq! It's Smitty... died in Afghanistan... "
"It's Siobhan," Rhys said. "She can bring back the shadows of the dead whom you know. Shit, I thought she'd lost that power."
"The princess returns power to all of faerie, Rhys, not just us," Doyle said.
The real trick to the ambush was that the soldiers didn't realize yet that they were under attack. Gregorio twisted in the seat and turned to us. "It doesn't sound like they're doing anything to our people."
"The dead are not the only mind games the sidhe can play," Rhys said.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Shots sounded.
"They're shooting at us!" Gregorio said, and went back to the radio, trying to get someone to talk to her.
We heard Dawson's voice. "Mercer just shot Jones. He's shooting at us!"
"He's shooting at nightmares," Doyle said.
"What?" Gregorio asked.
"They're using illusion to make your solider see monsters. He doesn't know he's shooting at you," I said.
"But we're all wearing anti-faerie stuff," she said.
"Are you sure that this Mercer is wearing his?" Doyle asked.
"They could persuade him to take it off," I said.
She cursed and got back on the radio with Dawson. There was more gunfire, and it sounded different this time. Gregorio got off the radio, her face grim.
"We had to kill Mercer, our own man. He thought he was back in an ambush in Iraq."
"Get the men back in the trucks," Doyle said. "Tell them to believe nothing that they see outside of them."
"It's too late, Doyle," Rhys said. They exchanged looks that were far too serious.
"We might be able to prevent the illusions," Doyle said.
"You're our protectees," Gregorio said. "My orders clearly state that you aren't getting out of the safety of these vehicles until I hand you off at the flight line."
I gripped Doyle's hand and Rhys's arm. This was a trap for us, for my men and me. I agreed with Gregorio, but... The yelling continued, then it became screams.
"Sergeant Dawson, talk to me!" Gregorio yelled into the radio.
"We've got men bleeding. Bleeding from old wounds, but they're fresh now. What the hell is going on?"
"Cel is the Prince of Old Blood. That does not mean he's from an old lineage," Doyle said.
"You mean the prince is doing this?" she asked.
"Yes."
I sat there in the Humvee with my death grip on them both, and couldn't think. Maybe the last several days, or months, were finally catching up with me. I was frozen with indecision. The human soldiers had no chance against this, but it was a trap for us, which meant that Cel and his allies had plans to stop anything we could do. I'd dueled enough of the people with him when Cel was trying to kill me legally. I knew their powers, and some were fierce.
"Shoot them," I said. "The sidhe are not proof against bullets."
"We can't shoot at a royal prince and his guard unless they attack us with something we can see and testify to in court," Gregorio said.
"Cel can bleed most of you to death without ever lifting a weapon," I said, leaning forward as far as the seat belt would allow.
"But we can't prove he's doing it," she said. "You've never tried to prove a magic attack in a military court. I have. It ain't pretty."
"Would you rather they all die?" I asked.
"We can help them, Meredith," Doyle said.
I turned to him. "That's what he wants, Doyle. You know that. He's hurting the soldiers to lure us out."
"Yes, Meredith," he said, cupping my face with his free hand, "and it is a good trap."
I shook my head, moving back from his touch. "The soldiers are supposed to protect us."
"They are dying to protect us," he said.
My throat was tight, and my eyes burned. "No," I whispered.
"You will stay inside this truck, no matter what happens, Meredith. You must not get out."
"Once you are dead, they will drag me out. They will drag me out and kill me and your unborn children."
He flinched, something I had never seen before. The Darkness did not flinch. "That was harsh, My Princess."
"Truth is often harsh," I said, and let him hear my anger.
"She's right, Captain," Rhys said.
"Would you let them die in our place?" Doyle asked.
Rhys sighed, then kissed me on the cheek. "I will follow where my captain leads, you know that."
"No," I said, louder.
"I can't allow any of you to leave the safety of the vehicle," Gregorio said.
"What will you do to stop us?" Doyle asked, his hand on the door handle.
"Shit," she said, and started to get on the radio.
Doyle touched her shoulder. "Do not give away what little surprise we will have."
She let go of the button and just stared at him. "The princess is right. This ambush is meant to lure you to your deaths."
"It is," he said. He turned back to me. "Kiss me, Meredith, my Merry."
I was shaking my head over and over. "No."
"You will not kiss me good-bye?"
I wanted to scream at him that I would not. I would not endorse his stupidity in any way, but in the end, I couldn't let him go without it.
I kissed him, or he kissed me. He kissed me gently, his hands on my face, then he drew me into his arms so that our bodies molded against each other. He drew back with a last chaste kiss on my lips.
Rhys said, "My turn."
I turned to him with tears glittering in my eyes. I
would not cry, not yet. Rhys's face was so sad, gentle but so sad. He kissed me delicately, then he grabbed me fiercely, almost painfully, and kissed me as if my lips were food and water and air, and he would die without my kiss. I fell into the fierceness of his mouth, his hands, and his body, and when he finally broke away, we were both breathless.
"Wow," Gregorio said, then said, "sorry."
I didn't even look at her, only at Rhys. "Don't go."
The door opened behind me, and I turned in time to see Doyle sliding out. I whispered, "If I am your queen, then I can order you to stay."
Doyle leaned back in the doorway. "I vowed never again to listen to humans die screaming for my cause, Meredith."
"Doyle, please."
"You are now and always will be my Merry." Then he was gone.
A sound escaped my lips that was almost a cry, but it was not a sound that I ever wanted to hear from my own mouth.
The door opened on the other side of me, and I turned to see Rhys climbing out. "Rhys, no!"
He smiled at me. "Know that I would have stayed, but I cannot let him go without me. He is my captain, and has been for more than a thousand years. And he's right. I too vowed never to let humans die for me again. It was wrong then, and it's still wrong." He reached in, touched my face.
I held his hand against my cheek. "Don't go."
"Know that I love you more than honor, but Doyle wouldn't be Doyle if he felt the same way."
The first tear trailed, hot and painful, down my face as he drew his hand away. I held on to him with both hands on his one. "Rhys, please, for the love of the Goddess, please!"
"I love you, Merry. I've loved you since you were sixteen."
I thought I would choke on the next words, but I got them out, "I love you too. Don't you die on me."
He grinned, and it almost reached his eyes. "I'll do my best." Then he was gone into the night, and the sound of fighting.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Gregorio turned around in her seat and grabbed my arm. She held on tightly. She thought she knew what I was thinking, but she didn't. I was mortal, and I knew it. But I was also part brownie and part human, which meant I could do magic inside the car. I could do every bit of magic I had, and not suffer. I didn't want to get out of the car. I needed to lure Cel to the car.
If I could get him close enough, I could kill him but be surrounded by metal, so that his magic could not harm me. We could turn the trap against him. If only we could figure out how to lure him to me. If I'd thought of it before Doyle and Rhys got out of the car, they would have done it, but I'd been too emotional. Goddess, help me think of something!
"Gregorio," I said, "I need to lure the prince to me, to this car."
"Are you crazy? He's making people bleed from a distance."
"We both have a version of the hand of blood. It runs in the family. But magic cannot touch us in the metal of this car. But my magic can go out."
"Why can your magic work in the car, and his can't?"
"I'm part human. My magic works here, just like yours and Dawson's."
She looked at her driver. The two women exchanged a long look. "If we get her killed, the least that will happen to us is being given a dishonorable discharge," said Corporal Lance. "We'd be lucky not to be brought up on charges."
Gregorio turned back to me. "Lance is right."
"Listen to the screams. Your men are dying. My men are in danger. We can stop this, because once the prince is dead, his allies will melt away into the night, because if he can't take the throne, there's no point to this fight. They're fighting to kill me and win the throne for their choice. If we take away their choice, we take away their reason to fight."
The women exchanged another look. A particularly piteous scream rose in the silence between gunfire and magic. It was the sound of death. It was the sound of mortal life being ripped away.
"If I were willing to do this, how would I lure him?" Gregorio asked. The moment she said it, I knew she'd do it, if I could just think of a way to bring him to me.
I spoke, thinking aloud, because I had no clear plan. "He wants to find me. He knows by now that my guards are not with me in the car. If I were him and his allies, I'd find me."
A mist formed on the other side of the road in the fringe of trees. It wasn't a wide road, and before I could even voice a warning, figures appeared out of a mist that shouldn't have been there, and hadn't been there just moments before. I should have remembered that I was still on faerie land, and wishes can come true. I'd wanted Cel to find me, not all of his warriors. Be specific when you wish in faerie, and be careful what you wish for.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Siobhan stepped out of the mist, her long white hair haloing around her like spider silk caught in the wind. She was close enough that I could see the runes carved on her white armor. I knew that the armor seemed to be carved of old bone, but I had seen her on the dueling sands, and knew that the "bone" was as hard as any metal. The sword she held in her hand was also white. The blade was a killing blade, even if I'd been immortal. It was overkill for me. Then she held her blade up so it caught the moonlight. Blood gleamed on the edge of the bone blade. It might have been the blood of human soldiers, but then again, it might not.
She meant me to think it was the blood of my men, my lovers, the fathers of my children. She meant the sight of that blood to be a blow that would soften me up for the real blow to come. But I would have known if Doyle's blood decorated her blade. I would have known if Rhys had been touched. As much as I valued Sholto and Mistral, my heart would survive their deaths.
"Shit," Gregorio said. I felt her start to cast a spell, a prickling build of power. It was a pale thing, but very real.
"Don't," I said. "I know what to do."
"Are you insane?" the driver asked. "Look at them."
I glanced at the other soldiers with Siobhan. In their armor, they looked more like Seelie sidhe. Their colors were silver and gold, but there was also armor that seemed to be made of leaves, bark, fur, and things that humans had no words for. The Unseelie had kept closer to their origins, and not traded everything for metal and jewels. I recognized some of the soldiers, but some I had never seen in full armor. But they all stood behind Siobhan, not in front of her. Kill her and the rest would be leaderless, a snake without a head.
"I grew up seeing them," I said finally.
I concentrated on Siobhan, she who had been Cel's right hand for longer than any remembered. She whom Doyle feared, and the Darkness feared almost nothing. But some magics are no respecter of power; they will kill a king as quickly as a beggar.
I lowered my window. She called out to me, "The blood of your Darkness decorates my blade."
I unbuckled my seat belt, and came to my knees, unsheathing Aben-dul as I moved. The odd hilt with its carved horrors fit my hand as if it had waited forever for my fingers to grip it. It came smoothly, like drawing silk across the skin. I pointed the blade at her.
She laughed. "You surprised me when you used the hand of flesh on Rozenwyn and Pascoe, but I know to stay out of reach now, Princess. I don't need to get within reach of that little hand of yours. I can kill you from a distance, and free faerie of your mortal taint. We will put a true prince on the throne this night, and your challenge will be forgotten."
Rozenwyn and Pascoe had been twins, and maybe that had caused the hand of flesh to combine them into one mass. It had been one of the most horrible things I'd ever seen. Horrible enough that Siobhan had offered up her sword, and surrendered to me and my guards.
"She's bluffing," I said aloud for the soldiers' benefit. "She would have to drag me from the car to work magic, and she won't touch me."
"Why not?" Gregorio asked.
"She fears the hand of flesh."
"What is that, the hand of flesh?"
I didn't bother to explain, because in moments, if all went well, it would explain itself.
Siobhan started to close the few yards that separated us. She would c
ome closer, just not too close, so whatever she had planned needed less space between us. The others came at her back, gleaming in their armors of many colors and many shapes like an evil rainbow, combined with your brightest dream and worst nightmare. We were the Unseelie, terrible and wonderous.
"Whatever you're going to do," Gregorio said, "you better do it fast."
I opened the invisible mark on my hand that held the hand of flesh. That mark now touched the hilt of Aben-dul. It is an enchanted weapon, but when it finds its rightful wielder, there is no learning curve. There is only a sense of rightness, and knowledge, as if the use of the weapon were like breathing, or the beating of my heart. I did not have to think how to focus the hand of flesh down that blade. I simply had to will it.
Siobhan reached behind her and lifted a pack off her shoulder. She opened the flap, and began to fiddle with something.
Gregorio screamed, "Bomb!"
"It can't take out this vehicle," the driver said.
"What happens if she gets it through a window?" I asked in a careful voice, because if even my voice wavered, it would hurt my control. I had never used Aben-dul before, and it was like trying to walk up a steep flight of steps with something hot and dangerous in your hands. Careful, or it spills.
"No one can throw through this glass," the driver said, thumping her window with a knuckle, "so just roll up the window, Princess."
"You have no idea how strong Siobhan is," I said. "She could throw anything through any glass."
The driver turned in her seat and looked at Gregorio. "Are the sidhe that strong?"
"Intelligence says yes."
"Shit," the driver said, and she started scrabbling for something on the floorboards.
I kept my attention on Siobhan and her package. I'd meant to simply unleash the power, but now, suddenly, I had to focus it. I aimed the sword at the hand that held that innocent-looking pack. If a soldier told me it was a bomb, I believed her.
Siobhan stood and reared her arm back to throw. Then the arm wasn't quite as long as it had been. I thought, flow, twist, become... The flesh of her hand flowed over the strap of the pack. I'd seen my father do this, concentrate on the part of the body he wanted to damage. He'd had to touch the body to do it, but the principle was the same. He'd been able to flow flesh to a degree, and stop it if he wished. I didn't have that control yet. No, being honest, at least to myself, I had a plan for the bomb, and it didn't include stopping short of the worst that the hand of flesh could do. The plan relied on doing my worst to Siobhan.
Laurell K Hamilton - Meredith Gentry 07 - Swallowing Darkness Page 26