Stone Song

by D. L. McDermott

  “I’m going with you,” said Kevin. “The two of you together can be used against each other.”

  “You’re human,” said Sorcha. “What can you do?”

  “I can handle cold iron.”

  He turned to look at his wife.

  “If you insist on going, then I’m going, too,” said Deirdre.

  Kevin looked as surprised as Sorcha felt, but also pleased.

  “If we’re going, we must go now,” said Elada. “Nieve will only be able to delay Miach so long.”

  “I’ll get the car,” Kevin said.

  “Sorcha and I will take the Range Rover. Follow close behind.”

  “Why aren’t we taking the armored minivan?” Sorcha asked.

  “Because if I die, it’s not going to be driving a minivan,” said Elada.

  “Fair enough.”

  The sun was setting when they crossed the Charlestown Bridge—the new bridge, which was not made of iron and which the Fae could cross without untoward effect.

  There were two half-breeds waiting for them at the old gatehouse where they left their cars. Elada looked at Kevin before approaching, and Kevin shook his head, indicating that the surrounding roofs were free of snipers.

  “Those aren’t Donal’s followers,” said Deirdre. “Those are Finn’s get.”

  “If Finn is involved,” said Elada, “then there is a double-cross. It’s not too late to turn back, Sorcha. I can get you to Miach’s in Essex and go back for the fiddler.”

  “I love you,” she said. “But I’m not turning back.”

  They approached the gate.

  Sorcha had never met Finn, but she’d seen his golden-haired grandchild, and she recognized the thick curling locks these Fae wore as from the same bloodline. They were more Fae than Elada or Miach in their dress, though not as alien as Keiran or even Deirdre.

  For one thing, they had more tattoos. A lot more tattoos. Their muscular arms were sleeved in them, their necks ringed with them.

  “Why so many tattoos?” she asked Elada as they drew near the gate.

  “Because they have no sorcerer with Miach’s skill and power among them. Written magic is a crutch used by those who cannot cast without it.”

  “So they’re weaker than Miach.”

  “I didn’t say that. For one thing, they outnumber us. For another, Finn has true Fae among his followers. And gaesa can be powerful. Applied in layers, they can be very tricky to fight. The half-breeds are wearing bracers of speed and strength. Enhancements to make them more Fae. If they were well written, they will be potent.”

  “And if they are poorly written?”

  “They won’t be. Garrett is talented, and he has long since mastered these simple arts. It is the more complex magics that Miach has refused him, and if he is bold enough to practice advanced craft on his own and willing to sustain a few cuts and bruises, he may acquire those skills yet.”

  Not reassuring.

  Neither were the openly hostile expressions of the two half-breeds guarding the gate. They wore silk shirts over frayed jeans, like Keiran, but no jewelry, like Elada. One was clearly older, a little broader and taller, but in purely human terms he looked no more than twenty-five. The other had the slender build of a teenager. Both wore guns at their hips, a clear indicator of their human heritage, as the true Fae could not handle firearms containing iron. But they also had silver Fae knives peeking out of their boots and strapped to their arms.

  “So the rumors are true, Brightsword,” sneered the younger one. “You’re a Druid fucker now.”

  “Sorcha is my partner,” corrected Elada. “And she will be accorded the respect of the consort of a true Fae.”

  “She is a Druid,” said the older one, “and the Druids killed our grandmother.”

  “Your grandmother, Patrick Kenny, was Nancy Muldoon from A Street in South Boston.”

  Patrick Kenny shrugged. “A human woman might have bore me, but grandfather’s true wife was Fae, and the Druids tortured and murdered her. Grandfather doesn’t encourage our weaknesses, the way Miach encourages his sons. We are Fae by blood and Fae by upbringing.”

  “Then draw your blade, Patrick, and we’ll determine who’s the more Fae here.”

  “I would, but my orders are clear. I’m to deliver the Druid slut to Donal.”

  “And to Finn, no doubt,” said Elada.

  “Our grandfather is with Donal,” confirmed the younger Fae, to the older Fae’s irritation.

  “That was not the deal. Our bargain was with Donal,” said Elada.

  “And you were supposed to come alone,” said Patrick, indicating Kevin and Deirdre. “Not bring another human slut and a wannabe Fae.”

  It was the first that Sorcha realized Deirdre was wearing a human glamour. She’d been seeing through the Fae so long without the benefit of cold iron that she always looked beyond their surface appearance now, but when she squinted she could see what Patrick and his sidekick saw.

  Deirdre looked less like a catwalk model and more like someone’s favorite high school art teacher. It was more than a muting of her beauty. True, her gilded hair appeared to contain fewer shades and looked less glossy and richly textured, and her skin was less than radiant, but somehow she had changed her clothes as well. It was an illusion. Sorcha knew that because when she listened, she could hear the silk velvet and the woven cashmere rustling softly about the Fae’s lush body. For that matter, she could hear the silkworm spinning and the mountain goat grazing if she focused on those objects. A new and strange skill, hearing back in time, and one to explore later. For now she concentrated on what Deirdre wanted her to see, which was tawdry rayon and polyester badly draped and an abundance of poorly worked ethnic jewelry, of clumsy wooden beads and cheap, knotted string. But she couldn’t hear the wooden beads, and she knew they weren’t there.

  “Brigid would never claim you for her own, half-breed,” said Deirdre. “She would slit your throats as soon as look at you. I’m not sure what’s more pathetic. That you have made a saint of that dead bitch or that Finn has. No wonder he doesn’t throw whelps worth a damn, if all he looks for in his human lovers is a substitute for that shrew.”

  The younger Fae drew his weapon and took a step toward Deirdre. Sorcha expected Elada or Kevin to do something, to move to protect her, but they were completely still.

  The half-blood boy stopped suddenly and shuddered. His eyes opened wide with fright. He began to scream. The blade dropped from his fingers and his knees followed it to the pavement. He clutched his head and began to beat it against the ground.

  “Stop him,” whispered Sorcha in horror.

  “No,” said Deirdre.

  “My love,” said Kevin.

  “Stop it,” snarled Patrick.

  “Would you like to join him?” asked Deirdre, smiling cruelly.

  Kevin took matters into his own hands and used his gun to deliver a blow to the boy’s head that knocked him unconscious and left him sprawled on the ground.

  “What did you do to him?” Sorcha asked.

  “I looked inside his mind and saw what he imagined was going to happen to you after he turned you over to Donal. And then I put him in your place.”

  “Deirdre,” said Kevin—and Patrick blanched when he recognized the name—“you didn’t need to do that.”

  “Yes, I did,” she said evenly. “You should never dish out what you can’t take in turn. The Druids taught me that, and it is a lesson I have taken to heart.” She turned to the half-blood who was still standing. “Send the fiddler out to us.”

  Patrick looked terrified but resolute. He shook his head. “Not until the Druid goes up to the house. That’s the only way this is happening.”

  “It’s all right,” Sorcha said, still shaken by Deirdre’s defense of her. “I’ll go.”

  “Not without me,” said Elada.
>
  “No,” said Patrick.

  “Yes,” said Deirdre. “Otherwise we will have no surety that you will send out the fiddler. Elada protects Sorcha until the handoff. And he brings the fiddler back out to us.”

  Patrick looked murderously at them all and held up a set of silver handcuffs and a thick leather gag. “She goes hobbled or not at all.”

  Sorcha put a hand on Elada’s arm to steady him. They’d known these might be the conditions. They had to stick with the plan. But seeing was different from planning.

  She put her hands out in front her. “I’m willing to go. See?”

  “Turn around,” said Patrick.

  She hadn’t expected that. If her hands had been chained in front of her, she could have hummed the shackles open—in theory. Fastened behind her, they presented greater difficulty. They would require her to send her voice to a place she couldn’t see, which no matter how close it might be, was always more of a challenge than directing it straight in front of her.

  She felt the cold metal bite into her wrists, and then the cold crept up her arms. When it reached her elbows, it seemed to burrow into her bones, and she cried out in pain and fell to her knees.

  Patrick moved quickly to gag her and she was unprepared for the horror of it, of being silenced while in pain.

  “What are you doing to her?” snarled Elada.

  “The cuffs are ensorcelled,” said the half-blood. “You didn’t expect us to let a stone singer walk in and kill us all, did you?”

  She heard the heated argument taking place as though from a long distance. The cuffs seemed to muffle all of her senses and the gag . . . it was her worst nightmare.

  “The deal is off,” she heard Elada say.

  “The bargain was struck with the Druid,” said Patrick, hauling her to her feet and pushing her ahead of him up the darkened path. “You cannot unmake it. Are you coming or not, Brightsword?”

  They left Kevin and Deirdre behind at the gate with the unconscious half-blood, and Patrick began half-dragging, half-pushing her through the Navy Yard.

  They’d barely gone a hundred feet when she collapsed. The pain from the cuffs was scrambling her senses, making her dizzy.

  “Take the cuffs off her,” said Elada. “She’ll never make it up to the house like that.”

  “Then carry her,” said Patrick.

  She had a moment to orient herself before the blue night sky went dark with Elada’s bulk. Sorcha was familiar with the area, but the cuffs were scrambling her senses and she struggled to find landmarks. The masts of the Constitution, Old Ironsides, Boston’s prized antique frigate, stood black and silver in the moonlight overhead. They were quite close to the water and the gangplank, and then their destination, the old Commandant’s House, must lie behind them.

  Elada picked her up in his strong arms and tucked her head against his shoulder. He’d carried her like this before, up the stairs in Gran’s house after he’d saved her from the Prince. She’d barely known him then. Things were different now. She knew how he liked his coffee and what his favorite songs were and that he had a weakness for old-fashioned cooking and heapings of mashed potatoes. Stupid, trivial things that made him human and endearing because he was also stalwart and loyal and believed so much in allowing her to make her own choices that he’d allowed her to come here and be shackled like this.

  She was not going to cry. It would, for one thing, make it harder for Elada to do what he had to do, which was leave her with Donal and walk out of here with Tommy.

  She felt the ground beneath them change, no longer paving but scrubby grass and weeds. They must be climbing the little hill in front of the federal mansion that had once housed the Navy Yard’s commanding officers and now played host mostly to weddings and show houses and corporate events.

  Sorcha had played one a year ago, breaking her own rule against working in Charlestown, one of the Fae strongholds. The job had come through a booking agency and there had been no hint of Fae involvement in the Cambridge-based biotech company that was holding the party. They had wanted a harpist and a fiddler, and Tommy had been eager to take the gig, even though it was taxable money with no possibility of being paid in cash. Tommy had always had the fine instincts of a professional musician. He could smell a good meal a mile off and knew the food alone would make the gig worthwhile. If he flirted with the kitchen staff and convinced them to pack him leftovers, they might eat like kings for a week.

  Or Indian princes, as it turned out. The gig had been catered lavishly with food from a well-known Back Bay Indian restaurant, and Tommy had haunted the kitchen in between sets. Sorcha had kept her eyes peeled for Fae, imagining them to be lurking behind every door and flower arrangement. She didn’t see a single one all night, until the event was done. They’d played late, first to entertain the stragglers and hoping for a tip, then to cheer the catering staff in the hopes of generous care packages. That’s when she saw him.

  He turned up with the van, and now that she knew more about the rival families who ruled South Boston and Charlestown, she guessed it must have been one of the Charlestown Fae, one of Finn’s offspring, who’d loaded the truck and flirted with the waitresses and accepted, casually, a cash payment from the event planner and a meal with all the trimmings, cooked fresh, from the wait staff.

  The house looked different tonight, from what she could see of it through the haze the ensorcelled cuffs created and what she could see around Elada’s bulk as he carried her. Decorated with flowers, filled with gilded folding chairs and tables draped with pure linen cloth, the mansion had felt grand, a relic of a more gracious age. Tonight it seemed like a ruin. Since Sorcha could look almost nowhere but up, she saw all too clearly the flaking paint, the chipped cornices, the stains on the ceiling.

  Even through the cuffs she could sense the Fae here. There were simply too many of them not to feel their influence. They filled the grand entrance hall with its echoing tile floor and clustered around the pillars in the ballroom.

  “Bring her here,” said a voice that she recognized from the phone. Donal.

  “Give us the fiddler,” said Elada.

  “You are in no position to make demands,” said a Fae voice Sorcha had never heard before, which had to belong to the Fae leader of Charlestown, Finn.

  She wondered if Finn could sense the violence building inside Elada. She could feel it in his arms as he held her and as he set her gently down on the floor. When her feet touched the parquet, she swayed, and Elada steadied her. Then she saw why he’d put her down.

  Beneath the chandelier at the center of the room was a cluster of gilded and upholstered chairs with swan’s head arms. In them sat two Fae, Donal and Finn, no doubt, although the pain from the cuffs was making her vision swim and they were elegant blurs to her. Between them on the floor she could make out Tommy’s sillhouette. He was kneeling with his fiddle in his lap. They must have taken his cast off and removed the splints from his fingers because somehow he was playing, albeit softly.

  Of course he was. She had played like that, too, in Keiran’s house. Her hand hadn’t been broken, but she’d been half-naked and starving and still she had played, because Keiran had told her to in that beautiful voice of his.

  “I’m not leaving here without the fiddler,” said Elada.

  “You are only alive and receiving this audience, Brightsword,” said Finn, “because I need to keep the peace with Miach if I wish to see my grandson.”

  “Sorcha made a deal with you,” said Elada. “She was willing to turn herself over to save the musician. You’re bound to honor the bargain you made with her.”

  “Donal made the bargain. I am not bound to it, nor obligated to see that he does so. Your Druid has killed a Fae. Her life is forfeit. Resign yourself to this and find other perversions to amuse you.”

  “She is more than an amusement to me,” said Elada.

  “Then o
ffer me something to spare her life,” said Finn.

  “What is it you want?”

  “Your service for my son, as his right hand,” said Finn. “Bind yourself to Garrett and I will keep the Druid alive. You will even be able to use her on occasions.”

  Sorcha’s vision was clearing slowly, but she still couldn’t make out expressions. She could guess at Elada’s, though.

  “That was not our agreement,” said Donal, but Finn ignored him.

  “Garrett and Nieve are bound,” said Elada. “He cannot take a right hand.”

  “Nieve released him,” countered Finn.

  “Because she thought she was dying,” corrected Elada. “There is nothing to stop them binding themselves together once more.”

  “I have forbidden it,” said Finn.

  “I won’t do that to Nieve.”

  “Not even to save your little Druid?” asked Finn, obviously intrigued.

  “She would not ask it of me.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  “Take the gag off her and ask her yourself,” said Elada.

  Finn laughed. “I think not. We are done here, Elada Brightsword. Go home to Miach and tell him not to raise up any more Druids in Boston.”

  “You promised the fiddler would not be harmed,” said Elada.

  “He is unharmed,” said Finn, whose features were revealed—as Sorcha’s vision started to clear—to resemble those of Patrick and his unfortunate compatriot and little Garrett. Elada had described him as a great war leader, a charismatic force who drew warriors to his banner. “It was the Prince, we are told, who injured the fiddler, but he plays well enough, I think.”

  Finn looked like a young Alexander, his sun-shot hair a dozen shades of golden brown and his eyes alive with passion. Most, but not all of the half-bloods who crowded the room resembled him, but there were true Fae here as well who appeared to have no blood ties to the Fianna. A charismatic leader indeed. He was dressed simply in black from head to toe, as though to eschew any ornament or detail that might detract from his powerful personal allure.