[Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Marquez’s eyebrows went up.

  I’d first met Joanne Billings when her husband was a senator. They’d come to my father’s funeral, and their regrets had seemed the most sincere of the political people there that day. After that Senator Billings and his wife had made several visits to faerie, and I realized that Joanne Billings was a faeriephile. My father had not raised me to ignore a political advantage, and besides, I liked Joanne. She was open-minded about the Unseelie Court’s unfavorable press, and made a point of talking us up in a positive light when she could. We exchanged holiday cards, and I made certain she was invited to my official engagement party, the one for public consumption. She had actually visited me at college once, without her husband, just to see how I was getting along, and by that time she and her husband were trying to get the young vote. Pictures of her with America’s faerie princess didn’t hurt. I understood that, and didn’t think badly of her for it. I had even invited her to my graduation, and they had both come. We’d gotten photo ops together. One of the last things I’d done before vanishing from faerie and the public eye was to appear onstage with them at a couple of rallies.

  We exchanged small talk, then she said, “I assume you didn’t call at this hour for a social reason.”

  “No.” I gave her the briefest sketch of the situation.

  She was silent for a second or two. “What do you need from me?”

  I explained some of what Marquez had said, and added, “And he threatened that if I didn’t let him in now, he would make certain the FBI didn’t help us later, if we needed their expertise to solve the crime. Could you talk to him for me?”

  She laughed. “You could have called the diplomatic service, talked to your ambassador. You could have called a dozen people, but you called me first. You did call me first, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She laughed again, and I knew she liked that I had called her first. I also knew she liked that I hadn’t asked her to talk to her husband. “Put him on the line,” she said, and her voice had already taken on that cultured, almost purring edge that it had on radio or television.

  I handed the phone to Marquez. He looked a little pale around the edges. His end of the conversation was mostly “Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Of course not, ma’am.” He handed the phone back to me, managing to look angry and sick at the same time.

  “I think he’ll behave himself now,” she said.

  “Thank you, very much, Joanne.”

  “When you’ve finally picked a husband, you better invite me to the engagement party.” She was quiet for a second, then said, “I am sorry about what happened with Griffin. I saw the tabloid photos he gave to the reporters. I have no words to say how sorry I am that he turned out to be a such a bastard.”

  “I’m okay about it.”

  “Good for you.”

  “And you will get an invitation to the engagement party, and to the wedding.”

  She laughed again with honest delight. “All of faerie decked out for a wedding, I can hardly wait.”

  “Thank you, Joanne.” We hung up, and I turned to Marquez. “Is there anything else you wanted to know, Special Agent Marquez?”

  “No, I’ve had about all I can stand tonight, thank you very much, Princess Meredith,” he said, and gave me a look that said I’d made an enemy. Gee, an enemy that wouldn’t try to kill me. It was almost refreshing.

  “You and your lab will be available if we need your expertise?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

  “I promised Mrs. Billings we would be.”

  “Great,” I said, then turned to Major Walters. He was trying not to look pleased and failing. He practically beamed at me. Local police spend a lot of time getting their hats handed to them by the feds; for once the shoe was on the other foot, and Walters was enjoying it. He waited until we’d walked out into the snow with a circle of my guards hiding us from the feds before he burst out laughing. A man of iron self-control.

  CHAPTER 15

  IT WAS FROST WHO PLACED HIS HAND AGAINST THE SNOW-COVERED hill and called the door. The opening appeared with a peal of music that made all the policemen smile, even Major Walters. It was the door to faerie, all humans go through smiling, but they don’t always come out that way. Inside this hollow hill was a human who was going out in a body bag.

  The door stretched wide and bright, though I knew the light was actually dim. It looked bright because we’d been walking in the snowy dark.

  The police hit that dimly lit hallway and made exclamations of surprise. Cops do not show surprise, at least not those who have been on the job awhile. Cops are the best ever at jaded tiredness, boredom. Been there, done that, didn’t want the T-shirt. One of the uniforms said, “Oh, my God, the colors are so beautiful.”

  The walls were grey and empty. There was no color.

  Major Walters stared up at those bare walls, as if he saw something indescribably beautiful. All their faces showed delight, wonderment. Some oohed and aahed as if they were watching fireworks. The guards and I looked at empty grey walls.

  “Rhys, did you forget to use the oil on the nice policemen?”

  “The reporters didn’t need it,” he said. “How was I to know that hard-boiled police and forensic scientists would be more susceptible to faerie magic?”

  “They should not be,” Frost said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The queen gave vials of oil to the guard as a precaution in case the reporters became befuddled by the magic that is intrinsic to the sithen, but it was merely a precaution. The main hallways of the sithen have not affected humans in this way for more than fifty years.”

  “Well,” I said, looking at the humans who were gazing around them as if the hallway were a carnival midway, “whatever is causing this, we need it to stop or they are useless to us. They can’t do policework like this.”

  “Did a spell cause it?” Arzhel asked as he pushed the dark fur of his cloak back from a face framed by thick brown curls that spilled down to his knees. That thick mane of fur was held back from his face only by a silver circlet. He was dressed in hardened leather armor, sewn here and there with silver. His body under the armor was tattooed with fur, much as Nicca’s had been with his wings. The tattoo was so real that it made you want to pet the fur that was not there. His face and most of the front of his body was bare and pale and as moonlight, like my own skin. It made the brown and gold of the fur look darker by contrast. With his armor and cloak, he could almost have passed for a human, except for the eyes. They were a reddish brown, a color that could have been human but wasn’t. They weren’t sidhe eyes either, but those of an animal of some kind. I’d found a picture in a book once, a two-page close-up of the eyes of a bear. Staring at the picture I knew I’d seen those eyes in Arzhel’s face.

  “It is not a spell,” Frost said. “We would feel it.”

  Arzhel nodded. “Have you searched for it?”

  “I have.”

  “As have I,” said Crystall, his voice like chimes in the wind. He was still hidden behind his white cloak.

  “Use the oil on them,” I said. “Ears, eyes, mouth, hands, the works.”

  Arzhel asked, “The works?”

  “The princess means to make certain they can function completely unaffected by the sithen,” Rhys said, undoing his trench coat and taking a small stoppered bottle from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He worked the stopper out of the dark clay bottle, then stood in front of Dr. Polaski. He asked her to take her glasses off, but it was as if she couldn’t hear him, and maybe she couldn’t. He took her glasses gently off her face. She blinked at him as he touched one eye just below the brow. “That you may see truly,” he said. She jerked back from him, then stared around at the walls. She covered her eyes with her hands. “Oh, God, oh, God, what’s happening to me?”

  “Let me do the other eye, and you’ll feel better,” Rhys said. “Just keep them closed until I’m done.”

  He had to push her hands
down from her face, but she kept her eyes closed. He touched the other eyelid, and said, “To see truly.” He pushed her hair back from her ears, and traced the oil down the curve of one ear, and then the other, with the words “That you may hear truly.”

  “The music stopped,” she said, and tears began to seep out from her closed lids.

  He touched her lips. “So you may speak truly of what you find.” He put her hands palm up. “So you may touch and be touched truly.” He knelt and traced the tops of her snow-soaked boots. “So you may step truly and know what lies before you.” He stood in front of her, and laid the last touch to her forehead. “So you may know and think truly.” He did more than just touch there; there he laid a protective symbol. For a moment I saw the flare of magic trace the cool spiral and circle on her forehead, then it sank into her skin.

  She blinked, and looked around her as if she didn’t quite know where she was. “What the hell was that?”

  “Welcome to faerie, Dr. Polaski,” Rhys said, and handed her back her glasses.

  Frost handed me a bottle. “Doyle gave me his, for he does not need it.”

  I took the offered bottle, and wondered where Doyle had gone, and what he had found. “I would feel better if Doyle or the others would contact us.”

  “As would I,” Frost said as he began to lay oil on Walters.

  I turned to the only other woman in the group. She wasn’t that much taller than myself, which was one of the reasons I chose her. When I took off the cloth cap, it revealed straight brown hair tied back in a ponytail, a little worse for the sock cap she’d been wearing. Her eyes were a solid medium brown. The face was a delicate triangle, pretty enough, but I’d been too much around the sidhe of late. She looked unfinished to me, as if her hair or eyes needed a different color to make her real.

  I told her, “Close your eyes.”

  She didn’t hear me, but it wasn’t the walls she was staring at. She was watching Frost while he touched Major Walters’s face. I finally touched her eyes just above her open lid, and she flinched away from me.

  “Dr. Polaski, can you help her hold still?” I asked. She was one of the CSU, not the police. Polaski came to us, and said, “Carmichael, this will help. Close your eyes and let the princess touch you.”

  Carmichael seemed strangely reluctant, but she did what her boss said to do. She shivered under my fingers like a nervous horse, skin jumping. She got calmer by the time I’d done her hands, and she seemed calm as I touched the tops of her hiking boots, below the wet of her jeans. When I raised up to trace her forehead, her voice seemed normal. “I’d prefer a cross as the symbol,” she said.

  “A cross won’t work,” I said, tracing something much older on her forehead.

  Those brown eyes opened to look at me, while I did it. “What do you mean, a cross won’t work?”

  “We aren’t evil, Carmichael, just other. Contrary to popular myth, holy symbols won’t stop our magic, any more than holding up a cross would stop a blizzard from harming you.”

  “Oh,” she said, and looked a little embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “It’s all right, the church has tried to vilify us for centuries, but if you’re ever in need of protection from faerie, I’d advise turning your jacket inside out instead of a prayer. A prayer can’t hurt, but the coat turning will probably be more effective.” I finished the last curve of the design and stepped back from her.

  “Why does turning your jacket inside out help?”

  “Most in faerie see only the surface; change your surface and the magic has trouble finding you.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Well, it doesn’t work if the person knows you really well and has never tried to deceive you.”

  “Never tried to deceive you—what do you mean?”

  “Never tried to appear to be other than they are.”

  “Oh,” she said again.

  I watched delight vanish from the other humans’ faces, as the oiling was completed. One policeman said, “I think I liked it better before. Now it’s just grey stone.”

  “Where does the light come from?” Polaski asked.

  “No one really knows,” I told her.

  “I thought this oil was supposed to make everything look ordinary,” Carmichael said.

  “It is,” I said.

  “Then why is he still so damned beautiful?” She pointed at Frost.

  I smiled at his face going cold and arrogant. It didn’t make him one bit less attractive. Goddess had made it impossible for him to be anything else.

  “Maybe ordinary is the wrong word,” I said. “The oil helps you see reality.”

  Carmichael shook her head. “He can’t be real. His hair is metallic silver, not grey, not white, silver. Hair can’t be silver.”

  “It’s the natural color of his hair,” I said.

  “Should the rest of us be offended?” Rhys asked.

  “Maybe you should be,” Ivi said, “but she hasn’t seen most of us out of armor and cloaks.” He pushed the hood of his cloak back, and drew off the muffler that had hidden most of his face. Ivi’s face was a little thin for my tastes, and I knew his shoulders weren’t wide enough for me, but the pale green of his hair was decorated with vines and ivy leaves, as if someone had painted his namesake on his hair. When the hair was free, it looked like leaves blowing in the wind as he walked. His eyes were the startling green of emeralds. I guess if you haven’t been raised around people with multicolored eyes, the vibrant green of his eyes was worth a stare or two. Carmichael seemed to think so because her gaze went to him as if she couldn’t help but stare.

  Crystall swept his own cloak back to reveal hair that caught the dim light of the hall and turned it into rainbows, as if his hair were a clear prism that shattered light into colors. His skin was whiter than mine, a white so pure it looked artificial. He flung the lesser white of his cloak back over one arm, and that arm was bare. I had a moment to wonder what he was wearing under the long cloak and above the boots that I could see. His arm shone in the light, like white metal, a gleam that no true flesh ever held.

  The woman’s gaze went to him again, as if she could not help herself.

  “Stop it, all of you,” I said. “Leave her alone.”

  “I am doing nothing to her,” Frost said.

  I looked at his arrogant face and knew he believed that. Knew that some part of him never understood how handsome he was, not really. The queen’s centuries of rejection had left their scars on our Killing Frost.

  I patted his arm and turned to Rhys. “Since she seems less impressed with you and Arzhel, one of you gets to shepherd her through faerie.”

  “Me, too,” Galen said.

  I looked at him.

  He gave a wry smile. “She isn’t drooling over me either.”

  “Which one of us do you want to assign to her?” Rhys was shaking his head watching Carmichael look from one to the other of the men. The look on her face was somewhere between a kid overwhelmed in a candy store, or a small animal surrounded by predators; half eager yet half afraid.

  “You choose, Rhys. You’re in charge of guarding the police while they’re inside.”

  “Not Frost?”

  “He’s in charge of guarding me until Doyle gets back.” The words made me wonder again where my Darkness was, and where his spell had led him.

  It was as if Frost read my mind, because he said, “I will send someone to see where he is.”

  I nodded.

  “Galen,” he said. “Find out where Doyle is, and what he has discovered.”

  I almost protested. If Doyle, Usna, and Cathbodua were all outgunned, then Galen was not enough to tip the balance, or so I feared.

  I actually took a breath to say something, but Galen turned to me with a smile that wasn’t entirely happy. “It’s okay, Merry, I’ll do whatever needs doing to bring him back safe to you.”

  I opened my mouth, and he touched his fingers to my lips. “Shhh,” he said, and leaned i
n to lay a kiss where his fingers had laid their warmth. “You showed the world how you feel about me. That’s enough. I don’t have to own your whole heart.” He left us at a jog, hand on his sword hilt, the thin braid of his hair bouncing against his back.

  “Galen!” I said. But he didn’t look back, and then the hallway turned, and he was gone. A feeling of foreboding came over me. Prophecy had never been my gift, but now I was suddenly so afraid I couldn’t draw a good breath.

  I grabbed Frost’s arm. “He shouldn’t be alone. Something bad. Something bad is coming.”

  Frost didn’t argue. “Adair, Crystall, go with him.”

  The moment the other two men vanished around the corner the panic eased. I could breathe again. And something heavy dropped into my other hand, the one that was still hidden under the furred cloak. I grasped the heavy metal stem of the chalice. I let go of Frost, and put both my hands under the cloak to help hold the heavy cup. I’d never realized how heavy it was until that moment. Power is a burden.

  “Are you all right?” Rhys asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, yes.” I did not want everyone in the hallway to see what I held, but I also knew that if my panic was true, it was because the chalice had warned me. I had meant to tell the queen that the chalice had come to me, but the time never seemed right to tell her. All right, she never seemed sane long enough to have a metaphysical and political discussion. Now the chalice had materialized in my hand, and that usually meant it had an agenda. Something it wanted, at this moment. Something I needed to do. If it had just wanted to help Galen, it wouldn’t have been heavy in my hand. The chalice was quite capable of helping out magically without materializing. So why was it here now? What was about to happen? The tightness between my shoulder blades said, something bad.

  I took a deep breath, and used my cloak and Frost’s coat to give him and Rhys a flash of gold metal under my cloak. Rhys’s eye went wide, and Frost’s face went even more arrogant, more angry. Rhys turned surprise to that joking half smile that he wore when he wanted to hide what he was thinking. It had taken me months to realize what that smile meant.