Divine Misdemeanors_A Novel

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “If we just plan to kill them, it’s easier,” Rhys said, “simpler.”

  “What gives Julian the best chance to get out of this alive and whole?” I asked.

  They exchanged a look among them again. “No police,” Doyle said.

  Rhys nodded. “No police.”

  Frost hugged me, and whispered it into my hair. “No police.”

  And just like that the plan changed again. We wouldn’t call the police. We’d just kill them. I should have been human enough to be bothered by that, but I kept hearing Julian’s voice over the phone and her voice asking him to scream for her. I kept seeing their victims. I remembered my dream with Royal dead in it. I thought about what they planned on doing to Julian and might be doing to him right this minute. I didn’t feel bad as we planned how to find the address, scout it undetected, and decide how best to save Julian. If we could take them alive, we would, but we only had one priority: Julian as unhurt as possible, and the only dead: Steve and Bittersweet. Beyond that it was all fair game.

  Rhys was right. It was much simpler.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  THE ADDRESS WAS A HOUSE IN THE HILLS. IT WAS A NICE HOUSE, OR had been before the bank got it and the housing market crashed. Apparently our serial killers were squatting in the house. I wondered what they’d do if the estate agent brought prospective buyers around unexpectedly. Probably best that that didn’t happen.

  Sholto came back to L.A. He was the Lord of That Which Passes Between. The tree line and the yard of the house was a between place, just like where the beach met the ocean, or where a cultivated field abutted a wild place. He could bring more than a dozen soldiers to the edge of the yard itself. But that was as close as he could get. Doyle had been in charge of scouting the area and had found the house thick with magical wards. They might be crazed serial killers but they knew their magical wards. It was a mix of human and fey magic, as good as any he’d seen in years, which was high praise.

  It meant we would have to be inside the wards and just trust that either we wouldn’t need Sholto and his backup, or that we could stall until they smashed through the walls. He was going to bring the Red Caps because the magical wards wouldn’t stop them. They’d just avoid the windows and doors, which were the most heavily warded, and make new doors in the walls themselves where there were no wards. Demi-fey were strong, but they didn’t think about that kind of brute force any more than humans did. It was an edge for us, but we needed more.

  Frost was coming with Sholto and the Red Caps. Doyle would go in ahead with Cathbodua and Usna, who were the other two guards about whom he actually said, “They hide almost as well as I do. I would trust them to do this.” Again, high praise.

  The question was, who would go in as my two overt guards? Barinthus asked to go. “I have failed you, Merry. I have been arrogant and unhelpful, but for this I am ideal. I can take more damage than even most of the sidhe. I have used diplomacy for centuries but it’s not because I lack skill with any weapon.” Doyle had backed him on that.

  Barinthus had added, “And I am proof against most magic no matter what it is.”

  I’d studied his face, not sure if he was just bragging again.

  “I am the sea made into flesh, Merry. You cannot set the sea on fire. You cannot drain it dry. You cannot even poison all of it. You can hit it, but the blow does you no good. Being by the ocean has given me back much of my power. Let me do this for you. Let me prove that I was worthy to be Essus’s friend, and that I am yours.”

  In the end both Doyle and Frost agreed that he was a good choice and so he was one.

  “The other one has to be me,” Rhys said. “I’m third in charge and almost as good with weapons as the two big guys here, better with an axe. And I’m almost back to my old power level. I can kill fey with a touch of my hand; you’ve seen me do it.”

  “Have you tried doing it when faerie wasn’t touching either you or the victim?” I asked.

  We’d all had to think about that. In the end he’d gone out into the yard in a section that hadn’t become fey and found an insect. He made sure the demi-fey were okay with him doing it, and then he touched it and told it to die. It rolled over on its back, twitched once, and died.

  “Now if only I got back my healing powers, too,” he said.

  Doyle had agreed, but for this night’s work death was better. By six that night we had our plan in place, and enough people to make it work. That was why kings and queens needed hundreds of people. Sometimes you needed soldiers.

  Sholto would give us a little time and then he would take everyone out to the yard and the wall and he’d lead them to the edge of the other yard miles away. I knew he could do it, and then we’d have all the help we needed, but there would be a few minutes when it would be up to the handful of us who were going to be there first. Barinthus and Rhys as my guards, and Doyle, Usna, and Cathbodua, who had the best chance of going undetected into the house.

  Some of our demi-fey mingled with the local insects on the edge of the property in the bank of wildflowers near the house. They were supposed to let us know if Bittersweet went too bitter too early and started to cut Julian up. It was the best we could do.

  Doyle, Cathbodua, and Usna went in one of the cars before we did. Doyle wrapped me in his arms and I put my head against his chest so that I could hear the slow, deep beat of his heart. I breathed in his scent as if I would memorize it.

  He raised my face so he could kiss me. There were a thousand things I wanted to say, but in the end, I said the most important one. “I love you.”

  “And I you, my Merry.”

  “Don’t get killed,” I said.

  “Nor you.”

  We kissed again, declared our love again, and that was it. The first of the people I cared about the most left to try to get past some of the most powerful magical wards they’d seen in centuries outside of faerie itself. If they could get inside before we arrived, they would take our bad guys and rescue Julian, but if they thought it would set off alarms before they could save Julian they would wait. Barinthus would accidentally on purpose set off all their wards like a false alarm, and Doyle, Cathbodua, and Usna would breach the wards at the same time. When they reset their wards we’d have extra people inside. That was the plan.

  I had to kiss too many people good-bye when it was our turn to leave. Too many “I love you’s” and too many “don’t die on me’s.” Galen was wordless as he held me and kissed me good-bye. He would come with Sholto and the others, and he would fight this battle. Once they had kidnapped Julian he hadn’t even argued, and he hadn’t once said, “I told you so.” For that I loved him more than his willingness to shed blood to save Julian. We’d all do what we had to do to save our friend, but most of the men wouldn’t have been able to resist an “I told you so.”

  Rhys drove, and Barinthus had the backseat to himself. I had the shotgun seat though no real shotgun. I was carrying my Lady Smith because they’d told us not to bring the police, or more than two guards; they hadn’t said not to bring weapons, so we were all loaded for Dragon.

  I was also wearing a folding knife in a thigh sheath under my summer skirt, not because I thought I’d use it to cut someone, but because cold steel cuts through most glamour. If I’d had less human or brownie blood in me, I might not have been able to bear the knife next to my skin, but I wasn’t just one thing. I was the sum of my parts. I kept thinking calm thoughts as Rhys drove up into the hills. I hoped that what little dinner I’d eaten wasn’t something my new baby-rich body didn’t like. I didn’t want to throw up all over the bad guys, or then again, maybe I did. It would certainly be distracting.

  In a pinch I could fake morning sickness. I held the thought in reserve, and prayed to Goddess and Consort that Julian wasn’t hurt badly and that we would get out safe, and none of us would get hurt. That was my prayer as we drove into the growing dusk.

  There was no smell of roses to accompany the prayer.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

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sp; WE WERE TWENTY MINUTES EARLY WHEN RHYS PULLED INTO THE small gravel parking area. What do you do when you arrive early at the kidnappers’ rendezvous? Do you get out? Do you wait? What would Miss Manners say about it? I was betting it wasn’t in any of her books.

  Rhys got out first, then Barinthus. He got the door for me and gave me his hand as I stepped out. I had a little jacket on over the skirt and summer blouse to hide the Lady Smith at the small of my back. Rhys and Barinthus were both in lightweight trench coats to hide their guns, knives, swords, and for Rhys a small axe at his back. Some of the weapons were even magical holy items. I had left mine at home, because the sword that had come to my hand had only one purpose and that was to kill and kill messily. We would at least pretend we were here for something else. If the police did get called we had to be able to at least fake the thought that we’d come to rescue Julian and not to kill Steve and his little girlfriend. I was betting we’d get to all the above, but we needed wiggle room in case one of the neighbors called the cops.

  We went to the door as if we were visiting. It felt almost wrong to ring the doorbell and wait for them to answer. Doyle had called us in the car and they hadn’t risked the wards for fear of getting Julian killed before they could rescue him. So when we went through the door Barinthus would throw off enough magic to set off every ward they had. If we timed it right they would get in at the same time. I trusted Doyle to time it right.

  Rhys rang the doorbell. They had put me between the two of them. I’d been given my orders to not show myself until Rhys said differently. I couldn’t see anything but that the door opened.

  Rhys’s matter-of-fact voice was my first hint that … “The barrel of a gun isn’t a very friendly way to start a visit.”

  “Where is the princess?”

  “Wave to the man, Merry.”

  I waved above his wide shoulders.

  “Fine, come inside, but if you try any magic your friend will be dead before you can get to him. Bittersweet is with him now.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, but I followed Rhys back through the door. The moment I passed it the wards flared along my skin so powerfully magic that they took my breath for a moment. I’d never felt anything like it, not even in faerie itself.

  Barinthus came through last and did what we’d planned. He flared his magic like throwing wide a cloak to make certain you tripped the alarm. But it wasn’t noise that these alarms made, it was magic.

  Rhys kept me behind him, shielded by his body. “You’ve got your wards set too sensitive for Barinthus. Easy, he was Mannan Mac Lir. That’s a lot of magic to get inside these wards.”

  If Barinthus hadn’t been so bloody spectacular in physical appearance it might not have worked, but it was hard to stare up at a seven-foot-tall man with hair every shade of blue of the world’s oceans and elliptical pupils in his blue eyes like some deep-sea creature and not understand just how much magic was standing in front of you.

  Bittersweet came whirring down from the balcony that looked out over the huge open living room. It was one of the biggest great rooms I’d ever seen. I saw her past Rhys’s shoulder as he and Barinthus tried to talk Steve Patterson into lowering the gun.

  She had a bloody knife in her hand almost as big as she was, and just from the look on her face I knew she was Bitter, and not Sweet. We were about to meet her Hyde face-to-face.

  “She’s coming at our backs, Rhys,” I said quietly.

  “I’m worried about the gun,” he said between smiling lips as he tried to calm Patterson down.

  I turned to face her, and yelled out, “I’m here to help you be able to make love to Steve.” It was the only thing I could think of that might get through the bloodlust I saw on her face.

  It did make her hover in the air on her furiously beating wings. Blood dripped heavily and thickly off the tip of the improbably long knife. It had to have a wooden or ceramic handle around all that metal or she wouldn’t have been able to hold it.

  “They’re here to help us, Bitter. They’ll help you be big enough for everything we want.”

  She blinked again as if she heard him but couldn’t understand. I wondered if we were too late for reason. Had her mental illness eaten her to the point where bloodlust was more important to her than love?

  “Bittersweet,” he said, “please, honey, can you hear me?” I wasn’t the only one worried about her.

  “Bittersweet,” I said, “do you want to be with Steve?”

  Her tiny face screwed up with concentration and then finally she nodded.

  “Good,” I said. “I’m here to help you be with Steve the way you want to be with him.”

  Her face was emptying out or filling up. The rage was leaking away, but more personality was coming into her eyes, her face. The knife fell from her hands to clang on the floor and spatter blood so that some droplets hit my skirt. I did my best not to flinch. It wasn’t the blood; it was the thought of it being Julian’s.

  Bittersweet looked at her hands and the fallen knife and wailed. That was the only word for it. It was one of the worst sounds I’d ever heard come from someone. It held despair and torment and utter hopelessness. If the Christian Hell exists, then people should make that sound there.

  “Steve, Steve, what did I do now? What did you let me do? I told you not to let me hurt him.”

  “Bittersweet, is that you?”

  “For now,” she said, and she looked at me. There was weariness in her face. “You can’t make me big, can you?”

  “I might be able to, but the Goddess would have to bless us.”

  “There is no blessing here,” she said. “The Goddess doesn’t talk to me anymore.” She landed on the floor and looked up at me. She was nude, but there was so much blood I hadn’t been able to tell until she got close. What had she done to Julian? Were Doyle and the others inside the house? Were they rescuing Julian?

  She held her hand out to me. I knelt down. Rhys said, “Merry, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Put the gun down,” Barinthus said.

  The men danced their three-way gun dance, but for me the world had narrowed down to the small blood-drenched figure on the carpet. I offered her my hand and she wrapped a small hand around one finger. She tried to call her glamour and roll me as she could some humans, but she truly didn’t have enough power. It was as if she’d gotten the appearance of her demi-fey father, but her magic was brownie. It was so unfair.

  “You can’t save us,” she said.

  “Bittersweet, she’ll make you big. We can be together.”

  “I know there’s something terribly wrong with me,” she said, and she was calm as she said it.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think you’d get an insanity plea pretty easily from any jury.”

  She smiled, patting my finger, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “I can see into that other part of my mind now. It wants to do such terrible things. I’m not sure what I’ve done and what I just dreamed of doing.” She patted me again. “That other in me wants you to make her big, but once you do she’s going to cut the babies out of you and dance in your blood. I can’t stop her, do you understand?”

  I stared at her, trying to swallow past my pulse. “I think so.”

  “Good. Steve doesn’t understand. Doesn’t want to believe.”

  “Believe what?” I asked.

  “That it’s too late.” She smiled that sad, weary smile and then it was a totally different smile. She bit my finger and I reacted by jerking my hand, sending her flying skyward with my blood on her mouth. She went for the knife on the floor and a lot of things happened at once.

  Steve yelled something and the gun went off. It was thunderous in the enclosed room and I was partially deaf as I watched her pick up the blade and come straight at me with that evil smile on her face. I didn’t try to draw the gun and shoot a target so small and so fast. I called my hands of power, my hand of flesh and my hand of blood. She slashed at me and I gave her my left arm to cut while I touched her legs w
ith my other hand, the hand of flesh. A knife came from above and spitted her through the back, pinning her to the floor in front of my knees.

  I turned toward Rhys and Barinthus and found Barinthus on the ground bleeding. Rhys had his gun out and pointed. The other man was on his back on the floor.

  Doyle leapt from the balcony where he’d thrown the knife from, and landed in a crouch on the balls of his feet and his hands. He came to me, taking off his shirt to wrap my bleeding arm. It didn’t hurt yet, which meant it was probably going to be deep.

  Bittersweet’s body was dead before my magic began to roll her flesh inside out. She ended as a ball of unrecognizable flesh curled around the bisecting blade. The full hand of flesh could melt a body into a mass and the worst thing was that it didn’t kill the immortal. You could stop them, but for death you needed a blade. I was glad she’d died first.

  “I’ll live. See to Barinthus,” I said.

  Doyle hesitated, then did what I asked. Rhys was checking for a pulse on Patterson. He made sure the gun was kicked away from his hand, but when he turned and saw me looking, he shook his head. Patterson was dead.

  I heard sirens. The neighbors had called because of the gunshots. Of all the times for someone in L.A. to call the cops.

  Doyle helped Barinthus sit up. The big man winced and said, “I’d forgotten how much it hurts to get shot.”

  “It’s not fatal,” Doyle said.

  “It still hurts.”

  “I thought you gave me the lecture about how the sea can’t be hurt,” I said.

  He smiled at me. “If I hadn’t said it, would you have let me come?”

  I thought about it. “I don’t know.”

  He nodded. “It’s time I pulled my weight,” he said.

  Cathbodua flew from the balcony, her raven-feather cloak looking more like wings than ever before. She knelt by me. “How bad is it?”

  “Not sure,” I said. “Is Julian … ?”

  “He’ll live and he’ll heal, but he is hurt. Usna is with him now.” She held pressure on the makeshift bandage. Doyle was applying pressure on Barinthus’s side, and Rhys had put his gun out of sight and had his detective’s license out in plain sight when the police hit the door.