by Amy Sumida
“He told you where Bress is?” Keir asked.
Dylan nodded, “And he's still here, in San Francisco.”
“She's holding him here?” I growled. “That's some super-villain sized balls.”
“That's Moire for you,” Keir stood and started heading for the door.
“Where are you going?” Dylan asked.
“To gather what healthy soldiers we have, and go save our nephew,” Keir said as if it were obvious.
I was already standing. I'd thought it was obvious as well.
“You can't go,” Dylan shifted his stare from Keir to me. “Neither of you. Moire will most likely be there. This mission is ten times more dangerous than driving to the Council House.”
“He's family,” Keir said firmly.
“So is Moire,” Dylan countered.
“I'm going,” I declared. Both men swiveled their heads towards me, but I continued before they could say anything. “I can dress in extinguisher gear, full helmet with the face shield down. They won't know it's me.”
“One look at your aura will tell her,” Dylan scoffed.
“But she'll think I'm an extinguisher,” I smirked. “Moire won't be checking out my aura.”
Dylan looked to Keir, Keir stared at me. Cat barked.
“Cat stays here,” Dylan announced. “Her presence will give you away.”
Cat whined.
“You're my only heir,” Keir shook his head. “I can't send you.”
“And you're the King of Twilight,” I shrugged. “It's never stopped us before.”
Everyone in the room gave me a pained expression, including Cat.
“Without Bress, Moire has no need to kill us,” I pointed out. “If she can't control her son, she won't try to put him on the Twilight throne.”
“Goddess damn it!” Keir swore. “Go, before I change my mind.”
“I love you, Dad,” I hugged him. “I'll be careful.”
“I know, Seren,” Keir kissed my forehead. “I just wish your fiancé was here. I would feel much better if he were going with you.”
“Her what?” Dylan's eyes went wide.
“Seren has accepted King Raza's marriage proposal,” Keir said proudly.
“Fuck me,” Dylan whispered.
“Dylan, this is a good thing,” Keir scowled at his brother.
“Not if word spreads,” Dylan grimaced. “Even if we rescue Bress, Moire will still want Seren dead.”
“She's now Raza's heir,” Keir whispered.
“What?” I huffed. “I'm not heir to Unseelie, that's Rayetayah. Raza announced it when he was crowned, remember? And we're not even married yet.”
“If Raza is killed, Rayetayah will be crowned,” Dylan agreed. “But should both of them be killed, you will inherit Unseelie. As soon as you accepted Raza's proposal, you became a sort of queen-in-waiting. You have status in Unseelie now, and it outranks all but Raza and Rayetayah. When you marry Raza, you will outrank his son as well.”
“Fuck me,” I repeated Dylan's sentiments.
Chapter Forty-One
I called Councilman Murdock and asked him if we could borrow some extinguisher gear. Not only did he send enough gear to outfit twenty soldiers, he also sent us a unit of extinguishers.
Note to self: Send Councilman Murdock a muffin basket.
Then I saw who was leading the unit. None other than Brendan Murdock, the Head Councilman's son, and my ex-would-be-boyfriend (he wanted to be my boyfriend, and might have been, if he hadn't proved himself to be such a dick). Brendan had become a little bitter over losing me to Tiernan, and he ceased being a gentleman to me a long time ago. In fact, he was downright rude most of the time.
Note to self: Send Councilman Murdock a basket of puka poop.
“Ambassador,” Brendan nodded to me, very professional, very un-Brendan.
“Extinguisher Murdock,” I nodded back. “We appreciate your help on this.”
“Whatever it takes to keep the peace,” he said.
“Great,” Conri rolled his eyes. “I feel perfectly at ease with him at our backs.”
“Sir Conri,” I snapped.
“Sorry, Princess,” he muttered.
“Gear up, everyone,” I gave them all my hard stare. “We're grateful to have backup on this, and we will work well with the extinguishers, right?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” they all said.
“Good,” I nodded. “Because you'll recall that I was one of them once.”
“You still are,” Brendan said.
It surprised me so much, I jerked back around to face him.
“Thank you,” I half expected him to add something snotty.
“Once an extinguisher, always an extinguisher,” one of the other men said. “We're with you, Ambassador. Let's get your cousin back.”
“You have no idea how much that means to me,” I shifted my gaze to each of the extinguishers there. “Thank you.”
“Alright,” Brendan cleared his throat. “We already have the address, Ambassador, and we have units surrounding the building as we speak. No one will get in or out without us knowing, but I suggest we get moving soon.”
“We're ready,” Torquil said.
“And so are we,” Soren and his team stepped forward.
“General,” I frowned at him. “I thought you'd left already.”
“I decided to hang around and see if there was another way my team and I could be of assistance,” Soren smiled. “It seems that there is.”
“We don't have enough gear for you,” Brendan growled.
“We're biters,” Soren's smile turned into a smirk, “we don't need gear. Or weapons, for that matter.”
“Your father made a point of insisting on help from the Coven,” I said to Brendan, cutting off any rude comment he was about to make about vampires. “We cannot refuse that help now.”
“Fine, your blood-sucking friends can tag along,” Brendan rolled his eyes.
“At least he didn't call us blood-sucking fiends,” Soren murmured to me. “We hate it when people call us fiends.”
“Who wouldn't?” Ainsley asked.
“Lead on, Extinguisher Murdock,” I waved Brendan out towards the street, where a line of SUVs idled, before someone else said something stupid.
What a day. And out of all the strange things that had happened, Brendan Murdock's improved attitude had surprised me the most.
Chapter Forty-Two
The light elf had told Uncle Dylan that Bress was being held in the basement of a building in downtown San Francisco. He was supposedly being restrained in magic-dampening chains, guarded by at least twenty elves, and locked in a cell. So, no biggie.
We parked a few feet away from the building and radioed in for a report from the surveillance team. There had been no activity. I scanned the street, then looked as far up the building as my limited view out the car window would allow. Everything appeared calm and normal. Then I switched to psychic vision. It was like using a pair of paranormal goggles. Everything sharpened, auras flaring to life around me. I knew who was fey and who was human with a single glance. But there was nothing radiating off the building. If Moire had wards in place, they were inside.
“Follow me, and do not go past me,” I said to my group.
My group included my Guard, some of my father's Guard, and Soren's team. They all nodded in understanding. Fairies couldn't see auras, and I assumed witches couldn't either since their magic was derived from the fey. So I needed to go point.
“Ready?” Brendan asked me.
“Let's go,” I nodded.
We piled out of the van and hurried down the street, keeping to the wall. The extinguishers hadn't cleared the area of bystanders, for fear of tipping our hand. So we had lots of curious passersby eyeing us.
“Dangerous criminal on the loose,” Brendan called to the crowd. “Get off the streets!”
Humans hurried away as fast as their legs could take them, a few stopping to take pictures with their cell phones alo
ng the way.
“Humans,” Conri growled. “They'll risk their lives for a picture.”
“Focus,” I snapped at him as we headed inside.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The building was quiet and echoingly empty. We paused in the entryway, and I headed forward with only Brendan and Soren.
“You think it's a trap?” Brendan asked me as he peered around the barren entrance.
It was an apartment complex, with stairs to one side, and a little row of metal mailboxes on the other. No sound came from the doors down the hall, nor any from the floors above.
“Perhaps,” I angled my head to peer down the hall. “Looks like another set of stairs back there.”
“To the basement,” Soren surmised.
“Be on your guard,” I whispered back to the others. “This is probably a trap.”
Then we headed down. The steps were cement, not that open-backed kind that someone could grab your ankle through. So that was one thing to be grateful for. The lights worked as well, alleviating most of the itchy sensation that I was that dumb white person in a horror flick, heading down into the basement to investigate strange moaning sounds. Fine. Bress was my cousin, and I'd do stupid things if there was a chance of saving him. But if I heard a disembodied voice telling me to get out, I was outta there.
“I'll go first,” Brendan shocked me further by pivoting in front of me and heading into the basement. “Clear.”
We all rushed in after him, to find a spacious room just as empty as the entrance had been. There was indeed a cage in it, but the door was flung open, and the cot pressed up against the far wall was mussed, as if someone had been sleeping in it till very recently. A table sat to the side of the cage, remnants of a meal on it. The chairs were kicked back, one overturned.
“Someone warned them,” Soren turned grim eyes to me.
“It appears so,” I agreed. I waved everyone else downstairs. “Let's search the room anyway. Quickly. I want to get out of this hole as soon as possible.”
“Agreed,” Brendan's gaze flitted around anxiously. Then he turned to his team, “Search and seizure.”
The extinguishers ranged out with purposeful intent. The biters scented the air, and let their noses lead them. My group investigated a little more slowly, but very thoroughly. Brendan and I went straight for the cell, and it became immediately apparent that all of the searches would be moot. There was a note left on the messy cot. Brendan went over and picked it up.
“It's for you,” he handed it to me.
I scanned it, then growled, “Fuck!”
The others rushed over to us.
“How regal,” Brendan chuckled. “You can take the girl out of the Extinguishers, but you can't take the Extinguisher out of the girl.”
“That sounds rather naughty,” Conri lifted a brow.
“Did I say to stop searching?” Brendan snapped at his team, ignoring Conri.
They headed back to what they'd been doing, but my fairies and the biters just stood and waited. Well, all but one waited.
“Are we betrayed, Princess?” Conri asked.
“Yes,” I whispered, “it seems so.”
“Who betrayed us?” Torquil bristled with anger. He was about to say more when I stopped him with a single word.
“Danu.”
They all gaped at me.
“No,” Gradh shook her head. “Never.”
“Ambassador, are you saying that the Goddess is against you?” Soren asked gently. “The elves were telling the truth?”
“This note is from Moire,” I cleared my throat, and the extinguishers paused searching so they could listen to me read. “My sweet Niece, did you really think you could steal my child from me again? You are on the losing side this time, Seren. Danu herself warned me of your arrival. But you can still save everyone and everything you love. Marry Bress and secure his right to Twilight. Do this, and I will end the war between us. I vow it upon my own life. Your loving Aunt, Moire.”
“That putrid, evil bitch,” Conri snarled.
“Good and evil are relative terms,” Soren shrugged.
“Yeah, unfortunately, I have more evil relatives than good,” I grimaced. “I mean really, what are the odds?”
Soren chuckled.
“Your aunt wants you to marry your own cousin?” Brendan squished up his face in distaste. “Is that legal in Fairy?”
“There are very few laws restricting relationships in Fairy,” Gradh said. “The Princess could marry Lord Bress if she chose to.”
“But you won't,” Conri growled. Then he took a better look at my face. “Right? You're not going to marry Bress, are you?”
“No,” I said. “But I wish I were the kind of woman who would make that sacrifice for my people.”
“That isn't a sacrifice,” Brendan rolled his eyes, “it's a scam. A con. You know as well as I that Moire Thorn isn't going to give up just because you marry her son.”
“You're right,” I sighed, “but her proposal is not the part that's so discouraging.”
“Then what is?” Brendan asked, obviously confused.
“He doesn't understand,” Ainsley shook his head. “Humans don't know their god like we know Danu. They wouldn't feel as horrified over his betrayal as we do hers.”
“That's not it either, Sir Ainsley,” I gave my Guard a tired look. “Yes, Danu's betrayal is significant, but recall where we are. Danu can't speak to anyone in the Human Realm. So how did she warn Moire?”
“Either Moire has somehow managed to slip past our guards, get into Fairy, speak to Danu, and then return here...” Ainsley started.
“Or someone inside Fairy is helping her,” Soren finished. “You'd best get back to the Fairy Realm, Ambassador. It looks like you have a little housework to do.”
“Housework?” Gradh asked.
“Someone needs to take out the trash,” I explained. “But before we can do that, we need to find the garbage.”
“Simple. Just follow the stench of an evil relative,” Soren suggested.
Chapter Forty-Three
When I returned to Gentry, I found it on lockdown, preparing to go into a business hibernation. My father had decided that he wanted to travel home with his brother instead of using the In-Between with me. I argued against it. I wanted to see him safely ensconced within the magical walls of the Twilight Castle before I left for Craos-Teine. Dylan agreed with me, and between the two of us, we changed Keir's mind.
Brendan had returned to the Council House, with the borrowed extinguisher gear, to make his report. The Human Council had jurisdiction over the elven criminals because the crimes had been committed in HR, so we had to leave the men in extinguisher custody. I didn't think we'd get any more out of them anyway, so I was okay with that. And any sympathy I'd had for the elves had vanished when they shot an iron arrow into my father.
Soren and his biter team had been given orders to help in any way they were needed. I decided to send them to help guard one of the main raths into Unseelie. The rath was in Japan, and I was able to contact the rath lord to let him know the biters would be joining him. I offered the use of my father's private plane, but the Coven had their own plane for Soren and his team. I was a little sad to see him go, the biter was competent, and I needed competent soldiers at my back. But I knew he'd be even more valuable to us at the rath.
I told my father and uncle about the possibility of a traitor in Fairy. We had debated whether this traitor was a single person or a group. If it was just an individual, we didn't have as much to worry about. But, depending on its size, a group could attack us. Moire didn't even have to be there. Then there was the question that was really haunting me; were they really traitors if they were obeying our goddess? I tried not to ponder that one too long.
Then I told them about Moire's proposal. There was a much longer discussion over that. I suggested that we could always accept, and then after we had Bress safely away from his psychopathic mother, we could just kill Moire. Unfortun
ately, there were fey laws about agreements made during a time of war. Once you entered into such a contract, you couldn't welch. It was a Sluagh enforced offense.
So, I offered another solution. I could marry Bress, then we could kill Moire, and I could divorce Bress. This made Dylan and Dad frown, then scowl, as they considered it. Uncle Dylan said it was too risky, stretching the boundaries of the contract. My father agreed. It wasn't worth the possibility of the Sluagh coming for me. They'd been ordered after me two times already, and I had escaped, something which I pointed out. Keir had rolled his eyes and told me that having the Sluagh sent after you by order of the Unseelie King, and having them compelled to kill you by breaking a fey law, were two different things entirely. The first allowed the Sluagh a little leniency, they could choose to give up the chase. The second allowed no such choice. Once summoned by the breaking of a fey law, the Sluagh would hunt until either their quarry was dead, or they were. And the safe bet was on the Sluagh.
So we weren't getting Bress back by trickery. At least not my type of trickery.
After these headache-inducing discussions, my family and our guards headed down into the basement of Gentry, where a rath resided in a grassy, sunlit meadow that defied reason and the laws of Nature. I didn't wonder about it anymore, just accepted that there was sunlight inside a building. When you thought about it, the sunlight mystery wasn't nearly as impressive as the rath itself, which took us through space, and deposited us on another planet entirely.
My father, our guards, Cat, and I stepped off the rath, and straight into the In-Between so that we could twilight home. Dylan would travel on by foot with some of the Gentry Tech soldiers. Most of the Gentry employees were twilight fey, so they were following me and my father into the Between. Some were going with us to Twilight Castle, but most were going to their various residences for a nice vacation. Aideen and her mother were walking the rath with Dylan since Aideen's tree was so close to the rath in Twilight, and her mother was seelie, so she couldn't walk the Between. Watching my father bid Eibhleann goodbye was equal parts awkward and entertaining. I'd have to talk to him about his game later. Obviously, it had gotten a little rusty.