Iron Kissed mt-3

by Patricia Briggs

  I paid close attention to that "I have heard." "I have heard" wasn't the same thing as "Zee is angry with you."

  "I've heard the same," I told him. "But I am Zee's friend anyway. If you'll excuse me, I need to get to bed now. Work starts bright and early."

  I heaved myself out of the chair, tucked the book under my arm, and waved at both of the disapproving males as I limped out of the living room on my sore feet. I closed the bedroom door on them and did my best not to listen to them discussing me behind my back. They weren't very polite. And Samuel, at least, should know me better than to think I could be persuaded to sit back and leave Zee to fae hands.

  CHAPTER 11

  I called Tim the next morning before I went to work. It was early, but I didn't want to miss him. He'd caught me off guard last night, but I had no business dragging a human into my mess of a love life—even if I liked him that way, which I didn't.

  Maybe I couldn't live with Adam—but it looked like I was going to try. If I went to Tim's, it would hurt Adam and give Tim the wrong impression. It had been stupid not to just refuse yesterday…

  "Hey, Mercy," he said as he picked up the phone. "Listen, Fideal called me last night—what did you do to tick him off? Anyway he told me that you came to our meeting to do some investigating into O'Donnell's death. He said you knew the suspect they have in custody."

  There was absolutely no anger in his voice, which pretty much meant that he must have been speaking the truth when he said he wasn't interested in a romantic entanglement. If he'd been interested in me, he'd have felt used.

  Good. He wouldn't feel bad when I told him I couldn't go.

  "Yes," I said cautiously. "He's an old friend. I know that he didn't do it, which is more than anyone else investigating can say." Zee's name was still being withheld from the press, as well as his being a fae. "Since no one else was doing anything, I've been poking around."

  "I suppose we're on the top of the list of suspects," said Tim matter-of-factly. "O'Donnell wasn't exactly rolling in friends."

  "On top of my list until I attended one of your meetings," I told him.

  He laughed. "Yeah, none of us is exactly murderer material."

  I didn't agree with him—anyone can be driven to kill, given the right cause. Except for Fideal, though, none of them were capable of killing someone the way O'Donnell had been killed.

  "I didn't think of it at the time," he said. "But after Fideal talked to me, I started thinking. That walking stick in your car was O'Donnell's, wasn't it? He'd just bought it off of eBay a couple of days before he died."

  "Yes."

  "Do you think it had something to do with his death? I know the police say they don't think that robbery was the motive, but O'Donnell started collecting Celtic stuff a couple of months ago. He claimed it was pretty valuable."

  "Did he say where he got it?" I asked.

  "He said he inherited some of it and the rest he picked up on eBay." He paused. "You know, he said that it was all magical fae stuff, but he couldn't get any of it to do anything. I assumed that he was just being conned…but do you suppose he actually got something that really belonged to the fae and they decided to take it back?"

  "I don't know. Did you get a good look at his collection?"

  "I recognized that staff," he said slowly. "But not until Fideal told me that you had a connection with O'Donnell. There was a stone with some writing on it, a few battered pieces of jewelry that might have been silver—or silver plate…If I took a look at his collection, I might be able to tell you what is missing."

  "I think the whole collection is missing. Except for the walking stick." I saw no need to tell him that the fae had gotten some of it back.

  He whistled. "So it was a robbery."

  "That's what it looks like. If I can prove that, then my friend is no longer a good suspect."

  The Gray Lords didn't want any mortals knowing that they had magical artifacts, and I could see their point. The problem was that the Gray Lords could be ruthless in making sure that no word got out. Tim already knew too much.

  "Did Fideal know about the collection?" I asked.

  Tim considered it. "No. I don't think so. O'Donnell didn't like him, and Fideal never went to O'Donnell's house. I think the only ones he showed it to were Austin and me."

  "Okay." I took a deep breath. "Look, it might be dangerous to know about that collection. If he did manage to find something that belonged to the fae, they wouldn't want that known. And you, of all people, know how ruthless they are. Don't talk to the police or anyone else about it for now."

  "You do think it was a fae who killed him," Tim said, sounding a little taken aback.

  "The collection is gone," I said. "Maybe one of the fae sent someone after it, or maybe someone else believed O'Donnell's stories and wanted it. I might be able to figure out more, if I knew what he had. Could you make a list of what you remember?"

  "Maybe," he said. "I only saw it the once. How about I do my best to write it down and we can take a look at them tonight?"

  I remembered that I'd called him to cancel our dinner.

  He didn't give me a chance to say anything. "If I have all day to think about it, I should be able to put together most of it. I'll see Austin at school; we usually do lunch together. He saw O'Donnell's collection, too, and he's a pretty decent artist." He gave a rueful laugh. "Yes, I know. Good looks, intelligence, and talented, too. He can do anything. If he wasn't so nice, I'd hate him, too."

  "Drawings would be terrific," I said. I could compare them to the drawings in Tad's friend's book. "Just remember that this is dangerous stuff."

  "I will. See you tonight."

  I hung up the phone.

  I ought to call Adam and tell him what I was doing. I dialed the first number and then hung it up. It was easier to get forgiveness than permission—not that I should need permission. Getting a list of what O'Donnell had stolen was a good enough reason that Adam would understand why I went to Tim's house. He might get mad, but he wouldn't be hurt.

  And Adam angry was really an awesome sight. Was I a bad person that I enjoyed it?

  Laughing to myself, I went to work.

  Tim opened his own door this time, and the house smelled of garlic, oregano, basil, and fresh-baked bread.

  "Hi," I said. "Sorry I'm late. It took me a while to get the grease out from under my nails." I'd taken Gabriel and some chains out to the Rabbit after work and towed it home with my Vanagon. It had taken a little longer than I'd expected. "I forgot to ask what to bring so I stopped and picked up some chocolate for dessert."

  He took the paper bag and smiled. "You didn't have to bring anything, but chocolate is—"

  I sighed. "A girl thing, I know."

  His smile widened. "I was going to say, it is always good. Come in."

  He led me through the house and into the kitchen, where he had a small bowl of Caesar salad.

  "I like your kitchen." It was the only room that seemed to have a personality. I'd been expecting oak cabinets and granite counter tops and I'd been right about the counters. But the cabinets were cherry, and contrasted nicely with the dark gray counters. Nothing too daring, but at least it wasn't bland.

  He looked around with a frown. "Do you think it looks all right? My fiancée—ex-fiancée—told me I needed a decorator for the kitchen."

  "It's lovely," I assured him.

  A bell chimed and he opened the oven door and pulled out a small pizza. My oven's timer buzzes like an angry bee.

  The smell of the pizza distracted me from my oven-envy.

  "Now that smells marvelous," I told him, closing my eyes to get a better sniff.

  A red flush tinted his cheeks at my compliment as he slid it onto a stone round and cut it with expert speed. "If you'll get the salad and follow me, we can eat."

  Obediently I took the wooden bowl of greens and followed him through the house.

  "This is the dining room," he told me unnecessarily, since the big mahogany table gave it away
. "But when I eat alone or with just a couple of people, I eat out here."

  "Out here" was a small circular room surrounded by windows. The shape of the room was innovative, but it was outblanded by beige tiles and window treatments. His architect would be sad to know his artistic vision had been swallowed by insipidness.

  Tim set the pizza on the small oak table and opened the roman blinds so we had a view of his backyard.

  "I keep the curtains down most of the time, or it gets like an oven in here," he said. "I suppose it will be nice in the winter."

  He'd already set the table, and like the kitchen, his tableware was a surprise. Handmade stoneware plates that didn't match exactly, either in size or color, but somehow complemented each other, and handmade pottery goblets. His was blue with a cracked glaze finish and mine brown and aged-looking. There was a pitcher on the table, but he'd already filled the glasses.

  I thought of Adam's house and wondered if he still used his ex-wife's china the way Tim obviously used the stuff his ex-fiancée or maybe the decorator had chosen.

  "Sit, sit," he said, following his own advice. He put a piece of pizza on my plate, but allowed me to get my own salad and a generous helping of some kind of baked pear dish.

  I took a cautious sip of the contents of my glass. "What is this?" I asked. It wasn't alcoholic, which surprised me, but something both sweet and tart.

  He grinned. "It's a secret. Maybe I'll show you how to make it after dinner."

  I sipped again. "Yes, please."

  "I noticed you're limping."

  I smiled. "I stepped on some glass. Nothing to worry about."

  We both quit talking as we dug into the meal with appetite.

  "Tell me about your friend," he said as he ate. "The one the police think killed O'Donnell."

  "He's a grumpy, fussy old man," I said. "And I love him." The pears had some sort of brown sugar glaze. I expected them to be too sweet, but they were tart and melted in my mouth. "Mmm. This is good. Anyway, right now he's ticked off at me for poking my nose into this investigation." I took a deep drink. "Or else he thinks it's dangerous and I'll quit investigating if he makes me think he's angry with me." Zee was right, I talked too much. Time to shift the conversation Tim's way. "You know, I'd have thought you would be angry with me when you found out I had an ulterior motive for attending your meeting."

  "I always wanted to be a private investigator," Tim confided. He'd finished his food and was watching me eat with a pleased expression. "Maybe if I liked O'Donnell, I'd have been angrier."

  "Were you able to come up with a list?" I asked.

  "Oh, yes," he lied.

  I frowned at him and put down my fork. I'm not as good at smelling a lie as some of the wolves. Maybe I'd misread his response. It seemed like an odd thing to lie about.

  "Did you make sure that Austin wouldn't talk about it to anyone?"

  He nodded and his smile widened. "Austin won't tell anyone. Finish up your pears, Mercy."

  I had eaten two bites before I realized something was wrong. Maybe if I hadn't been fighting this kind of compulsion with Adam, I wouldn't have noticed anything at all. I took a deep breath and concentrated, but couldn't smell any magic in the air.

  "This was terrific," I told him. "But I'm absolutely full."

  "Take another drink," he said.

  The juice or whatever it was tasted better with every sip—but…I wasn't thirsty. Still, I'd swallowed twice before I thought. It wasn't like me to do anything someone told me to do, let alone everything. Maybe it was the juice.

  As soon as the doubt touched my mind, I could feel it. The sweet liquid burned with magic and the goblet throbbed under my hand—so hot that I was surprised my hand wasn't smoking.

  I set the old thing down on the table and wished the stupid book had included a picture of Orfino's Bane—the goblet that the fairy had used to rob Roland's knights of their ability to resist her will. I'd bet it would match the rustic goblet beside my plate.

  "It was you," I whispered.

  "Yes, of course," he said. "Tell me about your friend. Why do the police think he killed O'Donnell?"

  "They found him there," I told him. "Zee could have run, but he and Uncle Mike were trying to gather all the fae artifacts so the police wouldn't find them."

  "I thought I got all the artifacts," said Tim. "The bastard must have been taking more things than the ones I sent him for. Probably thought that he might get more money for them somewhere else. The ring isn't as good as the goblet."

  "The ring?"

  He showed me the worn silver ring I'd noticed last night.

  "And it makes the tongue of the wearer sweeter than honey. It's a politician's ring—or will be," he said. "But the goblet works better. If I'd made him drink before he went out, he wouldn't have been able to take more. I told him if we took too much, the fae would start looking outside Fairyland for their murderer. He should have listened to me. I suppose your friend is a fae and was going to talk to O'Donnell about the murders."

  "Yes." I had to answer him, but I could hold back information if I tried. "You hired O'Donnell to get magic artifacts and kill the fae?"

  He laughed. "Killing the fae was his thing, Mercy. I just gave him the means to do it."

  "How?"

  "I went over to his house to talk to him about the next Bright Future meeting, and he had this ring and a pair of bracers sitting on his bookcase. He offered to sell them to me for fifty bucks." Tim sneered. "Dumb putz. He had no idea what he had, but I did. I put on the ring and persuaded him to tell me what he'd done. That's when he told me about the real treasure—though he didn't know what he had."

  "The list," I said.

  He licked his finger and pointed at me. "Score a point for the bright girl. Yes, the list. With names. O'Donnell knew where they lived and I knew what they were and what they had. He was scared of the fae, you know. Hated them. So I loaned him back the bracers and a couple of other things and told him how to use them. He fetched artifacts for me—for which I paid him—and he got to kill the fae. It was easier than I'd thought it would be. You'd think a dumbshit like O'Donnell would have a little more trouble with a thousand-year-old Guardian of the Hunt, wouldn't you? The fae have gotten complacent."

  "Why did you kill him?" I asked.

  "I thought the Hunter would take care of it, actually. O'Donnell was a weakness. He wanted to keep the ring—and threatened to blackmail me for it. I told him 'sure' and had him steal a couple more things. Once I had enough that I could do my own stealing without much danger, I sent O'Donnell after the Hunter. When that didn't work…well." He shrugged.

  I looked at the silver ring. "A politician can't afford to hang out with stupid men who know too much."

  "Take another drink, Mercy."

  The goblet was full again though it had only been half-full when I'd set it down. I drank. It was harder to think, almost like being drunk.

  Tim couldn't afford to let me live.

  "Are you a fae?"

  "Oh, no." I shook my head.

  "That's right," he said. "You're Native American, aren't you? You won't find any Native American fae."

  "No." I wouldn't look for fae among the Indians; the fae with their glamour were a European people. Indians had their own magical folk. But Tim hadn't asked, so I didn't need to tell him. I didn't think it was going to save me, him thinking I was a defenseless human instead of a defenseless walker. But I was going to try to keep any advantages that I could.

  He picked up his fork and played with it. "So how did you end up with the walking stick? I looked all over for it and couldn't find the darn thing. Where was it?"

  "In O'Donnell's living room," I told him. "Uncle Mike and Zee overlooked it, too." It must have been the extra drink, but I couldn't stop before I said, "Some of the old things have a will of their own."

  "How did you get into O'Donnell's living room? Do you have friends on the police force? I thought you were just a mechanic."

  I considered what he'
d asked me and answered with the absolute truth. The way a fae would have. I held up a finger for the first question. "I walked in." Two fingers. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have a friend on the police force." Three fingers. "I'm a damn good mechanic—though not as good as Zee."

  "I thought Zee was a fae; how can he be a mechanic?"

  "He's iron kissed." If he wanted information, maybe I could stall him and babble. "I like that term better than gremlin because he can't be a gremlin if they just made up that word in the last century, can he? He's a lot older than that. In fact, I finally found a story—"

  "Stop," he said.

  I did.

  He frowned at me. "Drink. Take two drinks."

  Damn. When I set the goblet down, my hands tingled with fae magic and my lips were numb.

  "Where is the walking stick?" he asked.

  I sighed. That stupid stick followed me around even when it wasn't in the room. "Wherever it wants to be."

  "What?"

  "Probably in my office," I told him. It liked to show up where I was going to come upon it unexpectedly. But the need to answer him made me continue to feed him information. "Though it was in my car. It's not now. Uncle Mike didn't take it."

  "Mercy," he said. "What is the thing you least wanted me to know when you came here?"

  I thought about that. I'd been so worried about hurting his feelings yesterday, and standing on his doorstep I'd been a little worried still. I leaned forward and said in a low voice, "I am not attracted to you at all. I don't find you sexy or handsome. You look like an upscale geek without the intelligence to make it work for you."

  He surged to his feet and his face whitened, then flushed with anger.

  But he'd asked and so I continued, "Your house is bland and has no personality at all. Maybe you should try some naked statues—"

  "Stop it! Stop it!"

  I sat back and watched him. He was still a boy who thought he was smarter than he really was. His anger didn't scare me, or intimidate me. He saw that and it made him angrier.

  "You wanted to know what O'Donnell had? Come with me."

  I would have, but he grabbed my arm in a grip and his hand bit down. I heard a crack but it was a moment before the pain registered.