Iron Kissed mt-3

by Patricia Briggs

  I looked at Uncle Mike and wondered how to get him to tell me all the things I needed to know. "Did you know that O'Donnell was involved with Citizens for a Bright Future?"

  He sat up straighter. "I'd have thought he would be smarter than that. If the BFA had known, he'd have lost his job."

  He didn't say that he'd been unaware of it, I noticed.

  "He didn't seem too worried about anyone finding out," I told him. "There were Bright Future posters all over the walls of one of his rooms."

  "The BFA doesn't exactly make a habit of searching their employees' houses. Their funding just got cut again and the moneys diverted to that mess in the Middle East." He didn't sound too upset about the BFA's troubles.

  I rubbed my tired face. "The search wasn't as much help as I'd hoped. I didn't find a scent, except for O'Donnell himself, of anyone who was in the reservation murder scenes. I don't think that there was anyone with him when he killed the fae." Except maybe Cologne Man, I thought. I had no way of telling what he really smelled like, though I had not the slightest idea why he'd have worn cologne to kill O'Donnell and not for killing the fae. Surely he wouldn't expect a werewolf or someone like me to be tracking down O'Donnell's killer.

  "So your visit was uneventful." That was Samuel, his voice just a little more intense than the soft, harplike notes he was calling from the guitar. If he kept playing like that, I was going to be asleep before I finished. "Why then do you smell like blood and magic?"

  "I didn't say it was uneventful. The blood is because the living room of O'Donnell's house was covered in it."

  Uncle Mike gave a faint grimace, which I didn't believe at all. My experience with immortals might be with werewolves, but the fae aren't a kind and gentle people either. He might have been thrown off his game when Zee was taken into custody, but blood and gore never really bother the old ones.

  "The magic…" I shrugged. "It could have been a number of things. I saw the murder take place."

  "Magic?" Uncle Mike frowned. "I didn't know you were a farseer. I thought that magic didn't work around you."

  "That would be terrific," I said. "But no, magic works around me for the most part. I just have some kind of partial immunity to it. Usually the way it works is that the less harmful the magic is, the better the chance it won't work. The really bad stuff usually does just fine."

  "She sees ghosts," said Samuel, impatient with my whining.

  "I see dead people," I deadpanned back. Oddly, it was Uncle Mike who laughed. I hadn't thought he'd be a moviegoer.

  "So did these ghosts tell you anything?"

  I shook my head. "No. I just got the playback of the murder with O'Donnell as the only player. I think the killer was after something, though. Did O'Donnell steal from the fae?"

  Uncle Mike's face went blank and I knew two things. The answer to my question was yes, and Uncle Mike had no intention of telling me what O'Donnell had taken.

  "Just for kicks," I said instead of waiting in vain for his answer, "how many fae are there who can take on the shape of a raven?"

  "Here?" Uncle Mike shrugged. "Five or six."

  "There was a raven in O'Donnell's house and it reeked of fae magic."

  Uncle Mike gave an abrupt, harsh laugh. "If you're asking if I sent someone to O'Donnell's house, the answer is no. If you're wondering if one of them killed O'Donnell, the answer is still no. None of those with a raven shape have the physical strength to tear off someone's head."

  "Could Zee?" I asked. Sometimes if you ask unexpected questions, you get answers.

  His eyebrows rose and his brogue grew thicker. "Sure and why would you ask that? Haven't I told you he had naught to do with it?"

  I shook my head. "I know Zee didn't kill him. The police have an expert who told them that he could. I have reasons to doubt her ability—and it might help Zee if I know exactly how far off she is."

  Uncle Mike took a deep breath and tilted his head to the side. "The Dark Smith of Drontheim might have been able to do what I saw, but that was a long time ago. Most of us have lost a bit of what was once ours over the years of cold iron and Christianity. Zee less than most, though. Maybe he could have. Maybe not."

  The Dark Smith of Drontheim. He'd said something like that before. Trying to figure out who Zee had once been was one of my favorite hobbies, but the current situation made the small jewel of information taste like ashes. If Zee lost his life over this, who he had once been was irrelevant.

  "Just how many of the fae in the reservation…" I thought about that and reworded it a little. "…or in the Tri-City area could have done that?"

  "A few," Uncle Mike said without taking time to reflect. "I've been racking my head all day. One of the ogres could have, though I'll be a Catholic monk if I know why they would want to. And once they get to that point, they'd not have stopped until they'd had a bite or two. None of the ogres were particularly friendly with any of the victims on the reservation—or anyone else, except maybe Zee. There are a few others who might have been capable of it once, but most of them haven't fared as well as Zee in the modern world."

  I remembered the power of the sea man.

  "What about the man I met in the selkie's…" I glanced at Samuel and bit my tongue. That ocean I knew was a secret, and it could have no impact on Zee's fate. I wouldn't speak of it in front of Samuel, but that left my sentence hanging in the air.

  "What man?" Samuel's question was mild, though Uncle Mike's words, coming right over the top of Samuel, were not.

  I could smell Uncle Mike's fear, harsh and sudden, like his words. It wasn't an emotion I associated with him.

  After a quick, wary look around the room, he continued in an urgent whisper, "I don't know how you managed it, but it will do you no good to speak of the encounter. The one you met could have done it, but he has not bestirred himself this past hundred years." He took a breath and forced himself to relax. "Trust me, it wasn't the Gray Lords who killed O'Donnell, Mercedes. His murder was too clumsy to be their work. Tell me more of this fae raven you encountered."

  I stared at him a moment. Was the sea fae one of the Gray Lords?

  "The raven?" he prompted gently.

  So I told him, backing up a bit to tell him about the staff, then about the raven leaping through the wall with it.

  "How did I miss the staff?" Uncle Mike asked himself, looking thoroughly shaken.

  "It was tucked in a corner," I told him. "It came from one of the victims' houses, didn't it? The one who smoked a pipe and whose back window looked out over a forest."

  Uncle Mike seemed to come back to himself and he stared at me. "You know too many of our secrets, Mercedes."

  Samuel set his guitar aside and put himself between us before I had time to register the menace in Uncle Mike's voice.

  "Careful," he said, his voice thick with Wales and warning. "Careful, Green Man. She's put her neck out to help you—shame upon you and your house if she comes to harm by't."

  "Two," Uncle Mike said. "Two of the Gray Lords have seen your face in our business, Mercy. One might have forgotten, but two never will." He waved an impatient hand at Samuel. "Oh, stand down, wolf. I'll not harm your kit. I only spoke the truth. There are things not nearly so benign who will not be happy about her knowing what she knows—and two of them already have."

  "Two?" I asked in a voice that was smaller than I'd meant it to be.

  "That was no raven you met," he said grimly. "It was the great Carrion Crow herself." He gave me a long look. "I wonder why she didn't kill you."

  "Maybe she thought I was a coyote," I said in a small voice.

  Uncle Mike shook his head. "She might be blind, but she perceives more clearly than I, still."

  There was a brief silence. I don't know what the others were thinking about, but I was contemplating just how many close calls I'd been having lately. If the vampires didn't hurry, the fae or some other monster would kill me before she got a chance. What had happened to all the years of carefully keeping to myself and staying
out of trouble?

  "You are sure that one of the Gray Lords didn't kill O'Donnell?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said firmly, then paused. "I hope not. If so, then Zee's arrest was intended and he is doomed—and probably me as well." He ran a hand along his chin and something about the gesture made me wonder if he'd once worn a beard. "No. It was not they. They aren't above a messy kill—but they wouldn't have left the staff for the police to find. The Carrion Crow came to keep the staff out of human hands—though I'm surprised she didn't retrieve it sooner." He gave me a speculative look. "Zee and I weren't in that living room long, but we'd never have overlooked the staff. I wonder…"

  "What is the staff?" I asked. "I could tell it was magic, but nothing else."

  "Naught of interest to you, I trust," said Uncle Mike, coming to his feet. "Naught for you to fuss with when there's the Carrion Crow about. There's money in the briefcase…" For the first time I noticed a brown leather case tucked against the arm of his chair. "If it is not enough to cover Zee's expenses, let me know."

  He tipped an imaginary hat toward Samuel, then took my hand, bowed, and kissed it. "Mercy, I'd be doing you no favors if I didn't tell you to stop. We appreciate the help you have given us so far, but your usefulness ends here. There are things going on that I'm not at liberty to tell you. If you continue, you are not going to discover anything—and if those Nameless Ones find out how much you know, it will go ill with you. And there are two too many of them about." He nodded sharply at me, then at Samuel. "I'll bid you both good mornin'."

  And he was out the door.

  "Keep your weather eye on him, Mercy," Samuel said, still standing with his back to me as we watched Uncle Mike's headlights turn on as he backed out of the driveway. "He's not Zee. His loyalties are to himself and his alone."

  I rubbed my shoulders and stood up myself. Never have a discussion with a werewolf when he's standing and you're sitting; it puts you at a disadvantage and makes them think they can give you orders.

  "I trust him about as far as I can throw him," I agreed. Uncle Mike wouldn't go out of his way to harm me, but…"You know, one of the things I learned growing up about you wolves was that sometimes the most interesting part of the conversation with someone who can't lie is the questions they don't answer."

  Samuel nodded. "I noticed it, too. That staff, whatever it is, was stolen from one of the murder victims—and he didn't want to talk about it."

  I yawned twice and heard my jaw pop the second time. "I'm going to bed tonight. I have to go to church in the morning." I hesitated. "What do you know about the Black Smith of Drontheim?"

  He gave me a small smile. "Not as much as you do, I expect, if you've worked with him for ten years."

  "Samuel Cornick," I snapped.

  He laughed.

  "Do you know a story about this Black Smith of Drontheim?" I was tired and the heap of my worries was a weight I was staggering under: Zee, the Gray Lords, Adam, and Samuel—and the wait for Marsilia to find out that Andre had not been killed by his helpless victims. However, I'd been searching for stories about Zee for years. Too many of the fae treated him with awed respect for him not to be in stories somewhere. I just couldn't find them.

  "The Dark Smith, Mercy, the Dark Smith."

  I tapped my toe and Samuel gave in. "Ever since I saw his knife, I've wondered if he was the Dark Smith. That one was supposed to have forged at least one blade that would cut through anything."

  "Drontheim…" I muttered. "Trondheim? The old capital of Norway? Zee's German."

  Samuel shrugged. "Or he's pretending to be German—or the old story could have it wrong. In the stories I heard, the Dark Smith was a genius and a malicious bastard, a son of the King of Norway. The sword he made had a nasty habit of turning on the man who wielded it."

  I thought about it for a moment. "I guess I could believe a villain before I'd believe a story about him being a goody-goody hero."

  "People change over the years," said Samuel.

  I looked up sharply and met his eyes. He wasn't talking about Zee anymore.

  There were only a few feet between us, but the gulf of history was much larger: I'd loved him so much, once. I'd been sixteen and he'd been centuries older. I'd seen in him a gentle protector, a knight who would rescue me and build his world around me. Someone for whom I would not be an obligation, a burden, or a bother. He'd seen in me a mother who could bear his living children.

  Werewolves, with one exception, are made, not born. It takes more than a nip or two—or as I read in a comic book once, a scratch of a claw. A human who wants to change must be savaged so badly that he either dies or becomes a werewolf and is saved by the rapid healing that is necessary to surviving as a hot-tempered monster among other such beasts.

  Women don't survive the Change as well as the men for some reason. And the women who do cannot bear children. Oh, they're fertile enough, but the monthly change at the full moon is too violent and they abort any pregnancies when they shift from human to werewolf.

  Werewolves can mate with humans, and often do. But they have a terribly high miscarriage rate and higher than usual infant mortality. Adam had a daughter born after his Change, but his ex-wife had had three miscarriages while I knew her. The only children who survive are completely human.

  But Samuel had a brother who was born a werewolf. The only one that anyone I know had ever heard of. His mother was from a family that was gifted with magic native to this land and not Europe as most of our magic-using humans have. She was able to hold off the change every month until Charles's birth. Weakened by her efforts, she died at his birth—but her experiences had started Samuel thinking.

  When I, neither human nor werewolf, was brought to his father for his pack to raise, Samuel had seen his chance. I don't have to change—and even when I do, the change is not violent. Though real wolves in the wild kill any coyotes they find in their territory, they can mate and have viable offspring.

  Samuel waited until I was sixteen before he made me fall in love with him.

  "We all change," I told him. "I'm going to bed."

  Just as I've always known there are monsters in the world, monsters and things even more evil, I've always known that it is God who keeps evil at bay. So I make a point of going to church every Sunday and praying on a regular basis. Since killing Andre and his demon-bearing spawn, church was the only place I felt truly safe.

  "You look tired." Pastor Julio Arnez's hands were big-knuckled and battered. Like me, he'd worked with his hands for a living—he'd been a lumberman until he retired and become our pastor.

  "A little," I agreed.

  "I heard about your friend," he said. "Would he appreciate a visit?"

  Zee would like my pastor—everyone liked Pastor Julio. He might even manage to make being in jail more bearable, but getting close to Zee was too dangerous.

  So I shook my head. "He's fae," I said apologetically. "They don't think very highly of Christianity. Thank you for offering."

  "If there's anything I can do, you tell me," he said sternly. He kissed my forehead and sent me off with his blessing.

  Zee on my mind, as soon as I got home I called Tony on his cell phone because I had no idea how to get in to see Zee.

  He answered, sounding cheerful and friendly rather than coolly professional, so he must have been home.

  "Hey, Mercedes," he said. "It was not nice of you to sic Ms. Ryan on us. Smart, but not nice."

  "Hey, Tony," I said. "I'd apologize but Zee matters to me—and he's innocent, so I got the best I could find. However, if it makes you feel any better, I have to deal with her, too."

  He laughed. "All right, what's up?"

  "This is stupid," I told him, "but I've never had to go visit anyone in jail before now. So how do I go about seeing Zee? Are there visiting hours or what? Should I wait until Monday? And where is he being held?"

  There was a short silence. "I think visiting hours are weekends and evenings only. But before you go, you might talk to your
lawyer," he said cautiously. Was there something wrong with me seeing Zee?

  "Call your lawyer," he said again when I asked him.

  So I did. The card she'd given me had her cell on it as well as her office.

  "Mr. Adelbertsmiter is not talking to anyone," Jean Ryan told me in a frosty voice, as if it were my fault. "It will be difficult to mount an effective defense unless he talks to me."

  I frowned. Zee could be cantankerous but he wasn't stupid. If he wasn't talking, he had a reason.

  "I need to see him," I told her. "Maybe I can persuade him to talk to you."

  "I don't think you're going to persuade him of anything." There was a bare hint of smugness in her voice. "When he wouldn't respond to me, I told him what I knew about O'Donnell's death—all that you had told me. That was the only time he spoke. He said that you had no business telling his secrets to strangers." She hesitated. "This next part is a threat, and I normally would not pass it on, as it does my client's case no good. But…I think you ought to be warned. He said you'd better hope he doesn't get out—and that he's calling the loan due immediately. Do you know what he means?"

  Numbly I nodded before realizing that she couldn't see me. "I bought my shop from him. I still owe him money on it." I'd been paying him on a monthly basis, just as I did the bank. It wasn't the money, which I didn't have, that left my throat dry and pressure building behind my eyes.

  He thought I'd betrayed him.

  Zee was fae; he could not lie.

  "Well," she said. "He made it clear that he had no desire to talk to you before he went mute again. Do you still wish to retain my services?" She sounded almost hopeful.

  "Yes," I said. It wasn't my money that was paying her—even at her rates there was more than enough in Uncle Mike's briefcase to cover Zee's expenses.

  "I'll be honest, Ms. Thompson, if he doesn't talk to me, I can't do him any good at all."

  "Do what you can," I told her numbly. "I'm working on a few things myself."

  Secrets. I shivered a little, though as soon as I'd gotten home from church, I'd turned up the temperature from the sixty degrees Samuel had set it at this morning before he'd left to go to the last day of Tumbleweed. Werewolves like things a little cooler than I do. It was a balmy eighty in the house, not a reason in the world that I should feel cold.