“Are you going to be okay?” I asked, alarmed by his paleness.
“I’ll have to be.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes. “Do you think the firm can get us out of this?” I asked in a small voice.
“Guess we’ll find out how good they are, and how much we’re worth to them” came the comfortless reply.
23
We finally reached the Álfar version of New York, which seemed to consist of fluted spires constructed entirely from crystal, gold, and silver. There was a lot more greenery between the buildings, and the Álfar strolling the boulevards moved with languid grace quite unlike the hurly-burly of my human New York.
The Álfar were also gorgeous, with exotically colored hair, tall, slender bodies, and clothing in fabrics that took my breath away. The humans, almost all clearly servants, stood out like frogs cavorting in a flight of butterflies.
I didn’t see as many vehicles on the Fairy roads. Once I heard dimly, as if muffled by a vast distance, the blare of car horns that was the music of human New York.
A taller than average Álfar, dressed in what looked like livery, was followed by six other Álfar as he hurried through the etched glass doors of a building and waved urgently at us. The stone of the building seemed to have been inlaid with silver lines in swirling patterns, and many of the stained-glass windows threw jewel colors across the crushed white gravel that formed walkways around the structure.
John made a sound like a growl and shook his head. “I don’t have time for her right now.”
“Who?”
“My mother.” John drew in a deep breath and released my hand. “Ladies, please let go.” There were lines of tension around his mouth, and dark circles rimmed his eyes.
I was back in my jeans, the ladies were back in their day clothes, and we were once again seated in a Chevy, and around us was human New York. I realized we were on Seventy-second Street, opposite the Dakota, New York’s premier residence. We were surrounded by honking rush-hour traffic. The Álfar servant and his minions had emerged from a building that was the Fairy analogue to the Dakota, and now that it was the real Dakota they were still there. They had followed us into the human New York.
“They’re still there,” I said unnecessarily.
“Shit.” There was an edge of panic to the word. John tried to maneuver through the other cars, but it was six o’clock and the traffic was wedged tight, held in place by a red light.
The Álfar swarmed the car. The doors were locked, but something they did affected the electronics and the locks snapped up. They yanked open the doors. The tall one pulled John out of the driver’s seat. Two more lunged into the back on either side of Chastity and Destiny.
I made a frantic dive over the backseat and snatched up the will just as an Álfar slid into the driver’s seat. Another one basically sat on my lap, and they drove us through the arch and into the courtyard of the Álfar Dakota.
Where prancing horses were led past by liveried servants, and a Dusenberg was parked against one wall. Servants, all of them Álfar, rushed to open the car doors, and we were pulled out. John was struggling desperately against the grip of his captor. He said something, and the tall Álfar let him come to me.
He took my hand, I stuck the will into the waistband of my jeans, and we were all escorted into the building.
An Álfar operated the elevator, a fantastic creation like a hollowed-out diamond. Occasionally a glowing facet would break the light into a prism of colors. On the top floor a servant waited and threw open crystal inlaid double doors. I took a tighter grip on John’s hand as we entered, and the servant announced, “Sindarhin and humans.”
“John O’Shea and friends,” John said to the living Erte figurine who stood before us.
John’s mother was draped in a gold-trimmed green silk gown that exposed a lot of chest. A necklace of emeralds and gold lay against her golden skin, and her black-and-white streaked hair hung to her waist. John had inherited her deep green eyes. She wore an odd little cloche hat like a golden helmet that formed a false widow’s peak on her forehead. She opened her arms to John, and the tassels of gold chain with moonstones and emeralds threaded on them clashed and rang.
She kissed his cheek. “Always so huffy. He doesn’t mean to be rude,” she said. Her voice was pure music, as if a celesta played in the background.
“But you always are,” John said. She ignored the insult.
“Please, sit, have tea.”
She walked over to a sofa upholstered in white leather, which sat between two end tables of polished cherrywood that doubled as cabinets. All the hardware was chrome. A very angular modernist tea set rested on a Macassar ebony coffee table with wide curved legs that extended above the edge of the top; they looked like battlements protecting the table’s surface. There was a tray of small pastel-iced cakes and finger-sized sandwiches.
John refused to move, but the Álfar holding him forced him forward and shoved him down on a couch. John’s mother waved a languid hand at Chastity, Destiny, and me.
“Oh, bring them too.” We were frog-marched forward and pushed down.
“Don’t eat anything,” John warned us.
His mother’s beautiful and youthful face assumed a pout. “Do you think I’d trap them?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
Her eyes glittered, and suddenly she didn’t look so beautiful. She seemed very alien and very scary.
“Be careful defending them. You might want them to stay with you here.”
I felt a cold, coiling pressure in my chest and a stiffening in my spine as I realized we were on the verge of a kidnapping. The Álfar behind me had a light hand on my shoulder. Was that necessary to hold me in their reality, or was he just being prudent and figuring (rightly) that I was about to tear this woman’s face off?
“What are you talking about?” John asked.
“You’ve walked in our world for much of a day. You reject us except when you need us. Now you must pay the price. You will remain. I want you home.”
“You should have thought of that before you dumped me in a Philly hospital and took John—which would have been his name if you’d left him with his family.” My John was raging, and his face had the same inhuman coldness of his dam’s. There was a visible struggle, but he got himself under control, leaned back, and said with studied casualness, “Where is Parlan, by the way?”
“Off.” She waved vaguely in the air. “Pursuing a girl. Or hunting. I don’t remember which. He’s no longer interesting.”
“So, what? You’re just going to dump him out of the only world he’s ever known and slot me in his place? Well, it won’t work. I’ll never agree.”
“Fine, leave, but I’ll keep your women.” She tapped a perfectly manicured nail against the tabletop and gave Destiny, Chastity, and me a predator’s smile.
Anger flared deep in his eyes, and I felt my jaw clench. There was no way in hell I was going to let this happen. I just had to figure out how to wrench us out of this world and back to our own.
I looked over at Destiny and Chastity huddled together on a fainting couch. They were clinging to each other, slumped, battered by events. Two Álfar loomed over them, hands on the backs of their necks. They were in this mess because of me. They would be dead if you hadn’t gotten involved, said the whining, bargaining voice. Leave them. Take John. He can probably get you out.
My vampire upbringing surged to the fore. They’re my responsibility. I released a pent-up breath and looked up at John.
“We have to agree,” I said softly.
“I know,” he said, and he kissed me softly on the lips. I wanted to be strong and brave, but a small sob burst out, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. He held me hard, burying his head against my neck. I felt his shoulders shaking, but when he straightened and stared at his mother there was no hint of distress. Instead he gave her a look of pure loathing. I would not have wanted to have been on the receiving end of that look.
&n
bsp; “Okay, I’ll stay. Now let them go.”
“Happily,” his mother said, and the room began to fade around us. I heard her begin to sing. Gleaming ice crystals appeared in the air with each note. She gathered them into her hands, formed them into a splinter, and drove it deep into John’s eye.
I screamed, a cry of rage and denial, and then we were in someone’s apartment in the Dakota, and there was a pair of King Charles spaniels yapping and jumping around the three of us, the smell of cinnamon incense, and a Spanish-accented voice calling from the kitchen.
“Who is it? Who’s there?”
“We’ve got to get out of here!” I spun Chastity and Destiny around and shoved them toward the door of the apartment.
A puzzled-looking maid in a uniform came into the living room, stared at us, crossed herself, and screamed.
We threw open the door and ran for the elevators. There was a doorman in the lobby who just stared at us. We must have looked a sight. Chastity and I were caked in soot, and Destiny was shoeless.
“Hey!” he shouted, but I hit the door running full out.
We dodged between the cars in the courtyard and rushed out onto Seventy-second Street. Night had fallen while we’d been in Álfar World. I threw up my hand to flag down a taxi, then realized I didn’t have my purse. I looked over at Chasity and Destiny. No purses. No cell phones. We were bag ladies with a multimillion-dollar piece of paper that was totally worthless in the current situation, but could sure as hell get us killed.
It wasn’t too many blocks to the office, but we were on the wrong side of the park, and the mother and daughter looked like they were at the end of their strength. Destiny was grimacing with every step. I kept us moving until we reached Central Park West, then walked up to Seventy-third Street. Destiny was leaning on me so hard I felt like my shoulder was breaking. I stopped, assumed my best damsel-in-distress face, summoned the tears, and accosted a middle-aged man walking past with a cell phone pressed against his ear.
“Sir, we were carjacked and robbed. I really need to make a phone call. May I use your phone? It’s a local call.”
People say New Yorkers are rude. I’ve never experienced it. The man took one look at our bedraggled persons, ended his call, and handed me the phone. “You should call the police,” he said.
“I will. I just want to get us off the street first.” I checked my watch. 9:30 p.m. The office switchboard would be closed, voice mail only. I knew the number for the guard desk in the lobby. I called that.
“The IMG Building,” came a male voice.
“Hi, this is Linnet Ellery. Is there anybody still in the office at Ishmael, McGillary and Gold? Preferably a partner, but I’ll take anybody.”
“Just a minute,” the guard said. Then I heard his voice, faintly now because he’d obviously turned away from the phone. “You work for the law firm, right?” I heard a faint acknowledgement. “There’s a Linnet Ellery on the—” His voice broke off, and then I heard David Sullivan.
“Linnet, this is David. Are you in trouble?”
I felt a flash of annoyance that his first thought would be that I was in trouble. But I was in trouble. There was a painful lump in my throat. I swallowed past it and managed to say, “Yes. I need help. We’re on the corner of Central Park West and Seventy-third Street. I have no money. I’ve got the will, but no money. I’ve got to get—”
“Stay there! I’m on my way.” And he hung up the phone.
I returned the cell phone with many passionate thank-yous, then pulled Chastity and Destiny under the awning of an apartment building. The doorman chased us off. So now I had experienced one incident of rudeness, but I probably would have chased me off too.
Eventually we crossed over to the park side of the street. The grass was easier on Destiny’s feet, and it wasn’t private property. A cop might roust us, but hopefully not before David found us.
* * *
Daniel Deegan found us first.
I saw the big black Hummer driving slowly down Central Park West accompanied by a chorus of honking horns and shouted insults. The big car suddenly dove into a no-parking zone, and Deegan leaped out. How? my tired and frightened brain cried. All I could think was that somehow the abandoned Chevy had turned up in the courtyard of the Dakota, and that it was linked to the BOLO. However it had happened, he was here now.
He was smiling, but the expression was somehow murderous. John was right—he’s losing it. The thought of John made tears sting my eyes. I wanted him here to help me, protect me. Now I was on my own.
Maybe he’ll suggest a settlement, the lawyer part of my brain suggested. Deegan turned into a wolf. Or not.
Destiny and Chastity screamed. So did a lot of other people. I swung my head wildly, looking for a weapon. The garbage cans were chained down, and I probably didn’t have the strength to lift one and throw it even without the chain. Even the damn lids were linked to the cans with little chains. Cars. I could hit him with a car. Except I didn’t have a car, and in the time it would take me to carjack someone, Chastity and Destiny would be dead. And me, shortly thereafter.
A taxi pulled up on the other side of the street. David jumped out, flinging money like confetti. He scanned the street, spotted us, and plunged into the traffic. He didn’t run between the cars; he leaped onto the hoods and the roofs and used them like stepping-stones. Brakes screeched, horns honked, and people shouted.
Deegan gathered his haunches beneath him and leaped. Chastity and Destiny ran deeper into the park. I stood my ground. The thought of having that mass of fur and teeth land on my back was somehow more horrifying than seeing it coming, and maybe I could fend him off long enough for David to reach me.
David landed on the roof of the car closest to us and threw himself into an arcing dive that landed on Deegan’s back. The sudden weight broke Deegan’s trajectory, and they crashed to the ground almost at my feet. I scuttled backward, tripped on a sprinkler, and fell down hard on my butt.
David gripped Deegan’s elongated muzzle and tried to snap his head around. The wolf gave a violent buck and dislodged David. The vampire tucked and rolled, coming smoothly to his feet. He danced backward, out of reach of those massive claws.
It was surreal. Here was David in a two-thousand-dollar suit, power tie, and Gucci loafers fighting a shaggy beast. Since the fight was illuminated only by streetlights and headlights, I couldn’t see any evidence of tears or grass stains on the suit. The only sign the lawyer was locked in a life-and-death struggle was that his perfectly combed hair was mussed, a curl falling over his high, white forehead.
I’ve got to help him, I thought, and I staggered to my feet and resumed my search for a weapon.
Deegan began to howl, the keening sound of a hunter closing in for the kill. It froze my blood, but David just looked even more bored and contemptuous. Deegan leaped at David. At the apex of the jump David caught him, one hand gripping Deegan’s arm/front leg, the other on his pelvis, and tossed Deegan over his head. As the werewolf sailed past I heard the sharp crack of the creature’s arm breaking.
Deegan howled in pain, then yelped again as he crashed into the trunk of a tree. I spotted a trash can with a broken lid chain. I ran over and grabbed the lid, then ran back toward the fight. I wasn’t exactly sure what I could do with my misshapen metal Frisbee, but it made me feel less helpless.
Regaining his feet, Deegan surprised me by not going after David again. Instead he bounded into the street. Traffic was hopelessly snarled. Nothing was moving except for a small van with a satellite dish on top, bearing the logo of a local television station. It was driving down the sidewalk while the driver and passenger leaned out of the windows shouting at pedestrians.
Deegan bent and gripped the undercarriage of a small convertible. The muscles beneath his hulking fur-clad shoulders bunched and strained. He flipped the car onto its roof. I heard a desperate screaming from the two girls inside, saved by the roll bars. But what in the hell was he up to?
My attention was briefl
y distracted by the men in the van. They jumped out, yanked open the side door, and pulled out a camera and microphone. One helped the other heave the camera onto his shoulder, and they started weaving through the cars. Their focus was on Deegan, which brought mine back to the werewolf.
Deegan gripped the gas tank and yanked it off the car. His powerful claws pierced the metal. Dread like liquid iron flowed into my belly. The pungent scent of gasoline overcame the smell of exhaust. Deegan, gas dripping off his claws, advanced on David carrying the gas tank. For the first time I saw a flicker of uncertainty on the vampire’s face.
Only two things could kill a vampire—decapitation and fire. Deegan, hulking, misshapen, and huge, advanced on David.
The reporter and cameraman wove and danced back and forth, trying for the best angle on the action. I screamed at them, “This is not a fucking movie! Help!” They gave no reaction.
At the last moment, Deegan ripped open the tank and went to splash the gas over the vampire. I didn’t know how he intended to ignite the gas, but I was willing to bet he had that detail covered. I ran forward, raised my garbage can lid, and caught most of the liquid on my makeshift shield. Some splashed on me and on David, but the bulk fell harmlessly onto the grass.
Deegan gave a scream of rage and slashed at me. His clawed paw ripped the lid out of my hands, nearly cutting it into two pieces. I was helpless before him. David stepped forward, caught me around the waist, and swung me aside. The blow meant for me took the vampire full in the face. The skin on his cheek hung in shreds, but there was only the tiniest trickle of blood.
Another TV station van arrived.
Fire seemed to flicker in the back of David’s eyes, and he bared his teeth, revealing his fangs. With the gore on his face, he didn’t look human any longer. Then he put on a burst of vampire speed, and in an eyeblink he was chest to chest with the werewolf, his hand on Deegan’s throat and his knee pounding the hound in his nuts. Deegan screamed at each blow, and with each scream he began to sound less and less like a wolf and more and more like a man in extreme pain.
This Case Is Gonna Kill Me Page 27