by Rhys Ford
“Stalker!” The pilot was out of the glider before it hit dirt, long legs eating up the distance. Husky voiced, the Singlish was muffled by the helmet’s faceplate, blurring the words. “Drop the guns.”
“Hell no.” I shook my head, pointing the rifle’s muzzle down. With the glider in the way, a shot to the second guard was out of the question, but I wasn’t about to discount the three at the gate from joining in. “Sorry, I forgot. Hell no, your lordship.”
The helmet came off, and I swallowed, man enough to admit I was awed by the woman behind the shield.
Willowy was a word probably used to describe her. I’d have chosen scary. It was hard not to notice her hard-set blue eyes or the utilitarian silver band of skulls she used to tie back her straight sunset red hair. Like the guards, she wore a set of black armor casings over black pants and a snug long sleeve T-shirt. Unlike the guards, she moved with great confidence, like running water across the dry dirt as she took command of the scene. Bone pale, her cheeks pinked with a flush, but it was anger more than embarrassment. I was fairly certain she’d chew my ass off if she had anything to say about it, but she was satisfied with cutting the guards down.
She was hot enough to send me to rigid only by looking at her.
“Excuse me,” I said, giving a half bow. “Your ladyship.”
“It’s commander, Stalker Gracen. You there, get back to your post.” There was no mistaking the sidhe woman for anything other than a soldier. She called off the guards with a single stern glance, disapproval curving her mouth. The guard behind the glider fell back. The one on his back under my foot shifted to move, and I pressed the gun muzzle down to keep him still. She said in Singlish, barking at the guards while keeping her eyes on me, “He’s mine.”
Moving closer, I saw her eyes ran with flecks of color, silver and black crystals set into the light blue folds. Not many would say she was gorgeous, even with the characteristic beauty of a sidhe in her bone structure. Her nose was slightly too long, and the arch of her eyebrows was too sharp, but the rich plump of her mouth hinted of a husky laugh, and her hands moved with a capable assurance as she removed the rifle from my grasp. She smelled like mint sticks dipped in chocolate, and the wink she gave me left me wanting a taste.
Gods help me, between Ryder and the redhead, I was going to be so tightly wound by the time I got back to San Diego, I’d lose half of the money I’d earned in the red lantern district.
“Let him up, Stalker,” she said, drawing close. The mint-chocolate scent of her skin intensified, and my stomach growled, fighting with other parts of my body for attention. “I will guarantee your safety if you will guarantee theirs.”
I stepped back, and the guard scrambled to his feet, barely catching the rifle she tossed at him. The guard clenched his teeth and hissed, crossing his arms over his broad chest, then glared at me. Shrugging, I wiped at my neck again, making sure I’d removed his spit from my skin before looking up.
“Hey, you started it,” I objected feebly. I tucked the shotgun back into the Mustang then turned to watch the guard trundle back to the gate.
“My apologies,” she said, a hint of a smile on her mouth. “They should not have bothered you.”
“Not a problem. Thanks for pulling them off me.”
“I think I was pulling you off them, Stalker Gracen.” The sun left white streaks of light on her armor, its sheen polished highly enough I could see myself in her arm covering. “I am Watch Commander Alexa, Clan Sebac, House of Levar. My cousin, Ryder, sent me to fetch you.”
“Fetch me? Whoa, wait a second.” I stepped back, waving my hands in front of me. “I’m not setting foot in the place.”
“Ryder sends his apologies about this, but our high-grandmother wishes to meet you,” she said with a shrug. “He has no choice but to request you come in now.”
“So? She’s not my high-grandmother!” My protest fell on deaf ears as Alexa studied the Mustang’s door.
“Your eye color is of a Dawn Court bloodline. For all we know, she could be your high-grandmother as well. And she is the matriarch of our Clan. She is the Sebac.” Tapping the door channel, she glanced inside the car. “How does the glass pane come up? There is one, yes?”
I turned the hand crank, rolling the window up. “It’s done manually. Or by that switch on the console if I have the power on.”
“Manually? By hand?” The Commander played with the crank, turning it back and forth to watch the window move. “Interesting. This is an old car, then? Very old?”
“Very,” I replied. “And let’s get back to the going inside thing. I’m not. Going inside, that is.”
“Ryder said you were beautiful even for one of us, and quite stubborn. And for once, I am inclined to agree with my cousin’s opinion.” She straightened and caught a chunk of my hair in her fingers. Its color made her skin look even paler, nearly translucent. “Your hair is so very black. So Dusk Court. In the sunlight, I can see the blue in it. If we had time, I’d have pleasures with you, but Grandmother does not like to be kept waiting. She is at a great age where even seconds matter now. Or so she says.”
“Sorry. I don’t have sex with anyone if I know their name.” I shrugged. “Thanks, though.”
“That was a Singlish joke, yes?” She trapped me against Oketsu’s quarter panel, placing her hands on either side of my hips, and leaned forward. The brush of her mouth on mine flared a prickle of desire down my chest and into my belly. She tasted as good as she smelled, a rich darkness poured over white light. “And if not, I can make you forget my name, áinle. Give me a few minutes alone with you and I can make you forget a lot of things. Maybe even your own name.”
“áinle?” I mangled the word, tripping over the pronunciation.
“It is… musang,” she tried, laughing at me when I made a face. “Never mind, there’s no time for it anyway. Grandmother waits.”
“Suppose I don’t want to go?” I looked at the city crouching behind its high wall. I’d faced down flaming salamanders, mutant sewer gators, and packs of rabid black dogs—and a city gave me tremors.
“Then I pick you up and throw you in,” Alexa said confidently. “I don’t disappoint Grandmother, and I don’t let anyone else disappoint her either. You are getting into the glider, by yourself or with my help. If I get to help, then I get my hands on you. For me, it’s a good thing either way.”
She meant it. The playful tease of her voice was frosting on steel.
“I have ropes or leather ties. I have both, but I think the black leather.” She eyed me experimentally. “That would look better on your skin. It’s not my way, but I’m adaptable.”
I grabbed the shotgun, daring her to object to my bringing in a weapon, but Alexa said nothing. She stood, waiting for me to mount the glider, checking the link at her wrist for the time. Pushing down on Oketsu’s lock, I held the latch in as I shut the door, hearing the alarm click on with a chirrup. Grabbing the edge of the glider’s open hatch, I climbed up the stirrup, then settled into the seat.
“Okay.” I swallowed and took a deep breath, hoping I didn’t shame myself by passing out at an old woman’s feet. “Let’s go meet Grandmother.”
WE ZIPPED past the guards. The open gates were a haze of carved metal guarded by black blurs. Fearless, Alexa drove on, fitting the glider into a thin slot between two slower-moving vehicles. Bulbous spheres rolled under rounded chassis, carrying sidhe and cargo on the city’s winding roads. At the glider’s speed, it was difficult to make out faces, but it was easy to see we were drawing attention. Heads turned as we went by, the glider’s electromagnetic coils screaming as it made a tight spin into a spiral.
Greenery and trees were as much a part of the city as stone and metal, old thick branches nearly five men wide supporting walkways or rooms jutting from tall towers. Spacious avenues were broken by an occasional garden, random drops of flowers blooming under a misty sky.
I looked up and lost myself in the spiraling towers above me. Sunlight and shadow wo
ve in and out of the glider’s cockpit as we passed under broad-leaved trees and floating platforms. The buildings I’d seen from far away swiveled and turned around us, shortening roadways as we drove.
The air was humid and fragrant, a cool breeze from the mountain rolling down into the warm gardens below. Mists rose from the damp soil, lacy clouds that wandered over walls and through courtyards. People were everywhere, tall elegant men and women dressed in flowing clothes. Red seemed a favored color, followed closely by shades of blue and various whites, with flowers and metal jewelry embellishing their garments’ simple lines.
Elfhaine was beautiful. A city blended with nature, stone and metal. Gold and copper filigree supported a magenta and orange riot of flowers suspended against the stark white of grown stone. Color was everywhere, floral swags and hanging ribbons caught in the breeze—all against a marvel of spiraling buildings.
And there wasn’t a child in sight.
There weren’t any children in the pockets of sidhe we passed. There was no evidence of young sidhe, not a toy left on a lawn or a park set where filthy, grubby swings lay waiting for more dirt to be rubbed into chain links. The absence of chaos was unsettling. The world outside Elfhaine’s walls was brutal, noisy, and messy. Blood and spit lubricated the gears of a human’s life, with small spurts of joy adding the rush of speed to the journey. It was what I knew. The quiet was unnerving.
The glider’s reckless speed pitched a low humming whine that should have been drowned out by the people around it, but an eerie silence hung around us. San Diego’s crowded neighborhoods were a constant buzz of chatter, horns, and lights, where Elfhaine’s spacious hills were empty, devoid of any sign of life, save for the golden and ivory mannequins walking through its streets.
“Where are the kids?” I had to shout over the wind to be heard.
“Kids?” Alexa slowed the craft and we dropped a few inches as the air pressure beneath the glider lessened. “Why would we have baby goats here? The outer districts of the city may have some.”
“Not goats. Children.” I made a rocking motion with my arms. “Baby sidhe.”
“Ah.” She nodded, her bright red hair settling about her shoulders and down her back. “I can tell you where each of them is right now if you like, but yes, most should be with their teachers.”
“I don’t think I need to know where they all are. Wouldn’t that take a while?”
“Not long,” she said, hitting a few buttons on the console. “There are fifty-one sidhe under the age of responsibility. One is in his nursery, and forty are in lessons. The other ten are older and doing independent study. Two are attached to my Clan.” Alexa smiled. “One of the pre-adults is my daughter. She is very smart and quite fierce.”
“Fifty-one?” I stared out at the seemingly endless city. “How many people live here?”
“One….” Alexa’s Singlish failed, and she murmured a word in sidhe. “Million? Ten one hundred thousands? Million is the right word, I think.”
“Shouldn’t there be more kids than that?”
“We would always welcome more children. I would try having one with you. I like your eye color.”
“Uh, no,” I said, shaking my head. The thought of having a kid shook me. My genetics didn’t need to go any farther than my own body.
“Providing a child to your Clan is an honor. Of course, she would belong to my Clan because I am the female, but there would be connections. Sebac is a good Clan, very strong. Very influential. It would raise your Clan status if it is poor.”
“I don’t think you’d want to get within ten miles of my bloodlines, honey. Believe me. You’d be better off mating with one of the dogs from the Hunt. The black dogs.”
“The ainmhí dubh?” Alexa brought the glider into a side street. “Black creatures. You call them dogs? That kind belong to Dusk Court lords only.”
“Yeah, they breed wild now,” I said. “It’s part of my job to hunt them.”
“They kill if not controlled. They kill even when controlled. Very dangerous unsidhe things. Meata.”
“Please tell me your grandmother speaks Singlish. I speak as much sidhe as my car does.”
“I am thinking that somewhere, you ran away from being sidhe, or maybe it ran away from you,” Alexa said, slowing the glider down as traffic crowded the street. “Ryder told me you are uncomfortable being elfin.”
“That wasn’t his business to share,” I grumbled, moving the shotgun jammed into my leg. “Arrogant, controlling son of a bitch.”
“He told me so I would take care with you.” She risked our lives with a glance in my direction. A wall filled the glider dome for a split second; then it washed away under a rush of speed. “Ryder and I are close friends as well as blood. He trusted me with you. I promised to take care of you as if you were mine.”
“That includes propositioning me?”
“If you were mine—” She grinned, giving me a wink. “—I would do much more than proposition, áinle. I’ve already said purple-eyed younglings would be nice. Trying for purple-eyed younglings would be even nicer.”
Concerned eyes followed us, some wide with shock, and for a moment I wondered what they were seeing until a sidhe woman in an elaborate red hat made of feathers touched her pale ivory hair and stared at me as we went by.
Alexa saw her and reached out to touch my shoulder. “It’s your hair, pretty. The black is not a color here. Golds and reds, yes. Sometimes a mink brown. But black—that is not seen here. They wonder why I’m bringing an unsidhe so deep into the city, but I’m thinking, with those beautiful twilight eyes, you are as much Dawn Court on the inside as you try to make yourself Dusk on the outside.”
“Hey, people see what they want to see,” I muttered, slouching farther down into the seat. The city had lost its glow, and I wanted to be in and out as quick as possible.
“We all only see that. It is nature, human or sidhe.” She shrugged. “We are all the same inside. We anger. We love. And sometimes, we judge. It is not right, áinle, but it is a truth.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WE CIRCLED off the main road and into an open brick courtyard, then parked next to other gliders, all bearing different regal seals. Deciphering a sidhe household’s complex crest made my head hurt, and even though Dempsey had tried to pound the basics into my skull, nothing took. A phoenix looked the same as a crane, and while I could tell a dragon from a drake, the subtleties of a rampant hound compared to a rampant dire wolf were lost on me. Add in the colors and ribbons and my eyes rolled back into my head. The calculus Sparky tried to shove into my ears made more sense.
Most of the parked gliders were a dark green with antique gold and black accents. Crests ran to the same colors, with a couple of deep purple streamlines mixed in. Alexa’s was the only pure black vehicle in the place. I guessed it was a cop car, and the silver and blue emblem on the side was an official seal.
“Leave the shotgun,” she said before I could reach for it. “No weapons are allowed inside the compound.”
“I don’t like walking into someplace naked,” I muttered, but I left the gun in the cockpit. “It better be here when I get back.”
“No one will touch it. Most sidhe prefer edged weapons or bows. We’re simple creatures.”
“Then they have a lot in common with the human that raised me.”
I couldn’t make sense of which turrets and spirals belonged to which building. The spires wrapped into one another, with spans connecting balconies made of woven metal. The only sign of an entrance was a small door with slender gold silk banners hung on either side. A thin whippet-like dog lay on a rug in front of the door, its long legs twitching as it slept. Alexa stepped over the animal and opened the door to let us in.
Inside was cool, and sconces threw circles of light against the red walls of a long corridor. From the fiery bird sculptures and tapestries, I guessed the bird I saw on the Sebac standard was a phoenix. The hallway floors were cut stone squares worn smooth after centuries of fo
otsteps.
Now on the woman’s front porch, I realized I knew nothing about how to greet an elderly sidhe. My social circles didn’t run to hostess gifts, and extravagant meant a turn-tab on a bottle of cheap wine. I barely knew enough to take a hat off before I entered a temple.
“What am I supposed to say to her?” I asked Alexa’s back. It was a nice back, and even if I was technically working, I took the time to admire her ass.
“Let her speak first,” she said, stopping at a plain wooden door. “Grandmother will lead the conversation. She likes doing that. Don’t eat or drink anything she offers, or you’ll be beholden to her. This is a private chamber, so treat it like you would a dining hall. When she is done, come back here. I will be bringing Ryder here.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank me when you come back,” Alexa said, wrinkling her nose. “We will be waiting here with some whiskey. You will probably need it. I know I always do when she is done with me.”
I didn’t know what to expect. Hallowed halls or a marble spa filled with overgrown exotic plants. Something more than the plain round stone room with a simple wooden chair set under a single window slit. The walls and ceiling were the same stone as the hallway outside, tightly fitted cream squares flecked with blue and green stones. Under my feet, the floor tiles were odd, a mosaic of shapes and grout. Light from the thin window crossed the center of the room, the late afternoon sun angling down through cut stone. The single wooden high-backed chair was placed across from the door. I suspected I was going to be spending the conversation standing.
Feeling like an extra from an old slasher movie, I stepped into the room. “Hello?”
The floor flared with light, blinding me with streams of cultured rays bursting up from the curved arcs of grout. I knew enough of the arcane to recognize magic, especially when it came pouring out of the ground under my feet. My skin burned where the light touched, sharper than when I’d gotten my koi inked on my hip, and I stepped around, trying to find someplace where I could stand without intersecting any of the beams. Spangled light blurred my vision, and I shook my head, trying to focus.