[Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Where is everyone else?” I asked.

  “Recruiting,” Ivi said.

  Galen raised enough to look at them both. He was lying on his stomach. “Stop being so closemouthed and just tell us what has happened while we slept.” He sounded angry where I had sounded afraid.

  I heard the door to the queen’s bathroom open, before I saw by the fire’s glow that it was Rhys in the doorway. He, too, was wearing a cloak around his body so that only his face and hair were bare to the dim light. “You’ve missed lots,” Rhys said. He looked tired.

  He came to stand beside the bed a little ahead of Ivi at his corner.

  “So much in fact,” Doyle said, “that I am not certain where to begin.”

  “Why doesn’t that make me feel better?” Galen asked.

  “He didn’t mean it to make us feel better,” Nicca said. “He’s being the Darkness, all dour and frightening.”

  I started to sit up, and something moved on my stomach. I jumped, and looked down, and found that I hadn’t dreamed it. There was a moth on me, exactly where the wound had been. I stayed propped on one elbow, and reached cautiously to touch its upper wings, all charcoal grey and black. It flicked its wings at me, as if irritated by the touch, flashing the bright red and black underwings, like blood and darkness turned to glitter. Its wings brushed against my stomach, and I swore I felt something more solid inside me. I reached toward it again, for the head with its feathery antennae. It didn’t react until I touched it, then it flicked its wings again, but it also struggled a little. I felt it move inside me because the lower half of the body was embedded in my flesh.

  I drew my fingers back, and I had the color of its wings on my fingertips, as if I’d touched a real moth. “What in the name of Danu is that?”

  “It will not last, Merry,” Doyle said. “It will become like a drawing on your skin.”

  “You mean like a tattoo?” I asked.

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “How long will it keep moving like that?” I asked.

  “A few hours,” he said.

  “You say that like you’ve seen this happen before.”

  “He has.” Nicca propped himself up on one elbow, turning his body to face me. He had a white flower in the hollow between his shoulder and chest, startling against his deep brown skin. The flower had a yellow center and five petals raised above his skin, but the stem was lost in his flesh. Like the moth in me, the flower was alive, but embedded in his skin.

  Galen rolled over onto his side and let me see his right arm. Just below the shoulder was a butterfly so large it took up all the width of his arm. Its yellow-and-black-striped wings folded back around his arm as the butterfly flexed, gentle and unhurried, as if it were feeding from some sweet-nectared flower.

  “It doesn’t seem to be afraid that it’s trapped,” he said.

  I stared down at the moth on my own body. “No, they should be panicking, trying to free themselves. Why aren’t they?”

  “They are not real,” Doyle said.

  “They are real,” Nicca said.

  Doyle frowned, but gave a quick nod. “Perhaps ‘real’ is not the correct word. They are not free animals that would mourn their captivity.”

  I touched the moth’s wings again, and it flicked them at me. Leave me alone, it was saying as clearly as it could. The sensation of having something alive wriggling inside me made my stomach roll uneasily. The more I touched the wings, the more irritated the moth became. I lay back against the pillows, closing my eyes and breathing around the sensation of it.

  “Can you feel its legs inside you?” Galen’s voice didn’t sound any happier than my stomach felt.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It’s not a good feeling,” he said.

  I opened my eyes and looked into his face. He looked a little greener than usual.

  “Stop trying to pet them and they won’t struggle,” Rhys said.

  I stared at the black, red, grey, and even white that was smeared across my fingers. “What are these things?”

  “They are the beginning of tattoos,” Doyle said, “marks of power.”

  I stared up at him. “You mean the tattoos that the sidhe once had? They were more like birthmarks, weren’t they?”

  “Some are born with the marks upon them, but many are not.”

  “Most of us acquire the marks as we enter our power in adolescence, or even adulthood,” Rhys said.

  “I remember my father telling me that our tattoos were why our people painted themselves for battle. The mark of their deity to protect them.”

  “Once, long ago,” Doyle said, “the marks on their bodies did protect our followers. Protected them better than any armor, for it was a conduit to the power of the sidhe they invoked.”

  I realized that Doyle was talking to me like he used to, distant and formal. Was it Ivi’s presence that had made him distance himself, or had something else happened?

  “We were their gods,” Rhys said.

  “We were not gods,” Doyle said, and his voice went lower with anger. “We thought we were gods, but when the gods themselves departed, we learned otherwise.” He stared out into the darkness, as if he saw things long ago and far away. “They stripped for battle, painted themselves with our symbols, and were slaughtered because we no longer had the power to save them.”

  “A stubborn lot, the Celts,” Ivi said. “They kept painting themselves long after it stopped working.” He sounded wistful.

  “They thought they had done something to make themselves unworthy,” Doyle said, “so they strove to become worthy again.” He turned away, gave me only the braid that trailed down his dark cloak. “We were the ones who were unworthy.”

  “All right, that’s it,” I said. “Why is Doyle beating himself up like this? What did I miss?”

  “He’s pouting,” Rhys said.

  Doyle turned his head, just enough to give Rhys a look that would have made most people run screaming. “I am not pouting.”

  Rhys grinned at him. “Yes, you are. You’re pouting because the marks of power are on Galen and Nicca’s bodies, and not yours. Two of us who never had the tattoos to begin with, and now they have the first ones, and we don’t.” The grin had faded by the time he got to the end.

  “I don’t remember being told that it hurt to get the marks. I thought they just appeared.”

  “Some did,” Rhys said, “but for the first few of us to gain them, it was bloody, and it hurt like hell.”

  The three of us agreed.

  “You were one of the first to gain the marks?” Doyle asked, not angry now, but looking at him.

  Rhys nodded. “Cromm Cruach is only the last of my names, not the first, Doyle.”

  Then Doyle asked something that was very unsidhe, very rude. “Who were you before Cromm Cruach?” The older sidhe never asked that of anyone. It was too painful a reminder of lost glories.

  “Darkness, you know better than to ask that,” Rhys said.

  Doyle actually bowed. “I am sorry, forgive me. It’s just . . .” He made a frustrated noise. “I see power given to everyone, but I remain as I have been.”

  “Are you jealous?” Rhys asked.

  Doyle hunched inside his cloak, then gave a nod. “I believe I am. Not just of Merry, but of the magic, too.” Saying it out loud seemed to make him feel better, or clear his head. For he shook himself like a dog coming out of water, and he turned a more peaceful face to me.

  “Most of the tattoos were like my wings. They appeared at birth,” Nicca said.

  The comment made me turn to him, because I realized what I’d missed. “Where are your wings?”

  He rolled over and let me see them. I expected them to be the tattoo I’d always known on his back, but they weren’t. They were raised above his body like the flower, touchable and real, but lying flat now, as if they were but a step away from the tattoo they had once been.

  “Are they going back to being a tattoo?” I asked.

  �
��Maybe,” Rhys said.

  “They don’t know,” Nicca said.

  “Have you both been awake longer than I have?” I asked.

  “No,” Galen said, “but we didn’t pass out as soon.”

  I leaned up, very carefully, against the headboard. The moth flicked its wings, giving me a sudden flash of color, then settled back to its black and grey upper wings. Underwing moths, when at rest, try to blend in with tree bark. It wasn’t the moth’s fault that, trapped against the whiteness of my skin, it was very visible. It felt unnerving enough for the moth to move just a little. One of my new goals in life was not to scare it. I did not want to feel it truly struggle. I was very afraid that if it did, I might be quite sick. If a princess is not allowed to show fear, then nausea is completely out. Too unseemly.

  Doyle seemed to understand my difficulty, because he helped me prop pillows under my back and head, so I could sit up and see the room, but not bend too much at the stomach. “How are Royal and the rest?” I asked.

  “Your demi-fey is fine, though he is the only one who would not leave even to clean off the blood. He insisted that he stay and see you were well.”

  I looked out into the darkened room. “Is he here?”

  “Outside by the door with Adair and Hawthorne.”

  Ivi wrapped his arm around the bedpost, showing a pale line of flesh. I realized that he must have been nude after he gave me his cloak, but I hadn’t truly noticed when the room was full of blood and bodies. “He called you his white and red goddess.” Ivi managed both to make a joke of it, and make it not funny at all. A smile with serious eyes.

  “I am no one’s goddess,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Ivi said, wrapping more of himself around the bedpost, so that only the wood kept me from seeing all of him. “We sidhe have been worshipped for less.”

  “Long ago,” Doyle said, “and far from here.”

  Ivi shrugged. “We were in the land of faerie then, and we are in the land of faerie now. That is not so far, Darkness.”

  “Where is everyone else?” I asked.

  “Kitto and Frost and a few others have gone to fetch food for you all,” Doyle said.

  “Galen’s comment about no one going anywhere alone.” Rhys shrugged. “It was smart, so the new rule is three of us together at all times.”

  “We don’t have enough men for that,” I said.

  “We do now,” Rhys said.

  I frowned at him. “I don’t understand.”

  “The queen agreed that we needed more than just the green men,” he said.

  “So why is the room so empty?” I asked.

  “We aren’t enough company?” Galen asked.

  I smiled at him. “It’s not that, it’s just that if everyone’s here, I know they’re safe.”

  “Why did we get winged insects and Nicca got a flower?” Galen asked.

  “He already has wings,” Rhys said. He moved when he said it, and I got a glimpse of something under his cloak.

  “Is that a sling?” I asked.

  He let the cloak fall open, and his right arm was in a sling.

  “What happened?”

  “First, we discovered that time is only running odd for us. Outside of our faerie mound time is creeping so slowly that the police probably haven’t even gotten back to their lab yet.”

  “Get to the part where you’ve got an injured arm,” I said.

  “We were on our way back when three of the Seelie called for us to halt, and talk to them.”

  “They didn’t say that, not like that,” Nicca said.

  Galen agreed. “Way too polite for them.” He lay on his side, propped on one elbow, his right arm held carefully, so his butterfly wasn’t disturbed.

  Rhys grinned at them. “Okay, they called for us to halt, and wanted specifically to speak to me.” The grin faded around the edges. “I was in charge. It was my fault that they caught us off guard.” He looked at Doyle. “I could have gotten the other men killed.”

  “Killed?” I asked.

  “They were using cold iron.”

  “You’re joking,” Galen said.

  Rhys leaned his back more comfortably against the footboard, and shook his head. He looked grim. “We didn’t expect that.”

  “Do not blame yourself for that part, Rhys,” Doyle said. “Neither court hunts the other with cold iron. That is reserved for war, and we are not at war.”

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “Why do you mean, not yet?” Galen asked.

  “Did cold iron do that to your arm?” I asked.

  He answered my question first. “One of them attacked me. We were three for three, but we didn’t realize we weren’t just having a little fun until they got serious.” He shook his head. “If I hadn’t surprised him, it would have been worse.”

  “Surprised how?” I asked.

  “I used the death touch on him, but he did something to protect himself. My entire arm went numb. It’s good we had so many healers in the room though. They healed the wounds of sword and ax, but my arm . . . They bound it in a sling and told me to wait. I can finally feel something, pins and needles mostly, but I’m happy to feel anything in it.”

  “What happened to the seelie you bespelled?” Nicca asked.

  “They dragged him away insensible. He’ll be out of it for a day or two, at least.”

  “Why didn’t it kill him?” I asked.

  “Goblins have no magic of their own; the sidhe do,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  “Did they give a reason for trying to kill you?” Galen asked.

  He sighed again. “One of their royal ladies accused me and two others of raping her.”

  “What?” I sat up too abruptly, then stopped in mid-motion, afraid I’d crush the moth.

  “Had she gone mad?” Galen asked.

  “Don’t know,” Rhys said, “but they were serious about it.”

  “Who else did she accuse?” I asked.

  “Me, Galen, Abloec.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “That we do not know,” Doyle said, “but I doubt that the lady came up with such a desperate accusation on her own.”

  “Taranis?” I asked.

  “Keep his name to a minimum,” Rhys said, “just in case. I’d rather not be overheard.”

  “I do not believe he can hear just because his name is invoked,” Doyle said.

  “Humor me,” Rhys said.

  Doyle nodded. “Very well. Yes, I believe he is somehow behind this new problem.”

  “But why? What does he hope to gain?” I asked.

  “That we will know as soon as the three of you have eaten.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The queen has requested your presence at her side when she contacts Taranis about this latest outrage.”

  “Taranis’s men seemed to think we’d just let them arrest us,” Rhys said. “That we’d just give ourselves over to Seelie justice.” He laughed, and it was a bitter sound. “Justice? For the Unseelie at the Seelie Court? Please.”

  “They still believe that to join this court is to be deformed and made monstrous,” Doyle said.

  “I’ve never understood that one,” Galen said. “They can look at us and know that we look just as they do.”

  “They believe we hide our deformities with our clothes,” Doyle said.

  Galen raised an eyebrow. “The queen answers the mirrors covered in nude guards most of the time. Anyone with eyes can see that every inch of the guards is fine.”

  “Ah, but that is evil Unseelie illusion,” Rhys said. “Understand, my young green friend, that one of the things that makes the Seelie sidhe prefer exile among the humans to joining our court is the belief, the absolute belief, that being in the dark corrupts us. Makes us twisted and perverse. Most of them believe we have tails, and hooves, and monstrous penises.”

  “Well, big,” I said, but the look on Rhys’s face made me swallow my joke.

  “They don’t mean
big, Merry, they mean ugly and awful. They paint us as monsters, because if the Seelie ever truly believed that we were just like them”—he shrugged—“I think some of them would put up with less shit from him. They would then have someplace to go besides mortal land.”

  “They fear Andais, as well,” Doyle said, “and she has fostered that fear with her bloody mirror calls and her orgies.”

  “I have spoken with the king in the mirror, Doyle,” I said. “I know now that touching the flesh of the guard helps ground us and keep his power at bay. I think that torture may do the same for the queen that sex does.”

  Doyle nodded. “Yes, it is a way to keep his power from overwhelming one.”

  “I’ve never actually sat in on a call between the two monarchs,” I said. “Is it as scary as it sounds?”

  “Disturbing,” Rhys said, “more than scary.”

  “Disturbing how?” I asked.

  “The king will try and use his magic to bespell and persuade us, including our queen. She will use her beauty to make him lust after her. She will also use those around her to distract both herself from his power, and the king in general.”

  “We’ll have to warn her not to expose your new friends,” Rhys said.

  “You mean the . . .” and I motioned at the moth.

  He nodded. “He won’t like that we have them and his people don’t.”

  “Did the queen see them?”

  “She has been here, and seen what there is to see,” Doyle said.

  “Why does that sound ominous?”

  “She was thrilled,” Rhys said, and his voice was very dry.

  “What did we miss?”

  “Be glad you missed it,” he said.

  Doyle nodded. “Do not be surprised if your aunt suggests that you come to her bed some night.” He frowned. “Though strangely she has lifted her ban about Nicca and Biddy. They are free to have sex when he feels well enough. She was very pleased at all of it. The wall and door exploding. The bewinged demi-fey. The dry pool. All of it seemed to . . .”